tonglen
Have you noticed that when you start down a "track", thinking a certain way, entertaining a train of thought or just exploring some new mind set ... all kinds of re-enforcement for that new path start to show up including old books and conversations and events that now take on a new significance?
Undefended Love ... the workshop, the concept, the practice continue to make its effect known in me ... as I continue to struggle with PDL. If nothing else, folks, this should let you in on one of my most significant character traits. I don't give up! Some mornings like this one I read (Day 28, It Takes Time .... and I think about all of the wonderful ideas that simply go completely sideways for me because of phrases like these
"Though God could instantly transform us, He has chosen to develop us slowly"
"God knows better"
"We are often in a hurry, God isn't."
"God teaches you about Him"
"God is concerned about how strong we grow. God views our lives from and for eternity."
Sometimes I ask what is it in me that cannot relate to this line of thinking and other times how can ANYONE think like this. I know that any of us can do the mental gymnastics necessary to transform this from the literal to the metaphorical but what is it that prompts someone to believe this "literally"? What is it that would cause someone to place such an awesome power outside of ones self and then wait in cheerful submission for some transformative experience that will come when that power decides it's time? ... ... ... Oh yeah! Back to tonglen!
Pema Chodron is a Canadian Buddhist nun living in her monastery in Nova Scotia and is a very published author for Shambala Press. A number of years ago I rec'd a gift of several of her books Places that Scare You and The Wisdom of No Escape, among them. ( Thank you, David)
Here's what she has to say in Wisdom of No ... "It seems too often that we are victims of not enough nurturing in the beginning, and we don't know when we've grown up. Some of us at the age of 50 or 60 or 70 are still wondering what we're going to be when we grow up. We remain children in our heart of hearts, which is to say, fundamentally theists."
How many of us are children/victims/theists? Is that the answer ... Not enough nurturing? What kind of nurturing?
Chodron teaches tonglen practice, a form of meditation that coincides VERY closely with our philosophy and dovetails beautifully from a psychological perspective with Undefended Love (do you see how this is all coming together now?)
My first day in a Centre for Positive Living as I was emerging from Catholicism, I was very much a victim, of my job, my relationship, my family of origin, the bad economy, my religion, in short my beliefs about how life worked. I was waiting for the great transformative experience which, at that moment, looked like The Centre for Positive Living. At first I worked to prove I wasn't a victim. Later I worked to prove I had some power. I hung out here a VERY long time and in truth many of us never go beyond that point in our spiritual maturation. I got seduced by this new found ability to use my consciousness to create a greater experience for myself and ... as if by accident, for others. At that point tonglen came into my experience.
At that point I recognized that all of the personal power in the world would never satisfy the need to go to the "ground of Being" that I truly am and live from that place. I had co-opted my "essential self" to get something in the world. I had done just what Christians accuse us of. I had made my personality, my God.
Tonglen essentially says "Take on the pain of all sentient beings. Breathe it into your being like a hot, black, heavy smoke and breathe out the cool, white and light breath of loving kindness."
Use your being as the place of transformation of all living creatures. Always the place of darkness in the other touches the place of darkness in me ...
None of my spiritual work really is approaching its true value until it is of value to someone other than me. What a remarkable transformative prayer ministry this could be. Feels it is a little ambitious to start with ALL sentient beings? Maybe!
Why not start with those difficult and suffering members of our own spiritual community ...
Undefended Love ... the workshop, the concept, the practice continue to make its effect known in me ... as I continue to struggle with PDL. If nothing else, folks, this should let you in on one of my most significant character traits. I don't give up! Some mornings like this one I read (Day 28, It Takes Time .... and I think about all of the wonderful ideas that simply go completely sideways for me because of phrases like these
"Though God could instantly transform us, He has chosen to develop us slowly"
"God knows better"
"We are often in a hurry, God isn't."
"God teaches you about Him"
"God is concerned about how strong we grow. God views our lives from and for eternity."
Sometimes I ask what is it in me that cannot relate to this line of thinking and other times how can ANYONE think like this. I know that any of us can do the mental gymnastics necessary to transform this from the literal to the metaphorical but what is it that prompts someone to believe this "literally"? What is it that would cause someone to place such an awesome power outside of ones self and then wait in cheerful submission for some transformative experience that will come when that power decides it's time? ... ... ... Oh yeah! Back to tonglen!
Pema Chodron is a Canadian Buddhist nun living in her monastery in Nova Scotia and is a very published author for Shambala Press. A number of years ago I rec'd a gift of several of her books Places that Scare You and The Wisdom of No Escape, among them. ( Thank you, David)
Here's what she has to say in Wisdom of No ... "It seems too often that we are victims of not enough nurturing in the beginning, and we don't know when we've grown up. Some of us at the age of 50 or 60 or 70 are still wondering what we're going to be when we grow up. We remain children in our heart of hearts, which is to say, fundamentally theists."
How many of us are children/victims/theists? Is that the answer ... Not enough nurturing? What kind of nurturing?
Chodron teaches tonglen practice, a form of meditation that coincides VERY closely with our philosophy and dovetails beautifully from a psychological perspective with Undefended Love (do you see how this is all coming together now?)
My first day in a Centre for Positive Living as I was emerging from Catholicism, I was very much a victim, of my job, my relationship, my family of origin, the bad economy, my religion, in short my beliefs about how life worked. I was waiting for the great transformative experience which, at that moment, looked like The Centre for Positive Living. At first I worked to prove I wasn't a victim. Later I worked to prove I had some power. I hung out here a VERY long time and in truth many of us never go beyond that point in our spiritual maturation. I got seduced by this new found ability to use my consciousness to create a greater experience for myself and ... as if by accident, for others. At that point tonglen came into my experience.
At that point I recognized that all of the personal power in the world would never satisfy the need to go to the "ground of Being" that I truly am and live from that place. I had co-opted my "essential self" to get something in the world. I had done just what Christians accuse us of. I had made my personality, my God.
Tonglen essentially says "Take on the pain of all sentient beings. Breathe it into your being like a hot, black, heavy smoke and breathe out the cool, white and light breath of loving kindness."
Use your being as the place of transformation of all living creatures. Always the place of darkness in the other touches the place of darkness in me ...
None of my spiritual work really is approaching its true value until it is of value to someone other than me. What a remarkable transformative prayer ministry this could be. Feels it is a little ambitious to start with ALL sentient beings? Maybe!
Why not start with those difficult and suffering members of our own spiritual community ...
posted by Rev-T at 8:44 AM
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