Distance Healing Part II
Earlier this week, I started a conversation about distance healing. In the first post, I talked about science and research regarding distance healing. For Part II, I’d like to focus more on the energetic and spiritual nature of healing in general, but distance healing specifically. If you would like to learn more about healing in general, I wrote an article for The Heroic Journal about the difference in healing vs. curing, which can also be found here, in the July 11 archives of this blog.
About half of my Blessings Enterprises practice involves distance healing. I have clients of all ages, all seeking a healer for different reasons on the surface…depression, anxiety, severe childhood illness, cancer and a myriad of other things. I have a lot of clients who feel good but want to feel great, who want to grow by working with a life coach or spiritual director, who want to develop a spiritual practice or just move through some challenging times. Everyone is welcome and everyone comes for a different surface reason, but all seek the same underlying thing–everyone is seeking healing. The people who come to me all have a certain level of faith that healing is possible, or they wouldn’t come to someone like me at all. Children often don’t know they are being worked on, but their parents have faith—or at least hope—and so they come seeking relief for whatever plagues the ones whom they love.
I think in order to have faith, you have to have hope. Yet many who come to me suffer from a true crisis of faith, a loss of hope or both. But I believe that buried under the fear or grief that makes a person feel as though there is no hope, there is a spark of life that remains, a soft spot that is open and receptive to healing. This is what opens us to even greater healing and often into a whole new way of being.
Distance healing is a different experience for the person on the receiving end only in the sense that you are not physically here. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t together. Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and most traditions incorporate distance healing into their repertoire of health and healing practices because it works and has worked for centuries. Because I believe All Is One and we are all connected at a deep collective and energetic level, I believe all healing is possible.
The Buddhist practice of Tonglen, Hindu and Buddhist practices of pujas or other ceremonies, Shamanic journeys in many traditions and intercessory prayer in the Christian tradition are just a few examples of distance healing practices. There are several Biblical examples of healing, but my favorite is the Healing of the Centurion’s Servant, found in the books of Matthew and Luke. A few things to keep in mind about this story…Let’s just say for the sake of argument that this all happened the way it is written. I’m not as concerned about the details as about the story and the events that unfold here.
A Centurion was a Roman soldier, sort of like an Army Captain. He had 100 men under him and was part of an occupying force in the city. Technically, since Jesus was a Jew, this man had authority over Jesus, the Centurion was an oppressor. But he recognizes the authority of Jesus to heal someone he loves, and because he understands authority—even when he isn’t present—he has faith that Jesus can heal his servant at a distance. The book of Luke says that the centurion’s other servants came to Jesus, not the centurion himself. While there have been some arguments over the two versions of this story, to me it remains the same, because I understand representatives and authority. Put another way, if I have authority over you and send you as my representative, it is as if I came myself. It’s no different than us expecting our elected representatives to really represent us, or knowing the Secretary of State represents the President and entire U.S. when she travels abroad.
The Faith of the Centurion (Matthew 8:5-13)
When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.”
Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”
The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. …Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour…
This is the essence of what distance healing is all about. Someone we love needs healing, and so we seek that out, even if the “someone” is us. So many people show up at my door saying they cannot believe, saying they cannot love themselves, full of self-hatred or fear, depression or anxiety. But the truth is that’s not who you are. The truth is that another thing Jesus says in the book of Matthew is true and that is,
You are the Light of the World.
Because you are the Light, and I am the Light, and we are all in that Light together as One, this allows distance healing to be possible. The Centurion understood this in a way even the followers of Jesus did not. He understood that when we use the gifts we’ve been given, it plugs us into the reality and understanding of that Light. He understood that to ask in faith and to really be in our own authority as the giver and as the receiver opens the door for healing. He understood that the healing he sought for his loved one was physical, but the true healing taking place was spiritual. The Centurion didn’t have to ask for this—the man for whom he sought healing was a slave. But he loved him. And that love opens him up to asking, which opens him up to receiving, which opens everyone up to healing.
