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Eugene Kennedy, 9-11: Meditations at the Center of the World
They [Boomers] had nothing to draw on but themselves. And, in that split second of dread, they discovered for themselves the depths of their character, the beauty of their hearts, and the generosity of their souls.
Boomers, critical of their own self-absorption, were tried in the flames that burned away this superficial dross to show how they put away self-concern for the sake of others.
The depths of their character
Altruistic Joy
Let your body settle into a posture of ease and balance.
Gently close your eyes and settle your attention in your body and in the present moment.
Invite into your attention a friend who is happy or joyous. They may be delighting in the birth of a child, in recovered health after a spate of illness or in a life event that has brought a newfound happiness.
Sense their gladness, gratefulness, or delight as you have seen it in them.
Offer them a generous wish that their happiness may deepen and continue.
Find a few simple words or phrases that express the generosity of heart you feel for them:
"May your happiness deepen."
"May your life continue to bring gladness and delight."
Next invite into your attention someone whom you envy or feel some resentment towards because of the happiness they are experiencing. It may be a friend, a colleague or even someone you do not know but whom you admire and yet at the same time envy.
Offer to that person a generosity of heart that rejoices in their gladness, accomplishments, or successes:
"May your happiness deepen."
"May your gladness continue."
Sense whether it is possible to offer that same generosity of altruistic joy to yourself. Take some moments to reflect on the many blessings and moments of happiness and ease that are present in your life in this moment. Reflect on your capacity for love, care and empathy, on the people in your life who care for you, on the moments of gladness and delight you encounter. Say to yourself:
"May I deepen in happiness and generosity."
"May I live with appreciation and gladness."
When you are ready, open your eyes and come out of the posture.
A guided meditation to foster happiness, gladness, delight, and generosity.
Robert Frager, The Wisdom of Islam
All Muslims are required to make a pilgrimage to Makkah if they can afford to do so. . . . In Indonesia today, rural communities will pool their money in order to collect enough for a single couple to make the pilgrimage. No single family could ever earn enough, so each year the community sends the oldest couple who has not yet gone. The whole town will go to the Jakarta airport to see off their "representatives."
All Muslims are required to make a pilgrimage
Irrational Generosity
This practice is best done with a friend.
One will do the practice,
And one will act as a witness and support
At a distance.
Go into a place where there are people you do not know:
A shopping mall, restaurant, bank, or park.
Compliment three people you have never met.
I love your nail polish.
Thank you for the radiant presence you bring to your job.
You have beautiful eyes.
Approach an old couple
And tell them how much love you can feel between them.
See how far you can step out on a limb
In spreading into this world a little more irrational generosity.
Do not upset anyone, but equally do not hold back.
Step beyond the habitual limits of socially acceptable restraint.
Stepping beyond the limits.
The Tao of Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was a great American poet who forged his own mystical religion based on unity, reverence for nature and the human body, the connections between all living beings, and a belief that the divine presence was a force and energy permeating the world.
Connie Shaw, a publisher and poetry lover who lives in Boulder, Colorado, and Ike Allen, co-creator of Leap! and other movies about consciousness, have created a daybook containing snippets of verses from Whitman's poetry and set them in tandem with suggestions for action or reflection.
The authors have taken this celebrated poet's love of nature and his ability to see spirituality everywhere as signs of his alignment with Taoism. In the 52 weeks of material, you will find Whitman's takes on paradox, silence, compassion, wonder, mystery, passion, reverence, devotion, peace, and more.
Whitman writes:
"Good or bad I never question you — I love all — I do not condemn any thing,
I celebrate all that is yours"
Now there is Taoism revived and come alive in this extraordinary poet's mind and soul. This daybook will warm your heart and send sparks flying here and there in your consciousness.
An inspiring daybook with verses from Walt Whitman's poetry and exercises for reflection and action.
Being Generous
St. Augustine said: "Discover what being generous means, and begin living it." Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, chairman and CEO of the Roosevelt Group, a leading strategic advisory and thought leadership company, took that advice and has nurtured it for many years. Also the founder and chairman of the not-for-profit Spiritual Enterprise Institute, the author sees generosity as "a virtue, a habit that shapes and governs a way of life. It influences expectations, causing people to look at the world as though others — not themselves — are the principal reason for the world's existence."
Malloch takes a brief look at how all of the world's religions see generosity as a mark of living well in the eyes of God. Even modern secular philosophy celebrates this virtue as "a universal moral urge, our defining nature." The author then examines his own tradition of Christian thinking by focusing on St. Paul's teachings and practices of generosity. He concludes that those who respond to the gift of grace offered by God are energized to give freely to others.
Anyone who is thinking seriously about generosity knows that it does not just include giving money. For most people, it involves the gift of time and talent, in service of others: "Stewardship is not some Faustian bargain or a form of long-term hedonism directed to the happy afterlife. It is nothing more than a 'living' faith, here and now, next door, across the nation and around the globe."
Malloch points out that helping a stranger is congruent with a free economy, that science has proven that unselfish giving spurs mental and physical health, that the future of giving looks bright, and that business and society are opening to the idea that responsibility and generosity belong together. The author has included profiles of people he sees as exemplars of generosity including Mother Teresa, Johann Sebastian Bach, William Wilberforce, Oprah, Andrew Carnegie, and others.
