By Marianne Marstrand
Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi (1924-2014) with GPIW Co-Chair, Sister Joan Chittister, Aspen Institute, 2008
The Rabbi Who Love the Earth
We first met Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in Boulder, Colorado in 2008. We sat with him in warm and cozy surroundings, a home filled with books and handmade things, a place unfettered by excess. We had come to convince the Rabbi to participate in a think tank of America’s spiritual teachers that would meet at the Aspen Institute. “What is your agenda and what outcome do you hope for?” he asked with serious and kind eyes. “Well…, we have no agenda and we have no idea what will be the outcome.” I imagined by his expression that he was thinking we were very naive. “Ah, I see. You will leave space for divine spirit to enter the room,” he replied. “Then I will come!”
Reb Zalman had lived a spiritual life with a gusto and love for people and their beliefs that is uncommon in even the most open of religious leaders. He believed that the many streams of worship were each a unique flavor belonging to a “region” of the world, to the soil and the people that inhabit a specific place. For Reb Zalman, spiritual life was anything but boring. He could recite Sufi poetry without a halt or a stutter, and was even initiated into a Sufi lineage. He chanted with Hindus in Sanskrit. He knew history and politics, ways of indigenous peoples and sweat lodges, the beliefs of the Buddhists, Christians, and the Muslims. From the way he lived, it was clear that he cared, with all the patience of a loving grandfather.
He longed for the day when we would tell our religious stories a little differently, not in a triumphalist way, but each finding a cosmology and way to understand reality that our “Mother the Earth” would want us to have, a story that would see to the needs of the Earth as more important than the growth of our business. He compared each tradition to a vital organ of one body. If we want to contribute to the healing of the planet, each tradition had to make sure they were healthy in order to heal the Earth.
When he was young and waiting for his “papa” to come eat at the table, he tells, he would observe the tiny droplets of schmaltz that floated on top of his chicken soup. With his spoon, he would pull them together into one big circle of glistening fat. “The only way we are going to get it together, is together,” was his expression.
Last year, at a gathering at Naropa University, he spoke to a room of spiritual teachers: a colorful variety of characters that could only be found in America. We did not know that we had come to listen to parting words of this wisdom-keeper, who was now almost 90. Serious meditators, we listened with ears wide open, hoping for secrets of “truth,” or at least, a few reassuring words from this honored elder. “Our mother the Earth is calling to us. The spiritual tank upon which she was nourished is empty, it’s running on fumes,” he said. This tank was once fed by our songs and chants, the rituals and prayers that marked our day, that we have forgotten as we speed through life. These particular words stirred the room. He had difficulty breathing, but whatever the air was that sustained him, it was pure. It was the oxygen of another atmosphere, a unified ground of being where there is so much love.
This post was originally published by Creator at We Work June 2015
Grand Master Nan Lu, OMD, is the country’s foremost spiritual leader, practitioner and teacher of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) Read More
The Nei Jing, a classical Chinese medicine text written several thousands of years ago, states: “Men are born on the Earth, but Life itself is held in the hands of Heaven. When the Qi of Heaven and Earth harmonize, this is called a human being.” In other words, the beautiful material forms of human beings enter this reality filled with life force and Heaven’s unconditional love. Just as sure as you are the child of your mother and father, you are also a child of the Universe, created from this source and connected to it every day and forever. You’re entitled to all its gifts and the nurturing love it provides to us through Nature. We are born with everything we need to fulfill our purpose. In fact, “being” is the purpose! Experiencing this spectacular, blue planet with its cooperative framework of Nature, man and all living species is purpose. We are here in search of creativity and to fulfill our destiny. No matter who we are or what we do, we expand the heart of Universal love.
At the spiritual level, being born is a monumental achievement beyond words. We come from unconditional love; when we leave here, we return to this state of being. Arriving here, we’ve already agreed that our body will follow Universal law, that is, every living thing in this reality must be born, grow and die. Throughout our lifetime, balance and harmony in body, mind and spirit are the keys to living well. The mind’s an impressive tool, but if we’re open, our body and spirit are far better interpreters of reality. Think of it, our genetic code carries thousands of years of wisdom passed down from our ancestors. This deep knowledge is actually cellular knowledge. Our spirit exists beyond this reality but casts a shadow within it. This shadow is not your true self. Your true self is unlimited; you exist beyond the bounds of time and space. Many religions and spiritual practices tell us this. Astonishingly, modern science tells us the same thing. It says each dimension is a reflection of a higher one. Look at your own shadow. It’s not really all of you. It’s only a reflection of who you truly are. In the same way, your solid body isn’t really the whole of you either. It’s a reflection of your existence at a higher dimension.
No matter which way we choose to look at ourselves, we each exist, connected one to another, in the invisible energy field. Here inseparability is the only reality. Our body, mind and spirit are one. All seven billion of us on this Earth are one as well. In our world, we use our mental faculties to puzzle out many things that are beyond reason. If we only rely on our five senses, we miss experiencing Oneness and the amazing energy beings we are. There is, however, a special sixth sense we are born with that connects us to the Universal love of All That Is, or however you name or connect with this higher power. The sixth sense communicates to us through intuition, dreams and nonconsciousness states. In the deepest way, you are a child of the Universe—always connected to its love and light. Each of your cells vibrates with creative energy. Can you look at your life with happiness and joy knowing you are the unique harmonization of Heaven and Earth?
This post originaly appeared on InspireMeToday
Grand Master Nan Lu recently published a new book entitled Digesting the Universe: A Revolutionary Framework for Healthy Metabolism Function (Tao of Healing, 2016)
by Doju Dinajara Freire
Earth, our old and wise mother, is most beautiful.
Life, of which together with Gaia we are part and expression, is most beautiful.
We are immersed in a treasure ineffable and of a mystery so transparent that we almost can’t see it.
