Joy At Last

"Joy at last, to know there is no happiness in the world."

This statement is by Thai Meditation Master, Ajahn Chah. I had never heard it before today and instantly fell in love with it.

The pursuit of happiness - and our hoping to find it through material things, entertainment, personal fulfillment, intellectual and scientific pursuits, religious experiences and achievements - never ends. Happiness eludes us no matter what we try and how successful we are at achieving all of our dreams. Even when we achieve our fondest dreams we feel we should be happier than we actually feel. Somewhere there is an idea or a memory what it should feel like. It is like water running through our fingers. It always seems so close, just around the corner. We can't hold on to it for long when we do feel it. Things, events, insights all give it to us for a moment or a while, only to be lost again. This is how we spend our lives and it is what makes the world go around. There is nothing wrong with it. Without this mechanism life would not go on - and still - we need to wake up from it to find the joy we were born with that this Thai Meditation Master is talking about. When we do, we laugh with relief. It was never lost in the first place. We were just so busy preventing it, by looking for it endlessly - like someone digging for treasure with a golden, diamond studded shovel.

Easy Maybe

Here's an easy post to write, and an easy post to read. Close your eyes and take five breaths. If you lose count, start over. Whatever made you lose count or feel rushed and impatient, will show you what is keeping you from your wholeness at this point in time.

For me it was my hot bath waiting and wanting to type a little more, in other words, physical and intellectual pleasure. But, I pushed it aside for five sweet breaths - you can, too.

Are You Happy?

When I was studying at the Kushi Institute twenty years ago, making my way every day from classroom to classroom, wondering about all kinds of things - be it our cancer and AIDS patients, my children's or my husband's health, our life, the state of the world - my mind endlessly fascinated with problems and finding solutions for them - several times during those years, Mishio Kushi would pop up out of nowhere. Turning a corner, or up a flight of stairs, looking straight at me, he'd ask: "Are you happy?"

I always burst out laughing, like I had just been caught. Caught in this fabricated unhappiness thinking creates, that wasn't true. He kept looking at me just long enough until he was sure I understood this. Then he'd hurry on to his next lecture or consultation.

Be very careful if an unhappy or needy person asks you whether you are happy, though. They will show you how unhappy you are, and if you don't know better, you will believe them. They will then offer you something to fix your unhappiness in exchange for sex, money or some other form of power. Every commercial on TV works that way, and much of religion and psychology. There is a given assumption of our unhappiness, fixable only with certain products or actions we are going to be encouraged into taking. It is not necessarily malicious - it is just the blind leading the blind.

In truth, happiness just requires a reminder. Content to the core of our souls, if we only take a moment to notice, we already know the truth. The problem is that it is so simple, as simple as taking a grateful breath regardless of any circumstances. Our minds think it is too easy, and not interesting enough. It is available equally to everyone - beggar or king, the educated or the fools. That also doesn't make it "special" enough for our egos to be easily persuaded. Therefore there is a need for humility in our approach. There is nobody more humble than a wise man who knows how stupid he is, or a stupid man who finally understands how wise he is.

Amma

My grandmother's name was Therese, named after a Christian Saint. Looking up Christian Saints, I came across this amazing woman, who reminded me of a YouTube video (below) of a present day, Indian saint named Amma, in rapture. Amma is the Indian Saint who heals millions with unconditional love hugs you may have already heard about on the news.

It was this passage about Teresa of Avila's teachings about the four stages of the soul, that made me think of the Amma video below. So first - here is Theresa's statement:

The fourth is the "devotion of ecstasy or rapture," a passive state, in which the consciousness of being in the body disappears. Sense activity ceases; memory and imagination are also absorbed in God or intoxicated. Body and spirit are in the throes of a sweet, happy pain, alternating between a fearful fiery glow, a complete impotence and unconsciousness, and a spell of strangulation, intermitted sometimes by such an ecstatic flight that the body is literally lifted into space. This after half an hour is followed by a reactionary relaxation of a few hours in a swoon-like weakness, attended by a negation of all the faculties in the union with God. From this the subject awakens in tears; it is the climax of mystical experience, productive of the trance. (Indeed, St. Theresa herself was said to have been observed levitating during Mass on more than one occasion.)

Teresa is one of the foremost writers on mental prayer. Her definition was used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Mental prayer [oración mental] is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us." (more on Wikipedia)

Here is the video of Amma now, in what appears to be the state described by Theresa - a strange sight to Western eyes, although not as strange as someone levitating -




The communists call religion the opium of the people. This opium beats all other drugs, but you have to spend as much time and money on it as you do on "real" drugs. And - it helps to hang out with people who know how to get high. Religions can be as much trouble as drugs - in many ways - and just as deceiving. It is all very tricky, and we need to check within our hearts to guide us. That is were this "mental prayer" comes in. In Christian Science this idea is taken even further to "silent prayer" - not talking with God, but just being in his presence. It's all meditation in various forms.

Before you think the above Saint, Amma, may just be a drugged out, strange Indian with a multi million dollar business watch this Newscast - her physical feat each day alone seems to only be possible by "miracle". Her message is love and compassion - unconditional love, like that of a mother. It indeed seems to move mountains.


