Notes on Spiritual Renewal in Everyday Life

Saddhamma Dr. Frank Tedesco

Dhammaloka Sarnath Zoom Nov 19, 2022

I am glad for the opportunity that Dhammachari Vivekmitra of Manuski in Pune offered me time to share ideas about this important topic. Most of us, wherever we are in this crazy world, have to deal with the personal challenge of managing multiple stresses to maintain our equilibrium as everything changes around us.

What do we mean by “spiritual renewal”? Do we mean that our spirit, mood, attitude, feeling, confidence, joy, psychic energy- is low, we are feeling down, lifeless, limp, passive, depressed, worthless, hopeless, oppressed, trapped, stuck, misunderstood, irritated, annoyed, humiliated, just somehow “out of whack” with everything, life itself? Have you missed meeting your own expectations of yourself?

Or, maybe, we are impatient with others, demanding, angry, fussy, bossy, hard-hearted, deaf and blind to the suffering of others? Have imperfect people disappointed you?

Perhaps we are stung with a fear of shame, with the unhappy worry “what will people say”. How dreadful that is! Words can feel like daggers to the heart!

You may feel like an automaton, a machine, someone else’s tool, a victim of history and circumstances beyond our control.

It is important that we restore our good feelings in our bodies and in ourselves frequently throughout the day. Of course, it is nice to have fixed times for meditation (shamatha/vipassana) in the morning and evening but, even so, we can be overwhelmed by too much news, busyness, emergencies big and small, the crowdedness, the pollution, indifference, daily insults and nastiness.

We have to pause for a moment and take a deep, slow breath or two, to put a brake on this insistent stream of negative thoughts, that seems to have taken over you. Relax the muscles of your face- your forehead, around your eyes, eyebrows, eye lids, cheeks, jaw, around your mouth, your neck, the back of your head. Roll your head around, let your head drop to your chest. Inhale and exhale deeply. Scan the rest of body, inside and out, and relax and let go wherever there is tension. Try and do this meditative process periodically throughout the day, for a minute or two, as long as you can, without pressure. We all need to “rehumanize ourselves” and regain gentle control of ourselves. Teach this process to yourself, your colleagues, your family members, your children, whomever needs refreshment. No pressure. We are all in the same boat! Share the medicine of metta- lovingkindness.

Spiritual renewal is recharging your attitude and feeling of metta- lovingkindness to yourself, your loved ones, other people, animals, plants, all living beings around you, nature, the earth and sky, and the universe in general. We must renew our vow to relieve all beings from suffering on a daily basis- many times a day, more often than good Muslims who pray, turning to Mecca five times a day. We ought to remind ourselves to turn to metta more often than that! Sitting, lying, standing, walking, mindful of the miraculously complex be-ing (or inter-being) that we are- our bones and blood, muscles, nerves, skin, amazing sense organs, digestive and respiratory systems….And to think all of this is but stardust. We are made of the same elements as the stars, the same dynamic energies, brilliant speckles of light interdependent with each other in Indra’s Net.

Spiritual renewal is grounding yourself in your own irreplaceable dignity, your distinctive worth, there has never been anyone else like you nor will there be in the future. We are all in process. Our unique human experience- from conception, stages of life, ageing and dying- all the ups and downs, traumas and joys- this process is our lesson, our path of growth. Feeling trapped is an illusion, a mental poison, that we can free ourselves from. Is our birth status in life, our so-called caste, a life lesson, or a life sentence?

I have worked as a volunteer Buddhist chaplain with inmates in Florida state prisons who are sentenced to life, even multiple life terms. The wisest among them have a deep inner acceptance of where they are and the karma that led them there. They have a poise that is remarkable in the extremely stressful conditions of their lives. They have made peace with or have control of their personal demons and have few expectations that anything will change for them in the future. Their light, their renewal, is within. Most have read deeply in the world religions. They have turned their prison experience into a kind of monastic experience that leads to gradual or incremental enlightenment.

We are so much more fortunate than they are. Let’s transform our tendency to be unconscious victims of destructive emotions into the clear light of wisdom and kindness to ourselves and others. We are the stuff of the cosmos.

I take refuge in metta,

Saddhamma

The second hour of the talk was about my research on funeral rituals for the auspicious rebirth of aborted babies in Korea. See Chapter 7, Abortion in Korea, in Buddhism and Abortion, edited by Damien Keown, University of Hawaii Press, 1998.