Lynn J Kelly offers another provocative post on how important it is to question the stories we tell ourselves and then let them go.
Mindfulness can help us deal with our disappointments and faulty expectations. Check out the link below for more information.
The article below reminds me of the scouting practice to “always leave a place better than you found it,” meaning that we treat our environment and those around us with respect and care.
May your day and this holiday season be filled with joy and wisdom.
Am I separate from the gloating MAGA hat wearer?
Check out today’s post from the Center for Action and Contemplation: The Pain of Separateness (cac.org/daily-meditations/the-pain-of-separateness/)
Highlights include:
Wearing my heart on my sleeve, I’ve become a human porcupine, the pain too intense to hide ….
Tibetan-American poet and writer, Lekey Leidecker, helps us recognize the anxiety we now experience. Provocative phrases such as those below are from her recent Tricycle article, Some Things Are Felt Through the Body:
Check out this heartfelt article at tricycle.org/article/lekey-leidecker-body/
Statue of Buddha at Magnolia Grove Monastery – picture taken by Patrick Cole
Spirituality + Health online magazine has shared another helpful article written by Victor M. Parachin. Highlights can be found below. For the full article see: https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/authors/victor-m-parachin-m-div-c-y-t
How to Find Inner Peace—the Buddhist Way
“Buddhism identifies inner peace as a sense of emotional, mental, and spiritual harmony, even as life’s challenges arise. When inner peace is present, there are strong feelings of serenity, balance, tranquility, and calmness. Here are some Buddhist methods of attaining inner peace:
The Dalai Lama notes that whenever negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, worry, or fear emerge, “We need some countermeasures to oppose them. For example, if we are too hot, we reduce the temperature, or if we want to remove darkness, there’s no other way than bringing light.”
When you’re feeling impoverished, practice gratitude; when you’re feeling sad, smile at every person you encounter; when you’re experiencing guilt, be extra kind to others; when you’re feeling discouraged, recall and savor what is good and right in your life.”
In 20 days, another American election will take place. As always, there’s a lot of free-floating angst in our culture. How might we prepare for whatever outcomes arise?
Tricycle magazine offers a great article today on how best to deal with greed, hatred and delusion. It’s a summary of the twelve links of Dependent Origination written by Joseph Goldstein.
Remember to vote and check out these helpful and nonpartisan links below:
My first father-in-law taught me how to fly fish. He never used the quote, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” He did, however, patiently offer suggestions and examples of how to do something if I was really interested in learning. No pressure, no expectations, just answering questions and role-modeling techniques. Maybe he was communicating nonverbally, “Come follow me, or don’t, it’s your choice.”
Two articles crossed my path today. Perhaps they will be as provocative for you as they were for me.
They are:
“Maimonides, a renowned philosopher and scholar, once wisely said, ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’ This timeless quote encapsulates the profound notion that providing immediate help to someone may alleviate their immediate needs but teaching them the skills to become self-sufficient will empower them for a lifetime.” http://www.socratic-method.com/quote-meanings-and-interpretations/maimonides-give-a-man-a-fish-and-you-feed-him-for-a-day-teach-a-man-to-fish-and-you-feed-him-for-a-lifetime
“When one is deluded, one thinks teachers take you, but when one has awakened, one realizes that one crosses over by oneself.” tricycle.org/article/nelson-foster-chan-buddhism/
The Gottman Method speaks to looking at criticism as requests. One of their Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, their method helps couples recover from relationship challenges. See this link for more information: https://www.regain.us/advice/general/what-are-the-four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypse-gottman-and-the-signs-of-relationship-strain/
For another variation on the theme for improving relationships, the Center for Action and Contemplation offers a series of meditations on Forgiveness and Mercy. Below is an excerpt from this week’s summary. For the full recap see: cac.org/daily-meditations/forgiveness-and-mercy-weekly-summary/
Praying to Forgive
Brian McLaren identifies how prayers of petition help us to experience forgiveness:
Since being wounded or sinned against is a terribly common experience, I suspect we need to pay more attention to it. In fact, being wronged is directly linked in the Lord’s Prayer to the reality of doing wrong; we pray, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”
Father Richard Rohr says it well: Pain that isn’t processed is passed on. Pain that isn’t transformed is transmitted. So we need to process our woundedness with God, and that processing begins by naming the pain and holding it … in God’s presence:
Betrayed. Insulted. Taken advantage of. Lied to. Forgotten. Used. Abused. Belittled. Passed over. Cheated. Mocked. Snubbed. Robbed. Vandalized. Misunderstood. Misinterpreted. Excluded. Disrespected. Ripped off. Confused. Misled.
It’s important not to rush this process. We need to feel our feelings, to let the pain actually catch up with us…. I’ve found that it takes less energy to feel and process my pain than it does to suppress it or run away from it. So, just as through confession we name our own wrongs and feel regret, through petition we name and feel the pain that results from the wrongs of others…. We translate our pain into requests:
Comfort. Encouragement. Reassurance. Companionship. Vindication. Appreciation. Boundaries. Acknowledgement.
It’s important to note that we are not naming what we need the person who wronged us to do for us. If we focus on what we wish the antagonist would do to make us feel better, we unintentionally arm the antagonist with still more power to hurt us. Instead, in this naming, we are turning from the antagonist to God, focusing on what we need God to do for us. We’re opening our soul to receive healing from God’s ever present, ever generous Spirit.
Reference:
Brian D. McLaren, Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2011), 118–119.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen Master, would introduce his meditations with simple phrases or Gathas to set the tone for what could follow. One such gatha goes like this:
“I have arrived, I am home in the here, in the now. I am solid. I am free. In the ultimate, I dwell.”
Below is a meditation verse from Henri Nouwen, a Dutch-born Catholic priest and American psychology professor. He uses the returning home reference from The Prodigal Son parable.
May we “return home” many times each day.
September 14, 2024
I have been meditating on the story of the prodigal son. It is a story about returning. I realize the importance of returning over and over again. My life drifts away from God. I have to return. My heart moves away from my first love. I have to return. My mind wanders to strange images. I have to return.
Returning is a lifelong struggle. . . . I am moved by the fact that the father didn’t require any higher motivation. His love was so total and unconditional that he simply welcomed his son home.
For more information about Henri Nouwen see:
henrinouwen.org/about
Life Matters 