Buddhist Proverbs

I got Pema Chodron's Getting Unstuck audiobook from the library yesterday and today after I dropped Cameron off at school I listened to the first part of the first CD. She has such a lovely voice, lyrical and gentle with humor and space. Her words and thoughts and teachings are grounded in such a moving sense of self-awareness and self-acceptance; I found myself wanting to listen just for that loving blessing of the sound of gracious openness, a type of beautiful music.

Visiting her site led me on to other Buddhist teachings, and I found her referenced on this site, along with a huge list of Buddhist proverbs written in the 12th century. The site displays how each of several teachers of Buddhist thought phrase the various proverbs. This captured my imagination and I decided that for my own learning I would create a PowerPoint presentation of the various proverbs, to cycle through on my laptop as a screensaver. What a great way to fit awareness and spiritual practice in with my work! :)

So, just in case you're interested in the same thing, here a link to the simple presentation. Be forewarned--it's long; I think there are close to 70 slides. But don't work too hard at taking it all in; just let it wash over you, like cool mist on a mountain walk. :)

Buddhist proverbs
PowerPoint 1997-2003 version

Note: For some reason the file isn't running automatically as a PowerPoint show, so if the PowerPoint file opens on your computer, just press F5 to start the slide show.

So True

Well, I have to admit this quote of Thomas Merton's is a little deflating for people like me who try to put words--emotions, images, something--on the tiny transformative spark that occurs when faith, heart, and consciousness come together:

No writing on the solitary meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.

Thomas Merton. Honorable Reader. Robert E. Daggy, editor. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1991: 91

Today I have the windows open in the sunroom (it was only 59 degrees this morning when I woke up! Wonderful!) and I'm sitting here listening to the wind in the forest as I write. The trees, the locusts, and the voices of children on the school playground a quarter of a mile away all mix together to make the most delightful music proclaiming the goodness of God, the wonder of life, and the real and inexhaustible hope that keeps us loving each other and envisioning a healed world. What else is there to say? We can only listen, receive, and offer our breathless thanks.


Note: To subscribe to the Merton Institute's Weekly Reflection (which is how I received this Merton quote today), go to https://www.mertoninstitute.org/weekly_reflections.php and click Subscribe Now on the right.

Listening & Guidance

It occurred to me this morning--after an exciting, jam-packed, creative week--that the most profound change and deepening in my spiritual life over the last 10 year has not come about because I did more, understood more, or prayed more. It wasn't the books I read (although those certainly helped), the situations I lived (although at each place I found God right there in the midst of it), or thousands upon thousands of prayers, actions, and thoughts that went streaming to the Loving Presence I know as God. Rather, the big inner shift, the opening, the deepening, the enriching happened when all the outer striving and trying and working and acting ceased, and I began to notice a need for listening more. Just a quiet, open, gentle space, where I listened quietly and in love for whatever God would or wouldn't say to my heart. The listening became the prayer, the act, the communion, the point. It is a refreshment like nothing else, a moment of gathering in beauty in the Garden. I highly recommend it, whether you use something like the Centering Prayer (here's a great site for that) or the Jesus Prayer or the simple and beautiful Quaker method of silent worship. Take even the smallest moment and just breathe with God. There's no refreshment like it, and from that still centered spot in the core of your being, everything else begins to blossom. :)

The Gift of Perfect Peace

The other day Ruby (my 22-month-old granddaughter) was here spending the day with me (which is joy enough) and we had just finished running a bunch of errands. As we turned onto our street, Ruby nodded off to sleep, her arms and legs hanging limp in her car seat, her little head snuggled against the padded cushion. Earlier in the afternoon, we'd spent more than an hour "trying" to go to sleep at naptime (which for Ruby means repeatedly playing the music on her Fisher Price aquarium, singing to herself, and saying "Mama-Dada-Nana" like a mantra). As an active almost-two-year-old, she's fascinated with everything and has lots of good ideas and really doesn't want to give it all up and go to sleep. (I can identify--when I was little, I used to stretch out on my babysitter's bed and sing "These Boots Are Made for Walkin!" at the top of my lungs instead of taking a nap. I guess that dates me, doesn't it?!)

When Ruby slipped off to this peaceful sleep, I knew this was precious time--and a rest she really needed. Come to think of it, maybe I did, too. It was a beautiful day; I parked the car in the garage, rolled down all the windows, left the sunroof open, and enjoyed the breeze, the goldfinches I could see in my rear view mirror, and my sweet, sleeping grandbaby for an entire hour. What did I do? Simply enjoyed the time, loved her, thanked God.

