With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Last night was so delightful. We went to the synagogue for Friday evening services which was a children's service and Hanukkah candle lighting. We had a dozen or so menorahs on a table and before we ate the children recited the blessings over and over as they themselves lit the first night's candles. Such traditions are as important as they are beautiful.
This season is a time of light. Menorahs, Christmas trees, and in the Buddhist tradition, the light of the Buddha's Enlightenment itself.
To bring light into the world is an act of creation. It is not hope, faith, or charity. It is the thing itself. It is dark, we make light. We light a candle, we turn a switch, we dress a tree, but as human beings we make light by cracking out of our shells and unfolding ourselves to the universe.
From a Zen Buddhist perspective, light and dark are literally of our own creation. We do good or we do bad, and these things are judged more from our intent than from the outcome. If you are a theist, and you must have a God in your lives, you can easily understand this as God working through you. You and God are partners in creation: you are His hands, His eyes, His fingers, but you are also His mind...and He is yours. In Zen, we see this as "Big Mind." This is the open expanse of time and space, light and dark, the breath before the breath, of life and death.
Now, go make light.
Be well.
Rev. Harvey So Daiho Hilbert, Ph.D. May All Beings Be Free From Suffering
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