radicalgrace

a publication of the center for action and contemplation

non-dual thinking

april - june 2008

vol. 21 no. 2

The Center for Action and Contemplation

A Christian center forwarding the integration of social action and contemplative prayer

A collision of opposites forms the cross of Christ. One leads downward preferring the truth of the humble.The other moves leftward against the grain. But all are wrapped safely inside a hidden harmony: One world, Gods cosmos, a benevolent universe.

INSIDE RG
3 4 5 6 8

The CAC supports a new reformation from the inside: In the spirit of the Gospels Confirming peoples deeper spiritual intuitions Encouraging actions of justice rooted in prayer With a new appreciation for, and cooperation with, other denominations, religions, and cultures
RADICAL GRACE is published quarterly by the Center for Action and Contemplation. Radical Grace is an on-going means of relationship and communication with the CAC community. Friends making a financial contribution will receive a years worth (four issues) of Radical Grace. A gift of Radical Grace is available for the suggested amount of $25.00 per year.
Managing Editor

By Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM By Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO

AND

THE PARADOX OF NON-DUALITY METANOIA

By Cece Shantzek
SEEING WITH THE EYE OF THE HEART

By Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault By Walter Wink

THE HUMAN FACE OF GOD

10 13 14 16

THE INFINITE ZERO By Beatrice Bruteau SEEING AND BEING SEEN

By Sarah Fust

Vanessa Guerin
Editorial Team

OUR DISPOSITION IN LIFE

By Fr. Michael Demkovich, OP

Andrea Briggs, Shirin McArthur, Rich Meixner, Stephen Picha

Design / Layout

NON-DUALISM AS A PRACTICE FOR SPIRITUAL PROGRESSIVES

Monique Estrada
Artwork

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

BRAIN HARMONY:

18

Cover: Half Empty and Half Full, watercolor by Vanessa Guerin. Seeing and Being Seen, p. 14, collage by Sara Fust, 2008. Used with permission.
Photography

TOWARD NON-DUALISTIC THINKING

By Nancy K. Morrison, MD with Sally K. Severino, MD

Photograph, p. 4, by John Harvy, 2007. Used with permission. Photograph, p. 11, by Henry Hoffman. Used with permission.

Corrections
In the January, February, March 2008 edition of Radical Grace, Inside RG, p. 2, indicates that the article p. 29 is Right Seeing: What One Learns from a 9-Day Internship by Andrea Briggs. However, the article p. 29 is Mirror Medallion by Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM. In the same issue, Dyck Vermilyes first name is misspelled in the caption of the photograph p. 10.

EDITORS NOTE

on-dual thinking, the this edition of Radical Grace, is a challenging, concept. It Nparadoxical; however, thethemebutofelusive,in this ediseems diverse articles tion give us insights into ways we can incorporate this transformative practice into our lives. Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault in her article, Seeing with the Eyes of the Heart, shows how Jesus teaches on non-duality through the parable of the landowner and the laborers (Matthew 20: 1-19). Sarah Fust writes in Seeing and Being Seen about her time on a CAC-sponsored 9-Day Internship in Juarez, Mexico. Fr. Thomas Keating proposes that we can learn to live a life that is neither dual nor non-dual. These and all the contributors are clearly individuals who have been thinking non-dually and inspire us to do the same.
~ Vanessa Guerin

Telephone: (505) 242-9588 Fax: (505) 242-9518 editor@cacradicalgrace.org www.cacradicalgrace.org

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Center for Action and Contemplation

And teaches us to say yes And allows us to be both-and And keeps us from either-or And teaches us to be patient and long suffering And is willing to wait for insight and integration And keeps us from dualistic thinking And does not divide the field of the moment And helps us to live in the always imperfect now And keeps us inclusive and compassionate toward everything And demands that our contemplation become action And insists that our action is also contemplative And heals our racism, our sexism, heterosexism, and our classism And keeps us from the false choice of liberal or conservative And allows us to critique both sides of things And allows us to enjoy both sides of things And is far beyond any one nation or political party And helps us face and accept our own dark side And allows us to ask for forgiveness and to apologize And is the mystery of paradox in all things And is the way of mercy And makes daily, practical love possible And does not trust love if it is not also justice And does not trust justice if it is not also love And is far beyond my religion versus your religion And allows us to be both distinct and yet united And is the very Mystery of Trinity
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM

ND

THE PARADOX OF NON-DUALITY

By Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO

JANUARY - FEBRUARY - MARCH 2008

he state of non-duality is addressed in reflection of self. At the very least, the physiological most of the advanced spiritual traditions development of the brain and nervous system seems of the world religions. It is sometimes to be required for such an evolved state to become referred to as No Self or Emptiness, as permanent. The body has to be prepared to endure in Buddhism. It refers to the death of the false self the more intense communication of the Divine. This or ego and the diminishment or extinction of the requires those who are in a non-dual state to be separate self sense, along with the abiding sense of able to move freely back and forth. To conceive of unity with Ultimate Reality. Unity with Ultimate a permanent non-dual state of awareness as the goal Reality is usually explained as full enlightenment, or of all spiritual striving may not be as conformed to in Christian terms, the grace of the Ascension, a state of union beyond inner resurrection. Non-duality is clearly a state beyond what is called in the Christian contemplative tradition Transforming Union. The Cistercians, Franciscans, Carmelites, and other religious groups have described this state as bridal mysticism. It involves the union of love with God in which the will and intellect are united to God, whether in interior trials such as the feeling of Gods absence or the delights of Shaikh Kabir Edmund Helminski, Ven. Bhikkhu Ajahn Sona, Fr. Thomas Keating OCSO, Rabbi Ted Falcon mature, apophatic contemplation. The unifying force of divine love draws and reality as to live the non-dual state of mind inside unites the soul into ineffable experiences of union an active life of immersion in the ups and downs of with the Beloved and forgetfulness of self. They re- ordinary experience. main two however. The soul, except in brief periPerhaps it might be useful to orient practitioners ods of ecstasy, is aware of itself in union with God as to the paradox of living a life that is neither dual nor Bridegroom or the Beloved. non-dual, just as some spiritual traditions affirm that St. John of the Cross in the Living Flame of Love the Absolute is not this, not thator similar to the hints at higher states of union, but is not explicit. statement, not one, not two. These paradoxes point to Some of the Beguines of the 12th and 13th cen- the fact that God is beyond all that exists and beturies wrote explicitly of the Transforming Union yond all categories of being and non-being, as well as initiating a further journey into states of unity as in all that exists. consciousness that parallel the descriptions of no self or enlightenment found in Buddhism, Advaitic Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO, a Cistercian priest, monk, and forVedanta, or Sufi literature. Here there is no self at mer abbot, is the founder of Contemplative Outreach, an organization that teaches Centering Prayer. Fr. Keating has written numerall. In general, most mystics believe that the no-self ous books, including Open Mind, Open Heart. Together with experience cannot be permanent in this life. They Fr. Richard Rohr, he will be presenting at the CAC summer conferaffirm that periods of a few hours, or even a few ence, The Inner Room, June 27 29, 2008. For more informadays in exceptional cases, can take place without any tion or to register for the conference, please visit www.cacradicalgrace.

