Over the years I have explored many spiritual traditions and have taken from each what I felt to be truths, I have never been able to label myself as a believer of any one tradition fully...I prefer to love parts of each and make my own whole - a whole that has no name but is united by love. The one belief system that could possibly come close to encompassing everything I have learnt thus far is The Tao, I guess it is a kind of philosophy more than a religion and a way of being more than a creed. I love this description of the Tao by Roderick W. MacIver:

"Taoism takes a variety of forms and the one I’ve thought most about has to do with living in balance while riding the mystery. You don’t understand life but you seek to live in harmony with it. In doing so, you live simply and humbly and in close connection with the natural world. Simplicity, patience, compassion. Yield in the face of adversity. Strength through gentleness and understanding. Like water, go around rather than through. Internalize rather than exert power. You get your power by confronting yourself and your ambitions. You try to be a benevolent force, a force for good, but you don’t exhaust yourself. You flow and your life has a flow. Tao is the natural flow of the universe. It is the natural order. It keeps the universe balanced and ordered. Other than that, it is not describable.

In Taoism you accept. Life is as it is. Life is pain and suffering, beauty and ecstasy. You sacrifice certainty in order to embrace the mystery that can be glimpsed but not understood or even described. Life can only be accepted or rejected."

I am coming to understand that life is as it is and all the "good" and "bad" is just experience, not to be grasped at or held but to be felt and welcomed and let go so our hands and hearts are kept open for love to pass through us and be.

 

"This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of it's furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond."

Jalaluddin Rumi

A balanced life is one based on its own rhythm. We live in a culture moving ever faster. If we don’t decide on our own rhythm, the speed of things around us will impose its tempo on our lives. The space we make for quiet time in our lives affects our thought patterns and to a large extent the quality of our lives.

I've frequently told myself that unless I rush, I'm not going to get everything done that I need to get done. I don't have time to plan—I've got too much to do. I don't have time to think through the objective or envision the desired outcome. I don't have time to meditate. Wrongo. All wrong. Rushing contributes to low quality, wasted effort, mistakes, fatigue and even illness. I've learned the hard way that few things slow you down and waste time as much as illness. That's why they call people sitting around doctors' offices “patients”.

You can't meditate fast. You can't get deep into the things that really matter fast. Human relationships require slowness. A close relationship with one’s self requires slowness. A spiritual life is not a rushed life.                                                                                                                       ~ Rod MacIver

Hmmm I struggle with this, I love it but i still struggle with it, what mother does not multitask? Unless I rush the dinner I am not going to get quality time to spend with my kids, unless I put the washing on at the same time as I make a phone call and change a dirty nappy I will have a screaming baby,  piles of dirty washing and unpaid bills...

And..."Telling yourself, "I would like to slow down, but I have no choice" is not good enough. If we don't own our own lives, our own time, we have to ask ourselves if we own much, in any real sense."- Again this is true but most of the time I don't own my own life - my kids do and especially my autistic daughter as she has no concept of anyone elses needs. So I guess I don't own much in any real sense...but thats not so bad I think - mothers don't really own so much as share. Maybe when the kids have grown and we have cured autism I can buy a house by the sea and own my own life and have the time for oodles of introspection - right now is the time for working out the rythmn of family and the needs of little ones reliant on me for all things.

When you allow whatever arises to come into your mind, you see that all of it is impermanent. In that seeing, there is a letting go, and past the letting go is silence. A silent mind allows you to see impermanence even more clearly, which leads to more letting go, and in turn deeper penetration into silence. These two things feed each other, what I'm calling wisdom and what I'm calling silence. Each deepens the other.

It is true that on the threshold of silence we often experience fear. It is the ego that is afraid. In the panoramic attention required for choice-less awareness, the ego is not allowed to occupy center stage, where it thinks it belongs, and it begins to wonder what life will be like in silence, where it won't be present at all. This fear resembles the fear of death, because entering into silence is a temporary death for the ego. Naturally, it is afraid.

When this fear comes up, you shouldn't regard it as an obstacle or hindrance; it is just one more aspect of the noise. Your encounter with this fear is very valuable, and the skill called for is just to stay with it. In time, like every other phenomenon, it will pass away. When it does, all that will be left is silence.

—Larry Rosenberg, Breath by Breath by Larry Rosenberg & David Guy

I have been attending meditation classes weekly. They are run by a funny, wise, irreverent, earthy Tibetan Buddhist nun and I am enjoying them immensely. I have not seen the face of God, been bathed in oceans of white light or achieved any kind of nirvana but I have had some time to myself, some silence and some peace - beautiful things in short supply where I live. Surprisingly I have also experienced an upsurge of anger...towards little things that normally I would pass by serenely...what this means I do not know, perhaps it is fear - but I am watching it, being conscious, allowing it and waiting for some clarity.

