May All Beings Be At Ease
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near or far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease.
— from the Metta Sutta, the Buddha’s words on Loving Kindness
***
In case you can’t tell, this is a photo of the cats I adopted upon returning from my retreat in South Africa. That’s Stella on the right. She is giving Izzy a kiss on the head. (click on the image to enlarge)
Chilly Morning Chai
I know it’s officially SPRING and all, but still — at least at my house this morning –it was chilly enough to want a nice, hot cup of spicy chai!
Here’s the recipe from my new favorite cookbook — Retreat: The Joys of Conscious Eating.
Masala Chai
6 cups water
4 slices fresh ginger
6 cardamom pods
3 cinnamon sticks
2 whole cloves
6 peppercorns
2 star anise
4-6 bags of Ceylon tea (or 4-6 heaping teaspoons of loose Ceylon tea)
milk and sugar to taste
1. Place all the spices in a pot with the water. Bring to a boil then simmer uncovered for 10-15 minutes.
2. Add the tea and remove from heat. Allow to steep for 6-8 minutes. Add milk and sugar to taste.
3. Strain and serve. (Or save in the frig to heat up for tomorrow!)
2015
As Surely as the Night is Full of Stars
One of my teachers asked me why I meditate.
I said I do it because I want to know for myself the luminous/timeless/transcendent nature of reality that T.S. Eliot, Thomas Merton, and William Blake….not to mention Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and Phillip Moffitt…have all been talking about.
And I do it because I understand that meditation is one of the best ways to open oneself to this experience.
And because I have trust that this kind of opening is possible–for me. As Jack writes in After the Ecstasy, the Laundry:
“As surely as we inhabit the mystery of birth and death, as surely as the night is full of stars, as surely as we know the necessity of love, we contain the possibility of awakening.”
Of What She Sings
Today feels like a good day for this poem by Mary Oliver:
The Poet With His Face in His Hands
You want to cry aloud for your
mistakes. But to tell the truth the world
doesn’t need any more of that sound.
So if you’re going to do it and can’t
stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t
hold it in, at least go by yourself across
the forty fields and the forty dark inclines
of rocks and water to the place where
the falls are flinging out their white sheets
like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that
jubilation and water-fun and you can
stand there, under it all, and roar all you
want and nothing will be disturbed; you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched
by the passing foil of water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.
Something in Us Knows
Today feels like a good day for this passage from Jack Kornfield, in After the Ecstasy, the Laundry:
“We don’t know all the reasons that propel us on a spiritual journey, but somehow our life compels us to go. Something in us knows that we are not just here to toil at our work. There is a mysterious pull to remember. What takes us from out of our homes and into [a spiritual quest] can be a combination of events.
“It can be a longing from childhood, or an ‘accidental’ encounter with a spiritual book or figure. Sometimes something in us awakens when we travel to a foreign culture and the exotic world of new rhythms, fragrances, colors, and activity catapults us out of our usual sense of reality. Sometimes it is as simple as walking in the blue-green mountains or hearing choral music so beautiful it seems inspired by the gods. Sometimes it is that mysterious transformation when we attend at the bedside of the dying and a ‘person’ vanishes from existence, leaving only a lifeless sack of flesh awaiting burial.
“A thousand gates open to the spirit. Whether in the brilliance of beauty or the dark woods of confusion and sorrow, a force as sure as gravity brings us back to our heart. It happens to every one of us.”
***
Illustration from The Principles of Uncertainty, by Maira Kalman. (click to enlarge)
Text reads: “I am at a loss for words. Everything was not said. Things are bittersweet. Bitter. Sweet. What is this faint vision? This fleeting memory? The furniture is so fragile. And the dust floats so slowly in the sunlight. So sunny. And so precarious.”
Spring Green Yum-Yum
In honor of St. Pat’s Day, I offer this yummy One-Pot Soup Dish adapted from my new favorite cookbook (which I discovered in the Dharmagiri Retreat Center kitchen) — Retreat: The Joy of Conscious Eating, by Daniel Jardim.
Spring Green One-Pot
(serves 1-2)
4 shitake mushrooms, soaked in hot water
3 cups water
1 Tbs Veggie Soup Base (Penzeys)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 Tbs ginger, chopped
1 Tbs soy sauce
7 oz. udon noodles
4-5 spring greens, rinsed (baby boy choy or baby spinach, for example)
4 slices tofu (marinated if desired)
1 Tbs parsley, roughly chopped
1 green chili, sliced
1. Trim the stems of the soaked mushrooms (cut in half if very large)
2. Place water, mushrooms, soup base, garlic and ginger in saucepan and bring to boil.
3. Simmer gently until soup base in dissolved. Add soy sauce and noodles.
4. Taste and adjust for seasoning.
5. Dip greens into soup and arrange on top. Add sliced tofu, parsley, chili and mushrooms.
6. Serve immediately.
Enjoy!
