Today, Saturday, March 3rd, the "What to do with Words Award" goes to Rebecca L. Hurst -- for this humble and moving passage in her poem, "Moment by Moment."
Rebecca and Sean Madden are based in the U.K., and they are the authors of The Mindful Living Guide blog.
It rained,
and I watched the rain.
A squirrel raided the bird-feeder.
My daughter and I had tea
together. -- from "Moment by Moment" by Rebecca L. Hurst @ The Mindful Living Guide
Henry David Thoreau -- 19th-century abolitionist, poet, observer of nature, proponent of the moment.
He wins the "What to do With Words Award" today, March 2nd...for his diary entry for February 26, 1840. The observations for that day include a line of simple text, five words that speak of the quiet power of life transformations. They happen gradually, and so we are unaware they are taking place. I've said too much already.
His eloquent sentence:
"Corn grows in the night." - H.D.Thoreau
Henry is very generous about other people reading his diary, thanks to his publisher, Greg. Explore.
Today, I'm kicking off a new feature -- a very irregularly chosen "What to do With Words Award" for the blog world's writing talents.
The first goes to Iain Manley, co-author of Old World Wandering. Iain and his travel partner Claire go about discovering Europe, and somehow they maintain the discipline to sit down fairly regularly and write about it.
I'm glad they do.
I am calling Old World Wandering a literary blog -- and then secondly a travel blog. That's my interpretation because if you can't travel to see, taste, live another culture, the next best is to read someone else's observations.
Below is a small item plucked from Iain's account of a visit to Rome. He's got plenty of observations about the Fountain of Trevi, the Pantheon and other popular sites...but the paragraph below offers a very quirky picture of his hostel.
If this were a clip from a movie, it'd be early 1950s. Black and white, of course. Behind the camera, Fellini would be yelling out directions to Giulietta Masina, Si?
The incessant “bella, bella, bella” of Miss Italy blared through a small, smoky hall in our hostel, Bella Roma. The competition lasted a week, today it was being contested entirely in bathing suits. Parades of lithe flesh were periodically interrupted for a demonstration of each participant’s talent: twirling a single hula-hoop, playing volleyball, badly, with a bemused judge and clumsy security guards, dancing in a lycra skirt, strapped on for modesty. -- Iain Manley
I lost my iPod, my buddy who helps me get through the boredom of the treadmill and the train.
My iPod has my favorite tunes -- organized by every decade I've lived through and sub-categorized in various ways that, in my warped way of thinking, would only make sense to me.
But perhaps my iPod's been the audio equivalent to rose-colored glasses. Perhaps I've been using it to filter my 24/7. Maybe I've missed observations, opportunities, friends...by being plugged in.
Lent seems like the appropriate time to go without my personal soundtrack for life -- at least for the time being. For more thoughts on this, please read my latest "Waking Up" column on UPI.
Do you have an iPod or other MP3 player? What do you like to use it for?
Found this wonderful teaching on a blog by William Harryman, and I thought that I'd share it. It's from the book Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships -- by John Welwood.
I feel that these words speak to the heart and meaning of the Buddhist Tonglen meditation practice, which encourages us to be with our suffering, rather than run from it.
"...there is no way to avoid loss and separation from what we love. We cannot avoid coming back again and again to the experience of being alone. No one can finally get inside our skin and share our experience -- the nuances that we alone feel, the changes that we alone are going through, the death that we alone must die. Nonetheless, loss, separation, and this fundamental aloneness are important teachers, for they force us to take up residence in the only real home we have -- the naked presence of the heart, which no external loss can destroy.
"Standing in this, our true ground, is the ultimate healing balm for the ache of separation and the wound of love. "You must fall in love with the one inside your heart," says the teacher Poonja. "Then you will see that it has always been there, but that you have wanted something else. To taste bliss, forget all other tastes and taste the wine served within." The warmth and openness at our core is the most intimate beloved who is always present, and into whose arms we can let go at last."
On this day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room cabin in the American wilderness.
From that humble beginning, he became U.S. president -- the highest office in the land. "Father Abraham," as African Americans of the time called him, emancipated slaves forever from this soil and kept the nation united. A tremendous legacy for one man.
Below is a quote from his famous dedication of the Gettysburg battlefield cemetery in November, 1863. Wise words that I hope will once again come true for us.
"...that this nation, under God shall have a new birth of freedom; and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." -- A. Lincoln, Gettysburg address
Raised in America, I've been well-schooled in the "goodness" of money -- that it can make me and others happy.
But I've been lucky. Christian parents and a good education have made me aware of the dangers of swallowing this hook-line-and-sinker. Money's a tool to be used; it's not a value on which to base your life.
