A B C

 

I believe we are here to learn, grow and be what we are designed to be. Developing what is inherently within us and giving it expression in our lives is part of learning and growing. And when we are expressing and experiencing who we are and what we are then we are more fully functioning as human beings. We each have a purpose, a reason for being, which probably is not what we do for a living.

 

Years ago HH the Dali Lama spoke in Portland, OR. After a while of chanting and mounting anticipation among the throng of people filling Pioneer Courthouse Square, His Holiness walked out on the platform and said: “Every human being has the potential to be happy.” That is so simple and so elegant. And it is true. We, in the United States of America live in a society with the hallmark of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

 

If we develop a unified state of mind then we can consciously co-create happiness. There are certain areas of our lives that are critical for our well-being and our happiness that we will discuss in this essay. Health for one is so important for most people’s happiness. Attaining or maintaining good health is possible. Relationships that are healthy is vital as well. Relationships that work and serve you and others, rather than just getting along are important for well-being and happiness. And having enough; enough money, enough time, enough energy, enough love are all important to being a happy, healthy and whole human being.

 

With the “cult of success” in post modern America there was a reversal of priorities that began to shift around 1970. Placing money, status, power and outer appearances of success above and beyond ethics, honesty, responsibility and human dignity which all came down like a house of cards in autumn of 2008 with the global economic melt down and subsequent great recession. There is such stress for success in today’s society and with that comes the outfall of stress on relationships, personal health and one’s own state of mind.

 

Perhaps there is a better way than what is taught in most schools and colleges and what is practiced in most businesses, public thorough-fairs and homes that will result in the kind of conditions we really want: good health, happiness and having enough to enjoy life.

 

There is a better way, a way that has been developed and shared down through the ages by masters and teachers, sages and saints of many traditions. From Jesus to Buddha, Buckminster Fuller to Baba, and many thinkers of all ages we can gain great insights and wisdom to live fully alive and happy lives.

 

In order to attain and maintain a state of mind and heart in which we live as happy, healthy and whole human beings we need to combine two things. Principles and Practices which lead to the inner Work for happiness.

 

From the Heart Message - Part 2

What would you do? What would you do? If you were the President, or were in any situation where you could decide what to do to make our economy strong and vibrant? What would you do to make our health care system just, reasonable and comprehensive? What would you do to secure peace and security in our country and our world? While Iran is convulsing in after shocks to their presidential elections. While North Korea is behaving like a junk yard dog as their leadership is being handed from father to third son. While Israel is struggling to find alignment within and with the international community as well as with Palestine. While AIDS still runs rampant in Africa and the Roman Catholic Church still stands in opposition to birth control, family planning and safe sex. What would you do?  I was telling you about Earthstewards and Danaan Parry during the tense days of the 1980s, Cold War et al. Interest rates soared around 16-19%, everywhere was in a slump...

Danaan Parry and many others who worked directly with him went on for years to plant seeds for peace. He led the effort of citizens’ diplomacy during the 1980s, to break the dreadful wall of fear dividing us from the people behind the iron curtain and other citizens of the world. Planting peace trees became a critical activity as they went to Russia, India and then here in the United States.

Eknath Easwaran wrote: The great Hindu scriptures say that God is absolute truth, absolute joy, absolute beauty. A scientist who is seeking the absolute truth, as Einstein did, is seeking God. Anyone seeking absolute joy, whether in a tavern or in the shopping mall or in Monte Carlo, is seeking God. And anyone who is seeking beauty – on a canvas or a stage or a mountaintop – is seeking God. What lovers of beauty seek in paintings, in sculpture, in dance, in music is just a reflection of the absolute beauty that is God. The real source of all beauty is God, the Beloved.

Danaan Parry had been a nuclear physicist and a member of the Atomic Energy Commission in his first career. He told the story, when we first met, that as a physicist he began searching for the truth, which he could not find in the atom, nucleus, proton, electron and not even the quark. Then he taught for a while in Berkley before developing Earth Stewards and teaching Warriors of the Heart training for peacemaking. This evolved from his doing individual assignments in Belfast, Bethlehem and across America to group exchanges and projects around the country and the globe. Peace trees.

They found that getting inner city youth together to plant trees for peace in Washington DC became an activity of whole learning. First of all, the young people did not know how to conduct a meeting with order and it would usually break down into fighting. So they taught simple procedures of how to have meetings and how to reach decisions with group agreements. Then they knew they had to provide rewards so they began the peace table of delicious and nutritious foods to celebrate a day’s work together. This was so successful they took it to Los Angeles and other cities.

And the final one was when a group of Earth Stewards was prepared to go to Viet Nam to plant peace trees in a location that had been cleared of deadly land mines from our war there decades earlier. And after the last meeting of planning the strategy to the finest detail, Danaan departed. On his way to the ferryboat on Bainbridge Island, his heart, that had carried so many people and cared for so many souls and given so much to the world, that had held so many (hugging Danaan you got a good bear hug like Yogi Bear), simply gave out.

But that was not the final one. Like many others, I have strived to be and to teach peace in what we do, in how we live. Peacemaking at home, in churches, in communities, in families and within ourselves is critical at this time. Learning and living the way of peace means we don’t just say that’s a good idea and then go on with life as usual. It means we deliberately live so we don’t express hurtful criticisms and destructive emotions to others, even those we don’t like. It means finding the common ground, in our humanness. This is doing what Jesus said: “Love one another, as I have loved you.” This is what we can do.

Jelaluddin Rumi wrote: All day I think about it, then at night I say it.Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea my soul is from elsewhere I'm sure of that,

And I intend to end up there. This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back around to that place, I’ll be completely sober.

Meanwhile, I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,

But who is it now in my ear, who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth? Who looks out with my eyes?

