Practice, Not Perfect with Josh Reeves

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Mile Hi Church Podcast. This is Josh Reeves, and I want to tell you about the midweek renewal service here at Mile Hi every Wednesday. It's all about spiritual practices. So we start with meditation at 640. There's a little talking, little music, some forgiveness practice, and then a prayer ritual as well. You're at home within an hour. A great way to spend and inspire yourself in the middle of the week. My message this morning, practice not perfect.

[00:00:30] Practice, not perfect. There is a contradiction that we're asked to live with in spiritual living. None of us is perfect, and yet we are all connected with a perfect reality. Shunru Suzuki said,

[00:00:55] nothing we see or hear is perfect, but right there is perfect reality. This perfect reality, it's not ethereal. It's something in each and every one of us, an unconditioned reality, a spark of absolute love, absolute unity, absolute harmony in each and every one of us.

[00:01:20] And the spiritual work of our lives is to weave an ever-growing awareness of this perfect reality into our imperfect and often flawed existences. The path to not do this is the path of trying to be perfect. The path towards perfection is the beginning of superficiality.

[00:01:48] The path of perfection is the strangling of the genuine and authentic within you. The path of perfection is the rejection of self-acceptance. I remember my first day as the senior minister of the Seal Beach Center for Spiritual Living in Southern California. I wanted to give them a perfect first talk, and I wanted to tell them how humbled I was to be in their presence.

[00:02:17] And I went out there, and my first sentence was, I am so humble to be here. I'm so humble to be here with each of you. And I was too embarrassed in trying to be perfect to correct it. But I think a couple people looked at each other and said, Hey, he's not perfect. That's our guy. He'll do. And that's my message to you today. You're not perfect, but you'll do.

[00:02:51] Suzuki also said, Each of you here is perfect, but you could all use a little improvement. Ernest Holmes, our founder, talked about the path of practice. The path of daily prayer and meditation. He said, As you continue this practice day after day, week after week, month after month,

[00:03:20] year after year, the result will be a bigger, better you. Not a perfect you. A more vulnerable and transparent you. A more authentic and genuine you. A more self-accepting you. It is actually the accepting of our imperfections

[00:03:47] that reveals this perfect reality to us. What a trip. But that's how it unfolds. Practice not perfect. Charlotte Joko Beck, a great Buddhist teacher, she said, Who knows how we should be? We simply do. Who knows how we should be? We simply do our best over and over and over.

[00:04:19] Talking about practice not perfect, the path of practice. The first point I want to make today is to build your life around your practice. Build your life around your practice. I just released a book called Sacred Time, Finding True Peace in a Busy World. And it's my love letter to spiritual practice. It talks about the philosophy of spiritual practice

[00:04:48] and it talks about spiritual practice as a religion. And I'm personally proud of it because I wrote it for myself. I wrote a book about the Beatles. It was all for my dad. I wrote a book called Spiritual Narrative. I finished it and realized it was me trying to answer my mom's questions about our teaching. I wrote a book called Loose Change. I didn't know who I wrote it for. And my partner walked in and said, Did you write this just for me? I guess so.

[00:05:19] And maybe I wrote this book for my kids. But I'd like to say I wrote it for me. And for that reason, I hope it resonates with you and it's available in all sorts of different ways. And we have a few left here today too. Shunru Suzuki, who I've mentioned twice already, was one of the greatest spiritual leaders of the 20th century. He was Japanese and spent the majority of his life in Japan. And he became a Buddhist monk.

[00:05:48] And he was never seen as successful. Even his mentors picked on him. He had a slightly misshapen head and so they always called him crooked cucumber. And he was often so disdained that in a way, he was almost exiled to the United States. And he moved to San Francisco where he founded the Zen Center. And it was there that he began his ministry

[00:06:15] just by holding meditation in the mornings. He would just hold spiritual practices. And at first, a handful of people came and then another handful of people came. And then this thing in San Francisco called the counterculture started going and all of a sudden, his room is filled with white long-haired hippies. And the Zen Center grew and grew and expanded. They even still have one in Boulder, Colorado.

[00:06:42] And I love this idea that all of our success can come from our daily spiritual practice. That all the success you need in your life can take place by just taking that 15 minutes a day in contemplative meditation and thoughtful prayerfulness. Listening for the voice of the sacred in your life, that's meditation,

[00:07:12] and exploring the possibilities of your life in light, that you are one with a divine and holy essence and power. And life takes care of the rest. We're Big Ten Spirituality here at Mile High Church. And I would say that when it comes to approaching meditation and prayer, there are two types of religious scientists or two spectrums or poles. There are manifestors

[00:07:40] and there are allowers. A lot of us are in the middle of the spectrum. Manifestors, they go into prayer and meditation knowing exactly what it is that they want to co-create with spirit. I know exactly the prosperity I want and how it's going to show up. I know exactly the man I'm going to manifest and know I am not just going to date his potential. He's going to look and act

[00:08:08] and relate just like this. This is the harmony I want to weave in my life. And sometimes their vision can be expanded in their connection in prayer and meditation, but they're opening up their own mind to receive their good. Where are my manifestors at? All right. Allowers approach spiritual practice with only the intention to connect to the divine.

