As I continue this year by year spiritual journey (the same journey Rumi calls 'this being human') I'm bumping into joy over and over again discovering that Wisdom is around us everywhere.
Every religion has profound strands of human and divine insights stored, treasured, and proclaimed. (Every religion also has lots of ways of distorting wisdom, too, smothering it under layers of fear, self-righteousness, nationalism, and lethargy.)
The natural world, science, poetry, literature--all areas of life also have profound lessons and classes in Wisdom. What a wonderful convergence is going on in the world for those who begin to trust that when we know the truth it sets us free.
Consider the convergence between the wisdom Jesus brought to life by dying--both in metaphor and in his own life story--and this Buddhist insight, simply stated in these two paragraphs of Pema's:
"Basically, disappointment, embarrassment, and all these places where we just cannot feel good are a sort of death. We've just lost our ground completely; we are unable to hold it together and feel that we're on top of things. Rather than realizing that it takes death for there to be birth, we just fight against the fear of death.
Reaching our limit is not some kind of punishment. It's actually a sign of health that, when we meet the place where we are about to die, we feel fear and trembling. A further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us. Things like disappointment and anxiety are messengers telling us that we're about to go into unknown territory."
It's taken awhile, but now it's hitting me full in the face: 'Going into unknown territory' is exactly what it's like to follow Jesus.
He trained those who followed him by taking them into unknown territory every week or maybe even every day. Those followers either quit or grew. They died a little bit every week or day or hour, or they dropped out. There are no alternatives.
This stuff Pema's talking about, this practice is about getting with the program, going ahead and accepting once and for all that if growth takes death then, by God, we're gonna learn to die gracefully, bravely, lovingly and regularly!
Wisdom is always giving us little glimpses of how to do this, how to grow. Familiar habits and patterns are always giving us little excuses not to grow--giving us 'reasons' to stay put, fearful, and unchanged.
This 'little practice' Pema gives us of using disappointment and anxiety, etc., as reminders that we're stuck (for us Christians, that Jesus has left the building!) is wonderfully helpful on the spiritual path. The very things that have always slowed us down become the very things that start moving us along. This kind of practice strengthens our spiritual muscles and re-tunes our wisdom receptors.
Try it. Notice when you feel lousy. Lean into it.
Notice how you feel lousy, where you feel lousy; notice what feeling lousy does to you.
Be kind to yourself in each moment of noticing.
Notice that you have a choice about how to respond, how to choose what comes next.
Notice what it's like and how you change going into unknown territory.
Notice if these little deaths really do lead to bigger Life.
By noticing and choosing, in small yet potent ways, we learn what's true and regularly experience for ourselves what sets us free.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Finding Light in Dark Places
Yesterday I quoted a paragraph from Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart where she's reminding us that some of our most uncomfortable feelings (disappointment, irritation, embarrassment, resentment, etc.) come as graceful reminders 'to perk up and lean in' to life, our life.
Pema has apparently learned to trust that these lousy feelings are actually (though ironically) helpful, really helpful, because they show us "with terrifying clarity, exactly where we're stuck."
She's good at explaining this irony and showing us, 'tempting' us even, to experiment with looking at disappointment, irritation, embarrassment, resentment, etc., in a very different way--a way that lightens up areas in our lives that we'd always assumed would always be dark. There's an implicit promise here too--that as this light shows us where we're stuck it also begins to teach us how to get un-stuck:
Pema has apparently learned to trust that these lousy feelings are actually (though ironically) helpful, really helpful, because they show us "with terrifying clarity, exactly where we're stuck."
She's good at explaining this irony and showing us, 'tempting' us even, to experiment with looking at disappointment, irritation, embarrassment, resentment, etc., in a very different way--a way that lightens up areas in our lives that we'd always assumed would always be dark. There's an implicit promise here too--that as this light shows us where we're stuck it also begins to teach us how to get un-stuck:
"Those events and people in our lives who trigger our
unresolved issues could be regarded as good news. We don’t have to go hunting
for anything. We don’t need to try to create situations in which we reach our
limit. They occur all by themselves, with clockwork regularity.
