who else but you
please tell me who else
can ever take your placenow give yourself a smile
what is the worth of a diamond
if it doesn’t smilehow can i ever put a price
on the diamond that you are
you are the entire treasure of the house–Rumi
[from Ghazal 2148, from the Diwan-e Shams Poetic translation by Nader Khalili “Rumi, Fountain of Fire” Cal-Earth Press, 1994]
The federal government has warned that grave legal consequences against publishers may result if they edit manuscripts from disfavored countries. Why? Because “such tinkering amounts to trading with the enemy.”
Publishers are forbidden to:
“It is against the principles of scholarship and freedom of expression, as well as the interests of science, to require publishers to get U.S. government permission to publish the works of scholars and researchers who happen to live in countries with oppressive regimes,” said Eric A. Swanson, a senior vice president at John Wiley & Sons, which publishes scientific, technical and medical books and journals.
Nahid Mozaffari, a scholar and editor specializing in literature from Iran, called the implications staggering. “A story, a poem, an article on history, archaeology, linguistics, engineering, physics, mathematics, or any other area of knowledge cannot be translated, and even if submitted in English, cannot be edited in the U.S.,” she said.
I couldn’t have said it any better, and the whole entry was so good that I couldn’t just snip a sentence out of it. Kurt has been exploring the role writing has in his life:
I regard writing not just as personal expression but as practice, as another tool in the small kit I bring with me to the spiritual search. This search is most easily characterized by a desire to get beyond mere belief to knowledge, and this in turn requires that I be fully open to each moment, prepared to learn whatever it has to teach me, without preconceptions or dogma. Writing, by its nature, is interpretive. If the fruit of religious practice is a sense of the sublime, then writing about it is essentially reductive. At its most absurd, it is an attempt to contain the uncontainable, to cage the wild animal. How is Mystery served by doing this?
On the other hand, not to make the interpretive attempt is not really an option. The expressive impulse is part of human nature, which includes the need to communicate — to think symbolically, to be conscious, to share with others. We are a social animal. Sealing off the dimension of the numinous from such a basic instinct is impossible. We are meaning makers at heart, and the attempt to share wisdom must be made.
People who write — who need to put words to paper or screen as consistently as they need to breathe — are in effect using a spiritual practice. I believe the word “spiritual” applies even to those who reject or don’t acknowledge the concepts of god and religion, because one definition of spiritual is of or pertaining to the intellectual and higher endowments of the mind; mental; intellectual. I clarify this point so as to be inclusive to readers who do not ascribe to religious beliefs.
Below is an excerpt from an article by Ken Wilber that focuses on what tenets most of the world’s religions share.
- Spirit, by whatever name, exists.
- Spirit, although existing “out there,” is found “in here,” or revealed within to the open heart and mind.
- Most of us don’t realize this Spirit within, however, because we are living in a world of sin, separation, or duality — that is, we are living in a fallen, illusory, or fragmented state.
- There is a way out of this fallen state (of sin or illusion or disharmony), there is a Path to our liberation.
- If we follow this Path to its conclusion, the result is a Rebirth or Enlightenment, a direct experience of Spirit within and without, a Supreme Liberation, which
- marks the end of sin and suffering, and
- manifests in social action of mercy and compassion on behalf of all sentient beings.
[via Joe Perez at The Soulful Blogger]
It was her turn to sit in silence. Then she said, “You really don’t understand. In my faith, we are supposed to commit suicide rather than give into temptation…”
[via Across, Beyond, Through]
Over, under, through–
water reflects human toil
as night settles in.
Mortal love is but the licking of honey from thorns.
–Anonymous woman at the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, (1198), in Helen Lawrenson, Whistling Girl (1978)
One must desire something, to be alive; perhaps absolute satisfaction is only another name for Death.
–Margaret Deland, Florida Days (1889)
Sex itself must always, it seems to me, come to us as a sacrament and be so used or it is meaningless. The flesh is suffused by the spirit, and it is forgetting this in the act of love-making that creates cynicism and despair.
