Just Sitting (12/19/15)

In the Zen tradition, meditation is “just sitting.” In the Catholic tradition, prayer is “raising the mind and heart to God.” The Catholic definition is good in that it does not go into detail specifying any particular methods of prayer. The Zen is even less definite. Although it does say sitting, any straight spine posture is okay.

For me, my morning half hour of meditation/prayer has become just assuming a cross legged posture, and expressing an intention to be present to God. Mind and heart?! My mind remains in the present moment perhaps for one minute out of the thirty. My heart at least makes the intention before it too wanders elsewhere. Only my body remains where it is. Most of my prayer/meditation is just “raising the body to God.” It sitting, but not “just sitting.”

Average, Better, Best (6/27/15)

I keep seeing lists of supposedly best items: best iced coffees, best cat movies of 2014, best times to take a nap, best ways to tell friends they have bad breath, etc. I’m tired of best and I don’t want best.

Actually, the only better I want to strive for is the morally better. I don’t need to be better at anything else. In fact, seeking the better often results in doing the worse. I guess good is good enough for me. And good is not as competitive as better and is a lot easier to achieve than best.

But, as they say, “Hell is paved with good intentions.” So good is not always so good. Perhaps I will set my sights on becoming average. If most people in the world are average, I am quite happy to be one of them. Stop in at my house sometime for a really average meal and some average conversation. And don’t expect anything more than average from this blog.

Next week: retirement part II, and three more beautiful names of God.

Retirement (6/20/15)

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing,

Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.”

                                     Zen saying

 When people ask me what I am going to do now that I am fully retired, I usually say I will pretty much do what I have been doing, My wife still has another year till she retires, and my 96 year old mother still lives with us. What I should add is that I hope to do less than I do now. My Dad had a funny saying, but all I can remember of it are two unusual “names”: Dewless and Seymour. That’s what I hope happens in my retirement. I hope to do less and to see more.

As far as I am able and commitments allow me, I am done with doing. I’ve been doing all my life. Now I’d like to Seemore, to become more aware and present to my life unfolding, rather than planning how I want my life to unfold. I would like to smell the flowers that are already there rather than to plant my own. As far as I can, I also want to Chooseless and Respondmore (cousins of the aforementioned people). Each time I make a decision, I risk bending realty to my narrow perspective. I hope to bend it less.

If prayer is just being with God, and meditation is “sitting still, doing nothing,” and play is purposeless activity, then I hope to pray, meditate, and play more.

Next week, striving to be average. And the names of God continue. And the treasure is still visible in the Pius chapel. To quote Anne, “Hidden but visible. . . just like God!”

“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” (4/4/15)

Beware of the blog, it creeps
And leaps and glides and slides
Across the floor
Right through the door
And all around the wall
A splotch, a blotch
Be careful of the blog.

 Apologies to Burt Bacharach who wrote the original song for the movie The Blob.

I used to write a long weekly letter to my children after they had moved out of our home. I stopped doing so because I got tired of my attempted cleverness. There are too many words flowing around us, crashing around us. I sometimes feel guilty for writing this blog, adding more words to the mess.

Maybe someone can develop the following idea into a short story: All of a sudden, any time a person speaks, the words actually fall out of his or her mouth as small material objects. And they are indestructible. And the accumulating mountains of words become the greatest ecological crisis the planet has ever known. I do not have a happy ending for this story.

Next week we will look at unnecessary additions, and Jesus’ mouse watches the apostles sleep.

The Meditationless Meditator (11/22/14)

I sometimes feel guilty writing this blog about spirituality, meditation, and prayer when I myself have difficulties with spirituality, meditation, and prayer. Although I sit every morning from about 5:00 to 5:30 AM, most of that time is filled with distracting thoughts rather than mediation or prayer. I have become the meditationless meditator and the prayerless pray-er. And during the day I am rarely mindful. I live in the future rather than in the here and now present moment.

At least I have my meaningful platitudes to guide me. I “keep on keeping on.” I realize that “It is what it is.”   I believe “Jesus saves” because Jesus is the Great Bridge that spans the gap between the divine and the human. So I “look for every rainbow” as I “dream the impossible dream.” If meditation is useless sitting rather than a profound state of consciousness, perhaps I am meditating. And if prayer is more in the intention than in the execution, perhaps I am praying.

My friend Sam sent me this link to Stanford University’s 2014 baccalaureate speech. It offers a challenging view of our often-changing world and simple suggestions for walking Zen’s pathless path.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/june/fischer-baccalaureate-text-061414.html

Next week Jesus’ mouse hears the Four Beatitudes, and winter and Advent promise to appear. Chapter five of meditation and prayer will present mantra.

Bridging the Gapless Gap Revisited (10/11/14)

I had wanted to name my blog “Bridging the Gap,” but it was already taken. Then the term “gapless gap” popped into my mind, and happened to be available as a name. I must have been remembering the title of a book of Zen sayings that I had read many years ago. Although 800 years old, perhaps it is still worth reading.

Gapless gap. Gateless gate. I am split within myself and yet am one person. I am uniquely me, and yet am one with other people through love and compassion. I am distinct from God, and yet have the presence of God within me.  Perhaps the only true expression of reality is through paradox.

Next week angry people try to push Jesus and his mouse over a cliff, and Dr. Carl Jung gives us some advice. In the Meditation and Prayer chapter selections we begin looking for God.