Nothing Religious (or even spiritual) today

Sesshin ended last Sunday.  Then on Tuesday, the last beloved guests returned to their respective homes.  Since then I have been basking in solitude, doing nothing "productive".

I have washed and folded sheets, drinking in their clean fresh smell and soft silky feel.  I have piddled around rearranging bookshelves and organizing both Lammi bills for payment and some computer files.  I have gone through 3 countries worth of clothes, storing some, cutting others into rags, (Juha - I have a piece of cloth for you to use in your rakusu sewing project), and, I have grumbled while putting glasses and cups and plates and whatnot back into their appointed places.

Yesterday, I whistled some Dixie (you probably have to be American to know that quip), listened to some music and an audio book while I started on returning the Lammi kitchen to non-sesshin condition.  Today, other than washing out refrigerators taking things to the recycling bins and packing away a few perishables into mouse-proof storage, I have no other "plans" and will let the day unfold as it will (again).

I miss these kinds of days. They do not come all that often anymore, and they are exactly what I experience on long trails: quietly succulent, exquisitely peaceful, and deeply satisfying.  There is a sense of timelessness as one thing effortlessly flows into another - step after step, breath after breath    ......and noticably, on days like these, there are no other human beings in sight (only have had a few skype meetings this week).

This leads me to wonder what it is about other humans that can alter this currently present "solitude self" state of mine.  I put "solitude" in quotations here because I am beginning to realize that the alteration I experience when people come into sensory range, may have nothing to do with aloneness at all.  In fact, it is probable that this particular "solitude self" configuration just coalesces more easily when alone. This must be true because, with a very, very few - very, very intimate companions, this present morph/experience can, and does, appear.

Oh - I can list all kinds of "true" explanations about why this is probably so, but these explanations don't REALLY answer the question of why/when/what/how/who.  (What is this?  Don't know!)

For the most part, I do not find being with people aversive, just different - (busier somehow), and in the past, extended solitude has always led me back into a longing for contact with others of my species.  Interestingly, animals do not disrupt this "solitude self" as people tend to, but actually enhance it when we acknowledge one another though looks and sounds.  This makes me think about relational being and I wonder if there is some kind of lack in my usual connection (full trust?) with folks that makes most of my interchanges with people somehow incomplete.

Hmmmmm......as I write the above, the veil is pulled from the mirror and I can see it is indeed a lack on my part, a turning away from "full frontal boundary-less engagement".  (That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one!  -  lol)  I think more often than not, when I am with people, there is a small portion of myself always held apart in "observation" (neutral noticing?  - hypervigilant monitoring?  - analytical categorizing?) and as I taste this space in this moment, it definitely has a defensive flavor.  It doesn't feel like this is a large part of what is going on most of the time, but I can see/remember that this "non-emotional" intellectual observer can grow much larger when threat is perceived (accurately or inaccurately). And when it grows larger it becomes "cold"(?)   (Is this the same observer or different? Don't know - Do know that "solitude self" doesn't have a noticeable "observer"  What is that?  Don't know!)

But onto other navel gazing in solitude ---

I experience solitude as a "fasting" from communication/interaction with others of our kind.  This fast develops/creates/enhances the hunger of loneliness in me .......and then, from this space, each morsel of connection/conversation/presence is savored for the unique flavors inherent in each.  Gluttony of connection on the other hand seems to lead to indigestion, hedonism, and mild discomfort (dissatisfaction?) for me.  I feel like I am "waking up" again from an unnoticed "sleep" in these few days and hours of alone.  I ask myself - "Must one (I)  be a hermit to truly experience the preciousness of all, of each and every person?"   I answer myself, "Don't know!"

Oh - and one more paradox before we finish today, -  I never miss solitude days when they are not here.  I only miss them when I return to them.

Some Very Preliminary Musings on God, Ego and Mysticism East and West

(Hmmmmm......   big topic this).

This musing is sparked by discomfort I experience when Christian writers seem to speak of God as something other than creation, something outside of creation.  When they do this, they almost always allude to, or speak directly of, this God as having a game plan of some sort, complete with desires and the consequences of desires, (anger, joy, sadness).

Now, beyond what may or may not be accurate, let me speak of the hook on which I hang.

To me, to speak of God as an entity (separate or not) with will to do and desires to fulfill, seems to be  an anthropomorphizing of this which we call God.  In this WE make God into our likeness, and when I do that, I can definitely fall into seeing God as a dictator with resources and understanding no greater than my own.  Resentment then arises as I see "unfairness" of being at the whim of another, all be it, all powerful something/somebody.  This type of relationship just seems false to me somehow, and if not false still something I am happy to rebel against and be punished for.  God in this limited (false?) form reminds me in some ways of the Twilight Zone episode of "Its a Good Life".  

