An Annual Tenth Step

The Earth spun on its axis three hundred and sixty-six times and completed its orbit around the sun this leap-year. That was fifty-two weeks, eight-thousand seven-hundred and eighty-four hours, total. Most of us celebrate this cycle every year as the seasons pass and we have marked it as a special day on our calendar. Because of this notation most of us become reflective… looking inward and considering where we have passed… traumas and triumphs… and for me it is a good thing. We call them holidays and this says it best… it is a Holy Day in the best sense of the word. I believe that it is of great benefit to mark a day like this as a special occasion to reflect. This doesn’t diminish the fact that every day is a good day to reflect but to mark a day out of the year to do so is a powerful gift to give and receive.

     Just as I mark the day of my birth and the first full day of the spiritual awakening in which I received the gift of sobriety, I am hyper-aware of my own debt to the Heart of Compassion that put my feet where they are today. Just as I set aside a few moments to review each day in the Tenth Step, I can reflect in like manner the manner in which I have lived the past year, staying in the moment, and leaving no stone unturned as I reflect. Have I used words in fear or anger… bullied my way through difficult emotions… for those I have not been willing to forgive or humble myself before this day? Can I go to the New Year with the resentments that haunted me throughout this past year? Can I tell those I have harmed that I was wrong and wish to make whatever amends are necessary? Can I do so even if I’m not sure what I did that caused the damage? I pray I can and will because of the love, with no strings attached, that I have been blessed with over the years.

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The Old Year... The Old Self

The end of another year approaches as does a new one begin. It happens every year and every year I feel a little longing for the past year: some of its joys and triumphs, while quickly forgetting the sorrow brought about by self-centered and grasping emotions. To recognize and note my shortcomings is usually enough but, if I wish the year ahead to be free of suffering, I can do more than that. At least, that is the theory. Before I start my day today I can celebrate it as a Happy New Day. Can I expect a better New Year if I do this business one day at a time? This was once a theory to me but it has become a central fact of my life today.

    The Heart of Compassion is always there to guide and help me find compassion for myself as well as those I might have harmed… either through careless disregard or by blind oversight. Would it be better had I done so consciously and purposefully? I don’t believe so but, thankfully, most are misdemeanors that can be resolved and healed with a kind word or confession. Can I do this for a day? I don’t know for sure but I can say that those few minutes I spend sitting in conscious contact with God at the start of my day increases the odds of doing so. In this way, each day, prayer and meditation puts aside the old self and awakens the new one.

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Acceptance and Transformation

Treat your anger with utmost respect and tenderness, for it is no other than yourself. Do not suppress it --- simply be aware of it. Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed. When you are aware that you are angry, your anger is transformed. If you destroy anger, you destroy the Buddha, for Buddha and Mara are of the same essence. Mindfully dealing with anger is like taking the hand of a little brother.

365 Buddha:

Thich Nhat Hanh

As qouted in,

Mind of Clover

***

I found this principle to be true in so many other areas of my life; besides those where I found myself trapped and unable to change character defects but also with the mundane sufferings such as physical pain. I call things like this mundane because I’m not able to do much about pain in the first place without powerful narcotics that create a plethora of more debilitating problems if abused (thus making pain mundane compared to the devastation of prescription drug addiction). Pain and the limitations of physical disability require that I not only accept them, but that I am to embrace them if I am ever going to transform or expand those limitations. This doesn’t mean that I allow these limitations to confine me from doing things that I enjoy, or need to do, but that I learn to adapt to those limitations. Some have told me that AA is a crutch that replaced alcohol for me and my answer is to say, “You are right. Wouldn’t I need a prosthetic of some sort if I lost a leg?” Likewise, if I find that my life is adversely affected by my character defects, isn’t it wise if I cease denying I have a problem and embrace it by finding a practice that transforms them towards the light of freedom?

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Our Common Core

WE KNOW ONLY A LITTLE*

We know amazingly little about what happens beneath our feet. It is fairly remarkable to think that Ford has been building cars and baseball has been playing World Series for longer than we have known that the Earth has a core. And of course the idea that continents move about the surface like lily pads has been common wisdom for much less than a generation “Strange as it may seem,” wrote Richard Feyman, “we understand the distribution in the interior of the Sun far better than we understand the interior of the Earth.”

A Short History

of Nearly Everything,

Bill Bryson

*

 At the university I studied; philosophy, history, radical Marxist theory, labor history and the foundations of capitalism along with the arts and a rudimentary range in the sciences: including psychology, anthropology and sociology. I even took a course in Religious Studies (one of whose texts was the “The Varieties of Religious Experience”). I thought of myself as having had a well rounded liberal arts education, knowing a little about everything but surprisingly little about my core (even though I considered myself quite an adventurer). The truth was, however, that I ventured out very little from popular culture when it came to my own beliefs. Arrogant enough to pretend that what I believed was founded on a body of knowledge that was beyond question, I behaved accordingly. After all, my political opinions were based on a thorough examination of social phenomena and anyone who thought differently was, of course, a dolt. All of this education was fine and dandy but it should have told me what I didn’t know rather than to suppose my beliefs and my opinions were based on an infallible encyclopedia of information set in stone. Not only was I ignorant of my own core, I saw nothing  that told me that it had anything in common with others.

    Truly, I am not trying to impress anyone with my credentials. Contrarily, I point them out to say that the the core of the Heart of Compassion opened up to me only when I let go of what I thought I knew and began the adventure of a lifetime by simply looking within. Once I cleared away the obstructions, a light shone through that put all my knowledge in perspective. What I know about my core today is always changing as the dark corners of fear and doubt are exposed to the light of compassion. This was done… this dawning… this spiritual awakening… came about by applying the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. A practical and useful spirituality that was based on what is knowable… not pie in the sky or oogah-boogah religiosity… but a fundamental living relationship with the divine,... our core... yours and mine,  that directs and informs me as I wind my way through the challenges of the day.

