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The One Person You Must Meet

This entry is part 7 of 33 in the series 99: a journey

I want to share one of my favorite stories. I know it from the Taoist tradition, though maybe it has other roots as well. There was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe so,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed. “Maybe so,” replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “Maybe so,” answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe so,” said the farmer. The theme of today comes from the Arabic Al-Aziz. The meaning I’m using for that term is a special kind of strength. (Don’t you just love that there are so many variations of these qualities each week?) This is the kind of strength that the farmer had in the story. It’s mighty, sweet, and also beyond praise or blame…. you know… dualism. You have to know someone like this. Either in your own life, or from a book or movie… someone who is just …. steady, but in a kind way. If you think you don’t know someone like this, I offer that it might actually be YOU. In fact, I want you to imagine for a minute that it IS you. If you can, think of a moment when you were confident, kind, poised…. you were in the zone and feeling clear. Have you located that feeling? Ok. Hold on to it. Now if you can, I invite you to bring back a painful moment – maybe the worst thing that has ever happened to you. … but be gentle with yourself. Only what you feel you can handle at this moment. Do you have this feeling or this difficult moment? Ok. Now almost like these two feelings are two separate people, or two versions of you, I invite you to introduce them to each other. Confident, poised, clear you, meet the other you that’s feeling whatever you’re feeling. Watch the two you’s as they recognize each other, and slowly start to reach out and test to see if each is real. Notice what this meeting feels like. Is it cautious? Afraid? Joyous? Comforting? Still just observing, and noticing… Now as the two versions of you get more familiar with each other, they might realize that they’re both you—different, but also the same and as they notice this, they might start to move closer and closer, and eventually start to overlap and merge. Now they are one. The scared, or sad you is still there. The calm, confident, poised you is still there as well. Now they’re all combined and there is this kind of expansion that happens. Like that sadness and the scars from the bad experience weren’t wasted, but somehow feed into this inner strength that almost feels …. like it’s precious and joyous and sweet like you’ve never known. Imagine that those different versions of you were like two drops of water next to each other on glass. As they touch, each is absorbed into the other… The water from each drop is still there, but now they’ve made something new that at the same time is both drops -and also a new, expanded one. Do you ever feel like there are different parts of you? I used to feel like that. For instance, there was a confident, energetic version of me that showed up sometimes. Other times, there was a worrying version of me that was never good enough. There was a me who was sad and bitter from a failed relationship, certain it was all my fault. And so on, and so on… In truth, one day I realized. These are ALL me. The sadness and hurt is still there, but it has met the other parts – including the confident me, and the me who loves bad puns and wordplay, and all the other ones. The result, I’m still trying to figure out – I’m still getting to know this expanded drop of water that contains all of those previous versions. I can tell you that there is a certain amount of sweetness to the experience – like the farmer might have felt each time his fortunes seemed to swing like a pendulum, and the people around him were swept up in the drama. So, my friend, there’s someone divine I’d really like you to meet. Say hello to… yourself. Series Navigation<< Some Advice from Job about your SufferingTending the Garden of Your Soul >>

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Tending the Garden of Your Soul

