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do what you can, where you are…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

this quote from The Quran, now in the spotlight due to the Oscar win for the Netflix documentary The White Helmets, is profound.

none of us can save all of humanity, but a life at a time can be saved. a good deed, act of compassion and kindness, can have a deep and resonating beneficial effect beyond what we can see or know.

do what you can, where you are.

The White Helmets dive into the very real danger of war ravaged Syria, rescuing Syrians from the relentless bombardment of bombs and weapons. 154 White Helmets have been killed saving lives.

may their work be blessed and may their mission be supported by all of us.

~j

because love calls us to…

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pride-peace-art-update-2017

Despite what this Administration says, the welfare and safety of our transgender youth is not a States’ Rights issue.

It is a Human Rights issue.  Plain and simple.

Creating and supporting an environment that is safe and affirming for all of our youth, including and especially those who are marginalized and vulnerable is in the best interest of all of us as a society and only asks that we open our hearts.  It does not require our agreement, or even our full understanding.  All it asks of us is our empathy and compassion.

If you find yourself resistant to this, there is a wonderful Buddhist meditation practice called Metta, or Lovingkindness meditation.  It is a training in opening the heart.

In Metta, we begin with offering to ourselves, using the phrases:
May I be happy
May I be safe
May I be free from suffering

Then we offer to others, using the phrases:
May you be happy
May you be safe
May you be free from suffering

Offering to a loved one, then to a benefactor.  Offering to someone we may be aware of, but do not really know.  Then to someone with whom we may be in disagreement or find we have some negative feelings toward.  Then we offer to all beings, all of life.

We can surely also offer this practice to those whom we may not understand, for those who are different from us, who hold different views, who have a life experience different from ours.

Compassion is love offered and put into action out of the tenderness and softness of our hearts.  It is not something we give to only those we agree with or for whom we think merit its benefits.  It is a gift we give, simply because it is there and it is needed.  It benefits the giver as well as the recipient.

Stand with our youth, stand with our transgender family, because love calls us to do so.

~j
02.22.17

 

I am, because we are…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

Interdependence is a cornerstone of Buddhism.  The idea that “I” only exist, because of the dependent co-arising of the elements that make “me” exist.  My human body has about 30 trillion human cells in it and about 40 trillion non-human microbes in it.  I am more “not” human, than human!  These cells and microbes aren’t “me.”  However, I wouldn’t be “me” if they didn’t exist and make up this body that I have identified as “me.”

Likewise, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my parents, or their parents, or their parents’ parents, on back.  I wouldn’t have my current employment if it wasn’t for the person who hired me, or if the person that hired them hadn’t hired them.  My food that I generally do not take enough time to appreciate would not sit before me, if it weren’t for the grocery store, the farmers, or the sun and the rain.  So, my health and welfare are in many ways contingent on elements and people outside myself, that I depend on.

Beyond these every day situational examples of interdependence, there are the very foundational elements of who we are – elements!  As Neil deGrasse Tyson has been often quoted as saying, we are related to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, and to the Universe atomically.  We simply share more in common with who we are on a fundamental level, than not.

One doesn’t have to be a Buddhist or a scientist to see this as true.  A Muslim, a Jew, or a Christian can draw the same conclusion based on their belief that all life has come forth from God (or Yahweh, or Allah).  If my life has come forth from God and your life has come forth from God – then are we not basically the same at our core, the source of our lives coming from the Source of all life?

In this perspective it seems insane if not just ridiculous to fabricate more ways to divide us from others.  But the fabrication of division, through manipulation, drawing upon peoples’ fears, anger, and ignorance is what we are currently resisting in the form of bans and walls.

We are resisting such ideology, because it is harmful.  We are also resisting such ideology, because it is simply not true.  It is not authentic to the reality of life.  The reality that all of our lives are interdependent.  The reality that I am, because we are.

~j
02.20.17

 

self-care and care for others in dark times…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

jmw-meditating

 

Recently I wrote that the world is in need of heroes, spiritual warriors, and bodhisattvas.

Given the state of things, especially in recent weeks, it appears that WE must be the heroes, the spiritual warriors, and bodhisattvas that we seek and that the world needs.  We cannot wait, as most of us have done in the past, for spiritual or secular leaders to rise up and rally, to galvanize and gather on our behalf.

