What's In A Word?

This NY Times Magazine article, "The Muddied Meaning of Mindfulness", makes some provocative points as it unpacks the current popularity of the term.  It would be a terrible shame if this wonderful word were dismissed as simply a fad at best, and at worst a conspiracy among the 1% to wring another few ounces of productivity out of its freshly-anesthetized worker-bees.  What a terrible thing to do to one of the best words in our language!

If "mindfulness" becomes a victim of its own success, we'll only have to invent another word.  And then watch helplessly as that one gets the same treatment.  Sigh....

Anyway, the thing I find most disturbing in this article is the implication that church-going is contrary to mindfulness practice.  Sheesh: how wrong can you be?!

Something to memorize

“You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men [and women] are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold, and Kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world.

Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all Ages as with your walk and table: till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made: till you love men [and women] so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own: till you delight in God for being good to all: you never enjoy the world.” 

― Thomas Traherne, Centuries Of Meditations

I especially like "...and more than so, because men and women are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you."

Also, "...till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made..."

Meditation for pastors overwhelmed by sorrow

As a parish priest, there were days when I began to feel overwhelmed by the great sorrow of the people around me.  My parish hosted a day shelter for homeless women and children every day, and a feeding program for the street community every Sunday morning, so I was in close contact with many people whose suffering was quite acute.

Homeless people routinely dropped by my office, sometimes to ask for money, sometimes just to talk.  Their tales of woe were bone-rattling, and permanently cured me of the notion of God as a Lone Ranger-type rescuer.   While I heard my share of heart-warming and sometimes miraculous turn-around stories, more often than not I was witness to an unending parade of unfortunate events that very few people ever gain the resources to rise above: chronic poverty, mental illness, addiction, disability, debilitating disease, and just plain old ordinary very bad luck.

But as extreme as these tales of woe were, it was even more difficult to cope with the daily suffering of my parishioners.  Their stories, while usually less dramatic than my homeless friends, were more difficult for me because, of course, I loved them so much.  Eleven years as a pastor in one church was enough time to feel a bond even with the least involved of my parishioners.

I watched many beloved "pillars of the church" progress from a healthy and lively maturity to feeble, incontinent, institutionalized nursing home residents, then swiftly on to the illness that killed them.  I watched as parishioners entirely forgot about nursing home residents who had once served as Senior Wardens and committee chairs.  I witnessed surviving children spend far more time bickering over who got the treasured keepsake than over how much they missed their mom or dad.

There's a brilliant novel about a young pastor who is assigned to his first church in a small Midwestern town.  After about a year, he begs his bishop to re-assign him - not because he's not getting along well with his flock, and not because he's not an excellent fit for them, but because he has realized, to his horror, that if he stays in that parish for any length of time, he will have to bury these beloved people.  He's fallen in love with them, and can't bear to think of watching them die.  Thus the title of the novel, The Solace of Leaving Early (by Haven Kimmel).

Over time, this constant river of suffering takes its toll.  Like doctors, nurses, and home-care providers, clergy need to find a way to have compassion without it killing them.  I learned to cope by inventing a method of prayer which I now realize was very similar to the Buddhist practice of tonglen.  I would go into meditation, visualize the person I was praying for, see the suffering on their faces, and then imagine the light of God shining on them, warming them, healing them, bringing them into smiling wholeness.

In this short video, Pema Chodron introduces the method of tonglen.  It's a method that helps us have compassion without being afraid of the suffering we see: we can take it in, and let it go, without the suffering overwhelming us.  For pastors who encounter as much sorrow as we do in the course of our days, I highly recommend this practice.

Simple. Not Easy.

"Our interpretations of reality, the stories we continually tell ourselves about people, places, things or circumstances, are like the clouds in the sky of our consciousness. They cover over the shining presence of God within us that is our own essential, true nature as God’s children. Just like the sun in the sky, our true nature is always shining. Its very nature is to radiate pure happiness. So, happiness is never really absent from us—it is just covered over sometimes."
     -Francis Bennett, I Am That I Am

Francis Bennett, the former Trappist monk, Zen student and Vipassana practitioner who now makes his living giving talks and leading retreats on nondual spirituality, is elegantly articulate with a very simple message about awareness and awakening: We are already awakened; all we need to do is settle into our awakened state.

It sounds so easy!

Lately, I've been letting myself relax more and more deeply into meditation.  I've managed to just stop trying to meditate.  I've found a warm, merciful presence inside that just keeps inviting me into presence.  No matter how distracted I get, or how determined I become to hammer that "nail" of a mantra, I keep hearing "Good.  Now relax."  It's not a permissive voice, saying "Anything goes."  It's a voice that embraces what is, and returns me back to simple attention.  At its heart, it feels like infinite mercy, unconditional love.

Why so many words?

One day, after I had celebrated the Eucharist, a woman whom I had not seen before approached.  She told me that she had been moved to come to church during a meditation.  She had never spent any time in church before, and had been a practicing Buddhist up to that point, but that during a recent meditation a chalice had appeared in her mind, quite vividly.  She was gripped by a strong sense that she needed to start taking communion; and by an intuitive, very strong attraction, quite out of the blue and much to her surprise, to Jesus.  So she went online, started researching churches that celebrated the Eucharist, and ended up at mine.  

She said the Eucharist had been very meaningful to her - but she had one question: Why so many words?

Why, indeed?

I don't remember what I answered, but she became a very active member of the congregation and a faithful leader of our meditation small groups.  Her question, like the best of questions, stayed with me long after the answer faded from memory.

