Awake in This Life

Miriam Greenspan’s article, The Dark Side of the Sacred, comes to us from integral praxis.

Emotions live in the body. It is not enough simply to talk about them, to be a talking head. We need to focus our attention on emotions where they live. This willingness to be present allows the emotion to begin to shift of its own accord.

Her three step process shows us how to free ourselves from their grasp:

1. “Paying attention to or attending to our emotions is not the same as endless navel gazing and second-guessing ourselves. It is mindfulness of the body, an ability to listen to the body’s emotional language without judgment or suppression.”
2. “Befriending follows from focusing our attention and takes it a step further: it involves building our tolerance for distressing emotions.”
3. “The third skill, surrendering, is the spiritual part of this process. Surrendering to suffering is usually the last thing we want to do, but surrender is what brings the unexpected gifts of wisdom, compassion, and courage. Surrendering is about saying yes when we want to say no — the yes of acceptance. This is what really allows the alchemy to happen. We don’t “let go” of emotions; we let go of ego, and the emotions then let go themselves.”

All good, and only slightly different from what I’d recommend. If emotions are essentially the meeting of mental activity in the body, step three should take care of the whole thing? In other words, meeting whatever is arising without moving (neither into nor away from) offers us Freedom. This is letting go not only of any emotion, no matter how dark, but it is also letting go of the ego that gives birth to the emotion in the first place.

What do you think?

The Guardian’s John Pitcher offers some expat insight on Indonesian religious tolerance:

Where a church is used for the initial wedding ceremony Muslim family members sit with Christians or, if they feel uncomfortable, they sit outside near the door and join in that way; all, regardless of formal religious faith are Javanese and what binds them is something much more powerful than any monotheist belief. It is what brings us all together for Selamatans (ceremonies), especially those for births and for the marking of the stages of different aspects of the life of a child, the mystic protection of an adult, or the building of a house. When the person leading the prayer section of a selamatan is a Christian the Muslims sit quietly and respectfully as the prayers are said. The other way round and the Christians do the same.

Over at integral praxis, they posted a vid that incorporates nice imagery with the thought-provoking words of Dr. Brian Swimme. Two notes:

1. I know of few individuals with a more interesting view of the comprehensive whole than Brian Swimme. He gets the big picture and can articulate it brilliantly in small ways.

2. Because of this, I will always give him my ear whenever he starts speaking.

There is a great post by Noah Millman over at The American Scene where he takes on several issues relating to religion, all of which are entertaining. I’m most partial to his description of how religion works:

…most of us who are in any meaningful sense religious are members of corporate bodies extending through time and space. And corporate bodies to exist at all must define their boundaries: this is who we are, this is what we believe, this is how we behave. And this requires an implicitly if not explicitly excluded “not that.”

He goes on to posit what most of us familiar with the work of Ken Wilber and Spiral Dynamics might see as the core of the Mean Green’s dilemma:

This being the case, if freedom of religion means, most fundamentally, the freedom to be a heretic, it equally means the freedom to declare that the other guy is a heretic. In a very real sense, a social environment that is hostile to religious intolerance must necessarily be hostile to religious freedom.

Andrew Sullivan chimes in on this with an astute observation that points directly to the limits of First Tier approaches to Spirit when he suggests that none of us holds a monopoly on truth:

…the impossibility of humankind ever being able to know the Godhead with sufficient certainty to use power to restrain the heretic. Again: the true believer will, in my view, seek freedom for God rather than power against heresy.

First off, “certitude” is the source of the problem. Certitude is exactly what gives rise to the egoic division that says “I’m right, and you’re wrong,” which in turn begets violence. Our futile attempts at knowing God will forever frustrate us since God is precisely beyond the mind. Trying to know God is like trying to shovel away the tide.

Truly being still, on the other hand gets us past the boundaries of both the mind as well as the body. Practicing this expanse mysteriously pushes and pulls at everyone of our relationships, including our old mental and physical constructs. From here, difference and sameness become much less of an issue since they are seen as incomplete aspects of a bigger story.

Here’s a InfiniteSmile.org podcast that might be of interest.

 

 Uncovering Beauty in the Middle of Hell: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Mary Midgley over at the Guardian suggests that we quit seeing ourselves as God, thereby reversing the trends that accompany this mindset:

If we ask, then, what religious change is most urgently needed today, the best answer surely is that we should debunk and explode this anthropolatrous superstition. We do not need it. Its bad practical effects are clear, not only in the mass of silly climate change denial which infests the internet but, more subtly, in the extreme slowness with which peoples and governments still respond to obvious dangers. But it is also bad in itself, psychologically and spiritually. It is bad religion. Self-worship is an appalling habit, which vitiates the deep understanding of human life that serious humanism calls for.

