Newsweek’s Lisa Miller, one of my favorite religion writers, takes a different look this week at the 2008 Pew Forum survey data that confirmed America’s status as a “Christian nation” is on the decline.  Perhaps, she speculates, America is becoming a Hindu nation?

Well, not really.  But she notes, against the backdrop of sacred words from Hinduism’s Rig Veda, that America’s collective spiritual philosophies are quickly coming around.

For example:

●  Sixty-five percent of Americans believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life,” including 37 percent of white evangelicals,
●  Twenty-four percent of Americans believe in reincarnation (from a Harris poll in 2008), and
●  More than one-third of Americans choose cremation, up from 6 percent in 1975

If it’s yoga or kirtan, Jesus or Parshvanath, or Catholic Mass versus a Buddhist retreat, it’s all the Truth in America, which is the way it should be.

Sure, the Founding Fathers were probably only thinking about different denominations of Christianity when they penned the opening sentence of the Bill of Rights — or maybe all Abrahamic religions at best — but the intent was that America would be free of both religious persecution and a sanctioned state religion.  Funny how we’ve strayed from that in these last 20 years…

“That which is the One Truth, the seers teach in many different ways” (Rigveda I:164.46)

With America’s “crazy tree” in full bloom over public discussion of health care reform (and everything else we’re afraid of in a society that is facing it’s biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression), the question of end-of-life counseling has been forced into the spotlight.  While some have managed to intentionally (and preposterously!) mangle the notion of palliative counseling into the advent of purpoted “death panels,” I am hopeful that we can take a step back and contemplate the larger question: what type of spiritual help do we (or should we) provide to the dying?

In Sogyal Rinpoche’s Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, he makes a strong case that end-of-life care is a necessity.  In the chapter titled “Spiritual Help for the Dying, he writes:

“Spiritual care is not a luxury for a few; is it the essential right of every human being, as essential as political liberty, medical assistance, and equality of opportunity.  A real democratic ideal would include knowledgeable spiritual care of everyone as one of its most essential truths.  Wherever I go in the West, I am struck by the great mental suffering that arises from the fear of dying, whether or not this fear is acknowledged. …In Tibet it was a natural response to pray for the dying and to give them spiritual care; in the West the only spiritual attention that the majority pay to the dying is to go to their funeral.  At the moment of their greatest vulnerability, then, people in our world are abandoned and left almost totally without support or insight.  This is a tragic and humiliating state of affairs, which must change.  All of the modern world’s pretensions to power and success will ring hollow until everyone can die in this culture with some measure of true peace, and until at least some effort is made to ensure this is possible.”

What is wrong with a government — with our government — sanctioning this type of deeply personal care, perhaps even elevating it to a unwritten right?  People obviously have different notions of what happens at the time of death, but generic counseling not associated with any type of religious or spiritual tradition is available.  At my Grandma’s hospice, which was run by a Protestant group that made no attempt to hide the fact, the materials provided to our family made no mention of God or Heaven, but instead tried to prepare us for the physical and mental states that Grandma would experience in her final days.

Clearly, the public dialogue on this subject has been twisted in order to meet the self-serving political needs of a group I can’t even begin to understand.  And it’s regretful that, in order to try and focus the debate, the powers that be have taken end-of-life counseling off the table as a discussion point.  But, as Sogyal Rinpoche so bluntly puts it, “What does it really mean to have the technology to send people to the moon, when we do not know how to help our fellow humans die with dignity and hope?”

Clipped from my blog, http://dharmamonkey.com/wp/?p=705

Clipped from my blog: http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp/?p=652

Every seeker longs for that moment of ultimate realization -- the great ah hah! moment that makes the difficult path worthwhile. After seven years of searching inside and seeking knowledge from without, I think I’ve had my moment, only to realize that I was my biggest stumbling block the entire time, and will likely continue to be so.

The intersection of circumstances that have led me to this discovery are strange, and yet, they represent the day-to-day drudgery that is my thought process – a heap of screaming monkeys locked inside my head, determined, I had always thought, to keep me focused on everything except the here and now.

Well, I was wrong. Those monkeys are part of me, and their goal has always been to keep me from realizing the fact that my ego is wickedly strong.

Ego. Ego. Ego. It’s all I could think about last night as I tossed and turned, reliving every stupid, ignorant, dumb, illegal, inconsiderate and selfish act I’ve ever undertaken. It’s as if my ego has a separate consciousness, nudging me along my spiritual path (because I/it felt that this was the correct path), all while purposely throwing up barriers to keep me from noticing the power it holds over the forward direction of my life.

Ego.

It started with unmet expectations in my current job – what I had always thought was my dream job. There was resentment and anger, and a feeling of “this isn’t what I signed up for” that constantly gnawed at me, just below the surface. I’d catch a glimpse of my ego, and tell my mind to settle down. I’m fortunate to have a job right now, I’d think, and it’s stupid of me to be anything but grateful because I’m earning a decent salary. Then I’d dive in head-first to my work again and stop trying to figure out where the feelings were coming from. This made the ego happy, and so the pattern would continue for months, going round and round like the proverbial vicious cycle.

A few weeks ago, as I struggled to come to terms with these feelings (again), I happened upon a chapter in “Awake at Work” called “Practice ‘No Credentials.’”

