How do you practice your Spirituality? An Interconnected Spirit Perspective
In this installment of the Spiritual Roundtable Cole Goodwin, CCCNews Spiritual Roundtable facilitator shares how they practice their Spirituality.
Introduction by Cole Goodwin
Welcome to The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community.
Each week, spiritual leaders and learners will share their take on some of humanity's biggest questions, starting with: What does your spirituality mean to you? And ramping up into discussions about the nature of existence, the soul, the divine, and of course…a question as old as time itself: why are we here?
Roundtable writings will be published each Saturday and Sunday of the month. So look forward to new installments every Saturday and Sunday morning!
Take a deep breath… Meditate for a moment…And when you’re ready…keep reading to explore the diverse faiths, belief systems, and philosophies that exist in our communities.
This Month's Question: What is your belief systems basic belief structure? What are some of the major celebrations or rites of passage? What are some of the core beliefs and major practices?
Why this question was chosen: This question asks us to examine the basic principles and values that guide our Spirituality and expand our understanding of the many paths one can walk to live a Spiritual life.
About Cole Goodwin they/them/theirs
Cole is a facilitator of the CCCNews Spiritual Roundtable writers group and journalist for CCCNews. They are a deeply spiritual, genderfluid, and eclectic human, that seeks to cultivate connection where ever they go. Their spiritual beliefs center around the collective Spirit present in all beings and the Spirits ability to evolve and to connect all beings.
An Interconnected Spirit Perspective
By Cole Goodwin, CCCNews Spiritual Roundtable Facilitator
If you ask me what I believe I will tell you ‘nothing’ and ‘everything’.
Do I believe in karma?
Of course.
Do I believe in God? Hekate? Love?
Yes.
Do I believe the teachings of the Buddha?
Without question.
Do I believe that animals and plants and rivers and oceans are as full of the Spirit as you or I?
Yes, I believe that with every vibrating fiber of my being.
My belief in the Spirit is not tied to any one religion, philosophy or belief system.
For me the Spirit is a connecting point between all beings,
it is a sacred, eternal, and evolving life force.
I find my Spirit loves to be expressed through meditation,
art, poetry, music, dance, sex, and love.
I find that when I listen to the Spirit, it always knows the right thing to do.
I find that when I am held close to another’s heart,
I can feel the Spirit listening and vibrating inside of them,
Each beat in harmony with my own.
Tending to my belief system, to my Spirituality
is like tending a tapestry woven from light itself,
It is formless, yet with form,
a reflection and the mirror
meant to cherish the unexplainable experience of
the presence of the Spirit
in all things.
My core belief is simply this:
I believe in the simultaneously collective and individual nature of Spirit.
The Spirit has evolved into multiple consciousness, yet its sentient presence lies within all things. It is collectively shared and yet individually experienced. Although those that achieve enlightenment may also touch the Collective Consciousness.
I believe that the Spirit wants to experience connection…for life not only enjoys the presence of other life but needs it to survive.
The Spirit connects all beings in all of existence in order to create a state of harmony.
Therefore living in the flow of interconnectedness, and understanding our individual impact on the flow of consciousness is key to living well.
Our connectedness holds the key to the collective enlightenment of all beings.
I believe that the Spirit is always evolving and that it is neither all good nor all evil.
It simply is.
I also believe that the Spirit evolves in the direction we choose as individuals and as a collective.
I believe the individual Spirit can achieve meaningful connection with and flow within the Collective Consciousness of the Spirit. By recognizing our individual role in the collective Spirit we learn how to let others reach us…And we evolve our understanding so that we may reach for others.
Interconnected Spirit Practices
There are many means to experiencing the Spirit including meditation, prayer, magic mushroom journeying, cannabis ceremony, and dreams.
There is an infinite and expansive wisdom available to each of us in this conscious Spirit state. In this other dimension of reality and consciousness we can see our whole lives as collective and individual beings. In this state of connectedness we are capable of knowing anything that needs to be known. In this state of consciousness we can know our thoughts, our feelings, our bodies, as well as the thoughts, and feelings, of others. In this state we can expand past our lifetimes to see the beginning and end of time, and the life and the death of all things. It is through this connection that the highest wisdoms, the greatest truths, and the true nature of all things are revealed.
Accept that there are many Spiritual Paths.
I believe the highest wisdom lies in following an individual path to connection with the Spirit.
It is my core spiritual belief that each person, each unique sentient being, all 7 billion people, and 8.7 million animals, and 390,900 thousand species of plants have their own unique connection to the collective spirit. And that the only being that can decide the ‘right’ path to Spirit, enlightenment, nirvana, heaven, for each being is that unique being itself.
There are many different philosophical paths that can lead you to the same doorstep.
There are many crossroads and open doors, and winding forest paths that can take you there. Some find their path in Christianity, others in the Tao, Islam, Buddhism, Shamanism, or Wicca. Some find that their path is as multilayered as a wedding cake, and they layer teaching after teaching. One sugary, one savory, one Christian, one Taoist, one on top of the other until they reach a peak understanding of their values.
Each path is as unique as the individual that follows it, embrace this.
Be in the NOW.
Every moment matters.
Say hello to birds, to cats, to flowers and breezes.
Smile at your neighbors.
The Spirit, whatever it is, whatever it’s becoming, wherever it’s going, whatever it’s fate may eventually be, is here in the NOW.
This is how I have come to believe that celebration and awareness of the NOW, the present moment, and it’s ever shifting nature is a key practice to living in connection with the Spirit. To achieve this state, one can practice meditation. Learn how to simply sit and observe the breathe, the body, mind, and spirit. To achieve enlightenment in the present moment one must practice a state of loving kindness and non-judgmental awareness of all that is. The acceptance of that which is, increases our curiosity and understanding of the world, and puts us on the path to connection.
Live in a relationship.
The Spirit is in all beings, and therefore every relationship you have is a relationship with the Spirit. Treat yourself and others with kindness. Be curious about other beings, ask them open-ended questions and listen for their response.
Care for all beings.
Separateness is an illusion.
All beings make up a part of the Spirit.
All beings are your family.
Every human, alien, plant, animal, and ocean is a part of you.
You can never be separated from this family, even in death, even in rebirth.
They belong to you as you belong to them.
When we harm another being, we harm ourselves.
When we love another being, we love ourselves.
It is best to be gentle with other beings when we can.
Even as you float in loneliness amongst the stars
The Spirit knows the radiance of your heart.
To live in relation to others with kindness, curiosity, love and acceptance,
is to walk the true path of living as an interconnected spirit.
For all beings are truly one being,
and therefore to care for others is to care for ALL others.
And therefore to care for the self, is to care for all beings.
Each being is a part of your spirit.
They are the source from which you have sprung,
and the source to which you will return.
The Spirit is home to all beings.
Think of it like this: You are like a single cell in the body of an infinite universe bursting with possibilities. What you choose to do will impact the whole universe. And the way you choose to treat the mind, heart, spirit, and body of the universe will determine the outcome of the collective being.
Care for your mind, body, and spirit.
The Spirit is also inside you. Care for it. Notice it’s rhythms. Embody your emotions. Engage your mind. Honor your body’s limits and stretch its potential.
Care for nature.
The Spirit lives inside all beings.
It is in the rivers, the oceans and the clouds. It is is the skies. It is in the soil. It is in the forests, prairies, savannahs. Every being, every plant, every animal is a part of the Spirit. Therefore speak to your plants, your dog, and your crops with love in your heart.
To live sustainably in harmony with nature is to respect the body of the Universal Spirit. Developing a deep intimate connection with the natural world will reveal to us all the secrets of balance we need to survive and thrive in the Universe.
To willfully engage in unsustainable living is to disrespect and degrade the body of the Spirit.
Such violence poisons paradise. In the modern day world, plants and animals are disappearing from the face of the Earth forever. And for what? For money? For microchips? So that we could conveniently carry home our takeout food in a styrofoam cup? Humans must be fools, absolute fools to not see what we have done to our planet to our Spirit and to the beings on this world that once outnumbered us ten to one.
Therefore to walk the Spiritual path of an interconnected Spirit in authenticity we must care for nature.
Connect from the heart.
