We also try to listen to whatever is going on in our lives, and whoever we encounter in a day. Opportunities for growth come in many shapes and sizes, sometimes unexpected or not quite what we would like.
The present moment is the perfect teacher. And lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we go.
Pema Chodron
Sometimes we have to be patient. We cannot see the whole picture or understand why things are happening. Moments may seem dark and we can feel like identifying with what is going on in our lives now and getting fixed there. We can be tempted to hate parts of ourselves or our life, turn in on ourselves and close down. Instead, let’s try and keep our roots deep in the goodness underneath, and not in what passes through the mind. We do not need to fill the space. Some kinds of unknowing are right. We try to trust even if we cannot see. What is coming to pass will gradually reveal itself.
I prefer winter ……when you feel the bone structure of the landscape- the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.
Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.
Andrew Wyatt, American Painter
Pema Chodron also reflects here on snow and ice. She reminds us to touch in with the springs of warmth which still exist inside us, no matter how cold a place we find ourselves in. When we are in an emotional or psychological midwinter, it is hard to believe that warmth and growth will return. We are tempted to disconnect or detach, to bury ourselves even deeper. However, we are encouraged here to keep the heart open, by allowing our deepest self stay in connection with the deepest self of another person or thing. In this way we allow ourselves receive warmth from the presence or thought of another person when it is hard to generate warmth in oneself.
Our habits and patterns can feel just as frozen as ice. But when spring comes, the ice melts. The quality of water has never really disappeared, even in the deepest depths of winter. It just changed form. The ice melts, and the essential fluid, living quality of water is there. Our essential good heart and open mind is like that. It is here even if we’re experiencing it as so solid we could land an airplane on it.
When I’m emotionally in midwinter and nothing I do seems to melt my frozen heart and mind, it helps me to remember that no matter how hard the ice, the water hasn’t really gone anywhere. It’s always right here.
So I work on melting that hardness by generating more warmth, more open heart. A good way for any of us to do this is to think of a person toward whom we feel appreciation or love or gratitude. In other words, we connect with the warmth that we already have. If we can’t think of a person, we can think of a pet, or even a plant. Sometimes we have to search a bit. But as Trungpa Rinpoche used to say, “Everybody loves something. Even if it’s just tortillas.” The point is to touch in to the good heart that we already have and nurture it.
Pema Chodron, Shambala Sun, 1998
It is absolutely fundamental that we learn, that when difficult situations and feelings arise, they are not obstacles to be avoided, but rather these very difficultities are, in fact, the path itself
Ezra Bayda
Help us to be the always-hopeful gardeners of the spirit,
who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth,
as without light nothing flowers.
May Sarton
Même pour le simple envol d’un papillon,
tout le ciel est nécessaire.
(Even for the simple flight of a butterfly,
all of the sky is necessary.)
Paul Claudel
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