Monkey Mind

Marking the Publicatioin of the Origin of Species

2009-11-24T07:58:00.005-05:00

On this day in 1859 Charles Darwin's magnum opus On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was published.

A hundred and fifty years! My, how time flies...

Of course with this book we all began an inexorable shift in human thinking toward an understanding of evolutionary biology that would reframe how we understand ourselves and our relationship with the world.

Yes, there are foot-draggers and naysayers. I still recall the kerfuffle in past years about the Christian fish bumper sticker followed by the Darwin fish bumper sticker followed by the Christian fish eating the Darwin fish bumper sticker. I loved it. How Darwinian...

But while in our culture this is still a deal, in the real world we're moving on and trying to figure out what this astonishing insight really means...

There's an interesting story in today's Times.

And, of course, for those inclined to go to original sources, here you go!

Passing Thought on What is a Spiritual Practice

2009-11-23T08:10:00.008-05:00

Recently the Unitarian Universalist denominational president wrote about and to the youth chiding them to be socially active. I'm all for that. Most of us can use a little push to be a bit more engaged.

But what caught me was that he said, a) "hanging out" isn't a spiritual practice. And b) social activism is.

I think the Reverend Peter Morales has much to offer our Association and I look forward to his having a successful time riding the bronco of our denominational presidency.

But he seems to have problems understanding spiritual practice.

Well, actually, as do most of us within our liberal religious tradition. The whys are a long story, best left for another time...

Here I just want to focus on spiritual practice, how it can be a useful term and how it can fail at utility.

As one can imagine, once the president's remarks were published, various defenders of hanging out quickly emerged. They correctly point out various positives in the experience. And there are lots, no doubt.

As I've looked around, fewer seem to have wanted to hold forth on the spiritual practiceness of social activism. But just to be sure, I do want to hold up, how like with hanging out, there certainly are lots of spiritual aspects to social engagement...

All depending on our definitions, of course.

For me "spiritual" follows its etymology and is that which gives life. It is about the bottom line of things. The fundamental matter.

And practice for me has two aspects. There is preparing. And there is doing.

So, spiritual practice is the work of spirituality. It is how we prepare our lives, and it is the doing of our lives in quest of and informed by our experience of that which gives us life.

So, in the sense of doing itself both hanging out and social activism fit the bill. Sure they're spiritual practices. Although there's also a so what in that. By this definition very little wouldn't be a spiritual practice.

Because, I think, it lacks the whole preparation aspect. And so I feel without that part within it the term spiritual practice is largely meaningless.

And this is my difficulty. Such is how it is in some of the circles within which I move. For many of my friends they can't really seem to distinguish between a weekend on the beach, a walk in the woods, reading a good book, hanging out, working at the food pantry, advocating for marriage equality, sitting down in silence for half an hour a day, going to a Vipassana retreat or a Zen sesshin.

I suggest only in the world beyond one and two are these things the same.

As preparation they are not all equal. And only some are in the fullness of that term legitimately spiritual practices.

So I say. Although I do have some experience in these matters, so I hope you don't think I'm just gassing.

If you feel some resonance with this assertion, well, I think there are a few things that mark out a spiritual practice that might actually help you walk to the place where you can step beyond self and other and to find the new heaven and the new earth to which our teachers call us. Not a complete list, by a long way. But three critical aspects of a real spiritual practice.

1) You need some shut up time. If you're making noise all the time it is hard to pay attention, hard to notice the lessons and the lesson.

2) You need some regularity. Doing it once might open your heart and eyes. Has happened. But most of us need to return and return and return.

3) You need someone to check you. The brain is a great liar. We tell ourselves all sorts of stories about what we need and deserve, only some of which are true. Also along the spiritual way we have lots of experiences. Mostly of limited or actually no value on the way. Someone who has walked the way before you, who you have some trust in, and who is willing to say the hard truth now and again, is worth their weight in gold.

Now each of these things needs further elaboration, and there are other points, to boot. But as basic markers, if what you're thinking of as your spiritual practice doesn't have all three, I suggest it may well have value, but it isn't complete, and it isn't a spiritual practice worth calling by that name.

The world is on fire. You're going to die before you notice it. Stop fooling around...

Two cents on a Monday morning...

Just Found Myself Thinking of JFK

2009-11-22T13:26:00.001-05:00

On the Mayflower Compact, the Unitarian Universalist Principles and Purposes and a Spirituality for the Twenty-First Century

2009-11-21T07:23:00.016-05:00

On this day in 1620, if you adjust for the change in calendar from Julian to Gregorian, forty-one passengers of the Mayflower, which was at the time anchored in Provincetown Harbor at the end of Cape Cod, signed a compact. This document was brief enough...

In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November [New Style, November 21], in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Dom. 1620.

Of course social contracts were in the air. The idea that people should gather together in some sort of democratic manner had been bruited about for ages.

What is important here is that with this document the idea enters the religious sphere as for all practical purposes the Pilgrims who would establish the Plymouth colony like their Puritan cousins up the coast in Boston were establishing theocracies, there was no air between the civil and the religious aspects of life.

As the Puritan and Pilgrim strands matured and became Massachusetts and Congregationalism took root as the uniting form of church governance this idea of individual conscience and the relationship between individuals within communities of faith became increasingly a spiritual question. Gradually the principles of freedom and reason and tolerance would take on a religious cast.

And the spirituality we call Unitarianism would spring from all this.

It should be noted there are other Unitarianisms around the globe that do not depend upon a congregational polity to uphold individual freedom - the Unitarians of Great Britain and Ireland both maintain presbyterian polities and the Hungarian speaking Unitarians maintain modified episcopal polities. And all have to one degree or another a sense of the preciousness of the individual.

But how this happened in America and how covenant became so central has had substantial consequences of emphasis and eventually of what becomes central to this spiritual enterprise.

Today Unitarian Universalism is the heir to a fairly radical congregationalism. While congregants and especially ministers bemoan the creeping authority of the center, in fact the denominational structure is extremely weak, having no authority to assess financial support and no provisions for disciplining congregations. Only the ministers are bound by rules generated from the center, and if they have the support of their congregation and no need to seek a new placement, they can happily thumb their noses at the center with relative impunity, as well.

