What is going on?

By which I mean what is really going on? How much of what I believe is happening is really happening?


To answer this question  we need to  understand fully how much filtering and censoring of our world we're involved in - how we refuse to see things as they really are. That's assuming we can manage to keep the past and the future out of the way - to keep our head free of the "oughts" of what went before and the "ifs" of what's coming next. Feeling bad about the past is a guaranteed way of keeping us from seeing what's happening here and now. Worry about the future has the same effect. We are kept from seeing life as it is by our emotions and our conditioning


Even if we are here in the present, all too often we complicate our vision by the illusions we cling to - believing what we're told by our mind. Happiness comes from realising our desires, right? Actually, no ... it just brings and illusion of happiness that disappears as soon as another desire comes into our heads.


The most troublesome illusions I have found involve my self-image, particularly that my worth or value comes from being loved or appreciated. Wrong again, my desire to be liked and respected is just another illusion. Being in relationships with people on this basis means I have given power over me to another person - with this attitude my happiness depends on what they do. If I look for my happiness in other people , then I'm equally likely to find unhappiness there.


People can only have power over us if we let them, only if we give them the power. We have everything we need to make us happy here and now. But we don't see that when we add something to our external reality instead of just experiencing our lives as they happen - moment by moment, breath by breath.

My favourite meditation

Islam is traced back to revelations from God to the Prophet, Mohammed. One of its central principles is Ihsan, which requires each Moslem to worship God as though they see Him.


Sufis, - more accurately described as an aspect or dimension of Islam rather than as a sect - are mystics who aspire to be close to God. The various methods of worship include chanting, singing (Qawali is one example)and dancing, which includes the Dervishes. There are also Sufis who meditate, with some groups active in the UK.


Sufis are emphatic that knowledge should be learned from teachers and not exclusively from books and can trace their teachers back through the generations to the Prophet himself. Modelling themselves on their teachers, students hope that they too will glean something of the character of the Prophet and his state when the revelations were originally given.


I studied for some time with a group based on meditation techniques and was fortunate to meet their spiritual leader, Shaykh al-Tariqat Hazrat Azad Rasool.


His teachings include a meditation on the heart, normally practiced by the group after prayers at sunset. The meditation should last one hour and is formed around a single thought. One concentrates on the thought: "I turn my attention to my heart and it turns its attention to the Holy Essence." Throughout the meditation one concentrates on one's heart (the centre of loving in the body, situated in a man about three inches below the left nipple and in a woman at the bottom of the left breast where it rejoins the body). Throughout the meditation we "watch" the heart in its process of loving God.

If I had just one wish

What I am about to share is the 'punchline' of a three-wishes story, where the person cannot decide on the ultimate wish ... so you can make up your own version that leads to the illuminating ending.


If I had only one wish that would be granted, I would wish to be happy no matter what happens.


Happiness has no cause; it just is. The good feeling we get from people, from success or from anywhere outside ourselves isn't true happiness. That feeling comes from gratification, from a selfish need to have our desires satisfied. And the reason it isn't true happiness is what happens when our desires aren't satisfied: we become irritated and discontent. 


It is too easy to become dislocated when we try for an awakened spirit, when we practice moving away from desire and attachment. We run the risk of replacing fear and anxiety with apathy and boredom. I often have to remind myself that it is "easy to be a monk in a monastery" (at face value, a perverse judgement on a way of life I know nothing about). I use this phrase to describe being removed from outside annoyances, to be living at peace where others are trying to do the same. This carries with it the risk of not engaging with others or with life, and of finding dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest. In my experience, this feeling is easy to maintain as a pretence of contentment. But there is no happiness in it. So, I have to be engaged but not attached - involved but not desiring outcomes to suit my self-seeking.

And now some Socrates...

The idea that attachment to possessions is a bar to having a spiritual life is well illustrated by this story* about Socrates - another reminder that the problems in our lives are not about reality or about what happens but about our attachment to people, things and ideas.

Socrates believed that a wise person would intuitively lead a frugal life; he went so far as to refuse to wear shoes. Yet he constantly fell under the spell of the marketplace and could often be found there looking at the range of magnificent wares on display. A friend once asked him why he was so attracted to the market. "I love to go there," Socrates replied, "to discover how many things I am perfectly happy without."

*From  Anthony de Mello via The Spirituality of Imperfection

Thicht Nhat Hanh interview

I always keep being led back to Thicht Nhat Hanh; much of what he teaches involves the things that have become most important to me - mindfulness, the present moment and the emphasis on breathing and awareness of breath.


In this interview (with Ram Dass, would you believe?) he outlines a practice to help us deal with strong emotions. The technique is a variant of another which I have already mentioned HERE

Is it a lifeless, soul-less existence?

