“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” ~ Emma Lazarus
loving thy neighbor.
remember dear fellow mortals, none of this is permanent, constructed borders included. BUT the harm we allow, we are responsible for. AND how we love is remembered & carried beyond.
it’s so easy – & lazy – to target, to blame & find someone or someones to scapegoat. BUT we are called to love & love is the narrow road. the way. the truth. the life.
“Times are difficult globally; awakening is no longer a luxury or an ideal. It’s becoming critical. We don’t need to add more depression, more discouragement, or more anger to what’s already here. It’s becoming essential that we learn how to relate sanely with difficult times. The earth seems to be beseeching us to connect with joy and discover our innermost essence. This is the best way that we can benefit others.”
~ Pema Chödrön
connecting with hope is connecting with love, the ultimate nature of existence. such hope includes everyone & all life, without exclusion, without targets of oppression & marginalization. may we elect leaders who lead with such messaging, with a narrative of love. here’s to being woke.
when we choose healing over destruction, we are not doing it alone. we can take refuge in our own awakened capacity to heal within ourselves & cultivate healing qualities & practices for our world. we can take refuge in the healing wisdom we find in nature & in the teachings of those who have gone before & those now who show the way of & to healing. we can take refuge in each other, in community, made up of others past & present who embody & practice healing for our world. from such space of practicing healing, of love in action, we are planting beneficial seeds for our future & future generations.
this was my inspiration for this art piece – Medicine Buddha Refuge in the Triple Gem.
fascism is not healing. it is by its very nature destruction.
harmony & healing, over chaos & destruction. this is a choice. this can be our choice. may we choose healing & may we vote for leaders who choose the same.
“Am I part of the cure, or am I part of the disease?”
~ Coldplay
voted in alignment with my values today.
voted for decency today.
voted for democracy today.
voted for the benefit of all today.
voted love.
i believe voting is a sacred act when we vote as an act of Love, as an extension of our love, for those that we love, & for the benefit of life on this planet.
when we vote as an act of Love, we are voting in service of a higher call, we are voting for hope, for unity, for healing, for the possibility of building something new, something better, something more beneficial for all.
please do not waste what can be a sacred act on retribution, vengeance, division, & a reach for oppressive power.
learning to stop and simply come back to our bodies and be with our breath is a super power.
even if it is just for a minute or two, or a few breaths, learn to hit the pause button. with practice we can find ourselves the still center of any storm that comes.
that so many have fully accepted the language of fascism is alarming. yet even more alarming, is that so many seem numb to this & are only mildly alarmed or not alarmed at all.
if we follow historical examples, this normalizing to the language of fascism sets the stage to normalize the acts of fascism, which bring immense harm & suffering.
as a Buddhist, we are called to tend to all who are and that is suffering in our world. this includes welcoming the immigrant, the refugee who is suffering. Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha himself along with his community, was regularly on the move as he shared the path to waking up, depending on the generosity & kindness of strangers. in the Sutta Nipata it is said, “As I am, so are these. As are these, so am I.” the Nirvana Sutra states, “By taking refuge…one’s mind should be free from hurting or harming others.”
as a Christian growing up, it was clear to me that Jesus himself was a refuge at birth & an itinerant preacher of the good news of God’s love, who himself was often rejected rather than accepted by this world. can the following biblical verses being any more clear?
“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
~ Leviticus 19:33-34
(attributed to Moses)
“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren you did it to me.””
~ (Jesus in) Matthew 25:35, 40
this is a defining moment in our time, a clarion bell ringing, calling us to ourselves, to each other, to our world. how we respond will say everything about what we believe and how we love.
“The earth is you. You are the earth. When you realize there is no separation, you fall completely in love with this beautiful planet.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
individually & collectively we have seen the Earth & her resources as something to consume & use for what we view as our own needs as if we are separate from her. we often do the same with other people. it is a consumer mentality, a short term thinking & insatiable appetite (never having enough – the root of colonialism as well), that puts ourselves at the center of life rather than interdependent with all life. in doing so, without contemplating long term consequences, we have brought an end to some species & set the stage for the end of our own. thus far, the Earth has been able to support our overuse & abuse, but we are seeing her limits & the consequences. the bill has come due.
when we see the Earth as part of ourselves, when we are aware there is no separation in Life, we are seeing with the eyes of Love. when we see with the eyes of Love, our relationship to the Earth & to each other changes to one of beneficial healing & transformation. there is still time to avert the most dire consequences if action is taken now. we need proper science based, aware leadership to lead policy to make this happen.
The Metta Garden 