Who Is My Mother?

December 31, 2012 EVERY BEING HAS BEEN OUR MOTHER Who is more shameless in this world, than one who abandons to samsara’s ocean of suffering all the mothers who have tenderly cared for him since beginningless time and instead strives toward the peace of a solitary nirvana? —Shechen Gyaltsap Pema Namgyal In each of our lives since beginningless time, our mother carried us within her body for nine months. She took care of us when we were helpless babies; she gave us food, education, and protection. In return, we feel love and gratitude for her kindness. Why not extend our respect and appreciation for our mother to everyone else? If we take a broader perspective, we can consider that, within the countless existences we have lived, every being has been our mother at one time or another. Don’t they also deserve our kindness now? We can extend the same debt of gratitude that we owe our present mother to all sentient beings. By doing so, we naturally begin to develop a deep concern for the happiness of others, and this feeling makes sense to us. We take the refuge vow not just for our own sake, but also for the sake of all sentient beings. This is bodhichitta, or the altruistic mind, which aims for the enlightenment of all sentient beings.

Understanding

Don't cling to your own understanding. Even if you do understand something, you should ask yourself if there might be something you have not fully resolved, or if there may be some higher meaning yet. - Dogen

God is Everywhere

God is everywhere. His truth and his love pervade 
all things as the light and the heat of the sun pervade 
our atmosphere. But...God does not touch our souls 
with the fire of supernatural  knowledge and 
experience without Christ. 
 
  - Thomas Merton

Human Kindness

In the story of Christian orthodoxy that is told in the western world, the central element is the lostness of humanity which has been overcome by evil and sin and is now "totally depraved." Human beings are powerless and hopelessly lost. They are incapable of good and unable to help themselves. They need salvation from the outside and without that they are doomed. But there is another story. It is an opposite, or the "flip side to this orthodox coin." Seeing the world this way may even correct the crushing impression of humankind's total depravity and inertia. In the end, this may be the only part of the larger story of human experience that is utterly true. Here it is succintly told by Vasily Grossman:

It is not man who is impotent in the struggle against evil, but the power of evil that is impotent in the struggle against man.... Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer. 

The Spirit of Christ

The spirit of Christmas needs to be superseded by the 
Spirit of Christ. The spirit of Christmas is annual; the 
Spirit of Christ is eternal. The spirit of Christmas is 
sentimental; the Spirit of Christ is supernatural. The 
spirit of Christmas is a human product; the Spirit of 
Christ is a divine person. That makes all the difference
in the world. 

  - Stuart Briscoe

Sacred Ground

“i want to enter your sacred ground,
to hold you in the depth of your spirit,
to be surrounded by the mists of your soul
and to soak in the essence of you.
it's a giving and a taking i honor quietly,
solemnly. if your door is open, i am there.”

~terri st cloud

Wisdom

The one whose mind knows the clarity of perfect wisdom is never afraid or even anxious. Why? Because when being at one with the living power of wisdom, the mother of all the buddhas, that person has the strength to remain in a state of undivided contemplation even while ceaselessly and skillfully engaging in compassionate action. The wise one is enabled to act because of concentration on a single prayer: "May all beings never leave the path of enlightenment, which is their own true nature and is empty of separate self-existence." - Prajnaparamita

Ever-Flowing River of Love

Great and overflowing is the love of God, that never 
standeth still, but floweth on for ever and without 
ceasing, with no labour or  effort, but freely and fully, 
so that our little vessel is full and over-full. If we do 
not stop the channel by our self-will it will never slacken 
in its flowing, but the gift of God will ever make our cup 
to run over."
 
- Mechthild of Magdeburg [13th C], The Flowing Forth of the Light
of the Godhead. -

(God's loving Life wants to flow through you. Let your 
prayer be an act of willingness that God's desire may 
be realized in you.)

Advent

BC:AD

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

~U.A. Fanthorpe

TWO SIDES OF A COIN

Any happiness there is in the world ultimately turns to pain. Why? Consider the two sides of a coin: just because what we desire is to be seen on the front does not mean that dislike won’t soon appear on the back. Likewise, hope and fear are a single coin, one entity with two faces—on the other side of a moment in which we hope for more happiness will be our fear of more suffering. Until attachment is eliminated, we can be certain of having both hope and fear. As long as there is hope and fear, the delusions of samsara will be perpetuated and there will be constant suffering. Thus attachment is the nature of both hope and fear: looking at the ultimate emptiness of the self-envisioned magical illusion of hope and fear, we should hang loosely in the flow.   ~Tulku Pema Rigtsal

Why Symbols?

