Acceptance – Page 76 – Mindfulbalance

Notice judging and blaming

October 18, 2012October 18, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Our most direct way of promoting healing and peace is to become mindful of our habits of judging and blaming. It is a brave activity, because to do this we must let go of our most familiar, comfortable reference points. In the moment of releasing blame, we step out of the story of self and other, the story of good self and bad self, and discover the spaciousness and tenderness of being alive. Blaming distances while acceptance connects. When we let go of blame, we open to the compassion that can genuinely transform ourselves and our world.

Tara Brach, Creating Peace by letting go of Blame

Uncovering

October 18, 2012October 18, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

It’s important to understand, however, that one is not trying to create some sort of unnatural state. The purpose is to bring these aspects of life – the body and the mind – into alignment with their fundamental nature. It’s not about trying to become, to make the essence of the mind become peacefulor alert. It is already utterly peaceful, utterly pure, utterly awake, it has always been alert and peaceful and wise and kind. But those qualities get occluded – covered over and obscured – by the flow of one’s days and activities: waking, sleeping, engaging with others, and the ten thousand things that we do. Meditation is not about trying to create something special, to get to a special state;meditation is more about uncovering what has always been and always is here. One is simply trying to bring the external conditions into alignment with that fundamental reality of human nature.

Ajahn Amaro, Finding the Missing Peace

How to work when the strong reactions are triggered…

October 16, 2012October 16, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Many of us reserve our deepest blame for ourselves. If instead, we can accept our experience with kindness, we begin to break the inner cycle of violence. This doesn’t mean we give ourselves permission to continue to act in harmful ways. But we don’t condemn ourselves either. Instead, we identify exactly what we’re feeling in the moment — physical discomfort, shame, remorse — and meet our experience with a kind attention. As we do so, our sense of identity grows beyond a “flawed” self, and we begin to trust our essence as compassionate awareness. We gradually become more responsible — more able to respond wisely to our present circumstances.

Tara Brach, Creating Peace by letting go of Blame

Adding extra to difficulties

October 16, 2012October 16, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Suffering can be differentiated from pain. There is pain in life, without doubt, but suffering is the extra tension in the mind that is unable to accommodate change and accept the truth of its experience. The first two noble truths are that life is difficult and that suffering is the tension in the mind that insists an experience be different from the way it is. It’s the imperative in the mind that this moment be different that causes our suffering

Sylvia Boorstein, Greet this moment as a Friend

Interrupting a cycle of reactivity

October 12, 2012October 12, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

One of the key, frequent, things in life is having to deal with disappointment. And consequently a lot of our suffering comes from this area, as like this first quote says. We prefer to rerun the memory of an event or a feeling or some words, rather like a dog returning to a bone. A wiser way of acting is suggested in the second quote, staying as close as possible to the felt sense of the experience, thus limiting it spinning off into a reactive cycle of thoughts and emotions.

Disappointment has a chimerical quality because our minds refuse to accept what is; therefore, we relive the disappointment over and over again, never noticing after the initial experience that it is only a memory we are re-experiencing, much like watching old movie reruns.

If you can stay present when something disappointing occurs, the next response is to open fully to the experience. Don’t deny it, don’t push it away, but realize, “Ah, this is disappointment. What does it taste like? Where is it in my body? Is the feeling expanding or contracting?” Open to the experience of disappointment so that you can accept it and let it pass through your mind and heart. Then you can go on with your life’s journey and not be frozen in place by your pain.

Philip Moffitt, Living with Disappointment

Steadying our emotions

October 10, 2012October 9, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Emotions are mixes of “felt senses” and activities. Witnessing them is helped by the simple fact that the body resonates with the moods and impulses that run through it. (When we’re angry we tense up and the heartbeat changes; when we’re loving and joyful, the body feels vibrant and so on). This resonance gives us a way of addressing the heart by addressing the bodily aspect, of steadying or relaxing the emotion by grounding attention in the body and simply breathing. So this gives us a handle on emotions and mind-states (like anxiety..) that can otherwise bowl us over. Referring to the body sense is valuable, because the body can’t fake or mask the feeling. And furthermore, through widening, easing and finding balance in the bodily sense, we turn on a sympathetic system that can bring the heart into true focus. This goes a lot deeper and works more effectively than the process of ‘me trying to sort my self out’ – an approach that leads to complexity, righteousness, force, defence and denial.