Not to take anything away from Mary’s points, I would still add that simply seeing everything as God-in-action might serve the same purpose. Recognizing the One in the Many leaves little room for superstition and its concomitant folly as long as the practitioner has an opportunity to test this insight in an environment where it can be unpacked with a good dose of wisdom and care.

I must admit that I was surprised when I saw this story glide across my computer screen this morning. Certainly there were individuals of the cloth that might have been picked that could have reflected a deeper sense of post-fundamentalist spirituality than Rick Warren. Wouldn’t another choice allow for an introduction into a more integral approach to faith? Or am I putting too many expectations on Obama?

Michael Tomasky, over at the UK’s Guardian says:

Some folks on the left are, in my view, suspicious types, always on the lookout for signs of apostasy and ready to scream “Sellout!” the minute Obama (or any mainstream liberal pol) does some small thing they don’t like.

I agree with this. Then again, such is the nature of attachment. What’s most interesting is that I wonder how picking Warren really helps America evolve.

… Warren’s endorsement by Obama, which this very high-profile invitation in essence is, really is a slap in the face to some of his core constituencies, as Sarah Posner argues in this fine Nation piece.

The Huffington Post’s Steven Waldman sums up his defense of Obama’s pick of Rick Warren by saying:

For Obama, picking Warren for the inauguration is a smart move. George W. Bush chose Franklin Graham, a hard-right evangelical to do his prayer. Instead of retaliating by choosing a liberal preacher, Obama opted for spiritual bipartisanship. The move helps to depoliticize prayer — which, of course, is very politically shrewd.

Politically shrewd? I don’t really see how picking Warren is politically shrewd except in the most superficial ways.

In a letter to God, guardian.co.uk’s Mark Vernon wants to uncover the depth of true Silence. The kind that Thomas Aquinas uncovered on 6th December 1273 when he uttered his final “Ite missa est” (the mass is ended) and then left the altar for good.

He [Aquinas] told his friend Reginald that he would not write another word. Moreover, all the words that he had written up to that point, now seemed like as much straw to him.You know what he meant. We can’t quite be sure. However, my best guess is this. Straw was a metaphor for “basic stuff”

Perhaps it is from this silence, about which Mr. Vernon asks, that the Infinite “speaks” to us most profoundly; where we are no longer concerned with being good Christians, or Buddhists, but instead become actual Christs and actual Buddhas.

Maybe Ludwig von Wittgenstein sums it up best:

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Simply shutting up while being still offers us this most simple, and yet most profound of insights. But it takes practice. Realization of the Eternal shows us what is immediately and always prior to the flow of time, but glimpsing this isn’t an endpoint. It’s a beginning. At each and every moment.

Enjoy this.
(Bows to The Worst Horse and Rev. Danny Fisher)

Some guy over at Infinite Smile keeps cranking these out:

“Ultimately, it is up to each of us to let go of the world and then engage it from that place of surrender.”

Click here to listen.

Over at Tricycle, Alexandra Kolyanides posts a wonderful bit on Faulkner’s advice to writers back when he won the Nobel Prize.

I was struck by how his words sounded like the Path.

The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat

Are we willing to meet all the agony and the sweat in order to uncover what is always True?

He continues, sounding more and more like Dogen Zenji:

He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart

In the Genjo Koan we hear:

To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever.

(Bows, Alexandra)

TIME Magazine’s David van Biema gives us 2008’s Top 10 stories on religion.

For my money, this story is especially fascinating since it applies to our sangha in really specific ways.

A 35,000-person poll by the Pew Forum for Religion & Public Life found that 28% of U.S. adults have left their cradle faith for another one — 44% if you’re talking about denominations rather than faiths. The poll suggests great national piety coupled with remarkable disdain for the multi-generational doctrinal and ethnic ties that used to define American religion.

Over the past few years, more and more people have approached me and described their feelings of an increasing irrelevance in relation to their traditional faiths. They keep lamenting the fact that their choice is a stark one: either stick with a tradition that no longer seems relevant, or avoid tradition altogether. Either way they feel lost.

Thanks to Digita Dharma for remnding us of Thomas Merton’s contribution to the integration of wisdom beyond wisdom, regardless of tradition. Forty years after his premature death many of us still owe him so much for clarifying the Path.

