Category Archives: Spirit

Spiritual Upbringing

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About the spiritual training of young, my view is a bit of the same. How you behave in your home is their spiritual upbringing. I think we have to be careful with all forms of ideological indoctrination, and that is what spiritual training is in children: the imposition of a set of abstract beliefs and ideals. Children will take these from of us, but I don’t think dogma serves anyone for long. After all, I was a very good Sunday School student, the star of my confirmation class, and yet I had my own spiritual crisis to resolve later in life. We all do.

I always remind myself that I’m not trying to raise a Buddhist child. I’m trying to raise a Buddhist mother, and it’s taking all my time! Not only my family, but also everyone everywhere will be served by my devoted discipline in my own training. Not because I’m self-important, but in recognition of the one true reality: no self. We are all interdependent, which means we are all one.

–Karen Maezen Miller

No Ordinary Life

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No Ordinary Life

Drink some coffee
light a candle
Rain patters
light a candle
Cat purrs
light a candle
A child’s party
light a candle
Eat cake
light a candle
Buy groceries
light a candle
Fold laundry
light a candle
Clean the bathroom
light a candle
Pay bills
light a candle
Read books
light a candle
Sing carols
light a candle
Cuddle and tickle
light a candle
Wrap presents
light a candle
Color and draw
light a candle
Bake cookies
light a candle
Cook dinner
light a candle
Wash dishes
light a candle
Bathe the child
light a candle
Rock and cuddle
light a candle
Sing lullabyes
light a candle

light a candle
light a candle
light a candle
light a candle
light a candle
light a candle
light a candle

light a candle

–Kathryn Harper

In memory of those who died at Sandy Hook.

Candles at Bongeunsa Temple

Photo courtesy of VancityAllie and Creative Commons

About The Unspeakable

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I protect my child as much as possible. Therefore, I have chosen not to tell her about yesterday’s tragedy. At age five, she simply does not need to know. What happened is incomprehensible to me, an adult; she would only personalize the information and worry for her own safety. I cannot make the world safe, but I limit media exposure at home. If she hears about it elsewhere and asks, I will answer her questions as simply as possible keeping in mind her age and ability to understand.

Eventually she will lose her innocence, but I won’t hurry it along.

My heart aches for the children and families on whom this horror was thrust, and I pray for their solace.

Wherever you can, let children have their innocence.

There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

– Edith Wharton

advent candle

Something else to remember:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers–so many caring people in this world.”

-Fred Rogers

It’s the Mystery, Baby

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“I’m afraid I can’t be counted among those who’ve latched onto the Goddess as a politically correct alternative to God the Father. The Transcendent Principle–the Divine, if you will–is no more wholly female than it is wholly male.

“To be sure, the Divine has feminine aspects and masculine aspects, but its cumulative aspects transcend gender and, indeed, are so far beyond definition or description that they can’t even be rationally discussed.

“It’s the Mystery, baby, and the Mystery is ultimately unknowable. We can interface with it, we can marvel at it, we can connect to it and be elevated by it, but we can never comprehend it.

“What really interests me about the Goddess is the fact that while she was beloved and honored by our ancestors, was the central spiritual archetype and prevailing deity all over the globe for thousands of years, she has been so successfully eradicated by revisionist patriarchal spin doctors that most modern Christians, Moslems and Jews are totally ignorant of her massive and dominant historical presence.

“If someone or something of that enormous scope can be so thoroughly concealed from the masses, it can’t help but call into question everything we’ve been taught by our various institutions.

“The subversion and repression of the Goddess is the Big Lie of the past two millennia — and as the dumbing down of America gains momentum, the duplicity is strengthening its grip.

“The good news is that a significant minority has recently become informed about the Goddess, and that has both revealed the essential spiritual foundation of feminism and inspired a growing distrust of traditional dogma and the meatballs who’ve propagated it.”

–Tom Robbins

Ideas for Practicing Love

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Today, for whatever reason, I am feeling how we all struggle to be here. How much we need to love each other, and how we need to practice that love in deed and word. Once upon a time I struggled to meet my basic needs while working to reach some lofty goals. My life, through whatever process, has transformed into something full and comfortable. I want to remember not to abandon others and to pay it forward.

So I made a list of what I can do. I’m sure there are more, but this is what my first harvest produced:

  • Donate money to community agencies that provide supportive services for housing, food, and education. There are so many, and I cannot do them all. I selected Sacred Heart because I volunteered with them some years in the past, and their mission resonates with my heart.

    Sacred Heart Community Service is dedicated to bringing our community together to address poverty in Silicon Valley.

    Our vision is a community united to ensure that every child and adult is free from poverty.

    Our mission is to build a community free from poverty by creating hope, opportunity, and action. We provide essential services, empower people to improve their lives, advocate for justice, and inspire volunteers to love, serve, and share.

    Sacred Heart Community Service is an equal opportunity service provider. No person shall be excluded from services because of age, ancestry, color, national origin, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, creed, marital status, disability, medical conditions, or veteran status.

  • If I have any, I can give my spare change to someone when they ask.
  • I can offer my change for a cash purchase toward the purchase by the customer in line behind me.
  • I can take the time to pay attention when someone is speaking, rather than thinking about my next turn.
  • I can listen to my child and empathize with her, rather than try to manage her through my agenda. (And apply this to all interactions with people.)
  • I can breathe, which helps me to slow down.
  • I can cease judging another person by his or her past actions and perceived failures.
  • I can give another person the benefit of the doubt and not personalize their behavior toward me if I perceive it as mean or rude.
  • I can let go of predictions about how situations will evolve and how people will behave.
  • I can remember to smile at people and say hello.
  • I can say I’m sorry when I have acted or spoken in a hurtful way.
  • I can empathize when someone is angry at me rather than leap to my own defense.