There is a difference between simply walking in the woods and knowing the woods in which you walk.
What is the difference?
It is having a heart connection to the world you live in and the beings you are surrounded by.
It is knowing someone not by their name, or their identity, or their achievements but by their heart.
Other beings will reach for you.
Let them.
Let your heart be known
Let the golden thread of Spirit connect you to highest wisdom.
When we neglect our connection,
we bring dementia to the Universal mind.
In forgetting what we are,
an interconnected Spirit,
we are lost to ourselves.
We lose sight of our Universal story,
one history, one face at a time.
Practice Intuitive listening.
To understand the Spirit’s wisdom, power, and purpose requires poetry beyond what I can speak. The highest wisdom is only known to me when I cease all chit chat and simply listen.
Listening intuitively will teach you how to communicate across any perceived divide of language, politics, religion, or even species. Intuitive listening teaches us that we do not need to speak the same language to understand one another.
In fact, we do not need to speak at all.
We can communicate simply by listening and attuning to one another.
To listen with your intuition means you must learn to listen with more than your ears.
You must learn to listen with your whole body, your senses, your heart, and your spirit.
When you listen intuitively the beings and people around you will tell you what they need.
So do not squander your time trying to solve things by talking.
Instead be still and listen.
Note: Intuitive listening also means refraining from giving advice the moment someone tells you about a problem. Rushing to a conclusion without fully hearing the other person can lead to misunderstanding and potentially even harm. Listen first and focus solely on listening. Know that there is no need to waste time formulating your advice or a solution when all you need to do is listen. When the listening is done, if there is something to say, you’ll know what it is. The Spirit will guide you to the wisdom you seek. Plain and simple. To seek Spiritual wisdom all you have to do is ask: what does Spirit want you to know?
How to do it: To listen intuitively requires taking a step back from the ego and into a non-judgemental awareness. In this state one can simply listen to another, without needing to attach any specific bias, meaning, or prior emotional state onto that being and what that being is communicating to you.
In this way you can understand the wants and needs of anyone or anything. You can know what your dog is saying, what your houseplant needs, and what kind of touch your romantic partner(s) want.
If you learn to listen intuitively, a day will come when you ask yourself why you ever thought whipping a horse and ‘breaking’ him was the way to success when you could have simply asked him…please may I ride on your back? And listened for his response.
Meditate.
There are many ways to meditate. Each individual must find the way that works best for them. I personally love transcendental meditation, body scan meditation, and moving meditation.
Practice Metta & Pray
There are many ways to pray. Each individual must find the way that makes them feel the most connected to their purpose.
I personally love to practice the following Buddhist metta prayer.
Place your hands on your heart.
Say to yourself:
May I be well.
May I be happy.
May I be safe.
May I know love.
May I know peace.
Place your hand outstretched in front of you as if you are holding a gift and imagine a being that is easy to love (you dog, your partner, your child) hold them in your mind and say to them:
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you be safe.
May you know love.
May you know peace.
Put your hands out wider and imagine another being that is an acquaintance (someone you passed on the street earlier, or a friend of a friend) hold them in your mind and say to them:
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you be safe.
May you know love.
May you know peace.
Put your hands out even wider and imagine another being that you may be having some difficulty with and hold them in your mind and say to them:
May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you be safe.
May you know love.
May you know peace.
Put your hands out even wider until they are completely outstretched and imagine all the beings in all of existence and say to them
May all beings be well.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings know love.
May all beings know peace.
My Interconnected Spirit Celebrations and Rites of Passage are always evolving.
I believe that in life there must be celebration, enjoyment, suffering, mourning, and reflection to give our lives structure, meaning, and to encourage interconnectedness.
It is my belief that experiencing these cycles of spacetime, nature, ego, and the higher self can help us to find connection in the whole and ultimately will lead us to evolve into our highest selves over many millennia.
Therefore I celebrate the movements of the Spirit,
the seasons, the planets, the body and the mind.
I celebrate the first bloom of Trillium, the birth of children,
the turning of the Tamarack and the first fall of snow.
I give thanks to the sun and the moon for their unique gravitational pull.
I celebrate health and pray that sickness and suffering will cease.
I celebrate the joy of living a life in a human body with a human mind.
When death comes, I mourn the death of the individual
But celebrate the turning wheel of time,
that will return that spirit to life once more.
For I believe death is but another rebirth;
a transformational process we cannot begin to comprehend
and yet which can and will be experienced nonetheless.
The ever evolving Spirit lives forever
and even once the memory of our individual identity fades,
the Spirit endears as a golden thread
woven throughout the long memory of the quantum multiverse,
imprinted upon every dimension of space, time, and reality
carrying us with it, holding us within it, experiencing us as we have experienced it.
The Spirit is like water
It is pervasive, expansive, ever flowing, and ever transforming
from dripping iceberg, to trickling stream,
from peaceful pond, to wild river
to deepening ocean, to lake mist,
to fluffy cloud, to the falling rain,
to hurricane.
So, oh best beloved,
you might as well smile at those that pass you by on your path,
for everywhere you look,
there you are.
Want to contribute to the Spiritual Roundtable? Read this first.
The Roundtable Mission and Vision
The goal of these roundtable writings is to:
Bring the spiritual community together.
Share ideas that elevate the human spirit.
Elevate the conversation around the spirit.
Embrace what is universal to all, while honoring what is special about each spirituality.
Center inclusivity and equity.
Promote our collective enlightenment.
Nurture civility and friendship between those with diverse belief systems in the Gorge.
Engage readers and spiritual seekers.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS NOT…
This is not a place for arguing about dogma.
This is not a place for ‘hating on’ or putting other belief systems down.
This is not a place for excluding, discriminating, or promoting fear or violence towards other people based on their race, color, ethnicity, beliefs, faith, gender, sexuality, ability.
This is not a place for hatred.
This is not a place for fear.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS..
This IS a place for hope.
This IS a place for joy.
This IS a place for comfort.
This IS a place for big questions.
This IS a place for learning.
This IS a place for sharing.
This IS a place for caring.
This IS a place for sharing what is special about your beliefs.
CCC News reserves the right to not publish any content that breaks with our mission, vision and values.
If you are interested in being included in the roundtable please email cole@columbiacommunityconnection.com
What Does Your Spirituality Mean To You? A Bahá’í Perspective
In this installment of the Spiritual Roundtable Jessica Waggoner Hoff, who has been a member of the Bahá’í Faith for about twenty years shares what her spirituality means to her.
Introduction by Cole Goodwin
Welcome to The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community.
Each week, spiritual leaders and learners will share their take on some of humanity's biggest questions, starting with: What does your spirituality mean to you? And ramping up into discussions about the nature of existence, the soul, the divine, and of course…a question as old as time itself: why are we here?
Roundtable writings will be published each Saturday and Sunday of the month. So look forward to new installments every Saturday and Sunday morning!
Take a deep breath… Meditate for a moment…And when you’re ready…keep reading to explore the diverse faiths, belief systems, and philosophies that exist in our communities.
This Month's Question: What does your spirituality mean to you?
Why this question was chosen: This question asks us to examine what purpose and function our (faith, practice, belief system, philosophy) can serve in our lives. As well as how spirituality can guide our actions and way of walking in the world.
Jessica Waggoner Hoff is from White Salmon. She has been a member of the Bahá’í Faith for about twenty years, which is about the same amount of time that she has been a mother to her two grown sons. She lives in Husum with her husband Gary Hoff and dog Hilda. Jessica and Gary are bilingual, language teachers (English and Spanish).
Learn more at: gorgebahais.org. We also have one public and one private Facebook group for Bahá’ís in the Gorge.
The official website sponsored by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’í Faith in the United States is Bahai.us, and the official Website of the Worldwide Bahá’í Community is Bahai.org.
A Bahá’í Perspective
By Jessica Louise Waggoner Hoff
I have believed in God for as long as I can remember.
Maybe that was the influence of relatives who lived next door. They are Protestants and very loving people. I am sure that all made quite a positive impression on me in my early childhood.
I remember that after I had learned to write, I once composed a prayer on paper and then delivered it to God by putting it in the yard with some dirt on top. I did this all on my own accord.
