Lance Allred the official website of the Lance Allred who is not the professional Poker player

Shift-

Shift-

Yes, you have Tolle on your shelf to fake
Us, Lance, but are you Dead enough to read it?
You may be awake, but are you Awake?
-Enough to see the apocalyptic

Truth, that is nothing and everything,
All at once? Can you see the ego fight
With its rabid teeth, holding its being
Separate and unique, special and right?

Are you watching the ego, as it writes
Its own paradoxical eulogy
Which calls for its demise, yet with spite
Its own self-martyred immortality,

With these very words being written here
Now?- A blood trail, to a grand sepulchre,
Where reads, carved and enshrined with special care
“Here rests my identity, remember

Me always, please? I was special. I was.”
I really was though. I was supposed to
Be a hero, an inspiration that does
Or did amazing things- even save you.

I was to be a source of good and light
To help those who had been lost, to be found,
To be right, But alas, I…… I,I,i,i.
That is all that I truly am- a sound.

And being right? Well, that’s overrated.
Once that illusion, your truth, waxes thin
You’ll seek another conflict, with heated
Self-importance to keep you from within;

To keep you from the present- lost somewhere
In that bright past, where you are always right,
Or in that dangerous, hopeful future
Where you will never fade into the night.

Welcome, Lance, to the present, to the Now,
And all that really is- Now. The past does
Not exist: its Now came and went with a bow,
Just as the future will come without fuss.

Now- is all that you truly have. Nothing
Else. Now. No more, no less. Just Now. All else
Is an image in your mind, just a fling
Of emotions that you carve with brain cells

To create a figment- an identity.
A,e,i,o,u and some other sounds,
That’s about it: what our minds can say and see.
Yet you think you can define and ground

God? You think, with only 5 vowels, a few
Vibrations that human vocal chords can
Make with which human ears can hear, that you
Can establish the Universe? Silly Lance.

Welcome to a new place, where the ego
Cannot dwell, cannot judge, cannot fear- Now.
And where is Now? A void- A place of no-
self. And in no-self, what Is, you allow.

You accept, love and most important-
You forgive. And when you truly forgive
The ego dies, for there is no conflict.
And the ego needs conflict to survive,

It needs to be a victim, it needs to
Hold on to the merit badges of past
To make its identity, of who you are.
But be still, forgive, forgive and alas

Go into the void: be nothing. Feel how
You’re nothing and everything all at once.
But, if I am nothing, who I am I Now?
Do I still like Trix? Can I still dance

In the shower to Bryan Adams songs?
Can I still be funny, clever with wit?
Which traits, will my essence then carry on,
When we cross that veil which we so fear? What

Traits are my own Being and not the ego?
My head hurts- Because I am destructing,
And ‘cause my ego is pissed off right now.
But I will continue on, attracting

Others who are Awake, others who can
Hear me, who can see me, beyond the blind
Physical world of confining illusions.
Let the shift begin; Let the shift begin.

And let those who still need to Awake, Awake
In their own due paradoxes of time;
For time only exists- Now. Shift and quake,
Rattle the walls of every paradigm,

And be free; free to die and Be. So, shift!
For the great “unveiling” soon comes: Now, shift.

Boise-

Yes, yes. I have returned to Boise.
And I am happy, very happy to be back.
After wandering aimlessly in a sea of bitterness, with my ego looking for some identity, some collective ego, in which to associate itself, I have now come full circle, back to Boise. And with that, back in Boise, I reserve the right to be happy, and to enjoy Boise; to enjoy stepping on the court and being welcomed; to enjoy being home, my basketball home; to enjoy being able to play for me, nothing else, not for money or acceptance; to play and be happy in Boise, no longer having to feel or believe it a basketball purgatory, which so many of us have been convinced it to be.
No, Boise is my home. And I am proud to be home, and playing close to my family, playing basketball the way I want to play basketball and the way I know how. Money comes, money goes. I have made mistakes with that. But I have learned now. And most importantly, I forgive.
I forgive those who have wronged me. I forgive God and I forgive reality for not being what I or my ego had wanted it to be. And most importantly I forgive myself.
Forgiveness, I have learned, is the most powerful emotion. It does not have to mean you absolve or excuse others of their wrongs, but it does mean that you free yourself, it does mean that you no longer have to find your identity in the pain and bitterness that you harbor, towards whatever that has caused you pain. It means that you can free yourself from your ego. And my ego is vicious.

This last month alone, I have gone places in my mind, quiet places, that I never knew existed. I barely recognize myself anymore when I look in a mirror. At some point I decided whatever feeling of tension, anxiety or conflict that was stirring up within me, had a cause, had a root, triggered by a person or an event.
And when I feel something other than peace, I ask what is causing it, and if it is not a direct person, or if it is a choice I made, I then allow me to forgive myself, and then say “oh well, it is, what it is.”
If reality is not what I wish for it to be, I accept it, and forgive it and then accept fully it and then love it.
As well, I forgive God for not making sense. And when there is nothing but forgiveness, there are no merit badges of pain and hurt and sorrow defining me anymore, and therefore the brain and ego go very still. I am empathetic to other people and there problems, but I am not sympathetic, because I am not sympathetic to myself, because at the end of the day, the people that hurt me, will never validate me, so why give them any more? (Natural disasters, like Haiti, currently, are a whole other issue, and that I ache for. I pray for them.)
Instead I can forgive them, those who have done wrong, and not even care if that means they are absolved for their actions or their own karma. This then allows me, and my own- to be my own.
I just say, “oh well,” and shrug, and then say, “I forgive you.” To me, this is maybe the greatest precursor to gratitude, which some say is the most powerful emotion. But to me, you cannot have gratitude without forgiveness; especially forgiveness of my own self and the choices I made. ‘Oh well, I forgive you.’ Now what is next?
I can forgive now, for truly one’s actions towards me are only a manifestation of what is stewing inside of them and if they be of ill will, it only means they have conflict within that forces conflict without and thus it is not about me, but about them. Nothing is ever truly what it seems.
And so, I can forgive, and I forgive out loud, with names being spoken, every time I feel the angst or anger rising, so much so now, that I don’t think of them anymore, nor do I care what dues they receive, if at all. For in my reality, I am nothing, yet anything and everything all at once, and I forgive my reality at times for what it is, and I accept it and therefore can love it.

And thus, I am free.

A shout out-

To my former coach, and current head coach of the Louisiana Tech Men’s Basketball, Kerry Rupp, and his Bulldogs, who are now 14-2. Can’t say I am surprised as to how he has turned that program around. I am proud of him, and always grateful for the lessons he taught me in the short time that we were given together, which seems like a lifetime ago. I will always remember those early morning practices fondly, and often times miss terribly.

It was sad when the University of Utah did not extend him past his interim head coach duties back in 04, but that only forced him to walk a different path, a longer path, to get to where he needed to be now…. and he is all the better coach and better man for it.