Sabbath rest: A meditation to develop peace within ourselves

Sit comfortably for a few moments, letting your body be at rest. Bring your attention into the present and notice whatever sensations are present in your body. In particular, be aware of any sensation, tensions or pains you may have been fighting. Do not try to change them, simply notice them with an interested and kind attention. In each area of struggle you discover, let your body relax and your heart soften. Open to whatever you experience without fighting.  Breathe quietly and let it be.

Continue to sit quietly. Then cast your attention over all the battles that still exist in your life. Sense them inside yourself. If you have an ongoing struggle with your body, be aware of that. If you have been fighting inner wars with your feelings, being in conflict with your own loneliness, fear, confusion, grief,  anger or addiction, sense the struggle you have been waging. Notice the struggles in your thoughts as well. Be aware of how you have carried on the inner battles. Notice the inner armies, the inner dictators, the inner fortifications. Be aware of all that you have fought within yourself, of how long you have perpetuated the conflict.

Gently, with openness, allow each of these experiences to be present. In each area of struggle, let your body,heart and mind be soft. Open to whatever you experience without fighting. Let it be present just as it is. Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let yourself be at rest. Invite all parts of yourself to join you at the peace table in your heart

Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart

Sunday quote: Listen


The first duty of love is to listen

Paul Tillich

We don’t need to be perfect: Stop running, be “good enough”

More on what I wrote about earlier this week prompted by seeing the hawk,  and echoing Ajahn Sumedho’s words this morning,  on simply being ourselves, and believing that this is enough, that it is a safe place to be.  Over these past weeks I have met a lot of people who were tormented by self-doubt, by thoughts of never being “good enough”. Often this has led  them to adopt strategies of pushing themselves in order to cover up some deep sense of lack. Some were afraid to admit their own needs because they had come to believe that the only way of being accepted was to be the perfect partner, the perfect girlfriend or boyfriend, doing everything for the other.  Or others responded to their inner insecurity by controlling their partner  or life so much, thus ensuring that they will therefore never leave them or never be left just with themselves.

Healing comes when we realize that we are perfect, just as we are, before we do anything, from being secure in our sense of self. The more we can sit simply with ourselves, the more we realize that everything we need for our happiness is already here, even with  the histories we have had or the disappointments we have endured. Once again we can learn from nature:  like the still  hawk in the sky  or the silent rose in  the quote below, we try to be still and not run after happiness outside ourselves. Agere sequitur esse as the Medieval Philosophers liked to remind us: our actions flow out of our being. However, this is not just a philosophical truth. It is a practical way of increasing happiness moment by moment, day by day. Let go of all we think we have to add on to ourselves in order to be accepted or for this moment to be whole.

Does the rose have to do something? No, the purpose of a rose is to be a rose. Your purpose is to be yourself. You don’t have to run anywhere to become someone else. You are wonderful just the way you are. This teaching …. allows us to enjoy ourselves, the blue sky, and everything that is refreshing and healing in the present moment. We already have everything we are looking for, everything we want to become. I am happy in the present moment. I do not ask for anything else. I do not expect any additional happiness. Aimlessness is stopping and realizing the happiness that is already available.

Thich Nhat Hahn

The cycles in our lives

Walking in the hills this morning and saw a neglected meadow full of buttercups. It is lovely to see some fields just left “idle”, for wild flowers to then bloom, open for the bees and the butterflies. We do not need to add much to nature, just to let it be and it provides. If left to itself it grows and is fruitful. A bit like our lives. Even when times are tough and seem barren, they grow back and produce fruit even more  abundantly than before – we just have to trust in a cycle which often we cannot see but which is not made up by any one event. It unfolds at its own pace, with its own wisdom. If we have the courage to allow it do so,  it will lead us to what really matters.

…by seing what is in front of us

We train ourselves to see that what we have is rich enough, by coming back to this breath and letting go of our stories. In this way we content ourselves with what really going on and let go of what we think would be good for us, what would actually make us happy.

If you can’t see what you are looking for,

see what’s there.

It’s enough.

Mark Nepo

….by seeing the deeper meaning

The real challenge that faces us as we go through this day is staying open: open to the mystery of others and of events we cannot fully understand, open to a deeper meaning in our lives, open to seeing our lives from a different vantage point than that of our fears:

Can you hold the door
of your tent
wide to the firmament?

Lao Tzu