It was the best rest I've had all week! Wonderful. May you find surprising gifts of respite in your day as well.

Singing Thanks

Yesterday I wrote this in a note to a dear friend, and the thought and feeling has stayed with me, so I thought I'd share it here: "In the moments when I feel most awake and present, I get a sense that all creation—-literally all creation—-is singing Thanks! to God. When I am really here without defense, projection, or pretense, I am singing it, too."

Really Sing It today! Countless angels are your backup singers. :)

Living Gratitude

Yesterday afternoon my sons and I spent two hours in the waiting room of a MedCheck while my oldest son found out about chest pains that had begun earlier in the afternoon. Ordinarily this wouldn't be the best place for contemplation--the waiting room was full, my older son was grim and concerned; my younger son was anxious about a school project due today. The fear that usually accompanies an event like this for me wasn't present--I knew from Christopher's voice and color and breathing that all was reasonably well (although I did feel it was important to have his symptoms checked out because my dad had heart problems). After two EKGs and lots of listening, the doctor told Christopher he had strained a muscle in his chest, just above his heart. Nothing a few Ibuprophen and a couple of days' rest can't fix.

While we waited, I read an old book by the Dalai Lama that I found at the library last weekend: Kindness, Clarity, and Insight. The book is a compilation of lectures he gave the U.S. 20 years ago, and they are wonderful, simple, and clear.

In the midst of this experience, the Dalai Lama's voice and thoughts washed soothingly over me. He wrote about compassion, compassion for all beings. This type of compassion is not simple empathy but a kind of love and gratitude that begins within a heightened awareness of our own blessing. He suggests we remember a great kindness someone in our life has done for us--perhaps a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a friend. Then we allow our gratitude for that great kindness to shine brightly within us. Soon we respond to others with that same sense of gratitude, a thank-full approach for the blessing they are bringing into our lives. And from this ever-growing underground stream of gratitude, true compassion pours out naturally--beginning with my thankfulness for you, I want happiness for you and as well as health, freedom, creativity, joy, and love. When I act from compassion, it is because the idea of us as two separate beings has dissolved and I recognize that as you love, I love; as you hurt, I hurt; as you seek peace, I seek peace.

May we flourish in the true compassion that arises from the grateful Heart of all being.

Pray without ceasing...for all beings

The Abbey of Gethsemani is continuing its gentle shaping influence on my heart and life. Since my visit there in late May (I attended a wonderful writing retreat at Bethany Spring), I have been immersing myself in Thomas Merton's faith and thought. Because he has such a strong, clear voice in his writing (and so honest!), I wanted to hear the sound of his voice as it really was. The director of Bethany Spring pointed me to a link on their site, and then I wanted more, so I searched YouTube and found a few "videos" (really audio with photos) someone has uploaded. The first link I clicked on was Merton teaching new postulant monks about the Jesus Prayer. I'd never heard of this prayer before and it seemed too simple to be very effective, at first, but then, listening to Merton's teachings, I realized the transcendent power--the Holy Spirit is praying with you when you pray this prayer.

I realize this is a big concept and probably something that should be covered in a book as opposed to a blog post, but I have been praying with the Jesus Prayer for a while and it is truly a transforming and loving and powerful prayer. I've also just begun reading The Way of a Pilgrim, the personal spiritual journey of a 15th century Russian peasant who desperately wanted to pray without ceasing and discovered the even-then ancient tradition of the Jesus Prayer was the method that ministered to the yearning of his soul.

So what is the Jesus prayer? Simply, and heart-fully, this:

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me...

Because I am learning and beginning to live with a greater awareness of Oneness, I often pray have mercy on us... or have mercy on all, or simply, have mercy. I'll write about my discoveries on the topic of "mercy" in a later post...

Yesterday it occurred to me to combine the Jesus Prayer with tonglen as I was in conversation with someone who was hurting. If you're unfamiliar with tonglen, go here. Pema Chodron, the American Buddhist nun, wrote about the practice of tonglen in her book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. The use of breath as prayer is part of both the Jesus Prayer and tonglen--it was a very tender and beautiful moment. And the person I was with seemed to feel a shift in the depth of struggle. A lightening occurred, and the rest of the evening seemed to be more peaceful (even with a little joy thrown in).

Note: I was hoping to share the links to the Merton teachings on the Jesus Prayer with you, but when I checked the links, the creator of the clips has taken them down. If I locate them again I'll post them here at a later time.

