Every single moment of consciousness is a moment of practice, whether we like it or not. We are practicing to become ourselves. The important question is really just how much we want to participate in the process.
Andrew Olendzki, Unlimiting Mind
Category: Be fully present
Making time for ourselves
We need to find a way of balancing our ‘inner’ work and our ‘outer’ work and we begin to appreciate a basic paradox: that in order to be truly generous, truly of service to others, we actually need to be completely ‘self-centred’. We need to be able to stay in touch with our own hearts, listening carefully to what they tell us, even while engaged in external activity or interaction. We need to remain attentive to our own needs, and to really make sure that these are well taken care of even if it means disappointing people, letting them down, not living up to the expectations they may have of us (or that we have of ourselves). This is not at all easy, with the conditioning most of us have: ‘Don’t be sel fish’.
Ajahn Candasiri, A Question of Balance
Some things change, some stay the same
We often have expectations about the way things are and the way things should be. We have expectations about life, practice, and the results that we should get. How many of us are really willing to simply be aware and present with the mind, here and now, and see it clearly as it is? Isn’t that what the teaching is constantly pointing to? The cultivation of awareness, the development of wisdom, and the Four Foundations of Mindfulness are all teachings pointing to being in the here and now, and from this perspective, clearly seeing the nature and content of the mind. The training of the heart is about awareness of the simplicity of the present moment. It is refreshing and freeing to be awake and to be content where we are and with what we have.
Ajahn Sundara, Fearless Presence
When resolutions cause dissatisfaction
As we approach the end of the year we are surrounded by voices which encourage us to reflect on how we have done and make changes. While some reflection may be good, it usually falls into the “I am not good enough” category and “I should be otherwise”, a variation of the judgmental thoughts which we try to let pass through in practice. Ajahn Sumedho’s words here are the perfect response to this tendency, simply noting thoughts, even worthy ones, as thoughts, which pass away, and reminding ourselves to stay close to how life actually is, and not our judgments about it.
If you listen to yourself very much you can sometimes hear such statements as, “I should do this but I shouldn’t do that”, “I should be this way, I shouldn’t be that way,” or that the world should be other than it is, our parents should be this way or that way, and shouldn’t be the way they are. So we have this particular verb tense ringing through our minds because we have an idea of what shouldn’t be or should be. Our tendency is to try to become something, and so we set a goal, create an ideal of what we would like to become. Maybe we think society should be other than it is. People should be kind, generous, understanding, loving, there should be brotherhood and people shouldn’t be selfish. The government should have wise leaders, the world should be at peace and so forth. But the world is as it is at this moment in time and things are as they are. When we don’t understand this then we are struggling. So listen inwardly to yourselves, to the constant crying, ‘I am this way, I am not this way,’ and penetrate this ‘I am, I am not’ with awareness.
We tend to just react and take it for granted that all the ‘I am’ and ‘I am not’ is the truth. We create ourselves as a personality and attach to our memories. We remember the things we learned, we remember what we’ve done – generally the more extreme things; we tend to forget more ordinary things. In meditation we are bringing awareness to the conditions of the mind here and now, just by being aware of this sense of ‘I am, I am not’. The thought ‘I am’ is an impermanent condition. The thought ‘I am not’ is an impermanent condition.
Ajahn Sumedho, Investigating the Mind
Sunday Quote: Being alive
We have lived,
not in proportion to the number of years that we have spent on the earth,
but in proportion as we have enjoyed
Henry David Thoreau, Journals
The end of the year: Allowing things move on
We may think that letting go means not having, or getting rid of something; but actually we can just allow it to go, rather than holding on to it or trying to throw it away. Sometimes just accepting and recognising is enough. It is a way of letting go of the aversion, the negativity. Like every other condition that we experience: if it arises, it will cease. And usually it ceases much more quickly if we can really let it go. Sometimes people use the expression ‘just letting be’.
Ajahn Candasiri, Simple Kindness
