Laughter Touches the Power Within

"Jesus was a sailor..."
Thank you Lenny

Today I sit in peace with myself and am amazed at how I got here. There are times the ego creeps in and expressions of fear and isolation evoke emotions like of anger, doubt and depression. The Spirit of Divine Wisdom tells me that these emotions separate me from my fellows along with the Spirit of Compassion. Thankfully, these times are brief and pass as the foolishness of my situation bubbles up and a heartfelt laugh arises from my gut. My first sponsor stopped me once when I got upset over someone else's behavior saying, “There goes God again.” As we laughed the intensity of the disturbance dissipated and the Spirit of Compassion replaced those ugly feelings with the wisdom of joy and hope that touched Power within us all. I don't have to go very far to find such humor because I have a mirror that can be used to get a glance at my favorite clown.

geo, 4,658

Postponing Preperation

Passing

At first it seems to be a morbid reflection to do anything but  postpone any thought about how I meet my ultimate demise. Preparing for death at first glance can look like deference to living. However, I have never seen any world leader as full of laughter and grace as the Dalai Lama and he is quoted in my daily reflections today, *“We cannot hope to die peacefully if our lives have been full of violence, or if our minds have mostly been agitated by emotions like anger, attachment, or fear. So if we wish for a peaceful death, we must cultivate peace in our mind, and in our way of life.”

*Glimpse After Glimpse: Sogyal Rinpoche

Taking a few minutes to sit with my emotions each morning and sort them out has been has been how I have started my day for the past thirteen years. I can attest to the fact that I did not become as at peace with myself as I am today when I first began meditation practice. Truly, the first few months were almost traumatic at times as I filtered through what percolated up into my consciousness. But, no matter how disturbing, my sessions always close on a positive note. These provocations have become minor speed bumps for the most part as I have learned to manage and expel my past behavior and replace them for new ones. A speed bump is there to simply slow me down… pause, reflect and amend.

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The Cosmic Dance We Call God

If asked, I would have said that I was an agnostic leaning towards atheism. It just didn’t make sense to me that any deity powerful enough to have created the whole universe (check it out; it is vast beyond comprehension), you name it; any deity at all, would have any interest in any of my affairs. My favorite atheist was Christopher Hitchens. He wrote a book titled god is not Great, (caps were his) and in that book he devoted a chapter titled: the Tawdriness of the Miraculous and the Decline of Hell. The miracles I called out to the heavens that never got answered were prayers of grasping: grasping to get out of trouble, grasping for my health and grasping to win the Lottery… and so on. Those prayers were selfish and it is understandable that they went unanswered, but my seemingly unselfish prayers, no matter how fervent, were met with a cosmic silence. It was only when I surrendered my will to this mysterious power greater than my own, when I gave up grasping, was I able to slip into the rhythms and harmony of that cosmic reality… that heart of compassion. The miracle is that this was what I needed to relieve me of the bondage of my own grasping. I try to stay there to join in the cosmic dance we call God.

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geo, 4,657

Our Group Conscience Prevails

Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show and is forever trying to arrange the lights, the scenery, and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pp. 60-61

*****

There are times when I am upset by characters who come into a group and immediately try to change the format, rearrange the furniture and even attempt to change how the group shares. These folks seem to seem to fit this description perfectly, but, when I am disturbed by people like this, I have learned to pause and to take my own inventory to see where my attempts to correct or resist the suggested changes arise from identical character defects.

These inward reflections don’t keep me from persisting in advocating the order of things as I see them, but restrains my ego enough to transcend its defenses and arguments; looking out for the good of the group, yielding where it is prudent and standing where I must. We, alcoholics and addicts, aren’t used to restraining ourselves along these lines and, more often than not, we are so much alike that the Heart of Compassion employed in our group conscience usually prevails.