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* Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 164

Renewing of the Mind

 TRAINING YOUR THOUGHTS

Thought is the real causative force in life, and there is no other. You cannot have one kind of mind and another kind of environment. You cannot change your environment while leaving your mind unchanged. This is the real key to life, if you change your mind your conditions must change too --- your body must change; the color tone of your whole life must change.
    And be not conformed to the world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind… (Romans 12:2).
…. This may be called the Great Cosmic Law.

Excerpted from:

Around the Year

with Emmet Fox, p. 361

~

I often hear my fellow travelers on similar spiritual paths say that they don’t watch the news or read the papers because it “bums” them out and shapes their thinking in a negative manner. I can understand their position, and even support it to a degree; but I am not so inclined because I do have a variety of sources available to me today that my grandparents had not even imagined to exist. I don’t accuse others, who are less interested in the news of the day, of sticking their heads in the sands either because I know that the most important thing is to act compassionately. Acting compassionately can also be applied to the problems of the day if I don’t allow myself to be driven knee-jerk by the differing slants presented on the nightly news. Whatever kind of news junkie I am, it is important to me to know what folks are getting all fired up about and judge for myself where I stand. How might I apply spiritual principles to the issues of the day? Am I buying into the accusations and emotional barrage thereof? Where can I encourage understanding and healing? Where can I put a hand out to opposing sides and find the humanity in others I would have detested otherwise? I couldn’t do so without constant conscious contact with a Power far greater than myself. This takes some training of the mind and is accomplished most effectively for me through a regular inventory of my own thinking combined with the practice of quietude in the spiritual renewal of meditation.

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Compassion/Pity/Arrogance

Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity. Pity has its roots in fear and carries a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of "Glad it's not me." As Stephen Levine says; "When your fear touches someone's pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone's pain, it becomes compassion." To train in compassion is to know that all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honor all those who suffer, and to know that you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Daily Reflections by

Sogyal Rinpoche

~

Very few people are so tuned to, and apt to exploit, pity and condescension as addicts and alcoholics are. I believe that this is where the "No strings attached" attitude works best. The strings attached to arrogance can cause me to burn-out if I expect anything… even a token of gratitude… in return when I give of myself to another.
    Pity is often exploited by those in need and it can irritate us. I.e., when passing through Oregon, every rest stop along I-5 seemed to have someone with a sign that read "Need money for Gas!" I know that it is a racket and it peeves me somewhat. In fact, it ought to. Hasn't anyone seen the scene the "alley of miracles" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame where the beggars threw off their crutches after a hard day begging? Do I respond out of guilt or do I see myself in the fellow that is simply down on his luck? Some do need help while others are, well, out of kindness I can say, clueless. No, I can't allow myself to feel taken advantage of because, eventually, I will cease helping others or having any compassion at all for those I might have pitied if my graciousness is compelled by guilt or the arrogance of salving it.
     Compassion can translate to giving a sandwich to a panhandler, caring deeply for his wellbeing, instead of coin that might be used to go for a jug of wine. Then again, coin might be given knowing full well what it is going for because I know what its like to really need a drink.  The true test of compassion is when I am cursed for such charity, instead of being thanked for it, and it doesn't bother me at all: not because I don't care but because I do care deeply.

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For Endurance Sake: I Die

p.127

This is how a human being can change:

There's a worm addicted to eating
grape leaves.
    Suddenly, he wakes up,
call it Grace, whatever, something
wakes him, and he's no longer
a worm.
    He's the entire vineyard,
and the orchard too, the fruit and the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that doesn't need
to devour.

(Mathanawi, 2537-2539)

Jelaluddin Rumi

~

I'm no Rumi but along the same lines in a A Taxi Romance these verses ended chapter five with: I Poemed a Dream:

Woe to you, humankind. You have lost your
aspirations and thus your wings.
Now psyche plucked and feather-bare with
no legs to compensate where glory flew
above the tedium of earth-bound
mediocrity, you crawl like a worm.
Exactly like a worm: devouring the putrid
waste and wasting what is not…
Genius is dead and mourned: you've become a
democracy of worms; wingless, legless,
writhing twisted masses, mired inside of
computer banks and throttled by tentacles
of credit cards in fields of robot
mothers serving up their baby's toxic
memory of a castrated deadbeat father.

Be not afraid. Poor genius is not dead
And still owns wings.
A worm is no worm.
It owns a set of wings… tattered or not:
Withs and withouts; doubts; fears; love; and hopes.
"O, Christ! The Devil is Old," says the
Sage; "Grow old and know him!"
Wingless and full of woe, charging
Headlong on rubber legs… iron willed…
Like molten lava! Upon this wobbly rock
I've found my principle, if only for the
Sake of endurance… I die.

When I wrote this piece I had no idea how true it was: the paradox of "for the sake of endurance… I die." I'd scribbled it down during a drunken rage only to see in it a gem of truth… an inspiration of sorts to keep moving… to lift myself on tattered wings to no avail… until I died to myself and opened up with wings anew September 15, 1998.

    For this I celebrate: Merry Christmas.

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Ignorant/Enlightened

You should know that so far as Buddha-nature is concerned, there is no difference between and enlightened man and an ignorant one. What makes the difference is that one realizes it, while the other is ignorant of it.

The Sutra of Hui Neng

~ 

I have been noticing for some time that there are people everywhere that hold to deeply felt beliefs that defy their I.Q.'s. This knife cuts both ways… it doesn't take much to get through the door. It doesn't matter how smart, clever or dumber than a block of bricks I might be. It doesn't matter a whit how I package my experience if I have been touched, awakened or otherwise blessed: the mask falls off and all my beliefs come to naught. I still have the same cells in my body and the same mass of neurons tucked between my ears. 