A thoughtful meditation on the spiritual meanings of generosity.
Walt Whitman in The Nature of Generosity
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God.
This is what you shall do
Plant Seed, Pull Weed
Geri Larkin was a management consultant before becoming a dharma teacher and starting Still Point Buddhist Temple in Detroit, Michigan. She now lives in Eugene, Oregon. In her last book, The Chocolate Cake Sutra, Larkin outlined eight practices that can serve as the ingredients for a sweet life. This time around, she turns to themes in the Buddhist sage Shantideva's The Way of the Bodhisattva which she sees as "a hymn to an awakened life." Moving in tandem with this emphasis are her comments on gardening which draw on her experience working at Seattle's premier gardening center. She has plenty to say about planning, planting, and maintaining a garden.
Whether working with plants or dealing with the plans for the day, intention is very important. It keeps us focused. In a sentence that is illustrative of Larkin's entertaining style, we read: "Since I am a mistake-making machine, some days my intention to wake up for the sake of the world is literally the only thing that keeps me on my path." In a chapter on "Transcending Hesitation," she salutes the fearlessness that enables us to jump in the water without fussing about and trying to decide whether it is cold or not. There is also an active quality to "Clear Seeing," which is predicated on being alert to what is going on within and around us. Larkin makes a good case for "Generosity" as a "great fertilizer" that brings new things to life.
Shantideva saluted "Enthusiasm" as an attribute that fuels our happiness. Larkin writes: "When I was a seminary student, my teacher demanded enthusiasm. He taught us that four things would feed it: wanting to be enthusiastic; sticking with it; letting ourselves be happy; and being careful not to get too carried away because that could lead to having-to-lie-on-the-floor exhaustion." Many of the most impressive people in our lives are those who exude this spiritual quality and give all they've got to whatever they are doing.
In a chapter on "Patience," Larkin shares a mantra she has learned which helps keep her calm: "For as long as it takes." In a piece on "Anger," she presents a simple practice that can be tried to stop the wildfire of this volatile emotion as it inches its way up your spine. In the same chapter, she writes:
"Doing no harm is about making immediate apologies. In the seminary we were taught to apologize quickly for every single mistake we made — as well as for things we did that might turn out to be mistakes. The lesson wasn't about making mistakes. My teacher knew we would make plenty, and that was okay. The lesson was about creating a habit of apologizing quickly and sincerely."
These selections on spiritual qualities and practices that can nurture your spirit are both edifying and entertaining — two words that can be used for all of Larkin's writings. Let's close with one final example of what we mean: "Joy is a cheap date. It doesn't have to cost much." Our cats taught us that lesson last week when they ignored a fancy toy we had purchased for them and played with a Q-tip on the bathroom floor!
Wise and entertaining Buddhist advice on spiritual qualities and practices to nurture the garden of your life.
Two Treasures
Vietnamese Buddhist Zen master, poet, scholar, and human rights activist Thich Nhat Hanh presents teachings on the Sutra on the Eight Realizations of Great Beings and the Discourse on Happiness. His commentary on Buddha's understanding of life is both simple and elegant. Hanh points out that those who assimilate these two texts are well on their way to awakening and happiness. He suggests reading this little paperback after taking a bath or sometime when your mind and body are completely relaxed.
The first sutra presents eight essential subjects for meditation: awareness of the impermanence of the world, realization that more desire brings more suffering, the yearning for more possessions, the acknowledgement that laziness is an obstacle to practice, awareness that ignorance is the cause of the endless round of birth and death, the understanding that poverty creates hatred and anger, awareness that the five categories of desire lead to difficulties, and the realization that we should help others who are suffering. This sutra alone is a great resource for meditation but Thich Nhat Hanh also presents eleven ways to practice and observe its teachings. Here are a few of his suggestions:
• "While acting in society, do not hope or pray not to have any difficulties. Without difficulties, arrogance can easily arise."
• "While interacting with others, do not hope or pray to gain personal profit. With the hope for personal gain, the spiritual nature of the encounter is diminished."
Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary on the second sutra zeroes in on importance of community, acting without regret, helping others alleviate their fears, being humble and grateful, letting go, and practicing simplicity. Putting all of these together and trying to live them day by day is the path to contentment.
Commentary by a Zen master on two essential sutras of the Buddha with insights into generosity, simplicity, and compassion.
The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Two
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 Two focuses on this Tibetan teacher's insights on psychology. The overarching theme is the link between meditation, mind, and the development of compassion and awareness. In The Path Is the Goal: A Basic Handbook of Buddhist Meditation (1995), he explores how mindfulness leads to openness, insight and freedom. Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness (1993) is a very practical work explaining the 59 slogans used by Tibetan Buddhists for centuries as a lauchpad for compassionate living in everyday life. Three other books revolve around human consciousness, emptiness, and spirituality as a discipline. Among the many fascinating selected writings in this volume are "The Lion's Roar" on emotions, "Relating with Death" on being with a dying person, and five articles from Choögyam Trungpa's participation in Christian-Buddhist Meditation conferences at Naropa in the 1980s.
The Tibetan teacher's insights on psychology, mindfulness, and spirituality.