I’m excited to show you this new video I’ve just completed, featuring Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and Alan Clements, the first American ordained as a Buddhist monk in Burma. It’s also one of the DVD extras on the new Fierce Light DVD, launching in Canada this Monday, August 24, with screenings in Toronto and Vancouver. http://www.fiercelight.org/events
Defiantly Hopeful
In the face of a world in crisis, I dare to care. In the face of materialism, consumerism, and me me me – ism, I recognize that I am because you are, that without you and you and you – plant animal mineral macro micro organism human- I would not exist. That we are all part of a brilliant multi hued tapestry, that we all add to the warp and weave and woof, that we all have a fierce light.
In the face of irony, cynicism, jadedness and despair, I choose hope. In the face of narrow empiricism, the confining corridors of quantification, of dogma of any stripe-rational, political, spiritual or religious, I choose to light a match to the fuse of possibility, and blow up all boxes, sending the church of reason, the church of ideology, the church of churchiness, into the air, with a deep and satisfying boooooom, so that emptied of their arrogance, these churches might offer us freedom, not more walls, love, not more hate, understanding, not more separation.
In the face of hatred, anger and fear, I choose love, compassion, and celebration. If I can’t party in your revolution, don’t put me on the guest list.
In the face of my own vulnerabilities and limitations, I choose to go easy on myself. I am not perfect, I am human, and that is a wonderful thing. My stumblings and fumblings make me real. I am simply doing my best.
In the face of my ego, which is always feeling either smalled or bigged, I smile gently and give it a little pat on the head, a kick in the butt, a nudge in the ribs and say,”hey we’re doing fine, we’re doing just fine. Get up off the ground, get down off of your pedestal and stand in the place of the real, neither inflated, nor deflated, just be yourself. That’s good enough.”
In the face of a sunny day, I cry out,”thank you! Thank you for this amazing world, thank you for 14 billion years of hard joyous miraculous work to get us to the point where we can really appreciate this magnificence. I’m going to stop pissing in my own pool and start truly loving this incredulous place, from the bottom of my toes to the tip of my tongue, gonna celebrate this one precious life, this next precious breath, this precious precious moment. To hell with the nay sayers and doomsdayers, the cynics and the pisspots, I will blow up the gates of the gatekeepers and storm the citadels of the power brokers with pure, unadulterated Love. Nothing-not anything- will stand in my way, not even myself. It’s the least I can do to say, thank you, thank you, thank you for the wondrous wonder of creative creation. And in case no one has told you this today, Universe: you rock!”
Spirit In Action
“The whole human species is on trial now. These next few decades will determine whether or not our species is a locust species or a bumblebee species. We’ll either scour this planet to the bones and destroy our own civilization and most other species, or we will find a way to bring ourselves back into harmony with our mother, with the earth.” – Van Jones
We live in a time when things are getting better and better and worse and worse faster and faster. There are two graphs, building steam and momentum – the upward graph of the forces of life, and the downward graph, representing the forces of death and extinction. These are the two dominant trends that humanity, and our innocent blue planet, are facing: what visionary Matthew Fox calls the forces of biophilia, and the forces of necrophilia. This time of raging wars, financial collapse, environmental devastation and fear mongering is also a time of tremendous possibility, when we all have the opportunity to step into our true selves and become part of the tidal wave of change that is sweeping the globe.
For the last few years I have been traveling the planet, shooting a feature documentary called “Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action.” The film is now complete, and is starting to come out into the world right now! It’s about the rising power of “spiritual activism”, contemporary stories of what Gandhi called “Soul Force,” what Martin Luther King called “Love In Action,” what we’re calling “Fierce light.” It is the power of action, combined with the depth of Love. I have been seeking out those visionaries and every day heroes who are working to transform themselves and this world of crisis, and I have discovered enormous cause for hope.
Spiritual Activism is not about religion, it is not about any form of dogma, it is activism that comes from the heart, not just the head, activism that is compassionate, positive, kind, fierce and transformative. And fun! Being spiritual, and being an activist, can be a lot of fun – in fact, it should be a lot of fun. Being a spiritual activist means taking our part in creating change, with a spirit of positivity, and a balance of interdependence and self determination. Nothing could be more inspiring and more rewarding than being the change we want to see in the world, within and without.
