We cannot always change the perplexing conditions of our lives
– but we can change how our minds relate to them.
Tara Bennett-Goleman
Tag: Awareness
Make the most of life:Stay in the present
A similar idea to yesterday’s one posted about Saint David. We make our future happiness by taking care of the present moment.
The past is gone, and I don’t know what’s coming in the future. It’s obvious that if I want my life to be whole, to resonate with feeling and integrity and value and health, there’s only one way I can influence the future: by owning the present. If I can relate to this moment with integrity, and then this moment with integrity, and then this moment with integrity, wakefully, then the sum of that is going to be very different over time, over many moments that stretch out into what we call a life, than a life that is lived mostly on automatic pilot, where we are reacting and being mechanical and are therefore somewhat numb.
Jon Kabat Zinn
Getting places, one step at a time
Today is the first of March, the feast of Saint David of Menevia, – ‘Dewi Sant’ – the patron saint of Wales. He is celebrated also in the Irish calendar as he was a friend of many of the main figures in the early Irish Church. One of the teachings which he passed on is beautiful in its lucidity and its wisdom. He said simply, Do the little things in life. We are sometimes concerned with the “direction” of our lives, in working out how we can make an impact, how we can get to the top of the mountain. This can mean that we spend part of the time in the future, in imagining various scenarios, waiting for our life to begin sometime later. By doing this, we can miss all the possibilities that are right in front of us now, or allow moments go which will never return. David reminds us to concern ourselves with what is in front of us just now, to be mindful of this moment. We do not have to live tomorrow, or next week just yet. He reminds us to make the journey one step at a time. In keeping with a Welsh theme, we try to keep our focus on the path down in the valley, not on the heights we like to conceive for ourselves.
Take time – today – to celebrate
May you receive great encouragement
when new frontiers beckon.
May you take time to celebrate
the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you experience each day
as a sacred gift
woven around the heart of wonder.
John O’Donoghue, Benedictus
Practicing mindfulness: Come back to the present as much as possible
Today I rose early and the weather had cleared after yesterday’s rain. It was a lovely fresh morning, before the cloud and mist moved in again. The birds are beginning to sing again and there was a sense of light and joy. Bright mornings make it easy to feel clear and spacious within. And when we do, we find it not so difficult to be kind. It makes it possible to believe in the natural goodness deep inside us. However, even with bright starts on days like this we can still see that the mind has brief moments when it can get confused and dark. When a combination of circumstances come together that frighten us, we can become flustered and defensive. It is always interesting to see the mind’s capacity to wander from the way things are and live in thoughts and wonderings and wishing things were other, with the potential narrowing that this brings.
In sitting practice we are reminded to practice “starting over” – to return again and again to the breath when the mind wanders, without being harsh with ourselves. It is a lesson for life also. We frequently get distracted. We sometimes get lost. And then we wander away from the natural kindness that exists when we are calm. So the practice is to simply try to start over again, by dropping into this moment, noticing what we are doing, becoming conscious of the breath or of the sensations in our body. We do not need to add the extra judgment about how unworthy our behaviour makes us to the existing situation. We do not make a drama out of it. We acknowledge honestly and simply that we have gotten lost, or are in the wrong, and then go back to start over again.
Sunday Quote : Opening to all that happens
God sends ten thousand truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet, but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.
Henry Ward Beecher