In the previous post I spoke of the science of healing. But there is an aspect of healing that is so personal, yet so universal, that science may never capture it–the art of love. Love makes us do things for others society tells us we shouldn’t, like a Roman military officer approaching an oppressed subject seeking healing for a slave. Distance healing is outside the mainstream western understanding of curing. But healing can take place at any time, any place, in many ways.
Just as you can love someone at a distance, pray for them or remember them fondly at a distance, you can heal at a distance. Just as you can feel the agony over the suffering of the pains of the world and of loved ones and seek out a cure, you can look for that at a distance. All of the religions and spiritual traditions have practices and beliefs about this and in their most pure form teach this concept. The religions are not the same, yet the mystics of each tradition share similar experiences and tell us over and over that we are One with the Divine. Separation is illusion. Because you are One with all that is, healing at a distance is possible, because the distance truly is only in your mind–it is an illusion.
I believe it is our Divine right to be happy, healthy, whole and free. This does not mean that we won’t have struggles or get sick, need healing or have a full range of emotions. That is your direct experience so be with it and really see what it can offer you, whatever it is. The great mystics, shamans, teachers and healers all got sick, all had severe illnesses and pain and all said it made them better healers and teachers. As the saying goes in Zen,
The obstacle is the path. No pain, no compassion.
Needing a healer isn’t failure or evidence of some terrible spiritual malady. It just means you are at a place in your journey in which you can come more deeply into who you are and who you were created to be. I believe by doing so, regardless of your beliefs about God or any particular faith tradition, that you can find a depth you may not have experienced before. You can call this God or your soul, your Buddha nature, your karma, your prana or any number of other things. What you call it won’t change what it is—pure essence, pure energy, pure Light. And you share that essence with every living being, science proves that over and over, and the mystics teach it again and again.
As the saying goes, we are not promised a quiet journey, just a safe arrival. Sometimes we need another person to help us with the journey, a guide and a witness to help us honor our path. Healing is part of that and just like love, healing comes in many people, places and things. And just like with love, distance is irrelevant.
If you have questions about distance healing, or healing in general, or would like to ask a question or make a comment, feel free to do so on the blog or contact me directly.
Peace and blessings 🙂
The Practice of Loving-Kindness
A few people have asked me lately about metta, also known in some circles as maitri. Metta is a practice of loving kindness toward self and others. There are volumes written about metta, it is a basic Buddhist practice in all traditions. Pema Chodron is a well known teacher of this practice and has written many books on the subject.
The basic practice is to first practice loving kindness toward the self, to truly make friends with yourself. When you find peace within, you can more readily practice it toward others. The Judeo-Christian version of this is “to love your neighbor as yourself.” It is truly a practice to be gentle and kind with yourself, practicing this with a boundless, open heart. It requires finding the balance between healthy and unhealthy cravings, understanding healthy desires and boundaries, then putting them into practice with self and others.
A strong suggestion~~don’t start this with someone with whom you have a lot of negative energy or anger. Don’t start with someone who hurt you. Start with yourself and if that is just too hard, take gentle note of that. Then visualize those you find it easy to love and let your body and mind relax into that. Imagine them with you, feel the love, feel the smile, feel the way you expand and open in that love. Include yourself in the way that feels, and invite the fear and anxiety into that circle of love.
If you have a tradition that is helpful to you, imagine that…if it is Christian, then see the love in the eyes of Jesus, feel Him look at you and melt away the fear. If it is another tradition or there is an icon or certain image that speaks to you, allow it to fill you and feed you. Hold yourself as gently and patiently as you would a small, frightened child. Be kind to yourself. Allow this to take as long as it takes, even if it takes years or lifetimes. I cannot think of a kinder, more gentle prayer practice in any tradition than this practice. It truly is about being the body of Christ, or getting in touch with your Buddha nature. It is about practicing peace and allowing that to radiate out into your life, into the lives of those whom you love.