"Each day we’re given many opportunities to open up or shut
down.... That’s being nailed by life, the place where you have no choice except
to embrace what’s happening or push it away.
"Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We
automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape—all
addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can’t stand
it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted
to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.
"There are so many ways that have been dreamt up to entertain
us away from the moment, soften its hard edge, deaden it so we don’t have to
fee the full impact of the pain that arises when we cannot manipulate the
situation….
"Meditation is an invitation to notice when we reach our
limit and to not get carried away….What’s encouraging about meditation is that
even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very
clearly that we’re closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the
darkness of ignorance."
Monday, October 8, 2012
7 Key Feelings of Highly Effective People
Okay, first the words, then the secret of working with them.
SEVEN KEY FEELINGS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE
SEVEN KEY FEELINGS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE
- Disappointment
- Embarrassment
- Irritation
- Resentment
- Anger
- Jealousy
- Fear
"…For people who have a certain hunger to know what is true—feelings
like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy,
and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach
us were it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in
when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that
show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck." --Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Mary Oliver's Five Amazing Secrets of Paying Attention
Mary Oliver actually has a poem called "Mindful." Of course she does. She's been showing the world how to pay attention for 40 years. She does it mainly with poems about the natural world, though not exclusively. She sure paid attention to the bittersweet reality of life, her life, when her partner died.
Maybe some day somebody will write a handbook called "Mary Oliver's Five Amazing Secrets of Paying Attention!" No worries if nobody ever does--reading her poems is instructive and inspiring in a whole lot more than five ways.
Consider "Mindful":
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
~ Mary Oliver ~
Maybe some day somebody will write a handbook called "Mary Oliver's Five Amazing Secrets of Paying Attention!" No worries if nobody ever does--reading her poems is instructive and inspiring in a whole lot more than five ways.
Consider "Mindful":
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
~ Mary Oliver ~
This is what we born for too, isn't it--to look, to listen, to lose ourselves inside this soft world--to instruct ourselves over and over in joy? Not just pleasure, but joy?
How can we help but grow wise with such teachings as these? And, of course, not all teachings, not all the classes, are about nature. Though all are about Life.
Worries and judgments and posturing are electives in the School of Delight. Dropping them to make time to notice and savor what's in front of us is the core curriculum.
Today's homework: Notice, turn aside to, and stay with at least ONE thing--animal, mineral, or vegetable--that more or less kills you with delight.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Ordinary Mysticism
When somebody is called a mystic, most of us don't quite know what to think. Is that somebody who spends all his/her time lost in holy thought? Somebody who lives alone or in a monastery?
Below is Richard Rohr's take. By his measure, which seems right on the mark to me, many of us are already in the ball park of mysticism (though perhaps not quite sure that we've been called out of the stands an onto the field)!
Below is Richard Rohr's take. By his measure, which seems right on the mark to me, many of us are already in the ball park of mysticism (though perhaps not quite sure that we've been called out of the stands an onto the field)!
"Mysticism is when God’s presence becomes experiential and
undoubted for a person. You can see a kind of courage and self-confidence in
the mystics. That puts them in an extraordinary category. Most of us believe
things because our churches tell us to believe them and we don’t want to be
disobedient members of the church so we say “I believe” as we do in the creed.
"A mystic doesn’t say “I believe.” A mystic says “I know.” A
true mystic ironically speaks with an almost arrogant self-confidence and, at
the same time, with a kind of humility. When you see this combination of calm
self-confidence, certitude, and patient humility, all at the same time, you can
trust you are in the presence of a person who has had an actual “encounter”
with God or the Holy."
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
When Things Fall Apart
On a Saturday night at 2:00 in the morning about four years ago my wife handed me a letter. In it she said she had decided it was time to live life without me--she was filing for divorce.
It caught me completely by surprise. I felt the hugeness of it 'everywhere'. Head, heart, blood flow, gut, everywhere. And I had to 'do' church later that morning. Either that or get somebody else to do it at short notice.
She was clear that she didn't want to talk about it. Period. Done deal. So...it's now 2:30 in the morning and the only 'one' I have to talk to is God. Strangely, even for a priest, at first that seemed totally inadequate.