I probably have this sense of trepidation, distrust and rejection of an anthropomorphized God since I grew up in a home where parents were unstable, immature and who thus, tended to be very conditional in their love and acceptance of me, of each other, and of everything and everybody else.  If I had experienced a home where parents were more accepting of life as it is and who were able to consistently exhibit a love not predicated on my or other's behavior or attitudes, then perhaps I could surrender to such a conceptualized God.  Is this ego?  Is this not wanting to be less than anything else?  Perhaps, perhaps not - I don't know - and I fall back into habit (being?) of many years now and become the question(s) "What is this?"  "Who is it that rejects?"  - and I answer myself  -"don't know" - and relax into what is.

The Christian mystics often speak about us not being God in a way I relate to........ in a way that seems the same as my parlance of the wave not being the ocean but yet is the same as the ocean.  The ocean is not the wave(ing), but is. The wave(ing) I am, is the ocean expressing its ocean-ness.  I am -and -  I AM.   I see/experience/am multiplicity and unity - NOT - greater than and less than (though this would be part of the whole as well (verse from Affirming Faith in Mind - "Distinctions such as large and small
 have relevance for you no more. The largest is the smallest too—
here limitations have no place").  In this, surrender is joy.  

I suspect this dichotomy I am addressing in this preliminary musing is a tempest in a teapot, but it consistently hooks me.  So far, Finley, Rohr and Bourgeault (teachers of the Living School) speak more loudly of waving-s of sea than they do of God the creator apart from creation - though the will of God, the desire of God is still there in their language and I wriggle upon the hook.

Now let me speak briefly of the word which has brought me to this discussion today.  That word is unworthy.

I see this word over and over again in Christian literature.  "We are unworthy. I am unworthy" of, (fill in the blank), God's love, God's mercy, God's sufferance to my continued existence, Grace, etc., and in response to such a statement comes:

1) First a a visceral experience of outrage.

2)  Second, an understanding that to hold a position of unworthiness of one's self, and thus being the opposite of God, (dichotomy) actually strengthens identification with the personality/ego, (which is simply the clothing covering simple centrality).  This position of unworthiness is supposed to free us from ego/personality but fails more times than not - and often results in creating an ego-morph of "false" humility. (my opinion).  

3) and Thirdly, if I but change the wording a bit to create the concept/understanding that "I" (relative and universal) cannot, need not do anything to be/experience the totality of oneness (God), (or cause it to disappear), then, there is relaxing into "truth", that sense of wholeness which I experience as love.  

Necessary re-framing?  Egoistic manipulation?  Bridge building between isolated morphs?  Intellectual grappling with paradox?

"Who asks?" - "Don't know"

- to be continued -

Same - same but different. Different - different, but same

I haven't had much to say lately.  It seems that the conflict I have been feeling while "straddling" the divide (my perception) between Christianity and Buddhism has pretty much faded away.  Not to say that I don't still grapple with worded concepts while recognizing the "sameness" of the "non-dualistic state/"buddha nature"/"unity of the cosmos".  I do, but I am enjoying the whole process and am benefiting terrifically on many levels.

1) an increased freshness of personal practice
2) better intellectual understanding (new perspectives) of what practice is which then allows me to better share the "fruits" of practice with others
3) recovering a part of Karen which had been placed to one side for many years which now equals an even greater ease in the world these days
4) new friends
5) --- and I never thought I would say it, - but-  there is a joy in dusting off and using my "critical' faculties and "learning" again in the academic arena of life.

So all in all, this is turning out to be a very stimulating, overall pleasant experience.

***************

Today, I watched a couple of lectures given by James Finley of the Living School and read several of the texts assigned.  These included an old favorite:

Once again, this is a book I have not revisited in more than 20, perhaps even 30 years.  And, once again, it is fertile ground in the re-plowing.  Same - same, but different.  Different - different, but same.  I can hold both same and different at the same time, but for me the "sameness" seems more true, and I ponder once again, how is it we all cannot see the "sameness" everywhere - in everything - in everyone?  As humans, we connect with the experience of sameness and separate with perceptions/feelings of difference.   The universe is both unity and multiplicity at the same time.  Its just that, it seems to me, if one "knows' sameness, then when one separates existence into convenient "parts" for study and analysis, one never feels threatened by "other" for at another level we know "other" is part of the whole, is us.

