Mindfulbalance

Staying fluid 1: Fear and hurt mean we put labels on things

February 2, 2011May 28, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. Thomas Merton

It is a good practice to keep the heart soft and the stories we tell ourselves fluid, but it is not always easy. We can get locked into the hurt of a certain moment and find it hard to move beyond that. It becomes attached to a particular story. Our practice encourages us to keep moving to the present, and not allow a past event limit how we enjoy life. Sometimes we will never get perfect explanations, or full understanding. We still have a choice: will we stay stuck in a moment we can’t get out of or accepting that it happened, open to the way the present moment actually is, as one full of new and future possibilities.

Someone is walking toward us — suddenly we freeze. Not only do we freeze ourselves, but we also freeze the space in which the person is walking toward us. We call him “friend” who is walking through this space or “enemy.” Thus the person is automatically walking through a frozen situation of fixed ideas — “this is that” or “this is not that.” This is what is called “wrong view.” It is a conceptualized view which is imperfect because we do not see the situation as it is.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

How to bring light into the dark places within us

February 2, 2011February 2, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

In the Christian Calendar today is the feast of Candlemas. While not as old as the Celtic feast of yesterday, it does date from the 4th Century in Jerusalem, and reflects the same need to mark this period of winter with light and hope. Traditionally it was celebrated by a procession of candles and the blessing of candles for use in the home.

From time to time difficulties occur in our lives which can then seem dark and without hope. Bringing awareness to what is going on inside us at those moments can allow light to shine in the darkness. We sit and observe what arises and passes away in the mind and body. We name it – “there is anger“, “there is fear” – thus creating a gap and allowing what we experience to become something known. In this way, our mood and behaviour will not be shaped entirely by invisible, unconscious conditioning, but can become a more reflective response.

When we meditate, we kindle a fire that never dies away.

When we meditate, we’re not idly passing time. In following the breath and learning to deal with our thoughts, we’re laying the foundation for a shift in attitude that has the power to change our lives in a truly meaningful way. There’s a lot of darkness and aggression in our world. Developing our best qualities has an immediate effect on ourselves and others. When we apply ourselves in practice, we’re not only doing something very present; we’re also creating the conditions for how our lives can move forward.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Being born, again

February 1, 2011February 1, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Today, February 1st, is the start of Spring in the old Celtic and Gaelic calendar. It was the Celtic feast of Imbolc, which centred around the lighting of fires. This was a celebration of the lengthening days and the early signs of Spring, a sigh of relief that the winter was finally beginning to end. It is the time for getting rid of the old and beginning again, the start of a period of planting, growth and birth. We can start again. We are not trapped by our past but have choices. The days are beginning to lengthen, the sun’s light beginning to warm the earth. These ideas were taken into the Christian calendar with the celebration of light which is February 2nd, Candlemas. Traditionally, we light a candle on these days, symbolizing that a milestone has been passed in our difficulties and in the long winter. Light overcoming darkness, warmth replacing cold, new growth beginning to appear. We look forward in hope.

For last year’s words
belong to last year’s language
and next year’s words
await another voice.

And to make an end
is to make a beginning

T.S. Eliot

Fear as a constant companion

January 31, 2011February 21, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

One more post prompted by recent references to Adam and Eve. These ancient stories attempt to do justice to the fundamental truth of the human condition, using the language of those days. And we are told that after they ate of the tree of knowledge, Adam and Eve hid themselves. This simple fact – the need to hide and protect themselves, the existence of judgmental thoughts and guilty emotions – alerted God to the fact that something had changed. When he asked them why they were hiding, Adam replied “I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself”

As I said, the writers were reflecting on what their own experience was. And it is similar to ours. We feel fear and that leads us to pull back and hide from others, because of the anticipation that we will get hurt. The openness and ease of the original days is not easy to find, even in the closest relationships. And most of us have been hurt along the way, from early childhood onwards. There is a relationship between how reliable things were in our childhood and how confused and difficult our relationships are as adults. So there can be an ongoing struggle between the part of us that loves and the part of us that fears, the part that wishes to be open and be seen and the part that want to protect itself and hide. And so all of us will struggle from time to time to keep believing in love, in allowing ourselves get close to others.

What we can learn from these ancient stories is that some undercurrent of fear has always been present in human history and will likely always be present in our lives. The difference between adulthood and childhood is that we do not have to allow it dominate. We can act in spite of our fears. Mindfulness is based on this same understanding that there are fears at the heart of life, and that does not mean there is anything wrong with our life, or with us, just because we feel them. We do not have to turn this fact into a judgment about ourselves or others. We can choose not to hide. We can work through our fears.

Staying with the feeling

January 31, 2011November 22, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

This statement by Tara Brach contains the essence of practice: All of our reactions to people, to situations, to thoughts in our mind – are actually reactions to the kind of sensations that are arising in our body.

See if you can practice this today: Notice the sensations in your body, before thinking sets in. Notice how the body reacts to pleasant and unpleasant events or experiences. Stay with fear as a feeling in the body before it gets to thoughts or emotions. Can you allow the sensation just remain a sensation in the body? Can you stop judging your whole life just because of a disturbing feeling in the body?

English Speaking Retreat

January 30, 2011January 30, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

We do not get too many opportunities to get to English speaking retreats here in Switzerland, so it is nice when one comes around. From Thursday evening March 3rd to Sunday March 6th, Christina Feldman will lead a silent retreat at the Meditation Centre in Beatenburg, near Interlaken. Christina is an excellent teacher and author who has been leading insight meditation retreats internationally since 1975. She has trained extensively in the major Buddhist traditions. She is a guiding teacher of Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass., U.S.A and is co-founder of Gaia House in Devon, England. Her books include Compassion, Silence and The Buddhist Path to Simplicity.