Pema Chödrön: If We Want There To Be Peace In the World

 I have long treasured Pema Chödrön as one of my 

beloved teachers. There is deep wisdom here,

which I am moved to share once again.  

Blessings to us all on our journeys. ― Molly

If We Want There To Be Peace In the World

If one wishes suffering not to happen to people and the Earth, it begins with a kind heart.

The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.

The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.

If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart.

When we hold on to our opinions with aggression, no matter how valid our cause, we are simply adding more aggression to the planet, and violence and pain increase. Cultivating nonaggression is cultivating peace. 

If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.  

Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.

Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. 
 
We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. 

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
  
Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.   

People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That's not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn't understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you're given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.

Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that's all that's happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness--life's painful aspect--softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody's eyes because you feel you haven't got anything to lose--you're just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We'd be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn't have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together. 

If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That's the true practice of peace.

You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather. 

 ― Pema Chödrön

https://pemachodronfoundation.org/

Gratitude By Mary Oliver

Photo by Molly

Gratitude

What did you notice?

The dew-snail;
the low-flying sparrow;
the bat, on the wind, in the dark;
big-chested geese, in the V of sleekest performance;
the soft toad, patient in the hot sand;
the sweet-hungry ants;
the uproar of mice in the empty house;
the tin music of the cricket’s body;
the blouse of the goldenrod.

What did you hear?

The thrush greeting the morning;
the little bluebirds in their hot box;
the salty talk of the wren,
then the deep cup of the hour of silence.

When did you admire?

The oaks, letting down their dark and hairy fruit;
the carrot, rising in its elongated waist;
the onion, sheet after sheet, curved inward to the pale green wand;
at the end of summer the brassy dust, the almost liquid beauty of the flowers;
then the ferns, scrawned black by the frost.

What astonished you?

The swallows making their dip and turn over the water.

What would you like to see again?

My dog: her energy and exuberance, her willingness,
her language beyond all nimbleness of tongue,
her recklessness, her loyalty, her sweetness,
her strong legs, her curled black lip, her snap.

What was most tender?

Queen Anne’s lace, with its parsnip root;
the everlasting in its bonnets of wool;
the kinks and turns of the tupelo’s body;
the tall, blank banks of sand;
the clam, clamped down.

What was most wonderful?

The sea, and its wide shoulders;
the sea and its triangles;
the sea lying back on its long athlete’s spine.

What did you think was happening?

The green beast of the hummingbird;
the eye of the pond;
the wet face of the lily;
the bright, puckered knee of the broken oak;
the red tulip of the fox’s mouth;
the up-swing, the down-pour, the frayed sleeve of the first snow—

so the gods shake us from our sleep.

— Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver: The Gift

Photo by Molly

The Gift

Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful. That the gift has been given.

— Mary Oliver

A Thanksgiving Prayer

A Thanksgiving Prayer

On Thanksgiving 

may we be brave enough

to know 

our true history.

May we embrace and heal

what longs for our

attention.

May we love and care

deeply.

May gratitude be our

daily practice.

May we be kind to

ourselves and

all beings.

And may the thankfulness

we experience

today ripple through

everyday

and how it is

that we 

share

our lives,

our blessings,

and the wisdom of

our hearts.

💗

Molly

Lakota Historian Nick Estes on Thanksgiving, Settler Colonialism & Continuing Indigenous Resistance

This is such an important interview. It is my belief that there is an imperative for humans to listen to voices of wisdom and deep awareness and consciousness such as that of Lakota historian Nick Estes. There is such an enormous bigger picture here that so many of us do not know, see, or recognize. And our ignorance is costing us all. Among my ongoing prayers is that courage and truth-seeking and actions based in helping and honoring rather than harm and violence will grow and grow within our individual and collective hearts and minds. Creating a new and very different world is possible! It is up to us. May profound caring for all of life be contagious. This would truly be something to celebrate on this day of Thanks and Giving. 🙏 Molly

Lakota historian Nick Estes talks about the violent origins of Thanksgiving and his book Our History Is the Future. “This history … is a continuing history of genocide, of settler colonialism and, basically, the founding myths of this country,” says Estes, who is a co-founder of the Indigenous resistance group The Red Nation and a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe.

