Category: interbeing

A Prayer for the Pandemic

March 16, 2020

interbeing, Non-self nature of suffering, Pandemic, The three marks of existence, Uncategorized

Windowsill, Photo by Celia

“Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’

doesn’t make sense any more.” ~Jelaluddin Rumi

“True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self elements. There’s no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected. Once you are aware of that you are no longer caught in the idea that you are a separate entity.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

“Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl.”

~Jelaluddin Rumi

Dear Friends,

I’ve never experienced a pandemic before, never seen rampant fear and the reality of suffering so prevalent. In these uncertain times, I am very thankful for my practice. Especially for the understanding of the three marks of existence or the three characteristics, anicca [impermanence], anatta [non-self], and dukkha [the understanding that suffering exists in life]. One teacher, whose name sadly, I do not know, summed it up as, “Everything keeps changing. It’ll shake you up, and it’s not personal.” We are seeing the truth of this teaching in the world.

The Buddha taught that all things, including our lives, are compound, conditioned phenomena made possible by supporting causes and conditions. When the surrounding environmental conditions shift, maintaining what was is no longer possible. This can be delightful when we heal from an illness or when that loud neighbor finally moves out. This truth can be sorrowful when someone gets ill or dies. We see that existence is only possible when the proper conditions that support it are in place. This is the teaching of non-self, knowing that we are held on the Earth by an array of support that includes oxygen, water, the sunshine that grows our food, by the nurture of our ancestors who gave birth to us and cared for us as a baby and child. We are constantly being formed.

In the Zen tradition, we say we are not the same or different than we were, we are a continuation. We are a process not a product and we keep changing. This is not a self that needs propping up, but a collection of life energy. When we can see past the rigid partition separating our life and all other beings, we can begin to soften the voice of the self that sees everything in terms of how it affects me. Things happen because of causes and conditions and are the result of actions. We are not victims of the world and life is not doing things to us personally. This pandemic is not personal, even when it causes us pain.

We are a country of doers and the recommendations, handwashing and staying home, essentially not doing, may seem like non-action. We want a vaccine. We want real medicine. We want to know we will be OK. Right now, we are seeing that the solidity of life, is not as solid as we thought. This is impermanence. We are not born with a guaranteed expiration date. We are always at risk, always vulnerable, but right now, we see it clearly. The result of seeing impermanence is that we understand we are not as separate and stable as we wish and that engenders fear, which is dukkha.

Last week, the stock market plunged and the newscaster commented that “fear outstripped greed.” It takes a lot to knock out greed, but fear for our lives is doing the trick. When things are uncertain we have difficulty. Naturally, we want stability and routine. As a species, we crave to know all the risks and how to stay safe. We suffer when we are vulnerable and unsure. One item this pandemic is showing us is that we belong to each other. We are more connected than we imagined.

I’ve seen the beautiful videos of those in isolation singing out the windows in Italy. We know that the air is cleaner over Wuhan than it was two weeks ago and that everywhere folks are reaching out to each other despite the barriers. We are learning what matters to us all and that if one of us suffers, we all suffer. We are collectively learning to stop. We have nowhere to go and nothing to do right now. Let us make good use of our time on this Earth.

I send this simple prayer for all of us.

A Prayer for the Pandemic

Where there are anxiety and fear, may we find our still center even in the midst of this.

Where there are anger and frustration at confinement, may we give ourselves permission to rest.

Where there is loss of income and fear for our family’s wellbeing, may we be willing to trust that there are kindness and support in this world.

Where there is disregard for others, may we remember that simple acts of renunciation—staying home and non-doing, can save lives.

Where there are panic and hoarding, may we open to generosity and recognize that we belong to each other.

Where there are denial and dismissal, may we embrace all people’s feelings with respect and consideration.

Where there are vulnerable lives, may we be a continued presence of compassionate care.

Where there is impatience, may we enjoy slowing down and find ease.

When we feel like victims, may we know this situation is not personal.

Where there is anxiety for our health and those we love, may we understand that these bodies are subject to natural laws.

Where there are despair and hopelessness, may we know that we are life without end.

When we are irritable and grumpy, may we remember that we are here to love each other.

When we are overwhelmed, may we stand in the beauty of the natural world.

When we don’t want to do this anymore, may we look at ourselves with the tenderness of a mother holding a frightened child.

When we fear for our lives, may we remember we exist beyond the beginning and end of this limited body.

When we feel alone, may we remember that each one of us is connected to all the lives, the stars, and planets and that we belong to this Earth.

When we are confused, may we know how to stop and listen to our wisdom.

And when we are scared, may we reach into the world and find our family is here, with us all along.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

4 comments on A Prayer for the Pandemic
Empty Means Full

November 11, 2019

Control, interbeing, Letting go, Self-Kindness, Self-view, Uncategorized

Changing leaves. Photo by Celia

“Let there be an opening into the quiet

that lies beneath the chaos,

where you find the peace

you did not think possible

and see what shimmers within the storm.” ~ Jan L. Richardson

“Create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently, until the song

that is your life falls into your own cupped hands and you recognize and greet it.”

~ Martha Postlewaite

“Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window

toward the mountain presence of everything that can be

what urgency calls you to your one love?

