One River Foundation

Author: admin

  • Conversation: 12

    The Mother of the universe is the Mother of all.
    From Her have come out both good and evil.
    (Teachings of Ma Sarada)

    God is the Source of all opposites. How might you learn to see God in evil, tragedy, sorrow? How might such seeing change your life?

    An invitation to engage with humanity’s Perennial Wisdom.

    The Conversation is a “trialogue” between you and the posted teaching, between you and yourself as you seek to respond to the prompts accompanying each teaching, and between you and others who are moved to share their responses here. The Conversation is a way of internalizing Perennial Wisdom and allowing it to speak directly to you, and it is a way of connecting with others who are doing the same.

    A new Conversation will begin each month, but you are always welcome to join or re-join a previous month’s Conversation.

    Here are the rules for The Conversation:

    1. Be brief: say what you need to say, but not one word more.
    2. Be honest: say what must be said even if doing so is challenging.
    3. Be kind: say what you feel called to say with compassion for both yourself and, if you are commenting on the words of others, for those others who were bold enough to share their thoughts with you.

    We hope you will find The Conversation stimulating, enlightening, thought-provoking, revealing, and maybe just a little challenging.

  • Conversation: 11

    To see the world in a grain of sand,
    And a heaven in a wild flower;
    Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
    And eternity in an hour.
    (William Blake, Auguries of Innocence)

    The infinite infuses the finite. You are so much more that you imagine yourself to be. How do you understand this “more,” and what prevents you from being it?

    An invitation to engage with humanity’s Perennial Wisdom.

    The Conversation is a “trialogue” between you and the posted teaching, between you and yourself as you seek to respond to the prompts accompanying each teaching, and between you and others who are moved to share their responses here. The Conversation is a way of internalizing Perennial Wisdom and allowing it to speak directly to you, and it is a way of connecting with others who are doing the same.

    A new Conversation will begin each month, but you are always welcome to join or re-join a previous month’s Conversation.

    Here are the rules for The Conversation:

    1. Be brief: say what you need to say, but not one word more.
    2. Be honest: say what must be said even if doing so is challenging.
    3. Be kind: say what you feel called to say with compassion for both yourself and, if you are commenting on the words of others, for those others who were bold enough to share their thoughts with you.

    We hope you will find The Conversation stimulating, enlightening, thought-provoking, revealing, and maybe just a little challenging.

  • Conversation: 10

    Each being contains in itself the whole intelligible world.
    Therefore All is everywhere.
    Each is All, and All is each.
    Only when you cease to be an individual
    will you penetrate the whole world.
    (Plotinus)

    What might it mean for you to cease to be an individual? If this is the cost of awakening, is it one you are willing to pay?

    An invitation to engage with humanity’s Perennial Wisdom.

    The Conversation is a “trialogue” between you and the posted teaching, between you and yourself as you seek to respond to the prompts accompanying each teaching, and between you and others who are moved to share their responses here. The Conversation is a way of internalizing Perennial Wisdom and allowing it to speak directly to you, and it is a way of connecting with others who are doing the same.

    A new Conversation will begin each month, but you are always welcome to join or re-join a previous month’s Conversation.

    Here are the rules for The Conversation:

    1. Be brief: say what you need to say, but not one word more.
    2. Be honest: say what must be said even if doing so is challenging.
    3. Be kind: say what you feel called to say with compassion for both yourself and, if you are commenting on the words of others, for those others who were bold enough to share their thoughts with you.

    We hope you will find The Conversation stimulating, enlightening, thought-provoking, revealing, and maybe just a little challenging.

  • Conversation: 9

    The more God is in all things
    the more God is outside them.
    The more God is within,
    the more God is without.
    (Meister Eckhart)

    If God is everywhere, if God manifests in, with, and as all things, then in what way does your search for God (or the Absolute, or Reality, etc.) actually make finding God all the more difficult?

    An invitation to engage with humanity’s Perennial Wisdom.

    The Conversation is a “trialogue” between you and the posted teaching, between you and yourself as you seek to respond to the prompts accompanying each teaching, and between you and others who are moved to share their responses here. The Conversation is a way of internalizing Perennial Wisdom and allowing it to speak directly to you, and it is a way of connecting with others who are doing the same.