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geo, 4,656

Humility Allows Me to Accept

An A.A. business meeting can be disconcerting to those who are used to, and expect, order. I am one of those who were adamant about Robert’s Rules of Order. I don’t recommend business meeting for newcomers who are like me concerning procedure. I don’t really know the Rules of Order but I relied on those who did, when I was involved in politics, way back at another time in my life.  Though there is a certain amount of structure to A.A. meetings, and even our business meetings, there can erupt some disturbing and inappropriate interruptions because of who we are. Today, I find humor in such meetings and relax a little due to the love and tolerance, through osmosis, that infiltrated my heart. There are rarely the kinds of people among us who know or care about rules of any kind, let alone the Rules of Order. Humility allows me to accept, with tremendous love that we are here at all, trying to make this fellowship work.

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geo, 4,655

Just sayin'.....

As far as my life is concerned, forgiveness is the essential motivation that drives my practice. Not only was I, (in the face of my own distractions, disruptions, destruction, deceptions, delusions and drunken depravities) am most in need of forgiveness, but, I found that I have an even greater need to forgive others. There are those whose lives are so wound up in their beliefs… beliefs rarely adhered to by conviction or thoroughly thought through, but, accepted by indoctrination, inheritance or ambition… that unspeakable atrocities are committed in the name of these beliefs.

The process of finding forgiveness ought not discourage me in the prosecution of my own convictions but would better be employed as a gauge to preclude me from unjustly doing so. Very few things embarrass me more that the actions I have taken, or words I have used, to execute my beliefs in the past that diminished the heart-felt convictions of others. Understanding that forgiveness doesn’t necessarily mean I condone or accept others as much as it means to simply delve deep into my own heart for my own misperceptions and to see them not as adversaries but as children of God.

Polarities: black vs white; right vs left; gay vs straight; liberal and conservative; there is far too much demonization of the opposition going on in politics today. It is one thing to be in opposition but entirely another thing to see the other side as pure evil. Ignorance is the only evil and I have to make sure that I do not become the personification of that evil to my fellows.

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geo, 4,654

My Best Thinking

We often hear it said in the community of addicts and alcoholics, “My best thinking got me here.” This usually evokes a few laughs among us but I sometimes cringe when that thought is expanded upon and supplemented by the implication that we ought not think at all. Three million years of human evolution developed a fantastic organ between my ears that, like any sophisticated tool, can be used to great affect if used properly. That is what the dharma path, or the Twelve Steps, does for me. Becoming spiritually awakened did not exclude becoming mentally equipped to deal with the realities I face in my daily affairs. Frightfully, it is egocentric ignorance that is the most devilish among my keepers of this cage I constructed restricting everything that separates my spirit from that of the Sublime. This effort… this discipline… takes mental acuity as well as spiritual awareness.

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Spiritual Butterflies

Many Have Gone Before Us

It is important, and even crucial, to have a mentor, a teacher, a sponsor, practitioner of trust, or path that we to follow in meditation and mindfulness training (the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of AA works best for most alcoholics but other directions employ the similar principles). At first it is beneficial to shop around but we can easily become spiritual butterflies... skirting the manipulations or demands of our egos and becoming deluded into believing we are, oh-so, spiritual. Spirituality that becomes entertainment diverts us from the path meant to take us inward to that place we connect with a higher reality. But this ought not imply that we become automatons and subservient to a guru or sponsor. However, when I found a path, it is best to stay on it to discover everything that path offers.

I have a sponsor in AA. I have stuck with that sponsor through thick and thin but I have not put him on a pedestal. Like a guide in a foreign land he has led me through places he has been before me in sobriety. He knows what I know as far as taking care of my camp and seeing obstacles but he knows the territory. When I am getting stupid or distracted and am straying, he is honest with me where a casual friend might not be able to. But, just as a guide would, he can sit by the fire and enjoy casual conversation and fellowship on an equal level. New to AA I shopped around, led by the Spirit of Compassion, for such a relationship. I supplement his guidance with teachings of the masters, inspiration from the written word that enhance my practice.

You Will Know the Truth...