So many people have asked me about this lately I wanted to at least post the basic metta practice chant. The practice is simple, although not always easy 😉 Give yourself some time to practice this, don’t expect yourself to master this in the immediate western way. Simply allow the practice to transform you. It might be helpful to find a teacher, or listen to Pema Chodron, to find a local dharma center or practice group, or even read more about this if you find it resonates with you. If you google “metta chant,” you will find a number of audio files, youtube videos, etc. Feel free to contact me directly or post a question or comment if you want more info.
May I be free from anger and hatred.
May I be free from greed and selfishness.
May I be free from fears and anxiety.
May I be free from all pain and suffering.
May I be free from ignorance and delusion.
May I be free from all negative states of mind.
May I be happy and peaceful.
May I be liberated from bondages.
May I experience peace and tranquility within.
May those whom I love, those whom I like, those who have angered or done harm to me be free from anger and hatred.
May those whom I love, those whom I like, those who have angered or done harm to me be free from greed and selfishness.
May those whom I love, those whom I like, those who have angered or done harm to me be free from fears and anxiety.
May those whom I love, those whom I like, those who have angered or done harm to me be free from all pain and suffering.
May those whom I love, those whom I like, those who have angered or done harm to me be free from ignorance and delusion.
May those whom I love, those whom I like, those who have angered or done harm to me be free from all negative states of mind.
May those whom I love, those whom I like, those who have angered or done harm to me be happy and peaceful.
May those whom I love, those whom I like, those who have angered or done harm to me be liberated from bondages.
May those whom I love, those whom I like, those who have angered or done harm to me experience peace and tranquility within.
May all beings be free from anger and hatred.
May all beings be free from greed and selfishness.
May all beings be free from fears and anxiety.
May all beings be free from all pain and suffering.
May all beings be free from ignorance and delusion.
May all beings be free from all negative states of mind.
May all beings be happy and peaceful.
May all beings be liberated from bondages.
May all beings experience peace and tranquility within.
Peace and blessings,
T
The Mountain Remains…
I am always with all beings, I abandon no one. And however great your inner darkness, you are never separate from Me. Let your thoughts flow past you calmly. Keep Me near, at every moment. Trust Me with your life, because I Am you, more than you yourself are…
I spent the last few days with my parental units, in a little town in Southeast Missouri. This is an area I blogged about last week when I was thinking of my grandmother and my memories of smells, heaven and so on. Lest I sound too romantic, the other reality is that this area located in the buckle of the bible belt boasts some pretty startling stats: Highest illiteracy rates in the state. Nearly 30% of children and seniors live below the poverty line. A neighboring county claims the state prize for the most arrests for operating meth labs and is rampant with child abuse and domestic violence, drug abuse and alcoholism. It is literally in the middle of nowhere, a dot on a state road map in the foothills of the Ozark mountains. My cell phone doesn’t work because it is so far from civilization and if there is ever an emergency, there is no ambulance service. You buy into a 911 package that allows a helicopter to transport you to a hospital about 50 miles away.
This is an area about an hour from a hospital, an hour from a major grocery store or movie theater, an area settled centuries ago by native mound builders and which later experienced some fierce fighting and plundering during the Civil War. The Trail of Tears was prominent all through this area and various Indian tribes lived there for centuries before the Europeans arrived. Much of my ancestry can be traced to the Irish who settled there then married Cherokees who managed to escape from the Trail and find a new life in those rugged hills. An old Civil War road runs along a ridge toward the back of their property, a heavily wooded area full of deer and other game, birds and bugs and snakes of all stripes. In the cemetery where my father’s mother is buried, about two miles back on a dirt road, there is a large hand carved stone, noting only that it is at the head of a mass grave of slaves and Indian mound builders. No one seems to have other information, but it has always fascinated me. So it’s not exactly Heaven on paper, but I actually believe Heaven is within, regardless of where I may or may not be. And besides– God I love it there. It’s nature at its best; the people, landscape and its inhabitants wild and untamed, with rolling hills and valleys, which in this part of the world are referred to as “hollers.”