This is why it requires constant effort of thought
and imagination combined in order to think, meditate
and contemplate in symbols -- symbolism being the
sole means of rendering thought and imagination
capable of not being suspended when the will submits
to revelation from above and enabling them to unite
with it in its act of receptive obedience, so that
the soul not only has a revelation of faith but also
participates in this revelation with its
understanding and memory.

Meditations on the Tarot,
Arcana "Hanged Man", pg. 319-20

The wrongness of right beliefs

 

November 20, 2012 by Bob

According to The Barna Group (a market research firm specializing in studying the religious beliefs and behavior of Americans, and the intersection of faith and culture) around 98% of all Church growth is transfer or biological.The truth is evangelism in the West has been largely ineffective and with good reason.

Its one thing to acknowledge that something is not working but greater courage is needed to do something about it. It seems to be a part of human nature that people remain within unworkable situations, one only has to look at unhappy marriages where people stay together long after its use-by date. When we walk away from that which is unworkable we stand a greater chance of finding that which does work.

With over 3,500 Churches in the US closing each year Christendom has proven to be unworkable the current model is outdated it bears little resemblance to the original. When it comes to finding a spiritual path that is authentic, the church promotes the same old tired absolutes: more concerned that Christianity is the only way more concerned with teaching spirituality as a system of beliefs, more concerned with doing and not being, of which a system of theological absolutes are a significant part. The church seems more concerned with defending the premise that Jesus is the ONLY way yet failing to show how the ONLY way is lived out in real life.

One of the reasons, and there are many, that evangelism has been so ineffective in the West is the message is never better than its messenger. If what you say isn’t reflected in who your are, it matters little how good the, so-called, good news is. It’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between those who say they have found the way and those who haven't.

I’ve met many spiritually connected people who have come from buddhist, muslim, hindu, new-age and the christian tradition. The one thing they all share is a deep connection with life they have often found what the mystics from all traditions call the True-Self. They emanate a deep-sense of joy they seem at peace with the world and with themselves.

There comes a point when many feel the need to move forward, to grow up, to remove the training wheels, to leave home and find a space that resonates as true and real. We don’t demonize our first frame of reference. We don’t criticize the place where we first grew up, We realize how important the first half of life is yet we also realize that when we grow up we often grow out this means moving to a space and place that is larger still; if it’s not broken don’t fix it, but equally, if it is broken have the presence of mind to realize it and then seek the courage and the commitment to do something about it.

Copernicus was famous for his resistance to flat earth thinkers, and it almost cost him his life. Not surprisingly his greatest critics came from the church. They feared he might be right but, more, they feared being proven wrong, all or nothing thinking will always create insurmountable challenges. If we hold to a premise that is rigid or fixed there will always be little room for movement if one thing is proven to be wrong then reason says that the whole premise, therefore, must also be wrong.
Truth is not something you believe; it’s not a commodity, it’s not something you have or own its something you live. We change the way we think by changing the way we live;
“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” ― Richard Rohr

Christmas for Mystics

The holidays are only holy if we make them so.

Otherwise, the assault of modernity -- from crass consumerism to a 24-hour news cycle to the compulsivity of the wired world -- wrecks whatever we have left of our nervous systems, making the true spiritual meaning of Christmas seem as distant as the furthest star. It's only when we consciously carve out a space for the holy -- in our heads, our hearts and our lifestyles -- that the deeper mysteries of the season can reveal themselves.

The holidays are a time of spiritual preparation, if we allow them to be. We're preparing for the birth of our possible selves, the event with which we have been psychologically pregnant all our lives. And the labor doesn't happen in our fancy places; there is never "room in the Inn," or room in the intellect, for the birth of our authentic selves. That happens in the manger of our most humble places, with lots of angels, i.e. Thoughts of God, all around.

Something happens in that quiet place, where we're simply alone and listening to nothing but our hearts. It's not loneliness, that aloneness. It's rather the solitude of the soul, where we are grounded more deeply in our own internal depths. Then, having connected more deeply to God, we're able to connect more deeply with each other. Our connection to the divine unlocks our connection to the universe.

According to the mystical tradition, Christ is born into the world through each of us. As we open our hearts, he is born into the world. As we choose to forgive, he is born into the world. As we rise to the occasion, he is born into the world. As we make our hearts true conduits for love, and our minds true conduits for higher thoughts, then absolutely a divine birth takes place. Who we're capable of being emerges into the world, and weaknesses of the former self begin to fade. Thus are the spiritual mysteries of the universe, the constant process of dying to who we used to be as we actualize our divine potential.

