Via Lion's Roar / Is Buddhism a religion, philosophy, way of life, or science of mind?

Illustration by Nolan Pelletier.

I’m confused. Buddhism is considered one of the world’s five great religions, but some people say it’s not a religion at all, but a philosophy, way of life, or science of mind. Which is it? 

The answer is really about how you define religion. On one hand, Buddhism looks a lot like every other religion, with monastics, temples, sacred texts, rituals, congregations, etc. So by the “if it quacks like a duck” sociological definition, it’s a religion. On the other hand, most people define religion as believing in some sort of God or Creator, which Buddhism does not. They consider the concept of “nontheistic religion” a contradiction in terms, so they label Buddhism as a philosophy, way of life, or science of mind (and many Buddhists in the West agree). We would like to offer a third definition: religion is that which posits a nonmaterial spiritual reality (whether God or mind) and asserts we continue in some way after death. By that definition, combined with the sociological and historical realities, we come down on the side that Buddhism is a religion—and all those other things too.

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Topics: Beginner's Mind, Lion's Roar - July '18

Via Lion's Roar / The Math Koan: The practice of koan study isn’t so different from teaching math, says high school teacher Pat Higgiston.

As a high school math teacher, I run into plenty of obstacles: resistant students, anxious parents, not enough time or resources, and even my own burnout.

When I hit a wall, I find it valuable to return to the question at the beginning of it all: What’s the best thing I can do to help my students grow?

It’s easy to repeat this mantra to myself, but that doesn’t always help me access its core meaning. 

Sometimes I can’t realize the meaning until I manifest it in my life, new and fresh. Manifesting meaning isn’t about reciting, but creating. It requires work, patience, and not-knowing.

This persistence and discipline could describe Zen koan study just as well as it describes teaching. In my experience, koans are a ready guide for a high school teacher.

I spent the better part of a month reading and rereading Case 52 of The Book of Serenity, entitled “Caoshan’s ‘Reality Body.’”

Caoshan asked elder De, “‘The buddha’s true reality body is like space: it manifests form in response to beings, like the moon in the water’ — how do you explain the principle of response?”

De said, “Like an ass looking in a well.”

Caoshan said, “You said a lot indeed, but you only said eighty percent.”

De said, “What about you, teacher?”

Caoshan said, “Like the well looking at the ass.”

Koans in The Book of Serenity are accompanied by a commentary from Wansong Xingxiu, a 12th-century Chinese Chan Buddhist monk — an ancestor of my school of Zen. Wansong introduces this one saying, “Those who have wisdom can understand by means of metaphors. If you come to where there is no possibility of comparison and similitude, how can you explain it to them?”

In the koan, Caoshan’s metaphor of “the moon in the water” symbolizes the realization that enlightenment isn’t something outside of us. The moon is reflected in the ocean, in lakes and streams, in puddles after the rain, in droplets of dew in the early morning, and even at the bottom of wells. Likewise, enlightenment is reflected in every drop of our lived experience. One of the key realizations in Zen is that when we meditate, we manifest the meaning of Zen. We become aware of the moon’s presence, having somehow doubted it before. And looking for it outside, we find it closer than we expect.

This koan probes me to ask myself, “What do you see when you look at your students?”

Enkyo O’Hara Roshi says a koan is “a form that obscures what it intends to communicate.” This seems unhelpful in the classroom. As teachers, our intention is to clearly and concisely communicate a specific subject. At the same time, we understand that a bare presentation of facts — historical dates, mathematical theorems, a list of an element’s properties — isn’t enough to communicate the meaning behind a subject. More often than not, the student will look at the majesty of a mathematical proof and ask, “So?”

The challenge of teaching math is that you are communicating to an audience about math, while simultaneously communicating how to be an audience for math.

That kind of comment can send teachers to the bar on a Friday afternoon, exasperated and shaking our heads. We peer into our wells and wonder if there’s anything down there.

I think part of the challenge of teaching math is that you are communicating to an audience about math, while simultaneously communicating how to be an audience for math. To paraphrase scholar and educator Magdalene Lampert on teaching fractions to fifth graders: you are teaching them how to be the type of people who talk about math.