The Thing Itself
Our Dharma Book KM Group will be meeting tonight to continue our discussion of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, by Joseph Goldstein. We’ve begun exploring the section on “Mindfulness of Mind,” which includes these instructions from the Satipatthana Sutta:
One knows a lustful mind to be “lustful,” and a mind without lust to be “without lust.” One knows an angry mind to be “angry,” and a mind without anger to be “without anger.” One knows a deluded mind to be “deluded,” and a mind without delusion to be “without delusion;” one knows a contracted mind to be “contracted,’ and a distracted mind to be “distracted.”
Joseph explains, “A clear recognition of what is what–this is lust, this is its absence–then becomes the frame for the deeper direct experience of the mind state itself, free of any words or concepts. Michael Cunningham, in his novel The Hours, write, ‘Everything in the world has its own secret name–a name that cannot be conveyed in language but is simply the sight and feel of the thing itself.’ This is mindfulness sinking into the object and knowing it fully.”
To think of mindfulness as a way to “hear” these secret names……I love that!
***
The image above is from a promo for the movie based on Michael Cunningham’s book, The Hours. The text reads: The time to hide is over. The time to regret is gone. The time to live is now. (click to enlarge)
More Reading
I’ve been discussing my concerns about what seems to me to be the inappropriate politicalization of Socially Engaged Buddhism with one of my teachers, Lila Kate Wheeler. As part of this discussion, she sent me a new book by David Loy — A New Buddhist Path: Enlightenment, Evolution and Ethics in the Modern World. (About which Lila is quoted on the flyleaf as saying: “This gripping, important, and ultimately heartening book by David Loy is a wake-up call for Buddhists and everyone else on how to respond to current crises.”)
I have only just started reading the book, but so far (1) I sincerely appreciate its clear, thoughtful, non-New-Age-y tone and (2) I don’t quite understand the dichotomy he sees between accepting the world as it is and working to change what needs to be changed.
He writes: “Will Buddhist temples and Dharma centers adapt to modern life by helping us cope with the stress of surviving in a deteriorating ecological and economic climate? Or will we appreciate Buddhist teachings and practices because they offer a radically different worldview, with an alternative perspective on what’s happing now and what needs to be done? Or do we need both?”
I don’t understand why he thinks that Buddhist temples and Dharma centers are even considering adapting to modern life by simply “helping us cope with the stress of surviving in a deteriorating ecological and economic climate.” Or that there is any question that Buddhist practices “offer a radically different worldview, with an alternative perspective on what’s happing now and what needs to be done.”
Over and over I hear western/modern Dharma teachers going out of their way to explain that acceptance of “things as they have come to be” does not mean passivity, but that instead, the Buddhist teachings are a kind of radical acceptance. Which is the first step in being able to respond in a way that’s actually going to make productive change…no matter what’s happening…and not just for ecological, economic, social or political issues.
So I don’t understand why Loy is calling for a NEW Buddhist path. It seems to me that the one we have is exactly what we need.
I guess I’ll just have to keep reading.
But What Action?
As many of you know, the Community Dharma Leader (CDL) program starts up at Spirit Rock next month with a 7-day retreat/workshop. Since one of our first homework assignments is to read Joanna Macy’s Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work that Reconnects, it’s safe to assume that a big emphasis will be on Socially Engaged Buddhism.
Which I’m not that thrilled about.
Because, frankly, the whole ACTIVIST thing is really kind of annoying to me. (Aversion!) But just going off on retreat all the time is not the answer. LIVING what I’ve learned on retreat is what feels most engaging to me. But what, in terms of specific activities, would that mean?
Once again I turn to Mary Oliver…not for the answer, but for insight into the question:
What I Have Learned So Far
by Mary Oliver
Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so.
All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of–indolence, or action.
Be ignited, or be gone.
Oh, Yesterday
And now, as a follow-up to yesterday’s post, this prose poem by Mary Oliver:
Oh, yesterday, that one, we all cry out. Oh, that one! How rich and possible everything was! How ripe, ready, lavish, and filled with excitement–how hopeful we were on those summer days, under the clean, white racing clouds. Oh, yesterday!
Me, 1990