As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success,
we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves.
Pema Chodron
Tag: Acceptance
While waiting today
In life we spend a lot of time waiting. In the morning we might be waiting for the toast to cook or the tea to brew. In the afternoon we may be waiting for some photocopies to print. In the evening we might wait for a bus or a taxi…Often we get impatient. We try to distract ourselves while waiting, or anxiously ruminate about why it takes so long, but essentially in doing so we reject what is happening in the present moment. We become less aware of our surroundings, make more judgments about the unacceptibility of what’s happening and strive to have something else, other than what is. We react negatively to the fact that things aren’t as we want them to be. Given that waiting is a reality of our existence, we have little choice but to find a way to be in these moments. When things are poised to be the way we want them, but they’re not quite there, what kind of attitude is healthiest or most effective?
Notice how your body reacts to waiting. Do you keep looking down the street for the bus? Do you keep hitting the elevator’s “close the door” button? Whenever the urge to reject your waiting time surfaces, see if you can bring attention to the moment before taking action. Resist the urge, and instead bring your attention to the experience of not acting. How does this feel?
When waiting, bring your attention to your breathing. Notice each breath going in and out of your body. Consider this time as a precious opportunity to practice mindfulness and integrate awareness into your daily life.
Jonathan Kaplan, Urban Mindfulness
Not putting a name on our experience
Be still
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
To speak your
Name. . . .
Do not
Think of what you are
Still less of
What you may one day be.
Rather
Be what you are (but who?) be
The unthinkable one
You do not know. . . .
Thomas Merton, In Silence
A practice for today
See if you can bring a soft, curious, and even friendly awareness to feelings of liking and disliking. Notice any qualities of liking or disliking, of moving toward some experiences and away from others. You can even do this with any thoughts or emotions that may be coming and going in the mind and body from moment to moment, whether these thoughts and emotions are pleasant or unpleasant. Do your best to be fully present to your experience of the moment, of whatever is here in terms of sensations, thoughts, and emotions. Notice especially the strong or subtle sense of wanting things to be different than the way they are. You may notice feelings of grief, irritation, or amusement arise as you watch this play of judgments and opinions about what is happening inside and outside you. Continue to stay present to whatever is here.
Melissa Blacker
Inherently well
What would it be like to approach our lives, and to engage in the lives of others, knowing we are all inherently whole, intrinsically well, in need of being drawn forth into the discovery of unabashed completeness? How would this change the entire dance of practitioner and patient? What kind of relationship would be wrought and shaped when seen from, and uncompromisingly held within, this point of view?
Saki Santorelli, Heal Thyself: Lesson on Mindfulness in Medicine
How will we be changed
The question is not, never, ever, whether or not we will be given challenges and limitations. We will. The question is, how will we hold them, how will we be changed, how will they shape us, what will we bring to the healing of them, what, if anything will be born in its place.
Wayne Muller, A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough
Mindfulbalance 