METANOIA
By Cece Shantzek

n the way to Morning Prayer recently, listening to election coverage on the radio, I heard an interview with a man who was offering some very strong opinions about social issues, and his views couldnt have been farther from mine. As I listened, my jaw tensed, my stomach clenched, and I was shaking my head while grumbling my objections at the radio. My ego wanted to reject him, insist he was wrong! My heart closed, and my temper rose. The urge to dismiss people who have different viewsespecially when those views counter stories I am very attached tocan be so strong! I turned off the radio, and sat with what was happening in me. I didnt want to spend my morningmaybe even my whole daymentally warring with a stranger and/or the idea of the people out there who believe those things. But its so easy to get derailed by the things I think I am right about. Still, staying in the place where separation is real for mein my dualistic or split mindis too painful! If the Truth converges, where do I converge with this man? In reaching for our commonalities, I could find that he seems afraidand to that I can relate, since the way he sees things sure feels scary to my little self! In this election season, as I have watched speeches and debates, I have felt this same tension in myself. I have the urge to line up behind the person I think would make the best candidate, and to stand against the others (creating us and them). When I listen from a place of attachment to my stories, I feel stressed out and worried. What if we end up with four more years (or more) of war? A president who isnt interested in helping the poor or the marginalized or me? What if I cant feel better about any of it until I wake up to the fact that we really are safe. When I can look through the lens of non-dualism, I can see that everything has its place in Gods universe. If there is nowhere God isnt, how can I ever not be safe? I am not my body, and I am not my thoughts about myself. I am but a droplet in the ocean that is the Body of Christ, and so is the man on the radio. So

are each of the candidates, and so is our current president. This presidency has been a tough one for me. The President doesnt share my values. I dont like what he does, and so he teaches me by contrast about who I want to be and what I must do in the world. He has also helped me to learn that I must honor his humanity and I must claim in me that which I detest in him. What in me wants to create war? Wants to see my interests above the interests of others? Wants to deny his very personhood? Sometimes, I am graced to learn from those who teach with wisdom. I can also be graced to learn from those who teach by contrast. Those who do things that are against my values teach me well who I want to be and awaken in me a desire to work to become the change. They offer fresh clarity about what I believe, and can wake me up to how I feel called to serve. God can work in the darkest night to bring about transformation. Luke 11:23 states: He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters. I understand this to mean that when we forget we are one body, we are lost. When I perceive myself to be against anyone, I perceive myself to be separate from God, and for me there is no greater pain. In this season of taking sides and good/bad, right/ wrong thinking, I ask to be freed from my stories and my turmoil as the world unfolds. I ask to trust that Gods grace is here, with and among us, and to remember we will learn even more in the years to come about who we are and what world we want to co-create togethersome by wisdom and some by contrast. These can appear to be scary times for those of us attached to the idea of safety and peace for the planet and her peoples. I pray that we are up to the task of standing together for peace, of finding the way around the differences to the basic truth that we are more the same than different, and that we cant get there alone.
Cece Shantzek is the Conferences and Events Manager of the Center for Action and Contemplation.

RADICAL GRACE 5

SEEING WITH THE EYE OF THE HEART

By Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault

JANUARY - FEBRUARY - MARCH 2008

ne of the things I most appreciate about the computer era is that it furnishes us with a whole set of new and wonderful images with which to envision the spiritual life. So heres a computer metaphor: we human beings come into existence with a certain operating system already installed in us. We can make the choice to upgrade. The system already installed in us is a binary operating system. It runs on the power of either/or. People frequently call it the ego, but I prefer to stick with my metaphor and call it the egoic operating system. It comes by its dualism honestly; the binary operator, as its called, is built right into the structure of the human brain.1 But we do have the capacity, if we so choose, to shift to a whole different basis of perception. We come into this life with another operating system already lying in latency, and, if we wish, we can learn to steer by it, understand through it, and ultimately discover our deepest sense of identity within it.This other operating system (we can call it the non-dual system or the unitive system, if we want) is the operating system of the heart. The egoic operating system is particularly related to the mind, to the binary operator built right into the human brain. The heart has a different way of perceiving. Rather than dividing and conquering, it connects with a seamless and indivisible reality through a whole different way of organizing the informational field. And its ours for the choosing. Lets talk a bit about this other system. I used the word heart to describe it, and that probably requires some deconditioning because in the West we customarily see the heart in a very clichd and sentimental way. We play it off against the mind, so that a person is in the head if wedded to cerebral thinking, and in the heart if oriented toward feeling. We almost always think of the heart as the center of our personal emotional life. But this is not the way the wisdom tradition sees it. In wisdom, the heart is primarily an organ of spiritual perception, a highly sensitive instrument for keeping us aligned, as we journey along the horizontal axis of our life in time, with the vertical axis of timeless reality: the realm of meaning, value, and conscience. The heart

picks up reality in a much deeper and more integral way than our poor Cartesian mind even begins to imagine. The heart can pick up subtle signals from all levels of reality, not just from whats happening in the rational. The intellect is a part of it, you notice; but the field of perception goes far beyond just the rational. The heart picks up from the emotions, from our sense of proportion, from intuition, from images and archetypes. And most important, it keeps us aligned with our innermost, with what we truly know. Unlike the egoic operating system, the heart does not perceive through differentiation. It doesnt divide the field into inside and out, subject and object. Rather, it perceives by means of harmony. Its like hearing the note G played and instantly hearing a D and a B around it that make it into a chord, that join it to a whole. When heart-awareness becomes fully formed within a person, he or she will be operating out of non-dual consciousness. But its not simply a higher level of the same old mind; its a whole new operating system! That person does indeed see from a perspective of singlenessand just as Jesus called for, there is now no separation between God and humans, or between humans and other humans, simply because separation isnt factored into the new operating system. It is no longer necessary for perception, so it simply falls away like scales from the eyes. This seems like a very fruitful approach to the teachings of Jesus. Blessed are the pure (i.e., single) of heart, for they shall see God, he says in the Beatitudes, but who would have believed that he is not talking about perfecting ones virtue, but about upgrading the operating system! And yet the metaphor seems to work and brings an underlying coherence to what he is about. His whole mission can fundamentally be seen as trying to push, tease, shock, confirm, and wheedle people beyond the limited analytic intellect of their egoic operating system into the vast realm of mind where they will discover the resources they need to live in fearlessness, coherence, and compassionor in other words, as true human beings. Theres an interesting confirmation of this from

