Month: May 2011

A safe holding environment

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The main trend in the maturational process can be condensed into the different meanings of the word “integration”  Winnicott

As we continue to meditate we see that one thing which we need to develop in order to  increasingly free and happy is the capacity for investigation. Investigation means that we move to see things clearly, just as they are. First we strengthen our capacity for awareness;  then we increasingly investigate the present moment. Our practice a kind of moment-to-moment noting of our ongoing experience, and our reaction to that experience, and allows the coming together of the multiple,  varied and fragmented events which we have gone through in our lives and which still have an impact upon our sensations and our emotions.

This process of awareness and investigation is similar to the holding process which Winnicott said was necessary for ongoing integration. In childhood,  the environment around the baby is of  paramount importance,  allowing  growth as the baby  begins to understand  the differences between itself and others, and not see these differences  as  overwhelming threats. Thus the baby begins a process of integration which continues little by little throughout life. It occurs in the intersection between the body and the mind as the child is able to gradually allow distance to appear between itself and the caregiver, with the caregiver allowing the holding space to grow wider, as the child becomes able to function independently. It develops the ability to be alone, through the presence of others.  The caregiver offers an emotional constancy which  is predictable and consistent, and with the assurance he or she  is  someone who can be reached if needed. In this way, difficult moments can be faced without the child feeling a fear of annihilation.

We echo this in meditation. What happens  is that by sitting silently, and becoming more still in our aloneness,  we develop inside ourselves an increasing capacity to hold in awareness and investigate  the experiences which have left their traces in our body and in our mind. We create a similar holding environment inside ourselves which allows our fears to come out safely and be healed. Meditation is not some escape from our experiences or an artificial haven to run to when times get stressed. It is, rather, a place where we hold the things that scare us, and in holding them, slowly heal them.

The secret of life: Being fully in the moment with our history

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Sometimes meditation practice can be used just to dampen down anxiety or to run away from facing difficult aspects in our lives or our history. As a strategy this is doomed to failure, sooner or later. The only way to full wholeness is to allow all things to be held in awareness, including the parts of ourselves or our life histories that frighten us, the things that disturb our “calm”. As the previous quote from Pema Chodron reminds us, all that comes into our life – including the experiences of our childhood  and subsequent difficult moments – remain in us until they have taught us something and we have integrated the teaching. So our most important practice is allowing and acknowledging all the parts of our life,  thus increasing our capacity to be free in their presence.

If, then, we want to be let in on the secrets  of life, we must be mindful of  two things : first, there is the great melody, in which things and scents, feelings and past events, dawns and dreams, all contribute their part; and second there are the individual voices which augment and complete this full chorus. And to lay the foundation for a work of art — that is, an image a life lived more deeply –  of our more than daily experience — we have to put both voices, – the voice of this moment and the voice of the group of people living within that moment  – into a proper relationship and reconcile them.

Rilke, Notes on the Melody of Things

Life is the best teacher

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Nothing ever goes away

until it has taught us everything it has to teach us.

Pema Chodron

Another sunny morning in Geneva

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Another beautiful day of sunshine dawns. We have been so blessed these past weeks.  LIfe starts over again with new possibilities, new experiences, and is lavish in its possibilities. This day is exactly as it should be; are we open to receive it, or too preoccupied with other concerns?
Have you ever seen
anything in your life more wonderful
than the way the sun, every evening,
relaxed and easy, floats toward the horizon  and into the clouds or the hills, or the rumpled sea, and is gone—
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning, on the other side of the world,
like a red flower streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance—
and have you ever felt for anything such wild love—
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough for the pleasure
that fills you,  as the sun reaches out,
as it warms you as you stand there,
empty-handed—
or have you too turned from this world—
or have you too gone crazy  for power,  for things?

Mary Oliver, The Sun

Bringing unity to the parts of our lives

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It is through the activities of our outer life that we grow in our inner life. All of us look to be coherent and not fragmented in our relations with the world. We strive to find the role in life that nourishes the sources deep inside us, makes us feel complete, and where we can be our true selves. Unfortunately, many people can underdevelop their talents and potential, or even deny parts of themselves out of fear of what others may think. Sometimes we need to be daring and believe. Our life’s mission is to bring all the key aspects of our being into our daily life or else we will not be fulfilled. We know when that happens because we feel alive, and real energy begins to flow. The question comes down to what we want to create with our lives.

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that?
We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.
We must believe that we are gifted for something
and that this thing must be attained.

Marie Curie

Things fall apart

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Not everything goes smoothly everyday or in our life history. However, it seems to be a fact that painful situations have the capacity to help us reflect better than pleasant occasions when everything is going smoothly and positively. Indeed, our quest for an easy life without change is a mistaken one, as change is inevitable, even on a daily level. Wisdom comes when we begin to see that our full growth can include holding the painful aspects of our lives in awareness and not pushing them away, as our natural instinct sometimes demands. It is not only pleasant insights that lead to growth. To grow whole we have to go beneath the surface of neat appearance and enter deeply into our hearts and our history.

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

Pema Chodron