Can you think of ways to practice love? Please share your ideas.

Nothing Is Lost, Only Transformed

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God pours life into death and death into life without a drop being spilled.

-Author Unknown

Until I attended graduate school at St. Edward’s University, I didn’t know much about Dia de los Muertos. In 1997, after I’d left the fundamentalist non-denominational church I’d been with for years — and with it my entire social network — I struggled greatly with loneliness and depression. Thus I found myself sitting frequently in the Our Lady Queen of Peace chapel, trying to root myself.

On November 1, I discovered an altar covered with painted skulls, candles, photos, and flowers. A number of people gathered, including Dr. Edward Shirley, Professor of Religion and Theological Studies. He led a meditation and gave a little talk about the meaning of this day. I remember at one point asking, “Is it possible to miss someone you never knew?” I was thinking about my maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather; both died long before I was born. Ed answered that yes, he thought so.

After that introduction, I got to know him and spent time talking with him. He was one of the most loving people I’d encountered. His laugh was infectious. His presence was healing. His friendship and guidance were a balm and ballast for me at this time of transition. He accepted people wherever they were at; at that point I was an atheist, certain that traditional Christianity was not my path. I searched for a way to connect with the universe and to find a vocabulary to voice this connection. It was Ed who called my attention to Buddhism.

Ed died suddenly in mid-August, leaving behind a devastated family and community of friends. His impact in the world was deep, and he was much loved. I miss his presence in this world, but his departure brought me to a threshold of understanding what Zen Buddhists call Big Mind.

So, in honor and remembrance of Ed, I offer this tribute on the day that brought us together.

shirleyobit_1541400c

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.

-John Muir

Thy Sea Is So Great

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At least ten years ago my mother gave me a magnetic notepaper holder to hang on my refrigerator. It had a delicate angel and rainbow picture, with a saying about love on it. For a long time I’ve realized it doesn’t appeal to me anymore. Lately my hands have been feeling restless and unsettled. Tonight I put on Tracy Chapman and pulled out scissors, paper, and glue and gave it a new cover.

I’ve been thinking about God lately, in the context of Being, Consciousness, Love, and Mystery. Back in the 1990s, I slogged through times of aching isolation and loneliness. Friends came and went. I felt so alone and small. I struggled to make ends meet. At one point, I meditated on love as an ocean. The tides of love may be high or low in a given day, but the ocean is always there. It was a reassuring concept.

As I created tonight, the Breton Fisherman’s Prayer floated into my awareness: “Oh God, Thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.” It is, of course, a prayer for protection. But perhaps, at least in the case of Love and Awakening, the boat is our Ego. Maybe I’m not ready to give up the boat entirely, but I could go swimming more often.

sailing

The Most Beautiful Thing

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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms— this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own—a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.

It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.

—Albert Einstein

A Question Asked

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I happened across a post on Deepak Chopra’s website where someone asked why we are given the parents we have. Putting aside the knowledge that the question “why” is a sticky, tangly, distracting web, (it doesn’t really free a person, it simply looks for a place to park blame — on oneself or another — disguised as understanding), I was curious to read the answer. His answer was concise and helpful, particularly because he avoided attempting to answer “why.”

It’s true our life circumstances are organized by intelligence of our higher self for our awakening using the material of our past actions. But rather than trying to figure out a particular spiritual rationale for your parents’ behavior, suffice it to say that it has contributed you to the level of strength and self-reliance you have attained so far in your life. Your upbringing also highlights that an important part of your spiritual growth will require you to learn how to be your own nurturer and protector.

–Deepak Chopra

However, I found the first comment below also useful. She doesn’t attempt to assign reasons why either; she also points out the futility in attempting to heal relationships with people who are toxic and chained by delusion:

The influence of our parents on us is so great that when we’re given destructive parents, it’s our special challenge in life to overcome their influence. This, I feel, is the awakening and growth that you can find in your family situation. The dysfunctional behavior of others isn’t our responsibility. We must accept that there are those who will never awaken to their destructive behaviors. In my experience, few abusers (including alcoholic abusers, like your mother) recognize their abuse within their hearts. In other words, they don’t FEEL they’ve done anything wrong because they can always justify to themselves why they did what they did. If they don’t feel they’ve done something wrong, they don’t see that there’s anything to change, and so they won’t change. As the wise Mr. Chopra says, those of us from dysfunctional families must honor the strength we showed in making it through our past. We must face the fact that we can’t heal a destructive relationship with those who don’t see their own destruction.

-Rainbow

art every day month 06 - day 20 - spiderweb 2

On Routines and Union

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Now the same acts drew up the ties between them, put them back together, as though shaping the world from scratch. As they worked, they put the sky in place above, the trees in the ground. They invented color and air and scent and gravity. Laughter and sadness. They discovered truth and lies and mock-lies — even then, Essay played the oldest joke there was to play, returning a stick past him as if he were invisible, cantering sideways, tossing it about in her mouth as if to ask, it’s all play, really, isn’t it? What else matter when there’s this to do?

–David Wroblewski, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Dance of Life

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Lately I’ve been going dancing every Wednesday night — one of my best decisions of late. Called ecstatic dance, it also involves something called contact improv dance. Here’s a sample of how beautiful it is. The man in the video, Brandon, is visiting various cities in a search to relocate, and has come to Silicon Valley. He taught a class on Wednesday; I participated, despite my reservations, and it was — well, healing.


If the embed doesn’t work, try this link.