–May Sarton, Recovering (1980)
The concept in Buddhism that desire contributes to our suffering remains complicated to me. The end of the journey — Nirvana — is the state of desirelessness, nothingness. But isn’t the goal of Nirvana a desire in itself? Is Nirvana reached only when one stops caring about it as a destination or accomplishment? I suppose that is when death, as we know it, would happen.
Meanwhile, I like the image of licking honey from thorns. It appeals to attraction to duality — instead of either/or, however, the image suggests both/and. You can have love, if you’re willing to lick the thorns, risking some injury to yourself. Or you can have pain, as long as you understand the sweetness that lies on the other side — not-pain.
“The Color of Purity” Inside myself I breathe
the fragrance of the Friend.In the garden last night
an urge ran through my head;
a sun shone out of my eyes;
an inner river began to flow.Lips became laughing roses
without the thorns of existence,
safe from the sword of decay.The trees and plants in the meadow,
which to normal eyes looked fixed and still,
seemed to dance.
When our tall Cypress appeared,
the garden lost itself entirely,
and the plane tree clapped its hands.A face of fire, a burning wine,
a blazing love, all happy together,
and the self, overwhelmed, screaming,
“Let me out of here.”In the world of Unity
there’s no room for number.
But out of necessity number exists
in the worlds of five and four.You can count a hundred thousand
sweet apples in your hands.
If you wish to make them one,
crush them all together!Without thinking of the letters,
listen to the language of the heart.
The color of purity
belongs to the creative Source.
Where the sun of Tabriz sits,
my verses line up like willing slaves.— Version by Kabir Helminski
“Love is a Stranger”
Threshold Books, 1993
All the way to heaven is heaven.
–St. Catherine of Siena
The question of life purpose is a frequent topic on this blog and in my life. It’s also a topic central to religion, philosophy, and existential psychology. Today a guest blogger, Cicada, provides a review of a book that attempts to shed light on the subject.
What Should I Do with My Life? (The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question)
Po Bronson
Random House, 2002
400 pages
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Po Bronson is a writer obsessed with spirit. Much of his work has been about how people struggle to “hang on to [their souls] against the crushing forces of technology, prestige, and greed.” His latest book, What Should I Do with My Life?, continues this study with stunning results.I once thought that “The Question” was probably unique to our society, because our relative level of wealth and the everyday amenities we take for granted are so far beyond that of the average world citizen. In other words, one would be likely to ask The Question only when the basic necessities of life (food, clean water, shelter, and so on) had been achieved. I also thought that knowledge of one’s purpose arrived like an epiphany, clearly and loudly. Bronson’s book convinced me otherwise. “Our purpose doesn’t arrive neatly packaged as destiny,” he writes. “We only get a whisper. A blank, nonspecific urge. That’s how it starts.”
Bronson began asking The Question of himself a couple of years ago, when the television show he wrote for was cancelled. Though his three previous books had all been international bestsellers, he had reached a personal existential crisis of sorts. His fame was built on the successes and excesses of the dotcom revolution, which had gone bust. It was a world he understood—a world he had helped to make famous in his books, The Nudist on the Late Shift and The First $20 Million Is the Hardest.
He’d been proud of his work, but after the crash, Bronson felt guilty about pointing people toward Silicon Valley, responsible for the losses they sustained there. Out of work himself, he could have easily gotten other work in the same vein. Somehow that just didn’t feel right to him. Instead, he found himself asking The Question of others. Within a short time, Bronson began hearing from hundreds of people about their own journeys in search of destiny.
Besides Bronson’s own story, there are fifty-five others in What Should I Do with My Life?. The stories come from all over the world, from people late in their lives and from those just starting out, from men and from women, from people of widely diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Reading the stories, I realized that The Question is truly an essential part of our makeup, hardwired into our very souls. The search for one’s true calling is evolutionary—the only way to find meaningful answers is to dare to be honest with oneself, regardless of how discomforting the results of that honesty might be.