an unexpected quarter. Youll often hear, in connection with the teachings of Jesus, that he came to this earth calling us to repentance. Repent is a very popular word in our Christian lexicon, particularly in evangelical and fundamentalist quartersRepent, for the day of the Lord is at hand. But what does the word actually mean? The answer may surprise you. The Greek that its translating is metanoia. And guess what? It doesnt mean feeling sorry for yourself for doing bad things. It doesnt even mean to change the direction in which youre looking for happiness, although its often translated that way. The word literally breaks down into meta and noia, which depending on how you translate meta (it can be either the preposition beyond or the adjective large), means go beyond the mind, or go into the large mind. The repentance that Jesus really is talking about means to go beyond your little egoic operating system that says, I think, therefore I am, and try out the other onethe big one that says, I am, therefore I think. Christians arent commonly used to hearing that Jesus was really about transforming our operating system. Admittedly, its an unusual take on the subject. But one of his parables speaks to this clash of operating systems in a way that is simply unmistakable: the notoriously challenging laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20). Nearly every Christian Ive ever met has found this parable by far the most difficult to understand and accept. Youll see why when you read it: A landowner went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay the workers a salary of a silver coin for the day, and sent them to his vineyard. He went out again at about nine in the morning and, seeing men idle in the square, he said to them, You two, go to my vineyard and I will pay you what is just. So they went. The owner went out at midday and at about three in the afternoon, and he did the same. . . When evening came the owner of the vineyard said to his manager,Call the workers and pay them their wage, beginning with the last and ending with the first. Those who had come to work last turned up and were given a denarius each, a silver coin. When it was the turn of the first, they thought they would receive more; but they too received a denarius each. On receiving it they began to grumble against the landowner. They said,These hardly worked an hour, yet you have treated them the same as those of us who have endured the days burden and heat. The owner said to them, Friend, I have not been unjust with you. Did we not agree on a denarius a day? So take what is yours, and go. . . Dont I have the right to do as I please with my money? Why are you envious, when I am kind? Probably more than any other teaching in the gospels, this parable tends to defy all logic and common sense. People unanimously exclaim, Its not fair. But from the point of view of consciousness training, it begins to make sense. This is perhaps Jesus most koan-like parable: As long as youre using the egoic operating system, you just cant get it. You will see the owners action as unfair because youre keeping track of more or less, better or worse, page 22 first versus last. And that is a function of the operating

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THE HUMAN FACE OF GOD

By Walter Wink

ne of the greatest mysteries in all Scripture is the enigmatic expression, the son of man. In Hebrew it means simply human being, mortal, son of Adam, or child of the human. God will only address Ezekiel by this name, and does so 93 times. For his part, Jesus is depicted as speaking of himself as the son of man 84 times. The Human Face of God is a title I have chosen for this article, for I believe that we are today witnessing a revolution in the God-image. In Ezekiels vision of the divine throne chariot, we encounter one of the most significant visions in the Bible, one of the most influential visions in all human history. This vision is the fountainhead of Jewish mysticism. An entire library of writings derives from it right up to the presentan unbroken chain of esoteric traditions lasting 2,500 years. I want to focus on just one aspect of this rich vision (Ezekiel 1:26-2:1): And above the dome over their heads there was something like a throne, in appearance like a sapphire; and seated above the likeness was something that seemed like a human form. Upward from what appeared like the loins I saw something that looked like fire, and there was a splendor all around. Like the bow in a cloud on a rainy day, such was the splendor all around. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell on my face and I heard the voice of someone speaking. He said to me: O mortal (ben adam), stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you.
JANUARY - FEBRUARY - MARCH 2008

At the center of the vision, the qualifications and hesitations stumble all over themselves: And above the dome over their heads there was something like a throne, in appearance like a sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was something that seemed like a human form. And this is the revelation: God seems to be, as it were, Human. This is not just a figure of speech. Israel was thor-

oughly familiar with figures of speech, and never confused them with reality. If you asked a Jew if God was walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day because the noonday sun heat was disagreeable (Genesis 3:8), they would have dismissed the question as impertinent: Of course not, that is only a figure of speech. But Ezekiel is not beholding a figure of speech. God really seems to be turning a human face toward Ezekiel. Whatever else God might be in the wildness of nature and the blackness of interstellar space, when God wishes to manifest divine reality to Ezekiel, it is in the likeness as it were of a human form. What does it mean to say that God is revealed as human? Why does God turn a human face to Ezekiel? Perhaps because becoming human is the task that God has set for human beings. And human beings have only a vague idea what it means to be human. Humanity errs in believing that it is human. We are only fragmentarily human, fleetingly human, brokenly human. We see glimpses of our humanness, we can dream of what a more humane existence and political order would be like, but we have not yet arrived at true humanness. Ezekiels vision intimates that only God is, as it were, Human, and since we are made in Gods image and likeness, we are capable of becoming more truly human ourselves. As Gerd Thiessen notes, people were once especially eager to find the missing link between primates and human beings. Now, however, it is dawning on us that we ourselves could be that missing link. Furthermore, we are incapable of becoming human by ourselves. We scarcely know what humanness is. We have only the merest intuitions and general guidelines. Jesus has, to be sure, revealed to us what it means to live a fully human life. But how do I translate that into my own struggles for humanness? Curiously, I know more about God, thanks to Jesus, than I do about myself. Metaphysically speaking, God is the ultimate mystery, but to myself I am an even more impenetrable mystery. Who am I? I have accepted my parents answers, my cultures

answers, the answers of mentors and peers and colleagues. But how do they know? What are the exact outlines of my true form? What is the visage of my real face? How can I find out, unless God reveals it to me? For who else could possibly know what is stored up in the divine image inside me, except One who is the divine image inside me? As one of the most remarkable lines of Scripture puts it, Beloved, we are Gods children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed, we will be like it, for we will see it as it is (1 John 3:2). Perhaps some day we might become more fully human. For now, we are only promissory notes, hints, intimations. But we are able to become more human because the Human One has placed within us the divine spirit (Ezekiel 37:5, 14). If God is in some sense true humanness, then divinity inverts. Divinity is not a qualitatively different reality; quite the reverse, divinity is fully realized humanity. Only God is, as it were, HUMAN. The goal of life, then, is not to become something we are notdivinebut to become truly what we arehuman. We are not required to become divine: flawless, perfect, without blemish. We are invited simply to become human, which means growing through our mistakes, learning by trial and error, being redeemed over and over from sin and compulsive behavior, becoming ourselves, scars and all. It means embracing and transforming our shadow side. It means giving up pretending to be good instead of real. In this vision, then, God represents the archetypal image, as it were, of individuated human being, reaching out through Ezekiel to Gods people with a humanly impossible task: that of becoming human. Eastern Orthodoxy has long taught that the goal of human existence is to become divinized. I have a deep respect for the spiritual disciplines that the orthodox mystics have developed in order to further this process of growth into God. But I have no idea what divinization signifies. When people say Jesus is divine, or the Son of God, or God, I have nothing in my experience that can help me comprehend what they mean. It all sounds too much like the language of Greek polytheism, in which gods impregnated mortal women, who bore beings who were half human and half divine. The interminable debates about the two natures of Christ seem to be totally off the mark, an irrelevancy carried over from a worldview that is now virtually defunct for all but the truest of true believers, and a stumbling block to all dialogue with other religions. I do not know what the word divine signifies. But I do have an inkling of what the word human might entail, because we are made in the image of God, Human One, and there have been exemplary human beings, in our tradition and these of others. Central to the Eastern Orthodox tradition is a statement by the church father Athanasius that Christ became as we are that we might become as he is. This has usually been interpreted as meaning that Christ became human that we might become page 11