     The greatest difference that I can see is that I am more apt to act on compassion… I haven't been let in on to some arcane mystery. I am just as I am and that is all there is to it. When I surrendered to a power greater than myself, I didn't have a name for what I had surrendered to. I wasn't about to make up anything about God: I had already gone that route. I simply surrendered it all and just figured that, if there was a God at all, it would be revealed to me in time. However, something did happen and I couldn't deny it… I had entered the realm of the Spirit of Compassion and from that moment on there was no turning back. The key to that door I entered is the willingness to enter. All it takes then is the surrender of that will. From there on I can think I know anything I wish to but it behooves me to know what an act of blind-faith is and what my actual experience with the divine is.

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Scorn or Praise

This is an old saying, O Atula, not one merely of today: "They blame him who remains silent, they blame him who speaks much, they even blame him who speaks in moderation." There is none in this world who is not blamed.
    There never existed, nor will there ever exist, nor does there exist today anyone who is always scorned or always blamed.

Dhammapada 227-228

~

A very few months ago I became willing to take the middle path and, on this path, I have taken a vow to refrain from blame and to use praise with utmost caution. This has often resulted in being told that I am wishy-washy about the important issues of the day or when group or personal disputes demand my attention. However, the advantage I have gained is powerfully more than I ever expected. Being able to see clearly, without prejudice, is of immense value that far exceeds being oh-so-right about everything in every dimension; whether it is being right in politics or personal disputes. Honest debate is not avoided but honest debate has become far more meaningful when I take the side of compassion in whatever argument that confronts me. Taking the side of compassion requires me to be informed as well as loving. I suppose it might have been one of those apes recently down from the trees, following the herds, which were so inclined to flip-over cow turds just to see what was under them. What was found there was probably the one simple act that furthered our evolution in the long distant past (according to the ethnobotanist, philosopher and psychonaut guru, *Terrence McKenna).

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* Terrence McKenna contended that the first ape human prototypes stepped out of the trees onto the grasslands where the great herds left cow patties in great abundance. Under these there were grubs to be found, high in protein and the addition kick, magic mushrooms. He proposed that these two findings provided nourishment and raised our ancestrial consciousness leading humankind into an awareness that was, at once, communal, cooperative and evolutionary..

Seeing the Way

Simply keep putting everything down, and know that that is what you are doing. You don't need to be always checking up on yourself, worrying about things like 'How much samadhi' --- it will always be the right amount. Whatever arises in your practice, let it go; know it is all uncertain, impermanent. Remember that it's all uncertain. Be finished with all of it. This is the Way that will take you to the source --- to your Original Mind.
Ajahn Chah;
Seeing the Way

~

A prayer I recite every morning goes like this:

Everything changes… everything passes… Things appearing… Things disappearing… and when all is over… everything having appeared and disappeared… being and extinction both transcended… still the basic emptiness and silence abides and that is blissful peace.

    I was told, years ago, that every cell of my skin is replaced in a few years. This says something to me about impermanence in a way that is very real. I think that money does that too. One day I have some and, very shortly after, I have none. My clothes wear out and that face looking back at me in the mirror is hardly recognizable when I compare it to pictures of my youth. Thinking about this can be depressing until I realize that I am on the great procession of life and this is how it goes for every one of us. Fearing change and fearing death is a cultural obsession and, if I desire to be free of that obsession, I must embrace change, even death, as much; not more… not less… than I love the smile and laughter of a precious child.
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San Juan De la Cruz (1542 to 1591)

*****

WITHOUT A PLACE

Without a place and with a place
to rest, living darkly with no ray
of light, I burn myself away.

My soul, no longer bound, is free
From the creations of the world;
above itself is hurled
into a life of ecstasy,
leaning only on God. The world
will therefore clarify at last
what I esteem of highest grace:
my soul revealing it can rest
without a place and with a place.

Although I suffer a dark night
In mortal life, I also know
My agony is slight, for though
I am in darkness without light,
a clear heavenly life I know;
for love gives power to my life,
however black and blind my day,
to yield my soul, and free of strife
to rest, living darkly with no ray.

Love can perform a wondrous labor
which I have learned internally,
and all the good or bad in me
takes on a penetrating savor,
changing my soul so it can be
consumed in a delicious flame.
I feel it in me as a ray;
and quickly killing every trace
of light, I burn myself away.

With a Place and Without a Place

San Juan de la Cruz

(@ 1542 to Dec. 14, 1591)

~

For the longest night of the year, Winter Solstice, my offering today is this poem by my mentor in hard times. He teaches that it never gets so bleak that the Heart of Compassion can’t reach my soul. If fact, it is in those dark nights of the soul that this Spirit draws nearest.

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Agents of Confusion

To probe into your roots:
The ignorance and confusion are you yourself.
The preconceptions which are yourself
Are envoys and agents sent by yourself.

Drinking the Mountain Stream:

Songs of Tibet's Beloved

Saint, Milarepa

~

Agents sent by myself… If I’m confused or ignorant; my words, my thoughts, my ideals and everything about me sets up a vibration… a mood… an attitude that projects to others. What is meant by ignorance by Milarepa? I know deep down that he’s talking about being uneducated as much as about being unaware. Unaware of myself as well as how my actions affect others. My attitude determines how my thinking is put into actions that reinforce these beliefs. In AA we say that we can’t think our way into sobriety but we can act our way into it. Unfortunately, many mistakenly suppose that this means that our actions preempt mediation. This happens because it is also supposed that meditation is about sitting in the lotus position and thinking about our character defects and hoping to change them through introspection. Probing into our roots in a manner that is most productive to me has more to do with mindfully bringing my motivations to light without judgment; looking at myself from a perspective free of preconceptions. The more I am successful at this the better able I am to see others in the same light with compassion and understanding.

