Saturday, September 19, 1998

People should learn to 'let it all go'

By Jaymee Colvin

Guest Columnist

A Buddhist monk was in Abilene for a week -- a rare event in and of itself. But what did it mean, really?

Why did so many people come to be led in meditation, the "listening prayer," by this kindly monk? And why, two nights later, did a standing-room-only crowd assemble for his show of Tibetan slides? Why all the attention for what is to many a flat circle of colored sand?

It was our chance to experience the peace of a devotional attitude, of knowing we were in the presence of a person who really can "let it all go."

A similar feeling can be felt in any place where people are being nothing but channels of love and peace. I have felt it at times in a church, at a sweat lodge ceremony on an Indian reservation in Montana, and on the grounds of a Benedictine monastery in North Dakota.

A mandala, be it Buddhist, Hindu, Native American, or freely designed by anyone, is a visual aid designed to bring one's focus to a time of prayer or meditation.

In the case of this monk, creating the mandala increased the devotion of the act, as it required patience, commitment, and a striving for perfection.

Focusing on the point in the center of a mandala helps one to focus on being one with creation, with all of life.

The devotion, compassion, and forgiveness that seem to ooze from the very ground on which some living saints walk is reason enough to be in their company.

The God-seed in every one of us, which is sometimes nurtured and sometimes stifled by our faith as prescribed by a given church, responds to the flow of living water.

Most Buddhists, according to what I have read, do not even call their practice a "religion." It is a daily, hourly, spiritual practice of becoming one with all that is.

They do not, as is often charged, maintain that this life is an illusion. Rather, the illusion is that this life is all there is. They focus on the underlying reality that we are all connected, in an invisible way in a place in our individual consciousness that cannot be seen or described ... in other words, in spirit.

Their devotion to this truth is expressed in many practices, from meditation and chanting to living lives of silence and peace, in communion with others of like belief.

The global village Earth must become was not advanced by a recent news story full of false assumptions and terms such as "with much fanfare," "caught up in rituals," and "spiritually generic."

There is a reason why this fellow is so laid back. He has found his source and his peace. He knows himself as a spiritual being, not a religious figure.