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Awaken Every Day
"Reflect for a minute on the kindness of others -- the kindness not only of friends and family, but also of strangers whose work in society helps us. Reflect on the benefit you receive from people who challenge you: they help you to discover resources within yourself that you didn't know you had.
"Seeing how dependent you are on others to stay alive and how much benefit you've received from them, respond from your heart with a wish to repay that kindness. Wish to make a positive contribution to the welfare of other living beings.
"Your spiritual practice is one way to make a positive impact, because by progressing along the path, your capability to be of direct benefit to others and to work for their welfare increases by leaps and bounds."
A reflection upon the benefits we receive from our interactions with others.
The Ten Commandments
"The Ten Commandments are an adventure in human growth. We are not so much convicted by them as we are to be transformed by them," writes Joan Chittister, a prolific author and worldwide speaker who has been a leading voice in contemporary spirituality for more than 25 years. She sees them as "laws of the heart" and finds an appropriate practice for each of the ten: reflection, respect, remembrance, caring, life, commitment, sharing, speech, self-control, and assurance.
Chittister's treatment of each commandment is in three parts: a look at the historical understanding of it; situations to which the commandment applies today; and reflection statements for personal consideration as we try to live moral lives. As is usual in a book by this author, there are plenty of rousing stories from all spiritual traditions, lots of memorable quotations, and important statistics about many of the egregious injustices of our time.
Chittister considers that she has spent far too little time on the first commandment which challenges us to surrender our lives to the Source of all our days and doings. In her comments on not taking the name of God in vain, she writes:
"When we use the name of God to demean or diminish any other human being, it is not they whose merits we measure. It is ourselves. And in public. How embarrassing."
We also miss the meaning of the second commandment when we call upon God to baptize crusades that lead to the death of others. Chittister doesn't get too upset about swearing but she does worry about the toxic energy that lies behind it.
The author does a superb job with her treatment of the fourth commandment, covering the law of caring, which means that we owe future generations a fair shake and cannot pass on to them a world of misery. She hits high stride in her multidimensional treatment of the seventh commandment, noting the many ways we steal from others:
"Stealing, in the biblical sense, then, is not so much a private or personal sin as it is a social sin. To take what we do not need, to destroy what is useful to another, to deprive those in the community of their basic needs is stealing."
This paperback concludes with Chittister's assessment of the Two Great Commandments of Love. She makes a good case for measuring our spiritual development in terms of these laws of the heart.
A good case for measuring our spiritual development in terms of the Ten Commandments as laws of the heart.
The Gospel According to Oprah
Oprah Winfrey is a talk show host, film producer, philanthropist, and initiator of the largest book club in the world — and in all these roles she demonstrates a spiritual perspective. That is the message of Marcia Z. Nelson's spiffy and edifying portrait of this multimedia wizard. Nelson writes for Religious News Service, the Christian Century, and Publisher's Weekly. She is also the author of Sit: A Week Inside Meditation Centers.
In 2004, the United States audience for Oprah's television show was 10 million. Her program has a worldwide audience in 108 countries. Her magazine, begun in 2000, has a readership of 2.7 million. And her website, www.oprah.com encourages all visitors to "live your best life." There are web support groups for a wide variety of needs and information on life coaches on personal growth, better health and much more.
According to Nelson, Oprah is a compelling and successful spiritual teacher for the following ten reasons:
She is very human (look at her struggle with weight loss).
She acknowledges the reality of suffering and wants to do something to relieve it.
She provides community.
She encourages self-examination.
She teaches gratitude.
She is easy to understand.
She listens.
She teaches generosity by highlighting and encouraging role models.
She explores forgiveness and tries to demonstrate that it is possible and how it is possible.
She is a reminder service: a reminder of what is good, what is important, what one person can do.
Anyone who has watched Oprah over the years knows the truth of these reasons. And there are more virtues that she affirms and demonstrates such as kindness, generosity, play, compassion and justice.
Nelson states: "Oprah believes in her own viewers and their values as well as herself. Politically, this means she believes in human dignity and equality within democracy; psychologically, she models self-esteem; morally, she argues for community improvement that flows from personal decisions you can live comfortably with, including a decision to share and give back as you have been given to. Oprah reaches her viewers through stories, which teach values. Oprah tells stories well, using a language that makes the connection."
