Mindfulness In Action: Self, Other, Community

Barbara McDowall (May 6, 2007)

As I have said before, I am a fan of Unitarianism and the Unitarian community. The work being done by UU congregations and individuals around the world to make a difference in their communities is remarkable. I personally like to hangout with Unitarians as often as I can because I feel at home with your philosophy and principles because they very much match my own.

In reflecting on today's talk, I was reminded the process of being is an ever-changing one. The one true constant is change. Change is a three part process involving self, other and community.

Today I would like to talk about the gift of mindfulness in revealing the whole person. Mindfulness sets off a chain of events that begins with knowing who we are and how we relate to self, other and community that is intentional, conscious and visible.

Often we believe change is something that takes place outside ourselves. If only that person over there would change, our lives would somehow be better off. However, the instrument of change is really the self, the one person we will always have a relationship with over the course of our life time.

Change begins when we take the time to slow down, to pay attention, and to be more mindful. Some people find prayer and meditation offers them the opportunity to do just that and begins what Jon Kabat Zin calls, "awarenessing". As we gift ourselves on a regular basis with a few minutes at the beginning and end of the day to slow down and pay attention amazing things start to happen.

We become aware of tools that could assist us in our desire to grow. The breath for example assists us in slowing down and when we slow down we can be more aware of our thoughts and our bodies. More oxygen is able to reach our brains and we connect to our creativity and our hearts. And when we connect there, we are then able to make clear choices about our present moments.

Values are another tool or template for living consciously. If we give ourselves the time to clearly define and clarify our own personal values, they can be a very worthwhile framework from which to make decisions and choices about what we say, think and do. Often we talk about values as they apply to the people and situations around us. How many of us really know what our values are, let alone consciously employ them? Inserting the word self in front of each value provides us with a new perspective. Once we define and clarify our key values, they will be available to us as we apply them first to ourselves and then to others. If they are not honoured personally, how can we expect others to honour them?

In her book, Anatomy of the Spirit, Caroline Myss suggests we apply the sacrament of marriage to oneself first. How transformative would our relationship to self be if we applied all those wonderful words to ourselves!

As we slow down, we begin to see the vast array of choices available to us in any given moment. As spiritual beings having a human physical experience we begin to understand we will constantly have the opportunity to choose in the present based on how we self define. And self definition is happening with every experience we undergo. Who will we choose to be, what will we choose to say, what will our thoughts be and what actions will we choose to take?

The cool thing about this inside out process is that we can gather information about who we really are and we can begin to let go of those aspects of ourselves we have unconsciously taken on in our growing up. That misinformation cannot change as long as we have the same old tape looping around in our heads.

As we become more conscious of the hidden beliefs we hold, we can choose to change them. How many of you know people who say they believe one thing and yet through their actions clearly demonstrate they believe in something quite different. That person who says they believe in punctuality and consistently show up 15 or 20 minutes late.

Along the way, we may find we start reading books quite different from the ones we've been reading for years. They may be self help books, auto biographies, and/or spiritual texts from other faith traditions. We want to know more and we can't get enough. We might attend lectures that provide us with different perspectives or go searching for a professional counselor or small group to explore some of these new ideas.

Eventually, we come to a point where we must practice all that we have taken in. As someone once said to me along the way, eventually you have to stop filling the concrete mind with information and now take it into form.

Analogy: Big head trying to get through a doorway; small feet propping up this big head.

Along the way, we may become aware of the various templates available at our disposal to live authentically. The Golden Rule is one such template contained in most of the world's faith traditions. The Prayer of St. Francis, the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, the Four Agreements from the Toltec tradition in Mexico also make the list as do the Principles of Unitarianism. The lives of numerous spiritual teachers including Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela are also there to model a way of being and living.

Mindfulness helps to awaken the process of awareness, discovery and acceptance of self with the end result being self love. With that as our foundation, we can take the next step.

That next step involves the so-called other. A Course in Miracles says relationships are where we grow, they are God's laboratories. Our relationships mirror the relationship we have with ourselves. We can see how well we are doing relationship with ourselves by the way we do relationship with other people in our lives. ACIM also says there is only love and fear and they do not coexist. Love is real; fear is illusion. And again we have the opportunity to choose love over the illusion of fear. Yet, how often do we find ourselves defaulting to fear and forgetting who we are. We are dynamically interconnected to every other living being on the planet ? what I do to you I am doing to myself. What we say, think and do counts and has a direct impact on the world we live in.

