Nothing to Do - Except be Present

 One of the sayings I recall from my time on a three month Buddhist Retreat was the teacher saying "When will you wake up and realise there is nothing you have to do!"

At the time it didn't make a lot of sense. We were busy trying to remember all that the teacher had told us, including the meditation exercises set at the end of each day's class.

Christianity is not so different to my Buddhist Retreat. It is also full of suggestions and directives. A common saying is, 'Love your neighbour as yourself'. Sounds very simple, doesn't it. How well do I - how well do you - fulfil that simple saying let alone learning to love a God we can't see?

Sometimes, I think we make our spiritual/religious life far more complicated than it needs to be. Saint Teresa of Avila wrote something very similar to the above quotation by the Buddhist teacher. In her book, The Interior Castle, Teresa made a distinction between trying to develop a spiritual practice in the hope of finding God; and the realisation that what we seek has already found us! She said that the Divine Presence is already within us. There is nothing we need to do, nowhere we need to go, nothing we need to say - except wake up and realise and experience this divine mystery.

Teresa compared this discovery, this realisation, to trying to fill a jug with water from a faraway spring. At first, a person may put a lot of effort into walking back and forth to the spring with a bucket. This would be like us seeking out a church or a Spiritual Counsellor/minister/priest who might be able to help us with our spiritual search. Or joining programmes like 'Alpha' in the hope it would help us experience God's grace and presence.

Alternatively, we may think that if God is everywhere, shouldn't I be able to find God in my own home? So we may try various spiritual exercises, or meditation techniques, or read books in the hope of finding God. St Teresa compares this to the realisation that if we built our own pipeline to God it would save us a lot of time and effort.

Both of these approaches have their place. I know I have spent a lot of time and money on books, courses, retreats and study programmes.

However, St.Teresa also reminds us, that in reality, we have nowhere we need to go. There is nothing we need to do. No special effort is required for our souls to be filled and overflowing with spiritual delight.

We simply need to learn to rest in openness and expectation and learn to perceive the gift of Divine love that is already residing within every cell of our bodies. And there is our challenge. We all have an ego that loves to be in charge of our lives.

'Be Still and Know that I am God', wrote a Jewish mystic many centuries ago. The knowledge spoken of is not intellectual ego-centred knowledge. Rather it is about learning to let go and developing a gut-centred awareness, that deep within, each one of us is already part of the Divine mystery and beauty of our Universe. 

When will we wake up and realise and experience this simple truth? When we learn to realise there is nothing we need to do - except be present to the Divine life within us and all around us. 

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga

May you find peace and good will on your journey.

Phil

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Avila, St. Teresa of, The Interior Castle, Ch 4 para 2,3

Easter - the Celebration of New Life

I wonder how you will spend (or have been spending) Easter this year. Three days of public holiday offer us lots of possibilities, even in our COVID-world! Some of you may even spend some of the weekend attending religious services. We did last night as we shared in the Celebration of the Last Supper. But, however you approach, understand or enter into the Easter event, at its heart, it is always pure drama. Traditionally it involved a three-part liturgical mystery play: the celebration of the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples; Jesus' arrest, trial and crucifixion; and concluded with the celebration of Jesus' resurrection.

Some Christians believe they are celebrating actual historical events. Certainly, it can be presented as such. Yet for me, it is not actual historical events we are remembering, because we are relying on ancient texts that have their own story of evolution. By the time the Gospels were written the authors were living in quite different circumstances from that of Jesus and his disciples. Inevitably this influenced the way they chose to tell their stories. They emphasised what was relevant to their new situation while minimising or leaving out all together what was no longer relevant. So what we have now and what we celebrate liturgically, are stories of faith rather than descriptions of actual historical events.

This means for me, the biblical stories are like 'fingers pointing to the moon', as referred to in my last blog. Rather than reliable stories of historical events, the truth behind the story of the Resurrection (or the Ascension - or even the Assumption of Mary for that matter) is that at some point we have to let them go. 'Do not cling to me!' Jesus said to Mary in the Garden of the tomb (John 20:17). A similar instruction is found in Acts 1:9-11 after Jesus' Ascension. The disciples are told to get on with their lives rather than emotionally clinging to Jesus as they gazed heaven-ward.

Life is about living, and at some point, we all have to learn to let go and live in the moment - as hard as that may be. If we don't, we end up suffocating the things we cling to with our ideas rather than directly experiencing the Divine life that was reflected in them and is now is there to be found in the core of our being.

Teresa of Avila, for example, knew that the mysteries of life and of faith contain something far greater than we may ever understand. She believed we need to let go of an insatiable demand to understand or know intellectually and begin to learn and understand in a more intuitive soulful way. It is as we learn to do this, we begin to participate in the mystery that life and faith and divinity have to offer us.

