My Grandfather's Blessings - Suggested Discussion Questions

For those who are unable to complete the reading prior to our meeting, I provide a list of passages and questions from the reading so that you have something to reflect upon. These passages and questions are simply a guideline to jump start conversation. As always, my preference is that you spend the entire evening sharing your answer to the final question.

Becoming A Blessing: Pg 82-83 "Our essential humanity is defined by the Buddha seed in us, the capacity to grow in wisdom and the ways of wisdom. None of us are only the way we seem. Every acorn yearns toward the full expression of its nature and uses all opportunity to realize its capacity to become an oak tree. There is a natural yearning toward wholeness and wisdom in us all as well. This varies in strength from person to person. It may be quite conscious in some and deeply buried in others; it may for the focus of one life and lie on the periphery of another, but it is always there. Wholeness is a basic human need."

• I love this description of the Buddha seed -- that there is hidden potential within each of us that is striving to express itself. By engaging in loving-kindness meditations, Buddhists consciously practice perceiving everyone and everything in this way -- not just loved ones, but those that incite 'negative' emotions too. The underlying principle is that conscious practice creates the possibility of this becoming a habitual response in daily life. Do you think compassion and loving-kindness need to be practiced? How do you practice them?
• What does 'wholeness' mean to you? Do you agree that it is a 'basic human need'?

 

Finding Strength, Taking Refuge: Pg 136 "Perhaps finding the right protection is the first responsibility of anyone hoping to make a difference in the world. Caring deeply makes us vulnerable. You cannot move things forward without exposure and involvement, without risk and process and criticism. Those who wish to change things may face disappointment, loss, or even ridicule. If you are ahead of your time, people laugh as often as they applaud, and being there first is usually lonely. But our protection cannot come between us and our purpose. Right protection is something within us rather than something between us and the world, more about finding a place of refuge and strength than finding a hiding place."

• From my own experience, I know that I tend to armor myself against perceived hurt from external sources. Dr. Remen suggests that when our purpose is to make a difference in the world, this response can serve to wall us off from those whom we wish to serve. Do you have a personal experience of this?
• Often we perceive the choice to be vulnerable as a sign of weakness. Yet Dr. Remen suggests that caring deeply requires the courage to be vulnerable. In your opinion, does caring require courage?

 

The Web of Blessings: Pg 196 "To recognize your capacity to affect life is to know yourself most intimately and deeply, to recognize your real value and power, independent of any role that you have been given to play or expertise you may have acquired. It is possible to strengthen or diminish the life around you in almost any role. One of the ways in which we may become dangerous to others is to assume that our role or our expertise has in it such an inherent capacity for good that we, occupying that role, can do no harm. There is no role that absolves us of the responsibility to listen, to be mindful that life is all around us, touching us."

• The concept of interconnectedness is shared by both the Kabbalists and Buddhists. Are you aware of other spiritual perspectives that also share this concept?
• Do you agree with Dr. Remen's assertion that 'It is possible to strengthen or diminish the life around you in almost any role'?
• In my own experience, it floored me when I had a personal experience with the infinite ways that I can affect someone else. It was scary and humbling to realize that I need to be more 'mindful' of how I am in the world. Please share a personal experience of recognizing 'your capacity to affect life'. How did this recognition affect you?

 

Overall: Was there a particular passage that made you stop and either consider or appreciate?