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Light on the Path  (Remember to begin with the Opening Meditation and the recitation of the Three Jewels as in Mindfulness Trainings One through Five -- scroll down in the burninghand blog for this.)
We begin: "In the Name of the Holy One, Boundlessly Compassionate, Boundlessly Merciful... Beauty within Beauty within Beauty..." Thirteenth Mindfulness Training: Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, discrimination, and oppression, we are committed to cultivating loving kindness and learning ways to work for the well-being of all people, nations, creatures, and creation. We will practice generosity and gratitude. We will work to prevent anyone from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other creatures. We will tirelessly advocate for the marginalized and powerless, whoever they are and wherever they live. Reflection: Light on the Path... to where? Where are these Mindfulness Trainings, where are these reflections, leading? Our answer is simple: they are all leading into, and deeper and deeper, into the human heart. We have learned from our own brokenness, as from our passions and joys, that it is only in our hearts that we will find the possibility of well-being and the total happiness that we hunger for. These Mindfulness Trainings and reflections are a call to come together in the only "place" that offers the hope of Planetary transformation... So, this reflection is primarily going to focus on the spiritual / political necessity of "embracing our heart / embracing every heart"... herein lies the Path into the future and the transformation we dream... Enter the Heart The "awareness" and "awakening" implied -- or promised -- by the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings is a "quantum shift in consciousness". Nothing less is going to get us where we -- and this precious blue Planet -- needs to get to. The Mindfulness Trainings assumes the practitioner has no desire to be spun into oblivion -- but desires, instead, liberation for everyone and all life on this Planet. A tall order indeed, but the only one worthy of our humanity and personhood. So, at least for twelve weeks now, we've been making some effort to take with integrity this opportunity. That is good! Let's try to dig a little deeper and find the door that opens onto the paradise Dostoevsky wrote of. Short of an explosion of mind-altering grace (which is always possible), how does one "enter the heart" -- and discover therein the actualization of the prep work of the Trainings? We won't pretend any of this is easy, but here are three overarching "steps" or "actions" required for entry into, and then life in the heart: 1. We need to manifest by thought-word-action the real Reality of Only One, One Love, in our everyday lives. These manifestations happen (or don't) in our homes, every relationship, at work, in recreation, in our diets, in our politics -- in every aspect / part of our lives. Peace, Justice, Compassion, Mercy, Kindness, Equality, Gentleness, Passion, Harmlessness, Beauty, Empathy (you get the drift) are the means for the manifestation of the Holy One, of the Only One, of One Love. We are meant to be the channels and agents of One Love upon this precious blue Planet! What an exalted life of wonder, responsibility, and opportunity! We get to build Paradise (or not). 2. We need to clearly, demonstrably, intend towards greatness. Hafiz wrote at the conclusion of a poem two words that summarize this second step: "act great". In other words, fill your minds with the words and images of people like Yeshua, Francis, Rumi, Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Mother Jones, Hildegard, Mirabai, Aung San Suu Kyi, Wangari Maathai, Mandela, Huerta, Chavez, Morales, the Berrigans, Perkins, Arundhati Roy, Juila Butterfly Hill -- the list could go on and on! This precious blue Planet is ablaze with incredibly great beings! Join your name and daily life to this list! Don't settle for what you (or someone else) might think possible -- Act Great, and greatness and transformation will follow! 3. Steps one and two will be sustainable only - or exactly - to the degree that we practice number three: affirm the truth, beginning with you, and then flowing out about you and on into the Universe. Our minds are crammed full with crap -- so start with these words of the Shulammite in the Song of Songs: "I am beautiful!" The "average" person has around 65,000 thoughts a day -- we're not going to change the world until we change our minds! It is as simple and clear as that. To clear your head, turn off every advertiser, turn off every divisive political pundit, turn off every dominator paradigm preacher, stop buying all the crap they want you to sell your soul for! You've got to ask the question, "What am I worth?" And then you've got to answer with no ambiguity whatsoever, "I am worth the very best! I am worth Love!" And then the door into your heart will swing open: because you believe that you are worth the very best, that you are worth Love, you are no longer afraid, and you can stand aside and let everyone else enter before you! That's the Key to your transformation! None of this is about you! It is all about the Other! It is about the Other, every single one of