The Sickness of Change

Burden by George Mann

In a large, old and darkened wood house there lived a man in charge. He was a man amongst men and quite particular. He claimed he had 4 children although no one ever saw them and that his parents lived with him. The house was empty. (He had a plan to kill everyone). He worked as a Service Manager in a large and spacious garage. He insisted that everything be handled in blue envelopes. Receipts, service bills, checks and memos were settled and stored in an envelope; the rule was "one per envelope." He was very careful, tidy and neat. During the shifting of the vehicles from the lot, mud splashed on one of the envelopes. Everyone was afraid of his outburst. efh


One morning they gave us a guinea pig. It came to the house in a cage. At midday, I opened the door of the cage. I returned home at nightfall and found the guinea pig just as I had left it: inside the cage, huddled against the bars, trembling with the fear of freedom. eduardo galeano

Do you see yourself? Are you one to hammer down a rule, a right, a method or are you shaking against the familiar, paralyzed and imprisoned inside it? 
 
 Change is a mark of existence. Clinging to some rule or place makes you sick from the fear of change and is an attempt to control the impossible. The burden born of change is the little deaths of letting go of what you embrace moment after moment after moment. 




Please read Chapter Four, if you are reading the book.

The Baby Mind

Listen to Your Thoughts

Although the student whines about living a stupid life, the student is awakening to their true situation. Surprisingly it takes a bit of wisdom to see and confess that we live stupid lives. Stupid lives are anchored in baby mind, self-centered interest and self-importance.

But the cry of a stupid life is a cry for liberation. The nurse for such a cry is the milk of a kindness which helps you see the baby mind. The nurse cannot flinch or turn away anymore than the ox herder can let the ox leave his sight. It requires going beyond the baby mind wishes and wants.

You need to take care of the baby mind without self-indulgence, blame or criticism. Baby mind wants to run from thing to thing without restraint.

 

 

How Does Baby Mind Speak in Adult Lingo?

Examples:

Someone told me this story.
"I woke up this morning and feel edgy. I heard this story on the radio of an 85 year old politician still in office. I thought to myself, "Maybe I should be still working? Work is very important."

Can you hear the baby mind? And see how the edginess might be rooted there?

"My partner never compliments me. He ignores me and doesn't listen to me. I feel irritated by his lack of care."

Can you hear the baby mind? And see how the irritation might be rooted there?

When you are afflicted by emotional highs and lows, are you able to see the baby mind that wants to run without restraint? It wants what it wants when it wants it.

Listen to the adult lingo and translate it into baby talk. Ask whether or not your affliction is rooted there.

Instead of stomping, stammering and throwing a tantrum we get anxious, irritated, frustrated and annoyed. Baby is upset. How do you look after this little one who seemingly ALWAYS wants something else?

Is it any wonder that YOU want consolation---it's a baby crying, whining, or raising holy hell!

What is the fundamental point?

OM! Grow Up. That's the End!

The back end of the Ox is taking a look at....well...at the back end of things. The back end of the self that drags you by the tail, those things in your conditioned self that you just can't seem to manage or deal with. It often has to do with change or uncertainty or some struggle that you don't want to face or see. It's often the time when you say, "I can't stand it!" And then watch what happens. It's all the times when you didn't get what you want, or are not where you want to be.

It requires confession. But the confession only comes when you actually sense the back end of the ox for yourself about yourself. It's like the following:

                                      A student goes to his teacher and whines, "I've lived a stupid life."
                                      "So have I," replies the teacher.
 
When you see it, you realize how stupid you've been, how childish or selfish or self-involved. A spiritual friend resonates with such a realization and confesses it to be so. So it is, so it is.

The next time there's no ground to stand on, don't consider it an obstacle. Consider it a remarkable stroke of luck. We have no ground to stand on, and at the same time it could soften us and inspire us. Finally, after all these years, we could truly grow up. As Trungpa Rinpoche once said, the best mantra is "OM—grow up—svaha."     Retrieved 2/2013 Pema Chodron

Come, Come, Whoever You Are

...even if you have broken your vows...



