Americana

A slice of Americana … From Houma, La

Practicing Peace

I have subscribed to an on-line course on meditation with Tibetan nun, Pema Chodron. I highly reccommend it. I also bought a book and am reading that too, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.  I am going to share the latest e-meditation installment and recommend that you look into her work. It is not the usual sappy, feel good, focus on the good things approach, it is life-changing. She gives wonderful, useful, but challenging advice. Spiritual and psychological boot-camp kind of advice.

Day 34: Don’t Bite the Hook

In Tibetan there is a word that points to the root cause of aggression, the root cause also of craving. It points to a familiar experience that is at the root of all conflict, all cruelty, oppression, and greed. This word is shenpa. The usual translation is “attachment,” but this doesn’t adequately express the full meaning. I think of shenpa as “getting hooked.” . . . Here’s an everyday example: Someone criticizes you. She criticizes your work or your appearance or your child. In moments like that, what is it you feel? It has a familiar taste, a familiar smell. Once you begin to notice it, you feel like this experience has been happening forever. That sticky feeling is shenpa. And it comes along with a very seductive urge to do something. Somebody says a harsh word and immediately you can feel a shift. There’s a tightening that rapidly spirals into mentally blaming this person, or wanting revenge or blaming youself. Then you speak or act. The charge behind the tightening, behind the urge, behind the story line or action is shenpa.. . . 

So simply by recognizing what’s happening we can nip aggression or craving in the bud — our own and that of others. As we become more familiar with doing this, our wisdom becomes a stronger force than shenpa. That in itself has the power to stop the chain reaction. . . .

I once saw a cartoon of three fish swimming around a hook. One fish is saying to the others, “The secret is nonattachment.” That’s a shenpa joke: the secret is don’t bite that hook.

— from Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chödrön (c) 2006. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc.,www.shambhala.com

To Practice This Today: Pema Chödrön suggests a four-stage process for dealing with shenpa. First, we need to recognize the shenpa, when we’re tensing up and feeling all worked up. Then we refrain from responding, from scratching that familiar itch. Then we relax into this way of not scratching, and then we resolve to interrupt the momentum of shenpa whenever it happens. The next time you are about to bite the hook, use this process.

We have lift off!

What a great expression! The idea of lifting off and leaving our darkness behind.

Today I have lift - off!

Daily Bible readings from Taize

If you aren’t familiar with the ecumenical community in Taize, I recommend this site. There is a daily meditation page, bible readings, and of course their beautiful chanting.

http://www.taize.fr/en_article1854.html

Sleep, by Eric Whitacre

Give yourself the gift of listening to the song “Sleep” by Eric Whitacre.
Just click on the picture above and you will be taken to the video on his site.

Not since the Cathedral Choir sang ”O Magnum Mysterium” by Morten Lauridsen have I been transported by the beauty of choral music.

A Network for Grateful Living (ANG*L)

A Network for Grateful Living (ANG*L) provides education and support for the practice of grateful  living as a global ethic, based on the teachings of Br. David Steindl-Rast and colleagues.  Gratefulness – the full response to a given moment and all it contains – is a universal spiritual practice that inspires personal transformation, cross-cultural understanding, interfaith dialogue, intergenerational respect, nonviolent conflict resolution, and ecological sustainability.
http://www.gratefulness.org/a/index.htm

A Blustery Day

It was a Pooh day today – blustery.

Leaves swirling and twirling
round and round
as if a good witch was about to appear
in the center of a whirlwind.

And the tops of the trees rustled and waved
and I flew up there and breathed and breathed.

It was a good day.