Please go here for the original program and full transcript: https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/23/nick_estes?utm_source=Democracy+Now%21&utm_campaign=d129ff5240-Daily_Digest_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-d129ff5240-191574905

Excellent Article: The U.S. Touts Itself as a Global Leader in Human Rights. A New U.N. Report Says Otherwise.

WOW! Such an excellent, well articulated, and incredibly important article! There can be no solution for that which is denied or unknown and not understood and absorbed deeply into our hearts. May we individually and collectively courageously lower our tolerance for the pervasive violence and injustice committed by our government and with the known or unknown complicity of millions of Americans. May we all increasingly hold a vision and take action in whatever we can to evolve into authentically embodying our professed values centered around human rights and truth, justice, courage, caring, kindness, and love. 🙏 Molly

By Jamil Dakwar and Marwa Elessawy

The report illustrates the immense gap between U.S. laws and policies and international human rights norms.

Earlier this month, the United Nations Human Rights Committee delivered a searing report highlighting the U.S. government’s failure to meet its human rights obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This international treaty, ratified by the U.S. in 1992, is one of only three key human rights treaties that the U.S. has ratified.

The U.N. committee’s concluding observations echo many of the concerns and recommendations raised by civil society groups last month during the U.S. review, where they sounded the alarm on violations of various human rights issues including Indigenous rights, voting rights, freedom of expression and assembly, gender equality and reproductive rights, criminal legal reform, immigrants’ rights, and more. Here are three key takeaways from the committee’s report.

1. Establishing a national human rights institution is a critical first step to advancing national progress on human rights.

Among their concluding observations, the committee stressed the lack of progress in establishing a national human rights institution (NHRI). An NHRI would play a crucial role in monitoring and ensuring that international human rights standards are being upheld at the national level.

While the Biden administration has called for continued dialogue around an NHRI in the U.S., concrete actions have yet to materialize. The committee’s urgent recommendations corroborate the longstanding demand from civil society groups to establish a presidential commission to explore options for creating an NHRI. Already, this call to action has been backed by several members of Congress and the International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies.

2. The U.S. should ensure that family separations never happen again.

The committee urged the U.S. to “redouble its efforts to ensure the reunification of all separated children with their families, guarantee that such family separations are prohibited in the future, and ensure that victims have access to effective remedies and receive full reparation, including adequate compensation and appropriate support services.” These recommendations align with those in the ACLU’s shadow report on family separation, and coincided with the ACLU’s announcement of a major settlement in Ms. L. v. ICE, which established that the U.S. government must continue to identify families that were separated by Trump’s zero-tolerance policy and provide a pathway for them to seek asylum in the U.S. The committee also raised concerns regarding racial discrimination and due process violations in the U.S. child welfare system, including the disproportionate number of Black and Indigenous children separated from their families.

3. The U.S. should adopt critical criminal legal system reforms, including abolishing the death penalty and placing a moratorium on life sentences without parole.

The committee concretely addresses a wide range of human rights violations in the U.S. criminal legal system, including extreme sentencing, which the ACLU has raised in our joint report with the Princeton Advocacy Policy Clinic. Most notably, the committee called on the U.S. to “establish a moratorium on the imposition of sentences to life imprisonment without parole.” This was a result of powerful testimonies and advocacy by various groups, including the Abolitionist Law Center and the Center for Constitutional Rights, which raised the torturous practice of death by incarceration to the committee.

The committee also urged the U.S. to establish a federal moratorium of the death penalty, abolish life without parole sentences for children, as well as the mandatory and non-homicide-related sentence of life imprisonment without parole, and make parole more accessible to all prisoners, including those sentenced to life imprisonment. For the first time, the committee called on the U.S. to expand parole eligibility for all incarcerated individuals, irrespective of age or the crime committed. These recommendations were also echoed in the recent report by the U.N. Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement, which visited the U.S. last spring.

The time to act is now.

The U.S. touts itself as a global leader of universal human rights. Yet the committee’s report memorializes the immense gap between U.S. laws and policies and international human rights norms — even in the area in which the U.S. has heralded itself as a leader for decades: civil and political rights. And while the Biden administration has prioritized human rights in some ways, it has failed to pursue bold actions to demonstrate that it is leading by the power of example.

While the responsibility to implement the committee’s concluding observations lies with federal, state, and local governments, the Biden administration should immediately devote the necessary attention and resources to realizing these recommendations.