- and here another, very old video of her early days.

What do you think? How open-minded are we when we think prayer or love is not scientific? They are stepping stones to silence, stillness, and what we, in our lack of understanding, call miracles. If you read "Autobiography of Yogi", by Paramahansa Yogananda, or "The Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East" by Baird T. Spalding ( a wonderful set of six books a friend just gave to me to read), so-called miracles seem nothing but easy tasks if we only understood the underlying, scientific principals. That is why for example, Christian Science considers itself a scientific method, teaching how our minds play a role in affecting the material circumstance around us.

Silence and stillness is the unifying principle all the physicists are looking for. It will be interesting to see how they will eventually express this in a formula. First they have to find it. How to write a formula about the non-physical that is the source of all the physical? There is no God, but God? Much like the word Uni-verse. What would that look like in a unified principle formula? The unified principle formula would have to be a contradictory statement, like Mohammed's statement, the word Universe, or many Buddhist statements. Only a contradictory statement can get close to describing truth.

The Tao tells us the truth that can be described - is not the truth. Maybe Jesus' statement: "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free" is even wiser than any direct statement. I love this mystery and could write on and on about it. That's why I had to write a short children's book instead, with all of this between the lines.

Peaceful Eyes

Taking the idea of the logs and the splinters in our eyes a little further this morning I was considering the difference between teachers and preachers. My own shortcomings have been pointed out to me by the self-righteous and by the humble. The difference is vast. The loud moralists aren't even worth writing about. The true teachers defy words.

My husband quietly singing Eric Clapton's "Before you accuse me", or an old policeman who once stopped me for speeding, just asking me quietly: "Please, not so fast" and then not giving me a ticket - are two favorite examples of how I have been humbled into instant improvement. And the quiet, wide open look or smile of a child has more than once reminded me of the right course of action or in-action.

This look is also in the eyes of the wise ones. In both the child and the wise, there is no judgment, but absolute knowing of right and wrong. This absence of judgment is an absence of resistance to our behavior. It is giving us free will to be as stupid, mean and ridiculous as we need to be without forming an opinion about it.

Considering the split in our endlessly commenting minds we need to do the same internally for ourselves. In other words, we need to be a silent, compassionate, all knowing, non-judgmental presence to ourselves, rather than the constantly commenting critic. As we become whole and good that way, we regain the peaceful joy in our hearts and eyes we knew as children.

Spiritual Ego

Are you a spiritual person? Well - you better not think of yourself that way or you will fall into the trap of spiritual ego. Whatever we identify with - we will think it is superior to others - or what others identify with. Why? Because we have chosen it over other identifications for certain reasons which make all other people, deep down in our minds, less wonderful than ourselves.

It is actually quite difficult to snap out of it. One way is to remind ourselves of how very un-spiritual we actually are. The gigantic log in our own eye versus the splinter in other people's eyes we are trying to inspire them to take out, is a good way to remember this. That is where humility comes in. To get to this elusive humility requires surrender to our powerlessness, and recognizing this powerlessness as the source of our being. It is one way to dislodge the mechanism of false identification.

We are not who we think we are, nor who other people think we are, nor are they who we think they are. So who are we then? It is beyond thought. When we have no thought it can be discovered.

No Thou, NoTears, No Publishing Contract

Today I met a wonderful woman, kind and peaceful. She approached me about publishing her book. I get approached all the time since Here You Are became popular, and the "slush pile" in my office of all the book submissions we get at BoathouseBooks is full of "almost great" stories. We pass the stories around and summarize the feedback in a letter back to the potential authors. In addition to the comments about the writing, I then also take some time to make recommendations as to how the story could be stronger from a spiritual perspective. This takes time, but I consider it a worthwhile effort and people are very grateful. Because of our submission guidelines, the stories all have a strong spiritual element to begin with, so when I mention an area that could be improved it is recognized instantly, with very few exceptions.

The story I was handed today, which I read while we were sitting in the sun sipping our tea, was a spiritual gem and does not need any improvement. It moved me to tears the way people are moved when they read Here You Are. That is the criteria here at BoathouseBooks - no tears - no publishing contract! Those tears are tears of joy, gratitude and recognition, and of humility and loss - the loss that is required to gain spiritual wholeness. Many mothers have it. Unfortunately, not many start writing, but when they start writing children's books - often with their own children as editors - it is a great gift to future generations. Is there a market for those books? You bet! From what we have seen, parents are craving books for the souls of their children. That is why they are writing them themselves, too. Children's spiritual well being is endangered early, and persistently, in our culture. Often religions and churches are not an option for many families for a variety of complicated reasons. If we can reduce spiritual guidance to the fundamental and universal spiritual truths at the root of all the world's religions, and bring it to children and parents in the form of children's books, we feel that we are able to honor the "thou" in children, parents, and in BoathouseBooks. Children are little Buddhas that look to their parents, grandparents and teachers, to confirm to them what they know inside, so it doesn't get lost. If the only regular "spiritual practice" in our busy lives is reading a true book to our child - it will be enough. This tiny seed will grow.