Tag: Awareness

Lost in thoughts

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Without a development or training of the mind, we find that much of our life is lost in thoughts and that we take these thoughts to be reality. How often do our thoughts condition reactions in the mind, as though the thought itself had substance? Yet the thought of a friend is not the friend; it is a thought. How many life scenarios have we created, directed and starred in and, for those moments, taken to be the experience itself? We also may get carried away by the intense nature of our emotions, swept up in a typhoon of the mind and body. To be lost in emotions is not to be mindful of their energy; and when there is a strong identification with them, there is no space in our mind for seeing clearly what is happening.

Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom

Standing still and withdrawing your consent to fear

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In our practice we cultivate awareness –  the capacity to hold even the events and thoughts and fears that bother us with kindness and non-judgment.  This means, as Christine Feldman tells us here, that we create enough of a gap between us and our fears that we no longer allow them to define our sense of self, or let them mean that we are doing something wrong:

It is a great relief to stop running from pain. In standing still and receiving life with all its adversity and sorrow, you have withdrawn your permission for suffering to define your life. You have also withdrawn your consent to living in fear. Something profound happens in your heart when you turn with kindness toward all the circumstances of pain which you have previously repressed, dismissed or fled from. There is a softening, an opening, a deepening capacity and willingness to understand sorrow and its cause. You come to understand that your willingness to be present with difficulties is the midwife to compassion.

Christine Feldman, Compassion

Noticing what is here, not what we would like to be here

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Similar thoughts to yesterday morning’s post – this time from the Zen tradition – on staying close to what is actually happening, moment by moment, rather than worrying about what may happen. Sometimes it may not be what we would want, so our practice is to see if we can open to it and acknowledge it’s happening, even if we do not like it.  It also encourages us to meet every person today with fresh eyes, rather than immediately reducing them to  history which we have had with them, or to what we have come to “expect” from them.

The aim of Zen is to focus our attention on reality itself, instead of our intellectual and emotional reactions to reality – reality being the ever-changing, ever-growing, indefinable something known as “life,” which will never stop for a moment for us to fit it satisfactorily into any rigid system of pigeonholes and ideas.

Alan Watts

The freedom of not comparing to an ideal self

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We can always see ourselves in terms of what’s wrong with us as persons. There are always so many flaws and inadequacies. There is no perfect personality that I have ever noticed. Personality is all over the place. Some of it is all right and some of it is really wacky. There is no personality that you can take refuge in. You are never going to make yourself into a perfect personality. So when you judge yourself you find so many problems, inadequacies, flaws and weaknesses. Maybe you are comparing yourself to some ideal person, some unselfish and superlative personality. However, that which is aware of personality is not personal. These personality conditions arise and cease…. Your refuge is in this awareness rather than in trying to make yourself into an ideal man or woman – mature, responsible, capable, successful,  “normal”  and all the rest – these are ideals.

Ajahn Sumedho, The Sound of Silence

Choosing outside our usual pattern

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The big thing in my own experience is that the bravery is to not just go with an habitual pattern because it’s usually fear-based. Instead, stay present and open so you can connect with your underlying strength, which is called basic goodness. The seductiveness of habitual patterns is a false security, but we wouldn’t follow it if we didn’t think it was going to bring us some comfort or relief. Still, habitual patterns just keep us stuck in the same rut, so the courage is to actually realize you have a choice and choose to do the tougher thing.

Pema Chodron

Our habit of running

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If we can’t rest,  it is because we have not stopped running. We began running a long time ago. We continue to run even in our sleep. We think that happiness and well-being are not possible in the here and now. That belief is inherent in us. We received the seed of that belief from our parents and grandparents. They struggled all their lives and believed that happiness is only possible in the future. That’s why when we were children, we were already in the habit of running. We believed that happiness was something to seek for in the future. But the teaching…is that we can be happy right here, right now. If you can stop and establish yourself in the here and now, you will see that there are many elements of happiness available in this moment, more than enough to make you happy.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Happiness