My parents had grown up attending Mass regularly as well as Catholic school. Before I was born, Mom prayed each day for Dad to return from his deployment to Vietnam. Around the same time as his return, however, prayer disappeared from the family. My older sisters had been baptized but I was not. We had no affiliation with any religion as a family.
At age 15, I had an out-of-body experience in the course of a minor accident on a bicycle. I flew over the handlebars and just popped out of my body. Without my actual eyes, I peacefully watched myself falling. Then, I re-entered my body upon impact to the ground. I was banged up but conscious and just lied on the ground for a while to reflect on what had occurred.
Like the rest of my immediate family members, I was not affiliated with a religion at the time. When I later joined the Bahá’í Faith, I learned that 15 is the beginning of the age of spiritual maturity. I don’t think this is why I had the out-of-body experience; I think this could happen at any age. I do remember contemplating matters of the world more deeply at this age and onward though.
I believe all young people wake up to the world and all of its issues at this age. They begin wanting to make a difference in meaningful ways. Like many youths, unfortunately, I did not feel very powerful to initiate change in the world.
When I encountered the Bahá’í Faith in my late twenties, hope grew in me. I saw a Faith that was inclusive of all people and of other Faiths. Children and adults were actively working for positive changes in their own hearts and studying and teaching how to have good character. I know this can be done in all religious traditions and even in secular settings but this is where I saw people most active in the process.
One of the simple ways that I do this is with the aid of technology. I have an app, which was created by The Virtues Project® and is available to anyone for free: virtuesmatter.org. The material for all books, apps, and other programs created by The Virtues Project was mined from all the world’s religions, both from sacred texts and from oral traditions. How ironic to use a modern mobile phone to access the teachings from all the ages. It works though! These teachings guide me each day.
For these two decades, I have appreciated reading and reciting the prayers written by three central figures of Faith: The Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. SHOULD BE: For these two decades, I have appreciated reading and reciting the prayers written by three central figures of the Faith: The Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
My spirituality also gives me a framework to come to terms with the deaths of my friends and family as well as with my own eventual death. Both the out-of-body experience and my religion have helped me embrace a belief in the existence of an everlasting soul.
While I am still here, my Faith helps me live a better life. There are some vicious strains of anxiety running through my family lines. I was not able to dodge them in this life. My Faith helps me cope as an individual living well in this world and accompanying my sons as they strive to do the same.
I humbly offer this article as an individual and as a Bahá’í.
For more information on this religion, I encourage people to explore the websites below as well as the works written by the central figures of the Faith mentioned above: The Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Also, I encourage you to contact the administrative body called the Local Spiritual Assembly (LSA) of the Bahá’ís of Klickitat County at this email address: bahaiklickitat@gmail.com. We are here to serve all people residing in this county regardless of religious affiliation.
Want to contribute to the Spiritual Roundtable? Read this first.
The Roundtable Mission and Vision
The goal of these roundtable writings is to:
Bring the spiritual community together.
Share ideas that elevate the human spirit.
Elevate the conversation around the spirit.
Embrace what is universal to all, while honoring what is special about each spirituality.
Center inclusivity and equity.
Promote our collective enlightenment.
Nurture civility and friendship between those with diverse belief systems in the Gorge.
Engage readers and spiritual seekers.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS NOT…
This is not a place for arguing about dogma.
This is not a place for ‘hating on’ or putting other belief systems down.
This is not a place for excluding, discriminating, or promoting fear or violence towards other people based on their race, color, ethnicity, beliefs, faith, gender, sexuality, ability.
This is not a place for hatred.
This is not a place for fear.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS..
This IS a place for hope.
This IS a place for joy.
This IS a place for comfort.
This IS a place for big questions.
This IS a place for learning.
This IS a place for sharing.
This IS a place for caring.
This IS a place for sharing what is special about your beliefs.
CCC News reserves the right to not publish any content that breaks with our mission, vision and values.
If you are interested in being included in the roundtable please email cole@columbiacommunityconnection.com
What Does Your Spirituality Mean To You? A Meshing of Science and Spirit Perspective
In this installment of the Spiritual Roundtable Rhiannon Griffith who’s had a long and complicated life, loves science and writing and her granddaughter, writes about what her spirituality means to her.
Introduction by Cole Goodwin
Welcome to The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community.
Each week, spiritual leaders and learners will share their take on some of humanity's biggest questions, starting with: What does your spirituality mean to you? And ramping up into discussions about the nature of existence, the soul, the divine, and of course…a question as old as time itself: why are we here?
Look forward to new installments every Sunday morning!
Take a deep breath… Meditate for a moment…And when you’re ready…keep reading to explore the diverse faiths, belief systems, and philosophies that exist in our communities.
This Month's Question: What does your spirituality mean to you?
Why this question was chosen: This question asks us to examine what purpose and function our (faith, practice, belief system, philosophy) can serve in our lives. As well as how spirituality can guide our actions and way of walking in the world.
About the Author: Rhiannon Griffith has had a long and complicated life, but the current version of her lives in The Dalles and works at MCMC in the lab. She loves science and writing and her granddaughter, who lives in Portland.
“My spirituality is a patchwork quilt of different religions and beliefs threaded together by personal experiences and a belief in the power of truth and love,” said Griffith
A Meshing of Science and Spirit Perspective
by Rhiannon Griffith
According to the Pew Research Center, about 30% of Americans between 18 and 65 identify as "spiritual but not religious." I am one of them.
Although the words "not religious" are kind of deceiving.
I don't lack for religious experience.
I have worked with practices from a few different religions. I’ve read about and studied even more. I've also grown spiritually from some powerful experiences not usually considered religious: my work with healing from severe childhood abuse; some profound experiences using psychedelic drugs (in my hippie youth); a near-death experience in my early 50s; and a lifelong study of science and enthusiastic appreciation of the way it opens windows into Truth for me.
The immensity and complexity of the Universe fills me with awe and delight and wonder.
There is the observable, visible universe. The visible universe is all the stars and galaxies whose light has had time to reach us in the last 13 to 14 billion years or so, traveling at the speed of 186,000 miles per second. There are a lot of seconds in 14 billion years; I'll let you do the math, because that's too many decimal places for my comfort zone.
Then there is the size of the actual universe, which is a whole lot bigger, since the universe has been expanding that whole time and there is a lot out there that's moved so far away the light will never reach us (Earth is middle-aged after all, only has about another 5 billion years to go.) Author Timothy Ferris, says in The Whole Shebang, that the ratio of the size of the visible universe to the actual-now universe is about the same as the ratio of the size of a single atom to the size of our planet.
And yet, as big as all of that is, if you go down in scale--if you look into smaller and smaller sizes, the cells of your body, then the molecules that make up those cells, then the atoms that make up those molecules, then the subatomic particles, then the quarks and other bits that make up those particles--there is as much Universe inside us as there is above us.
In fact, as far as we can tell, the size we are (that is we, the life forms on this planet, and also the planet itself) looks to be about in the middle of the scale of the Universe, from its smallest bits to its largest expanses.
Is that not amazing? Doesn't that give you chills? This is what we are made of! This!
On the one hand, we are just funny little bags of molecules that take shape and die and take shape and die rapidly and repeatedly, evolving in form as we go; made from a very thin layer of minerals covering the surface of a small, pretty and wet but otherwise unremarkable planet; which is orbiting around a smallish star that lies about two-thirds out on one spiral arm of a galaxy containing about 100,000 million stars; and which is in turn part of a galaxy cluster that is one of about 100,000 million galaxy clusters, give or take, that we know of. That is to say-- we aren't very big and we are definitely not nearly as significant as we think we are.
On the other hand: whatever all of that is made of--that is what we are made of.
The molecules that are the Lego blocks of our little meat bodies were forged in the fires of dying suns far, far away. This little planet that is our home swirls through space driven by the same gravity that bends the light of galactic superclusters. The energy of distant supernovas pours through our bodies just as it floods the stars around us. We are the living, leaping flames of Reality, just as much as the atoms and the stars. We are the Universe expressing itself in an infinite number of forms. We are majesty, we are wonder, I would say that we are God; but I don't talk about God much, because the God that I hear most people talk about seems much, much too small to me.
