Whole Earth God

GREEN MEDITATION Online Video Retreat: Week 1

The Recovery of the Dark Awaken to darkness and discover a lost state of spiritual awareness. Join us for a month-long GREEN MEDITATION Retreat on Tricycle beginning March 1st. Week 1 of the retreat being sponsored by the Tricycle Community is available online for free.

Listen to Clark Strand Being Interiewed on The God Complex

Today Carol Howard Merritt of The God Complex devoted an hour-long show to HOW TO BELIEVE IN GOD: Whether You Believe in Religion or Not. To hear Clark's fresh interpretations of a variety of Biblical stories and themes, download the show here: Download Convertplaylist.

Green Meditation: The Practice of Hitbodedut

Hitbodedut (also hisbodedus)  is a Hebrew word meaning "to be in solitude."  It is an ancient form of prayer which, in recent centuries, has become a favored method among Hasidic Jews. We find evidence of its practice as early in the Bible as Genesis, when "Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide." (Gen. 24:63). In fact, hitbodedut is probably the oldest living spiritual practice in the West, if not in the world.

Simply put, hitbodedut is a spontaneous "pouring out" of the heart to God. It is performed in solitude, often in the woods or an open field, and often in the middle of the night when there are fewer distractions, thought of course it can be done in daylight as well.

Green Meditation: The Narrow Bridge

Know! This world is a very narrow bridge. The important thing is not to be afraid.

 --Reb Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810)

This is one of the most famous sayings by the great Hasidic master Reb Nachman of Breslov. He tells us that the journey through this world is like crossing over a dangerous bridge. He then offers sound advice on crossing such a bridge: Whatever you do, don't panic! Just proceed carefully in the confidence that all shall be well.

Or, at least, that is what he seems to be saying. Actually, there is a deeper teaching embodied in the rebbe's metaphor. To find that teaching, however, we must be willing to ask an important question: WHY is life like a narrow bridge? It isn't just the universal fear of falling that makes Reb Nachman choose an image of this kind.

The Way Nature Prays

On my car radio the weather service had just pronounced the official end of the growing season in the Adirondacks and warned that here, further south in New York's Catskill Mountains, the temperature would drop below freezing in Frost Valley, where I would be attending a men's retreat.

At check-in, I was offered the choice to either camp in solitude in a far off field at the edge of the YMCA property or to join in community and conversation in a cabin assigned to other men.  I chose the field.

 I'm busy enough, for a retired guy.  Mondays and Tuesdays I baby-sit for twin grand-daughters.  On Wednesdays, I run a men's spirituality group.  And every Thursday I participate in our Woodstock Bible Study group.  So, given the opportunity, I went into the field, pulled out my sleeping bag, set up my tarp, and gathered wood for a fire.

About half an hour after darkness fell, ten or so guys came up the trail.  They'd seen the fire, and were gathered to it, the way that seekers have always gathered for the warmth of fellowship and for the fire light that has always set the stage for the telling of stories.

What Good is a Morality That Doesn’t Encompass All Life on Earth?

This Essay Originally Appeared at ReligionDispatches.org

I woke up the other morning with a conversation going on in my head. This happens often and seems to be both a part of my creative process and my life of prayer. I never know who these conversations are with. Usually I am the one talking. The other mostly listens. But every now and then that voice will say something, invariably no more than a single sentence, and that is what I remember when I wake. That morning it was this: “Fifty years from now, when people look back on the literature of the past century, they will judge it primarily on the basis of one question: Did it prepare us for this?”

By now, a growing number of people have begun to realize what “this” refers to. In my case it was the predictions made in a small book of environmental writing I’d finished reading just the night before.

What Religion Needs to Get Right...If It Doesn't Want to Go Wrong

I've noticed that every time I offer an analysis of religion in a public forum--not of any particular religion, but of religion as a whole--invariably there are some who rush to assure me that what I say does not apply to them.

"I'm a Buddhist," one will say. "What I practice isn't a religion; it's a way of life." Another will insist that Unitarian Universalism has long since abandoned the tribalism associated with the major Abrahamic faiths. Yet another will patiently inform me that what I say about religion being quintessentially anthropocentric, and therefore cut off from Nature, does not apply to the Native American tradition, which has never lost its connection to the Earth.

This is what they say, but it isn't what I hear. What I hear is that they don't want to be wrong.

