This is not love.

 This is not love.

Love does not rescue someone from their pain. Love sits and listens, trusting each spirit's own essential wholeness and ability to heal.

Love does not punish, reproach or condemn. Love is patient, love is kind. Love honors that we are not separate, but that our pain of perceived separation and aloneness is the same, that we are one.

Love does not hold on, force or resist. Love allows all things to flow. A child's cry, a mother's scream, a father's fear, all are allowed to exist in a space of love.

This love is available to us in every moment. We don't have to force it or try to make it happen, we just allow it. Life already loves all of you. There is already a great well of love all around you. You can allow the tap to open and love to flow in any moment.

Even our suffering leads us to more love, so in this way the source of every experience is one of love, of divinity, of truth and wholeness. In this way we know we are safe.

Through our suffering we build compassion. Through compassion we see our oneness.

Some people are harder to love. In Buddhism these people are called hungry ghosts. Maybe today we call this narcissism. Narcissism is suffering, a contorted view of oneself as unacceptable, unwhole, unworthy, not good enough. A hungry ghost is someone who's stomach is very large, but who's throat is very small, so very little love can get in. In this way the hungry ghost is starving.

We are all capable of being narcissists in some way (unless you're fully enlightened!). Thich Nhat Hanh says society is full of hungry ghosts and that (we) hungry ghosts need more space, love and compassion.

If you've ever called someone a narcissist, please do us all a favor and see it as a sign that those same parts of you are needing extra love. Allow the love that already is to heal you and through that healing you can extend compassion to the person who is suffering.

Embracing a "Good Enough" Sangha (Community)

Happy Thursday! I’m enjoying a lot of Thich Nhat Hanh lately. Here is what he says about our Sangha, our community.

“Humans cannot live without the Sangha, and that is why everyone has to learn how to build our family, to build our school, to build our city, to build our monastery. It is stated very clearly that you have to take refuge in your Sangha, because without your Sangha you cannot continue the practice. In building a Sangha you have to be very patient, and you have to take care of every member of the Sangha. Every member of the Sangha has his or her weakness, his or her strengths, and you have to recognize them in order to make good use of the positive elements for the sake of the whole Sangha, for the happiness of the whole Sangha, and you have to recognize the negative elements so that you and the whole Sangha can help embrace them. You don’t leave that negative element to the person alone, because she may not be able to hold and transform it by herself alone. You have to bring your mindfulness, your love, and your compassion, and coordinate with her so you can help embrace that negative energy in her. So on one hand, as a Sangha we support the positive, we help to develop the positive element in that person, so that all the Sangha will benefit from that. On the other hand, we have to come and help to embrace and understand that weakness in him or in her, so that she will have energy in order to transform it. The transformation of that weakness is also for the joy of the whole Sangha, and that is why Sangha building has to be done as a collective thing.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

May all beings have a loving sangha to contribute positive strengths to, and to help hold and transform weaknesses.

Floating

Floating flowers fill the air

Expanding consciousness everywhere

Just as I am sinking down

Into darkness I do drown

Breathing deeply what I’ve done

People I’ve hurt, lies I’ve spun

Heaviness fills me until I sleep

Love pours in and my soul does weep

Floating flowers fill the air

Softly caressing

love

and pain

we share.

Goodnight Fear

Feeling clear.

Fear is here.

Hello fear.

I hear you.

I hear you wanting me to freeze,

locked in isolation, never free.

I hear you wanting me to fight,

to tear down the other with my might.

I hear you wanting me to flee,

to leave all I love - none left but me.

I hear you wanting me to keep my light inside, where no wind can blow it out,

But even there it dies.

I hear you.

And I say, Goodnight fear.

Thank you for your wisdom and protection.

You can rest now. Sleep tight.

Knowing I’m safe out in the light.

When you’re all filled up, rested and renewed, Come join us.

We’ll be dancing through the night.