And I find that comforting.
I had a particularly tough childhood. Life has been a struggle for me. Overall, humans haven't really made the best impression. I can't say that I find the idea of a Divine Being that is shaped like a human being, designed for humans by humans, to be particularly inspiring or appealing. I am very grateful that our universe is a whole lot bigger than our species. And I am profoundly grateful for the great luck of being born in a time when we have the tools and insight to get a glimpse into the massive, amazing, unimaginably beautiful Existence we are part of.
I believe that this immense universe is made, essentially, of consciousness. (It's science, honest. Google "panpsychism." There's a SciAm article.) When I contemplate the idea of All That Is, it's the only thing that makes sense. What could "All That Is" (i.e, the universe) possibly be made of, other than its own self? The stuff of the universe must, at its deepest base, be the stuff of Is-ness: pure, benign, joyous Being.
The popular Western notion that everything in the universe is dead and unconscious except for the minds of human beings is ludicrous in the extreme (not to mention mathematically impossible.) It also, as it happens, comes from the same roots in Western philosophy that give rise to the idea that certain men deserve to own and run the world and everyone else (of either gender and any species) exists to be used and be colonized. That's not a paradigm I want to reinforce or follow, and I think too many religions do both. So I probably am not going become religious. But I'm never going to not be spiritual.
My spirituality is what has gotten me through this challenging life. I've drawn on practices from Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Christianity. I've also gotten a ton of therapy and a lot of hugs, and listened to a lot of waterfalls, and conversed with a lot of trees. All of these practices have helped me hold onto a sense of meaning in life and to navigate through my days.
And what I've learned from science has helped me to see my time in history and my own suffering with a sense of proportion and excitement and wonder. I'm not just a scared and damaged child, not just another member of a species that seems determined to ruin its own home, not just another overworked cog in the capitalistic machine. I am very, very small, but also immense. I'm a vibrant strand in a massive, kinetic tapestry of Being.
And I find that magnificent.
CCC News reserves the right to not publish any content that breaks with our mission, vision and values.
If you are interested in being included in the roundtable please email cole@columbiacommunityconnection.com
What Does Your Spirituality Mean To You? An Interconnected Spirit Perspective
In this installment of the Spiritual Roundtable Cole Goodwin, CCCNews Spiritual Roundtable facilitator shares what their spirituality means to them.
Introduction by Cole Goodwin
Welcome to The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community.
Each week, spiritual leaders and learners will share their take on some of humanity's biggest questions, starting with: What does your spirituality mean to you? And ramping up into discussions about the nature of existence, the soul, the divine, and of course…a question as old as time itself: why are we here?
Roundtable writings will be published each Saturday and Sunday of the month. So look forward to new installments every Saturday and Sunday morning!
Take a deep breath… Meditate for a moment…And when you’re ready…keep reading to explore the diverse faiths, belief systems, and philosophies that exist in our communities.
This Month's Question: What does your spirituality mean to you?
Why this question was chosen: This question asks us to examine what purpose and function our (faith, practice, belief system, philosophy) can serve in our lives. As well as how spirituality can guide our actions and way of walking in the world.
About Cole Goodwin they/them/theirs
Cole is a facilitator of the CCCNews Spiritual Roundtable writers group and journalist for CCCNews. They are a deeply spiritual, genderfluid, and eclectic human, that seeks to cultivate connection where ever they go. Their spiritual beliefs center around the collective Spirit present in all beings and the Spirits ability to evolve and to connect all beings.
An Interconnected Spirit Perspective
By Cole Goodwin, CCCNews Spiritual Roundtable Facilitator
Spirituality, for me, is about recognizing that there is a part of our sentient existence-that is wholly unexplainable by logic’s standards. It is a place where up can be down and left can be right. Where contradictions of logic are left behind so that we can embrace the unknown sacredness of all that is, and hold it close to our hearts.
I believe in the Spirit. For me the Spirit is a connecting point between all beings, it is a sacred and evolving life force that lives always and perishes never. The Spirit is both a collective consciousness and individual experience.
If you ask me how my Spiritual beliefs guides my actions I will say it guides me to live from a place of curiosity, acceptance, and love.
In embracing the Spirit I have found all sentient beings to be of the same family, each life a thread in the weaving of a great tapestry. This is how I come to accept that all beings are truly of one being, one energy, one life essence, split into billions of bodies and forms, living separately, so that they may experience the joy of connection.
By dissolving the illusion of separateness in favor of a spiritual connectedness I can see others as reflections of myself and vice versa. It is through the Spirit that I learn that here is nothing I can hate or love about another person that I cannot also hate or love about myself. This understanding leads me to act from a place of curiosity, acceptance and love.
And it is through my Spiritual belief that I come to see what I share in common with all beings, no matter how different from me.
For we are connected by the Spirit, the shining spark of consciousness, the light, the breathe, the source or our sentience. When I look deeply into myself and others to the shared light of the spirit I find a secure and unshakable belonging and connection.
I am guided by the Spirit to practice loving kindness and living in the flow of my awakened self.
For loving kindness seeks to understand the complete truth of life free from judgement or delusion. Loving kindness simply accepts what is, the good and the bad. And so, everyday I practice loving all beings, including myself. I say a daily a prayer offering love and compassion to myself, to those in my life that are easy to love and to those that are not, to those that have harmed me and to those that have treated me with kindness, and to all the beings across space and time.
In this way, Spirituality serves as a connecting, stabilizing, and gentling force in my life.
It guides me to awakening. And it guides me into becoming a more curious, accepting, loving, and kinder version of myself. In this way, I come to recognize my own merit and lovability. In this way I can come to own and hold accountable my actions and their consequences with love and compassion.
It is my Spirituality that has held me when no one else would.
It is the Spirit that loved me when I felt most unloved.
It is within the Spirit that I have found wellness, happiness, ease, and peace.
Want to contribute to the Spiritual Roundtable? Read this first.
The Roundtable Mission and Vision
The goal of these roundtable writings is to:
Bring the spiritual community together.
Share ideas that elevate the human spirit.
Elevate the conversation around the spirit.
Embrace what is universal to all, while honoring what is special about each spirituality.
Center inclusivity and equity.
Promote our collective enlightenment.
Nurture civility and friendship between those with diverse belief systems in the Gorge.
Engage readers and spiritual seekers.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS NOT…
This is not a place for arguing about dogma.
This is not a place for ‘hating on’ or putting other belief systems down.
This is not a place for excluding, discriminating, or promoting fear or violence towards other people based on their race, color, ethnicity, beliefs, faith, gender, sexuality, ability.
This is not a place for hatred.
This is not a place for fear.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS..
This IS a place for hope.
This IS a place for joy.
This IS a place for comfort.
This IS a place for big questions.
This IS a place for learning.
This IS a place for sharing.
This IS a place for caring.
This IS a place for sharing what is special about your beliefs.
CCC News reserves the right to not publish any content that breaks with our mission, vision and values.
If you are interested in being included in the roundtable please email cole@columbiacommunityconnection.com
What Does Your Spirituality Mean To You? A Magdalene Path Perspective
In this installment of the Spiritual Roundtable Claire Sierra, author/founder of The Magdalene Path, an Expressive Arts Therapist, Soul Alchemist, Spa Priestess, and Reiki Master shares what her spirituality means to her.
Introduction by Cole Goodwin
Welcome to the Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community.
Each week, spiritual leaders and learners will share their take on some of humanity's biggest questions, starting with: What does your spirituality mean to you? And ramping up into discussions about the nature of existence, the soul, the divine, and of course…a question as old as time itself: why are we here?
Roundtable writings will be published each Saturday and Sunday of the month. So look forward to new installments every Saturday and Sunday morning!
Take a deep breath… Meditate for a moment…And when you’re ready…keep reading to explore the diverse faiths, belief systems, and philosophies that exist in our communities.
This Month's Question: What does your spirituality mean to you?
Why this question was chosen: This question asks us to examine what purpose and function our (faith, practice, belief system, philosophy) can serve in our lives. As well as how spirituality can guide our actions and way of walking in the world.