For me, true spirituality is a fresh, living truth. Ideology is frozen spirituality, whereas I see spirituality as the evolutionary impulse itself– it is evolving and adapting along with the ever changing context of our lives. It is still rooted in timeless truths, but truth as inner knowing, not external imposition. Spirituality also involves that which is beyond the immediate senses – the unseen. This includes emotions, feelings, energy, and the openness to possibilities beyond the material.
Spirituality involves taking a ‘depth’ perspective, being willing to look under the surface, and beyond the narrow confines of the strictly rational mind, to a consideration of as many dimensions as possible. An integrated approach, which includes your own perspective, the perspective of the other person, the community, the planet, and the universal, divine perspective – weave all that together, and you have a spiritual perspective, a perspective that recognizes the interconnectedness of all that is. This is a naturally heart expanding perspective, which is why we can say that G~d is love – when we see ourselves as part of everything, the natural response is one of love.
Leela Kumar, the Dalit human rights activist featured in Fierce Light, defines spirituality as community – recognizing that we are all part of a greater whole, a vast and interconnected system of interconnecting systems. There is a sense of awe that settles into your being when you consider this truth deeply. And out of this, emerges a sense of divine play – a joyous celebration of the miracle of creation.
I believe we are seeing a true Zeitgeist emerging, a new form of change making that begins in the human heart, and radiates outwards. I’ve seen it from New Zealand to Vietnam, from Africa to Washington, from Mexico to Sri Lanka to South Central Los Angeles. I saw it in the tremendous surge of grass roots support that brought Barack Obama into the Whitehouse, a “yes we can” spirit that captured that imagination of a nation tired of inauthenticity and spin. Tired of a politics of hate and division. The whole world celebrated Obama’s victory. The whole world is hungry for change.
Everywhere I travel, I have found people rising up with a series of shared values. Paul Hawkens, author of Blessed Unrest, calls it the largest undocumented mass movement in history – humanity’s immune response to a planet in crisis. He has set out to do the research, and has discovered that millions of individuals and organizations are answering the call to compassionate action, a call that is needed to transform planetary suicide into a time of rebirth and regeneration. It is what Alice Walker calls “The Human Sunrise,” the incredible power of human beings stepping into their authentic selves and stepping up to take responsibility for the change they want to see in the world.
What’s so wonderful about this movement is that it doesn’t have to require anything dramatic. Small changes are just as important. When billions of people make small changes, this results in enormous change. We don’t have to join anything to be part of this wave of transformation, we don’t have to sign up, pay dues, or get a funny name. We can if we so desire – there are many organizations that reflect these shared values – but if you’re not the joining type, if you’re someone like me, you still have an important part to play. This exciting transformation begins in our own hearts, when we dare to care. Each and every person has a role to play in this profound shift in consciousness, a shift from the small ‘me’ to the great ‘we.’ This is the evolution of activism, and the evolution of spirituality – a revolution of the heart.
Can Sufi Islam counter the Taleban?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7896943.stm
By Barbara Plett
BBC News, Lahore
It’s one o’clock in the morning and the night is pounding with
hypnotic rhythms, the air thick with the smoke of incense.
I’m squeezed into a corner of the upper courtyard at the shrine of
Baba Shah Jamal in Lahore, famous for its Thursday night drumming
sessions.
It’s packed with young men, swaying to the music, and working
themselves into a state of ecstasy.
This isn’t how most Westerners imagine Pakistan, which has a
reputation as a hotspot for Islamist extremism.
Now some in the West have begun asking whether Pakistan’s Sufism could
be mobilised to counter militant Islamist ideology and influence.
Lahore would be the place to start: it’s a city rich in Sufi tradition.
At the shrine of Data Ganj Bakhsh Hajveri, musicians and singers from
across the country also gather weekly, to perform qawwali, or Islamic
devotional singing.
Qawwali is seen as a key part of the journey to the divine, what Sufis
call the continual remembrance of God.
