Saturday, June 27, 2009

Why is the Buddha Always Smiling?

I heard in a radio snippet about being present and mindfulness that one of the renowned mindfulness and present moment proponents, the Buddha, was always depicted as smiling because of his awareness of what he did not know.

Knowledge, learning, and thinking are certainly to be valued, but how much do we celebrate about what we don't know?  Is it initiative to learn it?  We are trained to say: "I don't know, but I'll find out!"

Knowledge is power.  Good customer service is important.

What are you happy about that you don't know, control, or understand?

In his book, Overcoming Life's Disappointments, Rabbi Harold Kushner points out the Moses' first response to God at the scene of the burning bush was "Who am I that I should go to Pharoah and free the Israelites from Egypt?"  (All of us are the reluctant leader in discipleship at one time or another).  God's response, according to Rabbi Kushner isn't to explain who Moses is, but rather who God is.  "I will be with you", says God.  Moses then ask: "What is your name?" to which God gives a vague response we often translate as "I am who I am".  There is alot about the response that we don't know.

But Kushner, in his understanding, explains the translation as "I will be with you."  That, according to Kushner, is what God is all about.

So, is that enough to keep you smiling?  All the stuff that we don't know about God doesn't add up to what we do know about him: That he will be with us.

Maybe the best way to have trust, faith, and belief in that (not necessarily in that order) is to be present and mindful with it as much as possible.

Keep smiling.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Is That So?

Eckhart Tolle describes insight into finding out "who you truly are" in a passage in his book The New Earth through the story of Zen Master Hakuin who lived in a town in Japan.  It seems that the teen age daughter of the Zen's master's next door neighbor became pregnant.  She indicated that the much revered Zen master was, in fact, the father.

In a rage, the girl's parents confronted the Zen master and furiously told him of their daughter's confession.  His reply was a simple: "Is that so?"

There was a scandal.  The Zen master was disgraced and fell from favor in the community.  He lost his livelihood.  When the baby was born, the parents brought him to the Zen master and demanded that he should raise the child because, after all, he was the father.  The Zen master's response: "Is that so?"

The Zen master lovingly raised the child.

A year later, the baby's mother confessed that the baby's father wasn't the Zen master at all, but a boy who worked at the town's butcher shop.  The parents remorsefully went to the Zen master to apologize.  

"We wish to take the baby back: we know you are not the father."

"Is that so?"

The Zen master handed the baby over to them.

The point of the story according to Tolle is that "Only if you resist what happens are you at the mercy of what happens, and the world will determine your happiness and unhappiness."

Is there something to do here with turning the other cheek, or with handing over cloaks, or with denying yourself?

I shared the story with a couple folks in the hall and was roundly chastised for thinking about buying into such foolishness.  You gotta fight the power that be! seemed to be the sentiment in that moment.

We do fight and we do react and we do defend, but what, as a leader, happens when your efforts turn from fighting and controlling and proving to being present?  To doing the little things of insignificance?  To occasionally responding to attacks and anger with the simple words: "Is that so?"

What might happen, according to ancient philosopher, Tao Te Ching is that "all things will come to you."

But then again: what might happen, according to Jesus, is that you might end up on a cross.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

A discipleship manifesto

Would you consider doing less ministry events if it meant your ministry team chair would develop more authentic relationships with the people organizing and executing them?

Would you give up listing something on your accomplishment ledger if it meant more people experienced an event for the first time and gained a sense that the project would fail if they didn't participate?

When things are going well, do you feel a need to take it to the next level even if it means less lay participation?  Without knowing it you may be setting yourself up for a discipleship meltdown.

According to a recent article by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek Magazine, that type of thinking on behalf of the Fed may have been a contributing factor to the recent bursting of various economic and moral bubbles.

"In responding to almost every crisis in the past 15 years, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan always had the same solution: cut rates and ease up on money...Greenspan behaved like most American political leaders over the past two decades- he chose the easy way out of a hard situation."

What do you suppose that means?  He didn't address the real problem--just the symptoms?  He set up an artificial way for the economy to succeed that didn't reflect the essential values of the simple gut check to evaluate whether something is right or not?

So.  What does a gut check for us look like?  How are we performing our jobs--the day to day?  What relationships have you added? Done away with?  Reconnected with?

Is ministry you serve better because of your involvement, your influence, your willingness to offer your gifts and passions without restrictions?

How is the overall organization better because of something you did or maybe didn't do or didn't say?

Can we avoid taking the easy way out and a potential discipleship collapse by having difficult conversations that show people not how powerful and right we are, but rather how much we care?  Can we become ever more conscious of our own egos and the way they seek chaos and emptiness--the easy way out-- instead of surrender and awareness?

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Pits and Domes

On a recent journey in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky I learned an interesting lesson about the vertical shafts throughout the formation.  The same shaft can be a pit or a dome.  It all depends on the position you occupy as the observer.  The lesson is even more interesting when considered in the light of Eckart Tolle's book on our ego and our conscious, present (true) selves called A New Earth.  The people we seek to lead (and of course, even ourselves) are often pits.  Sometimes seemingly bottomless.  Pits of need, pits of despair, pits of anger, pits of incongruences, pits of complaints, pits of grudges.   Can you think of the times you have seen that same person as a dome-- a majestic, soaring Sistine Chapel?  It's the same shaft and the same person.  It has to do with how we observe them.  Is that their unrealized ego instead of who they really are? 
What makes a pit or a dome isn't the person, it's your position as the observer.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Gold and Jade


On a trip to Guatemala, our group took a tour of the Jade Factory in Antiqua.  We heard a short lecture on Jade and the history of its importance to the Mayans and to Guatemala.  When the conquistadors came to the area, they were looking for gold.  When the Mayans offered them what they had of value, Jade, the conquistadors didn't seem to understand or perceive the value of it because it wasn't what they valued.

So in telling this story and how it might shape how we engage with others in foreign cultures or foreign situations- be present to what others value and don't be driven only by what you want or perceive as valuable in new interactions, I heard a couple interpretations of the allegorical nature of the story:

1.  Right, so we should understand what the other folks have so then we can exploit that!
2.  Well, yeah, but gold is more valuable than jade.
3.  You think too much.

So what is the take away from this little epiphany for you?  That we shouldn't let what we are looking for obscure what's there?  That we should try to find out what they have so we can exploit it, but so that it can be honored, activated, and offered to the good and health of the community?  What is value?  That we shouldn't over-think things?

Monday, June 15, 2009

Take off your shoes and enjoy the party


We were to depart on our last day in Guatemala around 9:30 a.m. to take a van to the airport and then catch our flight back to Atlanta, landing around 6:00 p.m.  I had put on some relatively clean clothes and shoes and went about the last couple of hours in Guatemala trying to stay relatively dust, sweat, and dirt free in anticipation  of our long journey together in close quarters.  I figured I might be able to catch up on e-mail and maybe check on a couple things on line with the painfully slow dial up internet access in the office of the children's home where we had worked during our stay there.

So I walked down from the school across a dirt/dust playing field where a couple of children where kicking around the omnipresent soccer ball, laughing, and getting sweaty, dirty, and dusty.  As I negotiated the perimeter of the field, one of the youngsters who I had already identified as having a keen sense of awareness, wisdom, and consciousness of the present moment walked up to me and said very matter-of-fact: "Hey, why don't you take off your shoes and enjoy the party?"

What a great question.  I'm still formulating my answer, but I didn't take off my shoes.  I did realize though at that moment, how much I was enjoying the party.

We need first and foremost to be able to take off our shoes and enjoy the party.  As leaders in discipleship, we also need to be willing to ask others why not  join us.

Whether or not they do doesn't matter as much as the invitation.