“The only obstacle you face is yourself.”

“No,” screams my inner monologue, “The only obstacle I am facing right now is you.”

The you I'm referring to is a yoga teacher, spewing spiritual jargon all over the studio, and I'm getting very annoyed. Maybe on some level he's right – the obstacle is my very personal reaction to his teaching style. I take a moment to remind myself that this is an opportunity for patience. And it's not what he's saying that is irritating me – after all, even though I find his style aggressive, he's right. You don't need all the shit that you think you do – you'll never be truly, deeply happy even when you get the promotion, the car, the hot girlfriend. The ego, the “little self,” needs to die so that our true nature can be realized. The “true self,” the spirit, the inner flame, the little piece of God within us, whatever you want to call it. But it's the fact that this guy's ego is large enough to fill the entire room that is really rubbing me the wrong way. On reflection later, I think he's replaced one sense of ego with an entirely new one – the spiritual ego. The “I'm better than you because I'm a better yogi” ego. I don't need as much stuff as you. I live more in the present than you.

Really, what it is, is hubris.

I think the difference between pride and hubris is one that we need to tease out in our society. Pride can be a synonym with hubris, for sure, but I'll call them two separate terms for the sake of this discussion. Here I'll define pride as justified self-respect. It's the sort of thing which develops in our life from fundamentally being okay with ourselves, feeling compassion for our failings, loving our strengths, and building on our competencies. It's knowing our inner strength. It's taking joy in our capacity to overcome obstacles. Honestly, I think this sort of pride is tied to a sense of humility in knowing our limitations. It blossoms from a place of deep self-love and letting go of the repetitive, self-abusive stories of failure that choke us. It's the sort of thing which inadvertently gets beaten down when we focus too heavily on our identity as a “sinner.”

And then there's hubris. It's this inflated sense of ego that happens, I think, in response to actually not feeling okay about ourselves, about our failings and shortcomings. It's overcompensation. We build a hard shell of “I'm better than...” around ourselves to protect ourselves from the harsh reality that we kind of suck sometimes, and we do stupid shit and we make pretty awful mistakes. In response, we tell ourselves a narcissistic story that denies the reality of our errors.

One of the real problems with hubris (besides the fact that it can really piss people off) is that it prevents us from seeing the rich treasure that our mistakes offer us. We don't deal with the fact that we really mess up – and that's okay. Rather than accepting our mistakes and transforming them into learning opportunities, we deny them. It's a place where very little spiritual growth actually happens.

This is the space of leaving

Dear Saskatoon,

This is the space I fashion:

the cup of my hands

for holding the salt water of crying.

This is the space of a long held sigh –

finally escapes,

a rare beauty,

a prayer for what will never come to pass.

This is the space between, within our chests

as we embrace

and ready to part;

lips sharing between us

the hidden lamentations of which we dare not, shall not whisper.

This is the space between our palms

enclosing the knowledge of fingers intertwined no more;

questions which cannot be answered:

shall I ever again feel the warmth of your soul

on my soul?

shall these scars ever fade?

This is the space between our breaths –

fear, the fear I abandon, a shield clattering to the floor

so I can take up new moments of terror,

as I summon the one, the one with a sword

who shall enter, enter, and aid

in the space of saying

farewell.

This is the space within the pulsing of blood,

between one drumbeat and the next –

a psalm of thanksgiving,

inner flowering

for the ones who came with me on pilgrimage.

This is the space opening between stars

stretching to hold memories:

sweet nectar, broken vows,

feet pounding the floor, summoning the gods of music with our sweat,

cries of new babes in the vastness of night;

the space which holds the promise of sunrises yet to be born,

and footsteps on roads which have not even been laid.

This is the space between alleys and broken fences;

abandoned places where I weep for

this rough, unpolished jewel we call a city – my lover –

filled with whores and new hopes,

this fortress of familiar,

the corners and streets and great cement towers,

the grates and bridges, glaring neon, creaking steel,

jazz and pot smoke and rotting waste –

a map locked within,

comfort and loss.

