Tag Archives: Jesus

Ego

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Seeker

As I have mentioned before, I am a seeker.  I have always wondered about the hard stuff.  Is there really a god?  Does that teacher really know what he is talking about?  How many subatomic particles are there?  Why is the human brain so complex?  Why is the universe expanding in defiance of gravity?  Why do Republicans exist?  What is the difference between eukaryotic and prokaryotes and how can prokaryotes have flagella?

Vegetarian animals have their eyes more to the side of their heads in order to see predators, who have their eyes in front to see prey.  Therefore, should humans always be carnivorous?  What about biblical prophesy?  Are these the last days?  Is existential despair the true human condition?  Is there enough time left to reverse global warming?

Do you see what I mean?  I have lots of questions and not many answers.  In my college days an art major and I were scrubbing wax off the baseboards in the student center during semester break.  I asked him about the meaning of life as artists always have a different vision about the nature of things.  His reply?  “ Everything is what it is.”  We’ll, yes, but not very satisfying.   Artists look and render what they see.  I look and wonder why?

The Meaning of Life

This defect of my character has led me to seek out those people and traditions who purport to know the answers.  I was raised a nominal Methodist.  I found only felt figures on a felt board.  I did like the doxology, but hated the jello salads in the basement.

I had a profound period of existential despair after my mother’s death my junior year of high school.  Camus, the Blues, and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony.   Being afraid of girls was no help at all.

The winter of my senior year I was the wrestling team manager.  I wasn’t much of an athlete (another reason for existential despair) so the wrestling team was great fun.  I was able to help and even make a difference.  The scourge of wrestlers is boils.  Sliding on those mats means abrasion, and bacteria find their way into the skin.  Evil, those boils.  As  team manager,  I insured there were no  boils because I kept the mats disinfected.  No pus and blood on my watch.

There it is, the answer to despair.  Stay engaged.  I prevented boils, Camus enjoyed success with the ladies.  There is almost always a way.  Still, I sought.  On a wrestling trip to Salt Lake I bumped up against the Mormons.  I read, studied, listened, even dated a Mormon girl.  One night during an attack of angst I realized I didn’t believe in that stuff.

I then embarked on a career as an agnostic, annoying all the believers I knew by challenging their beliefs.  I continued my search with little success for quite a few years.  I think I substituted addictions for having any meaning.  If you are getting off, the need to keep it up takes over, even while knowing addiction is fruitless.  I had read Kerouac.

Saved

Then, during a dark night of the soul after a divorce, I was living in a basement apartment in Lasalle Colorado with my black dog.  I was working in the Greeley sewage disposal plant and the Maintenance Foreman was a deacon in an Assemblies Of God Church.  I went to his bible study, prayed, and got saved.  I asked Jesus in and felt this overwhelming feeling of being wrapped in love.  I got involved, had many experiences of the Holy Spirit, the addictions went away for a year, and I thought I had found the Meaning.

But, life interfered, as well as knowing all that Fundamentalist stuff made no sense.  I couldn’t stay with the holy rollers and ended up an Episcopalian.  For me, my higher power manifests as Jesus.  I couldn’t, however stay with the organized church.  Churches are instruments of power and control, contrary to what Jesus taught.  I did learn how to pray, and prayer is what grounds me.  No answers to the Big Question, however.

In fact, I think I have given up on finding the Meaning.  It’s a mystery.  These days I practice Insight Meditation with all its Buddhist trappings.  The good thing about Buddhism is that it does not purport to answer those questions.  I fact, the Buddha mostly ignored all that stuff, saying the sole goal is to end suffering.  With our big brains, we look for reasons.  We think up explanations or buy into someone else’s explanation and create a world.  Almost always the core of that world is desire.  We want stuff, pleasure, a sense of belonging.

No way, dude.  It is all illusion.  Let it go and find emptiness.  That emptiness harbors the true meaning, a sense of being one with the Universe.  Well, I think so, anyway.  I haven’t even come close.  Maybe I need a Bodhi tree to meditate under.

My meditating has borne fruit.  I am finding equanimity.  I am less frustrated.  I am less angry.  I don’t feel as much despair.  I have periods of true happiness.  My addictions are losing their grip, especially if I do my part in my daily practice.  Can’t tell you about the meaning of the cosmos, but my cosmos is more peaceful.

