DHARMA REFLECTIONS

THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREe. ALL yOU HAVE tO DO IS LISTEN . . .

We owe it to ourselves and to the world to look deeper. If there is fear here, what is the fear within me? How does it feel, what does it look like, how does it show up? If there is sadness, we can investigate: What is this feeling representative of? When were these seeds really planted? What is being awakened in me that I have left dormant and ignored all these years? What inside you needs to heal, needs to be seen, needs your love and attention? THAT is the call of these times. That is our only sane, and the most beneficial, response to these circumstances.

So if you are feeling helpless, take comfort in knowing that there are things you can do. And when protests need to happen and action needs to be taken, yes, take action. But to do so from a place of frustration is just perpetuating the unwholesome karma. We do not have to be angry to act. We can act because our wisdom tells us it’s the right thing to do, it’s what’s needed in the moment. If we act from this place, rather than reacting from an unconscious, wounded place, we are not only sowing better seeds, we are also more effective.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a movement that was based on justice, not anger. He made no room for violence, even in the hearts and minds of his fellow activists. He understood that violence is never the answer. And we understand that violence toward others is violence toward ourselves. Has it felt good in your being to be carrying this fear and hatred? Is it hurting Donald or those who voted for him? Do they feel the heat of your anger, or do you? If you think that by being righteously outraged, it means you are not a victim, you are mistaken. You are a victim of your own suffering. You may not have been able to choose the president you wanted, but you can choose the attitude you bring to this moment. In the face of tyranny, we can vow to practice kindness toward others. In the face of prejudice and rejection, we can practice acceptance and understanding, not just of others but also of ourselves. And we can commit ourselves to honestly looking at how these shadows are present, if lurking, within us, for if they were not, we would not be able to see, and reject, them in others. We do not tend to react so strongly to things in our world that do not, on some level, reflect things in our hearts.

So it’s time to clean house, to self-reflect, to bring into the light that which has been buried and hidden, for fear of condem-nation, if only from ourselves. And we do not have to condemn ourselves for our less wholesome traits and beliefs. We need to understand that these too were conditioned by the world we live in, by the childhoods we experienced and what we were taught. Just as we now condition the world of tomorrow and influence the children of today. So let’s do it right. Let’s practice compassion for ourselves and all those conditioned responses that reflect the ways we were not loved or taught love, and start meeting them with love, and, in so doing, being, teaching, and spreading love. There are no parts of ourselves not worthy of love. And the parts that seem the least deserving are the parts that need love the most, for they are the parts that grew out of a dearth of love, compassion and understanding. They are the inevitable fruits of some unfortunately rotten seeds, seeds that others planted in our soil without our permission. They are not our doing, but we can do something about them.

So please, join me in tending to this great garden we call life by weeding out all the inadvertent, unwanted manifestations of our past, and planting some wholesome seeds for beautiful flowers to grow in the future. Begin by bringing care to your heart and its vulnerability. Feel the grief, the powerlessness, and the despair, but not over our political situation but deeper, to where these feelings already lived inside of you, long before Donald. Give your hurt the attention it needs, the attention that this election has fortunately brought to light, and be grateful for this opportunity to look within and practice love.

Help us change the world, one person at a time, starting with you, by uprooting the hatred and fear that we all carry and which Donald just exemplifies. He is no different, just more transparent. (Have we not, like him, created an Us and Them by shunning our Republican neighbors, unFriending those who voted for him, feeling self-righteous about our political correctness rather than taking the time to understand why so many have lost hope in a Democratic leadership and reject the status quo?) Donald was so beloved by so many because he was not, is not, afraid to tell his truth, however ugly it might seem to us. And in this way, he is our teacher. And we can be grateful. And with gratitude and love we can landscape the beautiful garden we all want to live in. In fact, it is the only climate in which beautiful things can grow.

