Tag Archive for: Buddhism

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NUN TUCK (A LENTEN JOURNEY)

It’s been a year this week since I began this little exercise called “Nun Tuck’s Almanac.”  I can’t believe it, it started off fast and furious with posts almost everyday and gratefully, much traffic.  Then life did it’s little John Lennon thing, you know the “Life happens while you are out busy making other plans” thing as it is wont to do, and so this little venture has been gradually being whisked out to the fringe of my daily activities.   

But whenever I am away for a week or a wee bit more, I miss this kind of spiritual writing and more importantly, thinking about the essence of who we all are, attempting to draw out with the use of language, feelings and understandings  that we all share deep down where the heart resides.  In addition, it continues to be my pleasure to share what little I know about world religions. Islam seems to be the one most people want to learn about and there is no surprise there, world events rapidly unfolding as they are.       

Birthdays and anniversaries of various kinds are great milestones for us to take stock.  And we Christians (Unitarian ones included!) are in the first steps of our annual Lenten journey; another invitation for us to engage in more self-reflection and to employ discipline, not as a punishment, but rather as a tool that chips away at the excesses, compulsions, and indulgences that lead us away from our truest selves. 

Thomas Merton, a well-known modern mystic and Trappist monk, spoke these words which have been resonating or more aptly, percolating with me for a  time now: “To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence.  The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his or her work for peace.”

OK, wow and ouch.  No one has categorically summed me up so succinctly before…you can just put a ribbon on it and there you go.  The three words in particular that shout out in neon to all those with an addiction to doing  to PAUSE or HALT or STOP are “FRENZY” and “VIOLENCE” AND “NEUTRALIZES”.  

As Mark Nepo in “The Book of Awakening” writes, “Merton wisely challenges us not just to slow down, but, at the heart of it, to accept our limitations.  We are at best filled with the divine, but have only two hands and one heart.  In a deep and subtle way, the want to do it all is a want to be it all, and though it comes from a desire to do good, it often becomes frenzied because our egos seize our goodness as a way to be revered.” 

So when I ask myself what is at the root from my seemingly inability to say no to another great cause, event, another tug on my time and resources (even while the endeavor may be a great one), it is the sneaky ego. People who have difficulty saying no, often say that it is because they don’t want to let anybody down.  So then I ask question, why don’t I want to let anybody down? Is it because  I don’t want anyone to think I am less than this wonderfully compassionate human? 

Being compassionate enough is (in cases of the activist) probably more than enough.  Saying no to one more thing is self-compassion and self-care, which allows one to walk in the world PRESENT to it.         

Pray daily for all the worthy causes out there that you would like to grow and flourish in their goodness, but devote your time to the one or two that speak most closely to your soul…for today.  The old adage to ‘do one thing and do it well’ applies here.  Wherever I cannot bring my entire being, I am not there.      

What a remarkable gift I have received on this birthday edition of Nun Tuck, to take a day to reflect on my pursuit of the good, to choose to pour my energy into the redemption of my own heart, and then I can perhaps help the rest of the world a little more effectively, and that is to say, more peacefully.

Blessed be.

THE FIERCE SWORD OF COMPASSION

Today’s post is about compassion, what it is and what it isn’t. The title for the post comes from Jack Kornfield, world renown Buddhist teacher and guide, from a book I can not recommend highly enough entitled The Wise Heart. Citing from Kornfield’s introduction of what Buddhism is and isn’t provides a helpful backdrop to the universal application of compassion. It is a principle that is a cornerstone of every life well lived, whether one adheres to a particular faith or not:

“In approaching this dialogue, I’d like to underscore a point the Dalai Lama has made repeatedly: “Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind.”  This does not deny the fact that for many people around the world Buddhism has also come to function as a religion.  Like most religions, it offers its followers a rich tradition of devotional practices, communal rituals, and sacred stories. But this is not the origin of Buddhism or its core.  The Buddha was a human being, not a god, and what he offered his followers were experiential teachings and practices, a revolutionary way to understand and release suffering.” 

In fact, an Italian scientist named Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues discovered a class of brain cells called “mirror neurons.”  Their research showed that through our mirror neurons we actually feel the emotions, movements, and intentions of others. It is part of our social brain, “a neural circuitry that connects us.” 

Linguistically, the word compassion has its roots in Latin and Old French.  From the Latin compassionem, com (with), pati (to suffer), ion (state of, act of), it means “the act of suffering together.”  When we feel another’s sorrow:  at a friend’s husband’s funeral, with a mother whose child is undergoing chemotherapy, we often weep with them and for them. On another level, we feel the anguish also for ourselves.  We too are not immune, we all have experienced or will experience pain and death, of one kind or another.  There is much healthy connection in feeling sympathy for another’s pain.  If we have experienced similar tragedies, we may have something insightful to contribute to alleviate the suffering.  Yet, even if we have never had that experience, as humans we contain the urge and strong desire to end their suffering. Our willingness and openness to become a vehicle for healing can, in and of itself, bring comfort. 

That healthy connection means that I will stand with you in your pain and you will stand with me in mine; and we will bear it together.  We CAN bear it.  It is the opposite of fearful aversion that does not want to look, that feels like it can’t look.  This keeps us tucked away in our separateness, holding on for dear life with the delusion that such and such could never happen to me. This paradigm contains the seeds of suffering for everyone.

So what is meant then by the fierce sword of compassion? It is the “no” of compassion.  We can know and serve others, but we are not going to save the world.

 Again, Kornfield:  “Compassion is not foolish.  It doesn’t just go along with what others want so they don’t feel bad.  There is a yes in compassion, and there is also a no, said with the same courage of heart.  No to abuse, no to violence, both personal and worldwide.  The no is said not out of hate but out of unwavering care.  It is the powerful no of leaving a destructive family, the agonizing no of allowing an addict to experience the consequences of his acts.”

It is the learning to finding the harmony between holding on and letting go…in love.  May you find courage in the yes and no of your compassion.