I love Richard Rohr - if I had been exposed to this kind of spirituality in the Catholic Church, I may not have found the idea of God so absurd. When I read Rohr, it's easy for me to substitute more universal language for the traditional terms and not lose the meaning.

For example, he says, "When your mental judgmental grid and all its commentaries are placed aside, God finally has a chance to get through to you, because your pettiness is at last out of the way." As I read this, in my head I read "love" in place of "God," and nothing is lost in doing so.

His message is about the essential union of spirituality, as we often find in Eastern traditions, not the individual separation from "Source" we find in Western religion. This is a much more welcoming and inclusive perspective.

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation - The Narrow Road

Meditation 39 of 52

Seven Themes of an Alternative Orthodoxy - Seventh Theme: Reality is paradoxical and complementary. Non-dual thinking is the highest level of consciousness. Divine union, not private perfection, is the goal of all religion (Goal).

Contemplation is meeting as much reality as we can handle in its most simple and immediate form, without filters, judgments, and commentaries. Now you see why it is so rare and, in fact, “the narrow road that few walk on” (Matthew 7:14). The only way you can contemplate is by recognizing and relativizing your own compulsive mental grids—your practiced ways of judging, critiquing, blocking, and computing everything.

This is what we are trying to do by practicing contemplative prayer, and people addicted to their own mind will find contemplation most difficult, if not impossible. Much that is called thinking is simply the ego’s stating of what it prefers and likes—and resistances to what it does not like. Narcissistic reactions to the moment are not worthy of being called thinking. Yet that is much of our public and private discourse.

When your mental judgmental grid and all its commentaries are placed aside, God finally has a chance to get through to you, because your pettiness is at last out of the way. Then Truth stands revealed! You will begin to recognize that we all carry the Divine Indwelling within us and we all carry it equally. That will change your theology, your politics, and your entire worldview. In fact, it is the very birth of the soul.

Adapted from CAC Foundation Set: Gospel Call to Compassionate Action

(Bias from the Bottom) and Contemplative Prayer (CD, DVD, MP3)

The Daily Meditations for 2013 are now available 

in Fr. Richard’s new book Yes, And . . . .

Give a CAC Bookstore certificate, an invitation to transformation and peace.

Ego in Service of the Higher Self

Here's a little wisdom from The Daily Om, a bit woo woo but still good stuff. The desire to jettison ego in so many spiritual circles is unrealistic and destructive. We need ego, but it should not control us - it should function in our service.

The Ego: Serving The Higher Self

April 15, 2013
by Madisyn Taylor

As long as we are in touch with our higher selves our egos are not a threat, rather a tool in service of the spirit.

In most spiritual circles, the ego gets a pretty bad rap. The reason for this is that the ego, to some extent, is the principle in our psyches that separates us from one another, while spirit is the principle that shows us that no such separation exists. Sometimes the ego is depicted as an almost demonic figure that keeps us from realizing our true nature. But at its most basic, the ego is simply a tool that helps us organize the various aspects of our personality so that we can function in the world. In this sense, the ego is simply a way for us to understand and attend to ourselves at the same time as we understand and attend to the world around us. The ego is a tool that we use to navigate the world.

Perhaps the problem is that the ego sometimes gets out of control. This happens when the higher self loses control of the psyche. The psyche then falls under the leadership of the ego, an entity that was never meant to lead. The ego is meant to be definitively in the service of the higher self. When this relationship is functioning, the ego is a useful intermediary representing the whole self but not thinking that it is the whole self. Then, it is almost as if the ego is the self playfully pretending to be the separate entity called “I.” Like an actor, the ego plays the roles that the world asks us to play in order to be part of the program. In this way, the ego can be a tool enabling us to be in the world but not of it.

As long as we are in touch with our higher selves, our egos are not a threat. They are simply useful tools in the service of spirit. We keep our egos in check when we continually nurture our awareness of who we really are. Then our egos are free to serve without trying ineffectually to rule. It is healthy to have ego, but like all things in life, ego functions best when it is in balance and harmony with your whole self.

What do you think?
Discuss this article and share your opinion

Ending the Cycle - Perspective and Personal Story

These two posts feel connected in my mind - whether or not they are is up to you, I suppose. The first one is a Daily Om from a while ago, which I may have posted by itself. The second is a personal story by Dan Dianda at The Mindful Word.

Ending the Cycle: Start Today

by Madisyn Taylor

Each day offers us an opportunity to renew our resolve to the universe that we are ready for change.

One of the hardest things in life is feeling stuck in a situation that we don’t like and want to change. We may have exhausted ourselves trying to figure out how to make change, and we may even have given up. However, each day offers us an opportunity to renew our resolve and to declare to the universe that we are ready for change. We may even say out loud that we have tried and struggled and have not found a way, but that we are open to help, and that we intend to keep working to create change for ourselves. Making this declaration to the universe, and to ourselves, may be just the remedy for the stagnation we are experiencing. And, it can be done today, right now.