Critics of What Should I Do with My Life? have complained that it is not a “systematic study” nor a “true self-help book”. Bronson’s writing offers no career counseling, no glib answers, no direction or guidance for his subjects, and is therefore “wrong.” These critics have entirely missed the point of the book, which is that there is no easy answer to The Question, no one-size-fits-all approach to finding one’s true calling.
Bronson’s honesty is a revelation—throughout the book he remains open, vulnerable, puzzled, irritated, and intuitive—and worried about his subjects. We see him bothered about the decisions they make, the direction their lives take, as well as wondering about his own journey. He lays bare his own spirit, revealing how his sterling qualities and foibles alike have affected his path. In the end, I found Bronson’s story one of the most compelling in the book. It’s a great read—not a quick one, because finding the meaning of the stories is left to the reader, but I believe that makes it all the more valuable. What you’ll take away from these studies is personal, just like your own answer to The Question.
I’ve been reading
the books
that perch on
my bookcase
and thus
my brain is full; I
cannot
write for you
Forgive me
I need a day off
to breathe
and to live
*With gratitude for and acknowledgement of William Carlos Williams for this poem — one of my favorites.
I was introduced to the concept of attitudinal healing in graduate school. One of my professors brought a copy of To See Differently to class. I began to peruse it and became intrigued by the principles and exercises. Attitudinal healing positions itself as a way of being that heals the mind and facilitates this healing in the world through our relationships. The focus is on changing from within; in other words, the goal is to identify the attitudes which affect us negatively, understand the source (usually fear), and create an internal shift of perspective which then creates alternate behavior.
However, the approach is not the same as cognitive therapy. In fact, these concepts are not new and have been discussed and practiced in myriad ways over thousands of years. The principles espoused are essential tenets of numerous philosophical, ethical, psychological and religious traditions, notably Mahayana Buddhism, Christian Mysticism, and cognitive therapy. Moreover, centers for attitudinal healing do not provide therapy. Their mission is to provide people the opportunity to facilitate their own transformation.
The approach, while sharing some elements of cognitive theory, is more spiritually focused. Centers offer support programs and trainings for people who may be experiencing grief, illness, loss, or relationship issues. It is yet another path toward creating community that, in this fractured age of too much information and too many distractions, certainly can only help. The exercises focus on developing relationship within oneself and with others. There are centers throughout the U.S., and one of them is located here: Austin Center for Attitudinal Healing. The national site can be found here, and from this you can find where other centers are located. There is also a documentary in the works produced by Wakan Films and the Wakan Foundation for the Arts.
The Principles of Attitudinal Healing
Buddha beginning.
Grow up, forget, find once more:
essence glows within.
A Journey When he got up that morning everything was different:
He enjoyed the bright spring day
But he did not realize it exactly, he just enjoyed it.And walking down the street to the railroad station
Past magnolia trees with dying flowers like old socks
It was a long time since he had breathed so simply.Tears filled his eyes and it felt good
But he held them back
Because men didn’t walk around crying in that town.Waiting on the platform at the station
The fear came over him of something terrible about to happen:
The train was late and he recited the alphabet to keep hold.And in its time it came screeching in
And as it went on making its usual stops,
People coming and going, telephone poles passing,He hid his head behind a newspaper
No longer able to hold back the sobs, and willed his eyes
To follow the rational weavings of the seat fabric.He didn’t do anything violent as he had imagined.
He cried for a long time, but when he finally quieted down
A place in him that had been closed like a fist was open,And at the end of the ride he stood up and got off that train:
And through the streets and in all the places he lived in later on
He walked, himself at last, a man among men,
With such radiance that everyone looked up and wondered.–Edward Field, 1924
Here is one of the best descriptions of awe I’ve come across.
Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme.
Awe is a sense for the transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine,…to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.
–Abraham Joshua Heschel
I want to experience more awe in my life. This is one reason I have returned to my faith journey. Actually, I’m beginning to understand that I’ve always been on it, even during those years I was actively pursuing understanding through secular education and avoiding religion, especially Christianity. God’s imprint is on my soul. S/He has always been here, within me. I am simply re-awakening to this gnosis.
What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?
–Bertolt Brecht
Nell Casey, Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression (New York: Perennial Harper Collins, 2002. Pp. ix, 299.)
If you are seeking a “Chicken Soup for the Depressed Soul” brimming with uplifting stories, this book is not the source.
Unholy Ghost reflects the ordeal of depression via the perspectives of those coping with it. The DSM-IV provides a skeletal structure for understanding the diagnosis. These essays add flesh to the framework. The reader is given an opportunity to intimately connect with each writer’s experience of anguish. Some might criticize these essays as self-absorbed and declare the writers to be imperfect. Well, that’s the point. This book is about personal involvement, revealing humans who try to genuinely articulate their journeys. Among many viewpoints, the reader will grapple with the issue of taking medication while pregnant, what it is like to be an African American woman who is depressed, how one person’s “failed” suicide led to a reckoning with life, trying to understand the heritability of depression, and the general strange reality of living with this heavy companion.
This book does not contain answers. It is ponderous and sometimes disconsolate reading. What it does is invite the reader to walk alongside each writer and learn vicariously what depression can be. As a person who lives with major depression and dysthymia, I was fascinated by these voices and heartened by their company. As a psychotherapist, these essays will be a valuable tool for me in educating people about the dimensions of depression.
Secrets nest, waiting
behind a humble white door;
treasures? or torments?
I recently wrote about the pursuit of happiness and centering prayer. Andy then asked me to elaborate on where my search has taken me. I read a book by the same man whom I referenced in that post, Father Thomas Keating; here are some thoughts on it.
It’s a book titled Intimacy With God, in which he quotes (very briefly) Carlos Castaneda.
I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined a Roman Catholic priest finding anything Castaneda said worthy. I’m impressed.
The book is an excellent introduction to the concept of contemplative prayer in the Christian tradition, and its emergence to meet the needs of disaffected Catholics (and later, Protestants) seeking a more meaningful, deeper connection with the divine. Keating explains the practice in clear terms and in the context of Christian doctrine. For someone like myself, it has introduced a way of praying that combines my core beliefs and spiritual roots in Christianity with the meditative aspects that the Eastern religions foster (and to which I am drawn).
I also find appealing his use of Centering Prayer as a relationship with God, the “Divine Therapist,” which implies the friendship, trust, and intimacy inherent in psychotherapy. The process of contemplative prayer is to consent to God healing us, by resting in Its presence while the Holy Spirit manifests Herself in us. In the state of deep rest, undigested emotional material arises (due to relaxed defenses) from the unconscious and is evacuated, bringing one a step closer to intimacy — union in love — with God. Keating remarks that this is a lifelong process and practice. He clarifies the distinction between clinical depression and the periods of “dark nights of the soul” which imply that the transformation is occurring. He also recognizes that while psychology and spirituality overlap, each “has a distinct emphasis and integrity that needs to be respected.”
Many of Keating’s words enlightened me, but this statement is one I want to note, because it presents a simple truth:
All spiritual exercises are designed to reduce the monumental illusion that God is absent. Not so. We just think so. Since the way we think is the way we usually act, we live as if God were absent. Whatever we can do to contribute to the dissolution of that confusion furthers our spiritual journey.
For those curious to learn more about Christian prayer, for their own journey or simply to learn more about what Christians believe and live, I highly recommend this book.
In these early hours when sleep
has eluded me, I sit
listening to the far-off pulse of
trains, whistling Pied Piper-like
of distant lands and
the resurrection of another day.