But even though the central institution is weak, one is not allowed to topple toward a bare libertarianism, one is still bound within relationships. Only that the central expression of this connection is found in the more intimate setting of a living congregation rather than within denominational structures.

That said, all this to what effect?

Personally I'm concerned with the spiritual consequences.

I think they emerge as both the first and seventh principles of the UUA's statement of Principles and Purposes.

Yes, the fifth principle is a straight ahead call for democratic process. But I think the reasoning and the deeper call is found in the first and seventh principles.

The first speaks of "the inherent worth and dignity of every person." The seventh calls for "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part."

There was an attempt to replace "respect" in the seventh principle with the word "reverence." For various reasons it failed by the slimmest of margins at a vote of the UUA General Assembly in 2009. Still, I believe the intuition this is a more profound thing going on and calling for reverence rather than respect hangs in the air, and whether enshrined in the document or not, is a sense informing how we might best investigate the matter.

I believe these two statements are the most amazing theological assertion to rise in modern Western religion. They are naturalistic, that is they do not rely upon God's revelation. And yet they do not deny the possible hand of God in their discovery, or how these insights are planted in the human heart. One can hold this perspective and be nontheist, a classical theist, a pantheist or a panentheist.

The principles themselves leave the investigation of how they arise in other hands and instead go to their direct consequences within our lived lives.

Which is that the human person (and I believe implicit in this the whole of creation) is as it is precious. Each individual is unique and wondrous as it emerges. And this individual always and only emerges out of the web of relationships. As unique and precious as the individual is, the individual is always a part of some greater. And that greater is the whole of the cosmos united in an endless play of relationships.

And implicit in this is an understanding of the human mind.

We can discern our differences.

And we can discern our unity.

And this stance implies strongly that we can "know" in the gnostic sense of coming to a fully manifested realization that is more than the process of reasoning by itself, more than an idea bubbling in the brain. Rather we can experience the twin realities of our individuality and our connection as one thing as the very foundation of our life.

Understanding this, and coming to a direct experience of it, is what makes it a spiritual path not unlike Buddhism. Although Unitarian Universalism tends to lack Buddhism's sense of tragic. It seems to me stylistically Unitarian Universalism is a bit more like Taoism's naturalism, if lacking Taoism's taste for the fantastical.

For me what brings this all together is the fourth principle which holds up "a free and responsible search for meaning."

Here the responsibility is placed upon the heart of the individual.

And sometimes this means license to do nothing or to follow whatever bypath one wishes.

But if one feels the urge of responsibility for the whole, for suffering humanity, for the pain of the world, then the quest for meaning, that sense which gives us direction, from which all morality and all hope rises, becomes compelling. And then we have something.

I consider this the heart of liberal religion.

I believe there is a perennial quality to this insight. It can be found more or less complete in all religions, or at least those that have been around a while.

And there is something peculiar about the Unitarian Universalist enterpise that opens it to hyphens. One may be a UU Christian, a UU humanist, a UU Buddhist, and many, many more forms of Unitarian Universalist.

Personally I'm deeply interested in how all this informs my Zen Buddhism and how my Zen Buddhism informs this emergent Western expression. I see others using (not quite the right word... Engaging. Dancing.) the traditions of Christianity and Judaism in similar ways. Again using doesn't quite feel the right word - it is a full hearted engagement. It is a dance. The list of partners is long. Earth-centered perspectives can be enormously valuable, particularly those aspects found in Native American traditions. I can see how Hindu and Taoist spiritualities can be a part of this.

It is, yes, dangerous. Many dead-ends will appear. No doubt.

And it is a human enterprise, so abuses have and will appear.

And, it is so exciting.

Who knows what can come out of an open-hearted investigation of this matter?

Particularly if we are humble, and look to the older traditions, and seek that wisdom wherever it might appear.

Applying a fierce devotion to attention, to not turning away, to looking, looking, feeling, feeling, reflecting, and looking again.

Something precious is afoot.

And it all, I believe, can be traced back in significant part to those forty-one Pilgrims sitting in the bowels of the Mayflower and creating a compact, a contract, a covenant.

Never dreaming where it could lead...

We're All Related, Part Nine Hundred and Seventy-Two

2009-11-20T06:36:00.004-05:00

Alistair Cooke was born on this day in 1908.

He was a fixture for part of my life as a fan of Masterpiece Theater. So, it's nice to note...

And, also, we happen to be related.

Well, sort of...

Cooke died in 2004 and bones from his body were harvested in a criminal conspiracy for resale. At that time my auntie was having oral surgery which required rebuilding part of her jaw. After the surgery we were informed the bone that had been used came from that criminal conspiracy.

Of course we don't know for sure, but it is within mathematical possibility that auntie carries some of late journalist and public television host's bone material now firmly woven into her own.

So...

Ack! I've been informed this is Alistair Cookie, Not Cooke...

So, here you go...

Oops. That's John Hodgman...

One more try!

World Toilet Day

2009-11-19T08:21:00.003-05:00

Today is World Toilet Day. The video is funny. The subject quite serious...

Real Lost Teachings

2009-11-18T14:40:00.010-05:00

The following came as an addenda to a conversation about the latest rehashing of some of the sillier versions of a Lost Teaching's of Jesus. 'Tis another reflection from one of my wiser friends, the wild Zen hermit, Uncle Weasel. Now Uncle isn't a monotheist, much less a Christian, at least I don't think so, or at least he's not one or the other any given run of seven days, I'm moderately sure. But he does respect that tradition, knows it rather better than most do. And, anyway, he knows his way around various secret and lost teachings. So I thought it worth sharing...

I thought about it some more. Seems to me that these core belief-attitudes get short shrift in the new American religion:

God is your loving parent
Mercy is better than righteousness
God loves the lowly
Money screws up religion
Sacrifice is necessary
Share your wealth
Care for the unfortunate

and especially

It's not your fucking job to judge another's soul

The Frog Jumps

2009-11-18T08:03:00.003-05:00

On this day in 1865 Samuel Clemens published his first story, the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County in the New York Saturday Press. This story would become enormously popular and be reprinted in several versions over the years. It would also become the title story for Clemens first book...