                                                     Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn’t matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow

a thousand times

Come, yet again, come, come. Rumi

The shadow, the trace, the back end of the ox invites you to come and follow your own footsteps. Zen requires a turn, a turn away from the external situation and a turn towards your self. It is not easy to do, but the pointers are often simple and clear. It requires some effort on your part, some tint of realization and some thread of self-reliance.

Consider the following: Just as a trapped animal "instinctively" bites its own leg to free itself, human beings also try to instinctively and often ignorantly bite and fight their way to freedom.The catastrophic use of mind-altering substances is just one example of the attempt to be free of unwanted experiences in life. What keeps you trapped?

"Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times." Come.

A Philosopher Asks Buddha

A philosopher asked Buddha: `Without words, without the wordless, will you tell me truth?' The Buddha kept in silence. The philosopher bowed and thanked the Buddha, saying: `With your loving kindness I have cleared away my delusions and entered the true path.'

After the philosopher had gone, Ananda, Buddha's lifelong companion, asked the Buddha what the philosopher had attained. The Buddha replied, `A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip.'

Mumon's Comment: Ananda was the disciple of the Buddha. Even so, his opinion did not surpass that of outsiders. I want to ask you monks: How much difference is there between disciples and outsiders?

To tread the sharp edge of a sword
To run on smooth-frozen ice,
One needs no footsteps to follow.
Walk over the cliffs with hands free.          

Retrieved: 2/2013

http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/gateless-gate/0.html

Please Remember
It does not matter whether you think you are an insider or an outsider. What matters is whether or not you see the back end of the Ox or at least the traces of the Ox's hoof prints. A shadow or a trace realized is all you need to begin to tread the sharp edge of the truth.

Questions? Comments?

Self-Reliance

The Ox Herder Sees the Back End of the Ox



Perhaps you have heard the saying, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." And perhaps you have wondered, "What is this talking about?" 

It's a common phenomenon to think you have met the Buddha outside your self. A teacher, a spiritual guide, a mirage, fanciful images, or a guru are often mistaken as Enlightened. Claiming to be enlightened or thinking someone else is IT, the real thing, generally points to the problem of being "dreamy-eyed." Your view is not clear.

In this picture, the Ox herder sees the back end of the ox; he begins to run after it. But it is not a guru, a teacher, a priest, or a spiritual guide or anyone outside of himself. The Ox Herder sees something of himself, of his true nature. Although teachers and spiritual adepts may be helpful, they are not your true nature.   

This practice is DYI. ( Do It Yourself) with help from spiritual friends. No one can do it for you.

And since it is DYI, it requires that you rely on your self to practice.

But notice how things have changed for the Ox Herder. He sees the back end of the Ox and he begins to run. He sees something worth running after.

The Ox Herder realizes the "something" is within his fathom long body through practice, study, contemplation and investigation. All of these require energy and one can see the Ox Herder's energy and effort pick-up because he sees something. He is determined to follow it and begins to run.

Consider: What do you run after?

Please read chapter 3, if you are reading the book.

 

Spiritual Practice is Relative

There are many ways to show spiritual stages from a list to pictures to a wheel. Each variation seems to include very similar stages. Keep in mind all depictions are dynamic allowing them to address where you are and not to demand any particular and definite approach. They are not fixed or set as rules or "must be's."

Zen does not hold doctrines or dogma. It points. And the work is up to you. You find out for yourself whether you are able to see what it points to.

The flexibility allows you to arrange them according to your spiritual life, to omit some, add others or change them according to your life. The admonition is "not too loose, not too tight."

Spiritual Practice is Relative

One size does not fit all. These are possibilities, tips and pointers to things that might happen to you. Recall each one, find out for yourself where you are.



The Ox Herder is Confused

The Confusion May Be Hazardous

Pay Attention

You Need to Know What to Leave?

You May Feel Pulled by Your Dilemma

You May Feel Sunk

Despite the Struggle You See a Trace of Faith

You Need to Recharge to Keep Going

Confidence

Agony on the Path

Don't Give Up.



Agony on the Path



The Ball Roller

Disappointment and struggle are to be known but not held as an identification. When we think of Sisyphus, we think of him as the poor guy who was cursed for eternity, a mortal who took his misery personally and permanently. 

We tend to think of Sisyphus as a tragic hero, condemned by the gods to shoulder his rock sweatily up the mountain, and again up the mountain, forever.

The truth is that Sisyphus is in love with the rock.

He cherishes every roughness and every ounce of it.

He talks to it, sings to it.

It has become the mysterious Other.

He even dreams of it as he sleepwalks upward.

Life is unimaginable without it, looming always above him like a huge gray moon.

He doesn’t realize that at any moment he is permitted to step aside, let the rock hurtle to the bottom, and go home.

Tragedy is the inertial force of the mind.

The Myth of Sisyphus, Stephen Mitchell Retrieved 2/20/2013 http://www.stephenmitchellbooks.com/poetry/parablesExcerpt16.html

Disappointment and struggle are to be known in order to learn to love. But when we identify with it, when we see it as a curse rather than a heavenly message we remain cursed by it.

We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them.

Rilke, "Letters to an Artist..." Retrieved 2/2013 http://www.swans.com/library/art10/xxx108.html

Struggle and disappointment wake up agony for all sentient beings. Find the treasure in them and be intimate with the heavenly message as Christ was in the Garden. When you are intimate with them they will drop away for they have nothing more to teach you.

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart...Rilke

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Confidence is Faith

Faith

On his deathbed, a man of the vineyards spoke into Marcela's ear.

Before dying he revealed his secret:

          "The grape," he whispered, "is made of wine."

Eduardo Galeano

You may not know what you are made of as the man of the vineyard knew the grape.

 In Zen, faith is "confidence." This man is confident.

 He is, after all, on his death bed. He reveals his secret. 

In his "not knowing" at the moment of his death, the man of the vineyard knew.

In your "not knowing" without the veils of doctrine, dogma, spiritual ideology and principles what are you confident in? How will these veils of religious concepts, ideas, notions and words help you at the moment of your death? Do you have confidence in them?

When you are intimate with a thing, it reveals itself to you. The vineyard man was intimate with the grape.

It requires confidence, small, steady steps. Attention and power are the allied forces of confidence.  



   

Review

Connect with the Divine



In the first post I asked a question and encouraged you to consider something you might refine in your life that will help your spiritual well-being. Whatever you decided to refine consider it as the traces of footprints in front of you day to day. It is like the Ox Herder.

We are confused. We are uncertain. We sense something and want to follow it.
We see something that might help us. We don't know where it will lead exactly. But we begin to follow it day by day in our ordinary day to day life.

Perhaps you've hit a snag and feel wobbly. You stumble and drop it. You feel discouraged. POOF! You are out of steam.

You need power. Power, like electricity, is being plugged in. And like electricity it needs to be aligned in such a way that it runs through the wires out the socket to the cord and switched on. The power is never apart from you right where you are.

Your power comes from alignment. If you feel wobbly, flickering and confused like a light about to go out you need to align your body, your breath, your molecules and your mind.

Align your body. Sit up or stand up straight. Straighten the power conductor in your back that runs from your tail to your head; your spine.

Align your breath. Find your breath and follow it. Follow the small sense traces along the edge of your nose.

Align your molecules. Stay still, steady, upright and silent. Stop the interference of the sense doors, (seeing, touching, tasting, smelling, and thinking) and remain quiet. You may use your ears to help steady the molecules by following sound.

Align the mind. Find your focus and place your focus on "things above." In other words, disconnect from the dead past, the fears of the future and the worries of today. There is no power in these fragmented and distorted pops in the mind.