them, being welcomed home! No exceptions, no one is left behind,and none are left out! When you have gotten out of the way, the Holy One has room to manuever! When She starts moving all the furniture in your mind aside, you know She's gonna let loose with One heck-of-a free-for-all- passion-dance through all the cells of your mind, ripping and shredding all the way down into only the possibility of "you"... but by then "you've" circled back Home to Only One, One Love... "O friends on this Path, My eyes are no longer my eyes. A sweetness has entered through them, Has pierced through to my heart... Mira belongs to the One who lifts all, And everyone says she is mad." -- Mirabai It Is Not Yet Safe To Say It is not yet safe to say "Forget your Houses of Worship". So instead, You can read it here... But that is not all! If it is One whom you seek, If it is Love that you desire, If it is Liberation that you want, They can all be found At Road's End, in the Deep Green That hides the Tavern of One Delight: just Look for the sign with a Broken Heart... An Alternate Thirteenth Mindfulness Training: Aware of the One Love alive in my heart, I commit my life to Beauty and Kindness and to the manifestation of Only One in how I think, speak, and act. I will to act great and become an instrument of transformation for everyone and for this incredibly precious blue Planet! This is my joy! Evening Star who gathers everything Shining dawn scattered -- You bring the sheep and the goats, You bring the child back to its mother. -- Sappho At the end of a crazy-moon night the love of God rose. I said, "It's me, Lalla." The Beloved woke. We became That, And the lake is crystal-clear. -- Lal Ded Bless this most beautiful world that I ever did saw. -- Devin at 5 ...Just love until you and the Beloved become One... At every level at which you exist you're part of everybody else. Because: it's all One Being. Really! -- Ram Das Question of the Week: How far am I willing to go in? Practice of the Week: Copy and post in a place very conspicuous to you the section entitled "Enter the Heart". Consider what you really want for the rest of your life. Choose to act accordingly GREAT! Recommended Reading: Creating A World That Works For All, by Sharif Abdullah A Caring Economics, Riane Eisler With Love and Blessings, Michelle and Robert "In the Name of the Holy One, Boundlessly Compassionate, Boundlessly Merciful... Beauty within Beauty within Beauty..." Light on the Path  (Remember to begin with the Opening Meditation and the recitation of the Three Jewels as in Mindfulness Trainings One through Five -- scroll down in the burninghand blog for this.) We begin: "In the Name of the Holy One, Boundlessly Compassionate, Boundlessly Merciful... Beauty within Beauty within Beauty..." Twelfth Mindfulness Training: Aware that terrible suffering is caused by war and conflict, we are determined to cultivate nonviolence, tolerance, religious reconciliation, equal rights - in every way - for all, understanding, and compassion in our daily lives and in our society. We will promote peace education, nonviolent conflict resolution between persons, groups, and nations, and cultural transformation within our community, nation, and in the world. We are determined to follow the path of harmlessness and seek the fulfillment of the vision of "the lion being the guest of the lamb". Reflection: "For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life." -- President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address What President Kennedy said in 1961 still holds true today -- which is a terribly sad commentary on the decades since then. "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are not clothed" -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Clearly though, this is not just the fault of governments: we are all complicit because we are all involved in every way, especially though through economics, through everything that we either buy or sell... According to the United Nations approximately 30,000 children under the age of five die of hunger and diseases related to malnutrition every day. While at the very same time, the assets of 3 families, Bill Gates, the Waltons, and the Sultan of Bunei have a combined wealth of around 135 billion dollars -- this equals the income of 600 million people living in the world's poorest countries... Okay, so we have this Twelfth Mindfulness Training, but what is it that we really want? We very seriously ponder this question... as did (from among many others) Gandhi... Huh? What is it that we really want? We ask again! Only too aware of the subtle power of our Shadows, we must pause before the Altar of Power... is it here that we secretly, yet truly, wish to kneel? Gandhi, upon the liberation of India could have acquired the Presidency, Prime Ministership, or Kingship of his beloved Mother Land. What did he do instead? He fasted for peace, for nonviolence, for reconciliation... he refused Power, and chose Place... the only place for the Lover of the One, for the Servant of All, is in Peace: in the "not yet" of the New Creation, in the only rEvolution that matters... Gandhi walked away from the seductive lure of the dominator paradigm and into the Divine Wholeness that is even now, once again, being born upon this precious blue Planet... THIS IS WHAT WE WANT!! So the question this mindfulness training proposes is "how do we get a little bit closer to there"? Listen to this: "Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: 'We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs'. "From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says 'Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice'. Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God. "In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace." -- Julia Ward Howe. Boston, 1870 (The original Mother's Day Proclamation) "With the power of motherhood within her, a woman can influence the entire world. The love of awakened motherhood is a love and compassion felt not only toward one's own children, but toward all people, animals and plants, rocks and rivers -- a love extended to all beings." -- Amma "Love is the very breath of life." -- Amma "The half of humanity in charge of the world's agenda is led by men addicted to power and maintaining their dominance. Only now, there are weapons of mass destruction that can cause more suffering in a shorter time than ever was even imaginable. And, if patriarchal religions continue to exercise control over women, there will soon be more people than the Earth can sustain. Our beautiful blue and white planet, this garden island in space, our Mother the Earth needs our help... It is time to gather the women to save the world." -- Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. "If Mother Archetype, Mother Goddess, Mother Earth, the deep feminine placed a classified ad in the 'Help Wanted' section... The ad might read: HELP WANTED: Everywoman. Home keepers for Earth. Must keep premises safe for all. Have concern for children's needs and development, ability to manage resources, resolve conflicts, work collaboratively, ask questions, listen, and learn from the experience of others, be empathic, and act with compassion for the benefit of all, including generations to come'. " -- Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. "Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. we know that it does not take 'everyone on Earth' to bring justice and peace, but only a small , determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale." -- Clarissa Pinkola Estes Or as Michael Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, makes: "I give you a large piece of paper, and ask you to fold it once over, and then take that folded paper and fold it over again, and then again, and again, until you have refolded the original paper 50 times. How tall do you think the final stack is going to be?" No one guesses this right. Answer: If it were possible to do, "the stack would be as the distance to the sun. And if you folded it over one more time, the stack would be as high as the distance to the sun and back." The tipping point occurs when a critical number of people embrace a new idea, value, or perception... In summary, patriarchy and every aspect of the dominator paradigm, is going to be transformed -- BY YOU! BY US! From the inside out, from the bottom up. This is already happening -- it is happening all around us, everywhere. Sacred Circles have been forming all across and around this precious blue Planet. Women are gathering and standing for peace and justice, for their children and for the Earth. We are on the verge of tipping, finally, and returning to where we wanted to be all along... we are just about to the door of our Home... "Suppose it never, ever comes true, and there is no paradise... well, I'll still go on preaching. And yet how simple a matter it is: in one day, in one hour it could all be brought about at once! The chief thing is to love others as oneself, that's the main thing, and that's it -- absolutely nothing more is necessary: you would immediately discover how to bring it about." -- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man Alternative Twelfth Mindfulness Training: Aware of the failure of the dominator paradigm, I am choosing to write a new story with my life: it will be a story of Divine, and Everykind, of connection. It will be a story of fraternity with this pecious blue Planet and with a beautiful future for every child. It will be a story of gratitude, sufficiency, graciousness, and harmony. It will be a story of Beauty and Paradise, wild with passion and infinite possibilities! Watch me! Question of the Week: How deep am I willing to consider the way of nonviolence? Practice of the Week: Find (or purchase if you can't find) either cloth or paper that you will cut into squares of any size you choose. With puff paints or marking pens, write favorite inspirational quotes upon the squares. String them together. Hang the "Inspiration Flag" over your personal, family, or community altar (you have one right?). Recommended Reading: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, by Dostoevsky (Dorothy Day's favorite author) With Love and Blessings, Michelle and Robert "In the Name of the Holy One, Boundlessly Compassionate, Boundlessly Merciful... Beauty within Beauty within Beauty..." Light on the Path  (Remember to begin with the Opening Meditation and the recitation of the Three Jewels as in Mindfulness Trainings One through Five -- scroll down in the burninghandblog for this.)