“When you listen to other music, you will listen for a short time, but
the qawwali goes straight inside,” says Ali Raza, a fourth generation
Sufi singer.
“Even if you can’t understand the wording, you can feel the magic of
the qawwali, this is spiritual music which directly touches your soul
and mind as well.”
But Sufism is more than music. At a house in an affluent suburb of
Lahore a group of women gathers weekly to practise the Sufi
disciplines of chanting and meditation, meant to clear the mind and
open the heart to God.
One by one the devotees recount how the sessions have helped them deal
with problems and achieve greater peace and happiness. This more
orthodox Sufism isn’t as widespread as the popular variety, but both
are seen as native to South Asia.
‘Love and harmony’
“Islam came to this part of the world through Sufism,” says Ayeda
Naqvi, a teacher of Islamic mysticism who’s taking part in the
chanting.
“It was Sufis who came and spread the religious message of love and
harmony and beauty, there were no swords, it was very different from
the sharp edged Islam of the Middle East.
“And you can’t separate it from our culture, it’s in our music, it’s
in our folklore, it’s in our architecture. We are a Sufi country, and
yet there’s a struggle in Pakistan right now for the soul of Islam.”
That struggle is between Sufism and hard-line Wahhabism, the strict
form of Sunni Islam followed by members of the Taleban and al-Qaeda.
It has gained ground in the tribal north-west, encouraged initially in
the 1980s by the US and Saudi Arabia to help recruit Islamist warriors
to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
But it’s alien to Pakistan’s Sufi heartland in the Punjab and Sindh
provinces, says Sardar Aseff Ali, a cabinet minister and a Sufi.
“Wahhabism is a tribal form of Islam coming from the desert sands of
Saudi Arabia,” he says. “This may be very attractive to the tribes in
the frontier, but it will never find resonance in the established
societies of Pakistan.”
So could Pakistan’s mystic, non-violent Islam be used as a defence
against extremism?
An American think tank, the Rand Corporation, has advocated this,
suggesting support for Sufism as an “open, intellectual interpretation
of Islam”.
There is ample proof that Sufism remains a living tradition.
In the warren of Lahore’s back streets, a shrine is being built to a
modern saint, Hafiz Iqbal, and his mentor, a mystic called Baba Hassan
Din. They attract followers from all classes and walks of life.
‘Atrocities’
The architect is Kamil Khan Mumtaz. He describes in loving detail his
traditional construction techniques and the spiritual principles they
symbolise.
He shakes his head at stories of lovely old mosques and shrines pulled
down and replaced by structures of concrete and glass at the orders of
austere mullahs, and he’s horrified at atrocities committed in the
name of religion by militant Islamists.
But he doubts that Sufism can be marshalled to resist Wahhabi
radicalism, a phenomenon that he insists has political, not religious,
roots.
“The American think tanks should think again,” he says. “What you see
[in Islamic extremism] is a response to what has happened in the
modern world.
“There is a frustration, an anger, a rage against invaders, occupiers.
Muslims ask themselves, what happened?
“We once ruled the world and now we’re enslaved. This is a power
struggle, it is the oppressed who want to become the oppressors, this
has nothing to do with Islam, and least of all to do with Sufism.”
Ayeda Naqvi, on the other hand, believes Sufism could play a political
role to strengthen a tolerant Islamic identity in Pakistan. But she
warns of the dangers of Western support.
“I think if it’s done it has to be done very quietly because a lot of
people here are allergic to the West interfering,” she says.
“So even if it’s something good they’re doing, they need to be
discreet because you don’t want Sufism to be labelled as a movement
which is being pushed by the West to drown out the real puritanical
Islam.”
Back at the Shah Jamal shrine I couldn’t feel further from puritanical
Islam. The frenzied passion around me suggests that Pakistan’s Sufi
shrines won’t be taken over by the Taleban any time soon.
