The three marks of an awakened life are presence,
happiness, and kindness.

from the Vimala Sangha Zen Blog, a weekly compendium of thoughts,
comments, reflections, and visitations by Lew Richmond and other
teachers and Sangha members.

Blogged with Flock

How can we act in ways that makes it more possible for people to be at their best?

Blogged with Flock

Today was a day of rubbing elbows with members of one of the wealthiest golf country clubs in the US. They’re products of elite private and ivy league schools, fine pedigrees, and privileged and charmed lives.

What was evident is how their lives are complete with the same range of emotions of any life I’ve known on any socioeconomic scale. Under worn or wealthy clothes, skin is skin.

Notice how much increase in consciousness is related to the discovery and creation of new distinctions.

We need to develop a whole new vocabulary for the kinds of skills that require practice rather than memorization for mastery, like playing any instrument or any sport. The application is for leadership. We will not grow leaders by talking at them for hours. We grow leaders the way everything organic grows … in the field.

Sometimes, difficult only means we’re trying to go it alone.

Blogged with Flock

I can’t resist dedicating today’s blog to the new Washington intelligence report that directly relates the US war and occupation in Iraq with unintended increases in global Islamic radicalism. According to the NY Times, it “represents a consensus view of 16 disparate spy services inside the (US) govenment.”

I guess this is good news for Islamic extremists who continue their logical war against democracy because they believe democracy explicitly places human laws higher than God’s laws - for them, an unforgivable, clearly evil, and intolerable theological treason of the highest order.

The only way forward is through the higher consciousness of authentic dialogue.

Blogged with Flock

Our zen group did a mini-retreat today, very powerful indeed. McDermott and I have named our group the SouthCoast Zen(dog) Meditation Group. He quips how no one ever questions the dog reference - perhaps out of respect, polite confusion, or simply not noticing it’s embedded in the identity.

The reference is to one of the famous sure-to-spark enlightenment questions (called koans): Does a dog have buddha nature?

One acceptable response, aside from barking out loud at erratic intervals during meditation, is acknowledgement that every sentient being has buddha nature - wholeness, uniqueness, impermanence. Hence the appropriatness of Zen(dog). Now we just need to establish the local Happy Dog as the zen pub of choice.

The more we learn and know, the more we get to realize what we don’t know. At the same time, it become more and more important to understand that we are all whole.

In all natural systems, new life emerges at the edges. Movement and change in social systems happens at the edges.

So when an idea comes up, what’s at the edges of that idea? When we have a conversation, what’s at the edges of this conversation? When a problem emerges, what’s at the edges of this problem?

At the edges, our awareness is porous, an inlet of open space letting the ocean of curiosity embrace the rivers of new possibilities.

Blogged with Flock