don Miguel Ruiz - don Miguel Ruizs Little Book of Wisdom: The Essential Teachings

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016963704

ISBN 978-1-938289-60-6

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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For my children, so they may always have
access to their grandfather's wisdom.

For you, father. I hope you find this collection
of stories and sayings a worthy embodiment
of the legacy you have left to the world.

And to everyone I love.

When my daughter Audrey was seven years old, I took her to our local bookstore to buy a new bedtime storybook. As we were walking over to the children's section, I noticed my father's book, The Four Agreements (Amber-Allen Publishing, 1997), displayed prominently on the shelf marked Staff Favorites.

I smiled and looked at it with great pride and joy, and marveled at how it still resonates with people so many years after the book was first released. I remember looking for it in bookstores when it first came out, and no bookstore would carry it. I looked for it for several months at different stores, and I always came up empty. It seems funny now, but in those days I wondered if I would ever see it on a bookshelf on the sales floorthere for everyone to see.

About a year after it was published, I found it for the first time in a bookstore in Berkeley, California. I was so overjoyed that I couldn't stop smiling for several hours; the feeling of seeing my father's first book on the shelf was such a moment of happiness for me. Unlike all the books I had ever purchased, this one came from the wisdom of my family's tradition, in my father's own words, and now the world could read it.

Marveling at the journey my father had made over the last several years, I turned to Audrey and said, Honey, if there is ever a time when you need advice or want to connect with your grandpa, and he is too far away to be reached, you can always come to a bookstore or library and find him. In the pages of his books he will share with you what he knows about love and life; his voice is here to help you. It felt wonderful to be able to say that, because the oral tradition that our family has been sharing through so many generations is still alive, and it is here for anyone who wants to find help, including my own children.

At the same time, I knew there was more to my father's wisdom than he had been able to include in his existing books. I dreamed at that moment that one day such a book would exist: one that contained this additional wisdom. I am pleased to say that the book you are currently holding in your hands has been manifested through this intention.

My father's wisdom, which he began teaching in the mid 1980s, springs from our family's Toltec tradition. The Toltecs were a group of Native Americans that came together in south central Mexico 2,500 years ago. They are the builders of the pyramids in Teotihuacan, Mexico. The word Toltec is a Nahuatl word that means artist, as the Toltecs believed every human being was the artist of his or her own life. My family's Toltec wisdom has been handed down from generation to generation, sometimes in secrecy when the politics of the day required it. My father learned our tradition from his mother, Madre Sarita, and from his grandfather, don Leonardo.

What many people do not know is that earlier in his life, my father was not very interested in the traditional wisdom of my family. His passion was medicine, and he attended medical school and became a physician. Shortly after graduating from medical school, however, he had a near-death experience that was to change him greatly. (I have included his first-person account of this event at the start of this book.)

It was after this near-death experience that he became interested in our family's wisdom tradition, and he began an apprenticeship to Madre Sarita. At first, he was only able to study every weekend in San Diego, California, while also maintaining his medical practice in Tijuana, Mexico. As he grew more knowledgeable about our family's wisdom, his training in Western science and psychology allowed him to see these teachings in a new way. Consequently, he synthesized the two traditions and was able to develop ways to communicate his teachings in a language that could resonate in the modern world.

As his oldest son, I remember well his journey from Dr. Miguel Ruiz to the master teacher and author don Miguel Ruiz. I remember when he let my mother know that he was leaving medicine altogether in pursuit of his passion, and felt the financial consequence his decision had for our family. I remember the humble beginnings of his first classes, when only four or five people would attend. Looking back, I see the full line of his evolution as a teacher, beginning with the practice of sharing the tradition with students and continuing by always searching for the best means by which each student could resonate with a lesson. Through this resonance, he knew his students could attain a moment of clarity. As his teaching continued, he began to let go of the old Toltec symbols in our family's oral tradition. In their place, he developed a language that he would simply call common sense.

My father's lessons have helped so many people find their authentic selves, heal from the wounds that domestication has left in their lives, and live a life imbued with unconditional love. Those who have followed his teachings have been able to harmoniously create their own personal dream.

And this brings me back to the goal and purpose of this book. I want to do my best to record as much of my father's legacy of wisdom as I can in these pages. I have collected here my father's most essential teachings, taken from transcriptions of lectures, presentations, and interviews, as well as from private moments in which he shared his wisdom with my brothers and myself.

Not surprisingly, it is these private moments that have impacted me the mostwhen my father would teach us without so many words, but rather through example. With this in mind, I have included a collection of anecdotal stories in the final part of this book, describing some of these moments.

The bulk of this book forms what I call the Wisdom Passages. These are the essential teachings, and as you read these passages, I would like to make a few suggestions to help you get the most out of the wisdom they contain.

As you read the wisdom passages, your mind may want to take over, working hard to understand my father's words, but remember: he is speaking to your heart. Allow his words to travel beyond your thinking mind (with all its acquired knowledge) and find their way into your beautiful heart. Only in your heart can you make room for this wisdom in a way that will allow transformation to take place.