A math teacher doesn’t present proofs to an audience. Rather, a math teacher poses problems that have to be worked through. A problem is a form that obscures what it communicates, similar to a koan. In this regard, a good math problem is a koan for the student. Just as a koan is both a symbol of enlightenment and a means to realize enlightenment, so a math problem can be an expression of the problem and a means to solve the problem.

Among my students, not-knowing math seems to be the most shameful thing you can imagine. I remind them often that if they knew all of this math already, they wouldn’t have to be here. But they are here, and they’re facing what seems to be an insoluble problem. They work at it and it works at them, until suddenly the “problem” drops away and they communicate its meaning without speaking a word.

As teachers, sometimes we forget that this is what we’re trying to accomplish. Staring into the well, we think nothing will peer back. We throw up our hands and say, “The kids just don’t care!” And of course, at first, they don’t. Not now, not yet. We are in the business of cultivating people who care, who think, who create, imagine, argue, and collaborate.

I think the hard part about teaching—and about life—is that this is true for us, as teachers and as adults. We are always learning and growing, and every challenge that confronts us is a new koan, a new problem that obscures the truth of our lives. Working with koans and working with young people share this quality of resolving the insoluble. At the start, all you have is a jumble of words and feelings that you’re trying to convey.

What do you see when you look at your students? Wansong warns us against saying that we’re here to teach them. If I simply say, “I am here to teach,” then that isn’t a realization of my intention. In order to actually teach, I must do more than say I am teaching. I embody how to talk about math, and then how to observe and manifest its meaning. The meaning of math is communicated in every aspect of my being, and in every aspect of my students’.

With this understanding, I can turn to the next group of students, listen closely, and respond to them with a question or two. As we learn and grow together in this classroom, peering down the wells of mathematics, the meaning comes into view. How did I not see it there before?

Click here to make the junp here to read the original and much more!

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - June 5, 2019 💌

The technique of the witness is to merely sit with the fear and be aware of it before it becomes so consuming that there’s no space left. The image I usually use is that of a picture frame and a painting of a gray cloud against a blue sky. But the picture frame is a little too small. So you bend the canvas around to frame it. But in doing so you lost all the blue sky. So you end up with just a framed gray cloud. It fills the entire frame.

So when you say 'I’m afraid,' or, 'I’m depressed,' if you enlarged the frame so that just a little blue space shows, you would say ‘ah, a cloud.’ That is what the witness is. The witness is that tiny little blue over in the corner that leads you tosay, ‘ah, fear.’

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Grace of Impermanence

The grace of impermanence is that we belong to everything, that we are not separated from anything, that we are not isolated. We may be waves on an ocean, but we are waves that know we are waves.

—Interview with Sallie Tisdale by Marie Scarles, “Travel Guide to the End of Life”

Via YAHOO News: Ethiopian churches oppose gay travel company's tour plans

Addis Ababa (AFP) - Ethiopia's religious leaders on Monday urged the government to block a US gay travel company from touring the country's ancient sites, and one group warned visiting homosexuals could face violence.

The Chicago-based Toto Tours, which describes itself on its website as "the only gay tour company in existence" that has been operating with the same ownership and management for almost three decades, told AFP it has received death threats since announcing a 16-day trip to Ethiopia, which includes numerous historical religious sites.

Their itinerary has sparked ire in Ethiopia, which like many in Africa is deeply homophobic and has strict anti-gay laws, punishing homosexual acts with up to 15 years in prison.

"Tour programmes and dating programmes that try to use our historical sites and heritage should be immediately stopped by the Ethiopian government and we urge Ethiopians supporting these sinful and evil acts to desist from their acts," Tagay Tadele of the Inter-Religious Council of Ethiopia told journalists.

The council counts seven Islamic and Christian denominations as members.

An influential Ethiopian Orthodox organisation, the Sileste Mihret United Association, also held a press conference Monday to condemn the tour company.

"Homosexuality is hated as well as being illegal in Ethiopia. Toto Tours are wrong to plan to conduct tours in our religious and historical places," the organisation's vice chairman, Dereje Negash, told AFP.

"If Toto Tours comes to Ethiopia where 97 percent of Ethiopians surveyed oppose homosexuality, they will be damaged, they could even die," he said.