Be well, and may you feel, receive, and share all your blessings today! :) k

Dissolving Inhumanity

Today on the way to work, as I was merging from 69 South onto 465 West, a trucker refused to let me in. Then the car in front of him wouldn't let me in. I was surprised--this has never happened to me on the way to work before, even though I always drive in rush-hour traffic. I was dumbfounded as these drivers seemed to set their faces against me and pretend not to notice my flashing turn signal. The truck was downright aggressive about it. Finally, I was able to zip into a tiny space that opened up. I was puzzled and a bit stirred up by the experience.

I started thinking about the moments of grace that are available to us as we drive. I like to leave a relaxed amount of space between my car and the car in front of me, so other drivers feel like they can move into that space if they need to. I like the way that makes me feel as I drive--like I have more room, more time, the grace to be flexible. Other drivers ride the bumpers of the car in front of them, pushing, leaning forward, always late. I've felt that way before and I don't like it. I choose not to create that in my day, or impact others' driving experience with that kind of energy.

I got to work and glanced at the clock on my phone as my computer came to life. 8:15. I think that's the moment the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, killing 80,000 instantly, on this date in 1945. I was silent and sad for a moment, praying. Is it possible that the imprint of inhumanity--absence of grace--is left on this day? I prayed to dissolve any internal belief I carried about the "hardness" or "insensitivity" of the inflexible drivers this morning. I may not be able to do much to affect the horror and injustice people suffered on this day (and in the months and years following), but I can dedicate myself, my efforts, my thoughts, and my prayers today to dissolving the inhumanity in myself, silencing the echos of judgment and separation that are tempted to arise through me this day.

May all beings feel the stirring of Spirit and Grace today, without exception.

Relax, Martha, Relax

This week has been a whirlwind--a happy whirlwind, but a whirlwind. At home, family is visiting and we are celebrating. At work, the foundation board and the executive council are both here having multiday meetings. I am part of a three-person team at our wonderful nonprofit working to launch an exciting new initiative (which for me involves the development of new publications, a web site, and CD contents). In the midst of it all I'm trying to keep my toes dipping in the underground stream of prayer. So far, so good.

Last night after dinner and birthday cake, we all sat in the living room and talked about things near and far, past and present. We offered up things we loved and reflected on oddities and interesting awarenesses. At one point I walked into the kitchen with a stack of cake dishes and started to run the water so I could rinse them and put them in the dishwasher. But then I changed my mind, put them all in a pile in the sink, and went back into the living room to relax on the floor with my family and be part of the conversation.

It was a subtle shift and one I barely noticed. With that tiny flicker of thought, I transformed from Martha to Mary. I made that huge migration from the world of tasks, completion, and achievement to the world of connection, participation, and love. There's a lot more grace in Mary's world; more openness, room for laughter, space to breathe.

And you know what? The dishes got done. And more besides. Without effort, and floating on the good feelings of having been part of love's arising.

See? There's hope for Martha's of the world, after all. Enjoy your day!

Life comes calling

Yesterday and today I was goaded out of bed by a young male cardinal, who excitedly lights in the river birch tree outside my second story window and then flies against the window (gently, with wings fluttering awkwardly) and back to the tree branch, over and over again, 8 to 10 times. He looks into the room, turning his head from side to side, his black questioning eye probing the quiet coolness. After several repeats of his fly-against-the-window technique, he grabs the wire mesh of the window screen with his tiny claws and hangs there, suspended on the window. His call is congenial--his voice has a quieter, more collegial tone. He seems to be speaking directly to me--or to some object or other bird he's looking for--calling this being out to do something, notice, live. His action are very intentional and directed, but I don't know what expression is fueling them. Or maybe I do, but I don't--quite--believe I do.

I do know this. It's an awesome and wonderful gift, something that feels like a sacred honor, to be invited into the day by a cardinal who has seemingly discovered something worth noticing in me. Of course, I'm not sure he's really looking for me specifically. And I don't understand his language. And although I sense excitement and intentionality, these could be my own descriptors of emotion and motivation that don't have anything to do with what's going on inside him.

But he shows up, he makes the effort, he is saying something and doing something and it appears to have some connection to me, somehow. I realize how much this gift of the cardinal's presence is to me a snapshot of the gift of the presence of God. I feel God there, noticing and caring, drawing me beyond myself; but sometimes I don't understand the language, I'm fuzzy about the expectation, and I'm not really sure God meant me at all but is just loving and speaking and acting with indescriminate Love.

But, still, not knowing the meaning of the experience doesn't keep me from raising my hand from beneath the soft layers of warm, weighty covers, waving at the cardinal hanging on the screen, saying, "Good morning! Here I am! I see you!" and wondering what goodness this miraculous promise portends for this day.

