Roger Seal in a letter to the Friend (p8 17 October 2014)  notes that “Ben Pink Dandelion in his Swarthmore Lecture spoke of ‘(our) experience of encounter (that is with the Divine) transforms our sense of the world around us’ and ‘we are transformed.’ “ and asks about Friends experiences of this.

My experience is that transformation may be gradual, one step at a time, more like a tadpole becoming a frog than a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

Reviewing my experience of Yearly Meeting Gathering at Bath in August (which I’ve been doing for feedback sessions in my Area and Local meetings this month) I notice one area in which my view of the world was transformed in the course of Yearly Meeting Gathering.

I went to Yearly Meeting Gathering with a sense of distress, hopelessness and inadequacy about several situations of conflict in the world that were currently, or recently, prominent in the media – Ukraine, Gaza and Iraq in particular.

I have noted in my journal on 5/8/14 while sitting in the Big Top in the opening worship part of the morning session ‘dying is not wrong, it may be, and usually is, sad, but it is not wrong. Killing is wrong, it damages our spirits’.

On the Thursday evening (7/8/14) I attended the extra meeting for worship where we held the world’s conflict areas in the Light and wrote in my journal: ‘Very moving and worthwhile and good to be able to acknowledge and respond to current needs when our formal agenda can’t. We can at least channel love’.

I was very appreciative of the statement about the situation in Gaza that we were offered the next day, and which was issued, after further checking, shortly after Yearly Meeting Gathering. I realize that it is very difficult to agree statements on these issues and that some Friends are still uneasy with this one.

I, personally, individually, note two transformations in me, arising from this experience:

I am now regularly holding in the Light those involved in areas of conflict in the world – especially those who are doing the killing and destruction and those who are giving the orders for it.

I find myself empowered to engage in correspondence with my MP about the situation and to ask for his support regarding the requests made in the Britain Yearly Meeting statement (beginning with the recognition of Palestine as a nation state).

So a transformation in the way I see the world and in myself. Neither is huge, but both are definite changes.

Do they come from within or without? (As Roger Seal also asks.) Yes.

Following on from my preceding post about teachers and working with this month’s writing group topic (I’d like to thank …), I’ve been thinking about those who from whom I have learnt many small lessons on my spiritual journey so far. Some have also taught me other lessons (including big ones) but I’ve concentrated on very specific instances (otherwise this would be a very long piece of writing).

I’d like to thank ….

Laura Duncan for demonstrating true forgiveness, wholeheartedly welcoming Sandra back to the house after an incident involving the two of them, a carving knife and a locked room.

Elsie Armitage for recognising the Quaker in me and encouraging me. We only met for a couple of hours but it made a big difference to me.

Claude Liddle, one time clerk of Loughborough meeting, for reading the notices in such a way that it was clear that the activities of the meeting arose from the worship of the meeting.

Sheila Wimbush for sharing short, appropriate, thought provoking readings with us young guides at camp.

Francis Savage for taking me to mass on Iona and sharing something of how much it mattered to him.

Stephen Cox for coming and sitting beside me as I prepared to lead epilogue and showing me how much difference someone’s supportive presence could make.

Alistair for standing on the stage at York behind Sean and demonstrating that their relationship was essentially the same as my marriage.

Thich Nhat Hanh for wiping the whiteboard mindfully during the retreat at Nottingham in 2010.

Rosamund and Ian Robertson for opening their home to me and sharing their way of life that arose from their faith.

Mark Turner for inspiring and making possible a pilgrimage to Iona for a somewhat motley band of people associated with Loughborough University.

Kate Hatton for pointing out to me how I had demonstrated Christ’s love for her.

Christine, Stephen, Jane and John for taking me to Sunday School with them when I was visiting Drayton as a child.

Jane Sams for agreeing so enthusiastically to be a ‘guinea pig’ for the ‘Becoming Friends’ trials.

The sea scout leader at Lochearnhead Scout Station for leading short, simple, meaningful, heartfelt prayers at flagbreak each morning.

Jim Pym for being the channel that answered questions I hadn’t even put into words.

Jim Grant for encouraging me to apply for membership of the Religious Society of Friends.

The Woodbrooke tutor who demonstrated the Woodbrooke ethos by listening to and valuing the views of everyone in the seminar group.