But whether Sufism can be used to actively resist the spread of
extremist Islam, or even whether it should be, is another question.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7896943.stm
Published: 2009/02/24 05:55:03 GMT
Compassion on Two Legs
Spring, 2000
I’m at a protest camp in Thailand, on the Mun River. My Filipino friend Cray and I are having a beer with a couple of hard nosed activists from the anti-fascist squatter scenes of Berlin. Cray let it slip that he is an unapologetic Roman Catholic, like many Filipinos, and it turns out the squatter guy was raised a Roman Catholic as well.
“And it was hell,” he snaps.
His voice steadily grows louder as he explains that the Roman Catholics had backed the Nazi’s and blessed the weapons that killed the Jews and how can there be a God that did this?
“There is no God,” he concludes, almost shouting, “there is nothing when you die, only the worms that eat your flesh and that’s a good thing, at least your body goes somewhere useful.”
Cray decides it’s time to go to bathroom to try and throw up, a result of the half-dozen beers he has consumed, no doubt in combination with the conversation. The squatters girlfriend has gone quiet; she’s probably witnessed these scenes before. Her opinionated boyfriend turns on me, as I have accidentally revealed that I practice Buddhist meditation and support non-violent action.
“How can you can change this fucked up world without the use of violence? How can you watch your friends get beat up by the police? Are you just going to sit there, and let it happen? What would a Buddhist say to that? I was in El Salvador, I saw what was happening to the people, what the death squads were doing. What would a Buddhist do?”
“Non-violence doesn’t mean passivity. Look at Gandhi. He was active.”
“What did Gandhi accomplished?”
“A lot.”
“He didn’t accomplished anything. It was the people.”
“Of course it was the people. But he was an inspiration.”
“You think you are going to beat these bastards through non-violence?”
“You think these isolated, regional, guerilla wars are going to be able to take on the root causes of what is going on? It’s not some local thing. What’s behind it is much bigger. It’s multi-nationals. It’s the global corporate industrial military elite. How can we fight that with guerilla warfare?”
“What we need is a global guerilla warfare.”
“That happens. There’s terrorism. Do you think it really solves the problem?”
“Do you think non-violence is going to solve the problem?”
“If you play the same game, you can easily start to repeat the same mistakes. Look at the Khemer Rouge.”
“Oh don’t give me that. That was extremism, that was something else. ”
“So what armed revolution succeeded, what didn’t get twisted? Cuba maybe, some aspects of it. Maybe the Zapatistas, we can only hope. But they mostly use wooden guns. They haven’t fired a shot since 1995.”
“We’ve got to strike back. We’ve got to resist! We can’t just let them win. You think non-violence would have worked against the Nazi’s?”
“Everyone always says that. In fact, the few times it was used against the Nazi’s, it actually worked. It worked better than any of the other attempts at resistance from the inside.”
“What are you talking about?”
“First off, we need to define some terms, alright? Non-violence does not mean passivity. That’s a common confusion. Much of the response to the rise of the Nazi’s was either passive or violent. The few times non-violent action, and action is the key word here, was tried, it was very successful. Have you heard about what happened at Rosenstrasse?”
“No.”
“It was in 1943, and the Nazi’s did a huge round up of the last remaining Jews, most of whom hadn’t been captured yet because they had ‘Aryan kin’- they were married to non-Jewish wives. They were caught by surprise, and easily rounded up and brought to a detention center. Immediately, what was left of the ‘Jewish Radio’, the underground phone network, went buzzing. The next morning, as if planned, thousands of women, the wives and sometimes the mothers of the captured men, appeared outside the detention center, which was only a few blocks from Gestapo headquarters. The numbers swelled to six thousand, demanding the release of their loved ones. The men inside took courage from this show of support, and started shouting and banging on their cells. It became a hugely embarrassing spectacle for the Nazis. They could have put a stop to it with a single spray of machine gun fire, but they didn’t. There was a full investigation into this incident done a while back, and they discovered the Fuhrer himself was paralyzed-he didn’t know what to do. In the end, the men were all released. What’s more, almost all of them were able to escape Nazi Germany, and survive the holocaust. So, one of the few times non-violent resistance was tried against the Nazis, it worked.”
“Okay, maybe I don’t know about that. Okay, maybe it worked sometimes, but how can we fight a whole military industrial complex without hitting them as hard as they hit us?”
