mystic heart

News From China

2011-03-01T10:07:00.000-08:00

Effortless Being February 2011
News From China
This issue is dedicated to the work of my childhood friend Elyn MacInnis. Elyn is an Episcopal priest and a student of Buddhism with Kentrul Rinpoche. She lives in Shanghi. Elyn has written a delightful book of contemplations on Chinese characters. One of Elyn’s favorite places is Granny Han’s school. By the end of this newsletter you will see how these two things are related and how you can help and benefit from her work.
In the follow history of Granny Han’s school Elyn does not mention her own efforts that helped sponsor the school through her church and how she helped get UNESCO involved and how she brought neurofeedback to the school at her own expense.
Please note: On March 1
1. Because it will bring the book up on the Amazon rating list.
2. If you buy the book through her website www.characterreflections.com (which is actually an Amazon page that works through the Amazon checkout system), she will get almost twice the profit than if you buy it directly from the Amazon shop. In this way, you will not only get a great book, but you will be making a donation to Elyn’s neurofeedback work at Granny Han’s school. There will also be bonuses available for people who order the book from her site on March 1

Granny Han’s School
Han Ru-feng, known to English speakers as "Granny Han," is the Principal of the Peng Cheng Special Education in a coal mining town in northern Jiangsu Province. When she discovered that no public special education school would take her grandson because his IQ was below the cut-off of 50, she retired and decided to educate him herself. So in 1989, this determined grandmother set up the Peng Cheng School that has become a model of compassionate education and therapy for developmentally-disabled children. She began with six children in a tiny one room shed in one of the poorest areas of town. She barely had enough money to rent a tiny room in the oldest section of town because her students were almost all from very poor families.
Finding a good school building was difficult For more than 15 years Granny Han was forced to work in buildings that were on the verge of being condemned and have since been demolished. She had to move her school 10 times. But that did not stop her from creating a school where special needs boys and girls can achieve basic education and life skills, and benefit from medicine, food and love.
There was no heat in the old school building.
Finally, in 2004 a proper school was built Her school was brought to the attention of members of the UNESCO office in Beijing, who supported her candidacy for foundation grants to build a permanent building for the school, which was completed in 2004. Finally, these special children, now numbering over 130, and their dedicated teachers, had a school which they could call home.
Hard work brings success Many former students, including Granny Han’s grandson, now have jobs and support themselves. Children who once could not talk or wash themselves are learning to read and attain skills for independent living. Granny Han’s innovative teaching style and attention to the individual needs of each student have helped the children make great progress. Medicine created by senior doctors at the Jiangsu Chinese Medical University has also enhanced the children’s development.
Granny Han and her team of dedicated teachers continue to transform the lives and futures of the special education children of Xuzhou. Their work has been honored by the Chinese government with both national and provincial awards. Their small school is at the leading edge of special education schools in China.
Training programs for sustainabliity Because Peng Cheng is a private school, they are able to work with a variety of new training
programs that the government schools cannot provide. Because they are providing leading edge training, they have the backing of the local government, which is important for their work.
Help for all Granny Han continues to take in all children, regardless of their families financial situation. She receives support from generous foundations and individuals, but it is not easy to keep the school running. Some of her students are orphans. Some have no family income, and live on small government stipends.
The Promise of Neurofeedback One of the ways the school is developing so that they will have a sustainable base for income for the school is providing neurofeedback (brainwave training) for children in the autistic spectrum or with ADHD. Using equipment from EEGSpectrum, a company that makes neurofeedback equipment in the US, the children are now making even more progress.
About Elyn’s Book,
Character Reflections
In this wonderful book Elyn not only gives insight to the meaning of certain Chinese characters, she gives insight into living a spiritual life in the every day world.
If you wish to purchase the book at the Character Reflections book website, www.characterreflections.com , which is linked into the Amazon system, and do so on March 1