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THE INFINITE ZERO

By Beatrice Bruteau

10

JANUARY - FEBRUARY - MARCH 2008

eading a book about zero recently, I was struck by a passage remarking that mathematician Gottfried Leibniz thought that the imaginary unit (the square root of minus one) was a bizarre mix between existence and nonexistence, something like a cross between 1 (God) and 0 (Void). Cross? Or maybe crossing of? Or cross composed of the Infinite and the Finite? When you superimpose on that cross the figure of a human being, you see that the icon says: Human Being, You are That! What looks like two realities, separated as far from one another as possible, is really an image of oneness. Because what a cross is, is an intersection. And, Human Being, You are the Incarnation of the intersection of the Finite and the Infinite, the point that is common to both lines. As our topic for this issue of Radical Grace is NonDualism, I shall meditate a bit on the intersection of crossed lines and our unwillingness to acknowledge the wholeness of our reality. The temptation for us is to identify with one aspect of the Non-Dual Reality and disregard the other. We like to say Thou art the Potter, we are the clay. We project the aspect that we are not used to experiencing as our own reality. We make it into an Other and, standing afar off, we look toward It. Sometimes we even imagine It regarding us. The usual dualisms are of God and World, or the Absolute and the Relative, or the Infinite and the Finite. But, obviously, the Absolute cant have a relation to the Relative, and the Infinite cant not-be the Finite. The effort of the spiritual life, therefore, is to disabuse ourselves of these misperceptions and miscon-

ceptions and unrealistic orientations. We endeavor to stop objectifying the Ground of Being. We are the Ground of Being. It is not Somebody Else. So, we do not arrive at realization of the NonDual by trying to go toward this putative Other. Rather, we have to let our surface consciousness sink back and down into our center or root, our Self as Subject, not object.You cant regard it or address itmake it an object for your consciousness. You have to realize it by being it subjectively. The Infinite, the Absolute, can be known only as Subject, and this means that we have to be the subject. We must forsake (fast from) objectifying It. This is why the real culmination of the Mysteries appears in the Christian tradition as Holy Saturday. The Great Sabbath is the Infinite, the Absolute Reality, the Nothing, the Great Zero.When the last attempt at definition and regard dies, the Clear Light of the Ultimate Reality spreads without limit. Then, from That, all the glory of the Finite rises again. Its all the One Reality, no duality. And You, yourself, are That. The Indian sages call It Brahman, that which grows. The Platonists called It Ousia (Being) or To Hen (the One) or Agathon (The Good). Thomas Aquinas called It Esse, the infinitive of the verb To Be. These are all good, especially The Good (God is a contraction of that), but I like Esse best of all because it indicates the dynamic aspect in its infinitude. Infinite Dynamic! Well, I mean dynamic not just in its root meaning of potentiality, but in its current connotation of motion, energy; and together they make creativity. Shiva dances! Richard Simonelli says a very wonderful and important thing in a recent piece in Ravens Bread. He had gotten comfortable with God in me and I am in God. (Even that took considerable working up to).

But then came the withdrawal of the boundaries. The knower was no longer present as a separate entity. It is then that the two ins begin to fade. Finally, they are gone. No me, no God as Somebody Else. Just Be-ing, just Esse. As the Ox Herding pictures show, No Ox, No Man, an empty circle. The Great Zero, Infinite. Nevertheless, after this realization comes the return to the village, the resurrection in a glorified finitude, with bliss-bestowing hands. Now we must listen, Israel, and remember, Human Being, that we are not dust, and our destiny is not

dust, and our God-Reality is One, and we are That.

1. Charles Seife, ZERO: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea (New York:Viking, 2000), p.135. 2. Richard Simonelli, A Great Gift, Ravens Bread Vol: 12 No: 1, Feb. 2008, p.1. (Obtain from Ravens Bread, 18065 Hwy 209, Hot Springs, NC 28743). Dr. Beatrice Bruteau is a pioneer in the integrated study of science, mathematics, philosophy and religion. She has a background in Vedanta Hinduism and Catholic Christianity, as well as the natural sciences. Dr. Bruteau has published twelve books and more than one hundred articles. Her essays have appeared in journals such as International Philosophical Quarterly, Cross Currents, and Cistercian Studies.

THE HUMAN FACE . . .

Continued from page 9 divine. I hear it saying rather that Jesus became like uspeople living within the constraints of earthly realityin order that we might become like him fully human. But that way of speaking is still too mythologically literal for me. I would prefer to say, Jesus incarnated God in his own person in order in order to show all of us how to incarnate to God. And to incarnate to God is what it means to be fully human. But we risk losing the numinous reality under a barrage of words. Ezekiel was not struck by an interesting new idea. He was, rather, struck to the ground. The vision overwhelms him, like a blow to the solar plexus. When the One-as-it-were-in-human-form now addresses Ezekiel, it does so as a parent to a child: Ben adam [child of the Human One], stand up on your feet and I will speak with you. As a chip off the old Block, this offspring of the HUMAN will henceforth not be addressed by his given name, but only as the child of the Enthroned One. In the moment that one faces the Glory of God, the Offspring of the Human is born. To see God as Human is to begin to become what one sees, for our image of God creates us. What is born is a person able to face and to carry this numinous power. The Human Being is thus related somehow to the divine image or imago dei as an aspect of the Self archetype. It bears within us all that has been potential from the beginning, but that has not yet come to conscious awareness and accessibility. By addressing the prophet as offspring of the Human One, God

indicates that humanizing humanity is one of Gods central concerns. What Ezekiel saw was the human face of God. God as humanity needs to know God in order to become what God calls us to be. We become what our desire beholds. So the mystic is the one who chooses to seek the God who freely offers us the gift of our own humanity, not as something to be attained, but as a pure revelation. God is, as it were, a mirror in which we find reflected our own heavenly, that is, our potential, face.
1.Those wishing to pursue this theme may turn to my larger study, The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man, (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2001). 2. Authors translation. This essay is excerpted and edited from The Son of Man: The Stone that Builders Rejected by Walter Wink in The Once and Future Jesus, by Robert W Funk, copyright 2000 by Polebridge Press, pp.165 -169. Used . with permission of Polebridge Press. Walter Wink was, before retirement, a Professor of Biblical Literature at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City for nearly 30 years. Author of over a dozen books, he is best known for his trilogy on the principalities and powers that can grip human society and his interpretation of Jesus teachings on non-violence. His latest book is The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2001).
RADICAL GRACE 11