“I agree, we need to hit them hard. I never said we need to roll over and play dead. I think we can hit them hard, without hitting them. But you know what I think is going to happen, sooner than we imagine, is that the whole planet is going to go up in smoke and we’ll have no choice but to wake up.”
“Yeah that’s what I think too. The whole fucking shit is going to collapse.”
He orders another one of those big black ‘Tiger’ beers and lights a cigarette. Cray stumbles back from trying unsuccessfully to throw up.
“It’s these Roman Catholics, the religions, brainwashing the people, justifying the destruction, blessing it with their hypocrisy.”
“Hang on, hang on. You never even mentioned Roman Catholics until Cray came back.”
“All religions! All of them!”
“Alright, it’s probably true that many religions have lost their original intent. Like with many Buddhists, many Christians. But if you go back to the original teachings there’s always truth. Buddha didn’t teach Buddhism, that came later. Christ didn’t teach Christianity. They taught compassion, that was one of the fundamental teachings.”
“Compassion. Yes, that’s what we need,” he finally agrees.
I once asked a Zen master Junpo Roshi, what he thinks the definition of spirituality is. He said, “Embodied Compassion.” To him, that is the core of it all. What are we here on this planet to do? Embody compassion. Who are we? Compassion on two legs.
Excerpted from my journals during the shooting of my feature documentary, Scared Sacred:
Fierce Light Talk Part 2
Part two of my Fierce Light talk in Nelson BC, after the screening of my feature documentary ‘Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action.’
REVOLUTIONARY LOVE
“At the risk of sounding ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.”- Che Guevara
It begins and ends with love. If there is one lesson, one key to being all you can be – and I don’t mean being a soldier, I mean being a warrior – it’s learning to love. But just what does that word, love, mean? It has become so fraught and loaded with double meanings and empty promises that many are justifiably cynical at the mere mention of love. I’m not talking sentimental love, I’m not talking hallmark love, I’m not talking ‘luv.’ I’m talking about a fierce love, a revolutionary love, a true love, a love beyond illusion, a love that is not afraid to freak you out with the truth, even when it hurts like hell. This Big Love is agape love, it’s a universal love, and it is, I believe infused in all of creation.
When I asked Archibishop Desmond Tutu one of my favourite questions, “what is the meaning of life”, he replied, “The God in whose image we are created, is a God of love. We are the result of a divine loving. Ultimately we’re meant for love…we’re meant as those who will communicate love and make this world more hospitable to love.”
You don’t need to believe in God to feel the power of this truth – somewhere deep inside us all, is a bonfire of love, that we are here to embody, to unleash, to liberate from captivity.
Take a moment and send your awareness down to your heart, and see if you can feel a little taste of this vast love which is hidden there, like a shining diamond – your diamond heart. Can you feel it burning within? Or do you find constriction? A little of both?
If you’re like most of us, there is a thick armour coating around the jewel of love at the heart of your heart. We create this shield in an attempt to keep the pain away, but what it really does is keep the pain in. If you could only release this fiery love from it’s hiding place onto the world, your every word, your every action, would be a blessing and boon to all you encounter. And all that love would come right back at you.
How do we unleash the vast reservoir of love from inside us? Little by little, day by day, step by step we can open the gates. Don’t expect it to happen all at once, but if you make a conscious decision to reverse the process – from building up that armour plating, to tearing it down – it will happen.
Sounds scary? Of course it is! What could be more frightening than loving and allowing love in! But, what could be more rewarding? Nothing on earth. The love I’m talking about is not dependent on others – it’s not something that anyone has to give you. It is already alive, inside each and every one of us. It is always there, just waiting for you to access it.
Opening your heart does not mean giving away your freedom, it does not mean surrendering to every person who comes along and demands a piece of you. The kind of love I’m talking about begins with loving yourself, and then radiates outwards. If you do not love yourself, you cannot love others effectively. And sometimes, the most effective and compassionate way to love another is to say ‘no’, especially when they are hurting you, the planet, or other people.