In the desert winter night, good and warm in a duck down bag, the silence is so intense that you can hear your own blood roar in your ears. But louder than that by far is the mysterious roar which I always identify with the roaring of the diamond of wisdom, the mysterious roar of silence itself, reminding you of something you seem to have forgotten in the stress of your days since birth.

Jack Kerouac, from Dharma Bums

My most favourite author is good old Jack Kerouac. He isn't technically brilliant, his punctuation and grammar is not conventional, his style can be shambolic at times....but I love his sweet, sweet heart and his seekers soul. He was always stumbling towards enlightenment and getting lost in some bottle, or woman or other - but he could see the beauty in all things - in the ugly and the broken and the imperfect state of this existance - and he embraced it all - the silence of the mountains and the sirens of the city - that is how I strive to live my life - loving everything all at once.

Anyway, he had a lot to say about silence and meditation and it turns out that the universe has been tapping me on the shoulder about this lately. The quote above arrived in my inbox today reminding me that a few days ago I was handed no less than four different advertisements for meditation classes in my area. This also occured on the day that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi departed this life. I have always wanted to learn the transcendental meditation tecniques that he taught and thought about this when I heard of his death. That very same day four different flyers were handed to me - none were on transcendental meditation - all were on different kinds of Buddhist meditation - but nonetheless I took the message on board and have resolved to go to my first class on Wednesday.

I am in great need of some silence and me time and I also need to devote regular time to meditation...so my "me" time will be meditation time - and the odd coffee with girlfriends of course :)

What is your truth? Ask your heart, your back, your bones, and your dreams. Listen to that truth with your whole body. Understand that this truth will destroy no one and that you're too old to be sent to your room.

Move into your truth as though it were an old house. Walk through each room. See, hear, and feel what it is to live there. Try to love what you find, and remember the words that come to you as you explore.

If you embrace it, if you are faithful to it, your truth will reward you with unimaginable freedom and intimacy with yourself and others. You won't land in a world made to order; some people in your life may not like what you write. But those who remain will be allies, people who breathe deeply and listen. It will feel good to be seen completely and loved as you are. As Natalie Goldberg said after her friend found and read a piece of work-in-progress that she had left out from the day's writing, "I feel good because I don't care that she sees how I really am. I'm glad. I want someone to know me."

-John Lee from Writing from the Body, excerpted in Art as a Way of Life

For some time now I have really enjoyed saying or singing the mantra om mani padme hum for the purpose of invoking compassion within myself for all things. I was reading a book by The Dalai Lama recently Advice on dying and living a better life and came across a section where he says that it is not possible to obtain Buddhahood by merely reciting the mantra. Now I am not striving for Buddhahood but I was hoping that the mantra was doing me and the world some good. Turns out that one must recite a prayer dedicating the value of the practice:

Through the virtue of this practice,
May I quickly attain a state
Equal to that of Avalokiteshvara
In order to help all sentient beings attain the same.

Avalokiteshvara is the physical manifestation of the compassion of all Buddhas. The Dalai Lama went on to say that if your practice is conjoined with real altruism it can serve as a cause of Buddhahood. Like if you touch, see or listen to a qualified guru it can have positive impact which can be helpful in developing deeper spiritual experience...though one must give something first...this reminded me of when I had the opportunity to receive one of AMMA's legendary hugs. When I finally made it to her and was able to put my arms around her it seemed that I experienced a blankness, a nothing for a long time...I was saddened and thought about all the people waiting behind me for a turn...but she did not let go of me so instead I thought to myself "oh well I guess I'm not supposed to receive anything so I will give you my love instead" and I swear at that moment I was overcome by a wave of incredible emotion and Amma began to laugh and laugh at me...she said something in Hindi that I couldn't understand but she kissed me and called me daughter...it was not until I let go of any expectation and gave without thought of receiving that I was incredibly blessed by unconditional love. So from now on I will connect om mani padme hum to Kuan Yin - she being the goddess of compassion - I wonder if this is OK? I wonder if one has to use Avalokiteshvara? I feel comfortable with Kuan Yin as I have called upon her many times and felt her answer...