12

January - February - March 2008

SEEING AND BEING SEEN

By Sarah Fust

his collage is like a dream for me, a quilt of symbols and colors that arose from my subconscious, holding meanings that reveal themselves slowly. It came together during a day of silence at the end of the 9-day internship here at the CAC, after several days in Jurez, Mexico. THE BLACK AND WHITE ADDAMS FAMILY: This symbol represents the parts of my life that look on passively, that dont see, the parts that are happy in their black and white, controlled reality.This part of me wanted to go home when I saw a mouse darting along the wall in my bedroom, when I felt a January-cold draft blowing in through a wide crack along the frame of the kitchen window. It didnt want to believe that Elodia was leaving her home at 9:00 pm to sell homemade burritos for $1 apiece after a long day of caring for her kids and grandkids, nor did it want to see the soccer-playing German Shepherd snacking on a dirty diaper in the courtyard of her cement-block house. THE GERBERA DAISIES POKING COLOR INTO A GREY EXISTENCE: These were the moments when love and life appeared, undaunted by my desire to push the discomfort away. An old woman with dark bangs tied back in a barrette, letting go of her four-footed cane, swaying and clapping while singing, El amor de Dios es maravilloso, el amor. . . .The grinning little second-grader in a navy blue sweat suit with her tiny silver front teeth grabbing my hand and pulling me into my spot for kickball. Sunlight catching the green and brown shards of glass pressed into the top edges of the courtyard walls and causing them to shimmer with light. THE EYES HALF IN THE LIGHT AND HALF IN THE SHADOWS: This picture speaks to me of giving and receiving. I saw and gave effortlessly, introducing myself to a child, pulling threads with the women to create a tablecloth fringe, jumping in and playing musical chairs with gusto. But being seen and receiving came with much more difficulty. Thank you so much for coming, the oldest woman began, her tiny face deeply creased with wrinkles. Why do I want to reject her gratitude? Thank you for eating our food, filling our little homes with your bodies, using our only plumbed toilet? One by one they touched us, hugged us. The chubby-faced woman with dark skin and gold teeth grabbed a hold of my arms and wished me children within a year. Over thirty women filed by and blessed us. I felt my face moisten. This is what was always true. We have always been unworthy, yet we have always been deeply loved. THE MYSTERY OF CONSCIOUSNESS: We saw the fence in El Paso, between Mexico and the United States, a short, white barrier with motion detectors and SUV border patrols stretching out into the desert. Beyond the stark social justice issues that we grappled with on this journey, what a symbol this is for my inner reality. I try to split into being good, or being a failure, and I see that neither and both are true. The fence is really just sticks in the sand. I am both light and darkness, color and black and white; I want to be seen and I want to hide; I am absolutely determined to remember this but I also want to forget.Yet when the consciousness breaks in, the bigger sense of all of me being loved simply and wonderfully by a Great Lover, it is a grace, a shimmering moment. NO SIMPLE SOLUTIONS: Perhaps the greatest wisdom that came to me during and since the experience of this 9-day internship was that I can say I dont fully knowI dont know how this will change my life; I dont know how to put words to the experience; I dont know all the reasons for my going to Jurez; I dont know why I cried so much. Yet I can also say that I know a littleI know that this is changing my life, the way I choose to shop, the mindfulness with which I eat, the way I pray; I know that pieces of this experience cracked through my mind and are slowly kneading my soul; I know that Jurez brought to life a thousand distant stories and left me somewhat raw and awake; I know that my sobs one night came partly from my deep sense of connectedness to these women living so courageously and so acceptingly, and partly from the gnawing question: Are my hands clean? This collage seems to be an honest picture of my inner lifean invitation to see who I really am, and then to allow myself to be seen by the loving God who is transforming me.
Sarah Fust is a work intern at the Center for Action and Contemplation.

RADICAL GRACE 13

OUR DISPOSITION IN LIFE

By Fr. Michael Demkovich, OP

iven the relationship that exists between the ground of the soul and its divine source, we are transformed in such a way as to transform our world. This means that there needs to be a moral or ethical dimension to life. Meister Eckharts spirituality maintains a balance between the inner ground and, at the same time, how we relate to the world in which we live, without becoming lost in that world. This balance conveys a unity or non-duality in Eckharts spirituality, his sense of life. He presents this in the themes of unattachedness and ownerlessness in developing ones disposition in life.
UNATTACHEDNESS

The term gelzenheit with its root form lzen, as well as the similar term abegescheidenheit, describes a central attitude, or moral disposition, in Eckharts mysticism. Eckharts intention in using gelzenheit and abegescheidenheit is confounded by such will-filled terms as surrender, disinterest, self-abandonment, renunciation, and detachment. It is instead best to understand these two terms in light of their fundamental openness to the divine will, comprehended in the highest part of the soul. Reiner Schrman captures the truest sense of these terms when he states: It [gelzenheit] designates the attitude of a human who no longer regards objects and events according to their usefulness, but who accepts them in their autonomy.1
OWNERLESSNESS

For Eckhart, any selfishness or any possesc siveness is an obstacle to a pure spirit (ledic e gemete). At the same time there is a positive y dimension which recognizes the particularity, or uniqueness of every person, even the persons of the Godhead. What is a particular characteristic of Godly nature in us is action without possessiveness. What is seen as peculiar to Godly nature in God and in the individual human person is this living without a why, that is, without possessiveness, yet secure in ones true possession, God. Our true disposition in this life brings us to a simple unity of two, human and divine, that remains distinct yet one. Being unattached and ownerless allows us to be and not to be, to find our true self not outside of God but in God.
US edition, Liguori Publications

JANUARY - FEBRUARY - MARCH 2008

Canadian edition, published by Nova lis

1. Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philosopher, Reiner Schrman, trans. and comm. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), p.16. A version of this is found in Introducing Meister Eckart by Michael Demkovich, OP, (Novalis; Saint Paul University, Ottowa, copyright 2005) by Michael Demkovich and U.S. edition by Liguori Publications; Liguori, MO, copyright 2006 by Michael Demkovich, pp. 165 166. Fr. Michael Demkovich, OP, is a member of the Dominican Order of the Province of St. Albert the Great. His works include The Quest for the Self in Work: Connections between Spirit and Career and Introducing Meister Eckhart. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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Separate yourself from all twoness. Be one on one, one with one, one from one.
Meister Eckhart

NON-DUALISM AS A PRACTICE FOR SPIRITUAL PROGRESSIVES

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

16

JANUARY - FEBRUARY - MARCH 2008

he terrible misappropriation of religious and spiritual traditions in the contemporary world to support violence and hurtfulness towards others is not without its foundations in our own traditions. The splitting in our consciousness between the good parts of ourselves that we can accept and the evil or hurtful or distorted parts of ourselves that we tend to deny and repress into unconsciousness, the projection of our dark side onto some evil other, has shaped the socalled war on terrorism, so that our own collective national violence, both institutional and military, is ignored, while the violence of others is defined as their central and defining characteristic. This dynamic has distorted every form of nationalism, and every form of religion, though it is characteristic of secular enterprises as well. Anyone who has spent time in academia, or professional organizations, or mainstream American politics watches these same projections onto those who hold different theories or approaches. Demonization of the other is often the prerequisite for ones own psychic survival (and indeed, ones employment). The war in Iraq, its possible extension to Iran, and the huge efforts in the West to demonize all Muslims is a testimony to how well secularists can repeat and even intensify the distortions of religious communities. The huge attack on religion today from the likes of atheists Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and others is merely the secular version of this same dynamic, which has long played a role in the lives of religious traditionsin this case demonizing the religious. Jews watched with dismay when the current Pope revived permission to use the version of the Good Friday Mass which specifically calls for the conversion of the Jews. Why the Jews, we ask, and not the Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, atheists, etc. etc. etc? But of course we know the answerthe long history of Catholic demonization of the Jews, the attempt by the earliest Christians to downplay Jesus Jewishness and to form a separate religion (which

