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Posts Tagged ‘women’

Close Your Eyes, Now Breath: Voice……. by Flose Boursiquot

Posted in campus unrest, cause and effect, death, discrimination, diversity, education, enlightenment, Ethics, fears, happiness, hate speech, human race, love, Mindfulness, old age, oppression, protesters, self-help, sickness, suffering, Uncategorized, wisdom, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 5, 2018| 2 Comments »

I post this as a counterpoint to all the celebrations of July 4th’s so called “Independence Day.” 

Flose Boursiquot and Chip at Rally June 30th 2018The poem is written by Flose Boursiquot and taken from her incredible book Close Your Eyes, Now Breathe.”  The picture was taken on July 30th in Delray Beach, FL at the “Families Belong Together” rally sponsored by http://www.moveon.org where she was one of the incredible speakers.  She is with Chip Frank my friend and former production manager when I was a Unity Minister. How lucky we were to meet her! She gifted me her book for which I am ever grateful.

 

Voice

I have a voice!
you cannot silence me
my feet burn through the pavement and leave enough dust
for my grandchildren to make clay pots
the thoughts that travel through my mind leave textbook pages
ashamed

you cannot silence me
my boot straps awaken the Black Panthers and take notes from
Malxom X
I know what it means to starve
a physical pain that engulfs your intellect and spirit

you cannot silence me
I am a young Nikki Giovanni with words so freeing notebook pages
fling their legs open when i peek at them with a side eye
master’s grandchildren stand miles away when air escapes my
lungs and thoughts juxtapose that of W.E.B. DuBois

you cannot silence me
I am not a mindless crab in a bucket
i refuse
yes, i refuse to step over the hands and feet of my people
we are intertwined like the molecules in our bodies

you cannot silence me
my children will not wake up caved in by debt, miseducation and
fear
they will know that beauty doesn’t solely lie in blue eyes
and that wealth isn’t manufactured green on trees

you cannot silence me
my ancestors taught me how to read a map
they left blueprints imprinted in my DNA
if I ever lose my way, i look in the mirror
touch my wide nose
feel my naps
embrace my brown skin
and i find my way

you cannot silence me
death does not scare me
i welcome heavy words sung by kings and queens on the block
they are reminders of journeys taken so i can stand here today

you cannot silence me
my back may weaken
but my boots will carry
my brothers and sisters will lift me

you cannot silence me
because with every step i will roar
we will roar
arm-in-arm, a destiny will be set
and we will achieve

*********************

This poem was written by an incredible woman a “24-year-old Haitian-rooted palm tree dancing in the Florida sun” woman. “She is a product of Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communication and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.”

I hope you’ll buy her book!

In gassho, Shokai

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The Secret to a More Fulfilling Life! Part 3 Living your life like Avalokiteshvara the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion

Posted in birth, BUddhism, cause and effect, chant, Christianity, discrimination, diversity, education, enlightenment, Ethics, fears, happiness, hate speech, human race, illusion, Kazuaki Tanahashi, love, meditation, Metta Prayer, Mindfulness, Noble Eightfold Path, old age, oppression, planet earth, prayer, religion, self-help, sickness, suffering, The Four NOble Truths, The Heart Sutra, Uncategorized, wisdom, Zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Avalokiteshvara is known as the person “Who hears the outcries of the World.” There are so many on this earth today who are crying out for help in war zones, from hurricane devastation, earth quakes, in draughts, and famines, through poverty, and more.

avalokitesvara B&W Foundations of BuddhismShe represents the feminine energy of the world as the “holy spirit” represents the feminine energy in the Christian triad of the “father, son, and the holy spirit.”  She represents the fundamental aspect of Buddhahood: Great compassion.  In China she is named Kuan-yin, in Japan Kannon (or Kanzeon or Kwannon), and in Tibet Chenresi. In some cultures, Avalokiteshvara is a man not a woman so which ever pronoun you prefer to use for Avalokiteshvara is perfectly divine!

As you see in the picture she is depicted with many arms. In other pictures she also has many heads. I know that some of you can relate to her very well. You see her reflection in you. Every time you encourage a child or an elderly person to go beyond their struggles and challenges you are Avalokiteshvara in action.  Every time you drop off food at the foodbank, or volunteer with a non-profit organization, or mow the lawn of a disabled vet Avalokiteshvara is moving through you as you.  I know sometimes you feel like you could use those extra arms and at least one extra head if you had access to them.  But I always say, “Fake it till you make it.”

Joan Halifax and Kazuaki Tanahashi translated the Sutra “Great Compassionate Heart Dharani” in the most beautiful way (pages 138-39).[1]  Below is a list of things for you to think about or meditate on. Are these actions appearing in your life on a regular basis?  If not, why not? How can you make these actions more alive and present in your life each and every day? If yes, think about a few examples of who, how, and when they appeared.

  • Embodies great compassion
  • Protects all those who are fearful
  • Grants all wishes
  • Overcomes obstacles
  • Purifies delusion
  • Represents shining wisdom
  • Transcends the world
  • Removes the harm of greed, hatred, and delusion
  • Removes all defilements.
  • Brings joy to others
  • Succeeds greatly in life and love

Make this your project for the year and let me know how it goes!

[1] Tanahashi, K. (2015) Zen Chants Thirty-Five Essential Texts with Commentary. Shambhala: Boston and London

Picture: Avalokitesvara B&W Foundations of Buddhism

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The Secret to a More Fulfilling Life! Part 1: Introduction Thoughts are Things!

Posted in BUddhism, cause and effect, chant, Christianity, faith in Mind, fears, happiness, hate speech, human race, Kazuaki Tanahashi, love, meditation, Metta Prayer, Mindfulness, prayer, psychology, religion, self-help, Shambhala, sickness, suffering, Uncategorized, wisdom, Zen, Zen Chants Thirty-Five Essential Texts with Commentary, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 25, 2018| 2 Comments »

I saw a wonderful book on my bookshelf by Kazuaki Tanahashi eSensei Kaz Tanahashintitled Zen Chants, Thirty-Five Essential Texts with Commentary.  It made me think of all the affirmations, vows, and chants that I use on a regular basis and how powerful and fulfilling my life has become by using them.  Thus, the theme of the new blog series and workbook!

Each chapter will provide you with all you need to know about affirmations, vows, and chants and how– when used consistently and persistently– they can change your life for the better.  We will work with some created by others and learn how to create our own.

Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich wrote: Truly, “thoughts are things,” and powerful things at that…(page 19).[1] Thoughts and things have weight and measure.  That’s crazy you say!  Yet true it is.  Much research has been done on the mind and the affect that our thoughts have on our body.

One of the initial simple studies done was to place some college students (all men at the time) on a seesaw.  The participant balanced himself on it, so his body was flat and stable.  Then they asked him to think of a very difficult math problem and try to work it out in his mind.  Oddly enough the seesaw began to move lower and lower on the end where his head was. Next, they asked him to see himself running in a race with a friend and guess what?  The seesaw began to move lower and lower at the end by his feet!

Thus, thoughts have weight and measure! So, when you affirm that you can not do something for sure you can’t! But with time, effort, and persistence and these techniques you will be able to do most anything! I’m not saying you can jump over a mountain or a hill in one leap like Superman and Superwoman, but you can hike to the top that’s for sure.

And so, people have written chants, poems, prayers, affirmations, and songs to help lift us up, to help us think positive, and to help us create a more fulfilling life.

Here are some words of wisdom to start off on our adventure from Yongjia Xuanjiao’s Song of Realizing the Way (page 78).

The mind mirror is clear without hindrance

Broadly reflecting the infinite world. [2]

Thus, with your mind you can encounter the infinite world and create a reality filled with all the good you desire for yourself and others!  As Captain Jean-Luc Picard said in Star Trek: Make it so!

[1] Hill, N. (1960) Think and Grow Rich. Fawcett World Library: Greenwich, Conn

[2] Tanahashi, K. (2015) Zen Chants Thirty-Five Essential Texts with Commentary. Shambhala: Boston and London

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Living a Life of Free Inquiry: Part 3 The Kalama Sutra…Religious Books

Posted in attachment, birth, BUddhism, cause and effect, death, education, enlightenment, Ethics, fears, happiness, human race, love, meditation, old age, planet earth, prayer, religion, self-help, sickness, suffering, Uncategorized, wisdom, Zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha): “Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books.

The Rigveda is an ancient Indian text one of the four canonical sacred texts of Hinduism written between the 5th and 2nd century BCE, the first four books of the Bible Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers were written between the 6th and 2nd century BCE, the Tao Te Ching in the 6th century BCE, the Buddhist Sutras between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE, the New Testament in the 1st century CE, the Qur’an is the newest written around 632 CE.  Wow!  If you can remember all of that you’re better than I am!

 What’s my point?  The people who wrote these books were wonderful people who wanted to memorialize their beliefs and experiences for those who would come after them.  They were trying to explain, nature, birth, death, life, good and evil and more.  Science was not at the level it is today, they only had their eyes, ears, nose, and sometimes mouth to discover and memorialize their lives and how they dealt with what happened to them and in them in their waking and sleeping hours.

This is neither good nor bad—it just is.  Thus if saying a bed time Buddha at Bedtimeprayer will help keep you alive through the night—great what can you lose! If not eating meat is how you desire to live your life wonderful, go for it.  If eating meat but not pork or crustaceans (lobster, crabs, shrimp, etc.) is your choice that’s great too.  In ancient times you might have been better off not eating pork because it caused an infection we know as trichinosis, but so did lots of other foods.  Just a few more reasons “not to believe” everything found in your ancient texts.

My mom believed it about the pork and thus when we had pork chops for dinner they were so well done they tasted and acted like shoe leather!  That was one of the nights I always found a reason to eat at my best friend’s house for dinner.  Another time I bought some “free range chicken” and served it to her for supper.  I was bragging about how great they were and that all the chickens should be freed.  Once again mom told me a “farm story.”  “I fed plenty of chickens on the farm growing up and let me tell you they ate anything and everything in sight, at least this way their waste ends up far enough away that they can’t get at it.” You’ve got to love my mom!

So in this day and age with our education, science, technology, the internet, and more you have the opportunity to be your own researcher and discover about life for yourself.  If following your religious and family traditions is important in your life…go for it.  Just remember that not everything written in them is true…then move full speed ahead and live the life that works for you and spreads peace, love, and compassion wherever you go!

In gassho,

Shokai

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Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) about World Dilemmas…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 14, 2012| 2 Comments »

What Laura Rendon, author of Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation, talks about in her book is so relevant to the situations occurring in our world today.  The actions by the militants in Libya and Egypt, the creation of a totally inaccurate and prejudice video about Islam from a nut case in California, and the threat to burn the Koran by the crazy minister in Florida, plus the “shoot from the lip” response from Romney about the crisis in Egypt and Libya are a direct result of their education being at odds with Rendon’s research and philosophy on teaching.  She writes:

               ” What does it mean to be truly educated in the world today? We are being challenged to educate students for a complex future with ever-ending, ever more difficult social, political, and cultural challenges that test our ability to make sound, ethical, and moral decisions, as well as to make the world peaceful, equitable, and survivable.  The entrenched belief system privileges separation, monodisciplinarity, competition, intellectualism, and passivity at the expense of collaboration, transdisciplinarity, intuition, and active learning, especially that focused on social change (p.135).”

Modern religious education in America and around the world frequently teaches our children to be separate, different, better “than,” and always right.  It does not teach them to be independent free thinkers but automatons, unquestioning, and rigid.  It creates death, destruction, wars, hatred, and misogyny.  It separates rather than joins, it hates rather than loves.  It fears rather than shares. It kills rather than heals.

And yet right now we see this going on here and abroad and we do nothing about it in our school systems.  We have the teachers on strike in Chicago because the politicians want to run the schools and they have had absolutely no education in teaching, pedagogy, administration, counseling, social work, or psychology.  All of which are imperative to run a classroom, a student counseling office, or a principal’s office.

We’ve even allowed them to re-write our curriculum and take “science” out of our classrooms and textbooks and teach “creationism” and “abstinence only” instead!  The nuts have taken over the nut house now they have taken over the school house as well! In Texas they have even taken Thomas Jefferson out of the history books because he fathered a child with a slave!  Yikes… What next?  Do we take Einstein out of the theory of relativity because he was a Jew?  Or how about taking Maria Curie out of our science books because she was a woman?  Even though her work included pioneering research on radioactivity, and she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences.  That will be next if these types of people are given additional power in our school systems here and around the world.

Rendon goes on to say:

                “In our quest to transform the entrenched belief system, we must be willing to address questions such as: Why have I not broken out of a belief system that is oppressive in nature for many students and faculty?  How is my behavior upholding power structures in the academy? What do I believe about who can and cannot learn? How am I choosing my curriculum—what assumptions do I follow, and is the curriculum truly inclusive and multicultural in nature?  If not, what prevents me from doing this and why am I going along with this limiting view of knowledge (p. 135-6)?”

If these questions are not answered by us and by all countries and their leaders I hate to see what kind of world our children will grow up in.  What will happen with this lack of knowledge, love, and compassion for all beings, all religions, and our slowly dying planet Earth?  Sometimes I am glad that I am old enough that I will not live to see these potentially devastating outcomes.

Today is the day for each of us to BE the change that we want to see in the world….what will you do to make that happen?

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