Archive for living

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , on July 22, 2024 by thecrossingchicago

There are so many lenses that we carry and look through.  Our Western Christian lens is patriarchal, of course, and lends to anything that points to Lordship and Kingship and the dominance of God and Christ.  But if we take a deep breath and see through the fog of hegemonic ideology, we find a great depth of mindfulness in the teachings of Jesus.  

Seek ye first the kingdom of God was and still is for many (if not most) about attaining perfection in the eyes of God while propitiating “his” favor.  It was to establish a kingdom, and by so doing, push out all others who did not fit within the construct of said kingdom.  But what’s another way to see it?

Strive for the kingdom of God.  The kin-dom.  The beloved community.  Jesus spoke often about this potential reality where love, kindness, respect, and compassion were the way of life and being.  Seek this reality.  Live into it.  Do what is right in the essence of all that is in full awareness of our interconnectedness and this kin-dom will be made manifest.  What it becomes a reality, we will also be blessed.  Not only will we have everything that we need, but in order to create and live into such a reality, our mindset must change.  Metanoia.  Therefore, we won’t experience such great need and the trivial things will fall away leaving us with gratitude and awareness.

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.  As many wise teachers have said, “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”  We do not need to seek out nor hold on to things that may or may not happen.  We do not need to attach to things that have happened and compound their effect.  This is non-attachment.  Notice the events, take note of their effects, check in with ourselves and ask why it is having such an effect on us.  Do the inner work to discover the real cause of our pain.  Rarely is it because of the act itself.  

It doesn’t mean we simply don’t care or have no feelings.  We are not automatons and we aren’t called to be.  As in meditation when our minds wander, take note and watch the thought float by.  When the ego shows up and tells us we aren’t good enough or that someone else isn’t good enough just to make ourselves feel better when we really don’t feel that good, take note and watch it float on by.  

Yes, ego.  I see you.  I hear you.  I’m curious as to why you have shown up in this way.  

Yes, pain.  I see you.  I hear you.  I feel you.  I’m curious as to why you are attaching to this event and choosing to suffer because of it.

Lean into the discomfort and the dis-ease and the confusion.  That’s where the breakthrough is waiting to happen.  We usually shy away from these feelings and then become frustrated because we are constantly stuck in the same place.  Lean into the frustration, too.  

We have the tendency to be looking for what’s next and wondering where we are supposed to be.  Rarely do we sit and experience where we are and breathe in the fullness of the present moment.  Archimedes said the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  But the reality is the shortest distance between two points is where you already are.

Be non-attached from the clothes, the food, the drink.  Practice gratitude and awareness.  Be fully present.  To do so, our eye, our inner eye, must be clean and focused so that it can see reality and not illusion.  Having a clouded or dirty inner eye leads us to be selfish, to subscribe to unhealthy ideologies, and to do things to get what we want at any cost to the end that we and those around us suffer.  We become prisoners of our own delusions.  After all, The same God through which God sees me is the eye through which I see God.

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Another Tale of Adam and Eve

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on June 29, 2017 by thecrossingchicago
I once read an intriguing book by Patti Smith called M Train.  It is a wonderful memoir and in some ways, a treatise on life and all of its wonders.  In a chapter called Clock with No Hands, I came across this gem:
In the beginning was real time.  A woman enters a garden that is bursting with color.  She has no memory, only a burgeoning curiosity.  She approaches the man.  He is not curious.  He stands before a tree.  Within the tree is a word that becomes a name.  He receives the name of every living thing.  At one with the present he has neither ambition nor dream.  The woman reaches toward him, gripped by the mystery of sensation.

When I envision this scene, I see Adam and Eve.  Adam is disinterested.  He’s an automaton.  He doesn’t have much wonder or feeling.  He’s just created out of dust and has no capacity to feel.  Eve, on the other hand, was born of humankind.  She came from flesh, not dirt.  She has an innate capacity for curiosity and awareness of mystery.  She ponders, she explores.  In so doing, there are of course risks and the potential for causing or receiving harm is there, but it’s worth it.  Much better than not living.

 
Adam has the names.  He receives them and it gives him some sensation of power and, for him, that is enough.  He doesn’t feel the need to explore – even within his own mind.  He has control – or at least the illusion of it – and holds on to what he “knows,” e.g. the names, for dear life.  He becomes infatuated with the tree and likens it to his life and meaning when it was the names that were important, not the tree. In his unceasing grip on that tree he fails to understand what the names mean and they become for him a mere means to assigning purpose to his life, albeit a false one.

 
Eve has no memory.  Even if she does “remember” things, she chooses to not let them become a hindrance in discovery.  She still wears the scars and the bruises from past mistakes, failures, abuses.  But she moves forward with arms open to embrace life.
 
In essence, Eve has what Thich Naht Hanh calls a “beginners mind.”  She doesn’t come to the dance thinking, “Yeah, I’ve seen this movie before.  I’m not going to get in and get hurt again.”  Instead, she views each experience as a new one.  She doesn’t bring her preconceived notions that will hold her back or lead her to assume she already knows the outcome.

 
This idea of choosing to live with all of its risks reminds me of one of my favorite quotes.  This one is from Teddy Roosevelt:

 
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
 
Indeed life is not easy.  It can be downright dangerous and offending.  It can leave you beat up and broken.  But if you don’t choose to live it and take the risks, then you will never taste the sweetness of victory nor the elation of discovering new worlds.

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