 

 

 

Posted in Buddhism, Existential Despair, Insight Meditation, Jesus, Meaning, Meditation, My Story, Stories

The Meaning Of Life

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As I have mentioned before, I am a seeker.  I have always wondered about the hard stuff.  Is there really a god?  Does that teacher really know what he is talking about?  How many subatomic particles are there?  Why is the human brain so complex?  Why is the universe expanding in defiance of gravity?  Why do Republicans exist?  What is the difference between eukaryotes and prokaryotes and how can prokaryotes have flagella?

Vegetarian animals have their eyes more to the side of their heads in order to see predators, who have their eyes in front to see prey.  Therefore, should humans always be carnivorous?  What about biblical prophesy?  Are these the last days?  Is existential despair the true human condition?  Is there enough time left to reverse global warming?

Do you see what I mean?  I have lots of questions and not many answers.  In my college days an art major and I were scrubbing wax off the baseboards in the student center during semester break.  I asked him about the meaning of life as artists always have a different vision about the nature of things.  His reply?  “ Everything is what it is.”  We’ll, yes, but not very satisfying.   Artists look and render what they see.  I look and wonder why?

This defect of my character has led me to seek out those people and traditions who purport to know the answers.  I was raised a nominal Methodist.  I found only felt figures on a felt board.  I did like the doxology, but hated the jello salads in the basement.

I had a profound period of existential despair after my mother’s death my junior year of high school.  Camus, the Blues, and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony.   Being afraid of girls was no help at all.

The winter of my senior year I was the wrestling team manager.  I wasn’t much of an athlete (another reason for existential despair) so the wrestling team was great fun.  I was able to help and even make a difference.  The scourge of wrestlers is boils.  Sliding on those mats means abrasion, and bacteria find their way into the skin.  Evil, those boils.  As  team manager,  I insured there were no  boils because I kept the mats disinfected.  No pus and blood on my watch.

There it is, the answer to despair.  Stay engaged.  I prevented boils, Camus enjoyed success with the ladies.  There is almost always a way.  Still, I sought.  On a wrestling trip to Salt Lake I bumped up against the Mormons.  I read, studied, listened, even dated a Mormon girl.  One night during an attack of angst I realized I didn’t believe in that stuff.

I then embarked on a career as an agnostic, annoying all the believers I knew by challenging their beliefs.  I continued my search with little success for quite a few years.  I think I substituted addictions for having any meaning.  If you are getting off, the need to keep it up takes over, even while knowing addiction is fruitless.  I had read Kerouac.

Then, during a dark night of the soul after a divorce, I was living in a basement apartment in Lasalle Colorado with my black dog.  I was working in the Greeley sewage disposal plant and the Maintenance Foreman was a deacon in an Assemblies Of God Church.  I went to his bible study, prayed, and got saved.  I asked Jesus in and felt this overwhelming feeling of being wrapped in love.  I got involved, had many experiences of the Holy Spirit, the addictions went away for a year, and I thought I had found the Meaning.

But, life interfered, as well as knowing all that Fundamentalist stuff made no sense.  I couldn’t stay with the holy rollers and ended up an Episcopalian.  For me, my higher power manifests as Jesus.  I couldn’t, however stay with the organized church.  Churches are instruments of power and control, contrary to what Jesus taught.  I did learn how to pray, and prayer is what grounds me.  No answers to the Big Question, however.In fact, I think I have given up on finding the Meaning.  It’s a mystery.

These days I practice Insight Meditation with all its Buddhist trappings.  The good thing about Buddhism is that it does not purport to answer those questions.  I fact, the Buddha mostly ignored all that stuff, saying the sole goal is to end suffering.  With our big brains, we look for reasons.  We think up explanations or buy into someone else’s explanation and create a world.  Almost always the core of that world is desire.  We want stuff, pleasure, a sense of belonging.

No way, dude.  It is all illusion.  Let it go and find emptiness.  That emptiness harbors the true meaning, a sense of being one with the Universe.  Well, I think so, anyway.  I haven’t even come close.  Maybe I need a Bodhi tree to meditate under.

