(back
to Still Water Dharma Topics)
Dear Still Water Friends,
Most mornings I read the Washington Post. I want to know what is going
on in my neighborhood, in Congress, and in the larger world. If there
are problems, if there is suffering, I want to know about it. I
don’t want to hide from it.
Even though I read the Post, I also have a strong feeling that
there is something insidious about how the news is reported in the
Washington Post and through other “professional” news
outlets. The reporters and writers focus on being objective. They tell
us what is going on. They give us more and more details. But the
reporters do not tell us how to respond to suffering and environment
degradation with love. They don't tell us how to connect. They
don’t even entertain the possibility that one would want to. They
just give us more and more details. Towers of details. It is easy
to numb out, to sink into despair,
In Calming the Fearful Mind, A Zen Response to Terrorism,
Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that in this difficult world moment, as
mindfulness practitioners we are called to open our hearts to suffering
and, also, to nourish love and hope in our lives and in our communities:
Whether or not the twenty-first
century becomes a century of spirituality depends on our capacity of
building community. Without a community, we will become victims of
despair. We need each other. We need to congregate, to bring together
our wisdom, our insight, and our compassion. The Earth is our true
home, a home for all of us. We invite everyone to look deeply into our
collective situation. We invite everyone to speak out to spread the
message. If we fail in this task of Sangha building, then the suffering
of the twenty-first century will be indescribable.
We can bring the spiritual dimension into our daily life, as well as
our social, political, and economic life. This is our practice. Jesus
had this intention. Buddha had this intention. All of our spiritual
ancestors, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist had
this intention. We can display the light of wisdom and come together in
order to create hope and to prevent society and the younger generation
from sinking in despair.
In this spirit, this Thursday evening after our meditation period we
will focus our attention on the excerpt below by Sharif M. Abdul from The Power of One.
We will identify personal and global “problems” and also
identify the strengths and resources we bring to the resolution of
these problem.
I hope you can be with us. The best times to join us are just
before the beginning of our 7 p.m meditation, just before we begin
walking meditation (around 7:25), and just after our walking meditation
(around 7:35).
Also, beginning at 5:30, some of us will be meeting at the Lebanese
Taverna (next to the fountain on Ellsworth Avenue) for dinner before
the sitting meditation. (If you have questions about the dinner, please
email Steve Allen -- stephen_s_allen@yahoo.com.)
Warm wishes,
Mitchell Ratner
Senior Teacher
Authentic Power as a Spiritual Practice, by Abdullah M. Sharif, from The Power of One
Cats
and rats. A few years ago, I experienced a recurring dream. In my
waking life, I faced severe economic problems. The elements of the
recurring dream were always the same; there was always a cat and a rat.
The
rats were very detailed and very distinct. They were 3 or 4 feet high,
they would sit up on their hind legs, they were well-muscled, I could
see every hair on their bodies. They looked very intelligent, with
questing eyes. The cats were always very lethargic, most of the time
they couldn’t even stand up. They would lie in puddles on the floor.
They were indistinct; I couldn’t tell head from tail.
Night
after night, I would have this dream. Super-articulated rats and
indistinct, weak cats. Finally, I realized what the dreams meant. The
rats were my debts, the problems in my life at that time. I focused on
my debts, I looked at them, I analyzed them. I would round up my bills
and go through them, add them, worry over them. I dwelled on the debts;
I fixated on them.
The cats were my abundance, my resources. I paid no attention to them. They were lethargic.
As
soon as I realized the meaning of the dream, I asked myself: what are
my assets? What is my abundance? I sat down and made a list of my
spiritual, physical and financial assets. By the time I finished with
the list, I saw the solution to my pressing debt problem. My answer to
my financial problem was right in front of me all the time. I couldn’t
see it when I was preoccupied with focusing on the problems.
The
next night, I had a dream. The dream was about a beautiful black cat:
huge, sleek, powerful. And, there was a little tiny mouse scurrying
along the floor.
We all do this; we all tend to focus on the
problems instead of the solution. And in doing this, we ignore or deny
the solution, or at least deny the possibility of solution.
I
sit in meetings of people who very correctly see and analyze the
mega-crises. They analyze and reanalyze. They issue reports and
studies. These are the same people who come up to me and (quite
proudly) recite the latest military atrocity or ecological catastrophe
or social travesty.
These committed individuals stare blankly
when I ask them to articulate their solution. At best, their stated
solution is making someone else act.
We focus on the rats while
avoiding the cats because creating a solution also creates the
responsibility for implementing the solution. We want someone else to
do that. The Democrats want the Republicans to come up with the
solution, so they can shoot at it. The blacks want the whites to come
up with the solution, so they can criticize it.
Changing focus from problems to solutions, from rats to cats, takes willpower. And nothing else.
What
is authentic power? ... In Chinese, the character for “power” has three
elements. One of them is forward motion; the second part is a Heart;
the third part is a goal. Therefore, the Chinese definition of power is
moving forward, with heart, to achieve a goal. When you have all the
three elements, heart, forward motion, and a goal, you are beginning to
achieve authentic power. If you do something without Heart, without
Love, it lacks power. If you act without a goal, you act without power.
...