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Calm Abiding

The practice of mindfulness, of bringing the scattered mind home, and so of bringing the different aspects of being into focus, is called Peacefully Remaining or Calm Abiding.

    All the fragmented aspects of ourselves, which had been at war, settle and dissolve and became friends. In that settling we begin to understand ourselves more, and sometimes even have glimpses or the radiance of our fundamental nature.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

~

   I get it, this whole business of mindfulness, when I defragment my computer. Files scattered all over the disk are brought together… defragmented. The more scattered the files on the disk, the longer it takes. The ultimate end of it is to help my computer run more efficiently. My mind is fragmented… worries;… plans… even beliefs… all of these and more distract me, putting obstacles in the way of clarity. Living in the past or projecting into the future, the present is skipped over as though it wasn’t important at all. I look back at my life and can see a series of moments resulting in long term consequences… both for good and bad. How many times did a chance meeting result in a life-long friendship or love affair? I have sat in a jail cell regretting that moment of fear, desire, anger or drunken disregard for consequences that ended badly for me. It is the moment I am in that insists on clarity of mind; from how I act down to the words I use rooted in my consciousness. Conscious contact with the Heart of Compassion opens my mind to a Calm Abiding moment, free of fear, resulting in a consciousness that transmits compassion.

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Grace of God or Psychological Tricks

HONESTY WITH NEWCOMERS

Tell him exactly what happened to you. Stress the spiritual feature freely.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 93

The marvel of A.A. is that I tell only what happened to me. I don’t waste time offering advice to the potential newcomers, for, if advice worked, nobody would get to A.A. All I have to do is show what has brought me to sobriety and what has changed my life. If I fail to stress the spiritual feature of A.A.’s program. I am being dishonest. The newcomer should not be given a false impression of sobriety. I am sober only through the grace of my Higher Power, and that makes it possible for me to share with others.

DAILY REFLECTIONS, p. 361

~

This “grace of God” business is the absolute top priority for obtaining any sort of reliable sobriety for most of us. Granted, there are those who put down the bottle, the pills, the pipe and the kit for the rest of their lives on their own power. However, I have seen that programs omitting the necessity of a spiritual awakening depend mostly on self-awareness and teachings of doctrines with some kind of moral component or psychological tricks in order to avoid the obvious temptation to pick up and use. Any one of these things might have worked for me if they were seen as supplements to continually improved contact with a power greater than myself, but would have failed in frustration and despair, otherwise. It becomes a business of “Thou shalt nots…” instead of the new freedom and joy of discovery I'd found, once I surrendered all the devices of ego.

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The Clarity of "I Don't Know"

When you have learned, through discipline, to simplify your life, and so practiced the mindfulness of meditation, and through it loosened the hold of aggression, clinging, and negativity on your whole being, the wisdom of insight can slowly dawn. And in it all-revealing clarity can show you, distinctly and directly, both the subtlest workings of your own mind and nature of reality.
Glimpse After Glimpse
Sogyal Rinpoche

~

The mindfulness of meditation seems an unreachable goal in the face of the nature of reality that reveals itself in the horrors of the day. Sometimes it is the absolute terror and insanity of the nature of reality that challenges my equilibrium and I look for answers… solutions to the problem… falling back into self-righteous indignation… seeking something, anything, to blame… depression over my own powerlessness to do anything about it… anger seething deep inside where the darkness of confusion reigns.

Facing this reality; I sit, wait, pause… and ask: do I believe in a power greater than myself? Is there evil in the world? Can I see it for what it is? Can I trust that the Heart of Compassion will prevail in the midst of chaos? Where do I place my faith? I look inside with questions of this nature and sense a direction transcending, but not escaping the apparent reality of suffering. If ever there has been a need for clarity it is in times like these when faith is challenged. Letting go of long-held beliefs, I look into my heart and seek direction: which ones do I hold as “articles of faith” and which ones do I know to be true through experience?

I trust in the Spirit of Compassion because that mysterious reality lifted me from the grips of an unyielding and powerful addiction that I could not overcome of my own volition. This is the thin thread of faith that extends to the rest… a holy “I Don’t Know” is my best starting point towards an all-revealing clarity of mind.
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Knockin' on Heaven's Door

Buy the truth and sell it not; also wisdom and instruction, and understanding (Proverbs 12:23).

…You will never demonstrate or progress on mere theories that you have not put to the test. You will never demonstrate or grow spiritually on what is in a textbook or a lecture until you have begun to put such knowledge into practice. It is far better to have a thimble of spiritual knowledge and use it than to have a whole mountain of correct spiritual doctrine most of which you have never made work.

From: Around the Year

With Emmet Fox, p. 350

~

    A friend was being proselytized by a religious fanatic when he tried to give the preacher pause by saying, “I want to believe in the religion God believes in.”

    The preacher answered, asserting in all honesty the finality of his faith, “God is a Catholic.” 

    I wonder what this guy thinks God believed in before there ever was a Catholic, a Buddhist, Lutheran, or any other religion invented or contrived by us.

   The first thing that comes to mind for most of us, when we are asked about faith, we will almost instinctively answer with which Faith we belong to; Catholic, Lutheran, Buddhist and so on. Or, if we aren’t religious, we might try to explain the philosophy we adhere to… existentialism, Communism, or Laissez Faire capitalism, but for me, faith is an action I take and not a theory or doctrine. 