Dan Ware, the president of Toto Tours, said the company had been "terribly misunderstood", in an email to AFP.

"Our company is not aimed at spreading values contrary to local cultures when we travel around the world. We are simply an organization where like-minded people can travel comfortably together to experience the world's most precious wonders.

"We come with only the greatest respect and humility."

He said the tour had been advertised on the company's social media pages and spotted within Ethiopia, leading to "death threats", and called for protection for the tour group from both the US State Department and the Ethiopian tourism ministry.

"This is terrible discrimination, and when the word of this spreads internationally, as it is most likely to do, it will have a negative impact on the important tourism industry in Ethiopia."

He said that by the time the tour takes place in October "the eyes of the entire world will be on the people of Ethiopia to see what happens to us."

Twenty-eight out of 49 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have laws penalising same-sex relationships, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Some countries, like Angola, Mozambique and Seychelles, have moved to scrap anti-gay laws.

However Kenya's high court earlier this month refused to do so, in a major blow to gay activists on the continent.

make the jump here to read the full article and more

Via Friend of Dorothy Book / FB:

Manila Luzon - "Gay Man" Official Music Video

Via Daily Dharma: Universal Gratitude

In my pursuit of mindfulness I have found myself giving thanks for all things at a far deeper level… As I become more mindful I am even grateful for difficulties and pain, as they allow me to access greater compassion for those going through their own hardships.

—Jim Owens, “Bible Belt Buddhism”

Gay Men's Chorus Confronts Protesters With Music

Via FB...

Via Trike Daily: A Big Gay History of Same-sex Marriage in the Sangha

Buddhist same-sex marriage was born in the USA. That’s a little known but significant fact to reflect on now, just after the Supreme Court has declared legal marriage equality throughout the country. Appropriately enough, it all started in San Francisco, and was conceived as an act of love, not activism.

https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/big-gay-history-same-sex-marriage-sangha/?utm_source=Tricycle&utm_campaign=68b4bc82cc-Newsletter_19_6_2_Subs&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1641abe55e-68b4bc82cc-307231789

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - June 2, 2019 💌

If you meditate regularly, even when you don’t feel like it, you will make great gains, for it will allow you to see how your thoughts impose limits on you. Your resistances to meditation are your mental prisons in miniature. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Our Neighbors’ Happiness Is Our Happiness

Pain and joy, love of life, and fear of death know no boundaries of us and them. We can all wake up to realize that our happiness depends on the happiness of our neighbors and vice versa, and our real safety is in togetherness, not intractable conflict.

—Stephen Fulder, “Do We Really ‘Have No Choice’?”

Via Lion´s Roar: Leslie Booker offers step-by-step instruction./ How to Practice Walking Meditation

In the four foundations of mindfulness, as laid out in the famed Satiphatthana Sutta, the Buddha offers four postures for practicing meditation: A monk knows, when he is walking, “I am walking”; he knows, when he is standing, “I am standing”; he knows, when he is sitting, “I am sitting”; he knows, when he is lying down, “I am lying down”; or just as his body is disposed so he knows it. Walking meditation is often described as a meditation in motion.   Read the rest of the article and more here

Via Daily Dharma: Embarking on a Path toward Self-Acceptance

Some thoughts feel deep, some shallow—but those are just sensations, nothing more. The feeling-tones are not reliable judges of value. For me, this was a radical rejection of a view of the self that seemed, to me at least, to be everywhere.

—Dr. Jay Michaelson, “Working Through the Strong Emotions of Sexual Identity”

Via Daily Dharma: A Place of Belonging

My suffering does not set me apart: it makes me belong. I now know that my being with whatever arises is a purification, a lens polished—often with tears from the past—with which I must stand firm against the waves of segregating myself from the world.

—Sarah Conover, “Lost At Sea”

Via The Guardian: In a Heartbeat: the story behind the animated gay love short that's gone viral

The makers of the four-minute film, with 12m views in under a week, discuss the shock of their success and the importance of depicting same-sex romance.

