Thanksgiving 2022

Example of a Triskele spiral

 

Religion is a means of ultimate transformation…An ultimate transformation is a fundamental change from being caught up in the troubles of common existence to living in such a way that one can cope at the deepest level with these troubles. That capacity for living allows one to experience the most authentic or deepest reality – the ultimate.

Frederick Streng, Understanding Religious Life

 

I am thankful for so many things.  A safe and beautiful home, the strength for yoga, long walks, nature all around.  I am thankful for the health and safety of my family, loving friends, a job that allows me to earn a living and work for social justice. 

 

And yet, I still feel afraid everyday of what I might lose, what I will be unable to protect myself or my family from.  And I also wonder how hollow my own good fortune can feel when all around – close to home and across the globe – millions suffer from injustice, poverty, hunger, and neglect.

 

Spiritual practice if it is to have any meaning at all has to be of help to me in abiding with the vulnerability and fragility of my own life and a means to help in the alleviation of the suffering of others.

 

Our wisdom teachings encourage us to practice in order that we might find a quiet mind, the light within, a tender heart. In a world with so much injustice and suffering, this kind of practice can seem self-absorbed, narcissistic, and irrelevant to the massive global scale of suffering.   On a recent visit to DC, I visited the Museum of African American History and the Holocaust Memorial Museum.  The scale of human inhumanity immense and horrific.  How can the work towards inner peace be of any relevance to this kind of violence which continues on as it has from the dawn of humanity?

 

We are all vulnerable and fragile creatures.  All that we depend on can suddenly be lost inexplicably and suddenly, our finances, our health, our homes, our loved ones. What we stand on to make us feel secure is nothing more than a mound of sand. 

 

To me what these practices offer is a way to transform this vulnerability into compassion instead of hatred, anger, fear, feelings that would encourage me to act in ways that are violent to myself and others.  They teach us that we have a choice, that we can find a way to be in community with each other in our fragility, a way to soften the hatred we feel towards each other, the imperative to help each other when we are able. 

 

I still feel  small, helpless, and incapable of greater generosity and kindness. But through steady practice and self-compassion, I am not longer so incapacitated by fear and anger, there is less armor around my heart, I can more often than in the past choose peace over violence.

 


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