YHVH

in their mind required putting down the religion of the Jewish people)and the particular need to see Judaism as a religion that had been superceded and the Jews as stuck in illusion for not following Jesus. As a Jew I watch with horror as the State of Israel engages in similar demonization of the Palestinian people in particular, and of Arabs and Muslims more generally. Israel is following (or sometimes leading) the West in its inability to see the beauty and wisdom of Islam and the unjustifiable suffering of the Palestinian people living in exile or under the Occupation. Ive found that overcoming this tendency towards inner splitting, projection onto others of what one dislikes in oneself, and subsequent demonization is extremely difficult to heal. In the decades before I became a rabbi, when I worked primarily as a psychotherapist, it often took years of work with an individual client to make much progresss on this dynamic. Trying to heal it as a mass phenomenon is even more complex and takes even longer. I started by imagining I could contribute to this healing by working for a renewal of what was best in Judaism.The Jewish Renewal movement I helped build sought to return to the original spiritual aliveness of Judaism in order to overcome the spiritually deadly, boring, materialistic and chauvinistic versions of Judaism that had emerged in the postHolocaust era and had succeeded in driving away from the Jewish world our most spiritually sensitive young people. Following the wisdom and insights of my teacher and mentor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and my guide in renewing Judaism, Hasidic master and rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi, I helped build a Jewish renewal community in San Francisco and Berkeley that would reclaim the spiritual life blood that had made it possible for Jews to survive 1700 years of Christian abuse and stay loyal to their own tradition when it would have been far safer to convert to the Christianity that ran the world around us. In my synagogue I taught not only about the wisdom of

Judaism, but also the wisdom of Jesus, insisting that his teachings often extended and deepened some of the elements of our own tradition, and I sought to draw also from the wisdom of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, womens spirituality, and Native peoples around the world. We in the Jewish Renewal movement recognized that part of the task was to challenge and in places change the traditional Jewish liturgy. The places where it read that God chose us from all other nations were rewritten to say that God chose us WITH all other nations. In my book Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation I show that the need of Jews to assert chosenness was a response to the demonization experienced in the larger world, and was actually survival-functional when Jews were relatively powerless. Today, however, this chosenness functions in a distorting way when Jews are exercising power over others as in the State of Israel. Ironically, the very prayer (Aleynu) which starts with this kind of chauvinism then goes on to the deepest truth when it asserts: and you shall know this day, and think about it in your heart, that the transformative power of the universe (YHVH) is also the shaping power of the universe (Elohim); in the heavens above, and on the earth beneath, there is nothing else. Nothing else? The Kabbalists and other mystics picked up on this fundamental nondualistic vision. As one Kabbalist put it, God forbid you should say of the rock that it is only rock, when we know that there is nothing that is not God.

up against the oppression of Palestinians and have our movement take unequivocal stands in favor of Palestinian rights. They would not even do so to identify with Tikkun magazine, which had been doing that by creating what we called a progressive middle path which recognized that both sides have a legitimate narrative, and both sides need to do public repentance and atonement for having inflicted pain and cruelty on the other. While the end of overt anti-Semitism by Christians in the postHolocaust world had made it easier for Jews to welcome Christians into their families and into Jewish Renewal synagogues, the ongoing struggle in the Middle East provided a new location for this deep tendency in human beings to split the good and evil in themselves and project the evil part onto others. We could no longer see our own culpability as Jews, but only the horror of Palestinian violence. As Jews celebrate the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel this May, 2008, few will give focus to the other side of that event, the Nakba or Tragedy that was caused by Israeli expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, and the refusal of the Israeli state to allow back into their homes hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had fled to avoid the growing violence. The resulting 60 years of suffering by the Palestinian people will be absent from the consciousness of most of the Jewish community. Sadly, this is true of the bulk of the Jewish Renewal world as well.The power of splitting, projection and demonization has not been sufficiently overcome

God forbid you should say of the rock that it is only rock, when we know that there is nothing that is not God.
Jewish mystics could quickly affirm God as everywhere, and find Biblical validation: Holy, holy, holy, the transformative power in its multiple manifestations, the whole earth is filled with God (Isaiah 6:3). Jewish Renewal quickly grew as it became clear that non-Jews were as welcome as Jews in our community, that there was none of that negativity toward the other that one found in traditional and suburban synagogues. Imagine my surprise and dismay, then, when I found that many rabbis and activists of this, our own Jewish Renewal movement, were unwilling to stand by a theology of oneness and non-dualism. This is one of the reasons why Ive joined with Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister and Professor of Divinity and African American Studies Cornel West to form the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP), an international organization of people who not only are committed to a non-dualistic vision theologically, but who want to work together to transform our political and economic realities. Our central mission is to popularize the notion of a New Bottom Line, so that institutions, social pracpage 21 tices, legislation, corporations, economic

RADICAL GRACE 17

TOWARD NON-DUALISTIC THINKING

BRAIN HARMONY:

By Nancy K. Morrison, MD with Sally K. Severino, MD

n September 1968 I (Nancy) began medical school. Like most medical students, gross anatomy loomed as the most daunting class, a rite of passage to becoming a physician. However, neuroanatomy turned out to be even more challenging. The human brain is so complex that medical schools set up a separate neuroanatomy course with faculty who specialize only in the brain. That first day of neuroanatomy class, six of us sat at a rectangular table and in the middle of that table in a basin lay a human brain, wrinkled, pink and

three and a half pounds of cells and their links to one another. Nothing of this person could be told from this now lifeless organ. I could not know if this was a happy or tragic life, a man or a woman, a simple or complex person. All I knew of this individual was the generous act he or she made in donating this brain to help me become a physician. Forty years later I remain intrigued and, as a psychiatrist, with my colleague Dr. Sally Severino, we continue our study. Great technological advances made during the 1990s (the decade of the brain) provide us a greater understanding of how the

Contemplative prayer provides the opportunity for our two brains to communicate and harmonize.
covered with a thin transparent covering. Because I was the only woman, the guys delighted in taunting me to be the first to pick it up. And perhaps to prove myself, I did. Being at the far end of the table, I had to stand to pick it up. Its weight stunned me. Imagine picking up a volleyball that weighs three and a half pounds. The numerous folds of the brain are natures way of packing millions of cells with their billions of connections into a highly dense organ that will fit inside your skull. During that first class we learned the areas of the brain we could see by looking from the outside of it. We devoted only one day to the gross anatomy of the brain. We spent the next five months learning the complex connections inside. After class, I returned alone to our table. I picked up the brain again, this time not to study the structures but to contemplate the wonder. Here in my hands rested the organ of another human beings consciousness. During this persons life, every emotion, painful and happy, every thought, simple and complex, every memory, essential and mundane, every movement, graceful and clumsy, emerged from here. All of human life is orchestrated from these physical structures give rise to the mind and how it keeps the body functioning. When we were first-year medical students looking down on top of the brain, we clearly saw two seemingly identical halves. Approximately equal in size, the two hemispheres work at all times to keep the body functioning, processing input from outside and inside the body. Then, we referred to them as the left and right hemispheres of one brain. Now we understand them as two brains, each with some similarities to the other, but each brain functioning differently. We are, in our most basic anatomy, dualistic. The left brain controls movement on the right side of the body and takes in information from the right side of the world. The left brain contains the centers for language and mathematics. Since most of us are right handed and because scientists value language and mathematics, we dubbed the left brain the dominant one. However, as we go about the business of living, the right brain is often dominant. Strange as it may seem, the right brain literally cannot speak for itself because it does not have language. Working faster