It’s not every day that a wordless, four-minute animated short about two young boys falling in love goes viral. But on Monday, when recent college graduates Esteban Bravo and Beth David posted their senior thesis film on YouTube, that’s exactly what happened.

make the jump here to read the whole story and more

in a heartbeat 2

in a heartbeat - animated short film

Via Daily Dharma: The Mind Reflected

In meditation, we are invited to still the waters of our lives. We quiet the mind, releasing conjured stories and fantasies. When the waters are still long enough, we see our reflection.

—Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, “The Terror Within”

Via Lions Roar: For the Children We’ve Lost

Bays made this memorial, which is in the Jizo garden at Great Vow Zen Monastery.
It’s dedicated to children who’ve died in war.

Make the jump here to read the full article

Zen Community of Oregon Statement of Inclusivity

The Zen Community of Oregon welcomes everyone. We study dharma together and practice for the benefit of all beings and this living earth. We recognize the suffering caused by biases, prejudices, systems of power, privilege and oppression based on race, sex, class, age, ethnicity, religion, national origin, ability, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression. We aspire to do no harm and to dismantle barriers that cause separation and suffering, recognizing that our liberation is interconnected with the liberation of all.

Via Daily Dharma: Our Closest Teacher

When the body calls us back, we begin to find that we have a partner on the spiritual path that we didn’t know about—the body itself. In our meditation and in our surrounding lives, the body becomes a teacher.

—Reggie Ray, “Touching Enlightenment”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - May 29, 2019 💌

I think that the assignment for us is very clear in terms of the game on Earth. I think it is to be instruments that allow the whole process to move and change in a way that ends up celebrating life rather than ultimately destroying it. And it has to come out of non-attachment.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Universal Support

Nothing exists separate from all the other things in the universe. Every person lives only by relying on the support of others.

—Jeff Wilson, “Born Together With All Beings”

Via Daily Dharma: Taking Our Place in History

Venerating the ancestors of all life forms returns us to the river that flows from the past into the present.

—Joan Halifax, “Giving Birth to Ancestors”

Via Lion's Roar / The Path of Being Human

05.24.2019

THE PATH OF BEING HUMAN

This week I stood at the freshly-dug gravesite of my mother-in-law, Annie, and recited the Lord’s Prayer. I was raised Catholic in my early childhood, so the verses come back to me easily at times like this. A few years ago, I might have struggled with such prayers and rituals, fearing that I was being disingenuous, telling myself, I’m a Buddhist after all! But somehow that doesn’t hold sway any more. People often ask, “How do you become a Buddhist?” The simple answer is that you take refuge in the Buddha, dharma, and sangha. But, as you go forth, you still need to work out what it means to be a Buddhist for you. When I began practicing and studying Buddhism more than twenty years ago, my peers and I were intent on receiving dharma transmissions (abhishekas) and accomplishing the levels of the path laid out for us. Now, that path seems small and constricted to me. Perhaps it’s because I’ve grown increasingly aware that the world is in desperate need of our help and Buddhism doesn’t directly answer many of the pressing questions of the day, like “What do we do about the climate crisis?” or “How do we respond to attacks on women’s reproductive freedom?” In her article, “Your Liberation Is on the Line,” Rev. angel Kyodo williams makes a compelling case for the power of dharma to challenge the status quo and undo systems of oppression, namely racism and patriarchy. She’s able to do so because she holds a big view of what dharma can and must be: “So when dharma teachers try to tell me that this work is not the dharma, I say they’re confusing the true dharma with the dharma they’ve made small.” Rev. williams goes on to clarify that she’s talking about the path of liberation, which extends beyond our limited ideas of a Buddhist path. So what does it mean to be a Buddhist? That’s something you may still need to figure out. But for me, that question has been replaced by a new one: What does it mean to be fully human? Showing up in your life, being fully human, and engaging with the suffering around you (and in you) can take myriad forms: protesting against building a pipeline on Indigenous peoples’ lands; taking the time to say hello to a stranger and give them a hand; and, maybe, saying the Lord’s Prayer and making the sign of the cross alongside your grieving Catholic relatives. Whatever it looks like, the path of being fully human is, at its core, a path of genuine connection, care, and love. And to me, that’s one worth choosing. —Tynette Deveaux, editor, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - May 26, 2019 💌

The left hand is caught and the right hand pulls it out. The left hand turns to the right and says ‘thank you.’ It doesn’t work because they are both part of the same body. Who are you thanking? You’re thanking yourself. So on that plane you realize it’s not her suffering, his suffering, or their suffering.
You go up one level, it’s our suffering. You go up another level, it’s my suffering. Then as it gets de-personalized, it’s the suffering. Out of the identity with the suffering comes the compassion. It arises in relationship to the suffering. It’s part and parcel of the whole package. There is nothing personal in this at all.
In that sense, you have become compassion instead of doing compassionate acts. Instead of being compassionate, you are compassion.

