MARCH NEWSLETTER

SPIRITUAL SHAME

I’ve been a dharma nerd since childhood, unable to hide my spiritual nature try as I may. I gave in to my culturally aberrant behavior years ago. So I was taken off guard by how much resistance my students expressed when asked to create a shrine room. The instruction to find a place in your home to set up a “shrine room”, or altar, and place to sit in meditation seems simple. You find shine rooms in Buddhist homes all over the world. A home shrine room supports a vibrant daily spiritual practice. When we practice here and there and all over the place our practice tends to be scattered and harder to maintain. When we have a safe, comfortable, inspiring place to come back to practice is easier and deeper. This is the foundation of a vibrant home practice.

A great deal of discomfort and fear came up around this instruction for many of my students. The discomfort centered around feeling embarrassed about expressing spirituality “out loud”, thinking is that spirituality is a personal, private matter. A lot of people feel shy about exposing their inner spiritual life. There is also concern about having other people who live in the home with us or who come through our home criticize this expression of spirituality, which is a very real possibility. The fear of dogma and empty ritual comes up as well, even though setting up a shrine room is designed to support a very real, tangible thing-spiritual practice.

When I first wrote these lessons I was aware that some Western Buddhists would bolt at the thought of ritual. In Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism there is much ritual and ceremony. Ritual and ceremony is intrinsic to Buddhism. It is how the teachings are transmitted, kept vital. Somehow the Western theravadin branch has taken a more intellectual approach to Buddhism. The old imagined split between mind and body has reappeared in the form of thinking emotions plus spirituality is a dangerous mix and so spirituality must stay safely in the head. This is not the case in theravadin countries but when Buddhism came to the West it married psychology which was trying desperately to become a science. The uncontrollable heart nature of ritual and ceremony threatens this “scientistic” stance. I’m reminded of a verse in a Leonard Cohen song, “You who must leave everything that you cannot control, it begins with your body but soon it comes round to your soul.” Added to that, many of us have post religious stress disorder from abuse of ritual in our religion of origin. Also added to the mix is that we are not always in alignment with our mates regarding spiritual matters. No wonder setting up a shrine room is threatening!

To build a shrine room in our home, not a showy place and not a hidden place but a place that feels right to us, is a courageous act of spiritual healing. An unexpected gift that the courage to build a shrine room offers is the exposure of any feelings of spiritual shame that may be lurking underground. It provides us with an opportunity to heal previous spiritual trauma so that we can meet this new practice with wonder and openness. It presents us with an opportunity to come into integrity with our private and our public selves. It offers an opportunity to become comfortable in our own skins, be comfortable with who we are and not ashamed of how we think and feel. It affords an opportunity to let our friends and family know who we are without having to rub it in or change them in any way. It is a challenge to be brave and sensitive to the fears of others while staying true to ourselves. How much more intimacy we have with ourselves and our loved ones when we are free to be who we really are! Sometimes it takes great skill to meet our friends and families fears with love and still remain in integrity with ourselves. A true balancing act on the tightrope of the middle way.

This expression of spiritual shame is a lot like the shame we in the West feel towards our bodies; sexuality, elimination and other natural bodily functions. We all know the damage this shame has done, turning these natural functions into aberrant behavior. It has created untold pain and suffering. If we are feeling uncomfortable with our spiritual expression what are we teaching our children? Whatever we say to our children is trumped by how we feel. The dissonance between what we say and what we feel about spiritual practice and values can be confusing to our children to the point that they become uncomfortable about their own spiritual feelings and push them aside.

The human need to express our spiritual nature is just as natural and strong as the needs of our bodies. We are healthy when we feel comfortable being who we are on all levels. Building a shrine room in our home in order to support our daily practice turns out to be much more than just creating a space for practice. I have learned from my students that it is a tremendous opportunity to integrate the spiritual and physical aspects of our lives on a deep level. What a joy and relief to finally be who we are without discomfort or apology, to find these pockets of misconception, free them into the air, and enjoy our release from the heavy weight of binding shame.

Jacqueline

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