Musician Xavier Rudd felt compelled to play the didgeridoo (yidaki) as a child. It took him decades to truly understand the meaning of the 60,000-year-old instrument in his art and his life. We talked music and magic with Rudd at Ironworks Studio in Vancouver’s Railtown district on October 23, 2015.
read more
God grieves with us our every loss—
the murder of a dear friend,
the death of a beloved parent,
a blossoming young life cut short.
There are many misconceptions about meditation that Tibetan Buddhist master Mingyur Rinpoche wants to set straight. The biggest one? You don’t have to quiet your mind for an extended period of time in order to reap the benefits.
You have the ability to engage in the practice anytime, anywhere. The key is focusing on what’s happening inside your head. Instead of trying to block your thoughts and emotions as you’re meditating, Rinpoche said that you should lean into what he calls your “monkey mind,” or the constant chattering in your head.
read more
“Shoot first. Ask questions later.”
“The best defense is a good offense.”
These seem to be the mantras of our time. Waking as we do each morning to a new shooting in our country or bombing in our world, accompanied by sights and sounds of shots and explosions, shouting and screaming, followed by the heart-rending wailing of the grieving, gives new impetus to the cry:
O God, make speed to save us.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
I can hear my friends now: “Matthew! You’re beginning an article with a Calvin quote?!” Why, yes, yes I am. And here’s why: because, regardless of the many things I disagree with Calvin over, it’s a great quote. Indeed, without knowing ourselves we can’t expect to know God and without knowing God we can’t truly know ourselves. The sad thing is, so many of us don’t act as if this is true. We talk about God in terms of his loftiness, like a king on his almighty white throne. God is omni-everything. And perhaps God is, but that is not my point here. My point is that we then turn around and, in spite of humans being made in God’s image, talk about ourselves as things like “filthy rags,” for instance. We treat others as such too. We do things like insist, with cold faces, how those we don’t like are going to burn in hell for their iniquities. Then we send them there through war and conquest and terror. Assuredly then, I’m afraid we have missed the mark when it comes to knowing God and Self. The proof is in the pudding, unless of course God is a maniacal tyrant just like we human beings tend to be.
read more
If I were to condense a definition of mindfulness into a single word, agape would be the one.
Every time I teach a five-week mindfulness course for students and staff at USC, I introduce the class with a simple definition of the state we are trying to reach in the practice: a loving awareness of thoughts, feelings, sensations, urges in the present moment, while letting go of judgments about them.
read more
This groundbreaking and moving book gathers responses from leaders of diverse spiritual and religious traditions ranging from Buddhism to Islam to Christianity, as well as those who do not claim one or any particular walk of faith. Contributors include Brother David Steindl-Rast, Matthew Fox, James O’Dea, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Tessa Bielecki, Lama Surya Das, Hank Wesselman, Father Bede Griffiths, Byron Katie, Joan Halifax, Normandi Ellis, Andrew Harvey, Dan Millman, Kristena Prater, Nicki Scully, Mirabai Starr, and more.
read more
“All flows ’round the One who knows all flows ’round the One who knows all flows….” I began to know the One who knew what I was knowing. I sensed the flow that went ’round the quiet Center of all experience. That Center was my center, and was at the center of every person who passed me on the trail, every bird that raced in a burst of color through the air, every tree I passed as I walked. At the center of every atom of every molecule of every tree. As I walked in contemplative union with God, I chanted: “All flows ’round the One who knows….”
read more
Today, the churches of the Global North are in decline and younger generations no longer seek meaning there. Traditional “church Christianity” is gradually giving way to some new way of faithful living. From a Nazi prison cell, German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer imagined a future “religionless Christianity” consisting of contemplative prayer and righteous action in the secular world.
A Conspiracy of Love presents the contours of such a faith based on the “way” of Jesus. It calls us to become troublemakers, revolutionaries, seekers of change, and agents of transformation engaged in conspiracies of love to establish justice and peace in a postmodern world. It offers many different people–those who remain in the church,those who have left, and those who have never ventured near–with a life of faith that is meaningful, intelligent, and passionate.
read more
A compilation of events around the world, conducted by Isha Foundation on June 21, International Yoga Day. From Sydney to Beirut, from the US to China, and even 35,000 ft up in the air on SpiceJet flights, Isha Foundation volunteers conducted sessions of short, powerful Upa-Yoga practices, specially designed by Sadhguru for Yoga Day.
read more
This ceremony makes voting a matter of the heart. Anyone can do it! Ask a friend to hold out the hand with which he or she commits to vote in the next election. Hold that hand, or anoint it with light oil, and say: “May God, who is Love (or just Love) guide your hand to vote for the common good!” This video shows the ceremony being conducted at Mt Hollywood Congregational United Church of Christ in Sunday 10:30 worship in Los Angeles on 5-22-16.
read more
Presentation by Marcus Borg at the All Saints Church Lent Event, on Monday, March 24, 2014
read more
These days of “do-it-yourself” improvement techniques have spawned an industry of providing sometimes simplistic solutions to life’s problems. So my title is a little tongue-in-cheek. I don’t present what follows as “dramatic truth,” or “divine revelation,” let alone “the secret”!
At the same time, I remember a friend reared as a United Methodist telling me he had never been given a spiritual path until he was introduced to The Twelve Steps. Another United Methodist—a college professor or mine—shocked everyone by candidly answering “no!” to an ordination question, “Are you on the road to perfection?”
read more
“Without contemplation people just don’t really grow because they’re so addicted to their way of thinking. That’s the universal addiction. Your way of thinking is what you’re addicted to…I am, too. And without contemplation I wouldn’t have known how to loosen my grip on my way of thinking.”
read more
Many saints of the Church’s history appear to have had contempt for their own bodies. The mortifications to which they subjected their flesh are incomprehensibly grotesque to Christians today. It is hard to reconstruct the cultural milieu in which these mortifications had meaning and purpose. There is a lingering disdain of the body still evident in most branches of the faith, and it is problematic. For too long we have viewed our faith as just a head-trip. We Christians need to take better care of the rest of ourselves, and to embody our spirituality more fully.
read more
Spiritual awareness often begins at the point where our inner thoughts reflectively seek meaning in the external world of our drama. This search empowers the transformation of unconscious perception into awakened vision. Such clarity creates the understanding that we are always, consciously or unconsciously, choosing and co-creating our existence.
read more
“P2P Challenging Extremism” is a new State Department-sponsored program that enlists American college students to combat online extremism.
the CVE agenda adopts a particular approach to religion in which the latter is understood to “cause” political outcomes, both good and bad.
read more