I really feel strongly that my path now lies somewhere along the way of Yasodhara and all of the holy women that have raised a family and still managed to realise their divinity. My own dear mother sacrificed her journey for her children, she became a martyr and I saw how this caused her regret and some bitterness. I believe that it is possible to be a mother and continue on the spiritual path. Someone has to feed the children, someone has to tend to them and raise them and care for them and more often than not in this world it is women that primarily do this. Some men even leave their families to pursue their path to enlightenment - like Buddha. I have always wondered how they could leave a wife and child behind...how is it that a woman can very rarely leave her children and even more rarely leave them for the advancement of her own spirituality???Some one has to look after the little ones and I believe that there is a great and incredibly deep and profound spirituality to this...to serve, to love so unconditionally, to be available at all times and to be compassion itself. Surely a mothers work is the work of the divine, surely women can find their divinity amongst piles of washing, dirty nappies and crying children - what more important work is there than love? So much of Buddhism leaves me cold as it is about severing attachments and understanding the emptiness of inherent existence - I do not profess to understand it all completely but what I have studied has left me wondering about where love fits in...I guess I prefer to think that the universe is made up of energy - we are all made of the same stuff - same energy and the source of this energy is God who is Love - in order to experience the infinite possibilities that is Life - God chooses to separate into individual entities to experience Life - so we and all things is God Godding...the purpose of Life is to experience and we experience through our senses and our minds - yes it is all an illusion because if we appeared as we really are we would be beings of energy and if we all went back to where we came from we would make up one great big God - but I don't think that I want to escape the illusion because it is part of the experience...perhaps it would be nice to rest a while in God after here but then what? Yes there is suffering but is that not part of the experience of Life? One could avoid suffering by getting to a state where one was One with God again...but then what?

You might think that if you let go of your ego world, you become passive and defenseless like some kind of crash dummy and people will take advantage of you. Or that you might wander around aimlessly in the street without an agenda. If this were the case, as one contemporary Buddhist master pointed out, it would be necessary to have enlightenment wards in hospitals to take care of bruised or socially inoperative buddhas. But this is not the case. Rather than being inmate types, people who have become enlightened to any degree are builders of hospitals for other people. Their intelligence and compassion are relatively unobstructed, and they tend to become quite active and effective citizens.

Samuel Bercholz, in Entering the Stream from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

I read this quote today and it really rang true with me. I fear that if I let go of ALL of my ego based attachments that I will indeed become a socially inoperative buddha! I fear that I will be unable to function effectively in the world and will become suddenly useless and unrealistic. I need to build a new vision of what the ego is and what it means to be enlightened...this should take me a while, oh say something like...the rest of my life!

Every time I have a transcendent moment I am aware of the "coming back to earth" moment as well...I read this the other day that describes how it fees quite well:

"There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual—become clairvoyant.… We reach then into reality.… Such are the moments of our greatest happiness.… Such are the moments of our greatest vision. At such times, there is a song going on within us, a song to which we listen. It fills us with surprise. We marvel at it.… We would continue to hear it.… But few are capable of holding themselves in the state of listening to their song.… Intellectuality steps in, and as the song within us is of the utmost sensitiveness, it retires in the presence of the cold, material intellect.… It is aristocratic and will not associate itself with the commonplace—and we fall back and become our ordinary selves.… Yet we live in the memory of these songs, which in moments of intellectual inadvertence have been possible to us.… They are the pinnacles of our experience and it is the desire to express these intimate sensations, this song from within, which motivates the masters of all art.

I think the real artists are too busy with just being and growing and acting (on canvas or however) like themselves to worry about the end. The end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfillment; the great happiness in creation."

                                                                                                        ~Robert Henri from The Art Spirit

I don't necessarily think that the aim of these moments is to stay within them, although everything in my spirit clings to them and does not want to let go. I think that they serve as reminders, teachers and glimpses of the infinite. The nature of life is change, the moment passes to allow us to creare anew...

***Picture is from Gregory Colbert's Ashes & Snow exhibition www.ashesandsnow.org

So here’s what I wanted to tell you today: get a life. Get a real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger. Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you.

I found one of my best teachers on the boardwalk at Coney Island maybe 15 years ago. It was December, and I was doing a story about how the homeless survive in the winter months. He and I sat on the edge of the wooden supports, dangling our feet over the side, and he told me about his schedule, panhandling the boulevard when the summer crowds were gone, sleeping in a church when the temperature went below freezing, hiding from the police amidst the Tilt a Wirl and the Cyclone, and some of the other seasonal rides. But he told me that most of the time he stayed on the boardwalk, facing the water, just the way we were sitting now even when it got cold and he had to wear his newspapers after he read them. And I asked him why. Why didn't he go to one of the shelters? Why didn’t he check himself into the hospital for detox? And he just stared out at the ocean and said, “Look at the view, young lady. Look at the view.”

And everyday, in some little way, I try to do what he said. I try to look at the view. And that is the last thing I have to tell you today, words of wisdom from a man with not a dime in his pocket, no place to go, nowhere to be. Look at the view. You’ll never be disappointed.


Anna Quindlen, from her commencement address at
Villanova University, February 8, 1999
Excerpted from the Heron Dance Book of Love and Gratitude