Where We Are Is Our Temple, by Jack Kornfield

Wo wir sind, ist unser Tempel
Jack Kornfield

Die Erweiterung unserer spirituellen Praxis ist eigentlich ein Prozess der Erweiterung unseres Herzens, der Erweiterung unseres Kreises der Einsicht und des Mitgefühls, um allmählich unser ganzes Leben einzubeziehen. Unsere spirituelle Praxis ist es, hier auf Erden in einem menschlichen Körper zu sein, in diesem Jahr, an diesem Tag.

Früher wurde der größte Teil der östlichen spirituellen Praxis von Mönchen und Nonnen in Klöstern und Tempeln gepflegt. Jahrhundertelang fand ein Großteil der westlichen Kontemplationspraxis in Europa auch in Klöstern statt. In unserer heutigen Zeit haben sich das Kloster und der Tempel auf die Welt selbst ausdehnen können. Die meisten von uns leben nicht als Mönche und Nonnen, und dennoch suchen wir als Laien ein echtes und tiefes spirituelles Leben. Das ist möglich, wenn wir erkennen, dass dort, wo wir gerade sind, unser Tempel ist, und dass wir genau hier in dem Leben, das wir führen, unsere Praxis verwirklichen können.

Mein alter Guru in Mumbai hat es uns auf folgende Weise gelehrt: Er ließ die Schüler gerade lange genug bleiben, um zu einem echten Verständnis des Lebens und der Liebe zu gelangen und wie man inmitten von allem frei sein kann. Dann schickte er sie nach Hause und sagte: "Heirate den Jungen oder das Mädchen von nebenan, suche dir einen Job in deiner eigenen Gemeinde, lebe dein Leben; das ist deine Praxis". An der gegenüberliegenden Seite Indiens schickte Mutter Theresa Hunderte von Freiwilligen, die nach Kalkutta kamen, um dort zu helfen, nach Hause und sagte: "Jetzt, da ihr gelernt habt, Christus in den Armen Indiens zu sehen, geht nach Hause und dient ihm in eurer Familie, auf eurer Straße, in eurer Nachbarschaft".

[...] Wir sind alle eine Familie. Das spürt man am unmittelbarsten in der Stille eines ungeteilten Herzens. Wenn der Verstand still und das Herz offen ist, ist die Welt für uns ungeteilt. Wie Häuptling Seattle unsere Vorfahren erinnerte, als er sein Land aufgegeben hat:

"Diese Erde ist unsere Mutter. Was auch immer der Erde widerfährt, geschieht auch den Söhnen und Töchtern der Erde. Das wissen wir. Alle Dinge sind verbunden wie das Blut, das eine Familie verbindet. [...] Wir haben das Netz des Lebens nicht gewebt, wir sind nur ein Strang darin. Was immer wir diesem Netz antun, tun wir uns selbst an."

Wenn das Herz ungeteilt ist, liegt unsere Praxis in allem, was uns begegnet.

Auszug aus Jack Kornfield's Buch, A Path with Heart (Ein Weg mit Herz)

Fragen zum Nachdenken: Wie geht es dir mit der Vorstellung, dass, wo immer du bist, dein Tempel ist? Kannst du eine Erfahrung aus einer Zeit teilen, in der du in der Lage warst, das, was dir begegnet ist, als deine Praxis zu behandeln? Was hilft dir, ein ungeteiltes Herz zu sein?

Excerpted from Jack Kornfield's book, A Path with Heart

Seed Questions for Reflection

How do you relate to the notion that wherever you are is your temple? Can you share an experience of a time you were able to treat what you encountered as your practice? What helps you be an undivided heart?

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Add Your Reflection

8 Past Reflections

Cletus Zuzarte

Dec 28, 2017

Jack's reflection was an affirmation of the decisions I have taken in my life. It makes me so happy to know that where I am at present is where I ought to be and in fact, it is a holy place! At no point in my life, I have regretted the decisions I have taken. My decision to marry my wife and now the decision to live in a village away from the city is nothing short of where I should be. In Gratitude for this affirmation!

Elizabeth

Dec 27, 2017

I remind myself that whenever I get reactive, it is a time to work and pay attention more fully to what is transpiring. It is a chance to go inward, inquire into what is getting triggered, work with the defensiveness, feel my feelings and try to get to the unmet need that is behind my feelings. Often, a lot is revealed. Sometimes it is simple and has a historical antecedent, and it is just old wounds getting rubbed again.When compassion for myself arises, freedom comes, or the needed action becomes clear, or something else. The compassion isn't just for myself then, it erases boundaries and arises as a kind of warmth that spreads outwards and includes what is out there. Sometimes that is difficult people too....