What shape waits in the seed of you

to grow and spread its branches

against a future sky?” ~ David Whyte

“Treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.” ~Rumi

Dear Friends,

There was frost on the ground this morning. The dogs were delighted and came back jostling and excited by the cold. I was less delighted seeing the wilted sweet potato vine and thinking I really should pull it out, thinking about December and wondering when the earth will freeze hard enough to burst the terra cotta pots that I should really move indoors. The clocks turned back last week and for us in New England, this time can be filled with trepidation. The daylight hours shrink, and the sun sets before five o’clock. There is letting go—the leaves falling from trees, the letting go of warmth, of the summer flowers and growth—and with these shifts comes the tendency to look at change as a hardship and frame it in the negative. When we believe we can lose things, we look at the world with the perception of loss and deprivation. We believe that our world can become empty of light and warmth but when we understand change and the truth of emptiness, the ebbing of what we are accustomed to can be an opportunity.

There’s an old Zen story about a Buddhist scholar named Tokusan and the Zen Master Ryutan who lived in China during the ninth century. The scholar was an expert on the Buddhist texts and wanted to discuss a fine point of the Dharma with Master Ryutan. Master Ryutan served tea to his guest while they spoke about the teachings. As Ryutan refilled the cup of the professor, who was explaining his views in great detail, the tea reached the brim of the cup and spilled over the edge onto the table. Tokusan couldn’t contain himself, “Stop!” He stared at the Zen master who was calmly pouring tea as it pooled into the floor. “The cup is overflowing.”

“Yes,” answered the Zen master. “You are like this cup. You come full of opinions and beliefs and you have no room for anything but your own ideas. For you to learn anything, first, you must empty your cup.”

When we are full of our ideas and concepts, we have no room for anything else. We don’t live in accordance with the Dharma which knows the truth of suffering, impermanence, and the truth that we are not a small, limited egoic self. When we are able to empty ourselves of certainty, of our ill will, and ignorance, what fills our cup? Are we insisting our cup stays full of the very same conditions we are accustomed to, the ones that cause of pain? Are we unwilling to let go of what we have outgrown even when we can see that everything is changing?

The language of the Buddha’s teachings is framed in negative terms with the highest plane of awareness being nirvana [extinguishing or cessation]. The Buddha taught the end of suffering, the unbinding of the ten fetters, and the doctrine of non-self. All this can sound very dry and reserved for people who don’t want to enjoy things or have some special ability to cheerfully live lives of deprivation and hardship. But what is the end of suffering—happiness, contentment, peace, and ease? What do we make room for when we empty ourselves of the egoic driven belief we are separate and alone? We become connected to everything and everyone that has even been on this Earth or will ever be here.

When we empty of our self, there is space for the recognition that someone else’s good fortune is not bound by the contours of their body—there is the realization of mudita [appreciative joy], the connectivity of kindness and happiness. Emptying our cup of prejudice and ignorance makes space for universal friendliness (mettā) for compassion (karuna), and wisdom (prajna, Sanskrit/ pañña, Pali). When we move away from our attachment to the idea of ourselves, we gain the freedom to make mistakes. We aren’t bound by how others see us—we gain authenticity and confidence.

When we understand we are empty of a separate self, we have the space to claim our true inheritance—our connectivity to what is wholesome and brave. There is no vacuum or empty space that isn’t filled with the mind of love (bodhicitta) that is always present. When we remove what the Buddha called the defilements, the ten fetters, we are released and free to see what has been there waiting the whole time. The seeds of enlightenment, of Buddhahood which are always present in us all—when we empty our cup enough, we can give these seeds the space and attention they need to flourish.

Removing the thorn of hatred from our hearts is like removing the blockage that restricted the circulation of love. When we see what we are full of, it is a very different experience than focusing on losing things. We’ve all experienced moments when we’ve felt that predictability and safety vanished—maybe when we heard of a tragedy in the world, the state of our Earth, or a personal change when we lost a job, money, a home or someone dear to us. These moments are the emptying of the cup. We stop believing that life is unfolding according to a script and we step onto what can be very shaky new ground. In these moments we have a choice about what we want to fill our cup with—fear and worry, or equanimity, compassion, and wisdom, which understands pain and knows that we are capable of meeting our own suffering and the suffering of others with love, wisdom, and balance.

The highest qualities of the mind and heart, the heart that quivers with the suffering of another and knows the way to help is not outside of us. These beautiful qualities are waiting patiently for us to make space so they can rise to the surface. The same way the trees shed their leaves to make room for new growth in the spring. We empty to fill with something. We cannot inhale until we’ve exhaled. Seeing we are always in the process of emptying, what do we want to fill our lives with, fear and resistance, or with understanding and compassion? The choice is ours and as we see the cup empty, we can smile, knowing that empty means we are ready to receive.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

1 comment on Empty Means Full
The Earth in Me

September 23, 2019

Activism, Climate change, Equanimity, interbeing, Patience, Uncategorized

Bantam River, Photo by Celia

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~Margaret Mead

“Once we see that something needs to be done, we must take action. Seeing and action go together. Otherwise, what is the point in seeing?” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

“Just as a solid rock is not shaken by the storm, even so the wise are not affected by praise or blame.” ~ The Dhammapada, Verse 81

Dear friends,

Many of us recently participated in the Global Climate Strike this past week. I had the pleasure of reconnecting with this section of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Love Letter to the Earth, which Buddhist practitioners read at City Hall in New York before making peaceful steps to support the call for climate action. On Friday, I stayed local and was part of a small group of folks who came together on the Green in Litchfield, Connecticut. We received lots of support from those driving by, honks, waves, shouts of thanks…and a much smaller helping of disapproval, shouts that climate change is not real, trucks gunning their engines and revving in front of our group, one man told us to go home and stop telling people what to think. The scientific data supporting this issue is politicized and although many of us may recognize that humans have impacted the Earth in dangerous ways, many of us have a different reality.