Ol ari Nyiro, Gallmann Conservancy, Laikipia, Kenya – photo by Doju. D. Freire
For almost five billion years the Earth has welcomed and enabled the living systems that make life possible.
Ancient and beautiful Gaia is the oldest living organism, a vital and powerful force far beyond what we can see or understand with mere human perception. Wherever we are on the planet, each day brings us into direct relationship with her, and from her we are embraced and nourished. Even our ancestors — all were born and fed by Gaia’s generosity and by the light of the sun.
Through this ancient line of human evolution we are naturally connected to the body of the Earth and her heart, just as we are connected to all beings — the many other species which she hosts. Since time immemorial she has transmitted her wisdom to all living creatures just as the mothers do with children, generation after generation. Among all the species that exist we are the last to arrive, and like children we are still unable to appreciate Gaia’s sweeping simultaneous expression of inclusivity that is in benefit to the whole.
Despite the thousands of years of human presence on Earth, our juvenile behavior causes a great deal of trouble and brings suffering not only to ourselves, but to other species and the planet. We don’t even have the ability to live together in harmony yet. Selfishly we seek to control and exploit everything to our advantage; the life of plants, the water, animals of every kind, from insects to fish and mammals and even other human beings, believing we are separate and independent from it all. Within this illusion of separation we are blinded by ignorance and greed.
In our immaturity, although we know that we all breathe the same air and drink the same waters, are fed of the same soil, of an Earth that is round not flat, a sphere in an ancestral dance through an interdependent and infinite cosmos. Yet believing ourselves all powerful we claim the right to own and manage everything in nature. Audaciously we claim the place of a more evolved species. Full of desire for power, enslaved by our emotions, we find ourselves anchored to selfishness, asserting control of everything even if the damage we do is evident all around.
Ol ari Nyiro, Gallmann Conservancy, Laikipia, Kenya – photo by Alice Kohler
When we are confronted with the reality of the facts and information on the state of the planet that circulates the globe at great speed, shouldn’t our understanding be that we must wake up? Realize that the time to mature has come and that time is now and the place is right here, where each of us breathe moment by moment.
Even so, despite this collective spiritual underdevelopment, we find we are in a great momentum of positive change and there are enough individuals whose spiritual maturity is such that they can offer support at this time — in this evolutionary wave in which we find ourselves. But still that does not give us enough skill or wisdom to embody the next evolutionary step of the future — no longer as Homo Sapiens but as Homo Spiritualis.
So how do we abandon the old to make room for the new, both in nature and in ourselves?
How do we befriend ourselves in a deeper way, for I believe, it is in this profound state where we find the space and opening to sincerely befriend others, where we can step into service for all. This is the ancient teaching of Gaia.
And at just the right moment, to leave behind what has outlived its time, and in this space recognize the new. This dynamic is not always easy but it is essential and will lead us to grow spiritually and will give us a vision with a depth of transparency to reflect the mystery of which we are a part and should honor.
For this, time is needed, and often in solitude, because the intensity of this highly creative process requires utmost care and a state of total surrender.
- Feeding bird at Bandas. Gallmann Conservancy, Laikipia, Kenya. Photo by Alice Kohler
It’s painful to realize that we are slow to evolve as a human community knowing that the fundamental changes that are necessary are needed immediately. We have what it takes but still we are lacking in the capability.
Personally I feel tremendous pain, a sorrow that can border on outrage – that we are not yet able to recognize and respect the beauty of life. How sad to note that we are incapable of equanimity or respect for life in its innumerable and myriad forms. Respect for our human brothers and sisters, for our relatives the animals, our relatives the seeds, respect for our home and Mother Earth. How is it that we are so immature? My pain turns to despair when I see the limits of what I can do to help. What can a tiny grain of sand do in the midst of an ocean? Why can’t we free ourselves from our greed and just live in peace?
In these difficult times it’s easy for people to become depressed. It takes strength to act in a positive way in this time of despair and grief – holding firm to the human values of trust, goodness, common sense in the midst of so much suffering so that we don’t lose hope. I have found myself wishing to withdraw from society, my spirit calling me into silence. I remember as a child being attracted to a way of living that would be willing give up something if it allowed for an opening of the heart.
More and more I am longing to live for the spirit, with fewer possessions and distractions, free myself from the madness I see around the world today. Tears flow warm while my words have no more power and somehow I know that we must still offer our help, accepting that the present is not the time to retreat, but to remain engaged and offer oneself in service to life. There is a goodness in dedicating ourselves with humility and gratitude. Each of us bring gifts and possibilities, qualities within that can come to fruition. Not expecting reward we can act trusting in the grace and the fortuitous randomness of life, for we are all vehicles for Life.
As I rise each morning I am grateful for the deep love that blesses each of us, day after day. I try to remain in a silence that directs me to see each tiny leaf, every cloud, the song of the bird, the raindrops, the highest mountain peaks down to the depths of the sea. The light of the moon. The cosmos takes care of all, including me and my incapacity. All that remains is the spiritual beauty of Gaia and of every being, this transparent silence revealing what cannot be explained.
Doju Dinajara Freire
DOJO ZEN SANRIN – www.sanrin.it – Italy
On June 6, 2012, a meeting was held on Wall Street in New York City to discuss “Re-envisioning Prosperity”, organized by the Global Peace Initiative of Women / Contemplative Alliance. Almost 70 people were invited, including financiers, investors, economists, intellectuals, representatives from the activist movement known as Occupy Wall Street, and a select group of religious leaders from different faiths known as the Contemplative Alliance. Swami Atmarupananda was one of three religious leaders asked to open the meeting with a short talk to set a tone for the ensuing day-long discussion. Below is the substance of what he said, adapted for suitability as an article.
Swami Atmarupananda (right) with friends from the Contemplative Alliance, Acarya Judy Lief and Bhante Buddharakita
I would like to begin by asking, what am I doing here, addressing such a distinguished gathering of economic thinkers and economic actors? [Laughter] I have never attended a formal class on economics or finance; I have no money to invest and therefore am not involved as an actor in the financial world. What, indeed, can I contribute?
