Tag: Sermon on the Mount

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A Special Tutor Gives Me A Gift

After a tiring, wet hike down from Pinchot Pass, George and I decided to make camp early near the Woods Creek bridge.  The sun made a surprising appearance, and I took the opportunity to dry gear and catch some Golden Trout for dinner.  After this feast, I found a granite bluff overlooking the forest for my evening yoga and meditation practice.

For Bhakti yogis like me, a goal of meditation is to build relationships with the Supreme Being (Bhagavan) and others.  Usually, my meditation is not particularly dramatic. Krishna arrives for a friendly chat, sometimes Saraswati plays a tune, Ganesha takes care of a problem on his cosmic Helpline or I just sit quietly with my own atma (soul).  But this evening a very bright wave of energy struck me right in the heart, and from there branched out to my whole body.  I felt like I was glowing while completely at peace and ecstatically happy.  Sorry, my language skills don’t come close to describing the experience. This pulsing, radiant energy continued for some time, and I identified it as pure Love in a form that I could see, feel, touch, and taste.

And then an image of Jesus appeared just in front of me in a seated, cross-legged position.  He told me that what he was giving me were the energy waves of Unconditional Love.  It turned out to be the answer to a prayer. In this blog, I’ve been writing about my mission to understand and practice Kindness, Compassion and Unconditional Love.  And here was Jesus right in front of me giving me a taste of it…pretty darn cool.  After a while of receiving this bounty, Jesus asked me if I’d like to send some of that Love energy back to him.  I gave it a try.  At first, what I sent was weak and intermittent, but gradually I improved.  My biggest challenge, however, was staying focused. Often, I would lose the moment, as my mind veered off to some other subject. Jesus told me it didn’t matter.  All I needed to do was practice to sustain the exchange of Love. I asked if he was here as my tutor, and he agreed.  Apparently, part of my curriculum in this lifetime is not only to have an intellectual understanding of Unconditional Love and to practice it, but to be able to feel its energy.

Over the next several days of meditation, Jesus returned to tutor me.  I got better at the practice.  It occurred to me that it would be helpful to give myself a physical cue to remind me to practice this new gift. Inspired by what Krishna taught in the Bhagavad Gita (Chapter Four) I began a breathing exercise to help me quickly reunite with the taste of Unconditional Love. I inhale to breathe in Love and exhale to share it. 

For several months now, on and off the trail, this breathing exercise has helped me to remember how to experience this ecstatic Unconditional Love.  This has helped me to extend the feeling longer as I build up my Unconditional Love muscles.   Sadly, I’m not living up to the goal of always remembering and never forgetting.  That may take a while.  And honestly, it’s a lot easier to experience the ecstatic feeling of love than practicing it in my everyday interactions with people. 

Fortunately, my tutor is patient with me, and is always there to help when I remember to ask.  I haven’t always had such a close relationship with Jesus.  While I grew up in the Christian religion, the churches I attended never really gave me a taste of him.  The rituals, dogma and culture of religion never spoke to me. However, that changed when I began to pray when I was in my late teens.  Prayer helped me to develop a more personal but still weak relationship with Jesus.  Later, I studied texts like the Sermon on the Mount, and this helped me to intellectually understand his very revolutionary message of Love…often far different than what the church had to say about it. When I became a yogi, I began to experience this kind of ecstatic connection first with Saraswati and then with Krishna. But this is the first time I’ve had this more in-depth relationship with Jesus.  I’ve always said a thank you to Jesus during my daily prayers but didn’t really have an energetic attachment with him.  Now I do, and I’m very grateful to call him my tutor.

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Forgiveness…What’s that all about?

Perhaps the two most difficult things for me to say are: “Please forgive me” and its twin, “I forgive you.” 

But for my soul to be at peace; to achieve the goal of being kind, compassionate and loving unconditionally, these are words I must utter every day.

According to Buddhist teachings, we should strive to live in such a way that we never harm others or are impacted by those who harmed us.  But that’s a tall order in the world we live in.   Intentionally or unintentionally, our actions can hurt other people, other animals or the planet.  If we are carnivores, our appetites require killing cows, chickens, pigs and fish.  Even vegetarians have an impact.  For example, converting what were once wild prairie lands into corn and soy bean field destroys wildlife habitat. Water diverted from the wild rivers to San Francisco for drinking and showering has drowned beautiful venues such as the Hetch Hetchy valley, and severely harmed aquatic habitat in the bay and delta.

And shall we count the ways we harm each other?  Have you ever snarled at a Customer Support person on the phone, barked at your partner while “hangry?”  Or can you recall when you’ve been the victim of slights, insults, robberies, frauds, scams, assaults, cheating spouses, liars, disloyal friends, unappreciative children…you name it?