Makes me think of Basho's famous poem, here in Allen Ginsberg's version:

The old pond
A frog jumped in,
Kerplunk!

What a kerplunk, what a splash!

The waves from which continue and continue to lap many shores...

A Small Meditation on Letting Go of the Results

2009-11-17T12:29:00.003-05:00

So, once again, my old friend Jim Austin was in town. He co-led a workshop at the Cumberland Zen Center on Saturday, stayed on to give a talk at the Brown Medical School on Monday, and today I picked him up at the school's inn to have lunch together and then to drive him to the airport.

As it was early and the airport is only half an hour away, we decided to throw out fates to the winds, drive out and see what kind of restaurant we might find. Actually we knew there was a Legal Seafood there and that would be our ace in the hole. We arrived, there was the Legal, but it turned out it wouldn't open for an hour. Which if we came back would give us half an hour to eat before I had to roll Jim out to have sufficient time to check in and pass through the various safety measures we now all endure when we fly.

We drove around a bit, to see if we could find a better deal. Couldn't.

Jim then suggested we take a walk. So, we drove into a housing tract, parked and started walking.

We had a lovely conversation with a Japanese Maple.

Then down the road we saw a figure in a front yard tucked into one of those bathtubs that one usually sees containing a figure of Mary. The figure in this tub, however, was a man about quarter size. He held a book and at his side a large club. And on top of his head, a topknot of fire. Sort of like one can see in some Middle Eastern pictures of Muslim saints.

Neither of us knew who this was.

Me, having appreciated it, I was ready to walk on.

Not so Jim.

He went up to the door and rang the bell. We waited. We waited a little more. Then a woman came to the door and Jim introduced us as taking a walk and the "reverend" (pointing to me) and he were wondering who the magnificent figure in the bathtub was.

St Jude.

Ah...

We walked a bit more, returned to the car, went to Legal Seafood where Jim had a bowl of New England clam chowder and I had a bowl of the discretely named "Rhode Island red clam chowder." (For those in the know, Rhode Island clam chowder isn't red. But there is that name which should not be mentioned within the boundaries of Red Sox nation...)

We drove to the airport, exchanged hugs, and off we went...

St Jude.

Sometimes called Judas not Iscariot.

Sometimes thought of as a brother of James the Great and therefore another brother of Jesus.

His name is attached to a small letter in the New Testament.

And, somehow, at least in the Western calendar he has become the go to guy for people in lost causes...

Not a bad saint to remember.

And somehow, as I'm, probably like many others, currently caught up in a number of projects, only some of which might actually come to fruition in ways I'd hope, I think about the whole enterprise of engagement in life. And how we need to stand in relation to those projects.

Beyond you pay your money and you take your chances.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of one continuous mistake.

I find myself thinking about that caution.

We need to throw ourselves into the matter with great passion.

We need to care and care deeply.

And we need to do.

The rest, whatever follows, is none of our business. Or, it can be framed, let go of the results.

Good advice, I think.

Do that and perhaps you will go into whatever task with St Jude as a companion.

Already lost.

What a beautiful place.

Dosho Port on Suffering

2009-11-16T17:18:00.001-05:00

A good Zen teacher speaking about that which he knows...

Passing Thought on the Perennial Tradition

2009-11-15T07:26:00.005-05:00

Today is the birthday of the French mystic and scholar Rene Guenon.

He was a leading part of a school of thought, Perennialism, or the Traditionalist School, that while not well known outside the realm of religious studies has had considerable impact on contemporary religious thinking.

This school produced some prodigious thinkers, ranging from Frithjof Schoun to Ananda Coomaraswamy to Titus Burkhardt, to Seyyed Hossein Nasir to Huston Smith.

The Wikipedia article attempts to summarize Perennialism as defined by Guenon.

The French author René Guénon (1886-1951) was in a certain sense a pioneer in the rediscovery of this Philosophia Perennis or Sophia Perennis in the 20th century. His view, largely shared with later Perennialist authorities, is that "Semitic religions" have an exoteric/esoteric structure. Exoterism, the outward dimension of religion, is constituted by religious rites and a moral but also a dogmatic theology. The exoteric point of view is characterized by its "sentimental", rather than purely intellectual, nature and remains fairly limited. Based on the doctrine of creation and the subsequent duality between God and creation, exoterism does not offer means to transcend the limitations of the human state. The goal is only religious salvation, which Guénon defines as a perpetual state of beatitude in a celestial paradise. In the Traditionalist view esoterism is more than the complement of exoterism, the spirit as opposed to the letter, the kernel with respect to the shell. Esoterism has, at least de jure, a total autonomy with respect to religion for its innermost substance is the Primordial Tradition itself. Based on pure metaphysics - by which Guénon means a supra-rational knowledge of the Divine, a gnosis, and not a rationalist system or theological dogma - its goal is the realization of the superior states of being and finally the union between the individual self and the Principle. Guénon calls this union “the Supreme Identity”.

By "Supreme Identity", Guénon and Schuon do not refer to the personal God of exoteric theology but to a suprapersonal Essence, the Beyond-Being, the Absolute both totally transcendent and immanent to the manifestation. In their view the innermost essence of the individual being is non-different from the Absolute itself. Guénon refers here to the Vedantic concepts of Brahman (Transcendence), Atman (Self) and Moksa (Deliverance). For Guénon the Hindu Sanatana Dharma represents "the more direct heritage of the Primordial Tradition". More generally the great traditions of Asia - (Advaita Vedanta, Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism) - play a paradigmatic function in his writings. He considers them as the more rigorous expression of pure metaphysics, this supra-formal and universal wisdom being, in itself, neither eastern nor western.

This view has informed contemporary religious studies more than is often noticed. As the Wikipedia article notes.

It could be argued that Traditionalism has a strong, although discreet, impact in the field of comparative religion and particularly on the young Mircea Eliade, although he was not himself a member of this school. Contemporary scholars such as Huston Smith, William Chittick, Harry Oldmeadow, James Cutsinger and Seyyed Hossein Nasr have advocated Perennialism as an alternative to secularist approach to religious phenomena.