Worse yet, I’m a contemplative, dedicated to leading a spiritual life, and thus, according to common opinion, I’m hopelessly impractical. No, had I any sense, I should have refused when Dena Merriam asked me to open today’s discussion.
But I didn’t say no. Let me explain why.
First of all, it isn’t true that contemplatives are by nature impractical. An important member of the business community here in New York City in the late 1800s and early 1900s was a man named Mr Francis Leggett, who was a major innovator in the wholesale grocery business. He was a wealthy man of the time, and a friend of a famous Hindu monk from India named Swami Vivekananda. Mr Leggett was once asked why a hard-nosed businessman like himself should be friends with an oriental mystic, and he replied, “Because I have never met anyone with more common sense.”
Nor is it true that a contemplative has no connection to the interests of economists and financiers. Where does our economic system come from? Our financial system? Wall Street? They aren’t in the air, natural products of the earth or water. They come from human beings, from inside human beings, from the inside out. All human institutions, human civilization, culture, sciences, arts, come from inside the human mind and heart, manifesting outside. And it is the human mind and heart that is the special field of research for the contemplative; not the surface, but the deep mind, the deep heart, the very roots of human existence.
And further, the true contemplative is in search of experiential reality, not theories or concepts. A prominent modern belief—and it’s nothing more than a belief—is that reality is what you make of it: there’s no such thing as reality itself. If that’s true, then we are all prisoners of our own concepts and illusions. The contemplative’s experience, however, is that there is reality, there is truth beyond his or her concepts and projections.
So the contemplative seeks deep in the human heart and mind, the same place from which all human activities proceed, all drives, all needs, all aspirations. But the contemplative seeks to go deeper, to an experiential reality which is prior to needs and drives and aspirations and activities.
What is found there? Certain truths, a couple of which I want to share with you before I turn the conference over to those who know much more than I about the actual workings of the economy.
First, one finds at a deep level of our being a remarkable freedom. A freedom that gives us a sense of inner inviolability, of timelessness, adamantine in quality, unaffected by the waves of action and reaction in the world.
One also discovers a sense of connection, connection to everyone and everything—an apparent contradiction, where we go inward to find connection with the outer; but it is a fact replicated in the experience of countless inner travellers over thousands of years around the world.
And then there is the apparent contradiction between freedom and connection. Freedom we think of as “freedom from”—freedom from people telling me what to do, freedom from things I don’t like, freedom from duty and expectations, freedom from all botherations (and most people and most circumstances we experience as botherations). Yet “connection” means connection to others, to the world, to everything that seems to deprive us of freedom. But the contemplative begins to experience both of these—freedom and connection—at a deep level, where they are joined, where they are expressions of the same thing, which can best be described as love.
What does this have to do with us gathered here today? A great deal, actually.
A deep inner freedom translates at the level of ordinary human activity to the freedom to choose the motivations of my actions, and to choose my reactions to circumstances. That means I need not be a slave of old patterns of behaviour, a slave of habitual reactions to situations. And so this deep sense of freedom paradoxically makes me more responsible for my actions. I can begin to take responsibility for my actions, and therefore I begin to make the effort, out of a sense of freedom.
And a deep sense of connection to everything makes me feel a sense of loving responsibility toward others. “Responsibility” is not the right word, being heavy, connoting something forced, and guilt-based. Simply love for others, the desire for the best for others. That, combined with the freedom that allows me to take responsibility for my actions, radically changes my relationship to the world in a wonderful, positive way, difficult at times, but eventually liberating, joyful.
How is this related to economics and finance? Intimately.
You, whether you are thinkers or actors, have a tremendous responsibility. Tremendous, because as Peter Parker tells his Uncle Ben in Batman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” And you here have great power. Decisions you make help people or hurt them, even devastate them, as happened in 2008, largely through misguided and greedy actors in the real estate and financial sectors. The welfare of millions—vulnerable people, the elderly, the sick, the poor, those who have no alternative but to trust the system—is dependent upon you.
Responsibility to others. The US Supreme Court may say that a corporation’s responsibility is simply to enhance value for the stockholders, but that is much worse than nonsense, it is poisonous. Because it is a decision of the Supreme Court, it may stand in a court of law, but it doesn’t reflect the way life actually works. Whether we want it so or not, we are responsible to others: it’s the way the universe is built, because all this infinite diversity we see out here is founded on a deep inner connection, I would even say a deep inner unity, but at least connection, a connectedness that can be demonstrated scientifically, psychologically, morally, and spiritually. It isn’t a matter of belief, and that’s why simply ignoring it doesn’t work: what you do to others comes back to you. Not for some New Age touchy-feely reason, but because the outer world is intimately connected to you in experiential fact.
So I close by saying that many of you, perhaps all of you, are here today because you are sensitive to the welfare of others. Otherwise you wouldn’t waste time on a meeting like this. But the present financial system, and the even larger economic system, will last only if this understanding, this sensitivity becomes widespread within it. Otherwise the system is on its way out, not today, but in ten years, maybe, or fifty years, certainly less than a hundred years. And if the system breaks irreparably because people didn’t learn to care for others, then the breaking will be devastating to countless people, causing untold suffering. The only long term hope is learning to adjust the financial system to the way the universe is actually built, the way it actually works. This is no time for denial, and there is no time to delay. This is the raison d’etre of the Contemplative Alliance, why it was called into being, to be a voice for human concerns as illumined from the contemplative perspective.
Thank you.
