Repurposing your life
Recycling a life is not new for a lot of people who have experienced war, tragedy, and near death. Here in New Orleans, I keep meeting people who are losing their hair and I wonder to myself if hair is not a casualty of the 2005 Federal Flood. The stress of Katrina is something we all felt we have been handling, but maybe we weren’t.
For me this journey through tragedy has reaped more and more incidents of disconnect and awakening. I became disconnected from the mercantile pursuit of corporate wealth. I am disconnected from those who believe we are simply rational beings with no magical or mystical component in our nature.
The Dalai Lama is in town, and if you haven’t been paying attention, he is a prophet of peace. He has been in exile from his home for decades and he has avowed one concept – his religion is loving kindness. I’ve watched my Facebook feed come alive with those who dismiss the Dalai Lama as a mere religious leader they feel no part of because they are anti-religion and therefore anti its leaders. So Mother Theresa – so what if you dedicated your life to feeding the poor children of the world – the fact that you were connected with the Catholic church makes you dismissible. And Dalai Lama, you are merely the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama and are believed to be the manifestation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion – but your religion is loving kindness and that is dismissible?
I lived next door to a nun, who became a nun on the bus, she traveled around to depict the horror of what would happen to the poor children if the Republicans elected Mitt Romney and passed the budget plan they were seeking. I’ve been to the Zen center to find others who are also seeking stillness in a world gone mad. I’ve listened to spiritual leaders like Ram Dass, the Dalai Lama, and Bob Marley preach about one love. I’ve repurposed my life away from the rat race of getting and spending, and found my life.
But as Zen will tell you, you don’t have to go anywhere to find yourself, you’re already there.
Yesterday, I snuck quickly to the Convention Center to get a glimpse of the Drepung Loseling monks creating a sand mandala in honor of the Dalai Lama here visiting.
The lamas begin the work by drawing an outline of the mandala on the wooden platform. The following days see the laying of the colored sands, by pouring the sand from traditional metal funnels called chak-purs. Each monk holds a chak-pur in one hand, while running a metal rod on its grated surface; the vibration causes the sands to flow like liquid. From all the artistic traditions of Tantric Buddhism, that of painting with colored sand ranks as one of the most unique and exquisite. Formed of a traditional prescribed iconography that includes geometric shapes and a multitude of ancient spiritual symbols, the sand-painted mandala is used as a tool for re-consecrating the earth and its inhabitants.
I purchased prayer beads to wear on my wrist and bought some for my friends I will be seeing in Nantucket. Some call these beads the Buddhist rosary. I have hung my prayer flags outside my door in a tree. I do believe in the mystical and magical nature of life and I am grateful for anyone whose purpose in life is to heal. New Orleans needs healing. I need healing.
Today the monks will take the sand from the beautiful work of art they have created and bring it bit by bit to the Mississippi River in a similar fashion as the Jews take bread to the water and throw it in during Rosh Hashana, similar to how some bury their dead and throw dirt into the grave and say ashes to ashes, in many ways like the Jews throw a rock into the grave to represent the same sentiment.
The Dalai Lama said:
We are visitors on this planet. We are here for one hundred years at the very most. During that period we must try to do something good, something useful, with our lives. if you contribute to other people’s happiness, you will find the true meaning of life.
You don’t have to wait for death to be reincarnated.