When today you have doubts and fears, why not follow the advice in this Mary Oliver poem. To look at nature all around you – the buds beginning to appear, the early flowers blooming – and see there a support for your inner self.
Oh, my dear heart,
My own dear heart,
Full of hesitations,
Questions, choice of directions,
Look at the world.
Behold the morning glory,
the meanest flower,
the ragweed, the thistle.
Look at the grass.
Mary Oliver, The Singular and Cheerful Life
Each day, as we grow older, we are challenged to live as the person we would like to be. This is not always easy when we are stressed or we are hurt or let down. And also we can, at times, choose selfishness rather than genuine care for others. And what I increasingly notice is how much of our behaviour has it roots in fear.
The places where these fears are most often activated is in relationships with others. Frequently we instinctively act in defensive ways to protect our hearts. Relationships have the capacity to trigger our deepest fears, which often reflect patterns established in our childhood. I notice this when a strong emotional reaction is triggered, and automatic, deeply believed – often fearful – thoughts dominate, which are very easy to take as the truth. Normally my first move is to maximize distance in order to protect myself and act as if the other person is a threat to the security of my deepest self. Relationships open our hearts and expose our needs. Sometimes we clearly feel that is not safe. And when that happens we all follow some strategy to escape feeling the fears that silently run our life.
However, the truth about relationships is that they reflect closely our relationship with ourselves and reveal a lot about the clarity or confusion in our inner life. In fact our relationships with others can never be better than the relationship we have with ourselves. We often project on to the other what is going on inside ourselves, often what we are unable to manage properly, and this is at the root of our fears, and the reason they are so strong. Thus we can blame the other for confusion which is actually inside ourselves.
I have noticed this often in myself recently. Therefore I am now trying, when strong fears are triggered, to turn towards them and let them in, looking on them as a ‘what’ instead of as ‘me’. Instead of running story lines of anger and blame, I try and just stay with the original feeling of hurt. Even if the fear triggered is strong, if I manage to do this soon afterwards, I notice the fear loses its power quickly and a more open response can emerge. The fear can thus becomes a teacher, hopefully leading to understanding rather than paralyzing.
Fear tells us to stop, to stay within the boundary of our protected cocoon-world. Yet when we feel fear, if we take even one small step toward it rather than yielding to our habitual pulling away, we move one step closer to the vast mind that lies beyond. When we feel fear instead of saying ‘I’m afraid,’ thus reinforcing our identification with our fear as who we are, we can simply say, ‘Fear is present.’ Thus fear’s power gradually dissipates, and we begin to free ourselves from it. When we simply experience fear just as it is — without our opinions, judgments, and reactions — fear is not nearly so frightening.
Ezra Bayda, Saying Yes to Life (Even the Hard Parts)
In our daily life, our steps are burdened with anxieties and fears. Life itself seems to be a continuous chain of insecure feelings, and so our steps lose their natural easiness. [However] Our earth is truly beautiful. There is so much graceful, natural scenery along paths and roads around the earth! Do you know how many forest paths there are, paved with colorful leaves, offering cool and shade? They are all available to us, yet we cannot enjoy them because our hearts are not trouble-free, and our steps are not at ease.
When you practice walking meditation, you go for a stroll. You have no purpose or direction in space or time. The purpose of walking meditation is walking itself. Going is important, not arriving. Walking meditation is not a means to an end; it is an end. Each step is life; each step is peace and joy. That is why we don’t have to hurry. That is why we slow down. We seem to move forward, but we don’t go anywhere; we are not drawn by a goal. Thus we smile while we are walking.
Walking meditation is learning to walk again with ease.
Thich Nhat Hahn
There are many wrong tracks in society, but they are all basically the same: They all take us outside of ourselves to satisfy our inner needs. Whether they take us toward material goods or towards social relationships and emotional codependence, they all ignore the mind’s own potential to provide us with happiness and peace
Dzigar Kongtrul, It’s Up to You
Celebrated a birthday today, and the passing of another year. When I lived in Rome I quickly lost any shyness around these occasions as they were considered moments of joy to be shared with all and an excuse for a cake and a celebration! So that is how I marked it, with gratitude for life and all the moments that it contains. And receiving messages and kindnesses from people, some of whom I was amazed even knew the day that it was, also reminded me of the goodness of people and the joy there is in receiving.