This is the space of a canyon,

where the echoing sounds of gratitude linger:

quiet murmurings, litanies of thanks for the places you cut me.

This is the space of leaving.

The obstacles are inexhaustible.
I vow to cut them all down.

The number of those in need is countless.
I vow to help liberate all of us.

The Truth cannot be told.
I vow to tell it.

The Way is impassible.
I vow to pass into it.

tethys

She calls,

ancient mother

breathing in and breathing out the

tides, the waves

depth and calm far, far below,

fathoms, inexhaustible;

and above

the whole of moving existence

where she dances and plays with her sister, the wind

in the waves and passions,

as she watches our cruelty, our love

in tender, endless grief:

salt-water tears her body.

She has no end

no start

just movement

constant

groundswells and

serenity

never

stopping

never

the same.

I stand in terror on the shores –

the altar to this wild and silent presence –

afraid to enter

afraid to die, battered amongst the rocks

in the storm

and yet I dive

and I am caught

in the strength of her arms –

my body a rag doll tossed about;

I struggle, desperate to escape the riptide

until I let go

and I am borne gently back;

I emerge

humbled.

Break our hearts for what breaks Yours.
- "Jesus, Friend of Sinners" by Casting Crowns

Whatever God is, I believe she is the Great Compassion which is closer than our breath, the Love that connects all things together in unity.

It must cause God such enormous sorrow - infinite in depth and width and breadth - to watch the pain and suffering of the world but be unable to act. It must break her heart.

"Don’t meditate to fix yourself, to heal yourself, to improve yourself, to redeem yourself; rather, do it as an act of love, of deep warm friendship toward yourself. In this view there is no longer any need for the subtle aggression of self-improvement, for self-criticism, for the endless guilt of not doing enough. It offers the possibility of an end to the ceaseless round of trying so hard that wraps so many people’s lives in a knot. Instead there is now meditation as an act of love."

- from "Meditation and Relaxation in Plain English" by Bob Sharples

Be here now.

Take, O take me as I am;
Summon out what I shall be;
Set your seal upon my heart
And live in me.

- John L. Bell

I've been thinking a lot about hope lately. I used to find a deep sense of hope in the idea of, the symbol of, the Resurrection - that in some way, love finally triumphs over violence. I'm not so sure I believe in that world anymore. It seems that humans have the deep potential for immense good and for immense destructive and exploitative behavior. After I gave up on the idea of an interventionist deity years ago, I still held on to a poetic vision of love that overcomes, the image that love wins in the end. It was my way of dealing with the unjust world in which we live.

I do still buy the parable of the mustard seed - I see the reign of God -  that is, the world flooded with love, where injustice has ended - as a beautiful image for hope. The kingdom of God is within you, and that the potential for goodness to spread out like a weed from a single tiny seed is captivating as a parable.

I just don't know if there actually is, in this creation, a pull towards wholeness or not - that is, is God beckoning creation into wholeness? Or is God the interconnection of all things, only, and has no desire for wholeness in the world?

I find the first more comforting. I find the second much more existentially intimidating and angst-filled.

Faith leads us into uncertainty.

Maybe I'll eventually find my way

I started this blog in part because I'm struggling. After many years being active in my church, the United Church of Canada, I discerned (both in a formal process and informally in my life) that I was being called to serve my church in ordained ministry. In other words, I felt that I was called to become a minister and my church had given me a stamp of approval to proceed. I'm confident I could make a good minister, I'm confident that I am called to ministry, and that I have many talents to share in my church. But the flip side of the coin is that I'm a heretic, and I'm not sure if I belong in my church anymore. For a while, I tried to fit myself into the orthodox Christian box, but it really didn't work. And now, here I am, a year into theological school and disagreeing with a lot of it.

