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To love a stranger as oneself implies the reverse: to love oneself as a stranger.

Simone Weil

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If man were never to fade away like the dews of Adashino, never to vanish like the smoke over Toribeyama, how things would lose their power to move us! The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty

Kenko

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The Human Heart Seeks Truth Like a Plant Seeks Light

​​​​The human heart seeks truth like a plant seeks light.  However, fear blocks light and causes us to become distorted and malformed as we seek the light.  I remember a grade school project in which we grew flowers in a dark closet and compared them with flowers grown in the light.  The flowers grown in the closet were sickly, elongated and distorted as they stretched toward even the slightest bit of light.  People can become like this if they live in a world of fear, competition, and separation.  We long for the light of goodness and truth, but no person can grow into their full potential unless they are first made to feel safe and respected.  In our relationships, as we try to help others come into the light, our role is not to persuade and convince them that their ideas and beliefs are wrong; our primary role to be a source of light that might penetrate through their fear.  Live your faith as fully and authentically as possible, fight all your battles in your own heart (as Gandhi said), so that others may see your light and be drawn to it.

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You Can’t Pound in the Nails Yourself

One of my favorite passages of scripture, and one that tends not to get a lot of attention, comes from the 21st chapter of John when the resurrected Jesus says to Peter “Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” (NRSV John 21:18)  The scripture goes on to say in parentheses that this is to foretell the way in which Peter would die glorifying God.  The apostle Peter was martyred with his hands stretched out and nailed to a cross upside down, but I believe Jesus was doing more than foretelling an historical event.  What he spoke to Peter he speaks to each one of us.

What I hear in this passage is a teaching on control.  The spiritual journey is a process of revealing our authentic Self.  In order for this to happen we must transcend, or “die to”, our false or egoic Self.  When Jesus says “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (NRSV Luke 9:23) he is speaking of this process of self-transcendence.  What many people fail to fully understand is that although it is us that is called to take up the cross, in order for resurrection to occur there must first be a crucifixion and at the end of the day we can’t pound in the nails on our own cross.  Part of this process involves losing control.  

Many people want to be in full control of when and where their “dying to self” occurs, but this is not the path Jesus himself walked and it is not a full acceptance of the human experience.  Religious people who “fasten their own belts” (other translations say “gird themselves”) and set certain limitations on their lives in order to foster a sense of righteousness likewise end up setting limitations on the degree of freedom, peace, and love they will experience.  “Girding” oneself, or “fastening one’s own belt” is a helpful practice in the early journey.  It creates boundaries for our life and helps us define the person we feel we are called to be, but eventually we will have to let go of this self-contained life if we wish to live a fully authentic life because eventually every person will face a situation where they have little or no control.  This is a fact of living in a very large and complex creation with many other people and living beings who have their own hopes and dreams.  When we learn to accept the loss of control with humility, when it is appropriate *, we enter into a deeper and fuller relationship with the rest of creation and come to experience a deeper level of peace when confronted with the great Mystery of life and death.

(* “Accepting the loss of control with humility” is not the same as denying one’s power and creative potential .  This may be a topic for a future article.)

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A Sustainable Spirituality

In the classic Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind Shunryu Suzuki writes “It is necessary for us to keep the constant way.  Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine” (57).  The important lesson to glean from this teaching is that the spiritual life is not about feeling good all the time.  In our spiritual journey it is important to cultivate a way of life that is sustainable and authentic.  What I mean by sustainable and authentic is the ability to embrace the reality of each moment and continue through each moment regardless of external circumstances.  If we are keeping a spiritual practice with the hope of receiving something such as excitement, superficial happiness, or respect from others we will eventually lose motivation because these feelings are temporary and dependent on certain circumstances.  Or if we judge certain experiences as good and others as bad, for example if we think of excitement and joy as good experiences and sadness and anger as bad experiences, we may begin to suppress those experiences we dislike in order to maintain an experience that we do like.  This is also not helpful on the spiritual journey because it is inauthentic.  Life goes up and down.  When things go the way we want we feel good, but when things go other ways and we experience loss, then it hurts.  The point of the spiritual journey is not to learn how to deny certain emotions while fostering others, it is to be fully present to the experience of being human.

