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Oct, 2012
October Newsletter — Oct 24, 2012
“There is this wave of gratefulness developing … a new way of being mindful. It is an interactive form of mindfulness. There is a hunger for mindfulness that expresses itself interactively! This gives me great hope,” Br. David Steindl-Rast exclaimed to the audience in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 15th, speaking with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Father Thomas Keating, and moderator Liz Walker. The Boston Globe report of the event observes that “there are human truths that run deeper than differing religious ideologies”:
www.gratefulness.org/a/inthenews/index.htm
Gratefulness as "mindfulness that expresses itself interactively"! We were all stunned by this thought, not as something new but rather as something plainly before our eyes that we had never articulated before. It comes through powerfully in Jacques Verduin’s tale of the GRIP program at San Quentin, in which people commit to a program of facing their challenges together as if their lives depended on it…because they do! All of us can benefit from the principle of going in, through, and out of suffering so that we can become true servants to those around us:
www.gratefulness.org/readings/leaving_prison.htm
In this framework of “interactive mindfulness,” Br. David spoke about the evil in the world as life denying, the “not yet good.” “We can look at it with the eyes of a mother,” he told the audience in Boston, “how a mother looks and with her eyes says, ‘you can do better!’ This creates a space into which the world can go. It’s different than opposing. It’s really love that brings people alive. This is the window.”
In this spirit of trust that we can build a better world, we continue to light candles for Malala Yousafzai, recovering from being shot for her courageous advocacy of education for girls in Pakistan’s Swat Valley:
www.gratefulness.org/candles/enter.cfm?l=eng&gi=MalaY&p...
“Whenever she was faced with chaos and disequilibrium and conflict and tragedy,” said filmmaker Adam Ellick, “ it always heightened her determination and she always wanted to keep going.” And you will find more about willing, generous people in this month’s Gratefulnews:
www.gratefulness.org/gratefulnews/index.htm
In Boston His Holiness the Dalai Lama spoke of being here to promote “human values, ethics, with a sense of world responsibility. All for a better world, a more peaceful world.” How fundamental gratefulness is to that transformation, of which you and all your friends and relations are precious, essential parts. Thank you for your steady efforts, whether these days you need to carefully shelter the flame of your inner candle to keep it alight or you find it blazing brightly. There are so many ways to hearten others and, equally important, to take heart.
With deep gratitude,
Patricia and Margaret
for our Gratefulness Team