Jim Palmer's Blog, page 62

Habit energy and spiritual ignorance

If I twirl a pen in my fingers repeatedly, I will eventually get really good at it. I will be able to do it faster and faster without dropping it. That’s what habit energy is. You do it enough, over and over again, and you get really good at it. It’s the same thing with seeing the world through spiritual ignorance. We see the world this way repeatedly, and we get really good at. It becomes our fixed way of seeing. When I say “spiritual ignorance,” I’m not meaning it to be derogatory or a slam. For me, “spiritual ignorance” is simply not seeing things as they truly are. In time it becomes a habitual way of seeing. Jesus once said that if the eyes are good, the whole body is good. In other words, the transformation we need is to see or perceive things as they truly are.

You want to “be like Jesus”?

“The miracle of Jesus was his humanity. It takes guts to be human the way Jesus was. His life was a stand for the divine worth of every human being. Jesus is not about going to church, being good, reading through the Bible in a year or proper systematic theology. Jesus is about putting yourself in the line of fire, standing for the worth of a woman who had been condemned as a whore and thrown in the dirt to be executed.

You want to “be like Jesus”? How far will you go in standing for the divine worth of every human being? How about a Zero Tolerance policy – indiscriminately honoring and defending every human being as a child of God, and acting whenever you see that worth diminished.

So many people in this world have given up on themselves are on the brink of doing so. Being Jesus means not letting them. That includes not giving up on yourself, and being a stand for you own worth and value.”

- Jim Palmer, Notes from (over) the Edge

16 things people report about their shedding religion journey

16 things people report about their shedding religion journey:

1. You’re losing your religion but gaining your sanity.

2. Maybe you left church because it wasn’t helping you know God or grow spiritually.

3. You know you are on the right path but trying to explain that path to others is like nailing Jello to a wall, and you often feel misunderstood.

4. Your new life beyond religion isn’t quite as defined as things used to be.

5. You have twice as many questions as you do answers but strangely you’re okay with this.

6. Sometimes you doubt yourself, and crave a religious fix to make you feel better.

7. You desperately wish someone (anyone!) would just accept you where you are right now.

8. Oh, for just a couple of people you could sit down with face-to-face and talk with about all this stuff without the threat of judgment and condemnation!

9. On Monday you feel free, and on Tuesday you wonder if you are going crazy.

10. Christ without Christianity, truth without theology, and community without church makes complete sense to you but it also makes you a heretic among some of your former friends who avoid you in the grocery store.

11. You don’t know how to answer the question, “Are you a Christian?”

12. You refuse to divulge the books you are currently reading because you know it’s going to alarm the people who already think you’ve gone off the deep end.

13. You get nauseated when you hear Christanese.

14. You’re not sure where your Bible is.

15. Suddenly you’re liking the people who were previously classified as “them.”

16. Prayer is more an authentic and powerful desire for the liberation of others and contributing to it, rather than a magic God-wand to save the day.

Does any of this sound familiar?

What would you add?

There’s the saying, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

The original Buddhist writings are not very accessible to many people. They can be difficult to work through. This isn’t the best comparison, but reading the Bible in the King James Version is a strain for some people because the style and language are difficult to relate to, and may not represent a more contemporary mode of expression that people are accustomed to. In a slightly similar way, many of the Buddhist writings are difficult to digest.

The Prajnaparamita and Lankavatara Sutras of Mahayana Buddhism are good examples. Here’s one of the simpler passages from that Sutra:

“(51) There are, Mahamati, those who have fallen into the dualistic way of thinking, being unable to comprehend the truth of Mind-only; they desire to discriminate a world which is of Mind itself. Mahamati, body, property, and abode have their existence only when measured in discrimination. (52) The hare’s horns neither are nor are not; no discrimination is to be made about them. So it is, Mahamati, with all things, of which neither being nor non-being can be predicated; have no discrimination about them!”

I’m sure some people who just read that are like, “Huh???”

So, there are the original Buddhist Sutras, often difficult to digest. And, there’s the countless number of popular mainstream books that put some sort of pop-spin on Buddhism. In other words, books that cherry-pick notions and ideas from Buddhism and create their own spiritual or philosophical framework/formula with them.

Sometimes this is unfortunate because cherry-picking notions and ideas, and divorcing them of their integral foundation may result in a nice-sounding but empty and misguided viewpoint. There’s the saying, “There is nothing new under the sun.” There is a way this applies here. Sometimes the latest and greatest book about spirituality that everyone is raving about is just a remix of Buddhism, and frankly, a very bad remix.

People like Robert Thurman and Lex Hinson have made significant contributions toward making the original Buddhist writings more accessible in the west, both in translations and commentary work.

Why am I writing about this? Many Western Christians who deconstruct their faith develop an interest in Eastern Buddhism, of which their are two major branches that are generally recognized: Theravada, and Mahayana. Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism. There is also often a distinction in Mahayana Buddhism

between Mahāyāna Buddhism and Vajrayāna Buddhism, which includes Tibetan Buddhism and the Japanese Shingon school.

I write all of this in hopes of you considering that when exploring other religious, spiritual, or philosophical traditions, that you exercise due diligence and dig deeper than the latest book that everyone is raving about.

Jesus once said, “If the eyes are good, the whole body is good.”

Consider the possibility that the “Second Coming” is our becoming aware of reality, not the return of it. I think it’s significant that the most common healing Jesus performed was the restoration of sight. Jesus once said, “If the eyes are good, the whole body is good.” In other words, clear perception is the doorway to peace and wholeness. Jesus declared that the kingdom of God had come. But some people were frustrated, saying they could not see this kingdom. Jesus told them to look inside themselves. Why? Because it was not necessary for them to look any further than the underlying, unchanging, fundamental essence or nature of their own true Self.

There is so much invested in this notion that things are not as they should be, and we are all waiting and expecting them to change. This is the big thing we are told that God is supposed to do someday. But what is God to do exactly? The reality is that the underlying, unchanging and fundamental truth and nature of all things (including you) is complete unto itself, undisturbed, never threatened, and cannot be made better or diminished.

There’s only one problem: We don’t know or believe this. Why? The same reasons why the people who came to Jesus could not see the kingdom he was referring to.

I believe all of life is sacred

I am…

An Inclusivist

I believe all of life is sacred, every human being is beautiful, and each moment matters.

An Atheist

I don’t believe in a “God” whose love and acceptance is conditional, or who advocates fear, shame, oppression, injustice, ignorance, repression or hatred.

An Agnostic

There is twice as much that I don’t know, than I do know. The mystery of it all cannot be cloaked in certainty.

A Student of Jesus

I want to be courageously human, a powerful expression of love, acceptance, peace, beauty, goodness, freedom and compassion in this world, and live without separation from myself, God, others and life… as I see Jesus did.

A Possibilitarian

I believe in the possibility of humankind awakening to our profound interconnectedness, and the possibilities of the power of love to transform our world.

People often use the phrase, “God is in control.”

People often use the phrase, “God is in control.” It’s a way we soothe ourselves when the randomness of life seems cruel and painful. We like the idea that God has a plan and is continuously weaving together the circumstances of our lives to achieve it.

But perhaps consider it this way. Life is never random because life is not what happens to you, but is what you create out of what shows up in each moment. In other words, God is “in control,” not because God is pulling all those strings in the background to make everything work out one way or another, but God is “in control” because God endowed us with the capacity to create our experience of life.

You look forward to that little cup of happiness.

So, let’s say you go to Starbucks and try a flavor of coffee you’ve never had before. And you LOVE it! In fact, you like it so much that you start doing the Starbucks drive-thru regularly in order to get a cup of what now has become your favorite coffee. Perfect! It becomes your little daily cup of happiness in a world of difficulty and drama.

One of those day you drive through at Starbucks and order your coffee, and you’re told they don’t have that flavor that day. Bummer!! How disappointing! You look forward to that little cup of happiness. It’s your favorite flavor, and you’ve become attached to it. How frustrating!!! It’s not like you’re asking for the moon; you just want a cup of the frickin coffee you like! Is that asking too much???

So you order a different coffee, and the minute you take a sip, it’s even more disappointing. Yuck!! It’s not anywhere near as good as the other flavor you like so much. No way! I want my coffee back!

So your mind says. “We have a problem, and it must be solved. That favorite coffee is something you like and want. It brings you comfort and pleasure. It makes you happy. We have to fix this. You need to have this coffee.”

Your mind decides first that it’s reasonable as an initial response to wait a day or two to see if the flavor returns. It doesn’t! The second option your mind comes up with is to go to the grocery store to see if they sell that specific Starbucks blend. That way you can brew your favorite coffee at home, and won’t be held hostage to whatever blend happens to be available at any given time at your local Starbucks. You go to the grocery; they don’t have your blend either. Your mind decides to drive to the Starbucks on the other side of town; they don’t have it either. WT???

Finally, you are so exasperated that your mind tells you to go inside the Starbucks, and find out what is going on. You find out that your favorite blend has recently been discontinued!! That figures! Sucks! You ask the Starbucks worker if there’s any possibility of getting bags of the coffee before it all gone. She gives you a number to call at Starbucks corporate. Your mind instructs you to call and inquire about the coffee. When you call you’re told that the flavor has indeed been discontinued and there are no remaining bags for sale. For your trouble though, they offer to send a bag of any other Starbucks blend at no cost. You pick a blend, receive it, brew it, and hate it!

You give up! You’re discouraged. Somehow the whole ordeal feels like a metaphor for your life – things never working out. Something always going wrong. Can’t even enjoy a cup of coffee you like!

Okay, I decided to use the example of a cup of coffee because it’s something very simple and concrete. What I want you to see is that this is always what the mind does. It’s always going to focus on addressing a problem on a circumstantial level. This isn’t wrong. We should be responding to situations as they require. No problem there. But the problem can’t always be fixed or solved, like the scenario with the coffee.

Consider that the real problem here is not that your particular flavor of coffee is no longer available, but that we need it to be that particular flavor of coffee.

You can substitute any circumstance, situation, any desire in your life for that cup of coffee. I’m sure there are many things that we think if we had, we’d be happy. The mind is always going to identify as a “problem” something that you want and don’t have. The mind is going to try and fix it by addressing the circumstance. That’s always going to be the way your mind deals with it.

Look at all the energy the mind exerted and all the drama it stirred up, chasing after a frickin cup of coffee! That’s what happens when we start chasing all the situations and circumstances that we imagine will make us happy in life.

But consider this. Your true sense of peace is not and cannot be linked to the favorable resolution of your circumstance. As I said, responsible human functioning involves doing as situations require. However, true peace is not contingent upon favorable circumstances.

Religion is too often demonizing our humanity

 

“We live in a world where people seek to be elevated above the wretched mess of ordinary humanity. Religion often scapegoats our humanity as the enemy and obstacle to come. We are told to bide our time and wait till Heaven when God will rescue the chosen people out of the mess and rapture them to paradise.

Jesus’ favorite distinction for himself was not “Messiah,” or “King,” or Master,” or even “Rabbi”… it was “the son of man,” which is a reference to the humanity of Jesus, and his solidarity with all of humankind. Religion is too often demonizing our humanity and looking for an escape route to leave it behind. Jesus, however, was an expression of the truth.

Jesus however showed that being human was good, and that we don’t have to shed our humanity to embrace our divinity.”

- Jim Palmer, Notes From (over) The Edge

They are all trees, just different kinds of trees.

What is transformation like?

Here’s one way of looking at it.

You walk down the street and you see an object on the road. You glance at it as you walk by but you’re not sure what it is. The next day you see it again on the road as you pass by. The next day, the next day, and the next day after that, and many other days after that, you walk down the street and see that thing on the road that you don’t know what it is.

But then one day as you’re walking down the street you notice a man on the road bent over that thing. He’s doing something with it, and you call out to him from the sidewalk, “Hey, what is that thing?” That man shouts back what it is.

Ahhhhhh! Okay! Now you know what that thing is! So now, every day after that you will never see that thing the same way ever again. It’s like something has turned inside of you so that now you know clearly what that thing is. Your seeing and perception of it has changed forever. You can never go back. You will never see that thing the same way again.

One might think of transformation in this way. You come to see or perceive things in a way you’ve never seen them before, and you never see them the same again.

*

Now, think of this example. A man is walking down the street and sees this thing sticking out of the ground. Pointing to it he asks, “What is that?” He says, “It’s a tree… a maple tree.” The man walks a little further and sees this other thing sticking out of the ground and asks another person, “What is that?” They say, “It’s a tree.” The man responds by saying, “No that can’t be a tree because I just saw this other thing, and I was told that was a tree… a maple tree.” To which the person replies, “Yes, but this is a tree too… a Weeping Willow tree.” The man has to be further convinced because he had previously seen this other thing and was told that it was a tree.

The man continues his walk and comes upon something else sticking out of the ground and asks, “What is this thing?” The passerby says, “It’s a tree… a Sequoia tree.” The man replies, “Nope, I know that’s NOT a tree. You cannot convince me otherwise. I’ve already had two other people tell me that something was a tree.” The person replies, “Of course, they are all trees, just different kinds of trees.” Surely you can notice that despite the differences that they all share the same essence of a tree. There is no reason for you to have to be convinced in each case. All trees share the same nature.

Likewise, for example, you will find that all things in the phenomenal world share the same nature of impermanence. Our suffering is often a result of our failure to recognize this… as if each time we have to be convinced over and over again that a tree is a tree. Or take the incomprehensibility of God. Every day we try once again to “figure out” or comprehend God, and have to be convinced over and over and over again in each case that God is beyond comprehension. We have to be convinced each time that a tree is a tree. There are so many different ways this inability to know the true nature of things reaps havoc in our lives.

However, like the first story. Perhaps it will be the case that you will see the true nature of things, and never see them the same way again. Now, will you have to be convinced in each case because you will truly know the underlying, unchanging and fundamental reality, nature of all things… Truth.