Sometimes when I land here, I feel very tired and sometimes enormous sadness overtakes me.  How can people treat each other, other sentient beings, the earth itself, they way they do?  How is it they cannot see our oneness?  They suffer so!  And, they cause so much suffering in their blindness, in their aloneness, in their pain.  I wonder how is it I cannot communicate this "wholeness" to them - and then I remember, no one could give me this experience either.  I had to sit still.  I had to do/be practice.  I also remembered, that this sense of wholeness and embeddedness is not a constant.  It still fluctuates, and even though I "live" here most of the time these days, I can still feel isolated and cut off from "other" too from time to time.  It is not a choice when the "perceptual" field shifts - but it is the choice made again and again to be aware of such shifts when made, that allows us not to be overwhelmed by such shifts.   Same - same, but different.  Different - different, but same.  Unity in multiplicity.  Multiplicity in unity.

I grew blue holding life as it is today.  Sometimes I think things will never change - and on days like this, it is not okay that this may be true.  (So much pain forever and forever!  I don't want that!!!)  Then an unknowing bodhisattva sent me this, (never knowing of my "blueness").

Just the medicine I needed.  Yes!  It is there, innate kindness and empathy, and I remember that it is possible for all of us to open to this, and that, even when we run into those who would harm us or others, we can still connect empathically with them through their (and our) fear, rage, disgust, etc. which they are experiencing in the moment.  We can always connect as human beings (or with other sentient beings as well - ie. scared dog tries to bite rescuer) as both of us know how terror, hate, anger, jealousy, etc. feels as part of the experience of life.  So, today I could connect with all the others in the world who feel the same sadness as I did today, who are, like me as I was an hour ago, feeling as if the world can never change, and that it SHOULD be different than it is!!!!).  

                                                          We are never alone - ever!

I cannot choose what feelings come to me or when, but I can choose how to work with them.

"May all beings attain Buddhahood"

Lamb Chops and Charlie Horses

Finished up sesshin yesterday and now I am writing this blog post from a car driving around the northern most portion of the Baltic Sea from Sweden to Finland.  Amazing this technology!!!  WiFi and Smart phones may have their isolating aspects, but this ability to instantaneously communicate with anyone on the globe at any time, (I just finished a quick chat with my daughter who lives in the USA near Atlanta Georgia), is just mind blowingly marvelous!

I have been in a quirky mood ever since I saw my first hedgehog in the wild yesterday.   This little bundle of cuteness just appeared in my flashlight beam early in the morning as I was walking from my cabin to the zendo.  He was totally engrossed with what he was doing and where he was going and just waddled past me on the path as if I were not there.  I think I smiled through the whole day - my students must have thought I was truly zen bonkers!

Anyway, being in a light mood (and wanting to hang out here a bit longer), I decided to read a book that has been on my "To Read" list for several years now, Christopher Moore's book, Lamb

The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years — except Biff, the Messiahs best bud, who has been resurrected to tell the story in the divinely hilarious yet heartfelt work “reminiscent of Vonnegut and Douglas Adams” (Philadelphia Inquirer).

Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Saviors pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But theres no one who loves Josh more — except maybe “Maggie,” Mary of Magdala — and Biff isnt about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.

OMG!  I haven't had so much fun in a loooong time.  This book is hilarious!  And I am noticing, it is also working in some strange way to "demystify", "normalize" God, Jesus, Christianity, etc.  for me in a very good way.  Anyway, just thought I would pass on the fun.

- Oh - and the Lamb Chops and Charley Horse title, --- anyone out there besides me remember those puppets and Sheri Lewis?  

Cloud of Unknowing

As part of the Living School curriculum, I have been rereading the Christian classic, "The Cloud of Unknowing".  It has been at least 35 years since I looked at this text, and as is often true with previously read books, in seeing from a different time and place perspective, reading with "new" (fresh) eyes, I end up finding things in it I did not see before and making connections I could not make before.  Was it Heraclitus who wrote, "A man cannot step into the same river twice"?  Neither the man or the river are the same from moment to moment - yet there is a continuity of process.

I listened to an old Alan Watts lecture when I was in Atlanta this summer which spoke to this same, but not same, concept of process as entity. He used one of the Universities in California (I think it was the University of California, Berkley) as an example of this same but not same process as entity.  Anyway he said this entity, this institution of Berkley does exist, has existed for over a 100 years, yet year to year none of its parts are the same.  Students come and go, Professors, come and go. Curriculum changes.  Policies change.  Buildings are built, torn down, renovated and repurposed from year to year, even day to day.  In short, the University of California, Berkley of today, has none of the same parts as did the same University of 100 years ago, yet it is recognizable as the "same" University. He was using this example to explain how we humans are not a permanent self in the same way Berkley is not permanent but process.  It is, if you will, process or change which is "permanent".  But I digress. Today I wanted to share with you a happy new connection I made in reading the " Cloud of Unknowing" yesterday.  It started when I found this bit in the Ira Progoff translation.   It is in chapter VIII where the unknown author of the Cloud is talking about spiritual life and states there are two parts to it, an active part and a contemplative part.  He goes on to say in part 6.