“Workplace credentials – our titles, college degrees, qualifications, symbols of status and authority – can sometimes help get the job done and sometimes just get in the way.”

It goes on to describe a very typical situation here in Washington – people who define themselves by their job title or occupation – and how this practice can actually hinder your ability to do your job and your ability to be truly present and mindful as you work.

“Try as we might, we cannot create a seamless, reliable version of ourselves out of our career or job. And when we expect otherwise – when we expect work to deliver something it can never deliver – we become frustrated and uptight: exaggerating achievements, glossing over failures, sugarcoating mistakes; feeling arrogant, slighted, embarrassed or smug.

"By practicing ‘no credentials,’ we are willing to examine these feelings candidly, gradually unraveling the blinding effects of clinging to our credentials. We learn to let go of job titles and pretense and shift our attention to being authentic, to being who we are, where we are, at work.”

I’ve pondered this over the last few weeks, actually catching myself when asked, “What do you do.” Try responding with “I work in (industry)” rather than “I am (job title)." More than likely , you’ll be asked a follow-up question. “Oh, where? And what do you do there?” The very question of “What do you do” is like offering candy to a baby – or in this case, to your ego.

I guess this made my mind ripe for the next dose of reality, which came in the form of Sogyal Rinpoche’s “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.” I’ve felt pulled into the book, as if Rinpoche is directly answering the questions that have been lingering in my mind for the last few years. And last night, I reached the chapter on ego.

“Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to. As you listen more and more to the teachings, contemplate them, and integrate them into your life, your inner voice, your innate wisdom of discernment, what we call in Buddhism “discriminating awareness,” is awakened and strengthened, and you begin to distinguish between its guidance and the various clamorous and enthralling voices of ego. The [karmic] memory of your real nature, with all its splendor and confidence, begins to return to you.

"You will find, in fact, that you have uncovered in yourself your own wise guide. Because he or she knows you through and through, since he or she is you, your guide can help you, with increasing clarity and humor, negotiate all the difficulties of your thoughts and emotions. Your guide can also be a continual, joyful, tender, sometimes teasing presence, who knows always what is best for you and will help you find more and more ways out of your obsession with your habitual responses and confused emotions. As the voice of your discriminating awareness grows stronger and clearer, you will start to distinguish between its truth and the various deceptions of the ego, and you will be able to listen to it with discernment and confidence.”

I reached a point where, while reading these teachings, I set my book down, closed my eyes, and immediately feel into a state of deep thought where, for the first time ever, I was able to push my ego completely out of the way. Each time I tossed and turned during the night, the word “ego” formed on my lips as I rummaged through memories of everywhere my ego has taken me in 37 years – not a pretty trip when one is trying to sleep.

It was and continues to be profound, and I have no idea where this new perspective is going to take me, or if it will even continue.

But I’m hopeful, because I think only good can come from this.

Clipped from my blog, http://www.dharmamonkey.com/wp

Much has been said recently of the role of faith and God in the crash of a US Airways flight in the Hudson River. In today's Washington Post religion section is a story of the survivors of Flight 1549 who attribute the fact that they are alive to Divine Intervention.

In the days following the crash, I turned the question of miracles over and over in my mind. Are they real? What makes one person (or plane load of people) miracle-worthy? And don't other people deserve them? I have to think about the passengers of American Airlines Flight 77, including a group of D.C. school children on a field trip, who needed the same type of miracle before hijackers crashed that plane into the Pentagon.

It seems the distribution of these miracles is terribly unfair, and perhaps even unjust.

As part of my own journey, I have come to accept that no one is responsible for my personal "here and now" except for me. While the individual backstories of how I arrived at this very moment in time are intricate and complicated, they are, for better or worse, mine. Period.

I am the first to admit that one of the toughest parts of my spiritual journey over the last six years has been letting go of the security blanket that comes from being able to silently (or publicly) plead one's case with an omnipotent, all-powerful supreme being. The disillusionment that accompanies years and years of prayers for Middle Eastern peace - or decades of begging God, Jesus, the Holy Mother and St. Martin of Tours to help your mother kick her drug and alcohol habits - can be sharp enough that it forces you to ask some really difficult questions about life, including the issue of miracles.

As a child, I held a strong belief in miracles, because that's what the world teaches a small boy. When my puppy Cheeto was run over the day we brought him home, my dad and I prayed that he would somehow be OK. We prayed for a miracle that never came.

But as an adult, when the person I loved most lay in a hospice bed, I didn't pray for a miracle; instead, I asked the universe and all the holy things within it to envelop her in love and comfort so that she might have a smooth, quick journey out of this life. And for once, my "prayers" were thankfully answered.

I don't pretend to understand how this world works, other than the fact that I am solely responsible for me. I know that the impact of my actions in each individual moment creates ripples that move in all directions, and my ability to spread love or hate today will dictate the path that I walk tomorrow, in this life or the next.

That's not to say that the people who survived Flight 1549 were all incredibly nice people, or that people who do not get the miracle du jour are all mean and unfriendly. There are mysteries about our existence that none of will ever understand, and just as I got in my car last night, drove home, and walked through my front door, the 155 passengers of Flight 1549 boarded a plane bound for Charlotte, though they left the plane a little earlier than expected.

That's not a miracle. That's simply life, though this time it had a happy ending.