Lachelle Schilling – Page 2 – Feminism and Religion

Suggestions of Self-Restraint to Male Monks in the Acaranga Sutra by Elisabeth Schilling

green path Sometimes there are tricky statements in wisdom literature, as we all too-well know. For instance, in Acaranga Sutra—a Jain text on the teachings of Mahavira—the author says, “The world is greatly troubled by women. They (viz. men) forsooth say, ‘These are the vessels (of happiness).’ But this leads them to pain, to delusion, to death, to hell, to birth as hell-beings or brute beasts“ (I.2.4).

How incredible. A woman has the power to cause a man to regress in his re-birth to a being of hell or brute beast. As a side note, I disagree with the line of progression to enlightenment (I’d rather be born a plant than a human—they’re more peaceful and therefore wise; humans are the only species on earth to be destructive), but I get the point. This may be why, in another Jain text—the Uttaradhyayana—women are listed among the twenty-two troubles that “a monk must know and conquer,” (women are number eight). Why? Because “a wise man [. . .] knows that women are a slough.“ According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a slough is an impassible place of muddy ground or mire on the road of one’s journey (n.1, 1.a.), a state or condition, especially of moral degradation, in which a person has sunk (n.1, 1.b.), the skin periodically shed from a serpent (n.2, 1.a.), or a layer of dead tissue formed on the surface of a wound (n.2, 3). In summary, women are something men need to shed for their transformation. Continue reading “Suggestions of Self-Restraint to Male Monks in the Acaranga Sutra by Elisabeth Schilling”

Earth-Spirituality in the Qur’an and Green Muslims by Elisabeth Schilling

green path There is some very helpful guidance in the Qur’an for how we should and should not treat the earth. In my exploration of Qur’anic verses on the environment, I have found a great deal of Earth-love that I want to share.

The first idea is that the earth is not ours to trash and misuse recklessly or indulgently. Sura 2:284 says, “Whatever is in the heavens and in the earth belongs to God.” This sentiment is found throughout the scriptures. Individual wealth and the practice of financial profit and salary as reward has given us the illusion that, if we’ve earned the cash, we can do with it whatever we like. We can buy anything we want, show it off, hoard it, and then trash it. How often do we quell our suffering or attachments through consumerism as if there were no consequences? But we need to begin to shift to the perspective of honoring the earth as not something we are entitled to or even deserve. If we are supposed to be stewards of the earth, then fine. But it seems that selfishness and personal gain have distracted us, making us neglect our duty. The idea that the earth is a bestowed gift is embedded into the Qur’anic “golden rule”: “You who believe, give charitably from the good things you have acquired and that We have produced for you from the earth. Do not seek to give bad things that you yourself would only accept with your eyes closed” (2:267). Yes, we work the land to produce food, but not everything is within our jurisdiction. Continue reading “Earth-Spirituality in the Qur’an and Green Muslims by Elisabeth Schilling”

Desierto Divino: Messages from the Earth by Elisabeth Schilling

image1-1 I have been thinking about deserts lately, what places are desired, which ones are deserted, and by whom. Cabo de Gata of Andalusia is one of the four deserts in Spain. In 2010, it became public knowledge that the Ministry of Development planned to locate a nuclear waste dump there. The last I have heard was that they had ordered a feasibility survey with nuclear scientists, but I can find no other updates. Why would the government and academic institutions penetrate a protected region, sacred for its ecological richness and beauty? The dump would be created 1,000 meters below the surface where the radiation would be dissolved (so they said) and then carried into the sea. Whether we hide waste inside the earth or shoot it up into space or keep it in someone else’s backyard, when will we pause?

The earth never runs out of messages. But humans as a species have lost touch with this reality. The majority of the human population lives in urban areas where we consume and live processed lives. It is no wonder too few of us make grand changes in our lives concerning excessive consumerism and waste. How can we think of what we do not encounter? Milk is disassociated from its bovine origins for many, and trash is dropped off at the curb for someone else to deal with.

Even many of the items we own were made in factories in lands far off, where people have to deal with the waste to the detriment of their own environments. But who cares? That air will never reach us. The vegetation most city-dwellers (and so most humans) are familiar with is the plants and trees used to ornament lawns and landscaped neighborhood streets (when we are that lucky). This is why the desert, and any rural area, might be our saving grace.

