Our Vision

"Do to others as you would have them do to you."
                                       Luke 6.31            Jesus
"Consider others as yourself."
                                       Dhammapada 10.1       Buddha

Jesus and Buddha wisdom teachers, sages, connected by the truth, brothers in the Spirit of compassion.

We Are All Responsible

There's a story about Mahatma Ghandi which is one of my favorites, because it emphasizes the connection between our helping others to be healed and our personal need to be free of the same pain and suffering too.  

     Once a woman brought her son to Ghandhi and asked, will you please heal my son of his love for sugar?  She left the boy with Ghandi and about two months later he brought her son back and said, here is your son he has been healed of his love for sugar.  She asked, what took you so long?  He answered, before I could heal him of his love for sugar, I first had to be healed of my love for sugar. Wholeness, completeness, balance are all different ways of expressing healing.  

So often we don't realize our connection to all the people and all forms of life on earth we are to share.  There is only one world and it requires what Bob Marley sang as, "one love" let's get together and make things right, in order to be whole.  Our deepest drive in life is towards fulfillment and balance, peace and happiness, and it is by living that out each day respecting all that lives is the only way we will fully realize community on earth.  I can see how entangled we get from my own entanglements, but I am overwhelmed by the pain I see in others who are sick and imbalanced.  As well, the difficulties arising in the world today between nations and countries that don't allow for enough flexibility in supposed religious ethics to provide healthier fuller lifestyles and conditions for all will be short lived because the people won't stand for it (for example recent events in Ireland, Gaza, Israel and Europe).  Unfortunately it isn't simply religious ethics that limits our flexibility, but our attachments to concepts and things that creates on a global scale the pain and suffering we see daily.  Our own bodies and minds are affected by all of the other pain and struggle of others even if they are thousands of miles away from us.  At the same time I see the potential for humans to cooperate and live together in peace, simply by ceasing to respond violently or negatively to our problems, for we are all in this together whether we like it or not.  As Martin Luther King would say, (paraphrase) not one can be free if we are all not free.  

      It's amazing to see the things that can happen and become when we stop clinging to perceptions and expectations as to how we think the world should respond and be.  There are more possibilities then we can imagine to respond creatively to our struggles.  We can stop fighting with others and within ourselves by learning and practice mindfulness as taught in Buddhism.    The students' Zen teacher told him, for many years every question the student asked the teacher's response was everything is mind.  Then one day he went to the teacher and told him he finally understood that "everything was mind", the teacher then said to him "everything is not mind." (Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit, by Robert E. Kennedy, S.J.).  

In relationship to our healing of the world and in it ourselves, we have to come to a deeper understanding of ourselves and change our mind by training ourselves in seeing more clearly our true nature and purpose for the journey.  We will discover wonders and fears. but eventually we will experience balance (wholeness) and unity with the universe and especially our neighbors.  In a lot of ways, for example, Jesus' teachings were radical because he simplified them for the common person and condensed Torah, the central teachings of Judaism, by connecting two teachings that weren't ever put together by earlier rabbis, to "love the Lord your God by loving your neighbors as yourselves." For the most part Judeo-Christian teachings have espoused these core and basic truths for thousands of years.  

Although I have loved forever the story about two of the best known Rabbis of the time Shammai and Hillel, when a seeker for truth told Rabbi Shammai that he would convert to Judaism if he could teach him the whole Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures) while standing on one foot.  The rabbi hit him on top of the head with the scroll he was holding and sent him away.  He then went to Rabbi Hillel and asked, if he could teach him the Torah while standing on one foot and he would convert to Judaism; Hillel stood on one foot and said, "what is hurtful to yourself do not do to others, the rest is commentary. Now go and learn it."

Let's Move Forward APCIA

Initially we need to find a space to gather in other then the computer where we can design a space that is welcoming to all.  Meeting together is critical to being in community.  The main offering of the community will be in simply practicing the rituals that are part of mainline traditions, but also will allow us to adjust for the present generation and be flexible enough be inviting to the youth who will follow and lead as the future becomes the "now".  From meeting together and becoming community we will have strong emphasis on mission (service to others) a place of welcome to those who hunger for a fresh approach to living out their spirituality honestly while embracing the reality of a global world with a variety of cultures.  Ben Franklin even said once, "variety is the spice of life".  We want a flavorful life with lots of windows in order to see clearly that peace and joy are possible here and now for all people.  I remember a joke told by Bishop Wes Frensdorff, since passed away, that "one Sunday a young man went to a Quaker service and after sitting in silence for a couple of hours  everybody stood up and began to leave.  He turned to the person next to him and asked, When does the service begin to which the woman next to him answered, right after the worship."