Now, you're a little more powered to follow the traces of faith you've put before your self.

The Traces of Faith

The Ox Herder sees traces of footprints and begins to follow them.

Not much has changed, but he sees something.

What traces do you see?

 What do you follow?

Don't skip this question. You may not know, the Ox Herder doesn't know but he has a "sense" of something because he sees the traces on the ground before him. Do you see the traces of faith in your situation? 

 

Asking your self what you seek tells you where you are? You might say, peace of mind, fun, excitement, a good day or something more concrete, a phone call from a beloved, a check in the mail, to get out of bed, a lover, a child, more money. The object tells you your intention. 

The Ox Herder has a sense of something and decides to follow the traces in the dirt. He sees something and he is intending to follow it. The "something" in his case is a sense of something within himself that needs to be looked at further so he heads out to find out about it. His faith arises and he follows it.

Notice this fellow is looking right in front of him. There is a saying in Zen that everything you need to know is right in front of your left eye. It points to a very close-up spot, a spot never apart from you. Where is your faith?

If you see only the footprints, you most likely do not know for sure what you will find but you are willing to see for yourself where they lead. There is uncertainty but some sense to see more. There is no escape from "not knowing." Although you may from time to time find yourself and others thinking "you do know!" and falling into the foolish arms of seeing yourself as a "know-it-all."

This "not knowing" works both in the world and in spiritual practice. The world, the mundane world is often quite precise. You are born on a certain day, in a certain place, to a certain mother. Sometimes the precision is not clear, because things that seem to work sometimes stop working. Planes that fly sometimes fall out of the sky. One minute a person is alive and breathing and the next minute they drop dead. Although there is a precision to the world it is an uncertain precision. Something seems to surprise us over and over again. It can be as simple as your car won't start.

In spiritual practice it is prudent and encouraged to come to the practice without any striving for a result. There are tips or pointers or instructions, however,  on how to practice and what direction to take in practice but the destination is hard to put into words and no one knows what will happen for you. Knowing the pointers and instructions, however, is important. The result is unknowable.

Spiritual truth, however, can be known, but it is hard to explain or describe. It is perhaps more precise to say the destination of spiritual practice is "hard to say" but not unknowable. There is growth, change, development, steps and process that are recognizable. But spiritual practice leaves behind the confines of an ego-self that needs to categorize and organize and codify things into black and white columns and this shift or realization is "hard to say.""I don't know, I can't say" are hard for you when you hold tightly to your ego-myths and your views of what you think is true.

Holding to fixed views causes much disappointment and dissatisfaction.

If you are reading the book, we are now in Chapter Two.

Your Situation May Look More Like This?

AP Photo by Wei Seng Chen, Malaysia

Retrieved 2013, 2/16

You may feel you are on the horns of a dilemma. It runs you around and you feel powerless, helpless and confused.

 

Man Hole

You feel sunk, completely in the dark. You feel as though you have fallen into a hole and you have no idea how to get out. You may feel a bit of panic!

You want to fix it, repair it, control it, stop it! But no matter what you do, nothing seems to fix, repair, control or stop it.  

 

There are a couple of questions that you need to ask yourself. Your responses might give you a glimmer of wisdom into the root of your situation whether it be one on the horns of a dilemma or a descent into a dark hole.

Question Number 1: Are you able to see the possibility that wanting it otherwise and taking things personally are the two horns of the dilemma? 

Question Number 2: Can you consider even just a little bit that the misery you feel is your teacher? 

Suffering is considered a mark of existence and disappointment in Buddhism is considered a heavenly messenger but you need to be able to see it. Otherwise, you will take it personally and continue to be pulled about by the two bulls or stuck in a dark hole.

Dissatisfaction comes in array of experiences and range. Whatever it might be for you it can often feel like you have fallen into a dark hole. You determine to give it one more try, one more attempt to make yourself into something you want, somebody who you think will make all the difference, and you try to get what you want. You pull your self up by your bootstraps, fortify yourself with false hopes and wishful thinking and once again go after what you think the world owes you and what you think you deserve. But find you are merely going out onto another limb that ultimately will not sustain you. But you'll give it another shot. What else can you do?

