Words Less Spoken
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My Yoga Practice
Lyndon Marcotte - The Passion
My sermon this morning on The Passion of Jesus from John 18-19. I discussed why Protestants need crucifixes, Mary, Lectio Divina, the necessity of suffering, and the humanity of Christ. I don’t know why my congregation keeps saying that I’m “the most Catholic Baptist preacher” they’ve ever heard :)
270 Plays | Download
50.
People who look
for the secret of long life
wind up dead.
Their bodies are the focus of their lives
and the source of their death,
because they think a healthy body
is all there is to life.
Lao Tzu used to say
a man who truly understood life
could walk through the jungle
without fear
or across a battlefield
without armor, totally unarmed.
Wild animals and weapons couldn’t kill him.
I know, I know:
what the hell does that mean?
“Well, he couldn’t be killed,”
Lao Tzu said,
“because his body
wasn’t where he kept his death.”
~ Tao Te Ching,
adapted by Ron Hogan
(my favorite translation)
Let's say somebody had a lifelong friendship with somebody and they loved each other. Let's say one of the friends died before the other did. Based on your definition of love, which is free of attachment because we should only depend on ourselves to make ourselves happy, do you think the living friend would remorse the death of their loved one? Would you consider it love if the living friend did? Is it wrong to remorse when you lose something?
Anonymous
It is completely human and natural to feel a great deal of remorse for losing a loved one. Having feelings isn’t a weakness to rid ourselves of. The object is to cultivate loving awareness not to strip ourselves of all emotion and intimacy.
I think if you cultivate loving awareness, it does help us to grieve differently and hopefully in a more healthy way. We don’t intensify our grief by letting it cripple us and stop us from living or use it as an excuse to resort to destructive behavior.
Rather we can reflect meaningfully on our time with our loved one and allow gratitude to arise within us along side of our pain and loss. We can also realize that we will also grow old, become sick, and die. We can learn from the experience of our loved one how to face that time with dignity, patience, and kindness toward ourselves and others.
“This Self is neither born, nor dies,
it neither grows nor decays,
nor does it suffer any change.
When a pot is broken, the space
inside it is not; similarly when the body
dies, the Self in it remains eternal.”
Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950) (via ashramof1)
“Its not impermanence per se, or even knowing were going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, its our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our effort to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness.”
Pema Chödrön
“Somewhere this very moment, babies are born, fathers are dying, mothers are grieving. Yet, pervading all is a groundless awareness, delicate and strong at the same time. Everything becomes we, a beating heart with a transparent, radiant smile.”
Judith Simmer-Brown
“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.”
Edvard Munch (via wethinkwedream)
(via wethinkwedream)
Do you see me?
Cranky Old Man
By Dave Griffith of Fort Worth, Texas
What do you see nurses? ……What do you see?
What are you thinking .. . when you’re looking at me?
A cranky old man, … …not very wise,
Uncertain of habit .… … . .. with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food .. . … . . and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . .’I do wish you’d try!’
Who seems not to notice …the things that you do.
And forever is losing … …… A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not … … lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding … .The long day to fill?
Is that what you’re thinking?. .Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse .you’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am … . .. As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, .… . as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of Ten . .with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .… .. . who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen … .. with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now …… a lover he’ll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty … ..my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows .. .. .that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now … . .I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide … And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . .… . . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other …. With ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons .. .have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me . . to see I don’t mourn.
At Fifty, once more, .. …Babies play ‘round my knee,
Again, we know children … . My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me … . My wife is now dead.
I look at the future … … . I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing .… young of their own.
And I think of the years … And the love that I’ve known.
I’m now an old man … … .. and nature is cruel.
It’s jest to make old age … … . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles .. .. . grace and vigour, depart.
There is now a stone … where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass . A young man still dwells,
And now and again … . . my battered heart swells
I remember the joys … . .. . I remember the pain.
And I’m loving and living … … . life over again.
I think of the years, all too few …. gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact … that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people .… . .… open and see.
Not a cranky old man .
Look closer … . see .. .…. …. . ME!!
(via Scott Sonnon at www.breathinggift.com)
“The way we get peace in this practice is to be with the conflict. As we become aware of it, be open to it. The fear is the same. How do I become comfortable with the state of fear? The practice invites us to meet it and welcome it.”
- Jon Kabat Zinn
(Source: catwriter reblogged from mindfulwellness. Photo from sexandserenade)
(via bimsogbobs)
Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going -
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.
—Kozan Ichikyo (1283-1360)
Japanese Zen monk,
he wrote this poem on the morning of his death,
laid down his brush and died sitting upright.
“The key is not to learn to die bravely, but to learn not to need to die bravely.”
Charlotte Joko Beck, “Everyday Zen”
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