Some of my time on Friday was spent wishing well to those who have a different view and being mindful of any feeling of righteousness. Thich Nhat Hanh in the Three Earth Touchings reminds us of the non-dual nature of living on Earth, “I am the forest that is being cut down. I am the rivers and the air that are being polluted, and I am also the person who cuts down the forest and pollutes the rivers and the air. I see myself in all species, and I see all species in me.” This is the understanding of Interbeing, which sees the non-self nature in the world and in us. Interbeing acknowledges we are linked to that which we might consider shameful, or ignorant. We are part of all things, not just the things we admire and like. We can know that we are not separate from others who may have very divergent views.

The Buddha repeated used imagery of the Earth, especially to point out that we are not what we think we are. The physiological understanding 2,600 years ago included the four elements of Earth (solidity), Water (liquid), Fire (temperature and digestion), and Wind (air, movement, circulation) in the body and outside the body. Awareness of these aspects of ourselves in each human form and as they appear in the world, free from the confines of skin and flesh, shows we are interwoven with this planet. As Thich Nhat Hanh writes in his love letter, “You aren’t a person, but I know you are not less than a person either. You are a living breathing being in the form of a planet.” This living and breathing Earth is essential for all other life forms.

A neighbor told me that she was passionate about the Earth but didn’t know where to start and how to feel like her actions mattered. I believe this is true for so many folks. The problems feel so vast and we are so small. When we believe our actions, our thoughts, and intentions hold no value, it’s easy to lose our confidence. When we can connect with our intentions and nourish our commitments, we find that even small actions have the potential to renew us and support the longevity of committing to action. A way to build reverence and compassion for our ability to create change and our interconnectedness is through the Plum Village practice of Earth Touchings. To relinquish our idea of superiority and lie our body upon the Earth, allows the Earth to hold our sorrow, our desire to do more, our frustration and our pain. It can be deeply healing to surrender ourselves to the care of the Earth and to know that she is also in our care. When we see our strength aligned with the Earth, we are following the Buddha’s instructions for his son Rahula.

The Buddha told his son to “develop the meditation in tune with earth. For when you are developing the meditation in tune with earth, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind. Just as when people throw what is clean or unclean on the earth — feces, urine, saliva, pus, or blood — the earth is not horrified, humiliated, or disgusted by it; in the same way, when you are developing the meditation in tune with earth, agreeable & disagreeable sensory impressions that have arisen will not stay in charge of your mind,” (Maha-Rahulovada Sutta: The Greater Exhortation to Rahula, MN 62). This is the training of acceptance and patience.

The Earth has held all things with equanimity. When we meditate on the solidity of the Earth element in ourselves, we can touch this unshakable part of ourselves, beyond our small judgments and see that all beings, just like me, want safety, choice, and consideration. When we look with the eyes of Earth, we see that anger and hostility are protections from fear and vulnerability. Just like the Earth, we learn not to take things personally, nor let the arising of hopelessness or fear deter us from caring. The Earth does not feel humiliation or pride but is steady and unwavering—The Earth knows her value. The Earth Touching practice can nurture our intention to create a deep bond with this planet we are a part of. Practicing with humility and reverence, we recognize that when we care for the Earth, we care for ourselves. Now more than ever, we cannot afford to doubt our value and contribution. We need all of us to support our planet and our belief that our actions make a difference.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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The Making of a Mother

May 13, 2019

Ancestors, compassion, Dependent origination, Forgiveness, interbeing, Metta, Mother’s Day, Patience, Relationship, Uncategorized

The Buddha and friend. Photo by Celia

“By patience, by non-harming, by loving kindness, by caring (for others).

(Thus) looking after oneself, one looks after others;

and looking after others, one looks after oneself.” ~SN 47.19

“Those who engage in good bodily conduct, good verbal conduct & good mental conduct have themselves protected. Even though neither a squadron of elephant troops, a squadron of cavalry troops, a squadron of chariot troops, nor a squadron of infantry troops might protect them, still they have themselves protected. Why is that? Because that’s an internal protection, not an external one. Therefore, they have themselves protected.” ~SN 3.5

“Develop the meditation of appreciation. For when you are developing the meditation of appreciation, resentment will be abandoned.” ~MN 62

Dear Friends,

It’s Mother’s Day in the U.S. and it is also the time of year to celebrate Vesak, the birth of the Buddha. The qualities of a mother in the Buddhist tradition incorporate protection, compassion, and love. For some of us, we may have been blessed with loving nurturing mothers and caregivers we felt safe with. For others, this is far from our experience. Today, if you have a loving mother to celebrate, you are a fortunate being! If you have a complicated relationship, perhaps there is some mourning for the childhood you wanted but did not have. When the mourning is enough, we can move on to looking deeply into the causes and conditions that created our mother and her relationships. When we have understanding, it is the first building block of love.

The wonderful qualities we long for in our caregivers are not dispensed on the day a child is born; they are created from lifetimes of intergenerational transference. The Buddha taught that all things arise because of the interconnected web of causes and conditions. This is described as Dependent Origination. The Buddha is quoted as saying, “With the arising of this, that arises. When this is not, neither is that. With the cessation of this, that ceases” (S.II.28,65). Insight meditation teacher Christina Feldman speaks about “paṭicca-samuppāda,” (Pali) as the understanding “that there is nothing separate, nothing standing alone. Everything effects everything else. We are part of this system. We are part of this process of dependent origination—causal relationships effected by everything that happens around us and, in turn, effecting the kind of world that we all live in inwardly and outwardly.” This system is described by Zen Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh in the word Interbeing.

