"Many African-American midwives in rural southeastern US of the 20th-century were proud that they could'“plow like men, and pick cotton by moonlight.' They said they were uneducated but that midwifery put their 'big minds' to work." (pg. 63, Listen to Me Good, Margaret Charles Smith and Linda Holmes.) About 11 years ago, while pregnant, I wrote and article called "Call Me A Pregnant Woman" to bring up questions about midwifing big mind and birthing insight: "Gautama Buddha s

from the Open Dharma newsletter, December 2016 On retreat sometimes people ask to hear “my story,” how it has been and how it is for me on my path and with my teachers. I often shy away from these questions—and for good reason, as my experience is very intimate rather than very public—but I feel like sharing a few things among friends. I am tired of the increasingly dissonant and distant way we seem to communicate in so many public forums. I am writing here publicly but perso

If a new human life depends on so much care, attention, energy, and skillfulness, then what may be needed for awakening in spiritual life? For three months I have had the privilege of letting love come through in ways that I could not have imagined: Three months of broken sleep, wide smiles, aching back, and continual stretching of the heart, continual revelation of resourcefulness. Wrapping my son in a hand-knit blanket; meeting his shocking, Rinpoche eyes; meeting those sam

~ Nothing in the Way At the Delhi airport last week, I sat blurry with fatigue, and nursed a latte during the dark first hours of the day. A child of perhaps 4 held on to a woman's kamiz. The small face twisted, tears glimmering. I just happened to catch the child's eye, then I tilted my head out of view behind the woman. Instead of a crying scene, we had a smile, and a game. Good old peek-a-boo, hide-and-seek fun. The woman's worn face stayed focused on ordering, f

~ Unwrapping Openness Walking a round shady block with my son Gyan when he was three, I answered his history questions under steady oak trees, full of birds. At breakfast, my historian stepmother had read us a strange N.Y. Times article about a slave woman who had rescued her "owner" from Civil War prison in a laundry basket, the day before his execution. My geneology­ fanatic father had also announced that our bloodline, like many others, includes American Indian, Afric

~ Nudge and Flow In my twenties, I neglected to practice meditation for several years. I was in a spiritual group, our entire lives revolved around Dharma, but nobody meditated. We were anti-practice. Although we did practice many things--every day listening to teachings, for example--we thought meditation was for beginners. And we did not want to think of ourselves as beginners. (A serving of blind spiritual ego, anyone?) In the middle of monsoon one year, when t

~ Peace Upon Peace Some people think deep rest is taking a break from life. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of rest, meditation, and life. Resting deeply can mean recovering from an unsustainable way of living--of acting, working, communicating, thinking, perceiving, and being. But we do not "do" rest as that thing that then allows us to continue living unsustainably. Rest is not a break so we can get back to burning out. I remember being surprised when someone s

Seeing: a dialog, commitment includes ancestors & questions, What do I need to do for you to be free? -Orland Bishop http://www.globalonenessproject.org/library/interviews/sawubona … JayaJulienne Ashmore @jayajulienne · courage# to listen# for an "orientation of the spirit" in the face of oppression "the opposite of poverty is justice" http://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice … JayaJulienne Ashmore @jayajulienne · The heart# suffers when it

Monthly Theme for August and September Last week I was a super hero to my kids, for a few minutes. Visiting my mom, my kids and I asked her to read a book about a boy with a very long name -- so long that it nearly costs him his life. 21 syllables of name, starting with "Tikki Tikki Tembo," the name of the book. All day we tried to say the name but only remembered the beginning. We mostly just had fun making up our own rhyming versions in the car, the pool, the garden,

~ The Head of the Thoughts A brother asked an old man: What shall I do? For many thoughts are bothering me, and I don’t know how to fight back. The old man said: Do not fight against all of them, but against one. In fact, all thoughts of monks have a single head. Therefore, you have to figure out which and what kind it is, and fight against it. By doing so, you can defeat the rest of those thoughts. (pg. 33, Desert Wisdom, translated by Yushi Nomura) #Newsletter

