An Unworried Bird

A few weeks ago, a bird built a nest atop a small wood block attached to our porch ceiling. This in spite of my vow to head off any such nest building this year, given the ongoing mess that ultimately follows this kind of construction project. Yet seemingly overnight, there it was. A perfectly constructed domicile, fully occupied with several small eggs already inside. And so we will have another year of inevitable bird poop all over the porch. Nevertheless, we will survive this intrusion on our well-being for yet another year as godparents to the aviary population.

The nest is just outside the kitchen window, which makes for easy viewing and entertainment as we go about meal preparation and cleanup. I watch as this mother bird flits from and to her nest in continual movement. Flying off to sit momentarily on the wire fence which will house our vine-ripened tomatoes in a few months. Then time to sit on a nearby tree branch. Then out-of-sight, off to parts unknown, likely for a short meal of some kind; it is important to keep the body strong and healthy for the duties of motherhood to come. Perhaps somewhere in all of this flitting will be time spent with other bird friends, socializing and comparing notes. But it is probably predominately a solitary life, tending to the responsibilities that constitute this bird’s routine.

As one day follows the next, and this seemingly endless cycle of daily activity repeats itself, two observations arise: the absolute clarity with which this bird understands its purpose and role; and the unhesitating consistency with which she goes about fulfilling them. Clarity of purpose; consistency of execution. Nothing seems to complicate her understanding of her life.

She appears to know love, evidenced by her careful dedication to her charges in the nest. But perhaps that is only in my imagination as she simply goes about what she is to do. She clearly knows fear, the need to protect herself from harm, evidenced by her rapid departure when I come too near. Yet I wonder … is this little bird “happy”? More specifically, does she worry?

We, the supposedly advanced form of life, worry up a storm. We make plans, and then worry about whether they will come to fruition as we envisioned. We worry about all the ways harm could potentially befall us, even though the statistical likelihood is that they will never happen to us. We worry about our next dollar – do we have enough, will it keep coming, how will we buy the next toy on our list – even though living a truly fulfilling life requires far less wealth than we assume. We join groups of people to alleviate our aloneness, then worry about whether we will fit in, be accepted, be thought attractive / witty / intelligent enough. We form deep relationships with others (human and non-human), then worry about whether these relationships will last. We worry about what people think of us, while most people are too busy and preoccupied to think much about us at all. We worry about losing all we have achieved and having to start over again, yet our life has been lived through continuous change and renewal. We have survived.

We, the advanced species, tie ourselves up in futile worry. That little bird, on that nest, simply tends to her business at hand. I doubt that she does much planning ahead, frets over many regrets, gives up after something called “failure,” or changes her actions based upon what the other birds say or do. Her mission and direction lives inside of her; it simply flows freely outward to guide her. Our mission and direction similarly lives inside each of us. We need only to get out of our own way, and let it flow out of us. Without worry, Guidance can then guide.

©   2016   Randy Bell               www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

I Am Right,You Are Wrong

Human beings love to argue, to fight about ideas of what is right and what is wrong. Or more accurately, WHO is right and WHO is wrong. Certainly there are infrequent times when people respectfully listen to one another, debating points of view only to sharpen one’s understandings rather than to undercut one another. But most conversations are verbal sporting events whose objective is to win – to dominate in the jousting of ideas and to belittle and overwhelm contrary opinions. The end results of such contests are very little advancement of informed knowledge, minimal progress in the advancement of interactions within societies, and the cause of much needless division and conflict in the world. Argument perpetuates and reinforces the stagnation of thought.

The human need to be “Right” about something – or about nearly everything – is another illustration of our emotional fragility. Our need to be Right is the mirror image of our abhorrence of being “Wrong.” That fear of being Wrong is the guard that keeps us imprisoned away from our own creativity, from discovering our own truly original thought. Certainty is the archenemy of truly creative thinking.

If we are honest with ourselves, most of what we believe – and argue vociferously to defend – is not what we truly believe anyway. Most of our supposed well-thought out beliefs are actually pasted-on opinions we borrow from others – parents, teachers, mentors, friends, colleagues, opinion-makers – devoid of our own direct experiences and encounters. We have opinions about people we have never met, or only know peripherally; cultures we have never visited nor engaged; religions we have never studied or shared their ritual; lifestyles we have never encountered; moral principles we have never really questioned; starkly minimalistic living conditions we have never experienced. Most of the people we spend time with are people who look like us, speak like us, echo the same opinions as us. We nourish our beliefs by our immersion within the sameness of a familiar community of look-alikes.

We sincerely think that our beliefs are framed within great absolute and universal Truths. Yet the first Truth is that our beliefs reflect, and are limited by, our personal perspective. It is a perspective built upon our individual life experiences, encounters, and role models, experiences far different than others. If our perspective has been gleaned from a wide breadth of exposures, then our beliefs will similarly incorporate a breadth of thinking and openness to considering and finding accommodation with contrary opinions. If our exposure has been narrow, then our beliefs will likewise be narrow, closed to contrary opinions.

We think that our beliefs are logically derived and thought through, reflecting our superior human intellect. Yet the quality of our logical thinking rises or falls based upon the comprehensiveness of our inputs. If our inputs are limited, our conclusions necessarily will be limited. We believe our thinking creates our perspective. In reality, our preexisting perspective from our experiences create our thinking, and thereby our beliefs. That self-fulfilling cycle should make us very cautious about what we think we believe is right.

Arguing steadfastly about who is Right exposes the underlying insecurity of our beliefs. The weaker our confidence in our beliefs, the harder we fight to affirm them onto others. But if one is truly Right, it is not conditioned by how many also believe it. (Rightness may love company, but thousands of slaves and slave owners in America never made slavery Right.) Realistically, most of what we presume the need to agree upon requires no agreement at all, versus making a commitment to live compatibly within a diverse community of opinions. It might be better to spend less time judging the wrongness of others, and instead expend more effort living a better version of our own rightness.

Listening openly to other perspectives – other life situations and experiences far different than our own – puts the genuine pursuit of knowledge and character ahead of our false need to be Right. It is our acceptance of our continuing ignorance that keeps us learning, not our certitude.

©  2016   Randy Bell              www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Our Untold Stories

Years ago, I read an article about an elderly man who died alone in his long-term city apartment. When people came to empty out his things, they discovered stacks and stacks of handwritten journals containing the names of all the people he had been introduced to over the course of his life. No details, no narrative. Just the names and dates documenting the people he had encountered sufficiently to learn their names. The journals served as memory. But they also reminded him of the breadth of his life, those who had influenced his life experiences in both large and small ways. It was a personal form of acknowledgment for all those human connections in spite of what may have appeared on surface to be a life lived alone.

Over the course of our lifetime, we have myriad experiences, seemingly just in the course of one day. Experiences of people, places, events, visuals, sounds, tastes, movement, ideas, and role situations. We typically attach to each of these experiences some adjective(s) to denote our relationship to them: good, bad, delightful, horrible, memorable, forgettable, etc. Some of these stay in our conscious awareness constantly; others disappear into the deep recesses of “forgotten” memories, accessible only with immense effort and perhaps emotional courage.

We interpret those experiences based upon what we have been pre-taught to see, as well as conclusions we have cumulatively drawn – whether they are truly accurate or not. Taken together, these interpretations and conclusions make up our life story. A story filled with gaps, faint images defying our attempts of definition, and misinterpretations due to our limited awareness of their broader context and circumstances and the shortcomings of our limited maturity and capacity to understand. Our story is not our Self; it is only that which our  Self has experienced – an important distinction often lost on us.

My experiences – of family makeup and circumstances, of place and geography, of influences of friends and teachers, of directions followed and sights seen – are far different from yours. My life story is unlike any other person’s story; your story is equally unique and personal from mine. Each person we meet has an extensive, untold story that will never to be revealed to us, a story likely never even to be fully revealed to him-/herself.

It would likely take another lifetime just to tell you the complete story of my life – if I could even remember that entire story.  Any autobiography I could write would, at best, be only an excerpt, a sampling, a slice which perhaps hints at a whole. Many feel a need to tell their story more from a desire to be understood than for the telling itself. But what does it actually matter if others hear our story and understand or not? What elements will we choose to select out of the vast database of our experiences? Which ones actually reveal us, and which serve to hide and protect the unseen, the unrevealed? Will such a telling alter the course of our future experiences, or simply reinforce the place in which we are already stuck?

We reflexively make judgments about the people we encounter, based upon an impression we quickly and instinctively form. That judgment is likely based upon a momentary sliver of that person’s story, a deep, vast story we will never be privileged to hear. Nor can we ever fully comprehend how and why we came together at our particular moment in time – though we may have our suspicions.

That old gentleman’s journals recorded no judgments, no conclusions about the people he encountered. Maybe in our encounters we might show someone a similar cautionary respect for their untold story. Perhaps a simple acknowledgment that we passed through and shared a moment in our lives, for a brief instant or more, is just enough before we move on.

©   2016   Randy Bell                         www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Letting Go of Memories

We love our good memories. We think positively of people who have been strong influences on our life’s direction. People who have been greatly helpful in teaching us about survival, values and happiness. People who have been with us at significant times and places. We remember special situations that nourished our mind and body with sensual treats, impossible to adequately describe later to friends. And we remember unique experiences that made us feel fulfilled, encouraged, challenged or loved.

We also love our bad memories. We think negatively of people who harmed us, thwarted us, led us astray. People who taught us fear, separation, and distrust. We remember situations that assaulted our senses, overwhelmed our capacity for understanding and forgiveness. Experiences that left us physically or spiritually hungry, discouraged, unmotivated, alone or unloved.

Loving our memories may seem an appropriate way to describe our feelings about “the good times,” but an inappropriate way to describe “the bad times.” But such a distinction exists only on the surface. When we look closely, we see that we experience our memories much the same regardless of content.

We apply significant portions of our time and attention to our memories. We usually direct ourselves to a consistent pool of specific memories rather than exploring the extensive image inventory of our mind. Feelings flow deeply from those memories, generating strong emotional responses rather than a simple cold, factual retelling. We are usually definite about their circumstances and details, even in the face of contrary facts and perspectives from others. Whatever lessons we may have learned from these memories are accepted fully and lived  rigidly, reinforced  by frequent retellings to ourselves and others. We instinctively sense that we would be someone other than who we are if we lost those stories. Which is why we love those stories so much – because we believe they define who we are, why we live and think as we do.

The greater concern is that every nanosecond that we spend in memory is time not spent in today. Time not spent moving us to tomorrow. Life pulls us into today via our daily responsibilities, yet it is our choice whether we fulfill those responsibilities in yesterday’s memories or today’s fresh thinking.

Memories can serve us well when we keep them in proper perspective and of limited duration.  We can recall good memories to maintain a positive direction and to reinforce a  balanced perspective of many good blessings received. We can recall bad memories as a way to avoid repeating bad choices because we have learned otherwise. Problems arise when we chase trying to recapture good times long gone. When we fail to recognize new opportunities emerging out of past seemingly familiar circumstances. When, in our imagination, we futilely seek to undo old mistakes made long ago. When the ill-treatment we received blinds us to the ill-treatment we have given. In these instances, we are hanging on to a life already lived rather than embracing our life where it is and could be.

In meditation we often talk of “just letting go.” Myriad thoughts are continually fighting for our attention, and many of those thoughts are reflections of memory. It can be tempting to reengage those memories, sink into the details, and relive their pleasures and pains. But in the quiet of that meditation, we put our emphasis instead on just letting the memories go. Acknowledge them, yes; indulge them, no. They were; they are not. We can love our good and bad memories. But to truly love them is to just let them pass into empty space. Thereby, we allow ourselves to pass into the new opening space that always awaits us.

©   2016   Randy Bell             www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Simplicity

“It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety.”  —Henry David Thoreau

In the earliest days of humankind, our needs were pretty simple. Shelter from extreme weather elements; food and water to nourish the body; coverings to protect the body. In turn, the mechanisms for meeting these needs were likewise pretty simple: a rock cave, or a hut made of branches; abundant plant life, and implements to kill animal life, for food; animal skins and hair, or grasses, for coverings. Life was simple and in sync with one’s surroundings. But as we sought to make our life easier, paradoxically life became harder as we increased our sense of “needs,” thereby causing human beings to compete for resources to fulfill those expanded needs.

Today, there are many people subsisting on not much more than those original fundamental needs. Rarely is it by personal choice, but by the consequences of institutional decisions. People are huddled into tents in refugee camps, or hiding in bombed out homes, due to decisions of war. Others are struggling to provide for themselves due to adverse weather conditions, corruption by rotating politicians, or institutional structures that cater to only a portion of the populace, leaving the plight of these unfortunates near-invisible and unattended to.

That people in these kind of circumstances survive at all is often a near miracle. But in its own way, these most unfortunate remind us how basic life really is. How little is truly needed to exist, to survive, to potentially live happy lives. They show us that the creature comforts we think are so necessary really are not. Our blurring of “needs” versus “nice to have” creates a highly skewed perspective of life, and is the cause of so much unhappiness and dissatisfaction in the world. That dissatisfaction in turn leads to much questionable conduct – individually or collectively – as we pursue methods for meeting our expanded needs. Our moral judgments, our interrelationship actions, our career choices, our lifestyle pursuits all become colored by this continual push to “better” our lives.

There is nothing inherently wrong with achieving success with money, fame, and position. No reason not to enjoy a less burdensome and more comfortable way of getting through our demanding days. No cause to forgo the opportunities for beauty and joy available in this world. Yet we have MBA business programs, and religious movements advocating “prosperity theology,” that focus on achieving wealth as its own end. But how much is enough for us? Problems occur when we become blinded to the harm we cause ourselves and others in our desperate chase after our objects of wealth. Problems happen when nice-to-haves gradually become must-haves, even though they are not really “musts.” Problems arise when we lose the ability to appreciate the half-full glass of what we have, lost in a half-empty view of what is missing. Problems emerge when one’s sense of entitlement overshadows a recognition and appreciation for all those beings who contributed to making our good fortune possible. Perceived individualism notwithstanding, we do not accomplish anything solely on our own.

All steps forward entail some steps backward to properly chart our way. I have had to reset my life a number of times, resets not without pain and difficulty. Each reset involved a transitional return to a more basic existence, starting over once again, living a simpler life of reduced needs – times I describe as our “back to the laundromat” moments. In each case I have been reminded how simple life’s needs really are, thereby moderating our incessant demands for more. As we are able to accumulate our “things,” we appreciate them in their moment, but we also know that they are not needed to protect us, or define us, or trap us into a position we cannot freely walk away from. In that recognition is true freedom, an openness to unbounded creativity and joy. We may not choose to live physically in Thoreau’s simple cabin in the woods, but we would do well to create such a simple space to house our mind. Knowing what is truly enough is enough to know.

“There is no greater calamity than desire, no greater curse than greed. Know that enough is enough, and you will always have enough.” —Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, verse 46, Brian Brown Walker translation

©  2016   Randy Bell                www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Reflection

People are very busy these days, rushing from one appointment to the next, fulfilling various tasks and commitments, working within a set daily framework mostly dictated by others. We move from event to event, activity to activity, person to person; an unending movement which creates a life continually filled with personal experiences. By bedtime we are barely able to recall what transpired throughout our day; we wonder where our time and energy actually went.

The people and things that take up our time seem important to us. But in truth we typically pass through these events in an endless rote passage, with only minimal actual connection. Consequently, we miss much of the real substance and purpose of these many experiences we claim to be important. Conversations are only half-heard; interactions are only half-engaged; visual sights are only half-seen; people’s lives are only half-noticed. What we think we have seen and done by day’s end reflects only a portion of what these experiences could have been.

We have a longstanding tradition of making resolutions for change for an upcoming year. Fresh commitments about how we will live, what we will newly practice, what redirections we will bring about. All made with good intention; most sadly never fulfilled. Instead of tacking a well-meaning laundry list of additional to-do’s onto our existing commitments, perhaps only one new resolution is truly needed. A resolution to add the practice of Reflection into our daily routine.

In our brief moments of separation between one activity and the next, we can pause to think about what really happened in the immediate previous experience we just had. Rather than thinking about the next upcoming task, we can think about what we potentially missed hearing from the person with whom we just spoke. We can try to determine what that person was feeling, or was really trying to tell us, or how they needed our help to accomplish a personal goal that we were too busy to hear. We can try to determine what else was going on in that place we found ourselves, worthwhile things existing beyond the quick cursory glance we gave it. Did we notice? Did we care? What was there for us to learn about others, about how the world exists and operates, about our place within these things?

We are often lost in the blur of what surrounds us, searching for big answers to large, complicated questions. Yet many of those answers we are seeking are all around us every day, yet we choose to be oblivious to them. It is not enough to just live from experience to experience; they are only a part of our Life’s story. We need to pause and reflect deeply on the large and small events that happen to us, being open to whatever thoughts arise about those experiences – even if those thoughts are unexpected or uncomfortable. We need to see how these events connect together in a multi-directional set of linkages that we have progressively created. It is only through such thoughtful reflection upon our experiences that we find the true meaning of them in our life.

We spend much of our days like a passenger sitting comfortably on a train moving at 60mph, watching as we pass by the distant landscape that is visible but separated from us. Sitting on that moving train, we exist within life, but we are not truly connected to it. Yet each experience we have has a hidden dimension, an extra meaning, contained within it. It is through the quiet act of Reflection that that hidden significance is revealed, that our life becomes fully alive and engaged, that our experiences are transformed into knowledge that can lead us into Wisdom. May commitment to Reflection be our renewed resolution each and every new year.

© 2015   Randy Bell                 www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Spiritual Community

Virtually all organized religions include “community” as an important component of their makeup. Historically, the individual spiritual seeker gave way to informal gatherings of like-mined seekers. These loose-knit gatherings in turn gave way to a formalized local church / temple / mosque / sangha / monastery. These individual entities in turn gave rise to a collective institution of similar entities, which became our religious denominations, church hierarchies and structures. At which point the structural evolution turned and reversed itself, with the formal hierarchy taking control of the separate entities and dictating downwards form, ritual, organizational regulation and dogma.

For many, the form and content of their spiritual community fills a particular need in their spiritual pursuit. The fellowship, the resources, the personal support (spiritual and secular), and the sense of connection creates deep attachments and ongoing comfort. For others, the confines and demands of the institution through its understandable emphasis on conformity of belief and practice progressively weighs more heavily on the practitioner. For these seekers, the Church begins to become more of a barrier to spiritual attainment, a less-supportive element in the seeker’s quest for a personal connection with the Source of the greater Universe.

As an “unaffiliated” seeker, I have experienced two different sides of the calling of a spiritual community. There are times when interaction with a community feels very desirable, providing a sense of belonging, a lessening of aloneness and singularity, and a warm connection against the frequent coldness of Life. The community can offer encouragement, suggestions of direction, previously learned insights, and some renewed energy in those times when our spiritual drive falters. Yet in that unaffiliated space is also a great openness, where many paths are open, where many diverse communities can be called “home” in one’s travels, and nothing stands between me and the Divine. It is a place where commonality and orthodoxy ae permissible but not required; both are subservient to the continual personal discovery of one’s own Truth.

Increasingly in America, more and more people of all ages and backgrounds are following their individual journey, having determined that traditional religious institutions are inadequate fellow travelers on their path. Around 1/3rd of Americans do not identify themselves as Christian. In a recent Pew Research study, 23% of adults deny any religious affiliation at all, outnumbering both identified Catholics as well as mainline Protestants. Numerous writings abound about “the graying of the church pews,” as many congregations are failing to attract younger replacement members. Among the young Millennial demographic, 27% say they never attend a religious service, and 25% have “no religion.” Anecdotally, I recently attended a religious service at a small non-mainline church, and observed that out of around 100 people attending, there were no more than a dozen I would estimate to be under the age of 50.

Today, many struggle over their affiliation with their spiritual community, and that community’s teachings and approach. Given the strength and typically long history of that affiliation, the struggle is likely very deep and intensively personal. Some seek to change their community from within; others decide to take their leave and try something new: a different local community of similar form; a new denomination entirely; perhaps a solitary spiritual life.

For many people, the change is driven by a growing realization that too often our religious communities focus on our mind (thoughts, reasoning) and on directing our actions. But seekers looking to know and experience a union with the Divine understand that that union is beyond reasoning and outward actions. It is a calling to reach into a different place within, a free and complete surrender of ourselves to heart, feeling, and openness. It is a place of expression – music, movement, prose as poetry, art, voice, and stillness that touches us and moves our spirit. Out intellect can bring us to the door of our spirituality. Ultimately, though, it is experience, rather than intellect, that brings us into Oneness.

When we start from that place of union, appropriate thoughts and actions flow naturally from within, not requiring instruction from without. It is within us where the Divine Home on the Human Earth can most truly be found – the true community of the sacred.

©  2015   Randy Bell                www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com