A lightness of being is one of the first fruits of my spiritual renewal. Morality and concord with my fellows followed with practice. I try to stay within the protective embrace of the Spirit of Compassion, not because I have become morally superior to others, but, because this is where I find the energy to live a life free of a horrible oppression. The Carpenter promised two-thousand years ago, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” The truth I had to accept was that I was powerless over a life that had careened out of control and needed something or someone that could relieve me of my obsessions. Thus, I cried out to what some of us call God. Since then I have found a new Spirit that guides me through the maze that had become the self-centered flim-flams obstructing a fulfilling life beyond any rational comprehension. Please don't mistake my words, reason serves me well, but, sometimes it takes something that transcends reason for a path that is so extraordinary that it exceeds my best thinking.

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Stay Firmly Planted in the Heart of Compassion

The Heart of Compassion
Reaches all the
Dark Places

Almost everyone I know of has someone in our families or our close circle of friends that is sliding downwards, out of control, into alcoholism. In some cases it is possible to intervene, perhaps by example or deed. I know of a few rare examples in which coercion or an intervention has helped; but, for the most part, an addict or an alcoholic can only be reached when, at a crossroads, he or she has nowhere else to turn but to seek help of their own volition. It is especially difficult and downright traumatic to see a family member we have known and watched grow into adulthood, succeeded in a career with a family of their own, slipping away. We wring our hands, wonder, pray, doubt whether our prayers are heard at all… and wait to get that phone-call at the midnight hour… hoping it is a call for help and that it isn’t “the call” we dread.

 I have no apparent comforting words for those of us who have found ourselves in this situation except to say how important it is to stay firmly planted in the Heart of Compassion. For, when that call comes, we are then ready to act appropriately. Until that time we pray and wait, trusting that our prayers are heard in spite of the evidence to the contrary.

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geo, 4,650

The New Year

In Gharachak Prison there are four toilets
for 600 women
Another woman, Shahla Jahad
was executed after
3,063 days in Evin Prison.

The people of Iran hold this day, the vernal equinox (Naw-Ruz), to be the New Year. On this day, I have been told by a friend from Tehran (pre-revolution), the families; Christian, Muslim, Bahai and Zoroastrian, brought a feast and gathered around a fire in the mountains to celebrate. At some point they prepare for the year ahead and each leap over the fire to leave their past behind. The people of Iran have been doing this since long before Alexander defeated the Persian Empire over two-thousand years ago. It is a rich, cleansing, tradition that I have been able to participate in here in Santa Barbara. I have found that the people of Iran are generous, tolerant and so very loving. It is a shame that the revolution brought such misery to this people. I do pray for them and hope against hope that we find peace and are able to assist in taking out that oppressive leadership.

I am sometimes asked, “How can you claim to be spiritual and promote actions that require violence?” My answer is simple, “I don’t.” I think of those who have been imprisoned, tortured and murdered by the Mullahs who rule that country today. The Spirit of Compassion moves me to seek a solution and that solution comes from the people.

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Forgiveness Trumps Tolerance

A Paradigm of Values
Transcends All

Forgiveness goes beyond mere tolerance because tolerance presupposes a disposition towards a hierarchy of superiority in my mind. Tolerance says I am right and you are wrong but I’ll live and let live with you Cretans. In these cases, I have found times when tolerance is absolutely necessary for my own well being. However, my life functions on a higher plane of spiritual reality when forgiveness is applied graciously to those whose opinions and behaviors are offensive to me. A higher plane of spiritual awareness presents a whole spectrum of priorities (a transcendent paradigm, if you will) that can only be dragged down by resentments, no matter how petty or grand. After all, I have been touched by the grace of the Spirit of Compassion and know in my heart that I didn’t get here because I am spotless in the conduct of human affairs. If I can expect the heap of offenses I have committed against God and humankind to be forgiven then it ought to be an easy thing to offer freely the grace of compassion to my fellows.

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False Humility = False Pride

Though the variations were many, my main theme was always “How godawful I am!” Just as I often exaggerated my modest attainments by pride, so I exaggerated my defects through guilt. I would race about, confessing all (an a great deal more) to whoever would listen. Believe it or not, I took this widespread exposure of my sins to be great humility on my part, and considered it a great spiritual asset and consolation!

