Working with difficult moments – Page 21

Why we keep ourselves busy

October 6, 2011October 4, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Our blocks of pain, sorrow, anger and despair always want to come up into our mind consciousness, into our living room, because they have grown big and need our attention. They want to emerge but we do not want them to come up because they are too painful to look at. So we try to block their way. We want them to stay asleep in the basement. Because we do not want to face them our habit is to fill the living room with other guests. But whenever we have ten or fifteen minutes of free time these internal guests will come up and make a mess of the living room. To avoid this we pick up a book, we turn on the television, go for a drive, we do anything to keep our living room occupied. When the living room is occupied, these unpleasant internal formations will not come up.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Anger

Moving close to fear

October 5, 2011October 6, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Whenever fear arises – either in a sudden wind of panic or a low-grade brooding anxiety – the approach of mindfulness is to fully feel the fear, to move towards it rather than running away. The fire of fear is usually mixed up with the smoke of explanations, abstract considerations that attempt to tame the fear through various storylines about the fear. These storylines move us away from feeling directly.

The healthiest way to be with fear is simply that – to be the fear rather than trying to solve it or successfully manipulate it from a distant vantage point. Approaching fear from a distance is like having a giant pair of chopsticks – fear is at the end of them, twenty-five feet away from us, and we keep trying to move the fear from kitchen counter to dining table and back again. No wonder it keeps spilling onto the floor! Instead we could approach fear as a finger food – using the bare hand to pick it up directly, place it in the mouth, chew and swallow.

Gaylon Ferguson, Natural Wakefulness

Where we are stuck

October 4, 2011October 5, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

The process of practice is to see through, not to eliminate, anything to which we are attached. We could have great financial wealth and be unattached to it, or we might have nothing and be very attached to having nothing. Most practice gets caught in this area of fiddling with our environment or our minds. “My mind should be quiet.” Our mind doesn’t matter; what matters is nonattachment to the activities of the mind. And our emotions are harmless unless they dominate us (that is, if we are attached to them) — then they create disharmony for everyone. The first problem in practice is to see that we are attached. As we do consistent, patient practice we begin to know that we are nothing but attachments: they rule our lives.

But we never lose an attachment by saying it has to go. Only as we gain awareness of its true nature does it quietly and imperceptibly wither away; like a sandcastle with waves rolling over, it just smoothes out and finally — where is it? What was it?

Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen

Being held

September 30, 2011September 30, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

It took a long time for the analytical world to look at the importance of the way a baby is held, and yet when you come to think of it, this is of primary importance. The question of holding brings up the whole issue of human reliability. Winnicott

I love the sense of natural movement in this poem by Rilke, and the delicate gentleness of the last line. We change, are shaken and fall, as nature does, and this can seem frightening at times. It can agitate us as it goes against the security we have when things are firm. To give us confidence we need some sense of being held. Because, as Winnicott reminds us, a person’s most formative experiences comes from the way their caregivers “hold” them, as that allows them feel grounded in the face of the uncertainties of life. Meditation practice allows us create that security within, and develop an inner stability, which is hard to shake, no matter what comes up. We trust and can let our lives unfold gently, lightly, each breath and each moment floating and falling, held in awareness.

The leaves are falling, falling as if from afar,
as if withered in the distant gardens of heaven;
with nay-saying gestures they fall.

And in the nights falls the heavy earth
from all the stars into loneliness.

We all are falling. This hand there falls.
And look at the others: it is in all of them.

And yet there is one, who holds all this falling
with infinite gentleness in his hands.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Autumn

…which we forget, when afraid.

September 25, 2011September 26, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

When you are in the trance [of fear]… fearful thoughts and emotions take over and obscure the larger truths of life. You forget the love between you and your dear ones; you forget the beauty of the natural world; you forget your essential goodness and wholeness. You expect trouble and are unable to live in the present moment.

Tara Brach

Trusting, even when there are storms

August 30, 2011August 30, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

I am in love with the Ocean, lifting her thousands of white hats in the chop of the storm, or lying smooth and blue, the loveliest bed in the world.