If you haven’t wept deeply, you haven’t begun to meditate.

~Ajahn Chah

it is okay to feel. we are feeling, empathetic beings. when we open our hearts to receive the world & this life, emotions arise.

our neurosis comes from identifying w/ our emotions. “i am angry” “i am happy” “i am sad”, pushing away or denying emotions we don’t like & grasping at ones we do. this can create much suffering for ourselves & others.

BUT we are not our emotions. we are something that feels emotions & can observe emotions. like a vast blue sky which sometimes has white fluffy clouds & other times dark stormy clouds, all which pass. sometimes the sky is quite clear & bright! regardless, the sky is the sky no matter the clouds.

in meditation practice, we are encountering ourselves & our life w/ authenticity as it is in the moment, anchored by our sitting & our breath, we can watch emotions arise, allow the feeling, & allow them to pass. we don’t deny or push away, we don’t criticize & we don’t judge.

it is okay to feel. we can even label the feeling w/ tenderness & kindness, “ah, yes, it is you sadness, it is you anger, it is you bliss.” & then return our attention to what is our life at this moment – our sitting & our breathing.

there seem to be two myths around feeling emotions & recognizing emotions. one is that it is somehow weak to do so, but nothing could be further from the truth. feeling & recognizing emotions is authentic & quite brave. being in touch w/ emotions connects us to others who are also experiencing emotions in this life.

the second myth is that we are our emotions, but we are not our emotions (which change often due to outside circumstances). believing so, closes us off from the freshness & newness of life & creates a false identity of who we are, a role we begin to believe we need to play.

but we don’t have to fall for either myth. we can learn to be w/ our lives in a present & authentic way, while also aware of all that arises & falls away around us & within us, including the emotions we feel. meditation practice can help us learn this.

~j

#WorldMeditationDay #meditation #path #practice #OpenHeart #EngagedBuddhism #emotions #JMWart #JinpaLhaga #art

this is a photo i took of a Kuan Yin (also Guanyin) statue my mom gave me which sits on my shrine. Kuan Yin is the female embodiment in China of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. she is also known as Kannon in Japan. and in Tibet as a male form named Chenrezig. i’ve found it so inspiring how we yearn for the feminine in our spiritual traditions. perhaps, because they have been so male dominant. i read once that Goddess worship predates worship of a male creator God. perhaps this yearning is a return to an earlier understanding or a yearning to bring balance. whatever the case, i find comfort and strength in the feminine. the wonderful Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr, who once said (and i paraphrase) that the incarnation of God as Jesus was as a masculine body and feminine soul. maybe that’s partly why i like Jesus so much. Catholicism puts emphasis on Mother Mary as an embodiment of compassion the faithful can call upon as well.

“she who hears the cries of the world” is one translation of Kuan Yin. poetic, beautiful, needed. and though many may call upon Kuan Yin for comfort in time of need, Buddhism also takes it in a different direction. we too are this embodiment. when her compassion is called upon, we are calling upon compassion within ourselves. in other words, as is often said, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. in the Christian view, one might say that we are the hands and heart of God in the world, embodying the love that is needed. in the Buddhist view, we can take a vow to be Bodhisattvas and embody the compassion of Avalokiteshvara, of Kuan Yin. when we hear the world cry, we can receive them, we can open our hearts, we can answer. rather that just praying for God or calling upon Kuan Yin to end war, to end gun violence, to end a pandemic, we can hear the cries, we can take responsibility and do the work needed, embody the compassion needed, for a world that is suffering.

~j

#KuanYin #compassion #bodhisattva #OpenHeart #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #JMWart #JinpaLhaga #photography #BWphotography

we should align ourselves with love and embody love. what does love embodied look like? awareness, spaciousness, empathy, kindness, compassion, generosity, courage, balance, and wisdom.

these principles embodied are who we are beneath our ignorance and fear. they are who we are called to be and what spontaneously arises from an open and tender heart. though they can be found within and influence our religious traditions, they are beyond them. just as they can influence but are beyond governments, political parties, and geo-politics.

where these constructs don’t align with love and its principles, where they reject interdependence, they are eventually doomed to fail and we should reject them. this seems unlikely and perhaps unrealistic with governments, religious organizations, and institutions, etc.

however, these constructed bodies are made of individuals, they are made of us. as individuals we can decide to align with love, to embody love, to have our loyalty be to love and its principles. as individuals we can influence through our embodiment of love, our words, our actions, our art. this is moral integrity, this is spiritual maturity.