We begin: "In the Name of the Holy One, Boundlessly Compassionate, Boundlessly Merciful... Beauty within Beauty within Beauty..." Eleventh Mindfulness Training: Aware that great violence, exploitation, and injustice is being done to our environment and society, we are determined to strive to live in harmony with nature, with all creatures and creation, respecting the rights of those who will be alive generations from now. Reflection: Probably most folks giving time to this "Light on the Path" series, the burninghand blog, and to this website have a significant understanding of the science validating deep concerns about global climate change. Hence, it doesn't seem to us to be the best use of space for a few paragraphs to present an argument for climate change policies -- the same is true for the topics of violence and exploitation. One need only occasionally scan the news to (other than Fox of course) to realize the continued precariousness of life (of civilization) on this Planet. So, instead, we are going to veer off in another direction... This "veering" leads back to Rumi: "Let the beauty we love be what we do". Ah! Rumi tells the story of a man who climbed a walnut tree growing beside a small stream. This man picks nuts from around his perch on the tree and drops them into the water below. Someone passing by observes the situation and calls out, "Sir! Why are you dropping your nuts in the stream? Can't you see they are just floating away?" The man in the tree replies, "I'm not harvesting the nuts to eat... I'm listening to the music they make when they splash into the water." Granted, perhaps this was a waste of food and someone nearby might have been hungry... but the story is not about hunger issues: the story is about a deep awareness of Beauty, of Music, of Art, of the Symphonic Harmony underlying all of Creation... and of the possibility of entering ever more deeply into that awareness... Yes: we need rapid leadership and international legislation and action to reverse climate change, eliminate every weapon of mass destruction, and reconstruct international economics towards justice and sustainability... but we want to toss a few "nuts" into the stream of thought of our times... We believe that beyond emergency measures, sustainable and revolutionary transformation will only come through conversion to a new vision of Earth and of Humanity. Tinkering around the edges of the dominator paradigm will not get us to where we need to go. We need to plunge into truly radical possibilities! We need to take a leap with our "nuts" and hear the sound that dynamic splash will make! The core transformative vision and value that we are proposing is that of "Welcome Home". The dominator paradigm (again, read The Chalice & The Blade by Riane Eisler) has "infected" every area of our individual and collective lives and consciousness. The dominator paradigm is imbedded in theologies of "sin" and "separation" -- with the feminine on the margins because of Her Earth centered spirituality which fosters interbeing, harmony, abundant simplicity, and sustainability. On the other hand, the dominator paradigm is sustained by power associations: violence justifications, weaponry adoration, and wealth adulation. Fear is actively cultivated as a means of crowd control (follow "us" or you'll go to hell; follow "us" or the "enemy" will take everything you have, etc.). The proposition of "original sin" is the very root of this dominator paradigm -- that's how deep we need to go to re-discover our beauty and our freedom. Only by uprooting this destructive proposition will we be able to effectively deal with the overwhelming specific issues which must be dealt with, and only by uprooting this same destructive proposition will we be able to "change our minds", recover our original innocence and blessing, and bring the Divine Feminine back into the sacred center of life on this precious blue Planet. THIS is what we mean by "Welcome Home"! We need to "come home" to awareness of our immanent and transcendent nature as human beings and our essential identification with the Divine. We need to actually and truly fall in love with Love: we need to be able to both look into a mirror and know that the Face looking back is Right Now Worth Everything / Worth Love... and then to look out and survey All of Life and Creation and confirm by Sacred Action the very same essential truth for All. Then we will have finally recovered our "right mind" and true identity. When you make the two one, and when you make the inner as the outer and the above as below, and when you make the male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female not be female... then you shall enter the kingdom. -- Gospel of Thomas, Logion 22 As for the doctrine of original sin as developed by the Church, it has fundamentally unnerved and repressed us in a way that has fuelled and not in any way checked human destructiveness and has exacerbated that fear, desolation, inability to trust and sense of separation from God that is at the core of all destructiveness. What