The elephant’s ear of Africa
tells all.
It tells us to listen —
to listen wildly
to listen grandly
to listen anciently
and to listen with abandon
Trust, the Wisdom of the Child
•July 6, 2010 • 5 Comments
A couple of years ago I began reading about the Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka for my doctoral thesis. If you do not know of the organization, please feel free to read about it through the link under the “Socially Engaged Spirituality Resources” section in this blog or pick up a copy of Joanna Macy’s Dharma and Development, an *excellent* read incidentally. Totally inspiring.
As I began reading about it, it seemed miraculous—an organization that is based in Buddhist principles, works from the grassroots, prioritizes the needs and wants of those being served in the many villages around the country, is decentralized, AND is dedicated to the awakening of all. I am still struck by the beauty of that last idea. The awakening of ALL. The AWAKENING of all. The AWAKENING of ALL!!! Of course, like leaning a little leftward politically, I also lean a little East-ward spiritually. In my heart of hearts, I dreamed of finding a way to visit Sarvodaya, and, if I was really lucky I thought, I would get to study it for my thesis.
I am blessed. Many of my most heartfelt dreams come true, and my dreams of Sarvodayan research bliss were no different. I arrived a few days ago. Enough days to dread eating another curry—it’s a breakfast, lunch, and dinner affair here, but not nearly enough to take in all that Sarvodaya does. It is a behemoth of an organization. Twelve different separate departments and operations in all of the districts of Sri Lanka, including those in the Northern provinces that are riddled with political violence. Honestly, it feels like the organization is operating like a shadow national government (much to the government’s despise). What the government cannot do, will not do, or cannot do enough of, Sarvodaya does. Elder care, legal assistance, community mobilization and development, leadership training, preschools, care for victimized teenage mothers, child nutrition, technology training, and so on and so on and so on. The list of activities will baffle your mind.
And so I arrived, a little wearied from the 32 hours of travel but mostly excited to meet the folks here. The spiritual leader and founder of the organization, Dr. Ari, is rather unassuming. You might know him only by his all-white dress (and the multitude of pictures of him that decorate each office and division of the organization). He is quite famous and beloved by Sri Lankans. Walking down the street, many stop to speak to him, some prostrating and touching his feet in devotion. One Sarvodayan said to me that he is the only great leader that anyone can speak to and the only one that can walk around Sri Lanka without security.
What has been told to me over and over about Dr. Ari is that he trusts people. This trust is often named first as one of his best qualities. He trusts even when those he trusts are unscrupulous. Dr. Ari himself said that only good people come to him. When asked why, he remarked that bad people know they are bad and are afraid of him, presumably for his goodness. He further explained that if a good person is not afraid of a bad person, the bad person loses all power and retreats. Dr. Ari relationships are based in the Buddhist principle of non-separateness. When he sees others, he sees himself—no difference. He then is free to approach others with friendliness and compassion, and presumably trust.
I have been pondering what it would be like to trust everyone. There has always been a child-like part of me that wants to trust all, and I have been burned many times in the process. I’ve adopted a faux-shell, a semi-hard outer covering that is more mistrustful. I’ve taught myself that being trustful is naïve and immature and that wisdom is somehow aligned with a careful calculated caution. I’m seeing that perhaps there is a more profound phenomenon at work—that opening to one’s own goodness and the goodness of others diminishes fear and allows a compassionate nature to govern. Trust in other is ultimately trust in oneself. Being hurt fails to be a compelling reason to mistrust.
Certainly easier said than done. Yes, but inspiring. Inspiring and heartening.
Everyday Nobility
•February 11, 2010 • Leave a Comment
nobility (nō-bĭl’ĭ-tē)
n. 1. The state or quality of being exalted in character. 2. Grandeur or magnificence.
[1398, "quality of being excellent or rare," from O.Fr. nobilite (Fr.nobilité), from L. nobilitatem (nom. nobilitas) "nobleness," fromnobilis "well-known, prominent." Meaning "quality of being of noble rank or birth" is attested from c.1440; sense of "noble class collectively" is from 1530.]