It can start by creating a transparent and permanent executive branch human rights monitoring body to review and create a plan of action to implement the committee’s recommendations. It can also convene a White House summit on domestic human rights to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This would be an excellent opportunity to appoint a presidential commission to study the creation of an NHRI in the U.S. Additionally, the White House should instruct all federal departments and agencies to review and implement the committee’s observations and create incentives for state and local governments to do so under their jurisdiction.

The committee has asked the U.S. to follow up in three years with its progress in three main areas: reproductive rights, voting rights and freedom of assembly. While the next U.S. periodic review will take place in 2031, the U.S. government must immediately start implementing these recommendations and ensure that this process is informed by meaningful consultation with civil society organizations. As the world watches, we cannot waste any time to realize human rights for all in the U.S.

Please go here for the original article: https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/the-u-s-touts-itself-as-a-global-leader-in-human-rights-a-new-u-n-report-says-otherwise?initms_aff=nat&amp

Rabbi Irwin Keller: Today I Am Taking the Side of Peace

Photo by Molly

Today I Am Taking the Side of Peace

Today I am taking sides.

I am taking the side of Peace.

Peace, which I will not abandon

even when its voice is drowned out

by hurt and hatred,

bitterness of loss,

cries of right and wrong.

I am taking the side of Peace

whose name has barely been spoken

in this winnerless war.

I will hold Peace in my arms,

and share my body’s breath,

lest Peace be added

to the body count.

I will call for de-escalation

even when I want nothing more

than to get even.

I will do it

in the service of Peace.

I will make a clearing

in the overgrown

thicket of cause and effect

so Peace can breathe

for a minute

and reach for the sky.

I will do what I must

to save the life of Peace.

I will breathe through tears.

I will swallow pride.

I will bite my tongue.

I will offer love

without testing for deservingness.

So don’t ask me to wave a flag today

unless it is the flag of Peace.

Don’t ask me to sing an anthem

unless it is a song of Peace.

Don’t ask me to take sides

unless it is the side of Peace.

— Rabbi Irwin Keller, Oct. 17, 2023

Pema Chödrön: A Vow To Care For One Another

Photo by Molly

A Vow To Care For One Another

We make the warrior commitment — take the

vow to care for one another — then do our best

to never turn our backs on anyone.

And when we falter, we renew our commitment 

and move on, knowing that even the awakened ones

of the past understood what it felt like to relapse.

Otherwise, how could they have any idea

about what other beings go through?

Otherwise, how could they have 

cultivated patience and forgiveness, 

loving-kindness and compassion?  

— Pema Chödrön 

Remembering My Father With Gratitude and Love

My dad (left) and his brother, 1918

 

My father (left in both pictures) with his brother and their grandfather, Willis Ward

My father (left) with his parents, sisters, and brother

My father at 29

My dad with baby twins, 1951

John and myself with our dad, 1954

My father, John Ward Strong, died 48 years ago today. On June 13th, 1975, exactly five months earlier, my sons' father and I left Michigan and headed West to make a new home for ourselves. As Jim and I left the homes of our childhoods and ancestors, I did not know that I wouldn't see my dad again. I didn't know that he and my mother would plan to vacation toward the end of the summer in Alberta, Canada. This was where he was bit by a tick that gave him Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Two months later he was dead. My dad was 60.

So I am thinking about my father today. Missing him. Many memories. Gratitude for all the healing work I have done over the years to help me come to terms with so many losses and to also recognize the many gifts I have to be grateful for.

With my father, and beyond giving life to myself and my twin brother, I am most grateful for his kindness. Everyone who knew Jack knew him as a kind and gentle man. Yes, he had his wounds and the ways that he unknowingly neglected some of my deeper needs and those of my brother. Yet, my dad's kindness also permeated our lives and served to balance the violence and trauma that haunted and harmed us all throughout my childhood and beyond. My father's kindness saved my life.

For many years now I have been aware that my dad lives on in me in the passion that began as seeds that he planted that are now in full bloom and growing more plentiful with each passing year of my life. The passion is for kindness. 

May we all plant and nourish seeds of kindness within ourselves and this beautiful world we share. 

With love and blessings,

💜

Molly

Carl Jung: Making the Darkness Conscious

 There is no coming to consciousness 

without pain. People will do anything, no matter 

how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul.

Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions

is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the 

confrontation with the Shadow and the world 

of darkness. One does not become enlightened 

by imagining figures of light, but by 

making the darkness conscious.

― Carl Jung