When describing some of what I think I've learned to somebody, they took the view that the existence I'm describing must be pretty soul-less. 


It's just possible they are projecting their way of dealing with life in the moment on me. Describing a life where nothing matters.


I am not describing a detachment from life itself, but rather a detachment from what might happen - from the outcomes of my action. I want my football team to win, but I'm certainly not going to be upset when they don't. I can take enjoyment from watching them - feel the joy of their playing well and winning and feel the disappointment of their playing badly and losing.


It is right that we should have desires; it would be foolish to just suppress them and pretend that nothing matters. Thinking about that, if we try to suppress our desires then they assume importance and we will become attached to the idea of having no attachment.


I have preferences, but my happiness doesn't depend on any of them. The outcomes of my actions - what happens in my life - can give me pleasure or pain. Neither of these is the source of my happiness or the reason for me being unhappy. If I can learn to accept life is supposed to be exactly as it is. If I can accept the truth in what Confucius said: "The one who would be constant in happiness must frequently change." I can have no fixed position or views; I have to learn to accept change. Then maybe I can be content in this world where the glass is half-empty and half-full at the same time; I can accept that everything is exactly as it should be, right here, right now.

Judge and be judged

Meditating on people's heavy use of self-esteem as a major factor in their lives. I realised the extent to which it has ceased to be a factor in mine.


Self-esteem or self-worth: where do they exist? And do they have any real meaning or value? It seems to me that there is a myth that our happiness is tied up to having high self-esteem. It cannot be because our attachment to our "goodness" will create dissatisfaction and disappointment ... which leads inevitably to unhappiness. (This is not to be taken to imply that people with "low self-worth" won't be unhappy though.) 


Now what do we use to measure self-worth - Success, wealth, being popular? If our self-worth is a reflection of us in other people's eyes - if it comes from others' opinions of us - then it can have no value. Because we are basing our opinion of ourselves on another's judgement - for it really is a judgement.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them. Mother Teresa

I am convinced that this is true. People who show us love do not judge us. So if we are getting our self-worth from others we are getting it from people who do not love us. And the same applies when we have an opinion of ourselves then - it is not coming from love but from somewhere else. So, in observing myself and my actions, I must be careful not to judge myself. When I see myself doing something that inimical to my spiritual growth - day-dreaming for example - I note what I'm doing and bring myself back to the present. No need for analysis or worse still brooding on where I "keep going wrong."


We do not need to have a view of ourselves, much less have somebody else's into our minds. Our lives are absolute - we just are. My life or my living of it are not better or worse than yours - or his, or hers. Nor is my life or my living of it better or worse than it used to be.


True happiness comes from not becoming attached to any view or image of myself. When I get used to just being I can observe myself without the need to rush to judgement. I can accept that I am just being - and not necessarily doing a good job of it.

Pretence

 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. wrote somewhere:

Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be. 

Seems to me like the flip side of: Your life is what you pay attention to

Are we there yet?

How will I know when I have an awakened spirit? What's it like?


St Thomas of Acquinas said "About God, we cannot say." We can talk a lot about what isn't God; but we cannot talk with any confidence about God - whatever God may be. The Cloud of Unknowing has the thesis that we can never know God so we have to work with our unknowing where God is not "not God."


In the same way the world of the Spirit is beyond us. God, truth, love and spirit are there all around us. And yet they remain beyond us. The world of the spirit exists then in everything we do. And it seems that if we attend to the present, we can get in touch with it.


The original question is better answered when we realise that we already have an awakened spirit but we're just not aware of it. Maybe we get glimpses, fleeting but enormously effective. So, to be gnomic, we know when we know.


Dealing with the subject in this way reminds me a lot of the saying - those who know do not say and those who say do not know. Which makes not knowing - or unknowing - a good place to be.


In love and light ...

Loving-Kindness

I believe these are words from the Buddha:

Animosity does not eradicate animosity. Only by loving-kindness is animosity dissolved.

Loving-kindness (or metta) is the desire to provide for the welfare and happiness of the world; literally it means benevolence; its natural way is promoting friendliness; to achieve it we have to see with kindness. When it succeeds it eliminates ill-will; when it fails it degenerates into selfish desires. (From  sources)


The Buddha is said to have demonstrated this by interposing himself between two men who were fighting with swords - care for their well-being with no regard for his self.



The Dalai Lama has demonstrated it with his refusal to condemn China, a country which ravaged his homeland and murdered his people. He simply said "They too are human beings who struggle to find happiness and they deserve our compassion." When asked how it is possible to hold such a position, free of anger and with no desire for revenge, he describes his meditation where he allows all the suffering of his people and of their oppressors to enter his heart and be transformed into compassion. 