We can see Interbeing in all of us. We can see the results of genetics, of our upbringing and how our lives have marked us. Not one of us can create ourselves or our environment. Like it or not, we are continuously influenced and influencing our environment and relationships.

A mother is not a static, constant identity. Being a mother is a process made of conditions. For a mother to be loving, there needs to be the experience of being loved and understanding what love means to oneself and to another. Loving someone else also requires that we do not put our experience on the other person, who may have a very different understanding of love than we do. This is the Buddhist teaching on the equality complex or conceit. Perhaps we have had an experience of loving someone who is very different from ourselves. The quality of Metta, loving-kindness, does not insist that someone accept love as we would like it to be. Some people connect love with gifts, with touch, with words, food, or compliments but true love is formless; it transmits through presence and intention. True love transcends simple form.

Another aspect of motherhood is patience. Patience is much more accessible for one who understands the teaching of impermanence (Anicca) and that what seems so solid and important will change and adapt. If we longed for more patience from our caretakers, what conditions would have supported that–enough sleep, enough money? Is it possible to trace the lack of patience as a continuation of ancestral conditioning and to see how it shows up in our daily life? If we were lucky enough to have been given the gift of patience, how did it develop in our caretakers? How do we offer this gift to others in our lives?

The foundation of compassion is said to occur when loving kindness encounters suffering and the natural desire and ability arises to remove the suffering from our beloved. To do this, one must have presence and calm enough to be near the suffering of another without fear or aversion. One must possess equanimity. Compassion also requires the knowledge of how to relieve suffering and the competence to do so. True compassion requires bravery. For a parent working 60 hours a week and uncertain they can pay the mortgage, how likely is it that this sort of calm presence is available?

In the Discourse on Love is exhorts the Buddha’s followers to protect their own willingness to love all beings just as a “mother protects with her life Her child, her only child. So, with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings” (Sn 1.8). To protect another one needs confidence, clarity, and a firm resolve in the goodness of their actions. We protect that which we value and especially those who are unable to protect themselves. The conditions that instill protection come from the recognition of what is wholesome linked with the wisdom to use one’s energy and power for the good. Parents who have known protection and care in their lives are much better equipped to protect their children without violence and aggression. Understanding an adult’s responsibility and power are also part of creating safety for vulnerable children. Protection creates a safe home where trust and ease can grow. The guidelines of sila [virtue] offer these protections for ourselves and for our children to ensure we all can live with integrity and safety.

When we see our upbringing in a wider lens that connects us to the past and the future, we can understand the conditions that have contributed to creating our mothers and ourselves. When we can look with understanding and see how the law of cause and effect has shaped our lives, we can learn to give gratitude for the kindness we have known and forgiveness for what we may have received but didn’t want.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

2 comments on The Making of a Mother
Not to Hate the Haters

April 30, 2019

Activism, Ending hatred, Healing our society, interbeing, non-violence, Uncategorized

Sunrise at Ferry Beach, ME. Photo by Karen Swanson

“Killing another person is not an act of freedom but an act of great despair and great ignorance; it will not bring freedom or peace.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

All

tremble at the rod,

all

are fearful of death.

Drawing the parallel to

yourself,

neither kill nor get others to kill.

All

tremble at the rod,

all

hold their life dear.

Drawing the parallel to

yourself,

neither kill nor get others to kill. ~Dhammapada 129-130

“Nonviolence is not a set of techniques that we can learn with our intellect. Nonviolent action is born naturally, from compassion, lucidity and understanding within yourself.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Dear Friends,

I returned from the Order of Interbeing retreat at Blue Cliff Monastery to read about Saturday’s shooting at the synagogue in California. Yet again, we see violence, hatred, and ignorance made lethal by the availability of weapons in the US. The rise of acceptability of white supremacy and the normalization of racism has me deeply concerned and sometimes afraid. While it is nothing new, there has always been suspicion, dominance, and distrust, it seems that the world is turning backward and forgetting. We are forgetting the atrocities of genocide, the deaths of millions in Cambodia, Armenia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, in the concentration camps of Europe and the ethnic cleansing of Native Peoples on the Great Plains of America. Right now, there is the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people by the government of Myanmar, the most religious Buddhist country in the world. There are no simple and quick answers to hatred and violence. When we see how long it has taken to create these states of separation and ignorance, we know these institutions will take a long while to dismantle.

More than ever we can clearly see the need to transform society—and society is made of individuals who will either adopt the populist views or not. Reactivity and intolerance can grow to become dangerous and powerful destructive forces if tended and especially when communities support the idea of separation and belief in an enemy. This enemy image creates a rationale for attack and persecution. Thich Nhat Hanh tells us “our enemy is never another person; our enemy is the wrong perception and suffering within him, within her.” In truth, the enemy is our untransformed anger, judgment, fear, and illusion of separateness that drives humans to do violence to others in the belief that they will be safe, have enough, and even have peace and happiness through violence.

We know that domination does not eradicate hatred but adds resentment and anger and fuels what it seeks to eradicate. Telling someone they are wrong, trafficking in shame and judgment will not lead to change. Real willingness to change comes from an unprotected heart that feels safe enough to admit mistake. Polarization and division, winning and conquering others only leads to violence. We know this. The hardest work is what we resist—to see the humanness is those we see as enemy, to listen to our own broken hearts and not respond with hatred and judgment. We can listen to the world that cries for help, and hear the need for understanding, for safety, and care. This is the teaching of the Buddha, of Jesus and the Prophets, to treat the one who is caught in the delusion of separateness as a friend. True change comes only when one is connected to their full humanity.