-  Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Enlightenment Here and Now

Awakening the enlightened mind may not be a question of self-improvement, which is never-ending; it may be a question of faith, which is always available right now.

—Hannah Tennant-Moore, “Buddhism’s Higher Power”

Via Daily Dharma: Liberating Unconditional Happiness

Skillful and meritorious practices work on the deep, unconscious level of the mind, reorienting the psyche toward the boundless lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity that characterizes your buddhanature. And that’s what liberates us and makes us happy in everyday life, regardless of the external circumstances we may find ourselves in.

—Interview with Shinso Ito by James Shaheen and Philip Ryan, “Unconditional Service”

Via BBC: Majority in Brazil's top court to make homophobia and transphobia crimes

A majority in Brazil's Supreme Court has voted in favour of making homophobia and transphobia crimes.

Six out of 11 judges voted to consider discrimination against gays and transgender people equivalent to racism.

The decision will give the community, which suffers constant attacks, real protection, activists say.

At least 141 LGBT people have been killed in Brazil this year, according to rights group Grupo Gay da Bahia.

The Catholic Church and the evangelical movement are frequently critical of gay rights and far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, elected last year with strong support of conservative voters, is a self-described homophobe.

• Is the honeymoon period over for Bolsonaro?
• How Brazil's culture wars are being waged in classrooms

"Homophobic crimes are as alarming as physical violence," Supreme Court Vice-President Luiz Fux said on his vote, citing "epidemic levels of homophobic violence".

Read the full article and more here

Via THE BLOG: Wake Up, Grow Up and Show Up

To successfully live your Unique Self, you need to Wake Up, Grow Up and Show Up. Success 3.0 offers a new operating system to do just this. It is the critical calling of our time.

This week we want to share about the meaning of the terms Wake Up, Grow Up and Show Up.

Wake Up
To wake up means to move beyond the narcissistic self-involvement with your own contracted story. Most people live lives limited by their contracted self, consumed by the petty details of their story. But when you wake up, you awaken to the deeper truth: You are not merely a skin-encapsulated ego — your True Self is an inextricable, indivisible part of the love-intelligence, of the All-That-Is flowing through you. So to wake up is to wake up to the true nature of reality, to blow your mind as a separate, alienated self, and to know your True Self, which presages a new and revolutionary Unique Self enlightenment.

Grow Up
To grow up means to up-level your consciousness. Your level of consciousness is the set of implicit organizing principles forming your worldview. These ascending levels or structures of consciousness have been mapped by extensive cross-cultural research by leading ego-developmental scientists over the past fifty years. For example, it has been shown that human beings in healthy development evolve from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric to cosmocentric consciousness. Each level expands your felt sense of love and empathy to wider and wider circles of caring.

At first, your caring and concern is limited to you and your immediate circle. At the second level — ethnocentric — your identity expands to a felt-sense of empathy and connections with your larger communal context. At the third level — worldcentric — your identity shifts to a felt empathy with all living humanity. 

At the fourth level — cosmocentric — you move beyond mere humanity and experience a felt sense of responsibility and empathy for all sentient beings throughout all of time, backwards and forwards.

This last move has also been described in Clare Graves’ developmental theory as the evolution from first-tier to second-tier consciousness. One of the key findings of developmental research is that as you up-level to ever-higher stages of second-tier consciousness, your unique perspective becomes readily available. Said simply, according to leading developmental theorists, the more you Grow Up, the more your Unique Self comes online. Indeed, having ready access to your unique perspective and your unique quality of intimacy is the way to unfold the highest levels of consciousness.

Show Up
To be successful means to live the unique life that is yours to live, and to give the unique gifts that are yours to give. Your success, therefore, looks different then anyone else’s success (so you might as well be successful in your own life because you cannot be successful in anyone else’s).

