“Welcome!”

Zhaozhou’s Bridge in Hebei Province, China. Named after the Zen Master Zhaozhou Congsen (Jap.: Jōshū Jūshin), it is the oldest bridge in China. (Photo: mafengho.cn)

When times of great difficulty visit us, how shall we meet them? Zhaozhou said “Welcome!”

— Zen Koan

The Divine Spark

Reclining Buddha at Polonnaruwa (Photo: Thomas Merton)

The ‘spark’ which is my true self is the flash of the Absolute recognizing itself in me.

–Thomas Merton

The Spiritual Path is an Endless Journey

Photo: Michelle Chaplow

 

Beyond one range of mountains—yet another range.

–Shinsan zengoshu

To Study the Way

Ink Painting: Paula Pietranera

 

To study the way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.

— Dogen

The Gift of Silence

Ando Hiroshige’s “Evening Bell at Mii Temple”

Let me seek then the gift of silence…
where the sky is my prayer,
the birds are my prayer,
the wind in the trees is my prayer,
for God is in all.

–Thomas Merton

 

 

What The Buddha Taught (In One Sentence)

Photo: io747/Flickr

Life sucks – BUT you can do something about it.

~ Nicolas Buxton

Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters – and How To Talk About It

For the most part yesterday I spent the day reading, because of a 10-hour brownout. I read Krista Tippett’s Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters – And How To Talk About It. Krista Tippett is the award-winning host of my favorite internet podcast On Being.

The book is full of gems of wisdom. These are some of the passages in the book that resonated with me:

We miss the essence of great religious figures…if we imagine them sitting, uttering a list of doctrines. And our theology… should be like poetry.

If we wait for clean heroes and clear choices and evidence on our side to act, we will wait forever, and my radio conversations teach me that people who bring light into the world wrench it out of darkness, and contend openly with darkness all of their days.

Healing, like faith, …is most effective when it incorporates what is broken rather than denying or curing it.

The way we deal with the losses of our lives, large and small, may be what most determines our capacity to be present to the whole of our lives.

Religious traditions give me language and ideas to hold on to ambiguity—the pleasure and pain of human experience that complicate and enliven each other.

A rabbi, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, gave me the best illustration I know of the difference between spirituality and religion. On Mount Sinai, she says, something extraordinary happened to Moses. He had a direct encounter with God. This was a spiritual experience. The Ten Commandments were the container for that experience. They are religion.

We speak because we have questions, not just answers, and our questions cleanse our answers and enliven our world.

The book is for people who want to make sense of what religion is all about and how to practice it in our modern, contemporary, 21st century society. It is also for those who have been wounded by the negative, unhealthy and life-denying aspects of religion. In the words of Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love:

Her intelligence is like a salve for all thinking people who have felt wounded or marginalized by The God Wars.

Speaking of Faith is a book I will cherish and reread over and over again…

— Matt

The Butler

Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that.

–Martin Luther King Jr.

The Bucket List

You know, the ancient Egyptians had a beautiful belief about death. When their souls got to the entrance to heaven, the guards asked two questions. Their answers determined whether they were able to enter or not. ‘Have you found joy in your life?’ ‘Has your life brought joy to others?

— From the movie The Bucket List

The Highest Form of Prayer

The highest form of prayer is to stand silently in awe of God.

— St. Isaac the Syrian