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting triggered by writing all this junk down.  As I sketched out the list above, I found myself digging out memories which in turn brought forth emotions of resentment, annoyance, pain, fear…. and away we go.

Forgiveness is a way of getting rid of the junk, and make no mistake….IT IS JUNK… that clouds our minds, scars our relationships and fucks up our karma.

But we don’t have to hold onto it.  We can forgive and be forgiven. Forgiveness is a way of discarding the baggage so that we can move on to something far more soul satisfying: Giving and receiving kindness, compassion and unconditional love.

It’s no surprise that sages, avatars, religions and philosophies all champion forgiveness.  It’s one of the most powerful rituals ever performed to bring peace to ourselves and to the universe.

In Judaism, if a person causes harm, but then sincerely and honestly apologizes to the wronged individual and tries to rectify the wrong, the wronged individual is encouraged, but not required, to grant forgiveness.

“True forgiveness is when you can say, ‘Thank you for that experience.”

Oprah Winfrey

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly spoke of forgiveness:

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

Matthew 5:7

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also.”

Luke 6:27-29

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a constant attitude.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

“O people, seek repentance from Allah. Verily, I seek repentance from Him a hundred times a day.” 

Prophet Mohammed

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

Confucius

“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.”

Rita Mae Brown

Coming Up On Table Stakes:

Simple daily forgiveness rituals

How can I practice forgiveness about something truly awful?

Photo credit: Brett Jordan via Unsplash

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Understanding Compassion: So what is it, really?

“None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.” –Mother Teresa

When I started this blog, my goal was to understand and practice kindness, compassion and unconditional love.

Kindness is easy to understand, even if it may be difficult to practice … at least for my combative self.  But compassion is more complicated.  A few weeks ago, I thought I’d just start typing out a blog about the term, but realized I didn’t have a clear idea about what compassion meant.  So I’ve been doing some reading and some thinking and a lot of trout fishing.

The common definition seems simple enough. Compassion means to see that someone is suffering and then take action to help. Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount is all about compassion. 

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

He could walk into a crowd and see who was suffering and do something about it.  “You’re blind” he says to a couple of guys in the back row.  “No worries.”  He walks over and gives them sight.  

“You’re sick.  I can deal with that.”

“You’re hungry and thirsty.  Bring me a couple of loaves of bread and water and we can feed the lot of you and have some wine too.”

It’s not all about the miracles, however much they dazzle.  What’s behind the miracles?Of course it starts with love for these folks and the experience of a deep empathy with their burdens.  Those feelings of love and empathy are really the key to understanding compassion.  From there, it’s a a short bridge to action.  Doing what you can to heal the pain or suffering that the other person or being is experiencing.

We may not have the power to give the kind of miracles that Jesus did, but being compassionate can be its own kind of miracle both for the giver and receiver of it.

Many decades ago when I had long, dark hair, I was in Mazatlan, Mexico.  I didn’t have much money, but it was enough for a bus ticket back to the border.  But then one night I was robbed of my last few pesos (A story with a Canadian villain), and needed to get creative.  My solution? I hopped a freight train to Nogales on the Arizona border (A story about a long, dusty night drinking tequila and singing with my fellow hoboes).  I was a dirty, tired mess when I crossed through Immigration into America with a basket carrying my sleeping bag and other essentials.  On the U.S side, an older Mexican man approached me and wanted to shake my hand.  I was a little suspicious, but shook hands anyway.  When I took my hand back, I discovered the gent had given me a quarter which amounted to 25 times more money than I had in my pocket.  He smiled, patted me on the back and wished me “buena suerte.”

Have you ever noticed that you can count on poor people to help you out when times are difficult?  Anyways, a little money in my pocket helped me buy some fruit and carrots to feed me while hitchhiking from Nogales to San Diego (A story about dodging trouble from overly friendly escaped prisioners).  But more importantly what sustained me was the feeling that someone, a stranger, saw my plight, cared and took action to help.  This man’s act of charity has stuck with me since.  By being a receiver of compassion it helped me understand the value of giving compassion in small ways to panhandlers on the street, and in larger ways too.  

This is a simple story of how I learned about compassion, but it can be more complicated.  As I read more in the Buddhist, Vedic and Christian texts I found there are some associated issues that anyone who is serious about compassion must confront.

What’s the deal about forgiveness?

What’s the difference between empathy and compassion?

Are there limits to compassion?

What if those that are suffering don’t want your darn compassion?

Are you helping to gain fame or something else?

What are the “little things” you need to be concerned about to avoid hurting others?

What is ahimsa (non-violence)?

All good questions, which I’ll delve into later.  But for now, when I think of compassion, I envision a gentle Mexican man on the Arizona border helping out a poor American boy.

Canti.

Dave

Extra Credit: Guess who said this?

“It’s not about how much you do but how much love you put into what you do that counts.”