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga

May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.

Phil

Fingers Pointing To The Moon

In 2003 I had the opportunity to leave my comfortable rural Anglican Parish in a corner of the Christchurch Diocese, New Zealand, to attend a three-month Buddhist retreat at Wangapeka Study and Retreat Centre, sponsored by my Church. I wasn't sure who was most surprised to have the study grant approved, me, or my bishop!

Those three months gave me a new appreciation of how spiritual Truth is always bigger than the particular religious or philosophical lens we use to look at and understand the world in which we live.

The Buddhist teacher who led the retreat, Tarchin Hearn, used many tools in his teaching and introduced me to a new and inclusive way of seeing and understanding both my faith and beliefs as well as a new appreciation of the world in which we live. Understandably, I returned to spend the following year living and working at the Retreat Centre then some years later returned again as the Land Care-taker for 6 months.

One of the teaching tools Tarchin used was his telescope. I remember the first time I looked through it at the full moon. It was one of those total awe-inspiring moments as I saw the moon-craters clearly for the first time! Then he told the story he told the Buddhist story of a nun who once asked her teacher to help her understand something she had read that had puzzled her for many years. The teacher told her she would have to read the passage to him because he had never learnt to read. The nun was taken back and wondered how he could hope to understand the meaning if he could not read the words? To which the teacher responded:
"Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger." (1)

I believe the same principle applies to my faith as a Christian. For me, the question is not, 'Is this historically true?' when I read something in the Bible, for example, but 'What happens in my mind and heart when I imagine this to be true?'

The truth Jesus taught was a finger pointing to something far greater than the words recorded in our Bibles. The words are like pointing fingers. As long as we focus on the words we will never find the truth they point towards. As mentioned in my last blog, we need to learn to approach God with our heart-mind not just our thinking-mind if we wish to discover the awe-inspiring love and presence of Divine love. A love that shines far brighter than the moon and will guide us to discover first-hand the eternal inspiration and embrace of God.

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga
May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.

Phil
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(1). The Meaning of the Finger Pointing to the Moon - Tu An Temple (google.com) .

Tarchin Hearn Web Library: Green Dharma Treasury – The web-library of Tarchin Hearn https://greendharmatreasury.org

Wangapeka Retreat Centre:https://wangapeka.org

We Are All Christs

What if Christ is the name for the transcendent
within every 'thing' in the universe?
Fr Richard Rohr

At the moment, I am reading several books that provide three interesting intersecting views on the nature of God and who Jesus was in history. They include the Masks of Christ by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince, Meditations with Teresa of Avila by Megan Don, and Arthur Green's book, Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology.

The three books remind me the belief that Jesus Christ is God's only begotten Son, who came to save us from our sins contains a lot of wishful thinking. Christ was never Jesus' last name. The origin of the word 'Christ' means 'one who is anointed by God' – and Jesus was anointed by God – but the Bible is full of people who were also anointed by God's indwelling presence. I believe the Good News of the Gospel is that the same Divine Life as seen in Jesus is also present in every molecule that exists, and has existed throughout the entire universe! As Colossians 1:17 records: 'Christ is before all things, and in Christ, all things hold together'. The anointing of God's presence is already in you and me and in every person that has existed. It is our birthright as it was for Jesus. Walt Witman expressed this insight so simply in the following poem:

I have seen God face to face
I hear and behold God in every object,
yet understand God not in the least...
I see something of God
each hour of the twenty-four,
and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women, I see God,
and in my own face in the glass;
I find letters from God dropt in the street,
and every one is sign'd by God's name,
And I leave them where they are,
for I know that wheresoe'er I go,
others will punctually come
forever and ever. (1)

So in one sense, each one of us is a physical, emotional, and spiritual expression of Divine life in embryonic form. What we may have lost, is the openness and awareness of this indwelling Presence and life within us, and in the world around us. Megan Don, the New Zealand born Mystic, Author, and Feminine Mentor reminds us of this when she invites us to begin our journey into realizing and becoming the mystery of who we are.

So rather than using repetitive prayers, or focusing on confessions of faults as promoted by most Church's, I find it is easier,for example, to catch a glimpse of the Divine life in the beauty of creation that surrounds me – in the colours of a sunset or a flower, or in a person I love dearly. Then to begin to spend time consciously opening myself to sense this same beauty, life, and energy within myself. To actively learn to engage with the ever-present indwelling Divine Life by involving my thoughts, my feelings, and by the way I live my life each day.

The Indian spiritual teacher, Sri Chinmoy encouraged something very similar when he wrote:

Do not try to approach God with your thinking mind.
It will only stimulate your intellectual ideas.
Try to approach God with your heart,
it will awaken your soulful spiritual consciousness. (2)

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga
May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.

