What the Living Do

What the Living Do

The Art of Listening

“No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next.” ~Edgar Watson Howe

“Years ago, I tried to top everybody, but I don't anymore, I realized it was killing conversation. When you're always trying for a topper you aren't really listening. It ruins communication.” ~Groucho Marx

“The first duty of love is to listen.” ~Paul Tillich

“You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time." ~M. Scott Peck

“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer." ~Henry David Thoreau

It has long been a pet peeve of mine when people can't listen. The extreme example is those people who dominate the conversation and hardly let you speak at all. More common are those people who politely let you take a turn but are clearly not really listening but only waiting for their next turn to talk. I have been guilty of this myself. Most people have.
Mindfulness has recently increased my awareness of this phenomena, and I have been dealing with it by trying to be an even better listener. Listening to people the way I would like to be listened to, and trying (and here the part where I often fail) to not be attached to the results. Which is to say, sometimes the result is that it opens up the conversation to a deeper place. When the person talking feels listened to it allows them to be willing to listen to me also (which I think is my partly selfish goal) and then real communication can take place. More often however I just end up doing a whole lot of listening. Which when I can let go of any desire to talk, can end up being very interesting. I am a bit of an armchair psychologist, so I am always listening for the motivations beneath the talk. Good practice for my future career, I think. Listening is also the only way to learn anything, and people usually love to share (show off) what they know.

If all we have is the present moment and compassion is the highest good, than it is true what Brenda Ueland said, "Unless you listen, you can’t know anybody. Listening is love, that’s what it really is." I recommend the entire lovely essay, Tell Me More: On the Art of Listening

Namaste.
:-)

Cypripedium acaule

This was my second annual voyage to pay homage to these sacred beauties. And to do some wonderful hiking. Now back to work...

Great Blue Herons

It is no random choice that I have an image of a heron in flight as my profile picture. For whatever reason Great Blue Herons have always resonated deeply with me. I would like to go so far as to say I consider them my 'totem spirit', but some part of me feels like it is new-agey cultural appropriation to use that term...

Today as I looked up from my work, a heron flew directly overhead and landed on the top of one of the tall trees nearby that is next to a koi pond. This is a common occurrence. Today, as soon as she(?) landed, she was aggressively dive bombed by a very pissed off crow. This crow swooped back and forth like a pendulum for a good ten minutes aiming at the heron's head. The heron took little notice, only ducking when necessary. The crow eventually got tired and gave up.

Which got me to wondering: Why was the crow so upset? I had presumed the heron was after koi, and the crow was just being territorial about the treetop. But do herons eat bird eggs and nestlings? Or adult birds? They eat snakes, frogs and of course fish, so birds didn't seem too out of the question, but I had never heard of it. So I turned to the internet for help. It turns out the answer is yes, but not often. This video I stumbled on may give the answer why: they aren't very good at it!
:-)

Grey Heron versus Starling from BirdGuides.com on Vimeo.

My favorite bird attacking my least favorite. And yet somehow, I am rooting for the starling...

Karen Armstrong, part II

...And there was a wonderful moment when I actually went and asked for some help from a Jewish scholar at a college...And he explained to me...the revolutionary idea that religion was not about believing things (emphasis mine). He was telling me the story of Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus who'd been approached by a bunch of pagans who said they would convert to Judaism if Hillel could recite the entire Torah while he stood on one leg. And Hillel stood on one leg and said, "Do not do unto others what you would not have done unto you. That is the Torah, the rest is commentary. Go and learn it."
And I said, "Well, that's all very nice, but, I mean, what were these Gentiles supposed to believe?" And Chaim said, "Well, it's easy to see you were brought up Christian." He said, "We Jews, we — it really doesn't matter what you believe, religion is about doing things. It's about, say, living, as Hillel says, in a compassionate way that changes you.

~Karen Armstrong, interviewed by Krista Tippet

My last post prompted me to take a second look at those 2 interviews with Karen Armstrong. If you have the time, both interviews are on the websites (links in previous post), and are well worth reading or listening to.
Karen Armstrong was the 2008 recipient of the TED prize: $100,000 to grant a wish, which she used to launch her
Charter for Compassion. Her acceptance speech below is just wonderful, if you have a spare 20 minutes to get an idea of just how wise and insightful she is about religion in the world.

Karen Armstrong

In the rare moments I have had recently for anything other than work, schoolwork, other necessary business, and sleep, I have been attempting to make a little time for personal reading. I recently finished When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris (I am a huge fan) and am now reading Buddha by Karen Armstrong. I have been wanting to read one of her books ever since hearing her interviewed on both Bill Moyers Journal and
Speaking of Faith. She is a wonderful refreshing blend of articulate, wise, insightful, and thoughtful, and directs her talents towards the study of the history of religion, a topic which has become one of endless fascination to me. I chose to start w/ Buddha for obvious reasons, and the book does not disappoint.