About Claire Sierra: Claire Sierra, MA, LFT, author/founder of The Magdalene Path, is an Expressive Arts Therapist, Soul Alchemist, Spa Priestess, and Reiki Master on the path of awakening Feminine Soul since 1989. She shares intuitive, creative, spiritual practices through the lost wisdom of Mary Magdalene. Claire sees clients on-line and at Spa Sanctuary at the Balch Hotel, an elegant, award-winning inn in Dufur, Oregon, where she lives with her hotelier husband.
Learn more and access free resources for Feminine Soul at MagdalenePath.com. She can be reached at Claire@MagdalenePath.com
A Magdalene Path Perspective
by Claire Sierra
Connection to, and with Divine is everything.
While I can and do focus on the day-to-day activities of daily life--running a business, having a healing practice, being a wife, friend and community leader--my spirituality is the essence of who I am and therefore guides my life.
It’s so intrinsic to who I am, it’s hard to separate into words. My perception that we are all linked through Spirit, is what guides and navigates my life. It also is crucial in weathering the storms of daily reality.
This has been true for many decades, as I embarked on a spiritual path in my 20s. But in the last 2 years, I find it even more crucial as we navigate a global pandemic with social/political upsets and breakdowns. The sense of being connected to a larger whole, of being guided and loved by a force greater than myself, is what I turn to daily at times—to keep aligned in a time of intense challenges. It’s why I think of myself as an “everyday priestess.”
As a priestess (a term that’s perhaps unfamiliar to you, as it’s totally missing in our current culture) I seek every day to be in tune with the larger forces of nature and energy around me (people, places, situations, etc.) to be a conduit for healing and wholeness as I walk through the world. This can look as simple as a kind word, smile, or healing gesture when out in public, or engaging in spiritual practices to seed peace, joy and light in the world. I use my art, training, and skill in wellness settings: for many years as a counselor or art therapist, more recently as a soul coach, Reiki Master, Esthetician and wellness priestess at Spa Sanctuary in Dufur at the Balch Hotel (a boutique, historic destination inn, which I co-own with my hotelier husband.)
In seeking to restore balance and harmony in myself, others, and the larger world around me, I’ve been called to the awakening of the Divine Feminine—the absence of which has created many of the ills of the world. My soul path has led me to a strong spiritual connection to Mary Magdalene and Mother Mary that’s quite different from the Catholic perspective I was raised in. I’ve found a new Rosary practice that has afforded profound depth and connection, a sense of sacred stillness that is beyond words.
We’re in a difficult moment these days. I find the times we are in to require us to deepen into our own self-care—it’s no longer frou-frou, it’s soul care survival right now. Soul care practices are priority #1 right now for personal alignment and balance. It’s crucial to find ways to connect with God/Goddess. I spend my mornings sipping tea, meditating, praying, and connecting to Spirit. To do this, I use a meditative journaling practice I call Listening To Spirit, a way to receive Divine guidance through writing. The practice settles my heart and mind when I’m weary and troubled, finding answers and hope that’s often unexpected and always helpful. I honestly don’t know how others cope without this connection—it’s that essential for me. And while it may sound quite esoteric, it’s quite easily learned.
In our fast-paced, device driven world it’s important to be in our bodies, as they’re the vessel of our spirit. Daily walks are key. It doesn’t require a huge getaway or loads of time--even 20 minutes in nature can nourish at a deep level that resets one’s perspective. Allowing myself to wonder and wander in the fields or woods near our rural village home allows a great reset that is balm to my world-weary spirit.
It’s these moments when Spirit is very tangible and present, that I remember the Truth of who I am and why I’m here—aside from all the dithering, toil, angst, and strife. Regardless of our faith path, religious ideology, or spiritual perspective, at the root is the desire for connection with a guiding loving force larger than ourselves. Feel the unnamable essence of Spirit and peace that passes all understanding. You might access that in ways that are totally foreign to me, and I you. That’s the beauty of it: many paths, and practices that support us. Whether you stick with what you’ve been taught or explore outside your heritage until something in your soul feels home, it’s all good. It’s all God.
Want to contribute to the Spiritual Roundtable? Read this first.
The Roundtable Mission and Vision
The goal of these roundtable writings is to:
Bring the spiritual community together.
Share ideas that elevate the human spirit.
Elevate the conversation around the spirit.
Embrace what is universal to all, while honoring what is special about each spirituality.
Center inclusivity and equity.
Promote our collective enlightenment.
Nurture civility and friendship between those with diverse belief systems in the Gorge.
Engage readers and spiritual seekers.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS NOT…
This is not a place for arguing about dogma.
This is not a place for ‘hating on’ or putting other belief systems down.
This is not a place for excluding, discriminating, or promoting fear or violence towards other people based on their race, color, ethnicity, beliefs, faith, gender, sexuality, ability.
This is not a place for hatred.
This is not a place for fear.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS..
This IS a place for hope.
This IS a place for joy.
This IS a place for comfort.
This IS a place for big questions.
This IS a place for learning.
This IS a place for sharing.
This IS a place for caring.
This IS a place for sharing what is special about your beliefs.
CCC News reserves the right to not publish any content that breaks with our mission, vision and values.
If you are interested in being included in the roundtable please email cole@columbiacommunityconnection.com
What Does Your Spirituality Mean To You? An Herbalist & Animist Perspective
In this installment of the Spiritual Roundtable Keath Silva, trans herbalist, bodyworker, medium, animist and poet shares what his spirituality means to him.
Introduction by Cole Goodwin
Welcome to The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community.
Each week, spiritual leaders and learners will share their take on some of humanity's biggest questions, starting with: What does your spirituality mean to you? And ramping up into discussions about the nature of existence, the soul, the divine, and of course…a question as old as time itself: why are we here?
Roundtable writings will be published each Saturday and Sunday of the month. So look forward to new installments every Saturday and Sunday morning!
Take a deep breath… Meditate for a moment…And when you’re ready…keep reading to explore the diverse faiths, belief systems, and philosophies that exist in our communities.
This Month's Question: What does your spirituality mean to you?
Why this question was chosen: This question asks us to examine what purpose and function our (faith, practice, belief system, philosophy) can serve in our lives. As well as how spirituality can guide our actions and way of walking in the world.
About Keath Silva: (he/him) Keath Silva is a trans herbalist, bodyworker, medium, animist and poet of Germanic and Celtic descent. Keath offers private healing sessions, mentorships, poetry and community workshops for personal healing and collective change. Keath brings his 30 years of experience and training along with a deep intuition to his work in supporting people to awaken and step into their authentic expression and thriving.
Learn more about Keath: Keath Silva Website Herbal Instagram Poetic Instagram Poetry Book Keath Transcribed
An Herbalist & Animist Perspective
by Keath Silva
Have you ever taken a sip of Chamomile tea and then suddenly felt flooded with a sense of calm and a memory of your grandmother's smile?
This embodied connection with plants and the physical, spiritual and emotional healing it offers, in essence, is my spirituality. My relationship with spirit comes through the plants; their aroma, their flavor, their colorful blooms, the way they sway in the wind, how they drop their seeds, send their energy into their roots and die back in the winter, arising anew each spring. This is what inspires me and guides my actions in the world.
Just as I bring full awareness to the practice of preparing soil, planting seeds, tending, pruning, thinning, harvesting, seed gathering and composting, I bring presence and careful thought to preparing the soil of my life; with clearing, introspection, meditation, time in nature, fallow time and nourishment. I pause and reflect when choosing which "seeds" such as, projects, relationships and ventures I will push into the fertile ground, what aspects of my life need pruning and when the time comes to harvest the fruits of my labor and pass them around the community table.
When I walk out into my herbal garden and when I step into a forest on a dewy morn, I pause and breathe in deeply. With my in-breath, I accept that I am breathing in and receiving the plants and that I depend on them for my life. As I exhale I send my love, my gratitude and my life energy back to the plants, knowing they are breathing me in, as we intertwine our energies and honor our interdependence on one another.