A significant aspect of Perennialism or Traditionalism is its critique of modernity which is seen as so materialistic that the spiritual can barely be found. Critics of Perennialism have their own criticisms, particularly noting the school which claims a gnostic insight into a perennial teaching which they claim to know is essentially anti-democratic, anti-liberal and ultimately reactionary.

The school split in 1948 in a dispute between Guenon and Frithjof Schoun. Schoun would eventually immigrate to America where he and his organization have been the subject of controversy regarding sexual aspects of their spiritual activities. Nonetheless Schoun has remained a luminary thinker of the Traditionalist school.

I have to admit I like the Traditionalists and think there is something to what they're about.

For me the most obvious problems with Traditionalism become apparent in Huston Smith's The World's Religions. For many people this book has been the introduction, often capital "T" The introduction to comparative religion. It is a good book, no doubt.

And its usefulness falls apart dramatically in the section on Buddhism. As a Traditionalist, Smith appears to feel a need to find theistic currents dominant in all religions. And so in the case of the Buddhist article he finds a few and then magnifies them to a point that misleads the reader - who, for the most part, is reading about religions outside their personal experience for the first time.

Playing With Koans

2009-11-14T08:02:00.003-05:00

If you are interested in koan introspection practice, the Western master John Tarrant is doing some very intriguing things these days. A master of the Harada-Yasutani reform of Hakuin's koan curriculum, arguably the most subtle and creative of koan teachers in the West, author of Bring Me the Rhinoceros, and my principle teacher, John has of late been playing with public koan work. I don't see it as a substitute for the traditional forms, nor do I think he does, either, but a genuine enhancement for those engaged in the work of the fundamental matter.

The Zenosaurus Course in Koans is similar in some ways, I think, to Small Group ministry, a spiritual practice emergent within Unitarian Universalism. Which, I admit, I find a small delight...

Check it out!

You might like it...

(Picture by Random Factor)

Zen and the Zen of Zen

2009-11-14T07:41:00.008-05:00

A rare find with some actual inside Zen humor, and at no extra charge a little real Zen here and there. I enjoyed it, particularly the comparison between Zen and TM (registered trademark), and especially their tip of the hat to the wondrous Leonard Cohen...

(Now, a serious warning to readers of this blog who know it is generally G rated: lots and lots of smutty language in this video. Doesn't appear to have been made for people over thirty...)

Happy Birthday, Neil!

2009-11-12T16:50:00.002-05:00

Neil Young

Thanks for the music!

Briefest on the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month

2009-11-11T09:18:00.004-05:00

I posted a longer version of this once before. Sadly that one has been taken down, probably kept too much of the show for legal purposes...

Episode ten of season one, is, to my mind, one of the finest shows of a truly great series.

It just seems right to post it again, if this shorter version, today while many thoughts go to conflicts past and present and what happens to the veterans.

This one is for you, Dad...

A Small Call for Justice in Rhode Island

2009-11-11T07:43:00.006-05:00

I just sent the following letter to the editor to the Providence Journal. If you live in the state, I hope you will consider similar notes to various venues...

I was profoundly saddened to learn of Governor Carcieri’s veto of H 5294, which would have allowed domestic partners to claim the bodies of their loved ones. The bill was the legislature’s response to the Kafkaesque nightmare Mark Goldberg endured trying to claim the body of his partner of seventeen years.

Apparently the governor gave three reasons. First, the definition for a domestic partner provided in the bill was a year of cohabitation, together with evidence of financial interdependence, such as a shared credit card or mortgage. He found this not rigorous enough. I read that and thought of people who get drunk in Las Vegas, meet and marry, who then have more rights than a couple who gave each other their lives for seventeen years. The governor said if the legislature wants a domestic partnership law, they should have a straight-ahead bill. And then he added what seems to be the real reason for this heartless act, his abhorrence of the gay and lesbian citizens of this state asking for civil rights, and his fear that any slight act of decency will feed the rising call for marriage equality.

Frankly, I hope the governor’s casual act of cruelty will indeed fire not only those already committed to the enactment of civil marriage reform within our state, but also show those who have been up to now indifferent or even uncomfortable with the call to marriage equality, to see what is really going on. Which is an ongoing effort on the part of those who seek to maintain the status quo, to block any move toward civil rights for our gay and lesbian citizens. This is a concerted effort to drive them back into the shadows. Shadows where they are not really citizens of this nation. Shadows where they are not really human beings.

I write as a working parish minister. I’ve witnessed the wounds that follow this harsh treatment of people who are just like everyone else, except in the object of their affections. These are our neighbors, these are our friends, these are our children. And I see no justification for this sort of shabby treatment, of which the governor’s veto being only the most recent example. Absolutely, society is not served by creating or perpetuating a class of people who do not enjoy the rights the rest of us do. This is so sad. This is so cruel. This is so unnecessary.

I look forward to the day when we achieve full civil rights for BGLT people and when this nightmare of injustice becomes a matter for history books.

Standing on the side of love.

Recalling the Goddess of Reason

2009-11-10T11:16:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1793, the revolutionary French Convention proclaimed the investiture of a goddess of reason. Her image was installed on the high altar of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

Certainly an interesting eruption of rational religion in the midst of the revolution.

Short lived, the atheistic cult of the goddess was suppressed by order of Robespierre who wanted a cult of the supreme being instead...

Sadly, what could have been a very interesting experiment in rational religion devolved quickly into mob reactions to the excesses of the Roman church, and mainly featured acts of desecration.

Not the highest tide of reasonable religion...

Brief Meditation on the Fall of the Berlin Wall

2009-11-09T06:41:00.004-05:00

On this day in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell...

A glorious day.

No doubt.

Full stop.

And then we go on...

And, sadly, I fear the wrong lessons have been held up.

Rather than a celebration of human nobility, of our amazing possibilities,

a narrow view of what we should be about crows its victory.

In modern times it appears two extreme philosophies have pitted themselves against each other. The one based in fear and the other in greed.

The one based in fear had collapsed...

The one based in greed thought it had won...

And, so, here we are today.

Sad, sad...

We were born for so much more...

It really seems until we understand ourselves, our shadows, our wounds, and our highest aspirations, we will be doomed to careen from one extreme to another.