My meditating has borne fruit.  I am finding equanimity.  I am less frustrated.  I am less angry.  I don’t feel as much despair.  I have periods of true happiness.  My addictions are losing their grip, especially if I do my part in my daily practice.  Can’t tell you about the meaning of the cosmos, but my cosmos is more peaceful.

 

Posted in Addiction, Bible Prophesy, Buddhism, Existential Despair, Happiness, Insight Meditation, Jesus, My Story, Stories, Suffering

Lovingkindness

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We seem to be living in a world seething with hate.  It is always there, but currently it is more visible.  Our president wants adulation and to punish those who oppose him.  Everyone has a part of themselves who wants to do harm, usually because harm was done to them.  There is another way.

We are born with a need to be loved, to be fed, cuddled, protected, and allowed to grow.  A baby receiving those things responds with smiles, giggles, and joy.  The caregiver experiences joy as well.  The response to abuse is to withdraw and develop defenses for survival.  The capacity for love and joy can be lost.  We are all wounded to some degree and the result is conflict.

The response to love and nurturing is a desire to love and nurture in response.  We are born that way.  The word for it is lovingkindness.  All the anger and resentment is learned, a response to abuse.

My task is to increase lovingkindness and equanimity and allow the negativity to wither.  My techniques are Insight Meditation and Metta.  Metta is the practice of holding all living beings in prayer or lovingkindness.  “May all sentient beings be happy, may they be safe, may they be free.”  “May Mr. Trump be safe, may he be happy, may he be free and practice lovingkindness in his life.”   “May the driver who just gave me the finger be happy, safe, and free.”  I actually do this.  Not always, I still harbor old wounds, but my Metta practice is growing.

I feel better, am less angry, and don’t honk or give the other driver the finger nearly as much.  Buddha came up with this 2500 years ago, even though he didn’t drive, and those who practice lovingkindness are a powerful force for good which often goes unrecognized.  All the faith traditions encourage this in some way.  Yes, there are happy and loving people out there.

So, what about all those with anger and hate?  It’s our task to show them lovingkindness, as simple as smiling and allowing them to make that left turn.  We also deal directly with the negativity by listening and showing respect, gently offering a more caring viewpoint.  We help those in need, always with dignity and respect.  When angry, we breathe in, breathe out, pause, rinse and repeat.

I guess I am something of a Buddhist, but Jesus is still in my life, and always will.  A bit about Buddhism.  It has all the trappings of an Eastern faith tradition.  Saffron robes, chants, meditation, stupas and gilded  Buddhas, with one big difference.  Buddhism is nontheistic.  No worshipping some Big Guy.  The sole purpose is to end suffering.  Most often greed, or desire, is the root of suffering.  We can be in terrible pain but suffering is optional.

We decide we need something.  We make that up.  All we need is food, clothing, and shelter.  All the rest comes from craving, wanting to fill a hole that can’t be filled that way.  We might feel a bit better, but the desire always returned.    What to do? Let go. Meditate.  Practice lovingkindness.  Do lots of Metta.  Maybe I will get better at all that.

Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dharma, Lovingkindness, Meditation, Memoirs, Prayer, Stories, Suffering

Counterattack

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The two recent pieces I wrote and posted here amount to something of an epiphany.  I have been aware of my addictions and history of sexual abuse and practiced the additions for most of my life.  What came to me while writing them is the realization I have long had a reliable way to deal with the addictions: Pray.

Prayer

I have been praying for years, starting with my conversion.  Praying has continued because it works.  I have known praying works on addiction for all those years.  Problem is, I knew it works but only practiced it intermittently.  Cunning, baffling, powerful.

Insight meditation has enhanced my praying and gives me more focus while praying.  The goal is to clear out the mental clutter I used to survive in a sometimes dangerous world.  Along with developing survival skills, I also create my own world.  Some of our worlds may be congruent with reality, sometimes not.  It takes lots of energy to maintain the personal world, and I am constantly revising and enhancing what is actually an artificial construct.

My inner world is filled with stories about what is going on, what happened, and guesses about the future.  In the process of creating all this, I ignore the present.  All those creations are the basis for my addiction.  The now, right now, is not.  So, it’s only logical to stay in the moment.  It ain’t easy, folks.  I have many years of reinforcement to stay with the mostly imaginary world I created.

