fear
no fear, no vengeance…
the wisdom of The Force…
~Yoda Explains About the Force~
Yoda: A Jedi’s strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will…
Luke: Is the dark side stronger?
Yoda: No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.
Luke: But how am I to know the good side from the bad?
Yoda: You will know… when you are calm, at peace, passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, NEVER for attack.
Brave Uncertainty…
Brave Uncertainty
“Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It’s the kind of place we usually want to avoid. . . . When we are brave enough to stay in the middle, compassion arises spontaneously.”
~ Pema Chödrön
fear…
fear constricts, freezes, suffocates and enslaves life. often expressing itself through aggression and violence. it alienates us, enforcing the illusion of separateness. fear runs counter to life.
but love, the very ground of our being, opens us. with practice and cultivation it strengthens us, equipping us to take further steps into vulnerability and mystery. love reminds us of our interdependence and interconnection with each other and all life. with love as our foundational practice, we embody understanding, generosity, patience, compassion and kindness. this embodiment of love and recognition of our interdependence and interconnectedness is what gives our lives gratitude and joy.
it is this life of love that can be our place of refuge in a world filled with change and dramatic events. even as the storms rage and swirl around us, we can be a still beacon of light for all who need it.
~j
#fear #aggression #violence #separateness #illusionofseparateness #life #love #interdependence #interconnectedness #practice #meditation #generosity #understanding #patience #compassion #kindness #vulnerability #openheart #gratitude #joy #JMW #TheMettaGarden
just love…
“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“If you love, you will find so many occasions to be loving. If you are afraid, you will find so many occasions to be afraid.” ~ Osho
#Love #Fear #KnowLoveNoFear #LoveIsTheAnswer #perspective #wisdom #TheMettaGarden #JMWart #JMW
Oh this life, this life!
“Buddha told a parable in a sutra:
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another Tiger was waiting to eat him.
Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the fine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!”
~ a Zen parable as retold in the book, “Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings” compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki
a different kind of warrior…
there is a different kind of warriorship that we can participate in.
one that is not about being aggressive or violent.
one that is about being brave enough to not use aggression, to not succumb to fear, and to not become anxious…
choosing not to add to the fear and not to add to the aggression in the world, and choosing not to engage in cynicism…
it is a decision made moment by moment, choice by choice.
this is what it means to be a spiritual warrior, a warrior of and for peace.
this is what it is to serve Love.
~j
10.16.14
a year later ~ Newtown…
“I hold my face in my two hands. No, I am not crying. I hold my face in my two hands to keep the loneliness warm – two hands protecting, two hands nourishing, two hands preventing my sould from leaving me in anger.”
“…remember: man is not our enemy…the only thing worth of you is compassion – invincible, limitless, unconditional. Hatred will never let you face the beast in man.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
December 14th 2013
here we are. a year later.
my heart is still clinging to the lost lives of 20 innocent children. see their faces. know their faces. children who someday may have been artists, doctors, teachers, scientists, or parents with children of their own. what inventions have we missed out on? how many discoveries will have to wait? how many inspired dreams will look to find a new home – a new vehicle of birth into this world?
questions, we’ll never know the answer to.
6 innocent adults died that day as well. see their faces, know their faces.
bodies beyond recognition.
and a lone gunman also lost, even it seems before his horrific actions of that day. see his face, know his face.
such a tragedy, such a dark moment. 27 lives lost, and how many more disturbingly wounded?
and here we are a year later with not much more than our grief, our frustration, and a polarized people frozen in their views. aren’t we better than this?
we must get to a place where we can listen – listen. where we can dialogue without scapegoating the mentally ill, without scapegoating the media, without scapegoating responsible gun ownership. we must open our awareness to recognize that the issue of violence in our culture runs much deeper than any vehicle in which it is carried out. we must open our awareness to recognize that the issue of violence in our culture is much more subtle and therefore insidious than quick quotes or talking points that serve as distraction from the deep listening, the deep looking, the deep contemplation that is needed to bring healing and wholeness to our broken attempts at problem solving and our inability to find balance between privileges and rights. we must be open to seeing how violence lives not only in our actions, but in our words and thoughts…we must look to where this violence is born and how it feeds.
we must come to a place where the news of 20 massacred children at an elementary school stops us cold in our tracks, convicting our hearts into a response so urgent, so necessary that it calls upon our betters selves to deep reflection that motivates us into action. not action out of reaction and fear or hatred or bitterness, but action out of empathy, out of interdependence and sense of community. it must be action out of compassion to end suffering at all costs, not perpetuation through the same deluted ideas and philosphies. action that says – these lives, our children’s lives – life itself – is worth more than the pitiful energy we have given them so far.
if we can’t get to this place, this place of necessary coming together, this place that recognizes the shared responsibility we have in honoring what we so often and emptily claim as sacred – life, then i do believe more is at risk than any rights or privileges. i do believe we are at risk of not only losing the very heart and soul of this country, but what is the unique manifestation of the divine that is us – our humanity.
life will go on, of course. it always goes on.
but if we fail to rise to this challenge, to open our wounded hearts, to stand in the face of violence, to look into the eyes of fear –
life very well may look to another vessel with which it can share love, seeing no vacancy in hearts that already have a love affair with violence.
and then we will finally know what it is to be in hell, because we will have chosen to hold it in our closed hearts.
