Monthly Archives: December 2017

Silence, Stillness

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Wawona, Ca, Nov., 2017

If we have a bit of quiet time and pay attention at the turning of the year, we can feel a pause in the world and rest there.

It’s easier to experience this in the natural world, but what we truly long is a place of rest that is always available, unconditionally, a place we can visit any time, that won’t let us down. We only find this kind of refuge within.

Wawona, CA, Nov. 2017

Anam Thubten, a Tibetan Buddhist master insists that the simplest ways of meditation, though not easy, are are among the most profound:

“Try this. Pay attention to your breath in silence. Look at your mind. Immediately we see that thoughts are popping up. Don’t react to them. Just keep watching your mind. Notice that there is a gap between each thought. Notice that there is a space between the place where the last thought came to an end and the next one hasn’t yet arrived. In this space there is no ‘I’ or ‘me.’ That’s it.” (No Self, No Problem, 2009).

The “it” he refers to is the true nature of awareness – what we really are. The image given is the clear sky, unaffected by anything passing through it, just as clear, open awareness is not affected by any of the passing contents of consciousness.

Wawona, CA, Nov, 2017

Elsewhere, Anam Thubten gives this instruction: “Rest and let everything be as it is.”

Few of us can follow guidance like that without prior practice and the guidance of an experienced teacher. So what are we to do?

Wawona, CA, Nov., 2017

Chögyam Trungpa (1939 – 1987) was one of the first Tibetan Buddhist teacher to settle and teach in this country. A master in the same lineage as Anam Thubten, he left us a practice for working with the breath as a focus for meditation that is both simple and profound.

We place our attention on the outgoing breath, letting any tension flow out with it. At the end of the out breath, we let go and rest. We rest without effort in the gap between out breaths, knowing that the in breath takes care of itself. This cycle of focus and rest, effort and letting go, will lead our thoughts and distractions to settle sufficiently to be able to follow Anam Thubten’s instruction and simply “rest and let everything be as it is.”

Wawona, CA, Nov, 2017

There are other ways to find the place of clarity and stillness within – this is one that works for me.

Wawona, CA, Nov. 2017

I wish you all a Happy New Year!

John Believer’s Prophecy

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The Fool in the Tarot de Marseilles

When I was a college freshman in Oregon, a bearded fellow in a long black coat would sometimes harangue the crowds in the quad at lunch time. He’d bring a box to stand on and a Bible to wave. He called himself John Believer.

This was the late 60’s and though he tried for hell and brimstone, I think he’d done too much acid to pull it off. Out of his sometimes interesting theological mishmash, one of his ideas stuck with me and resonated with teachings I would hear later from two spiritual masters.

John Believer said the spiritual center of earth was right there in Oregon, (that’s why he’d moved north from Berkeley), but we should expect trouble. The spiritual center is always on the move, he explained, and it was about to head back to the orient. During it’s long Pacific crossing, humanity would experience an age of darkness.

In May, 1940, the Hindu master, Paramahansa Yogananda, gave one of several lectures predicting a coming time of travail for humanity.  The transcript of the May talk  is available as a pamphlet, World Crisis, published by Self-Realization Fellowship. Seventy-seven years ago, Yogananda said:

“A great crisis is going to come, a crisis such as never before has hit this country…There is a world revolution going on. It will change the financial system. In the karmic firmament of America, I see one beautiful sign; that no mater what the world goes through, she will be better off than most other countries. But America will experience widespread misery, suffering, and changes just the same. You are used to the better things of life, and when you are obliged to live simply, you won’t like it. It’s not easy to be poor after being rich. You have no idea how this change is going to affect you through the years. Never before in the history of this land has there been so deep a contrast in living standards as will visit this country – the contrast between riches and poverty.” (emphasis added)

Yogananda predicted that though the darkness would last several centuries and even threaten the future of life on the planet, it would likely pass and usher in a time of spiritual growth for humanity. Continue reading →

A Fake World

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“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” – Edgar Allen Poe

The world’s spiritual traditions tend to agree with these words Poe wrote in 1849, the year of his death. To Hindus, this world is “maya,” meaning “a magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem.” (1)

Buddhists call it “samsara,” a Sanskrit word for “wandering through, flowing on, aimless and directionless wandering,” signifying the involuntary cycle of death and rebirth that continues until we grasp the true nature of appearances (2).

Jesus warned his followers that this is not the place to store up riches. In 1999, the Matrix reframed the appearance/reality question for the twenty-first century.

Being spiritual, doesn’t give anyone a pass on consensus reality. As Ram Dass put it, “We have to remember our Buddha nature and our social security number.” 

Navigating samsara has never been easy. Truth is hard enough to discover when we are sincere, let alone when we are not. That’s one reason why Buddha placed a special emphasis on truth as a core value. Not lying was one of his Five Precepts. He said, “When anyone feels no shame in telling a deliberate lie, there is no evil, I tell you, they will not do” (3). Continue reading →