I can get to the now in meditation and prayer.  It is said meditation can aid one in staying in the moment most of the time.  It’s called enlightenment.  Watch the breath.  When mind wanders, return to the breath.  Repeat.  I am not enlightened, although I strive to go there.  My mind wanders.  A lot.

I can, however, pray, which is an alternate way of staying in the moment.  Another word for prayer is mantra.  “Om mani padme hum”.  It can be a collection of Sanskrit phrases or English words transmitted by a teacher.  in my case I don’t know my teacher’s name.  He is a long dead Russian peasant who became a pilgrim seeking his teachers in Russian monasteries.  In his travels he used an ancient Orthodox Christian prayer known as the Jesus Prayer.  “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  He suggested starting with 3000 repetitions daily.  With sufficient practice, it is possible to synchronize the prayer with the heartbeat.  This means constant prayer.  How is that for staying in the moment?  His book is entitled The Way of a Pilgrim.

I may have reached 3000 a few times.  I have never synchronized the prayer with my heartbeat.  I do synchronize with my breath.  After writing those two pieces about addiction and spirituality, I had a solid week of prayer, peace, and freedom from addiction.  What a glorious time!  Once I had a year of respite.

Oops! Here came the counterattack.  In these cases, it’s nearly a total absence of prayer and almost constant addictive obsessing along with acting out.  You Tube is a great aid in distracting myself from the moment and reinforcing obsessions.  During this current counterattack I had a dream about finding myself in a room with baggage stacked to the 20 foot high ceiling. That’s my world-lots of baggage.  So, what to do?  One way I have found is to open up about what is going on and not isolate.  Remember George Thorogood singing “When I drink alone, I want to be by myself.”?  That is my addiction mantra.

“Confession is good for the soul.”  Here is my confession.  Now maybe I can get back to prayer.

Posted in Addiction, Alcohol, Buddhism, Current Activities, Insight Meditation, Jesus Prayer, Meditation, My Story, Obsession, Prayer, Sexual Abuse, Stories

Treating Pain

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My life has changed because of two stories I heard on NPR.  Remember the classic study of the rat in a cage with two water bottles, one with an opioid, the other plain water.  The rat always chose the drugged water?  Well, another researcher duplicated the study but instead of a bare cage, it was rat friendly.  Places to explore, to dig, to run around, and interact with other rats.  The rats ignored the drug laced water, going for plain water.

The other story is about the Vietnam heroin problem.   About 20% of the GIs there used heroine.  It turned into a major problem.  When those heroin users came home, 95%of them quit heroin without treatment.  The reason for the heroin use in both cases was the desire of the subjects to feel good in a bad situation.  Would you want to be a lone rat in a barren cage?  A soldier in the Vietnam war?

Heroin

Those stories reminded me of what a guy said in a twelve step meeting.  “I want to get my feel good.”   People turn to addicting substances or behaviors in order to feel better.  Lots of people out here don’t feel good for a multitude of reasons.  They turn to food, compulsive exercise, drugs,, internet gaming, gambling, sex, or booze.  It’s the pleasure-pain principle.

When I was fifteen I started drinking.  My buddies and I stole hubcaps for the thrill.  I climbed rocks and canyon walls for excitement.  I always wanted to go just a bit faster or jump higher on my motorcycle.  I smoked three packs of cigarettes a day to stave off the craving.  Anything to feel good or not feel bad.

My early years were troubled.  I had undiagnosed ADD which tended to lead me into trouble.  I was a somewhat lonely only child.  In adolescence I was not a good athlete, had bad acne, and was afraid of girls.  I also had a history of abuse.  I turned to alcohol and risky behavior.  Later, I bought marijuana by the quarter pound.

A tremendous amount of my awareness is consumed by craving, staving craving off, indulging the craving, or obsessing about craving.  I think it’s called addiction.  Addiction has ruled my life to some degree since puberty.  I know I am not alone.  I have been in therapy for years, take my ADD medication, doing 12 step work again, and do lots of prayer and insight meditation.  Slowly it is working.

I will always be an addict.  What is saving me is spirituality.  After a lifetime of searching I have found what works for me.  It is Buddhism with Jesus at the center.  In Buddhism, emptiness-letting go of the thinking self-is the way to the emptiness and true consciousness of being.  For me it is asking Jesus to take the craving and suffering.  2000 years ago he offered to take all our suffering and leave us whole.  I take him up on the offer many times every day.  It works.

Jesus was a man.  He died, but for some reason his spirit lives in me.  I can turn to his spirit to take my pain and leave me whole.  This has always worked for me since I learned about it, but I have often walked away.  Addiction is cunning, baffling, powerful.  It takes lots of work to stay on the path.  (All these biblical references keep coming up).  I had a profound spiritual experience based on turning my life over to Jesus.  I have often walked away from him, but he is there when I come back.

The Buddhist way is taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma (Buddha’s teachings), and the Sangha (the spiritual community.  For me it is taking refuge in Jesus, the gospel and the dharma, and the faith community.  It gains strength every Day.  I have to avoid getting tangled up in doctrine.  It’s about letting go and giving it to Jesus.

“Lord Jesus Christ, son of God.  Have mercy on me, a sinner”.  My prayer.

Posted in Addiction, Buddha, Buddhism, Heroin, Insight Meditation, Jesus, Jesus Prayer, Meditation, My Story, Obsession, Pain, Stories, Suffering

Pain

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Pain

Pain, suffering, anxiety, fear, discontent, hate, sadness, on and on.  We have lots of names for conditions making life difficult for people.  Let’s lump them together under suffering.  All the world’s faith traditions offer either solace or hope.  Some offer healing.  The healing even works sometimes.

With the possible exception of pain, all the conditions creating suffering have the same origin-us.  All we really need are food, clothing, and shelter.  Everything else is desire, things created in our minds.  “Make it go away.”  There are more strategies for making it go away than there are people on the planet.

The strategies do offer some solace.  Another beer, a horror movie, ice cream, new car, getting laid.  Problem is, the craving always returns.  So, do it again.  And again.  Try something else, maybe jumping out of an airplane will work.  What about Everest?  Running a corporation, getting elected. Trying a long kiss in the stairwell and an affair.  We spend our lives trying to satisfy desire.  All the wise ones offer a supposed cure, usually requiring some degree of sacrifice in pursuit of deliverance.

Often, the sacrifices have to be repeated because the ones asking for a sacrifice are attempting satisfy their own cravings.  It don’t work, folks.  All the attempts at gratification just feed the craving.  Thus, we have a world of suffering.  It’s the wrong approach.

Now, I am going to tell you what to do.  Problem is, I am also trapped on the wheel of desire.  I know the technique works because I have experienced it in my life, once for as long as a year.  It’s simple, let go of desire.  No desire, no suffering.  Bad things still happen, but they don’t result in suffering if the desire is gone.

We all have in our core a condition of pure being, absent of all the world’s clutter.  The task is getting back there.  As we are in a body, to stay alive we must satisfy the body’s needs.  It means  going to school, working, forming associations and partnerships.  All this is hard work and we build our own little mental world and fill it with needs.

Let it go, give it up, just breathe without thinking and you will begin to rediscover the place in the center of your being. Now, do what I say, not what I do.  I built my own little ego world and constantly strive to keep it satisfied.  Sometimes while meditating I am able to enter the peaceful state.  Other times, all I do is think, often about what to write about not thinking.

When I am having a hard time letting thinking go I pray.  I pray for myself, for others. For the earth.  Prayer takes me away from my self.  I stop praying and am sometimes able to re-enter the empty space.  Often all I can do is pray.  And pray.

I think choosing a prayer is a personal, private thing.  It can be a mantra, a quote from the dharma, a prayer of thanks or for mercy.  It can come from any faith tradition or none.  It doesn’t seem to matter where the prayer is directed.  It doesn’t have to be directed anywhere.  What is important is the act of praying, of getting outside of the cluttered world where we spend most of out time.

The next time I meditate it can be easier to enter that space of peace.  Or not.  I used to say writing is the hardest thing to do.  Now I think it is meditation.  How to be without striving, without suffering, without escaping.

I think I will go to the store and then meditate.

Posted in ADD, Addiction, Alcohol, cigarettes, Obsession, Pain, Stories

Cycles

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The Universe

The universe cycles.  Things arise, then pass away.  It may take a while, a few billion years or so, but the only constant is change.  So it is with my life, change is the constant, it is just that the cycles are shorter.  The big cycle is of course, life itself.  Born, live, decline, and die.  After that, who knows for sure?