I have learnt a lot this past year. In my work, and in my own life, I have seen colleagues move far away, I have been with people struggling with illness and death, walked with individuals as they tried to reconcile the demands of personal growth with their commitments and I have personally realized a lot about the nature of true friendship and support. At times, these experiences have made me really wonder whether there is any point in continuing to give, in remaining open; the temptation has been to shut down, to insulate the heart. I have asked whether it is worth the risk to continue to reach out to others. And yet, all these ups and downs have made me recognize more and more that life is an extended practice of becoming the best I can be. I see that it is a bit like meditation practice – I do not have to be perfect- all I have to do is just turn up. I just need to be there even if I think I do not have the right words and be close to what others and what life offers.
Even as an adult, with the years passing, I have had many moments when I felt lost. Life is such a long journey, and I have seen often this past year that we all have difficulty knowing who we really are or where we really need to go, or even where we come from. There is no GPS for this life, no pre-determined maps, no magical tarot cards which give us the final, clear answers to its mysteries. We can only do our best. Sometimes, and for some people, that is not enough. But what we are working on is not perfection, but a slow and steady path which leads us to a greater acceptance of where our life is. It is about increasingly befriending who we are, moment by moment, year by year.
What does it take to use the life we already have in order to make us wiser rather than more stuck? What is the source of wisdom at a personal, individual level? The answer to these questions seems to have to do with bringing everything that we encounter to the path. Everything naturally had a ground, path, and fruition. This is like saying that everything has a beginning, middle, and end. But it is also said that the path itself is both the ground and the fruition. The path is the goal.
This path has one very distinct characteristic: it is not prefabricated. It doesn’t already exist. The path that we’re talking about is the moment-by-moment evolution of our experience, the moment-by-moment evolution of the world of phenomena, the moment-by-moment evolution of our thoughts and emotions. The path is uncharted. It comes into existence moment-by-moment and at the same time drops away behind us.
When we realize that the path is the goal, there’s a sense of workability. Everything that occurs in our confused mind we can regard as the path. Everything is workable.
Pema Chodron
This is a really excellent book and highly recommended. Sharon Salzberg, one of the leading Buddhist teachers in the United States and co-founder of the Insight Meditation Centre in Barre, Massachusetts, has written here one of the best introductions to meditation as well as an easy-to-grasp introduction to the whole science behind mediation and wellbeing. Despite the fact that there are quite a few books out there on meditation, it is hard to find one that will help those starting off establish a practice in a way that is clear, well-written and experiential. Well, finally, here is such a book. It is written as a 28-Day Programme – or rather “experiment” – for readers to try to see if they notice the beneficial effects in their lives. It includes a CD with guided meditations.
The book explains the science behind meditation and happiness, leads the reader through meditation practices for each day and then goes deeper into some of the assumptions which operate in our lives and which may get in the way of a full and compassionate life. We are led to bring these assumptions into awareness so as to loosen their grip on us: Meditation teaches us to focus and to pay clear attention to our experiences and responses as they arise, and to observe them without judging them. That allows us to detect harmful habits of mind that were previously invisible to us. For example, we may sometimes base our actions on unexamined ideas (“I don’t deserve love, you just can’t reason with people, I’m not capable of dealing with tough situations”) that keep us stuck in unproductive patterns. Once we notice these reflexive responses and how they undermine our ability to pay attention to the present moment, then we can make better, more informed choices. And we can respond to others more compassionately and authentically, in a more creative way. (Page 10f)
This is why we practice meditation – so that we can treat ourselves more compassionately; improve our relationships with friends, family and community, live lives of greater connection and even in the face of challenges, stay in touch with what we really care about so that we can act in ways that are consistent with our values. One of the things I have always found so interesting about the meditation practice is that the arena can seem so small – just you in a room – but the life lessons, the realizations and understandings that arise from it can be pretty big.
