Samsara

Samsara, which in Sanskrit means "continuous flow", refers to the repeating cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth. This cycle has been on my mind lately as the mothers of two friends have died in the past couple of weeks, and as this month marks the fourth anniversary of my own mother's passing. While I was sitting on our front porch and feeling the heaviness of so much death, a ruby-throated humming bird buzzed a few feet from my head, voraciously slurping sugar water. A wave of gratitude swept over me, and I felt lighter and freer in the presence of this magnificent creature. Midst the pain, there was also a beauty and perfection to the natural cycles.

A new movie, Samsara, celebrates this continuous flow of life and all its luscious diversity and unpalatable struggles.  With no words, only compelling images and music, the film cycles us through daily human experiences across the planet, eliciting compassion, joy, repulsion, curiosity, and above all, awe for the magnitude of human expression.

Here is the trailer for the film. Enjoy!

Samsara Trailer

If you would like to explore your own experience of "samsara" in a positive, safe, open environment, please join me for the new classes, private sessions and groups I am facilitating.

What is God? And Four Other Unanswerable Questions

Last week I went on a retreat to the New Camaldoli Heritage, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean and the heart-melting grandeur of the Big Sur coastline. In those days of quiet, I meditated on five questions. Below, for your consideration, are those questions and the responses (as opposed to "the answers") that came to me in prayer and meditation while in that glorious location. What is God? The very name is an inadequate misnomer for the Source from which all has come and which infuses every quark to galaxy cluster with an unfolding consciousness. That consciousness, "Is-ness", Ground of Being, Source beyond all naming, is what we call God because we don't know what else to call it. Even when Moses encounters the Holy in the burning bush and asks for the divine name, all Moses gets is an enigmatic wordplay (or smart ass response): "I AM THAT I AM". You can't shrink wrap the Source of All into a nicely wrapped concept, name, doctrine, or even a personality. Source is more than a person, more than a Presence, more than an Intelligence, yet is all that...and more.

What am I? I am a fractal of the Source from which everything springs. The stars in their incomprehensible vastness of eons and expanse down to the smallest subatomic particles and every possible permutation and parallel reality, all of it is of a Mind, a Christ Consciousness, an Unfolding Expression of a Reality beyond personality, beyond what we can understand but yet refer to as "God". I am of that mysterious stuff, and yet it is more than I am. I came from it, and I return to it, and I am never separate from it, and can never be other than it.

What is my purpose? To live what I am. To have the embodied, full-bore experience of myself in this skin with one eye on the experience of being alive from this perspective in my own individual skin, and the other eye on my Source that connects me to all other life. As a human, I have this glorious privilege of being "double-aware". My purpose includes living as my own unique reflection of that Essence, reflecting upon it, revering it in everything and everyone I encounter, surrendering to it, communing with it, and consciously aligning with it.

Why bother with spirituality (with being aware of this Source)?

• First of all, it’s in my DNA. Consciousness unfolds in increasing complexity, diversity and self-awareness. That's its nature, and I reflect that. To live this life authentically I align with this evolving Conscious that compels me forward, inward, and outward.
• Secondly, it’s more fun, interesting and sustainable than simply living an animalistic, ego-driven existence. The self-generated suffering dissipates when I let go of my separatist, egoist illusions of self-absorbed, needy, anxiety-prone myopia. I find all I externally strove for has already been given within. Operating from gratefulness (great fullness), I discover that my existence flows with greater lightness, joy, clarity, equanimity, compassion, hope, openness, confidence, courage, self-celebration, integrity, and cosmic humor. In other words, when I live from that space of “all is well” within me, nothing around me has the unfair expectation of making me well inside.
• Thirdly, the world needs it. Our self-destructive, consumption culture is a symptom of a lack of interiority, a lack of aligning inside with our own innate wholeness. Without a deep connection to something greater than our own egos, we need, consume and abuse everyone and everything to feel safe, approved, and in control, not realizing that what we do unto others inevitably affect us all. "Sin" is one name for this illusion of separation. Redemption is awakening to Source and then living that wholeness from the inside out in communion with Nature, in peace with each other, and as willing, conscious participants in the unfolding story. Less at war within ourselves, we war less with everyone and everything else.

What happens when we die? We return to Source, the same Source from which we came and which animated our every breath. Perhaps Source assimilates our experience and embodied learning and that energy goes into a new cycle of living, furthering Christ/Cosmic conscious and evolution.

Those were my reflections on those five unanswerable questions. What's bubbling up from your heart and mind?

P.S. Please join us for the new series of day retreats I'll be leading this fall, and/or spread the word to those you think might be interested. Details are on the Classes page.

The Frustrating Silence of God

God has really been irritating me lately. I need clear direction and answers for some important questions about work, career, and income. I've tried prayer, meditation, sitting in silence, journaling, nature walks, talking to friends, guided visualization....The absolute silence is galling. I appreciate lovely notions about "The Cloud of Unknowing", Mystery, and letting go of certainty over and over again. Great. Beautiful. . . Now how about some answers!

• Which option should I choose when pros and cons clash like hyper-partisans in Congress with no clear sign of what is for the highest good of myself, much less the rest of humanity?
• While I'm at it God, how about answering for drought, AIDS, and violence perpetrated in your name?
• For that matter, why not just lay out clearly the meaning and purpose of our existence in a way that can be understood and accepted by all cultures, races and religions?
• And above all, please explain the popularity of the Kardashians.

Of course, one possibility is that there is no God, and that I'm just talking to myself. Perhaps, at most, there might be some sort of evolutionary force moving the universe forward. But there are no answers to be found there, only an impersonal sense of participation in a grander story than my own. While that has a modern poetic vibe, it does nothing for my deep yearning to connect with Something alive and tangible. How can I find guidance or be intimate with an ineffable cloud of mystery that seems like a paler version of "The Force" as presented in Star Wars?

And herein lies the dilemma. I want the answers to my questions, and I would abhor any God who would tell me what to think and do. I've already experienced that fundamentalist version of the divine. It was toxic, soul-numbing and asphyxiating. Yet I want God to function like a Ouija board: answers appear, and I can either follow them wholeheartedly as genuine spiritual guidance, or I can laugh the whole thing off as a meaningless parlor game.

It feels like a spiritual version of teenage angst. I want an external source of wisdom ("Help me Obi Wan Kenobi!") to clearly say what life is about and what is the right thing to do, and I also want complete freedom to make up my own answers. ("Luminous beings are we. Not this crude matter. You must feel The Force around you." Yoda)

Irenaeus said that the glory of God is a human fully alive. Perhaps the divine, whatever it might be, is not so interested in giving me answers but in me growing up so that I know myself, connect with LIfe within and around me, and generate my own answers. In that creative process I think God also comes fully alive.

A Bridge to Somewhere

The late Senator Ted (the Internet is a "series of tubes") Stevens once tried to push a bill through Congress that would have built a $398 million bridge in his home state of Alaska between the towns of Ketchikan (population 14,000) and Gravina Island (population 50) because the existing ferry service was considered inadequate. It became known as "The Bridge to Nowhere". Recently I listened to an Easter sermon by Dr. Jim Rigby in which he said that the Easter resurrection story only makes sense when we see ourselves as an evolutionary bridge between the life that came before us and the life that will come after and through us. In other words, the deeper message of Easter is that we are an evolutionary "bridge to somewhere".

A bridge is not the destination. My life goes into a tailspin faster than Herman Cain's presidential campaign when I forget this truth: The unfolding story of the universe is not about me. It is about the universe, about Life itself. If my molecules, my kindness, my work, my relationships in this brief lifetime bless some form of life beyond myself, then my body is, in a very real sense, resurrected.