 

You may want to consider these 4 things in life that make you miserable, unhappy and dissatisfied.

1. Not getting what you want
2. Getting what you want but being dissatisfied with what you got
3. Not being with those you love
4. Being with those you do not love

These 4 things cover most of what disappoints you. They are in the very least part of the cause for your situation. Take some time to contemplate your situation and see if you are able to place yourself in one of these 4 misery makers. 

If, for example, you live in a situation you hate and you want it to be different you suffer from not getting what you want and being with those you do not love. It is not enough to think this is true, you need to recognize the ego-hunger within yourself using these 4 statements. 

SO in this example it would be helpful to say to yourself, "I am not getting what I want, and I am not with those I love." 

Now the reason you need to do this is to stop the blame or the aggression and aversion going outward into the world and recognize the root of the misery is in "your wanting it to be different." If you are able to do this, even ever so slightly you begin to see a glimpse of wisdom. The glimpse, even a trace of it allows you to follow the traces of wisdom depicted in the next Ox Herder picture. 

Zen requires at least a glimmer or smudge of self-reflection to enter the path. If you think you know, and if you think you are "right" and you are adamant about what you think, you must do a fair bit of work on softening those hardened parts of the wild ego mind. Pride and anger are the big bulls that can run you around for quite some time. They need to be tamed. 

Don't despair. It's never too late to begin to tame them. And it takes as long as it takes to do so.

What Must You Leave?

Who you think you are!

Spiritual practice is radical and far-reaching. It needs to begin with who you think you are in order for you to leave "who you think you are." It is not to become anyone or somebody or anything. It is to leave all of it.

It’s rather startling, isn’t it? And it requires practice to break out of the cocoon of habits and reactions that you have built as your ego identities. This pointer is quite sobering.  It is similar to Christ’s response to let the dead bury the dead and unless you turn away from your mother and father you can’t follow him.

It does not mean to let the dead rot on the side of the road or pack your bags for…for where?  Spiritual practice is more sweeping than a geographical change of scenery or a familial abandonment it is an interior shift that is more drastic and more all-encompassing.

 And it requires time, effort and practice to shift the focus of attention from the stimulation of the world to your interior life. Zen offers a method to make the shift. What happens is unknown.

In the first picture we find our self in confusion and the confusion is about who we are. It’s not to say we are not human beings, because we are but it is to say we are “confused” human beings who identify with the conditions of life as if those conditions are who we are.  It’s a matter of taking the wrong stuff seriously.

 We see our self as a “mother, father, brother, sister, and the many roles in a family. Perhaps you see yourself as the “smart child, the good parent, the bad apple, the dependable father, the rational one, the calm sister, the favored mother”…the list is endless.

These identities drive your life and you think it is who you are. Of course you may live out your life wrapped in the confines of a conditioned identity.  The identifications are potent and influence much of how you live your life. In other words, you are attached to them.

In general, very general, your identity is usually rooted in thinking you are a “good” somebody, a “bad” somebody or a swing between the two like the little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead.

There are many flavors to this generalization and colors, shapes and tones that come from your own history. The discovery of these coverings, these” flavored things you think you are” is part of the work of Zen.  

Sitting still in solitude with your self is basic to this work of uncovering the self.

Consider: Who do you think you are? This reflection can be a role such as, doctor, mother, son, wife, husband, manager, and so the list goes. And it includes identities of victim, abuser, addict, user, as well as “good, bad” devilish, angelic, godlike, fool, etc . In this reflection consider the first identity that pops up. You might want to make a list. Contemplate whether or not it is who you are, really? What supports this idea of who you are?