[00:08:37] They may have some clue about what it is that they want in their life, but all they want is that sense of connection with the deep spirit. And what they believe is simply by connecting with that spirit, the abundance, the health and well-being, the harmonious relationships, they take care of themselves. They are simply the byproduct of knowing our oneness with divinity. Where are my allowers at? Okay. How many of us are in the middle somewhere? Good.

[00:09:07] It's all good in that practice. Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice itself allows that perfect reality to reveal itself in our lives. All of us, through our psyches, intentionally or unintentionally, have a creative engine for our life that's made up of our beliefs,

[00:09:37] our stories, our judgments, our hopes and aspirations. When it's prayer and meditation, you are building the foundation for a wonderful life. But remember, whatever you practice, you'll get more and more excellent at. For a lot of us, our creative engine is worry and procrastination. Not prayer and meditation, but worry and procrastination. For some of us,

[00:10:06] it's not prayer and meditation, but it's regret and frustration. For some of us, our creative engine isn't prayer and meditation, it's apathy and feeling less than. It's self-rejection. For some of us, it's not prayer and meditation, it's grievance and blame. All of us are at choice about what that creative engine

[00:10:35] will be in our lives. It's never going to make our practice perfect, but it's going to reveal to us all that we need to be the best of who we are. this leads me to the second point I want to make about practice not perfect today, that no matter what, hold on to your practice. No matter what, hold on to your practice. It doesn't have to be perfect,

[00:11:04] but it does need to be consistent. Daily practice. And again, it's not going to be perfect. perfect. God bless those wonderful days when you can sit down with a hot drink and a good book and it's so quiet and you just feel the divine, you just nestle into it. Comfy, wonderful spirit and it's filling you with divine ideas and inspiration and peace of mind and you cultivate it, you know it for yourself and your life,

[00:11:34] you know it for everyone you love, you hold the world in it and it's beautiful practice. The next day, you're five minutes in and you smell your daughter's fish sticks burning in the oven and getting ready for school. Three minutes later, she loudly announces that there's no clean underwear. Practice might feel broken, but it never is. The perfect reality that we cultivate in our consciousness

[00:12:02] is always there even when we're experiencing our brokenness. 20-minute meditation, great. Five minutes, it'll do. Hold on to your practice. Sometimes we come into our practice feeling proud, centered, present. Sometimes we feel like crap. The challenge with spiritual practice is it reflects back to us who and where we are.

[00:12:33] Sometimes what is reflected back to us doesn't feel good. Sometimes we practice and we're overcome with a sense of loss. Sometimes we practice and we realize I did not know how angry and upset I really was. Sometimes practice is admitting our brokenness and consciousness of our wholeness

[00:13:02] and holding ourselves there. I love how another Buddhist teacher, Karen Mazin Miller, put it. She said, we settle in the sheep turds because that's where the fruit trees grow. And with a little work, the fruit tastes pretty damn good. Some people settle with a field or flock, some with a stick or a shovel, and some on a bench, chair, or cushion. Once you learn to settle the mind,

[00:13:32] you can settle anywhere and begin to cultivate the scenery. Then you might realize that the ground of your mind is the very ground of this earth where your feet find the path and the future appears in plain sight. It dawns like the faint glow of an early morning. Even before you open your eyes, you know it's the sun. Even before you open your eyes, you know it's the sun.

[00:14:04] Juan de la Cruz, also known as Saint John of the Cross, coined the term the dark night of the soul. A common lexicon that we use today to describe times of devastation in our lives. Times of immense transformation and change and I say devastation because we say it with the

[00:14:34] knowing that there will be new life. There will be something that springs back. And this is absolutely what Saint John of the Cross meant by the dark night of the soul but he meant something more about it as well. He meant it as a spiritual practice and he didn't say this, I'm saying this for him but he might put it this way that the dark night of the soul is the result of the question God

[00:15:03] how are you initiating me into a greater way of being and becoming with what you are? God how are you initiating me through my life right now into a greater way of being and becoming with what you are? It's not giving thanks for the seeming devastation in our life it's the recognition the spiritual practice

[00:15:33] of acknowledging that the God that got me this far is not the God being called for in my tomorrow not that it's not the same presence but my understanding the openness of my heart the flexibility of my mind must be expanded to embrace a greater understanding of the divine so that I can step into the new life that is calling me for St. John