Thank goodness that Spirit has found so many diverse and wonderful people to carry her messages into our hearts and minds!
A spiffy and edifying profile of Oprah Winfrey as a spiritual teacher.
Just Add Buddha!
In his entertaining and practical paperback What Would Buddha Do? 101 Answers to Life's Daily Dilemmas, Franz Metcalf applied ancient wisdom to contemporary questions of personal identity, relationships, and societal issues. The author works with the Forge Institute for Spirituality and Social Change and teaches college in Los Angeles. This paperback is subtitled: "Quick Buddhist Solutions for Hellish Bosses, Traffic Jams, Stubborn Spouses, & Other Annoyances of Everyday Life." Metcalf looks at 72 problems that can bring the eightfold path to life. The chapters are: Out in the World, Dealing with Troublesome Types, Love, This Sack of Shit/This Precious Human Birth, It's All in Your Mind, and Things Larger Than Life.
Metcalf has a good sense of humor, which is a necessary quality for anyone who seeks to practice patience, generosity, compassion, kindness, and love in a world piled up high with disasters, dilemmas, and constant misunderstandings. For instance, Metcalf suggests that when you get enraged at the slow driver in front of you, just take a breath and think: "This person is a bodhisattva; he's protecting me from driving too fast; he's making me aware of my own impatience; he's my teacher." When the noise of a mosquito's wings in your ears is keeping you from sleeping, it is helpful to remember the sage advice of Tibetan teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche who said: "This problem is like a great pleasure for me. There are much heavier problems to come." Reframing is the name of the game in bringing the essentials of Buddhism to life in everyday situations.
Putting things in perspective and just witnessing what we are feeling is another helpful practice. Here is what Metcalf suggests:
"Suppose you're stuck in the rain, soaked and freezing, Say this phrase: 'I am more than these feelings.'
"Suppose you're listening to someone chew you out and beginning to feel the anger. Say this phrase: 'I am more than these feelings.'
"Suppose that you're feeling homesick or even that you've lost someone you love. Say this phrase: 'I am more than these feelings.'
"Say it aloud, if you can. If not, shut your eyes for those quick seconds it takes to say it. Focus your attention. Really mean it, of only for that brief moment. It will help."
Try a Spiritual Practice on Compassion
A diverse and edifying collection of practices to use in annoying and difficult circumstances.
The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume One
About Chögyam Trungpa and His Collected Works:
Chögyam Trungpa (1939 - 1987), a Tibetan meditation master, teacher, and artist is widely known as one of the pioneers in bringing Buddhism to the West. He was born in eastern Tibet and was identified as the eleventh descendent in the line of Trungpa tulkus (incarnations of teachers). At age 18, this scholar was Supreme Abbot of the Surmang Monasteries. He fled to India when the Chinese invaded his homeland in 1959. In 1963, Chögyam Trungpa traveled to England where he attended Oxford University as a Spaulding Fellow, studying Western philosophy, religion, art, and language. He established the first Tibetan Buddhist center in Scotland in 1967.
In 1970, he was invited to teach in the United States; he settled down in Boulder, Colorado. Over the years, he established over 100 meditation centers in America, Canada, and Europe. Trungpa Rinpoche set up Shambhala International in 1973 to coordinate the activities of these centers. He also founded Naropa Institute (now Naropa University), an innovative college that combines contemplative studies with a liberal arts curriculum. A secular program for meditation called Shambhala Training was established in 1976. In 1986, Trungpa Rinpoche moved the center of his activities from Boulder to Halifax, Canada, where he died the following year.
Carolyn Rose Gimian, editor of The Essential Chögyam Trungpa (1999), is the compiler and editor of The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa. In each of these eight volumes, she provides an overview of the material.
About This Volume:
Volume One contains Chögyam Trungpa's early writings produced during the time he lived in Great Britain (1963-1970). Born in Tibet (1966) is a memoir of his experiences as a young monk, his duties as the abbot of a great monastery, and his relationships with his spiritual teachers. It offers a fascinating glimpse into the life of a Tibetan lama. It concludes with his escape to India and his eventual emigration to the West.
