Month: August 2012

Three parts to our distress

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Our psychological distress is composed of at least three elements: the basic pain of feelings that seem overwhelming; the contracting of body and mind to avoid feeling this pain; and the stress of continually having to prop up and defend an identity based on this avoidance and denial. One of the main ways we try and hold our identity together is by developing an elaborate web of rationalizations – stories about the way we are or reality is – to justify our denial and avoidance.

John Welwood, Toward A Psychology of Awakening

Lean towards, not away

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The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you are feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in……Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering – yours, mine, and that of all living beings.

Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap

A simple mirror to what is happening

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All of these [meditation] instructions apply the perspective of bare attention to whatever experience arises. “Bare” here means simple, direct, non-interfering and non judging. Attention refers to mindfulness, awareness,not forgetting. So bare attention is simple, direct, non-interfering awareness. Alert and relaxed we are not looking for any experience in particular, we are simply awake to what presents itself. Observing in this way opens up worlds we may have never noticed ….

Sometimes the simplest things are overlooked because they are so simple. A profound aspect of bare attention is its natural capacity to include everything. When we are just being with what is, nothing falls outside of the way of awareness. A mirror doesn’t choose what to reflect; its nature simply reflects whatever comes before it. Can we practice this same mirror-like wisdom of mind?

Joseph Goldstein, One Dharma

Sunday Quote: Follow the flow

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Be content with the moment, and be willing to follow the flow;

then there will be no room for grief or joy.

Chuang-tzu

Preoccupied with becoming, not being

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Craving can be future-oriented – trying to become successful, powerful, thin, or beautiful; dreaming about being with the perfect partner; worrying about losing your job and so on. It can be fixed on the past, replaying a painful incident over and over again, stirring up old hurts with resentment and revenge, or dwelling on nostalgic replays of the good old days.  It takes many shapes and forms but its hallmark is a lack of peace. If our attention is taken up with this energy of dissatisfaction we are not available for spiritual inquiry. As long as we are preoccupied we are distracted by experiences that come and go, preoccupied with changing experiences, preoccupied with being born and dying. This precludes any possibility of noticing deeper realities.

Ajahn Viradhammo

We are where we are supposed to be

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Drop into the moment that is now.

No need to judge, no need to have an agenda as to what will be, no need to say, “I am meditating”.

Just be here, drink in all that this moment has to offer as if it is the only one that you have – because it truly is.

Jon Kabat Zinn