   A practical faith is that which I have found useful. It does take a leap of faith at first, but soon after I find something that works, the nature of my faith evolves into trust. Where faith fails me is where I find I can no longer trust what I acted on in the past. What has worked in the past may not work for me now. If I am not willing to allow my faith to grow, I will sink into a set of beliefs that have no actual meaning in my daily affairs or how I act. I.e., walking into a cathedral might inspire and lift my spirit enough to evoke some peace and calm in my heart. But, if that is as far as I go, my faith will dissolve and this experience will become routine and stagnant.

   Meditation is like that too. At first I sat thinking that peace and calm was all there was to it until I put into practice the teachings and was willing to try them out in a practical context. When I treat others as I would like to be treated I am at first amazed at how well it works. But even this is only a doorstep to a higher consciousness and I rob myself if I don’t enter the door that step leads to. 
   After all, I'm just knockin' on Heaven's door.

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The Buddha Prayer

By the power and the truth of this practice
May all beings have happiness, and the causes of happiness;
May all be free from sorrow, and the causes of sorrow;
May all never be separated from the sacred happiness which is sorrowless;
And may all have equanimity; without too much
attachment and too much aversion,
And live believing in the equality of all that lives.

Prayer offered by

Sogyal Rinpoche today  in,

Glimpse After Glimpse

~

In light of yesterday’s tragedy, I pause today. This is not the time for answers… this is a time for grief. Before I allow myself to escape, from the heart to the head, I must grieve. That computer behind the eyes and between the ears does the job of theorizing and compiling information towards action but it behooves me not to go there in times like these because it is when these horrible incidents occur that I am tempted to bypass the heart and go straight to the head. As I watched the day unwind, I can admit that my mind searched for a reason… I am almost ashamed to admit that my head, searching for answers, hoped the murderer would have been an Islamic extremist… a radical extremist of some sort... someone with a motivation… someone to blame… something to be outraged about. But when the truth unraveled that it was just another one of us whose lid had blown… my God, there was no REASON! So I sat and grieved. I just had to allow my heart to take in what had happened to those children and their families… to those teachers and their loved ones… to the family of the soul that walked in the school and pulled the trigger on the innocents… Feel the sorrow and breathe it in… accept that there are no answers at this time. Maybe later when the head can take what the heart has revealed… but not until the heart has healed… in the meantime I must, for my own sanity's sake, keep my heart focused where I can grieve out of respect for those who suffer.

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Polarity

My life has been one of extremes… polarizing extremes… emotional extremes of love and hate… faith and doubt… and so on. My observation today is that nature doesn’t work that way except in neutralizing and eliminating evolutionary progress. As one sage points out… “No tree can be planted on the North or South poles.” It is in the jungles… the rain forests of the tropics… where variety provides for most of the planet’s future. Ideals are fine but when they are rigid and unyielding there is little tolerance for compassion. It is in the temperate zones that civilizations rise where fields are plowed, planted and harvested.
    Can I moderate my extremes to allow compassion to reach fruition… or will I resort to formula set in stone to exclude and purge that which is contrary to my heart’s design?

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A Juke Box From Hell

What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumptuous in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas...

Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 97

~ 

Separating the creative modus from the spiritual has always been a difficult challenge. The muse I have followed has been to open the flood gates to the subconscious and to censor as little as possible… certainly not consciously at any rate. Following the muse was what I thought of as my spiritual path… the most important thing… and it was as far as I could fathom of conscious contact with God… the devil take the hindmost… or, to paraphrase the words of Johnny Boyo in the King Jimmy Big Book: “The wind blows where it leans, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell whence it comes, and where it goes: so is everyone born of the Spirit.” It doesn’t take much to see where this take on things doesn’t work very well off the page or canvas. If I behave as though I had God’s imprimatur on all my actions I would be locked up in jail or Shutter Island of my own making. The practice of spiritual principles follow this directive when I don’t know what to do; is it kind; is it necessary; is it true. Whenever I stray from this plum-line, and act rashly, I hurt myself or someone I care deeply about. It would be better to pause and ask; is it worth the price I pay for it? How much do I have to drop in this Juke Box from Hell to play my tune?

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Prior Contempt

Faith commissioned it/Science built it.

The Bible mentions the existence of an unforgivable sin, and this has greatly frightened innumerable Christians.

    Let us be absolutely clear upon one point. There is no sin that a human being can commit that God will not forgive but there is one sin that he cannot forgive until we make it possible. This sin consists in shutting ourselves off from fresh inspiration or guidance from God, if your mind is already made up about everything pertaining to God, if you decide that you now know all the truth, and that you could not be mistaken; then it will not be possible for the Holy Ghost to open your eyes to error and lead you into higher truth. Naturally, as long as this is your state of mind, no help or improvement can come to you, and in that sense only is your sin unforgivable --- unforgivable while it lasts. When you change your attitude, enlightenment will come, and the sin will be destroyed.

    Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come to him, and will sup with him and he with me. (Revelation 3:20)

Around the Year with

Emmet Fox, p. 346

~

     We call it in AA, “Contempt prior to investigation.” To the scientific mind the idea of  God is a throwback to a time when so much was unanswered and what the Nuns told me was “a mystery”. There have been several inroads attempted to change the minds of scientists presented in theories like Creationism and so on. So much of it is the hammering of scientific facts to fit within a box of preconceived notions about the nature of God. I have come to believe, in a very basic manner that dismisses all this distortion and leaves me open minded to whatever the scientific method reveals. Science is mistakenly thought to be a set of answers and religionists scramble around to find facts that still remain mysteries. 

     I see science is a method and its conclusions are not set in stone. Answers from this method are organized from collections of facts that become theories. From this method of experimentation and the mathematics of logic, some theories hold more water than not because they are repeatable and these theories are the basis for all the industrial and technological miracles of the day. 