In Meditation in Action (1969), Chögyam Trungpa demonstrates how this practice and the six activities associated with it (generosity, discipline, patience, energy, clarity, and wisdom) is a training ground for compassion, awareness, and creativity in all spheres of life. Mudra (1972) is a collection of poetry, songs of devotion, and commentary on the ten traditional Zen oxherding pictures. The volume concludes with nine early articles which demonstrate Chögyam Trungpa's growing ability to present Tibetan teachings in ways that are accessible to Westerners.
The Tibetan teacher's memoir of his experiences as a young monk in Tibet and his early writings on meditation.
Subverting Hatred
This timely volume published in association with The Boston Research Center for the 21st Century is edited by Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, a professor of theological studies and director of the Peace Studies program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He notes in the introduction that ethnic conflicts have erupted all over the world and while there is much talk about nonviolence, very few groups are willing to practice it.
Thankfully, the nine different religious traditions covered in this helpful resource are in agreement about the validity of subverting hatred and practicing peace. Christopher Key Chapple discusses the rich meaning of Jainism's concept of ahimsa and concludes: "In order for nonviolence to be integrated into one's personal and interpersonal life and into work environments, one needs to investigate ways in which to foster virtuous conduct, cooperation, and communication."
Christopher S. Queen presents a succinct overview of Buddhist resources for nonviolent activism including lovingkindness, generosity, and wisdom as antidotes to the seeds of violence; the concept of the interconnectedness between all beings; and the practical curriculum of skillful actions for taming and transforming the mind. Tam Wai Lun believes that Taoism's wuwei (nonaction) can be understood as an alternative to violence and force. Rabia Terri Harris and Jeremy Milgrom assess the tradition of nonviolence in Islam and Judaism.
One of the many gems in this book is a prayer for peace by Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav: "There should be no hatred, jealousy, rivalry, triumphalism or pettiness between people, only love and a great peace, that everyone should experience love from one another, and be sure that each wants good to befall the other, and to love them and for them to succeed, so that all could come together and speak with each other and explain the truth to one another."
The challenges faced by those who try to subvert hatred and practice nonviolence.
Ordinary Wisdom
Sakya Pandita's parables, aphorisms, and stories have been a staple of Tibetan culture for a thousand years. This collection of wise sayings was written primarily for lay people. Sakya Trizin, a Tibetan cleric, calls it "a definitive guide to ethical conduct in everyday life." It offers good advice on achievement and failure, anger and kindness, deceit and desire, intelligence and foolishness, excellence and coarseness, generosity and greed.
Here's an example: "Inability to tolerate / The good fortune of others / Destroys one's own good fortune; / Therefore, eradicate jealous feelings." This is the kind of character education we need in today's schools and businesses. It was thoroughly ingrained in the Tibetan way of life. Here's another sample on positive qualities: "The supreme wealth is generosity; / The supreme happiness is a joyous mind; / The supreme ornament is learning; / And the supreme friend is an undeceitful person."
These are just two of the philosophical gems in this treasure trove of Buddhist wisdom. There are also soul-stretching pieces on wealth, contentment, leadership, impatience, and spiritual progress.
A treasure trove of Buddhist wisdom.
My Grandfather's Blessings
Rachel Naomi Remen, the best-selling author of Kitchen Table Wisdom, has been counseling people with chronic and terminal illness for more than 20 years. She is co-founder and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program in Bolinas, California, and clinical professor of family and community medicine at the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine.
Much of the inspiration that shines from nearly every page in this spiritually rich resource comes from Dr. Remen's grandfather, an Orthodox Jew and ardent believer in the mystical bounties of the Kaballah. He taught her the power of blessings: "A blessing is not something that one person gives another. A blessing is a moment of meeting, a certain kind of relationship in which both people involved remember and acknowledge their true nature and worth, and strengthen what is whole in one other."
Through this healing work, Dr. Remen presents stories of strength, refuge, and belonging taken from her work with terminally ill people and their physicians. Again and again, she shows how service differs from helping, fixing, and rescuing: "(it) is about taking life personally, letting the lives that touch yours touch you." She sees service as closer to generosity than to duty.
