We will meet again to talk and sit quietly together on Aug 5, Wednesday, 5:30 at the Quilt Museum.

Last week we discussed how ethics and action are always situational — dependent on the relational context we’re in at any given moment. Mindfulness helps us see that context clearly, so we can choose actions that don’t harm others or ourselves. The Buddha taught that this is our best chance for happiness.

This week we’ll go deeper into another element crucial to choosing the “right action”: intention. The Buddha taught that intention is the primary factor shaping our actions, so gaining clarity about our intentions matters just as much for our happiness. But intentions can be complex, mixed, and hard to see clearly — which brings to mind the old saying, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Let’s look more closely at intentions on Wednesday night. 

We will meet this Wednesday, July 29, 5:30 at the Quilt Museum.

We are continuing to discuss the fifth remembrance regarding actions: 

“My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My action is the ground on which I stand.”

This statement about action is referring to the law of karma. In our modern world, we tend to think of karma as a metaphysical force that rewards and punishes us for our good and bad deeds (couldn’t resist the John Lennon shout out). But karma is a Sanskrit word that translates as “action.”  Simply, it means we live in a “lawful” universe of cause and effect. Actions have consequences.  Pretty uncontroversial.

With a mind that is stable enough, present enough in each moment, we can start to see this more clearly. When I do or say this, the result is that. We don’t know where the karma of even our smallest actions will end, or what the results will be as they unfold in the world.  But with mindfulness, reflective awareness, we can often see enough of the immediate effect to discern whether something is wholesome or unwholesome, whether it leads to suffering or freedom from suffering.

And that’s not all. With our actions, we not only affect the world around us, we create ourselves. Joanna Macy said: “Action is not something you do, it’s something you are. In other words, you are not a noun, you are a verb.” 

So everything matters. 

This may seem overwhelming, especially in a complex world, seemingly on tilt, where we are being conditioned to feel helpless. But it does not have to be so.  Let’s discuss this more Wednesday evening. 

I am celebrating the gift of spiritual friends this week.