     All I know for sure, from personal experience is that; when I called on the Heart of Compassion… the Big Kahuna… from the depths of my heart, something happened to me that has happened to others down through the ages. I won’t call this experience consistently repeatable because the depths of the heart are unknown, but it was a sure thing that it put me on the path. It took a leap of faith, but once taken, there was no turning back.

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Delight in Concord

Abandoning malicious speech, he abstains from malicious speech; he does not repeat elsewhere what he has heard here in order to divide (those people) from these, nor does he repeat to these people what he has heard elsewhere in order to divide (these people) from those; thus he is one who reunites those who are divided, a promoter of friendships, who enjoys concord, rejoices in concord, delights in concord, a speaker of words that promote concord.

Majhima-Nakaya i 179

~

It seems to be the worst part of the internet: we no longer are able to give polite discord a chance because we think we now know things about other people that we have absolutely no conceivable knowledge of, or about, otherwise. We have access to what other people are thinking in places like Facebook that we never had before. On such formats we are bombarded with each others' contrary observations. Friendships of several years deteriorate because of how easy it is to pound out our thoughts and emotions on the keyboard before we have given careful consideration of each others' deeply felt opinions. These divisions are caused, not so much by the content of a disagreement, as much as it is that the discourse is usually embedded with a nasty tone. Sometimes we don’t even know how insulting a comment can be and we develop a thick skin about how our words affect others. I can admit that I have done this so many times myself and it is, more often than not, too late often for a frivolous apology. The best I can do now in most cases is to refrain from being so pig-headed and give wide berth to divisive topics. I made a commitment to myself a few months ago that I would only argue for harmony and, in doing so; the greatest benefit arising out of this resolution has been that I have come to delight in concord.

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Life/Death

Eternity & the Bardo of life

Life, as Buddha told us, is as brief  as a lightening flash; yet, as Wordsworth said: The world is too much with us: Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” It is that laying waste of our powers --- that betrayal of our essence, that abandonment of the miraculous chance that this life, the natural bardo, gives us a knowing and embodying our enlightened nature --- that is perhaps the most heartbreaking thing about human life. What the masters are essentially telling us is to stop fooling ourselves: What will we have learned, if at the moment of death we do not know who we really are?

Glimpse After Glimpse,

Sogyal Rinpoche

~

There was a time when I looked down my nose at the emphasis placed on death by all the spiritual disciplines. I believed that this was done because of its inevitability…the fear… the powerlessness that everyone breathing has over it. Most religions promise a life after death in one way or another: heaven or hell… reincarnation... or, in some Western faiths, life exclusively for the righteous. The very idea that one should deny life in order to prepare for death seems to be a morbid preoccupation.  In this regard I believe an atheist has a healthier respect for life because an atheist knows that this is it.... if there is a meaning it is in this life. The idea, that this bell rings, is about living life to the fullest, draws me. It compels me to desire life… life for the living… and it gives me a unique perspective on suffering. Fear of living loses its grip when I consider where I was before I was born… before the egg of life was fertilized and I began the grasping to have more of it. Isn’t that... that blank in consciousness... where I will go when the curtain closes? Now, this exciting prelude from non-existence is the motivation… I want to live life in its fullness in this moment… this eternity between breaths. In the words of Bob Dylan, we are either “busy being born are busy dying.” Between the past and the present is this place… this state of mind… this bardo… Om.

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Buoyant & Calm

… In any case, the meditative experience of awareness beyond the ordinary sense of self can produce a buoyancy and calm that spills over into the rest of your life. Something as humble as washing the dishes in a meditative state can bring the same buoyancy and calm. Rather than feeling yourself rushed, anxious to get the job over with, settle into the task of dish washing as if it were meditation. Check your posture. Relax your body. Let your belly expand with each breath. Do not hurry. Be aware and appreciate your every motion. Stay in the present moment. At the end of the task, you might be surprised to find that, by not hurrying, you finished considerably sooner than would otherwise have been the case.

The Way of Aikido,

Meditation in Action:

George Leonard

~

      When meditation is extended into the rest of my activities, I am able to conduct myself in a manner that is centered. Issues of morality are not considered but all of my actions become balanced and compassionate simply because I am paying attention what I do and am aware of the transfer of energy. Aikido is a martial art and I am hesitant to refer to meditation as a martial art but, in a very real sense, it is because the opponent is the ego and is to be respected as an equal on the mat. 

     Before I start I have to take command of my senses and focus my attention to the center of my body. This is important because the greatest mechanism of the ego rests between my ears and behind my eyes. While my brain is an important reasoning tool, my center is in the gut.  This, the gut, is where we put the usual functions of the brain into a place where it becomes a tool of The Mind.
 
     I’m not sure why, but I sometimes suffer the affects of what is often referred to as A.D.D. Confusion, crowds, and distractions, agitate me and sometimes I experience panic. However, if I stop… balanced and in charge of my body, responsible for my actions, aware of my own energy and the energy of the ego, I can enter into any room confident and at peace… open and helpful… no matter what kind of chaos is going on around me. This means that, although it is wonderful, I don’t need to sit in a quiet place with all the candles and bells in order to meditate. I can be in a meditative state of mind at a bus stop, in the line at the grocery store or anywhere else I go. Most importantly, I can be open to others, kind and compassionate.... free of fear.

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Letting Be

Chogyam Trungpa

There have been a number of misconceptions regarding meditation. Some people regard it as a trancelike state of mind. Others think of it in terms of training, in the sense of mental gymnastics. But meditation is neither of these, although it does involve dealing with neurotic states of mind. The neurotic state of mind is not difficult or impossible to deal with. It has energy, speed and a certain pattern. The practice of meditation involves letting be ---trying to go with the pattern, trying to go with the energy and speed. In this way we learn to deal with these factors, how to relate with them, not in the sense of causing them to mature in the way we would like, but in the sense of knowing them for what they are and working with their pattern.