Today, it is about my spiritual cycles.  Those cycles can run from weeks to years.  Lately it is weeks.  I am a seeker, and was drawn to Buddhism in college.  I read, thought, but couldn’t meditate.  Now I meditate and after a number of false starts, I can call myself a beginner Buddhist.   Well, a Bhuddapalian, because Jesus is still in my life, but that’s another story and other cycles.

I have made quite a bit of progress, and have experienced varying times when I am actually living in the moment, not thinking about the past or future.  After all, the past or the future don’t exist except in our heads.  A few weeks I went on a retreat of enormous benefit.  18 people at the Y of the Rockies in Estes Park where we formed a bond during a silent retreat.

Cycles.  After the high comes the low.  From being in the moment, I found myself trapped in my past.  Now, for the purpose of survival I  need the past.  I learned things and apply the knowledge for the sake of survival in a fairly hostile world.  I don’t need all the old traumas and mistakes filling my head, however.  I use that stuff to fuel addictions in order to block what is gone anyway.  That’s how the brain works sometimes.  I block with food, various drugs, sex, and depression.

The problem, those strategies wear off and I am back simmering in the cauldron of despair.  Old pains lead to compulsive behavior leading to despair and addiction.  The Buddhist strategy is to devote oneself to serving all beings, clean living, loving kindness, and letting go-detachment.  Lately, not working.  I watch violence on You Tube, eat, fantasize, and avoid drugs.  Letting go?  Hmph.

I had this dream.  I was back at work after a vacation and there was new stuff I didn’t know how to work with.  There weren’t any instructions, of course.  When are there ever instructions about what to do?  So, I just had to cope, even though the boss and an engineer were running around talking about the future.  They weren’t going to be any help.

That’s where we are, isn’t it?  New tasks and no owners manual.  I just have to sit with the situation until a strategy presents itself.  Oh, wait, I just laid out the strategy, didn’t

Posted in Addiction, Buddhism, Depression, Insight Meditation, Jesus, Meditation, Stories

Weather? What Weather?

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The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The arguments about climate change continue.  Those who point to the changes on our planet use science to support their arguments.  Retreating glaciers and ice sheets. Thawing tundra.  The worldwide atmospheric temperature is rising.local climates are changing, and severe weather events are increasing.  It makes sense, doesn’t it that if the temperature rises there is more energy for hurricanes and tornadoes.  The wind will blow as well, although you might not notice much difference in Wyoming.

The deniers usually have one of two reasons.  First, it is money.  If a business or individual has to spend money to reduce their carbon footprint, they tend to object.  The other reason, which I am going to explore, is religious.  These days in our country, the religious arguments come out of biblical prophesy.

Biblical prophesy:  abandon all hope if you venture to study prophesy.  Prophets abound in all human cultures.  As humans, we don’t know what the future will bring and we would really like to know.  The stars, tea leaves, the oracles at Delphi, Jeremiah, Nostradamus, and a host of others.  The unknown is a source of fear, and people want their fears assuaged.  Myself, I prefer fortune cookies.  At least I get something sweet for my effort.

Most religions rely on fear to some to gain adherents.  The right corn dance will bring rain and a good harvest.  No dance, no rain.  Money sent to an evangelist will get the right kind of prayers said for you.  No confession, it’s hell for you.

Let’s go into Christian prophesy.  Much of the Old Testament is about God railing against his people do do right by him.  In some places God’s own words are recorded.  In most instances it is a prophet.  The prophets were doing God’s work : “Straighten up or else.”.  Most people don’t straighten up.  They don’t get the word, they don’t give a damn, or they aren’t going to listen to some raving madman.  And then, bad things happen.  The prophets say “See? This is all your fault.  Straighten up or it will get worse.”

Well, it gets bad all the time.  It also gets good some of the time.  All that bad weather and fire we get in the prophesies?  Plagues, pestilence?  Happens all the time.  Last summer at our house it was Japanese Beetles eating our roses and grapevine leaves. That was a pestilence.   No grapes, no wine, if it happened in ancient times.  Ever since the New Testament canon was settled on with its prophesies, especially the book of Revelation, the prophets have been crying doom regarding the Second Coming.

