The Flickering Flame

For meditation to happen, calm and auspicious conditions have to be created. Before we have mastery over our minds, we need first to calm their environment.

     At the moment, our minds are like a candle flame; unstable, flickering, constantly changing, fanned by the violent winds of our thoughts and emotions. The flame will burn steadily only when we can calm the air around it; so we can only begin to glimpse and rest in the nature of mind when we have stilled the turbulence of our thoughts and emotions. On the other hand, once we have found a stability in our meditation, noises and disturbances of every kind will have far less impact.

Glimpse After Glimpse,

Sogyal Rinpoche

~

     The idea of making a sacred place to meditate is an ancient one and has tremendous merit as a productive way to start the day. Some would propose that it is locked into our DNA, going as far back as cave paintings. Just walking in; sitting down in a pew of a cathedral or temple, has a calming influence, as my mind is drawn to the quiet in which the place absorbs me. Is it no wonder that many flee to such sanctuaries in troubled times? In my home I found it helpful to make a place I call my private sanctuary for meditation. It isn’t much… a small table with a few pictures of inspirational people… folks I admire (for instance, I have, on one side, pictures of Mark Twain and Chief Joseph… on the other side I have one of Geronimo and another of Jack Kerouac) perhaps a small piece of sacred sculpture, a candle or two, and  an incense burner. This is where the liturgy of prayer and the practice of meditation combine to help me make contact with my concept of a Higher Power.

    There are some religious folks that would think that this practice is a form of idolatry but nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t worship these objects. If anything, they are merely inspirational in the sense that an executive keeps a picture of his children on his desk to remind him why he is there. They are not objects of superstition like a wearing the same socks all season as is often the practice of baseball players. If I could be accused of anything, it would be that these pictures and such are crutches. I can easily accept that criticism because I know I am spiritually disabled. I am as a man who has lost a leg along these lines and I know I will never grow a new one.

    However, after I sit a few minutes in the morning, I have found that my Higher Power is portable. I can take this spirit with me wherever and whatever I do. If the Heart of Compassion is a crutch… so be it. I am forever grateful for the places where the flickering flame is calmed by the air around it.

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Sensitivity... the Receiving Set

To be sensitive is good, because sensitive people are aware of a thousand interesting or beautiful things where the obtruse person gets nothing. To do any creative work you have to be sensitive, because the creative worker is a “receiving set” for divine mind.

Excerpted from p.333:

Around the Year with

Emmet Fox

~

The Buddhist teacher, Sogyal Rinpoche, wrote in today’s meditation that the nature of mind is like a mirror with five powers of “wisdom”. I think Emmet Fox would agree because in the reflection I cited above he speaks of the creative powers of the sensitive person. What Fox calls “intelligent” use of sensitivity, the Rinpoche calls “the wisdom of “the womb of compassion”; the “mirrorlike wisdom”; the “equalizing” wisdom; the “wisdom of discernment”; and “all-encompassing wisdom”.

    Buddhists usually profess that there is no belief in “God”, or gods, fundamental to the practice of the discipline. I do hear of the masters teaching of self and “Self”… mind and “Mind”. The confusion of using the word “God” is what sets us in the West apart but I see it differently because, when examined thoroughly, we speak of spirits that influence us. The spirit of love/anger; spirit of desire; and so on, this compels me to conclude that what is spoken of by Buddhists as the “all encompassing spirit” is what we call God over here. God is, after all, whatever we esteem higher than us. At one time my God was the bottle. But my spirit was lifted out of that morass when I contemplated, and acted, on the spirit of compassion. I am guided by the spirit of divine discernment and understanding; thus, I became more sensitive to whatever spirit I held up before my aspirations. In doing so my mind became a receptor to a Power greater than myself. I call that power the Heart of Compassion because it is that spirit that smashed the temple of my obsession to self destructive addictions.

     The proverb says it best: “Wisdom is the principle thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” Proverbs 4:7

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The Sky is Blue

Anything which is created must, sooner or later, die. If enlightenment were created in such a way, there would always be the possibility of ego reasserting itself, causing a return to the confused state. Enlightened is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it. In the Buddhist tradition the analogy of the sun appearing from behind the clouds is often used to explain the discovery of enlightenment. In meditation practice we clear away the confusion of ego in order to glimpse the awakened state. The absence of ignorance, of being crowded in, of paranoia, opens up a tremendous view of life. One discovers a different way of being.

Chogyam Trungpa;

Cutting Through

Spiritual Materialism

~

If I am truthful, I can admit that I don’t really know what is meant by “enlightenment”, nor do I believe I have experienced a permanent state of awakened consciousness. I read what those, I suppose, have experienced it have written and wonder whether or not they are blowing smoke up my ya-ya. Then I think of the experience I had myself when the obsession to drink seems to have been permanently lifted, I can understand that this was a glimpse at enlightenment. I don’t have to make up anything about that experience. I can look at the singular event and break down the essential elements that had been there in the beginning. I can make as much sense of it as I can but, the reality is, everything I might say about my experience that comes from analyses is purely conjecture. If I testify that I came to know God in some intimate way in that moment, I know in the depths of my heart that I am making stuff up to explain what just might be impossible to explain. I suspect that the Heart of Compassion put a foot in the door of my consciousness. I take from this experience tremendous encouragement to open that door a bit further to allow the light in. I stop asking myself; will it come flooding in at once in a singular, cataclysmic, ego smashing, event or does it gradually enter as I patiently practice? 