 

“Suffering (dissatisfaction) isn’t going to go away, the one who is suffering (dissatisfied) is going to go away. “ Ayya Khema

Attention, Attention, Attention

There is a classic Zen story about a student who goes to his teacher and asks what to do. The teacher replies, "Attention, Attention, Attention."

When you STOP! sit up straight and stay still you need to put your attention on something, otherwise the wild, untamed mind will roam the past, the present and the future images of the mind and you will be swamped.

It requires repetition.
Repetition requires commitment.
Commitment requires willingness.
Start with 10,000 times.

So...your attention can be on one of many things. But an easy thing to start with is your breath because it is always with you until you die. You bring your attention to your breath over and over again. It sounds simple, but it isn't easy to do since your untamed mind wants to run off like a wild animal or a young child into a worry, a plan, the past, a dream, a feeling, a perception...and it wants to think how to fix it, keep it, repair it, change it, control it...because not only is it wild, it thinks it is in charge.

It requires that you determine time to practice. It's like learning anything. If you want to learn to play the piano, you must practice the same thing over and over again until you need something else to practice. And sometimes you have to return to the basics before you can acquire the next skill.

Discipline is required to unlearn and let go of the many mistaken ideas that you have about yourself. The mind and body need to be tamed and in order to do it you must make an inner turn within yourself that you want to spend your effort and power on practice.

It's up to you.

This mastery is not the mastery of a gymnast nor is it the mastery of intellectual knowledge although it requires the same effort of time and power. It is the mastery of the self that is driven by patterns and blindness that keep you going round and round in ignorance. It means taking the pot off your head and having a look at where you are and what you are up to moment by moment.

Thomas A Kempis, the author of The Imitation of Christ, written in the late 14th or early 15th century captures this mastery in this passage:

If you seek the Beloved in all things, you will surely find the Beloved in all things,
if you seek yourself, you will surely find yourself, only to your ruin.


Consider:  Reflect on whether you want to master your mind and body? Are you willing to labor not knowing exactly what might occur?

Recommendation: The Imitation of Christ, Thomas A Kempis.
The Imitation of Christ

Who am I?

This question is important, but how exactly do you work with it?

Practice.

Zen requires practice.

And what is practice?    "There is nothing hidden from practice."
If you are thinking you are stupid, then you are practicing thinking you are stupid. If you are feeling hate, then you are practicing hate. If you are binge-eating a cake, you are practicing binge-eating a cake. You get how this works, don't you?

 "Nothing is hidden from practice." Nothing!

But attention and discipline are needed to see that ..."nothing" is hidden from practice.

Zen strongly suggests you pay attention to where you are and what you are doing, not in the outward world, but in your body, feelings, perceptions, impulses and conscious activity.


Where do you start? What do you pay attention to?
If you look at this little fellow, his feet are going this way and that and his head is covered by a pot.  He is lost, confused and about to fall off the sidewalk into a web. Do you ever feel like this? What do you suggest he do?

STOP! Stay still! Take the pot off your head, straighten your body and have a look at where you are.

These are the bare bones of Zen practice. You stop, sit still, adjust your body and begin to look within yourself to see what is going on in your self. "To study the Way is to study the self..."

You have to know where you are to get directions on how to get to where you want to go.

You have to STOP looking outward at your boss, your lover, your child, your parents, your history, your situation, whatever happens and begin to bring your attention to your body, feelings, perceptions, impulses and conscious activity as a reaction to your six sense contacts.

You hear something, you see something, you smell something, you touch something, you taste something and you think something which triggers your body, feelings, your perceptions, impulses, and conscious activity. You blame or praise the trigger. STOP! Blaming and praising the trigger. Each time you do, you look outward. You need to look at your self. 

The work is always with yourself.

Sit down, sit up straight, stay still and see what is going on with you.

It requires time, your attention and discipline.

 The Ox herder’s feet are going one way and his head another.  It implies confusion.

You Don't Know Something! What is IT?

In the book Zen Gifts to Christians, the author mentions the novel by George Elliot, Daniel Deronda. The novel tells the story of two characters who struggle with this peculiarly human question: "Who am I?"

