may the gift and wisdom of the Christmas story not be lost on us. that Love enters the world in the most humble and vulnerable of places, in the outcast, the refugee, the homeless and poor – the very things we strive so hard not to be, and the very people we so often turn away from. perhaps this is the greatest lesson of Christmas, teaching us to open our view and look for the divine and sacred where we least want to and when we feel our lowest, knowing that Love has also come into this world as us.
may we feel grateful for what we have, where we are, and who we are. may our hearts open to all who feel alone, marginalized, or oppressed. and in this year especially may love carry and comfort all who are quarantined alone, all who have lost loved ones, their homes or jobs.
thank you to all those who have sacrificed so much for their families and communities, wearing masks, social distancing, and not traveling during these holidays. deep bows of gratitude for you.
much love and health to all of you, dear friends and your families, on this auspicious day.
The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not worry. It does not try to crush others. It keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences.
What other body could pull an entire ocean from shore to shore? The moon is faithful to its nature, and its power is never diminished.
The thing about love that I’ve discovered in my life is that one love leads to another. It just gets bigger and bigger. You can let it start anywhere; it can be really tiny. You can start with a flower, but if you sincerely see it and if you sincerely love it, then it’s like the key. The flower is like a key to a big, big, big storeroom. Then everything becomes something that is lovable.
~
Alice Walker
the path and practice is love, from our hearts, extended out into the world.
like most things in life, gratitude is a practice. perhaps one of the most important, since it has a way of subtly coloring our perspective on all areas of our life.
practicing gratitude is made all the easier when we are surrounded and supported with such immense love and friendship as i have been.
thank you all for your many birthday wishes and kind, generous words. i am so grateful.
on this past Thursday, December 17th, i turned 46 in honor and celebration of our newly elected 46th President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris (and also because i was born in 1974). it’s a what will hopefully be a fresh start, a new opportunity for better things to come. life is always offering us such opportunity and moments, but it is easier to see sometimes on a grander scale.
i had a beautiful day. i am fortunate enough to be quarantined with family and they made my day truly wonderful, filled with good meals (french toast breakfast from my sister and Chipotle’s for dinner from my parents) and a fun ice cream/donut party with my nieces and nephews. i also got to participate in a three hour meditation session with some of my fellow meditation teacher trainees from Tibet House. the day was concluded (as always) with a Star Wars movie.
this life passes so quickly. turning 46 can put a perspective on that, but time means loses its hold when one feels and knows love.
wishing you all the same, not just on your birthdays, but every day!
“Someone has said, ‘To be a saint is to have loved many things’ —many things — the tree, the dog, the sky, the flowers, even the color of someone’s clothing. You see, when you love, you love, and love extends to everything all the time and everywhere.”
~
Richard Rohr
the path and practice is love, from our hearts, extended out into the world.
304,000 known deaths (50,000 deaths in the last month)
these numbers do not reflect the long term health concerns for those who had even the slightest of symptoms or who are asymptotic.
i’ve known many people who have been affected by this illness, ranging from barely having symptoms, to seriously ill, and some losing loved ones.
this isn’t the flu.
there is hope on the horizon due to science.
i am in awe of health professionals, they give me hope.
there are still those that refuse to believe and refuse to adhere to masking and social distancing. how do we teach people to care? shaming and pleading have not worked. i don’t know what will.
while human beings have the capacity to do much harm, we also have the capacity to not ignore the harm, or run from the harm, or descend into the violence of the harm we see. we have the capacity to choose to keep our hearts open in the face of pain and suffering, and to do something about the harm we are bearing witness to.
this love stuff, this open and tender heart stuff isn’t mere sentimentality. this is hardcore stuff, in the trenches, hands getting dirty stuff.
it is when we leave our hearts open, allowing them to break over and over again, that we find our true super power, a capacity for love that is beyond the limits of our own initially small view. with our hearts broken open, we access the powers of empathy and compassion, bravery and strength.
with an open, tender heart, we can even still find much beauty, much joy and even a lightness and humor to life (enlightened people laugh!), all while doing the difficult work of love and healing in the face of harm and suffering.
don’t give in to cynicism, to hyperbole, to conspiracy. face the harm, face the suffering with your open, tender heart, and make a vow to transform it while still being open to beauty, to joy, to laughter. all of this is life and none is beyond love.
yesterday (Dec 8th) was Bodhi Day, the day Mahayana Buddhists commemorate the enlightenment of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, 2600 years ago. as the story goes, the Buddha was moved by the suffering he saw in life and felt upon seeing sickness, aging, and death. disenchanted with the excess from which he came, and the practice of extreme asceticism which he practiced for a time, he set out to meet life face to face as it is. practicing the middle way of neither aversion or grasping, he sat until he woke up. in waking up he became the Buddha, which simply means awakened or awakened one. meeting life with an open heart, with clarity and balance, he found freedom from suffering. my favorite part of the story is when Buddha is tested by the demon Mara who eventually challenges Siddhartha’s ability and right to enlightenment as a mere human. the story goes – after not succumbing to Mara’s temptations, Mara challenged Siddhartha, “What right have you to be enlightened? Who will speak for you, who will bear witness for you?” sitting beneath the Bodhi tree, Siddhartha reached out his right hand and touched the earth, and the earth itself shook saying, “I bear you witness!” this wasn’t just for the historical Buddha – it is for all buddhas, for you, for me. we too can wake up, we too have within us the ability to be with life as it is, to live open-hearted with clarity and balance, to be free and at peace. may it be so.~j
The Metta Garden 