Tag: Buddhism

March Madness Zen

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

I used to be a sports fan.

My father had been a star athlete in high school, and his coulda-woulda-beens came out in the form of teaching me the games as we watched on our black-and-white TV, then the color TV, then cable. Because of him, I could spot a foul before the whistle blew and confidently yell at the screen when the refs so obviously got it wrong.

He taught me basketball, baseball, and football. With those transferrable skills, I picked up on hockey, golf, tennis, and soccer with relative ease.

Then, at some point in my early 30s, I stopped watching all of it. It didn’t happen all at once. I started to become concerned about the potential brain injuries in football. I became increasingly sensitive to the angry atmospheres of basketball arenas and hockey rinks. I began to see championships as exercises in futility followed immediately by the 0-0 record reset. What was the point? So, gradually, I stepped away from sports completely.

I blamed my spiritual journey. A world of win-loss competitiveness didn’t seem compatible with non-duality. And the inability to endure the vitriol of a live game atmosphere seemed to share DNA with the hours I had accumulated spent in meditation. I had evolved, and athletics were clearly happening on the level of base materialism.

Then the world started to fall apart. One Trump term, a worldwide pandemic, a second Trump term, a direct attack on DEI, a gross lack of compassion, an entire generation of social security recipients facing a fear they never imagined, . . . the list is endless, it seems. I can’t hide under a rock and ignore it, but my sanity can’t take a steady drip of horrible news. I can’t meditate 24 hours a day, but I also can’t survive engaging in life in continually demoralizing ways.

And then I turned on a basketball game.

For a couple of hours, I focused solely on the Memphis Grizzlies. The understanding of the game instilled in me by my father returned with gusto. Most importantly, I was 100% PRESENT. I was in the moment. The very brass ring I reached for in meditation was the free gift of sportsball.

So I’ve filled out not one, but four NCAA tournament brackets — two each for the women’s and the men’s tournaments. I’m taking my wife to her first live NBA game in a couple of weeks. I’m a proud supporter of the basketball, baseball, and softball teams at the community college where I work. And I’m already excited about Vandy football this fall.

I am once again a sports fan. Who meditates. A double-header.

Beginner’s Mind

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment 
Spring cleaning has me 
in the darkest corner 
of the sunroom with a
stick in hand, wrapping 
old webs around the far end
like drab cotton candy.

The spiders staked
their claim last fall,
orb-weavers, I think. I 
didn’t get too close,
and nights were longer and
cooler and spent indoors,
so I let them have the corner. 

When I reclaim it on a warm May
day, the abandoned webs cling 
listlessly to wall and screen
and bench and reach as if alive for
the oar I offer from a far shore. 

The weaver of the orb
mustn’t mind rebuilding her home. 
It seems to be the point, to start
again from the beginning.  

The cardinal builds a new 
nest every year, sometimes 
even twice.  
Moles burrow constantly and
don’t use the same tunnel again.

The hostas in my front yard disappear
completely each winter and always 
come back, from a tiny green peek 
through the dirt to a maturity even
grander than before, fueled by
energy both fresh and remembered. 

Everything starts over.  Life
is not always added to. 
It is sometimes
begun anew.

Why Interfaith

~ Deb ~ 10 Comments

Interfaith is a term that can be used in two distinct ways: first, interfaith can mean, and usually does mean, when people from different religious traditions join together for a common purpose. This is big. This means that people who identify with a religion that is probably more than just a religion — it is probably also culture and family and possibly even geopolitical ideology — decide to love and welcome and interact with and respect people of other faiths.

But there is another way to define interfaith, and it’s the one with which I most resonate. For me, interfaith is not just appreciating other traditions, but dipping into them as I feel called, creating my own syncretic faith, which, truth be told, is ultimately what we all do to varying degrees.

Picking one great wisdom tradition to claim as a sole identity would be like tilling a half-acre garden and then planting only marigolds. It would be like fielding a Super Bowl team with 11 running backs. It would be like trying to write a great symphony using only B-flat.

From Buddhism, I learn zen and mindfulness. From Judaism, I learn history and tradition. From Islam, I learn reverence and devotion. From Hinduism, I learn true yoga and the wisdom of non-duality. From paganism, I learn to honor the earth and recognize my place on it. From Christianity, I learn compassion and grace. From atheism, I learn respect for science and reason. From Sikhism, I learn service and kirtan worship. From Baha’i, I learn unity and peace.

Should I go on? Because I could. So many gifts from so many sources — how could I ever choose one?

Being a minister from this perspective means that no matter what spiritual identity a person claims, I will hold space for hope and divine connection on their behalf, offer my support for their journey regardless of which path they are on, and rejoice in their spiritual evolution, even if it looks nothing like my own. I will love Jesus with them and chant the name of Shiva with them and revere the Prophet with them. I will pray for them, meditate with them, light a candle for them, or sage them. I will accept them fully even as I am accepted fully by the One Supreme Being with whom I have my most precious relationship.

What a beautiful and glorious work is that to which I have been called. I live in a state of wonderment and delight that the Divine has entrusted me with this sacred task.

Peace be unto you. Om.

Letting Everything Go

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments
Ajahn Chah (1918 – 1992)

Letting everything go is the spiritual concept I return to over and over. I have spiraled up through the years, elevating my consciousness, but always returning, again and again, to the need for something to be released and the lessons brought by letting go.

The practice of releasing attachments started as a wall against which to kick and scream and beat my head. Over time, it became a closed-bud promise, the kind I knew would bloom one day but still tightly shut against full surrender. Eventually, ever so slowly, the lotus began to open, and wisdom wafted forth like a fragrance in the air.

The Thai Buddhist monk, Ajahn Chah, said, “When the heart truly understands, it lets go of everything.” For me, the opening of the lotus was initiated by the first part of that sentence. During times when releasing everything seemed downright impossible or even a bit irrational, I would choose to focus on a deep and consuming desire for a heart that truly understands. If I couldn’t quite let go, at least I could lean into love. And when I couldn’t do even that, there was always grace.

Grace is when our hearts feel the pull of the divine even while we maintain our death grip on our ego’s desires. Grace is the sacred ability for even our attachments to become guideposts to spiritual awakening. Grace is knowing we are only love even while still feeling the pull of our needs and wants and attachments.

Ajahn Chah also said, “Anything which is troubling you, anything which is irritating you, THAT is your teacher.” And the primary lesson it teaches us is that all the time we’re thinking it has its claws in us, we actually have our claws in it. We can open our hand, open our heart, and learn once again the freedom of letting go.

And when we’ve let go of everything, . . . then we are free.