is there to cherish or save if this life is rotten at its core with sin and what possible use would there be in striving for divine wholeness in the dance if sin is always bound to fetter our feet? ...Anything that does not help humankind into the most invigorating and inspiring possible vision of its sacred identity and purpose and of the total holiness of nature has to be set outside. To save ourselves at this late moment, we have to believe passionately in our deepest selves, in God's unconditional love for us and in our worth. To struggle and sacrifice to save nature, we have to believe, to see and know nature in its divine splendor and know that we and nature are one -- one dance, one feast, one radiance whose beauty and joy it would be madness not to do everything in our power to preserve. -- Andrew Harvey So, here we are... one question is lingering on our minds... we're curious if the same question is in yours? Here is ours: "How?" Even supposing everything in this Eleventh Mindfulness Training reflection is "true", how can such a total personal and collective transformation come about? How in the world am "I", are "We", supposed to do "That"? There is only one way to break open a human heart -- or the collective heart of humanity: we must love with the radical self-emptying love of one such as Yeshua of Nazareth. It is by loving that we will discover our liberation and the Other. It is by loving that we will work up the courage to love even more and finally to leave all fear behind. And it is only by loving that we will come home to the Holy Secret: There is Only One -- and we are It. (Rev. Ellen Grace O'Brian puts it like this: It is. We are it. We forget. We remember.) Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity... we shall harness the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. -- Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin The Eleventh Mindfulness Training is a call to each one of us to accept personal responsibility for our total transformation as the first step in a Planetary transformation. When we surrender to, and then implement, the Way of Love, we will begin to fulfill our destiny for greatness. When we gather in Sacred Circles of 6 - 12 persons and organize for transformation -- when we truly commit to becoming mystic / activists -- we will become agents of the Fire that Teilhard wrote of... When we summon the courage to live lives of radical reverence and thrilling adoration for Good, Being, and Beauty, we will become the very Fire of Transformation... As an exercise in declaring your spiritual identification, from here on out, always refer to Earth as "our precious blue Planet". Declare your love! A new culture, one of a radical commitment to the liberation and full development of every person is coming into existence (of course, not without the pangs of birth). A new awareness of One living "interbeing" of relationship between our precious blue Planet and the lives it sustains is likewise growing in our planetary awareness. Within every human being there lives a dream of the Paradise that is truly possible to build -- only Love will free us from our fears so we can together take a new leap on the evolutionary ladder -- we have to believe with incredible passion this is true! Love is the pursuit of the whole. -- Plato Love all of God's creation, love the whole, and love each grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love animals, love plants, love every kind of thing. If you love every kind of thing, then everywhere God's mystery will reveal itself to you. Once this has been revealed to you, you will begin to understand it ever more deeply with each passing day. And finally you will be able to love the whole world with an all-encompassing universal love. -- Dostoevsky (a saying of Fr. Zosima from The Karamazov Brothers) An Alternate Eleventh Mindfulness Training: Aware of the opportunity before me to become an agent of transformation, I will to live as a possibilitarian for Justice and Beauty -- for our precious blue Planet and for the well-being of all life. I will become a living flame of love energized for greatness! Question of the Week: How can human relationships, cultures, and societies be re-imagined with humans understood to be ontologically one with nature -- and not "masters" of nature? Practice of the Week: Visit the websites andrewharvey.net and resurgence.org. Commit to finding, supporting, and participating in an intentional community organized and established for both personal and global transformation. Recommended Reading: The Gift, Poems of Hafiz, Translated by Daniel Ladinsky Dialogues with a Modern Mystic, Andrew Harvey and Mark Matousek With Love and Blessings, Michelle and Robert "In the Name of the Holy One, Boundlessly Compassionate, Boundlessly Merciful... Beauty within Beauty within Beauty..." Light on the Path  (Remember to begin with the Opening Meditation and the recitation of the Three Jewels as in Mindfulness Trainings One through Five... scroll down in the burninghandblog for this.)