Ever since the shocking election upset, many seem to be asking, bewildered, "How could this happen?” But really, the question is rhetorical. Most of us know that Donald, like so many before him, prayed upon the fear and disappointment of the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, and even the privileged. He created an Us and Them that gave people hope that if we can only get rid of Them, then Us will be fine, be great again. He offered scapegoats to those who are suffering that allows them to avoid taking responsibility for their suffering, or at least taking a hard, honest look at it. And not just Them, “those people,” but Us too, you and I.

We must all understand that everything that happens is conditioned by everything else that has happened. I am not always kind. I have committed violence with my words and attitude, at the least. I have committed theft and myriad other unwholesome deeds. I can own that, not with recrimination but with understanding. Who I am, or rather who in this moment I have come to be, is an expression of everything I have experienced up to this point. I cannot in this moment change my conditioning, for that is in the past. But I can acknowledge it and see how it causes me and others to suffer, at times, and understand that the only thing I can influence are the consequences of this moment, and the next and the next. Our country is no different.

Our collective karma has ripened into a Trump presidency. But our future karma is still unfolding. And THAT we can affect. But if we continue to indulge in fear and anger and other unwholesome emotions, those will ripen accordingly. A rotten seed only produces rotten fruit. Every moment offers us a choice in the seeds we want to plant. Do I sow seeds or love and understanding or fear and anger?

This does not mean that it is OK to degrade women, or take away their control over their bodies, to punish and discard people because they have different religious beliefs, or maybe even just have different colored skin, or abuse the planet with greed and denial. I’m not saying that we align ourselves with our new president’s values. But I am saying that it is important to accept that this how things are RIGHT NOW. They won’t always be like this. And, if anything, as winter gives way to Spring, as physics teaches us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, this time is a necessary darkening that will, if we use it wisely, give way to greater light than we have known.

This is a call to healing. This is the destructive force of Kali, or Shiva, a transformational necessity. The mud from which the lotus grows.

We have been complacent. We have been living silently with racism and oppression, misogyny and intolerance. This is not new. This is not about Trump. He was elected as a reflection of what already exists in our country, our world. And, yes, this hatred has got to stop. But it can only do so when it is first acknowledged. All the acquittals of police officers who shot innocent African American men did not take us to the streets in protest as much as Trump has. Why? Because we are indifferent, or, even if we are outraged, we feel hopeless, so we do nothing. Sure, I stood on a street with a Black Lives Matter sign for a few hours. As have many of you. So what? It’s not even close to being enough.

We, as a nation, have not begun to look at our cultural history to truly understand racism. We celebrate Thanksgiving and do not teach our children about what white people did to Native Americans, about this country’s vast legacy of racism. We have not really cried the cry: "This is unacceptable!” So I am thankful to Donald for evoking that cry. More of us are speaking up, speaking out. But, again, so what? Is this really helpful? Well, I think not. “Anger does not cease through anger, but through love alone.” (Buddha)

Am I asking you to love Donald? Well, sort of. Donald is merely the face that gives attention to the prejudices we all carry, the inadequacies we usually bury or overcompensate for, just like Donald does. Now that they’re in the spotlight, we are turning toward those shadows with disdain, calling them unacceptable. We are meeting anger with anger. We are hating the parts of ourselves that are not inclusive but exclusive, not loving but fearful, not accepting but rejecting. So, if we can project our self-hatred for our imperfections onto Donald and hate him, then yes, we must instead project self-love. We must find the courage and the strength to focus our energies on understanding and compassion, beginning with ourselves, for that is the only thing we can truly change. And that change will create a karmic foundation for a better future, for juicy, delicious fruits to grow.

Beginning Anew.pdf

Charlie is gone.pdf

Clarification on Energy.pdf

Council.pdf

Cutting Through Ignorance.pdf

Deconstructing the Self.pdf

Difficult Emotions.pdf

Fostering the mind.pdf

Generosity.pdf

Gladdening the Heart.pdf

Gratitude for Council.pdf

How Mindfulness Alone Can Transform Suffering.pdf