Friend Clem Gerdelmann gives us one more brief reflection on Buddhism and Quakerism. Visit his QuakerQuaker page for more of his contributions.

Both Buddhism and Quakerism support the realization that “Happiness is an inside job.”

Perspective and attitude, like leavening, are far more essential than doctrines, like salt, sprinkled atop our awareness and purpose in life. Both spiritual paths honor the time needed to sit with the leavening process.

Similarly, both are suspicious of what can be offered from outside of the self.

Therefore, the recipe for enlightenment/revelation is the same in that it begins with what is buried/implanted inside of each person.

Rather than resist the shadowed, mysterious circumstances found there, verve/The Word allows it to rise to the surface of its own power and doing.

And once brought to a fuller, useful purpose, we become the sustenance for a revivification of the human spirit/situation in and for the world.

Each to its own incarnation,
Clem Gerdelmann