18

JANUARY - FEBRUARY - MARCH 2008

than the left, the right brain deals in emotions and images, giving rise to our intuition. The right brain alerts us to danger and change. In a moment of fear the right brain will trump the leisurely thought and equations of the left brain every time. And our right brain is largely devoted to understanding and reacting to human relationships. It resonates with and reads all the nonverbal commu communicae tions from people around us. Our relationships are put into feelings before being put ing ut t into words. We know the feel of feel e another person before we know e know n their name. When you gently pull the two the he hemispheres apart, you see the see the small band of nerves connecting onnecting nnec n them, the corpus callosum, which um, which m, m h literally means hard body. The ody. The . band is also called the commiscommismmis mm m sural magna, the great joinreat joinoi ing together. While this small small e a al band is the largest single bundle ngle e of nerves in the entire body, it is e all that allows the two brains to wo communicate and potentially to otentially bring themselves into harmony. o Now knowing so much more of how differently these two brains operate, we wonder how the lightning-fast right brain, with no language as we know it, can talk to the slow, lumbering, conscious-thinking left. Some of our conscious thoughts are irrational because the two brains dont have time to communicate. Much of our brain-work is never conscious. How our two brains coordinate and harmonize into our complex and wonderful ways of knowing is a great mystery. In our modern, fast paced world, we esteem shortcuts of thought and unconsciously settle for simplistic compromises. In multitasking, no task receives in-depth attention. Our two brains must come to a compromise about information coming from both in too short a time. This process is called stress. And stress, in a small or a large degree, is really fear. When we lived as roaming nomads, probably only a few thousand years ago (or with native peoples only decades ago) fear played a life-saving function. The sound of a rattle shot fear into the right brain which informed the body to stop still. The thinking left brain took that fraction of a second to register

snake and the next second to carefully locate the snake. Then a few more seconds to think clearly: do I run, kill it, or stay frozen until it moves away? After this kind of adventure we work to reestablish calm. We take a great story back to the family and the community. We tell it over and over. Other snake stories are told. Gourds making rattling sounds become a part of our rituals. The snake and our life with snakes become both practical and symbolic. The format Th The formation of the symbol lets us know that the right brain ts us s has been he been bee heard and that the two e brains have been harmonized. have s ha In earlier times this is how we I earlier arli i brought our right and left brains brought ou r h together. T together. These processes took us og ther. out of a st of fear, a state drivstate out u en phy io e physiologically by cortisol and hysi adrenalin. The story-telling and adrenali adrenali lin sharing through rituals created sharin sh ing n a state o connection, calm and state of t peace b between our two brains pe and am among people. This state is dom dominated physiologically by oxytocin which is the hormone oxytoci that mediates peace and love. m When we dont bring our two Whe brains into harmony, we live in the thoughts, emotions, and physiology of fear, and h the two brains must find a compromise way to understand the world, our self, and the people with whom we live. Dualistic thinking is this compromise. We must think quickly and simplistically. The emotional right brain stays too alert. The language of the left brain seeks labels: good or bad, us or them, safe or dangerous. In this state of fear the labels take on harsh and literal realities: all or nothing, do or die, right or wrong. In fear we allow no gray, no complexity. We lay down memories based in fear. We form judgments. We know a fear-based truth. When Jesus tells us that the truth will set us free, he did not mean this fear-based truth. The truth that sets us free is the truth we discover when we live in states of love, calm and peace. Jesus reflects this when he tells us the greatest commandment is to love God, self and others. To truly love, we must slow ourselves down and give our right and left brains time to communicate fully page 20 with one another. In states of calm and

RADICAL GRACE 19

BRAIN HARMONY . . .
Continued from page 19 harmony in our right and left brains, our dualistic thinking gives way to a deeper way of knowing. Our knowing becomes love-based. This way shows us unity and not divisions. We see our deep interconnectedness. We know one another as children of God in a precious world of beauty and potential nity for our two brains to communicate and harmonize. In our contemplation we recognize the fear that we have learned to ignore. We can move into an emotional and physiological state of love and see complexity, beauty and interconnectedness. And we must also pray in community. The way,

In a state of harmony and love we see the wisdom of St. Paul: there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one
peace. In the state of love and the pace of patience, a full truth can be known and told. There is truth in our fear-based moments, but only a simple truth of the moment. A truth developed in love and internal harmony is a redeemed truth that restores the fullness of our human soul. We also carry within us states of earlier unredeemed fears. Our modern fast-paced life often keeps us in fear and hence in a dualistic view of the world. We are moving at life threatening speeds. By this we mean that we threaten our ability to know a full life, full truth, because we cant bring our selves into harmony and peace. To restore our inner harmony, we can follow the gospels that tell us that Jesus took time away for prayer. Contemplative prayer provides the opportuwhich is Jesus, unfolds when two or more of us gather together. When we gather we do the ancient rituals that harmonize our two brains. We sing. We tell stories. We sit in silence together. And when it is safe, we look into one anothers eyes with love and share the sign of peace. In a state of harmony and love we see the wisdom of St. Paul: there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one In love, we are in harmony within and we are in harmony among ourselves.
Nancy K. Morrison, MD, is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Sally K. Severino, MD, is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque. For more information about thier work visit www.neurospirit.net. On June 26, 2008, they will present with Fr. Richard Rohr at a pre-conference workshop entitled Sacred Desire: Finding God and Good Within at the Hotel Albuquerque. To register, visit www.cacradicalgrace.org.

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JANUA JANUARY - FEBRUARY - MARCH 2008 JANUARY FEBRUARY M RCH 2008 NU U UA FEBRUARY MA EB BR 0

CAC

9-DAY INTERNSHIP
Through the practice of contemplative prayer f t l ti and active engagement with challenging issues and marginalized people, you can strive to become contemplative in your actions.

www.cacradicalgrace.org

Internships are $750.00 Application process is required. Internships are limited to 10 participants. Download an application form on the CAC website

2008 Dates
Spring 08 Summer 08 Fall 08 Apr 25 - May 4 Jun 13-22 (FULL) Sep 17-26

CAC Interns Winter 2008: Back Row (l to r) Brenda Grifn (California), Rob Fust (Michigan), Ken Reno (Albuquerque), Mark Harvey (Missouri) ichigan) (Alb q erq e) Har e (Misso ri) Front Row (l to r) Jeffrey Hall (California), Sarah Fust (Michigan), Vanessa Guerin (Winter Internship Facilitator).