To be published sometime in 2016 in the Prabuddha Bharata, a monthly journal published from India.
by Elizabeth Austin Asch
“It is only for the purity of the animals themselves that we [humans] are allowed to still live.” ~ Salvatore Gencarelle
Popular media like the New York Times contains an ever greater number of articles about animal sentience. Most recently, on January 29, 2016 Sally McGrane wrote “German Forest Ranger Finds That Trees Have Social Networks, Too.” The evidence is everywhere: much more goes on in the minds of living things in the natural world than we have been educated to believe.
A dozen years ago I wasn’t looking for a psychic way to communicate; I was just trying to manage my daughter’s Thoroughbred mare, Ginger. I wanted to speak ‘horse’, which seemed to be a matter of learning the right body language, plus some horse psychology. However much I learned from books and from human instructors — I realized that I was learning even more from Ginger. Her intelligence, although different from mine, was extraordinary. I eventually found that I didn’t need to use body language, Ginger read my mind. Could it be that my 8 year-old daughter had picked out a very special horse?
Then my son wanted a parrot, so I started reading about this species. Combining what I had learned from Ginger with what I learned from Irene Pepperberg, author of “Alex and Me” I found that rather than training our infant parrot, I was once again a student of the being that I set out to train. At a very young age Ttac would learn the name of a visitor with no prompting, in a couple of days. He is always the first to get a joke (watch out, his “heh-heh-heh” will give you away!), and he even knew when a family member passed away across the ocean, whistling the way that Grandpa had taught him, which we had not heard since the last time they saw each other two years earlier.
My husband wanted chickens, who are supposedly on the opposite end of the avian intelligence spectrum from parrots — and then our six hens taught me about their rich lives. The crows who would sometimes get stuck in the hen enclosure taught me how wild birds think and repaid my assistance to them with extraordinary favors.
Willing wild crows and pigeons have stepped into my bare hands. Feral mallards have shown me their hatchlings. Dogs, fish, cats, dolphins, trees, sharks and elephants have been among my teachers. When you show others your willingness to listen they seek to befriend you, and to cause you to hear.
Each time I read books from top researchers of a particular species, I notice one common feature: They all believe that the species that they are studying is the species closest to humans in terms of intelligence, empathy, loyalty and other measures of what we tend to call ‘human’ traits. I noticed something else: No matter the species, when I get to know an animal well I find individual character and reasoning intelligence, free will, morality — attributes my schooling taught me to believe were limited to human beings.
In 2014 I began studying Interspecies Communication with Anna Breytenbach, Jon Young and Wynter Worsthorne. None of us really considers that we are “learning” to communicate this way, rather we are simply remembering how to do so. Every human, every being that exists, is equipped to communicate with or without the use of verbal, written language and sound. Our educational system teaches us humans that we can’t do it, but we can. And we must now re-member how, for listening to our brothers and sisters is crucial to the survival of all.
This past summer, a friend Ann-Sofi Carlborn wrote me an email telling me of the Global Peace Initiative of Women [from which the Contemplative Alliance emerged] and their intention to attend the climate conference in Paris. At the time I was visiting with two elephant friends in Tanzania, so I spent part of my evening reading about GPIW’s mission of peace and learning about their members. The following morning and continuing for the next ten days, various species of wild animals told me some of their own notions of peace and harmony, in order that I share them with GPIW. As they ‘spoke’ to me, I wrote in my journal; this understanding is what I shared with the faith leaders that joined GPIW during COP21.
Elephant: Notice the hierarchy. It serves a purpose in peacekeeping. Notice how accepting everyone is. How respectful.
Baboon: Notice how calmly we all accept our place. You [humans] have forgotten how to position yourselves and what your status means. No one owns the waterhole.
Baboon track
January 29th, 2015
Zebra: Learn about herd unity. Learn about the power and value of Approach and Retreat. Let time be timeless. The urgency is in the transformation, not in your sense of time. If the birds and insects and frogs are singing, that is the time to accomplish what is needed. Push gently into your comfort until you are reaching outside of it to others.
Wildebeest: Why are our energies separated? It is right and good this way. For balance. Look at the shape of our energies now. Always ask for permission when your energies are different/varied. To blend must be consensual. The more singular dominant energy must declare loudly his intention, as a way of asking. He shall then accept if the answer is no, even if he intends to return and ask again. Withdraw. Approach and ask. Withdraw. Approach. Thus, through the blending of energies does creation occur. It has been so for ages. Now is the time for returning closer to Oneness. Your kind is ready. Now is the time to approach. And blend. Be not afraid.
July 31, Day of Thanks
Elizabeth: Do you have advice for us?
Eland, Zebra and Wildebeest: (Wildebeest singing) Listen. Listen all you can and trust. Then and only then will you find the way home for us all. Fear not. You will be surprised by the ease with which change comes, and the simplicity with which it may be implemented. Listen and heed.
Voice of the Waterhole: You! You are welcome. You people cannot spoil my calm, my depth.
Warthog: With regard to the question of private property and ownership. It is not so much a question of never owning or making claim of territory. It is more a question of understanding that that claim is temporary. That eventually you must, you will, give it back. The humility in this equation is what you often lack. Search for it and keep searching, for it is there in you.
Vervets: Hear this. Because you are not usually present/consistent, there is great power of intention when you DO focus your love and thanksgiving. And when many more of you do, the results will be astounding to you. We, your brethren in the other nations, have been waiting for you.
August 1, 2015
Eland, Zebra and Wildebeest: See how we all come together. (Wildebeest singing) We welcome your desire to rekindle the peace between our nations. Know that there are those of your kind here (in Africa and elsewhere on Earth) who never lost it.
Elizabeth Austin Asch
“We are called to return to the root of our being where the sacred is born. Then, standing in both the inner and outer worlds, we will find our self to be part of the momentous synchronicity of life giving birth to itself.”
—Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Reflections and Experiences by Angela Fischer
Panel with Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Angela Fischer, Swami Atmarupananda, Rev. Richard Cizik
In listening to each other’s experiences we recognize that we are all different. We perceive the worlds through different colors while truth shines through the veils of every single experience and yet is beyond them – it just is. There is subjectivity and a relativity to all experiences, those of the outer worlds as well as those of the inner worlds, the visible and invisible. And still there is much more than we can ever imagine that we can listen to, that speaks to us. I share here a fragment of a personal experience. May it serve to fill in a little piece in this great kaleidoscope.
As I write down these reflections it’s been forty days since a group of nearly 20 people – spiritual teachers, young leaders, and contemplatives from different spiritual traditions and regions of the world came to Paris. As a delegation of the Global Peace Initiative of Women we joined many NGOs and civil society leaders from around the world at COP 21, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
We gathered to share and discuss spiritual perspectives on climate change and give attention to its inner dimension. This included an afternoon event at the Climate Generations Area with a panel of faith leaders, contemplatives and young activists.
Unlike the outer events that were well documented, I would like to share some of my inner experiences from our time in Paris – experiences perceived by the heart.
We all have these experiences, but, as we all know too well, the inner worlds that are invisible to our outer eyes have become covered and obscured from our human perception in today’s world. It is difficult to even speak of the inner world as it has been so neglected and is no longer valued in our culture. And as feeling is not valued as much as thinking, and as we define ourselves more through doing rather than being, by sharing inner experiences we are always taking a certain risk of being misunderstood or – depending on the audience – even risk a response of doubt or disrespect. Perhaps one of the reasons we rarely dare share them.
Yet as it was important to us as a group to offer a unique contribution to this event, an emphasis on the inner dimensions of climate change, approaching the question as to the roots as well as solutions from an inner perspective, so I feel that speaking about inner experiences along with what we were outwardly engaged in might round off the picture.
During my first morning in Paris, several hours before we were to sit at a Tibetan temple to pray for the Earth, I strolled with my husband in the Jardin du Luxembourg, situated close to our hotel. We walked among trees, flowerbeds and statues, among people enjoying their Sunday morning sports and families who were out to walk like us. I wanted to greet the place, the Earth here, which I always do, silently, when I travel and my feet first touch the ground of a new place. It is similar to showing our respect when we enter the house of a friend we visit, like taking off our shoes and thanking our host for being welcomed as a guest. And as we came to Paris for a climate conference, I felt a particular need to feel the Earth in Paris, not only in the beauty of her buildings and cathedrals, but first in a spot of nature.
Sometimes, in an initial greeting, there is a response, in the form of a feeling or a sense of the spirit of the place. I can feel being welcomed by the Earth through a particular fragrance in the air or a special tree that draws my attention. This Sunday morning in Paris it was a sudden cry that cut into my thoughts and abruptly took me straight into a different realm of perception. It woke me up. I was drawn into a deeper awareness and immediately knew this was a response and it was a call at the same time.
Instinctively I turned and looked up toward the treetops, high above where the cry had come from. I spotted an exotic and colourful bird, definitely not native to Europe. Perched on a branch it cried out three times, first a cry to draw my attention, then two more times, a strange and piercing call before it flew off. I wondered if it was a formerly caged bird from a far off continent that had escaped its cage, and now lost was searching for a place to stay in this unknown and chilly winter landscape. No one else seemed to notice it, though this cry was very loud and unusual.
A tremendous feeling of someone lost filled my heart. A bird is a symbol of the soul – that inherent part of each of us that has wings to fly and is not bound by gravity or limitations. It is free and belongs to the infinite sky. I felt the soul of the world, of which we are all a part, like a bird that is lost, estranged in a cold environment and unable to find its way. It felt an urgent call, the Earth was signalling for my attention. I could sense it in the cry of the bird calling us to relate to the Earth as a soul, as a sacred being whose divine essence and origin we have almost forgotten — a soul astray calling to us to include this relationship, this love and remembrance in all that we were here to do at this conference. This experience, with a language other than words and explanations used the symbolic world which can take us effortlessly into the realm of divine presence. I was thankfully made more present and attentive than I had been before.
As I followed the reports and watched what was taking place at the conference I realized that most participants, sincere and willing to make a difference to contribute to change for the planet with great effort, were nevertheless mostly concerned about themselves, about humanity. It seemed so much to be about what we as humans are doing, what we are thinking, what concepts we develop, how we are acting, and how we could be rescued. But what about the Earth herself? Was the Earth really present, even though there was much talk and action related to the planet? Did we feel the Earth as a being, with her anguish, her yearning to be related to? As a being that is made of light like us, that connects us all, that nourishes us, that we are a part of? Did we listen?
From a political perspective, the final outcome was a success —also due to much engagement of indigenous and environmental groups who gave a foundational energy to it — so much so that eventually they came to an agreement that all nations could sign. This process called for a tremendous amount of energy, and the many who worked and put their heart into this deserve our great respect. One could argue that — although the agreements on the necessary outer actions to be taken are far from sufficient — but since an agreement of all parties was a first priority aim, there was little or no space left for other concerns such as inviting in the presence of the Earth. To come to this consensus was work enough. However, if we look deeper things do not work in this way and are not as linear as we are accustomed to thinking. Could it not be the other way around? Is it that our approach is mainly from our human perspective, human centred, focusing on our own limited goals, and because it excludes the “presence” of the Earth that we need so much energy for agreements, so much effort to overcome our greed and competitiveness and antagonistic demands. I am convinced that if we had included the Earth, to which we are all interrelated and connected, and allowed her to be present in us, felt her suffering, acknowledged the light that we share with her, we would have spared much energy that we put into negotiations about our human needs and could have seen results far more easily.
Ashaninka leaders – Peru Photo Eliane Fernandes
The Earth was present. But she was not much present in the perception of the people–not present in a relationship. Shortly after returning home from the gathering I wrote to a friend, ” All the time in Paris my focus partly was on feeling the Earth, staying in close contact, listening to her soul – underneath the asphalt and the concrete, underneath the ceaseless talking and speeches and chatting, within the walls, the stones, the dirt, the numberless cars and traffic jams, and under the hopes and the dispair, the busyness, the talks and negotiations, the agitation and rage and the suffering. And she was there. She was waiting. She gave her love. I felt the Earth communicating her presence to me, her longing, her waiting. This was very touching”.