This is another area in which we can practice what we have learned about the self. Values must be applied consciously. Without getting to know the self intimately, there can be little success in relating to others. As we relate in a brand new way with others and come to see them as reflections of ourselves, our innate compassion is unfurled and released.

The final step in this evolutionary process is how we relate to our communities. If we have done the work of revealing the true, authentic self and we consciously are relating to those around as beloved brothers and sisters, we must next look at who and how we are within our communities, large and small.

When we come together in community, there exists a need to declare who we are and what we stand for. We call these typically mission statements and they are displayed for all to see, on the internet and/or in promotional material. I don't know about you, but I find it fascinating to observe the integrity of organizations by how closely their words jibe with their declared mission statement. Most often what I observe is what I call their integrity gap.

For example, the retirement residence my mother moved to after my dad's death had a wonderful set of principles on the wall across from the reception desk. Anyone coming in could view them. Nurturing the spirit was on that list. It makes sense to me that to nurture the spirit of each resident well would require the spirit of each employee to be well nurtured first. However, there was nothing in place to nurture the spirit of these amazing care givers who dealt with loss on a regular basis. That's an integrity gap.

The Principles of the Unitarian faith are one of the reasons I feel so at home here . Two in particular stand out and I quote:

We, the member congregations of the Canadian Unitarian Council, covenant to affirm and promote:

* the inherent worth and dignity of every person;
* justice, equity and compassion in human relations

These principles are in line with the templates I referred to earlier. They too can be adopted and lived. Again, as individuals, we ask the question do we covenant to affirm and promote our inherent worth and dignity as individuals, do we covenant to affirm and promote justice, equity and compassion for ourselves in human relations. If we want that for ourselves then we must make it happen for those around us. And if we do, how would the world know?

From this new awareness of self and other, we can move to community. Here we are called to be a living, breathing representation of all we say we hold dear. We are called to make a difference in a visible and conscious way. From time to time we can benefit from taking a step back to see how well we are doing, to check our integrity monitor by asking ourselves hard questions. Are we effectively communicating and promoting through all our communications who we are and what we believe in? Are we collaborating and affiliating with individuals and groups in the various communities we seek to support, e.g. the queer community, the deaf community, the disabled community, etc.? Are we visible to the community at large or are we a best kept secret.

Some of you may know of my work with the Multi Faith Resource Team at the University of Guelph. That experience taught me about the importance of visibility. The team consists of leaders and representatives from a number of different faiths, all working together to meet the religious and spiritual needs of the university's student population. They are committed to promoting friendliness, religious understanding, and harmony in diversity and spiritual growth on campus and have been a presence there for over 10 years. Last year, the team was able to benefit from the results of a marketing survey conducted by students in the Marketing Department. Students were asked about the team's visibility and profile. We were astonished to learn a large number of students did not know who we were, where we were or what we really did. Some even viewed us with suspicion.

Guelph is a campus with no religious studies program, and yet it has this amazing multi faith team often called cutting edge. And as it turned out we were also "under the radar" on campus. In a world, where diversity and how we are able to relate to others who are different is so critical for success, a number of students had only a dim understanding of who we were and what we were about.

To be more visible, we had to think differently. We would have to think outside the box. Collaboration, partnership with different programs and departments would be beneficial in helping us to be seen. We would have to be innovative in communicating our message better to a bigger audience. We couldn't continue to hide our light under a bushel. We had to come out, so to speak, and be more effective in fulfilling our declared mission.

Armed with this new insight, we set about forging alliances and promoting the presence and the work of the team more effectively. One thing we did was partner with Docurama, a campus library initiative, screening documentary films for students. We provided those in attendance the opportunity to stay for a post screening discussion. This was something brand new and added value to what Docurama was presenting.

Finally, mindfulness is the key that can allow us to unlock the potential of the self, other and community in the service of transformation. We can be fully present to the amazing life we are living and the opportunities it holds for authenticity. Are we prepared as individuals, groups or institutions to live by our values and principles in a demonstrable way that encourages amazing possibilities to transform and shift paradigms on this our planetary home?

If we remain mindful of our intentions and our corresponding actions and we continue to ask ourselves the hard questions necessary to close the integrity gap, we will go a long way to bring mindfulness into action.

And on that note, I will leave you with this quote from Debashis Chatterjee's book, Light the Fire in your Heart!

Real integrity comes from unity of intention and expression. Integrity flows from oneness of speech, thought and action.