Today, I found this 150 year-old diary entry by Henry David Thoreau -- the conscience of America. He talks about his frustrations living as a spartan amid the materialism of the mid-nineteenth century. And, most touchingly, he considers the spiritual rewards that come from appreciating the simple, unencumbered life.
"...In the society of many men, or in the midst of what is called success, I find my life of no account, and my spirits rapidly fall. I would rather be the barrenest pasture lying fallow then cursed with the compliments of kings, than be the sulphurous and accursed desert where Babylon once stood. But when I have only a rustling oak leaf, or the faint metallic cheep of a tree sparrow, for variety in my winter walk, my life becomes continent [content?] and sweet as the kernel of a nut. I would rather hear a single shrub oak leaf at the end of a wintry glade rustle of its own accord at my approach, than receive a shipload of stars and garters from the strange kings and peoples of the earth."
A Prophet Lives in New York City
New Yorkers know Wesley Autrey by a terrible decision he made recently: He pitched himself off a subway platform and into the path of a train -- to save someone who'd fallen on the tracks.
Autrey's actions make him a prophet of compassion. That's what you are when you consider others part of yourself. The "I" and "you" are a whole -- not separate.
For the full story, see my February 5th "Waking Up" column on UPI.com.
When you think that your walk is profitless and a failure, and you can hardly persuade yourself not to return, it is on the point of being a success, for then you are in that subdued and knocking mood to which Nature never fails to open. - Henry David Thoreau
There seem to [be] two kinds of searchers: those who seek to make their ego something other than it is, i.e. holy, happy, unselfish (as though you could make a fish unfish), and those who understand that all such attempts are just gesticulation and play-acting, that there is only one thing that can be done, which is to disidentify themselves with the ego, by realizing its unreality, and by becoming aware of their eternal identity with pure being. -- Fingers Pointing Toward the Moon by Wei Wu Wei
I saw this quote today from Wei Wu Wei (I have no clue who that is...but it's worth investigating) via a site that feeds me daily Buddhist wisdom and thoughts. I had three thoughts:
1. I am guilty of searching for that Mt. Everest experience (MEE) when I meditate. MEE is a feeling that doesn't come along very often, but it's a moment of supreme awareness, when I detect energy in and around me that is of another world. MEE is a glorious moment of resting in the now. (Come to think of it, perhaps MEE is very ordinary -- but unrecognizable for most of my 16 hours of daily consciousness.) This is my ego-seeking that Wei Wu Wei talks about in the above quote.
As a Catholic, I have had plenty of practice summoning up the bravery to confess. So, I confess that I search for a glorified ego. And I must also confess, it occurs to me that, by confessing this, am I not still searching for a glorified ego?
2. I am not always guilty of seeking star-status through attaining a MEE during meditation. Sometimes I can grasp some mindfulness to remember to accept what is -- as simply that, nothing more, nothing less. I'm happy to say that I can sometimes remember this as I sit in Vipassana, and then it is possible to simply be and allow. Attaining a fleeting moment of enlightenment is no more virtuous than moments of distraction...moments of bravely refocusing on breath...moments of listening...and of feeling. There is something very beautiful in acceptance of all that arises. Yes?
3. My third thought? "The Searchers," the 1956 western starring John Wayne. It's a masterpiece, and I highly recommend seeing it. I like it because of its glorious color, the majestic scenes of the western United States, the story line...and a little known fact that associates Buddy Holly with the movie. In the picture, John Wayne, in his tough, dry style...as if to match the searing landscape...utters this line: "That'll be The Day." In a smoky movie theater in Texas sat Buddy Holly, listening. The next year, '57, "That'll be The Day" shot to No. 1 on the charts.
The folks who keep the metaphorical "Doomsday Clock" recently moved the minute hand two minutes closer to midnight -- that is, the destruction of civilization. Now we've only got five minutes left. Seems that they've added global warming to our self-destruct mechanism, along with the growing nuclear threat.
When I read about this scary development, I immediately began thinking about what I'd do if I knew we really only had five minutes left to exist. I came up with a few -- and they involve sex and booze and God.
But then I thought that I'd rather live...and it'd be better for me to take those five minutes and meditate every day.
I truly believe that if, every day, we meditate or pray or just sit still for five minutes (alright -- six, four, three, two...whatever), we could save the world.
To read how inner calmness can save the planet, and to check out what debauchery I'd engage in if a mushroom cloud was about to erupt, read my latest United Press International commentary.
Oh, and don't forget to give me your top five end-of-the-world activities!