Each morning, I pause and feel into my body, mind and spirit. I ask myself how I am feeling and what needs may be arising. I then call upon the plants to support me for the day. Drawing on my 3 decades of plant study, the wisdom of my plant loving ancestors and my own intuition, I choose herbs to blend into my infusion. One day it may be Hawthorn for healing my heart, Yarrow for protection, Fennel to support my digestion, violet leaves to help me move through grief and Rose hips for love and an immune boost. Another day it may be Rosemary to help me focus, Dandelion to support my liver, Linden to calm and soothe my nerves and Nettle for nourishment. No two blends are alike because they arise in the moment based on what is needed right now and on which plants I have available. I thank the plants, my own ancestors and the Indigenous ancestors and their living descendants of the lands where these plants grew. I carry my brew around with me all day and each sip reminds me that I am just one small person, in a vast and mysterious universe which is full of love and support, just waiting to be tapped.
Another spiritual practice I engage in with plants is to spend time with a particular tree or plant in a precise location. I notice how it grows, what rocks, waterways and animals are sharing its environment. I notice the plant's color, aroma and growth patterns. I peek under its leaves and deep inside the blossoms. I sit next to the plant or lean up against the trunk of the tree, sensing into it's being-ness and how it's essence touches me, moves me. I then return to this location during all the seasons of the year. I watch how the plant grows, blossoms, sets seeds, lets go and dies back. As I observe the plant's life cycle, I consider how my soul and my life are mirrored in the seasonal changes that the plant so beautifully mirrors for me.
Consciously engaging with plants and the living environment around them, respecting the water, the mountains, the sky, the wind, the rocks as my living teachers is my way of life. I come by this naturally as some of my recent and ancient ancestors were plant tenders, arborists, herbalists and natural healers. I also honor the Indigenous people over the years who have helped me remember who I am and have assured me that my way of being is not insane and that many many people for countless generations have felt the way I do about plants as my loving family and dearest friends. I thank in Particular Miss Beatrice Torres Waight for supporting me in deepening my spiritual relationship with plants and I thank and honor the Yakama people whose land I am living on, for they have known and tended these local plants for countless generations and hold the wisdom for how to truly connect with and honor them.
Want to contribute to the Spiritual Roundtable? Read this first.
The Roundtable Mission and Vision
The goal of these roundtable writings is to:
Bring the spiritual community together.
Share ideas that elevate the human spirit.
Elevate the conversation around the spirit.
Embrace what is universal to all, while honoring what is special about each spirituality.
Center inclusivity and equity.
Promote our collective enlightenment.
Nurture civility and friendship between those with diverse belief systems in the Gorge.
Engage readers and spiritual seekers.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS NOT…
This is not a place for arguing about dogma.
This is not a place for ‘hating on’ or putting other belief systems down.
This is not a place for excluding, discriminating, or promoting fear or violence towards other people based on their race, color, ethnicity, beliefs, faith, gender, sexuality, ability.
This is not a place for hatred.
This is not a place for fear.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS..
This IS a place for hope.
This IS a place for joy.
This IS a place for comfort.
This IS a place for big questions.
This IS a place for learning.
This IS a place for sharing.
This IS a place for caring.
This IS a place for sharing what is special about your beliefs.
CCC News reserves the right to not publish any content that breaks with our mission, vision and values.
If you are interested in being included in the roundtable please email cole@columbiacommunityconnection.com
What Does Your Spirituality Mean To You? A Buddhist Perspective
Welcome to the first installment of The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community. In this installment Reverend Scott See shares what his Spirituality means to him.
Introduction by Cole Goodwin
Welcome to the first installment of The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community.
Each week, spiritual leaders and learners will share their take on some of humanity's biggest questions, starting with: What does your spirituality mean to you? And ramping up into discussions about the nature of existence, the soul, the divine, and of course…a question as old as time itself: why are we here?
Roundtable writings will be published each Saturday and Sunday morning of the month.
Now take a deep breath… Meditate for a moment…And when you’re ready…keep reading to explore one of the many diverse faiths, belief systems, and philosophies that exist in our communities.
This Month's Question: What does your spirituality mean to you?
Why this question was chosen: This question asks us to examine what purpose and function our (faith, practice, belief system, philosophy) can serve in our lives. As well as how spirituality can guide our actions and way of walking in the world.
About Scott See: Scott first became curious about Buddhism in 1983 in Ladakh, India where he met people living in primitive and challenging conditions whose smiles shone so bright that Scott wanted to learn more about this Buddhist culture. Fast forward to 2015, Scott approached Thay Kozen at the Mt. Adams Buddhist Temple with an offer to barter website services for Buddhist teachings. Scott was ordained as a student of the Lay Novice Buddhist Ministerial program at Mt. Adams Buddhist Temple in April of 2019 and was given the Dharma name, Minh Tự. (Pronounced: min-dun — with the final n very muffled.) Scott also maintains a personal blog that reflects on his journey on the Path.
A Buddhist Perspective
by Scott See
What Spirituality Is For A Buddhist
While attending a dharma talk, (the Buddhist equivalent to a sermon) I once asked, “What is spirituality from the Buddhist perspective?” The monk contemplated for a moment, “Emotional maturity,” he answered. Emotional maturity, “what a wonderful answer,” I thought to myself. Buddhist teachings emphasize the truth of suffering and the path to alleviate suffering. We’ve all experienced pain and suffering by letting our emotions get the better of us. Emotions can grab a hold of us and drag us down. So if spirituality means learning how to regulate our emotions to better help us be happy and at peace, then sign me up.
Listening To Our Intuitive Side
I’ve come to learn that spirituality is more than just regulating emotions. It’s also learning to tap into our intuitions. Before learning about Buddhism, I would tackle big life events with lists of pros vs cons. I would Google, “How does one decide about: [big life decision]?” Such cognitive decision making methods were successful—successful at making me miserable. After my introduction to Buddhist teachings, I learned that when confronted with big life decisions, setting aside the pro & con lists and quietly sitting with the question and observing what answer surfaces is much quicker and far less agonizing. The switch from a busy brain-centric approach to a silent heart-centric approach has proven helpful
Putting Down Our Judgements and Preconceptions
Spirituality involves having the mindfulness to see things as they really are, as opposed to seeing things through the haze of our judgements and preconceptions. Judgements are all the extra “stuff” we add to an observation. A car speeds down a street to which I think “what an irresponsible person!” The sight of a car driving over the speed limit is the observation; the accusation, label and assumption is the judgement. Judgments sometimes manifest as preferences and aversions. We all get caught up in our preferences and our aversions, both of which cause suffering. We might engage in passionate arguments about Ford vs. Chevy, delicious vs disgusting, right vs wrong. Such strong attachments to our opinions can lead to discord. Spirituality involves having the mindfulness to see everything, just as it is. This includes ourselves, to see ourselves as we really are in this moment. The teachings encourage us to look deeply into ourselves and if we do, we might find that any labels to which we have attached ourselves, American, male, Democrat, Buddhist, etc. simply vanish. Spirituality allows us to let go of these labels which cause divisions between ourselves and others.
Cessation Of Suffering
Siddhārtha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha or “awakened one”, began his spiritual quest to understand suffering–the nature of it, the cause of it, and the path to cessation of suffering. This journey led to Siddhārtha Gautama embracing The Four Noble Truths:
1. The truth of suffering. We suffer. The first step to dealing with this is to see it for what it is.
2. The cause of suffering. Suffering does not exist independently. We cause our own suffering with our attachment and delusions.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering is the eightfold path.
The Noble Eightfold Path ⨁
Right View
Right Intention
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration
And how are we to know what is the, “right” view, intention, speech, and so on? That is the subject of much more in-depth study, but if you approach life’s decisions with a heart of kindness and a mind clearly seeing this as they are, without our filters and judgements, then you won’t stray from the path. As the Dalai Lama once said, “My religion is Kindness.” Or as my teacher, Venerable Thay Kozen, often says, “When in doubt, love more.”
Buddhist Spiritual Practices
Three elements form the core of our practice at Mt. Adams Buddhist Temple:
Meditation
Devotion
Metta (loving kindness)
Meditation can be done in the traditional seated style, or it can be done while walking, lying down, or even while conducting our day-to-day activities. Meditation allows us to calm and train our minds to observe without judgements that cloud our perceptions. Devotion involves acknowledging and showing gratitude to something outside ourselves. And it comes as no surprise that a crucial part of Buddhist practice is compassion. Our daily practice includes offering Metta (loving kindness) to ourselves, to those who are easy to love, to those we don’t know, to those difficult to love, and then once again, to ourselves.
