The older we get the more we realize there are no final answers, although there may be personal discoveries which make sense to us, and that our life is more a journey toward larger and larger questions. Lived thusly, we are living a developmental, enlarging life and not one in which we have died before we died. Any certainties we do acquire are for now only, and may be replaced by ever more challenging experiences.
James Hollis
photo christopher
Our appointment with life is in the present moment.
The place of our appointment is right here, in this very place.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Today, we teach our children that if you are an effective person, you can control your life. This modern image portrays “winners” as people who have it all together. You are not supposed to have internal conflicts, stress, or anxiety — that means you are incompetent. You’re a loser…. But this perspective flattens life. It denies the possibility of finding a deeper meaning to your experience. If you measure your self-worth and effectiveness according to these superficial cultural standards, then each time you suffer you are forced to interpret suffering as humiliation. Why would you choose to acknowledge suffering if it only stands for failure?
Our culture’s debasement of suffering represents a major loss to us. It denies the validity of many of the significant emotional events in our lives. It narrows life such that we are constantly reacting to a set of questions: How do I get and keep what’s pleasant and avoid or get rid of that which is unpleasant? Am I winning or losing? Am I being praised or blamed?
Philip Moffitt, How Suffering Got a Bad Name
Do not pursue the past.
Do not usher in the future.
Rest calmly within present awareness,
clear and non-conceptual
Basic meditation guidance in
The Ocean of Definitive Meaning by Karma Wangchûg Dorjé (1556 – 1603)
Today the Christian Liturgy starts to sing the O Antiphons – ancient prayers and aspirations, used over the centuries in the days before Christmas. The first of them wishes that we may grow in wisdom at this time of year around the Winter Solstice, when the days are shorter and nature quietens down, and we reflect on the priorities in our lives. In many old traditions, wisdom was a quality in the person which was so desired and special that it was seen as coming down from above. It was greatly treasured – the best gift one could get in these days – because it gives a perspective and purpose to life and led to contentment.
It is good for us to remember these things when the talk is all about gifts, and getting, and happiness. Mindfulness meditation has two aspects – it grounds us first and then leads us into a felt insight into the marks of reality, namely, that it is always changing and that even the importance we give to ourselves is a constructed, fluid one. This wisdom or perspective is worth cultivating, as it tunes us into a deeper happiness, helping us to maintain our personal boundaries and not overstretch ourselves. It helps us to not link busyness or constant doing with our sense of worth, and stops us filling our days with so much activity that we have no space to sense whether we are truly fulfilling our deepest needs. Real contentment comes from within – from getting a balance in our lives and seeing things clearly.
O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other,
and softly putting order in all things:
Come and teach us the way of balance.
We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves — the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds — never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.
Pema Chodron, Start where you Are
Mindfulbalance 