Stop – Ting
Left side: A person
Right side: A pavilion
Put together, a person resting against a pavilion carries the meaning of "stop". No doubt the person is sitting in the shade resting from his or her work!
There is a story from China about stopping:
A person was standing by the road when a horse and rider came galloping by raising clouds of dust. The person at the side of the road, thinking that something important must be happening, called out to the rider,
―Hey! Where are you going?ǁ
The rider called back loudly,
―I don‘t know! Ask my horse!ǁ
There are many horses to ride:
The horses of Habits, especially being overly busy. We run around frantically each day – for work, for school, to shop, run errands, play sports, workout, run, jog, clean the house, yard, car, take the dogs for a walk, do laundry, or sit in front of the TV exhausted.
The horses of Emotions, like anger, worry, or depression, hate, jealousy or greed. We can miss the delight of simply being alive by winding ourselves up with negative emotions.
Or we may be riding the horses of Desires and Hunger for what we don‘t have, or think we need. I can remember when our children were small being overwhelmed with the desire for our own house. It is easy to think that we must have a certain brand of something, a certain way of living, a longer vacation or a fancier pet.
This character reminds us to stop the horse and reassess what we are doing. But to stop the horse, we first need to become aware of what it is we should stop and also become aware of our state of mind so we can keep it from taking us over.
Stopping our bodies is easier than stopping our minds. The character shows a person leaning their body against the side of a pavilion. The real challenge is to take the time to stop our mind and give it a rest.
Someone with a mathematical bent has added up all the time average Americans spend sitting at stoplights during their lives: about six months. Most people anxiously await the turn of the light to green. We scheme about how we will pull in front of some other car so we can be first, or gnash our teeth about being late. But in these stopped moments we can use our minds to take a break. We can make the choice to think about something else.
The possibilities are delightful! Sending love to someone, enjoying the green leaves on the trees, contemplating the subtlety of the winter landscape, savoring the cup of tea or coffee you just sipped, saying a prayer of thanks for the good things happening in your life, or even just breathing.
I haven‘t seen figures for how many minutes we use brushing our teeth, or boiling water for a cup of tea or coffee, but we really do have many opportunities to ―stopǁ our constant worry or mind chatter and consciously create how we want to feel in our life. If that seems like a lot, at a stoplight you can simply hum your favorite song. It doesn‘t have to be complicated. Stopping provides us with the time and potential to choose how we want to feel while we go about our daily tasks.
st, there will be some bonuses available for you. The proceeds from the book will go completely to her work at Granny Han’s school, so when you buy it, it is like making a donation to the school. Thank you for your encouragement and support for her work. The following is an excerpt from the book so you can get a taste of what it is like. Enjoy!
st, Elyn will have an official opening day for her book. She is asking friends to go to the website and buy the book on March 1st. Why? st.

Knowing Through Matching the Divine in One's Self

2011-01-19T06:39:00.000-08:00

Contemplation on a passage from the Gospel of Philip

44. It is not possible to see anything of the imperishable unless one becomes like it.

Believe it or not, the imperishable is what we are all seeking in our various ways. Almost always we end up seeking it in those things which are impermanent. This would be any object on earth including our own bodies and any mental or emotional state. These things are what give us an identity of being a separate individual person. Holding the perspective of being an individual one is doomed to disappointment as object after object runs down or breaks, as friends and family members get sick and die.

In the world of True Life everything happens not in the same way as among worldly people. They see the sun although they are not the sun. They see the sky and earth and all other objects, not being them.

What is called worldly here is what we would call normal perception. In it there is a separation between observer and observed. However there is another kind of perception where there is no separation; observer and observed are one.

But in That world you see something and you become it. Thus you see the Holy Spirit and you become Him. You see a Christ and you become a Christ. You see the Father, you will become the Father.

This passage can be a bit shocking given most people’s religious conditioning. One can see why the Gospel of Philip never made it into the New Testament. The teaching is so radical that it threatens our individuality; it threatens our concepts of inferiority, and consequently threatens the ability of others to wield power over us. The truth of this passage can only be known through personal experience, until then it smacks of blasphemy. The other interesting thing about this passage is it describes a process of knowing through a matching of what lies within us to that which we behold. This way of knowing is quite different that the usual intellectual acquiring of concepts. This matching is in fact the process by which one loses one’s self and gains the ocean.

In that world you see everything but you do not see yourself. But you see yourself as that One, because you become that One Whom you see.

