Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha): “Do not believe in anything 
simply because you have heard it.”
It is okay to begin your journey by reading the books and watching the videos and once you’ve done that throw it all away and discover it for yourself in your own way and in your own time. That will enhance your knowledge, give you practical experience in the area that you are working on and make it “real” in mind, body, and spirit.
I can watch all the great ice skaters in the world on TV, and I can go see them perform live in the stadium. I can feel the beautiful music vibrating in my ears and moving down into my body and enjoy its bliss. But until I put on a pair of skates I don’t know what skating is!
Do not believe what others tell you about skating—experience it for yourself! When I began studying metaphysics in the 90’s I was book learned, I taught classes, and shared my knowledge from the pulpit. But until I started to meditate daily, and create my own treasure maps, and write my own affirmations and use them daily and saw the things manifest in my life—I really didn’t know what metaphysics was.
Even though I heard and read about the power of prayer until I prayed with one of my congregants in a hospice setting and saw and heard her in prayer with me I did not really know the power of prayer. Her belief in that prayer helped her walk out of the center a few days later healed. She moved back to the north east where she continued to live many years in good health.
Once she came back to Florida to visit her family and dropped in on one of my classes and shared this story with us. Her doctor had told her that her healing from prayer changed his belief in God. My purpose is not to try to make you believe in a God or a supreme power or the like, but simply to illustrate the teaching of the Kalama Sutra, “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.” The doctor had seen it with his own eyes in one of his own patients.
Thus we live a life of “free inquiry” not believing in anything simply because we have heard it or read it or seen it on the internet! Regardless if the ideas are written in any ancient scriptures and in any ancient language. We must discover it for ourselves. Live a life of free inquiry and watch what happens in your life when you do!
Let me know how that goes.
Shokai
Beyond Prayer Part 17…Sharing the Merit
Posted in BUddhism, cause and effect, chant, Christianity, happiness, love, prayer, Uncategorized, Zen, Zen Chants Thirty-Five Essential Texts with Commentary, tagged Buddhism, Chanting from the heart Buddhist Ceremonies and Daily Practices, Christmas, compassion, gratitude, happiness, Happy New Year, kind words, love, Merry Christmas, peace, Plum Village, Sharing the Merit Sunshine Cathedral, Sunshine Cathedral, Thich Nhat Hanh, Unity, Unity Village, Zen, Zen Buddhism on December 20, 2015| Leave a Comment »
It just happens to be 5 days before Christmas as I am beginning to think about what I will write next for my blog. The theme has been prayer and so I scoured my numerous book shelves with books on prayer both Unity ones and Buddhist ones and low and behold what did I see this wonderful book given to me by my sangha, Chanting from the heart Buddhist Ceremonies and Daily Practices by Thich Nhat Hanh and the Monks and Nuns of Plum Village in France. I noticed there was a cloth bookmark and as I lifted it to open to the page there to my surprise was a short chant entitled “Sharing the Merit.”
How perfect is that! “God is good…all the time” as my friends at the Sunshine Cathedral in Fort Lauderdale always say. And they are right, even when it doesn’t seem so. When we say and do the right things, right things happen in our lives. So not only is it important to believe the words above in our chant it is imperative that we live our lives as the example of them. And not just at Christmas time but 365 days a year.
Whatever you do don’t turn away your good when someone showers you with gratitude by saying, “Oh, it was nothing.” That demeans their gift of gratitude, and equally as important, you are turning away your good. In Unity we encouraged our students and congregants never to do that as you don’t know what good may be coming your way and if it hears those words of rejection it may decide to bless someone else with that “good.”
And that “good” could have been prosperity, a new job, a visit from a long lost friend or relative, or a healing. So always accept your good with grace and gratitude. Use the above sutra and share that grace with others whenever you get the opportunity. Christmas is the time of giving so instead of giving material possessions try giving kind words, your help, your love, and your gratitude and watch your good manifest in miraculous ways—especially without expectation of receiving.
Give simply for the gift of giving. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
In gassho,
Shokai
[1]Hanh, T.N. et.al. (2007) Chanting from the heart Buddhist Ceremonies and Daily Practices. Parallax Press: Berkeley, CA
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