The Hardest Work In The World

This spontaneous prayer jumped into my head this morning while walking:

Lord, let all that I do, and say, and think, be in the service of harmony. 

It seems simple enough on the surface but as I meditated on the phrase I began to see how deeply it touches the core human desire for joy which is by extension the diminishment of dissonance. It seems to me that everything I do to increase harmony, both interior and exterior harmony, enables me to touch joy.  The more I act in the service of harmony, the more I touch joy.

The biblical admonition to "magnify the Lord" is to "magnify Harmony" and diminish dissonance wherever it is found. In the Buddhist sense this is to come into resonance with the present moment, recognizing that it is only in the present moment that this is possible.   

Our human condition keeps us perpetually balanced on the knife edge of the present. That edge is so sharp there is the constant danger of falling off into the past or into the future. The past and future exist only as shadowy phantoms in our mind. Though they are seductive, beckoning us like a mirage,  they can not quench our thirst for joy. And this causes suffering. 

To be in the present means to be in resonance with "what is" . To be unified with "what is" forces a rejection of "what isn't" which in this case is the past or the future. It is also fundamentally a rejection of the illusion of duality in favor of the acceptance of our own divine nature. Indeed, even modern physics has begun to pierce the illusion of duality in its quest for a unified theory and everywhere boundaries fall away. This is expressed elegantly in Thich Nhat Hanh's Order of Interbeing which encourages followers to remember their true nature as the true nature of the universe; light. 

Of course this is heresy to the ego. Dissolving into divine light, even momentarily, is decidedly unpalatable to an ego hellbent on preserving its individual identity, an identity barricaded behind a wall of bricks made of past experiences or future dreams. The fear this generates creates much dissonance which in turn creates endless suffering. This is the human existential dilemma.  

Becoming comfortable on the knife edge of the present means learning to let go of ideas of the past and future, at least momentarily. Only then is harmony available. Only then can joy be touched. This requires an extinction of thinking, or at least a continuous redirection of thoughts away from the past or future. The tool for this is abundantly available in the breath. We need a north star and this is it! A tightrope walker needs a steadying pole and the spiritual pilgrim needs the breath to help him or her return to the present moment.

"Breathing in, I have arrived. Breathing out I am home."

The deepest human desire is for love and love is felt strongest when we resonate not only with each other but with all that is. This gives birth to profound liberation of the soul. When  all our faculties are brought together in the service of harmony we become like Saint Theresa of Avila whose only prayer was "All for God." Though we physically appear alone, like the strings of the lute we quiver with the same music. That is joy. 

Just sit there right now

Don’t do a thing

Just rest.

For your separation from God,

From love,

Is the hardest work

In this

World.

Let me bring you trays of food

And something

That you like to

Drink.

You can use my soft words

As a cushion

For your

Head.

~Hafiz~

The Gift: Poems by Hafiz

Translations by Daniel Ladinsky

Bowl of light

The thought came to me this morning walking on the Biltmore Estate: Our experience of the world is largely dependent on our intention. If we intend to live in a world that is filled with beauty, love, and peace then we will experience the world as being filled with those qualities.  In large and small ways through our consciousness we create the universe we inhabit. In these times we are confronted with images and information that seem to suggest that the world is anything but filled with love, beauty, and peace! Indeed the world is filled with both light and dark forces. We can not change that dynamic and quite possibly beauty, love, and peace may arise from their opposites. All we can hope to do is choose the way we react to the constantly changing circumstance we experience. If we choose to find beauty in our surroundings, we will! In- deed that choice may even create beauty where none was before. If we choose to find and increase love in all our relationships, we will! If we choose to live in a world filled with peace we will find that path! The universe is not separate from our perception of it: both arise co-dependently. Mind and object of mind equally participate in universal manifestation.

Feed Your Angels.

FEED  YOUR ANGELS STARVE YOUR DEMONS by William Stanhope

A few days ago while driving out to Hawkscry through the Sandy Mush Valley the following simple thought popped into my head: Feed your angels. Starve your demons.
This idea resolved perfectly an internal argument I had been having about battling negative thought patterns that reap so much havoc in my life. Somehow, I knew the idea of actually battling these forces was not the right approach; in my experience the energy used to fight was more likely to increase the negative pattern rather than extinguish it since it often involved some form of suppression. The idea of starving rather than battling demons means depriving them of their essential nourishment; attention. This is not quite the same thing as ignoring them. And it is not suppression. It is more an act of compassion, perhaps a psychic nod to the existence of imperfection ( a little bow of gratitude for the opportunity to consciously choose a brighter path) but also an acknowledgement that humans are a work in progress and that what we most need is to know that we are worthy of love in spite of our imperfections. So we do a little bow of recognition and then gently turn to feed our angels with what they need most; attention. I think my angels have gotten rather thin in fact. Demons are attention hogs! They can never get enough. They feast on judgement, fear, doubt, self loathing, hate, jealousy, boredom, anger, to name a few. Angels, on the otherhand feast on love or more exactly anything that does not have judgement, fear, doubt, self loathing, hate, jealousy, boredom, or anger, listed in the ingredients. They especially relish gratitude, kindness and generosity. This year I will take more care to feed my angels with what they need.

Commentary on Walking Like A Buddha

photo source www.dreamstime.ocm

In the hyperbolic society we live in it is easy to feel bored with doing nothing. The endless distractions that offer themselves up to us beckon from every corner. Indeed it is more of a bombardment than an offering! And the cultural message is often clear, though at times subtle, which is that if you are not participating in some way in the frenetic, distractive energy of consumption, you are a loser.

So we tap into the energy that swirls around us like a hurricane. And when we are not able to do that we often feel bored or even depressed, often feeling that something is wrong with us or that we are in some way less worthy  than those who seem happily caught up in doing.

This is how we lose touch with the inner life and the richness that comes from quieting the mind enough to allow our innate inner wisdom to bubble up from the center of our being. It is only with this knowledge that we can begin to see  how everything is forever engaged in a connected and intimate dance. Thich Nhat Hahn calls this inter being. .

Driving through the lovely Sandy Mush Valley of North Carolina on the way to Hawkscry, I frequently see  solitary figures sitting on their front porch, rocking back and forth for long spells. What a wonderful contrast to the frenetic pace of the city! Some might call it a waste of time and apply a negative label.  But I think otherwise on the matter. I can imagine there are numerous little epiphanies that spring forth as a result of overhearing the chatter of house sparrows or the quiet song of the breeze as it caresses the long-needled pine or gently embraces the tall poplar in an intimate dance. How many of these little voices in nature are missed in the great "doing" of our so called civilized life? What precious messages are being obliterated by modern life?

We are not being encouraged to cultivate a taste for the quiet life anymore, or even to remain patient with ourselves in quiet moments of "down time". In our quest for ever greater productivity as a measure of our success as a nation we require more and more from fewer and fewer people resulting in the gradual elimination of "down time". Every moment is filled leaving one exhausted and depleted. We are living in a time of spiritual impoverishment as a result, not to be confused with religion which is doing quite well in that it appeals to such depleted souls as a source of relief. But this does not satisfy our inner yearning to return to something more fundamental, more elemental, even more connected to star dust. That is what I call the feeling of Homecoming. A return to what lies behind all the noise and which is untouched by it.

WPS

A Mulitcolored Canvas of Diversity

Watching the recent presidential inauguration ceremonies I was struck by the images of the spectators in the vast crowed assembled along the Mall in front of the White House. I saw a beautiful canvas of diversity that really moved me. In this vast sea every kind of human had assembled to rejoice in the swearing in of a man who embraces the value of diversity and who supports the ideals of equality.

As the camera roamed the faces I saw many skin colors, hair styles, dress styles. Some faces were young, some old. Some folks had tattoos and some folks wore suits. In all there was the common hope that this president would continue to advance the cause of equality, however slow that advance might prove to be. This president would not just seek to please the privileged few but would fight for the little guy. I want to believe this, and I do believe it,  though I know that some of my friends will call me naive.

I wondered how the crowd might look different for a different swearing in, that of Mitt Romney. I doubt there would have been the same diverse palate. I imagine many would have been home wondering how such a person might represent them at the table. I would have been home. I would not have been watching the proceedings though.

But that did not happen and my hope in the process was renewed. In Obama's speech he included references to the value of all citizens, especially citizens whose voice may be weaker than their neighbor's voice. For the first time ever in an inauguration speech he included LGBT people in his broad and sweeping vision for a better, more humane society. In many ways for me he described a society that I want to believe is possible in spite of the difficulties along the way.

Standing in line at the local Earth Fare I watched the faces passing by. In varied ways people were expressing their own individuality, living life in their own colorful ways. It was beautiful to see such diversity and to watch how beautifully everyone flowed together along their way. There was a certain tangible joy in the faces I saw. What would it be like to live in a world where people were afraid to live their lives in their own unique ways? What joy would there be in such a colorless world where everyone conformed to narrow expectations about what was acceptable?

We all benefit from great diversity, though some have a hard time accepting the value of people who are different from them. There is a certain resistance to being forced to conform to a label. The fact is we are all human and as such have similar needs, but we are all driven to live our own unique lives with authenticity. And we want to be valued in that pursuit. There is much to unite us in a common quest for full equality including the desire to be treated with dignity, to be free to pursue happiness, to love and be loved without fear.  Everyone can get behind those ideals. It is simple really. Ask yourself how you want to be treated. Then treat others in that way.

