If the Shambhala Institute, and allied individuals and communities, can bring us to that place in a conscious, awake way, that is a very good place from which to keep beginning.

It is good to be here, with your voice, Susan and your’s Chris.

Flying back last night from Ontario, Canada to my home in Spokane, Washington, USA, I made it only as far as Toronto for the first leg of my trip. I got to my hotel room in time to catch the last third of the debate between Obama and McCain. On the road for much of the week, I would catch ocassional glimpses of Wall Street/Main Street/Washington D.C. Madness.

What do I hope for? What do I believe? What really matters?

It was nearly 40 years ago when I read “A Flower Does Not Talk” by Abbot Shibayama from Nanzen-ji in Kyoto, Japan. Unlike us humans, a flower simply is. Without pretense. It comes to life, grows, reproduces and dies. And frequently spreads beauty for the beholder along the way.

It is so easy for many of us humans to get lost in delusion. I should know — I’ve spent a fair amount of time there myself! At the end of the day, and at the end of a life, it seems too easy to look back with a sense of contented accomplishment at all one has done — and to forget all the others who, with the grace of the universe, were essential to the doing. Whatever happens in this life is surrounded by mystery.

Of course it is important to dream. But I suspect it is more important to learn how to be in a close, intimate relationship of discovery and co-creativity which holds those we encounter on our co-journey. When we learn to see our dreams and hopes and beliefs with a soft eye, and to pay close attention to what is immediately around us: we find and make our path by walking on it.

Our words in this territory are slippery. We get caught in the language of hope and hopelessness. It is easy to get confused about why it is important to believe something if our beliefs are unimportant. Myself, I find I am drawn back to Abbot Shibayama’s flower. Drawn to the journey of how to live without pretense, staying in the immediacy of the now with those near me.

Hopes will come and go. They have their journey as well. We will meet and greet each other from time to time. And each go our own way. What’s important is that I learn to show up for my own life — in all of its fine beauty and deep clumsiness!

Many Blessings.

There is something in the practice of being in community that is, perhaps, in times of crises all we have to rely on. This morning I was reading the Tao and I read chapter five which, in Stephen Mitchell’s translation says “The tao is like a well; it can be used with being used up.” Seems to me that those things that can be used without being used up are the things to come back to when everything else IS used up. That’s an enduring theme with me I think: what can I use that cannot be used up? Somehow those things are our core resources, and, I daresay, our real home.

So yes to practice, to posture and to community, all things that can be used without being used up.

Loving the memory of the summer institute, and glad to have your thoughts in my world this evening.