A Gift of Dharma 1.10.10
Yesterday’s quote from my dear friend and former Naropa University professor Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown, Ph.D., whom I previously quoted and wrote a little biography for here, stimulated a lot of conversation on Facebook. So how ’bout another from Judith-la? This is it, from her article “Commitment and Openness: A Contemplative Approach to Pluralism”:
Frankly, engaging with pluralism is necessary for our very path, for spiritual development for ourselves and for the world. The contemplative path cannot be insular. We must be open to all the varieties of the world, to be touched by what we encounter, and to be transformed. When we draw a rigid boundary around ourselves, our contemplative development is over. When we encounter the “other,” that which we have ignored, excluded, or just not known, we have the capacity to question our conventional minds, to expand our horizons, and to go deep. The “other” is our greatest teacher, our guru. The contemplative, I would submit, needs pluralism in order to remain authentic.
