I'm a big proponent of the old adage:

If you don't have anything nice to say,

don't say anything at all.

Both right speech and silence are underutilized.

I or You?

Open our hearts that we may hear Thy voice, which constantly cometh from within.

Language is as boundless as we let it be, or as imprisoning as we make it. We may pray to "You", which implies an other, outside of us, while perfectly aware that the You is within. We may say "I am" with the power of One or the spirit of Many. Intention gives language its use. A word has two, three, ... infinite sides, all mirrors, all feathers in the wind.

A story of two lovers reaped from The Sufi Book of Life, by Neil Douglas-Klotz:

He knocked at her door.

"Who is there?" she asked.

"It is I," he responded.

"Go away. There is no room for you and I," she said.

He retreated to the forest and then returned, knocking on her door again.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"It is you, " he said.

The door opened.

Renewing Faith

Not faith in a faraway godhead that watches over us from the rim of a cloud, or a prophet saviour, or a guru, or a church of securities, but

faith in the abundance of the universe. Faith in the gracious intelligence of Life. Faith in compassion and wholeness. Faith in yourself, not in the simplistic pep-talk sense, but in your Self, the divine you.

Vigorous faith: energetic, vibrant, whole, immortal.

Depression

Depression is the ultimate loneliness, the ultimate isolation-perspective. When we understand, and then as a result, feel the unity and connectedness of all life, we can no longer feel depression because there is no "I" to feel it. Ego disappears. All is One.

Unfortunately, much of our particular socio-cultural system, habits, and conditioning pushes us away from that connectivity. We struggle to feel the wholeness among the habits of the Western (especially American) lifestyle. Even when we know some other way of being in our life would be healthier, more fulfilling, it is so much easier to fall into the main-stream, where the current is strongest. We are tired, we don't have the gumption to fight that force. And as we get caught up we become fixated on saving the "me" at all costs, so that all connectivity is a blur. Unity is there of course, but we can't witness is through the fog. Loneliness and lack of faith sets in. And the cycle burns again.

What happens if we step outside the cycle by stepping aside of the bully current? Who are we then? What is our relationship to Life then?

Lost Faith

Where do we go when we've lost faith? When the day is full of hopeless moments and the night feels like a bridge crumbling beneath us? Can we open our hearts to that particular suffering? Can we submit to the dark unknown beneath our footing and let our hearts relax into that infinite space? To find footing again, anew, in a fresh place.

It is not easy.

Setting out a bouquet of roses, baking some muffins, finding a new project or a new book-- keeping present, keeping alive in the details; these are small stones where our foot can touch down, even if we can't see an inch ahead of us. It is the soft glimmer of faith waking behind the dark reeds.

Perfectly Imperfect

The word practice is key. We practice patience and generosity and forgiveness. We practice awareness of the sacredness of life around us. One of the charms of humanity is our fallibility, and yet we still practice diligently, as though it is in the practice, not the perfection, that we can most fully open our hearts.

praxis

pratica

الممارسة

praksis

בפועל

πράξη

pratique

연습

практика

práctica

अभ्यास

Ahimsa

The venerable Mohandas K. Gandhi wrote of ahimsa:

Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being.

(from Nonviolence in Peace and War, 61, 1948, by way of Merton's Gandhi, 36, 1964)

I ponder this a while, excavating less referred-to forms of violence in my daily life, ones that are more subtle than what we usually consider. For instance, when I scream at someone in anger, I commit violence against them. I imagine most people would disagree with me about this being categorized as violent, but what do you feel when screaming at another person in anger? How does your body feel? And their reaction? Merriam-Webster defines violence as 3 a : intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force b : vehement feeling or expression : also : an instance of such action or feeling c : a clashing or jarring quality. Is there not a vehement and unloving force being spewed upon them? When someone yells at you, does your body not tense up in self-defense? Does your heart clench and your temperature rise?

More subtly still, when I deride myself for being useless or a failure or too [fill in the blank], even if it is but a fleeting condemnation, I am commiting violence against myself. This tiny aspect affects my state of being certainly, and by extension, my treatment of those around me. It sets the tone for easy judgement of others. And where there is judgement, there is fear. Fear, the incubator of violence.

And truthfully, when I go out and "get trashed", pounding alcohol or drugs into my body as fast and furiously as possible, trying desperately, if unconsciously to end my suffering, I am committing violence against myself. I'm not suggesting all forms of alcohol intake or instances of being drunk are attributable to this. But many of us, if not all, know the particular behavior I refer to. The whiny little self-demise that creeps up amid all the hoopla of "having a good time" out in the shadows, when what we are really doing is hurting, running, hiding.

It starts very simply perhaps. Compassion for ourselves. Affording ourselves some patience and non-judgement out of self-love. Extending this practice to the person next to us. Practicing it every moment, extending further and further so that it reverberates in our schools, businesses, government.

Ahimsa, compassion, love; these seem intertwined like a finely crafted rope that cannot easily be separated. A rope that can hold our weight as we dangle over the depths of our suffering.