We begin: "In the Name of the Holy One, Boundlessly Compassionate, Boundlessly Merciful... Beauty within Beauty within Beauty..." Tenth Mindfulness Training: "Aware that the essence and aim of community and companionship is the practice of understanding and compassion, we are determined not to use this relationship for personal gain or transform our community and work into a private instrument. We are determined to oppose all oppression and injustice." Reflection: We stand on the footprints of our elders. Here are some of our ancestors who walked the beauty way before me. They carried the cultural wisdom and made it possible for us to carry on our traditions today. We honor them through this remembrance. -- Walking Thunder: Dine Medicine Woman Anywhere is the center of the world. -- Black Elk This we know: the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. --Chief Seattle We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can't speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish, and trees. -- Qwatsinas One does not sell the earth upon which people walk. -- Crazy Horse Bear Butte (for Bob Snyder) broken heart silence -- Only One dance through emptiness and void sun and rock -- no choice but to empty the mind this fragile flower -- marvelous as the climb, the mountain, the sky The face being carved into the mountain pictured above is a rendition of Crazy Horse -- as a lasting memorial (Mt. Rushmore is a few miles away) to the Living Spirit that yet inhabits this land, this continent, the "Americas"... A spirit alive in the mountains and rivers without end, a spirit alive in the hearts and feet of a band of "Old Souls" yet wandering this land... who knows where you will find them? I saw one on top of Bear Butte. After a climb in the late afternoon -- with the crackling of thunder and the electric-white stab of lightening steadily approaching from the distance to consume the being and essence of this sacred mountain -- I saw him. He was a stranger dressed in the leather and black of a motorcycle rider familiar with the darker side of life. With no visible hesitation, he held up his arms and hands, a minute facing each of the four directions. His prayers concluded, he looked at me and stated matter of factly, "Holy, ain't it." I met another one of these Old Souls on the streets of Chinatown in Salinas. He's Lakota, like ol' Crazy Horse. It doesn't take a leap of imagination to picture Bob Snyder astride a pinto on the plains of what is now called South Dakota -- riding after the buffalo -- he's got a family and a tribe that depends upon his strength and courage... so it was... and so it is... Bob doesn't ride a pinto through the Chinatown streets... and as often as not, he'll get lost for awhile with his demons and dark thoughts... but he always shows up in the nick of time to catch the back of one he has adopted into the tribe of his heart. How he figures who's in is a mystery: usually it's the one who is really on the fringe, the edge of just barely hanging on -- ready to let go and drop into the abyss, for no good reason other than it's exhausting being lonely all the time -- I've seen him catch life after life (and yet he likes to play the game of it's all the same to him). Bob Dylan has a song about searching for "Dignity" -- listen to it sometime to get a handle on these stories. Once there was a dealer on the street after someone -- after directing staff to call for the police -- I took off on foot, down Soledad Street and around the corner. I could see the dealer's car racing down the alley ahead trying to cut off the one running away... I figured the runner was dead or worse if he got caught, so I had to try and catch up... finally I could see that the runner had escaped... whew, I didn't really want to have to try dancing with the dealer and the runner both... I took a grateful deep breath and turned around. Bob was standing there. He had my back. But that isn't what makes him an Old Soul... that just means that he and I both share a certain kind of insanity... Bob is an Old Soul because he can see through a couple of veils that most of us miss most of the time. His heart beats in the broken rhythm of One who has been hurt, who has hurt, and who has profoundly experienced the reality of Wakan-Tanka, the Grandfather Spirit, alive in his risk and willingness to Love... Why these quotations from Native Americans, why these two particular stories, with this Tenth Mindfulness Training? We