To live your unique life and give your unique gifts is what it means to be the hero of your life. This practice is called, in the terminology of Success 3.0, Showing Up. To show up as your Unique Self and give your unique gifts and live your unique taste is to awaken as evolution — as the personal face of the evolutionary process.

World Spirituality is based on the realization that every human being is both part of the whole and at the same time a high priest or priestess in their religion of one. The core obligation, joy, and responsibility of each Unique Self is to answer the call and give its unique gift, which fills a unique need in the cosmos.

Success 3.0
To be successful means to wake up to who you really are.

To be successful means to grow up to higher and higher levels of consciousness. When you grow up to your highest level of consciousness, you emerge as a fully conscious Unique Self, living in the largest evolutionary context, giving your gifts with devotion to heal and transform not only your personal sphere but, ultimately, the whole world.

Success 3.0 is to fully embody the unique life that is yours to live and fully give the gifts that are yours to give from a place of the most expanded state and the highest structure-stage of enlightened consciousness.

When you fully wake up, grow up and show up, the evolutionary impulse incarnates as you. You become an expression of radical personal intimacy and evolutionary creativity. You embody a purpose-driven and values-driven life, overflowing with aliveness, love and energy.

Make the jump here to read the original and more

—————-
HuffPost’s GPS for the Soul app is based on two truths about human beings. First: We all have a centered place of wisdom, harmony and balance within us. Second: We’re all going to veer away from that place, again and again and again. What we need is a great course-correcting mechanism — a GPS for the Soul — to help us find our way back to that centered place, from which everything is possible.
Because no one knows better than you what helps you de-stress and tap into that place of peace inside yourself, it’s important for you to create your very own GPS guide — a personalized collection of whatever helps you course-correct. Email us at GPS@huffingtonpost.com and we’ll set you up with your very own HuffPost blogger account to share your guide on the site. If you’re already a blogger, we encourage you to upload your personal guide today. We can’t wait to see what you have to share.

Follow Success 3.0 on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Success3Summit

Wake Up, Grow Up, Show Up Series with Lisa Engles & Marc Gafni: Who Are You?

Via Daily Dharma: The Simple Secret to Practice

Attention or awareness is the secret of life and the heart of practice.

—Charlotte Joko Beck, “Attention Means Attention”

Via Daily Dharma: Rebalance and Reconnect

Mindfulness can be a way for us to restore balance—to help us recalibrate in a way that enables us to connect with our deepest, most heartfelt values and to act in accordance with them more often.

—Interview with Ed Halliwell, “The Mindful Manifesto”

Via Depression Quotes / FB:

Via Humanity's Team / FB:

Via Daily Dharma: Confronting Our Challenges

We cannot eliminate all of the challenges or obstacles in life—our own or anyone else’s. We can only learn to rise to the occasion and face them.

—Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, “Old Relationships, New Responsibilities”

Via Words of Wisdom - May 22, 2019 💌 Inbox x

 

To bring to our daily life a quality of awareness, an open-heartedness, a consciousness that understands the interrelationship of all things, means that you can begin to hear the way in which you can live on Earth in harmony with all things.

-  Ram Dass -

Via Utne: Grandfather Says Native Americans parables and other lessons from reservation life.

There is much that I don’t understand about the ways of my people on the reservation, but much more that I don’t understand about the people of town.

