Category: Be fully present

Not too tight, not too loose

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In meditation practice, we neither hold the mind very tightly nor let it go completely.

If we try to control the mind, then its energy will rebound back on us. If we let the mind go completely, then it will become very wild and chaotic. So we let the mind go, but at the same time, there is some discipline involved …

The basic practice is to be present, right here.

The goal is also the technique: precisely being in this moment, neither suppressing nor wildly letting go, but being precisely aware of what you are.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Do one thing

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desk

“When you are walking, walk. When you are sitting, sit,” is ancient wisdom. Hopping rapidly from one thing to the next, answering the phone while we’re shuffling papers while we’re sipping a latte, we fritter away our attention and forget more easily. ….. That is why learning to be a unitasker in a multitasking world is so vital. Rather than divide our attention, it is far more effective to take frequent breaks between intervals of sustained, one-pointed attention. Debunking the myth of multitasking, we become much better at what we do and increase the chance of being able to remember the details of work we have done in the past.

Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness at Work

No longer trying to become

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zen tea

My thought is almost never directed on knowing myself as I am in this moment…and again in this moment. It is difficult for the thought to remain on what is, because it is based on memory and is constantly visualizing the possibility of becoming. How to …resist the desire to become,  in favor of simply what is? It is difficult for my thought to stay in front of the unknown. This means abandoning belief in everything it knows, even the trace of the preceding moment. To stay in front of the unknown my mind must be profoundly silent. This is a silence that is not obtained by suppressing or by sacrifice. I do not make the silence. It appears, when the mind sees that by itself alone, it cannot be in contact with something it cannot measure, something higher. Then the mind no longer seeks, it does not try to become.

Gurdjieff’s pupil,  Jeanne De Salzmann,  (1889 –  1990)  Reality of Being

Six words to live by

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File:Zen 07289 nevit.jpg

Don’t recall. Don’t imagine. Don’t Think. Don’t examine. Don’t control. Rest.

Tilopa ( 988–1069 } passed on this advice on  mahāmudrā meditation to Naropa, his successor.

  In the original Tibetan it contains just six words. The following translation attempts to tease out their full meaning:

Let go of what has passed.
Let go of what may come.
Let go of what is happening now.
Don’t try to figure anything out.
Don’t try to make anything happen.
Relax, right now, and rest.

Translation: Ken McLeod in Unfettered Mind

photo nevit dilman

We will never be here again

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File:Cây Cổ Thụ đẹp nhất Việt Nam.jpg

The gods envy us.

They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last.

Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed.

You will never be lovelier than you are now.
We will never be here again.

Homer, The Iliad

photo huykhanhthai

The simplest practice

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File:A U.S. Air Force trainee gasps for breath after completing the underwater swim portion of his physical ability and stamina test at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., June 2, 2010 100602-F-MM528-122.jpg

That is the wonderful thing about the breathing, and the reason it is such a helpful object of attention. It is both perfectly ordinary (we are all doing it, all the time) and extremely special (if we weren’t doing it, we’d be dead)… Everybody breathes. It is also extremely portable. We take it everywhere we go. So if you choose to practice with the breathing, it has the advantage of always being there. No matter how many times you forget it throughout the day, you can always take it up again. There’s another in-breath. There’s an out-breath.

Larry Rosenberg, Breath by Breath