Do you love you? Really? Chances are, if you are like most of us, there’s at least a piece of yourself that you just do not Love. Maybe it’s even the whole package. You are not alone – there is an epidemic of self hatred in our society. Not all cultures have been trained to dislike themselves in quite the same way those of us in the west have, though the disease is spreading, with a global, all pervasive media campaign that teaches us that we lack…something. It doesn’t matter exactly what it is we are lacking, just a vague sense of lack is good enough to make us ripe for commercial exploitation. We might be lacking the right clothes, the right car, the right brand of cigarettes, we might be lacking youth, the right butt, a big enough penis, an HD TV. There’s always something that we need, and we’re never quite good enough. But we could be, if we only had the right appliances, the right deodorant, another hit of viagra.
There are many other sources for this pervasive sense that we are not good enough – or not good period. Parents, peers, friends and relatives can all be dampers, stomping out our spark. We each have our own personal moments when this feeling may have taken root, turning points in our life that become touchstones of self loathing. It’s important to recognize them, see them, bring them into the light of your conscious mind, and release yourself from their hold. Because you are worth it. You deserve to be loved, by the world, and by yourself. You deserve to be loved, simply because of who you are. Not because of what you do, what you have, what you look like, but simply, because of who you are. You don’t need to be anything more than yourself. Your true self.
Tibetan culture is one of the lucky ones – as a community, they’ve largely escaped the disease of self hatred. Some years ago an interviewer was explaining to the Dalai Lama how we in the north suffer so much from self worth issues. He was genuinely puzzled, “really? You hate yourself? How strange. Very very strange.” In Tibet, they love each other, and they love themselves.
It is very difficult to truly love others, if you do not first learn to love yourself. If we all loved ourselves, we would soon find that conflict would disappear in the world. If every tin pot dictator learned to truly love himself, if every general, every leader, every jailer, every gang member, every would be killer, were to learn self love, this would be a very different world. We project our self hatred outwards, onto others, and onto the planet herself. In the feature documentary, “The Age of Stupid”, a man from the future, looking back at the mess we made of this beautiful world, wonders how we could have let things go so wrong. Why did we fail to save ourselves? Perhaps, he suggests, the answer might be that we didn’t think we were worth saving.
But we are! We are so very worth saving, each and every one of us. We are part of an extraordinary wave of manifestation, an incredibly rare and precious pearl of self aware consciousness in a vast expanse of silent space, and we are so very beautiful. You are so very beautiful. This does not mean you are perfect. Neither am I. You’re not here to be perfect. You are here to be human. You are here to be perfectly imperfect. It’s how the light gets in. This doesn’t mean rest on your laurels – keep growing, at all costs, keep growing, but do it with self love, not out of self hate.
WARNING: self love does not equal narcissism. One of the major pitfalls on the road to true self love is the trap of narcissism. It’s an important but sometimes confusing distinction. Narcissism means seeing only yourself, loving only yourself, to the exclusion of all others. Perversely, many of us are self hating narcissists, obsessed with ourselves, and unable to truly see others. Hitler was a narcissist, and projected his extreme narcissism onto a public willing to be seduced by claims that they were the chosen ones, the Aryan race. This is not self love – this is hatred disguised as self love.
In order to distinguish between healthy love of the self, and unhealthy narcissism, ask yourself: am I loving myself from a place of ego, or from the authentic self? The authentic self is Love. It only Loves. It does not hate. To hate is to be inauthentic. At the same time, the authentic self Loves in an egoless manner, as it is by definition beyond the ego. This kind of self love is true, deep and sustaining, and will never draw you into the trap of self obsession, a sad and depressing addiction in our society. True self love is a window to loving others, not a doorway that shuts out the world.
To serve the world, to truly be of service, we need to be very very conscious. We need to look at old programs, and see if they are running the show, instead of our true heart. For women, in particular, the old models of serving others have been put in place and maintained by the patriarchy. All of us, men and women, have to take a good look at how we go about serving this planet. We are not meant to live on our knees, we are here to stand tall on our feet, to truly shine. We serve best from a place of power, not from a place of submission. Not patriarchal power, but true power, a more feminine power – a generous, compassionate, loving power, that has no desire to dominate, but refuses to be dominated.