There was one experience in particular of this presence that left a deep imprint in my heart. It was when we walked with a small group of friends through the “ Climate Generations Area,” the space for civil society and NGOs that had been set up in a huge airplane hangar, where we were scheduled to have our panel discussion the next day. It was a crowded place with many events going on at the same time, noisy, chaotic, filled not only with exhibitions, talk and exclamations, but with the countless thoughts, emotions and the sorrows of people. It was like a big fair. Places like this are often difficult for me, and usually I am completely focused on coping with the overstimulation. But here in the midst of this noise and chaos there was suddenly a great silence in me. I turned my attention inwards and there was the Earth. She was here in this place, even though no one noticed. I listened. She conveyed not through words but again more through a feeling, how much she loves us – despite everything. In this place of so much action, of thinking, of outer engagement, far away from stillness was the depth and silence of the Earth’s love. It was as if she said, “I am here, I am so much waiting for you. Where are you? ” She was waiting for us to relate to her.
A second time when I felt the love of the Earth so fully was when our group went to pay respects at the memorial site for the victims of the Paris shootings. At Place de la République we prayed silently while some offered moving chants from the Lakota, Buddhist, Hindu and Christian traditions. Even from across the street as we approached the memorial I could feel waves of love flowing through me and everything surrounding me, through all people, through stone and concrete, through a stray cat as well as the mild breeze of the early evening. The memorial site welcomed us as a place of sadness, of tears— and as a place of tremendous love. The grief of so many before us had been transformed into love, and this could be felt easily, but there was more to this love. I had the physical sensation of a love that rose from beneath my feet from the depths of the ground through the Earth flowing warmly to my heart.
Also here I felt the love of the Earth.
In this place where I sensed a violent rupture in the fabric of life, a deep wound that caused much grief and suffering, not only here but also in many other places of the world, I felt a tremendous love at the same time. The intensity of this love came from the Earth herself. I felt it in the cells of my body. I thought that it must be heart breaking and heart opening at the same time for many people who come here. In the midst of this great sadness I was left in awe at the wonder of this limitless love that is just present, prepared to transform and heal if we really opened to it.
The search for solutions to the crisis of our planet, and to climate change, is in large part based on suffering and deep wounds. It is not only we humans who suffer; it is the planet who suffers. Our planet Earth is being attacked every day, the Earth is being raped and plundered, violated and depleted on a daily basis. Humanity has forgotten the Earth is sacred, long forgotten this sacred relationship. The Earth suffers at this loss of relationship, and more and more, I hear people who tell me they hear the cries of the Earth.
To acknowledge this suffering is a first step in transforming it into love — a first step to access the tremendous love that is there waiting for us.
How can we do this? We can allow for space, listen to the Earth, relate to her and allow her to relate to us— and to feel. Feeling belongs to love. Without feeling, without acknowledging the pain, without feeling the grief, there is no love. When we allow for it, the suffering can be transformed, and then the love can flow into it.
At that moment when I felt the suffering as well as the love, the clarity and simplicity of what we all know but so often forget was deeply affirmed: there are no real solutions without love. No negotiations will be possible, will be fruitful and lasting if love is not present; not only love for our human fellow beings, but love for the Earth.
We all know that we need love and need to love. Great teachers of all traditions have stressed the importance of love and of relating to the Earth. We like to hear this, it gives comfort to the heart, we can agree so easily. And yet, while these teachings guide us and point us in the direction of where we need to go we must, in the end, go on our own two feet. We need to live the love, live it in our beating heart, coursing through our blood, pulsating in our cells. We must feel the pain and the joy and the heartbreak that comes with love and relationship. And sometimes it is also helpful to listen to each other so we don’t only understand it in an abstract way, but experience the love with the Earth concretely, how it speaks to us, how it touches us, what it feels like when the suffering is included. I am always moved listening to someone who experienced this relationship, this love. It reconnects us.
In beautiful and manifold ways all the friends on our panel stressed, explicit or implicit, from their different perspectives and traditions how important and crucial love is, when we are referring to the inner dimension of climate change. With gratitude I listened to the presentation holding the spark of hope in my heart and a prayer that the energy of love in these messages may spread everywhere, to the Earth and to those who were sitting day and night in the midst of negotiations for an agreement by the nations of this earth.
It is sad to realize that many of the decisions, politically as well as personally, are made out of fear. The need for action as a response to climate change is often emphasized through arguments of threat: “We are in danger. We are threatened to not survive.” We fear weather catastrophes, we fear the climate refugees, we fear hunger or those who are hungry. We act out of fear and fear divides and separates. What might happen if we were motivated not by fear but by love, not by separation or division, but by a sense of oneness?
Of course it would have been naive to expect all decision makers to fall in love with the Earth immediately or motivations changed instantly. But it is not naive to hope – acknowledging the oneness and interconnectedness of life – that by activating the feeling quality in our hearts of love for and from the Earth, recognizing Earth as a living and sacred being, could have added something to the whole and the whole of the process. By connecting with her light from the light within us could become an interwoven part of the way we work as humans, now and in the future and may bring about effect.
Which kind of effect—that of course, we will never know, as it is not in our hands, as it is not about us. Life remains a great mystery that we cannot plan for nor limit or define. We leave our prayers and experiences to that which goes far beyond ourselves. We leave it to love. We leave it to the great mystery of love. We offer it to God.