 So, then we may ask, if we will still feel sadness and anger then what’s the point of keeping a spiritual discipline?  My response is that there is a difference between experiencing an emotion and being controlled by an emotion.  When we keep a spiritual discipline such as meditation or prayer we begin to recognize the ephemeral nature of thoughts and emotions and we are not carried away by them.  We are rooted in the ever-changing now and we develop the discipline necessary to always act from our deepest and most authentic Self.  Suzuki described it by writing “if your mind is calm and constant, you can keep yourself away from the noisy world even though you are in the midst of it” (58). Along the spiritual journey the external circumstances of our lives may get better, get worse, or stay the same. I cannot promise anyone that they will get that job promotion, be healed of their illness, or meet the woman or man of their dreams.  However, I do feel confident in saying that if you are true to your spiritual path you will grow in inner peace, freedom, and clarity so that you can recognize all that comes your way, good or bad, as an act of grace.  And this is the purpose of life: to simply live it with gratitude instead of fear.

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3 Common Misconceptions about Meditation

I have been meditating for over ten years and in talking to others about this practice many have expressed the same misconceptions.  The most common one I have heard is that people will say “I would like to meditate, but I can’t because my mind is too active.”  This is based on the idea that the purpose of meditation is to have a clear or empty mind.  While it is true that a benefit of meditation is greater mental clarity, it is not a prerequisite.  Even the great mystic Teresa of Avila said “15 minutes of prayer is 14 minutes of distraction.”  Meditation is a practice of observing our thoughts as they arise and releasing from our habitual identification with them.  Our mind is an important tool for navigating our daily lives, but it is not who we truly are.  Meditation is not about turning off our thoughts or emotions, it is about developing a greater awareness of the activity of the mind so that we can ground ourselves in our deeper, spiritual identity.

The second most common misconception I have encountered is the idea that meditation is anything that distracts a person from the business of their lives and helps them to distress.  I have heard people say “For me meditation is listening to heavy metal music and zoning out.”  A practice like this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is absolutely not meditation.  Meditation is not about distraction, it is about attention and intention.  It is a practice of giving attention to our inner lives and making an intention of self-offering to our deepest, most authentic desire, which is the will of God in our lives.  This means not running away or hiding from feelings of discomfort, but being present to our discomfort, paying attention to it, and then releasing from it as we ground ourselves in our deeper identity.  Through the practice of meditation we discover our true self; all stress is a result of identifying with a limited or false self-image.

Finally, the third misconception I would like to mention is one that I find mostly in conversation with more conservative Evangelical Christians and it is the idea that meditation is something Buddhists and Hindus do and it is foreign and inauthentic to Christianity.  This is not true.  Meditation has been practiced and taught in all of the world’s major religious traditions, including Christianity.  I believe it is safe to assume that Jesus practiced some form of meditation in the times when he went off on his own to pray and in his 40 days in the wilderness.  The practice of meditation has also been overtly taught from the earliest times of Christianity by the Desert Fathers and Mothers; those devoted bearers of wisdom who left the comforts of their homes and cities to go into the deserts of Egypt and the surrounding areas in the second through fourth centuries to live lives devoted to prayer and inner seeking as monks and hermits.  This form of meditation which involves observing the mind and abiding in the heart has been called the Prayer of the Heart, or the Jesus Prayer, and has been carried on through the centuries most devotedly by the Orthodox Christian traditions, but I believe it can find a place in the life of every sincere Christian.

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Are You Shorting Your Longings?

Do you have habits, or compulsive behaviors, that you struggle to overcome?  These “bad” habits hold clues to help guide you toward your Authentic Self; and these clues are related to your deepest desires and longings.  Many of us have longings which we neglect or suppress.  There are many reasons why people do this, and each person will have their own reasons.  Just a couple examples could be because their deep longings don’t seem to fit into the image of themselves which they want to present to others or they may suppress a longing out of fear that if they express it they will experience rejection.  Whatever the reason, if a person neglects or suppresses their deepest, most authentic desires the subconscious will find expression for them in some form or another.  

