Month: May 2013

Whatever the weather

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Appreciation is a relaxing and peaceful state of mind. It creates a space in which we can accommodate the vicissitudes of life. Complaint, on the other hand, is frustrating and painful. There’s an element of anger and fixation involved. We are believing our thoughts, taking them to be real. Our attachment to the concept of how we want things to be is stressful, because that concept is always disintegrating. What we wanted to happen is not happening. We think complaining is going to get the world back on our track, but really it results in our being deaf, dumb and blind to the present moment. When we complain, we’re saying that the world needs to change in order for us to be okay. If only our parent or partner would behave differently, if only the food were better, if only there were less traffic, if only the service were quicker—then we’d be happy.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, No Complaints

What makes the journey light

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My grandmother’s eyes say Allah is everywhere, even in death.  

When she talks of the orchard and the new olive press,  

when she tells the stories of Joha and his foolish wisdoms,  

He is her first thought, what she really thinks of is His name.

“Answer, if you hear the words under the words—

otherwise it is just a world with a lot of rough edges,  

difficult to get through, and our pockets full of stones.“

Naomi Shihab Nye, The Words Under the Words

Back to Basics

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The present moment, the only moment we have to feel or to think, is a hidden dimension for most of us. We are so absorbed with planning for the future or blaming people for what is over and done with that we lose the lives we are living. We die a thousand deaths wasting our energy on what was or what will be. We need to wake up a little more and liberate ourselves from our self-destructive habits — greed, hatred, racism and selfishness.  There is no reason to starve for well-being.

Jon Kabat Zinn

How we relate

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It is a realization both simple and profound: genuine happiness does not come from accumulating more and more pleasant feelings. When we reflect on our lives and the many nice things we’ve experienced, have they provided us with lasting fulfillment? We know that they have not – precisely because they don’t last. The tremendous danger of this belief – that genuine happiness comes only from pleasant feelings – becomes a strong motivation to stay closed to anything unpleasant…. The transforming realization of meditative awareness is that happiness does not depend on pleasant feelings. In meditation  and in our lives, it is not so important what particular experience arises. What’s important is how we relate to it.

Joseph Goldstein, A Heart full of Peace

Don’t get carried away

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wind tree

Awareness is the basis, or what you might call the “support,” of the mind. It is steady and unchanging, like the pole to which the flag of ordinary consciousness is attached. When we recognize and become grounded in awareness, the “wind” of emotion may still blow. But instead of being carried away by the wind, we turn our attention inward, watching the shifts and changes with the intention of becoming familiar with that aspect of consciousness that recognizes Oh, this is what I’m feeling, this is what I’m thinking. As we do so, a bit of space opens up within us. With practice, that space — which is the mind’s natural clarity — begins to expand and settle.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

May 1st: Growth after a period of cold

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The month of May is called Bealtaine  in Ireland, after the ancient Celtic feast that was celebrated on May 1st. It marks the midpoint in the progress of the sun  between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, and announced the beginning of Summer. Hard to believe this year. Here in France it is the custom today to give as a gift the traditional flower for the first of May –  the  muguet, or lily of the valley.  This flower is a symbol of springtime and of beauty, used frequently in bridal bouquets,  and has traditionally been associated with the return of happiness after a period of darkness.   And yet this is despite the fact that its stalk, flowers, and berries are all extremely poisonous. A strange mix, but one that we find elsewhere in our lives. Often the places of greatest growth and energy, the places we learn most and reflect most upon,  are the places where we have been most hurt.  And frequently we find most freedom when we move from the places where we have been stuck, or the things that we feared most, without them being able to poison us any more.

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses, who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us. So you must not be frightened…..if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. . . .

Rilke

Photo: Lily-of-the-valley, Gordon E. Robertson