Both the Zen Ox Herder pictures and George Eliot’s Victorian novel describe the confusion and struggles in our attempts to discover who we are.

Eliot’s characters are young and are launching into the world of adulthood in order to discover the answer. They, much like the Ox Herder, look out to the world to discover the answer. The world, however, does not provide a clear and resounding response to their search. It merely claims the direction of the search to be in the world and offers one attainment after another as a possibility.

In Zen, it is not to believe or disbelieve the lack or abundance of the world's possibilities to attain something or not, it is to find out whether or not the world provides satisfaction to the question, "Who am I?"

You don’t know something! What is IT that you don’t know?

Perhaps you like the Ox Herder and Eliot’s characters look outward into the world to find what IT is that you do not know? You look for your “worldly” identity to become somebody as the way to settle your confusion.

You may think a career, a child, a lover will satisfy you. You may have wish lists of "..."if only I was thin, young, handsome..." or ambitions for "prestige, money, luxury..." or acquisitions for "...stuff, excitement, intoxications." You may think that this next thing, this next attainment, even perhaps this next thought will settle everything. 

It is never enough in the world, because the world proliferates.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, whether you are a rank beginner or an old cowhand, the confusion may arise. It may come camouflaged as in the question, "What's next?"

You, like Eliot’s characters may be searching for your “worldly identity” or the reinvention of an old one rather than what Kennedy and many others call your “true nature.”

It doesn’t matter what you call it. These pictures as well as Eliot’s novel and Zen, in general, assert:

You don’t know who you are.

Zen cautions you not to believe this assertion. It requires that you find out if it is true. Practice is the way to find out.

Consider: Reflect on how you might respond to this assertion.  Are you happy to hear it? Does it ring true? Are you huffy? Do you think you know? Do you list out categories and words of who you are?

Read/ Watch: Stay with Chapter One in Kennedy’s book, if you have it.

Here’s a link to a free edition of Eliot’s novel.  Daniel Deronda - Free Edition

And a link to a condensed version by the BBC of Eliot’s novel. BBC Production- Daniel Deronda

Libraries are also an excellent resource.

Lent...

Human beings tend to like structure. It makes life make more sense and eases the mind from the task of making decisions. The structure is in many ways, parental. It provides some necessities for our life that we may tend to overlook or skip over.

This blog is an example of structure, it begins on February 13th and ends on March 31st. The mind tends to relax when it has a marked beginning and marked ending. The uncertainty of the time of death is one of the reasons death disturbs us. But in this case, we have a definite beginning and a definite ending. So, relax. The structure is a support to your spiritual life.

There is no need to see the 40 days as a competition with yourself. It's perhaps kinder to consider the 40 days as a course of training that may influence and help you in your spiritual work. Spiritual life includes work much like everything else, but it's not drudgery. It's actually illuminating.

If it helps you, you may decide to make contact or make a comment in order to help you hold yourself accountable to your spiritual work. It's not necessary, but it might be helpful. The contact may be just a short, informal touch that reminds you that you have picked up this 40 day course of training your mind. But it's not required. It's up to you.

The work of spiritual illumination is mostly up to you because the work of spiritual illumination is with you and not with any one else. I say "mostly" up to you because there is no way to say exactly what might happen as you begin or continue to practice which suggests there are parts of spiritual illumination that remain, well...a mystery. All of the spiritual suggestions and tips that are offered from one person to another, however, are completely up to you. So this 40 day practice is yours to do or not. It's up to you.

Consider: Reflect on your daily life. Pick something to refine about how you live which will help answer this question: "What when you do it leads to eternal well-being?" Once you have picked something that answers this question commit to refining it for  40 days. You might want to share it in a comment if you feel it would be helpful to you.

Suggested Reading: Zen Gifts to Christians, Robert Kennedy, S.J., Zen Roshi.
Start by reading Chapter One. Don't read ahead.