During this trip, we made pickles and tomato juice with ingredients straight from the garden, ran a few errands and I worked in the yard some. This is my favorite part, the garden and cutting acres of grass. My father has some big lawn mower things that are nicer than one of the cars I owned in college, a ratty old 4-speed copper colored Datsun my friend Tom affectionately referred to as “The Turd.” I learned pretty quickly as a child that if you are cutting grass or doing dishes, people just leave you alone to do your own thing. This remains true even now. So I like to cut the grass.
Going to their place is always an adventure. The drive down takes close to 3 hours and rolls through some gorgeous country, through little towns and hamlets named after characters and areas from the Bible, after people long forgotten other than a passing through their creeks or farms. Yet these mountains and valleys remain, solid witnesses to the passage of time. I thought of my grandmother a lot on the way down and her uncanny ability to predict the weather, among other things. She swore that if the cows were laying down (which they were on Thursday) it was a sign of “falling weather,” and to expect rain or snow or whatever seasonal precipitation falls that time of year. For the record, the cattle were all sprawled out like college kids after a drinking binge, but the skies were sunny and earth-bound blue, with no rain in sight.
So these are things you can’t help but notice on the way down. Part of what I like about going is that I’m never sure what I might end up doing while I’m there. My mother is not in good health but is in this Energizer Bunny Holding Pattern, just sort of plugging along. My clinical brain knows that one of these days, probably sooner rather than later, the batteries in the Bunny will stop working and she’ll sign into hospice. When that time comes, I’ll go down there for the duration, but for now I just come and go and do what I can. And when I can, I cut the grass and admire the rolling hills, these foothills of the Ozark mountains.
So I tooled around on the Cadillac of lawn mowers, very Zen-like. Well, Zen-like other than being lost in thought. But at least Buddhist in the sense of mostly being really present to the moment. I love watching the birds dive into areas I just cut, scooping up the bugs that bounce around like kids in bumper cars, scattering wildly to escape the whirring blades. I love watching the clouds come and go, love hearing the cicadas sing their bluesy summer songs, love the heat and sun, love the ways the earth seems to stand still and move so steadily at the same time. The snakes really will leave you alone if you return the same courtesy and they provide the valuable service of keeping the mice and bugs away, so there is a general sense of “live and let live,” which is fine with me.
So I cut grass and soak up sun and sometimes I’m so present to the moment that it aches. So many people I know are feeling apart from the Divine right now, so apart from who they believe themselves to be, so soul-weary. I watch my own mother and remember the hundreds of people I worked with in hospice, knowing that you can hold onto life for a long time, but eventually you just become a weary traveler wanting to get home. I was thinking of the verse from the Gita I listed above and many others, just letting the blades whir around and letting the sun melt some of my own thoughts away. The Gita is part of the Hindu Scriptures and translates as “The Song of God.” I love the passage that says God is more me than I am. I love thinking that I am One with the Divine and those mountains, with all that is happening, all that is so big and small, so real and so surreal.
Later, as one storm after another brought the most ominous looking clouds and dark skies, pounding rain, thunder and lightening vibrating the house and illuminating the mouth of the George Ward Holler (I have no idea who George Ward was, but the storms always come through the valley of his old farm) near their home, I thought of my grandmother and of how the storms in our own lives just roll through like that. Some sun, some rain, and usually some warnings for dark skies if we are paying attention, even if that is cows laying down on a hot afternoon. But then that passes through too, dripping with much needed nourishment for the soils of our souls, lit up, maybe even shaken or stirred a bit. This weekend reminded me of all of these things, and I thought about it a lot. Mostly the skies in this life are clear, but clouds pass through, that’s just part of it too. But doing this inner process in deep communion with the Earth makes it more do-able for me and reminds me of a passage from the Prophet Isaiah,
You shall go out in joy, and be led forward in peace; the mountains and hills will break forth before you in singing, and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands…
So I thought about all of that while I mowed and cleaned and made sweet pickles and tomato juice, trying to soak up time like a sponge, feeling it slipping through the hourglass, knowing you can’t hold onto anything or it just cuts as you try to grasp it, feeling time pass with a sense of Amazing Grace. I find the only way to do this time (or any time, for that matter) is to be present as much as possible– so present that it aches a little…but there is also so much joy there, and that grabs you too. The Buddhist word for that place is Bodhicitta, which the Dharma teacher Pema Chodron describes as “the soft spot.” Volumes have been written about this, but it’s basically that soft place inside all of us that holds some pain, some joy, some tenderness, like an old scar that never fully heals. And all you can do is touch it lightly, like painting a prayer on a cobweb, holding it all in the tenderness of a mother with a sick child, knowing that you are the mother and child all at once.