Letting Go
Buddhist practice does involve studying the teachings of Siddhārtha Gautama as well as many of the teachers that followed him. And yet Buddhist practice is not about accumulating knowledge like a school student accumulates knowledge. Buddhist practice is about wholly experiencing liberation from suffering. We flourish when we experience the liberation of letting go. We all cling to labels–good/bad, right/wrong, American/foreigner, Christian/Jewish/etc., and so on. Labels are not all bad. After all, they keep us from driving against traffic. But attaching to labels can lead to untold suffering. How many wars have started because of people clinging to nationalist or religious pride? How many relationships have been broken by thoughts of, “I am right, and you are wrong?” Once we begin letting go of ideas once thought to be sacrosanct, we begin to realize that we all have far more in common than we have differences. As we work on letting go of our cherished labels we camouflage ourselves with, think of Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, when asked the question, “Who stands before me?” replied, “I don’t know.”
Self Or No-Self
A discussion of Buddhism and spirituality would not be complete without addressing the idea of no-self. In the words of Master Dogen…
To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be
enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind
of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are
wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever.
It’s not that we’re non-existent. Siddhārtha Gautama made it very clear that his teachings are not annihilism. We do exist. But as we become attached to labeling ourselves or categorizing ourselves, we stray further from knowing the self. We are ever changing and impermanent. We do not spontaneously and independently appear. We are interdependent on an infinite number of causes. And in the words of Thích Nhất Hạnh, we interbe with everything else.
A Spirituality Of Action
Buddhist practice involves meditation, yes, but it is at heart a spirituality of action. Siddhārtha Gautama tells us to remember, “My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.”
A Spirituality Of Refuge
One of the formal steps a Buddhist practitioner can take is, dedication to the Three Refuges:
Buddha - The Awakened One and founder of Buddhism
Dharma - The teachings of the Buddha
Sangha - Those with whom we share our practice
This is an acknowledgement of appreciation for the historical teacher, Siddhārtha Gautama
Buddhist Spirituality, In Summary
As the Dalai Lama said, “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
Learn More About Buddhist Spirituality
All are welcome to join us for our services which occur weekdays at 6:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and also on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. The Zoom number is always on the homepage of https://www.mtadamsbuddhisttemple.com/ No experience is needed, and those of all faiths are welcome. And expect much laughter. As Venerable Thay Kozen says, “If you’re not laughing, you may be doing something wrong.”
Want to contribute to the Spiritual Roundtable? Read this first.
The Roundtable Mission and Vision
The goal of these roundtable writings is to:
Bring the spiritual community together.
Share ideas that elevate the human spirit.
Elevate the conversation around the spirit.
Embrace what is universal to all, while honoring what is special about each spirituality.
Center inclusivity and equity.
Promote our collective enlightenment.
Nurture civility and friendship between those with diverse belief systems in the Gorge.
Engage readers and spiritual seekers.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS NOT…
This is not a place for arguing about dogma.
This is not a place for ‘hating on’ or putting other belief systems down.
This is not a place for excluding, discriminating, or promoting fear or violence towards other people based on their race, color, ethnicity, beliefs, faith, gender, sexuality, ability.
This is not a place for hatred.
This is not a place for fear.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS..
This IS a place for hope.
This IS a place for joy.
This IS a place for comfort.
This IS a place for big questions.
This IS a place for learning.
This IS a place for sharing.
This IS a place for caring.
This IS a place for sharing what is special about your beliefs.
CCC News reserves the right to not publish any content that breaks with our mission, vision and values.
If you are interested in being included in the roundtable please email cole@columbiacommunityconnection.com
What Does Your Spirituality Mean To You? A Sufi Perspective
Welcome to the first installment of The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community. In this installment Bobbie Harlow Combe, a writer and Prineville resident shares what her spirituality means to her.
Introduction by Cole Goodwin
Welcome to the first installment of The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community.
Each week, spiritual leaders and learners will share their take on some of humanity's biggest questions, starting with: What does your spirituality mean to you? And ramping up into discussions about the nature of existence, the soul, the divine, and of course…a question as old as time itself: why are we here?
Roundtable writings will be published each Saturday and Sunday morning of the month.
Now take a deep breath… Meditate for a moment…And when you’re ready…keep reading to explore one of the many diverse faiths, belief systems, and philosophies that exist in our communities.
This Month's Question: What does your spirituality mean to you?
Why this question was chosen: This question asks us to examine what purpose and function our (faith, practice, belief system, philosophy) can serve in our lives. As well as how spirituality can guide our actions and way of walking in the world.
About Bobbie Harlow Combe
This past March, I moved with my husband from Tygh Valley, OR to take up residence in Prineville, OR. Most of my 72 years I’ve been on a spiritual journey beginning as a child, attending churches throughout my youth and adult life, that eventually led to the Shadhiliyya Sufi path in 2001. What is Sufism? Sufism is a spiritual teaching that leads to Oneness or Unity with God’s Presence. The meaning of the word Sufism is “to purify one’s heart”.
A Sufi Perspective
by Bobbie Harlow Combe
bismi’llah ir-rahman ir-rahim
I Begin in the Name of The One, the Merciful, the Compassionate
How do I sum up in a few words what my spirituality means to me, and how it serves me and guides my actions in life? My hope is to give you a “taste.”
Over my 20 years on the Sufi path and the paths that came before, my spirituality has merged with my life—I experience life as spiritual. My overriding intention is to move into closer proximity with the Divine, to know myself as my essence, and to live from this place. “To know yourself is to know your Lord” as my Sufi guide Sidi would say. (Sidi is an affectionate name for my Sufi Guide in the Shadhaliyya Way, Shaykh Muhammad Sa’id al-Jamal ar-Rif’a ash-Shadhuli.)
La ilaha illa’llah: There is nothing, no one but The One. It is one thing for me to truly believe every person and thing is from the Divine Essence of The One All-Encompassing Love, a drop in the Ocean--everything sacred, holy, and connected. Yet it is entirely something else to live it. That is the journey many Sufi’s refer to as “my walking”.
A significant part of “my walking” involves uncovering and embodying the Divine Qualities, or Names, that exist within the depths of my being, within my “spiritual heart”. Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi, author of the book Divine Names The 99 Healing Names of the One Love, writes “The divine signs have been engraved in our heart in the form of the Divine Names, since time began, . . .”
Divine Qualities, such as Love, Mercy, Peace, as well as Constriction, Expansion, Aliveness, Death, reside in the drop of essence within. Each Quality recited in a sacred language contains a sound code, a specific vibration and quality of light that awakens the Quality within my deep heart. My practice involves repeating (out loud or silently) Divine Names while focusing on my heart. It is recorded that a Prophet conveyed the Divine Message, “Neither My heavens nor My earth contain Me, but the heart of My faithful believer contains Me.”
In addition to Divine Qualities, my path provides practices, sacred text, ageless writings of mystics, clearly written guidelines as well as guidance from my guide, and the guides before him. I seek to approach all this with sincerity, commitment, trust, and surrender.
I live in gratitude for a life of meaning and purpose, knowing as a human being I will make mistakes, and with each mistake comes an opportunity to come closer to Truth, to my Trusted Friend, my Beloved. My dearest gift is being able to return my heart to The Beloved when I make mistakes, become distracted, or simply forget, over and over again.
Below is a brief description of my key spiritual practices, and an example of how I put them into practice.
Remembrance & Divine Qualities:
Remembrance is experiencing the Presence of The One through recitation of the sacred Divine One’s Name into my heart.
Recitation of Divine Qualities is “spiritual medicine” for whatever I need, whether it be physical, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual.
Walking:
When something shows up in my world that requires my attention, such as pain, sadness, joy, confusion, I get in touch with that feeling and experience it within myself with self-compassion and love. I then allow the Divine Lights that accompany the Qualities to change, or transform the experience. Often gifts of insight and wisdom are received.
