Mary Midgley over at the Guardian suggests that we quit seeing ourselves as God, thereby reversing the trends that accompany this mindset:

If we ask, then, what religious change is most urgently needed today, the best answer surely is that we should debunk and explode this anthropolatrous superstition. We do not need it. Its bad practical effects are clear, not only in the mass of silly climate change denial which infests the internet but, more subtly, in the extreme slowness with which peoples and governments still respond to obvious dangers. But it is also bad in itself, psychologically and spiritually. It is bad religion. Self-worship is an appalling habit, which vitiates the deep understanding of human life that serious humanism calls for.

Not to take anything away from Mary’s points, I would still add that simply seeing everything as God-in-action might serve the same purpose. Recognizing the One in the Many leaves little room for superstition and its concomitant folly as long as the practitioner has an opportunity to test this insight in an environment where it can be unpacked with a good dose of wisdom and care.

Digital Dharma offers suggestions on how we can maintain a meditative awareness during our driving experiences.

Remember to keep your eyes open.

I must admit that I was surprised when I saw this story glide across my computer screen this morning. Certainly there were individuals of the cloth that might have been picked that could have reflected a deeper sense of post-fundamentalist spirituality than Rick Warren. Wouldn’t another choice allow for an introduction into a more integral approach to faith? Or am I putting too many expectations on Obama?

Michael Tomasky, over at the UK’s Guardian says:

Some folks on the left are, in my view, suspicious types, always on the lookout for signs of apostasy and ready to scream “Sellout!” the minute Obama (or any mainstream liberal pol) does some small thing they don’t like.

I agree with this. Then again, such is the nature of attachment. What’s most interesting is that I wonder how picking Warren really helps America evolve.

… Warren’s endorsement by Obama, which this very high-profile invitation in essence is, really is a slap in the face to some of his core constituencies, as Sarah Posner argues in this fine Nation piece.

The Huffington Post’s Steven Waldman sums up his defense of Obama’s pick of Rick Warren by saying:

For Obama, picking Warren for the inauguration is a smart move. George W. Bush chose Franklin Graham, a hard-right evangelical to do his prayer. Instead of retaliating by choosing a liberal preacher, Obama opted for spiritual bipartisanship. The move helps to depoliticize prayer — which, of course, is very politically shrewd.

Politically shrewd? I don’t really see how picking Warren is politically shrewd except in the most superficial ways.

Deepak suggests that George keeps “Throwing Shoes at Us”:

Mr. Bush continues to throw shoes at us. His “So what?” attitude toward the disaster he created is the first shoe, the second is his blind assertion that the war in Iraq is close to victory. Informed Middle East experts, the very sort he ignored at the outset of his military adventures, point to a fragile peace that could be shattered at any moment.

Fair enough. I agree. But isn’t there a deeper nuance that leads us to what we might call an “appropriate response?”

A shoe for a shoe and the whole world gets calluses.

Sir Paul has made his attachments known:

McCartney wrote to The Dalai Lama to highlight that meat eaters create suffering for animals, and that this fact contradicted a basic tenant of Buddhism that its followers should “not cause suffering to any sentient beings”.

And then:

When the Dalai Lama explained that he had been told by doctors to eat meat for health reasons, this wasn’t enough for the passionate superstar.

Just wondering if he has ever taken antibiotics, or is that wrong too?

(Bows, DigitalDharma)

In this 200th podcast of InfiniteSmile.org (Wow!), Michael discusses how our willingness to not get anything, even as we give, shows us the Path to Awakening.
Click here to listen.

In a letter to God, guardian.co.uk‘s Mark Vernon wants to uncover the depth of true Silence. The kind that Thomas Aquinas uncovered on 6th December 1273 when he uttered his final “Ite missa est” (the mass is ended) and then left the altar for good.

He [Aquinas] told his friend Reginald that he would not write another word. Moreover, all the words that he had written up to that point, now seemed like as much straw to him.You know what he meant. We can’t quite be sure. However, my best guess is this. Straw was a metaphor for “basic stuff”

Perhaps it is from this silence, about which Mr. Vernon asks, that the Infinite “speaks” to us most profoundly; where we are no longer concerned with being good Christians, or Buddhists, but instead become actual Christs and actual Buddhas.

Maybe Ludwig von Wittgenstein sums it up best:

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Simply shutting up while being still offers us this most simple, and yet most profound of insights. But it takes practice. Realization of the Eternal shows us what is immediately and always prior to the flow of time, but glimpsing this isn’t an endpoint. It’s a beginning. At each and every moment.

I woke this morning to read David Brooks, once again, making a point about Buddhist attentiveness. Today he takes on the thesis of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers:

‘Great people aren’t so great. Their own greatness is not the salient fact about them. It’s the kind of fortunate mix of opportunities they’ve been given.’ – Malcolm Gladwell

Brooks goes after him a bit here, adding:

Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power to rewire their brains.

While I agree with both Gladwell’s not-so-controversial point that chaos has an important role in all of this, and with Brooks’ assertion that rewiring the brain is helpful in allowing us to respond appropriately to life, we need to recognize that both are critical steps in the process. And yet, neither point alone gets us fully into the open field of an Awakening. Combining the impersonal nature of interdependance with deep personal intentionality, on the other hand, gets the soil ready for the bloom of Enlightenment.