But later on I realized at depth that the great harms I had done others were not truly regretted. These episodes were merely the basis for story-telling and exhibitionism. With this realization came the beginning of a certain amount of humility.

AS BILL SEES IT; 311, Telling the Worst

GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1961

*****

I sat here at least an hour this morning but I could not come up with anything to add to the point Bill W. was making… so I won’t. Good morning.

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Defenders of the Faith

Enough to drive a sane man
to drink!

Now and then I run into what I call,“defenders of the faith”. The truth is that any faith worth having needs no defense. If my concept of God is one that is so shallow and weak that I have to make sure others accept and believe in it, then it says as much about me as it does my Higher Power. My actions are the best display of the power and majesty of the Spirit of Compassion and it is the collective actions of those of faith with whom I associate that I grow with that demonstrates my faith. My associates in faith are drunks, addicts, CEO’s of corporations, homeless bag-ladies, church goers, strippers, police, judges, hookers, prosecutors, bank robbers, bank tellers, housewives, Republicans, Democrats, anarchists and so on, ad infinitum. We come together with one purpose and that is to stay sober and to help another alcoholic on the way to spiritual enlightenment. Who would I defend such faith against? What idea is so devilish that I fear it more than I trust the Power that relieved me of this disease? No, my faith needs no defense other than the example of the life I lead.

"Justifiable" Anger

The Trinity Explained

“Justifiable anger” is my greatest shortcoming… this is especially so when on the phone with a semi-anonymous service representative for any agency: government or private; i.e., remote utility companies such as a telephone company. But I have been known to blow a fuse at work or in other circumstances where I am positive I am right and you are wrong (especially where politics are debated), whoever "you" are. The idea that my anger, or heady emotions, can’t be trusted runs deep in spiritual practices universally. It is a given that I am so much better off if I step back and take a deep breath… pause when agitated or doubtful. I can think of a myriad of perfectly good reasons to lean into the offender and bully my way though the situation or I can expand my vision and enter that person’s frame of mind: In other words, I can see myself and ask, "Who is this character barking at me (yes, as though this person is me)?" This way I am not provoked by guilt or blame for my failure but motivated by compassion. After all, I can’t afford the luxury of anger any longer. My fear is that I will become a crabby old fart with no sense of humor and anger takes me down that road no matter how justified it is.

P.S.

We can celebrate this day as an Irish holy day instead of a day of drunken debauchery. That is the way it is honored in Ireland. It only became the way it is in this country when the non-Irish saw us  as cartoon characters in America saw our sacred holiday as a way to let off steam (yes, my mother is Irish from Newfoundland... I know, everyone claims their Irish heritage today... even if they have not one speck of Irish blood in their veins).

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geo, 4,645

Motivations Towards Compassion

The Heart of Compassion

I am afraid of becoming egoless. Face it, my reality is based on ego-centric motivations. The very idea of submitting my desires to that of a greater identity is terrifying to me. The very idea that this prospect is terrifying to me is the greatest proof I have of the existence of, not only a power greater than myself operating here, but this fear also leaves a footprint of my own spirit that is the object of the ego’s manipulations. I don’t believe that there are people so bereft of morality and spiritual qualities that they have not acted selflessly at one time or another. This too confirms that some sort of DNA is functioning in my desire to act when I reach out to someone who is suffering. The fact is, in spite of the manipulations of ego; the seven deadly sins of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth, our spirit has a natural inclination towards union with the motivations of a compassion that transcends all that nonsense.

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Toxic Relationships

As I sat on my cushion this morning my mind came to yesterday's reflection. I can see that it might have been interpreted as an admonition to stay in toxic marriages, at bad jobs, or to live in horrible situations or environments. Contrarily, drawing from personal experience, I can understand how leaving toxic relations can smother our incentive to discover and uncover our full potential. A relationship can be toxic even when there is an abundance of love and no apparent abuse. A job can be inhibiting even if it is a creative, lucrative and harmonious occupation. There are times when we have to move on or our spirit dies.


