Queen Lolo
May 21, 2005
This blog entry is about three letters that Buddhists don’t usually talk about.
No, not S-G-I.
Today I’m talking about GOD.
Yep, G-O-D.
You can call it the mystic law if you prefer. Or the Source. Or the energy that makes it all happen. The little spark that animates us. The creative intelligence that keeps the wheels in motion. The creator, the higher power, the Wizard behind the screen.
Forgive me if I’m not sounding Buddhist. Lately I don’t know where “Buddhist” ends and everything else begins. And by the way, I’m encouraging this confusion in myself. I’m allowing the lines to blur. Permitting the divisions to fade. I’m surrendering and opening up to what feels right in my heart, rather than what works on paper or in theory.
So let’s talk about God.
When I was about three, I asked my dad what God was. He said, “God is anything you want God to be.” “Even a piece of toast?” I asked. “Yes, even a piece of toast,” he replied. I thought this was incredibly cool. (I still do.)
Baba Hari Dass writes, “A yogi searches for God in the world and says, “This is not God… this is not God… this is not God,” and he rejects everything. As soon as he finds God he says, “This is God… this is God.” He begins to see God in everything and accepts everything....”
God in everything. In a piece of toast. In the moon. In the wind, the flowers, the pavement, the dog pee on the patio. God is in me, in you, in every last bit of it. Now and forever.
I’m not talking about a man in the sky with a long white beard. (But you can have that version if that suits your fancy.) I’m talking about the energy within everything. The miracle of life. The fuel that makes the flowers bloom, puts the juice inside an orange, makes our hearts beat. Birth, life, death, everything in between – that’s what I mean by “God.”
Back in the ‘70s, Ram Dass (a Hindu) taught a class at the Buddhist Naropa Center. He alternated evenings with Trungpa Rinpoche (A Buddhist.) Ram Dass says, “Trungpa was teaching about meditation and emptiness, and I was teaching about devotion and the guru. The students felt like they were at a tennis match!”
I don’t think it’s a conflict to add a sense of devotion and surrender and wonder to the practice of Buddhism. For me, it’s a matter of putting gratitude for the miracle of existence or "God" at the head of everything in my practice. Acknowledging this power (or energy or source) makes me feel softer. More open. More connected to others. When we say “Namaste” at the end of my yoga class, I feel my inner light acknowledging the light within each person in the room. It’s the God in me recognizing and appreciating the God in them.
If that’s not Buddhist, oh well.
When my own child was three, out of the blue she told me, “God lives in our hearts and we live in God’s heart.”
I think I’ll hold that thought.
Posted by at August 12, 2007 04:33 AM