Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: DebraBasham.com

  • Small Seed of Faith

    It was late in the evening of a long day and it had been a very emotionally difficult week when her friend shared an  11-minute video which the friend found very funny. She did not laugh.

    “You did not think it was funny?” the friend asked.

    “I did not find it funny. It was long and just not my cup of tea,” she could see hurt in her friend’s eyes and it brought up painful emotions around differences they were navigating in their preferences.

    Still processing the following morning she wrote in her journal: What might I do differently, if I could do it over?

    “You did nothing wrong, Dear One,” was the immediate response she heard in her heart/mind.

    She did a bit more writing in her journal and ended the entry with a question, “Is there anything we could/can learn from the exchange?”

    Checking email, she immediately recognized the answer to her question arrived in the “Daily Reflection”:

    Come back to the place inside you, over and over and over again, where that small seed of faith lies and nurture that seed with the reminder, “We are both right. I am seeing it through my senses and he or she through his or her senses. I do not have to prove them wrong, nor do I have to feel threatened.”

    “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20-21)

     

  • Wholly Holy

      Friends accept
      that friends
      will feel out loud
      when they are ready.
      ~ She Recovers Every Day: Meditations for Women

    Late yesterday afternoon I had a serendipitous treasure visiting with my dear friend, Jane Foster. Jane is navigating radiation therapy. The linear accelerator was being repaired so she had the day off from her daily drive into Chicago.

    One of the foods that sits well with Jane right now is my homemade creamy tomato basil soup. A neighbor grows the basil and it is such a gift-of-the-garden, even more so when it is shared. I delivered soup and fresh-baked cookies.

    This has been a stressful week and the visit with Jane was such a bright spot!

    As Jane referenced her sense of the deep pain in the world I told her about the stated angst of an elder student around his not being able to go and physically offer support to those in Israel who are suffering violence and killing. Here is the short transcript of Aaron’s significant response, posted on the Yellow Brick Road with Barbara Brodsky’s blessing:

      I hear the pain in your heart. The human goes through various stages in its life. At some stages, this action or reply is most harmonious to the true being, and in other stages, a different reply is. As the human ages, often they cannot go off and protest or do whatever else they were moved to do 30 years earlier, and perhaps that is not what is needed.

      The world needs an energetic container for compassion.

      Feel in yourself the power to help support that energetic container. It is no less a “doing” than any other kind of doing but it is a doing grounded in a certain wisdom and beingness that only someone that has reached some maturity can bring together.

      So, this is your special gift at this time of your life.

      To pray.

      To visualize.

      To purify yourself — releasing old animosities, old distinctions of this and that — and truly holding everything in the loving container of your heart.

      This is a powerful connection in the world. It can bring forth powerful results. It can draw to you from all over the world, the energy of others like yourself. You don’t have to talk to each other or Zoom with each other. You can; its not a problem but trust the power of your energy and love and release it into this massive container of unconditional love and strong compassion that says “No!” to killing, but without blame of anybody who still is engaged in killing. They are not ready yet not to kill.

      You become the ground from which their readiness can arise….

    This awareness visits a very humble and willing space in my heart.

    “Don’t Just Sit There. Do Something.” is a song by Lewi B and Manga Saint Hilare.

    Meditation circles flip that around and say, “Don’t just do something. Sit there.”

    But Aaron’s words bring a beautiful balance to these thought polarities by providing us with a true knowing when you and I pray, visualize, and purify ourselves what we are doing is wholly holy….

  • Jarvis Jay MASTERS!

    Feeling troubled about a family member who was incarcerated again, she found herself meditating on Jarvis Jay Masters. He has been in prison for over 40 years, on Death Row. While incarcerated, Jarvis has become an amazing practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, an author and a teacher.

    For the first time she could see the beauty of his last name: Jarvis Jay MASTERS!!!!

    Her stomach began smiling. Space opened up for the first time in days.

    She was able to see how, in the same way that the saying “all roads lead to Rome” points to a profound truth, all paths lead home. Some paths are longer than others, some steeper, some even rockier than most. But each path is unique and whatever the conditions of that path at the moment – at that moment – that very moment, all paths lead home.

    And no one is alone….

    When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” ~ Mr. Rogers (Fred Rogers)

  • Sign from God

    It had been a stressful stretch. She got a difficult “cold” and then her young twin grandsons got it. She was trying to help her daughter care for them.

    Not yet with full stamina, she tripped a bit and jammed her wrist. She did not seek medical attention immediately but a day or so later thought she better get an X-ray. Sure enough, her wrist was fractured, and placed in a fiberglass cast. When her discharge orders included seeing an orthopedic surgeon, the overwhelm overtook her.

    “This is just too much! I am done with it all!!!!” She lashed out in her mind against life.

    Then her eyes landed on a sign fastened on a pole: Keep calm and let God handle it.

    Her whole state of mind and heart shifted. She had heard of people who say they got a sign from God, and she knew she was literally seeing a SIGN from God.

  • Changing Species: It is Our Nature

    A retreat coming to an end is always bitter sweet. Some aspect of it is relief to return to a “normal” schedule, but there is also a lingering longing for the better balance that seems to be the likely result of a time of intentional insight and successive sitting.

    Catching up on email I felt the collective as I read a Washington Post article by Anne Lamont (a pre-promotion for her next book coming out in April) titled: “It’s good to remember: We are all on borrowed time.”

    I found her article helpful and humorous. The opening line really gives you a good sense of her message: “Getting older is almost like changing species, from cute middle-aged, white-tailed deer, to yak. We are both grass eaters, but that’s about the only similarity.”

    Nothing quite as humorous as honesty, is there….

    Some of you might already be familiar with Dancing with the Elephants, by Jarem Sawatsky. Previous posts have referenced this, especially the Corpse Prayer on page 28:

      Be not afraid.

      I give thanks to god who created all things good.

      In christ, all things hold together.

      I am not entitled to life without death.

      I embrace sacred life. I embrace

      sacred death. I embrace the

      growing and crumbling in between.

      Smile at yourself in the silence…

    Writing to a friend about the retreat this morning, I acknowledged that while it was not part of the formal retreat theme, because so many people attending expressed currently navigating health issues often the teachings leaned into how to mindfully accept gracefully our old age, illness, and death.

    Robert shared that as his friend, a long-time mediator, was actively dying his friend had a prayer he repeated three times. Someone recorded his final recitation of that prayer and his own voice was heard at his celebration of life.

    Whoa…. What words might hold my heart in that sublime stability? This morning I am still processing and wrote in my journal: Why do the birds go on singing? Because it is their nature.

    All things with a beginning have an ending. It is our nature. All endings are really new beginnings. It is our nature. Changing species…. it is our nature.

    So yesterday was the end of the retreat, and today is the beginning of living life with the benefits of practice. It is our nature.

  • Perfect

    We gained an hour last night here in most of the United States. What an odd concept, that we can lose or gain time….

    Gain and loss…. part of the Eight Worldly Winds. It is written that gain obsesses the mind, and loss obsesses the mind. We are attracted to gain and repelled by loss, thus we can be tossed about by our (often subconscious) fears and desires.

    This retreat has been placed in the perfect conditions of my life. My nephew David has found himself homeless and without money once again…. I could feel my heart closing after discovering he had not been honest with us.

    During the dinner break last evening I overheard John having two difficult phone conversations: the first was about an ambulance and police cars having been at the home of John’s youngest brother. Thankfully, John’s brother was not the one in medical crisis, and the man living on his property was tended to. In the quest for information, however, John discovered something else about his brother that was distressing.

    Loss and gain, fears and desires.

    The second phone call was about Friday’s evaluation for our great grandson, Jackson. Jackson had seizures one year ago during the fall retreat. While we have lost the illusion that Jackson is neurotypical, we also have watched him gain the ability to walk. He is still not talking. And, yes, it feels like another likely loss that Jackson will be tested this week and it is strongly expected he will be diagnosed as on the spectrum for Autism Disorder.