A scripture from the Bible has the Christ insisting on the willingness to launch out when he warned his apostles, saying in one of the most assertive prologues of the Gospels according to Matthew in chapter ten; "He that loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me..." and so on. If I take the base meaning of the Greek word, a Christ, as the anointed... or to extend that meaning to the enlightened... we can easily grasp it. 


The discipline I embrace is a cleansing one that brings me to an awareness of what I am allergic to and can no longer tolerate toxic relationships that smother the spirit of recovery in my heart, whether it is a job or a lover. I thank God that my relationships, my lover, my family, and so on, are no longer toxic. Even my ex-wife is now a dear friend because we both saw the need to be ourselves, separate from each other. When I made amends to my family the healing took place. When I moved on from a toxic job my spirit revived. When the marriage became suffocating she saw the need to leave it even though it took some time for me to understand that she was leaving it and not me. Love means that I have the courage to act.... or to let go and let God. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes it takes work... but a new freedom and a new happiness has evolved from the effort.

Follow Your Bliss... Here and Now

When Joseph Campbell posited that we ought to “follow our bliss” it was taken to mean that we drop all responsibility and go there… no matter where our bliss takes us. There is, of course, a certain amount of truth to this admonition but there are hazards too. If I have a marriage that is only so-so (not bad, not good)… perhaps a couple of kids… a mortgage that has to be paid… all of these and more… following our bliss would be a self-centered use of will at best. It just could be that following my bliss would mean something that is not at all apparent if happiness is our single purpose. It could just mean that I renew the spark of love in the marriage…. get creative in raising our children... finding that satisfaction and purpose in my job and taking responsibility for where I put my hands. Following my bliss can mean changing nothing on the exterior… I don’t have to take the next plane to an Ashram in India… I can follow my bliss in the here and now… the Heart of Compassion is everywhere and it is where I am and with what I am doing. I have everything I need to launch out on the Hero's Journey to find the Golden Fleece... the Spirit of Recovery is at my desk where I sit today.

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geo, 4,642

The Wisdom Stream

The knowledge of suffering, the knowledge of the origin of suffering, the knowledge of the cessation of suffering, and the knowledge of the way of practice leading to the cessation of suffering. This is called Right View. --- DIGHA NIKAYA ii 311-312

Every sentient being on earth knows something of suffering and the desire to cease suffering. This is the Wisdom Stream from which our religions draw their various practices. Some can stand, planted like trees along the sides of this stream, watching others go by, with roots sunk deep in the soil, quietly and calmly drawing strength. But some are swept up against all will and wisdom, to be taken down by flash floods of disaster.  These are the extremes the Wisdom Stream leads some of us into further desolation and despair through alcohol and drugs. In spite of the peril, there are those too who are like warriors, jumping into the chaos midstream willingly, just to see where it will take them... becoming bodhisattvas... rafts well-crafted through discipline and practice.... ferrying us through white-water rapids and across serene stretches between.

This Wisdom Stream is not to be taken lightly by anyone as a casual exploration. Once in this stream, by choice or by force of consequences, we are swept through rapids cascading and flowing like the Ganges towards the black water sea that consumes us all in the end. Old souls become wise through the courage of youth…aaaahhhhhuuuuummmm!

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Assumptions About Spirituality

At the time AA arose from the collective consciousness, the predominate religion was almost exclusively Christian in the USA and most of the Western world. Any source of spiritual renewal other than that was looked upon with suspicion or as exotic This drove thinking people towards atheist or agnostic beliefs, and, by the time AA came along, those who found themselves doubting were relieved when they saw that AA did not insist on a singular concept of God. Today, we sit in AA meetings free of the assumptions about spirituality and concepts of a Higher Power but are bound by the language of eighty years ago. For instance, we still use the masculine pronoun and refer to that transcendent ideal as “Our Father” in our literature. I feel that such resistance is not only presumptuous but hinders our ability to pass on what we have found that lifted us from the tyranny of alcoholism. If we are closed minded about this the outsider would have to ask, what else are we unable to accept? I have no bone against the Christian faith but I do harbor a mild resentment to the Lord’s Prayer when it is employed at the end of a meeting. If I feel this after thirteen years, how much resistance must a newcomer's sensibilities be provoked along these lines?

