Listen Child of God
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
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School Shooting in Kentucky Was Nation’s 11th of the Year. It Was Jan. 23, 2018 – NY Times
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VW Suspends Chief Lobbyist Over Diesel Tests on Monkeys and Humans – 2018 Wall Street Journal
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Yemen: At Least 15 Killed in a Suicide Car Bomb – 2018 Aljazeera
Headlines, messages if you will, like these are with us every day. We feel absolutely glutted by information. We are assaulted by sound bites and tweets and headlines 24/7. And when we look around we are accosted by ads and more ads. They pop up on our computer screens and smart phones. We are encouraged to buy whatever we want, right now. We are told that by buying what is advertized we will be happier, more fulfilled, glamorous, sexy, better off than those other people who aren’t or can’t buy what is advertized. And when we are finally able to crawl into bed at night we feel utterly drained, famished by a world full of glitter and no substance. We go to sleep knowing that the next day will bring more of the same. Day after day we are slowly starving in this onslaught of messages.
My spiritual story begins with a message I heard nearly 30 years ago. The world around me, even then, felt glutted and spiritually famished. But I wasn’t looking for nourishment because I didn’t feel hungry. I was just living my life. In January 1989, on my way home from work, I heard a news report on NPR. The story was about a man who walked into a school yard in Stockton, California with a semi-automatic rifle and killed five children, wounded 32 others and killed himself. The news stunned me. I had heard other stories like this, yet this story stayed with me. It played over and over in my head. The feeling I had was the need to do something.
At the time, my brother was living with me. He was studying to become a Shaman and had joined a local Nichiren Buddhist group that practiced chanting. He was using chanting to tune his auras. When I got home, with the story still in my head, he was heading out to chant with his meditation group. I asked if I could join him. The group chanted a mantra. I never learned the meaning of the mantra because I was told that just the sound would send positive energy into the world.
As I continued to chant, I started reading Matthew Fox’s The Cosmic Christ and Shamanic stories from my brother. What I didn’t realize until later was that I was being fed. It was an unlikely combination of food; Buddhist chanting, the Cosmic Christ and shamanic stories. I was finding nourishment. It was a slow practice of letting these teachings sink-into my mind and heart. Week after week, month after month, year after year I continued to sit and chant and study. This practice eventually led me to a Soto Zen practice which led me to a Chan practice which led to my becoming ordained as a Zen priest in the Contemplative Order of Hsu Yun. And as far I can see it all began when I heard a news story that pierced me, that stirred me to respond.
Now, let’s fast forward to last fall when I was asked to suggest a Buddhist related topic to offer at St. Nick’s. At the time I was studying the book, Benedict’s Dharma and suggested I could put together a talk about the book. My offer was accepted and here we are talking about Benedict’s Dharma and turning it into a Winter Retreat, all from hearing a story on NPR.
You might ask what does my experience have to do with Benedict’s Dharma and Buddhism and spiritual nourishment in a glutted world?
Well, let’s see.
Let’s begin with Benedict’s Prologue.
Listen, child of God, to the guidance of your teacher. Attend to the message you hear and make it pierce your heart, so that you may accept with willing freedom and fulfill by the way you live the directions that come from your Father.
It is as if he knew about our 21st century world. I say this because he gives us a blue print for how to find nourishment. The work of feeding your starved heart is up to you. All that Benedict or I am able to do is offer a message, a teaching or ask a question which may pierce your heart and change your life.
Let me outline Benedict’s blueprint as a series of questions for each of you to listen to, to ask yourselves and to study. Then I will go over one of the questions using my own experience as an example.
- Do you listen and what do you listen to?
- Who is your teacher?
- What are the messages you hear and follow?
As I re-read the Prologue I realized that my journey into Buddhist practice roughly followed what Benedict was saying. I started with attending to a message…a news story that pushed me into finding spiritual nourishment. It took me quite a long time to listen and find and accept guidance from teachers and teachings and to acknowledge the need for them both. And, it is still difficult!
As I continue with sitting, I find more willingness in myself to accept the teachings and live the directions that come from the teachings. I have to come to realize that teachings are all around me, if only I listen. At the time I didn’t know the truth of the teaching everything comes into my life to awaken me but my own experience shows me time and time again that this is true.
The headlines that I started with are not going away. But the “I” that heard the message has changed. Without knowing it I followed and still follow a message of big T Truth; the ineffable unborn, undying that which cannot be faced or turned away from, the subtle source that is clear and bright. My experience continues to tell me and show me that nothing is left out when we listen and attend to the message that comes into our life from this Source.
Author: Lao DiZhi Shakya
A Single Thread is not a blog. If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching, please contact the editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com