There is something powerful about that soft spot, knowing it is as eternal as the mountains and valleys, knowing that mountain remains in spite of its own soft spots and pounding rains. There is something really comforting about the eternal yet so very temporal nature of time and the passage of it, something so very comforting about the deeply personal nature of this time and the universal nature of it as well. At some point we all experience death–hopefully we all experience a life. That’s really my primary aspiration with all of this, to be so present to all of my life that it aches, but to take this life, as shaken and stirred as it may feel at times, and really live it.
The poet Li Po pondered these same things, as we all have throughout lifetimes and the ages. Yet the mountains remain, a witness to our grief and joys, to knowing no matter how dark it feels, we are One. Nearly 1300 years ago in China Li Po wrote, possibly on a weekend like this one,
The birds have vanished into the sky
And now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
Until only the mountain remains…
So tonight I sit, honoring mountains and time, watching the clouds drain away. And like clouds in the sky, we all pass through, changing forms and moods like the weather, always changing, always eternal, always One with All That Is. And the mountain remains.
Night moon.
Night stars.
Peace 🙂
Distance Healing Part I
About half of my practice involves working with clients of all ages at a distance. I’ve recently received more questions about “what is it?” and “how does it work?” so I’m going to do a few basics here. Please understand that volumes have been written about this, so I’m not going to adequately capture this in a blog post, even one this long. But I’d like to at least address the basic question, so I’ll include my own personal thoughts, as well as some hard scientific research available to us. Today I’ll talk about research and some of those impacts, and in a following post I’ll get into the more personal and spiritual aspects of it.
Dr. Daniel Benor, MD, a leading researcher in this field, includes distance healing under the larger heading of “spiritual healing,” and defines it thus:
Spiritual healing is the systematic, purposeful intervention by one or more persons aiming to help another living being (person, animal, plant or other living system) by means of focused intention, hand contact, or passes to improve their condition. Spiritual healing is brought about without the use of conventional energetic, mechanical, or chemical interventions. … Psychological interventions are inevitably part of healing, but spiritual healing adds many dimensions to interpersonal factors…these types of healing include distant healing, which is healing that is deliberately sent by one or more healers as an intent, wish, meditation, or prayer to a healee who may be in the healers’ presence or may be far away. Distance, even thousands of miles, does not appear to limit the effects of healing.
Dr. Benor includes the clinical research of many studies on his website, as well as other articles related to holistic health and healing. One of the studies discussed by Dr. Benor was published by Sicher, Targ, et al, which studied the effects of distant healing on AIDS at California Pacific Medical Center’s Complementary Medicine Research Institute. This study focused on 40 volunteers who had advanced AIDS. Study participants were randomly assigned to receive either distant healing or no healing. All received standard medical care from their own doctors, at several different medical centers.
Distant healing was sent by 40 healers in various parts of the United States. All healers had at least five years experience, and were accustomed to sending distant healing. Healers had only the first names and photographs of five of the subjects. They sent healing for an hour each day, six days per week, over a 10-week period. Healers were rotated randomly in weekly patient assignments, so that every patient had 10 different healers who sent healing over the course of their treatment. Healers’ religious backgrounds included Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Native American and other Shamanic traditions, and healing traditions included several modern-day healing schools. After six months, a medical chart review was conducted by a doctor who was blind to treatment assignments.
