It may not be evening where you are. Uh we are very pleased to be here at Naropa

University in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. Uh for this uh interreligious dialogue and

it will indeed be a dialogue uh that is to say

people will be talking not just to you but to each other. So we are hoping that it will

uh spark some very, very uh profound and helpful

uh ideas for all of us...about livelihood and how we can bring the path - the spiritual

journey to entirely fully to our lives and including our livelihoods in that.

So uh I would like to uh welcome our panel of distinguished guests to this inter-religious

dialogue and uh they are guests from 6 different uh great world religious traditions.

And I'd like to begin by saying that the topic that we will be discussing tonight as I said

was livelihood and the spiritual journey.

And beginning all the way to the left your screen is uh Pir Natenel Miles-Y�pez,

representing Sufism and Islam. Pir Natenel is the current head of the Inayati-Maimuni

-- sorry for my pronunciation - Maimuni Lineage

of Sufism. He studied both Sufism and Hasidism under Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and

other teachers as well. He is author of a number of books and teaches here at Naropa

University in Religious Studies. Welcome.

Next is Stephen Hatch who is representing Protestantism. Uh Stephen is the uh -

represents the Contemplative Spiritual branch of the Radical Reformation that also

produced Mennonites and Amish and flowed into Quaker spirituality.

He trained with Thomas Keating, the Catholic mystical tradition of Centering Prayer. He

teaches in the Religious Studies Department here at Naropa where he specializes in

Christian mysticism. Welcome.

Next, to my right is Sreedevi Bringi. Uh Hindu traditions is what she is representing here

tonight. She received training in the Hindu traditions of yoga, meditation, Sanskrit and

spiritual practices from her family elders, swamis and other yoga teachers in India. She

also holds graduate degrees in Chemistry, Atmospheric Sciences and Education. She

currently teaches at Naropa University in the Religious Studies and Traditional Eastern

Arts Departments.

Welcome.

Namaste.

And to my left and is Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown who is here representing Buddhism.

Acharya Judith is a Distinguished Professor of Contemplative and Religious Studies here

at Naropa University. She teaches Buddhist ethics, scripture, philosophy as well as inter-

religious dialogue and contemplative education. She is Acharya or senior dharma teacher

of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and Chogyam

Trungpa Rinpoche. Welcome.

Thank you Roland.

You are welcomed.

And next is Father Alan Hartway who is representing the Roman Catholicism. Father

Alan is an ordained Catholic priest in the Society of the Precious Blood and has served

as a pastor for 12 years. He taught at St. Mary

of the Plains College and worked for a Christian Foundation for Children and Aging,

a lay Catholic missionary organization. He teaches in the Religious Studies Department

here at Naropa University. Welcome.

Thank you Roland.

And next is Rabbi Tirzah Firestone. Who is uh representing Judaism. Rabbi Tirzah is

also a Jungian therapist and widely known for her work on the confluence for Kabbalah

and psychology as well as the reintegration of the feminine wisdom tradition within

Judaism. She was ordained by Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi in 1992. She has

authored a number of books and has taught at Shambahala Mountain Center as well as

lecturing and teaching throughout the United States and she has also taught here at

Naropa University. Welcome.

And it's interesting, everyone on this stage has at one time or another is either presently

or at some time taught in the religious studies department here at Naropa University.

So to begin I would like to pose the first question to our panel which is - that uh - other

than for survival what role does livelihood play within your tradition on the spiritual

journey? And we will begin with Pir Netanel.

Pir Netanel: Thank you.

I like to think of it this way. I often say we train for the race -- a runner gets up

everyday, gets out on the road everyday, every week,

every month and puts in the miles so that just

two or three times a year uh - on the day of the race or the marathon they can perform

at the peak of the ability.

In the same way we do our spiritual practices daily, weekly, monthly - for those times -

those occasions when we really need them to work for us and we hope that they will.

And...what they can do with that moment is - help us be less reactive or perhaps more

compassionate.

So we do our spiritual practices in order to transform our lives so that in our lives

we can make a different choice. A better choice.

One that produces uh - perhaps better results.

You know - aside from weekends - I see my wife a little bit of time in the morning and

maybe a few hours in the evening before bed. But from 8 to 5 really 7:30 to 5:30 or

sometimes 7 at night she is at work with other people.

And...that's how - that's how it is for most of us today. We spend the majority of our

time with these other people at work.

And the people that we spend a lot of time with tend to see...over time the cracks in

our armor. Uh the flaws in our character. We can't

help it - the more time you spend with somebody the more you reveal that stuff.

So, we should really think about work as an opportunity to - uh display something

different. To look at it as the testing ground of our - spiritual lives.

Uh to think of it perhaps as...the race for which we train.

Thank you.

Roland Cohen: Thank you very much. And now uh - Stephen

Hatch.

The whole topic of work... In a Christian tradition uh there is a saying

- and in the Jewish traditions that we are made

in the image and likeness of God. And of course, God is conceived first and foremost as a

creator. So that means that if we are in the image and likeness of God that we are

creators as well.

So work uh for all of this is meant primarily as the arena in which we can be creative.

In which we can create new uh - new things.

And in my tradition there is the sense that - that each of us is a kind of mirror in which

the divine presence knows itself.

