What If? By Ganga White

Today I’d like to share a poem I came across this week.

What If?  By Ganga White

What if our religion was each other?

If our practice was our life?

If prayer was our words?

What if the Temple was the Earth?

If forests were our church?

If holy water-the rivers, lakes and oceans?

What if meditation was our relationships?

If the Teacher was life?

If wisdom was self-knowledge?

If love was the center of our being?

Love

How To Stop The Violence

When a person thinks of himself as gay or straight, Christian or Muslim, American or European, Republican or Democrat, or anything else, they separate themselves from the whole of mankind to identify with a subset of humanity. This simple act causes most of the violence in the world. It is a violent act.

Defining yourself by belief, nationality, sexuality, or race breeds violence because it creates divisions between humans, and those divisions will eventually cause strife, and often leads to discrimination, bullying, bloodshed, even war.

So a man or woman seeking to end violence in the world, would do well to start by abandoning all the labels that would demand loyalty to any country, political party, religion, sexual orientation, race, and simply concentrate on understanding and being a part of the whole of mankind. For that matter, don’t stop at just mankind, see yourself as part of this living eco system we call earth.

When every person on the planet sees himself or herself this way, then there will be an end to violence. Don’t wait for everyone else. Join the peace movement now.

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

-John Lennon

The Loneliness of Writing – Real or Phantom?

I have finally come to consider myself a seasoned writer. Not because I’ve written a beautifully-composed, expertly-plotted best seller, but because when I close the door to my office and begin putting words to paper, I enter a state of exquisite calm which allows me to tap into my creative side.

Writing is one of my gateways to present awareness—the state of true consciousness—where my ego falls away and the illusion of division from this universe I live in vanishes. As words and ideas come to me, the rest of the world is in limbo, and I am in a state of simply being while the words pour through me.

I work in an office in my home in Palm Springs. I recall sitting here alone one day, looking out the window at the street, and realizing that even though I spend several hours a day here, alone, I am never lonely.  It is not because I have convers

ations with my characters, as some writers do. It’s because when I’m here I enter a state where loneliness doesn’t exist.

I realized that day that loneliness is a phantom of the ego, the product of critical over-thinking. It why people say they can feel lonely in a crowded room. It’s a mental dialogue that creates that sense of emptiness, of longing for attention, rather than the actual situation. To my way of thinking, loneliness is a psychological illusion, fuelled by the ego’s need to be recognized, whereas being alone is a physical fact and nothing to get upset about.

Below are a few pictures of the place where I’m never lonely:

When Dear Friends Pass

A few days ago, I lost a dear friend to liver cancer. We’ve known it was coming for only about a month, and I spent some quality time with him a week ago, but it’s still painful.

What hurts is not so much that Ken is dead—he lived a long and fulfilling life—what hurts is that his husband of thirty-five years will now have to go through the grieving process, as well as everyone who knew and loved Ken.

I fell into a tailspin for a few hours, but then pulled out by telling myself Ken was no longer in pain. I'm feeling much better and am back to writing. We march on until our own time comes, appreciating our adventures and our friends and our loved ones as we go. What else can we do?

I wish I had some brilliant words or ideas to expound on the nature of death, but I don’t. It is, to me at least, a mystery. But there are two things I can say about it: It is absolutely certain that each of us will die, and it is uncertain when or how that will happen. The only surety we have, then, is this uncertainty about the hour of our death, which is what makes our time of living so precious. I realize that is a worn-out cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

My Buddhist teaching tells me that the life of a person is like a wave in the sea. Seen in one way, it seems to have a distinct identity, a visible form, an end and a beginning, a birth and a death. Seen in another way, the wave itself doesn’t really exist, but is just the behavior of a large body of water, empty of any separate identity but full of water. So life is something made temporarily possible when the life force we all share is formed by temporary circumstances, then it collapses back into the sea of that life force. That makes the idea of death less fearful and sad, yet it does little for the people who must still grieve the absence of a loved one.

"So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good." - Helen Keller

Was Einstein a Buddhist?

Albert Einstein said:

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

This idea of freeing ourselves from our limited self-point-of-view and embracing the whole of nature is the cornerstone of Buddhism, at least as I understand it.

Buddhism teaches that if we observe the law of karma and awaken in ourselves the good heart of love and compassion for all things living, if we purify our mindstream and gradually awaken the wisdom of the nature of our mind through this compassion, then we can become a truly human being which is connected to all that is, and ultimately become enlightened.

Thank you for your insights, Albert.

The Desiderata by Max Erhmann

These words have given me great inner strength and peace since the first time I read them. Now, more than thirty years later, they still resonate with me for their simple meaning yet profound message which they deliver.

 Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

The Dharma of Writing

This cartoon may not seem all that funny, but it is a lesson I need to keep reminding myself of, so I keep in on my desktop.

You see, when I started writing, it was all about me. I wanted to be a good writer. Then I became really egocentric and wanted to be a great writer. It took a few years before my Buddhist training kicked in and I understood my error.

Writing stories is not about me becoming anything! It is about crafting the best stories possible. The focus is on the stories, the characters, and the craft of writing. The focus is on the day-to-day process of creating, which becomes a form of meditation.

That process, that meditation, is not about becoming a better, wiser, holier person. It’s not about becoming anything. It is all about the joy in experiencing the process.

So every once in a while I need a little nudge to help me focus on simply writing stories, without worrying about how good I am.