From: Cutting Through

Spiritual Materialism;

by Chogyam Trungpa, p. 9

~

I consider meditation a heightened state of awareness that is expansive… and not at all expensive. So many rush from one teaching, exercise regimen, or spiritual practice, to another:…one day it is TM; another day it is Zen meditation;… another day they find Jesus;…yoga;… pilates;…a martial art;… an AA group;… a sponsor;… a guru;… a club;… and even a political movement. Each of these is fine. It is possible to excel in any of these and find something of value… but do I really get anything other than a salve for my ego if I don’t stick to one and sit with myself for a minute? Meditation is not a paper towel I discard after using it once. It is a continual practice that opens my mind wider only as I keep at it. I sit as though I’m watching. I’m not waiting for anything to happen because it is already happening. I am feeling, smelling, hearing as fully as I can… my breath… the breeze passing… the sound of an airplane overhead… seeing the brush move in the distance as a deer cautiously peeks through. My heart beats and I breathe… it becomes as simple as that. This is a good place to start and it certainly is where I finish.

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Seeing Myself in the Face of Myself

Conquer your foe by force, you increase his enmity; conquer by love, and you reap no after sorrow.

Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King

~

The Way of Aikido

     I have seen it work on the personal level and I know that this attitude extends out into all my affairs. I can make demands until I’m blue in the face but I will succeed only in driving further away any prospect of anything getting settled. We live in a competitive world with amazing complexities formed around an astonishing amount of cooperation under these circumstances. How is it that we often see ourselves organizing around demands rather than compelling each other towards healing the rifts that divide us? Did Gandhi cause the British Empire to crumble to his demands? He simply sat in front of the Empire’s rifles until the conscience of the oppressors saw themselves in the face of themselves. This is possible where there is a certain amount of civility but, when civility breaks down, as the result of divisiveness, chaos reigns and in chaos is ruin and worse tyranny. Do I wish to win so badly that I forget the others I oppose must exist too? Gore Vidal once asked Tom Hayden... (or was it Jerry Rubin?); “What if you do succeed in 'smashing the State', what would you replace it with?” When cooperation is forced or compelled, the result is contempt… sometimes introverted, other times, overt.

    The answer isn’t so much as to lie down and become a doormat as it is to meld with power. To stand one’s ground and to turn slightly enough to give force its own path… hopefully in agreement. Whether it is in political activism or personality conflicts, I need to stay in a devotional state of consciousness... always open to where healing is possible and the salve of love can be applied: only then can I see myself in the face of myself.

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Devotion

Devotion is the purest, quickest, and simplest way to realize the nature of mind and all things. As we progress in it, the process reveals itself as wonderfully interdependent: We, from our side, try continually to generate devotion, which itself generates glimpses of the nature of mind, and these glimpses only enhance and deepen our devotion to the master who is inspiring us. So in the end devotion springs out of wisdom: devotion and living experience of the nature of mind become inseparable and inspire each other.

Glimpse After Glimpse,

Sogyal Rinpoche

~

     My reticence to adhere to any guru or “master” is based on a spirit of individualism that tells me I am separate from the rest of humanity. This principle of what I thought of as submission to another human being was anathema to everything I knew of after observing/experiencing a wide variety of cults. Humility awoke me to understand that devotion to a guru, a teacher, a sponsor or fellow traveler, is no different from devotion to any other human being. Self-centeredness protected and empowered me up to a point but it was a snake that eventually began eating its own tail. I am grateful to it because it was an inflated ego that had to be smashed in order to “get it” and it could not be smashed until it had been so pumped up it was going to explode on its own anyway.

    It is a strange paradox in that the less self-centered I become the more my individuality is expressed through a peculiar humility that grants me the confidence to face life on life’s terms. When I put my hands together and nod to greet another sentient being it is an act of devotion to the Heart of Compassion that gives me the power absolutely necessary to be myself.

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Varieties of Spiritual Experience

     My analogy for the varieties of spiritual experience goes like this: I had a basement bedroom in my teens. My mother would call down from the top of the stairs to wake me for school. I’d hear her voice calling, “George, it’s time to get up!” and try to get a few more minutes of sleep but, within a few minutes, she’d call again... but a little louder and louder... until I answered… usually annoyed… “I’m up, Mom!” Of course, I wasn’t up at all: but I could squeeze out a few more minutes of precious slumber before she’d call again, “Breakfast is getting cold, wake up!” And then she’d give out a final yell, “I want to hear your feet on the stairs right now or I’m coming down to jerk you out of bed!” 

     Some of us would obediently get out of bed after hearing the first call from our Higher Power and some of us will stall as long as possible but we do wake up of our own accord. This category would be the addict or alcoholic that gets up of his/her own will. These still have to get up the stairs; and, after nourishing themselves, get on to school (gratefully acknowledging that breakfast and lunch bag are prepared by their Higher Power). These can do most of it on their own.

    However, the next category is akin to being awakened when the house is on fire: it is damned hard to wake up someone in a smoke filled room. It takes shaking, and sometimes carrying, the near dead asphyxiated body out of the burning house. And some of us will drift into unconsciousness ‘til a crises becomes so extreme that God will either personally intervene; or, use one of us to play the roll of a firefighter to literally yank us out of slumber.

 The point of all of this is to say that we do have to either take steps to get out of the house and go to school; or, in other more extreme cases, we are rescued from a crises so extreme that we have no power to escape of our own volition. There is a vast array of ways this happens and every one of them is miracle enough for me.

