One of the senior monks in the Ajahn Chah lineage said that Buddha talked about dāna[giving] first because if someone didn’t understand the value of basic generosity, they weren’t even teachable. If we don’t have a sense of its significance, and don’t have some degree of maturity in our experience of it, then other forms of practice—sīla, bhāvana, mettā—won’t even get off the ground. There has to be a malleability of heart, a softness, a diminished self-absorption, before the engines can even get started! And this softness is developed largely through our increasingly mature direct experience of dāna.
Giving as a ritual is not the same as giving as practice. There can be various motives for giving, and many of them have to do with varieties of clinging. We cling to the idea of what is expected of us, or what would “look good”, or we give to relieve a feeling of guilt, or even because we think it will produce a better afterlife. But there is a higher motivation that we can tap into, one that moves us away from any form of clinging.
(from Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia) There’s a wonderful story in the Vināya (Mahāvagga 8:15) about a very generous laywoman who lived at the time of the Buddha. As the story goes, she wanted to give a large gift to the community—lifetime gifts of food, clothing and medicinal requisites. Before agreeing to receive this offering, the Buddha asked Visakha why she wanted to make such a generous offering.
Her reply may surprise you. She said that when she sees the monks and nuns she will know that they are wearing robes made out of the cloth that she offered, etc., and it will make her very happy. Thus, her mind will be calm and her meditation will go well. As if to say, “Yes, that’s the right answer,” the Buddha accepted her gift.
So we can give to make our minds peaceful and happy. This may sound like a selfish motive – we want to be happy – but this sort of happiness comes from profound unselfishness, which feels entirely different from building up our self-image. Is this happening without our noticing it? Do we overlook this subtle and beautiful feeling?
Only we know what is in our minds and hearts, and we can track whether we are producing the kind of mental peace that is the foundation for wisdom or the product of a satisfied ego. Mindfulness is essential to discern this difference, but once we see it, we are naturally inclined to pursue a wholesome path.
Experiences of darkness are good and necessary teachers. They are not to be avoided, denied, run from, or explained away.
There’s a darkness where we are led by our own stupidity, our own sin (the illusion of separation), our own selfishness, by living out of the false or separate self. We have to work our way back out of this kind of darkness with brutal honesty, confession, surrender, forgiveness, apology, and restitution. It may feel simultaneously like dying and being liberated.
But there’s another darkness that we’re led into by God, grace, and the nature of life itself.… This is where transformation happens.
Periods of seemingly fruitless darkness may in fact highlight all the ways we rob ourselves of wisdom by clinging to the light. Who grows by only looking on the bright side of things?
Spiritual zombie and spiritual bypassing are two terms that describe how we might “hide” during times of great challenge. Two articles have been especially helpful for me to better understand these concepts. The first is Hold to the Center from Tricycle Magazine and the second comes from Very Well Mind and is titled Spiritual Bypassing as a Defense Mechanism.
Some quick highlights and links to the full articles are offered below:
Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao, abbot emeritus and teacher for the Zen Center of Los Angeles, wrote an enlightening article in the Summer of 2017 for Tricycle Magazine. Her words still have much to offer us some eight years later.
Roshi Nakao reminds us, both gently and provocatively, that when times are tough we should be careful to not turn into spiritual zombies. Specifically, she said:
“To hold to the center is not about becoming a spiritual zombie; it is about living the fullness of your own humanity. You are alive, so be fully alive.”
Additional advice includes:
“The Three Tenets, which are Not-Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action, as an effective way to hold to the center in any given situation.”
“Spiritual bypassing is a way of hiding behind spirituality or spiritual practices. It prevents people from acknowledging what they are feeling and distances them from both themselves and others. Some examples of spiritual bypassing include:
Avoiding feelings of anger
Believing in your own spiritual superiority as a way to hide from insecurities
Believing that traumatic events must serve as “learning experiences” or that there is a silver lining behind every negative experience
Believing that spiritual practices such as meditation or prayer are always positive
Extremely high, often unattainable, idealism
Feelings of detachment
Focusing only on spirituality and ignoring the present
Only focusing on the positive or being overly optimistic
Projecting your own negative feelings onto others
Pretending that things are fine when they are clearly not
Thinking that people can overcome their problems through positive thinking
The Center for Action and Contemplation puts the spotlight on our shadow this week and today’s thought-provoking article comes from author and spiritual director, Ruth Haley Barton. She does a wonderful job of capturing the fear of exposure when she says:
“We thought we had kept it fairly well hidden. We thought we could manage it or at least keep its destructive nature fairly private, but now here it is—out there for all to see—and it is wreaking havoc on our attempts to accomplish something good.”