Allowing Space For Miracles

There are amazing miracles happening all around us at every moment yet we sometimes dwell in a place where it seems nothing special is happening. Often when I sit to write an entry into my "daily" journal I can't think of anything special to say. Sometimes I even write "Nothing special to report". How can that possibly be the case!

Our Western culture does not value subtlety much. We are nearly constantly bombarded by sensational attempts to grab our attention, both from the media hype necessary to get us to buy things we don't need, and from the people that we come in contact with who often carry very dramatic emotions which can overwhelm us.The result is that we often become uncomfortable just allowing space to surround us and observe rather than do.

It takes time to get there! Sitting still is about the last thing the mind desires. This represents a kind of death and as such is avoided at all costs. Just about anything will serve to fill the space created by sitting quietly, and usually what comes up in the mix is the feeling of how wasteful it is to do nothing with one's time.

Of course we are not just doing nothing. We are allowing something to happen. We are trusting that this will bear some sort of fruit, that some sort of  flowering will happen in our consciousness which will nourish the seeds of happiness and help us open to the miracles that surround us.

I once had to spend a week alone camping while waiting for a transmission to be installed in a car. The rest of my group had to leave me and return to town for work. We were camped right beside a lake in a very beautiful place in the mountains of North Carolina, lake Santeetla. While I was surrounded by the activity of the group, busy with this and that little project or adventure, everything seemed perfect. It was paradise and I really appreciated the beauty. Then they all left and suddenly my little paradise became a kind of hell!

The first three days nearly killed me. I was so bored I thought I would die. The minutes were like hours. I felt caged in the middle of the wide open spaces. It was a humbling experience. My mind raced here and there alternately plunging me into depression, fear, resentment, self-loathing, jealousy, and on and on. It seemed my mind could not just settle down and allow the present to flower. My mind was like a little Hitler.

On the fourth day I began to surrender somewhat. Cooking breakfast I realized there was no point in rushing things. I took time to watch how the dry oatmeal floated on the waters surface in the pot and how it danced with the bubbles created by the heating water. I took time to move the spoon from the bowl to my mouth, watching how the movement gracefully arched to my awaiting lips. I noticed the feel of the oatmeal as I slowly savored it in my mouth. I traced its path to my belly and felt its warmth as it coated the lining of my stomach.

I did this with everything; building the fire, cleaning the campsite, watching the light sparkle diamond-like on the water's surface. Every action became an observing meditation. I entered the present moment in a way that I had never done before. At the end of the week I had regained my little lost paradise and was sad to have to leave my little spot by the water.

That is where happiness can flower, away from the constant demands of the mind moving between past and future but never alighting in the present. Trusting that with enough silence, enough stillness, our earthly tethers will slacken their hold just enough to let the soul breathe.

Ever Renewing Journey

I've been hacked! As a result I have had malicious code injected into my former blog entitled Hawkscry which caused a warning to come up for visitors to the blog. It was suggested that I take down the blog, all 390 posts! It certainly was a lesson on impermanence for me. In some ways I came to see all those varied posts as in some way an extension of myself. A person reading the blog certainly would have had a fairly good idea about what I considered important. There were also a number of personal reflections on the blog. That journey seems to have disappeared into some dark cyber woods. All gone!

As I grow older I can see there are other things that seem to be on the way out. My eyesight, once very keen, has become somewhat blurred with cataracts and I can no longer drive safely at night. On hikes I feel increasing discomfort in the joints, particularly the left hip. My memory requires more props and often I draw blanks where one I made keen connections. It is all slowly fading into what will surely be nothingness.

And yet I am compelled by some desire to keep on trying; to keep stumbling toward some sort balance, to keep observing the passing of my life and the lives around me and to try to learn what I can from the experience. In a poem I wrote I called it "falling toward heaven" Believing as I do that there is some kind of journey that the soul is on and that the journey takes us through many incarnations, it makes sense to me to try to "learn" from my present experience as a way of decreasing not only my suffering (and the suffering of those around me) in this life, but also in lives to come. 

What is the force behind this desire? Is it divine energy wanting to know itself and experience the fullness of its expression in our own conscious embrace? Is it the intelligence of the heart prevailing over our intellectual rationalizations, hard wired as they are in preserving the illusion of ego and its continuance and denying the ephemeral nature of our physical universe? 

And what have I learned thus far on my journey? I continue to make terrible mistakes in judgement. I continue to allow my anger to overcome my equanimity. I allow myself to become isolated and walled off both physically and emotionally from those I love. Though I am tempted to think I come not come very far, I know that is a limited perspective. At least I am aware that I am engaged in all this negativity! Perhaps that is the best learning; being aware of what is happening moment to moment, and trying to get it better the next time; to reduce the suffering in the next moment.