• 

 Photo by Flicker/Janusz Sobolewski

Grandfather knows many things that I haven’t learned yet. There is much that I don’t understand about the ways of my people on the reservation, but much more that I don’t understand about the people of town. “What’s bothering you, Grandchild?” asked Grandfather when I arrived home from school. “You seem troubled about something.”
“I tried out for the track team because I like to run. Several of us ran around the track while coach timed us. The others trying out told me that I was the last one to sign up, so I was the ‘low man on the totem pole’ and would be the first to go when people were cut from the list.”
“Why were you so late signing up?” asked Grandfather.
“I didn’t know about the tryouts until today,” I explained. “I don’t think that the others on the team really want me because I am from the reservation.”
Grandfather was quiet and waited for my question.
“What does ‘low man on the totem pole’ mean, Grandfather?” I asked. “The other team members made it sound bad.”
“The lowest position on the totem pole, Grandchild, is the most important,” said Grandfather.
“Then why did they say I might be kicked off the team first, if the lowest spot is the most important?” I was confused.
Grandfather thought about it and said, “‘Low man on the totem pole’ has been used as a bad thing by people who don’t understand about totem poles,” explained Grandfather. “The bottom totem is the strongest and holds all the others up. It is the support for powers the other totems represent. All totems together have great power to keep people safe and to guide them during life journeys. Only the strongest can connect the totems above it with Mother Earth below it. Being in the lowest place on a totem pole is an honor.”
I felt better after Grandfather told me all of this, and when I went back to school the next day, I enjoyed practice more than ever.
The coaches decided who would be on the track team, and cuts were made. Those whose names were called to be on the team stood with the coaches, and when my name was called I ran to stand with the team.
Later I told the coach that I was happy to be on the team, but I was surprised to be chosen.
“You are the fastest runner we have, and you will be our anchor during relays,” said the coach. “Here is your running jersey.”
I ran all the way home that day after practice. Grandfather was right again.

Being Quiet

Grandfather stays active in tribal events and decisions. He says that since we live here, we should take responsibility for helping the tribe’s livelihood. Grandfather says that I am old enough to start learning how the laws are made, and he took me to one of the meetings.
“How long do you think it will take?” I asked, and Grandfather’s reply was a surprise.
“It will take long enough for us to figure something out,” Grandfather said, and that made sense to me.
We went to the Grand Hall. We walked in, shook hands with the others, and sat on the floor in the circle. A circle is always so that everyone can hear everyone else.
The meeting was started by the chief, who asked if anyone had anything to say. A person from town was there, stood, and started talking loudly about something for a very long time, but I did not understand what was being talked about. When the person from town stopped talking, all of us reservation people looked at each other and did not say anything. We waited for the town speaker to sit.
The chief turned to the speaker and said, “You talked for a long time, and we listened. From what I can figure out, you want us to let you bring a school class to look at the buffalo. Did I understand correctly?”
The person from town answered for another long while.
The chief then said, “I don’t think we have enough time for you to answer any more questions. Just send me a letter with the day and time the school will come, and that will be fine. We are almost out of time for this meeting.”
I turned to Grandfather for a cue as to what I should do, and I saw Grandfather’s eyes laughing.
The chief then asked if anyone else had anything to say, and one of the elders asked to have permission to graze his herd of cattle in an area of reservation that was not in use. The chief asked if anyone objected; no one objected, so the meeting was done.
As we walked away I asked, “Why were your eyes laughing after the chief told the person from town that we didn’t have more time for him to answer more questions?”
“You listened to the long talk. Then you heard the chief ask a question that could have been answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ but instead, we heard another long talk. The chief didn’t want to hear hundreds of words when just a few would answer the question. That is why the chief asked a letter to be sent, so we would not have to hear more talk that meant nothing.
“Did you learn anything, Grandchild?” asked Grandfather.
My reply was, “Yes.”

Small Plant

Hard times fell on Grandfather and Grandmother during one hot summer. The crops did not grow well. The ground was hard, and Grandfather could not do enough to the soil to make it so that the seeds would sprout and grow into strong plants.
“The ground is too hard for the seedlings to break through easily, “Grandfather said with a sad voice. “Without rain to wet the ground and give the plants moisture to use, we may have a small harvest this year.”
“What will we do, Grandfather?” I asked. “Will we be hungry?”
“No, Grandchild. We will not be hungry. We will just not have as much as we had in past years. We will be fine, though,” was his reply.
We walked from the field to the house, and along the path we saw that ground was hard and dry, too. Dust danced around our feet when we stepped.
“Grandfather,” I asked, “how do you know we will be fine?” I was worried, but Grandfather knew that. Before he answered, he saw something not far away, and he smiled with his eyes.
Grandfather began, “See this path we are walking?”
“Yes.”
“We must look ahead of our own feet. Look ahead on the path … just up the way a bit.”
I looked ahead, along the hard and dry path, just as Grandfather instructed.
“What do you see ahead? It’s in the middle of the solid ground where we walk.”
I looked again, and in the middle of the path was a very small plant growing. It was different from the dry grass that was on both sides of the pathway. It was green and standing straight up.
“What is it? Why is it there?” I asked.
“That little plant is a sunflower. It shows us that even when the ground is hard and the rains have not visited for a while, we can still find a way to live, just like it has done. We may have to look for new ways to get by, like the plant sprouting from the path instead of from under a shade tree, so it can get the sunlight it needs.”
Grandfather did not look so sad after that, and we walked on home to order sunflower seeds so that we could start a different crop that would grow in the hard field.
We had a good crop after all. I am glad that we saw the little plant growing in our path, telling us to look ahead, instead of looking at the dust at our feet.

