Good day good people,
We have collectively turned our attention to join in the work of creating sun in ourselves this holiday season.
We have allowed ourselves to be drawn to or by one of these spiritual fruits (substances, energies, nutrients)—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, trust, mercy, compassion, faithfulness, perseverance, forgiveness, courage, steadfastness, generosity, fidelity, abundance, serenity, equanimity, metis (skillful action at exactly the right time), ethical discipline, sobriety, integrity, impartiality, concentration, wisdom, discernment, etc.
In speaking of the fruit of the Spirit (which can apply to all of the substances, energies, nutrients listed above), Cynthia Bourgeault makes a few interesting observations. In her eCourse on Building Second Body she talks about how they are collective, each one a manifestation and actualization of the whole. She says, “these higher elements tend to be interwebbed, and each one is a holograph of the other. So that when you get a little bit of one, you get the whole picture that downloads into that one. And so, it's not a matter of thinking of them individually and incrementally” (transcript Building Second Body Session 2: The Generation of Spiritual Substances, p.5). As we work with the fruit that called us, we can trust that we are nurturing all of the fruit by way of this interwebbed holographic reality. Thus, we needn't feel as though we are missing out by choosing only one or two. They will all be working in, through, and for us.
She also says, “virtually all of them are the fruit of some process of transformation. You don't get many of these that exist in a natural state. I mean, you might say that there's a few blessed souls that are naturally loving, joyous, and peaceful that are naturally forbearing, kind, faithful. But most of these come as a process of maturation, as the result of a struggle with yourself…because these fruits, and one of the reasons Paul calls [them] fruits rather than gifts is that they're a part of a natural maturation process of the whole life of the plant. A plant doesn't come bearing fruit. It goes through a process which allows the fruit to manifest as the result of how the plant has lived and grown in the soil in which it's planted ” (transcript Building Second Body Session 2: The Generation of Spiritual Substances, p.6).
Essentially, we become receptive to a process that we cannot control that at the same time requires our full surrendered engagement with. We can consider whether we have the right soil and food for the plant to grow and the fruit to bear and make any necessary adjustments. Then we trust. This can be slow work but it is good slow work that we can give ourselves over to together.
With love,
Heather
Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses
Monday, November 11th with Joy
Reading: “Almost nobody chooses to go sailing in the fog. You have to be forced out of the nest. And it is pretty much the same with meditation. As long as we can get by using our old way of thinking, most of us will-and so this other, deeper way of knowing remains largely latent within us. Not until we are slammed against the wall, when the yearning for truth becomes overwhelming in us and we have the sense that everything done in the ordinary way of consciousness merely ends in lies and disillusionment, do we consent to leave the familiar waters of egoic navigation. But when that moment arrives, you might think of meditation as a kind of wager you make with yourself. The wager is this: that this other way of thinking actually exists in you, this level that knows how to sail in the fog, see in the dark. (And why do you suppose the great contemplative masters of our tradition give their works such titles as The Cloud of Unknowing, or the Dark Night of the Soul?) The only thing blocking the emergence of this whole and wondrous other way of knowing is your over-reliance on your ordinary thinking. If you can just turn that off for a while, then the other will begin to take shape in you, become a reality you can actually experience. And as it does, you will know, in a way you cannot presently know, your absolute belonging and place in the heart of God, and that you are a part of this heart forever and cannot possibly fall out of it, no matter what may happen.” – Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope
Chant: Yeshua, O blessed one, let your peace arise in us / take root in us (peace, love, hope, joy, trust, faith, etc)
Tuesday, November 12th
Reading: “Smile” by Alfred K LaMotte
“What makes you smile? It doesn't need to be a loud smile, a roaring smile, just a soft smile, quietly certain of Being. The fragrant fur of your dog can make you smile, the chirp of a green frog who lives under the gardenia on your back porch, the gentle kiss of your beloved. Merge with your smile, not the image but the feeling inside it, the softness. Let every cell in your body smile. Let this softness overflow into the meadows and woods, the mountains, the clouds, the stars, pervading all time past, time future, the smile of the Buddha. Shakyamuni came not to teach any doctrine, only to smile. Christ came not to teach any doctrine, only to smile. This rose, blossoming at the last day of your garden as Winter approaches, came not to teach any doctrine, but only to smile.”