[00:16:02] of the cross the practice looks like simply closing your eyes and realizing we are in the dark night are you seeing anything I hope not that's what the dark night of the soul is in spiritual practice it's the willingness to sit with faith in the immense not knowing it's being in that dark place

[00:16:32] and opening up for God to reveal itself in a new and profound ways letting go of all preconceived notions all stories all judgments just returning to this place of darkness or not knowing opening up to that recognition that that sun is right there but we don't make it up ourselves for St. John of the cross it may take hours may take days may take months

[00:17:01] it may take years but we show up to ourselves and to our lives and to the spirit open for a new revelation of how the divine can be and act in our lives practice not perfect means putting your practice as the causal engine of your life it means

[00:17:31] practicing no matter what even when you feel you suck at it keep going it also means right response practice not perfect means right response the best spiritual practice is the one that gives you all the resilience you need in your life to respond with a higher consciousness to any crappy

[00:18:01] thing that's happening to you or in the world we all know the golden rule do unto others as you would have them do unto you good advice I love how the great comedian Benny Hill put it he said do unto others then run built a whole career on that that idea but how about do good unto others who do

[00:18:31] not good unto you what does it mean to do good unto others who do not good unto you it's tricky sometimes I say well God I just want to manifest that person's karma and put them right in their place I will be the vehicle to help officiate that person being put in their place but there's something

[00:19:01] about the resilience we build in spiritual practice it doesn't change the negativity we experience in the world but allows us to respond to it with a higher consciousness I still experience as much fear as I ever had but I practice a greater and greater courageous love in my life I experience loss more so than I ever have

[00:19:33] frustration doubt but I seek to practice a higher self acceptance that allows that perfect reality to become visible in and as me as imperfect as I am and we have that ability to respond with that higher consciousness it begins to weave itself in and out of our reality and it can change things it may not help us

[00:20:03] that moment but it helps uplift us and the consciousness of our society there are two types of people generalizing there are those who feel the need to push other people down to lift themselves up can happen to any of us at any moment but we see it in culture and society all the time and the thing we need to remember about these people is they are haunted not by a sense of their superiority

[00:20:32] but their deep inferiority that they would think that pushing someone else down because of who they are somehow makes them better or superior the second type of person this is all of you lifts other people up and rises in the process lifts other people up and rises in the process we have that ability in all that we do to

[00:21:01] respond with a greater sense of good even when it seems like it's not working mother Teresa Saint Teresa of Calcutta she had the experience of what she called the calling within the calling she was already serving her passion as a nun for decades in Calcutta teaching and there was a particular day where she really saw the suffering of the people of Calcutta she saw the poverty

[00:21:31] the hunger and the disease and it broke her heart open and she dedicated herself as a being of response with God's love to the suffering people she brought all her Catholic stuff with her too but she brought that love and that heart to what she was doing I had a heartbreaking experience reading the news I hate it when that happens and there was a story of a

[00:22:00] homeless man who died of an overdose in a holding cell in Sacramento California and he was certainly responsible for his actions and the drugs he took that led and this is in respect of all people involved because I don't know what happened but there was in essence that his humanity wasn't seen that he could have died a humane death and he didn't get to for whatever reasons

[00:22:31] it's not a statement about the people and the situation it's a statement about us human beings that we could ever see someone's life as insignificant or as not human St. Teresa shared the story of one of her nuns discovering a dying man on the street his body covered in worms and she took him into the convent and they spent hours and hours cleaning this man so he finally spoke

[00:23:00] up and he said I am so blessed instead of dying like an animal on the street I get to be an angel and he smiled and passed away even St. Teresa admitted unfortunately the needs are always greater than our ability to meet them it reminds me of one version of the bodhisattva vow in Buddhism that says suffering will never cease but we vow to stop it

[00:23:40] smile on a human face as the one I saw on that man's face he went home to God see what love can do it is possible that young sister did not think about it at that moment but she was touching the body of Christ Jesus said as often as you did it for one of my least brothers you did it for me and this is where you and I fit into God's plan see what love can do see what love

[00:24:10] can do in your life in your relationships in your conflicts and those places of great disagreement in the world where you see the lack of humanity and dignity see what love can do by calling a grander version of it into yourself to respond no matter what takes place and it is when we respond with that highest aspect of ourselves that we affirm no one and no situation can ever

[00:24:39] take it away from us to close from a closing prayer that's in my book sacred time inspired by all the incredible practitioners I've gotten to work with in the years and I'm going to invite them to stand up because

[00:26:54] experience in our life and in the world we let it be we let it become and so it is thanks for listening to the mile high church podcast this podcast is made possible by the generous contributions from listeners like you to