This week we interviewed Shandra Alexandre, founder of the Sha’can Tradition, for the film Redvolution. She described how, in Hindu mythology, the goddess Kali is shown with four arms. On the one side, her arms hold gifts and boons. On the other, a sword and a severed head. The sword is for severing the head of the ego. Painful as this may be, it is also the path to true freedom. Terrifying as those Kali moments might be in our life, they also can be much more powerful and transformative than all the cuddling and coddling in the world. We tend to want the gifts and boons of life, and want to avoid the fierce rewards of truth, but we do so at the expense of our growth.
Fierce Self Love is not about denying our shadow, it’s not about being lazy and settling for less. It’s about loving your potential, and choosing to water that seed. Believing that no matter where you are right now, at the bottom of the barrel, or the top of the heap, inside is a divine spark that can never be extinguished, a glowing ember beyond the vagaries of fame and misfortune. A sense of fullness, of deep, radiating satisfaction. Beyond the power of lack. Love is indomitable, unquenchable, unstoppable. It can be hidden, but never destroyed. It is at the core of who you are.
Self Help The World
Another world is possible, this very moment, when we choose to live it. It begins with your very next breath. Awakening is not something that happens in the future, someday – it happens in this moment, moment to moment. There is nothing standing in your way, in our way. When we begin to live another world, today, we will soon discover that new world reflected all around us. As more and more of us choose an uncompromising life, a life that is truly lived, a life beyond sleep walking, avoidance or the numbing anaesthesia of fear, the more attainable that world is for everyone else. The field of possibility expands exponentially each time one of us chooses to step up to the plate and shine.
The real “secret” is not that through our focussed intention we can get ourselves a new car, a new tv, a new lawnmower, or a new blender. That’s old news, and not very interesting. Fortunately, since we live in a time of financial uncertainty, there is no correlation between the amount of “stuff” we have and happiness. Studies have proven, this. Often, in fact, the reverse is true – too much stuff or focus on stuff, causes stress and worry, unhappiness and fear. What’s worse, a tiny percentage of humanity uses the vast majority of resources, suffering because of our greed. This is also old news. But it bears repeating – again, and again and again. Because we forget, again and again and again.
The truth is, when part of humanity suffers, we all suffer. If part of me is bleeding, then all of me is bleeding. If my heart is stuttering, my body is faltering. We are inextricably linked, part of one vast system of interconnecting systems. Global events are local events. Climate change, stock market collapses, environmental illness, all strike us, our families, our friends – people we know. People we are. It’s not just happening to “them” anymore. We can no longer avoid the consequences of our imbalanced lives.
I’m not suggesting we all become ascetics. I believe we should all have our needs, and our reasonable wants met. Every person on this planet has a right to good food, clean water, a safe environment, health care and education, at a minimum. Plus some cool stuff. There’s enough to go around, if we change our priorities, especially those of us from the wealthier nations.
But first we need to get our priorities straight. Let’s put that law of attraction to it’s proper use – generating more and more Love in this world. The real secret is that when we become Love, the world showers that Love right back at us, and around us. The real secret is that by transforming ourselves, we transform the world. I call it “self help the world.” It’s a tremendous win-win situation, a pathway to true, deep, and lasting happiness.
BYObama
BE YOUR OWN OBAMA!
As we move closer to the date when Barack Obama steps into power, there is an enormous sense of anticipation. There are those who are floating on cloud nine, and there are those who are down in the basement of cyncism. Somewhere in the middle lies a place of hope, possibility, and realism. Right in the midst, in that liminal zone between rose coloured glasses and dung coloured glasses is a pair of clear lenses that can help us stay the course.
Yes we can! And yes we will. It’s up to us, not anyone else, not Obama, not your mama, not Santa Claus. Change begins first and foremost in your own heart. This is one of the central principles of Spiritual Activism – one by one, drop by drop, we fill the bucket of change, with our sense of personal responsibility, of heart felt compassion, the kind that comes from a deep authentic impulse. This means we don’t change because we feel we ought to, because our mother told us so, because it will impress someone (even ourselves), etc. That kind of transformation is short lived and brittle.