We make moment-by-moment decisions what kind of people to be -- whether to be someone who blesses, or who blames; someone who obsesses about past and future, or who dwells fully in the present; someone who whines about problems, or who creates solutions. It's always our choice what attitudinal ground to stand on: the emotional quicksand of negative thinking, or the airstrip of spiritual flight.

Such choices are made in every moment, consciously or unconsciously, throughout the year. But this is the season when we consider the possibility that we could achieve a higher state of consciousness, not just sometimes but all the time. We consider that there has been one -- and the mystical tradition says there have also been others -- who so embodied his own divine spark that he is now as an elder brother to us, assigned the task of helping the rest of us do the same. According to A Course in Miracles, he doesn't have anything we don't have; he simply doesn't have anything else. He is in a state that is still potential in the rest of us. The image of Jesus has been so perverted, so twisted by institutions claiming to represent him. As it's stated in the Course, "Some bitter idols have been made of him who came only to be brother to the world." But beyond the mythmaking, doctrine and dogma, he is a magnificent spiritual force. And one doesn't have to be Christian to appreciate that fact, or to fall on our knees with praise and thanks at the realization of its meaning. Jesus gives to Christmas its spiritual intensity, hidden behind the ego's lure into all the wild and cacophonous sounds of the season. Beyond the nativity scenes, beyond the doctrinal hoopla, lies one important thing: the hope that we might yet become, while still on this earth, who we truly are.

Then we, and the entire world, will know peace.

 

~Marianne Williamson

COME EMMANUEL, GOD WITH US!

Kingdom people are history makers. They break through the small kingdoms of this world to an alternative and much larger world, God’s full creation. People who are still living in the false self are history stoppers. They use God and religion to protect their own status and the status quo of the world that sustains them. They are often fearful people, the nice proper folks of every age who think like everybody else thinks and have no power to break through, or as Jesus’ opening words put it, “to change” (Mark 1:15, Matthew 4:17). Why do we love and admire kingdom people like Mary and Joseph, and then not imitate their faith journeys, their courage, their non-reassurance by the religious system? These were two laypeople who totally trusted their inner experience of God and who followed it to Bethlehem and beyond. Mary and Joseph walked in courage and blind faith that their own experience was true—with no one to reassure them they were right. Their only safety net was God’s love and mercy, a safety net they must have tried out many times, or else they would never have been able to fall into it so gracefully. Adapted from Preparing for Christmas with Richard Rohr Courtesy Robyn Whyte

Gratitude, not Judgement

There is knowledge within us all that lies beyond perception, it is this knowledge that we will tap into today. Today when we look upon our brothers and sisters, we drop our burdens by suspending our judgments of them. When we forget and return to judgment, let us allow this act to be a simple reminder of what we do not want. Instead of judging ourselves for judging others, let us instead offer gratitude that it is showing us the dead end road we need no longer take. Knowing that the past is gone and the future but imagined we return back into the present moment that is free from judgment. In the present moment we will let go and allow God/Spirit/Source to direct us by asking “How will you have me help my brothers today?” Today we have been placed in front of our brothers to serve as an example of the state of peace. Separation will be healed through union, and in doing so we will all return to a sacred place we have been before and will be again

.

James Blanchard Cisneros

Full Bliss

Our natural will is to have God, and the good
will of God is to have us, and we may never cease
willing or longing for God until we have him in
the fullness of joy. Christ will never have his
full bliss in us until we have our full bliss
in him."

- Blessed Julian of Norwich -

The Life of Symbols

Now, the Hermeticist is essentially an iconophile. 
For him symbols are not obstacles that must be
eliminated in order to arrive at knowledge of the
truth, but rather means for receiving revelation. 
The "clothes" -- the symbols -- of truth are for him
not what hides it, but rather what reveals it.  The
entire world, in so far as it is a series of symbols,
does not hide, but reveals the Word.  The divine
commandment: Thou shalt not kill, is also applicable
to the domain of knowledge.  He who denies the life of
symbols, kills them in his thought.  For to deny that
which reveals means to kill that which lives in the
domain of thought.  The iconoclast is an intellectual
murderer.  The Hermeticist is, in constrast, an iconophile
and tradtionalist.  This means to say that he does not
side with the successive waves of iconoclasm -- the waves
named "reformation", "enlightenment", "scientific faith"
-- which set fire to forests of symbols protecting the
intellectual sun of humanity against barrenness and erosion.
  This means to say, also, that he has as a basic principle
not only the commandment "Thou shalt not kill", but also the
commandment which is the foundation of all tradition -- i.e.
all continuity in progress, growth, development and evolution
-- the commandment:  Honor thy father and thy mother.