We need to understand the individual needs room to move, the possibility for creative action.

And we need to know we belong to each other, that we have profound mutual responsibilities for each other and this world.

We need another way...

A MEDITATION ON ROSIE THE RIVETER: The Divine Feminine and Liberal Religion and a Vision for a New World

2009-11-08T13:16:00.009-05:00

A MEDITATION ON ROSIE THE RIVETER

The Divine Feminine and Liberal Religion and a Vision for a New World

8 November 2009

James Ishmael Ford

First Unitarian Church

Providence, Rhode Island

Text

The spirit of God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to comfort all who mourn, to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations of many generations. You shall be called the ministers of our God.

Adapted from Isaiah 61

It was sometime during our first couple of years out here in New England. Jan and auntie and I were still just getting the lay of the land, and as we could we explored. Naturally enough pretty quickly preferences began to emerge: Cape Cod is beautiful and haunting. And we found the coastal ruggedness of Maine and those picture postcard villages even more compelling. Okay, the picture postcard villages are everywhere in New England. But when they cling to the coast, my goodness! However, most of all, we loved the mix of culture and countryside we found in the Pioneer Valley and the Berkshires. On our little escapes from our regular routines, we returned to far Western Massachusetts and southern Vermont more often than most other possible destinations. Still do.

Speaking of picture postcard villages, one bright summer day we were driving through Stockbridge, exploring the area around Tanglewood, when we saw a sign announcing the Norman Rockwell Museum. Now, I was raised to think Rockwell wasn’t really an artist, or at least not a great one. I believe for a couple of reasons. His thematic choices mostly of small town Americana together with his use of an often-humorous realism just ran against the grain of mid and late twentieth centuries intellectual aesthetics. More challenging, I think, and perhaps a more authentic critique, was his free use of sentimentality.

However, by the time we found ourselves in Stockbridge, Rockwell had more or less been rehabilitated, at least, again, within the circles Jan and I tend to move. The pure artistry of his work just cannot be challenged. And while Rockwell could be and often was sentimental, he also touched much deeper currents of the human heart. Clearly he understood love as something more than sentiment, and his paintings celebrated human nobility over and over again. So, we saw the sign and there was no hesitation. We drove up to the museum, parked, paid our entrance fee and walked in to gawk at the collection of almost six hundred paintings.

While there can be no doubt Rockwell loved the sweet, and did tumble into sentimentality with regularity, I have to say, when we walked into the room that displayed Rockwell’s series on race, standing in front of his painting “The Problem We All Live With,” I simply wept. Here was what love looks like. In that painting he called us to both our shadows and to our nobility. If someone doesn’t think that’s real art, I don’t know what they think real art is.

As we left and over the years that have gone by since, possibly the picture that most hangs in my imagination is “Rosie the Riveter.” It is a great picture. It’s an icon of the war effort. Quite literally an icon, drawing upon themes used for images of Mary in both the Eastern and Western churches. Not to mention even older goddess images, hard not to find distant echoes of Ishtar, of Inanna, of Athena. Of Kali. This is a perennial. With those muscles, but that delightful upturned nose and wearing makeup, that rivet gun in her lap, and her foot resting on Mein Kampf; thinking of it and his masterful use of classic religious themes just thrills me. As, I said, it was the most powerful image in my mind continuing from that visit.

Then as I was researching for this sermon I learned two things that caught me. The first was that “Rosie the Riveter” doesn’t hang in the Stockbridge museum. My whole memory of that part of our visit was cooked up somewhere in the back of my brain. After years in private hands Rosie now hangs in the Crystal Bridges museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. I must have seen a print of it in the gift shop and simply incorporated this most powerful for me of Rockwell’s paintings into my memory of that visit. That could be a sermon all by itself. And someday, maybe…

But it was something else that fired me up, that called to my heart, and which I want to share with you today. Rosie ranks for me with “The Problem We All Live With,” as the most important of Rockwell’s paintings. While I was doing that research on Rosie, there wasn’t in fact a lot about how much it is derived from iconic representations of Mary or older goddesses, but rather how the painting is exactly based upon one by Michelangelo; his portrayal of the prophet Isaiah on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Right down to the arc of the arm, although in the original without the ham sandwich. I suggest there is something to stop and reflect on here.

I suggest as we contemplate Rosie, we think not only of how people pulled together in the second world war or the echoes of Mary and other goddesses throughout time, but also there’s something prophetic here. There is a proclamation here, and I absolutely don’t think it over the top to say a divine proclamation. Rosie is a prescient image, a foreshadowing of something amazing that is going on in our times. It is a call to a holy project, something we are caught up in, and to which we need to recall ourselves, and, I believe, recommit ourselves to in a more conscious way. It has to do with the saving of humanity, and the particular shape of that saving today.

Let me hold up something for you. The horror at Fr Hood ended when a police officer confronted Major Hasan, and was shot by him. While seriously wounded the officer returned fire, putting four bullets into his body, dropping him on the spot. As most of us now know the officer is a sergeant with the Fort Hood Police Department. Her name is Kimberly Munley. There is also a story of another woman in the aftermath of the shooting, nineteen year old Private Amber Bahr, who tore off her blouse to use as a tourniquet for a wounded man, then carried him out before it was noticed she herself was bleeding from a wound to her hip. Think of any image of American and European soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, there’s almost always a woman in uniform, often with a gun. If you’re over fifty these images involve significant cognitive dissonance.

There is in this a revolution. This cannot be overstated. Women’s place in our culture is different than it was a single generation ago, and with few exceptions substantially different than throughout history. While it is true there has been a slow but steady progression towards genuine equal rights between women and men for generations, things have begun to move with mind spinning rapidity. We have crossed some tipping point, and we need to notice.

For instance, as regards what is being called “traditional marriage,” setting aside what it means in the scriptures, which would horrify most of us should we look, in English common law, which was our law for most of our history, when a woman and a man married, they became a single person, the man. And that’s the way it has been until 1981, that’s 1981, when the Supreme Court finally struck down all state laws designating men as “head and master” with control over the property owned jointly by the couple. This older perspective is unthinkable for most of us, even most of those calling for something they imagine as traditional marriage.