The kind of change that I call “Fierce Light” comes from getting in touch with who you really are. This takes some work, cause a lot of what we think we are, is coming from the outside, from culture, from our history, from our fears and desires. When you strip all that away, who are you really?
At last weekends Zen retreat with Roshi Enkyo , we did an amazing excercise, which she borrowed from Joanna Macy (who is featured in Fierce Light). You can try it for yourself if you like.
With a partner, sit facing each other, in a comfortable, sacred space. One partner begins by asking the question, and the other answers, then you switch.
Take a moment to get centered and calm. Look into each others eyes. Sometimes the hardest part!!! If it’s easier, you can wear a pirate patch and just look into one eye. Just kidding. Try to keep your gaze soft and unintrusive, and try to maintain eye contact throughout the excercise.
Become aware of your breathing.
Partner one asks: “Who are you?”
Partner two answers with whatever pops up. Try to be spontaneous, loose, not premeditated, clever or right. Simply speak whatever comes out.
Partner one responds, “Thank you. Who are you?”
This continues for five minutes. Then take a few moments to reflect on all the possible answers that emerged, before switching roles.
It’s a powerful, simple practice, that flipped my lid. I was everything from a slug to the planet to the person in front of me, to a brother, son, soul, cell, spiral nebulae and so many other things. Amazing all of who I am. Some of them not so pretty. Some of them incredibly beautiful. Some of them just plain silly.
I asked another Zen master I met in Boulder recently, Junpo Roshi, what he thinks spirituality is. He said, “Embodied Compassion.” To him, that is the core of it all. What are we here on this planet to do? Embody compassion. Who are we? Compassion on two legs.
There’s a different answer to what that might look like for everyone. But if we all were to step up to the plate, and start moving through the world from a heart centered place, grounded in real compassionate action, we would begin to see the fruits of this massive spirit of possibility which the world is feeling right now. Right in the midst of this spirit of crisis, enormous flowers of change are blooming. And that’s an exciting place to be – in the midst.
So who are you? And how do you embody compassion?
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HOPE ON A TIGHTROPE
* Cornel West on the Election of Barack Obama: “I Hope He Is a Progressive Lincoln, I Aspire to Be the Frederick Douglass to Put Pressure on Him” *
Princeton University professor of religion and African American studies, Cornel West, speaks about the election of Barack Obama, his selection of Eric Holder to be Attorney General, the possible selection of Lawrence Summers to be Treasury Secretary and the role of the progressive left to push Obama. West is the author of the new book Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/19/cornel_west_on_the_election_of
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OBAMA’S UNYIELDING HOPE
“Unyielding hope” – Obama is a meliorist (even if he, knowledgeable as he is, may have to look that word up). The meliorist is the one who holds dear the conviction that we can, through our own efforts, make better lives for our selves. The meliorist is neither the pessimist who sees gloom nor the optimist who sees brightness as automatically given. Betterment is our doing, our energy, our achievement: so says the meliorist. That Obama is a meliorist makes him a pragmatist and an American of the best variety our history has to offer.” – REQIEUM FOR CERTAINTY BLOG
Obama’s Fierce Light
Here’s a moving video clip with Congressman John Lewis, speaking on election night. Congressman Lewis is featured in my new feature documentary on spiritual activism, Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action. He is the last surviving speaker from the March on Washington, during the American Civil Rights movement, and lead the historic march across the Selma bridge. Today, that dream of Martin Luther King Jr, of Congressman John Lewis, of millions and millions of compassionate souls, has taken a great leap forward.
From the perspective of spiritual activism, of the stories behind Fierce Light, the election of Barack Obama is a powerful, powerful affirmation that the zeitgeist we set out to capture in the film, is very very real, one that is being felt around the world, and one that is reflected on this historic occasion. A man who stands for authenticity, internationalism, equality, compassion, hope and integrity, has been chosen by the american people, over the old paradigm of spin, manipulation and a politics that speaks to fear and hatred. It is a huge step forward, and a show of true democracy. In the midst of so much crisis, ecological, financial, and humanitarian, a new source of hope has emerged.
Fierce Love 