Dave Day for providing the motivation that actually got me to a Heart of London Sangha meeting.

Ginny Wall for recruiting me to the online companions team of ‘Becoming Friends’.

Nick Bagnell for teaching me the importance of smiling at our fellow circle dancers.

Some years ago I was told by a Quaker (at a Yearly Meeting special interest group with the New Foundation Fellowship) that it was not possible to be both a Quaker and a Buddhist because a Buddhist had to become the follower of a specific teacher.

I was unable to pursue the point at the time due to an important commitment to be elsewhere (microphone stewarding for the next YM session), but the comment has stayed with me.

At the time I already knew of people who were combining the two, Jim Pym being one of them, one who has published books on both traditions (which I have found very helpful). I have met others since.

My Buddhist journey so far has not required me to sign up with a specific teacher. In formally receiving the five mindfulness trainings I did so within a specific tradition, transmitted by a specific teacher. But Thich Nhat Hanh was very clear that dual membership was perfectly acceptable and even encouraged. We were undertaking to live according to the mindfulness trainings, to follow the tradition rather than the teacher, and not to give up a tradition to which we already belonged. He is very clear that Christianity is totally compatible with Buddhism. (See ‘Living Buddha, Living Christ’.)

I think what the Friend in the New Foundation Fellowship had in mind probably included ‘You must call no one on earth your father, for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor must you allow yourselves to be called teachers, for you have only one Teacher, the Christ.’ Matthew 23: -10 and George Fox’s claim ‘that Christ was come to teach people Himself, by His power and Spirit in their hearts, and to bring people off from all the world’s ways and teachers, to His own free teaching, …’ Journal of George Fox

In my own experience some spiritual lessons I have learned by inward listening, by taking heed of the promptings of love and truth in my heart, or have come to know by sitting quietly and attentively. Other lessons have been mediated through people, people who may be recognised by others as teachers, but equally people who are not recognised, who would make no claim to be teachers, and who may be unaware that they are serving in that role.

Who have your teachers, on your journey, been?

More specific answers from me in my next post …

“It is difficult if not impossible to practice the way of understanding and love without a sangha, a community of friends who practice the same way.” Thich Nhat Hanh

Sangha is my favourite ‘Buddhist’ word. Community is a good word, but we use it for so many different communities, many of them purely secular, that it is easy for the deeper spiritually supportive concept to get lost. In my own mind I’d use the word sangha when Quakers use the English word community with the intention of conveying that spiritually supportive dimension. In our community, our sangha, ‘Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand.’ as Isaac Penington put it in 1667.

I was thinking about all this as I set off yesterday for a morning of mindfulness.

I arrived in good time for the sangha meeting and was greeted at the Hop Gardens door of Westminster meeting house by a familiar, friendly face. The journey had taken an hour and a half so I was glad to still have plenty of time to use the toilet, change my shoes (most people go in socks or barefoot for meditation but my MS symptoms mean I need to support and protect my foot, so I take my foot-up and slippers) and refill my water bottle.

Entering the meditation room, I found several people already well settled making the room and the silence welcoming. I slipped into a space between two people beside someone I know. No greetings beyond a smile or a bow were needed. I settled myself on the cushion and paid attention to my breathing. Once I was conscious of my breath, I also looked around and was conscious of other sangha members arriving. By 10.30 about 40 people had gathered and the facilitators began the formal proceedings, although clearly the morning of mindfulness had begun sometime before I’d arrived.

The guided meditation concentrated on using our senses to be aware of, and in touch with, the natural world, and on seeing the healing and nourishing elements in that. I visualised touching the air, sunshine, trees, soil as I breathed in and smiling to them as I breathed out. We walked mindfully together and the sense of being together, being ‘one body’, was strong, continuing into the silent meditation that followed. The dharma talk was a recording of Thay explaining how we need to touch peace within ourselves before we are ready to touch and transform war within ourselves. Likewise that we need to touch peace and the healing and nourishing things in the world around us to prepare ourselves to touch and transform war in the world around us. We need to do the personal preparation, but we must not shirk the responsibility of transformation, internal and external.

