A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Tara
appears in a beautiful, subtle body of green light, and she appears with her right foot forward. That right foot forward symbolizes that she's ready to come the minute you think of her. In the tradition, the idea is that Tara is already here, but if we're not thinking of her, we don't really know that. When we think of her … we might say her mantra,
we might visualize her … then she's instantaneously ready to come to our assistance.
Dr. Rachel Wooten reports that some people, when they hear about Tara,
about her origin story or her mantra, or when they see a picture of one of her emanations, feel an immediate draw to connect in a deeper way. If
you are one of those people, I encourage you to follow your instinct
and explore your own connection with this inner and outer presence that
is always available and known in Tibetan as Dolma, "She Who Liberates, the One Who Brings Us Across." You can listen to the podcast here.
When
the Buddha taught mindfulness, he always taught it as part of a whole.
He never said, “Pay attention to your breath and you will be free of
suffering.” More like, “Pay attention to your breath as a way of
steadying the mind, and then look at your life.”
An
award-winning manga about the Buddha and Jesus living in modern Tokyo,
now available in English, offers a humorous yet profound commentary on
the role of religion in contemporary life.
"If we only work with our intellects and with the emptying of our minds,
as in some yogas, and we fail to open our hearts, our journey becomes very dry and brittle. Ultimately, no matter what our methods, we have to find a very even balance between our energy, heart, and mind. "
Buddhism
is a path of supreme optimism, for one of its basic tenets is that no
human life or experience is to be wasted or forgotten, but all should be
transformed into a source of wisdom and compassionate living.
There
is no such thing as two people—whether baby and mother, two lovers, or teacher and student—being perfectly in sync with each other’s needs and wishes. Real intimacy arises from an ongoing process of connection that
at some point is disrupted and then, ideally, repaired.
—Pilar Jennings, “Looking into the Eyes of a Master”
"Over the years we develop strong habits of perceiving the universe, and
we come to be very secure within these habits. We selectively perceive our environment in ways that reinforce them. This collection of habits is what we call ego. But meditation breaks the ego down. As we begin to see through it we can become confused as to what reality is. What once seemed absolute now begins to seem relative.
When this happens, some people get confused; others fear they may be going insane. The best strategy for dealing with this disorientation is to note it and let it be. The path to freedom is through detachment from your old habits of ego.
Slowly you will arrive at a new and more profound integration of your experience in a more evolved structure of the universe. That is, you will flow beyond the boundaries of your ego until ultimately you merge into the universe. Until then you must break through old structures,
develop broader structures, breakthrough those, and develop still
broader structures."
The
purpose of Zen is not to become people who don’t think, but to think
only what we need to; not to be lost in unnecessary thoughts, but to see
what is most necessary right now.
—Shodo Harada Roshi, “Finding Our Essence of Mind”
In the 11th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna shows Arjuna all the forms of the Universe, turning back into the pure form from which they were manifested.
The forms of the Universe: Breathe them in. Take in the baby’s crying, the sound of traffic, it’s all energy, it’s all shakti in form. As you draw it into your being, let the forms go, let your concepts about it all go, turn it back into pure shakti. Sit straight, draw it all into your chest.
All of your thoughts now, your memories, think of the political world, a breath for that.
See all the candidates, all of the international intrigue, all of the genuine seeking for peace, a breath for that.
See
it all; the play, the dance, the forms, the mother, the mother at play,
all aspects of the mother. Draw it back into its pure form within you,
Mother shakti. Draw it into your heart.
Think of all the things that fill you with love and tenderness, a
child’s smile, a flower, the smell of Spring, feeling love for another
human being or from another human being, seeing peace exist between two
people, moments of gratification.
As they come
to mind, notice them, allow them, see them as forms, draw them in upon your breath. You are forming a relationship with the Mother, for these
are all aspects, the beautiful aspects of the Mother. These are Durga,
Lakshmi, Mary, Rachel, all the beautiful aspects.
Now bring to
mind all the heavy aspects of the Universe: violence, suffering,
physical pain, incredible loneliness, paranoia, people out of control on
drugs, tensions between generations, races, religions, man’s ecological
shortsightedness, our greed, lust, our anger.
Draw it all in on the breath. These are the other faces of the Mother. This is Kali Ma;
the Mother whose tongue hangs out dripping with blood, who wears a
circlet of skulls around her neck, who is ugly beyond belief.
If you’re going to have a love affair with the mother, you can’t just have the beautiful aspects, you’ve got to take it all.
Are
you strong enough and quiet enough to give space to all the faces of
the Mother, to all the forms? Hey Ma, you’re really ugly, oh Ma, I love
you so much. Can you love the Universe that much?
Can
you find a place in yourself where you don’t judge God? Where you look
upon it all and see it’s perfection, including its horror?