A big part of my issue comes from the place of knowing the Christian tradition to be a beautiful, ancient tradition which has specific beliefs and practices which help define it as, specifically, Christian. I am not sure I can any longer fit under the umbrella of “Christian” belief – at least not in any orthodox sense – and so that puts me in a difficult place. I do not want to deny the importance of orthodox Christian belief to orthodox Christians. Yet, I have issues with some pretty key ideas in this faith tradition.

I'm currently reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now, and while I find parts of it a bit too esoteric or confusing – I tend towards pragmatism with my spirituality – I love his description of one way to enter into spiritual practice. I think on many levels this is the essence of mindfulness and meditation practice – for example while watching the breath, to stay rooted in just this moment, just this breath. Seeing what is there by looking without, as much as possible, interpreting. It's about living completely in the present moment:

“Use your senses fully. Be where you are. Look around. Just look, don't interpret. See the light, shapes, colors, textures. Be aware of the silent presence of each thing. Be aware of the space that allows everything to be. Listen to the sounds; don't judge them. Listen to the silence underneath the sounds. Touch something – anything – and feel and acknowledge its Being. Observe the rhythm of your breathing; feel the air flowing in and out, feel the life energy inside your body. Allow everything to be, within and without. Allow the 'isness' of all things. Move deeply into the Now” (p. 52).

It Felt Love

It Felt Love

from "The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master"
by Daniel Ladinsky

How

Did the rose

Ever open its heart

And give to this world

All its

Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light

Against its

Being,

Otherwise,

We all remain

Too

Frightened.

Being kind to ourselves

I was at a lovely day-long metta (loving-kindness) retreat today. I always find loving-kindness meditation to be extremely therapeutic - thinking kind thoughts about yourself and others. Loving-kindness is a practice from the Buddhist tradition that I am quite fond of: the practitioner repeats phrases over and over again which plant seeds of friendliness which are then cultivated in our everyday lives.

The common phrases are:

May all beings be safe from inner and outer harm
May all beings be happy and joyful
May all beings be healthy and strong
May all beings live with ease and know peace.

(Because I am such a thinker, I needed phrases and words that really worked for me, and so I have slightly altered phrases I use, which I posted yesterday.)

The conventional practice is to begin with oneself, then a friend, then a person to whom one is neutral (that is, someone for whom you do not have strong feelings either way), then a difficult person, and then loving-kindness towards all beings. My teacher had an excellent tactic of avoiding the Western tendency towards self-criticism, self-judgment, and self-hatred by beginning with someone who we can love unconditionally or who is the embodiment of friendliness - the Dalai Lama, a pet - or for me, I sometimes begin with Jesus. If we can't wish ourselves that level of loving-kindness, it may help to imagine someone who can wish us safety, happiness, well-being, and peace.

One of my learning moments was when I attempted to cultivate loving-kindness towards a person who was too difficult, too tough for me. I would be in the midst of the mantra, holding this person in my awareness, when the storyteller chattering in my head would turn on. I became wrapped up in the story of how this person irritated me, how this person was mean, and how this person had hurt me personally. It is fascinating how wrapped up we are in the chatter in our heads that fabricates a story about who we are - and that ego, that sense of self that is disconnected from all the rest of creation - can be offended, have wounded pride, and be hurt. I needed to take a step back and focus on being kind to someone less challenging. Hopefully, with practice, I can extend an attitude of kindness more easily to others, even those who are quite difficult in my life.

My teacher emphasized, once we've learned where our heart opens, to focus our attention there. For example, for me, my heart opens when I work on loving myself. Self-judgment has in the past been a near constant for me. I think I'm going to really work in the next little while to cultivate my acceptance of myself through some good meditation on being kind towards myself.


(For more information, there's an outline of metta I came across, here:
http://www.wildmind.org/metta/introduction/outline)

May everyone, everywhere feel safe and protected;
May everyone, everywhere feel happiness and know joy;
May everyone, everywhere be balanced and well;
May everyone, everywhere live with ease.