Two days ago (which, because of the screwy way this blog works, refers to the post that follows) I touched on the topic of ”woundedness” as it applies to our life story. And how it comes into play—if we can become conscious of it—as we endeavour to offer our full presence to others. While I often write [...]
Rainer sez
On Sundays–and more often if it seems right–I post a poem. I’ve just returned home from the Spiritual Care Conference and feel steeped in the kindness of people who attend to the dying and live with hearts wide open. Now, with an occasional glass of 7* Metaxa at my side (medicinally soothing!), I open the book to the words of Rainer Maria Rilke:
As it happens, the wall [...]
on becoming a teacher
One of my great teachers is Carl Rogers. Through his books he helped shape my early teaching/counselling philosophy and behaviour (in the 70s and beyond) and continues to guide me with his insights and humility. The following quote summarizes his (and my own) experience as teacher and facilitator: “In my early professionals years I was asking [...]
4131 hits later
This blog’s been running for six months now, with an average of 23 visitors a day. I wonder who’s reading these words. If it’s you, I’d be glad to hear from you sometime. Writing here has become a practice of service for me. As I take on sense responsibility for making it interesting for both of us, [...]
a single garment of desitiny
I’m just back from the big country where the primaries are in full swing, each “side” spending precious millions to persuade voters that they’re the one to be trusted and that the others are suspect. Voters are “targeted” according to race, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, along party lines, economic groupings, and electorial boundaries. Candidates are packaged, [...]
in/side/out
There’s a line in James Joyce’s book Dubliners which has been on my mind recently. ”He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances” (1914, “A painful case”).
I read this line two ways. One, he lived outside of his body, not aware of his breathing and being alive. Detached [...]
is that enough?
Yesterday’s poem invites us to pay attention to what occurs in each moment: trees, water, rushes, boat, companion, wind, motion, stillness, movement, breath, thoughts, memories … It reminds me to let go of the life-long habit of gauging my worth by some external standard and measurable outcome.
Don’t get me wrong: these are essential components of living [...]
slow travel
This morning our boat left the
Orchid bank and went out through
The tall reeds. Tonight we will
Anchor under mulberries
And elms. You and me, all day
Together, gathering rushes.
Now it is evening, and see,
We have gathered just one stalk.
–Anonymous, translation from Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth
be curious
We must be willing to let go / of the life we have planned / so as to have the life / that is waiting for us. –Joseph Campbell
I plan to be at the monastery in Oregon till Sunday–visiting with friends and re-charging my mindfulness batteries. Meanwhile and always, May your eyes and ears be open to [...]
individuation
C.G. Jung wrote: “Individuation means becoming a single homogeneous being, and, insofar as in-dividuality embraces our innermost, last and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one’s own self. We could therefore translate individuation as coming to selfhood or self-realisation.“
east and west
Rob Preece has written a book that I’ve been waiting for. Drawing on Buddhist teachings and Jungian psychology, he charts the path of ‘individuation,’ the coming into our own which C.G. Jung saw as our becoming a psychological “individual.”
To my naïve ears, Buddhist practice (Zen in particular) emphasizes letting go and emptying in order to free [...]
wishing for some inter-faith
Readers of these pages are aware of my interest in (and occasional rants about) inter-faith practices, my longing for ways to understand and to soften the barriers of religious beliefs. Wherever we look–abroad or right next door–there are conflicts, often brutal and bloody, in the name of one god or another. Always without winners.
My vow for this year is to [...]
time out
It’s Sunday morning here on Galiano Island (9:16), already evening in Hildesheim (19:16), barely Monday in Chiang Mai (0:15) and Melbourne (4:15). Waking up on Sundays is different from other mornings. But, the voice asks, isn’t the view out the window the same as the one I saw yesterday? Aren’t the seagulls crying as they always do? [...]
what’s cooking you?
Doris Dörrie, the director of Enlightenment Guaranteed, has made another film with a Buddhist angle, this one about Espe Brown. Many of you (or your hippie-friends) know the man as author of the Tassajara Bread Book which introduced thousands to the joys of breadbaking back in the 70s and 80s. The Vancouver Film Festival announced the film thus: [...]
prayer as meditation (and vice versa)
Excerpts from “Christian appreciation of the Buddha” by Bonnie Thurston, former Professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a specialist in Merton and Buddhism. © 1999 The University of Hawai’i Press.
“There is, as Paul Tillich [the prominent Protestant theologian] writes, a point ‘in the depth of every living religion . . . at which the religion itself [...]
