Finding Peace through Spiritual Practice

Jamal Rahman, Ted Falcon, Don Mackenzie

Description

If we want to heal our personal and planetary problems, we have to move beyond talking to spiritual practice.

Pastor Don Mackenzie, Rabbi Ted Falcon and Imam Jamal Rahman, who have become known as the Interfaith Amigos, believe truly effective interfaith dialogue can inhibit the demonization of any religion. Their work together, which began with the horrors of 9/11, aims to help us see all authentic spiritual traditions as sacred avenues to a shared Universal Reality—when we achieve this, the healing of our shared personal and planetary problems begins.

In this, their third book, the Interfaith Amigos look at the specific issues we face in a pluralistic society and the spiritual practices that can help us transcend those roadblocks to effective collaboration on the critical issues of our time. Focusing on the interconnection of spirituality and authentic interfaith dialogue, they examine:

• How Spiritual Awareness Can Heal Our Own Traditions
• Beyond Polarization: Confronting Our Most Personal Obstacle
• Spiritual Paths to Environmental Stewardship
• Spiritual Paths to Social Justice
• How to Make Spirituality a Way of Life

This book helps awaken readers to the spiritual consciousness within each of us that provides the foundation for much-needed healing. Each chapter includes spiritual practices to aid us in reclaiming the deep spiritual truths of our own being.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Donald McKenzie
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 16 août 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781683366478
• Langue: English

Extrait

Finding
Peace
through
Spiritual
Practice
The Interfaith Amigos Guide to Personal, Social and Environmental Healing
Pastor Don Mackenzie, Rabbi Ted Falcon and Imam Jamal Rahman
Finding Peace through Spiritual Practice:
The Interfaith Amigos Guide to Personal, Social and Environmental Healing
2016 Quality Paperback Edition, First Printing
2016 by Don Mackenzie, Ted Falcon and Jamal Rahman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information regarding permission to reprint material from this book, please mail or fax your request in writing to SkyLight Paths Publishing, Permissions Department, at the address / fax number listed below, or email your request to [e-mail] .
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mackenzie, Don, 1944- author.
Title: Finding peace through spiritual practice : the interfaith amigos guide to personal, social, and environmental healing / Pastor Don Mackenzie, Rabbi Ted Falcon and Imam Jamal Rahman.
Description: Quality Paperback Edition. | Woodstock, VT : SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016018330 | ISBN 9781594736049 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781594736087 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Peace of mind-Religious aspects. | Religions-Relations. | Religious life. | Spiritual life.
Classification: LCC BL627.55.M33 2016 | DDC 204/.4-dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016018330
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cover design: Michael J. Myers
Interior design: Tim Holtz
Cover art: shutterstock/Grisha Bruev