Tick, tick, tick...
Are you brave enough to give your compassion when you see suffering -- like Jesus did when he saved the adulterous woman from stoning...or when he healed on the Sabbath, drawing the wrath of the high priests?
Yes, it takes bravery to step out of ourselves and help others...not just ignore their plight. And I think it takes the same kind of bravery to give compassion to ourselves when we're hurting -- because it involves taking an honest look at our emotional pain...being with it.
Please read my latest United Press International column at the link below, and let me know your views.
Self-love first
And while you're reading, here's a question to think about: When do you feel the most compassionate?
Merry Christmas all!
Here's a picture of my little New England-style house, decked out in some simple decorations to mark the Lord's coming.
There are candles in the windows and a wreath on the door -- and falling snow to surround this humble home in stillness.
What kind of decorations do you enjoy putting up for the holidays?
May you feel peace in your heart!
Sometimes, sitting on my high horse (an Irish expression), I reason that our definition of God is not adequate. We must be missing something far greater and unfathomable because our minds are so small and inadequate in the face of such immensity.
But what if we shed our prejudiced and partisan views of God? Tried to figure out a bigger picture. Maybe our human-faced God is so endearing to so many of us, that we would only lose our way, sever the connection.
I spotted this quote from Martin Buber on Daniel Silliman's literary site. It's worth reading to gain some insight on the terrible and precious bargain we've entered into with God.
"...Generations of men have laid the burden of their anxious lives upon this word..."
If you've ever spent time with kids, you know that the things they say and do are genuine -- unfiltered and from the heart. (OK, sometimes that's good; sometimes that can be embarrassing!)
The good part of that is, because of their naturally open minds and hearts, they're eager to learn about new ideas and traditions.
Yeah -- we adults can learn a lot from kids.
For example, earlier in December, as both Christmas and Hanukkah approached, a group of Holocaust deniers were meeting in Tehran to spout hate for Jews and Israel. At the same time that was happening, I spent time with my niece and nephew, two Catholic kids, reading a book about Hanukkah.
Their openness to and respect for this unfamiliar religious tradition filled me with hope for the future. It was a good contrast to what was happening on the other side of the world -- a victory over closed minds and hate.
Please read more in my December 18th column on United Press International. And, as always, I'd love to read your thoughts and views.
Peace, and happy holidays to all!
I've got the perfect idea for an extra special Christmas card! Include Buddhist contemplations on how to grow love in our hearts -- even for, as my grandpa used to say, the "PITAs" in our lives. (PITA=pain in the ass.) Here are the contemplations in abbreviated form. To read more about them, click on the link below to my UPI.com column:
Back in Jesus' time, Pharisees, a very learned and devoted sect in Judaism, observed their religion to the letter of the law. Good for them!
Problem was they expected everyone else to be fanatics, too, and they condemned ordinary people if they didn't measure up to certain standards. They thought they were the most insightful and correct interpreters of Moses' laws.
Jesus, on the other hand, was all about showing people how to cut through the red tape and make a deeper, more heartfelt connection with God. JC was a spirit man, not so much a law man. So, when he came up against these Pharisees, he was very critical of them, calling them hypocrites who lay down heavy burdens on believers. I think Jesus was trying to say that those burdens get in the way of true communion with God.
The Pharisees live on. Today, it seems that there are plenty of modern-day Pharisees around us -- in all religions and in every part of our suffering planet. The ones I am most familiar with are those who run the Catholic Church. They can't seem to stop telling us how innately sinful and bad we are -- and setting up barriers to fulfilling our relationship with God.
Please take a minute to read my latest column, Rethinking Gays in Heaven, at United Press International, and let me know how you feel.
A revolutionary concept: We should thank the aggressors in our lives. If we can manage to get past our anger over their aggression and, instead, practice patience, they can do us great good.
I'd like to invite you to read my latest column on UPI.com below, and please feel free to let me know your ideas on this concept!
This piece was also picked up in Monsters and Critics.com
Outside View: Be grateful for our aggressors
By Don Munro
Nov 13, 2006, 19:00 GMT
I think they do, really!
How else would we come to a state of reflection or meditation -- where we could do some serious searching for the divine...and find peace?
Read on! Jesus & Buddha Say: Fail for me
Don Munro is a free-lance business writer who feels most at peace in the hills of New England. He explores spiritual realities and possibilities — especially the beauty of fusing together different traditions — on his blog Awareness 101. He also writes poetry at Poetry & prose from this breath of mine, often spiritually themed. His email address is Munrodh@gmail.com. © Copyright 2006 by Don Munro