May your Love awaken in you today a breathless sense of transcending mystery and the reassuring comfort that your deeper Life will come looking for you if you tarry under the covers too long.

Prayer is Freedom

Talk about a powerful phrase. What more do we need than that? I read this last night in Thomas Merton in Alaska: The Alaskan Conferences, Journals, and Letter. Prayer is freedom. Because when we turn our hearts and awareness to God, we instantly transcend anything that seems to bind or separate us. Here's how Merton puts it:

"...prayer is our real freedom. It is the liberation from the alienation that I have been talking about.

It is in prayer that we are truly and fully ourselves and we are not under any other power, authority, or domination. We have to see what that means. 'He has put all things under His feed and made Him ruler of everything, the head of the Church which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills the whole creation.' You have to spend your whole life going over and over again through a passage like this. It is the only way you can ever get anywhere with it. You don't just read it a few times and then read it with a commentary. You keep coming back to it, and maybe after fifty years of chewing on it you begin to see what it really means." (p. 113-114)

Of course, Merton is talking about cognitive understanding here, but the good news is that it's something we can leave behind as we practice the presence of God. Prayer is freedom from all illusion that tempts us to believe that there is such a thing as "not God."

Faithfully Present

I learned something new about myself yesterday. My ability (and desire) to focus quietly and simply on what's before me is increasing--so much so, in fact, that it really causes pain and stress when I feel scattered and pulled in different directions. Yesterday afternoon I noticed my increasing anxiety level when little Miss Ruby decided not to nap. How would I finish editing the manuscript I was working on? When would I be able to evaluate the new submission? I had so much I'd planned to cram in during naptime!

But napping just wasn't part of Ruby's plan yesterday, so ultimately we both just went with the flow. And I discovered something precious and important. When Ruby is here, I just want to be faithfully present with her, in love, in joy, in exploration and gratitude. When I edit, I want to be immersed in the words and the meaning, listening for the author's voice, bringing all my abilities--faithfully--to bear in the moment of work. When I fix dinner for my family, I want my whole self to be there, chopping, mixing, sauteing, loving, creating.

It's painful to be divided, to be planning the next while you're living the now. How can we live fully if our minds are already planning tomorrow's to-do list? Today I choose to celebrate this day the Lord has made by being faithfully present to the gift immediately before me, whether that's love, work, play, or service.

May you discover a hundred little smiles of God in your path today...just for you.

Quiet Mind

Shhhh...
For this moment, breathe deeply,
relax your shoulders
let your knee rest above its ankle--
no fretful bobbing up and down
the breeze kissed your temple just now
did you feel it?
your leaning into consciousness
your striving, sweating, lifting, molding
--the honorable effort of working out your own salvation--
lifts away like a firefly as you relax and open your hand.
Now, feel the Breath
hear the Heartbeat
let yourself be perfectly,
unreservedly,
eternally
Loved.

Late-Night "Oh"

A few minutes ago I was out driving, sun roof open, crickets chirping, under a full moon. I picked Cameron up from a friend's house and we drove home through the open countryside. I said something to him, relating a story from earlier tonight. I tried to re-explain and then gave up. "Why did I even want to tell that story?" I wondered. A little jolt of self-recrimination arose. Then a quick thought, "I am noticing these unloving--or at least suspect--behaviors in myself. Merton would call that the ongoing work of grace."

Suddenly I felt this big sense of "Oh"-ness spreading inside. I relaxed. It was like a warm current in a lazy lake. The fact that I can see these irritations and obstructions in myself is a great improvement over not seeing them. Grace is doing its work in me. Consciousness changes everything, and if these unloving thoughts are arising enough to be seen, they will soon evaporate in the Light of Love.

That's worth at least a small-h hallelujah. Goodnight!

Contact with Transcendence

I love the way Thomas Merton, Jesus, Rumi, Sri Ramana, and Lao Tzu (and many, many more--including you and me) all wrote, spoke, and moved from a sense of expressing (and pointing to and loving) transcendence. This morning it occurred to me, reading Sri Ramana's Reality in Forty Verses that all contact points to transcendence, like a kiss. My fingers touch this keyboard, and at the point of contact my being says "Thank you!" for the ability to connect, express, emote, offer, receive. The keyboard becomes a symbol of transcendence, enabling this arising sense in me to move beyond a perceived limit of me, Katherine, and go free into a medium where you receive it and draw it into your own consciousness, to stir whatever it may stir there. The music in the background--transcendent beauty becoming audible, articulated for the senses and pointing to God. The light on my desk--my vision makes contact with it--an expression of all Light, the Light of the world, the transcendent Truth of all being.