Merton saw Buddhism not as a substitute for Christianity, but an enriching “way”. Out of the centre of the Catholic Christian tradition, he was able, as one scholar put it, to “engage in dialogue with other restless Catholics, Christians and people of other faiths or no formal faith”…

And I love this:

The biggest human temptation, said Thomas Merton, is to settle for too little.

Cheers.

A good stillness practice is like spiritual athleticism, right?

Looks that way.

At integral praxis, there is a new post about a study showing that meditation opens the gateway to compassion

Like athletes or musicians, people who practice meditation can enhance their ability to concentrate — or even lower their blood pressure. They can also cultivate compassion, according to a new study. Specifically, concentrating on the loving kindness one feels toward one’s family (and expanding that to include strangers) physically affects brain regions that play a role in empathy.

On Michael Paulson’s Articles of Faith Blog, San Francisco’s Archbishop George H. Niederauer’s defense of California’s Proposition 8, outlawing same-sex marriage is paired with its backlash. The only problem is that the video “Proposition 8: the musical” starring Jack Black as Jesus and an assortment of other celebs, has been yanked by Funny or Die from YouTube. Sorry.

Anyway, Archbishop Niederauer has lots to say, excerpted here:

Some voices in the wider community declare that there could be only one motive: hatred, prejudice and bigotry against gays, along with a determination to discriminate against them and deny them their civil rights. That is not so. The churches that worked in favor of Proposition 8 did so because of their belief that the traditional understanding and definition of marriage is in need of defense and support, and not in need of being re-designed or re-configured.

And yet the very churches that worked in favor of Prop. 8, have redesigned and reconfigured their traditions quite a lot, over the years. For example, neither Catholics nor Mormons sell their daughters into slavery any more, as scripture permits. At least I’m not familiar with this practice going on very often in my community. The Archbishop goes on:

For our part, we churchgoers need to speak and act out of the truth that all people are God’s children and are unconditionally loved by God. While we argue among ourselves, the people who need our help with hunger, unemployment, homelessness and other problems wait for us to turn together toward them.

Is he including the world’s gay and lesbian population here, or is his an articulation of partial inclusion?

To be fair, where does the Buddhist tradition land on this issue? In my last read, the Tripitaka seems to rule against monk-on-monk expressions of love, but what about consenting adults among the laity?

Again, here’s a specific point where tradition can evolve into something that reflects compassion more comprehensively, in ways that might negate traditional attachment but could very well enhance the meaning of one’s faith in the same move.

(Bows, Michael)

James Shaheen writes in today’s Tricycle editor’s blog about molecular-biologist cum Tibetan monk, Matthiew Ricard and how he is:

… widely admired for his many talents, among them photography. But Ricard’s life seems best defined by his humanitarian work and devotion to the dharma.

How true. He goes on to point out that through his Shechen monastery in Nepal, he:

has launched two new websites, one devoted to Shechen’s humanitarian projects, along with portfolios of Ricard’s exquisite work, and the other to Shechen’s cultural and spiritual activities and publications.

(Bows, James)

Buddhaspace offers us a great quote from Master Xu Yun in today’s post:

Step outside of time just once, and all the years you spent in ignorance and suffering recede into vagueness. They’re only something you seem to remember. Your old small self is gone and all his old enemies and friends and relatives and all his old experiences, bitter or sweet, have lost their power over him. They were like a cinema show…believable while he was in the theater, but not when he came out into the daylight. Reality destroyed the illusion.
In Nirvana you’re neither young nor old. You just are. And who are you? That’s easy.
The Buddha.

Can it be that simple? If we can Know that there is never anything other than this moment we are offered amazing opportunities to awaken with all beings? Nice.

In a previous post, I wrote of the dangers of “small self esteem”. Now Shambala Sun Space’s Andrea Miller blogs about her upcoming article:

Gen Me as a whole is caught in what she calls the self-esteem trap and it’s the way we’ve been raised that made us so.

The March issue of Shambhala Sun will feature the conversation I just had with Young-Eisendrath about how we can cultivate true self-confidence in ourselves and how we can best raise the next generation. For now, see this Globe and Mail article for taste of some of of Young-Eisendrath’s advice.

I couldn’t help it. I just had to keep this story going since I think it is actually quite meaningful.

All of us should consider how it is, on a psycho-spiritual level, that we both let information about our world in, and then how we express it. Is there clinging? Is there resistance? As much as I tend to laugh at much of Deepak Chopra’s public persona (especially his new sparkle glasses), I believe he’s received a raw deal from both Dorothy Rabinowitz at the Wall Street Journal and Sean Hannity at FOX News. I should also add Elizabeth Hasselbeck at The View, but I was told by a Buddha that she doesn’t count.