This is a good thing!  It is incredibly inspirational to see hundreds of thousands, and in some cases millions, of people around the globe standing up for the oppressed, the marginalize, and the most vulnerable – speaking truth to power with words and actions alike.

There has been a call.  Have you felt it?  The misdeeds and harmful actions of those in power has brought forth, for many, an almost instinctual – from the bones – reaction to resist and work towards an alternative.  And it does seem that what we have perhaps taken for granted in the past, cannot be taken for granted any more, but must be worked for and served.

People are in need and suffering.  We can offer ourselves – our talents, our skills, our words, our hands and feet, and our hearts – in service to relieving and healing that suffering.  This is what many Buddhists participate in, the Bodhisattva Vow, “Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them all.”  Of course we cannot save anyone, much less everyone, but within this vow is the recognition of self-lessness, of interdependence – the idea that I am because you are and what happens to you also affects me.  So, meditate on the softness of our heart, the tenderness that rises up when we think of a loved one, of someone dear.  We then extend this good will that has arisen toward others, knowing that they are someone’s loved one and they too are dear to someone.

None of us escape this journey unscathed by pain and suffering.  We all will experience illness, aging, loss, and eventually that great mystery that is death.  Isn’t this enough to draw out empathy and find common ground and open our hearts?  Our love and care when put into action is compassion…and in the current state of things we need some FIERCE compassion.  If we want our cause to be successful, we cannot be consistently motivated by anger.  We will burn out and burn everything else with us.  Our motivation MUST come from a place of love and fierce compassion working towards the noble causes of justice and peace.

There has been a lot of fierce compassion lately.  I saw it at the Women’s March and I’ve seen it in subsequent marches and peaceful protests as people stand, walk, and speak in the footsteps and voices of heroes, spiritual warriors, and bodhisattvas.

This can be and has been EXHAUSTING.  And when we are exhausted and diminished, we can get angry, irritable and then our words and actions may move from being beneficial to harmful.  Ends do not justify means.  The means are the end.  We must be what we seek.

So, how can we put that fierce compassion into action, if we are diminished, if we are exhausted?

When we take a bodhisattva vow, or make any commitment to serve others, to work towards an end to suffering, we must also include ourselves.  Self-care so that we can care for others.  This is what makes this a spiritual act.  Self-care only, is simply self-help.  This can be beneficial and good, but I am talking about something different here.  Self-care so that one can also care for others is a spiritual practice (even if you are agnostic, humanist, or atheist – no need to belong to a specific religion or belief system).  We practice as a benefit to ourselves and others, to reduce suffering in the world – even for those who are supposed “enemies” who may be on the opposite side of issues, even seeking our harm to support their desire to be “safe.”  Of course, none of us are safe if any community or group of people are scapegoated as “other.”  To paraphrase a quote by Diana Winston, “…there is a big difference between loving our enemies (those who’d harm us or others) and letting them get away with their wrongdoing (harmful actions).”  [additions mine ~j]

As a Buddhist (though one does NOT need to be Buddhist), as a meditator for the past 9 years, and as a meditation instructor I suggest and stand behind (…or is it sit behind) a regular meditation practice, as a beneficial support to self-care, so that one can also care for others.

A friend of mine recently asked me to share information about meditation practice with others in a post, because she has seen what many of us have seen – people exhausted and diminished by a deluge of negativity and overwhelming changes from those in power, pulling the ground out from under us.  She felt it would be a benefit and I do as well.

A note regarding meditation practice.  It isn’t a quick fix.  This may be disappointing, but the goal isn’t to attain some blissful or peaceful state (but what’s wrong with that?!).  When we practice meditation, we are practicing to be present in this moment – our mind and body together in one place – no matter the situation or what we are feeling.  In this way, with consistent practice, our hearts begin to naturally open and build a capacity to be with life as it is, without immediately reacting to it.  We are making space and in that space, we have the ability to choose our words and actions thereby benefitting the world, rather than adding to its suffering.  A short period of sitting every day is more beneficial than a long period of sitting once a week.  Don’t be discouraged.  After 9 years of meditating, I have noticed growth in my capacity to be with life and have seen my heart open more and more.  I wouldn’t have sought out instruction to be a teacher, if this weren’t the case.  And it is humbling, because other than committing to sitting and breathing, I have done nothing else to make this happen.  This is a nod to our true nature, which I believe is essentially good, that when we simply sit and allow the noise to fall away, to arise and then pass, the goodness of our hearts eventually comes forth.