About that book of

Revelation, take some time and read the thing.  Powerful imagery, wild predictions, fiery rhetoric.  What is it about?  Rome.  The Beast is Rome and its Legions conquering and ruling by the sword and crucifixion.  Prophesy is aimed at a specific target, in this case the Roman Empire.

It seems to me to be quite a stretch to fast forward a couple of centuries to today.  Prophets of doom said before the first millennium those were the last days, and the year 1000 would bring Armageddon and the second coming.  Lots of nineteenth century and twentieth century prophets sat down with their pencils and predicted the end of the world was at hand.  Didn’t happen, folks.

The Second Coming of Jesus

Now many of the believers in the last days and impending doom are in positions of influence.  Our Vice President is an example.  Much of the so-called conservative rhetoric and congressional action is designed by prophesy believers to hasten Armageddon.  I encourage you to look around the internet for the multitude of websites saying the same thing.  We’re in the last days, Jesus is coming, the righteous will be raptured to heaven and the rest of us are in big trouble.  Don’t you believe it.  There is another scripture in Thessalonians saying nobody knows the date, He will come as a thief in the night.  That one seems to be ignored these days.

My take on it, live the life that is best for you.  Find the answers for yourself.  If someone says he knows the answers, the odds are he does not.  If you don’t find the answers yourself, you are in good company.  No one knows for sure.

Posted in Bible Prophesy, Jesus, Last Days, Stories

I am an Evangelical

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Augustine

Well, not really.  But I was one.  I was raised a Methodist, and had a profound conversion experience into a Pentecostal denomination.

Yes, they were evangelical.  Evangelicals tend to take the Bible literally and have traditional beliefs about sexuality, marriage, abortion, and politics.  I hold none of those views.  I’m a liberal of the kind vilified on Fox News.  I retain some Christian beliefs, but am a practicing Buddhist.

I have an extensive library on Christianity.  Most of the books are about the relatively new thinking about Jesus and the Bible, most of them anathema to an evangelical.  I do accept the historical reality of Jesus, but that is about as far as it goes.  I tend to view it all from an historical perspective.

Regarding God, nobody knows for sure.  Most every culture deals with God in some fashion, but my view is he was extrapolated from the spirit world, entities who exist, but in my view are no more deities than we are.  Like us they would like to be gods, but only Donald Trump has made it.

I am from a milieu steeped in the old time religion.  It is ironic that the concept of original sin came from Augustine, a Catholic Scholastic.  His idea about the event in the garden leading to human depravity rather than free will leads directly to the idea Jesus assumed our sinful nature to release us from God’s curse.  John said God loved us and freed us from sin on the cross, but Augustine said God let Jesus atone for our depravity.

John Calvin

American evangelical Protestantism adopted Augustine.  Conservatives: we’re bad.   Liberals: we’re good, but need help because the event in the Garden gave us free will.  We can choose, a coyote can’t.  But, we sometimes make bad choices.

For several reasons, deep down I believe I’m bad.  I am engaged in overcoming that belief, with limited and intermittent success.  Sometimes I feel good about myself, sometimes I don’t.

I really don’t like Augustine, Calvin, and their wrathful God.  My father and grandfather had that Scots Presbyterian Calvinist outlook even though they were not religious.  I caught it from them.  The underlying attitude was nobody could ever measure up, including me and them.  There, ladies, and gentlemen, is a prescription for an unhappy life.  My mother was raised Congregationalist, another Calvinist denomination (no longer, however).

Grandfather, Father, and Mother were pretty nice people, which revealed their true natures, but under it all they thought they were lost souls.  As our current self-appointed deity would say, “Sad.”.   I’m afraid some part of me will always believe I am really a bad dude, which I caught from them.

Our culture remains contaminated with the evangelical attitude.  I sit here in the coffee shop next to Denver University, started in 1864 as a Methodist school.  The Methodists have never been quite as infected by Calvinism, coming from Anglican roots, but that need for redemption is still there.  The idea behind DU was to bring the gospel to the wilderness.  That was fine, but there was an underlying belief those naked heathen Indians were beyond redemption.  John Evans, the Methodist territorial governor in 1864 and a co-founder of DU, and John Chivington, a Methodist minister and Colonel of the Third Volunteer Cavalry Regiment decided those murdering heathens had to go.  Thus, the Sand Creek Massacre.