An excerpt from the Third Mindfulness Training of the Order of Interbeing reads, “We will learn to help others let go of and transform fanaticism and narrowness through loving speech and compassionate dialogue.” This is a radically different path to engagement. We condemn the violence that takes lives, the greed that deprives others of opportunities to live and the delusion that believes that separation is real and that one type of people has greater value than others. This we condemn, but we also see that we are the people caught in these views as well. We are part of them and to transform them, we must begin with ourselves. We are all co-creating each other. We are all responsible. My only encouragement is to check your heart and mind. Who are you telling yourself it’s ok to hate? Can we see the longing for consideration, justice, trust, and safety that fuels our judgments? When we can bring compassion to our own minds and care for the anger, discrimination, and separation that is alive in ourselves, we can heal our own broken hearts. When we do this, we are already healing the world.

Please be gentle with your suffering witnessing the pain and division in the world. Here is a link to a letter you may like to read. It is about reading the news mindfully by Order of Interbeing member and Sociology/ Global Studies Professor, Matthew Williams. He speaks about using the news as a practice to deepen our desire to relieve suffering in others and as an opportunity to recognize and transform our own reactivity and suffering.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

1 comment on Not to Hate the Haters
Celebrate Everyday

November 26, 2018

Gift to self, Gratitude, Happiness, Healing our society, Healing Ourselves, interbeing, Uncategorized

Daffodil head. Photo by Celia

“Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.” ~Hafez

“Rejoicing in the good fortune of others is a practice that can help us when we feel emotionally shut down and unable to connect with others. Rejoicing generates good will.” ~Pema Chodron

“Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.” ~Rumi

“This is your celebration.” ~Kool and the Gang

Dear Friends,

Now that Thanksgiving is over, Americans, once again, are plunged into the vortex of consumption. We can shop all night and day and contribute to the important fourth-quarter earnings that keep our fiscal world spinning. Gift giving is linked to celebration in our culture and comes to us as virtuous consumption, distilled from religious traditions. Our holiday shopping buoys the weighty dictates of capitalism and the Consumer Confidence Index. Maybe it’s my imagination, but holiday marketing this year seems earlier and more unapologetically fierce than ever. While I appreciate cultivating generosity, the obvious commercial manipulation to make us want what we don’t need and can’t afford seems such a poor substitute for what we are really longing for.

All the marketing in the world can’t make us believe that we will truly be happy when we get the just right thing. We know that that new computer or cell phone won’t really be the catalyst for connecting with others or make us less lonely. We know that our new weave won’t guarantee that others accept us for who we are or bring us someone to love us for our authentic self. I am looking at what we are really searching for during our hours trolling through Amazon Wishlists checking off the gifts we are obliged to buy. What do we want to celebrate? Not stuff, not momentary happiness.

I believe we are all looking to go deeper and to celebrate the gifts we have already been given. When we recognize the abundance in our lives, we can celebrate every day. There’s a celebration in seeing the generosity of the Earth, the beauty of kindness in others and in ourselves, the delight in someone who makes music, sings or creates beautiful food. That may sound naïve and impossible, but when we consider what Interbeing is—the knowledge that all rely on each other to support our lives much more than we know, we can celebrate what we have already been freely given.

Dance in the kitchen and celebrate that you can still dance despite the pain in your knees and your 1980’s dance moves. Celebrate that you can feed your friends and those you don’t know. Celebrate that you have a quarter to give away to the woman sitting by the subway and that you have laundry to be washed. Celebrate the good in others and in yourself. Our feelings are worth celebrating, the happiness and sadness that let us be fully present to experience life and this body we have on loan—that allows us to engage in the process of being a human on Earth and the energy of life that enables us to wake up each day.

Celebrate when a spontaneous thought of generosity appears, the wish to help, the desire to see a world free from violence and inconsideration. Allow someone else’s point of view to matter as much as our own and celebrate dropping our judgment to find out what happened to make them speak with hatred. Find the celebration in the sweet sharpness of the pomegranate seeds that we did not have to tend, but grew healthy and fertile without our worry. Knowing what causes suffering…that first drink, eating all the cheesecake, texting that person who is not good for us, and we don’t do it—that’s a celebration. In our grief, we can celebrate that we have a friend we trust to understand. There are celebrations waiting for us everywhere we look. Where is your celebration hiding today? Celebrating this life is the realization of our interbeing. We don’t do it alone. Get a little retro with this video and start the party early. Let happiness be your default mode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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The awakened heart of action

April 23, 2018

Bodhisattva Vow, Buddhism, Climate change, Detached Action, fearlessness, Intention, interbeing, joy, Mindfulness, Reverence for Life, Uncategorized

Samantrabdra the Bhodisattva of great action

Three Translations of the Bodhisattva Vow

The awakened way is unsurpassable; I vow to embody it.

However innumerable beings are, I vow to meet them with kindness and interest.

However inexhaustible the states of suffering are, I vow to touch them with patience and love.

However immeasurable the Dharmas are, I vow to explore them deeply.

However incomparable the mystery of interbeing, I vow to surrender to it freely.

~Thich Nhat Hanh, trans.

Creations are numberless, I vow to free them.

Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to transform them.

Reality is boundless, I vow to perceive it.