And uh - so there is the sense that the divine creates the world and uh - in the

spaciousness in the out of nothing or no thing and then we each appear with our own

creativity seemingly out of nowhere and its as though uh - you know say you go into your

bedroom in the morning and you look in the mirror and the mirror image starts to flirt

back with you. And - say things that you never said and uh - and make gestures you

never made.

So there is the sense in which there is this great surprise and awe and wonder that we're

put here on this earth each to reflect the creator back in new and surprising and shocking

ways.

So there is the sense that all of us are the way the divine man - manifest itself in

completely new ways. Each of us is a unique expression. And our work gives us the

opportunity to do that.

Uh interestingly we are in a world that has rough edges. Uh as we all know. We have all

different types of people. We have all different agendas. We have uh sickness and illness

uh and uh sufferings and joys and that is the raw material out of which we are able

to create something new when you think of it

so many things that are created that are new whether they are scientific inventions, spiritual

uh insights are all based on the previous challenge or suffering that - that isn't able

to reveal the divine creativity.

So if I look at it in my own life I have - three arenas of work. One is in teaching. And uh

I love to teach because I love the sense of giving students the sense of awe and wonder

in the world. And the sense that I have of awe

and wonder when they reveal their characters.

In photography, which I do quite a bit of, landscape photography uh I love sharing the

sense of awe and wonder that comes uh with the beauty of the world. So that awe and

wonder is related there and finally I have a janitorial business uh - in which I am

challenged to take the ordinary mundane and boring and create meaning out of it.

Thank you.

Sreedevi...

Namaste.

In the Hindu traditions, there has always been the complete uh engagement of the

external world, the internal world, the world of work in which we could really call the

world of action. And in the Book of Gita uh one of the most sacred texts that still has

enormous contemporary significance - the Krishna speaks about the world of work as

something that - becomes the arena for our spiritual growth. We could use the Sanskrit

terms uh karmashatriya, dharmashatriya...karmashatriya - the field of action, the field of

action whether its livelihood from the perspective of uh a man in the family being uh

computer scientist and the woman being the stay at home mother with the kids. There is

still the aspect of action in the world that is not only survival but going beyond into

the....which is our spiritual field and that is our dharma. So dharma are the codes of

conduct and the behaviors we would manifest would really represent our temperaments,

our gender, our what we are best at doing, the skills that we bring and the awareness

of using that context - the field of work, livelihood

and action in order to further our own progress uh spiritually. So there is in that

sense in the Hindu traditions there is no clear

separation at all. They are completely integrated and interwoven.

Thank you.

Acharya...

Thank you. And this is a wonderful conversation with all of us. Uh in the Buddhist

tradition one of the core realizations is there is no such thing as individual enlightenment.

The only kind of uh - life that we live is one that's interconnected with everyone else.

And this means that in Buddhism we begin to recognize that life is an opportunity to find

a way to serve and to connect and to be of benefit with others.

So in Buddhism there is a sense even from the Buddha's earliest teachings when he

talked about right livelihood the importance was to find a way to make the activities of

our lives of some kind of benefit to others and that there is a way to serve more skillfully

or less skillfully depending what kind of environment we find ourselves in. The Buddhist

teachings emphasize the importance of wisdom and compassion in whatever our work is.

And the Buddha put a lot of emphasis in finding a way that our work could be of service

to others.

So from that point of view I think we often tend to think of work as an incredible

obligation, a burden, its too bad we have to work if only we could be rich. If only

we could you know be free to just do whatever

we want and that our private life is where we

enjoy ourselves and we you know uh pursue our own pursuits, but very much in the

Buddhist sense there is - there is a sense that that boundary between public and private

or between work and our personal life begins

to dissolve especially as we find work that is

meaningful to us. And that serves the world in some kind of way and the - the

admonition to look for right livelihood is to find work we actually love.

So the sense is that work could be - no different from our personal life and of course in

uh in the Buddhist teachings the importance is to bring mindfulness to our work to see

that a relating in the world - all of the activities of our daily life whether its sitting

at our desk and working at our computers - we can

be mindful at our computers.

When we are talking on the phone we could have telephone mindfulness. But beyond

that of course mindfulness is important but then there is the importance of developing

a sense of wisdom and insight and clarity in

our work.

So there is nothing that wakes us up like other people. And uh - we are finding a

difficulty in the workplace is very much part of our - of our challenge and our delight

in our ongoing spiritual development. Thank you.

Father Alan...

I want to build on what Stephen said uh I have always been puzzled by the actual text

at the beginning of Genesis or...its uh it tells

us that Adam and Eve worked in the garden. This was before - the trouble. Before the

explosion. And then I have to wonder well what

were they doing? Were they - were they hoeing and weeding and no it was perfect so uh

- what were they doing? I think their work - was three fold. Uh - I think their first

work was that inner - interior conversation with

God. God who showed up every evening to walk with them - that's our first work.

Uh - in the Latin...prayer uh - and the second work uh - was joy and delight. Uh in the

garden. They - their work was - joy. And I think St. Thomas Aquinas say this - he says

the greatest human work - is joy.

Uh so they - that was their work. They were in the garden to have joy at being in the

garden. Their very existence. This joy. And the third work - the one that got most

interrupted and broken I think is the work of their relationship. They got - gave them