The streets at DU are Methodist, starting with Wesley, the Anglican who founded Methodism.  Looking west from Evans Avenue one sees Mt. Evans, both named after an Indian killer.  I live between Evans and Asbury Avenues.  Asbury is named for the first Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop in the United States.  I don’t seem to be able to get away from it.  The current DU students, however, don’t seem to be as infected with that stuff as I am.  The architects designing buildings at DU don’t seem to have gotten the message.  Even the big athletic field House has a bell tower. The old part of the campus has several spires and bell towers.

The University of Denver has, to its credit, recognized the tragedy of Sand Creek and the role of the Methodist founder of DU in the act of genocide.  DU is no longer evangelical, but has the history.  I am no longer evangelical, but I carry the history.

Posted in ADD, Addiction, Agression, Family History, Free Will, Jesus, John Calvin, Moral Decline, My Story, Original Sin, Stories

My Meditation Practice

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The Buddha

The Buddha

As I mentioned in the last post, for years I was unable to meditate.  I have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and as soon as my eyes closed my brain would go into high gear.  The idea of meditation is to let those thoughts go so you can be aware in the moment.  For ADD’s, the moment is often chaos, with thoughts leaping from subject to another, or hyper focus, with the thoughts totally engaged on one topic or task. 

After a diagnosis and treatment, I can meditate.  Now meditation is not spending all one’s time in the moment.  At first and often those thoughts arise and with my addictions, they can be compelling.  So, sit, watch my breath, the thoughts arise, I let them go, and they arise again.  It can be excruciating, dealing with all that meaningless thought.  I find a prayer helps me instead of just focusing on the breath.   

Paradoxically, my prayer is Christian.  At its core, Buddhism is essentially atheistic and in my view a psychology, not a religion,  being 2500 years old from a culture soaked in religion, it adopted all the trappings.  I grew up nominally Christian and became a toung-talking holy roller Christian in my forties.  I don’t do that so much any more, but Jesus is in my life to stay. 

I use the Jesus Prayer, an ancient Eastern Orthodox prayer dating back to the desert fathers.  “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  The most famous book about the prayer, “The Way of a Pilgrim“, suggests starting with 3000 repetitions per day.  I recite the prayer a lot, but never 3000 times.  I sit, start praying, and time the words with my breath.   When those thoughts rise, as they always will, I return to the prayer.  Those times of being in the moment come, and I drop into watching my breath.  Thoughts arise and I gently return to the prayer. 

I find the moments of stillness are slowly growing.  I also find the poisonous thoughts are diminishing.  When poisonous thoughts about pretty girls arise, I pray for them.  “May she be happy, may she be free, may she be safe”.  Then back to the Jesus Prayer until more thoughts arise. 

The thoughts aren’t just about pretty girls, I find myself planning, plotting, reviewing past mistakes, feeling guilt or shame; being angry, sad, sick, hurting, happy, horny, old, tired, loving, lonely, excited, the entire range of feeling and thought.  All that stuff comes from my past or is about the future.  Thus, they are all meaningless.  The past is gone, and the future is unknown.   

All there really is is the moment.  My brain tends to disagree.  I experience all those thoughts and feelings as real because they are wired neural connections.  The task of meditation is to rewrite those connections so I can spend more time in the moment. 

Now, lots of those connections are important.  I need food, shelter, my long baths, some rags on my back, all the stuff of daily living.  I don’t need Donald Trump or the Kardashians.  I mention those because I was in the  doctor’s office yesterday reading those stupid magazines.  Why didn’t I have my book or just pray? 

I find myself wanting to meditate more.  The toxic thinking is diminishing, although lots of people continue to be prayed for.  I have purged the computers, my library, don’t watch the wrong television or movies, and am able to spend more time in the moment (still not much time, alas). 

Next is some retreats.  Retreats last from one day up.  I have done them in a Christian context and found them useful.  I am looking at attending a four day retreat in the mountains.  There are lots of retreats available, mostly led by Dharma teachers who are therapists or in other helping professions.  Retreats allow intensive meditation with little interruption from the outside world.  I need that.

 

Posted in Buddhism, Family History, Health Issues, Insight Meditation, Jesus Prayer, Meditation, Mental Health, My Story, Pain, Stories
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