The stories here also testify to the various ways we can befriend life through the spiritual practices of kindness, meaning, silence, connections, and compassion. Dr. Remen, who is no stranger to pain and suffering in her 47-year battle with Crohn's disease, concludes that: "There is a grace in life that can be trusted. In our struggle toward freedom, we are neither abandoned nor alone."
At one point Dr. Remen refers to a practice among Orthodox Jews to mark the end of the Sabbath. They pass around a box of spices so that everyone can breathe in and rejoice in the fragrances of the earth. My Grandfather's Blessings is filled with spiritual aromas that will refresh your soul and lift your spirit.
A masterwork filled with stories of strength, refuge and belonging.
The Nature of Generosity
"We ride stories like rafts, or lay them out on the table like maps. They always, eventually, fail and have to be reinvented. The world is too complex for our forms ever to encompass for long. Storytelling requires continuous reimagining," writes William Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky, a memoir; Owning It All, a book of essays; and The Van Gogh Field and We Are Not in This Together, two collections of stories. This bold and daring work is a prime example of questing literature.
Kittredge takes a long multidimensional look at the human capacity for selfishness and generosity, for separation and unity, for blindness and visionary insight. The author ponders his travels to Paris and Venice. He wrestles with the complexities and immorality of consumerism and wealth. He salutes the celebratory insights of Walt Whitman, Rainer Maria Rilke, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Pablo Neruda into the diversity and lure of the human adventure. As he notes at the outset, the book proceeds "more like a dance than an argument." In these postmodern times, it's the only way to go if you're going to deal with "redefining intentions, obligations, and responsibilities, rediscovering home and acknowledging basic allegiances."
This ambitious and ethically driven book dances its way through an abundance of rich and thought-provoking illustrative material on the loss of 25,000 to 30,000 species a year, the vast potential of the human brain, the wayward trek of modern homo sapiens, the deadly consequences of contemporary xenophobia, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, the corporate control of more than 25 percent of the planet's productive assets, the insulation of the wealthy from the rest of society, and the soul sickness of consumerism. Kittredge concludes: "We are presently evolving, certainly, into a culture based on distance. First World societies evolve in the direction of electronic chat rooms. Defining ourselves in purely economic terms, we ignore the necessary role of generosity in our lives. Economic anxiety is killing the mantle of life on earth, and we find ourselves in a double bind, in which consumption promotes peace of mind, which in turn leads us to destroy the basis for our very survival. We despise ourselves for our involvement. Acting out this scenario, we suffer a pervasive sense of powerlessness and alienation from ourselves and thus our societies. . . . We are like those increasingly featureless statues standing in the acid rain outside cathedrals all over Europe, dissolving."
Instead of hostility and distrust of strangers, we can exhibit hospitality. Instead of constricting our hearts and tightening our fists, we can open our souls and reach out to others in mutuality and compassion. Kittredge finds a succinct model of this spiritual practice in the following words by Walt Whitman: "This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, and give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God."
The author concludes with a dance of his own ideas and ideals about a transformed world based on diversity; the reimagination of desire and home; and a delight in a pluriverse of meanings. Kittredge ends with: "We must relearn the arts of generosity. We cannot, in any long run, survive by bucking against natural forces, and it is our moral duty to defend all life. It's time to give something back to the systems of order that have supported us: care and tenderness."
A bold and daring example of questing literature.
God Said Amen
God calls each and every one of us to be an answer to someone else's prayers. In this marvelous children's book, designed for those four years and older, award-winner Sandy Eisenberg Sasso has fashioned a tale about two rulers, the Prince of the Midnight Kingdom and the Princess of the Desert Kingdom. The former needs oil for his lamps while the latter needs water for her tea. Walled off from each other by pride and stubbornness, they are unable to get to a place where they can share these essential provisions. Two children are the spiritual teachers whose acts of generosity enable the two kingdoms to recognize their interdependence. This enchanting tale is beautifully illustrated by Avi Katz.
Sasso, the author of eight children's books including God's Paintbrush and In God's Name, shows us that sharing is the key to creating a better world and winning God's "amen." This multicultural, nondenominational, and nonsectarian story is tailor-made for a world where separation creates barriers between peoples, cultures, and religions. God Said Amen salutes the generous heart and the wonders it engenders.
Children's book that shows that sharing is the key to creating a better world and winning God's amen.