Songs of One Breath is a weekly online space with Jilani Cordelia Prescott to explore the direct, joyful experience of mysticism through practice. Each Friday she shares chants, mantra, breath practices and body prayer drawn from a range of traditions, offered as grounding, comfort, and a pathway of the heart toward deeper connection and spiritual freedom. You are warmly invited to join live on Zoom (or via Facebook Live) at 2.30pm London time, and it is free. If you enjoy the class or the podcast, and would like to support Jilani’s work, donations are welcome via PayPal.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry, from New Collected Poems
‘I believe the very fact that we see what’s happening, that we bear witness together even though we can’t do anything to affect the situation outwardly, is a radical form of activism. We are connecting with and deepening the evolving soul of the world. We are sensitizing the conscience of humanity. Though it may seem insignificant, our dismay with bombs dropping on Ukrainian cities is a powerful action. Without it, without our caring, the human spirit would be diminished.
Even though it hurts to bear witness like this, even though we want to turn away, our anonymous solidarity with those who are suffering, wherever they are and whoever they may be, ennobles the vast soul of the world and makes possible the coming of peace.’
Pir Elias Amidon
‘The renowned Czech humanist Vaclav Havel once said that morality means taking responsibility, not only of your life, but for the life of the world. From a Buddhist perspective, it means seeing the roots of violence in our country and in ourselves, and finally understanding that we are not separate from all beings and things and must act accordingly or further violence will spread as the Coronavirus has spread.
Buddhism has since its very beginning guided its practitioners to realize the most radical form of inclusivity, the realization that all beings in all realms, no matter how depraved and deluded, can be free of suffering and delusion, and to also see that we are not separate from any other being, whether Putin or Hitler, or His Holiness the Dalai Lama or Malala.
It is not necessarily so easy to realize this. Many of us have not allowed ourselves to look deeper than our personality and our opinions to see and touch who we really are. Yet, Buddhists and contemplatives of many traditions have long been guided to go within to discover not only the interconnectedness of all things, including the natural world, but also the peace that surpasses understanding, knowing, ideas, conceptions, and opinions, the peace that is basic to all beings when they have come home to a state of non-alienation, and also the peace that nourishes courageous and liberating action in the world, knowing that this peace is not complacent, nor is it restless.’
By Roshi Joan Halifax (read the rest of her article here: https://www.upaya.org/2022/02/ukraine-in-the-heart/)