September 11, 2007
Hello Friends,
It feels like it's been a while, but there is good reason, rationalization or excuse however you might characterize it. I have been working on Collaboration 2.0 with my colleague David Coleman. The project has come together with speed, intensity, and the source of a collaborative energy. To learn more and to secure copies please go to http://www.happyabout.info/collaboration2.0.php The book will very quickly become a "living book" and we are looking forward to your contributions.
I will be giving two complimentary lectures in Melbourne, FL on September 20 and 21 and conducting a two day program on "Building Trust and Sustaainable Collaboration" on September 22-23. For more information and to register please go to http://www.consciouslivingpartnership.org/
Now for the most importnat GIFT you can give YOURSELF...FORGIVENESS. Most of us think that forgiveness is about them. It's not. The letting go and release of the rage, anger, bitterness of hostility relieves your system of the toxicity of those emotions. The following prayer from Rabbi Michael Lerner of www.Tikkun.org syas it powerfully at this time of rememberance of the Jewish New Year and 9/11. Many blessings to all of you.
Stewart
Stewart L. Levine, Esq., Resolutionary
www.ResolutionWorks.com
510-777-1166 510-814-1010 cell
Author:Getting to Resolution
The Book of Agreement
The Change Handbook, 2d Edition, Chapter 52
NEW: Collaboration 2.0 www.happyabout.info/Collaboration2.0.php
If you knew the secret history
Of those you would like to punish
You would feel a sorrow and suffering
Enough to disarm all your hostility
HW Longfellow
******************************************
The Network of Spiritual Progressives
A Project of the Tikkun Community
A Bedtime Meditation/Prayer of Forgiveness
Building on the writing of my teacher Zalman Schachter Shalomi, I offer a prayer for every night of the year. It is particularly appropriate for 9/11 as we pray that Americans can let go of their desire for revenge and move to a higher level of consciousness, abandoning the fantasy that somehow "homeland security" can be achieved through militarism and dominating others (as the U.S. Administration and its hired guns in Iraq are trying to do).
Let us pray for the healing of the fear and trauma that guides the policies of the U.S. government and many of its leaders. It is also appropriate for Ramadan and for the Jewish High Holy Days, days when we search our deeds and contemplate how far we have strayed from our highest God place within. We know that each of us is deeply imperfect, and though we have been wronged by others, our spiritual traditions teach us to move beyond whatever anger we've experienced to a place of forgiveness. We must start that process by forgiving ourselves, also, for not being all that we wish we could be, and for losing contact with our holy God place within us.
Our injunction for this period is: "To thine own God self be true"--but this can only happen if we stop incessantly judge ourselves for how we have failed on that path. Ironically, self-transfsormation which is the goal of this period of inner introspection can only work if we forgive ourselves. But then we must move on to forgive others...even others who have not yet asked for that forgiveness. Imagine how blessed our world could be if that path of forgiveness became part of the reality of America's relationship to the world, Israel's and Palestine's relationship to each other, the Muslim world and the West's relationship to each other, the Chinese and Indian and Western relatonships with each other. And from that forgiveness we would move lovingly to change economic and political arrangements that are oppressive or hurtful both domestically and internationally. Well, we may not be able to make all this happen in the next few weeks, but one place we can start is by using this prayer every night of our lives before we go to sleep.
Many blessings to you, and I humbly beg your pardon for any ways that I have hurt, offended or otherwise transgressed in relationship to you!
Rabbi Michael Lerner
RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org
BEDTIME PRAYER OF FORGIVENESS
YOU, my ETERNAL FRIEND, WITNESS now that I forgive anyone who hurt or upset me or who offended me-
- damaging my body, my property, my reputation
-
- or damaging people that I love--
whether by accident or purposely-- with words, deeds, thoughts or attitudes.
I forgive every person who has hurt or upset me.
May no one be punished because of me.
May no one suffer from karmic consequences for hurting or upsetting me.
Help me, Eternal Friend, to keep from offending You and others.
Help me to be thoughtful and not commit outrage by doing what is evil in Your eyes.
Whatever sins I have committed, blot out, please, in Your abundant kindness, and spare me suffering or harmful illnesses.
Help me become aware of the ways I may have unintentionally or intentionally hurt others,
- and please give me guidance and strength to rectify those hurts--- and to develop the sensitivity to not continue acting in a hurtful way.
Let me forgive others,
- let me forgive myself--but also let me change in ways that make it easy for me to avoid paths of hurtfulness to others.
I seek peace, let me BE peace.
I seek justice, let me be just.
I seek a world of kindness, let me be kind.
I seek a world of generosity, let me be generous with all that I have.
I seek a world of sharing, let me share all that I have.
I seek a world of giving, let me be giving to all around me.
I seek a world of love-- let me be loving beyond all reason,
beyond all normal expectation, beyond all societal frameworks that tell me how much love is "normal,"
- beyond all fear that giving too much love will leave me with too little.
And let me be open and sensitive to all the love that is already coming to me,
- the love of people I know,
- the love that is part of the human condition,
- the accumulated love of past generations that flows through and is embodied in the language,
- music, recipes, technology,
- literature, religions, agriculture,
- and family heritages that have been passed on to me and to us.
Let me pass that love on to the next generations in an even fuller and more explicit way.
Source of goodness and love in the universe, let me be alive to all the goodness that surrounds me.
And let that awareness of the goodness and love of the universe be my shield and protector.
Hear the words of my mouth and may the meditations of my heart find acceptance before You, Eternal Friend, who protects and frees me.
Amen.
Composed by Rabbi Michael Lerner based on the previous writing of Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi. If you wish us help to spread the consciousness represented in this prayer, please join our Interfaith organization The Network of Spiritual Progressives (which is also open to atheists and agnostics who don't relate to organized religion but who do acknowledge a spiritual dimension to life and reality). Please join us at www.spiritualprogressives.org or by calling 510 644 1200 or by emailing Nichola@Tikkun.org or RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org. And please help us build this movement.
If you like this letter, please feel free to send it to everyone you know! And please direct them to our website www.spiritualprogressives.org
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A Bedtime Meditation/Prayer of Forgiveness
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