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Category: Connect
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Published: Thursday, 30 December 2021 15:20
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Written by Cherry
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'If you want to produce a society that is peaceful, happy, and compassionate, you have to visualise the universal community. You learn to go as a river. If you can do that, you will change the world.
There's a tendency to resist the idea of a community as an organism, because we still want to hold on to our person, our self. We're not yet ready to live the life of a cell in the body of the community. This takes quite a turn, quite a transformation. In my own life, the more I reflected and looked deeply into the Buddha's wisdom, and the way he organised his community, the more clearly I saw the path of practice.
The moment I got that insight, I received new eyes. I looked at my friends and students in a very different way. I saw that I am them, and they are me. And I saw that everything I do, think, and say is for nourishing and transmitting insight to them. In the future, whether I am there or not, it is no longer a problem because I have penetrated the insight of no-self. There is no longer any discrimination between myself and others, no longer any resistance. You accept others as you accept yourself. And, in that kind of relationship, you can have a lot of happiness.
We want to have a young community that is able to transform the world and to protect Mother Earth; able to bring the practice into schools, corporations, and even the army. It is possible for us to bring mindfulness everywhere, not as a religion but as a practice that can bring relief to everyone in society.'
(from 'Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet' - Thich Nhat Hanh - p 293)
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Category: Connect
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Published: Sunday, 14 November 2021 12:34
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Written by Cherry
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Hits: 424
The following extract is taken from 'Finding the eye of the storm' by Mary Jayne Rust, published in 'Depth Psychology and Climate Change - The Green Book', edited by Dale Mathers:
'Getting to know the more-than-human world offers rich metaphors and mirrors for the self, we come to know ourselves as human animals. As we move down into the body, the constant chatter inside the head falls away and our other-than-rational ways of knowing come to the fore - intuitive knowing, five senses knowing and emotional knowing. These different ways of knowing are described by Jeanette Armstrong of the Native American Okanagan tribe. According to Okanagan teachings, an individual human is made up of four capacities which operate together: the physical self, the emotional self, the thinking, intellectual self and the spirit; self. These capacities are parallel to 'mind' and connect us with the rest of creation' (p. 24).
And from the introduction of ' Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet' by Thich Nhat Hanh we hear:
'The beauty of the Earth is a bell of mindfulness. If you can't see it, you must ask yourself why. Maybe something is blocking the way. Or maybe you are so busy looking for something else you can't hear the call of the Earth.' (p.1)
'Mindfulness helps us stop the distraction and come back to our breathing, paying attention only to the in-breath and out-breath, we stop our thinking and, within just a few seconds, we awaken to the fact that we are alive, we are breathing, we are here. We exist. We are not non-existent . "Ahhh," we realise, "I am here, alive." We stop thinking about the past, we stop thinking about the future, we focus all our attention on the fact we are breathing. Thanks to our mindful breathing we set ourselves free. We are free to be here: free from thinking, anxiety, fear and striving.'
'When you wake up and you see that the Earth is not just the environment, the Earth is us, you touch the nature of interbeing. And at that moment you can have real communication with the Earth. That is the highest form of prayer. In that kind of relationship, you will have there love, strength, and awakening you need to change your life.' (p.2).
Any practice where we focus on the body, or on the breath in the body, can bring us back into connection with ourselves; with the earth beneath us, and possibly to the sky, stars and galaxies beyond.
To some, all this this may sound fanciful, but in our frankly divided, separated and alienated world, even the possibility that connection, interconnection, or 'interbeing', through the simple human act of sitting, lying down or walking mindfully on this earth, can bring us back to greater ease and balance, offering us a different way of 'being with' this earth, may well give us possibilities for acting on this planet with greater care, love and compassion.