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Spirituality and Professional Help

... and seeking professional help doesn't mean
running off to whatever quasi-spiritual  healing
 trend in vogue.

There are usually so many yes-men around people in leadership positions that their perceptions can, not only take them in the wrong direction, but, they can also bring along with them entire groups of people no matter how rational the original intention. No one I’ve ever met is free of their own delusions and positions of leadership can feed these in such ways as to cause serious, social and physical/spiritual personal harm.

Even those of us who prefer to take the back-seat to leadership can succumb to the same misapprehensions of ourselves because we tend to chose friends who are not inclined to criticize us. This is one of the chief reasons to seek professional help… even when, or, perhaps, especially when… I think there is nothing wrong with me. After all, I wouldn’t go to a friend to remedy a serious disease such as cancer; no matter how much that friend loves and cares for me. Compassion and caring are helpful but to neglect professional help is foolish and sometimes fatal, as in the case of Steve Jobs.

Friends and prayer can support and encourage me but some things fall into the venue of someone who has training, treats these health issues daily and has seen the symptoms thousands of times in their practice: i.e., depression is the most difficult one for us to go to a professional to treat because we think we can take care of ourselves.  It has become responsible for far too many suicides because we think we don’t need help, can chin-up through it, or are afraid of the stigma we believe is around treatment by a mental health specialist. 


And seeking professional help doesn't mean running off to be treated by whatever quasi-spiritual or pharmaceutical healing trend in vogue (vitamin therapies are the best example). I have seen too many in Southern California who call themselves healers by the laying on of hands, passing a crystal or waving burning sage around the room and chasing out malevolent spirits or some such oogah-boogah crap: go to a friggin' doctor and get help!

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Alone

With my own light...

While I was in the depths of my disease I had a book in my mind that I tried to write and the title of that book would have been “Alone”. The theme of that book would continue to be an exploration of how alone I was but it was not a Boo-Hoo story. I was alone by choice even though I had family, friends and a mysterious sense that a power greater than myself was always there. Running through that story would have been a grand struggle, a rebellion… a rebellion against everything I thought was controlling my life: bourgeois religion and morality, government institutions and political or social manipulations (I was so far to the Left I was always Right) and these ideals left me alone... like my heroes; Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Kerouac and Neal Cassady. In the end I would die naked and alone just as I came into the world.

            I finally wrote that book after I got sober and its them was the same alienation and search for union, but the ending was qualitatively different in that I found the joy of never being alone again. Yes, the pure and simple joy of that awakening turned my life around and  I never have to be alone again.

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[1] Geo, 4,638

A Vocation... a Spiritual Quest

I was an artist that had some success at one time and dropped out of the business side of it long before I got sober. I have only recently returned to the creative arts as a writer, and, as a writer new to the scene, the query and rejection side have been a humbling experience that reminds me of the struggles I had as a young man. When  I began to carve out a career in a field that requires a certain amount of ego: as much technical skill but significantly more ego than, say, a machinist or plumber, there was always the gnawing suspicion in the back of my mind that perhaps I wasn’t good enough to make it.

There are very few professions where the product and the producer are so intimately connected. Am I good enough and is my craft, my product, the expression of my soul, good enough for people to buy… enough to provide a living for myself? I.e.; someone in sales, an electrician or a carpenter, hardly ever have to ask this question because the answer is so very obvious in terms of financial success. In those careers economic demands dictate right away and you are forced to go on to doing something else. But the creative artist might even struggle a lifetime only to find in the end that there never was an audience for her/his chosen vocation. We have to be okay with that and keep plugging away or we don’t have a chance in hell to do anything of significance. Art is a craft: it is a trade: it is a vocation: a calling that it is a spiritual quest in which the ego falls away.

