Mother’s Day
No comment needed.
Why I am not an Atheist
Seeing this ‘Atheist’s Creed’ on facebook.com/GSHMP prompted the following response:
To the best of my understanding time, space, matter, energy and consciousness are the fundamental constituents of my reality.
To the best of my understanding I am part of a universe that being grander and richer than I can imagine holds possibilities that I cannot exclude.
I do not seek reassurances and am comfortable with uncertainty. My faith in a personal and connected universe is a matter of perspective and sensitivity rather than of belief and is a personal matter rather than a creed.
I accept human mortality and would be quite content with that but I strongly suspect that whatever I am transcends the bounds of human mortality.
I hold we are part of One Life and One Consciousness expressed through individual lives and consciousness and that love, community, learning and creativity are qualities that best express the interplay between the One and the Many.
I abide in the world and the world abides in me. As to what this ‘I’ that abides or from where it comes and to where it goes is I cannot say. I am here now and that is enough for now.
My response was not intended as a refutation. In matters such as this all we can do is share perspectives.
A Call to Action
“Body Speech and Mind in Perfect Oneness, I send my heart along with the sound of this bell. May the hearers awaken from their forgetfulness and transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow”
I am greatly looking forward to the event at Trafalgar Square on 31st March. The video is very well done and strikes just the right note. I feel this is much needed personally and collectively.
Sin and Desire
“14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Paul. Romans 7.
Paul acknowledges that ‘sin’ or desire is part of our nature as humans. He speaks of the Law which ‘condemns us’ and of Christ as rescuing us from the spiritual consequences of our breaking the Law. Paul’s analysis is realistic and insightful although (if you continue reading Romans) it is couched in terms of a partisan Christianity. What Paul is saying is that as biological beings we are subject to the laws of cause and effect, we function deterministically; however as spiritual beings we have free will. There is a contradiction, a conflict, between deterministic imperatives and the will to freedom from determinism so that Spirit can abide in its own nature. In Buddhism the road to freedom is the Middle Way, in Christianity the way is through Grace.
For some Christians the way of Grace is accepting the person of Jesus Christ for others (and myself though I do not call myself Christian or Buddhist) the way of Grace is through accepting the reality of forgiveness that Jesus taught and embodied. Jesus makes clear that forgiveness does not trump the Law but fulfils and completes it. If the Law is that you reap what you sow then sowing forgiveness must reap the same and Jesus is equally clear that we must give up condemnation of others.
Meditation and Forgiveness are the key spiritual practices that we must return to again and again. Condemning ourselves or others is counter productive. We are what we are on the material level, this is not to say that we should not strive to be better but we carry different ‘karmic loads’ and comparisons are absurd. If my failings teach me humility and not to be harsh with others then they serve a valuable purpose.
“A warrior takes his lot, whatever it may be, and accepts it in ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as grounds for regret but as a living challenge.” – Carlos Castaneda
The Right Place
“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.
There is no such thing as coincidence…
you are exactly where you need to be at this very moment!”
We are where we are .. and even if we don’t feel we need to be here maybe the Universe needs us here. There’s the old joke I heard somewhere:
A friend used to tell the story of being lost in rural Ireland on holiday. Stopping a local farmer, he asked the way to Dublin. The farmer replied, “Well now, if I were trying to get to Dublin, I wouldn’t start from here.”
I am where I am. I like the illustration because I feel that I’ve metaphorically washed up on a shore somewhere. Maybe I’ve made a lot of mistakes and where I am is the result .. I don’t regret those mistakes. Because regret is pointless and because my mistakes are part of who I’ve been and I do not regret who I’ve been.
Who I’ve been is not who I am and it is possible for there to be a distance a discontinuity between my now and the past. I do not repudiate the consequences and connections of my past life. The reality and consequences of my past actions are important and the connections with others precious in ways that I cannot define but that do not define me.
Responsibility
“You are only responsible for what you say and do .. not for what others understand.”