"The active life is the lower one, and the contemplative life is the higher one. Active life has two degrees  a higher and a lower, and the contemplative life likewise has two degrees, a lower and a higher.  Also these two lives are so joined together that neither of them may be had fully without some part of the other, although they are quite different in their respective parts".

He then goes on to say in part 7,

"Why is this so? The reason is that the highest part of the active life is at the same time the lower part of the contemplative life. Because of this, a man cannot be considered to be living fully the active life unless he is living partly as a contemplative, and correspondingly, a man is not living fully as a contemplative unless he lives a partly active life".

I don't know about the "higher" and "lower" bits, but the above writing did make me immediately think of my Ordinary Mind Zen lineage which emphasizes awakening in everyday life, and also, of a line from my beloved "Affirming Faith in Mind" (written by Sengtsan, aka Kanchi Sōsan d. 606, third Chinese Zen patriarch) which states "Awakening is to go beyond both emptiness as well as form"

Same - same but different. Different - different but same!

For some reason this delights me.  When I made the above connections I immediately remembered a story about Martin Buber which had delighted me in a similar fashion a few days before.  I ran across this story when I was doing some casual research on Buber.  (I had started rereading his "I and Thou" a few weeks ago as preparation for entering into this Western non-dualism practice/study I have taken up).  I hadn't remembered the story at all until I saw it again this time around.  Now it has deep meaning for me, and I understand it in a way I could not back then.  Here is the story taken from the website:

http://philosophycourse.info/lecsite/lec-buber.html

1. If you learn about Buber's life (born, raised, and lived in central Europe during the decades that saw the rise of the Nazi movement), you will see how much his life experience influenced and shaped his whole philosophy. He had been a professor of religion and philosophy and had both taught and written books about religious experience and mysticism. And then sometime in the middle decades of his life he had an experience that had an enormous impact on him. The experience was this:

He had been upstairs in his rooms meditating and praying one morning, fully engaged in deeply religious intensity, when there was a knock at his front door downstairs. He was taken out of his spiritual moment and went down to see who was at the door. It was a young man who had been a student and a friend, and who had come specifically to speak with Buber.

Buber was polite with the young man, even friendly, but was also hoping to soon get back to his meditations. The two spoke for a short time and then the young man left. Buber never saw him again because the young man was killed in battle (or perhaps committed suicide, the story is not entirely clear). Later, Buber learned from a mutual friend that the young man had come to him that day in need of basic affirmation, had come with a need to understand his life and what it was asking of him. Buber had not recognized the young man's need at the time because he had been concerned to get back upstairs to his prayers and meditation. He had been polite and friendly, he says, even cordial, but had not been fully present. He had not been present in the way that one person can be present with another, in such a way that you sense the questions and concerns of the other even before they themselves are aware of what their questions are. "Ever since then," says Buber "I have given up the sacred. Or rather it has given me up. I know now no fullness but each mortal hour's fullness" of presence and mystery. The Mystery, he says, was no longer "out there" for him, but was instead to be found in the present moment with the present person, in the present world. (Between Man and Man, p13 f. ‘It was in the late autumn of 1914, and he died in the war,’ wrote Buber to Maurice Friedman on August 8, 1954.)

He no longer sought The Mystery "out there," but instead found it disclosed in the sacrament of the present moment.

Another person might have seen in this experience only a reminder to listen to your friends more, or to wake up and smell the roses, but Buber saw in it much more. It led him to a major life change and to an ethic, a metaphysic, and a theology, that brought him to see the world completely differently than he had seen it before.

He articulated much of this worldview in I and Thou, a profoundly beautiful work that has had an enormous impact on the lives it has touched. It has become perhaps one of the most influential books of this entire century. Its influence has been felt in disciplines as diverse as poetry and physics, theology and biology, philosophy and psychology. It is not an easy book to understand, partly because it puts a demand on the reader to read it in a certain way (see below), but it richly rewards the reader's efforts. When colleagues and I have assigned this book in our courses, students often find it among the most powerful books they have ever read. (The only worthy English translation is the one by Walter Kauffmann.)

I would like to explore this a bit more now, but I have to stop here and pack.  In a few hours I leave for a ten day trip to Sweden.  It may be a while before I can return to this topic, and to this blog.  We'll see.

"What is this? "

"Only don't know"

paraphrase from Seungsahn 

founder of Kwan Um school of Zen

Outside Grace

I leave Adelynrood today to return home to Finland.  As usual, I am both happy to be heading out and sad to be leaving.  For some reason this predictable journey experience of "dualism" (as unitive) of being both backside and frontside has left me concretely, and otherwise, content in journey which while being neither here nor there, is at the same time, home.  (Ah - to have the gifts of Wilber and Rohr right now - I feel the above is as clear as mud!  - lol)

These weeks in the States I have been reflecting on the "Grace" of being the/an "Outsider".  I have been having fun contemplating what CAN be outside and what does it mean to be outside?  I had fun starting with the premise (realization) that "wholeness" absolutely eradicates in some ways the distinctions of inside and outside, since to have an inside there must be an outside. Take that away and inside ceases to exist  :)  Also fun, is playing with the notion that if one is outside an in grouping, then one becomes firmly established as a member of the out grouping and thus one is "inside" while at the same time being outside.   Obvious!