This entry is part 8 of 33 in the series 99: a journey

I grew up on a small farm in the U.S. That was a long time ago, but I still remember like it was yesterday. We had a big garden and I was given a little corner of it for myself. I would spend hours out there in the spring, getting my garden ready. When I was really young, my parents would till it for me, but as I got older, I did it myself. I would start by breaking up the hard clay soil, then add some compost and some sand to loosen up the dense earth so it would drain properly and the plants would have enough nutrients to grow…. and grow they did! I won a ribbon at the county fair with the cabbages, cucumbers, and I think cauliflower I grew one year. I got good at knowing how to fuss over my little plot just enough, and to let the plants know that they were loved. Sometimes I think that it was all the attention that made them flourish as much as it was the mechanical act of cultivating. Today’s subject comes from a word that in the Arabic, I’m told, means inner knowledge – the kind that comes from cultivation. As I read the prompt for our time together and started to write this episode, my mind was full of gardening metaphors; Here’s one: think of an onion. Imagine that your essence—whatever it is that makes you unique—is at center of a big, sweet onion, and the process of growing up and maturing is like starting at the outside of that onion, and peeling away layer after layer, one at a time, until you discover what’s really YOU. Some people seem to instinctively know who they are from the moment they are born. I call these people, “old souls.” Others of us aren’t so lucky. Some of us have to do the hard work of discovering what’s inside the onion – crying our way through layer after layer in search of meaning. Getting back to my little garden, I noticed that as I tilled the soil and took care of it more and more – spent time literally IN IT with my hands, I grew to know it better than anywhere else on earth. My INtention was turned into ATtention and this cultivating I did produced results. It was kind of amazing when I first realized that I could sense what the garden needed. What the plants needed. I knew if it was a little too dry and needed water. I knew when to stop watering. I knew when the latest juicy cucumber, that wasn’t ready the evening before, nearly jumped to get my attention the next morning. I’m ready! Pick me! Pick me! What if you could cultivate the garden of your own being like this? What if you spent a lifetime down on your knees with it – hands sinking into the dark, nourishing soil, fussing, trimming, tending. What would it be like to pay this kind of attention to yourself? Carl Jung said, “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” The darkness he’s talking about: Is it akin to the soil of your garden? What IS your darkness? As much as I romanticize the rich, black earth that made my garden grow, I know what the blackness comes from. I know what it is that nourishes prize-winning cucumbers. Death and dying and decay. Just like the cucumbers feasted on atoms and molecules that had been previously other plants and animals, your own spirit grows in symbiotic relationship. Think of the wisest, most loving, most patient person you know. Those qualities are like fruits. Fruits don’t just appear from nowhere. They need nourishment. Wisdom is the fruit of the mistakes of ignorance. Love is a fruit borne of suffering and rejection and fear. Patience grows best in soil nourished by decaying longing. How long since you have been in the garden of your soul? How is it? Overworked and exhausted? Wild and overgrown with brambles? Lush and green with new life? If you’re feeling triggered by this, it’s okay to walk away and come back later. Your garden will still be there. Sometimes it just needs to be left alone. But sometime when you feel curious, go into your garden and just look around. Notice what’s there without judgement. Get down on your knees and feel the soil in your hands. There might be a hard crust on top that you have to break through, but underneath that is where the magic happens. All the little deaths and big ones you have suffered were not in vain. They’re there—slowly decomposing into their component parts so something amazing can grow. You. Series Navigation<< The One Person You Must MeetDiscover the Patience of an Ant >>

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Discover the Patience of an Ant

This entry is part 9 of 33 in the series 99: a journey

Are you always setting goals? Always striving for something? Are you certain that you’re ALMOST THERE, and when you finally get that one thing or do that one thing, THEN you will have arrived?? No? Good. Because that makes one of us who knows the secret here. Being an interfaith student and soon-to-be minister, I’ve come across more traditions than I can count who all say something about today’s topic – to endure. Part patience, part equanimity, part acceptance, where we’re going today is well – nowhere. Because *always going somewhere* is exactly the point. I don’t know about you , but from as early as I can remember, I’ve been taught that I should have goals—that I should strive to be better. I’ve got to out-hustle the next guy, work harder, earn more, grow, grow, grow. There is a chance that growing and striving isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be. Here’s a series of questions: What about appreciating what’s already there – and will be gone in the blink of an eye? What if part of what it means to be human is to complain? About how I threw a party for fifty people and only ten showed up? About how it’s too cold or too hot, or the world is too hateful, or I don’t make enough money for how hard I work? Yes, there are trials and bad things happen. All the time. And… in the midst of bad things happening, good and beautiful things are happening as well. The patience we’re talking about today is wise and ageless patience. It doesn’t deny your suffering. Your suffering is real. The thing is, though, suffering is part of this existence. When we do everything in our power to minimize it or avoid suffering, aren’t we kind of just fooling ourselves? Henry David Thoreau said, “It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” There’s something to consider. What are we busy about? It’s funny that this quote found me as I was writing this, because I was just thinking about ants. I think about a lot, actually. Where I live, in the summer, ants are everywhere… mostly on the sidewalks. As I walk around, I come across them every few feet. Whole colonies of them, just furiously doing whatever ants do. They seem so….. busy… I try not to step on them. (I’m that person who’s dodging and weaving around at random beside the street. If you wonder what that’s about, I’m trying not to step on the ants). So what ARE they doing? Is this deeply satisfying work they’re doing? Do you think they come home at the end of a shift and rub their sore antennae and gripe about the young ants just don’t work as hard? Are there little ant spiritual retreats where they go and study the ways of the ant-cestors (sorry, I couldn’t resist). Seriously though… Some of the religions I study are centered around a God or Divine consciousness that might observe us like we observe ants. What must that be like? Is God trying hard not to step on us? Does she wonder what all the fuss is about? Why we scurry and strive and make ourselves sick trying to build something that can’t be seen? I imagine that if God notices us at all, they might lovingly see our suffering and wish we could take comfort in this eternal patience. Knowledge that we are born, we live our lives, and we die, all in predictable, repeating patterns. If God could speak, God might remind us that we already have what we need on the day we are born. They might remind us that if there is any scurrying and striving to do, we might consider striving to know ourselves. To meet ourselves for the first time, and to spend a lifetime learning to appreciate things just as they are – rather than how they could be. None of this is to say we ought just spend our lives on the proverbial couch. Rather, What if you got to the end of this podcast and turned off your headphones and just looked around you – IRL – at what’s there? I don’t know about you, but I do this thing where I strive for the future and long for the past. Rarely, though, do I appreciate the present. When I had a big house and a fancy job and car and was unbelievably busy, I remember wondering what the heck had happened. Thinking back to when life was so simple – when I had a tiny apartment with hardly any furniture and a junky car. Some of my best memories came from that time when life WAS simple. And beautiful. It’s those things right now too. You are amazing. Whether you change or not. Whether you strive or not. Whatever you do. I bid you patience, my friend. Timeless, loving, humble patience. Not only will you get where you’re going – you’ve already arrived. Series Navigation<< Tending the Garden of Your SoulAspire to Kindness like Dumbledore >>