Anyway, Michelle Haimoff, at the Huffington Post, offers us some clarity in piece she wrote today:

Chopra, who is a senior scientist at Gallup, was part of a team that conducted a poll of 600 million Muslims (about half of the Muslim population of the world). Countries polled included Pakistan, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. What he concluded in the poll is that the vast majority (92-95%) of Muslims are moderates, and they admire the West for their entrepreneurship, business and modernism.

So what does this tell us?

Based on the survey, the cause of terrorism is “a rage that comes from humiliation, lack of respect, and also from factors that we are unaware of, generally uneducated about.”

And how does this ignorance manifest in the US?

We have no understanding of how these violent ideologies are born. We want to just go to war and kill the terrorists. Well, the bad news is you can kill as many terrorists as you want, but you cannot kill terrorism. In order to kill terrorism it’s gonna have to be a 50-year Marshall Plan to not build war torn cities, but to build ideas. To rebuild violence torn minds. To educate them, to help them, to cooperate with them, to create economic partnerships so that the rage disappears, and to understand them. There are very simple rules for having a dialogue. You respect your enemy. You talk to them with the attitude, ‘Yes. We understand that you also have injustice and we also feel injustice. Can we have a room here for forgiveness on both sides? Can we refrain from belligerence?’ The more belligerent we get, the more belligerent the radicals get.”

And, apparently, the more belligerent the right wing talk-show hosts get:

…when he appeared on Hannity and Colmes, Hannity shot him down for comparing a recent Scientific American article about cancer to terrorism. Evidently, when we treat cancer too aggressively, cancer cells hijack normal cells and make them co-conspirators in spreading the cancer. “Do you see an analogy there?” he said. To him, the collateral damage of the war on terror has caused some people to get hijacked by terrorists to become co-conspirators in spreading the terrorism.

Even better:

Bill O’Reilly asked him to come on The O’Reilly Factor too. “I will appear on your show on two conditions,” he emailed O’Reilly. “Number one: You will not raise the volume of your voice. And number two: You will not interrupt me. And I will not raise the volume of my voice and I will not interrupt you.” O’Reilly has yet to reply.

At least the WSJ had the decency to agree to publish Chopra’s response to the Rabinowitz’s earlier piece in Friday’s paper.

So what does it all mean? Well, for one, I’m glad Deepak is running interference for those of us teaching from a cushion. Well-meaning men and women like me cough out podcasts, blogs, and occasional books while he is using his well-deserved celebrity to mix things up in the mainstream media, not to mention within the hearts and minds of those who now watch The View. Kudos. Please continue. You’re making a difference.

From a Buddhist perspective this is a story not just about Right Action, or Right Speech. Rather, this is also a story about how we are evolving as people through, and with, each other. It’s sloppy, painful, and somewhat funny, depending on your perspective. But let us allow for that deepest of perspectives to guide us. Then, maybe, just maybe, our actions and our speech can reflect something bigger about us that doesn’t cause so much harm.

Time magazine’s, Jeff Israely notes:

After acquiring a reputation as an aggressive, doctrine-enforcing Cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI has surprised many with his gentle manner and his writings on Christian love.

Not so fast…

Benedict’s envoy to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, has announced that the Vatican will oppose a proposed U.N. declaration calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals. At first blush, no one should be surprised to find the Catholic Church hierarchy butting heads with gay rights activists. But this particular French-sponsored proposal, which has the backing of all 27 European Union countries, calls for an end to the practice of criminalizing and punishing people for their sexual orientation. Most dramatically, in some countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, homosexuality can be punished by death.

Ah, attachment. It never fails to amaze. And to be fair, traditional Buddhism isn’t all openness and tolerance on this issue either. I wonder, for instance, what it would be like if the Dalai Lama took a decidedly Buddhist stand supporting gay marriage or an even more comprehensive stand on global discrimination of homosexuality.

In today’s MormonTimes, we learn of two BYU students who consider themselves Zen Mormons.

“They have things to teach us,” [Zach] Elison said. “Everything I love about Buddhism I find in my own religion, they just emphasize it differently.”

[Brandon] Habermeyer and Elison, both philosophy majors studying at Brigham Young University, got a tip from a world-religions professor at school about the retreat.

They spent two weeks in July under the towering Redwoods of Santa Cruz, Calif., learning and practicing some of the teachings of Buddhism.

Clearly the picture from the retreat suggests that this wasn’t from the Zen tradition, but this is an encouraging sign of integral thinking, especially as it relates to spirituality. Go Millenials!

(Bows to Barbara O’Brien for the heads up on this one)