Then I hopped over to the pragmatism of the outsider position.

Some Positive Aspects (characteristics of "open", "secure" Groups

1. People don't expect you to know the rules
1. Which often means they cut you  a lot of slack and are not offended when one makes a faux pas
2. Folks see you because you are not familiar and often pay you more attention than the usual members of their group
3. One is safer to confide in - more trust? that whatever confided won't (can't?) go any further.

Some Negative Aspects (characteristics of "closed", "insecure" Groups

1. Suspicion and mistrust which leads to
1. Discounting 
2. Judging
3. Rejection

No surprises in any of this and a reminder to hold lightly the locus of interpretation.  When I am on the "outside" of any group, how much of the positive and negative experiences come from me? and how much from the group? And can that kind of distinction be made anyway as we stimulate each other.

Here - another man who can say it much better than I can, Alan Watts:

TYRANT!!!!

"Oh no!  You've got to be kidding me..... I can't read this!" 

Thus, did my mind begin a tailspin dance last night as I found and read the bible passage which was to be one of the scripture readings for today's Chapel service.  I had volunteered last week to take two days in the position of Lector, and now, I was going to have to stand up in front of the community and read this "immature clap-trap!!!" (scary? I don't know. Certainly annoying [maybe even enraging?] to Karen).  Here judge for yourselves!    

Exodus 32: 7-17  New Revised Standard Version

7 The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10 Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.” 11 But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

"Petulant, self-centered tyrant!"

(*Karen clears throat*  - and - *flushes*)   

Ah yes, where was I?  Oh, right ---  after this initial slightly negative reaction, (smile) I settled down, I had promised to do this after all, never mind it was something that triggered me.

"Whew!  Take a breath Karen.  Slow down, be still,  - its okay.  WHAT is this reaction?  These are just words in a book.  This is just a telling, in the same way the Greek "mythology" story of Cronus eating his children is.  You do not have to judge true or not true.....its just what it is".....and..... by the way Karen, why IS it you react with rage at Jehovah in this scene?  Why do you not feel a similar rage at Cronus' cruelty?  Hmmmm?"

So I slowed down, got curious and looked up several translations of this passage.  Then, I sat with the discord awhile (I couldn't find any version that lessened my discomfort) and finally began to work with the passage the same way I have learned to work with dreams, koans and other life puzzles.  What is this?  Who is this?  What is the experience of each person/thing in the dream, koan, conundrum, bible story?  What do they see/know/feel?........and slowly I began to open, then soften in a way I think I never have before where the Bible and Christianity are concerned.   

Now mind you, I have NOT walked around the past 45 years on some kind of a hair trigger.....in fact, it seems I had ignored all the internal discord so well, I had not even let it get enough air time in consciousness to have had more than a momentary blip before being gently but firmly pushed aside.  Nope.  Just not part of my world.  Don't go there.  Nothin' of interest over there.   :)   I'm laughing and telling you this in a funny way, but really, I just didn't know I had such a hard on for God the Father until recently.  Had some inklings, but it just wasn't enough to get my panties in a bunch.  

I do know though, this adventure of mine is really stirring things up and I really don't have any idea where this all is going to go.  I'm a mess, but I get the feeling I am a mess like primordial soup is a mess....... the most amazing things just might rise up out of it/me.  

A couple of things though, ARE clear to me today.  First of which, is YES, this is definitely some un-investigated, unresolved family of origin stuff.   The Jehovah depicted in the above passages reminded me last night of my mother at her very worst when she would tantrum and viciously browbeat, (and physically hit sometimes) to get her way, to make me/us give in.........and then would get all sulky and angry all over again if I/we were not happy about doing things her way, or giving her what she wanted....to the point of, if I/we did not act happy about her getting her way and say thank you to her, she would attack and if I/we offered resistance to that attack, an even worse knockdown drag-out fight would ensue.  No winners in that story.    Ho-hum, - ancient history, but one that made feeling connection with today, and buried feelings that are felt in the here and now, cease to control from beneath consciousness.  (I do wonder if the person who recorded this story in Exodus had a similar background with "authority figures?")