Check out the full article below and at cac.org/daily-meditations/surprised-by-our-shadow/
Today’s Center for Action and Contemplation meditation includes a reflection from theologian Matthew Fox on how we might reinvent and resurrect ourselves daily for our benefit and the benefit of others.
“Who does not seek a full and fuller life(and)how am I life for others?
To be Resurrection for another I need to be Resurrection for myself. That means I cannot dwell in darkness and death and anger and oppression and submission and resentment and pain forever. I need to wake up, get up, rise up, put on life even when days are dark and my soul is down and shadows surround me everywhere
Do not settle for death. Break out. Stand up. Give birth. Get out of easy pessimism and lazy cynicism. Put your heart and mind and hands to creating hope and light and resurrection.Be born again. And again. And again….”
Once again, the Center for Action and Contemplation, helps us reconcile our aspirations with reality. Yes, we can persevere even though we are confronted with “with the forces of death, hopelessness, fear, discouragement, or lack of will.” Yes, we can continue to believe even though we are surrounded by non-believers.
Big inhale, slow exhale. Yes, we can.
Check out the provocative message below and go to CAC’s website for continued encouragement here: cac.org/daily-meditations/easter-people-in-a-good-friday-world/
“Pursuing beneficial practices brings good kamma, and that can overcome any past unwholesome kamma. It’s not a closed system, it’s not fate; it’s a dynamic process.”
Lynn J Kelly blogpost today reminds us our actions matter every minute of every day. We can improve our lives when we seek the good of others too.
Sensei John Pulleyn, Co-Director of the Rochester Zen Center, offers a provocative explanation of why and how to let go of what others think about you. Learning to let go of social approval gives us the freedom to be who we are and let other people be who they are.
A couple of highlights from the article, The Big Man Can’t Shoot, are:
It isn’t easy and it’s not comfortable to turn our back on the values and conventions all around us, especially when they’re unexamined.
…
For most of us, the approval or disapproval of others is an overwhelming force. We’re conditioned and accustomed to reading the crowd, to devoting a significant amount of our mental energy to understanding where we stand in the gaze of others.
…
(As) Anthony de Mello points out, “Being president of a corporation has nothing to do with being a success in life. Having a lot of money has nothing to do with being a success in life. You’re a success in life when you wake up! Then you don’t have to apologize to anyone, you don’t give a damn what anybody thinks about you or what anybody says about you. You have no worries; you’re happy. That’s what I call being a success.”
Todays repost reminds us of the importance of healing ourselves as well as others. Two, no make that three, highlights from the article below are:
The exterior work of social justice is only as strong as the interior work that births and fuels it.
We can’t heal as a community if we do not concern ourselves with healing our inner lives.
We help solve our community’s problems when each of us faces our own sorrow, authentically and creatively.
The Foundation Is Contemplation
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Reverend Liz Walker is the founder of the Can We Talk… network, which creates safe spaces for people to connect through sharing their stories. She describes the importance of contemplative, healing practices to support the work of social justice:
We trust that whatever needs to be healed will be healed by the Spirit of a creative God who works in and through us….
Dr. [Barbara] Holmes writes that the civil rights movement was born through the contemplative spirit of the Black church.
By lovingly joining our neighbors and sharing our painful stories in the interest of finding peace within our own souls, we are taking seriously the interior work necessary for our collective healing.
The exterior work of social justice is only as strong as the interior work that births and fuels it. We can’t heal as a community if we do not concern ourselves with healing our inner lives.Storytelling, listening, movement, and music all represent the gentle, interior healing necessary to empower the hard work of social change.
participate as truth seekers, unashamed to process their own pain. They show us that authentic joy is reached through a healing process. We help solve our community’s problems when each of us faces our own sorrow, authentically and creatively.
There’s a new Tricycle article titled Education and Work that call outs the false messages we receive from both educations systems and corporate bureaucracy. Here are a few of the very provocative points made:
Education turns human beings into commodities.
People should exist not as interchangeable parts of an economic machine
When people are alone, they’re not so bad. However, when a group forms, paralysis occurs; people become totally foolish and cannot distinguish good from bad.
People live relying on groups and organizations, drifting along in them like floating weeds without roots.
“An organization man is an employee, especially of a large corporation, who has adapted so completely to what is expected in attitudes, ideas, behavior, etc., by the corporation as to have lost a sense of personal identity or independence.”
Suffering arises from our narrow concept of I, combined with our insatiable greed.
Check out the full article at the link provided below. I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on this assessments of modern-day society.
Life Matters 