Now, the difference between a healthy expression of a longing (a “good” habit) and an unhealthy expression (a “bad” habit) is that a bad habit has quick, short term rewards and long-term detriments, whereas a good habit has long-term rewards and usually requires some degree of effort and sacrifice in the short-term.  For this reason I like to call “good” habits “fulfilling disciplines.”  So I recommend not thinking of your “bad” habits as necessarily bad, rather as unhealthy expressions of a good desire.  Find what is good in that habit.  What continues to pull you back into it again and again?  Is it a longing for intimacy, safety, beauty, creativity, play, adventure and healthy risk-taking, excitement, empowerment, or relaxation, peace, simplicity, pleasure, or freedom?  The list could go on.  Once discovered, then find fulfilling disciplines that might help you attend to and nurture those deep longings in order that they might find healthy expression in your life.  Through this process, with practice and a strong support system, “bad” habits can be replaced with “good.”  Some habits may be subtle and require greater detective work to discover the clue to our Authentic Self, but I assure you it is there.  What imprisons us also points to our freedom.  Or, as my spiritual director once told me, “what gets in the way is the way.”

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And God said “Love Your Enemy,” and I obeyed him and loved myself.

Kahlil Gibran (via aspiritualwarrior)

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What I’m reading right now.

“Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet” by Matthew Fox

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Befriending Our Shadow

In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus offers a teaching that says: “Make friends with your opponent quickly while he is taking you to court; or he will hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and the officer will throw you into prison.  You will not get out until you have paid the last penny.”  I hear in this teaching not only advice on how to handle interpersonal conflicts, but also intrapersonal conflicts.

We all have a persona that we try to present to the world and to ourselves; a constructed idea of who we are.  Some of us have put a lot of energy into constructing our own personas, some of us have passively accepted a persona that society has placed upon us, and most of us are somewhere in between.  This persona, or ego, is not necessarily bad; it is a necessary tool for navigating our relational life in this world, but it is a limited version of who we really are.  In our journey toward living our most authentic life we must learn to recognize all the contrived aspects of the life we’ve lived thus far.

  In order to maintain our persona we must also define who we are not, and stand in opposition to that.  For example, “I am not weak” or “I am not an angry person.”  Not to mention all the more obvious labels we carry around in regards to race, religion, sex, political affiliation, etc.  Sometimes, however, aspects of ourselves arise in us, in the forms of thoughts and emotions, which threaten or challenge our constructed persona.  These aspects of ourselves which we try to deny or hide from others are what psychologists call the “shadow self” and I believe this is an experience Jesus was referring to when he spoke of our “opponent” in this passage from scripture.  

This “shadow self” may be difficult for us to recognize because we often are very good at hiding it from even ourselves.  One way we learn to hide or run away from our shadow is through compulsive or addictive behaviors that numb us to uncomfortable feelings.  Or we may externalize and fight our shadow by reacting against those qualities in others while failing to own them in ourselves.  These strategies surely limit our freedom and have negative effects on our personal and relational lives.  They result in us being “thrown into prison” and not getting out until we have “paid the last penny.”

Jesus teaches, on the other hand, to befriend our opponent.  We can learn to befriend our shadow by first paying attention to what makes us uncomfortable.  What sparks feelings of fear, shame, or anger in us?  There is usually a clue in those moments to a deeper and hidden aspect of our selves.  Then be with that feeling, welcome it, without running from or reacting against it.  Get to know how it feels and what triggers it, practice compassion toward it, and then let it go. The thing about the True, or Authentic, Self is that it is not static; it is always growing and being transformed and it is always guided by love instead of fear.  The reality is that all thoughts and emotions are temporary and therefore no thought or emotion ultimately defines us.  When we accept this truth, when we befriend that which challenges our persona, then we become free in each individual circumstance to use any thought or emotion which may serve love, and to let go of any thought or emotion which does not serve love.

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For me to be a saint means to be myself.  Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and discovering my true self.

Thomas Merton

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Contemplation and Action

“Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”  But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (NRSV Luke 10:38-42).