want to invite you to deeply ponder community -- who is in and who is out of your community? We want to propose that our New Definition of Community include our ancestors -- everyone who has gone before us through this journey of life -- and ALSO, including everyone who will follow after us, many generations into the future. This defintion of community offers us a foothold that will enable us to hoist ourselves a little bit higher on the evolutionary ladder -- isn't that the point of it all? To live and to contribute to the lifting up of every life and the reverence and stewardship of this precious blue Planet? Here's a "what if" looking ahead to the future: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services..." --Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, 1948. Contrast that very possible "what if" with the political debates raging in this country. Back during the Presidency of Bill Clinton I participated in a world-wide tele-conference on the topic of adding to the UN Charter a specific article declaring access to food a human right. At the conclusion of a long day of discussion, debate, negotiation, etc, etc. the proposal was finally tabled (and not for dinner). It became clear that the official position of the United States was "No". And it was "No", it was argued, because if the proposal passed Americans might interpret it as threatening our "standard of living". God forbid that a self-described "Judeo-Christian" nation should take even a small step towards justice and a national life-style of "abundant simplicity" in response to the call of the Prophets and the wisdom teachings of Yeshua of Nazareth! So, we think this Tenth Mindfulness Training is especially a call to question our definition, and the reality, of our "communities". Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality are one example of a radical expansion of the definition of community to include persons on the margins of our society. Native American traditions and spirituality includes in its community definition, the earth, the air, and every creature and inanimate thing. Most indigenous, ancient, peoples of the earth have a very expansive definition of community, like Native Americans, rooting community within an awareness of the earth as a living system of inter-related relationships -- what Thich Nhat Hahn proposes as "Interbeing"... We are thinking that a spirituality, a culture, and a politics of "interbeing" is the Way into the future we hope for our children, and for every child everywhere. Martin Luther King, Jr, said "The end is the creation of the Beloved Community"... An Alternate Tenth Mindfulness Training: Aware that the end is the creation of the Beloved Community, I will practice an every-day spirit of inclusion and consideration: I will include in my community everyone on the margins of our Planetary society and I will consider the well-being of this precious blue Planet and every life that lives upon it -- seven generations forward -- in my every-day life, in how I live, in what I buy and sell, and in how I vote. In Beauty before me I walk, In Beauty behind me I walk, In Beauty below me I walk, In Beauty above me I walk, In Beauty all around me I walk, It is finished in beauty, It is finished in beauty, It is finished in beauty, It is finished in beauty. -- Beauty Way Chant, Navaho Benediction The world will be saved by beauty. -- Fyodor Dostoevsky Question of the Week: How am I practicing and building beauty in my home, in my work-place, in my community? Practice of the Week: Gather in your community for a "Beauty Day": volunteer in a Soup Kitchen to clean or paint; volunteer in your neighborhood to pick up trash, paint something run-down, or play games with children; contact 350.org and expand your community and commitment to this Planet that is your Home -- for the children seven generations forward. Recommended Reading: In The Spirit of Crazy Horse, by Peter Matthiessen Stolen Harvest, by Vandana Shiva With Love and Blessings, Michelle and Robert "In the Name of the Holy One, Boundlessly Compassionate, Boundlessly Merciful... Beauty within Beauty within Beauty..." |
AuthorRobert Daniel Smith was privileged to serve the homeless and marginalized for 30 years in California. He is living now almost within shouting distance of the Twin Cities. He is a poet, artist, writer, and long-time Companion of the Way still dreaming... Archives
May 2022
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