Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

Today is my birthday.

As my birthday ritual I did an audio Mudita meditation with John Orr from an online retreat day April 11, 2021. Mudita is a Sanskrit and Pali word that means “sympathetic joy” or “appreciative pleasure”. It’s a Buddhist concept that involves feeling joy for the good fortune of others.

The first person you choose is someone you can feel a genuine sense of happiness for their good fortune and happiness. Today I chose my older grandson, Bradley. Currently I am sharing substantial time with him as he his helping me get DebraBasham.com set up. It will be the new home to Yellow Brick Road and Sacred Stories and many of the resources that have been located on SCS-Matters.com.

The second person is often called The Benefactor — someone who has been loving and supportive for you at some time or times in your life. I chose Reverend Betty Lue Lieber, who founded Reunion with her husband, Robert Waldon. This is the the program I was ordained through in 1997.

The third person is a neutral person. It may not even be someone you know personally, but it is someone who is feeling happiness and good fortune with a recent accomplishment, something that likely brings that person joy. I chose Donald Trump. You are instructed in the meditation to notice any old mind states like jealousy or envy. Right there with those feelings say, “May joy infuse your life. May it continue all of your days. May you truly be happy. May you truly be free. May all of this grow. May it infuse your heart.”

The fourth person is sometimes called The Enemy but it is just a challenging person (a person you are having a challenge with). You are encouraged to notice all of the happiness in that person’s life — loving family and friends and relationships, meaningful work. “May you be truly happy and well.” You are invited to be genuinely grateful for all that you have learned from this person.

After the guided meditation ended I played a recording of the chant “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” from a residential retreat day October 10, 2019. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu is a Sanskrit phrase that translates to “May all beings everywhere be happy and free”. It is a prayer for global well-being and peace, and a perfect chant to support the Mudita Meditation.

When I finished I looked at a list of others I know share a January 22 birthday:
1. Wayne Kaiser
2. Emily Warner
3. Phillip Largay
4. Joyce Zerbe
5. Aaron (Linda Gunter’s son)
6. Allen Mumper
7. Emily’s husband’s cousin
8. PT at Borgess
9. George Ross
10. Izzie (granddaughter Courtney’s friend)
11. Carrie Startcher (daughter Stacey’s friend in Clarksville)
12. Sivia’s mother

I like to also contemplate the day’s messages that come on this day from sources I value and follow.

Daily Reflection from Deep Spring

In a moment of darkness, you are wont to ask, “Why this darkness?” You have a sense that if you could but understand the darkness, you could protect yourself from it. Such thinking only further strengthens the illusion of the self. Can you sit there in that darkness and simply know, “Here I sit in darkness and I will wait. I need not fight with the darkness. I need not try to push it away. I need not grasp, even at faith.”

Just faith: faith expressed as the willingness to sit in darkness, if darkness is what is there, without a need to grasp at the light but with the willingness to open the doors and allow in the light. ~ Aaron

On this day of your life Debra, I believe God wants you to know that not everything has to turn out exactly the way you planned in order for you to call it a success. Sometimes all God wants you to do is to “get the ball rolling.” Then, She’ll take it from there.

So when things turn out other than the way you wanted them to, don’t be so quick to say, “Bummer!”

Many a Bummer is a Blessing in disguise. Consider the possibility that life is magic…and that there’s a rabbit in that hat.

Love, your Friend, Neale Donald Walsch

From Gratefulness.org

You must live life with the full knowledge that your actions will remain. We are creatures of consequence. ~ Zadie Smith

From The Daily Tejaniya

When you are truly aware you aren’t focusing, yet you are
aware of objects. You are aware of thoughts of the mind, sensations
of the body, and perceptions (sights,sounds, etc.) of the world.

By practicing in this way, the mind stays fresh.

It may not be usual to be happier for someone else’s birth than your own on your birthday, but today I truly feel greater joy that Stacey was born than that I was born. I get that she could not have been born unless I had been, but emotions don’t always make sense. In fact, they are often very distorted. That is just how it is. So at three quarters of a century I am grateful for the wonderful woman who came in as a teenage pregnancy and those that came in from her.

RIP Wayne Kaiser and Allen Mumper.

May all beings everywhere be happy and free. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu….