We should maintain that if an interpretation of any word in any religion leads to disharmony and does not positively further the welfare of the many, then such an interpretation is to be regarded as wrong; that is, against the will of God, or as the working of Satan or Mara.

Buddhadasa Bikkhu, a Thai Buddhist Monk


Monday, March 31, 2014

The Way

In the quiet of contemplation and the silence of meditation,  the mind seeks rest and the heart to be less a prisoner of anxiety, haste, and stress.  And one thing heart and mind discern in the mindfulness of meditation is how these things infect most of our waking moments.  We go from being anxiously busy here to being anxiously busy there, and even when we have time for being not busy we fill that time with being busy.  Will the Kingdom come through our doing?  I wonder, doubt even that it will.  Seeking a balance between doing and not doing, having and not having; learning to walk the Path slowly, contemplatively, in meditation: walking without hurrying, balanced, on the way toward peace; and seeing what lies here and there, stopping for a time for the pleasure of stopping.  That seems to be the more likely way toward God's Kingdom: Sabbath rest, contemplative, meditative, peaceful, and balanced.

When then a person is mindfully at rest the Kingdom begins to take form.  When we find pleasure in the small ordinary things in life, the Kingdom comes.  When we allow the anxieties of the daily grind to dissipate into a peaceful moment, the Kingdom is.  Being at ease.  Resting.  It is out of such things as these that the Kingdom is built, and when we live without haste and anxiety—at peace—we create a much different world from the "reality" of today, a world less polluted, less violent, and less inherently unjust—relationships less stressed, contentious, and defensive.  Amen.