The awakened way is unsurpassable, I vow to embody it.

~Upaya Zen Center version

The many beings are numberless; I vow to save them.

greed, hatred, and ignorance rise endlessly; I vow to abandon them.

dharma gates are countless; I vow to wake to them.

Buddha’s way is unsurpassed; I vow to embody it fully.

~Robert Aiken, trans.

Dear Friends,

What a beautiful day here in CT. The sun is out, daffodils are blooming, bees are busy and we are alive to witness the patient rewards of spring. It is Earth Day and I am truly glad to be an inhabitant of this generous earth today. The story of human life is one of connection and interdependence. We can easily see this in the food we eat that needs sun, soil, earth, and rain to thrive. Unless we are in denial, we know that our planet and all life that depends upon its wellbeing is in danger. In Mahayana Buddhism, there is a practice of taking a vow to protect all life, including our own. This great vow involves compassion, wisdom, non-judgment, action and begins with Bodhicitta, the mind of love. It is called The Bodhisattva Vow.

In Mahayana tradition, a Bodhisattva is a being who has cultivated the six perfections or paramitas, generosity, morality, and patience, energy or zeal, meditation, and wisdom, over many lifetimes. Instead of choosing Nirvana, a Bodhisattva remains earthbound and vows to help all beings to enlightenment, freedom from oppression, and suffering. Bodhicitta, the awakened heart, is the foundation of all compassionate action for one who walks the path of a Bodhisattva.

Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron describes the awakened heart as a measure of our capacity to feel with others. The awakened heart resonates with the suffering of the other and the deep desire to relieve it. She writes, “An analogy for bodhicitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic; sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor, there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.” When we truly know the pain of another, we can offer the great gift of empathy and compassion and the desire to save them from pain.

In the three translations of the Bodhisattva Vow, we see that living beings are innumerable, they keep being born, and the bodhisattva vows to save all, or as Thich Nhat Hanh writes, to meet them with kindness and interest. This is not an unrealistic assignment we are condemned to fail. Saving all, is the active component of Bodhicitta, the wide open heart. All includes just that, no exceptions. It is this awakened heart that can lead us to act. If someone asks me to be brave, I find that a frightening invitation. I’m a shy activist, not at home with charging into conflict. If someone asks me to show that I care, that is a totally different intention. Caring for others, opening to their pain, is the ground that cultivates the seed of action. When my actions come from caring, I do not need to armor myself or brace for a battle. They are organic extensions of the woken heart.

So on this weekend when we turn our attention to the world we steward, to the animals on the cusp of extinction and the violence, hatred, and delusion we see in the world, I invite you to stand beside the pain, to witness and know how the heart of the frightened trembles. And… to act with the heart of a Bodhisattva made unafraid through caring. Compassionate action doesn’t mean we need to be heroes in a big way and rescue people from burning buildings. Maybe we take a lonely person to lunch or bring some spring flowers to someone who is ill. Perhaps we call our representatives when environmental regulations are threatened, or have a car-free day. I hope you rejoice in the intention of goodness and care and take delight in your determination to be a Bodhisattva, easing the pain of ourselves and all beings.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

4 comments on The awakened heart of action
Generosity is giving to ourselves

March 18, 2018

Buddhism, Generosity, Gift to self, Happiness habit, Healing our society, interbeing, Mindfulness, Uncategorized

Snowdrops: photo by Celia

Therefore the wise give gifts. Seeking bliss,

they would subdue the stain of miserliness.

Established in the three-fold heavenly world,

they enjoy themselves long in fellowship with the devas.

Having made the opportunity for themselves,

having done what is skillful, then when they fall from here

they fare on, self-radiant, in Nandana.

There they delight, enjoy, are joyful,

replete with the five sensuality strands.

Having followed the words of the sage who is Such,

they enjoy themselves in heaven —

disciples of the One Well-gone.

Siha Sutta: To General Siha (On Generosity), AN 5.34

translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu © 1997

Dear Friends,

Here in New England, it doesn’t feel much like spring with three Nor’easters in the past three weeks and the possibility of more snow this week. Despite the bitter wind, the Earth knows that spring is coming. There are daffodil stalks pushing through into the sunshine and I saw my first cluster of snowdrops blooming on the south side of an old Maple tree. This is the truth of living, there is always change—some we enjoy more than others. Spring is an especially joyful time after a long and draining winter. This celebration of the return to warmer and brighter days is the gift of impermanence.

In Buddhism and life, we often think of impermanence as loss or the painful change of separation from what we love. Spring is a reminder that impermanence is also possibility and opportunity. Impermanence is present in us as neuroplasticity, or the ability to shape our thoughts, our brains, and manifest change in our lives. If we cling to the notion of permanent selves and relationships, we may unwittingly shortchange our capability to grow our care and compassion. This is one of the reasons that intentional actions and reflection are so profound.

We are alive in a time where we know more about the human biological phenomenon than any other time in the history of the world. We are also alive in an era where we can access the wisdom teachings of millennia from our laptops while lying on the sofa. We have more access to the Pali canon and great teachers than any other generation—yea, impermanence again. We have the teaching and trainings to make our minds a safe place. I can actively create a mind where I want to spend time, a resilient, loving, and kind refuge for myself and all I encounter. We are the artists and authors of our mind states.