 There are a number of things that will set APCIA apart from churches and temples and other sanghas (Buddhism word for community), we will be like a "fruit salad" sharing and embracing a variety of mainline spiritual traditions while using things such as the music of the youth of today while still utilizing songs from our traditions.  Some of our visions are having live music often!  Live music on Sundays whereas sitting Zazen is in silence and the  Lighting of the Sabbath Candles along with Kiddush, songs, and bright spirit.  One Sunday a month the service will be led by a different member of the community for morning prayers where the music will be simpler than other Sundays. So many varieties of classes and workshops will be offered as the community grows with new ideas and inspirations.  

A well known theologian (Dominic Crossan) once said, "Jesus really only taught two things, free healing and food for everyone" Jesus referred to this as the Kingdom of G-d and in fact that's what Jesus taught that the kingdom of G-d is here and now and that was his goal to bring into fullness.  He didn't teach that the goal of the Christian life was heaven, Jesus like Buddha who lived 500 years before, taught that the goal was compassion and joy here and now.  We hope to engage mindfulness in order make this more of a reality now.  Our vocabulary will enlarge as we learn from other cultural traditions and help us to flesh out our own and broaden our understanding of religions in general.

Chuang Tzu, author of The Tao Te Ching (the scriptures referred to be Taoists) once said, "The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits.  When the rabbits are caught the snare is forgotten.  The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, when the fish are caught the trap is forgotten.  The purpose of words are to convey ideas, when the ideas are grasped the words are forgotten.  Where is the man who has forgotten words, he is the one I want to talk to."  In our case we want to learn to serve to act compassionately to others while simplifying our requirements of membership and enhance the fun and conversations through learning a wider variety about the world of spirituality we live in today. 

Inspiring the Inspired!

"It's such a beautiful concept and idea
To come together with connection
A place to express oneself where stupid questiosn are non existent
You can say what you feel in the open
With an open mind integrating new ideas
Always thinking always changing
Constantly and forever growing
Expanding knowledge from all people have to share
Combining it to be the strongest community
Connection through one another mind body and spirit
We share, all close, together
We listen, we speak, we love
To show compassion and faith in each other. To be a part of the greater good
Peace... Peacefully expressing ideals of passion and thought
Peace... Peacefully engaging in argument and conversation with others
No violence and pain no hunger starvation no despair or hatred
Just peace love open to all possibilities
Press your hands together to pray in another day pray to whomever you feel pray to yourself if you wish just pray to meditate to connect to ponder over the marvelous possibilities the world holds... The grand scheme oh how it seems every minute a previous stone gone in a glance and no body knows how that minute affects our future or our past but maybe somehow the minute was meant to last.
Open up to possibility opportunity
Dive head first in and come out not better great or the best but different and grown for you were open and
Now think and ponder and wonder. Which is what today we lack Knowing a great thing sometimes but knowing cuts possibilities and dreams so stop the know and guess
Take a shot in the dark and when time is right see the light. In the end it's all worth it and you have loving individuals you call friend."

Noble Truths

When we look at the Buddhas' (Siddhartha Gautauma) writings known as The Sutras we discover his first noble truth that he taught.  There were many people seeking wisdom and enlightenment in his time and that is crucial to understanding his context fully, but for our purposes I will simply write briefly concerning two of the Four Noble Truths.  The first one is "that life is suffering", that is to say we struggle and suffer in this life regardless of status quo, race, creed, rich or poor we will experience struggle and suffering in our lives.  His second Noble Truth is that we "struggle because of desire" that tendency to cling and become attached to that which we desire.

This brings me to saying a word concerning APCIA (A Peace Community in Action), we will lean towards health and healing consciousness.  That is  we will learn and practice exercises and teachings concerning the reality we live in.  Every day I see or talk to those who are in poor health and are full of fear and anxiety concerning their life now and in the future.  None of us miss out on these experiences, but rarely do we find relief from our pain physical, mental and emotional.  Just as Carl Jung spoke about human beings' main drive is towards wholeness and in the words of Jesus who  came to bring "life' including "salvation" (more of a St. Paul use of language), but none the less these both are about wholeness and healing which involves living a life of peace, hope, compassion (love) and community.  A life devoid of clinging to things or concepts and maintaining a "beginners mind" (Suzuki) new mind without over thinking, and a Seung Sahn has written "only don't know mind".

As we get together and meet one another we will be able to explore these teaching in more depth and focus on specific conversations concerning the wisdom from these different spiritual traditions and the change of languages among the youth of this generation.  We can't wait long to train and teach the younger (and older more conservative of those who welcome change and growth in their spiritual journey) population of our community the simple facts from a positive perspective concerning the ancient and traditional with a big twist towards the advances in the technologies available to us today.  We (those of us who aren't computer literate) who tend to be older can use the help and energy our youth have to share.  In short the community will be a group of leaders, not one or two leaders where people gather around a certain individual in the center of the circle, but we are all part of the circle open to that Spirit which is holy and life giving.  

"I knew someday that you would fly away
for love's the greatest healer to be found.
So leave me.  . . if you need . . .
I will still remember. . . 
Angel flying too close to the ground.
               - Willie Nelson, "Angel Fling Too Clos to the Ground"