though darkness may come
open hearts will light the night
shine on, dear friends, shine
~j
this evening, a #haiku for you 😌🙏🏻📿
happy 1st night of #Hanukkah 😌🙏🏻🕎
& thank you #Alabama voters 😌🙏🏻👍🏻
#TheLongArc #PlantingSeeds #LoveWins #shine #light#Enso #JMWart
Stop trying to leave,
and you will arrive.
~
Lao Tzu
Over 2500 years ago, deeply moved by the suffering he saw in life (sickness, aging, and death), disenchanted with the excess from which he came, and the practice of extreme ascetism, the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) set out to meet life face to face, as it is. He sat until he woke up. And in waking up he became the Buddha, which means awakened or awakened one. Seeing the middle way – not running away from or grasping at life, rather meeting life with an open heart – he found freedom from suffering.
Today, December 8th, we Buddhists commemorate the Buddha’s awakening under the Bodhi Tree, as Bodhi Day. A day to remember the event, but to also be reminded that we too can wake up, we too have within us the ability to be with life as it is, to be free and at peace.
This morning I practiced, I sat and meditated, and then painted this “wake up” enso to honor not just this one man who decided to sit beneath a tree and meet life authentically with an open heart, but to honor all who sit, all who practice, all who meet this passing life with all of its beauty and heartbreak with an open heart.
May we all wake up to the preciousness of this life, may empathy and compassion be born from our open hearts, to light the world with our love.
~j
12.08.17
It doesn’t really work to let go of things in the abstract. Letting go takes place in the chaos of life, knee-deep in the mud, when we feel like we are drowning, with that all too familiar, desperate feeling to cling, to find some security.
So we practice letting go in meditation. Grounded, balanced in our breathing. Thought after thought, feeling after feeling, we let go. They arise, we recognize them and let go. They fall away. We do this thousands of times.
It never stops. No real extraordinary effort. We just show up, we stop, we allow space, and we let go.
It’s an act of bravery, it’s an act of generosity, it’s an act of peace.
We still have goals, we still work to benefit, to reduce harm, to end suffering. But we do so, with an openness and non-attachment to the results. It is an act of trust, trusting that the seeds planted – seeds of love, seeds of empathy, seeds of compassion, seeds of justice, seeds of equality, seeds of peace – will come to fruition in their time, when the appropriate conditions arise to support and nurture them.
This will be how we maintain sanity, in this time. Show up, act with love, let go, and get to work again, and again.
~j
11.27.17
“The infinite is in the finite of every instant.”
~
Zen proverb
“At all times, in all places, be it desires, senses, gains, loss, right, wrong…
in all things shine through…”
~
Hakuin
even when in darkness, and most especially so, keep shining friends!
of course there is a complexity to these mass killings.
motivation is a component that varies from shooter to shooter. mental health struggles may be a component. and another component – the elephant in the room – is our society’s tremendous inability to process and transform pain and suffering in a healthy way along with our delusion that we are somehow independent of each other rather than the reality that we are interdependent. but surely guns as weapons of choice are also a component. it takes minimal intelligence and awareness to recognize this.
yet, some people say this is not a gun issue. however, these men are choosing guns as their weapon for a reason – quick mass casualties. this makes these mass killings a gun issue.
it is horribly, tragically ironic that a culture identifying as pro life loves the right to own guns and their ability to kill, more than life.
if you want to offer prayer, please offer prayers for a change of heart and mindset, for a clarity of vision and then more importantly work for that change. put prayers for an end to this mass violence into some beneficial action.
~j
#GunViolence #ProLife #TheLongArc #PlantingSeeds #LoveWins #interdependence #enso #JMWart
before the mind craves
the moment yet born
before the pain unravels
into rambling story
before a tempered heat
reaches a boil
before the tears dry
and the heart shifts to close
just sit.
~j
09.16.17
The Metta Garden 