This is personal for now, as I’m only now seeing and realizing how some of my earlier life decisions impacted those close to me. The activist who left others behind, driven by vision and cause, who wasn’t able to see at the time how deeply my absence impacted the lives around me. And now, twenty years later, owning that and seeing it fully for what it is, rather than cloaked behind my youthful idealism.

The owning and seeing clearly feels good and healthy for my soul, and it is also bringing intimacy back into relationships that had grown distant and strained because of my absence.

And I love your response to Victoria about sovereignty:

“Your actions may cause pain to someone else. But if your actions emanate from love, from inner truth, from fidelity to your soul, they will in the long run be healing for everyone, including you.

Your responsibility, then, is to develop sensitivity and discernment, to know when you’re acting from resonance with your soul, and when your choices are based in separation. Sovereignty helps with this.”

Thank you for so beautifully clarifying this.
.-= Yael Reinhardt-Matsliah´s last post … Social Media and Street Crossings =-.

That is that some men believe that their quest for meaning and communion with spirit has to be estranged from the ‘things of women’… marriage, home, children, responsibilities. And women have traditionally carried this burden of blame, or have had to make the sacrifice to let go and stay behind.

I feel heartened, however, by more messages I see that speak of true experience of Oneness coming only through a conscious relationship with an other. Perhaps we are rediscovering our unity once again… body and soul not mutually exclusive.
.-= Gina Loree Marks´s last post … Masunaga in the House! =-.

Makes me think of the battlefield in the Bhagavat Gita…and Krishna’s words for Arjuna urging him to establish himself in the Self.

With that, all of our actions become selfless and all of our choices become choiceless…there is just the next thing to do.

Acting from this place of deep knowingness is freedom.

Looking forward to next Sunday’s installment and to getting to know you as you weave your words into a luminous cloth.

With love, Amba

Your actions may cause pain to someone else. But if your actions emanate from love, from inner truth, from fidelity to your soul, they will in the long run be healing for everyone, including you.

Your responsibility, then, is to develop sensitivity and discernment, to know when you’re acting from resonance with your soul, and when your choices are based in separation. Sovereignty helps with this.

Love to you,

Hiro
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … Sunday Poem #11 – Buddhist Chronicles =-.

I knew I could show my confusion to you and have you respond with wisdom and grace. You certainly have offered that. Thank you.

It wasn’t the narrative you’ve chosen or that has chosen you ;) that created my discomfort. More your prefacing words at the start. Still I love the exquisite fullness of your description and look forward to hearing the other voices.

I didn’t know you had been a Vajrayana practitioner. I look forward to opportunities to
hear more of that, as well.

Thank you for your kindness.

Much love,
Mahala
.-= Mahala´s last post … Gratitude | Gary Snyder | Mohawk Prayer =-.

Thank you for this poem, and thank you for those to come. Your gift continues to amaze.

– Michele
.-= Michele Woodward´s last post … To Freak Out, Or Not To Freak Out =-.

To me, the story of Siddhartha is a universal story, one that invites us to explore complex questions about our humanity: How do we understand and engage with our human divinity? With the continuum of our being? With the world around us?

How do we respond to the the call for wholeness when so often our experience is one of tearing apart and fragmentation? How do we respond to organic cycles of dissolving and creating and dissolving again.

All of which are nested in a larger wholeness.

And what happens when we get caught in the story of separation? Which is another universally human story. Found in every culture, every time, every tradition…

There are no villains here, only human beings attempting to reconcile and hold in their hearts the full range of human possibility.

At one end of the continuum of her being, Yashodhara was a heavily pregnant woman, abandoned by her husband. On the other end of that continuum, she is one with everything and everyone in her story–including Siddhartha.

In one sense, this is a particular story about a particular time and place, with particular players living through particular choices and situations. And yet, the truths it contains at its heart are ones we grapple with, thousands of years later.

So, my dear friend, this is not an attack on your beliefs or your beautiful wisdom tradition. It’s an exploration of a universal conundrum, through the lens of this particular story.

The narrative structure I’ve chosen–or that’s chosen me–is one in which each player in this story contributes to an understanding of it through his or her own particular, necessarily limited, evolving point of view.

The story about separation lives in us, just as the story about wholeness does. And it affects every aspect of our lives and our world. To know wholeness, we must understand separation.

It’s helpful to me, to explore it in this way. I trust it will be helpful for others too.

Much love to you,

Hiro
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … Sunday Poem #11 – Buddhist Chronicles =-.

Like Amna, I’m really looking forward to reading more of this, because I, too, have wondered about those who stay behind.

This idea that those left behind pay a price really challenges me in the area of sovereignty. Knowing that others pay a price for my actions is exactly what makes it hard to exercise my sovereignty.

Can’t wait for you to share more of your wisdom on this.
.-= Victoria Brouhard´s last post … Whatever You Decide Is Okay =-.

I apologize, dear Hiro, but something is really charged for me in this post & I’d appreciate it if you would help me. I realize your view of body and soul is different than mine as a Buddhist, but are you categorizing this beautiful tradition as one of “less than wholeness” because it differs from your view of body as soul incarnate? I can’t imagine you are suggesting that but your words keep dancing before me.

I can only speak of my own, Buddhist (Vajrayana, Tibetan) tradition, but practices explicitly engage body, speech and mind united. There are physical energy practices that go even beyond the chakras in their subtlty. “How does earth pay the price for this view of less than wholeness?” Environmental awareness is embedded in this tradition with it’s emphasis on benefitting all beings, less attachment to possessions, and it’s many pujas for earth and oceans.

I don’t mean to go on and on but I’m uncertain how I’m misunderstanding you or if you do not know about these aspects of Buddhism. Knowing your heart, I cannot imagine you are dismissing Buddhist tradition (and its’ practitioners) as lacking in wholeness.

I look forward to your kind clarity.
.-= Mahala´s last post … Gratitude | Gary Snyder | Mohawk Prayer =-.