Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Twenty One Days: 3 weeks of the Omer — Malchut of Tiferet

Malchut, as the tenth of the sefirot, is the culmination of them all, and is often looked at Sovereignty or Dignity. However, it is also the sefira that is about manifestation on the earthly plane of this world, which is a world of imperfection. For this reason, I will take a bit of a different interpretation from the classic look at the energy of the day and suggest that this is where we look at the limits of our compassion. In the world we live in, our own compassion is going to be imperfect. Because the truth is that we are not realized beings. And we are not even sovereign in our own lives. When we recognize this, really get it at our core, we can also have some compassion for ourselves in our imperfection, as we work to the best that we can to bring compassion into the world in the causes we bring our limited and imperfect powers to.

In Christian Kabbala, Tiferet is identified with the sacred heart of Christ — an open wound that takes on the suffering of the world. In Malchut of Tiferet, we are aware of that suffering, we feel it because we are not separate from it. However, we bear our own suffering with dignity, and as we work to lessen the suffering of others, we do nothing to lessen their diginity.

Twenty Days: Two weeks, Six days of the Omer. Yesod of Tiferet

Yesod, once again, is the sefira that corresponds to the second chakra — of sexual energy, generativity, and most importantly in Kabbalah, connectivity or bonding. This is an energy that is clearly physical in nature. And today the energy that we meditate on is that connection in beauty, as well as the bond forged in compassion. These may seem to be somewhat opposite at first. However, anyone who has been in a deep, long-term committed relationship knows the compassion partners have for each other — they see the true beauty in the fully vulnerable humanity in the lover, and have compassion for the ways the lover is broken.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote "There is a crack in everything God has made." This is in alignment with the Kabbalistic view, and that it is our job to help repair the world. Part of the work of this repair is seeing the beauty in the brokenness and loving it. After all, the Divine love flows through all things. How can we love it any less? How can we feel anything less than compassion for all Creation, including ourselves? And how can we see it as anything less than beautiful?

One note about the image of the Nine of Pentacles, which captures some important information about the energy of Yesod. In this garden, the mistress holds a falcon that is hooded. It is a recognition of the animal nature of sexuality, and the fruits that come from understanding how to control this energy and channel it in ways that create connection and celebrate beauty and compassion. So may we all walk this path.

Day 19: two weeks, five days of the Omer — Hod of Tiferet

Humility in compassion. Without humility, compassion is a way of setting up a barrier, of hiding behind a wall rather than opening up to shared vulnerability and humanity. Without humility, it can't be compassion, because the "com" the "withness" of compassion is missing. How can we be more present for people when we express compassion?

Taking the Precepts: Queer Monastics in Thailand

It is customary in Thailand for a young man to enter a monastery for some time. It brings honor on the family, and it's considered good training for the mind. Of course, like any society, the custom can devolve and become meaningless form. Just look at the vast majority of bar mitzvah parties in the United States. However, the issue has reached the media's attention in Thailand, as novices who in their secular lives are gay or transgendered, don't leave their sexuality, like their shoes, at the temple door.

The Bangkok Post reports that a "guide to proper behavior" is being promulgated to counter:

"reports of unconventional behaviour by monks in public, including using cosmetics, carrying pink bags and readjusting their robes for a fashionable look.

Some allegedly even had sex in their sleeping quarters, a severe sin under the code of conduct which incurs forced defrockment.

The course will be taught as a prototype at the Triam Sammanen school - the country's first Buddhist missionary school, located in the compound of Wat Krueng Tai in Chiang Rai's Chiang Khong district."

When a monk or novice takes the precepts, celibacy is one of the agreements. A young novice joins a monastery for three months. Similarly, when one becomes a monk, the hair is shaved, and one takes the robes — it involves an erasing of a kind of individuality as  a way of learning humility and to tame the ego. This is the practice.

Makeup. Fashion. Sexual expression. That's for outside. Inside, it's time for inner exploration and taming the mind's wildness, taming the ego's sense that it is all there is.

There have also been some rather scandalous goings on — abbots having affairs for example. Of course, this is nothing new anywhere in the world. Clerics are, after all, human. Great teachers from Krishnamurti to Trungpa Rinpoche are known to have suffered from these failings, not to mention the more hypocritical among them, the Haggards and his ilk.