Back issues of the newsletter “Effortless Being” can be found at http://MANDALASandMORE.com.

a Parable of Parrots and Ministry Vows

2011-01-19T06:33:00.000-08:00

Sometimes observing the doings of animals can teach us about ourselves. Pet parrots are known to repeat those things their owners least want to hear, such as cursing. This is because these very words have come out of the owners’ own mouths with such a force of negativity that they become impressed upon the parrots’ memory. The parrots in a sense are a mirror for their owners. Yet some owners are so unaware of what they say they wonder how the parrots learned to curse. The parrots know not what the words mean yet they are sensitive to, and impressed by the distress the words convey. It is by our thoughts, words and deeds that we all affect the world around us. It is how we make an impression on the minds of people and parrots.

Lord Yeshua in response to people’s worry over the complicated dietary rules of his place and time said, “Don’t you see, whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and the out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and make a man unclean.” (Mathew 15:17-18) Yeshua also stressed doing the inner work of cleaning one’s mind in the statement, “First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” (Matthew 23:26)

The vow I chose to take as an interfaith minister was, “For the wellbeing of myself, for the wellbeing of all others, for the love of God I vow to clean, to clean and to clean”. This may seem cryptic or puzzling to some. It is certainly not a lofty goal. I felt like Yeshua that cleaning my mind was crucial for all the reasons mentioned. I wanted a vow that I knew I actually could do, so I chose a simple yet important thing, in fact I knew all other goals would follow from this one. In any journey you have to start where you are.

Back issues of the newsletter “Effortless Being” can be found at http://MANDALASandMORE.com.

Effortless Being

2010-12-22T07:46:00.000-08:00

Know Yourself

Know yourself as a river

That never left its source

Never left its destination

Effortless Being

Effortless Being is the title of a monthly email newsletter I publish. I will be posting them here for you. This newsletter reflects on what the title “Effortless Being” means to me.

This title brings to mind the age old conundrum of the spiritual seeker. If there is no where to get to, and nothing to do, then why are we doing all these spiritual practices? Why is it so hard?

I was once at a 5 day silent retreat where once a day the participants had the opportunity to ask the teacher questions. At one point a distressed woman stated “I have tried so hard and it just never works.” The teacher asked, “What have you been trying to do?” The woman answered, “To let go”, whereupon the whole room burst out in laughter. It was funny not because you can’t let go by trying hard but because everyone there had tried the same thing and failed.

The answer to trying hard to let go is in the difference between being and becoming. Being is effortless. You simply are. You’re not trying to be anything or get anywhere. You’re simply rest in peace. Becoming is an evolutionary process (or a de-evolutionary process, but let’s hope not). In becoming one must strive. In becoming there are obstacles to peace of mind, obstacles to be overcome. Life in a body is necessarily full of obstacles. Obstacles challenge the intellect and refine the emotions. The evolutionary process is necessarily full of strife, stress, friction. These are the alchemical forces that turn ignorance, evil, and unhappiness into knowledge, bliss and fulfillment. It seems odd, does it not, that the very experiences we wish to avoid are the ones that can refine us, that can undo the habitual negativity that surrounds our lives. However one can easily get stuck in places of hopelessness and negativity, stuck there for years and years. The key to getting unstuck is to stop believing the lies of negativity. Belief is what makes them our reality. Instead welcome obstacles, befriend them. This is what Buddhists call bringing adversity onto the path. In a sense all that comes your way is put to use for the purpose of refinement of the senses, the mind and intellect. Do you see the twist in outlook here? Everything, pleasant or unpleasant is welcomed and used for the achievement of happiness.

The odd thing is that we are both being and becoming simultaneously. We have arrived at the destination (in fact never left it) and are simultaneously striving to reach it. Of course the mind can not comprehend this because they are opposite states. They can’t both be true and yet they are. It is simply a matter of where you put your attention. For the untrained mind simply being is very difficult to be aware of. That is why we have spiritual practices like meditation, chanting, rosary, ziker and the like. They train the mind how to be aware of simply being. Before one has had this experience, or let’s say, had this experience pointed out to them, it is very hard to know what you are looking for. The overwhelming tendency is to keep trying to do something. Once having had the experience you only need to remember it and you are there. You kind of fall into it. There is a time for being and a time for becoming. From what I have heard the possibilities of spiritual evolution are virtually endless. As one goes deeper and deeper into being one is becoming!

For back issues of “Effortless Being” go to http:// MANDALASandMORE.com.