There was a strong sense of unity in the sangha, and that came through also in what was voiced by those who contributed vocally to the sharing of experiences. A lot of what was said was positive, but there was also awareness of ,and concern about, our government’s decision to go to war again in Iraq, and about facing death. There was support, but there was also the challenge ‘what will you do to make the world a better place?’ even if it was not but into words that bluntly. We concluded the sharing by chanting the invocation to Avelokitesvara for love and compassion for ourselves, our loved ones and all in the world.

I felt supported and strengthened and better able to continue to pray for and send metta to the perpetrators of violence as well as those it is perpetrated against (who can be the same people). I’m also convinced of how valuable the sangha is in enabling us to continue our Buddhist practice.

This morning I shall walk, mindfully I hope, across the park to Watford meeting house to join another sangha for meeting for worship.

It’s not about sitting still.

Recently a newcomer said to a group of Quakers I was with ‘Everyone in the meeting sits so still and I can’t, I don’t feel I can come any more because I can’t sit that still.’

We tried to assure her that we don’t actually sit still; that we are all aware of how much we fidget; that we don’t notice and aren’t disturbed by other people’s movements; that it’s inner stillness we are actually seeking. We don’t think we convinced her.

Similarly I have heard people say ‘I couldn’t be a Buddhist, I can’t sit still.’ But again it isn’t essential to sit still (or to sit on the floor), though it can be a helpful exercise. Thich Nhat Hanh specifically advises that if one needs to move during sitting meditation then one should, though one should aim to move mindfully. In other forms of meditation moving is encouraged, eg walking meditation, working meditation and practising the ten mindful movements.

So what is it about?

As a Quaker, it’s about listening to God; hearing that still, small voice; being aware of our inward teacher.

As a Buddhist, it’s about being aware; seeing how things really are; letting go of attachments to body and thought.

In both instances, the being physically still is a tool to an inner stillness, which is itself a tool to an awareness of something that is otherwise blocked or hidden by the constant activity and busyness of my mind and body. If I try too hard to keep my body still that effort is in itself a distraction and defeats the purpose.

Silence, likewise, is a tool – not an end in itself. Outer quiet helps us to settle, but we need to be able to live in the world carrying that inner silence with us.

The practice begins when we leave the meditation hall.

The service begins when the meeting has ended.

Following on from my recent post about questions and their value in our spiritual lives, I’ve been thinking about rules.

Rules can also be a useful tool in progressing in the spiritual life. I’m not thinking of rules imposed by outside agencies, but ones that we develop for ourselves (though we may choose to discuss what they might be with a group of people we trust).

Our spiritual lives need discipline to progress, just like an athlete or musician needs discipline to practice regularly; a student needs discipline to study consistently and to submit essays on time; a gardener needs discipline to dig and to sow and then to wait for the fruit and flowers in due course.

So what rules am I imposing on myself at present?

To remember to walk mindfully

To have some quiet time every day – ideally meeting for worship or sitting meditation, but it might be a mindful activity

No more than 15 minutes sitting meditation at one time (there are times when I could just go on sitting for an hour or more and it’s a temptation I feel I need to resist)

No more than an hour sat at the computer (at any one time)

Some practical, hands on, activity everyday (eg food preparation, washing up, gardening, knitting, cleaning – depending on what needs to be done and my physical ability that day)

Write a blog post every week

Go to sangha meetings once a month

To be gentle with myself – if in doubt, rest

What rule might be helpful to you?

I have just spent a glorious few days at Woodbrooke immersed in the poetry of R S Thomas. R S was a clergyman and poet who lived and worked and spent his retirement primarily in North Wales. Born in Cardiff in 1913, his was privately educated in English, but money ran short and he entered the church because that gave him the opportunity of a university education. He did his best as a pastor, though it does not seem to have been his natural calling. He always regretted that he had not learnt Welsh as a child (though it was his mother’s tongue), but learnt as an adult to communicate better with his parishioners. Though he spoke and wrote prose in Welsh, his poetry is written entirely in English. He was a loner, an introvert, a keen bird-watcher and walker. He was a pacifist and campaigned for nuclear disarmament.

Much of the poetry is very bleak, observing the harshness of life in the welsh hills and the loss of the welsh language and culture. But the real attraction for me (and many others) is the poetry where he expresses his searching for God. He grasps the emptiness; the absence that is yet, somehow, also a presence; the tantalising, passing experience that God is there, or was here a moment ago. He glimpses Eternity/Heaven/Paradise and then loses it again. And, depending on our backgrounds, the members of our group said ‘but clearly he was a Quaker/ Buddhist/Sufi/Mystic.’