The revolution is at hand! This is what it means to stand on the side of Love. The realm of heaven is at hand! This is about divine love. A new world is at hand! It is all about love. In Afghanistan, in villages where women are kept in bondage and ignorance, they whisper to their daughters the secret message: they are equal to the men, that’s God’s real message, the god that includes the divine in both male and female. We’re all related, and more; within the web, we’re all one. In Saudi Arabia, women gather in secret and talk of driving and voting and how that is their divine right. In America young women demand to be paid the same as men, and they know the day one of their number will be president is not far off. Love will prevail.

The realm of equity, of justice for all is at hand. There are many concrete expressions. And our president is not the only one. But, it’s all fragile. It can all be overturned. The casual assumption of equality between women and men that is held by many of us, at least those of us under forty, is in fact of recent origin, and really is fragile. Much of this depends upon our shifting view of human sexuality. We’ve had to shift our perspective as a people from thinking men are supposed to be dominant, including sexually, and women passive. The great hubbub around homosexuality turns on the same issues. Strict prescriptions about sexual roles have assured the old paradigm. And they’ve been used to subject women and sexual minorities in exactly the same way.

This is why those of us concerned with the firm establishment of women’s rights are almost always equally concerned with the rights of lesbians, and gay men, of bisexuals and the transgendered. It is one thing. I repeat, as passionately as forcefully as I can: it is one thing. Heterosexual women will not be equal until lesbians and gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people are equal. And, of course, heterosexual men will not be equal until all are equal. If one is oppressed, we’re all oppressed. And, and, this extends out, as obvious as the nose on your face. White people cannot be free and equal unless black people are, as well. It is critical to notice how in the history of oppression of people of color, how sexuality has hung over those issues, as well.

What is central to this revolution is simple enough. We need to move from fixed views about ourselves and about each other, including our ideas of sexual relationships to a dynamic sense of inclusion. This is a call to love as a generous spirit, already expressed in many ways. But by no means is the day won. And again the whole matter is so fragile. But the heart of this is simple enough. Within genuine love freedom for one is freedom for all. That’s why it is so important to let openly gay and lesbian citizens serve in our military. And this is why my heart broke when Maine’s voters rejected marriage equality at the beginning of the week. The battle is not yet won.

And, I think of this loving community, dedicated to a deep spiritual equality grounded within the twin knowledge that each individual is precious and how we are all joined in a great web of relationship, which reveals the dynamic of love. Not sentimental love, but love as a power and a force for transformation. This is a fierce love, a fire burning away the false. I think of what this would look like and I picture Kimberly Munley exchanging fire with a crazed gunman, saving who knows how many lives. And I find myself returning to that amazing icon, Rosie the Riveter. And I think of Isaiah the pattern for Rosie, whose prophetic voice called us back to our best nature, to a path of equity and justice.

And there should be no doubt this is a prophetic call to be transformed by love. So, of course that means there’s a hard part. It isn’t about how they, someone else acts so much as how we, you and I, respond to the call. And the call of mercy and justice, of our deepest possibility brings questions for each of us, for you, and for me. How deeply have you looked into your heart about these things? Really? And when you have looked, looked deeply, what discomfort do you feel about gay people, whether you’re straight or gay yourself? How do you really feel about people of color, whatever the color of your skin? Where do you think women belong in this life, should a woman have a gun and use it? What tasks do you think women should not do? And why? Then stretch it out, follow the thread. What are your assumptions about people and how they are supposed to relate to each other? And, please, don’t settle for easy answers. Not what you would like to be. But rather, look at yourself naked and full, as you really are.

In the secret place of your heart, can you look honestly and think about it? Can you see something you’re uncomfortable with? Can you admit it, not to anyone else, just to yourself? If you can, that would be enough; self-honesty opens the way. It is the universal solvent. Then you can think of Rosie. Think of her muscles and that dab of makeup. Think of her foot on the bible of evil. There we find an archetype for all of us, an icon of a world that can be.

Here’s some good news. If you can find this openness, love’s heaven is at hand. At that moment when your heart opens, justice will fall like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Everything we do from that place of openness will be graceful. Our lives will become a glorious and sacred dance, now leading, now following, each step a glory for the world.

Come, come whoever you are; join the dance of love and respect, join our dancing revolution into a new world.

Amen.

Gays: Don't Tresspass on Mormon Property!

2009-11-07T09:23:00.003-05:00

Killing the Buddha is one of my favorite religion blogs. Check 'em out, they're in the list to your right...

This is an example. As someone almost always in bed well before The Daily Show & the Colbert Report air, I rarely see their shows.

But thanks to the Buddha killers, we're all warned...

On the Utter, Complete, Total Ordinariness of Mu

2009-11-07T06:56:00.006-05:00

On the Utter, Complete, Total Ordinariness of Mu

2 November 2009

A Teisho by

James Myoun Ford

Benevolent Street Zendo

Boundless Way Zen

The Case

A monk asked Chao-chou, "Has the dog Buddha nature or not?" Chao-chou said, "Mu."

Wu-Men's Comment

For the practice of Zen it is imperative that you pass through the barrier set up by the Ancestral Teachers.

For subtle realization it is of the utmost importance that you cut off the mind road. If you do not pass the barrier of the ancestors, if you do not cut off the mind road, then you are a ghost clinging to bushes and grasses.

What is the barrier of the ancestral Teachers? It is just this one word "Mu" -- the one barrier of our faith. We call it the Gateless Barrier of the Zen tradition. When you pass through this barrier, you will not only interview Chao-chou intimately, you will walk hand in hand with all the Ancestral Teachers in the successive generations of our lineage -- the hair of your eyebrows entangled with theirs, seeing with the same eyes, hearing with the same ears. Won't that be fulfilling? Is there anyone who would not want to pass this barrier?

So, then, make your whole body a mass of doubt, and with your three hundred and sixty bones and joints and your eighty-four thousand hair follicles concentrate on this one word "Mu." Day and night, keep digging into it. Don't consider it to be nothingness. Don't think in terms of "has" and "has not." It is like swallowing a red-hot iron ball. You try to vomit it out, but you can't.

