Page 1 - 30.1 Connections February 2021

Connections

The Public Square of Spiritual Companionship

February 2021 Volume 30.1

LINEAGE AND SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

By REV. SEIFU ANIL SINGH-MOLARES

What does it mean to be an authentic spiritual sense where we honor each other – people we’ve
director? No question is more important to never met physically and will never meet physically
our calling. Rev. Seifu Anil Singh-Molares, SDI’s – but we are connected deeply and intimately to
executive director, addressed the hallmarks of them. That’s the connected part of the chain.
spiritual direction and spiritual companionship in
a recent Listen issue. (You can read it here,) In this Editor: How does lineage disconnect us?
short dialogue, we go even deeper as Rev. Seifu
focuses on the importance of lineage with past Rev. Seifu: The disconnected part is the
exploration of the unknown. I’m not talking about
and future spiritual directors – honoring both deep disconnection in terms of alienation. I’m talking
connection and deep exploration.
about disconnection in terms of contemplative
Editor: Lineage. Why does it matter to me if I opportunities. In some very true sense, we are
want to be a good spiritual director or spiritual beings with such limited capabilities that there is
companion? much more to whatever we feel and intuit than we
can process rationally. These are things that resonate
Rev. Seifu: Lineage connects us and disconnects on multiple levels beyond our own awareness.
us. It connects us through time – in my case And though they are beyond our intellectual
to the historical Buddha of 2600 years ago and understanding, we can certainly feel our way into
the example – and the spiritual direction and them, or meditate, or dance, or whatever tools
companionship – he still provides me on a daily we use to tap into that base. So, paradoxically, we
basis. I receive this through his teachings, but also disconnect to find a deeper connection – exploring
through his non-teachings – meaning the space the same mystery that greeted our ancestors and
created for intuitive awareness and connection with will greet our descendants.
the universe. This is something all great spiritual
directors and companions do as they invite us into Editor: You have been part of the Buddhist tradition
communion with what we in Zen call “beyond the for more than 40 years, exploring both connection
beyond,” what others call God or Tao or Brahman, and disconnection. What has your lineage taught
or any number of other descriptors. you?

And so, there is that sense of lineage to the past. Rev. Seifu: If someone asked me what the main
But it also connects us to the future. We are part of takeaway was from all of these explorations over
this chain of connected spiritual directors – past, these four plus decades, it’s that we are not seeking
present and future – and we are all doing our part perfection because there is no such thing. This is
to keep that chain alive, to keep that connection a path of constant awakening and reawakening,
alive across time and space. That’s what good of birth and rebirth. Every day is a new beginning.
spiritual companions do. There’s lineage in that Our teachers are imperfect. We are imperfect. And

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