~j
fasting ~ the practice of letting go…
Solidarity Thursday
Thursday, November 15, 2012
“Stop, look around, and see how wonderful life is: the trees, the white clouds, the infinite sky. Listen to the birds, delight in the light breeze. Let us walk as free people…”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Fasting…
I was raised Lutheran, which is a denomination of the Protestant branch of Christianity. If Episcopalians are “Catholic light”, then we were even a bit “lighter” with just a few Sacraments short of the full deal. Nonetheless, giving up something for the Lenten season was a pretty regularly encouraged practice, though not rigorously enforced. It is the season of fasting bookended by Ash Wednesday at the beginning and ending with Holy Thursday or Easter Eve in some cases. It is about a six week or 40 day period to commemorate the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert. We would “fast” or give up something important to us during this period. Adults often gave up drinking alcohol and perhaps other “vices” during this time. As children, we often gave up candy or dessert or some other thing that made us resent the whole practice, leading us to see it mainly as a way for adults to oppress us further…what did candy ever do to anyone?! Just because Jesus didn’t have dessert in the desert, why can’t I? In any case, at the very least, Lent would provoke a roll of the eyes if not a fully committed grimace. Why does God want me to do without? How is this, an act of worship?
What? There’s a practical purpose to this nonsense?..
It wasn’t until the end of my early early adulthood that I began to see the subtle genius in fasting as a practice. It takes time to break habits. It takes time to create habits. There are many differing opinions regarding how long it takes to break or create a habit. It can depend on how deeply imbedded these patterns are and everyone is different. That being said, there seems to be some consensus that it can take about a month and a half…six weeks.
Here’s an example….
A number of years ago, my friend Mitch and myself discussed giving up stuff for Lent and possibly taking on a good habit or two as well. It was an opportunity for me to return to this practice as an adult and for Mitch who had not been raised with a particular religion, it was an opportunity to try it out. We took up the challenge. One of the challenges (thing to give up) was coffee. 
I know this is sacrilege for some, however, I knew I wasn’t addicted – I mean, I can drink a cup right before bed and then promptly lay down and go to sleep. And I knew I didn’t need coffee, so I thought it would be a no-brainer, easy-peasy, walk in the park. The first day was a breeze. None of that headache or body ache or lack of focus stuff people lament after giving up coffee. Day One = Success….then Day Two happened. Day Two began with one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had. Nothing seemed to help and somehow knowing that I still had more to gain from this experience, the headache decided to last for another two days….just to make its point. I couldn’t believe it. I had been physically addicted to coffee.
I did go back to drinking coffee, though not nearly as much since I fell in love with tea, but I learned a valuable lesson about myself and my body through fasting.
It isn’t about taking away…it is about letting go…
Now here I am today, nearing the beginning of middle adulthood, seeing my younger days in the rear view mirror and fasting has become something else. I now see fasting as an exercise, a practice in simplicity and letting go. I think this lesson is very much within the body of fasting within the Christian context and certainly a lesson within Jesus’ 40 days in the desert, or even the 40 days for Noah riding – waiting, during the flood. It can be good to surrender; it can be good to grow in our capacity to wait. But for me, it has been through the lens of my Buddhist practice – where letting go is the main theme – that I have seen and experienced this practice anew.
As a child, or as I did with my friend Mitch, it was a practice of community, of support, of accountability. Now it is a solitary practice, one in which I discover what is actually necessary, what I can do without, what is real. Fasting has become a practice of not only the letting go of physical or material things, but of looking deeper to emotions and patterns of the mind. Fasting from anger, from despair, from fear and grasping. Fasting is a way to promote simplicity and create space, so I am available to this present moment, to what is here for me now in this moment, that I may be aware and free to dance with Life and sing the song of Love with all.
When I can do this, when we can do this, we will be able as Thich Nhat Hanh says in the quote above, to walk as free people.
In the meantime, every once in a while, I will give up things like shaving…that can also feel free.
BTW ~ Fasting can also be a form of protest…perhaps another blog related to forms of protest?…
Ben at The Horizontalist is off traveling this week and will return soon. For more reading on this Solidarity Thursday topic, please check out these other wonderful blogs: Esther at Church in the Canyon. And with a truly unique take on all things Solidarity Thursday is Triskaidekapod. Join the conversation!
The Metta Garden 