Angela Fischer
Column: Faithful must lead the break from fossil fuels
CLIMATE CHANGE MAKING THE PARIS AGREEMENT A REALITY
By Rev. Richard Cizik, President, New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good
This past week I joined a group of 17 interfaith leaders and more than 30,000 delegates and media at COP 21 (Conference of Parties) in Bourget outside of Paris, to witness whether 195 countries could find consensus on a plan to reduce their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The answer is now clear – an historic agreement was reached.
According to the Woods Hole Research Center, “The good news is that nothing like this has happened before (have 196 countries ever agreed to anything?). The bad news: the Paris commitments are largely non-binding, but they are a good start.”
The agreement will push countries to pursue efforts to: Limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;
Increase the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience;
Allow finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate resistant development. This was a big win for climate change activists; President Obama, who pushed hard for an agreement; and religious leaders such as Pope Francis and millions of citizens who have worked hard for so long to get us to this point. It’s a big win for Planet Earth and all future generations.
Let’s face it–we as a nation are addicts to fossil fuels like oil and gas. Breaking this addiction and moving to renewables such as wind and solar is happening, but way too slowly. We should see the Paris agreement as an opportunity to envision a new way of seeing the world. “Without a vision the people perish,” say the Scriptures. As our case is new, so we must see the country anew,” Abraham Lincoln declared in 1962. “We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
Ask the residents of the West and Southwest whether the drought doesn’t require a new mind-set. The Colorado River already drying up will be down 10 percent flow by mid-century. Ask the victims of more intense and powerful hurricanes, such as Katrina and Sandy, whether we can ignore the science of climate change. Our illusion of human supremacy over climate change will not make it go away. As said before, you can’t bribe or bully Mother Nature. But we can mitigate and adapt to that which we are producing by our use and abuse of fossil fuels–climate chaos.
Accepting a new vision–seriously shifting to renewables and getting off fossil fuels–will help us disenthrall from old illusions.
Nevertheless, a vision for change without a workable strategy is an hallucination. The Paris agreement is the best strategy yet for solving a planetary emergency. And the best advocates for endorsing and implementing the agreement lies with the world’s faith communities–the four largest religions being Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist with more than 76 percent of the people on the planet–all acting in ways that reflect their deepest values of stewardship, concern for the poor and protection of natural resources.
Cop 21 meetings, housed in a refurbished airport hanger outside Paris, included exhibits for “green” advocacy organizations to help move 7 billion people and counting toward environmental sustainability. All well and good. But incentives, or other rewards and punishments, are easily forgotten when the pressure of living the status quo with existing consumption patterns, reasserts itself.
Midweek at COP 21, our group of religious leaders from every continent held a “Faith and Climate Change” session on how to move fellow believers to this vision. Adam Bucko, a Gen-X Christian born in Poland and now an American citizen, sporting knee-length dreadlocks and a commitment to a “new monasticism,” called getting off our carbon addiction “impossible except through a spiritual revolution.”
He’s right, but we’re not yet there as a society. Now too many of us are like the elderly man driving down the highway who turns to his wife and says, “Honey, my hand-to-eye coordination is not good and my eyesight is even worse, but thank God I can drive!” Some of our leaders who oppose the Paris agreement are like the couple blindly driving the country and planet into great peril.
Bold leadership is needed in this new era. Someone who has watched these COP events for many years is Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. I ran into him in the Green Zone and asked for a prediction. He prophetically said that “the one community with the clout to make COP21 pronouncements a reality are the world’s faith communities.”
They can’t be silent, however. One image that stands out to me from COP 21 was a group of young people all standing in a row, mouths taped shut, with a sign declaring: “Don’t Bracket our [Future].” In other words, don’t silence us or others from speaking the truth.
The same goes for confronting politicians. Conservative columnist David Brooks has written that “on this [climate ] issue the GOP resembles a Soviet dictatorship–a vast majority of Republican politicians can’t publicly say what they know about the truth of climate change because they’re afraid the thought police will knock on their door and drag them off to an AM radio interrogation. “We need to make it possible for these GOP officials to come out of the closet.
Voters, particularly in conservative religious communities, can do this by no longer giving them political cover. We see changes already. Conservatives who support clean energy initiatives are freer to accept climate change because they’re already contributing to the solution. It’s framed as an issue of liberty to choose a cleaner source of energy rather than a belief in rising temperatures.
With Christmas and the New Year nearly here, we should chart a new course and define a new era. Just remember, if you’ve never changed your mind about something, pinch yourself, you may be dead. Not literally, just intellectually or spiritually. Let’s be the leaders we were meant to be.
We pride ourselves as Americans in being the leaders for the rest of the world. May it be so on climate change.
This article was originally posted to Fredericksburg.com
The Unfortunate Secularizing of a Sacred Practice: Meditation
by Dena Merriam
There is growing debate within the spiritual community about the pros and cons of secularizing meditation practices. In order to reach more people – and generate more money — these sacred practices are being reduced to a means of stress reduction and mental focus. At GPIW and the Contemplative Alliance we have long warned about the downside of this trend. A recent op ed in The New York Times entitled “Can We End the Meditation Madness,” expressed all that we have feared. If meditation is no more than a stress reduction technique, why not go for a jog, or a swim, or take a glass of wine. The author argues that there are many activities as effective at relaxing the mind. He misses the whole point. Meditation was never intended as a stress reduction practice! It is being misused and misappropriated by commercial enterprises, the whole money-making mindfulness training industry that has developed. How sad that our society has come to abuse practices that have been developed over the millennia for attaining deeper realization of the Self, of shedding all that is non-essential and coming to know one’s true nature, the ultimate reality of all that is. It is time that spiritual communities step forward to reclaim the true purpose and goal of all meditative and contemplative practices. It is not time to “end the meditation madness,” because we should all be filled with a madness, an urgency to know the truth. But it is time to end the secularization, commercialization and misuse of these sacred gifts. Let us state once and for all, if you want to reduce stress in life, you can find many activities to help you achieve this end. But if you are compelled to understand the nature of life and to know who you truly are, meditation can surely lead you deeper into that journey.
