Monthly Archives: March 2010

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theoblogger challenge: god in 100 words

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Patheos is a fascinating site offering a “balanced view of Religion and Spirituality.”  Debra Arca Mooney of Patheos contacted me about 10 days ago and offered a “theoblogger” challenge:

Who/What is God?

In 100 words or less

A previous challenge had been issued to a selection of Christian writers.  As a result of the responses to that challenge, bloggers across a variety of faith traditions were asked to participate.  As a Buddhist, I wondered how to even begin since Buddhism didn’t carry a premise of “God”.  Yet, there is an experience of the sacred – at least as I comprehend it in my own limited mind.  If nothing else, participating has forced me to struggle with the slip-sliding nature of language in trying to articulate the experience, result, and outcome of practice.

My response:

The concept of a singular God is not in found Buddhism.  There is only practice as Buddha, which means “One who is Awakened.”  An adjective, Buddha describes our capacity to cultivate joy, love, compassion, and equanimity.  Being Buddha means full engagement in life without preference for something different to be happening for or to us.  It is practicing authenticity and the courage to live ethically.  It cultivates living fiercely, fearless of the crucible which transforms our greed, rejection, and disconnect to generosity, open heartedness, and wisdom.  Then, we see sacredness in the ordinary: a cup of tea, a falling leaf.

It, along with the other featured bloggers, can be found here.  Please visit Patheos to read the variety of responses.  Also share your response – here and there – to the question (in 100 words or less!).

Thank you for practicing,

Genju

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transparency of water

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<– Previous: finding home

Many teachers point out that our suffering is crucial to our transformation.  Lotuses begin their life in the mud.  We are asked to be patient as we steep in that mud, have faith in the nutrients of the slime and ooze of our attachments.  I’m ok with slime and ooze.  But I’ve struggled with faith (maybe I wouldn’t have if I had read Sharon Salzberg’s book more attentively?).  Faith requires me to accept that there is something possible; it also requires me to be at ease with change.  That is much to ask of someone in whose life change is just a harbinger of more pain.  I need to have faith in something more calming.

Contemplating the nature of mind and self, we know the quality of our mind is as if we have stirred up a glass of water mixed with mud (slime and ooze, again).  Left alone, the mud settles and we can see the water clearly.  That clarity is the true nature of mind.  As I contemplate this glass of muddy water, I am aware it is so frequently stirred up that I may as well just call it what it is: muddy water.  And yet, whatever water may contain, it is always clear.  Water does not possess the mud; it does not cling to it.  Water does not obscure the mud; it does not become an obstacle to looking deeply.

The transparency of water is the very reason we can see the mud, see the settling, see the clarity whether or not it splits into water and mud (which it doesn’t).  Even in the lower part that is mud, it is just that: clear as mud.  It is held by water.  The transparency of water provides us with clarity of the nature of our muddiness.  It is always clear; we are always pure.  It is always Home.

Thank you, Jack, for practicing,

Genju