Etymologically, the term “desert” connotes with “abandonment”: it refers to a place that was deserted. Perhaps thankfully so. The harsh conditions of the areas we modernly refer to as deserts have been inhospitable to profit and capitalism. One only needs take a road trip down I-40 in the U.S. to see vast expanses of desert, empty (from only one perspective) land. Even gas stations are few and far between.

Yet here is the paradox: in the isolation of the desert, perhaps we can learn how to become closer to one another, to heal our relationships, all of them. We can only see each other, notice the sky. When we are no longer distracted and disillusioned, looking down at our shoes and swallowed by our navel-gazing minds, nature reflects our own goodness to us, the sacredness that we have forgotten. In the city, we have broken almost all the mirrors and muted all the echoes. Continue reading “Desierto Divino: Messages from the Earth by Elisabeth Schilling”

Confessions of the Yoga Sutras: Guidelines for Life by Elisabeth Schilling

green path Back in August when I was applying for yoga certification, I discovered, in my search for our textbooks, the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali, 196 aphorisms. I had no idea what a gem of wisdom they would be, especially the first two pada (sections). No doubt, my reception of them is made possible by the mindful commentary of Reverend Jaganath Carrera, but I have found them to be much needed guidance, lessons that were never articulated to me in quite this way. I’d like to share with you some of the sutras that have most helped me begin moving again.

1.30. Disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sensuality, false perception, failure to reach firm ground, and slipping from the ground gained—these distractions of the mind-stuff are the obstacles.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Unabashedly, this describes a thick slice of my self-narrative. Carrera comments that the obstacles are in order, as if steps to a downfall. I had been wondering before encountering these scriptures where I had gone off-course. I had found myself feeling depressed, anxious, and desperate without a job and a means for independence at 35. I had a Ph.D., but that did not seem to matter in the way I thought it would. I can very much say that after graduating and having been an adjunct for 10 years already, I was feeling dis-ease. I fell into dullness, only applying haphazardly to full-time jobs and then into doubt when nothing positive came back. Once you lose your faith, I’m not sure much can happen. So I began to get careless, forgetting what it was to be a scholar. I felt the job search for the academy was too difficult and became lazy, beginning to look for something easier. This is when I decided to shelve everything and travel around Spain, Germany, and Ireland for as long as I could. It was sensually indulgent for sure. I cannot say I did not have a magical and liberating time. I absolutely did. But I returned after four months only to sink to that place I mentioned in the beginning – the depression and panic. My false perception was what I discussed in my post about “Hard Work without Getting Anywhere” – I realized that I had been so despondent because I had felt I was entitled. Entitled to an easy path to job security and the comfortable life I envisioned. But I hadn’t reached any firm ground. And although I had built up a decade of teaching experience and completed my dissertation, I was quickly slipping from any ground gained. All in all, I had created a world of distractions for myself that didn’t need to be. Patanjali and Carrera: you really get me.

Of course, what would this spiritual guide be if it couldn’t tell me what and how to rise up out of the mire and head somewhere? (Actually it would still be really enlightening.) This leads me to the second sutra I find so helpful: Continue reading “Confessions of the Yoga Sutras: Guidelines for Life by Elisabeth Schilling”

The Sacred and the Marketplace: A Political Story by Elisabeth Schilling

Beach John Henrik Clarke has said, “The most dangerous of all dependencies is to depend on your powerful oppressor to free you and share power with you, because powerful people never train powerless people to take their power away from them. So, we’re dealing with a contradiction in terms.” Likewise, Lucy Parsons has said, “Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.” It strikes me every election season that we discuss which person of considerable privilege we would like to save us and our earth.

I have watched some of the political debates this time, and I strain to hear any statement that makes sense or means much at all. There is too much ego and desperation that keeps a person that close to increased power from completely letting go of attachments and approaching a public moment mindfully. Sometimes political runners try to persuade us by telling us how they do know economic despair, but memories of poverty can be quite fleeting in the midst of currently comfortable lifestyles. Continue reading “The Sacred and the Marketplace: A Political Story by Elisabeth Schilling”

Hard Work without Getting Anywhere by Elisabeth Schilling

Beach When my students read about the Buddhist concepts of non-resistance, non-attachment, and living in the present, one of the first protests I end up addressing is how these ideas seem to negate progress, goal-setting, or success. What my students don’t yet see is how clinging to a particular end can hinder creativity and the pleasure of the journey to a degree that sometimes compromises success.