Phil

_______________________________________________________

1 Walt Witman Leaves of Grass, Stanza 48.
2. Chinmoy, Sri , God is... ' Aum Publictions NY,1997
Don, Megan. Meditations with Teresa of Avila: A Journey into the Sacred (p. 40). New World Library.
Green, A, Seek My Face: A Jewish Mystical Theology, Jewish Lights Pub, 2012.

Finding Peace

“Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was born as a post-war baby. I grew up in a world that was so different from the one I live in now. My father was a Minister of Religion, and I spent my childhood living in a row of small rural villages. The first two I remember were in the countryside and included land that once was needed for the Vicar's horse. It gave me plenty of room to wander and explore the beauty nature holds for us. I was too young to appreciate the implications of post-war poverty. However, as the years passed, I enjoyed the increasing wealth and technology that came with the 1960s and 1970s. Also, the social changes, that included questioning of religious faith and practice.

We live now in a society that has lost much of its religious/spiritual focus. Instead, as the philosopher, Otto Meredith suggests, "People search for peace in the external world because pleasures are in the external world". People certainly have a preoccupation with entertainment and social media. There is nothing wrong with that. However, focusing solely on the external world - and what others may think of us for example, or being irritated by the noise of the neighbour's TV or music - is not really helpful in the long run. The reason is that we are still left with our own inner stuff that has a habit of rising and occupying our thoughts especially during the middle of the night!

Certainly, a peaceful environment helps to cultivate a sense of peace, as William Wordsworth noted in the familiar words of his sonnet:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away.

Wordsworth was responding to the Industrial Age of 19th-century England. His concern was people were losing their connection with nature and reflects his view that people need to be in touch with nature if they wish to progress spiritually.

His words can easily apply to us as well. We, too, can soon lose our ability to see and treat creation with awe and wonder. It takes time and energy if we wish to spend time in nature. A simple love my wife and I have rediscovered is the joy of walking along our local beach or exploring the walking tracks beside our local streams, or on our neighbouring Mount Taranaki.

This wisdom is shared by most religious systems. Behavioural psychologists also tell us that learning to be happy and content with one's self is the best way towards dealing with the causes of stress in our life and will help us achieve a sense of psychological or spiritual calm.

St Teresa of Ávila (1515 – 1582) discovered something very similar. As a young woman, she entered a Religious Community and being of noble birth she initially enjoyed the comfort and social life appropriate to her station in life. However, in time she tired of that and in her book, The Interior Castle, she records her personal spiritual path and journey of faith. She describes how there are many kinds of peace and how often a sense of 'lack' accentuates the absence of peace whether it be food, or money or friends or entertainment. As long as we seek peace from outside ourselves we will always experience disappointment and dissatisfaction.

At present, I am using reading Megan Don's readable and inspiriting book "Meditations with Teresa of Avila". In her short reflections based on St Teresa's writing, Megan invites and guides us into ways we may learn to allow the whole of our being to experience and melt into the arms of the Eternal source of peace that already resides within us:

"Peace belongs to us as we belong to it: it is ours to eternally abide in".

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga
May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.

Phil

_____

Don, Megan, Meditations with Teresa of Ávila: A Journey into the Sacred, New World Library (2011)

Why do we pray?

In some ways, this seems to beg the question because those of us who have reached our 'golden years' were brought up in an era when prayer was part of everyday life.

I remember the time when New Zealand shut down on a Sunday so people could go to Church. Religion was much more central to our way of life. The secular State School I attended, for example, began the daily assembly with a short religious service. It included hymns, bible reading and some pointed advice on how we should behave, and prayers. Prayer was embedded within our NZ culture – even parliament opened its day's business with a prayer for the House and still does. Although the wording has altered over the years.

Prayer used to be part of our way of life. We see this reflected in popular music. Take, for example, Aretha Franklin's I Say a Little Prayer (1968); Madonna's ·Like a Prayer (1989); Bette Midler's From A Distance (1990); Lady Gaga's Sinner's Prayer (2016). Songs such as Amazing Grace by John Newton (1779); How Great Thou Art by Carl Boberg (1885), or Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens (1971) have become part of our cultural psyche.

But this doesn't answer my question, 'Why do we pray? If prayer is about us trying to inform the Almighty of our needs or give us something we want – then I think we need to rethink the question. I know my mind is full of many thoughts and wishes of what I would like to occur in my life – or in the lives of others. Thankfully, they remain unanswered! I know the Bible is full of stories that give the impression that God is a kind of universal Santa Claus.