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Aspire to Kindness like Dumbledore

This entry is part 10 of 33 in the series 99: a journey

I’m speaking to the part of you that is lonely. The part you don’t let anyone see because it’s just too painful. I’m talking to the part of you that was unkind, or dishonest, or hateful. I’m talking to that part of you that was there in the moments you’re least proud of. Maybe even ashamed. From as far back as you can remember, you say you’ve felt loved and welcome in this life…. Mostly. But in truth, you wonder if that love is conditional. I mean, you’re allowed in the group – the family – whatever – as long as you play by the rules and behave like you’re’ supposed to. Whatever that means. What about that other part of you? What would it be like if you could bring your whole self? What would it be like for ALL of you to be out in the open? What would it be like to be loved unconditionally? That’s where we’re going today on our journey. I just read something very personal from someone I admire deeply. They’ve spent their entire life fighting – for two seemingly opposite things. On one hand, there’s this deep desire to be welcomed…. to be seen and loved without condition. Without condition. Warts and all. BREATHE Holy WOW. What would that be like? How amazing? I’m getting chills just thinking about a love so big, so pervasive, that says, “You’re human…. there is nothing a human can do, think, or say that diminishes you.” On the other hand, they’re doing what we all do sometimes – filtering. Holding back. Because that one thing I did… well…. nobody needs to see that. I mean seriously, that was the lowest of the low moments in my life. If I let you see it, then everything else about me is colored by it, no? That’s just it. The sort of love and kindness and mercy that we’re in company with today don’t care what you’ve done. This is the sort of kindness that infects you when you least want it. You know what I mean? That friend that comes when you’re at rock bottom. “GO AWAY! Leave me alone!” you say – and you mean it. And You secretly hope they don’t. Because as much as you don’t want what they’re bringing, you need it. I told my twelve-year-old daughter about today’s topic and asked her what she thought it meant… this kind of fierce, unconditional love and kindness. She blurted out, “Dumbledore!” What? “Dumbledore. You’re describing the feeling I get whenever Dumbledore shows up in Harry Potter. It’s all in his eyes, ya know – it’s the strong kind of kindness and love, not the weak kind.” Of course, I pretended that I could have come up with something half this wise. There’s a song I sometimes use in times of trouble. Comfort me. Comfort me. Comfort me, oh my soul. Comfort me. Comfort me. Comfort me, oh my soul. Then you change out the word comfort and repeat. Things like: Speak to me, Speak to me, Walk with me, Protect me, and so on. It’s funny. The first time I heard it was on an election night when some people were shocked at the outcome, and had real fear about what was going to happen. Not knowing what to do, they came to a neighborhood house of worship that had its doors open and hundreds of candles lit outside on the entrance steps. About twenty people gathered at first and mostly sat together in silence, just needing company, but having that GO AWAY! feeling. Someone started that song quietly, and in just a few moments, everyone there started to join in. Tears were streaming, more people were packing into the small space, and no one had to say ANYTHING else. That room felt like being steeped in a tea of kindness and care and that’s what we all did. I later learned that the same song had been sung in New York on 9/11 and in the days after when people just needed this kindness to push back against the dark. People can bring it to you. Music can bring it to you. Dumbledore can bring it to you… It’s kind of like spiritual first aid. Here’s the part that really gives me hope. You have the power to bring it to others. You’ve already done it. Someone has been trying to have a bad day or to hate themselves and the whole world and along you’ve come and RUINED IT! In Islam, this is one of the traits of the Divine and some say it works the same way steel is made. You know steel? The metal – mostly iron, but stronger because it isn’t brittle. It’s been seasoned by other ingredients and then undergone a series of shocks of heat and cold. You’ve been through your own cycles of shocks and recoveries. Like steel, you’re stronger now. Unlike steel, you have the ability to share this transformation. Take your own strength and kindness and infect others. Start an outbreak. Those around you are going through their own painful process of being tempered by this life. Be their Dumbledore. Infuse them with a compassion and understanding they’ll want to reject, but can’t. Let them feel that there is nothing they can do that is beyond forgiveness. Nothing you are and nothing you do is beyond love. Nothing. Series Navigation<< Discover the Patience of an AntDon’t Forget this Advice from the Buddha >>