The sky is blue above the clouds. It is here and it is now.

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Follow Compassion

A Blatant Plagiarization
 
To truly desire to follow the Heart of Compassion’s will, therein lies happiness for me. I started out wanting my own way. I wanted my will to be satisfied. I took and did not give. Gradually I found that I was not happy when I was selfish, so I began to make allowances for other people’s wills. But this again did not give me full happiness, and I began to see that the only way to be truly happy was to try to do the will of the Heart of Compassion. In these times of meditation, I seek to get guidance so that I can be absorbed into the will of the Heart of Compassion.

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Altered from:

Hazelden Publication,

Twenty-Four Hours A Day

Spiritual Competition

We Attempt to momentarily suspend all mental and physical activities. We try to relax our entire bodies, then close our minds to the worries and anxieties about us.

    What do we think about? Just relaxation. Then we let go of our cares and turn to God with this simple prayer: Thy will be done.

    How long do we continue this? We can be our own judges. It can be a matter of minutes if necessary. We know, however, from experience, thirty seconds of complete relaxation of mind and body will do the trick. It is simple. Try it.

The Little Red Book:

Hazelden Publications,

pp. 106-107

~

     Being competitive, and always striving to do better than others, is engrained in my mind. Healthy competition would be a good thing if I didn’t have this one physical, spiritual, and mental illness: I am an alcoholic. Naturally, I carry my disease into every activity if I don’t address it. In meditation I find that, even here, I try to sit longer, reach perfection of mind, and come up with insights more profound than others when we share our experience afterwards. No matter how deeply I bury, deny or hide from it, this very notion blocks me from progressing… truly relaxing and allowing the Heart of Compassion to do the heavy lifting. "Thy will be done" is the heavy lifting and, in this case, relieves me of the pressure of taking credit for the serenity and clarity of mind practicing meditation develops. I am no longer in competition and I can let go of the idea that I am better, or worse, at my practice than others. I can accept and claim my own humanity as an asset rather than a handicap.

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Preparation & Meditation

Sometimes people think that when they meditate there should be no thoughts and emotions at all; and when thoughts and emotions do arise, they become annoyed and exasperated with themselves and think they have failed. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a Tibetan saying: “It’s a tall order to ask for meat without bones, and tea without leaves.” As long as you have a mind, you will have thoughts and emotions.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

~

Reality; or getting it real, that is where I am headed when I sit. Meditation takes preparation. Preparation requires self-examination and prayer. Preparation takes care of the most haunting and persistent thoughts that arise and the liturgy of recited prayer elevates my thinking … not to escape… but to view myself and the world from a liberated perspective. As I sit… shopping lists… chores to be done… people I care about… resentments…something she said… something I did… guilt… things undone… incidents that occurred several years before provoking laughter… all these pass through my mind. Should I try to repress them they would simmer and build up pressure… recurring… insisting… persisting… and I arise from sitting more exhausted than refreshed. Instead, I breathe them in and breathe them out… like packages to be mailed… breathe them in and breathe them out… giving them to God and letting go. It takes practice and I am told to be kind to myself and, if I can, laugh…. the Heart of Compassion will laugh with me.

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The Universal Eye of God

Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 87

~

I thought of myself as open-minded and tolerant of other religious practices and, even more so, I believed in my heart that I need not be tolerant of political/religious beliefs I felt to be evil. Then it occurred to me that I don’t need to ascribe to a religion or political belief to be tolerant of the persons professing to know something of the world by ascribing themselves to these beliefs. Still, it was a harder pill to swallow than I thought because it meant that; if I sit and listen… maybe even open their literature and read it… hear the pundits, preachers and soap box orators on TV and radio without automatically and immediately condemning who was saying it, my heart opened to them without taking on their beliefs. After all, what am I afraid of if my beliefs are so damned solid?

    In the end, I realize I know very little outside of my own experience… the rest is opinion… usually, other people’s opinion and not my experience or that of the pundit. When they talk from experience, my ears perk up. After I compare it with what I’ve experienced, another test goes something like this: Is it kind? Is it necessary? And is it true?
 
   I found that I am mistaken to see others as evil; no matter what they believe, and to do so is often a murderous attitude that can inflict unimaginable suffering and oppression no matter what my intention. Seeing our common experience, and accepting it as valid, is the path to healing. But that doesn’t mean I bend-over and bow unthinkingly to mistaken ideas. It simply means I don’t regard the human being with those beliefs as anything less than me when viewed through the eye of the Heart of Compassion.

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