Three Doors to Freedom

Altruism is the Key to Making Meditation Matter

2011-07-18T22:29:44-07:00

This piece in London's Daily Telegraph today at first irritated me, as an expatriate Brit with a home in the La-La Land of the Lotus-Eaters. Here, it appeared, was just another xenophobic Englishman venturing abroad to deride those who dance to a different drum; and entirely mis-taking Buddhism to boot.

"It’s all about personal narratives – one man’s voyage from ignorance to enlightenment", he says. Then "No one in Los Angeles, I sense, exists for other people. How can they, sitting as they do on their yoga mats in perfect isolation from one another?"

Everything I know about the altruistic path taught by the Buddha, passed down for two and a half thousand years, and embodied today in such enlightened teachers as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, says quite the opposite: that selfless care and concern for others are the very essence, practice and result of the ever-relevant quest for awakening.

Yet, on reflection, I wonder whether the young Dr. Stanley may not have hit upon an important point for modern meditators. Mindfulness is going mainstream these days. The pioneers who brought these uplifting practices back from the East quite rightly continue to emphasize selflessness, impermanence, and that whatever we may think, "it depends". Still, for many - especially in this Western paradise - who like to think they meditate, these subtle and unsettling truths can be obscured by the cult of egotism. Meditation or yoga may become simply another "lifestyle choice", defining who we think we are - rather than helping skilfully to dismantle that tenacious self-concept.

The alchemical key, as Dr. Stanley intuits in his neo-missionary zeal, lies in the essential connection to others. Which is why each era must be careful not to popularise these precious, timeless and universal practices to such an extent that they lose their extraordinary salvific value, and become mere playthings of the prevailing culture. Yes, it's hip to sit, or to stretch. But to bring about any real, lasting alleviation of suffering - individual or collective - they have to be undertaken as community service. To benefit the whole community of beings, every last one, without discrimination. True teachers have known that, practised it and embodied it, all-ways.

So perhaps Dr. Stanley, for all his jingoistic, Anarcho-Catholic bluster, really is (as his bio suggests) a Buddha-hugging voodoo historian. Like, awesome, man.

You Deserve Your Love

2011-02-03T20:22:37-08:00

"You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." ~ The Buddha

Frozen Yoga & McMindfulness

2011-01-07T03:52:03-08:00

Insightful observations by Dr. Miles Neale on the drawbacks of the current trend toward mindfulness and yoga as mere self-help techniques. Whilst he applauds the spread of contemplative practices into the mainstream (especially for teens), Dr. Neale skillfully points out that essential "nutrients" are missing. Devoid of the rich trainings in ethics, wisdom and compassion that their respective traditions authentically embody, yoga and mindfulness become pale anaemic shadows of their real selves. Much better than nothing, but like frozen food is to fresh, the real thing is much more nourishing.

Be Kind Whenever Possible

2010-12-25T00:12:36-08:00

If you want others to be happy,
practice compassion.
If you want to be happy,
practice compassion.

Be kind whenever possible.
It is always possible.

--HH the Fourteenth Dalai Lama

Beyond Hope and Fear

2010-12-21T13:51:16-08:00

Margaret Wheatley writes beautifully about living beyond hope and fear, in right action and relationship:

A Place Beyond Hope and Fear (pdf download)

What I Will ~ Suheir Hammad

2010-12-18T12:46:05-08:00

I will not
dance to your war
drum. I will
not lend my soul nor
my bones to your war
drum. I will
not dance to your
beating. I know that beat.
It is lifeless. I know
intimately that skin
you are hitting. It
was alive once
hunted stolen
stretched. I will
not dance to your drummed
up war. I will not pop
spin beak for you. I
will not hate for you or
even hate you. I will
not kill for you. Especially
I will not die
for you. I will not mourn
the dead with murder nor
suicide. I will not side
with you nor dance to bombs
because everyone else is
dancing. Everyone can be
wrong. Life is a right not
collateral or casual. I
will not forget where
I come from. I
will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved
near and our chanting
will be dancing. Our
humming will be drumming. I
will not be played. I
will not lend my name
nor my rhythm to your
beat. I will dance
and resist and dance and
persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than
death. Your war drum ain't
louder than this breath.

Wholeness (from Systems Theory)

2010-12-14T10:31:42-08:00

"The essential properties of an organism, or living system, are properties of the whole, which none of the parts have. They arise from the interactions and relationships among the parts. These properties are destroyed when the system is dissected, either physically or theoretically, into isolated elements. Although we can discern individual parts in any system, these parts are not isolated, and the nature of the whole is always different from the mere sum of its parts."

~ Fritzjof Capra, physicist and systems theorist: The Web of Life.

Infinite Possibilities of the Unknown

2010-09-21T08:38:53-07:00

"Is it not better to keep silence about matters which speech is incompetent to express; to be content with revolving in the deeps of the mind the infinite possibilities of the unknown?"

~ Thomas Huxley, Victorian agnostic

Hidden Joy

2010-04-03T11:39:34-07:00

"The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. There is a radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see, and to see we have only to look."

~ Fra Giovanni

Unnecessary Tyranny

2010-02-25T22:04:38-08:00

"One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways."

~ Bertrand Russell