A person whose wisdom I value is Teresa of Avila. She was a Spanish noblewoman who became a very wise and astute Carmelite nun, reformer and mystic. She declared,

Mental prayer, in my opinion, is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends;
it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him, whom we know loves us.1

God became alive and real for her. She encouraged her sisters to remain in God's presence as they went about their daily duties by speaking to God as one would to a familiar friend. Teresa knew of no quicker way to foster a sense of God's presence. She wrote:

In the activity of prayer, I find my life touched, sustained, opened,
and redeemed by that holy presence that my life of prayer seeks,
a presence so intensely personal that only personal words
can be for me appropriately employed when I speak of it.

To explore this inner landscape of our being it is helpful, if not essential, to have a guide. At the moment, I am using a book by Megan Don, Meditations with Teresa of Avila: A Journey into the Sacred (previously published as Falling Into the Arms of God). She makes the evocative comment that Teresa strongly dislikes repetitive prayers and voiced her displeasure at this religious ritual. Instead, Teresa encouraged us to use our thoughts and feelings rather than utter words out of habit or hope. In this sense prayer involves what Teresa refered to as “an expansiveness of spirit and mind” and we are all born with this “infinite capacity”.

In many ways, the spiritual life has parallels with falling in love with another person. While it may begin with an initial infatuation – based on a projection of our own needs, desires and wants. To learn to love someone deeply requires loving them for who they are and allow our minds to dwell upon them. And more importantly, the willingness and commitment to spend time with them, and in the process to let our lives to be transformed by the one we love.

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga

May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.

Phil

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1Carmelite Monastery, Teresian Prayer, http://heartsawake.org/spirituality/teresian-prayer1/

2. Don, Megan, Meditations with Teresa of Avila – A Journey into the Sacred. New World Library (March 1, 2011)

The Light Within

 As I reflect on St Francis of Assisi's comment: 'Seeing God in the Mirror of our Lives' that I mentioned in my last blog, I find it relates in many ways to  A Testament of Devotion that I have been reading this week. This book is a collection of reflections by Dr Thomas Raymond Kelly Ph.D. (1893-1941). Kelly was an American Quaker educator and Mystic. While his writing reflects the gender-biased language common to his era, I found his chapters wonderful 'food for the soul', especially in his opening article, The Light Within.

Quakers, also referred to as The Society of Friends, believe that each person has the latent ability to experientially access what they refer to as The Light Within. Kelly begins his article by reminding us that within all of us, we have an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a Divine Centre. This is because God dwells in all creation including every person. And what is more, we can all learn to access and return to this 'Eternity within' at will. Even if we are unaware, or have lost touch with this 'Eternal Light within', it never fades. The Divine is forever calling for our attention – inviting us to be at home in this 'Centre of Creation'; and waiting to guide us as our 'polestar of the soul'; learning to continually return to this inner sanctuary and live by its Light.

What Kelly suggests is not new. However, I am sure I am not alone in finding this simple truth rather illusive. Partly, perhaps, because we live in secular society, and the events and demands of everyday life command our attention so we forget, or perhaps have never experienced, that we carry this deeper divine centre within us.

What I found helpful was the simple way Kelly affirmed that the art of living fully and successfully, is learning to balance the interplay between two levels of everyday life: the everyday demands living in the 21^1st century world demand of us; and learning how to develop an awareness of the Sacred Wisdom and Light that all human beings carry within them, regardless of who they are or what values and believes they hold.

Kelly then suggests ways we can develop the awareness – and this I found was food for my soul. It is not a matter of becoming religious – whatever that means for you – or me. It is learning to balance our outer life of everyday concerns and activities such as work, relationships, and so on, with inner awareness and orientation. Kelly compares it to the story of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (c. 1614 –1691) who served as a lay brother in a Carmelite monastery in Paris and is remembered for the simple way he expressed his relationship to God as recorded in the book, The Practice of the Presence of God. Br Lawrence discovered it is learning to balance the demands of everyday life with the willingness to cultivate an inner sensing of the Divine Presence within us. Br Lawrence discovered at first it felt strange, and we often become preoccupied with the outer world and its demands, I know I find that. But both Kelly and Br Lawrence say that with persistence we will discover it becomes easier as we learn to rest in the Eternal Inspiration and Presence within amid all the business and distractions of everyday life. Both suggest the simple repetition of a short verse of scripture or mantra that is repeated inwardly will help as it too becomes a familiar friend companion and guide as we learn to be at home with the One who dwells in the Home that is found in the deepest centre within us.

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga

May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.

Phil

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Kelly, Thomas R, A Testament of Devotion pgadey.com › quaker › KellyTestamentOfDevotionPDF\

Lawrence, Br, Practice of the Presence of God  d2y1pz2y630308.cloudfront.net › documents › 2016/10PDF