So many gifts, and so many thanks! This must be what "life abundant" is all about. Be blessed today! All will be (and is) well.

From Blessings to Blessed

2006 was an 84-hummingbird year. 2007 brought 119 hummingbirds. I was enamored, awed, captivated, inspired by them. They were little miracles, and they said something to me about my own soul--sometimes visible, a miracle, sometimes not. As I wrote those two summers in my sunroom, with the windows open on three sides and the cool green of the river birch tree illumining the eastern wall, I stopped and added a note with a number in my journal each time a flashing green, ruby-throated hummingbird hovered by the petunias, the bee balm, the wildflowers just outside my window.

This morning, early, I was out, and saw the empty hummingbird feeder and the spot where the bee balm grew in years past, and realized I've seen only three hummingbirds this year. The pattern of my day is much different now--I work in an office miles from my home for most of the week. Life has drawn me out of the sunroom, with its sacral, precious peace.

But something else has changed, too. Today I can feel the same wonder looking at a mosquito that I felt last year being blessed by the visit of a hummingbird. I can feel the pulse of gentle harmony in traffic. I can marvel at God in and between and through the letters, where I once thought I had to wait for something to arise in the space.

Moving beyond a tallying of blessings, maybe we discover that everything, everything is a gift and that counting is impossible because to count is to divide. We can bask in the whole knowing of our blessedness today. A tender sigh of Thanks with every exhale would not be too much.

Spiritual Intervention #2

Good morning! As I was preparing for work on this lush rainy Thursday, I read through the entry for today in A Little Daily Wisdom: Christian Women Mystics and was blessed by Hildegard of Bingen:

When anger tries to burn up the temple of my body, I'll look to the goodness of God, whom anger never touched. I'll look to God whom anger never touched, and I'll become sweeter than the breeze whose gentleness moistens the earth. I'll look to God whom anger never touched, and I'll have spiritual joy because virtues will begin to show themselves in me. I'll look to God whom anger never touched, and--because I look to Him--I'll experience God's calm goodness.

Amen and amen.

Whether your particular tendency under stress is to go into anger (as it sounds was the case with Hildegard) or anxiety (my own personal challenge), this meditation can help you interrupt the flow of thoughts and bring peace. I just substituted the word "anxiety" for "anger" and felt so peaceful I think I'll float to work this morning.

May you experience a hundred joyful things today. It's all God!

Oh, the Grand Inelegance of It All...

This poem arrived this morning in Writer's Almanac and it fit so perfectly with things I've been thinking about lately that I had to post it. (Plus it made me laugh.) I am so thankful that God delightedly accepts whatever inelegant, pieced-together, lopsided creations we offer him throughout the day and sees only pure love, radiance, hope, and the faithful heart of the innocense in which they're offered:


Naming the Animals
by Anthony Hecht

Having commanded Adam to bestow
Names upon all the creatures, God withdrew
To empyrean palaces of blue
That warm and windless morning long ago,
And seemed to take no notice of the vexed
Look on the young man's face as he took thought
Of all the miracles the Lord had wrought
Now to be labeled, dubbed, yclept, indexed.

Before an addled mind and puddle brow,
The feathered nation and the finny prey
Passed by; there went biped and quadruped.
Adam looked forth with bottomless dismay
Into the tragic eyes of his first cow,
And shyly ventured, "Thou shalt be called 'Fred.'"

"Naming the Animals" by Anthony Hecht, from Collected Later Poems. © Alfred A Knopf, 2003.

Happy, Shining People

Here is one of the many reasons why I love Thomas Merton:

In Louisville, on a corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of a shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I was theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers...I have the immense joy of being human, a member of a race in which God himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. If only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around Shining like the Sun!

[The bold is his emphasis, not mine.]

And today is Anne Frank's birthday, so here is a connecting quote from her journal. The Writer's Almanac says that Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl is the second best-selling nonfiction book in history. Only the Bible is ahead of her book in sales. Wow!

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love!

Be blessed today, aware that you carry the good news of love incarnate, shining out through your every thought and act!

For Those Waiting Times...

From today's Writer's Almanac. Perfect.

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale

by Dan Albergotti

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.
Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires
with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.
Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.
Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way
for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review
each of your life's ten million choices. Endure moments
of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you.
Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound
of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart.
Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,
where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all
the things you did and could have done. Remember
treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes
pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

"Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale" by Dan Albergotti from The Boatloads.© BOA Editions, Ltd., 2008.