Wisdom from Indigenous Teachings and Tibetan Buddhism

I recently received in the mail wisdom from two friends who have been working and engaging in caring and compassion and making the world a better place inspired by their respective spiritual traditions.

From indigenous poet Rafael Jesús González comes this moving poem employing Hindu images fit for our times:

Lord Ganesh Under the Moon

On the full moon
the eve of my count of years
Lord Ganesh rides Erawan

cosmic elephant of the three heads,
the three gunas:
creation, preservation, destruction
threads that weave the tapestry
of our fates.

In the skies, Libra reigns.
May Lord Ganesh
take the scales and remove
all obstacles to justice.

And may the moon lend
her soft light of compassion
so that justice be illumined.

And from American Buddhist Lama Tsomo there arrived a beautiful book part of a three part series on Buddhist Practice entitled Ancient Wisdom for Our Times, Book 3: Wisdom, Deepening Connection.

In his Foreward to the book, the Dalai Lama celebrates how “as our world becomes ever more connected, the world’s great spiritual traditions are able to get to know each other better.” And thus we can learn from one another and develop a deeper appreciation and respect for each other’s teachings, traditions and practices.  I, for one, have learned a great deal from the insights of spiritual traditions other than my own.  

In her Introduction, Lama Tsomo tells us what the focus on “liberation” means to Buddhists.  We Americans talk proudly of freedom, but often it feels like the “freedom” to be led around by the nose by our habit-motivated cravings and anxieties rather than our deepest truest motivations.  I want real freedom.

How much of today’s politics is Americans being led by the cravings and anxietieswhipped up by the media and social media?  How much of America politics since 9/11 has been a politics of fear spread by hate radio, hate television and today, hating politicians with loud mouths and loud megaphones and bank accounts fattened from dark money sources?

There are ways to resist the fear and anxiety spread by the media and politicians.  Lama Tsomo, who is also a psychotherapist, tells us that in the practices she shares in her book, we begin with love and compassion for ourselves.  These practices, sometimes working with image and breath, bring that deep experience again and again to retrain us to a more natural way of thinking: that we are a ‘child of God,’ a wave on the ocean and therefore made of that pure water. 

Truth is that we are all dealing with our own neuroses, barriers, and blind spots.  The question isn’t whether we’re neurotic, because we are.  The question is whether our essential nature is our neuroses which it isn’t.  That’s a key distinction.

Our essential nature is love and compassion.

*© Rafael Jesús González 2022  To subscribe, email rjgonzalez@mindspring.com.  And Lama Tsomo, Ancient Wisdom for Our Times, Book 3, (Boulder, Co, Namchak Publishing 2022), pp. xi, xxif., xxv. 

See also Rev.  Matthew Fox and Lama Tsomo, The Lotus & The Rose: A Conversation between Tibetan Buddhism & Mystical Christianity.  

And Matthew Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.  

And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion.

Banner Image: “Indigenous Surge: Indigenous dancers led the way for 10,000 marchers protesting the children’s graves at Canadian residential schools. Toronto, 6/6/2021. Photo by Michael Swan on Flickr.

Note: Due to a technical issue, the closed captions are not working in the video. To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE

Queries for Contemplation

Do you feel our essential nature is love and compassion?  How does that manifest in authentic political discourse and in upcoming elections?  How is its opposite also on the agenda of upcoming elections?

Recommended Reading

The Lotus & The Rose: A Conversation Between Tibetan Buddhism & Mystical Christianity

How can we move away from “us vs. them” thinking as our surroundings feel more divided and polarized than ever? Co-authors Matthew Fox and Lama Tsomo discuss how Tibetan Buddhism and Mystical Christianity answer this question from unique points of view, with many commonalities and practical tools to break down the barriers between us.
“The Lotus and the Rose is an extraordinary example of what can happen when spiritual leaders from different traditions open up and speak from the heart.” — Paul Chaffee, The Interfaith Observer.

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register