Gradually you purify yourself, eliminating mistaken knowledge and attitudes you have held from the past. Inside and outside become one. You're like a mute person who has had a dream--you know it for yourself alone.

Suddenly Mu breaks open. The heavens are astonished, the earth is shaken. It is as though you have snatched the great sword of General Kuan. When you meet the Buddha, you kill the Buddha. When you meet Bodhidharma, you kill Bodhidharma. At the very cliff edge of birth-and-death, you find the Great Freedom. In the Six Worlds and the Four Modes of Birth, you enjoy a samadhi of frolic and play.

How, then, should you work with it? Exhaust all you life energy on this one word "Mu." If you do not falter, then it's done! A single spark lights your Dharma candle.

Wu-Men's Verse

Dog, buddha nature--
the full presentation of the whole;
with a a bit of "has" or "has not"
body is lost, life is lost.

(Translated by Robert Aitken in The Gateless Barrier)

I love Wumen’s little sermon on Mu. He evokes a lively practice and calls us to how important it is for us to find our own way into the great matter. It really is about life and death. And, not some abstract life and death. But our lives, our deaths; yours and mine. The old master gets it right down to his bones and marrow and he conveys it eloquently.

However his very enthusiasm and passion can itself become a snare. For instance there is no doubt many encounter the koan as a red-hot iron ball. Particularly within the context of retreat where there are few other distractions the question, the word, the noise Mu can become the holder for all the burning questions of life, rendered into this one thing. Mu. And hot is how it is encountered.

And, for many, particularly many I’ve spoken with over the years, that red-hot iron ball isn’t at all how it’s encountered. Mu can be confusion itself. Neither burning hot nor freezing cold, just confusion. Mu can be a nagging something in the back of your head. Mu can be a small pebble in one’s shoe. Mu can become the longing inhabiting one’s dreams, emerging in so many unlikely ways. And Mu can be encountered like a blueberry found on a bush. You just reach out, pick it, and throw it into your mouth.

It can be any of these things. And more.

I have one friend who many years before she took up the Zen way, was canoeing alone in Maine’s far northern wilderness. Let’s call her Rebecca. Out there in the wilderness in a moment as her paddle dipped into the water she was caught, first by the sound a small splash, then by the feel of resistance as the paddle slipped deeper into the water, then by the smells of water and air and canoe all so clean they had little connection to the experiences of her life back in Boston. Rebecca was startled into silence. In that silence all that was left was the flow of life itself, a flock of geese, the clouds overhead, the splash of some fish, and that crisp smell.

The moment passed quickly enough, but some part of her never forgot. It seemed as if it were some small secret she and the universe shared. Time passed and things happened. There was a divorce. There were changes in work. Rebecca felt dissatisfaction with her life and who she had become, and wanted to find her way again. She thought what she needed was a spiritual discipline, and for whatever reason came to sit in the Zen style and ended up in one of our sanghas.

Early on she came in for an interview. We talked about life and practice and her hopes and we agreed settling down and just noticing might be good for her. Rebecca took up the practice of breath counting. After she had been sitting a while counting her breath, I don’t recall, maybe seven or eight months, she thought maybe the koan way might be a right next step for her. And so, as is our usual practice here, she was presented with Mu. She made her bows and left.

Some months later Rebecca came to sesshin. A day or so into it she came into dokusan and said to me, “You know, James. I’m not sure why, but Mu for me is that moment of silence I experienced all those years ago, but made fresh. Instead of honking geese and the smell of forest air, it’s the roar of that car which just drove down the road and that funny off-white color of the wall.”

And she said one other thing. All this caught my attention. We pursued the matter further. I asked her one of the usual checking questions. And she knew the answer. I asked another, and another, and she kept meeting them fully.

Here’s the point. Rebecca never had the red-hot iron ball experience. Didn’t need it. For her Mu was found like a flower opening.

And if you think about it, that should be one of the options. What we’re promised by the teachers of our way is that we and all things, we, you and I, and every blessed thing, share the same root. Mu is just a noise. It is a placeholder. But what it holds for us is a way of being in the world, that actually we’re always experiencing. It’s always here. We just don’t notice it.

The catch is that other way of being in the world, of slicing and dicing, of separating and weighing and judging, well, it’s important, it’s useful. In fact seeing into our shared place isn’t particularly useful. It doesn’t pay the bills. It doesn’t get us a girlfriend or a boyfriend. It’s in fact the most counter cultural thing we can be about. And so, even though we are surrounded by it, often, usually, its very existence slips into the back of our human consciousness. And even though it is the background of our lives, we come to forget it.

Rarely completely, it is after all, also our common heritage, our birthright as we enter into this universe. So, it peeks out at us in our dreams. It whispers to us in the dark. It beckons in the playing of children and the touch of a kiss. And, it appears even in some very rough patches of our lives, sometimes the roughest. You never know when it will present.

Now I want to be clear here. Each of these phrases I’ve just used are metaphors, are pointers. Don’t look for a thing here. Also, this is important. There is also a pernicious oneness, experienced in many ways, although most often as a projection, and of the various projections, most often, of our egos. Be wary. I’m not describing a thing. I’m pointing.

That said, back to the matter of Mu and its utter uselessness. If you’ve presented yourself to a Zen hall, if you’ve come for an interview with a Zen teacher, you’ve probably decided that the culturally correct thing hasn’t proven to be all that satisfying. There’s been some nagging thing at the back of your heart or your head. Something, perhaps only the smallest thing, hints that the life we’ve led up to this point isn’t enough. Or even that phrase “not enough” doesn’t quite express it; some sense of dis-ease haunts us.

So, perhaps you’re ready to let the call of culture, of gain, of success one way or another, fall down a notch or two. Perhaps you’re ready for something that has no value. And so you take up our disciplines of sitting down, shutting up, and paying attention. Sitting is a good thing. Lots of sitting is a very good thing. And taking up the hard way is sometimes very necessary. Throwing our hearts and bodies into the practice, sometimes, can be the most important thing we can choose to do. There is a place for that red-hot iron ball.