Interesting thought as usual from Calming Your Inner Storms and true to a point .. the point at which we accept our responsibility as teachers.
“If you allow people to make more withdrawals than deposits in your life, your emotional bank will become overdrawn… Know when to close that account!”
This is another thought about responsibility .. some accounts can never be closed because of the debts we owe or the contracts we’ve made. And maybe the Source of our funding is enough to accommodate any withdrawal.
I reach for the sky
“No, it is not easy or hard. It just is. I mean, I reach for the sky and the world just falls away. I’m not thinking of anything; I’m just in the moment…
Kal-el, instead of trying to force the noise out, why don’t you just focus on one thing, like that butterfly? Live inside that one noise. Make it your whole world.â€
My favourite scene. “I reach for the sky and the world just falls away…” is one of these phrases that just resonates with me.
Nice the way writers sometimes sneak Zen into popular culture … I’m thinking that I need to remember that teaching right now.
Conversation
The following is a quote of a post I made to an old friend’s blog. It arises from an extended conversation we had been having about ‘Reason, Insight and the Nature of Conversation in the Blogosphere‘.
My friend would not recognise the title I’ve given to my reflections since I’ve just made it up, nor might he endorse this characterisation of our discussion or any comments I make about it. He had commented that we should end our discussion since we didn’t seem to be moving towards consensus but were merely restating entrenched positions. I’m happy about that and although I will inform him of this post as a courtesy I don’t expect a response.
I wrote:
Our positions derive from who we are, from our experience, from the way we define ourselves, and from the definitions we associate with particular terms. These things do not change easily.
In discussion my object is not to persuade or to be persuaded nor necessarily to arrive at consensus. I seek not simply to state my position but to deepen, examine, clarify and refine that position in the light of another’s understanding.
If there is consensus it is at the level of mutual respect for differing interpretations and visions or at the level of agreement to work for common objectives regardless of differences in perspective.
In the course of a dialogue I ask myself questions such as what does this assertion mean to me? How does it relate to my own premises and understandings? How do I feel emotionally about it? What is my reaction and resistance? FOR ME it is out of these questions and considerations that learning happens and that insight arises.
The question of circularity in discourse is something through which insight and learning may arise. Is circularity necessarily inferior and less conducive to insight than linearity? If discussion serves the deepening of my own understanding through allowing me to explore and express that understanding then I consider it worthwhile regardless of the judgements of others on that matter and regardless of any judgement as to whether we have ‘gotten anywhere’.
Having re-read this. I can see that while it does pretty accurately state my position and concerns around discussion it’s incomplete. What I realise I have said is that I am invested in certain positions and see things from those positions and commitments. While I do examine those positions I have to ask if that focusing on my own positions and framework blinds me to all that is being said in a dialogue. Essentially is the past blinding me to the fullness of the present?
Often in dialogue we (I’m not sure how much I do it .. it’s easier to recognise in others) are waiting to make our point and select out of what is being said the bits we want to respond to while ignoring other stuff that might be important or even contain the real substance of what is being said.
Richard Dawkins
A man expresses his profound experience in Christian terminology. Dawkins says that if the man were Muslim he would be talking about Allah, if Hindu about Krishna etc. Dawkins also points out that the mind has a great capacity for illusion. He concludes that the man is mythologising an illusion. But perhaps the human mind is also capable of profound insights into reality and that it then mythologises. Maybe, in their opposing ways Dawkins and his questioner are both effing with the ineffible.
Resolving my Resolutions
It’s late. Way past bedtime and way past the typical time for New Year Resolutions. But it’s finally time to ‘resolve my resolutions’ for 2012. I consider the period between the New Year and the Chinese New Year the time of ‘Resolving the Resolutions’.
I believe 2012 is a significant year that will be pivotal in one way or another.
My resolutions begin with the yamas and niyamas of yoga.
