Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Lion’s Roar

  • Tara: Transforming Suffering

    The sharing of their small group included looking at “What is my portion of THE pain that I am healing in this lifetime?”

    She spoke awareness of a sense of her voice not being heard, including times when it was especially painful because it occurred within the spiritual community. A few examples were given, inviting everyone to look at this collective pain around patriarchy. Within our society, our government, our religions — men having held the power and women having been largely excluded from it. While we can see evidence of progress, males and females alike bear wounds and scars.

    One of the other women in the group mentioned a Tara Mantra practice that might be helpful, including a chant to Green Tara which had been recorded by one of their dharma sisters.

    48 hours later she sent an email saying: This came in my email today 🙂

    Taking Refuge in Tara: How the mantra-based practice of the “Mother of all Buddhas” can transform suffering.

    Note* This excerpt is from an online article:

    For women, Tara offers representation and empowers them as they engage in spiritual practice. For millennia, religion has been dominated by male iconography, male clergy, and the idea that women lack the capacity for full spiritual development. To have the opportunity to engage in a practice where the central figure is female is affirming.

    To see that female figure embodying ultimate wisdom and compassion can bring a fundamental sense of validation and help to heal the impact of years of subjugation and marginalization. One of Tara’s origin stories reflects her experience and understanding of this inequality.

    ~ The Lion’s Roar: You Are the Divine Feminine

  • Please Help Me Get Out of the Hospital

    Buddhist teachings point to the most elemental cause behind our suffering — forgetting who we are. We forget our belonging to one another and to our larger body of earth. We forget our belonging to the boundless, loving awareness which is our shared essence. Instead, we live in a trance of egoic separation, with habits of grasping and self-protection that lead to violating ourselves, others, and our world. We are at a time in history where the illusion of separate self — with its unprocessed fear, aggression and destructiveness — threatens all life systems on our planet. More than ever, we need practices that can evolve consciousness from “self-other” or “us-them” to “we” — practices that motivate us to act on behalf of our collective wellbeing. ~ ~ Dharma for Times of Global Trauma, by Tara Brach (Lion’s Roar)

    These universal words feel very personal today. While I have hesitated to write opening about the situation with a dear friend having been taken to the hospital and likely not returning to his home, something about Tara Brach’s words makes it impossible to not write opening about it.

    Readers will know of whom I speak, but I will refrain from naming names. Let’s be clear: This sharing is not to have you feel sorry for me or to feel hostile toward the “others” involved. Can one choose which side of a building we will keep standing? Choosing sides is a grand delusion. This sharing is to help US see how true it is that “the illusion of separate self — with its unprocessed fear, aggression and destructiveness — threatens all life systems on our planet.”

    We had just spoke to Dad’s case manager and found out that you are requesting for Hospice evaluation without letting us know. This is unacceptable. If you do this again, I will go to the court to take you out of the list. You do not have the best interest to take care of our Dad.

    The message went on to list many things considered to have been done wrong. The story was distorted and the tone was hostile. I did not address the distortions or the hostility, but instead sent a simple response:

    It won’t help your dad to have us argue over his care. I am very appreciative of this information. I always welcome your updates. Thank you for letting me know. I’m sorry if my call seemed argumentative.

    The email sent in response continued in the same threatening tone: Thanks. I also want to let you know that you are not his POA, so if you call yourself so, that would be a misrepresentation.

    The email messages since that day have continued to escalate.

    He has his phone now. Within minutes of its being dropped off to him, I received email, text, and a phone call with the same message: “Please help me get out of the hospital.”

    It is so very difficult…. Meanwhile, gratitude washes over me that he has his phone and that he can call me and express his emotion.

    Each time I speak to my dear friend, I hold this universal truth in my heart as I speak the words to him: “Since you are where you are right now, do the best you can to make the best of it.”

    Since we all share this difficult experience of being human on planet earth right now, we must do the best we can to make the best of it.

    What might be gained by seeing the “other’s” perspective?

    Years ago I delivered a sermon titled “Universal Addiction” in which we identified the universal addiction as to our point of view.

    Let’s be clear. We cannot un-see what we have seen. The way it was seen is the way it was seen. Magic happens when we realize (seeing with REAL EYES) that it can always also be seen from another perspective. It is not necessary to give up anything already seen to choose to see something additionally.

    The classic example of this is the young woman or old lady image. There are lots of these, but this one is possibly the most widely recognized.


    So much of mindfulness training is about just this. Hold up your hand. Focus on the fingers. Then relax your eyes and notice the space between the fingers and the view beyond the space. Each perspective exists. Point of view reveals, not creates, awareness.

    “The die is cast” is a saying that means an event has happened or a decision has been made that cannot be changed.

    Perhaps human consciousness has awakened sufficiently that no die can be cast…. perhaps, just perhaps…

    How else will we humans hold hands and act on behalf of the earth? How else will we go beyond the political dividedness that leads to violence and oppression? How else will we create beloved community, a world where all life is cherished, the vulnerable are cared for, and we naturally live for the common good?

    If we can imagine our potential as humans — what is possible — we can manifest the fullness of our true nature.

    ~Tara Brach

  • Cultural Peace

    Time is at once a limited commodity and an illusion. We an spend time, waste time, deny time, and transcend time.

    At a workshop with Zan Henigan Lombardo, the focus was on how she let chaos in her life create something beautiful. Her work of art is an impressive 30-foot watercolor painting with an equally impressive 30-foot poem along the bottom, created by an even more impressive artist/poet/teacher over many years.

    As is the case in most group settings right now, the most recent school shooting came up. People from all walks of life are asking why, and some are asking what can be done. This morning I read again Glen Snyder’s article (Lion’s Roar is from the Buddhist perspective) which invites some possible answers to the question how. The article is titled Why We Go for the Gun. Greg Snyder is a Zen Buddhist priest and President of Brooklyn Zen Center. You may want to take time to read his article for yourself. Here is a brief excerpt:

    This is not to say we should not work for legislative change, organize to reduce homicides and suicides in our communities, stand up to systemic violence and law enforcement abuses, critically engage our own consumption of violence as entertainment, and actively address our nation’s child-soldier problem (that is, gangs). But these efforts alone will not change the soil in which this violence grows. We must illuminate this culture of domination, grieve our shared karma, and introduce the sacredness of spirit and all life back into our nation.

    Glen’s article touched a sensitive spot for me. As my husband is in the living room watching TV in the evenings, I am often in the other room working on a jigsaw puzzle. Hearing the soundtrack only of what he is watching, the movies he watches all sound the same. I hear two hours of gun shots, guttural grunting and desperate breathing, along with the repetitive use of the four-letter-nasty. I told him I don’t think they even make individual sound tracks….

    Reading Glen’s article, the thing that was most salient for me is how what I think, say, and do contributes to our collective experience. This morning I appreciated today’s thought from the Brahma Kumaris:

    The ability to enjoy one’s own company is one of the greatest gifts life has to offer. Learning to turn my thoughts away from all my responsibilities at the day’s end and take my mind into a state of peace and benevolence enables me to carry greater and greater loads without feeling the burden. When my inner landscape is full of beautiful thoughts, everything I do is a pleasure. Gently, I calm down chaotic situations and offer solace to troubled minds.

    Perhaps enjoying one’s own company and cultivating the sweet sound of silence is the how of inner and cultural peace….