I have been underlining like mad, as much of what she writes resonates strongly with me. It has also deepened my understanding of a subject I thought I was well acquainted with by placing it in a historical context more fully fleshed out than any I have read before.

I also am enjoying, for some reason, her use of Pali terms rather than the more familiar Sanskrit. Thus, 'nirvana' becomes 'nibbana', dharma becomes 'dhamma', etc.

“The Buddha believed that a selfless life would introduce men and women to Nibbana. Monotheists would say that it would bring them into the presence of God. But the Buddha found the notion of a personalized deity too limiting, because it suggested that the supreme Truth was only another being. Nibbana was neither a personality nor a place like Heaven. The Buddha always denied the existence of any absolute prin­ciple or Supreme Being, since this could be another thing to cling to, another fetter and impediment to enlightenment.

“Like the doctrine of the Self, the notion of God can also be used to prop up and inflate the ego. The most sensitive monotheists in Judaism, Christianity and Islam would all be aware of this danger and would speak of God in ways that are reminiscent of the Buddha’s reticence about Nibbana. They would also in­sist that God was not another being, that our notion of “exis­tence” was so limited that it was more accurate to say that God did not exist and that “he” was Nothing.

“But on a more popu­lar level, it is certainly true that “God” is often reduced to an idol created in the image and likeness of “his” worshipers. If we imagine God to be a being like ourselves writ large, with likes and dislikes similar to our own, it is all too easy to make “him” endorse some of our most uncharitable, selfish and even lethal hopes, fears and prejudices. This limited God has thus contributed to some of the worst religious atrocities in history.

“The Buddha would have described belief in a deity who gives a seal of sacred approval to our own selves as “un­skillful”: it could only embed the believer in the damaging and dangerous egotism that he or she was supposed to transcend. Enlightenment demands that we reject any such false prop. It seems that a “direct” yogic understanding of anatta ('no self') was one of the chief ways in which the early Buddhists experienced Nibbana. And, indeed, the Axial Age faiths all insist in one way or another that we will only fulfill ourselves if we practice total self-abandonment. To go into religion to “get” some­thing, such as a comfortable retirement in the afterlife, is to miss the point.

And now for something completely differant...

"NightPeeps"

:-)

"Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning."

So I went to a UU church service today; it was about the 5th week in a row I have attended this particular church. It was, as always, an amazing, authentic, uplifting experience. I find this congregation has everything I have been searching for in a spiritual home. It is large, vibrant, genuinely diverse and inclusive, progressive, liberal, and focused on social justice. And they have great music. In a large beautiful 90 year old building that is mostly full every week. The head pastor is young, and very charismatic. The sermons quote the Upanishads, Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, Mary Oliver, Rumi... The people are genuinely friendly. I always leave feeling energized. In short, I feel I have found a home.

I was raised w/o any religion at all by an atheist father and an agnostic mother (lapsed Protestants both), in a Jewish neighborhood. I found my way to Taoism then Buddhism in my 20s, with a foray through the Druids and Pagans and although I consider myself a 'Buddhist' (that's the box I would check, I suppose) because I do take refuge in the '3 Jewels', and I meditate every day. However, for me Buddhism is mind training, not really religion, and my forays to various local sanghas always have disappointed me a bit. I never found what I was looking for there--joy, communion, fellowship, and yes please, good music. I hate to say it, but us Western Buddhists can be kind of a cerebral, uptight bunch. Lots of talk about compassion, but not a whole lot of genuine warmth. That may be an unfair extreme statement, but I speak as I find...

Anyway, I invited my mother to attend with me this morning, and she had what she described as a religious experience. Tears rolled down her cheeks during the final rousing song. Raised southern Baptist, she has had no use for organized religion for most of her adult life, associating it w/ dogmatic beliefs she cannot agree with, and with narrow-minded, judgmental, hypocritical people (this is the attitude towards religion I was raised with too) some of whom we are related to. But I know she misses the fellowship of a congregation; she speaks of enjoying that when she visits her sister down south (who is a church goer). So the experience this morning was a bit of a revelation for her--to feel that sincere joyous warmth of community w/o any of the oppressive judgment or fairytale beliefs. My mother carries a lot of sorrow and anxiety inside of her, so I hope this may be the beginning of something good for her, a way to break out of her passivity and begin to take responsibility for her own happiness. A lesson each of us has to learn for ourselves, I think.

