Tag: Acceptance

When we cannot see the way

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Autumn is a “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” according to Keats. The last few days have certainly been misty, with low cloud obscuring the changing colours on the trees. Traditionally, mist has signified a difficulty in seeing and distortion in our understanding of the reality of things. Over the weekend I have being aware of some people who are coping with the descent of  mist, fog and darkness in their lives. And like driving in real fog, working with the fog of confusion and loss can be dangerous in our mental life, because I find it hard to keep an awareness of both aspects which Keats writes about, the presence of mist and the reality of fruitfulness. Often when the fog of my emotions are strong,  I tense around them, and lose the sense of my direction and goodness underneath them. I cannot see  my way, believing the truth of the story connected with the emotion and not the fact of my own inner goodness. I find it hard to connect with my heart and see the fruits produced by its simple acts of kindness. I always demand brighter, bigger truths in times of darkness. I try to strengthen and protect my sense of self.

However, some times we have to accept the passing of low clouds. They obscure but do not take away the reality underneath. Just as the trees and the vines give up their fruit under the mist, we too may be at our most fruitful. We see these thoughts for what they are, self-judging thoughts which keep us obsessed with ourselves. Have you ever noticed that we prefer to give our experience labels like “I am falling apart“, “I am a mess” rather than just staying with the experience? It seems to comfort us somewhat. Our practice is to stay with the experience as felt in the body, without adding to it. The fog is just fog. It comes and goes. Then there will be sun. Neither of them are the essence of the tree. We work with seeing the fog as a mind state which can be held in our awareness. When we do this we can see depression and suspicion, paranoia and fear as nothing more than changing weather systems in the mind. They do not belong to me and affect who I truly am in any way.

Can we realize that thoughts about myself—I’m good or bad, I’m liked or disliked—are nothing but thoughts, and that thoughts do not tell us the truth about what we really are? A thought is a thought, and it triggers instant physical reactions, pleasures and pains throughout the bodymind. Physical reactions generate further thoughts and feelings about myself—”I’m suffering,” “I’m happy,” “I’m not as bright, as good-looking as the others.” That feedback implies that all this is me, that I have gotten hurt, or feel good about myself, or that I need to defend myself or get more approval and love from others.

In using our common language the implication is constantly created that there is someone real who is protecting and someone real who needs protection. Is there someone real to be protected from words and gestures, or are we merely living in ideas and stories about me and you, all of it happening in the ongoing audio/video drama of ourselves? Can there be some awareness of defenses arising, fear and anger forming, or withdrawal taking place, all accompanied by some kind of story-line? Can the whole drama become increasingly transparent? And in becoming increasingly transparent, can it be thoroughly questioned? What is it that is being protected? What is it that gets hurt or flattered? Me? What is me? Is it images, ideas, memories?

Toni Packer, What is this me? Shambala Sun

How to work with difficult emotions 2

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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 for our life. And we keep waking up as the natural dukkha [suffering] touches us. This means that we sharpen our attention to catch our instinctive reactions of blaming ourselves, blaming our parents, or blaming society; we meditate and access our suffering at its root; and consequently we learn to open and be still in our heart. And even on a small scale in daily life situations, such as when we feel bored or ill at ease, instead of trying to avoid these feelings by staying busy or buying another fancy gadget, we learn to look more clearly at our impulses, attitudes, and defenses. In this way dukkha guides and deepens our motivation to the point where we’ll say, “Enough running, enough walls, I’ll grow through handling my blocks and lost places.”

Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth

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.

Keeping our heart limitless

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There are days when we have experiences which make us feel that it is better to close our hearts. However, all the great wisdom traditions encourage us towards a softening of the heart, toward a warm opening to others, even when that seems to be dangerous. As humans, a huge portion of our energy each day is spent dealing with anxiety and the fear of losing safety. These can arise suddenly and take all our attention, encouraging us to close, to become cool, to harden around ourselves. In Buddhism, one antidote to this is to cultivate an opening toward others in “Metta” or Loving-kindness practice. Metta has the connotations of “spreading” or “expanding”. It is radiant. It reaches out. It is an active friendliness  in interpersonal relationships which we cultivate. It works against the fears which  make our lives narrow and dark, and the tendency to dualistically split our lives into “me” and “them”

As a mother at the  risk of her own life protect her child, her only child, even so should one cultivate a limitless heart with regard to all beings. So with a heart of boundless friendliness  should one cherish all living beings; radiating kindness over the entire world.

The Buddha, Sutta Nipata I, 8 b – The Metta Sutta.

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