Buddhist blessing

Thanks so much to my good friend G for sending me the following quote today:

"May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us."

Here's why I love it:

When you see a quote with the words faith and praise you might think it's a Christian mantra, offering up worship to God. But I see something quite different in this quote.

I first see a Buddhist bent, in looking for peace within and contentment with exactly where you are in the moment, in this very moment. I then see my own philosophy, which teaches that you are more infinite and glorious than any God we have ever dreamed up, and faith is properly placed in real people and not in a God above. Faith doesn't sound like the charged accusation of our politics today when you place it in yourself and your friends rather than in Jesus or the bible.

I then love the part about freedom to sing and dance and praise and love. I think Christianity teaches us to spurn things that make us feel good....no drinking or dancing or sex or pleasure in worldly things. Abstinence from joy is a penance, a prison sentence. The good things on this earth are ours for the taking and pleasure is not a sin, but a tribute to our beautiful human passion. I ask Christians, why would we not want to return to our "Pre-Fall" Eden, to our blissful and pure nakedness before God? Follow your heart's desire and you honor your heart, you honor that God that Christians claim put the passion in you in the first place.

The wish that you "use the gifts that you have received and pass on love" continues my thought that you are born perfect and powerful and have untapped talents, and that Love truly is the only God, the only guide, we need. It's the spirit, the supernatural, the higher power that we all feel trembling within at one time or another.

The quote closes with the line that freedom for joy is within all of us. Yes, we are all so very special. We are all "God", we all have the messiah in us, Jesus was no better or more special than any of us. The Second Coming is not a person, but our Becoming. Our realizing our potential for Godness, our power to become greater than Him, to wrangle the infinite back from Him. We all have the light in us, and it will soon shine unobscured by sermons or commandments or scripture or doctrine. "Prophecies, they will cease....religion as we know it will fall away."

At a moment when I most needed calm and inspiration and a beacon for what I believe, this quote gave me that, and good. I hope it may touch you too.

Baby boy

The baby boy Chaney who grows in my belly has gotten active. I awoke in the middle of the night with strange dreams and acrobatics from the little guy. As he kicks and tumbles and steals attention, I wonder:

Will he know he is great and strong and smart and beautiful, with every breath he takes?

Will he know that I and his father and his big brother, we flesh and blood heart-beating twins of his soul, will love him with more passion and presence than any faceless, formless, nebulous, empty, echoing God envisioned by man?

Will he know that religion as we know it and have always known it only divides and torments us, dangling the promise of eternal bliss just one more good deed away from our fearful and searching hearts? Will he be spared the never ending conditional carrot and stick of the Right Christian Path, the one that trumpets "unconditional love" while conditioning its blessings on you being just a bit more Christ-like?

Will he live free of the deafening drumbeat of Catholic guilt, the kind that no longer limits itself to just a Catholic flock? Will he see the concept of original sin for the strangling, suffocating man-made curse that it is?

Will he know without a doubt in the world, as I do, that there is no such thing as hell after death?

Will he take comfort in praise for the real people who gild his life, rather than in rehearsed and rehashed prayer for miracles from the guy you've never once laid eyes on?

Will he discern and disarm the hypocrisy of politicians and priests who promise a better America, but just for believers and heterosexuals and traditional submissive Bachmann-brides?

Will he see the end of depression, recession, riot and rape?

Will he be one of the immortals that scientists claim has already been born?

Will he walk in the post-religion epoch of peace and kindness and jubilation that stands out like a prophecy in my mind?

And will he have the good sense to learn Chinese?

We are ready to meet you Good Son. Have a safe journey.