Yama and Niyama
Yama and Niyama are often called “the Ten Commandments of Yoga.” Each one of these Five Don’ts (Yama) and Five Do’s (Niyama) is a supporting, liberating Pillar of Yoga. Yama means self-restraint in the sense of self-mastery, or abstention, and consists of five elements. Niyama means observances, of which there are also five. Here is the complete list of these ten Pillars as given in Yoga Sutras 2:30,32:
1. Ahimsa: non-violence, non-injury, harmlessness
2. Satya: truthfulness, honesty
3. Asteya: non-stealing, honesty, non-misappropriativeness
4. Brahmacharya: sexual continence in thought, word and deed as well as control of all the senses
5. Aparigraha: non-possessiveness, non-greed, non-selfishness, non-acquisitiveness
6. Shaucha: purity, cleanliness
7. Santosha: contentment, peacefulness
8. Tapas: austerity, practical (i.e., result-producing) spiritual discipline
9. Swadhyaya: introspective self-study, spiritual study
10. Ishwarapranidhana: offering of one’s life to God
All of these deal with the innate powers of the human being-or rather with the abstinence and observance that will develop and release those powers to be used toward our spiritual perfection, to our self-realization and liberation.
These ten restraints (yama) and observances (niyama) are not optional for the aspiring yogi-or for the most advanced yogi, either. Shankara states quite forcefully that “following yama and niyama is the basic qualification to practice yoga.” Mere desire and aspiration for the goal of yoga is not enough, so he continues: “The qualification is not simply that one wants to practice yoga, for the sacred text says: ‘But he who has not first turned away from his wickedness, who is not tranquil and subdued, or whose mind is not at rest, he can never obtain the Self by knowledge.’ 4 And in the Atharva text: ‘It is in those who have tapas [strong discipline] and brahmacharya [chastity] that truth is established.’ 5 And in the Gita: ‘Firm in their vow of brahmacharya.’ 6 So yama and niyama are methods of yoga” in themselves and are not mere adjuncts or aids that can be optional.
But at the same time, the practice of yoga helps the aspiring yogi to follow the necessary ways of yama and niyama, so he should not be discouraged from taking up yoga right now, thinking that he should wait till he is “ready” or has “cleaned up his act” to practice yoga. No. He should determinedly embark on yama, niyama, and yoga simultaneously. Success will be his.
Source: http://www.atmajyoti.org/
The yamas and niyamas are not in themselves commandments or resolutions. They are conditions without which resolutions, especially spiritual resolutions cannot succeed.
Beyond studying and practicing the yamas and niyamas my resolves are:
Premises: Unconditional love for self and others.
Principles: Consciousness, Creativity and Compassion in all that I do.
Policy: The Four Agreements – Be Impeccable With Your Word – Don’t Take Anything Personally – Don’t Make Assumptions – Always Do Your Best.
Programme: To develop my business to the point where I am delivering an effective service and receiving an effective income that I can be satisfied with. To set aside time for new learning, specifically to read and speak French properly and to develop my skills as a web developer. To set aside specific and quality time for family. To set aside time for meditation and physical exercise.
Practice:
1. Set aside at least one hour each day for meditation and one hour for deliberate physical exercise.
2. Set aside at most one hour each day for entertainment, including games, not inconsistent with the yamas and niyamas and subject to having completed the meditation and physical exercise.
3. Deliberately commune with nature. Get out into a wood or park or do some gardening for at least one hour every week. This will count as physical exercise.
4. Set aside at least an hour a day for learning.
5. Develop a work plan for the year, use monthly, weekly, daily to-do lists and stick to the plan.
6. Friday and Sunday are family days. No Internet, no computer, no work.
7. Tuesday is a day of fasting between dawn and dusk. No food no Internet between those times.
8. Have an adventure once a week.
9. Thursday is ‘mind your business’ day. Focus on finance and filing.
10. Eat moderately no more than twice a day to attain a weight of 10 stone and 2 pounds by 4th May and maintain that weight for the rest of the year. There will be no giving up of cherry pies with custard; these will be consumed in a meditative way.