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The Plum Line of Experience

Always seek to set aside the valuations of the world that seem wrong and try to judge them only by those valuations that seem right to you. Do not seek the praise and notice of the world. Be one of those who, though sometimes scoffed at, have a serenity and peace of mind that the scoffers never know. Be one of that band who feel the Divine Principle in the universe, though He be often rejected because He cannot be seen.

Twenty-Four

Hours A Day

A Hazelden Publication

~

     It has been my experience that the so-called “scoffers” are often right when true believers are so very destructively wrong about the practice of faith. I don’t really have that much going on with faith as I do experience. With the exception of a very personal and powerful touch from the helping hand of the Heart of Compassion, the experimental results of physicists, neuro-chemists, biologists and so on, are not at all contrary to my beliefs. My faith is not endangered by the advances of science because it follows much of the same processes of the laboratory. In many ways my experience is validated in a way that lifts my faith rather than undermines it. If I look at the world around me with a detached open-mindedness it is easier to discern where others are right. Whatsoever is kind; whatsoever is necessary; whatsoever is true; this is the plum line far more reliable than whether or not someone believes as I do.

    Now, I might say this about political wrangling between “the left” and “the right”: I look for healing over division. Hardly ever, in most arguments, is the “other side” completely wrong. It seems to me to be that in politics there are true believers… advocates of a cause… that are far more likely to promote “witch burnings” than any auto de fe of the inquisition. Again: Whatsoever is kind; whatsoever is necessary; whatsoever is true; become the plum line trumping blind faith.

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The "Big Questions"

Fret not your mind with puzzles that you cannot solve. The solutions may never be shown to you until you have left this life. The loss of dear ones, the inequality of life, the deformed and maimed, and many other puzzling things may not be known to you until you reach the life beyond. “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Only step by step, stage by stage, can you proceed in your journey into greater knowledge and understanding.

From: Twenty-Four

Hours a Day

A Hazelden Publication

~

     I have mixed feelings about such thoughts. It can seem to be an inducement towards lazy thinking. Couldn’t it be that a scientist harboring this attitude would never discover anything of substance? Wouldn't he resign himself to be satisfied with only what is known? Wouldn't he then cede that whatever isn’t known would be put on a shelf for his moment before the imperial throne of God under the dusty label as“a mystery”? Dogmatists are comforted with the belief that the “Big Questions” can only be answered in the “life to come” but propositions of this sort don’t give me any peace. I do agree, however, that asking why isn’t as important as asking how and what; in other words, I don’t bother myself with why I have alcoholism as much as I consider thoughtfully how I became as I am and what I can do as a remedy. I’m not able to wait for “the life afterwards” for why this happened to me because I have this need to live this life as fully as I can. I can mind my own business about many of the world’s problems but I can also work to relieve suffering as much as that which is within my reach is possible. For these reasons I can ask myself, in a very utilitarian manner, what, or how, can I help make someone else’s life a little better today?

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Open & Mindful

Gradually, as you remain open and mindful, and use a technique to focus your mind more and more, your negativity will slowly be diffused; you begin to feel, as the French say, être bien dans sa peau (“well in your own skin”. From this comes release and a profound ease. I think of this practice as the most effective form of therapy and self-healing.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

~

My greatest challenge has been negative thinking combined with a cynical outlook of the world around me. I suppose I could have listened to the advice of the ages and attempted to think differently but I knew deep inside that I was only repressing the bitterness and contempt that were roots of a weed that would not die by trimming the leaves and lopping off a few stems. Even if I hewed this stubborn thistle of despair to the ground, the roots would still send up shoots. Prayer and meditation, when applied regularly, is the spade and hoe I use to dig down and put light on these defects of character. Bringing them to the light… exposing hidden shame, desperation and self-hatred… admitting them to my self and another human being… casts them aside into the hands of one far greater than me. These are the steps I take to uproot this prickly bush.

      I carry this message to others in the hope that they too can find the grace of God in their daily affairs. There is a simplicity and beauty to this way of living that has changed my heart. The Heart of Compassion… the candle in the dark… chases it away and sheds light in every dark corner. Open and mindful, I become more and more at piece with myself and others.

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Start All Over

The beginner’s mind is an open mind, an empty mind, a ready mind, we might really begin to hear. For if we listen with a silent mind, as free as possible from the clamor of preconceived ideas, a possibility will be created for the truth of the teachings to pierce us, and for the meaning of life and death to become increasingly and startlingly clear.
    My master Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche said: “The more and more you listen, the more and more you hear; the more and more you hear, the deeper and deeper your understanding becomes.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

~

I had to hit bottom to have what the Buddhist teachers call “beginner’s mind”. I’m not so sure everyone has to “hit bottom” in the same sense I did but that is how I got where I am today. It is in this place of complete humility and open-mindedness where the awakening I experienced revealed itself to me. The beginner’s mind doesn’t mean that I stay where I was that day but it does mean I carry into my daily activities the same spirit… free of preconceived ideas of what it meant and an open-minded acceptance. Spiritual teachings all seemed to be just a bunch of Sunday school platitudes until this place… this sitting and listening… this hearing ‘til I heard the truth of the teachings that pierced my consciousness were awakened in my heart.

      Of course, my experience tells me it wasn’t long until I stood on my own two feet and laughed… perhaps even mocked the appearances of sanctity of others… took back some of the pride and ego that closed my inner ear… fear and hesitation stymied my vision… took back pride in my progress. So, I  still do have to sit… to meditate in “the calm” and clear away with the whisk broom of consciousness… sweeping away the delusion… so that I can understand the teachings… so that my pulse beats the 12 Steps and the Dharma of this awakening. This is the beginner's mind. Time sober and long term practice doesn't count for beans in this place... only the beginner's mind... open mind, empty mind... ready mind.

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