The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation lies in our forgetfulness of its sacred nature, which is also our own sacred nature.
The state of the Earth is our most pressing concern. Our present ecological crisis is the greatest man-made disaster this planet has ever faced: the signs of global imbalance, climate change, and species depletion are all around us. The Zen Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh calls these signs “the bells of mindfulness” calling us to be attentive, to wake up and listen. The Earth needs our attention—it needs us to help heal its body, damaged by our exploitation, and also its soul, wounded by our desecration, our forgetfulness of its sacred nature. We can no longer afford to ravage the Earth with our collective nightmare of consumerism, poisoning the soil and the soul of the world.
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Our response to this crisis has been mainly within the arena of science, politics, and economics. But Pope Francis’ recent encyclical Praise Be to You: On Care for our Common Home, has helped to highlight the relationship between spirituality and ecology and to bring this understanding into the mainstream. The ecological crisis is, at its root, a spiritual and moral problem. As Pope Francis stated: “There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself.”
Science can show us the physical symptoms of a deep global imbalance, of a civilization no longer sustainable—and economic models illustrate how painfully this affects the poorest among us. But it is our sense of being separate from the Earth that has allowed us to abuse it. If we held the Earth as sacred, as part of the living oneness to which we belong, could we treat it in this way—would we pollute its rivers, kill off its species? Forgetfulness is a most potent poison, enabling our desires to destroy what is most precious. We need to remember that the Earth is whole as well as holy, and then, from a deepening sense of relatedness, we can engage in the vital work of “care for our common home.”
The Earth needs both physical and spiritual attention and awareness, our acts and prayers, our hands and hearts. Life is a self-sustaining organic whole of which we are a part, and once we reconnect with this whole we can find a different way to live—one that is not based upon a need for continual distraction and the illusions of material fulfillment, but rather a way to live that is sustaining for the whole. And this way to live in harmony with all of creation has at its core a remembrance, an awareness, of the sacred nature of creation, which is also our own sacred nature.
Hearing the cry of the Earth we are drawn together from all corners of the world, from different religions and spiritual paths. And in response we bring the single voice of our love for the Earth. May we remember our role as guardians of the Earth, custodian of its sacred ways, and return once again to live in harmony with its natural rhythms and laws.
Statement by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee for COP21 Paris Climate Talks 2015
http://www.spiritualecology.org
One of the most popular ways of referring to our planet is “Mother Earth”. There is certainly nothing wrong with this from a Christian standpoint, since it is obviously true. We all come from her womb, receive constant nourishment from her, and return our elements to her at death as a living matrix of recycling energy. Pope Francis does not hesitate to evoke “Mother Nature” in his recent encyclical (#92).
There are other evocative images, however, of a feminine stamp that are associated with the natural world in the Christian tradition. To begin with, theology reminds us that the Creator, while aptly invoked as Father, is, in fact, beyond gender, and is likewise a Mother (Cf. Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, “She Who Is”). In more traditional, biblical language, we have the cosmic figure of Wisdom, feminine in Hebrew (Chokhmah), Greek (Sophia) and Latin, famously presented in Proverbs (8: 22-31). She is God’s companion at Creation, the “first of his works”, “playing” with abandon upon the earth, and “delighting to be with the children of men”. Christian tradition identified this Wisdom with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, since it was feminine, and seemed, at first glance, to be created. Mary thus rightly achieved a cosmic status, identified with the Eternal Feminine, even and precisely while remaining human. Nonetheless, Christ Himself is the Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24), “the firstborn of all Creation” (Col. 1:15), through whom all things were made (Jn. 1:3). As the second Adam, he contains the eternal feminine in himself, the Church born from his side on the Cross. In turn, Mary is the Mother and Image of the Church, the Bride and Body of Christ, which “fills the universe in all its parts” (Eph.1:22). These dizzying correspondences open an abyss of untold mystical depth. In a real organic sense, the whole Universe is the Body of Christ, and, since we are members of that Body, the Universe is our body, too! In fact, like a mother, all creation is groaning in labor pains, awaiting the full redemption of the children of God (Rom. 8:22). Thus, to wound the earth is to wound, not only our mother, but the Body and Bride of Christ! It is to wound our own bodies!
Even the presentation of this Mother Earth as a Goddess, Gaia or otherwise, has vivid and beautiful resonances in our mainstream Western traditions. Our world is a vibrant, breathing organism, as even Plato recognized: a whole net of relationships, as modern physics affirms, and ecology recognizes. Furthermore, in early Christian tradition, the planets have angels associated with them, as do even the elemental forces on earth, such as those in charge of winds or fire in the Book of Revelation (7:1; 17:18). In addition, the alchemical tradition, very well-known in its time, assigned minor spirits to the elements of earth, air, water and fire. All of this subterranean tradition underscores the numinous and sacred quality of the natural world.
Still, Scripture scholars have long pointed out that one of the goals of the often ill-used first chapters of Genesis was to knock the stars and animals off their divine pedestal, to proclaim the unique Creator God. In this perspective, Mother Earth is, above all, a fellow creature, our Sister. Here, the elements likewise follow their linguistic gender (thus, feminine for the earth). Accordingly, St. Francis himself, in his famous Canticle of the Creatures, the inspiration for the recent encyclical of Pope Francis, refers to “Our Sister, Mother Earth”! Even Mary, as the same Sr. Elizabeth Johnson reminds us, in another of her book titles, is not only our mother, but “Always Our Sister”!
I suggest that these are a wonderful ways to incite our planetary affection and responsibility. They penetrate to the mystical Heart of our religious traditions. For Christians, who would not wish to respect the Body of Christ, in the mountains and rivers, as well as in the Eucharist? And who, in whatever culture, would not wish to protect, defend, care for and love, their sister, their mother, their own bodies? And if we truly esteem them and treat them as such, how can the planet fail to flourish?
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