new year inspiration

Ask not what your [country] can do for you,
but what you can do for your [country]!
JFK, Jan 20, 1961

I was in junior high when JFK made this powerful speech. My father was particularly moved by this line. He was one of that "new generation." Dad quoted this line about service five years later when he decided to leave his work as a high school principal in peaceful rural Iowa to join the Teacher Corps.

In June of 1966, when I headed for college, he went to a summer training in Indiana. In the fall he and the rest of my family, mom and three younger siblings, packed up and moved to Indiana.

This took him to work in South Chicago and Gary in the late 60's and early 70's, years that cities were burning with civil unrest. He was the only administrator in his teacher corps training program. He became a peace maker in vicinity high schools - moving in when there was trouble, listening and responding to resolve the issues.

This particular job was not for everyone to do. It was his to do. It was the right choice for him. A choice he recognized and enthusiastically said yes to.


Now, 50 years after JFK's challenge, let us begin the new year with his challenge. The challenge may not be a government program. It is likely to be something right in front of you that needs to be done for the good of society and other human beings. Something you are drawn to do, even inspired to do.

We have gifts to offer. Let us share them. Quoting or at least paraphrasing Joanna Macy, "We are the people we are looking for."

What is for me to do? What is for you to do? Just because a task is noble does not mean it is mine or yours. We only need to be faithful to our own sense of integrity. We don't do something noble. A great noble gesture is more likely to be grandiose, and not really helpful at all.

Instead we do simply what needs to be done. What needs to be done now. What needs to be done by us. That is true nobility, true integrity. And individual integrity is just what our world needs.

May it be so.

holiday and new year greeting

Freedom and happiness are available in any moment whatever our circumstances. It often may not feel like this is possible, but it is the season's message, a message that is articulated in both Buddhist and Christian traditions.

The story of the birth of Jesus is a story in which God, understood as ultimate power, chooses surrender and vulnerability, being born into the world as a precious and powerless baby. We celebrate the season by accepting our own vulnerability, our need for others, our desire for peace and harmony. We surrender to things as they are.

Are we ready now, as human beings, capable of living this truth? Can we each in our own lives choose to face each moment as it unfolds, however it unfolds? Can  we choose non-violence, kindness, and good will toward all living beings? And to our planet?


In a recent article in the Inquiring Mind Jack Kornfield paraphrased some Buddhist descriptions of freedom and enlightenment. Perhaps we can take one or more of these to make our holiday practice and New Year intention live up to the season's message.

Ajahn Cha
If you let go a little, you'll be a little happy. If you let go a lot you'll be a lot happy. If you let go completely, you'll be completely happy.

Ajahn Cha
Just let go, and become the awareness, be the one who knows.

Mahasi Sayadaw
To find emptiness, note every single moment until what you think to be the world dissolves, and you will come to know freedom.

Dipa Ma
Love no matter what.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Rest in mindfulness, this moment, the eternal present.

Ajahn Jumnien
Be happy for no cause.

Suzuki Roshi
Just be exactly where you are. Instead of waiting for the bus, realize you are on the bus.

What are your own words of wisdom? Let us share them both verbally and through our living them!

Wishing us all peaceful and happy holy days now and through the new year,

Mary

right effort of letting go

right effort in the face of adversity

What is right effort when you realize there is nothing you can do to effect skillful behavior or wholesome change in the mind?

What is right effort when a persistent thought keeps arising, robbing you of peace of mind?

What is right effort when unwholesome will not die?


letting go

Consider surrendering any efforts to be free, accepting things as they are, stopping and simply recognizing the characteristics of existence:

Nothing is permanent, nothing can be clung to.
There is nothing that is ultimately satisfying or fulfilling.
We are not as substantial as we take ourselves to be – no me, my, or mine.

Revisit an investigation of form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, recognizing their insubstantial and continuously fluctuating nature. Is there clinging to anything? Is there clinging internally or externally? Clinging to personal states or to relationships?

Remember that whatever is arising is due to causes and conditions, causes and conditions of which you are a part. You influence positively the next moment and future moments by stopping the struggle, by letting things be as they are.