    The last sentence in my retreat journal from yesterday is: “If we had to be perfect to make a positive impact in the world what good could ever get done?”

    In the evening dharma talk, Aaron told a story about when he and Jeshua as young boys befriended another boy who would have been called retarded. Aaron would smile so broadly speaking of that boy’s loving heart.

    Our son-in-love, Doug, said about Jackson in the aftermath of the seizures: “Jackson is still the same loving little boy.”

    We have been learning that compassion is vital in facing the conditions of our world today. We have heard the term “Satyāgraha,” which is a sort of holding firmly to truth, also sometimes called truth force. It is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance.

    We have also heard the word ahimsa, which is Sanskrit for noninjury. In the Indian religions of Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, ahimsa the ethical principle of not causing harm to other living things. There are said to be three types of ahimsa or harm:

      1. Physical, by hurting someone’s physical body.
      2. Vocal, by speaking against others, hurting their feelings.
      3. Mental, by thinking against others.

    From this morning’s Daily Reflection Quote:

    Everything is compassion. It’s only when you’re cut off from that compassion that you can begin to realize that you have free will choice to react with holding things away from you with negativity, with fear, or, still feeling that fear, to make the choice, “I will respond with love, even though my reaction is based in fear. I want to fight back. I want to hate. I want to kill. But I will not allow that of myself.” ~ Aaron

    Fortunately, we don’t have to be perfect to make a positive impact in the world.

    My intention can be: I will respond with love, even if or when my reaction is based in fear.

    Love. Perfect love.

    (Barbara Brodsky shared a precious video on Instagram of a dog being loved on by ponies. She said, “This is perfect love. They don’t care if they are different.” Here is a photo snip:)

    (And also sharing a photo of Junior Bear, my nephew’s Emotional Support Animal, sitting patiently at the table waiting for his breakfast at The Mason Jar Cafe.)

  • What Do You Wish?

    Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul. ~ Simone Weil

    This morning I did laundry rather than go to the community room to ride the stationary bike because I am currently starting a novel and it is easier for me to keep my thoughts on the theme/s of the retreat without reading something else.

    That opening quotation by Simone Weil was posted today by Gratefulness.org and it asked me to mindfully post today as a part of the noble silence of the retreat.

    I have been listening again to the opening words and share some excerpts:

    I’ve seen so many on this earth with fear of, “I will die.”

    Every sentient being wants to survive….

    The heart of the shift comes from your truly knowing our nonduality….The tree is you and you are the tree….gradually your heart opens to knowing absolutely everything inter-is. ~ Aaron

    Last evening Barbara shared a significant guided meditation asking us to imagine being a young child, playing with friends, enjoying the larger community. Then imagine now you are not allowed to play with your friend because he or she is the wrong race, religion, or ethnicity. And then the friend is hungry because his or her parent is not allowed to go into the store to buy food. Before long the friend is cold and has no shelter, everything having been burned. What do you wish for your friend?

    I had memory of a story about a young child who was spending time with an elder neighbor who had recently lost his wife. The child’s mother was curious what the boy was doing with the old man for hours at a time. When she asked, the boys said, “Mostly, I help him cry.”

    Speaking about the two sides in any conflict Aaron continued: “You must support both and you must say not to both….” and reminded us we are not just our brothers’ keeper, we are our brothers.

    In closing Aaron spoke gently but firmly, “We truly are all one and all must live or all will perish….The choice is within you and in your dedication.”

    During the night a text message (likely a wrong number) woke me up. As I lay in the darkness I knew what I wished for my friend was what I wished for all beings. I wish hearts open enough to feel the pain and to feel also the gratitude. If I am not hungry, if I am not ill, if I am not afraid…. feel the gratitude and share that with the world.

    If feeling the pain generates only more pain, where is the relief?

    If not feeling the pain generates ego’s separation, who will help?

    The scripture in Daily Word for today:

    But those who look into the perfect law,
    the law of liberty,
    and persevere,
    being not hearers who forget
    but doers who act — they will be blessed
    in their doing.

    ~ James 1:25

    It is not just, what do you wish for your friend, it is also, “What do you wish for?”