A central failing of American Christianity (and of most spiritual practice in this country) is that we don't care very deeply about anyone or anything beyond ourselves. We talk about heaven and the afterlife but show little concern for those going through hell here and now. We get our inner bliss on by meditating, aligning chakras, and pretzeling our bodies like yogis until we become oblivious to the pain in dilapidated apartment complexes across town. We worship superstar spiritual teachers but lack the humility to learn from a wise African-American cleaning woman we see every day. Such a religion/spirituality will always be characterized by fearful, narcissistic grasping. It is a self-centered bridge to nowhere.

Whatever our beliefs are about the afterlife, we can experience a bridge of connection that spans our differences and links us with life everywhere. Such a universal connection would include:

• Placing our individual lives in the context of the ongoing story of Life itself. Otherwise, talk of the afterlife is simply a glorified ego trip.
• Revolutionary, evolutionary practices done individually and in supportive communities where we break the trance of myopic navel-gazing and get real with each other.
• A mindful awareness about how our daily choices affect the people we live and work with, cashiers and waiters that serve us, impoverished women in Latin America who make our clothes, children yet unborn in Asia, and species in the Pacific Ocean yet to emerge.

In this kind of spirituality, anxious grasping for the afterlife transforms into a conscious connection with the Spirit of LIfe here and now. The isolating hell of "me, myself and I" becomes a resurrection in which I find myself by losing myself in something grander than myself.  The tragedy of my finite existence becomes a celebration of my unique chapter in life's everlasting story. A bridge to nowhere becomes a bridge to somewhere.

Thank you for reading this post. If you would like to explore together (either online or in person) what a down to earth, LIfe-serving spirituality will look like in the 21st century, please provide your feedback and also sign up below for email notification of future posts. Let's get the conversation started. Thank you!

You Say You Want a Revolution? Read Leviticus

The Biblical book of Leviticus is a tedious read, and so, with the exception of homophobic rants about a man not "lying with a male as with a woman", the text is quoted about as often as President Warren Harding's Inaugural Address. Recently I attended an event at a nearby seminary where the topic of discussion was Leviticus 25:

Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan...Everyone is to return to their own property...The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers...If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you. Do not take interest or profit from them, but fear your God, so that they may continue to live among you.  Leviticus 25:10, 13, 23-24, 35-36.

So, let's see if I get this right. God's command is that every fifty years there's a total economic "do over".  And here are the tenets of God's economic platform:

• No matter what happened in the previous 49 years, everyone gets back their historic family property. (Socialism?)
• Land is never permanently sold, because it really belongs to God and the entire community. (Communism?)
• If, for whatever reason, someone becomes poor, the nation is called on to support them. (Welfare state?)
• The poor are to be helped just as foreigners and strangers should be supported. (Immigrant rights?)
• Don't take interest or profit from the poor so that they can prosper. (Not even sure what to call this other than a violation of every principle of the market economy.)

Anyone running for president on this platform wouldn't stand a chance in hell (perhaps heaven?) of winning.  Of course, outside of a few isolated attempts, these words were never taken literally. They were simply too revolutionary. So much for a nation based on Biblical principles.

What if, however, the spirit of these words challenged us to evolve our economics and our spirituality until we could not consider one without the other? What if the measure of our spirituality included not only personal salvation/enlightenment but also a shared responsibility for the wellbeing of all the inhabitants of our community: rich and poor, native and immigrant, human and other species? What if "we" became just as prominent as "me" when talking about economics and spirituality?

While a literal year of Jubilee is unlikely, we can catch the spirit of Jubilee and put our spiritual energy to use for the public good. A start is to educate ourselves about how "the public" is actually doing,

"The Human Development Report" provides census-driven data to analyze longevity, income and access to education, healthcare, and affordable housing. Reports have been generated for 161 countries, three states in the U.S. (Louisiana, Mississippi, and California) and for the first time ever, a local community: Marin County, California. We get a better understanding of how people are doing from a tool like this than we do from the distant rumblings of the stock market. To learn more, go to http://measureofamerica.org/

While I don't expect that many of us will pick up Leviticus for a light summer read, I do believe that it is time for us to evolve our spirituality so that our individual Jubilee is not complete without including in our hearts and actions those for whom Jubilee is a distant dream.