There were no significant differences between healing and control groups on demographic and study variables prior to the start of distant healing treatments. At six months following the initial assessment, those sent distant healing had significantly fewer AIDS-related illnesses and lower severity of illness. Visits to doctors, hospitals and overall admissions to hospitals were less frequent. Mood indicators showed significantly more improvement in the group assigned to distance healing. If you’d like to read more about this study and others, you can find information here. If you’d like to read more about Dr. Targ, who presented the study, that can be found here.
Numerous studies about distance healing have repeatedly shown its efficacy, regardless of the beliefs of the study participants or researchers. Researchers at the HeartMath Institute showed distant healing could alter the rate of winding and unwinding of strands of DNA, which has far-reaching implications for other studies regarding our cell biology and genetics, assumptions about heredity and much more.
The typical opposition to distance healing comes in two basic packages. The first, and most common argument comes in some form of “I don’t understand how it could work.” My somewhat flippant answer to that is generally along the lines of “you don’t know how your TV works either, but it doesn’t stop you from watching the super bowl.” The truth is that I don’t know how my car works, but I drive it. I don’t know how to fix my washing machine, but I know who to call when the spin cycle goes on strike. So let’s get honest—do you know what makes your heart beat, or your neurons fire, how the antibiotics you take for strep work? For that matter, can you explain in scientific terms what makes you love your mother, your mate, your kids or your dog? An honest answer to those questions, for most of us, is “no,” and even a cardiologist can’t really explain the underlying energy that makes the human heart tick or not.
As Thoreau said, With all your science can you tell me how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul? In truth, our own prejudice or inability to understand how something works should not be a real reason for refusing to utilize a viable and reliable form of healing.
On the flip side we find the placebo effect, which some physicians are actually beginning to refer to as “self-healing.” The placebo effect basically says that if you believe something works, then it will work. It has been assigned to the weak, uneducated, silly patient who is easily influenced by the mind. This dismissal of the power of the patient to be involved in his or her own healthcare is a model of curing, rather than of healing, and in my opinion misses the entire point. More thoughts on the differences in healing vs. curing can be found on the July 11, 2010 post on this blog.
A fascinating study conducted at the Baylor School of Medicine and published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002 studied arthroscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee. The study was testing the efficacy of surgical procedures in patients presenting with arthritis of the knee. The study included 180 participants and the surgeries were performed by Dr. Bruce Moseley, the author of the study. Dr. Moseley was convinced that the knee surgery would help the patients, he just wanted to study which procedures helped the most and provided most symptom relief.
The study divided patients into three groups. Dr. Moseley shaved the damaged cartilage in the knee of the first group. The second group concentrated on the knee joint itself, flushing out the joint and removing the material thought to be causing the pain and inflammation. The third group was the control and got a phony surgery. The patient was sedated, incisions were made and the patients were treated just as the other two groups were. Dr. Moseley even splashed water around to simulate the sounds of the knee washing part of the surgery. The three groups were prescribed the same follow up rehab, follow up visits and exercise.
The results were fascinating: There was zero statistical significance in the three groups. The groups who received the real surgery did in fact improve. But so did the placebo group, at exactly the same rates. The surgical groups did not have greater pain relief, arthritis or mobility. In fact, Dr. Moseley reported in his findings that objectively measured walking and stair climbing were worse in the debridement group than in the placebo group at two weeks, at one year and showed a trend toward worse functioning at two years.
The Discovery Channel later interviewed the doctor and some participants. One of the participants receiving the fake surgery, which was really no more than some incisions in the knee and follow up treatments, used to walk with a cane and had pain, trouble walking and so on. He reported feeling great and playing basketball with his grandchildren.
Dr. Moseley began his article in the New England Journal of Medicine by noting that over 650,000 knee surgeries are performed in this country each year, at a cost of over $5000 each. This does not include the cost, time and pain of follow up visits, physical therapy, lost time from work or life in general. He later said that he realized his skill as a surgeon had no effect on the patient or the knee. He attributed the entire healing to the placebo effect and followed up by saying, “In this world anything is possible when you put your mind to it. I know your mind can work miracles.”
So are the results of alternative medicine and distance work all placebo effect? That is the most interesting part of this for me. When working with small children who never talk to me or even know they are being worked on, when studying AIDS patients or many others, the results for distance healing seem to fair better than even mainstream surgery. You can read more about these things here.
I believe we create our own reality, but even more, I believe we are co-creators with the Divine, and that healing is always possible. While there is a difference between healing and curing, we are participants in both of those possibilities. Goethe said,
I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.
I think healing of all kinds, from all kinds of healers, helps all of us become aware we are capable of becoming and embodying the fullness of life, of love and of all that can hold.
Furthermore, I believe that if you pray for someone, you have just engaged in distance healing. I believe love heals. I believe warm cookies and good coffee, good conversation, time with good friends and the giggles of children are healing. Thinking of someone you love, even at a distance, lowers the blood pressure and opens the heart and mind. Using the services of a skillful healer can guide you on your own healing journey and can help you find peace and healing of many forms.
Stay tuned for the next post on distance healing, and feel free to post your own experiences with distance healing and its effects. Next time we’ll discuss the emotional and spiritual nature of distance healing. Same bat time, same bat channel 😉
Have a great weekend. 🙂
Compassion & Mindfulness Retreat
Hello all! The Mid-America Buddhist Association (MABA) is hosting a Cultivating Compassion retreat in a couple weeks. If you have never been out there, it’s a gorgeous place, a Buddhist monastery plunked right in the middle of Augusta wine country. Well worth the drive and the time. Families are welcome. I cut and pasted the info below.
Enjoy!
A Family Retreat at MABA
Saturday, August 14, 2010 8:30 am to 4:30 pm
11:45 am – Vegetarian Lunch included
Mid-America Buddhist Association Monastery
Highway 94 & Schindler Road, Augusta, MO
Individuals, Couples, Families, Children, Teens, and Adults of All Ages are Welcome
On August 14, 2010 MABA will be having a special one-day family retreat. There will be special activities, loving kindness, and mindfulness meditation teachings for children, teens, and adults of all ages. You are welcome to come as an individual or with family members. Children’s groups will be divided into those ages 5-10 and ages11-17. There will also be activities and teaching on Loving Kindness for the entire family.
The day will begin with an orientation about Compassion and a Mindfulness Nature Walk together with our loved ones. Children’s morning activities will include short mindfulness practice, mala bead bracelet making, story time, and jade plant sprouting. Morning teen activities will include practicing mindfulness, learning Buddhist stories about Compassion, and applying these stories to creative projects. Morning activities for adults will include mindfulness meditation and a more in-depth study of the Karuna (Compassion) practice.
Following the vegetarian lunch, the afternoon activities will begin with families cooperating in planting our own jade plants from leaves. We will also incorporate Mindfulness and Compassion with the three age groups to include a presentation of their projects. The afternoon will conclude with a planting ceremony and the Dedication of Merit. This promises to be a very special day. Come and join us!
All MABA events are free and open to the public. www.maba-usa.org for directions and information
Donations are accepted. For this event pre-registration is required
Register early, as space is limited. Contact donshushu@yahoo.com
Forgiveness, Metta & Priorities
Good morning, Happy Thursday! 🙂
I’ve had several conversations today about priorities, forgiveness and how making forgiveness a priority is such an integral part of the journey and a good life. Forgiveness comes from words meaning “allow,” and literally means “for giving.” Everyone I’ve talked to today is having such a rough time, and there is a lot of emotion swirling around. All of this got me thinking about feelings and what we do with them, and about for-giving.
I think when we forgive we give up the sense of being a victim so we can set ourselves and another person free. Really what we are giving up is the sense that we have a right to punish someone for harming us. But I think at a deeper level, we mostly give the freedom to ourselves. If I hold onto old hurts, the truth is that I’m the one hurting myself over time, not the original person I charge with the harm. So when forgiveness becomes a priority for me, I find that I feel a deeper sense of freedom in general.