The word “nobility” is commonly thought to describe those of noble rank and birth, a descriptor that calls to mind earls and duchesses dressed in elegant finery with all of the elite accoutrement. This concept of nobility has surfaced for me again in the last few days and weeks, and I realize my “knowingness” is digesting it—first in an inner search and uncovering and next in a seeing of it in others past and present. What is emerging for me is the knowing that nobility is at once special and ordinary. We can find it in the faces of those around us, in the many postures we see displayed, in the kind and excellent actions performed at every moment everywhere we can imagine. The nobility that we have projected onto the elite classes—the kings and queens of our societies all resides within us, in our hearts, minds, and bodies. We can rise to small moments and find ourselves writ large, moving fluidly with grace and benevolence.
Many of the wonderful communiques from Haiti, in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, have told us of the extraordinary kindness of the everyday person. A friend of friend writes the following:
We picked up 5 badly injured people and drove towards an area where Ellie and Berto had passed a woman earlier. When they saw her she was lying on the side of the road with a broken leg screaming for help, as they were on foot they could not help her at the time so we went back to try to find her. Incredibly we found her relatively quickly at the top of a hill of shattered houses. The sun was setting and the community helped to carry her down the hill on a refrigerator door, tough looking guys smiled in our direction calling out “bonswa cheri” and “kouraj.”. . . So, don’t believe Anderson Cooper when he says that Haiti is a hotbed for violence and riots, it is just not the case. In the darkest of times, Haiti has proven to be a country of brave, resilient and kind people and it is that behavior that is far more prevalent than the isolated incidents of violence.
American anthropologist Laura Wagner, who survived after her home collapsed around her in Port-au-Prince, echoes the above in these sentiments:
In the aftermath of the earthquake, there was great personal kindness and sacrifice, grace and humanity in the midst of natural and institutional chaos and rupture. My friend Frenel, who worked cleaning and maintaining the house, appeared within minutes to look for survivors. He created a passage through the still-falling debris using only a flashlight and a small hammer—the kind you would use to nail a picture to a wall. Completely trapped, the nerves in my left arm damaged, I could not help him save me. He told me, calmly, “Pray, Lolo, you must pray,” as he broke up the cement and pulled it out, piece by piece, to free me. Once I was out, he gave me the sandals off his own feet.
In the face of such excellence, such beauty and strength of character, we owe ourselves the opportunity to gaze inward to see that those same seeds of nobility are sown into our deepest fibers. Shimmering, resonating, and somehow returning our gaze. Recognition happens, and we find ourselves plus some. Beyond ourselves, we can see that the shared human fabric is woven with these so-called exaltations of character embedded in it. Looking closely, we can see that the seeds of nobility are the prima materia that is drawn forth and spun into thread. This essentialness shines with an incandescence that our souls know well. As it is woven, the thread holds us together, assuring our fundamental interconnectedness and our potential for awakened mutuality. This human fabric shows us our divine birthright—made manifest through everyday gestures and formerly unthinkable heroic deeds.
Always available to be lived, ready to be engaged, and just beneath the surface, this is the nobility of the everyday.
Evo Morales, New Spiritual and Political Leader of Bolivia
•January 19, 2010 • Leave a CommentI wanted to quickly share a link to a blog that is reporting this tremendous news coming out of Bolivia:
Haiti: Love and Devastation
•January 15, 2010 • 2 CommentsAs a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Haiti (2002-2004), I received the news of the recent earthquake with profound and deeply personal shock. The devastation is devastating me. Silence or failures to connect are the fruits of phone calls to loved ones and friends. Carrefour, the epicenter of the quake, is where the family that I lived with in Haiti currently resides, or resided. I have no way of knowing which is now true. Desires to jump on a plane are tempered with rational voices that remind me that my obligations here in the peaceful suburbs of Silicon Valley are also important while my dreams take me to the center of this massive seething geographic coronary.
I am having flashbacks to 9-11 when I became absorbed into the media bubble and gorged myself on news updates for hours at a time. I am not succumbing to the media obsession this time around, but I find that my attention keeps returning to this beloved country and people. Because of my personal connection, I have lost perspective on the scope of this disaster, but I am reminded of it by friends, facebook posts, tweets, and active message boards. I know that 9-11 changed the course of my life forever, and, in some small way, it helped me to wake up, dust off the lenses through which I see the world and find my innermost values and ethics reflected back to me. I think what this horrible tragedy is showing me is the way those around me are waking up—how connected people are becoming to a country that many could not pick out on a map only a few days ago.