What is the soul? I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn’t come here of my own accord,

And I can’t leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

 

Peace,   John

From the Heart Message - Part 1

The other day, Jane and I drove up to Port Townsend. It was a soft overcast day creating subdued colors. Along the way we turned off 101 and drove up Mount Walker. I had not been there since 1971 when I took a bunch of kids from the UPS Group Home up there. And again the mountain was in full bloom with lovely pink rhododendrons lacing the steep forest hillsides. Wild rhodies are all that soft pink, I’m told. The blush of blossoms filled the forest and my heart with beauty.

Port Townsend was dancing with celebration as the Hood Canal Bridge had opened the day before after many weeks of closure for repairs. That meant the way was open once again for tourists to reinvigorate the shops and bookstores in the charming, historic town. A rock and roll band was playing next to a pier and people were dancing in the street to the good old tunes. After walking around, enjoying the shops and book stores we went over to Fort Warden for a bike ride.

Fort Warden, which was strategically placed for sea defense at the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, especially during the dreadful days of WWI and WWII. It has been converted into a rich cultural center for education and activities. It is now a state park and has offices and facilities for colleges, environmental and musical events of highest quality and Copper Canyon Press. After riding around a bit and coasting down to the beach we rode past the old officers quarters and back toward the car. Jane was drawn to the rhododendron garden and leaning my bike against a sign I walked into the garden with her. There, standing simply and looking a bit neglected and worn, was a Peace Pole in the garden.

I remember when we planted that Peace Pole. In 1986 we were part of a peace gathering there with Earthstewards. Our late friend and great teacher, Danaan Parry called us all together and hundreds of us held a sacred ceremony in placing the Peace Pole in the ground. It states let there be peace in English, Spanish, Russian and Chinese. We sanctified it and dedicated that place and ourselves at that time to the holy way of peace. Well that’s nice, you say, they planted a Peace Pole, so what came of that?

Remember, 1986 was the height of the cold war and we were pouring in millions and millions for nuclear and other forms of national defense. Remember the star wars defense touted by President Reagan and many others? And the secret wars of the CIA, the Iran Contra affair and such below the table tactics that were going on? It was also a time when farmers in Iowa and across the mid-west were sinking in debt and loosing everything and agribusiness was taking over. It was time for the people to do something for a better world than those at the control panel of power and greed.

We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts,

for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.

William Law

I know of some good things that came of that. Later that summer I was working in Seattle and attended a special education event sponsored by John Denver and the Snowmass Institute. They placed a Buckminster Fuller geodesic map of the globe on the floor and had people stand on different locations representing different nations, food and energy consumption, food production and water availability. Resource distribution and consumption. John Denver’s songs were a great set up to prepare us to get it. After the event I ran into a couple that had been at the Earthstewards Gathering, they were busy collecting donations to take on an old school bus from Seattle to central Mexico. There they had already made an initial visit to an orphanage, run by a priest in a building, which had been a hospital but was severely damaged in an earthquake. The priest had moved in, secured the structure, cleared away the rubble and taken in homeless children. My friends had taken many things the first time and told me of what a simple gift could do, such as a skate board someone donated became a means for a little girl, born without legs, to get around with ease and great freedom. And they had many other stories.

Another person among the Earthstewards owned a well digging business. He went to a Central American country and helped the people in a village to dig a well. Sounds simple enough, but for those people it was the first time in their history that their village could get fresh, clean water from the earth and not have to rely on surface (stream) water, carrying hosts of bacteria for many illnesses. Health, healing and happiness are natural outcomes of the holy way of peace.

May it be loving before us

May it be loving behind us

May it be loving above us

May it be loving below us

May it be loving all around us

In loving it is begun...

Navajo Prayer

Peace,    John 

Love, Dance, Live

Dive deep, O mind, dive deep

In the ocean of God’s beauty;

If you descend to the uttermost depths,

There you will find the gem of love.

                                   

                                    Bengali Hymn

That one I love who is incapable

Of ill will, and returns love for hatred.

Living beyond the reach of I and mine,

And of pain and pleasure, full of mercy,

Contented, self-controlled, of firm resolve,

With all his heart and all his mind given to me –

With such a one I am in love.

 

                                    Sri Krishna (Bhagavad Gita)

Most of us think of love as a one-to-one relationship, which is the limitation of love on the physical level. But there is no limit to our capacity to love. We can never be satisfied by loving just one person here, another there. Our need is to love completely, universally, without any reservations – in other words, to become love itself.

                                    Eknath Easwaran

Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand.

Love every leaf and every ray of light. Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants, love every separate fragment. If you love each separate fragment, you will understand the mystery of the whole resting in God.

 

                                    F.M. Dostoevsky

 

Dance as though no one is watching you

Love as though you have never been hurt before

Sing as though no one can hear you

Live as though heaven is on earth

Principle, Practice, Process

Each step of the way in spiritual growth, spiritual life actually, is based on these three aspects: principle, practice and process. Spiritual living is not determined by what one believes, although much of religious life is. Spiritual living arises from understanding universal principles and finding practices to integrate them into one's life. For example, the principle of the oneness connection is correlated to the practices of prayer and meditation. Affirmative prayer is the practice of affirming the truth in order to instill it in your mind, in your consciousness, so you know it is real. Meditation is the practice of quieting the mind and focusing to know the real depth of oneness within you with all of life. And the third aspect is process, which is the journey one takes and the amazing awareness one arrives at on the journey, over and over again. It's like traveling across the country, whether on foot, bicycle or by car and opening to the incredible journey, including all the unexpected lessons and discoveries. The poem, The Blue Sky, by Gary Snyder, describes it beautifully. Happy Trails.