Buddhists speak at length about the roots of suffering and happiness, and in cases of cruelty or harm, aspire for the wrongdoer,
May you experience happiness and the roots of happiness. May you be free from suffering and the roots of suffering.
There is understanding and acknowledgment that harm has been caused, intentionally or not, but that holding onto it only creates more suffering. There is acknowledgment that pain and betrayal, harm and hurt are not just personal, but also universal. I’ve probably hurt others too, so maybe it’s best that we all experience happiness and the roots of happiness. In cases of extreme cruelty or harm, the kindest thing that can be done for all is to be free of the roots of suffering and instead tend to the roots of happiness.
Christian scriptures tell us, “if you don’t forgive, you won’t be forgiven.” Theologians and scholars tell us this does not mean God won’t forgive us, but the truth is that unforgiving people tend to be somewhat vengeful people, vengeful people tend to harm other people, and so round and round it goes. So if I refuse to forgive you, it probably signifies a deeper wound or hurt in me and if I can’t forgive myself for mistakes, I probably will find it hard to forgive others. Holding onto that kind of hurt and resentment often results in depression, rage, or a soul-sucking detachment which separates us from God. Therefore we don’t feel the love and mercy of the Divine because we don’t let it in. It’s always there, but if I don’t let it in then I can’t experience it.
So I was thinking about all of that this morning…thinking about priorities, and thinking about the folks I know who make letting go and forgivness a priority–the truth is that they are the happiest folks I know, in spite of a lot of past pain. I’m feeling very pensive today, very aware, almost too present, if that’s possible. It’s the anniversary of my grandmother’s death, as I wrote about in the previous post. I have a full day and tonight I will go to my parental units, about 3 hours south of here, and spend a day or two. My own mom is sick and declining steadily. It’s hard to watch, and I find myself sometimes having to stay present to it, finding the balance between knowing what that means clinically, as well as my own feelings about it.
I was thinking about my mother’s grief about the death of her own mother, and how that no doubt is especially poignant in this time of her own decline. Chances are that my mother will have had more time with her mom than I will have, probably about 15 years longer than I will. Nine years after the death of my grandmother, when we all still laugh about and grieve this powerhouse of a woman, I think about all she had to endure and forgive. She seemed to make forgiveness a priority and she had a lot of things she needed to forgive, from what I know about her life story. But rather than use those things as excuses to put up walls or shut down, she instead used them as a means of prayer, of letting go, of moving on. Not in denial, but in a choice of how she wanted to live. God knows that wasn’t perfect or constant. In spite of my memories of her as how Heaven would smell, she was quite human and had her own issues. But she kept pluggin along at it— she made it a priority.
Today I have been thinking about that a lot and all of my own feelings about my mom, our relationship and what I would like for this remaining time we have to be like. The truth is that my experience is up to me, and so I’m working on making this time as peaceful and fluid as it can be– that’s my priority today. I’m borrowing prayers today, and sending out a few of my own…I’ve gotten a lot of calls this morning from people going through a hard time….lost jobs, sick friends, sick moms, hurt feelings on lots of sides in lots of relationships, and I’m observing all of this with keen interest and curiosity.
Given all of that, I had a chat with myself this morning about priorities and what is important to me. Today my priority is loving-kindness to myself and others, and as of this writing at 830, I hope I’ve done OK with that so far. But we’ll see. I don’t have enough coffee in me yet to do much damage.
But given all of that, I am making metta my priority today. I’ve been practicing metta meditations for years. There is a reason they call it a practice. Metta basically means loving kindness. If you’d like to learn more about all of this, you can read about it here.
This is part of the instructions from the Buddha to his followers about this practice…
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will…
Today I am thinking about all of these things, and the relationships in my life. There are so many, and they are so good, and I am so grateful. Today I aspire we all experience happiness and the roots of happiness. May you be free from suffering and the roots of suffering. May you live in peace, love and experience giggles, joy and metta as priorities.
Have a great day!
Peace and blessings 🙂
Seek and ye shall find
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