The Great Bell Chant

May the sound of this bell penetrate deep into the cosmos.
Even in the darkest places,
May living beings hear it clearly.
That all suffering in them may cease,
Understanding come to their heart,
And they transcend the path of sorrow and death.

The universal dharma door is already open;

The sound of the rising tide is heard clearly.
The miracle happens: A beautiful child 
Appears in the heart of a lotus flower.
One single drop of this compassionate water
Is enough to bring back the refreshing spring 

To our mountains and rivers.

Listening to the bell,

I feel the afflictions in me begin to dissolve.
My mind calm,
My body relaxed,
A smile is born on my lips.

Following the sound of the bell,
My breath brings me back 

to the safe island of mindfulness.
In the garden of my heart,
The flowers of peace bloom beautifully.

A Gorgeous Gatha

Have to share this gorgeous gatha for meditation from TNH. This one got me through a medical test today; it made me feel solid, lucid and calm in a situation that usually causes a good deal of anxiety. I highly recommend it!

*   *   *

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.
In...
Out.

[breathing in, etc.] I feel my in-breath grow deep.
I feel my out-breath become slow.
Deep...
Slow.

I feel calm.
I feel ease.
Calm...
Ease.

I smile to my afflictions.
I release my afflictions.
Smile...
Release.

In, out.
Deep, slow.
Calm, ease.
Smile, release.

In the Garden of Mind...

...Flowers of Consciousness Bloom

Today I was meditating on abundance and satiety, and the ethical implications of both. Abundance is the opposite of scarcity; it simply implies that needs are met, and perhaps there’s a little left over afterwards. Satiety is defined as "fullness to the point of excess," which most observers would probably consider a fair description of a large portion of the North American population.

Abundance can be made of anything. The salient things aren’t things at all, but the way you perceive reality, your relationship with your environment. I see abundance as largely a matter of cognition, attitude and practice. Looking deeply into abundance, I see peace, shared prosperity and shared global responsibility.

Looking deeply into satiety, on the other hand, I see resource wars and terrorism playing on an endless loop. It isn’t sustainable for one part of the world to consume such an outsize portion of the world’s natural resources while comprising only a sliver of the planet's population. While satiety is causing its own intrinsic problems in this culture, the impact of such patterns of consumption on parts of the developing world can be devastating. Boiled down to its essence, the never-ending cycle of war and terrorism -- with devastation of the biosphere as collateral damage -- is about patterns of consumption.

We know that craving and attachment cause suffering, and that seeking a never-ending surfeit of material possesions can feed both these mental formations. Most of us in this part of the world do have an overabundance of resources at our disposal. At the same time, there are members of our species all over the planet living subsistence-level lives, and many actually fall below that line on any given day. To the the humanist, the ethical philosopher and the peace practitioner, the correct course is obvious: redistribute our excess to those at the other end of the economic scale. Balance!

From a place of abundance, we know that we have all that we need and enough to share with those who need our help most. Our daily lives can be a reflection of our mindfulness of the interconnected nature of all beings.

A Holiday Appeal for Peace

Throughout the holiday season, the phrase ”peace on earth” is an oft-repeated trope. We can choose to respond to it with unconscious skepticism ("Peace on earth? Yeah, right!”); alternatively, we can allow the phrase to serve as a bell of mindfulness. When I hear those words, I imagine that someone has invited a bell to sound; I take a moment and turn my attention to my breath. I silently say this first line as I breathe in, and the second as I exhale:

“Listen, listen! 
That beautiful sound brings me back to my true home.” 

Using the same in-breath/out-breath method, we can then practice mindfulness of interbeing (the interconnectedness of all beings) in this way:

I’ve arrived and I am home,

In the here, in the now.

I am solid, I am free;

In the Ultimate I dwell.

This is a deep and healing practice, very enjoyable and a sure way to regain your balance in the midst of the holiday rush. Peace lies deep inside every one of us and all around us, no matter who or where we are. To realize peace on earth, a critical mass of Bodhisattvas (beings defined by compassion, the heart of enlightenment) needs to practice touching and watering the seeds of peace and joy within themselves. This will be of enormous benefit to all sentient beings.

The heart of reality is non-duality, nondiscrimination. When I realize that the sufferings of my neighbors are my own sufferings; that my family’s joy is my own joy, the walls between myself and other beings begin to crumble. Soul gently pushes ego to one side; in that pregnant pause in the endless parade of craving and aversion, real peace can be created. 

It’s the only way to make peace: as individuals and in groups, we take advantage of the rare lucidity that accompanies true insight and introspection in order to generate lovingkindness. After sitting in deep appreciation of the interconnected nature of reality for ten, twenty, or thirty minutes, you are more than qualified to step outside and put your peacemaking skills to use on behalf of all other conscious beings.

Peace on earth indeed, a joyous Solstice, and happy holidays to all!

Imprinting Joy on the Earth

image from desktopnexus.com

We have inflicted a great deal of damage on the earth. The planet’s biosphere is the only one we know of that supports reflexively self-aware life forms. There may well be more, but for the moment this is it. 

Clearly we inter-are with the earth; we are made of the same elements. When we harm the planet, when we poison our environment, they harm and poison us in turn, along with every other species with which we share the biosphere.