Wow, I did not plan to write all this when I sat down. I only planned to mention the Rumi quote the pastor shared in his sermon, a long time favorite of mine: "Let the beauty you love be what you do. There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground." As well as the line from the Psalms that he built his sermon around, which is the title of this post. He spoke of the idea of resurrection as being something that can come to each of us, every day, in the here and now. Every morning, specifically. That how we choose to start our morning can have a profound effect on the mindset we carry throughout the day, and how resilient we are in meeting the inevitable griefs and struggles. He's certainly right. I find now that on the rare morning I do not make time to meditate, I am less centered and more easily irritated throughout the day.

Happy Easter to you all.
Namaste.
:-)

Happy Easter

Borrowed from today's Postsecret:


3.5 yrs ago I was nearly destroyed by grief and fear.
But now I look back and feel that it was one of the very best things that ever happened to me.

“Each day, we’re given many opportunities to open up or shut down. The most precious opportunity presents itself when we come to the place where we think we can’t handle whatever is happening.” ~Pema Chodron

That which has the potential to shut us down, harden us and make us bitter also can serve to awaken us, give us courage, crack us open and enlarge our hearts.

This made my day

What public figure said this yesterday?:

"Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes, to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins."

The Dalai Lama? Good guess. But it was President Obama! As Rachel Maddow said a while ago, "It's almost like having a grownup in the White House." And an enlightened grownup at that!



:-)

What If It Is?

"Know that joy is rarer, more difficult and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation."
-Andre Gide




One of the best scenes from THE best thing that was ever on TV. David speaking to the ghost of his dead father, for those of you who never watched the show...

Albino Robin

So I saw an albino robin this morning, which is something I never knew existed much less had seen, and so I was pretty excited about it. No, I didn't get a picture. He was snow white, with a pale pink-orange breast.

Turns out it is not SUCH a rare thing. And I sure do love the internet:

Albino Robin

:-)

Forethought of Grief

Jung

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” ~Jung

AMEN

Sunny skies and subfreezing temps...

...makes for beautiful icicles!

Rumi

For about a year now I have been subscribed to a great little service from Panhala. They post a different poem every day on their website, and will also email it to you. Their choices are lovely, or at least very much my cup of tea.
And some days, they really speak to me. This was today's poem. It could also maybe be called "Inviting Mara to Tea". I really do understand the concept, to have that spaciousness in your sense of self big enough to hold whatever comes, but it sure is hard sometimes...


The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.


~ Rumi ~

(The Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)

Snow!

It is snowing in Maryland today, and how. 8 inches and counting. After a long dry mild stretch, it is a real treat. Winter's last hurrah perhaps, as signs of spring are everywhere. I love snow with a passion and although I have lived in Maryland my entire life (except for one year in CA, but that is for another post) I have always felt I belonged in a snowier clime. Perhaps it is my Swedish heritage, or just the fact that it did snow a whole lot more often when I was a child. I’m sure of it. In any case, I am rejoicing today.

The snow has also been useful for me this morning, as an anchor to come back to the present. My mind is very busy and emotional, perhaps even more than usual lately. I constantly throughout the day remember to ‘snap out of it’ and come present, if only for a few seconds (thank you meditation!). But days like today, the ceaseless swirl of tedious repetitive thoughts is particularly strong, and so it is such a balm to turn that off and admire the pristine beauty of the snow outlining everything in the garden, and to feel the pleasant sting on my cheeks. I wish I could dwell there more often before my tedious ego intrudes again, demanding attention like a small child…

Namaste.

"What the Bleep Do We Know!?"

I watched this very strange little film last night. Has anyone else seen it? I somehow missed it in 2004. A bizarre blend of quantum physics, non-dual spirituality, and a fair amount of mumbo-jumbo (in my opinion). I found it thought provoking and entertaining though. More or less in line with much of what I believe, but veering into some New Agey nonsense territory.
I am however fascinated by the ways the latest discoveries of quantum physics are very much in line with the ancient teachings of the Vedas and also Buddhist teachings of emptiness and non-duality.

And please forgive me, I am brand new to blogging, and not at all HTML savvy, so it may take me a while to get comfortable with posting links, etc. Any tips would be appreciated...

Namaste.

Start at the beginning

From the book that started it all for me, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard:

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery. The surface of mystery is not smooth, any more than the planet is smooth; not even a single hydrogen atom is smooth, let alone a pine. Nor does it fit together; not even the chlorophyll and hemoglobin molecules are a perfect match, for, even after the atom of iron replaces the magnesium, long streamers of disparate atoms trail disjointedly from the rims of the molecules' loops. Freedom cuts both ways. Mystery itself is as fringed and intricate as the shape of the air in time. Forays into mysteries cut bays and fine fiords, but the forested mainland itself is implacable both in its bulk and in its most filigreed fringe of detail. "Every religion that does not affirm that God is hidden," said Pascal flatly, "is not true."

Namaste.