Whatever happiness is in the world has arisen from a wish for the welfare of others;
Whatever misery there is has arisen from indulging selfishness.
Buddhist proverb
Month: January 2010
Balance 3: Make time and space for questions
When I was a child in New York City in the 1940s there were laws that attempted to legislate the Biblical injunction, “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” Businesses were closed. Shopping stopped. There were no convenience stores. People needed to remember, in advance of the Sabbath, to provide for the upcoming day of rest and spiritual reflection so that, on that day, they could rest. The community collectively caught its breath. Family members spent time with each other. They renewed connections. They visited neighbors.
I like to imagine that, whether or not people went to religious services, there was the possibility in that period of a pause for reflection. “What am I doing with my life?” “Is what I am doing good for me?” “Is it good for other people?” “Does my life make a difference in the world?” “Could my life make more of a difference in the world?”
All of the important fundamental questions in life seem to be waiting, so to speak, next on line at the top of the mind’s agenda, if only we give them the time and the space to present themselves.
Sylvia Boorstein
Loving life
Aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness.
I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air.
I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.
Mary Oliver, Snowy night
Change
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle
“Talking about change is easy” a friend said to me recently, “but how easily do you actually accept it in your own life?” My answer was silence because I knew they were making a real point. It is easy to talk or write about working with difficulties and change in our lives, but the real test comes when things start to go in ways that we do not agree with. We tend to have a desire to plan out our lives, both for the long term and on a day-to-day basis. We have agendas and calendars that map out our lives, sometimes to the minute. It can help us feel in control, with plans like this. However, this is just an illusion. Things change, continually, big and small.
Mindfulness certainly helps us with the little changes: when there is a long queue in the supermarket, when traffic is bad, when meetings go on too long. We can easily work with the increasing tension in our bodies and notice the thoughts that arise. We can draw our breathing down into our body and root ourselves in the ground. Moments like these can become periods of practice, allowing us to inject pauses between the stressful event and our reaction.
However, how do we work with bigger life changes that affect our desire for love and meaning, the direction of our life, or with sudden moments that are beyond our control? It is easy for me to say that I will face it with a calm mind, but a sudden threatening event often means that my reaction comes out of a deep place within and can be narrow and defensive.
Does this mean that my mindfulness practice is useless and hypocritical or that it is of no benefit in working with real change? What I hope is that my practice begins to work on these deep fears so that even if the initial response was not perfect, space begins to enter gradually. Hard questions can be asked of us. Mindfulness does not consist in being perfect in our response each time but in trying to respond to each event with a benevolent heart. This is never easy when we feel our deepest wishes are threatened. However, if I try, in that moment or a day later, to drop into my heart and not just my nervous system, I feel better and sometimes more space enters.
I try to accept what happens. It might not be what I considered ideal, but it’s what life has given me, in this unpredictable world. I cannot control everything but I can work with my heart. I try to accept that this may not be what I wanted, but it is what I got. If I can do that, I notice that even though sadness remains, suffering is eased. The heart becomes more free to accept that there are other versions of reality than the one which I desired.
Gentleness
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.
The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
Henri Nouwen
Small Milestones
Today marked some small milestones in the life of this blog and of the website. There has been 1000 visits to these blog pages since it tentatively started on the 25th September while the Genevamindfulness website passed 3000 visits yesterday. Visitors have come from 26 different countries. Although these are modest numbers in the overall blogosphere, they do exceed what I anticipated when I started. The blog has a simple purpose, namely to provide information on mindfulness practice and to reflect day to day thoughts in the light of mindfulness and inner work. I thank you who return to check it out and hope that maybe you find some of the words on the blog useful.
Mindfulbalance 