The theme continued from last month, when three women spoke\nabout their personal spirituality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Buddhism\u2014Roko Sherry Chayat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sherry pointed out that most of us are afraid of silence and\nthat at many gatherings there is a lot of nervous chatter. She believes we\ncannot meet one another until we can be quiet with each other. She is glad\nthere is a place like WTB where we can have openness, share our mutual\nconcerns, support each other, and feel protected. Women are respected for the\nhonest way they express their feelings. Sherry stated that if we are open and\nalert to our lives, everything is provided to us. The wealth of world views of WTB\nwomen is information we can use in our lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As an example, she read this prayer given to her by Diana\nRyan just before the meeting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The more people I meet, the stronger my conviction becomes that the oneness of humanity, founded on understanding and respect, is a realistic and viable basis for our conduct. Wherever I go, this is what I speak about. I believe that the practice of compassion and love\u2014a genuine sense of brotherhood and sisterhood\u2014is the universal religion. It does not matter whether you are a Buddhist or Christian, Muslim or Hindu, or whether you practice religion at all. What matters is your feeling of oneness with humankind.” [From How to Practice the Way to a Meaningful Life <\/em>by the Dalai Lama]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sherry talked about her personal perspective of spirituality\nstarting when she was quite young, as she realized that everyone has shared\npain. She spoke about growing up in the 1940s, about her father being killed\njust before World War II ended, about being Jewish in Brooklyn with the\nHolocaust as a huge presence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As she matured, she became aware that many people are killed\nbecause of their beliefs. She became sensitized to suffering. She moved to New\nMexico with her mother and new stepfather and was exposed to a new faith, Cherokee.\nShe understood the Cherokees\u2019 appreciation of life\u2019s sacredness, of the\nenvironment, of how everything is interconnected. When her family moved back to\nBrooklyn, she felt divorced from the religion of her childhood. Her best friend,\na Catholic, assured her that she could not be Jewish because she did not have\nhorns! Sherry tried going to temple with her grandparents and attending\nCatholic and Protestant churches with her friends. She was aware of religious\ndifferences and developed a strong spiritual yearning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Independently, Sherry started to meditate. When she learned\nabout Zen Buddhism in an eighth-grade world-cultures class, she felt the world\nbrighten for her. But she had little information about Asian cultures or religions\nuntil after college, when she found Zen studies in New York. This has been her\npath ever since. She described an instant recognition, a \u201ccoming home\u201d to Zen\nBuddhism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sherry\u2019s spirituality in Zen Buddhism moves her to believe in\nthe practice of love. She encouraged all of us to wake up to the wonder of\nevery moment. She said what matters for practitioners of Zen is dedicated\ncommitment. What is important is what comes from your own experience. Some call\nit God. To practice Zen Buddhism means to pay attention whether in meditation,\nwalking down the street, interacting with others, being aware of the\nreverential nature of all we do. We fall down but then realize we can change.\nWe all feel regret, but we can apologize and start over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Islam\u2014Beatrice Muhammad <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice spoke about how Islam has helped her overcome her fears. She\nasked if any of us had recently experienced the death of someone close to us.\nQuite a few hands went up. She described how death had become a phobia for her\nas an adult. As a Christian she could not find a satisfying perspective on\ndeath, but when she became a Muslim she better understood that one must go\nthrough death to go to Allah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She was called upon to wash and shroud the body of a Muslim\nsister. This was extremely difficult for her, but she overcame her feelings\nwhen she thought about the fact that her Muslim sister could not do this for\nherself, that she needed help. Beatrice more fully realized her own mortality\nand thought about others in her family who had died before her. She followed\nthe directions for washing, and she described touching her Muslim sister\u2019s skin\nand hair. By now, she has done four or five washings and shroudings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice also spoke of her claustrophobia. Last year she and\nher husband were sponsored by the Islamic Society of Central New York to make\nthe hajj to Mecca. This is one of the five pillars of Islam. Muslims make the\npilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their life (if they are physically and\nfinancially able). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Beatrice had to fly over water (another problem for her\nbecause she does not swim) and be in very close proximity to a large number of\npeople for about a week. She called on Allah to help her overcome her fears.\nShe was able to do so by focusing on the privilege of being chosen for the hajj.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sharing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The question-and-answer session following the presentations\nwas so lively that we did not break into small groups: everyone wanted to\ncontinue the discussion! Questions were asked about parallels between Cherokee\nand Buddhist beliefs, about how a Zen Buddhist meditates, about whether there are\nmeditation practices in the Islamic, Christian and Jewish faiths. There was\ndiscussion of the notion that prayer and meditation have become too cerebral\nand disembodied in the Christian and Jewish faiths but seem embodied in Islam\nand Buddhism. Also of great interest was the ways in which Muslims and\nBuddhists deal with death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Buddhist and Muslim women talked about their personal spirituality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[21,16],"class_list":["post-7779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-programs","tag-buddhism","tag-islam",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7779"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8587,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7779\/revisions\/8587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}