    A new Conversation will begin each month, but you are always welcome to join or re-join a previous month’s Conversation.

    Here are the rules for The Conversation:

    1. Be brief: say what you need to say, but not one word more.
    2. Be honest: say what must be said even if doing so is challenging.
    3. Be kind: say what you feel called to say with compassion for both yourself and, if you are commenting on the words of others, for those others who were bold enough to share their thoughts with you.

    We hope you will find The Conversation stimulating, enlightening, thought-provoking, revealing, and maybe just a little challenging.

  • Play, Laugh, Chant, Walk

    In my previous post I claimed that playing, laughing, chanting, and walking are acts of resistance. Here’s why: When we play for playing’s sake, that is when we play for the sheer joy of playing, we slip from zero–sum thinking to non–zero thinking: from trying to win the game to trying to maintain the game. When we laugh we make it impossible to be afraid. When we chant we open our hearts, empty our heads, and unclench our fists. And when we walk we meet the world and are met by it, and in so doing we discover it isn’t an it at all, but a Thou.

  • My little acts of resistance

    In a previous post I asked how you resist evil. Here, in no particular order, are some of my little acts of resistance. Through my writing and lectures I openly and publicly name and reject the parochial and jingoistic aspects of religion, and promote Perennial Wisdom in their place. I engage in a version of the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Ransom and Release, supporting organizations that provide safe shelter for abused and endangered animals (primarily dogs and elephants). I talk with my neighbors, then I talk with them some more. I have a Little Free Library (www.littlefreelibrary.org) on my front lawn and talk with people who stop by to take or drop off books about what they are reading and thinking. I sit on my front porch and greet passersby. I love my grandson and teach him to be fearless and kind. I love my dog and invite her to teach me to be a servant leader. I avoid anesthetizing myself with food, drink, drugs, media, or the Internet. I play. I laugh. I chant. I go for long walks.

  • See no evil, hear no evil, do no evil

    The monkeys were mostly wrong. We have to see, name, and intervene to stop the evil erupting all around us. We have to listen intently to what we are being told by government and media to see if we aren’t being fed newspeak that drapes evil in the flag of liberty and patriotism. We have to hear what we say to one another and how we say to discover if we are spreading fear and lies stoked by “false news” and conspiracy theories trending on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. But the monkeys are right about doing no evil. It doesn’t help to oppose the demonizing of one group by demonizing another. As the Buddha taught, “Overcome anger by peacefulness; overcome evil by good,” (Dhammapada 223).

  • Resist not evil

    Jesus taught, “Resist not evil,” (Matthew 5:39). What he meant was “resist not evil in a manner that makes you evil as well.” Understood in the context of his time, turning the right cheek to force the Roman soldier to strike you as an equal, freely carrying the occupier’s pack for an extra mile (after having been forced to carry it the first mile), and stripping oneself naked in debtor’s court to show the injustice of the economic system were all powerful, nonviolent acts of resistance (see Walter Wink, The Powers That Be). His death on the cross was no less an act of resistance, while his resurrection an even greater one. We live in a time of many evils: some small, some great; some fully realized, some about to be unleashed. How do we resist? Or perhaps more profoundly, how do you resist?

  • Puppets

    Yesterday a woman said to me, “God gave us free will. Otherwise we would just be puppets on a string.” OK, but what’s wrong with being puppets? What’s wrong with not having the capacity to do evil? Would we complain if God created us without the capacity to rape, plunder, pillage, and murder? Of course not. We imagine God created us with free will to excuse our sadistic fantasies of God torturing people who do what we don’t want them to do.

  • In the beginning was the word.

    Language shapes our reading of reality. The languages I speak are obsessed with nouns that are either acting or being acted upon. But there are no nouns in nature, only gerunds; no things, only events, only happenings. I might say I’m looking at a tree, but in fact I am looking at “treeing”. I see nouns because I don’t see deeply. Seeing deeply I would only see happenings, and the I who sees would be another happening as well.