SkyLight Paths Publishing is creating a place where people of different spiritual traditions come together for challenge and inspiration, a place where we can help each other understand the mystery that lies at the heart of our existence.
SkyLight Paths sees both believers and seekers as a community that increasingly transcends traditional boundaries of religion and denomination-people wanting to learn from each other, walking together, finding the way .
SkyLight Paths, Walking Together, Finding the Way and colophon are trademarks of LongHill Partners, Inc., registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Walking Together, Finding the Way
Published by SkyLight Paths Publishing
An imprint of Turner Publishing Company
Nashville, Tennessee
Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]
www.skylightpaths.com
www.turnerpublishing.com
We wish to dedicate this book to all who are willing to open their minds, their hearts, and their hands to the peace that needs to be, and we seek to honor these spiritual activists from our Abrahamic faiths whose courage and compassion have inspired our work:
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988)
And in honor of the work of
Malala Yousafzai (1997- )
Who brings great light for the road ahead.
Contents
Introduction: On the Way to Peace
1 Discovering the Need for Spiritual Practice
Inner Change Leads to Lasting Outer Change
2 Polarization: Our Basic Challenge
What Is It and Why Is It a Problem?
3 Moving beyond Past Conditioning
Awakening to Authentic Social Justice
4 Overcoming Despair
Carrying on in the Face of Overwhelming Environmental Problems
5 In the Face of Failure
Dealing with Anger and Burnout
6 Meeting Fear without Violence
Transcending Defensiveness
7 Love as a Force for Change
Focusing on the Positive
8 Making Spiritual Practice a Way of Life
The Daily Inner Work of Peace
Conclusion: Problems, Promises, and Possibilities
Acknowledgments
Notes
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index of Practices
Introduction
On the Way to Peace
This book is about helping us all find greater inner and outer peace. But before we can even begin to think about achieving this peace, we need to name the truths of our condition. Naming the truth is the first step toward healing.
We ve got problems, and plenty of them. The world is a beautiful but, all too often, increasingly dangerous place. Environmental degradation threatens drought, mass flooding, and challenges to food crop production. Serious air pollution damages the lungs and lives of many across the globe. Racism is once again revealed as a serious issue in the United States and elsewhere. The dwindling middle class and the economic chasm between the rich and the rest of us threatens the foundation of our entire social system. The destabilization of governments in the Middle East has led to an international crisis, as refugees fleeing violence and poverty strain the economic stability of Europe as a whole. And terrorist violence aimed at civilian populations has prompted fear and the radical intensification of Islamophobia. Yes, we ve got problems.
Many of us have spent a good portion of our lives trying to make things better yet, clearly, we don t seem to be resolving the basic social justice and environmental issues. We sponsor conference after conference, hold program after program, hear from expert after expert. One political party is in power, and then another. And, sometimes, the very actions meant to heal just make things worse.
As social activists working to change the world for the better, striving to forge a sustainable peace, we need to strengthen our spirits so that our work can be even more effective. We want to fortify our belief that personal, social, and environmental healing is possible to achieve. This book is focused on increasing our sense of purpose and our hope for the future.
Why Has Significant Personal, Social, and Environmental Change Been So Difficult?
Many of our actions that are meant to fix things in the world ultimately fail because, while we have focused on making things better out there in the world, we have ignored the nature of the environment in here in our hearts. It is becoming increasingly clear that without inner change, alterations in the outer world will not endure.
Social activists often become frustrated when the changes toward which they have devoted time and energy happen slowly, if at all. Often galvanized by anger and self-righteousness, those pushing for social justice frequently wind up fueling anger rather than defusing it. People working for societal and environmental healing are best served with a spiritual foundation and they need spiritual resources to best accomplish the changes they seek.
On the other hand, spiritual seekers who have avoided taking action to mend the world have slowed the pace of positive change. Spiritual practices are useful and important for individuals striving to connect with the Divine, decrease tension in their lives, lower their blood pressure, and strengthen their community. But without action in the world, those seekers do not contribute to the real changes that we need to make. We believe that authentic spiritual practice is always expressed through compassionate action in the larger world.
That s the premise of this book: Spiritual practices can give advocates for social change greater success in their pursuits, and concrete actions in the world can deepen the experience of spiritual seekers. We can maximize positive personal, social, and environmental change by supporting activism with spiritual practices, and we can encourage spiritual seekers to recognize that true spirituality demands action. We all want greater peace, and that requires both inner and outer action.
What Is Peace, Anyway?
Have you ever thought about it? Most of us seem to equate peace with the absence of war and the absence of fear. We might say, Peace means all children can sleep without fear and Peace means we no longer have to go to war. To many, peace means we are safe, living in a place without violence, perhaps even without pain and fear.
But pain is part of human experience. We actually need pain to keep ourselves safe-to teach us to refrain from touching the hot burner. And, to be able to navigate our environment safely, we need some elements of fear as well. Without fear, we would be far less vigilant when driving, and we would not build adequate shelters against the sun, wind, rain, and snow.
Many think that peace is the absence of conflict, yet conflict, managed successfully, is a requirement for positive change. Couples often believe that an ideal relationship is one with little conflict, but those conflicts provide the context in which relationships can grow deeper and mature. We need conflict to grow.
So, if peace is not the absence of conflict, fear, and pain, what is it?
The three of us believe that true peace is a way of living in which our conflicts lead us to more meaningful relationships, fear awakens us to live with greater safety, and pain reminds us of where we need support. Peace is an environment in which we help each other become the very best we can be.
Peace is when conflict no longer leads to violence, disagreement no longer requires us to dehumanize and demonize the other, and we enjoy finding new ways to support others and welcome their support of us.
But peace in the world is not possible until we learn to be peaceful beings ourselves, and spiritual practices can support our awakening to the peace that is already part of our being. Inner peace refers to equanimity and resilience in our responses to conflict. Inner peace flows from our connection to the greater wholeness of our being.
Interfaith Dialogue, Spiritual Practices, and Social Activism
The three of us are an unlikely trio: Don Mackenzie is a pastor; Ted Falcon, a rabbi; and Jamal Rahman, an imam. We have been called the Interfaith Amigos, but getting to this point-learning from each other, understanding our differences, working through the difficult matters, and