Making the Best of the New Year It’s the new year, and many of us are making resolutions. There’s a lot online about how to best stick with whatever goal you’ve set for yourself this year, and there’s nothing wrong with trying to improve oneself. The paradox is, however, that’s it often easier to change if, instead of pushing ahead with gritted teeth and a relentless determination, if we do so with acceptance and gentleness. Pema Chödrön talks about this in her book Start Where You Are. She suggests we look deeply at who we are and accept ourselves without judgment. Then we can move forward. If we refuse to…
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Enlightenment and the Bird who Sang
A Sad Bridegroom The story dates from Medieval days, a Jewish cautionary tale told for those who seek the secrets of the gods. It does more than warn us about the dangers of hubris, however. “The Bird That Sang to a Bridegroom” also suggests that once we see the true nature of the universe, we cannot remain on earth. Normal human relationships will be impossible, and God will send Death to bring us home. It is as if, once enlightened, we might feel a generalized love for all humanity, but our individual loves will fade. In this tale, a couple have just gotten married. The bridegroom escorts his new wife…
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Seeing God in Everything
God in Everything Bede Griffiths, the monk and Hindu spiritualist, wrote, “I was no longer the centre of my life, and therefore I could see God in everything.” [1] What does it mean to be the center of our lives? How do we stop doing living there? How do we learn to see the mystery that lies beneath the surface of the simplest things, like the wind jostling the branches of the kiwi vine, the red-breasted house finch plucking seeds from the borage, the sweetness of butter on toast, the stickiness of clay? Even within the sharpness of ice, the roughness of dirt, the coarseness of fitful snores there is…
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The Search for Enlightenment
Asking Questions Who wants to be enlightened? When I first thought about this topic, I assumed everyone wanted to be. After all, what else is life for? Then I realized that most people could probably care less about it. After all, most of us don’t even know what enlightenment means. I’m not sure I know. So if people don’t want enlightenment, whatever that is, what do they want? I guess that depends on the person and, perhaps, the moment. So is there no common, human desire? Maybe we all want happiness. Okay. What do I mean by happiness? Happiness and Impermanence I think happiness and enlightenment are related. The Buddhist…
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The Light of Enlightenment
An Experience of Enlightenment Years ago, as I was listening to my spiritual director talk about the universe, I suddenly saw the universe inside her heart. Like Wordsworth, who saw the world in a grain of sand, I saw the universe as the size of a fist. In that moment, I understood that time and space don’t really exist, that the universe is immensely vast, but incredibly small at the same time. If we could comprehend this and learn to work with the energies that existed, we could cross to where star number 090423 exploded. In 2009, the light from this star reached the space-based Swift satellite. Using redshift analysis,…