Month: July 2026

There is no easy way to describe what connection means to me. Perhaps it is enough to say that I know what I experience, but then it gets difficult to find words that describe that experience.

I know that when I was walking in the small woods surrounding my cabin, I felt a deep connection with the trees and the ground. The memory of that experience is fresh in my awareness today. I remember what it meant to stand on my front small deck and feel the presence of trees in front of me. I also remember the wet shoreline by the lake, feeling its wetness even though I never bent over to touch it.

I know what it feels like each morning to stand before a burning canadle and swirling incense. The sound of my singing bowl travels all through my body and I can feel it all around me. I move my body in familiar patterned gestures, and the experience fills my entire skin. I often ignore my sensations and feel a connection with the whole universe, even though I am sitting still on my bed. It helps when I am not impeded by clothing and my body is free to reach out to feel where I am and what is happening.

I know what it feels like to be connected with a friend when they walk towards me or sit at my table. I feel the connection in every hug, no matter who they are. I look around the circle of friends who come together in my Sangha. I feel connected to each of them, but in different and specific ways.

None of this experience of connection has happened in a flash. It has not happened without clearing my mind through repeated acts of concentration. My sense of touch plays a frequent role in my experience of connection. I touch trees, I touch my desk, I touch friends. Sometimes I let go of my senses and that allows me to exprience what it means to be connected to all that I cannot see or touch.

To anyone who might want to know what I mean by connection, there is no easy answer. I only can offer that they enter into my experience. I offer that they use their senses to initially be connected and then let go of that sensation to be deeply connected. Being connected in this way gets easier with practice. With practice, the experience of connection comes easier. For me, the experience of connection lingers and stays me the more I let it take hold of me.

It is something of a paradox. The more I let go, the deeper I experience connection.

I do not think there is a reliabe recipe for life, for living, for loving. With that in mind I step into each day, aware that there is no set path to follow. There is only the path that I can see beneath me and that I left behind. I am not following a path, I am forming my path with every decision and every action I take.

I have let go and am falling into an awareness that there is no recipe to life and to how to love. This is the wisdom of having lived and stumbled through many decades. I have for times allowed myself to follow custom and the recipe that my culture has offered me as a guide. I have been a follower of the patterns of religion and found that the reliable recipe was inside me and not in what I was taught or told.

Some recipes offered by my culture have served as loose predictions of consequences. I have been given a map that showed where my decisions and actions might lead. But my rewarding experiences of life have arisen when I strayed from the directions handed to me. The consequences have not always been positive, but I have learned how to step into the moment without the clutter of should and shouldn’t. I have actually gotten a much more clear view of the past, present and future when I have ignored what I have been told and instead relied on my own awareness.

I am aware that I have little asssurance of the outcome if I ignore the many recipes offered to me. My life has no predicable outcome, my actions do not lead to guaranteed results. But I know that the more I keep an open mind and open heart, the more I am going to enjoy my daily journey. I think I will enjoy the outcomes no matter how much I ignore recipes. There is joy for me when I wander off the path, at least for awhile. I feel more agile.

I may plan and structure my days, but I allow myself to wander inside and outside those structures and plans.

Rigidity has typically been a part of my life, but not always a welcome part. The rigors and structure of rigidity have been a source of stability, predictably and comfort. For me, rigidity has also been a barrier to creativity, contemplation and community. Now I am realizing more than ever how rigidity blocks my in-depth relationship with the world . I am now seeing clearly how religious rigidity in particular has been a problem for me. Religious rigidity in some of my sangha members is now rising as a threat I am increasingly aware of. And I resist.

That I am resisting religious rigidity is nothing new to me. It has been part of the dynamic that resulted in my leaving the community of Franciscans that I had been part of for a dozen years. I attempted to break away from the rigidity of the monastic life and the catholic church, but it has been a gradual process. Only recently have I learned what it feels like to let go and enter a realm of unstructured perception.

My life obviously has a lot of structure in it, but I am embracing the unstructured more and more. Someone described my garden as “controlled chaos” and that description is becoming a characteristic of my life and my thinking. I am making strides in abandoning rigidity. I am becoming more comfortable with the formless and unplanned realm of existence. I am growing more resistant and uncomfortable when I am surrounded by rigid behavior, especially any signs of rigid religiosity. I have learned to recognize it, almost instinctively.

Like many others, I have taken comfort in rigidity. It has given me a feeling of security and helped me to feel in control. I now am aware that this is due in part because I am white and see myself as white. Rigidity is a huge part of white behavior. White people have traditionally taken comfot in religous culture that offered rigid, predictable, controlling structure. For me, that seems like the tyranny of being white. This religious tyranny creeps into my sangha, and I want nothing of it.

A highly organized and predictable structure is not what I want. Nor is it something many young people are looking for today. Certainly I want structure in my life. I welcome control of the unformed chaos. But I want plenty of room to welcome the chaos. I want the rigidity to be only what is absolutely needed. I want to experience the darkness of each endless fall. I want to learn to let go in how I think, how I feel and how I behave. I want rigidity to be by my side but not in front of me.

this is a test

This is a new test to see if my blog is publishing

For me, my sangha is a gathering of like minded people who care for one another . There are other reasons for coming together, but I think the main purpose for the gathering is to dwell in one anothers presence. We come together primarily to bear one another’s burdens and share one another’s joy. By sharing individual experiences we engage in a common experience.

I realize that some come to the gathering for learning about buddhism. Some come for devotion, to go through the motions taught in retreats or books. These doctrines and devotions have value, but for me they are secondary. They can be part of a gathering, but my main purpose is to experience the presence of all those who show up.

Watching from a distance on zoom has some benefit for those who watch. I see little benefit for those gathered in the circle. For me to experience the presence of the members of the sangha, I want to be able to see, touch and hear them. This means that we need to be in the same room. Seeing people on a screen or hearing their transmitted voices is not much of an experience for me.

My main purpose for gathering with the members of my sangha is to share our deep awareness of one another and experience one anothers presence.