What a tall order. It shows me how small my own efforts at loving-kindness are - and reminds me how easily I am thwarted by an inability to manifest unconditional love for all. But I can try by doing what I can ... and by meditating on love or loving-kindness.

Jesus as metaphor

Some time ago I read The Jesus Mysteries which asked whether Jesus was a Pagan. It is a plausible but highly unlikely account. But its real significance for me was presenting Jesus's sayings and teachings as metaphor. 


So when Jesus talks about being reborn, perhaps he wasn't referring to physical death but rather to a spiritual rebirth in this lifetime. Which insight allowed me to make a lot more sense of what Jesus said, without having to rely on much of the later re-writes* which turned him into "the risen Lord and Saviour" of modern Christianity. With the metaphorical view of Jesus, there is the possibility of heaven on earth and a system that doesn't rely on payback in the afterlife. Most of all I love the statement "The Kingdom of God is at hand" with this slant on it; it's here, now.


And I have recently found - in  a sermon by Meister Eckhart of all people - an extension of the idea of metaphor. Which examines the use of the word "virgin" to describe somebody free from all outside ideas, empty according to God's will. Then links this to the use of the word "wife" to describe somebody in whom God is conceived. Giving us the opportunity to look at the virgin birth as the creation of Jesus himself as metaphor.


* A book whose name I cannot recall gave a fascinating analysis of what Jesus actually said and separated it from what are generally believed to be later additions. In essence, when the early Christians needed a Messiah and son of God they wrote about one and that was added to the story.

Quaker Faith and Practice

Quakers have no creed; there is no set of beliefs holding The Society of Friends together. As a side issue - but something that interests me deeply - is that it has no hierarchy. There are servant leaders but without authority to govern.


The closest Friends come to having guidelines as such are Advices and Queries where much of what is written is in a questioning format. These two have featured a lot in my spiritual growth.

3. Do you try to set aside times of quiet for openness to the Holy Spirit? All of us need to find a way into silence which allows us to deepen our awareness of the divine and to find the inward source of our strength. Seek to know an inward stillness, even amid the activities of daily life. Do you encourage in yourself and in others a habit of dependence on God's guidance for each day? Hold yourself and others in the Light, knowing that all are cherished by God.

7. Be aware of the spirit of God at work in the ordinary activities and experience of your daily life. Spiritual learning continues throughout life, and often in unexpected ways. There is inspiration to be found all around us, in the natural world, in the sciences and arts, in our work and friendships, in our sorrows as well as in our joys. Are you open to new light, from whatever source it may come? Do you approach new ideas with discernment?

How we change

The central thesis of Awareness by Anthony de Mello leads to a growing awareness of our awakened spirit. There is no route map nor any indicator of success - we know when we get there. As we identify less with the "I" we become more at ease with others and with situations we used to find difficult. We become increasingly aware of the fact that most of the problems in our lives stemmed from what we thought of as "other"; we also miss the fact that people who are mean to us or who seem not to like us are actually dealing with their image of us.


Unless and until people are awake, they are simply accepting or rejecting an image of the other. Which brings us to the "me" doing the thinking - and it's capable of doing some pretty poor thinking most of the time. But when I watch me, I can see the projections and the censorship - and then "you" don't seem too bad.


And slowly I get to realize that the external "otherness" doesn't have power over me. And there is a growing sense of "Oneness." This feeling was reinforced by a reading from Julian of Norwich which points to finding a position of detachment.

"We need to realize the insignificance of creation and see it for the emptiness it is ... "

And at a seminar yesterday with Tony Parsons I listened to an extreme position on this - from an exponent of non-duality whose message could be summed up as "Basically, this is all there is. Everything yet nothing. Nothing yet everything." Wherever you are now, whatever place you are in ... that is all there is.

Good or bad?

In a Zen temple two students were going to the hall to meditate. Along the way, they passed some trees  and argued with each other about the trees. One remarked, "Why is that tree so green?" The other remarked, "But why is this tree so large?" And then an argument arose between them. It was about which of the trees was better, the greener one or the larger one. They could not agree with each other, so when they entered the hall, they approached the Master and asked him which of the trees was better. The Master asked them back, "Which one do you both think is good, then?" They started arguing with each other again. One said, "The green tree is better" and the other said, "The large tree is better."

By coincidence, a novice entered into the hall. The Master asked the novice the same question. The novice replied, "We should not be bothered about such issues. ." The Master said, "That is right answer. We should not be bothering ourselves with this. Everything has cause and effect. Whatever, we see, hear and think has its cause and effect.


from Awakenings by Anthony de Mello