A more important (I think) result came from putting my self in Jehovah's shoes last night, (does God wear shoes?).  I felt his/her/its pain in being diss-ed by the Israelites.  Here he/she/it had cared so much about his/her/their people, that he/she/it had gone way out of their way to take them out of servitude and they thanked him/her/it by saying their Thank You(s) to someone else! (The Golden Calf)  OUCH! I felt his/her/its pain and found myself feeling empathy for God.   (*Karen looks around waiting for someone to yell  BLASPHEMY!  at her*)  

Now if God were just another human being sitting across from me, I would be seeing the vulnerable child who was hurt and so, wanted to hurt back.  But God is God, and he/she/it is supposed to be all loving aren't they?  What happens if they are not?  The story above is not so different from any of the jealous god stories of the Greeks and Romans...... gods made in the image of humans......  shoehorned into a too small conception of what divinity is.  Psychology says, our first "gods" are our parents.  I think this is true......and therefore sometimes we just have to say,  "Poor God" to the divine, "no one really sees you".

I long ago forgave the woman Maxine who just happened to be my mother as part of who she was.  I eventually came to see and understand the scars she carried from her childhood, which continued to effect her as an adult.  Maxine (my mother)  had many wonderful qualities and as we came to a place where we could just be Karen and Maxine together, (rather than mother and daughter with all the expectations those words and roles carry)  the trauma (for both of us) faded from our relationship as adults.  Yet the residue of mistreatment, stemming from my own parents unresolved histories was there (yes Dad had his stuff too),  and left me (the very young, deeply buried, "traumatized" Karen), unwilling to try and relate to any authority at all.  I lived most of my life refusing to depend on anyone, (too afraid), not trusting any person at all, let alone one in authority.  (This happens when the ones you depend on for comfort are the ones who are causing the pain).  I became compliant in a superficial self survival way.  I was no angry rebel.  Any anger or resentment had been carefully packed away.......I just avoided authorities, and when I couldn't, just gave them whatever they wanted, said what they wanted to hear and was whatever they wanted for as long as I had to be in contact with them.  I am sure they all thought I was a very nice, if somewhat baffling person.   

([*Karen clears her throat*]  Ah well, not quite entirely true.  The rage was there, but wasn't accessible to my conscious self and would only appear when I would blackout drink in my teens and early 20's,  It was not at all uncommon at those times for me to attack authority figures, even policemen.  Why I never got my skull cracked is still a mystery to me and is due entirely to the patience of those poor innocents).  

I may never come to "believe" in a personified god of any sort, but the rancor and anxious hostility I was feeling at the beginning of this experiment, is, for the moment, gone. In its place is some kind of sense of relationship.  I read an anonymous quote about forgiveness the other day, which for me, says it all........

"To forgive ......... is to release someone from the obligation of who you want them to be and accept who they are." 

I forgive you God.
Do you forgive me?

"

WOOT! There it is!!!

Reflection

Why is it we so often must leave the familiar to see what we do not see, to hear what we do not hear? It is almost always true for me, that major life altering Aha!s - those perspective shifting, container enlarging experiences/moments, appear out of nowhere in places unfamiliar, and/or with people unknown or barely known, ofttimes when involved in new tasks, or when learning new skills.  These aha!s are always a surprise when they appear, an un-searched for, unexpected broadening of deep "knowing", and then, I am always surprised that I still continue to be surprised when one of these moments comes along  :)

I suspect all this is true for me as in familiar settings and routines, I find "Beginner's Mind"  harder to maintain. This may be a good thing for evolutionarily based biological survival,  but can dull the immediacy of the present moment.  I guess its just that whenever we are in novel situations, we must pay attention in a focused way that is not called for by necessity in our everyday lives. This lack of focus (narrow and broad), then dulls our "presence"with habituation.  If we can remain open to the new and unknown (I personally like the edgy "excitement" that accompanies not knowing), and not shut it out because it is different from what we know or from what we are, then all kinds of new combinations can be made, new angles will be revealed to familiar objects, and concepts are free to change. Fresh newness,  (only in the sense of not seen before though always there), can arise from this unknowing, non-knowing, knowing that we do not know, and we can participate fully in, be fully the ever renewing freshness of "this", "now".

Tuesday Afternoon

Yesterday someone texted me and in greeting, asked how my Tuesday had been going.  I quipped back something like, "Rainy - so lazy". Afterwards I realized the interchange had set a ripple going and my mind had been singing the Moody Blue's "Tuesday Afternoon" behind all the thoughts and speech.  When attention caught up to the internal songfest going on, I immediately remembered a scene from the movie "Bobby", an Emilio Estevez film that tells the story of what took place the day and night Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated......

(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/movies/17bobb.html)

I remembered that this song was used in one of the scenes.  I decided to look for it and found a rendition on youtube and sent it to my friend.  Here it is below:

Great song, great album.  

I was around 17 years old when "Tuesday Afternoon" was first recorded and I was 17 years old when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated (June 6, 1968).  