Meditations on the Tarot, pg. 292, The Arcana "Force" 

Walking in the Present Moment

Our true home is in the present moment. The
miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is
to walk on the green earth in the present moment.
Peace is all around us--in the world and in nature
--and within us--in our bodies and our spirits.
Once we learn to touch this peace, we will be
healed and transformed.

- Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ

On the Mystery of the Incarnation

It's when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.

 

Denise Levertov (1923–1997)

The Imprint of His Image

In the most noble part of the soul, the domain
of our spiritual powers, we are constituted in
the form of living and eternal mirror of God;
we bear in it the imprint of His eternal image
and no other image can enter there. "

- Bl. John Rusybroeck: The Mirror of Eternal
Salvation, 14th C. -

An Uncontainable Thrill

The ultimate spiritual revelation is that there is no other. There is only One. When any individual goes very deep into a meditative state, momentarily transcending the separate self-sense or narcissistic ego, this profound singularity at the level of consciousness itself is what he or she will find. There is an uncontainable thrill in those moments when the nonrelative nature of consciousness actually becomes apparent. It's as if the water boils over the edge, and the individual suddenly finds himself or herself overwhelmed by the absolute dimension of Being. That is the revelation that enlightens: Consciousness is One without a second, and I Am That.   —Andrew Cohen

Be a Miracle

Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger
people! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers;
pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing
of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be
a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself,
at the richness of life which has come in you by
the grace of God....

- Phillip Brooks (1835-1893), Twenty Sermons

(Take a few moments to "wonder at yourself" and
"the richness of life that has come in you by the
grace of God." Give thanks. Be grateful.)

Between the Times

We are living "between the times"-the time of
Christ's resurrection and the new age of the
Spirit, and the time of fulfillment in Christ.
Life in the Spirit is a pledge, a "down-payment,"
on the final kingdom of shalom. In the meantime,
we are to be signs of the kingdom which is, and
which is coming....

- David Kirk (1935-2007),
Quotations from Chairman Jesus

Avoid negativity

Today when our minds temporarily yield to negativity, self-judgment, stress, or pessimism, we will choose not to dwell in them, but instead take an honest look at them, thank them for reminding us that they are not what we desire for our life, and then with a tip of the hat, let them go. For today we acknowledge that the power to choose what thoughts, feelings, and emotions we serve, support, and sustain are ours and ours alone. And so today when the ego demands self-judgment, we will simply smile and politely refuse. When it tells us we must bow to stress, we will instead remember Who is in our corner and trust that things will turn out just fine. And when pessimism tries to place a dark cloud over our skies, we will remember that clouds may come and go but the sun will always shine. Today we will breathe the breath of gratitude knowing that we are the ones in charge of choosing our path.

James Blanchard Cisneros

Oneness

When we start becoming aware of our true self we will begin seeing and recognizing that same truth in all. Peace, love, joy, forgiveness and compassion will begin being reflected back from everywhere and everyone. We will hold this reflection up as an example to others, until they recall that what they see in us, is simply a reflection of what is true in them. In our oneness we understand that what we do for them, they will also one day do for others. Regardless of our physical or spiritual position in the world we will see our brothers and sisters as equal partners on the journey. We will recognize their divinity regardless of what they may think about themselves. What they might do, say, think, or act like will not take precedence over who they are in truth. Today let us remember the opportunity that our brother and sister are offering us, to recall our oneness, our wholeness; to acknowledge that what is true in us is true in all.

James Blanchard

Terrible Clarity of Christ's Love

Romantic love is blind to everything except
what is lovable and lovely, but Christ's love
sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole.
Christ's love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless
against everything in us that diminishes our joy.

- Frederick Buechner

Dozing in Prayer

Q. "What do you do when you realize you have
been dozing?" (during prayer}

A. "If you doze off, don't give it a second
thought. A child in the arms of a parent drops
off to sleep occasionally, but the parent isn't
disturbed by that as long as the child is happily
resting there and opens its eyes once in a while."

- Thomas Keating

Real Contact with God

[The unchristian environment] is the place
where we find out whether the Christian's
meditation has led him into the unreal, from
which he awakens in terror when he returns
to the workaday world, or whether it has led
him into a real contact with God, from which
he emerges strengthened and purified. Has it
transported him for a moment into a spiritual
ecstasy that vanishes when everyday life returns,
or has it lodged the Word of God so securely
and deeply in his heart that it holds and fortifies
him, impelling him to active love, to obedience,
to good works? Only the day can decide.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer