Practicing Spirituality & Citizenship in the Era of Trump

Erected between the Church and the State is a "Wall of Separation."
But within the envelope of my skin, there is no line of demarcation segregating politics and spirituality. 

We do not live in a totalitarian state. As members of a democratic society, we have a civic duty. Our government is held in check by "we the people." In a democratic system of government, politics is just another aspect of daily living.

Spirituality is not an other-worldly affair. It is a principled worldview coupled with a system of practice that orients our whole being to the world in which we live.

Politics is not a distraction from spirituality, but one aspect of daily life with which spirituality is deeply concerned.

Saying that politics is a distraction from spirituality is like saying relationships or work are obstacles to spiritual practice. They aren't obstacles, they are opportunities for our spirituality to be born into the world. Segregating politics and spirituality is an attempt to closet your spirituality—to shield it from things that push your buttons, rather than turning into your struggles and learning to move beyond stress, fear, and anger.

We are not called to hide behind a vapid smile or to look the other way. Any spirituality that hides behind a distraction is not a spirituality but a defense mechanism. It is spiritual bypassing not spiritual practice. This is true regardless of whether our practice is rooted in Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, or lacks religious affiliation.

Gandhi once wrote, "Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is...Indeed, religion should pervade every one of our actions. Here religion does not mean sectarianism. It means a belief in ordered moral government of the universe. It is not less real because it is unseen. This religion transcends Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. It does not supersede them. It harmonizes them and gives them reality."

A living spirituality is politically conscious and engaged but not obsessed. And this is the catch.

It is hard to be mindful and politically engaged at the same time. It is difficult to watch the news or read the papers without getting wrapped up in it, especially this day-and-age with a 24 hr news cycle and a controversial President that dominates every minute of that cycle.

Mindfulness and activism often feel mutually exclusive. But uniting the two is our path. We have to root our politics in mindfulness and silence. If we fail to do this, we will either neglect our civic responsibility or our politics will be tainted with fear and aggression.

You can be present and centered while protesting or voicing concern—Dorthy Day, Gandhi, King, Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Dalai Lama are perfect examples.

While the basic outline of spirituality remains unchanged, the terrain that path must traverse changes with each generation. And it is no accident that these great icons of mindful activism have come before us, showing us the way. They have outlined the path before us. Their activism is rooted in prayer and meditation.

Venturing into the realm of politics without tethering the mind to reality is the way of madness.

Meditation anchors the mind in the present moment. But it is not enough to sit every morning. Mindful activism is meditation in action. We have to bring the principles of meditation—letting go and returning to the simplicity of the present moment—into our daily life. In the presence of injustice, we often feel fear, anger, and aggression. But we must disown the fear, anger, and aggression, not the awareness of injustice, which is grounded in reality.

Our conscience must rise above our fear of confrontation. We have to speak truth to power. Our words must not be weighted down by anger and resentment. 

Politics devoid of compassion is just another way to vent resentment. And our body politic is already saturated with resentment. Prayer connects the mind and the heart, melting away resentment. William James wrote in Varieties of Religious Experience, "Religion is nothing if it be not the vital act by which the entire mind seeks to save itself by clinging to the principle from which it draws its life. This act is prayer." And the heart is the principle from which the mind draws life. But once again it is not enough to pray only in the morning. We have to see aggression as a reminder to pray throughout the day. When are afraid or angry, we have to pray for those that arouse our bitterness. We have to pray for those in need. Prayer gets us out of our head, out of our self-centered mind. It awakens the spirit of selflessness and sanity.

Spirituality reminds us that it is our responsibility to be a voice of sanity, a light unto the world. I say that not with a condescending tone, but with an awareness that I too must work harder to bring mindfulness, compassion, and sanity into my politics. Politics is a sticky subject. It is easy to get caught up in politics. But the spiritual path always cuts through our obstacles. It never goes around them. This is the path we in the era of Trump must trudge and we have to do it together.

Part of doing it together is holding each other accountable. When we see someone with good intentions lash-out or become disrespectful, it is important to point that out to them. We have to remind them that how they say it is every bit as important as what they say. Yes, we are obligated to speak the truth, but we are also obligated to do that in a skillful manner. If we oppose hate, then we have to oppose it even when it is attached to a message that we agree with because hate--in any form--only adds to the problems that we face as a nation. Hate is not the counter-measure for injustice. As Martin Luther King said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

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Intro to Meditation for Mindful New Year's Resolutions

No one comes to spiritual practice for “sh*ts and giggles” and this is especially true of meditation.

It is boring.

People do not learn to sit on the floor in silence for twenty or thirty minutes at a time because they want to expand their horizons. People come to spiritual practice because of suffering. Stress, emotional hang-ups and an insatiably busy mind—these are the things that bring people to meditation practice.

At an embryonic level, suffering is discontentment—it is the absence of content, meaning and vitality. In a word, discontentment is disembodiment. We live in our heads. We are disconnected from the life of the body and as a result we feel lifeless. We feel incomplete, like something is missing. This pervasive feeling of dissatisfaction transforms our life into a scavenger hunt.

Order Finding God in the Body by Benjamin Riggs on Amazon

We spend most of our time and energy looking for a fix, for that magical missing ingredient. This is the speed and chaos between our ears.

We do not know that the felt experience of the body is what's missing. So we go out of ourselves looking for something to fill the void. We turn to the job, the relationship, shopping, food, sex, alcohol or drugs in search of a fix. Eventually, we bump into someone or something that makes us feel alive: The new job arouses excitement; the new boyfriend or girlfriend makes us feel giddy. It seems that we have found the perfect job or our other half. We think we have found that magical missing ingredient. Instead, we found a distraction. In the end, we desensitize to the relationship and the job and the feeling of dissatisfaction returns.

We are back at square one. We get so angry that we could cry. We yearn for something different. True spiritual practice is that something different.

Meditation practice meets us on the surface. It enters our pain and frustration, our stress and despair. But it says, “If you want something different, you must do something different.” Rather than going out in search of a fix, meditation invites us to sit down and turn within.

Meditation begins with taking a seat. Our physical posture is like a boulder firmly planted in the middle of a moving stream. It is stillness in the midst of our busy mind. We sit with a firm foundation, our shoulders are pulled back and our chest is open. The neck and chin form a ninety degree angle and our hands are resting palms down on our thighs.

Most people think that meditation is about controlling or silencing the mind. This is a misconception. The only faculty we have  that is capable of shhhing thought is thought. This does not work for obvious reasons. Thinking about not thinking only adds to the noise.

“Don’t waste time thinking about what thinking can’t change.” ~ Evagrius

Instead of trying to think ourselves out of the noise, meditation encourages us to dis-identify with thought. In meditation practice, we do not try to control thought. We let go. In order to control something, you must be attached to it. Meditation invites us to open up to and reconnect with our larger life. When we notice that we are thinking about our own thoughts, we simply reconnect with the body, with the immediacy of the breath at the tip of the nose.

In meditation we tether our awareness to the body using the breath, which is rooted in the present moment. When we notice that we drifted off in thought, we simply reconnect with the coolness of the inhalation and the warmth of exhalation at the tip of the nose. No more and no less. If we do this a thousand times in twenty minutes, that is a perfect practice.

Meditation practice is not a trance like state; it is a practice of letting go. So the point is not to abide in a void, but to notice when your mind gets hung up and let go.

The mind settles according to its true nature. If clear pond water is disturbed and mud gets stirred up, the water will appear murky. But you can't force the sediment back to the bottom. You allow it to settle of its own accord. When we first start sitting our minds are murky. If we try to force our thoughts to settle by pushing them back to the bottom, our mind just gets murkier. Do not try to quiet the mind; just return to the immediacy and simplicity of the breath and the mind will settle.

Finally, meditation offers a long-term solution to the underlying problem of discontentment. It brings our awareness back into the body—back to the source of meaning, content, and vitality. This is the meaning of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is not concentration; it’s the fullness of mind. We allow the light of awareness to shine on our whole person. Rather than localizing or concentrating awareness between our ears, we open the gates and allow awareness to pour out into our whole being. This reconnects us to the principal from which we draw life, the body. As a result, we no longer feel needy, like something is missing. Therefore, we are no longer searching for something to fix us. The speed and stress begin to subside. 

Meditation offers a systematic and holistic approach to the problem of human suffering that haunts us all. But it would be a mistake to think of meditation as some sort of miraculous cure. Meditation once every now and then is hardly effective. It takes work and perseverance. We have to sit daily for at least twenty to thirty minutes. 

This One is for the Moms, Dads, Husbands, & Wives Struggling to Balance Daily Life & Spirituality

This is for the Spiritual Warriors who aren’t Seated on a Cushion.

My favorite time of day is noon.

I’m usually in the living room hunched over my laptop, promoting my book or working on an article. Then suddenly my single-pointed focus is interrupted. A loud scream rips me away from my computer. I immediately feel irritated.

I want to finish what I’m working on: write one more paragraph, make one more change, just get to a good stopping point. But that cry will not be ignored. It pierces my concentration.

I put my work aside and make my way down the hall. As soon as I open the door that cry is transformed into an innocent laugh. My frustration falls away. I crawl in the bed with my two-year-old son. He lies next to me smiling, but only for a second before he starts climbing on top of me.

There is nowhere else I would rather be. This is my favorite time of the day.

All of the world’s great spiritual traditions agree that self-centeredness is at the root of human suffering. And they all provide us with practices meant to peel us away from our identification with the false self. Meditation, prayer, yoga, self-examination, and study all help dissolve our delusion and shine the light of awareness on the false-self.

But daily life is the only practice I have encountered that ruthlessly slaps at our self-grasping hand. This is particularly true of relationships.

Spirituality is an ambiguous word. I define it as “a resonant mythos infused with an actionable path of self-analysis, prayer, and meditation that enables us to transcend the false-self system and reconnect with the vitality of the body.”

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Spiritual Materialism and Buddhist Spirituality

In this episode of the Finding God in the Body Podcast, Ben Riggs talks about spiritual materialism. He talks about what Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche called the Three Lord of Materialism and places this all within the context of his own personal journey. 

Please share with your friends: https://soundcloud.com/user-3423085/episode-2-spiritual-materialism

The Monkey Mind

Suffering is the primary motivating factor behind spiritual practice.

Few, if any, people show up just looking to broaden their horizons. Most feel like they are flying through life with their hair on fire. This has always been true, but it is particularly true of this day and age. The modern life is an impoverished life that is hell bent on convincing you that you are broken or incomplete. It preys on the belief in our own brokenness. It triggers this insecurity in us and then tries to sell us this product and that product. This transforms life into a desperate search for the magical missing ingredient. By time we arrive on the meditation cushion, we are insecure and paranoid. We feel as though our minds are driving 90-to-nothing in 10 different directions simultaneously.

Traditionally, this has been described as the "monkey mind."

The monkey mind is mischievous. It bounces around from place to place, messing with everything. It reminds me a bit of Dennis the Menace. But if you sit on the cushion and watch this "monkey mind" I bet you won't think it is so cute. We describe it as if it were a spider monkey or one of them cute little boogers we see in the movies. But in reality it is nothing like a pet. It is like a wild, territorial chimpanzee. It is vicious and unpredictable. You don't want to pinch it's cheeks or pet it all, you want to run like hell. But that is part of the aggression.

The only way to work with this "monkey mind" is to stop separating yourself from this monkey mind. It may be true that in the final analysis, you are not your thoughts. But, practically speaking, we are in the first analysis, not the final analysis. We are just learning how to sit here—how to stop running. Everything in us wants to get up and run away—we want to run and hide in our expectations, memories, regrets, and ideas. The speed of all this is truly terrifying. We need a strong rope, something that we can hold onto so we do not get blown away by the powerful winds of paranoia.

The breath anchors us in the present moment. It is our totem. The breath symbolizes the precision and simplicity of the present moment. It is the ever-present gateway to sanity. But we have been breathing our whole lives. Just the breath ain't going to get it. We have to develop resolve. That resolve comes from our pain and suffering. We have to know, firsthand, that the monkey mind ain't cute. That it will pound on us and destroy our life—it will literally beat us to death—if we do not intervene. We intervene by returning to present moment as symbolized by the breath.

One of the biggest misconceptions in modern society is that the storm will blow over. The burden—the karmic or conditioned residue of every self-centered, fear driven decision we have ever made—will not just go away; the momentum must be burnt up. We cannot hide from our burden or evacuate our life. We have to sit right in the middle of the storm and feel the winds. "I shall remain, at those times, Shantideva says in The Bodhissattva's Guide to the Way of Life, "like a block of wood, able to restrain myself." This is why meditation is so hard at first.

We have to give up the approach to life that feeds the "monkey mind." It is the running and hiding that generates the speed and panic that characterizes the "monkey mind." It is, as I said before, part of the aggression. This is where we are, so this where we have to begin. We cannot wait for the clouds to go away and the sun to come out. The "monkey mind" is the very mind that has to learn how to sit. This is the first analysis, so for practical purposes, we are the monkey mind. When the winds begin to blow it is time to practice.

A flood of thoughts is not evidence that you cannot practice meditation, though the monkey mind will try to use it as such a justification. On the contrary, each thought is an opportunity to practice. With out a discursive mind what would you practice? This is the relationship Buddhism has with suffering. Suffering always leads to the path, because suffering is our path. This is the basic message.

It is easy to convince ourselves that we have all these options. In a consumer based society you are taught to believe that there are always options. But this is not necessarily true. Investing in your sanity, in what it means to be a person is not an option, at least not in the true sense of the word. Perhaps we can choose to take care of ourselves and invest in our well-being, but this choice is more like the choice you are presented with while sky-diving: yes, it is true that you can choose whether you want to pull the chord or not, but it is pretty straight forward. You either pull the chord or go splat!

We choose life or death every morning before we leave the house. If I choose to invest in my sanity, then I will grow into the life my body and soul were designed to live. If I chose to pretend that I am an organism designed to live in an economy, I will look past who I am to who I am suppose to become. This process of becoming is a rat race; it never ends. The sense of authenticity is replaced by an impoverished self-image that is always working towards an impossible state of equilibrium. We try to figure out what "they" want us to be, and with every word and deed we mangle our spirit until it reflects the image prescribed by society. Over time this process of becoming only gains in speed and intensity. The pressure continues to mount until we intervene or there is a nervous breakdown.

This storm is not going to blow over. If you ignore it now, it will continue to grow, like a virus until it consumes your being. It will mangle the reflection of your spirit. Over time it will get worse, never better. Like Gollum, you will become unrecognizable even to yourself. The only antidote is to stop. Pure and simple. Stop. Put a leash on your mind. Tether it to the present moment. Tie it to the breath.

Allow the breath to guide your awareness back into the immediacy and the freshness of the body. Notice the coolness of the in-breath. Feel the chest and stomach expand with the inhalation. Feel the stomach and chest contract with the exhalation. Notice the warmth of the out-breath. Train in this way every morning, but bring it with you into your day. It is not enough to practice in the privacy of your home. You do not leave the breath at home with your cushion, so do not leave your practice there either. It is about interrupting the speed and the intensity of these paranoid cycles of thought throughout the day. Ultimately, we are all called to a life of unceasing practice. Allow your life to be renewed with each breath.

The Global Threat Stemming from Self-Avoidance.

"I put it to the enlightened rationalist: has his rational reduction led to the beneficial control of matter and spirit? He will point proudly to the advances in physics and medicine, to the freeing of the mind from medieval stupidity and—as a well meaning Christian—to our deliverance from the fear of demons. But we continue to ask: what have all of our other cultural achievements led to? The fearful answer is there before our eyes: man has been delivered from no fear, a hideous nightmare lies upon the world. So far reason has failed lamentably, and the very thing everybody wanted to avoid rolls on in ghastly progression. Man has achieved a wealth of useful gadgets, but, to offset that, he has torn open the abyss, and what will become of him now—where can he make a halt? After the last World War we hoped for reason: we go on hoping. But already we are fascinated by the possibilities of atomic fission and promise ourselves a Golden Age—the surest guarantee that the abomination of desolation will grow to limitless dimensions. And who or what is it that causes all of this? It is none other than that harmless, ingenious, inventive, and sweetly reasonable human spirit who unfortunately is abysmally unconscious of the daemonism that still clings to him. Worse, this spirit does everything to avoid looking himself in the face, and we all help him like mad.” ~ Carl Jung

Every significant problem in this world can be explained by this violent avoidance of our Self: The benevolent scientist cannot see his face in the collateral damage of a drone strike; the Democrat cannot look deep enough into the Republican to find himself, and the Republican cannot hear his own voice in the complaints and dissatisfaction of his liberal counterpart. The minister rages on and on against the sins of others, but fails to see the sin of his own rage. Even we religious reformers and revolutionaries fail to see the sin of our intellectual idealism, which amounts to nothing more than a sophisticated indifference set in motion by resentment. Most of us are so wrapped up in the American dream that we cannot see or feel the lurking presence of a totalitarian state—governed by self-ignorance and our desperate dependence upon consumption, all of which will be symbolized by an external tyrant. But we must understand that the coming tyrant is formed in the collective psyche of our society, not in the wishful thinking of our adversaries.

Our society is looking for a hero. There is a desperate search for someone to save us. We are totally unsure as to what we need to be saved from, which leads to the greatest displays of certainty. It is those who are the most uncertain that scream the loudest. We are waiting for someone to hear our cry, and when they do, we will come together as one voice behind this persona. I fear that it will be too late when we realize that the figure we have rallied behind is nothing more than an image representing the sum total of rejected darkness within ourselves. It is not "they" we must be saved from. Man-kind must be delivered from the terrible fear that grips his heart and enables the evil that creeps out of him through his actions, words, and deeds to remain un-conscious. This fear is the great evil. 

It is the bad odor oozing from our own un-kept spirit that we smell, not the person next to us. It is only through an authentic form of mindful introspection that problems like world hunger can hope to be solved, because it is only by looking deeply within our own darkness that we will find the causes and conditions that lead to "12% of the world’s population (U.S. & Western Europe) accounting for 60% of private consumption spending; while one-third of the world’s population (South Asia & sub-Saharan Africa) account for only 3.2%." 

This is not the problem, it is a problem. The disproportionate consumption of the world’s resources is but a symptom of a much greater issue that faces man-kind: self-centeredness. And you cannot know the self-centeredness of another. You can only find it within yourself. Self-centeredness, which is what plagues our society, is created and perpetuated by fear. The bad odor we all smell is the fear that has grown putrid and stagnant within ourselves. Remember, it is a plank in our eye and a speck in our brother’s eye. Our political culture encourages our fixation on the plank in their eye, which is, practically speaking, a form of self-avoidance or a distraction. It is a welcomed distraction, though. It does not play off of our fears, our fear plays off of it.

There is nothing more terrifying than the immediacy of the evil within. So, there is nothing more convenient than a backdrop to project that darkness upon. Unfortunately, when we rage against our religious and/or political enemies, we are raging against ourselves, only unconsciously, which is to no healthy end. It only serves to increase the level of irritation. Growth by integration is the only possible resolution. We have to accept these repressed elements of the Self as the path God offers us. Rather than projecting them onto another, and making the destruction of the other our path. So, while political activism is important, let it begin within yourself, less the "hideous nightmare" of self-avoidance be realized completely.

I will conclude as I began, with wisdom of Carl Jung:
"When will the time come when we shall not simply take man for granted in this barbarous manner, but shall in all seriousness seek for ways and means to exorcise him, to rescue him from possession and unconsciousness, and make this the most vital task of civilization? Can we not understand that all the outward tinkerings and improvements do not touch man's inner nature, and ultimately everything depends upon whether the man who wields the science and the technics is capable of responsibility or not?"

The Biggest Misconception about Meditation Practice.

Just as the heart beats the brain thinks...

"As it is explained in many of the meditation teachings, first of all you cannot stop thoughts. It is impossible. And stopping thoughts is not our agenda. It is not doable. Even if were do-able it is not necessary, it is useless. Meditation actually is to generate the awareness of the thought. If you are supposed to develop the awareness of the thought, then you have to have the thought to be aware of! So you can’t really get rid of the thought and then try to look at something." ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Vajrayana Buddhism in 86 Words.

The Journey of the Vajrayana…

‎"The dignity of the human person is real. The sacredness, the beauty of each one of us—as a fundamental incarnation of the totality—is no different from a star or a galaxy or an atom or the whole universe itself. The journey of the Vajrayana is to realize this; it’s to know—in our incarnation, in our bodies—that the experience that we have, in its totality, is actually the experience of the universe itself, and that we have access to all of reality [through] our human incarnation.” ~ Reggie Ray of the Dharma Ocean Foundation

At this years Dharma Ocean Winter Dathün Retreat, Dr. Reggie Ray will be providing instruction on the Pinnacle Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, Mahamudra. Click here for registration or more information.

Taking Refuge in Your Own Humanity {Video}.

We start to realize that there is a great intelligence, which up until this very moment we have ignored. Taking refuge is essentially learning to trust this intelligence. Beating within each and every one of us is the heart of enlightenment. Taking refuge in this heart is the essence of spirituality.

Buddhism: Refuge--The Heart of Spirituality.

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Celebrate The 4th With A Quote From Each Of The Founding Fathers.

Signing of the Declaration of Independence

8 Mindful Quotes from 8 Founding Fathers. + Bonus Video.

Happy 4th of July.

The Nature Of Mindfulness.

"Mindfulness Doesn't Take Time."

Tenzin Palmo is an amazing woman. In the video below, she profoundly explains the nature of mindfulness, and eloquently addresses our main excuse for not practicing meditation, by more or less redefining meditation...