It is difficult to understand, even with hindsight, how the choices we have made have added up to our current situation, but it is a good idea to examine the story we tell ourselves. If we tend to regard ourselves as having failed, this will block our ability to allow ourselves to succeed. We have the power to change the story we tell ourselves by acknowledging that in the past, we did our best, and we exhibited many positive qualities, and had many fine moments on our path to the present moment. We can also recognize that we have learned from our experiences, and that this will help us with our current choices.

When we do this kind of work on how we view our past self, we make it possible for the future to be based on a positive self-assessment. This inner shift may allow us to get out of the cycle we’ve been in that’s been keeping us stuck. Now we can declare our intentions to the universe, knowing that we have done the inner work necessary to allow our lives to change. Allow today to be the day to end cycles and enter into a new way of being.

I'm not sure about declaring things to the universe, but there are often times in our lives where we wonder how we ended up in this moment and place and situation. All of our choices in the past have led us to this moment, and this moment, and this moment.

If we do like where we find ourselves, it's up to us to change things. Only I can create a new future from this moment forward by making new choices. Each morning that I wake up is a new day in which I can make new choices to create the future I desire - it's never easy, and in fact, change is one of the hardest things for most us to accomplish.

In a post related to this topic, Dan Dianda at The Mindful Word wrote about his own experience with how he "began to question what was going on around me and why I went along without checking in with myself—without questioning the narrative spinning in my head."

Don Dianda is the author of See for your Self: Zen Mindfulness for the Next Generation. Through meditation, daily mindfulness practice, and individual koan work, Dianda seeks to shed light on the inherently deep connection one can have with the experience of this life as well as the world one moves through. Stepping into the now and recognizing the movements within the mind is where the path begins.

Here is his article.

REAL MEANING: A personal essay on questioning the fabricated reality of one’s life 

“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”—Matsuo Basho

Growing up in a well-to-do American family is materially comfortable. Family troubles aside—and they can be considerable—life is full of pleasure: desires are satisfied, drinks guzzled and fanciful whims gained. There are high school football games, school days, workdays, sex, travelling, television, Fourth of July celebrations, drama, weekend all-nighters, jokes, cliques, victories, and defeats. Like a giant cliché, life unfolds, and it unfolds around a focal point: me-I-a separate ego. From here good and bad, love and hate, sad, mad, happy, despair, upbeat, low, subject, object, outside, come together to form one’s life experience. To keep some form of sanity, we follow our mind and attempt to gratify its wants and needs as a way to find fulfillment and success. We create stories and follow them. We listen to our thoughts intently—to the point where we eventually become them. We go for more and more. But is that it? I found out. Coming home at three in the morning tired, intoxicated, full of shallow thoughts and loaded with cheap laughs, my life was passing before my eyes.

Throughout my first two years in college, I often had the urge to “black out,” literally. Though I wasn’t conscious enough to be aware of it at the time, I wanted to be able to float through life, running from painful experiences that had rooted themselves into my psyche. The path at the time was simply to ignore any stirrings within and to keep going, to press on, to focus on money and being accepted within the constructs of the society I found myself in. These were the values, but I wasn’t buying them anymore.

Something was shifting inside me. I wasn’t aware of what it was or how it was working. I just began to question what was going on around me and why I went along without checking in with myself—without questioning the narrative spinning in my head.

I changed my life and woke up during my junior year of college: I’d had enough. The drinking didn’t do it for me. The partying didn’t do it for me. Vegas, Miami, L.A., didn’t do it for me. I felt completely strange and insubstantial in my own body. Everything I had created, my ego, my friendships, my internal wiring, my identity—aspects of my external being I had spent years cultivating, shaping and reshaping—were just the bones of a paper tiger in the face of the stirrings of what lay buried beneath. I’d been living in a dream and I was finally beginning to realize it.

The slow change within my heart had been an ongoing process. There had been an upswelling of feeling and emotion when I had been alone hiking in the hills or swimming in the ocean. Also, brief moments of disconnect from my social life allowed questions, concerning what I was doing, to bubble up. But fear and doubt coincided with these thoughts. So, naturally I did what I was good at, I dove back into my life with added vigor. I denied. I suppressed all my inner yearnings with more alcohol, more drugs, and more meaningless relationships. I searched for more of the same to fill the growing inner void and outer disconnection—feeding my ego, only to have it come back to me over and over again. There was something deep inside that persisted in repelling my unconscious overtures. Though I did not realize it at the time, my Self was saving me from myself.

If time passes in the blink of an eye, how could insubstantial things be more valuable than the present moment?

One early morning after going out and drinking, I came home feeling slightly ill. I crawled into bed and passed out, something many of us can relate to. In the night, I dreamed that a powerful, jet-black snake had been sucking vital energy from the back of my neck. Its muscles pulsated with each drink. All I could do was grab it and pull, but to no avail.