Sunil,Bangalore

Dec 27, 2017

"Death has not taken birth and Life never dies".Such total eternality of self consciousness (Atman) is in fact that Temple & God really we are longing for and nothing else. I have found this earnest search is the key to the practical spirituality.You are in everybody and everybody is in you made possible by an undivided expanded heart.This is only and simply the love,compassion, sympathy & empathy connecting all in a single worldwide web.

Deepak

Dec 26, 2017

Beautiful . Practise spirituality in the Here and Now . Be true to yourself .

Mahendra M Manek

Dec 26, 2017

Nipun ,

I regret I used to delete your emails without reading them but to-day and from now on I am going to file these

Prem, ( Love)

Mahendra ( in Gujarati, my mother tongue it is made up of two words .. ' Maha' ( = Great ) + Indra ( = God )

I agree with you about sharing food or giving money to homeless iindividuals and I seldom passs one by without giving them money but regrettably, they are so lonely, sick of being homeless they spend it on alchohol as an escape.

Late Swami Satya Sai Baba , my Main ( of 2 spiritual Gururs .. the other is Doctor George King of The Aetherius temple/society ) used to recommend giving food to homeless ones

Prem/( = Love )

Mahendra

Jagdish P Dave

Dec 24, 2017

Reading Jack Kornfield's writing makes me feel at home. It is like home coming. I was raised in a poor family of nine members: father, mother and four brothers and three sisters. In spite of poverty, we felt spiritually whole and wealthy.Our parents embodied spirituality in everyday living. Every evening we used to go to the nearby temple to pray and worship. Our parents made a little shrine in our home and we used to pray every morning.Our home was our temple, Love, truth,compassion, grace and forgiveness were the foundations of our family temple. That became the way of our living.We were blessed to live near the Gandhi Ashram and used to attend evening spiritual gatherings in the presence of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhiji inspired us and reinforced our spiritual way of living.When a journalist asked Gandhiji, "What is your message?", his answer was simple and profound, " My life is my message."

Almost every Sunday morning, I go to a community church with my daughter and her family. She is married to a Catholic gentleman. I listened to the pastor's sermon. The message is the same that I learned as I was growing up in India.Spirittualty is the way of living, the 'Path of the Undivided Heart." Let everyday be a Jesus Day or Buddha Day or Krsihna or Rama day. Material wealth and material possessions, and our out word appearances and religious dogmatic beliefs may divide us as me against us, or make us believe we are greater and better than others.The spiritual reality or truth is that we all are one family, that where we live are is our temple.This is my understanding of spirituality, of living spiritually

My everyday spiritual practices, prayer and meditation, help me to live from my undivided heart. My work is my worship. My living is my prayer.

I would like to conclude my reflections by quoting Chief Seattle: " We do not weave the web of our life; we are merely the strand in it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves."

May we make our New Year's resolution: let our home be our temple and let us embrace spirituality with an undivided heart!

Namaste! Jagdish P Dave

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Amy

Dec 22, 2017

When I was 18, I told my (then) boyfriend (who is now my husband) that I had considered (outwardly) marriying Jesus while still here on earth ... (as in the form of a nun). He told me there is little I could do as a nun that I could not also do as his wife!?! Well, let me just say bringing contemplation and prayer to a married life is just what the Great Doctor (God) ordered! Marriage and Family is impossible WITHOUT God. I am so thankful! God reaches us where we are ... And takes us to where He is! My husband and I are 40 years deep into relationship (34 years of marriage and 6 years dating) ... Without God, we would have come undone by now! My husband and my hearts are (at times) divided. My God and my heart are usually on the same page ... My sin is the only thing separating us. Thanks be to God for the Saving Power of The New Born King, Jesus. Amen

david doane

Dec 22, 2017

Jack Kornfield's essay and Chief Seattle's statement are beautiful. Wherever you are is your temple, out of which and with which you can express the love from which the temple arises. The challenge is for us to do that. At those times that I live with awareness that we are one, when I see the other as myself, I am compassionate rather than competitive, and I am living my practice. At those times that I live with awareness that all that is is one, I am aware that what I do to this planet and universe I do to everyone and everything including myself, and I am living my practice. What helps me have an undivided heart is reminding myself through thought, reading, discussion, reflection, meditation that I have an undivided heart that is part of an undivided universe. Such awareness brings me peace, joy, and satisfaction.