When hyprocrisy is the order and boundaries are violated, it is a serious issue. But we all struggle, and no one can judge.

Eighteen Days/Two Weeks, Four Days of the Omer: Netzach of Tiferet

Looking at the day as Endurance of Compassion, it leads me to the flip side of this energy that so many people seem to suffer from — Compassion Fatigue. Durfur, AIDS, Unemployment & Foreclosures, WTC Families, Homelessness, Beggars on the Subway and on the Streets, Vets with PTSD, Children Bullied into Suicide, Iraqi Victims of Roadside Bombs...the news is full to overflowing with suffering. How can we bear it all? How does the nurse in ER bear it day after day, year after year. So many medical personnel create a wall of professionalism because otherwise they would break in the face of such relentless suffering. And this can turn and become a prison, since when you turn off the faucet, it closes down all the water of emotion, making access to any difficult.

So many of us don't even experience the fatigue, rather we put up the compassion defense rather than feel overwhelmed by helplessness, or feel vulnerable ourselves by letting in the humanity we share with people in suffering.

We do this everytime we avert our eyes on the subway or the streets from the homeless.

How can we not only open to compassion and learn healthy boundaries for it, and then make sure it endures in the face of the endless suffering of the world, because in fact that suffering is endless.

This is where we must choose. We are limited, not divine. There is only so much each person can do. But we must choose to do something, and put our energy somewhere. And as Rabbi Tarfon taught:
"It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either"

Choose a cause. Make it yours. And add your voice to the chorus of compassion. Lend your hands to do the work. When everyone is doing something, no matter how small, the messiah is here.

Seventeen days, making two weeks and three days of the Omer: Tiferet Squared

As the Scarecrow said to Dorothy, "Of course, some people do go both ways."

So here we are on the 17th Day: Tiferet of Tiferet, the heart of compassion. And once again, what better image to call up than Avalokiteshvara / Kuan Yin.

Well, I guess most Jews would disagree, given that this is, after all, a graven image!

But I am more concerned with the principle, the meaning, not the statue itself.

Previously I mentioned the fact that in the movement of Buddhism from India further east to China and Japan, the boddhisattva transformed from male to female.

Some see this as Compassion That Transcends Duality. And that feels like the right energy for this day in the Omer count.

This is a compassion that calls us out of our old patterns, to free us from the slavery of creating enemies. Nice work if you can get it. But as Gershwin wrote, you can get it if you try.

Week 3, Day 2: Sixteen days of the Omer — Gevurah of Tiferet

The form of beauty. The discipline of truth. The restraint of compassion. These are just three of the kaleidoscopic energies of the day.

By having a plan for the day, will it be an expression of inner beauty?
Will mindfulness guarantee a level of awareness so that all that is spoken is truthful?
Can I keep my boundaries and still be compassionate?
All things to meditate on today.

Today is 15 days, which is two weeks and one day of the Omer

Into the week of Tiferet. Where John Keats would feel right at home:

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Of course, the Jews of the Kingdom of Israel during the time of the Maccabees would be horrified at the quote, given that it is inspired by a Grecian Urn. Well, I suppose given the nature of this blog that would be the least thing they'd be horrified by.

But Tiferet is the intersection of Truth and Beauty. It is also known as Compassion, which connects it to the Boddhisatva Kuan Yin, who is female in China and Japan, and known as the beautiful male youth Avalokiteshvara in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Kuan Yin is the expression of today's sefirotic energy, Chesed in Tiferet: Lovingkindnes in Compassion. So I found it rather amusing that at both Andrew Sullivan's blog, as well as on Joe.My.God there was a link to a video of Chinese dancers in an homage to Kuan Yin. And not one to run from the energy of the day, here it is for your pleasure — it's quite amazing:

14 days. Two weeks of the Omer: Malkut of Gevurah.

Healthy self discipline makes one sovereign of your soul. Healthy self discipline becomes so natural that the sovereign — and the feeling that there is even a discipline — disappears into the natural expression of the Divine Will through your own.

Thirteen days of the Omer count: Yesod of Gevurah

One week and six days in. Yesod can be seen as both sexual energy and the ability to connect on many levels. So today's energetic field is about reinforcing connection with discipline. For many Jews, this can sound like an inner scold saying "call your mother." But of course it is so much more than that. It's about bringing a meditative focus to every connection in our lives where we have made a commitment.