This is, of course, completely understandable. Wrong is the last place any of us wants to be. In the world we have made for ourselves over the past few thousand years, there are consequences for being wrong, and those consequences are sometimes dire. As a result, we live in fear of it. We fear wrong decisions, fear being wrong-headed, fear taking a wrong turn in life. In countries with a strong judicial system (or a weak and violent one), the last place we want to get caught is "in the wrong." Being in the wrong can make you an outsider, an outcast, or a prisoner. It can even get you killed. And so we worry about it, and that is what makes us religious.

Listen to Clark Strand on NPR's "To the Best of Our Knowledge"

"The geography of organized religion in America is changing. Today, more and more Americans identify themselves as spiritual, rather than aligning themselves with a particular religion."

Listen to interviews with WholeEarthGod founder Clark Strand, followed by segments with Zen master Brad Warner, Tibetan Buddhist teacher Tsultrim Allione, author James Carse, and Slate editor David Plotz.  Download PUB_112360671

The Elephant Test (Or, What is Religion?)

A religious scholar recently quoted U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's "elephant test" for defining obscenity, claiming that it also applied to religion. In 1964 Justice Stewart observed that, while he found it hard to define hard-core pornography, he "knew it when he saw it." The name derives from the fact that, while one might find it difficult describe an elephant to a person who has never seen one before, nevertheless, he has no trouble identifying the animal when he encounters it. For those familiar with Buddhism, however, the "elephant test" may call to mind a famous story.

Once a wise raja brought all of the blind men from his kingdom together to see what they would say about an elephant. Unable to see the beast whole, however, each blind man could only describe the elephant in terms of the part he had actually touched with his own hands. The one who touched the leg said that an elephant was exactly like a tree. The one who had touched the ear said it was like a fan. The one who held the tail said it was like a whisk for brushing away flies.

Both "elephant tests" tell us something of the difficulty of defining religion, and in both cases the lesson is essentially the same: We may be able to describe the animal in terms of its parts, but when it comes to seeing the beast as a whole, we are out of our depth.

Green Meditation: The Sutra of Infinite Life

Earlier I promised "Green Reading" of the Longer Pure Land Sutra (also called the Sutra of Infinitite Life) which is a central sacred text for about half of the world's Buddhists. The sutra itself is too long to discuss here, so I'll offer the one-page summary of its message, written by the Chinese Pure Land master T'an Hsu, and talk about that instead.

In the sacred Buddhist texts of China, the Sutra of Buddha of Infinite Life relates [the story of] Amitabha Buddha.

On a certain occasion, Sakyamuni Buddha (the Buddha of our present age) was on Vulture Peak, surrounded by his disciples. Ananda, the Buddha's personal attendant, noticed the radiant beauty of Buddha and inquired what was the cause of Buddha's joy. Sakyamuni relates the following story:

In an infinite time in the past, Bhiksu [monk] Dharmakara observed the misery of all sentient beings, and moved by compassion, he vowed to establish a pure and perfect land where all could be liberated from their suffering. He then made forty-eight Vows in which he promised to establish this land or else he would not attain enlightenment.

The Sutra declares that Bhiksu Dharmakara practiced for many eons until he accomplished all his vows. Since he has achieved his aims, he is considered to be the Buddha of that land--THE BUDDHA OF INFINITE LIGHT AND LIFE.

To begin with...in any Green Reading, setting is crucial. Place is not merely a convenient stage for spiritual teaching. Religions like to present their texts as the most compelling aspect of any landscape--a figure against the ground of nature that commands our attention and respect. But in truth the two can't be separated. Take the Sermon on the Mount as an example: its message can no more be taken off the mountain (and remain alive) than Jesus' lilies can be taken from their field.

On Eden (Or, What Was Bodhidharma Doing in His Cave?)

We could start with any myth in our study of Deep Time, but because Eden is one that most of us know well, we'll begin there. The following isn't particularly organized (my thoughts haven't yet worked themselves into anything like a formal theory), so I'll just take on topics as they come to mind. To begin with, then...

Every myth reveals one truth in order to conceal another. In other words, every myth begins with a sleight of hand. The truth that is revealed by a myth has the effect of binding us to its narrative, hence its religious function. The word "religion" comes from the Latin religare, meaning "to fasten, or tie," and this function of religion is evident in the foundational story of every belief system, regardless of whether that belief system is explicitly religious or not.

The truth that is concealed by myth has the opposite effect, provided we are able to
grasp it—it liberates us. This, however, is typically very difficult to achieve, since
whatever belief system we have is necessarily based on the concealment of that prior
truth, and everything about that system is therefore designed to prevent its rediscovery.

[PLEASE NOTE: What follows is the full version of the first essay I wrote setting forth the basic idea of Green Meditation, although that term is nowhere mentioned in the essay . It is quite long, but it does finally make good on answering the question posed in the title.]