Into the flow I go....

The past month or so has been quiet stressful at the Green house. I wont go into specifics, but it has been an out-of-the-flow kind of month. When my husband lost his job a couple of weeks ago, at first I thought I was going to snap. I was so angry at him for being so careless! But something inside of me chose a different path, a path of compassion. Out of this whole jobless mess came something quite unexpected and surprisingly beautiful. We turned the negative mess into a wonderful opportunity for growth, and have embarked on a spiritual journey together. I'll explain more below.

My husband and I have always had very similar views about religion and god. It is in fact one of the things that connected us from the very beginning. We see the universe through the same eyes, although at times we do use different terminology. My husband has always been willing to talk about his thoughts and feelings regarding this issue, but has been extremely resistant to any kind of spiritual exploration or growth. He had basically shut the whole lot out, satisfied with his own beliefs and wanting no further understandings. I think this neglect caused his spirit to become restless, and almost die in a sense. Nothing was going right, he was angry all the time, and life was full of fear and unhappiness. When he lost his job, he realized that ignoring the spiritual side of himself wasn't working. He felt empty inside, and for the first time in our 5 years of marriage, he became open and willing to work on cultivating his own spiritual path.

The day he lost his job, he picked up an old book of mine and began to read. It was "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. It is a book based in Buddhism, but can be beneficial to people of all backgrounds. Anyways, he decided that the spiritual path that felt most right to him at this time was Buddhism. It also felt good to me as well, so we went to the book store together and both picked one new book on Buddhism to read. We began reading in bed together, taking time to discuss and share with each other the passages we liked the most. We've frequently in the last 2 weeks come to each other with ideas and have had discussions on how to apply what we are reading into our everyday life. And last night, I read a great portion of my book out loud to him, and we both shared our thoughts on what we read. It felt great. It feels great to be having
this spiritual experience with my husband, to see his anger disappearing, and to see his internal peace and compassion for others grow.

My peace and compassion for others is growing as well. And it is a wonderful thing.

There are a lot of misconceptions about Buddhism, especially, as I have noticed, from the Christian point of view. It is not so much a religion as it is a practice, and you can in fact retain your Christianity while practicing Buddhism. Buddhism is a practice of quieting the mind and of training the mind to not be attached to things or outcomes. It is a practice of cultivating compassion for other people and things. It is not the worshiping of Buddha, as so many people think. It is about finding a peaceful place within and dwelling within that place as you live day to day life. Buddha may have started this way of thinking, but he is in no way a god, any more than you and me are. (Although I believe we are all god, but that is a discussion for another time).

We don't need to fear other religions. There is the seed of love, peace, and compassion within every single one of them, and they all have the potential to cultivate goodness within people. People are all so different. Some people need a different approach to the divine, and that is ok. It is ok to be different. It is ok to accept and to respect people different from you. If you look at things from their perspective, you see that we are really all wanting the same things. And if a religion or spiritual practice makes that person more loving and compassionate towards mankind, how can that religion or spiritual practice be bad? There are seeds of goodness scattered all over the world, not just within one book. The key is to have respect for all paths of goodness and light, wherever they may be found. I have for a long time used the analogy that life is like a mountain, with Love, Peace, Contentment, and Compassion at the top. There are as many pathways to the top as there are people trying to reach it, and as long as you are reaching for the top, it doesn't matter which path you choose.

Posted in: on 03 June 2009 at at 12:55 PM 0 comments