In retrospect, of course it did. Anything feels inadequate at times like these.
But I did talk to God. Pouring out my heart--with long breaks for worry and imagined work-arounds. After maybe an hour of this I began to shift to the realization that I'd done enough 'talking:' now it was time to be quiet and to embody God, to incarnate, the best I could, God's love and wisdom in that moment and in my body.
I went back to bed and brought every ounce of attention to my breath--trusting breath as Spirit. Any tiny distraction from focusing on breathing in and out, in and out, I let go of like it was a wasp or a spider.
I knew there would be time later to think through the immensity of separating from my partner and best friend of 32 years. Lots and lots of laters. My work the rest of that night was to incarnate wordless peace in the only realistic way I knew: contemplative prayer in the form of concentration meditation--also called tranquility or one-pointed meditation. Following the breath, noticing air coming into my nose as I breathed in, noticing the rise and fall of my belly, noticing the relaxing of my diaphragm as I breathed out. Just this. Just this.
Just this. Over and over and over.
There were lots of other ways as the days and weeks progressed to embody God's love and wisdom and I kept coming back and back and back to what helped, what worked, what kept me sane and more than sane--what brought me back to the Center--and to what I knew was trustworthy and whole-making.
Whew. Grateful. Grateful. Grateful.
I felt so lucky, so blessed that I knew, at least a bit, how to hold pain, confusion, anxiety, anger, dumb-struckness as they came up over and over again.
One of my favorite 'go to' prayers during that time was this:
O God of peace, you have taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray,to your presence, where we may be still and know that you are God.
Also, I was very grateful for a basic process that Pema Chodron had introduced me to some years earlier in her book When Things Fall Apart (below).
Wisdom, love, trust, prayer, mindful practices-they don't just get us through the night (though thankfully they do that too!): they move us through life and continually reconnect us with LIFE--even when life is its most challenging.
"Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
"When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don't know what's really going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don't know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.
"We try to do what we think is going to help. Bet we don't know,. We never know if we're going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there is a big disappointment, we don't don't know if that's the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure.
"Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs."
It caught me completely by surprise. I felt the hugeness of it 'everywhere'. Head, heart, blood flow, gut, everywhere. And I had to 'do' church later that morning. Either that or get somebody else to do it at short notice.
She was clear that she didn't want to talk about it. Period. Done deal. So...it's now 2:30 in the morning and the only 'one' I have to talk to is God. Strangely, even for a priest, at first that seemed totally inadequate.
In retrospect, of course it did. Anything feels inadequate at times like these.
But I did talk to God. Pouring out my heart--with long breaks for worry and imagined work-arounds. After maybe an hour of this I began to shift to the realization that I'd done enough 'talking:' now it was time to be quiet and to embody God, to incarnate, the best I could, God's love and wisdom in that moment and in my body.
I went back to bed and brought every ounce of attention to my breath--trusting breath as Spirit. Any tiny distraction from focusing on breathing in and out, in and out, I let go of like it was a wasp or a spider.
I knew there would be time later to think through the immensity of separating from my partner and best friend of 32 years. Lots and lots of laters. My work the rest of that night was to incarnate wordless peace in the only realistic way I knew: contemplative prayer in the form of concentration meditation--also called tranquility or one-pointed meditation. Following the breath, noticing air coming into my nose as I breathed in, noticing the rise and fall of my belly, noticing the relaxing of my diaphragm as I breathed out. Just this. Just this.
Just this. Over and over and over.
There were lots of other ways as the days and weeks progressed to embody God's love and wisdom and I kept coming back and back and back to what helped, what worked, what kept me sane and more than sane--what brought me back to the Center--and to what I knew was trustworthy and whole-making.
Whew. Grateful. Grateful. Grateful.
I felt so lucky, so blessed that I knew, at least a bit, how to hold pain, confusion, anxiety, anger, dumb-struckness as they came up over and over again.
One of my favorite 'go to' prayers during that time was this:
O God of peace, you have taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray,to your presence, where we may be still and know that you are God.