~ Instigating Freedom Last summer on retreat in the redwoods of California, someone new arrived with two books as gifts. For Gemma, horses. For me, The Bond by Lynne McTaggart, full of scientific research on how human beings need connection like we need food. One example is Nipun Mehta, who turned his Silicon Valley ambitions towards creating a wave of giving. He gets tech experts to create websites for nonprofits, opened the family home for Wednesday dinner to rich and poo

~ Instigating Freedom Last summer on retreat in the redwoods of California, someone new arrived with two books as gifts. For Gemma, horses. For me, The Bond by Lynne McTaggart, full of scientific research on how human beings need connection like we need food. One example is Nipun Mehta, who turned his Silicon Valley ambitions towards creating a wave of giving. He gets tech experts to create websites for nonprofits, opened the family home for Wednesday dinner to rich and poo

~ Blindness. Jaya read this poem by Ikkyu (translated by Blyth) on one of the retreats in Tiruvannamalai in January. "Apologies for not knowing the exact origin of the translation," she writes, "as it was giving to me by a friend named Gopal Ram." If you break the cherry tree where are the flowers? But in the spring time, see how they bloom! The vast flood Rolls onward But yield yourself. And it floats you upon it. Blindness usually means we cannot see somethi

~ Pushed and Held Pressure. Usually retreat is where we learn how to live at ease without the "pressures of daily life." But we also find pressure necessary. In the youtube video on Open Dharma's home page, the first person interviewed reports, "I felt really pushed and really held." And this is a compliment. A compliment about two kinds of pressure, pushing and holding. Slight pressure of diaphragm opening lungs, closing them. The pressure of the feet on the ground reminding

~ Opinions, communication, and finding ourselves bigger. Over the last year or so, I have noticed that many times when we human beings try to communicate, we end up urgently expressing opinions. We assume that we are communicating--but we often get so caught up in the ideas we cherish, that we forget to connect, find a common ground of love, and leave room for disagreement in the realm of ideas and emotions. An interesting thing about opinions: they themselves are based on of

~ Beyond the Mirror Recently a scientific study accidentally found empathy in a monkey. The monkey's brain was all wired up for an experiment to show how much activity was happening where and when. A human, not part of the experiment, walked in and found the bag of snacks intended for the monkey experiment. The human happily opened and ate. The monkey's brain cells mirrored the human's surprise and enjoyment. A conclusion was that primates (and we) are "wired" with mirroring

~ Cellular Change In a video of human cells at the beginning of life--even before the cells are called "embryo"--nothing changes for what seems a long time. A day passes and a night. The tiny cellular world brims and shimmers with aliveness. But the shape stays the same. Then suddenly, spectacularly, the cells divide. In the same way, in our subtle inner world and in our relationships and everywhere in our lives, much of the time not much seems to happen. If we don't tune in

~ Happening Some days, it happens--maybe at a change of season. We feel light. There is a spacious sense of time because we are between things, between seasons. We experience time bordering on timelessness, but we would not stop to think of it that way. Life is happening by itself. Heart is beating, cells are breathing. Another way of functioning, without worry. The mind even seems to open out in all directions and brighten. Thoughts are formed and completely gone, like soun

~ Why I Have Lived in India All These Years Why I have lived in India all these years, or half of it, is the afternoons. The afternoon light this autumn in Catalonia has started acting like the afternoon light in India does all year. Breathtaking, the light saturates every object. It brings out the heart-stopping character in whatever it touches, without idealizing anything. It makes everything beloved. The light reveals and makes delicious, without leaving anything out. Ev

~ Soul Moments What is it like when, during the course of a day or a night, we happen to feel our deep ineradicable sweetness as human beings? A teacher known as "the Mother" of Auroville made the striking statement that most people only consciously experience their souls once or at most a few times in their lives. We can guess towards what she means...she obviously speaks of a soul that is easily ignored when our lives obey habit and biology. Beyond the personal and collect