As an taster, here is one of his poems that really struck me:

But the silence in the mind
is when we live best, within
listening distance of the silence
we call God. This is the deep
calling to deep of the psalm-
writer, the bottomless ocean
we launch the armada of
our thoughts on, never arriving.

It is a presence, then,
whose margins are our margins;
that calls us out over our
own fathoms. What to do
but draw a little nearer to
such ubiquity by remaining still?

And one that gives some context as well as recounting a fleeting, yet eternal, experience:

The Moor

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot, breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God was there made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In movement of the wind over grass.

There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions – that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cessation
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.

As I have been dwelling on the topic of ‘questions’ over the last few weeks, wondering what to write, I’ve remembered a song I learnt as a young Guide (aged about 11) which we knew as ‘Canadian Taps’ and sang to the tune ‘Tannenbaum’:

Softly at the close of day

As our campfire dies away

Silently each Guide must ask

Have I done my daily task?

Have I kept my honour bright?

Can I guiltless sleep tonight?

Have I done and have I dared

everything to be prepared?

I have a distinct memory of my grandmother banning the singing of this, but she had heard the tune (which is perhaps best known as the tune of the Red Flag) not the words. My sister and I protested strongly that what we were singing was something quite different to what she thought. However, it is little used in Guide circles for just that reason.

I still find the idea of reviewing the day and asking myself how well I have done is appealing. Though I have to remember that it should be without berating myself. I need to forgive myself and then resolve to do better tomorrow. And I have to remember to ask the question – the end of the day is not my best time!

Much more recently (a year or so ago), I pinned up, where I saw it every morning:

‘what am I going to do today to make the world a better place?’

That is a big question, though small answers are allowed, especially since it is a one day at a time sort of question.

What questions am I working with now?

How can I reduce my carbon footprint?

What is stopping me taking action to reduce my carbon footprint?

How can I help myself and others to overcome these barriers (many of them emotional, some of them practical) so as to become ‘a low carbon, sustainable community?

What new activities should I undertake? (If any.)

What activities should I lay down?

What should I be prepared for?

Of all my outstanding tasks, which should I do first?

How can I clear some of the clutter from my life? (Both physically and spiritually.)

What did it feel like to fall in love for the first time?

Am I doing my best to live by my guide promise and the five mindfulness trainings?

Am I taking heed of the promptings of love and truth in my heart?

Am I trusting them as the leadings of God?

What does Love require?

Quagmire – noun:

1. a soft boggy area of land that gives way underfoot
2. an awkward, complex, or hazardous situation

Different traditions use different words. These may or may not be expressing different experiences. Words are always inadequate for expressing deeper spiritual truths, we have to use metaphor and poetry because we are not speaking of material things. Shared experience and shared cultural background is assumed when we use language in these ways, but it may not actually exist. Even between people from a very similar background any given word may have particular overtones that result in it having a subtly, or grossly, different meaning for each of them. When we use emotionally loaded words like God we step into a quagmire. Lots of other basic religious terminology is fraught with the same difficulties. When talking with people from different faith backgrounds the problems can be particularly acute.

We may become fearful of saying anything at all for fear of being misunderstood. Just as we may fear to step into a quagmire, a bog.

As an example of the sort of difficulties that can be encountered, I recently attended a discussion meeting of my local SGI Buddhist group. I know many of the people in the group and have chanted and discussed with them fairly regularly over many years. On this occasion the group included one person who first language is Spanish and two (from Brazil) whose first language is Portuguese. The question before the discussion group was:

‘How can you apply the lion’s roar of ‘nam myoho renge kyo’ to develop the dignity of life in your environment?’

We had to have the question repeated several times in order to begin to grasp what it meant. The question had probably been asked originally in Japanese, the translation into English does not read very comfortably to a native English speaker. Even more difficult, I guess, when English is not your first language. And then, the emphasis of the discussion is to speak from our own experience, so we all need to use words that we, personally, are comfortable with. Some of us were puzzled by the meaning of ‘lion’s roar’, ‘dignity of life’ and ‘your environment’. Is ‘your environment’ my personal environment; the physical environment (locally or the whole planet) that we are may be working to protect; my emotional environment; my workplace environment? Does ‘dignity of life’ refer to not killing anything; to treating life with respect but accepting death as part of life; is it about war or about being vegetarian? Then there is the word ‘develop’ – I won’t explore that one, because I’m not at all sure that I’ve remembered the correct word!