Read the whole article.

Buddhist Geeks 249: Strengthening the Body-Mind w/ Rob McNamara

I've been a fan of Rob McNamara's work for a few years now - a couple of the earliest posts on this blog were quotes from him.  I was very pleased to see that he finally has a book out, Strength To Awaken, An Integral Guide to Strength Training, Performance and Spiritual Practice for Men and Women. In this episode of the Buddhist Geeks podcast, Rob talks about his new book and explains how inner strength and outer strength are interconnected so that working with weights can inform our affect regulation and our meditative practice.

BG 249: Strengthening the Body-Mind

by Rob McNamara

Download

Episode Description

Rob McNamara is a psychology professor, zen practitioner, and strength trainer who works at the intersection of strength training and contemplative practice. In this episode McNamara explains how his experiences in the gym helped him understand the purpose of meditation, and how both inner and outer strength are deeply intertwined. He describes how strength training can stretch both the upper and lower boundaries of the ego, helping us learn how to not check out when things get uncomfortable, nor space out when we have an opportunity to relax deeply and let go.

Episode Links:

• Rob McNamara
• Strength to Awaken

Transcript:

Transcript coming soon…

Here is a little more background on Rob:

Rob McNamara is Author of Strength to Awaken, a skilled Psychotherapist, leading Performance Coach, Psychology Professor at Naropa University and an Integral Zen Practitioner. He runs his private practice in Boulder Colorado serving a broad range of executives and professionals, undergraduate and graduate students and athletes ranging from high school to Olympic and professional world champions. Rob has been lecturing on Integral Psychology and Human Development at Naropa University for nearly a decade for both graduate and undergraduate students in a number of academic and professional programs including the MA Transpersonal and Contemplative Psychology programs and BA Contemplative Psychology program. Currently Rob co-teaches Therapeutic Applications of Human Development and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on Transpersonal Psychology and undergraduate courses on Integral and Developmental Psychology. He also serves as the faculty advisor for Integral Naropa. Rob has contributed to the Integral movement over the past decade as a leading integral practitioner. While working with Ken Wilber and the Integral Institute he served as one of the core faculty for the Integral Life Practice seminar series. Rob has contributed to Integral Life, taught at Boulder Integral and is currently a faculty member of the Integral Spiritual Experience. Rob’s expertise includes the intersection of integral practice, human performance and integral strength training. Contributions in the business sector include the Stagen Leadership Institute where Rob developed and deployed integrally informed executive curriculum for senior executives and launched corporate wellness initiatives. Rob also served as the Senior Integral Consultant and Human Performance Specialist for Phillips Performance Nutrition. Rob McNamara received his Masters in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University and his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Susquehanna University.

Anam Thubten - Ego Is the Problem

NO SELF, NO PROBLEM
by Anam Thubten,
edited by Sharon Roe
more...

Dharma Quote of the Week

Ego is the problem. Sometimes ego is very spoiled, like a child who is constantly throwing tantrums. Sometimes ego doesn't accept where we are. Sometimes ego doesn't accept who we are. Sometimes ego doesn't accept the way things are without any real complaint. So what do we do? There is nothing that we can do. Sometimes ego doesn't accept the fact that the sky is blue but there is nothing that we can do. You see. Sometimes ego doesn't accept that we are living on a planet that is permeated with natural disasters, earthquakes, floods, and other catastrophes. All we can do is accept that and learn how to surrender to the flow of all events.

When we accept the way things are we are able to love everything and everybody. When we are not able to accept even one thing in this world right now, then how could we ever develop boundless love? Lack of acceptance is conflict. Conflict is pain. It is psychological pain. It is a spiritual illness. As long as our hearts are tormented by that pain, we do not have the strength to give our heart to anything and because of that it is impossible to bring about inner awakening. Enlightenment, you see, is just another name for boundless love.

It is almost impossible to practice loving-kindness towards all living beings without addressing, in a meaningful way, the innumerable problems arising in our own lives. It is a contradiction, you see. It does not work. If our heart is tormented because we are not able to accept things the way they are, then it is impossible to open our heart. It is impossible to let go of all of our defenses and embrace others. Therefore we have to constantly practice and deepen our awareness. We have to remind ourselves to accept things as they are. This is pretty much what the teachings called Mind Training are all about. Mind Training in Buddhism is about carrying those perspectives and even reciting slogans, phrases like "I shall accept the way things are."

--from No Self, No Problem by Anam Thubten, edited by Sharon Roe, published by Snow Lion Publications

A great justification of why we ALL should be doing shadow work in some way or another.

Tags: No Self, No Problem, Anam Thubten, Sharon Roe, Snow Lion Publications, Buddhism, ego, psychology, shadow work, ego, acceptance, conflict, boundless love