I have recorded a brief 10-minute guided meditation as an introduction and instruction for you.

If you are new to meditation, I would also like to suggest my teacher’s book:  Start Here Now: An Open-Hearted Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation by Susan Piver.

start-here-now

You may also want to connect with her teaching and instruction online at The Open Heart Project.

If you are interested in further exploration of the intersection of contemplative practice and social action/service, I’d also like to suggest The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path by Ethan Nichtern, who is also a teacher I admire and follow.  The last few chapters explore this more deeply.

the-road-home

Ethan has also written a wonderful 7-Point Practice Plan for Engaged Mindfulness to assist in self-care as we care for others in this difficult time.

Wishing you all well as we journey together.

May all beings be happy and at ease.
May all beings be free from suffering.

 

~ j

01.30.17

 

 

 

let it sink in…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment
contemplating the heavy irony of a day where people marched “for life” and a supportive President then turned his back and slammed the door on millions of lives.  a day where we remember the Holocaust, where Jews were turned away from the safe shores of foreign land, returned to pain, suffering and for many – so many, death. and now we do the same.
our Muslim sisters and brothers have been the greatest sufferers at the hands of extremists, of radicals, and fundamentalists.  my heart breaks for the dear Syrian brothers and sisters, who have been victimized by their leader, victimized by Daesh, victimized by Russian bombings, ignored by the West, and now turned from our shores victimized once again.
nearly 500,000 Syrians have died in the Syrian war. let that sink in.
 
to turn our backs on some people is to turn our backs on all people. it is a delusion to think that we are separate and that we can move forward in such ignorance and darkness.  there is no Christ in this, not one that I recognize.
 
please join me in supporting International Rescue Committee and other refugee support groups.  let’s put our voices, feet, and money (small or big) to work where our leadership has failed.
 
my hope is in life itself, the ground of being, the love that underlies even the most fearful, angry, dark, and chaotic of places.
 
may all beings be free from suffering.
~j
 
#Resist #StayWoke #TheLongArc #PlantingSeeds #LoveWins #Bodhisattva #OffTheCushionIntoTheWorld #FierceCompassion

Interdependence, from MLK Jr to today…

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“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied together into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly…Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world.

We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”

 

~ Martin Luther King, Jr

 

The quote above is one of the dearest for me in the pantheon of MLK Jr quotes.  So many of his words still reverberate with sharp wisdom and prophetic knowing.  But this one cuts to the heart of all of it.

Interdependence.

A word not just at the core of Buddhist understanding of life, but of life itself.  Any close examination of life bears witness to it.  We are not who we are or where we are through any single doing of our own, but only through the generosity and service of so many who have contributed to the circumstances that find us who we are and where we are, some knowingly and some unknowingly.  And we too, each of us, play a vital part in others’ lives, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly.  Check out the film It’s A Wonderful Life to see a fictionalized version of this told for the holidays, or watch Back To The Future.

MLK Jr understood this, and understood this at the core of what brings us together – a mutual understanding that we NEED each other, that our every action influences and affects the lives of those around us sometime near and sometime far.  There is a ripple that plays out in ways we may never know.  Words matter.  Actions matter.  How we treat each other matters.

I’m a little late this week in writing a post about Martin Luther King, Jr, because I’ve been a bit stalled by illness.  But, the timing still seems right.  As we head toward the end of this week and the final day of President Barack Obama’s Presidency, the contrast between our current President and the President-Elect could not appear more stark to me in light of this quote.

Perhaps this is why I am most concerned.  While President Barack Obama is far from perfect and there will be criticism by some and debate about his Presidency, he has repeated time and again – even in the face of consistent and mean-spirited criticism – that he believes that deep down people are good and that with our work together, progress continues to move forward (sounding similar to another MLK Jr quote), often giving credit to the team around him for any successes that may have manifest.  By contrast, our President-Elect has built his campaign singling out individuals and groups with a level of public degradation, always surprising and at times alarming, all the while promoting himself as the only solution to America’s problems.