Heartbeat

Grandmother and Grandfather never made me go inside early at night unless the next day was a school day. We sat outside under the shade tree and watched Sun set behind the distant hills. In the fall when Sun sank low in the sky, I often saw Grandmother go inside for a minute, but she returned with her dance shawl.
“Are you cold, Grandmother?” I asked one night.
Grandmother smiled and said, “No, I’m not cold. I am getting ready.”
“Ready for what?” I asked.
“Listen, Grandchild. You will hear the invitation soon,” she said.
Grandfather went inside and returned with his hand drum. He leaned against the tree and started to drum softly.
Grandmother smiled and wrapped her shawl over her shoulders. She stood up and started to dance. “Do you hear them?” she asked me.
“Close your eyes and listen,” Grandfather said.
“All I hear is your drum and the cicadas chirping,” I said.
“The cicadas are dancing, too. What you hear is their jingles as they dance,” Grandfather said. “They keep in rhythm with the drum, just like Grandmother is doing.”
I listened while I watched Grandfather step with each drum beat. The cicadas, too, chirped with each beat. It was like they danced together.
“Earth has a heartbeat that all animals can hear. The drum is a symbol of the heartbeat. Grandmother celebrates the life of Earth with her dance.
Grandmother stepped, turned, and made her shawl sail when she spun. The cicadas must have liked the dance, too, because they became louder the more Grandmother danced.
I went in the house and came back out with my dancing moccasins on, and I joined in. We celebrated until the cicadas grew silent. Then Grandmother, Grandfather, and I sat and watched shadows in the moonlight.
“Each season and each time has a way of celebrating life,” Grandfather said. “Together we can always dance.” 

Find the original and much more here

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BC Culbertson has been a lifelong resident of northeast Kansas, but has traveled the country, giving presentations on Native American star lore. Grandfather Says: Native American Parables and Other Lessons from Reservation Life is a short book of fictional stories set in parable form. Culbertson plans to have a short novel published by the end of summer 2018 tentatively titled The Excavator. Look for both books on Amazon.

Via Daily Dharma: Multiplying Our Joy

Most of life is a positive-sum game in which we can all be better off if we play nicely together. Sympathetic joy is a way in which we can share the joys of others and thereby give ourselves a lift.

—Rick Heller, “Sympathetic Joy”

Via Daily Dharma: The One Includes All

When we know that to take care of one life we have to take care of all life—and that life includes what we say, how we act, what we do, and what we honor—that is the beginning of the sacred embodiment that leads to true civilization.

—Interview with Paul Hawken by Clark Strand, “The Movement with No Name”

Via Daily Dharma: One Moment At A Time

Zen is really just a reminder to stay alive and be awake. We tend to daydream all the time, speculating and dwelling on the past. Zen practice is about appreciating your life in this moment.

—Zenkei Blanche Hartman, “Zen Practice Each Moment”

Via Daily Dharma: Our Final Destination

The lives of each of us, the Buddha was saying on his path, are a journey toward recognizing where we’ve been all along.

—Pico Iyer, “The Long Road to Sitting Still”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - May 19, 2019 💌

If you’re involved with relationship with parents or children, instead of saying I can’t do spiritual practices because I have children, you say my children are my spiritual practice. If you’re traveling a lot, your traveling becomes your yoga.
You start to use your life as your curriculum for coming to God. You use the things that are on your plate, that are presented to you. So that relationships, economics, psychodynamics—all of these become grist for the mill of awakening. They all are part of your curriculum.

- Ram Dass -