But, actually, here’s the secret. All you need do is step out of your own way. That’s the only problem. We stand in our own way. It’s already here. It’s always here. Perhaps you first noticed it as a child, maybe as an adolescent. It’s taught in Buddhism, and Taoism and Judaism and Islam and in Christianity. It’s found somewhere in all religions. And, it’s found in the hearts of people who claim no religion. It is as close as the throbbing in your jugular vein. It is proclaimed in the next breath you draw. It’s found canoeing in Maine and it’s found changing a diaper.

So, the pointers are everywhere. In that most Zen-like of Western spiritual testaments, the Gospel of Thomas, the sage Jesus declares if you want to see him, cut a board in two, or pick up a stone. Saying you can find it when you cleave a board or pick up a stone, doesn’t mean there’s some magical board out there waiting to be found or one rock is more precious than all others. Rather it is just this piece of wood. It is just this pebble.

It is just this breath.

It is just this Mu.

Breathing.

Mu.

Presenting.

Mu.

Nowhere else.

Mu.

Easy as falling off a log.

Another One of Those Historical Moments

2009-11-06T10:15:00.006-05:00

By somebody's calculation, on this day in 355 the Roman emperor Constantius II, appointed his cousin Julian a Caeser, which by this time in the history of the empire was a junior emperor position. It would lead five years later to Julian becoming Augustus of the Roman Empire.

The brevity of his tenure as Emperor, a mere three years, together with his reaching intellect and his pagan restorationist desires, leaves us with one of those great "what ifs" of history.

Called by his admirers Julian the Philosopher, and by his enemies Julian the Apostate, he would be the last nonChristian ruler of the Empire.

Julian sought to create a purified paganism that was in many ways attractive and could, if he had lived, really given Christianity a run for its money.

I like to think.

Of course things went a different way...

Instead, we just get tantalizing hints of what might have been.

Finally! A Diet I Can Follow...

2009-11-05T14:59:00.001-05:00

The Very Short Sutra on the Meeting of the Buddha & the Goddess

2009-11-04T11:23:00.002-05:00

The Very Short Sutra on the Meeting of the Buddha and the Goddess

Thus I have made up:
Once the Buddha was walking along the
forest path in the Oak Grove at Ojai, walking without
arriving anywhere
or having any thought of arriving or not arriving

and lotuses shining with morning dew
miraculously appeared under every step
soft as silk beneath the toes of the Buddha

When suddenly, out of the turquoise sky,
dancing in front of his half-shut inward-looking
eyes, shimmering like a rainbow
or a spider's web
transparent as the dew on a lotus flower,

--the Goddess appeared quivering
like a hummingbird in the air before him

She, for she was surely a she
as the Buddha could clearly see
with his eye of discriminating awareness wisdom,

was mostly red in color
though when the light shifted
she flashed like a rainbow.

She was naked except
for the usual flower ornaments
Goddesses wear

Her long hair
was deep blue, her two eyes fathomless pits of space
and her third eye a bloodshot
ring of fire

The Buddha folded his hands together
and greeted the Goddess thus:

"O Goddess, why are you blocking my path.
Before I saw you I was happily going nowhere.
Now I'm not sure where to go."

"You can go around me,"
said the Goddess, twirling on her heels like a bird
darting away,
but just a little way away,
"or you can come after me.
This is my forest too,
you can't pretend I'm not here."

With that the Buddha sat
supple as a snake
solid as a rock
beneath a Bo tree
that sprang full-leaved
to shade him.

"Perhaps we should have a chat,"
he said.
"After years of arduous practice
at the time of the morning star
I penetrated reality, and now..."

"Not so fast, Buddha.
I am reality.

The Earth stood still,
the oceans paused,

the wind itself listened
--a thousand arhats, bodhisattvas, and dakinis
magically appeared to hear
what would happen in the conversation.

"I know I take my life in my hands."
said the Buddha.
"But I am known as the Fearless One
--so here goes."

And he and the Goddess
without further words
exchanged glances.

Light rays like sunbeams
shot forth
so bright that even
Sariputra, the All-Seeing One,
had to turn away.

And then they exchanged thoughts
and the illumination was as bright as a diamond candle.

And then they exchanged mind
And there was a great silence as vast as the universe
that contains everything

And then they exchanged bodies

And clothes

And the Buddha arose
as the Goddess
and the Goddess
arose as the Buddha

and so on back and forth
for a thousand hundred thousand kalpas.

If you meet the Buddha
you meet the Goddess.
If you meet the Goddess
you meet the Buddha.

Not only that. This:
The Buddha is the Goddess,
the Goddess is the Buddha.

And not only that. This:
The Buddha is emptiness
the Goddess is bliss,
the Goddess is emptiness
the Buddha is bliss.

And that is what
and what-not you are
It's true.

So here comes the mantra of the Goddess and the Buddha, the unsurpassed dual-mantra. Just to say this mantra, just to hear this mantra once, just to hear one word of this mantra once makes everything the way it truly is: OK.

So here it is:
Earth-walker/sky-walker
Hey, silent one, Hey, great talker
Not two/Not one
Not separate/Not apart
This is the heart
Bliss is emptiness
Emptiness is bliss
Be your breath, Ah
Smile, Hey
And relax, Ho
And remember this: You can't miss.

by Rick Fields in Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism & Ecology, pp. 3-7

Reflecting on the Loss of Civil Rights in Maine

2009-11-04T06:37:00.005-05:00

Jan and I awakened this morning to learn the referendum to reject Maine's legislation to recognize same gender marriage passed.

Jan sighed. I felt a wave of anger. This was so wrong. And of course, our feelings are nothing compared to those of so many people who have suffered from prejudice and worse legal sanction, and have once again seen their neighbors reject their full humanity.

This is so sad. So sad...

Now I know the wave of history will transform this injustice to justice. Every poll shows the younger generation of whatever other political view cannot comprehend the logic of making lesbian and gay people second class citizens.

But I am worried for the short term. We've been working hard toward marriage equality in Rhode Island. This is a setback for us as well as for those in Maine. No doubt...

But...

No on 1 campaign manager Jesse Connolly is quoted in the Boston Globe. “We’re not short timers. We’re in for the long haul. We will regroup. This is about love and commitment and family, and so we’ll stay the course. And I ask you to stay the course with us.’’

And I can respond.

We will.