Life is interdependence.  No one does it alone.  Any honest examination, bears witness to this.  This isn’t opinion, it is fact and truth, even in a post-fact and post-truth “reality” celebrated and fueled by the President-Elect.  To not recognize interdependence is to not recognize life and this is the great danger to the success and livelihood of human society and perhaps life as we know it on earth.

As Martin Luther King, Jr states in the above quote, we aren’t going to have peace until we recognize this.

So, if this recognition doesn’t come from the top down, then we will live it from the bottom up.  We will stand, sit, march, sing, shout, write, and paint to bear witness to interdependence, to bear witness to life.

speak no “post-truth”…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment


 

The spreading and celebration of incoherency, where all facts and truths are subjective and subject to what serves one’s own agenda from which only oneself and one’s insider family and friends benefit, is a degradation of the morals and ethics upon which the foundation of civilized society is built. This incoherency, rather than mutual understanding and acknowledgement based on facts, spreads unease and fear. A society living with unease and fear is in danger of losing itself in what can be a self-fulfilling abyss of distrust and paranoia. This distrust and paranoia can lead to an increase in greed, aggression, violence, and despair. 

 

Though there may be no real thing such as “post-fact” or “post-truth,” the consequences from practicing such charlatanism can be real and harmful, as we are already witnessing.

 

Does this sound an alarm? 

 

Good. 

 

Then be an unwavering, inexhaustible advocate for truth. Stand and speak up for what is based on fact and not self-serving vagary, beginning with your own speech, writing, and actions. Hope is born on the words and actions of those who stand on the side of what is authentic and true, who call upon the better quality of all people to answer that call, by example. We need these examples, these bodhisattvas, we need to be the embodiment of the hope we seek and a reflection of what is authentic and true.

 

A “post-fact” and “post-truth” world is a world spinning out of control with no ground beneath it.  The world may continue, but we may not. And if we do, we may no longer recognize who we are or what we have become, having only a fuzzy memory of what it meant to be human. A memory the “post-fact” and “post-truth” gatekeepers will slander, as they label it a myth.

 

But many of us, I hope most of us, will know better and will continue to shed a light of what is factual and true.

 

Stay awake. Stay aware. Bear witness. Speak truth.

 

~j

01.11.17

perspective from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche…

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wise perspective in the times ahead.  while this is most certainly always the case, I think this perspective has a special benefit now with all that is happening in the world.  we must still be engaged and put our values, ethics, morals into action.  however, holding this perspective and surrendering to the flow of life may keep us from being overwhelmed…

~j

 

“There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally of course, there are times that are cold, and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream. Those rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing, not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are.” ― Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

forward, breath by breath…

~ jaysen ~ 1 Comment

Prior to the Christmas holiday, a dear friend reached out and commissioned some ensos.  These were to be particular ensos incorporating a semicolon, which was brought into focus as a simple of hope and journeying forward through the semicolon movement / Project Semicolon.

Here is a photo of one of the ensos I painted below, with an explanation of each element (the enso, the semicolon, and the phrase placed with it):

 

 

 

In Zen, the enso is a circle that is usually painted in one brushstroke, sometimes two, to express a moment when the mind is free to let the body create. It is considered abstract minimalist fine art. The enso is not about creating a “perfect” piece of art, rather the purpose is to authentically express “this” moment. The enso can symbolize our journey, the universe, enlightenment, awakening, life, and what I like to call “perfect imperfection.”

 

The semicolon (as expressed by Project Semicolon), “…is to restore hope and confidence in people who are troubled by addiction, depression, self-harm, and suicide. The semicolon symbolizes that the difficulties they face are not the end but a new beginning. A semicolon is used when an author could’ve chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life.”

 

The mantra/phrase, “It’s just one breath”, is a phrase I’ve heard the meditation and Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg use often.  I have often incorporated this mantra into my meditation practice from time to time. When life or situations can feel overwhelming, it can be a wonderful salve to bring oneself back to this present moment, one breath at a time, remembering that “it’s just one breath.”  I thought this phrase made for a beneficial pairing with the semicolon and the enso.

 

~j

 

*Please note: Although meditation can be a beneficial and fruitful companion to professional medical or therapeutic help, it is not a substitution for these in the case of severe or clinical depression. It is best to seek professional advice when incorporating a meditation practice.