Some spoke of the strength that they gain from chanting ‘nam myoho renge kyo’ and clearly understood something of the metaphor of the ‘lion’s roar’. Others talked about how their environment, their immediate surroundings, are part of the wider environment, and linked this to experiences where a change in themselves, in their attitude (however small), actually led to changes in their surroundings, in their environment. I spoke about seeing the dignity of life in political leaders with whom I disagree, leading to my being able to feel compassion for them (see last week’s post). One person felt the need to speak in her native Portuguese and her friend translated. It is very hard to speak of deeper experiences in a language that does not come easily to the tongue.

Despite all the difficulties, I felt that we were actually sharing well on a deeper level, because everyone listened very attentively and tried to hear beyond the specific words to what the speaker really meant.

Now I’m going to risk the quagmire of translating. In the Community of Interbeing we call this ‘deep listening’, among Quakers we speak of ‘hearing where the words come from’. At least, that is my understanding of the experience.

The situation in Palestine/Israel and especially Gaza was very much in the news as Quakers gathered in Bath for YMG. There was much concern among Friends and a huge desire to DO something. Quakers have taken a lot of interest in the situation in the region over many years, administer the EAPPI programme on behalf of Churches Together and support the Friends School at Ramallah. In 2011 we took the more controversial step of announcing our support for a boycott of goods from the occupied territories. While doing this we have tried, nationally and locally, to maintain good communications with Jewish and Muslims groups. In my own small way I am involved in my local interfaith group for whom I arranged a speaker from the Friends of the Bereaved Families Forum and I try to buy products from Zaytoun (olive oil etc) to support positive trade relations with Palestine.

That’s the background, but here we were in Bath with a huge crisis in Gaza and it was too late to put the issue on our agenda because we hadn’t time to ensure that we all had the facts to hand to consider the matter properly.

Fortunately an opening was created. We were offered a time in the big top to hold a meeting for worship to ‘hold in the Light’ the situation in Gaza and in other areas of conflict in the world, of which there are too many, some of which have considerably worsened since.

So on the evening of Thursday 7 August several hundred of us gathered to uphold those in Palestine, Israel, Gaza, Iraq, Ukraine and elsewhere. Despite tiredness and many fascinating alternative activities I felt that attending this meeting for worship was an important thing to do. There was much heartfelt spoken ministry, but what I was most aware of was a change deep in myself.

I went to this meeting distressed by the human suffering: death, maiming, bereavement, fear. As I sat in the silence I realised that while these things are very upsetting and people need support to cope with them, they are part of the human condition. Dying is part of life, injury is part of life, though it being inflicted in war and conflict should not be. They are not good things, but they are not evil, not inherently wrong in and of themselves. The infliction of suffering by shooting; firing rockets; dropping bombs; ordering the use of weapons; sending troops into war; planning attacks; manufacturing and selling armaments – these are all wrong, they are evil. They are evil because of the damage they do to the perpetrators as well as to those killed and injured. I suddenly saw the need for love and compassion for those who do these things, especially the leaders. I found that I could send love and compassion to the fighters, leaders and politicians as well as to the injured and bereaved. And, as the days have gone by, I continue to send love, compassion, metta to those people in my daily upholding prayer. It’s a small thing, but better than nothing, and a valuable addition to sending money, via the DEC, to help relieve the suffering.

In Quaker terms I yielded my concerns to God’s guidance, held them in the Light, and they and I were transformed. In Buddhist terms I looked deeply into the situation, meditated on it and saw it more clearly. There is clearly room for more transformation, for deeper understanding, but each small step encourages me to continue the journey.

The day after the meeting for worship, Yearly Meeting Gathering was able to agree a public statement (subject to a careful, Quakerly rechecking so that we didn’t cause any unintended offence to any party) on the situation in Gaza. So now I need to contact my MP to encourage action by our government in line with our requests in the statement. And to uphold our politicians as they are pressured towards supplying arms, and possibly military intervention, in other places too.