NON-DUALISM AS A PRACTICE . . .
Continued from page 17 politics and personal behavior are all judged to be efficient, rational and productive not only to the extent that they maximize money and power (the Old Bottom Line), but also to the extent that they maximize love and kindness, generosity and caring for others, and ecological and ethical sensitivity; enhance our capacity to respond to others as embodiments of the sacred; and enhance our capacities to respond to the universe with awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur of creation. To make that practical, weve developed a Spiritual Covenant with America that lays out the kind of changes that would be needed if we were to take this New Bottom Line seriously. Starting from the non-dual assumption about reality, we in the NSP insist that our well-being as Americans depends on the equal well-being of everyone else on the planet. We are one, not just theoretically but practically. Consequently, we are urging a fundamental rethinking of foreign policy to replace the notion that our homeland security can be achieved through domination, whether that be military domination, as in the current thinking of the Bush Administration and the Lieberman wing of the Democratic Party, or through the softer domination that many liberal Democrats advocate when they talk about using diplomacy and economic power, but still share the same aim of having the U.S. get its way and have dominance over others in the world. The NSP is calling for a new paradigm that sees our security as best achieved through a strategy of generosity, in which we care for every-

one else on the planet, and do so not only because its in our interests, but because they are us, in the same way that my hand or arm is part of me. To make that practical, we are advocating for a Global Marshall Plan, to be accompanied by fundamental changes in our trade arrangements with the world, and delivered in a spirit of humility in which we abandon all thoughts that somehow the advanced industrial countries, because we have more money than the countries weve prohibited from developing, are somehow on a higher moral plane. On the contrary, a change in our foreign policy must start with a public atonement for what we in the West have done to the rest of the world, and an acknowledgment that at least some of the countries which are underdeveloped from a material standpoint are far more developed morally or spiritually than we are. I used to denounce interfaith efforts as attempts to get at the lowest common denominator, and hence spiritually and politically boring. But in the NSP Ive come to see how important it can be for Jews, Christians, Muslims and others to work together in practical ways, to take our non-dual consciousness and manifest it concretely in the world. I hope you, dear reader, will consider joining the NSP and helping us build this venture.
1. YHVH stands for the Hebrew letters YOD HAY VAV HAY. While Christians say Yahweh and may write YHWH, there are no Ws in Hebrew. Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun magazine, chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and author of 11 books, most recently: The Left Hand of God. He invites you to read the Spiritual Covenant and the Q&A about the Global Marshall Plan at www.spiritualprogressives.org and then to write to him personally at RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org.
RADICAL GRACE 21

SEEING WITH . . .
Continued from page 7
APR 3-5 HAWAII ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE Honolulu, HI Contact info@himonline.org www.himonline.org APR 12 CAC OPEN HOUSE Albuquerque, NM www.cacradicalgrace.org APR 18 THE EMERGING CHURCH Houston, TX Life Revealing Community www.lrchouston.com APR 19 THINGS HIDDEN BOOK TOUR STOP Houston, TX Life Revealing Community www.lrchouston.com APR 21 HOW DO WE BREATHE UNDER WATER? The Gospel and 12-Step Spirituality Abilene, TX McMurry University Sponsored by Abilene Association of Congregations www.cacradicalgrace.org MAY 30-JUN 1 THE ENNEAGRAM AND PARADOX Assisi, Italy www.cacradicalgrace.org JUN 2-8 SLOVAKIA MALES FINLAND (20th anniversary of the Thomas Mass) JUN 27-29 THE INNER ROOM Albuquerque, NM Together with Fr. Thomas Keating, www.cacradicalgrace.org

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system youre using.The binary mind always perceives from a sense of scarcity and keeps track of the score through comparison and contrast. If the situation looks unfair to you, this is an infallible litmus test that you are still in your binary mind. The only way you can crack this parable is to shift your perspective so that you see the glass as half full rather than half empty. When you approach the story from the perspective of fullness, you see that theres enough for everybody, that the good of everyone has been tended, and that all along it had never been a question of competition, but an invitation to participation and exchange. But that kind of seeing is only accessible within that other operating system, the non-dual knowingness of the heart.This parable does indeed offer fair warning that what Jesus is up to is hugely more subversive than Jesus is nice and he wants us to be nice too. Like any good Zen Master, he is out to completely short-circuit our mental wiring so that we are catapulted into a whole new way of seeing and being.
1. For an excellent overview of current neuroscience and its implications for spiritual transformation, I am much indebted to my brother John K. Simmons, Chairman of the Department of Religion at Western Illinois University, for sharing with me his paper Neurotheology and Spiritual Transformation: Clues in the Work of Joel Goldsmith. The binary operator was first identified by neurologists Andrew Newberg and Eugene DAquili as one of the two important cognitive operators within the brain. Its role is to organize complex incoming stimuli into basic polar opposites. Their research entered the general public conversation as the cover story in the May 2001 issue of Newsweek magazine, called God and the Brain: How Were Wired for Spirituality. 2. This is Thomas Keatings preferred interpretation in his many teachings on Centering Prayer and the spiritual journey. 3. For this insight, I am indebted to Marcus Borg, who first offered it in conversation during a retreat we shared in Portland, Oregon, in January 2002. He develops it further in his book The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), p. 180.

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JANUARY - FEBRUARY - MARCH 2008

Seeing with the Eye of the Heart is excerpted and edited from Chapter 3, The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You, in The Wisdom Jesus by Cynthia Bourgeault (forthcoming from New Seeds, an imprint of Shambhala Publications, August 2008, copyright by Cynthia Bourgeault). The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault is a retreat and conference leader, teacher of prayer, writer on the spiritual life, and Episcopal priest. Some of her books include Mystical Hope,The Wisdom Way of Knowing, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening.

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The Four Noble Truths are the distilled essence of Buddhist teaching. In these talks, each is introduced and explored, with emphasis given to the presence of these truths at the heart of Jesus call to awaken to Gods presence in every detail of our lives.
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I came home feeling like I had received a spiritual booster shot of profound magnitude. It was a life changing experience for me. I knew that I had to go and boy, was I right. It was transformational. We dont look at our life and our interactions with others the same way now. The teachings of Richard Rohr and James Finley were like a sacred dance. Buddha and Jesus came together at the Still Point.

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INCLUDED IN THIS SET: Receive and Reect: Practicing Awareness, which contains a teaching by Fr. Richard on contemplation, including practical contemplative exercises.
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Immerse yourself in the daily practice of prayer and meditation under the guidance of Fr. Richard Rohr and Fr. Thomas Keating. This conference was created to demonstrate to those in 12-Step spirituality ways to embrace the invitation of the 11th step to improve our conscious contact with God, and will oer a wonderful opportunity for all of us to deepen our contemplative practices and to form communities to support these practices.

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Sacred Desire urges us to connect with God and to manifest the image of God within us through loving others, ourselves, and God. Despite centuries of debate about the relation of body and spirit, science is now conrming what people of faith have long known and has opened the door to seeing human Desire as incarnate in our bodies.

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