Something has happened here, to us. It has happened and is happening right now.
Is it just a product of this globalizing world we find ourselves inhabiting? I am seeing more than awareness of other in all of this. I am seeing love for other. Love given to those outside of the boundaries of a personal relationship. Love freely given from one human being to another, from one who has to one that has lost, from brother to sister, from family to family.
In spite of the tragedy, with great respect to those that sacrificed their lives so that others could love, I find myself feeling the warmth of hope in a river of tears. I am devastated, and I am devastated by Love’s total embrace.
Please take a moment to embrace and be embraced by this if you have not already. And, may all of those that have passed find peace.
Wise Words
•December 7, 2009 • Leave a CommentHe who clings to the Void
And neglects Compassion
Does not reach the highest state.
But he who practices only Compassion
Does not gain release from the toils of existence.
He, however, who is strong in the presence of both,
Remains neither in Samsāra nor in Nirvāna.
—Saraha, teacher of Nāgārjuna,
Mahāyāna Buddhism’s greatest metaphysician
A Broken-Open Heart
•November 11, 2009 • 2 Comments
This week marks the passing of two historical touchstones-slash-perennial markers that encourage contemplation of what is truly meaningful in our lives. The first was the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall on the 9th. This was a photo that I took when I visited Germany in ’04 on the heels of my service in the peace corps. For those of you that have not seen it, the remains of the Berlin wall have been revisioned by artists from around the world. The second happened today in the U.S. as we remembered all of those servicemen and women that have dedicated themselves to our safety and protection.
In the most hopeful of lights, we can see these events as reminders of the continued efforts on the part of humanity to forge even deeper relationships to each other in truth, justice, and peace. In what can be viewed as an ocean of samsara, radical and painful transformations occur that rock the very foundations upon which our narrow views are premised.
“Breaking open” is certainly not for the faint of heart, and quite frankly, it’s not anything that a so-called normal person would ask for if they knew what opening that gift would engender. Fortunately or unfortunately, it comes of its own accord whether you like it or not! There have been a few pivotal times in my own short life where I felt like I was being persecuted by the most merciless being ever created—one that had as its sole agenda my continued desolation and dismemberment. These were the times that I feel to my knees, literally, and begged for mercy, begged for some sort of emancipation from the misery. These were the times that I cried out, “Why me?” and “Mother of God I will surrender, just leave me in peace!” Other times I just fell into a heap of tears, eventually to fall into a tired slumber of existential weariness. It sounds gruesome, histrionic maybe, but the pain and feeling of terror were very, very real. These were the times that I lost hope.
I hope that I am not sharing this tale of woe as some sort of proof of my own worth (albeit in some perverse, martyrish way), but as an honoring of the intense processes of Spirit on the psyche and what some call the “ego process.” It is only through these “dark nights” that we surrender to the alchemy of Spirit-in-body-ment—opening to Spirit realizing itself in flesh and bone.
It’s carnal and visceral and divinely human. It’s this marriage that obliterates the apparent separation of self and other that binds us to our myopic self-absorption. And, it’s this seating of the infinite in the finite that allows us to give of ourselves so freely in love at the same time as we feel our hearts breaking, bearing witness to the dumbfounding tragedy that surrounds us.
In his new book on sacred activism, Andrew Harvey, writes
The door into this empowered solitude, the voice of the fire told me, was through facing the cruelty, the injustice, and the agony of the world head on and letting them shatter the heart open. The detachment and serenity so prized by the old patriarchal mystical systems could not be enough for a crisis so enormous. The authentic rebel of love would have to let himself be penetrated and broken open by love. This would be a devastating experience—devastating to the tidy brutalities of the false self. (p. 58)
So my wish is that I continue to be devastated, broken further and further open by Spirit in its relentless course to reveal and transform. Being a force for Love is my deepest desire, and I keep hopeful that Spirit continues to imbue me with the courage to surrender farther and fail better at being a fragmented human. I would wish the same for all of humanity actually, for everyone to see the end of adversarial relations and the perpetuation of dissociated ways of being and knowing. And, as Harvey suggests, I wish that we all retain hope in the face of what is and what is to come.
