What this means is that we can find our own happiness and peace of mind
just as we are in this very moment, because it is within us. We don’t have to change our thoughts or change ourselves into someone else.
We don’t need to think that who we are, this “me,” is not good enough, smart enough, or lucky enough to be happy.
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Resting the Busy Mind
Many people think that meditation is something strange or esoteric, demanding a special kind of person.
But as Jon Kabat Zinn reminds us in the previous post, it is simply paying attention to all the details of life. This allows us live more deeply our life as it actually is, and enjoy each moment more fully.
Meditation is not something apart from life. When you are driving a car or sitting in a bus, when you are chatting aimlessly, when you are walking by yourself in a wood or watching a butterfly being carried along by the wind—to be choicelessly aware of all that, is part of meditation.
J. Krisnamurti
Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
Rumi
A person I have known for some years now just recently got engaged. It is a time of celebration and joy. Moments like these bring a smile to all and has made me realize how much I like the word happiness However I am slow to use it and it nearly always provokes a strange look on the faces of those who hear. It seems almost presumptious to speak as if we have any right to expect full happiness. And yet happiness has been the concern of humans since earliest times, as we can see in the Greek Philosophers reflections on happiness. And we are told that among Jesus’ first words in his early Sermon on the Mount was “Happy are those who…. ” In more recent times, Daniel Gilbert has made the focus of his study happiness and what makes us happy, as seen in his excellent book Stumbling on Happiness.
We are told that happiness is deep within us, even if we do not feel it. However, it seems to me that we have to work at it every day. It can occur even when times are tough, if we cultivate a spirit of noticing and wonder. We can practice the brain’s capacity for happiness by explicitly noting to ourselves the moments which are pleasant in each day, even the simplest. As in response to my friend’s engagement we can mentally toast these moments. And we can go further: we can create occasions of celebration in even the smallest events in our lives. This reminds us that life is not there just to be endured but to be celebrated. As Brother Roger of Taize used to say, we should ensure that the spring of jubilation will never dry up in our hearts.
The eye is meant to see things. The soul is here for its own joy.
Rumi
When I am anxious or hurt I tend to instinctively react. I often move fast to blame and then make decisions which help me feel back in control. However, decisions made from fear are never our best decisions; fear is not our best friend. We risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A walk in nature shows us a different perspective, a gentler way to change. We learn to not act on the fear but to sit with it. We get some distance from the story that is making us feel defective and fearful.
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Lao Tzu
There are days when we have experiences which make us feel that it is better to close our hearts. However, all the great wisdom traditions encourage us towards a softening of the heart, toward a warm opening to others, even when that seems to be dangerous. As humans, a huge portion of our energy each day is spent dealing with anxiety and the fear of losing safety. These can arise suddenly and take all our attention, encouraging us to close, to become cool, to harden arou
nd ourselves. In Buddhism, one antidote to this is to cultivate an opening toward others in “Metta” or Loving-kindness practice. Metta has the connotations of “spreading” or “expanding”. It is radiant. It reaches out. It is an active friendliness in interpersonal relationships which we cultivate. It works against the fears which make our lives narrow and dark, and the tendency to dualistically split our lives into “me” and “them”
As a mother at the risk of her own life protect her child, her only child, even so should one cultivate a limitless heart with regard to all beings. So with a heart of boundless friendliness should one cherish all living beings; radiating kindness over the entire world.
The Buddha, Sutta Nipata I, 8 b – The Metta Sutta.
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