Category: Make the most of life

Let go…move on…have no preferences

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This week some things occured which were unexpected and which disrupted some directions which have seemed right for some time. However, they were out of my capacity to influence. In cases like this I have found that the practice of “no preferences” really helps. Even though I can feel that there is a much easier way to do things, I  try to work with having no preferences as to how things have turned out. This has given a perspective with regard to some news I received which I feel was unfair. In mindfulness, we try to see that difficultes and happiness are of of equal value.  I find this very hard but I try to work with what is.

It strikes me how much can change in a week. Last Saturday I was at an inspiring conference in Lerab Ling,  bringing together some of the finest researchers on meditation in the world.  I listened to a incredible talk on meditation by Sogyal Rinpoche as well as a moving reports on mindfulness by Jon Kabat Zinn and a beautiful talk on emotions by Erika Rosenberg. At the end of the day I felt that there was very little distance between experience and reflection: it just was and I felt whole.

This week I was made more aware of our capacity as humans to create distance between ourselves and our experience. We make life complicated by our continual reflecting on it and an excessive evaluation of it. We are never content to let things just be. I  find myself wishing for the simpler times of last week. But it is not to be. So I try to make  my practice to accept, let go and move on. Mindfulness is based on the belief that deep down things are naturally one and good. And even though others or circumstances make them complicated,  I find that I can drop into that natural calm in meditation.  However, moving on is still hard. Happiness is related to peace of mind. In difficult times  I work with that sense of peace and natural goodness. Therefore, on one level nothing can disturb me. However, on another level I struggle.

Pleasant conditions change into unpleasant ones, and unpleasant conditions eventually become pleasant. We should just keep this awareness of impermanence and be at peace with the way things are, not demanding that they be otherwise. The people we live with, the places we live in, the society we are a part of – we should just be at peace with everything. But most of all we should be at peace with ourselves-that is the big lesson to learn in life. It is really hard to be at peace with oneself. I find that most people have a lot of self-aversion. It is much better to be at peace with our own bodies and minds than anything else, and not demand that they be perfect, that we be perfect, or that everything be good. We can be at peace with the good and the bad.

Ajahn Sumedho

The Eighty Fourth Problem

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Stories about ourselves and how we are doing  arise non-stop in our minds and influence our beliefs about reality and about what happens in each day. These mental impressions – thoughts and feelings – often  revolve around some sense that we are not in the right place, that something is wrong with us. This feeling that our life is out of sync or that from time to time we do not know where we are going is not new. The Buddha’s fundamental insight, more than 2500 years ago, was that there is an unsatisfactory quality to our lives and that we are frequently aware of being out of balance. It is just the nature of life. We often have to deal with uncertainty and difficulties.

As told in the story of the farmer meeting the Buddha, we will always have our “eighty-three problems” – anxieties about our career or finances, difficulties in relationships, fears about sickness and health, getting the balance right in living with others, and so on. It is the “eighty-fourth problem” – that we think all of these should not be in our lives from time to time  – that adds to our difficulty and makes our day full of distress. When we fall into this eight fourth problem we go on to make ourselves more miserable over the fact that we have problems.  We judge our situation harshly because we are lacking a feeling of ease. We feel we have to “get rid of” something. We so quickly make the move from “something” is going wrong at the moment, to “I” am wrong, and read events as some sort of sign of an interior or psychological malaise. One thing which meditation does is allow us sit more easily with the gaps in our experience without panicking or needing to fix them.

Suffering becomes a block in our sense of being when any position is taken as an identity – when how you are becomes who you are. When we wake up to how human life on this planet actually is, and stop running away or building walls in our heart, then we develop a wiser motivation in our lives.

Looking forward

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Hope is a dimension of the soul … an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. … It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.

Vaclav Havel

Me, a Saint?

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The Pope is in England for the start of the process of making John Henry Newman a “saint”. Newman was a good man and a very fine thinker, personalifying a gentle, open-minded search for truth. The school I went to in Ireland,  founded in 1867, was influenced by his principles of education. Most wisdom traditions hold up examples of people wo can act as an encouragement to us, such as the Bodhisattvas in the Buddhist tradition or the Saints in the Catholic and Orthodox history. Sometimes, however, the focus is on their extraordinary deeds which can lead us into thinking that full contentment is only to be found there. In this light, I like this quote from Thomas Merton:

For me to be a saint means to be myself.

Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is,  in fact,

the problem of finding our who I am and discovering my true self.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Encouragement

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I have always liked the person of Barnabas in the New Testament. He was known as the “Son of Encouragement”. I have always felt that I would love to be known like that, as one who encourages. We all need encouragement and know what it feels like when someone believes in us. Someone who sees us, not as we are, but as we have the potential to become. That gives us courage.

…… If I accept the other person as something fixed, already diagnosed and classified…then I am doing my part to confirm this limited hypothesis. If I accept him as a process of becoming, then I am doing what I can to confirm or make real his potential.

Carl Rogers

When we fall down

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We are often conscious of our failings and our lack of ability to do some of the things which we have to do. This can cause confusion and doubts in our mind. Sometimes we just have to sit with that. Mindfulness does not mean calmness. Being aware of our confusion is also mindfulness. We work with each moment as it is, even those we would probably prefer not to have.

Sometimes too we stumble and fall. Things can get too hard for us. In those moments we start over, trying not to add any judgement to the event, just being gentle with ourselves.

A monk looking for some guidance and encouragement went to Abba Sisoius and asked:

“What am I to do since I have fallen?” The Abba replied “Get up”

“I did get up but I fell again.” “Get up again.”

“I did, but I must admit that I fell once again. What should I do?”

“Do not fall down without getting back up”.

Sayings of the Desert Fathers