Gossip

The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.

Will Rogers

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It doesn't take much, as far as brain-cells go, to see the wisdom of this statement and it makes us laugh at ourselves. I believe that the best humor is the humor that holds a mirror to my face. It has, however, been to my benefit to find comfort in the idea that someone else is thinking about me enough to make me the center of their gossip. I loved the Gracie and George Burns series where George would plant a seed of gossip, go upstairs to his den, turn on his TV and watch Gracie turn the item into a comical drama, from a comfortable distance. We felt as though we were let in on the joke. That is what it takes at times… go upstairs and watch what goes down with a sense of humor. When I remember Rule 62; “Don’t take yourself so damned seriously!” I can find humor in what others say and do before I go off on a scheme for revenge.

geo 5,275

Impermanence

Ask yourself these two questions: Do I remember at every moment that I am dying, and that everyone and everything else is, and so treat all beings at all times with compassion? Has my understanding become so keen and so urgent that I am devoting every second to the pursuit of enlightenment? If you can answer “yes” to both of these, then you really understand impermanence.
Sogyal Rinpoche
Glimpse After Glimpse

۞۞۞۞۞

I've always considered spiritual practices featuring a  morbid obsession with death to be fear based and, therefore, unworthy of my attention until I read The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. Here was another take on death that wasn’t morbid at all. It was about living life to its fullest… isn’t that what enlightenment is really about?  If I am living in fear of death my motivation is that of a reward in an undetermined future whether that reward is in heaven, purgatory, hell, or in any other Nirvana. We in Alcoholics Anonymous can be heard to say, “We can’t be frightened by Hell because we have already been there!” And, furthermore, “We are drawn by the promise of Heaven because we have had a taste of it in this life.” By simply cleaning house, trusting God (the Heart of Compassion) and giving myself to helping others so afflicted it has worked for me and I am so very sure that it will work for anyone else.

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Being Here... Now

There is something to do, but at the same time whatever you are doing is only related to the moment rather than being related to achieving some goal in the future, which brings us back to the practice of meditation. Meditation is not a matter of beginning to set foot on a path; it is realizing that you are already on the path --- fully being in the nowness of this very moment --- now, now, now. You do not actually begin because you have never really left the path.
 


Chogyam Trungpa;
Shunyata,
Cutting Through
Spiritual Materialism, p. 203

۞۞۞۞۞

This being in the now means to me that all I have to take care of is what is to be taken care of that is right before me. A boxer goes into the ring with the immediacy of the arena in a very real and practical sense of the now. A chess player of any consequence sees several moves ahead but each move is predicated on the one at hand. The carpenter pays attention to the wood that is being cut in the moment and here I am in the moment… sitting at my desk as I type out words that try to capture my thoughts as they flow. I have to say that it is most important that I pay attention to what I am doing now than it is to envision the end result. On a certain level the one who hones a craft is as much or more of a yogi than some guy that sits on a mountain top honing the contrivances of the mind.
    I am a bit distracted today as we prepare to go to LA to attend Lenore’s funeral services. In times such as these the little glimpse of life that is framed between birth and death becomes more accentuated as a brief candle of light that is snuffed out and returns to eternity. The big questions of, “what is the use” and “why bother” are highlighted by the present moment demanding that if I am ever to care, I must care now... if I am ever to understand, it is to understand now... if I am ever going to practice compassion, I must do so in this very moment.
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Change

Everything changes, everything passes,
Things appearing, things disappearing
When all is over --- everything having appeared and
   having disappeared,
Being and extinction both transcended ---
Still the basic emptiness and silence abides
   and that is blissful Peace.
 
From: The
Buddhist Bible;
Selections from
 Sanskrit Sources, p. 84
۞۞۞۞۞

Bonnie has been in the hospital since last Friday for tests to find the source of anemia and to have another transfusion; her third since December 2nd. While Bonnie was there her mom, Lenore, passed away Saturday. Because Lenore’s brain was gradually being eaten away with Alzheimer’s, it wasn’t unexpected and there was a certain relief that went with the loss. The process is so gradual that it just seems to be the most natural procession. I like the term “passed away”, especially in these cases, because the word death is so damned final. I admire her father’s commitment to stay with her to the end instead of putting her out of sight in the final months.

    I do freely admit, however, that thinking about the ultimate change evokes a mild discomfort. Because I never really expected to live past thirty, and certainly not past fifty, at sixty six, I would think that I would be ready already. I can’t help but to think of the unfinished novel… the painting… that piece of alabaster on the porch that I started carving years ago… the ones I never told “I love you” the last time I saw them… the dishes in the sink undone and so on. I owe so many roosters to so many people (as in the death of Socrates).  Ah, I still have time to finish some of this business today.
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The Wisdom of Compassion

You do not question or worry about your wisdom. You just do whatever is required. The situation you are facing is itself profound enough to be regarded as knowledge. You do not need secondary resources of information. You do not need reinforcement or guidelines for action. Reinforcement must be conducted in a tough manner, you must do it because the situation demands your response. You do not impose toughness; you are an instrument of the situation.

