Category: Be fully present

Sunday Quote: Seeing

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It is heaven itself to take what is given,
to see what is plain

Mary Oliver, Daisies

Our shifting energies

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The source of our unease is the unfulfillable longing for a lasting certainty and security, for something solid to hold on to. Unconsciously we expect that if we could just get the right job, the right partner, the right something, our lives would run smoothly.  [Instead,] we are encouraged to get comfortable with, begin to relax with, lean into, whatever the experience may be. We are encouraged to drop the storyline and simply pause, look out, and breathe. Simply be present for a few seconds, a few minutes, a few hours, a whole lifetime, with our own shifting energies and with the unpredictability of life as it unfolds, wholly partaking in all experiences just exactly as they are.

Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap

Really get a sense of

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In the ongoing truthfulness of our practice, it is really important to sift through all the static and white noise that the emotions and psychologies are setting up — to really see, to get a handle on, what intention feels like in our nervous system. And the quality of attention — how big, or narrow, or tight we feel, how bound we feel when we’re really occupied with a whole series of thoughts, how our attention bunches up — we start to sense this is, in the bodily sense; we get a real sense of the feel of this and the release of that. This is what we practice. This is the dissolving.

Ajahn Sucitto, What if I get it wrong?

Always starting over

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dawn sun

There is only one day left,

always starting over:

it is given to us at dawn

and taken away from us at dusk.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Let go

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Despite all the recent storms in Ireland, buds are starting to appear on the trees. A lesson in resilience and trust. Most of us are very good at bringing suffering upon ourselves.  We turn small issues into  problems and then fixate on the worries and anxieties and let them fester and take root inside us. We are less good at simply letting go and letting things develop in their own time.

Sitting quietly,

doing nothing,

Spring comes,

and the grass grows,

by itself.

Matsuo Bashō, 1644 – 1694

photo tim horton

How not to get swept away in reactions

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Mindfulness practice is not just paying attention, but involves a certain evaluation. In reality this involves paying attention to whatever enters through the senses and seeing what arises and passes away in each moment. One of the reasons we do this is to ensure that what arises is held lightly, and does not trigger off unskilful patterns of thinking based on our history and our emotional schemas. For example, if we see a certain reaction on a persons face it can easily trigger memories of the same reaction  in the past and that lead to us feeling less appreciated or judged. The simple contact today can lead to a proliferation of thoughts from the past. Thus we are mindful of each thing as a separate moment, without turning it into a story about how good or bad our lives are.

A person who has clarified their real state sees only

each thing,

each thing,

each thing,

and lets go of understanding an underlying nature for each thing.

Dogen, Uji

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