This calls for mindfulness of consumption and of disposal. We send energy and support to our Mother Earth who sustains us each time we mindfully recycle, reuse and repurpose the material things we use. When we walk gently, in awareness of the contact between the soles of our feet and the earth, we can imagine ourselves imprinting happiness and healing upon it with each step. The act of walking mindfully -- to walk in full awareness of the fact that you’re walking -- confers a sense of being tethered to the earth as if by an invisible cord. It’s a powerful way to meditate. 

In Epicurean philosophy, the goals the practitioner seek are ataraxia (the tranquil, imperturbable mind) and aponia (freedom from anxiety and pain). This they do by distinguishing between necessary and unnecessary desires, adjusting their habits of craving, and taking positive energy from life’s natural pleasures in moderation. Like the Buddhist practitioner, the followers of this ancient ethical philosophy work to broaden the breadth of their awareness and widen their circles of compassion to encompass all conscious creatures; indeed, all sentient beings.

The earth wants to heal us, to reach us with the truths of nondiscrimination, impermanence and compassion. In order to receive these wise messages, we have to turn down the noise in our minds. A regular mindfulness meditation practice is one of the most effective tools at our disposal to achieve and sustain a receptive, tranquil and unfettered mind. Let’s walk gently on the earth, imprinting joy, happiness and peace with every step we take.

Stewardship or Dominion?

     Image from permaculture

It is an unfortunate truth that some people can't be happy if their ability to threaten or harm other conscious beings is in any way abridged. Of course, the notion that harm or threats of harm will make us happy is an illusion; what actually fulfills us as human beings is empowering and nurturing other beings-- both humans and other species.

Looking deeply, we see that causing harm to another conscious being is tantamount to harming ourselves.The Buddhist teachings on no-self, nondiscrimination and impermanence come to our aid here. As humans we are composed of nonhuman elements, just as dogs and cats are composed of non-dog-and-cat elements. All three species are made from their ancestors, the air, the water, their food and their environments generally. Remove any of those common elements, and they would cease to manifest as discrete beings. The boundary line between one conscious being and another is largely imaginary. We are all defined by interbeing: what benefits me also benefits you; what does you harm does the same to me.

In the Bible (still an authoritative text for some people), one translation has the deity giving humanity a mandate to exercise stewardship of nature, while another reads dominion over same. The former suggests working to protect natural habitats for other species; the other implies dominance and exploitation. Which of the two translations believers read and believe renders predictable outcomes in the ways they interact with the natural world. For us humanists, there has been copious, often brilliant, speculation among contemporary philosophers on this issue over the past several decades. One of them, Australian ethicist Peter Singer, has distinguished himself as a true champion of nonhuman animal species. His books Animal Liberation and Writings on an Ethical Life are well worth reading for anyone interested in the fascinating field of bioethics.

If we decide we have the inalienable right to mindlessly slaughter other species or render their natural habitats unlivable, we wreak real havoc not only on them but on humanity as well. Poison the environment, and the environment will poison you; it really is that simple. The way we choose to interact with the earth, the biosphere, and other species has profound implications for them and for us. Will we choose sustainability and responsible stewardship over reckless domination? The answer will largely determine how long the earth’s biosphere will remain habitable for us and the countless other species with which we share it.

Thoughts from a Meditation Cushion

Image from yogistar.com

I’m a humanist who engages in a spiritual practice based on meditation, self-care and the compassionate nurture of human and other sentient beings. I was thinking earlier today after meditating about the ways humanistic philosophy and holistic spirituality complement one another. That in turn led to some other thoughts.

We've inherited the full range of emotions, thoughts and behaviors that our Paleolithic ancestors had. We have a well-developed prefrontal cortex that enables cognition, language and cooperation. We also have active adrenal glands that enabled our ancient ancestors to flee or fight in threatening circumstances. That can get us into trouble if we don’t evolve strategies for keeping the flow of adrenaline under control. (In my own practice, mindfulness meditation -- both sitting and walking -- is key in this context.) 

Because belonging to a tribe was key to survival in the ancestral environment, we still retain a powerful tribal instinct. That's why we square off so readily as groups: theist against atheist, conservative against liberal, and so on. When it comes to morality, we are actually much more "groupish" than we are selfish. We’re wired to deal with threats to the tribe quickly and efficiently. That explains the fact that we often feel compelled to step in and “set people straight” when we feel our group identity is being treated unfairly or mischaracterized.

The human moral code is a natural product of primate evolution; it comes from the same cooperative reciprocity observable in our closest cousins, the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Of course our cognitive advantage and creative potential have enabled us to go farther than they, both for better and for worse.

Humanism doesn't fail to account for the fact that all humans are torn between doing what's best for the collective and doing only what benefits themselves. That's what lies at the heart of human ethics in my view: are we in it for the good of all, or just looking for ways of bettering our own fortunes?

Ours is a fundamentally optimistic view of humanity despite its individual and collective failures. It's not a belief that human beings are essentially selfless or unflawed (a quick glance at history cures that fantasy), but it doesn’t take a gloomy, dim view of the species, either. We assert that our collective love, our ability to nurture conscious beings, and our creative cognition all have remarkable, perhaps largely untapped, potential.