Chogyam Trungpa:

The Open Way,

Cutting Through

Spiritual Materialism, p. 107

۞

I have more than a few shelves of books devoted to spiritual knowledge or attainment; however, I always suspected that wisdom never arose from the dusty tomes arranged in those stacks. There are just too many examples in my life of those who have never picked up anything more profound than the morning newspaper but conduct their lives in a life as meaningful as it is wise. Anyone who doubts the wisdom of a farmer; rising every morning under any and all conditions, tending to the land allotted to him for his family and community’s sake, is a fool if he spends his time huddled around the greatest teachers without learning a thing about truly living. To foster respect and understanding for all who labor; taking pride in hard work; going to bed with aching muscles and sore back; sitting all night on the graveyard shift at a cab stand; a soldier standing watch at a lonely post in some far away country; a clerk at a desk at a miserable job but still perform at their best in order to feed a family; mothers and fathers all, giving their lives to nursing and nurturing their  children: they are as wise or wiser than any scholar cramming a head full of knowledge without the wisdom of compassion. If I am to learn anything of value in this life it is to learn how to love and, in doing so, to love well. Any mother who has held a child to her breast knows more about love than I ever will.

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And God Rests

By amending our mistakes, we get wisdom.
By defending our faults, we betray an unsound mind.

The Sutra of Hui Neng

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At first I was baffled by the almost impossible and, at times, insane obsession with task of correction... for the faults that had sapped my strength when I had youth and dreams: these are wiggly things. Like any absolute tyrant the unsound mind… the neurotic mind… employs every contrivance in the defense of ego. As if it weren’t enough to maintain this power over the faults and traps of past behavior, the whole damned thing seems so difficult that only the greatest fool would attempt it: for here I stand alone with a life I dreamed would be fulfilled past middle age. And now I approach in awe of the wonder the dying colors of the autumn towards its winter, the end of it, too late… too late: a life encircled with a long deep sleep.

   Yes, I admit, I stand alone with only the courage to put one foot in front of the other and aided by no ambition other than the hope I can contribute to healing and to cause no more harm. I have no high spiritual quest for power or control… no more than some kind of settlement with this unsound mind. I read the Tempest by Shakespeare one more time and weep for the passing of a dream… a chimera of an illusion created that is but a stage. On this fragile platform I am merely an actor resigned to playing a bit part. I love, not only the accomplishment of this life so far, but I play my part with very little real remorse. Yes, I defend my faults for I have loved my mistakes… missed cues… pitfalls and stumbling across the boards. From these I was taught that I would learn but I hardly did and rarely do. In the end I conclude that admitting this condition is my most lofty accomplishment for admitting them liberates my soul from the grip of oppression.

What? I say to you, it must be Saturday and God rests.

geo 5,270

Does God Have A Penis?

… this means a belief in a Creator who is all power, justice, and love; a god who intends for me a purpose, a meaning, and a destiny to grow, however… haltingly, toward His own likeness and image.

As Bill Sees It, p. 51

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 At the time Alcoholics Anonymous was published in 1939, the masculine pronoun was used universally in reference to humanity at large besides when referring to the paternalistic concept of God as “Our Father”. The text for our Fellowship was far ahead of its time for an open-minded approach to race,  and creeds…sexual identity and homosexuality has been, for the most part, addressed open-mindedly by the membership also. This is a fact that was even more remarkable because, at that time, most of the culture and the membership of AA were from the Judeo/Christian tradition with only a smattering of other beliefs.
   
   Since 1939 AA has grown and spread throughout the world with a diversity that is astonishing. I have no bone against those who see God in any form, light or gender; however, it is somewhat annoying to me that the language of 1939 is, outside of the original text, still used officially. Considering that the use of language went through a shift in the West away from the universal use of the masculine pronoun since the advent of feminism in the seventies, while other concepts of divinity have filtered into the culture, the use of the pronoun can a stumbling block for whole generations (whose education has rigorously extruded sexism from our language). I suppose it might be true that the majority of AA membership in the USA adhere to whatever their religious beliefs were before coming into the AA, but I believe that we are alienating a huge sector of our Fellowship that cringes and tolerates the insistence on the use of the archaic pronoun in our literature. God as we understand God appeals to a much greater audience than “God as we understand Him” and it smacks of arrogance to insist on archaic concepts departing from our usual broad-mindedness otherwise. Isn’t it more important how we act on our beliefs rather than whether God has a penis, a vagina or any sex at all?

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