This is where my memory had flown to, the assassination of the Kennedy brothers.  Perhaps it flew there because of the bible reading we studied yesterday morning;  Luke 6: 17 - 26 

From The Message translation

You’re Blessed

17-21 Coming down off the mountain with them, he stood on a plain surrounded by disciples, and was soon joined by a huge congregation from all over Judea and Jerusalem, even from the seaside towns of Tyre and Sidon. They had come both to hear him and to be cured of their ailments. Those disturbed by evil spirits were healed. Everyone was trying to touch him—so much energy surging from him, so many people healed! Then he spoke:

You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all.
God’s kingdom is there for the finding.
You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry.
Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal.
You’re blessed when the tears flow freely.
Joy comes with the morning.

22-23 “Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and that that person is uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—skip like a lamb, if you like!—for even though they don’t like it, I do . . . and all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company; my preachers and witnesses have always been treated like this.

Give Away Your Life

24 But it’s trouble ahead if you think you have it made.
    What you have is all you’ll ever get.

25 And it’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself.
    Your self will not satisfy you for long.
And it’s trouble ahead if you think life’s all fun and games.
    There’s suffering to be met, and you’re going to meet it.

26 “There’s trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests—look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular.

As I look back to this time, I have the feeling that the assassination of Bobby Kennedy was the final death knell for the "All You Need Is Love" idealism of my generation.   We had lost John F. Kennedy November 22, 1963 (I was 12) and Martin Luther King Jr. April 4, 1968, just a few months before Bobby was killed.  

Anyway, during the last scenes of the movie "Bobby" (see trailer above) they played an excerpt from Bobby's famous "Mindless Menace of Violence" speech which I post part of below:  (the full speech can be found on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhANTymDIYk  as well as the short impromptu speech he made the night before right after he had received news of King's assassination  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoKzCff8Zbs)

Bobby was shot and killed a few short months after this speech.  Our well meaning but tremendously immature generation lost the last of their most viable and visible leaders.  I was so young then and so incredibly immature that I really had no idea of the import of what was happening around me.  It was just another murder after all.  They happened all the time, in movies, in books, in TV programs and TV news.  I am a still a little shamed and always enormously sad when I think about how oblivious I was to everything!   (For example, back then I often comforted myself with the thought it really didn't matter what happened to others, I just needed to take care of myself and those important to me and let others worry about their own problems.  I had enough of my own.   I often set aside worries and concerns about pollution, global warming, potential nuclear war, etc. with the thought that whatever happened to those who were left after I died, really didn't concern me as I would not be here to know what was happening or suffer any of the dire problems that were being predicted at the time).  Talk about the self-centered dream!!!  *sigh*   I do however, forgive this part of me even though she will still show up and try to run back into that self protective isolated cocoon in moments of fear and despair.  I can have compassion for this part when she is not in the forefront as I see how fear bound she is.  However, she still causes me some shame when she appears, and perhaps this is the useful aspect of this emotion..... to wake us to our self-centeredness.  Again, I do not know.  (Have to smile as I reread this before publishing as I refer to my self-centered-self as she rather than I...........lol)

What I do know, is that to be fully what we are, - to be, speak, act our truth/dharma clearly, faithfully, and without contentiousness or agenda, is both the gateway to, and the epitome of freedom, liberation, love, heaven .....whatever your name for this is.

My heroes reflect this quality.....

Ikkyu

Jesus of Nazareth

Mother Teresa

Mahatma Gandhi

Siddhartha Gautama

Peace Pilgrim

.................and so on

And, they demonstrate a truth.  If you are yourself/dharmic, if you trust God/Buddha Nature/the Universe/(use your name/concept here) - then you absolutely trust/love/are whatever happens - 

and know 

that what happens 

just simply happens - 

and that's okay (and also sometimes not, even as it is)

26 “There’s trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests—look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular.

Some of my heroes were killed like the Kennedys and King were because they lived their truth. This is a possibility when we become visible, literally and figuratively.  But, not speaking up, not rocking the boat , while giving an illusion of safety and stability is only that, an illusion.  To quote Martin Niemöller: 

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Some will say whatever happens will be for a greater good, and certainly, "good" flows from any event just the same as "evil" flows at the same time from the same event.  One step back in perspective and one can see the in-breath and out-breath, the Yah and the We of being in all events and circumstances.  Still, as I sit here and remember what was, and what is today, I feel like we failed.  I failed.  The world is as lost today, if not more so than when my generation was born.  And I think it is no coincidence that our loss of King and the Kennedys in our youth led to our killing John Lennon in 1980 during our impoverished adult years.

All I can say to those of you who follow us is; I am so sorry we failed you, that I failed you!  My fervent wish is that you will do better than we have done..... 