  • SOAR

    When the loving heart simply asks, “How do we best find forgiveness in this situation?” and you take it into meditation and you ask for help, the help that comes is not spirit help versus your help; it’s simply love, one voice of love coming through whatever source it can come through. Let go of “Who is it coming from?” It’s just the voice of love. You can tell when you are tuned into that voice of love because there’s not a lot of contraction and grasping. The body energy is open, connected. ~ Aaron

    This morning begins the fall retreat with Barbara Brodsky, John Orr, and Aaron. I will be physically at home, serving as Zoom host, but my heart is also with each of you.

    This morning as I readied my space, I noticed some words on a promo piece for Zan Lombardo’s Forge & Scroll exhibit:

    It is time to give up deeply….He could do no more. Transformation appears as the death, at its right time.

    As I wrote the words into my journal, along with the comment, “I’m not sure from where the words came,” I also hear: “The words came from the ONE.”

    I played with the letters in one.

    O – N – E

    Only now energy.

    I had selected some special healing stones to place on my side table. I put the spirit (or love) rock that says FORGIVE YOURSELF on my computer.

    Then I wrote in my journal my often-expressed desire of spirit: What would you have me know?

    The voice answered:

    “No one is going on retreat. The ONE is present. You will have a split second of grief as you let go before you soar.”

    S – O – A – R

    See once and release.

    The retreat ends late Sunday afternoon. The Buddhist practice of dedicating merit is that we practice not only for ourselves, but for the benefit of all the people in our lives and in the world as well.

    May all beings come to the end of suffering.

    May all see once and release.

    May all know peace.

    Namaste’

  • Kyle Texas

    Thanks in large part to Zoom technology, our spiritual community now stretches across the globe. When one of our friends, who lives in Texas, let me know her mother had just pasted about an hour earlier, I quickly sent an email message out to the other members with that news. People would want to offer support.

    Another member, who lives in North Carolina, sent me an email asking if I have the address of our friend in Texas.

    I checked and discovered that I did not have a mailing address in her “contact” file but a quick search brought up an email message I had received from her about six weeks prior. She had registered for the fall class but did not receive the Zoom link. As proof that she was registered, she included in that email a copy of her registration. That had her physical mailing address in Kyle, Texas!

    I sent the mailing address along to our friend in North Carolina who had requested it saying:

    It is a holy happening that I do have her address!

    So grateful for the support from spirit that navigates all these strands of our loving connections easily….

  • Mantra for Handling Strong Emotions

    Following some online sharing, she emailed a Mantra for Handling Strong emotions to a friend who lost her husband 6 months ago, had her home damaged by a hurricane, and is now feeling a lot of fear.

    Less than ten minutes later she received a voice mail message from the woman who had shared the Mantra with her originally a few years ago! That woman was in a rehab facility and was asking for the Mantra to be emailed to another friend.

    The Mantra was composed by the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hahn, who is known as a philosopher, teacher of peace, and all things positive, and obviously, LIFE is bringing that information forth for all who can benefit from it at this time.

    Here it is, along with the original notes from the woman who shared it with me:

    Make sure you physically “BREATHE IN” or “BREATHE OUT” at the appropriate place when reciting each line of the mantra; as the actual breath in or out is part of activating the Energy. Use it, every time the emotion arises again, because you are changing how you react to that emotion. It works.

    The “live word” of the Mantra replaces any “strong emotion” being worked on; with the appropriate feeling (Fear, Anger, Anxiety, Impatience, Blame, etc.). I will do the example with fear. Also remember that sometimes anger is an unknown component of the fear that a person is holding, because they are not able to control the fear,…. or Fix it.

    ” Breathing In, I’m aware of the fear,

    Breathing Out, I smile to the fear (yes, these are the appropriate words);

    Breathing In, I recognize fear as Energy,

    Breathing Out, I express Gratitude for Energy;

    Breathing In, Energy and Fear are Power,

    Breathing Out, I can safely hold Power;

    Breathing In, Power supports Wholesome Change,

    Breathing Out, I Invite That, which is for The Highest Good! ”