Also, I was very grateful for a basic process that Pema Chodron had introduced me to some years earlier in her book When Things Fall Apart (below).
Wisdom, love, trust, prayer, mindful practices-they don't just get us through the night (though thankfully they do that too!): they move us through life and continually reconnect us with LIFE--even when life is its most challenging.
---
"Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
"When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don't know what's really going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don't know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.
"We try to do what we think is going to help. Bet we don't know,. We never know if we're going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there is a big disappointment, we don't don't know if that's the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure.
"Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs."
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Who Can Say?
Wise people are always encouraging us regular people to live in the present. Most of us hover between agreeing that staying in the present is wise and good while ALSO believing it's not really possible.
We come hard-wired to kvetch about the past and fret about the future. Or, less often perhaps, to savor something in the past and be excited about something in the future.
There's a wonderful old Chinese story about a farmer who takes a wiser view.
---
One way of doing mindful practice is every time we notice we're being somewhat haunted by a past action--expecting to reap something 'bad'--we simply get in the habit of saying to ourselves, "Who can say?" We incarnate that farmer's wisdom. Again and again. Who can say?
If it happens, it happens. God give me wisdom to deal with it if and when it comes.
Catching ourselves worrying about something in the future, predicting some negative outcome as if we were some kind of prophet, we let go of this wacky fiction and say instead, "We'll see." To do this is simply standing firmly on the good warm earth of human limits--acknowledging (duh) we're not prophets.
Whew. What a relief. Usually the deepest spirituality is about being more human, not less human. How many times have you worried about something in the future that never happens? Or happens very differently that how you predicted?
Most of us have gotten so used to operating this way we feel strangely irresponsible if we're NOT worrying about the future!
There are better ways to move toward tomorrow and tomorrow.
And better ways to work with all our yesterdays.
If we decide to try working more and more like the farmer in this old tale, I could predict we'd all be wiser, healthier, and happier. But, then again, "Who can say?"
We come hard-wired to kvetch about the past and fret about the future. Or, less often perhaps, to savor something in the past and be excited about something in the future.
There's a wonderful old Chinese story about a farmer who takes a wiser view.
---
Once upon a time there was an old
farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away.
Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such
bad luck," they said sympathetically.
"Who can say?" the farmer replied.
The next
morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How
wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed.
"Who can say?" replied the old man.
The
following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and
broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his
misfortune. "This is so tragic!" said the neighbors.
"We'll
see," answered the farmer.
The day
after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army.
Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors
congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.
"We'll
see" said the farmer.
My friend Terry keeps the following Anthony de Mello quote at the bottom of his emails:
"A neurotic is someone who worries about things in the past that never happened. Not like us normal people who only worry about things in the future that won't happen."
"A neurotic is someone who worries about things in the past that never happened. Not like us normal people who only worry about things in the future that won't happen."
One thing mindful practice always does over time is show us what goes on in our day to day thinking. I've never met any 'normal' person whose mind doesn't work at least a little like this de Mello quote. We may not be worried about stuff that never happened but we surely worry about stuff that did--and are regularly anxious about stuff that might or might not happen in the days ahead.
One way of doing mindful practice is every time we notice we're being somewhat haunted by a past action--expecting to reap something 'bad'--we simply get in the habit of saying to ourselves, "Who can say?" We incarnate that farmer's wisdom. Again and again. Who can say?
If it happens, it happens. God give me wisdom to deal with it if and when it comes.
Catching ourselves worrying about something in the future, predicting some negative outcome as if we were some kind of prophet, we let go of this wacky fiction and say instead, "We'll see." To do this is simply standing firmly on the good warm earth of human limits--acknowledging (duh) we're not prophets.
Whew. What a relief. Usually the deepest spirituality is about being more human, not less human. How many times have you worried about something in the future that never happens? Or happens very differently that how you predicted?
Most of us have gotten so used to operating this way we feel strangely irresponsible if we're NOT worrying about the future!
There are better ways to move toward tomorrow and tomorrow.
And better ways to work with all our yesterdays.
If we decide to try working more and more like the farmer in this old tale, I could predict we'd all be wiser, healthier, and happier. But, then again, "Who can say?"
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