Why so many words?  Garrison Keillor, in yesterday's Writer's Almanac, talked about Mark Strand, the great poet who once served as Poet Laureat of the United States:

"Toward the end of his life, at the age of 77, he decided to quit writing poetry.... He fell in love with a Spanish woman, moved to Madrid, and began making art again. He said: 'I started collaging as an escape from making meaning. I got tired of writing poems, of trying to make sense - verbal sense. It is a relief to make a different kind of sense - visual sense. One must think, of course, but it is an entirely different kind of thinking, one in which language does not intrude.'"

As my meditation practice deepens, I grow less and less interested in the cascade of words flowing from the priest's mouth.  The living Christ, the undifferentiated Self of pure Awareness, whatever word we want to give It, is present and calls to me.  Like the Real Presence that we project onto the Eucharistic elements, it is simply and powerfully there, exercising its gravitational pull.  What else needs to be said?  

Here's a gorgeous poem by Anne Sexton that says it all - again, cribbed from Garrison's Writer's Almanac:


"From the Garden"

Come, my beloved,
consider the lilies.
We are of little faith.
We talk too much.
Put your mouthful of words away
and come with me to watch
the lilies open in such a field,
growing there like yachts,
slowly steering their petals
without nurses or clocks.
Let us consider the view:
a house where white clouds
decorate the muddy halls.
Oh, put away your good words
and your bad words. Spit out
your words like stones!
Come here! Come here!
Come eat my pleasant fruits.

"From the Garden" by Anne Sexton from The Complete Poems. © Houghton Mifflin, 1999. (buy now)

The Junkie and the Monk

This incredbily funny, poignant, and profound true story - about a suicidal heroin addict/comedian and his encounter with a Tibetan monk - is pure delight.  PLUS he describes tonglen in a very powerful way.

http://themoth.org/posts/stories/the-junkie-and-the-monk

Hope Is What You Do

I spent Easter Sunday attending a retreat at Spirit Rock with Joanna Macy – she’s the godmother of Earth-based spiritual activism.  It was a beautiful and moving day.

Macy reminded us that we are at an unprecedented time in the history of mankind – a suicidal time, in which we are “devouring the physical, natural, ecological basis of our own existence.”    As we come to recognize this, the system begins to lose its coherence and starts to unravel.  Thus we are witnesses to the “Great Unraveling” – which then gives rise to the “Great Turning” – when people devoted to the health of the planet come together to create a massive revolution – a revolution in which we transition from an economy of growing industry to an economy of sustaining life.

While she was speaking, I thought about the great majority of Christian churches, and certainly the vast majority of Episcopal churches, that continue on with a "business as usual" approach.  I was reminded of the Romans who, even as the barbarians approached the gates, were convinced that the "Eternal City" could never fall.

   

During a meditation, Macy quoted the 8^th Century Buddhist monk Shantideva: “Let all sorrows ripen in me.”  She explored the Buddhist notion that compassion means not being afraid of suffering; that mindfulness involves the ability to face into suffering without fear or denial.  She talked about the pharmaceutical companies that have “pathologized suffering” - making vast profits on the illusion that suffering must be avoided at all costs - whereas meditation practice can help us bear suffering with open hearts and open eyes.  

“Blessed are those who mourn,” she said, quoting Jesus in the Beatitudes.  “At times like this, it’s good to have a big messy heart.  And anger too.”

As many times as I’ve sat with the Beatitudes, I’ve never heard that interpretation before.  It struck me as such a healthier spiritual practice than what Christians are typically offered.  It’s a psychology of living in reality; of moving through sorrow into compassionate, fearless action – rather than the psychology of magical thinking that pervades so much Christian tradition.  The story of the resurrection, as powerful as it is, also teaches the illusion that all tragedy ends happily.  From the Exodus to the final Revelation, the Bible is replete with stories of God intervening to save the day. 

Our commitment to the illusion of happy endings is so deep within us that when we see a movie in which the good guy does not win in the end, we feel cheated and disturbed.  Only recently, as we enter the Great Unraveling, are we seeing shows, such as “Game of Thrones,” that feature “good guys” getting killed as often, if not more often, than the “bad guys.”  As our fundamental notions about hope and heroism shift, we are finally opening ourselves to the notion that our story may well end in defeat, not victory - and that can't stop us from acting heroically.

Humanity as we know it may very well come to an end, on our watch.  It is clear that God is not going to come down from on high to rescue us.  We know there have been mass extinctions before, and we know we are not exempt.  We need spiritual communities that help us face the reality our situation while sparking our capacity for hopeful action. 

Thus the title of one of Joanna Macy’s books: Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In without Going Crazy.  About this, she said, “Hope is not something you have.  Hope is something you do.  You can act without hope, in a hopeful way.  Hope is what you choose to put your attention to.”

Quoting a 12th Century Tibetan prophecy, Macy is hoping, without illusions, for an army of “Shambhala warriors” to rise up.  “Now is the time for Shambhala warriors to go into training.  They carry two weapons: compassion, and insight into the interdependence of all phenomena.  You need both.  When you’re not afraid of the suffering of the world, nothing can stop you.  Compassion gives you that.  But the insight of interdependence is needed to prevent burn-out.  You need the heat of compassion and the cool of insight/wisdom.”

I wonder if our churches can learn from these great spiritual traditions, so that we can finally get over our hysterical denial and become Shambhala warriors.  Can we develop the tools of insight and compassion the earth so desperately needs?  I am hoping, without illusions, to do my part.