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Lets Go Dance

I can fellowship with anyone, whether or not they believe in God, because I know that one can live a perfectly spiritually motivated life without any concept of deity at all. Buddhists of certain disciplines get by quite well without one and so do existentialists in the West: notably; Jean Paul Sartre. My own spiritual enrichment comes essentially from these traditions and I too would not believe in a personal cosmic intelligence were it not for the experience I have had on several occasions where I was touched by the sublime. I believe that it is possible to have similar awakenings no matter what we believe. I understand that some of us have a need for a vision of the Christ or another equally powerful deity for this awakening to occur. Our problems with religions often arise from the insistence that my experience ought to be yours. When we refer to a Higher Power that is greater than ourselves, we open ourselves up to a transcendence that is difficult to explain to others who have not experienced it and that is okay with me. The possibility could possibly be that there are some of us who don’t need one. My God is a dance that created and loves us all and this dance is confirmed by the rhythms of the beat of my heart and the spirals that reveal this cosmic dance from the galaxies to the arrangement of molecules in our DNA.

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Give Me Some Tea!

At first it was simply joking around because I thought gossip was silly. I’d come into the neighborhood bar and ask my favorite bartender, “Give me some tea.” Then we would pass on whatever was happening with the fellow patrons: who was in jail… who was in the hospital… who was fooling around… what someone else did last night in the bar and so on.

What was innocent banter at first became a habit and this habit had to be squelched when I began working on spiritual development. What seemed to me to be genuine concern really was nothing more than idle curiosity about some juicy or damaging tid-bit. When hearing such things I now see to be a serious character defect as these occasions arise along with the temptation to pass it on. Luckily for me I have been able to pass on opportunities to gossip when others attempt to extract some useless information about someone else by simply saying, “You’ll have to ask him/her if you want to know first hand.”

I will pass on who is in jail or hospitalized and in similar situations if such information will be used to be helpful. I really don't need to know anything about anyone second hand. It is always distorted information and is generally damaging to all concerned.

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geo, 4,636

Surfing the Breakers of Serendipity

What being spiritually fit  means to me is the ability to surf the breakers of serendipity, moving with the spirit of compassion. Professionals have carved out lucrative careers, as they ought, helping people with the medical, psychological and legal problems some of us have endured and their expertise is sometimes daunting. However, where professionals often lack the skills in the arena of personal experience, we who have experienced such things as cancer, mental disorders and the labyrinthine tangles of our justice system can become useful assets as valuable adjuncts to doctors, therapists, police and attorneys. Volunteering our compassion, experience and understanding in therapy groups, visiting mental institutions and jails, or participation in alcohol and drug addiction recovery, helps us as well as those we serve. Those of us who have recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body can easily open hearts, transmitting the precious gift of hope to those who suffer. This phenomenon is no mystery to us because we have been there and know how we would have needed to be reached in their place.

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geo, 4,635

The Heart of Compassion Calls for Unity

Nehru and Gandhi sharing a joke

I have been writing, for a private readership, these reflections the past thirteen years and only began writing for a general public in my blog the last three months. Today I am compelled to call for unity in the public discourse. That means I might seem too right-wing for some on the left or too soft (or a bleeding-heart liberal) by right-wingers. Politics and the spiritual path have been connected long before the first Christians were sent into the arenas of Rome. Gandhi and Martin Luther King brought spiritual revival to the world while others (long before Jerry Falwell) have used the pulpit for opposite purposes. A call for unity can mean I listen to the claims and content of each side of any protest whether that protest is as trivial as birth control or as morally controversial as war. At a time when the nation is wrestling in the midst of political division, I am more concerned about the vitriol expressed by both sides than I am the content of their protests. The path of the Heart of Compassion seeks unity in my own spiritual life as well as unity in the politics in my community.