  Acts of hospitality, service, and working for social justice are essential signs of a mature spiritual life, but in this well-known passage from scripture Jesus teaches that the inner experience of contemplation is the “better part.”  I understand the contemplative life (which is here described as “sitting at the Lord’s feet and listening”) to be a lifestyle rooted in attentiveness to the present moment and intention in transcending the egoic self.  The contemplative experience is characterized by an awareness of the interdependence of all life, which is what mystics from all the world’s religious traditions describe encountering in the depths of silence, stillness, and solitude.  I believe this to be the “better part”, and to deserve preferential attention in our spiritual journeys, because every true contemplative is active in the way they are called to be, but not every active person is nourished by the living waters of contemplation.  A person cannot have an experience of the oneness of life and then remain complacent in the face of injustice, but if a person ignores the work of inner transformation in favor of external good works this can easily lead to feelings of pride, a patronizing attitude towards the poor, or a lack of compassion for those who think differently.  Action that is not supported by contemplative practice can also devolve into burnout, resentment (as we see in Martha), or cynicism.

A concern that I also have about over-emphasizing the importance of action is that it leads to an idea that certain actions are more important than others.  The reality is that people are by nature active, we do things (unless a medical condition leaves us in a catatonic state), and every action that is inspired by our most authentic self is valued by God.  Even Father Lazarus, the Coptic Orthodox hermit who lives in a cave at the Monastery of St. Antony in Egypt, is doing the work of Christ in the world.  If a person has an authentic contemplative experience they cannot help but act on the stirrings of their heart; and the world needs monks, poets, farmers, and craftspeople as much as it needs doctors, scientists, teachers, and peace activists.  We live in a world where the value of sitting and listening is overshadowed by the noise of constant activity.  We must emphasize contemplation and remind people that there is an inner life to be nurtured.  Good works will naturally spring forth from a healthy inner life.  If we neglect or downplay the “better part”, however, we may do some good work in the world but we will fail to live into the fullness of the Christ mystery.

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“I used to be shy. You made me sing.” -Hafez Shrine Bahauddin Zakariya. Multan, Pakistan. (Instagram: aabbiidd)

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You Are Not Alone

As I have journeyed with people through difficult times in their lives – grief, anxiety, shame, fear – it has occurred to me that the source of these feelings so often is the mistaken belief that we must face the world alone.  Many people, in the face of tragedy, either take responsibility for things they are not fully responsible for and therefore feel guilty or ashamed, or they place responsibility completely outside of themselves and feel victimized and afraid.  We like to place responsibility somewhere because it helps us to make sense of a chaotic and seemingly cruel world.  We feel that if we just know why bad things happen and who exactly is to blame then we’ll be better equipped to prevent it from happening in the future.  This is worldly wisdom that has its place.  It may serve us when dealing with objects or equations that always behave in the same ways, but when we are dealing with our relational lives with other human beings I believe the notion of blame does not serve us.  After millennia of tragedies happening in individual lives and communities we are still not any closer to ending human suffering.  The reality is that it is never “us versus the world” or “us versus them” in any situation.  It is simply “us”.  We are a part of an infinite web of relations and when we learn to embrace the Mystery of Oneness we can find a sense of peace in our shared life.

In Christianity we speak of the Body of Christ.  St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:12, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body; so it is with Christ.”  One lesson we may take from this teaching is that responsibility for events in life, whether we judge them good or bad, is shared.  When tragedy occurs, as it seems to occur too often in the world today, or when difficult decisions or situations enter our lives, we can learn to recognize what is beyond our control, accept what is within our control, and know that we alone are not the Savior in any situation.

It is important to clarify that when I say responsibility is shared for events in life, I do not mean to say that a victim of abuse or violence is ever in any way responsible for that event.  Abuse and violence are never justifiable.  What we do have responsibility for, however, is how we respond.  A person always has the choice to be guided by love instead of fear and to be an instrument of peace rather than violence.  This is easier said than done when we are in midst of suffering, but if we fully accept the truth of our interdependence with all of life then we can experience that we are not alone, even in our darkest moments.  The Earth is surrounded by the nourishing light of the sun, but if we find ourselves in a dark, dense forest it can seem like there is nothing but darkness, unless we remember that there is a more pervasive reality of light.

​​We alone did not cause the trials in our lives, we alone could not have prevented them, and we alone cannot save ourselves from them, but it is our relationships and the depth and fullness of love in our lives that can alleviate grief, anxiety, shame, and fear.