For instance, when writers create for academic purposes, they/we can feel desperate to finish a project. We can feel overwhelmed by the need for perfectionism or by the fear of failure. Perhaps even the hard work it takes layered with the uncertainty of really getting anywhere is what stirs feelings of resistance. Writing seems to transmit the energy frequencies of the writer, and what I do not want is for any reader of mine to feel that kind of struggle. Instead, I hope for narratives with at least some level of warmth, compassion, and generosity.

Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, zen spiritual practitioner and author, says that we know we have done something well when we have been nourished by the experience of the doing. Wow. I love this. Yet how forgetful I can be when getting to that sticky spot in my own writing, when I could pause to take a deep breath or walk around the neighborhood or do whatever it might take to refresh and reset my mind. Continue reading “Hard Work without Getting Anywhere by Elisabeth Schilling”

A Maternal Perspective Towards the Body by Elisabeth Schilling

Separatism and dualism do not usually serve me. I understand that denying unity and reducing the multi-prismatic complexity of existence muddies up our vision of reality and can sometimes clog up the channels to compassion. So knowing that this perspective is not universal, but temporarily (at least) healing to me, a particular body with a life situation that gives me access to this kind of thinking, I explore taking a maternal perspective toward my body.

In Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara’s Most Intimate, she mentions the “freedom of experiencing myself [the self] as relationship” (23). I was confused when I first read this. Relationships are usually outside of me or with me, but not what I am. Yet, after thinking about it, I know that I have been in relationship with myself. We (my body and whatever the “me” is) have been simply so enmeshed and mottled with my perspective of possession, owning, unrealistically demanding and having authority over that body, that it was just not a healthy relationship. Continue reading “A Maternal Perspective Towards the Body by Elisabeth Schilling”

A Sacred Urban Menstruation Ritual by Elisabeth Schilling

Beach If I had such an opportunity, I would not hesitate to bleed free in a moonlit forest with other women during the flow of blood from our wombs in sacred ritual. This said, I currently take on a nurturing and maternal role for myself, the earth and humanity through the creation and use of my reusable menstruation cloths.

According to Nina Rastogi of slate.com and Elissa Stein and Susan Kim of Flow, the average American menstruating person could accrue about 62,415 pounds of waste in a lifetime. Continue reading “A Sacred Urban Menstruation Ritual by Elisabeth Schilling”

Sustaining Feminist Spiritualities in the Seeming Absence of Community by Elisabeth Schilling

The spirituality I cultivated during my teens through evangelistic Pentecostal Christianity was based on possession, hierarchy, and exclusivity, although I would not have said that at the time.

As I gradually moved away from that faith community in my mid-20s, no longer wanting to equate a rewarded closeness to God with being set apart from others, I began finding myself participating in quiet conversations with the readings of Thomas Merton, Elaine Pagels, and with poetry by writers such as Olga Broumas. The words I was drawn to might not have been expressly or consistently religious, but they offered spiritual nourishment in their eroticism, earthiness, and sacred metaphor.

It was also around that time when I decided that feminist theologies were healing in their questions and re-visions of God and concepts of salvation and sin. To understand that being a spiritual and/or religious person could mean being aware of and pursuing my desires and connections to other people instead of being a gatekeeper was redemptive. Continue reading “Sustaining Feminist Spiritualities in the Seeming Absence of Community by Elisabeth Schilling”

Luke 12:51-53: On the Verge of a Paradigm Shift by Elisabeth Schilling

I remember being quite happy when my values about body, faith, and purpose lined up with those of my parents. With the support of my Protestant evangelistic community as well, I was “bold and fearless,” not caring who might judge me or disagree with me because I was not standing on my own. The anxiety of becoming embarrassed or having my world crashing down because of the ideas I expressed did not exist. My beliefs seemed special and right, and I had constant reaffirmation from family and community that they were.

But now I hold perspectives about spirituality and humanity that I can no longer discuss with ease in front of my family–not without my mother crying and feeling as if she did not know or like the person I had become. This may matter to me more than it might to other people since I have, for over a year now, returned to that home to write my dissertation. I am constantly challenged with the task of creating a space where I can honor my desires, needs, and truths. Like Judith Butler says, if I am a person who exists by doing, when I cannot express/speak/give an account of myself, I cannot fully exist. Family is important, but what gets sacrificed by pretending and silence? It is not only the self, but the chance for deeper, more authentic bonds. Continue reading “Luke 12:51-53: On the Verge of a Paradigm Shift by Elisabeth Schilling”