Chant: Attend to the living presence, here and now (by Darlene Franz)
Wednesday, November 13th
Reading: “Once this existential dimension is seen, it not only reorients the roadmap but also puts in our hands important practical tools for transformation. The role of meditation in service of the gospel becomes much more clear: it creates a bridge between these two levels of awareness within us, offering a consistent and reliable way of practicing the passage from small self to greater Self.
“When, during the time of meditation, angry or frightened or self-justifying thoughts arise, we use whatever method our practice teaches (saying the mantra, inner witnessing, letting go, etc.) to help us stay clear of attachment (which drags us immediately back to our smaller self) and connected to that deeper level of awareness. With patience and persistence, these skills first patterned in meditation can be transferred to "real life" so that we actually begin to live like the Good Samaritan, the woman at the well, or the generous father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Through meditation it gradually becomes ingrained in us that "losing one's life," regardless of the action that may ultimately be required of us in the outer world, entails first and foremost a passage from our ordinary awareness to our spiritual one, because only at this deeper level of non-fear based, wholistic perception will we be able to understand what is actually required of us. In fact, more than a few recent writers have suggested that Jesus' well-loved Kingdom of Heaven is none other than this: life lived from the perspective of an attained spiritual awareness.” — Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p.82-83
Thursday, November 14th
Reading: “Once you've learned where to place your inner observer, you automatically discover what its real purpose is. It's there to connect the two worlds in you. It is not, as frequently assumed, a way of bailing out of your small self into your larger self, escaping the horizontal axis of your being in favor of the vertical. Rather, it lives at the intersection of the two axes, and its purpose is to bring them into meaningful alignment… its job is to be simultaneously present, without prejudice, to both the contents of consciousness and the field itself.
“This is in itself an important corrective to our usual notion of what spiritual awakening is all about. It is commonly thought that the goal is to override or destroy the lower, or egoic, self and replace it with the higher self. But this is really not what is intended.
“What is intended is a marriage of the two, so that the lower with its essential uniqueness and the higher with its transpersonal brilliance come together as a true individuality. The witnessing presence looks compassionately in both directions, allowing us to see the whole picture and be the whole picture.” — Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening
Chant: Become a whole world for a whole world, remember the mercy, be ye whole as I am whole (by Darlene Franz)
Friday, November 15th
Reading: We Might Have To Medicate You by Hafiz, from‘The Gift’ translated by Daniel Ladinsky
Resist your temptation to lie
By speaking of separation from God,
Otherwise,
We might have to medicate
You.
In the ocean
A lot goes on beneath your eyes.
Listen,
They have clinics there too
For the insane
Who persist in saying things like:
“I am independent from the
Sea,
God is not always around
Gently
Pressing against
My body.”
Chant: When were you ever made less by dying, you are the ocean and the ocean is you
Saturday, November 16th
Reading: “The Gospel is the core of Christian living. It has within it a contemplative dimension. This dimension is God's invitation to every human being, through Jesus Christ, to share God's very nature. It begins as a way of listening with ears, eyes, and heart. It grows as a desire to know God and to enter into God's love. This is made possible by a dying to self or emptying to self that becomes a radical emptying to God and experience of God's love. Through a pattern of abiding in God that we call contemplative prayer, a change of consciousness takes place. This dynamic sharing of God's nature forms each person and opens them to the mind and very life of Christ, challenging them to be instruments of God's love and energy in the world. This contemplative consciousness bonds each person in a union with God and with all other persons. It enables them to find God present in all things.” — Thomas Keating
Chant: I surrender
Sunday, November 17th with Tom
Reading:
1. God is in the loving.
2. God is inclusion.
3. Demonizing is always untruth.
4. We belong to each other.
5. Separation is an illusion.
6. Tenderness is the highest form of spiritual maturity.
7. Kindness is the only non delusional response to everything” (George Saunders).
8. Love your neighbor as you love your child.
9. We are all unshakably good.
10. A community of cherished belonging is God's dream come true. (Nobody vs. ANYBODY. God’s dream come true.)
"For what it's worth, this book just wants to lure us to embracing God's heart and Punto de Vista (Point of View.) It proposes a mystical view that perhaps can lift us above those things that keep us apart. Nobody versus anybody. God's dream come true." — Fr. Greg Boyle, Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times
Chant: And God said I am made whole by your life, every soul, every soul completes me (by Marilyn Scott)
Коментари