(.....and still, everything is well)

All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.  Julian of Norwich

Also rans

Back in the late nineties, everything began to jell for me.  Everything began to make sense.  All the formal schooling I had done in developmental genetics and evolution, and in the then new field of ethology had prepared me.  All the different branches of anthropology and psychology I had studied fit, expanded and elucidated my understanding.  Philosophy, physics and mathematics had enriched the bare bones patterns I was seeing. 12-step programs and other types of participatory learning such as Buddhist and Hindu meditation mixed with readings in all the religious traditions of the world.  I voraciously read every "mystic" I could get my hands on, even the secular ones.  As a result of all of this,  the fog of confusion began to lift while changing nothing at all.  I felt I could see the fog, be blinded by it,  and see through it, all at the same time. The deep abiding question(s) I had been asking up to this point, i.e. - "Why do organisms (and non-sentient entities) behave the way they do?"  "How do we/they behave at all?"  "What is free will?"  "What is nature - nurture?"  "Is behavior different from the organism itself?"  "Can either the organism or their behavior change?"  - all these questions began to resolve themselves effortlessly.    I was afire with insight and would tell the world!

  Then - I read this book.

I have never forgiven Ken Wilber for writing this book  :)  The man had written about everything I had awakened to.  The synthesis I saw (and thought so unique to me), was laid out in these pages far more coherently and concisely than I could ever have done.  In short, THE MAN STOLE MY THUNDER!!!!   Oh my - how far the mighty do fall!...... lol


I am telling you this historical story, because today I am having a similar experience with the Richard Rohr book below.

In the past decade I have come to the inner certainty that all the angst we go through as humans, the psychologically labeled "neurosis" we are prone to, the "normal" tragedy we experience in ordinary everyday life - loss, illness, death, - all of this and more, are not only normal, but necessary for full human development.

Another

  Aha!!!  

The question then began as what do I do with this insight, this "knowing"?  How can I best share this with others?  While continuing to ponder the question this week, I picked up this book and Voila!  - There it all was, broad, clear and cogent.  All laid out and available to all.  Once again I have been beaten to the punch, both in understanding as well as book writing,  *smile*   However, I am happy to say I think maybe I have grown up a bit in the last 20 years. With Wilber's book, I can remember being disappointed and feeling like an "also ran",  but when I saw that this Rohr book was an exposition of my own understanding, instead of disappointment there was a sense of validation and a "selfish" relief.  I don't have to do anything, it has all been done.  All I have to do is give people copies of Rohr's book and Wilber's book when they ask the hard questions. I can happily go back to being a sign post, pointing to others who have the gift of explaining well.

I am so happy that the bones can paraphrase:

"Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I was a signpost in life and saw signposts as "admirable" "also ran" resignation points. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw signposts were not signposts at all . But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see signposts as the perfect useful things they are"

Its a We thing y'all 

 :)

Bodhidharma Wisdom

I have a habit (defense mechanism?) that kicks in when I begin to get frustrated with not being able to communicate with someone, or when discussions get too abstract and heady, or when rightness or wrongness becomes the focus of any interchange (internal or external).  My mind lets go (runs away?) and then the rest of me can remember  La - la -la and  dance - dance - dance.  Sometimes it takes a while before I realize I am caught up (in the self-centered dream), but it is always a relief when the "optical illusion" of life flips and "big picture" reasserts itself.

So today, for your pleasure I present the following: 

First, an excerpt and paraphrase from a famous Zen koan -

Bodhidharma (the first Zen patriarch) met Emperor Wu, (5^th century CE) when he first reached China on his dangerous voyage from India.

When Bodhidharma appeared before him, the Emperor said to him, “I have built temples and ordained monks; what is my merit?”

Bodhidharma replied, “No merit.”

The Emperor then asks Bodhidharma, “What is the first principle of the holy teachings?”

Bodhidharma replied, “Vast emptiness, nothing holy.”

When the Emperor heard “Vast emptiness, nothing holy”, he was flummoxed. Finally he rallied and asked, “Who is standing before me?”

Bodhidharma said, “I don’t know.” 

 Then Bodhidharma promptly turned and left the non-plused Emperor, found a cave and sat 9 years facing the cave wall, until his first disciple appeared............but that is another story for another time.

And Second, a modern rendition of the same tune in counterpoint dance -

I grow tired of the self imposed conflict between concepts and words.  La - la - la........   lets just be the dance  :)

I love Bodhidharma. In Japan they have Bodhidharma dolls that are weighted on the bottom, so that one may hit them and push them over but they spring up again, just like a Bozo doll I had as a kid.  On each of these Bodhidharma dolls the following verse is inscribed:

7 times down - 8 times up

(Isn't it wonderful we woke up today?)