The first paramita-Sanskrit [parami-Pali], or perfection that leads to liberation is dana or generosity. The Buddha knew that giving and generosity were essential for creating a peaceful society that valued all living beings. Neuroscientists found another reason to practice generosity—it feels good. In a generosity study, subjects who practiced giving showed activation in the medial forebrain pleasure circuit. This cluster of neurons in the brain is responsible for the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine which produces the experience of pleasure and is also activated when using narcotics, alcohol, or through sex. Even contemplating generosity, regardless of the magnitude of the act, created a response in the pleasure center of the brain.

To enhance a state, we bring intentionality to the act and pause to take in how it feels in the body. Contemplating the act before we do it. Staying present with the experience afterward we imprint this is our explicit memory and create more neural connections to support happiness through generosity.

Recently, I was in New York to attend a Buddhist meeting. I told my friend who lives in Manhattan that I often felt conflicted about generosity and giving to people on the street since I didn’t know if I was contributing to addictions and enabling their illness. This is called “stupid compassion,” trying to please everyone without discernment. I asked her how she practiced generosity.

My friend said to practice the gift of attention. This involves speaking to the person who is asking for money and regardless of how much you give–it could be a nickel, look into their eyes and find out something about them. I put her advice into practice on the next block and spoke to a woman sitting against a building wrapped in a blanket on a frigid February morning. I asked how she was doing and she told me that she needed money to pay a legal bill so she could move and be free from an abusive partner. I listened to her talk about the fragility of position and with the wreck of a hurricane or getting fired, anyone could be where she was. No one was immune. She reminded me of impermanence.

I asked her directions and as I walked to the bus stop, I was full of appreciation and wonder. The exchange was far from what I thought I’d find. This woman understood suffering. She understood the delusion of judgment and she helped me find my way. It didn’t matter if her story was true or not. I gave her a dollar and she gave me an experience of loosening my judgment, and the beautiful gift of recognizing shared humanity with someone who is overlooked and often despised.

This week is an opportunity to practice creating and noting the loveliness in our intention of generosity, staying present with our gratitude for giving the gift of a smile, the phone call to listen to a friend, or making eye contact with someone who is ignored. As we linger in the pleasure of our own generosity we create the foundation of habit. Noticing our goodness and good feelings leads to more willingness to practice this open-hearted risk that gives so much in return. When we see our own goodness, we are unafraid.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

2 comments on Generosity is giving to ourselves
Feeding our Intentions

January 22, 2018

Activism, Detached Action, Dharma, Equanimity, Friendship, Happiness, Happiness habit, Healing our society, Healing Ourselves, interbeing, joy, Mindfulness, Sangha, Thich Nhat Hanh

Making mindful steps with Sangha in Hartford, CT

“May I know how to nourish the seeds of joy in myself every day.

May he/she know how to nourish the seeds of joy in him/herself every day.

May they know how to nourish the seeds of joy in themselves every day.

May I be able to live fresh, solid, and free.

May he/she be able to live fresh, solid, and free.

May they be able to live fresh, solid, and free.

May I be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.

May he/she be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.

May they be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“It helps to remember that our spiritual practice is not about accomplishing anything—not about winning or losing—but about ceasing to struggle and relaxing as it is.”

~ Pema Chödrön, The Pocket Pema Chodron

“Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.”

~ H.H. the 14^th Dalai Lama

Dear Friends,

I’m hoping you are well and nourishing the best and most joyful parts of yourselves. Yesterday I was at the Women’s march in Hartford, CT. An impressive group of engaged citizens showed up to be visible dissenters from the rhetoric of scarcity, fear, and exclusion that is coming from the present U.S. administration.

A friend I walked with commented on how she felt re-energized during the march and it gave her hope and strength to keep on writing letters, making phone calls, and letting her voice be heard. The march and all the folks present fed the commitment to continue along the path of peaceful protection for the most vulnerable members of our planet, and for the planet herself.

The Buddha is recorded as saying, “All beings subsist on nutriment.” This includes our volition, our desire. The Buddha taught for over forty years. Speaking as a pre-enlightened being, that’s a long time to do anything, unless satisfaction and nourishment bring encouragement to keep going. The Buddha established a sangha of ten thousand bhikkhus; he had many enlightened students and taught kings. He also experienced great trials. His cousin Devadatta spread rumors about him, left the sangha and began his own, taking half of the Buddha’s followers. He tried to have the Buddha assassinated by a hired killer and an enraged bull elephant. Devadatta had a woman’s murdered body buried on the sangha’s grounds to incriminate the Buddha and his followers. The discovery of the buried woman caused the monastics to be looked upon as violent, hypocritical, sexual predators. The Buddha and his followers were eventually exonerated but endured shame and distrust from the lay community that supported them.

So, what kept the Buddha going through all these tribulations? He possessed the paramita, or perfection of equanimity. He worked to free all beings from suffering and understood that his misfortunes or perceived successes were not personal. They were a continuation of the thoughts, words, and deeds of many lifetimes and of the collective community he inhabited. He didn’t get depressed because his work bore no fruit. He didn’t get puffed up and demand a better parking spot or refuse to eat what was offered because he taught royalty and had people travel hundreds of miles for his teachings.

He did what he did because he knew that the betterment of the planet and humankind was not something that could be abandoned. It was part of his life as much as breathing and walking. It was not optional. Nor is it work that is finished in one’s lifetime. Humanity has spent a very long time getting to where it is right now, balanced on the cusp of war and possible irreversible damage to our food, air, and water source, this Earth. As practitioners who have not reached the perfection of equanimity, we could use some nourishment and encouragement to keep going.

Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that we need to cultivate our happiness so we will be able to be with our personal and collective difficulties. Happiness and contentment are a necessary nutriment for continuing to care. If we spend all our time taking care of others, we will run aground, lose our health, energy, and commitment. In No Mud, No Lotus, Thây writes, “Happiness is impermanent, like everything else. In order for happiness to be extended and renewed, you have to learn how to feed your happiness. Nothing can survive without food, including happiness; your happiness can die if you don’t know how to nourish it. If you cut a flower but you don’t put it in some water, the flower will wilt in a few hours.” Being in a loving community nourished our hearts and minds and reminds us that we are part of something larger than ourselves. Nourishing the insight that we are all one family, is essential for us to continue to feel unified and that our contributions make a difference, even if they seem like the smallest of gestures. What we all do matters.

This week, I am asking the question, what nourishes my happiness and connection? What keeps my caring alive and reminds me that kindness, no matter how small is the way out? Make your own inquiry. What nourishes your connection to this world and helps feed your bodhisattva vow to free all beings from suffering? What is the food that brings you into a loving state? So far, I’ve found that when I practice loving, with a smile, an acknowledgment, a helping gesture—it all comes back to me as more love, from strangers who are not strange, but parts of myself I never knew before.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

1 comment on Feeding our Intentions
True Liberation Frees Us All

January 15, 2018

Activism, Buddhism, Detached Action, Dharma, Generosity, interbeing, Mindfulness, racism, Relationship, Thich Nhat Hanh, Uncategorized

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. “

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Our daily lives have the most to do with the situation of the world. If we can change our daily lives, we can change our governments and we can change the world. Our presidents and our governments are us. They reflect our lifestyle and our way of thinking. The way we hold a cup of tea, pick up a newspaper, and even use toilet paper have to do with peace.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh

“Whereas the violence of the oppressors prevents the oppressed from being fully human, the response of the latter to this violence is grounded in the desire to pursue the right to be human. As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they themselves also become dehumanized. As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressor’s power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressors the humanity they had lost in the exercise of oppression.”

~ Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“The Bodhisattva helps row living beings to the other shore but in fact, no living beings are being helped to the other shore.” ~ The Prajnaparamita Sutra

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow in the United States we celebrate the life’s work and vision of Dr. Martin Luther King. Looking at his life’s goals and objectives, we see the justice, equality, and freedoms that Dr. King envisioned for people of color and all Americans are still not reality and seem to have slipped further away during this current administration. Many people who value basic human freedoms of justice and equality are experiencing frustration and shame about the words and actions of the representatives elected to support America’s alleged interests and ideals. Witnessing the words and deeds of the highest elected official in our country can make us wonder what direction we are headed in. Our policies reflect fearful, deluded minds and there is a clear demarcation between those who have power and those who do not.

In Buddhism, there is a teaching of non-duality. This is the understanding that there are “not two,” no separation of cause and effect and that “this is because that is.” We see this union enacted in the integrated system of discrimination and oppression that is held in place unknowingly and participated in by the majority of white-skinned US citizens, even those who want equality and justice. The problem is that there is the idea of helping. When one person helps another, there is a tacit understanding of power, of a superior being and an inferior being. Help is not liberation.

The father of critical pedagogy, Paolo Freire writes:

“In order to have the continued opportunity to express their ‘generosity,’ the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this ‘generosity,’ which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. That is why the dispensers of false generosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source.

True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the ‘rejects of life,’ to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands—whether of individuals or entire peoples—need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.”

When we are able to step out of the role of the one who dispenses generosity and helpfulness, we lose the conceit of superior when we are truly of service. When we act from compassion, we not only liberate others, we liberate ourselves from the superiority complex and we cease to perpetuate the system that keeps us in a small limited self and separate from the imagined other.

In the book Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hahn gives a contemplation on detached action. Bringing to mind a social project we believe is valuable, he asks us to consider:

“that the work is to serve, to alleviate suffering, to respond to compassion, not to satisfy the desire for praise or recognition. See that the methods used encourage cooperation between humans. Don’t consider the project as an act of charity. Consider the people involved. Do you still see in terms of ones who serve and ones who benefit? If you can still see who are the ones serving and who are the ones benefiting, your work is for the sake of yourself and the workers, and not for the sake of service.”

When we respond from a place of love and compassion, there is no “I” who is doing the action. There is only compassionate and wise response to a situation.

How do we do this in our lives? In my experience, it comes with listening and letting go of my ideas of what help looks like. If I believe I can teach the “right” way to view a situation or a concept, I am already investing in the idea of a self who is going to make someone’s life better and lift someone up. This way of looking at my contribution as something I do to, or, for you, creates expectation and hierarchy. Firstly, it puts a lot of pressure on me to get it right and secondly, it doesn’t honor the needs and intelligence of those I am serving. True helpfulness responds to the situation and allows each person’s unique intelligence to meet this moment in a shared understanding. This is Interbeing. It is the ability to see beyond the role we identify with, the oppressor, the oppressed, teacher, student, powerful, or disenfranchised. Interbeing reminds us that this moment does not belong to anyone. It is a creation of contribution, the pooling of immeasurable tributaries of time, space, and conditions. This shared moment belongs to us all and in the present moment, we find the way to liberate ourselves and all beings from the prison of wrong perceptions.

In the spirit of continuing the work of the Buddha and Dr. King, let us each reflect on our own liberation and the wholesome desire to free ourselves from our wrong perceptions and recognize that true liberation allows both the oppressed and oppressors to be healed, whole, human beings.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

1 comment on True Liberation Frees Us All