On 15 January 1941 Gandhi said, "Some say Pandit Nehru and I were estranged. It will require much more than difference of opinion to estrange us. We had differences from the time we became co-workers and yet I have said for some years and say so now that not Rajaji but Jawaharlal will be my successor."

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geo, 4633

Ego Trips are Ego Traps

There is great merit in a good self-appraisal at the end of the day. It is hard to get through the waking hours… about sixteen of them… without falling into one or more of these ego traps (back in the day we used to call them “ego-trips” but an ego trap describes them better). This is so because my day involves contact with other people: even more so because my days are invigorated by working with others in recovery. Therefore, I sit in meditation and take an inventory before I begin my day, I find that I can spot attempts to rationalize my conduct as they occur and often need not even be considered as the day ends. However, how much better it is to lay my head down on my pillow when I have knowledge of where I have gone, as well as the progress I have made, before the balm of slumber soothes my spirit through the night?

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geo, 4,632

Could I Have Gotten God's Address Wrong?

The Heart of
compassion

As for the proper way to pray: I had always thought it particularly cruel of a supposedly loving God to leave us floundering around without knowing how to pray rightly. How could that be? It smacks of magical thinking to consider that I might have gotten the formula, or the incantation, wrong: or that I was leaving something out: perhaps I even might have had the name of God or His/Her address wrong!

The truth is that it was none of the above. It was nothing more than a matter of the heart. Whenever I have honestly surrendered my will to that of the Heart of Compassion, those prayers were answered unequivocally. It has nothing to do with the words or the form. It has to do with my honest intention. At last, when I prayed through the fog of doubt on that day the desire to drink was lifted and my alcoholism was relieved, I didn’t pray to stop drinking so much as I prayed earnestly... it went something like, “… give me the direction and I will follow.”

geo, 4,631

The Living Dead

It is only death....

Does anyone remember when zombies were dumb, weak, automatons incapable of doing any damage to a living human being unless they had one trapped? The zombie mythology comes from Haiti, whereby a sorcerer evokes the deceased to rise from the grave to do the sorcerers bidding. Bonnie and I got a few laughs out of that movie, Zombieland. It was a spoof on modern zombie movies. In these movies there is no rhyme or reason as in the original myth. Zombies are usually the result of a contagion of some sort and they are animated energetic creatures out to devour the living. 

Santideva; the author of the text, Bodhicaryavatara, speaking of this fear of the bones of the deceased asks, “And why are we frightened by her motionless skeleton when we see it lying in the cemetery but not afraid now when we see her zombie-like body moving about like a walking corpse controlled by momentary impulses?"

            Frankly, I believe the reason zombie movies fascinate enough people to fill the coffers of movie theaters arises from an innate fear of death. That fear of death comes from a fear of a life unlived and in this sense Santideva is right-on. I can further propose that a life without compassion is a life unlived. To go to my grave without having experienced love is a horror of sorts that I have been miraculously relieved of. If I never have anything else of life’s bounty, I am grateful for that.

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geo, 4,630

The Heart of Compassion and Religion

Feb. 1st 1969 - Mar. 1st 2012

Some call it God and some call it Good. It really doesn’t matter. If I submerge my heart into the Heart of Compassion, I find a confidence and grace that takes me places I would not have ventured of my own will. Isn’t this what we all seek in our practice or religion? Among my fellowship I can diligently practice loving kindness with the support of the group. When I walk away from that sanctuary I am better able to put this amazing grace into action. For all the faults of religion, and there are many, it binds us together in a community in a world that is always devising ways to further alienate us from each other. I embrace the sanga, the churches, the ashrams, dojos, facebook etc. for the venue to bring us together in this same unity of spirit.

And, even though I might evoke some vitriol by acknowledging the passing of Andrew Breitbart today, I respected and honored his opinions as honest evaluations of current affairs. Andrew Breitbard created  the Huffington Post web site. After being barred from hiring those with opinions from the right, he founded the Drudge Report. He made me laugh as he divulged the hypocrisy of knee-jerk liberals as well as exposing right-wing foibles of folks like Newt Gingrich.

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Geo, 4,630