My Example:
Since my divorce in 1986, I’ve not had much ‘Christmas spirit” during the holidays. Later I remarried a wonderful man, and this year we intended to experience the spirit of Christmas. And it was going pretty well until . . .
In the afternoon of Christmas day I was unexpectedly overcome with a deep, debilitating sadness that I had not experienced in many years. With the support of a friend, I allowed myself to drop inside to my deep heart to discover the source of this sadness that seemed to be triggered by my son not contacting me directly at Christmas time. I discovered deep within myself a trace of “I’m not good enough” that I suspect my son carries as well. I knew from experience this was a gift, a possibility for transformation, for change.
Upon going within, there was a strong impulse to recite the Divine Qualities that help me to turn away from the thoughts and concerns that accompanied my sadness, and put my trust in the Divine One. Once returning to the Presence of the One, I began reciting the sacred Name and the Divine Quality that means “The Glorious, the Majestic, the Magnificent” into the tender place in my heart and the area of my throat where I was feeling constriction.
Within half an hour the heaviness in my heart began to lighten, replaced by a sensation of light and expansion. The experience of sadness slowly began to change into a sense of well-being and certainty that my true self, my essence, is Glorious and Magnificent. As this occurred, my heart turned to my son with immense love and I realized that he too, in his essence, is Glorious and Magnificent. Suddenly I knew that all I need to do is be in touch with the Truth of who my son is, and know him as Gloriously Magnificent whether on the phone, in person, or in thought. I continue to work with the Qualities that support me in doing this.
My son and I have since spoken and it was a wonderful and loving exchange, reaffirming my belief that a shift in my inner experience often results in a shift in the outer.
I am immensely grateful to have found this Sufi path and the journey it takes me on. And, as Rumi, a Sufi poet, said, “There are as many paths to God as there are souls on the Earth.”
“And when the journey to God comes to an end, comes the beginning of the infinite journey in God.” -Igbal
Want to contribute to the Spiritual Roundtable? Read this first.
The Roundtable Mission and Vision
The goal of these roundtable writings is to:
Bring the spiritual community together.
Share ideas that elevate the human spirit.
Elevate the conversation around the spirit.
Embrace what is universal to all, while honoring what is special about each spirituality.
Center inclusivity and equity.
Promote our collective enlightenment.
Nurture civility and friendship between those with diverse belief systems in the Gorge.
Engage readers and spiritual seekers.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS NOT…
This is not a place for arguing about dogma.
This is not a place for ‘hating on’ or putting other belief systems down.
This is not a place for excluding, discriminating, or promoting fear or violence towards other people based on their race, color, ethnicity, beliefs, faith, gender, sexuality, ability.
This is not a place for hatred.
This is not a place for fear.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS..
This IS a place for hope.
This IS a place for joy.
This IS a place for comfort.
This IS a place for big questions.
This IS a place for learning.
This IS a place for sharing.
This IS a place for caring.
This IS a place for sharing what is special about your beliefs.
CCC News reserves the right to not publish any content that breaks with our mission, vision and values.
If you are interested in being included in the roundtable please email cole@columbiacommunityconnection.com
What Does Your Spirituality Mean To You? A Lutheran Perspective
Welcome to the first installment of The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community. In this installment Pastor Tyler Beane Kelly from Zion Lutheran Church shares what his Spirituality means to him.
Introduction by Cole Goodwin
Welcome to the first installment of The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community.
Each week, spiritual leaders and learners will share their take on some of humanity's biggest questions, starting with: What does your spirituality mean to you? And ramping up into discussions about the nature of existence, the soul, the divine, and of course…a question as old as time itself: why are we here?
Roundtable writings will be published each Saturday and Sunday morning of the month.
Now take a deep breath… Meditate for a moment…And when you’re ready…keep reading to explore one of the many diverse faiths, belief systems, and philosophies that exist in our communities.
This Month's Question: What does your spirituality mean to you?
Why this question was chosen: This question asks us to examine what purpose and function our (faith, practice, belief system, philosophy) can serve in our lives. As well as how spirituality can guide our actions and way of walking in the world.
About Tyler Beane Kelly: I am a pastor but I don’t like being up on a pedestal. It’s lonely up there! I like messy spirituality, messy questions, deconstructing and reconstructing the faith as the Spirit speaks to us, calls us forward into the future. When I got to Zion Lutheran Church (ELCA) in The Dalles back in 2015, the best advice I got from one of our church members is: be yourself. I try to live that out and encourage others to do the same. One of the things that I’ve been discovering is…the challenge is to be yourself for the sake of others. I have a passion for mental health awareness as that is my own story and the story of my family. I have a passion for helping the homeless and regularly spend time with my friends down at Community Meals. I love outdoor adventuring in the Gorge with my wife Mairead and our little family, George, 5, and Maeve, who is almost 2. I encountered God in the movies back when I was 13 and have been watching them ever since. My church website is: zioninthedalles.com.
A Lutheran Perspective
by Tyler Beane Kelly, CCCNews Spiritual Roundtable Facilitator
You ask what my spirituality means to me. I have answer. Tomorrow I might have a question.
You ask me what my spirituality means and today I have an answer.
But come ask me tomorrow and the answer will be different because spirituality is a living, breathing thing that changes as we change. From the Christian scriptures, we have this promise from God: “See I make all things new.”
Today, my spirituality is about a moment of encounter.
Today, I listened to Carrie Newcomer’s “Sanctuary,” a collaboration between her as a singer-songwriter and Parker Palmer, beloved theologian, poet, and educator. The song is a doozy. Listen to these words:
“Will you be my refuge
My haven in the storm,
Will you keep the embers warm
When my fire's all but gone?
Will you remember
And bring me sprigs of rosemary,
Be my sanctuary
'Til I can carry on
Carry on.
Carry on.”
These pandemic years have been tough for parents of young children. Our worlds have gotten smaller in the pandemic and that’s had beautiful moments and especially challenging moments.
Today I was home again with a sick kid, Maeve, almost two years old, and I was feeling grumpy about it. I was in a self-protective stance towards the day. But then I was listening to this song. And while listening to this song, Maeve walked up to me with her thumb in her mouth, and these big yearning blue eyes, and held out her hands. And as I took her into my lap, it’s as if she found the language she doesn’t yet have in this song. It’s as if she was saying to me, “Daddy, I need you to be my refuge, my haven in this storm. That’s why you’re home with me sick today.”
And the encounter broke through my shell and I started feeling again, feeling for her in her sickness, and I started breathing again. I could feel the relief in my face when I let go of my grumpiness.
Spirituality is that thing in us which beckons, which yearns, which prods us to be cracked open to the pain and the beauty of this world. To what is. To have open hands and open hearts for the people in our lives. For me it takes a moment of encounter. Whether that’s a song like “Sanctuary,” whether it’s a phone call with a dear friend, whether it’s a trail run on the Deschutes, whether it’s a stranger down at community meals, we have a moment of encounter. And the divine light shines through the cracks of what is and touches us, pierces our walls and barriers, and cracks us open. So that we can just be again. So that we can, as the song says, carry on.
Want to contribute to the Spiritual Roundtable? Read this first.
The Roundtable Mission and Vision
The goal of these roundtable writings is to:
Bring the spiritual community together.
Share ideas that elevate the human spirit.
Elevate the conversation around the spirit.
Embrace what is universal to all, while honoring what is special about each spirituality.
Center inclusivity and equity.
Promote our collective enlightenment.
Nurture civility and friendship between those with diverse belief systems in the Gorge.
Engage readers and spiritual seekers.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS NOT…
This is not a place for arguing about dogma.
This is not a place for ‘hating on’ or putting other belief systems down.
This is not a place for excluding, discriminating, or promoting fear or violence towards other people based on their race, color, ethnicity, beliefs, faith, gender, sexuality, ability.
This is not a place for hatred.
This is not a place for fear.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS..
This IS a place for hope.
This IS a place for joy.
This IS a place for comfort.
This IS a place for big questions.
This IS a place for learning.
This IS a place for sharing.
This IS a place for caring.
This IS a place for sharing what is special about your beliefs.
CCC News reserves the right to not publish any content that breaks with our mission, vision and values.
If you are interested in being included in the roundtable please email cole@columbiacommunityconnection.com
