The Hearts Intention

“Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.” 

You and I are designed for relationship, we are born to be “in relationship” with everyone and everything else.  The purpose of life, and if we are ever going to find any meaning, is found in relationship, living my life as a benefit for others.  “Community is the Spirit, the Guiding Light…” which when lived functions as a compass, a means of navigating through a reality marked by impermanence and uncertainty.  Thomas Merton wrote, “It is therefore of supreme importance that we consent to live not for ourselves but for others.  When we do this we will be able first of all to face and accept our own limitations.  As long as we secretly adore ourselves, our own deficiencies will remain to torture us with an apparent defilement.  But if we live for others, we will gradually discover that no one expects us to be ‘as gods’.  We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives.  It is because of them that we need others and others need us.  We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.” 

Community is not just some nice sentimental idea or romantic notion but a force for fulfillment and sustainability.  It is a context which naturally creates confidence, courage, true self-esteem, contentment, and love as the content of our lives.  Community is the only conducive environment for personal and global fulfillment and spiritual practice.

The Art of Being

Enlightenment, is to live one’s life at the level of full self-expression.  The work of “being spiritual” is to discover who I am and realize my true self.  The first step toward Enlightenment begins with the realization that, “Who I think I am is not” that the self I call “myself” is conditional or what Buddhist call “the conditioned self” and is not my “true self”.  This self is who I have come to identify with after years of cultural, social, religious and political conditioning, including the most unyielding of all false identifications, identification with my parents.  My happiness as well as my emotional and psychological maturity and well-being is dependent on distinguishing between this self I call myself which is conditional, and who I truly am.  Our hearts will remain restless until we do.

When the Student is Ready

In his book, “The Book of Awakening” Mark Nepo quotes Parker J. Palmer who writes, “The spiritual life is about becoming more at home in your own skin.”  Nepo says, “The aim of all spiritual paths, no matter their origin or the rigors of their practice, is to help us live more fully in the lives we are given.”  This is contrary to most contemporary spiritual approaches which are too often rooted in emotional greed, resentment, or what Chogyam Trungpa called, “Spiritual Materialism”.

There is another saying older than Palmers, “When the student is ready the teacher appears.”  Here the reference to the “teacher” may or may not necessarily be a person.  We are to understand that, “Life” as it is showing up in our lives and in the world is “the teacher”.  As a young Catholic I remember the Sisters and Priests often saying, “God never gives us more than we can handle.”  If both sayings are true, and I believe they are, then the only matter left is whether or not the student is going to attend class.

Pervading the Entire Universe

“We say Buddha Nature pervades the entire Universe or God is Omniscient, Everywhere.  Therefore we cannot say, “Not now” or “Not here.” For wherever we are there is Buddha or God.  In Zen we do not look for Buddha or God outside ourselves, they are within us.  We are the gateway.  Everywhere we are is The Pure Land, the Kingdom of God.  What are you waiting for?  If not now, when?” 

– Seijaku Roshi

I often say that in our modern world, “A persons word is equal to their excuses.”  It would also follow that, “A persons potential is equal to their excuses.”  This would include our potential for real changes in our lives which would result in ending our pursuit of and search for what is and always has been with us, and finally enjoying our birthright — joy, contentment, and love.  The only thing that prevents us from “here and now” is our deluded perceptions of “when and where”.

“Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it.”

“Even if the Sun were to rise in the West, the Bodhisattva knows only One Way.”  These words have always resonated within me especially in times of uncertainty or difficulty, and I have always tried to respond to them authentically and to the best of my ability.  I have always been attracted to the monastic or contemplative realms of religious or spiritual life.  In fact I continue to hold a firm belief that these paths alone are the “One Way”, the only Authentic Spiritual Practices.  Much of what people practice today called “spirituality”, or “religion”, is a “path of convenience”.  The problem lies in the fact that, that which the heart seeks is never convenient even though it is always everywhere we go, “pervading the entire Universe”.  I have always imagined the first “monastic” who looked up into the heavens while at the same time toward that which was calling him or her, within them from where their experience rang, had no words for their experience and chose not to.  For them “the experience” itself was sufficient, more than sufficient, it was “wondrous and mysterious”.  This is the Nature of Authentic Spirituality.  One inspired by the Zen-Life and other traditions like it, understands that no matter how much we think we have or can explain it, well as the Korean Zen Master told his students, “The moment you open your mouth, you are wrong.”   As if that is not bad enough, the moment we seek to understand it or explain it we rob ourselves of any possibilities to know it and betray the purity of the invitation.  We are called to experience life not explain it.  The Mystery that Life really is, can only be known by “living it”.  The Prophets, Buddha, Jesus, all called us to “the desert experience”, where the journey is by no means convenient, and requires one’s full attention or commitment.  How we ever got to the idea that “convenient spirituality” was an option I’d rather not waste a moment trying to explain.

The Road Less Traveled By – is The Way

How many times have you heard the phrase, “The Journey is the Destination”?  Over the years, hundreds of people have come to me asking, “How can I live a more fuller life?”  I would tell them, “You have to live your life, all of it.  Not just the parts you like.”  The part that makes life fulfilling is often the part we often try to avoid.  It’s usually the part which my three year old daughter runs toward.  She never complains that her life is not fulfilling.