~j

#interdependence #love #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga

after teaching a meditation class for a group of friends earlier today, i decided to go for a walk. i needed to get outside, into the sun, into the fresh air, breathe, walk and listen to birds.

ever since i was a little kid, i’ve felt some sort of kinship with trees. i’m infatuated with them, their roots, their bark, the canopy of branches and leaves they create giving home to so many, and their relationship with earth and sky.

may we take root, deep into this earth with dignity and strength. may we reach up, bathing in the warmth and wisdom of the light. and may we stretch out in generosity and love to others in their need.

here are some photos from my walk and further evidence that for some reason i am consistently unable to look directly into the lens of a camera phone.

~j

#WalkingMeditation #nature #trees #life #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #JMWart #JinpaLhaga #photography

among, not above.

it can be a revealing and beneficial exercise to take a deep look at and into who we personally (and as a country, a society, a political party, or a religion) leave out.

who falls outside of our circle? who are we okay with being marginalized and oppressed, if it means we feel a sense of safety and security? who are we okay with being powerless if we retain our power? who are we okay with going hungry as long as we have food? some die of thirst while others drown in excess.

ultimately there is no safety or security as long as anyone or any group is left out.

all life has dignity and life calls to be recognized as life and treated as so.

when this isn’t the case, when fear drives action and policy, we see destruction. and we are seeing this everywhere.

love life and live in the truth of interdependence. a society is made of individuals, so lasting change, a change in direction, a change towards love has to include each of us individually.

~j

#interdependence #OneLife #connection #OpenHeart #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga

this.

🧘🏼‍♂️❤️🙏🏻

#meditation #path #practice #OpenHeart #EngagedBuddhism

a life of nonviolence, of nonaggression and non-harming is not just a reflection of how we act and what we say, but also how we may provoke/cause others to act because of our words and actions towards others.

our fear not transformed may turn into greed and aggression. our greed and our aggression causes harm. our greed and our oppression of others pushes others into desperation and violence. our greed and our oppression of others are violence. our violence begets violence. not just towards others, but also towards ourselves, because in our greed and in our aggression we have abandoned who we are.

a life of nonviolence, non-harming, nonaggression is an expansive view that includes both the intimacy of our interdependence and our wider relationship with the world.

a life of nonviolence, non-harming, nonaggression is all encompassing and a reflection of our embodiment of love and valuing of life and an awareness of how our actions and words affect others.

~j

#nonviolence #nonharming #nonaggression #interdependence #life #love #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

~ Helen Keller

it’s not all bad news.

and we have the choice to not contribute to the bad news, to not contribute to the suffering.

rather, we can choose to contribute to the overcoming of it.

~j

#suffering #DoGood #healers #lovers #bodhisattvas #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga

when so many seem hellbent on destroying the world, our job is to love it. destruction is an outcome of not seeing clearly, of being moved by fear not addressed whose outcome can be aggression and hate.

on the other hand when we do see clearly, we can touch in to who we really are, to the underlying reality and our interdependence with others, and we can be moved by love.

we see so many moved by fear and aggression. democracy being undermined through lies and aggression, state and civilian gun violence, racist violence and hate crimes, hundreds of thousands allowed to suffer in many cases preventable death, generational families forcibly removed from their homes and land by an overreaching and aggressive government, and we see it in terrorist ideology. these are not examples of alignment with love, this is not how love moves.

love isn’t easy. love is hard work. love needs our attention, our presence, our humility, our spaciousness, our intention and dedication.

our work is not destroying the world or each other. our work is loving the world and each other.

~j

#love #life #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #JMWart #JinpaLhaga

As a mother would risk her own life

To protect her child, her only child,

So toward all beings should one

Cultivate a boundless heart.

With loving-kindness for the whole world should one

Cultivate a boundless heart,

Above, below, and all around

Without obstruction, without hate and without ill-will.

~

The Buddha

*this quote is from the Karaniya Metta Sutta. there are many translations and they vary in color. this translation is by Gil Fronsdal and is one of my favorites.

what an expansive, inclusive and resilient image of love! for many of us, our first experience of unconditional love came from our mother. however, this isn’t the case for everyone. some have others who fill the role of mother, who fill the role of unconditional love. i truly hope someone somewhere, perhaps your mom, fills this role for you. may you be held in such love wherever it comes from. thank you to all of the moms out there who do love in such a way, teaching us to love in such a way.

i have been deeply fortunate to receive such love from my mom.

with a heart full of gratitude, i wish her, and my sister (who is a wonderful mom in her own right!), and all moms and all variations of mom, a very Happy Mother’s Day!! 🤗

may we all love with a mother’s love! ❤️🙏🏻

~j

#MothersDay #moms #UnconditionalLove #MettaSutta #OpenHeart #path #practice #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga