Tag: Awareness

Passing away

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November is traditionally the month for remembering those who have passed away. It is a practice in harmony with this time of year, as the days shorten and the cold of winter approaches. There seems to be a broad antropological basis for this awareness,  as it can be found in the Celtic calendar around this time also.  Keeping an awareness of the impermanence of all things is one of the basic practices in most of the wisdom traditions. One of the reasons that we struggle is that we give things more solidity than we should, including the problems and worries which pass through the mind as thoughts or emotions. I think the most important lesson learned in sitting meditation is that nothing stays the same for long, including the activity of the mind. Learning the truth of that in a real, felt way,  leads to equanimity. Trying to hold onto things that are changing, even good things, pinning our happiness onto things being exactly as they were, leads us to be less present with how things actually are. However, I do not find this practice easy or something I realize in a once-off manner. I would love if enlightenment came that way. However, for me it is a slow-learned knowledge, that I am working with day-to-day. Looking out on the mountains around my house this morning gently teaches me. The trees let go of their leaves, the mountain allows the mist to descend and rise. I too try to let go, not trying to make this or that moment last forever.

In the deepest forms of insight we see that things change so quickly that we can’t hold onto anything, and eventually the mind lets go of clinging.

Letting go brings equanimity. The greater the letting go, the deeper the equanimity. In practice we work to expand the range of life experiences in which we are free.

U Pandita

Finding your princess

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We are looking out there all the time, and not at ourselves.

Charlotte Joko Beck

The fact that all the news channels around the world devoted significant airtime to the announcement of the  engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton shows that we have not lost our fascination with fairy tales. Most fairy tales, including those about the noble prince marrying the princess for love, can be seen as symbols of inner experiences and provide insight into human longings. Our choice of stories says a lot about us. When we identify with characters in a story we strengthen those aspects in ourselves. The British press is already looking forward to the wedding as a moment to help the nation look beyond its problems,  have its spirits lifted and its wounds healed.   It is as if the nation believes in this before-and-after story, looking to a hero to transform their circumstances, from inner poverty to riches.  By what, you may ask.  By just a wedding, or a wedding that has to carry all the hopes and dreams we all have for love and for life?

We too have a huge capacity to look outside ourselves for something to fulfill us. Most fairytales are quests to find out if there is a place elsewhere that has the something else that we feel we need. The biggest difficulty with this approach is that it divides the world into me and everything outside of me. And this gives rise to the tendency to look outside for something or some change in circumstance to respond to and heal the unease inside  of us. We can look for a career, or a inspiring teacher, or a religion or a practice……..something, someone,  to whom we can hand over the confusion and lack of direction we find inside ourselves. And often the place we do this most is in the relationships we seek to establish. We look to another person to fulfill us, to soothe the feelings of anxiety we find inside. We frequently place upon the other a wish to make our own lives more meaningful, more rich. We see the other person as the one who will fulfill our lacks, and often expect them to be able to heal our deepest wounds also. And yet  relationships do go a long way to touching the core parts of our being, especially when we find someone capable of deep sensitivity and selfless caring. However, drawing close to another inevitably brings our wounded places into sharper focus, and it can be quite a challenge to keep opening up the heart and allowing another person into our deepest self.

In my experience, I find that trying to live my life in a way that leads to my deepest happiness is something that requires constant attention.  I do not know if I get the balance right between outer and inner. I know that this fulness of life has something to do with living from my deepest inner capacities for loving and all that means. But often my experience is that I stumble   and fall in my attempts at full expression of that capacity. Despite the desire to connect, to relax with others, I  frequently hold back and check to see if they can actually hold my heart and my fears. I often pull back. I know that I am not alone in this: in my work I also encounter people who do not know how to show the love that they feel, or request the love that they need, the love whose absence makes a wound of this world and of so many lives.

Real life is  more complex than enchanted fairy tales. It demands in some way that we become disenchanted, not necessarily in a bad sense, but in the sense of being freed from the spell  which promises some magical saving from outside.  We have to discover that there are no perfect people, perfect job, perfect set of circumstances in which to live.  We have to be disenchanted in order to realize where true happiness lies. Happiness is an inside job, as a book reminds us, based on us looking inside rather than looking out., without however using that as a way of running from our need for love.  The original root of the word nobility comes from the greek word gnosis, meaning knowledge or wisdom. Our true nobility does not come from some outside prince, but from knowing how to live in harmony with an open heart.

The way to true happiness isn’t through trying to make everything right and pleasant on the external dimension, but to develop the right understanding, the right attitude towards ourselves.

Ajahn Sumedho

Learning to be in the moment

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One of the best ways to learn to be mindful is to take the dog for a walk. Dogs are always in the moment. They can take the same walk for 10 years and still experience grass in an entirely new way each day. They’re not worried about the past (“Why didn’t my people give me some of that chicken they had for dinner?”) or the future (” I wonder if my people will give me any chicken when we get home?”). All they think about is what is right in front of them: the smell of the grass, the basset hound in the yard next door, the squirrel in the tree across the street.

Alice Domar & Alice Lesch Kelly: Be Happy without being Perfect: How to break free from the Perfection Domination

Just do it

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The biggest obstacle to establishing a meditation practice is the erroneous idea that meditation should calm and focus the mind.  Better to assume the attitude that meditation is what you do when you meditate.

There is no doing it right or wrong.

Norman Fischer

Seeing people and things without labels

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Imagine how it might feel to suspend all your judging and instead to let each moment be just as it is, without attempting to evaluate it as “good” or “bad.” This would be a true stillness, a true liberation. This means cultivating a non-judging attitude toward what comes up in the mind, come what may.

Jon Kabat Zinn

Our hidden selves.

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Modern society likes to portray everything as being within our grasp,  so long as we apply ourselves with determination and ambition. Its unrelenting positive message and preference for distraction does not allow for any complexity or for anything which cannot be explained easily. Success in life comes from building up, getting more, going higher. Prompted by this model, we can sometimes believe that we are fully in charge of our lives, when in fact we have depths and motivations that we are often unaware of.  A lot of what is important or which shapes and drives our life is hidden from us, deep in the unconscious.  We have wounds that have not healed but still have an influence, fundamental assumptions and powerful unmet needs. Hidden also, is a natural understanding of the direction we should go, as well as potential riches which we are often too timid to take hold of. However, at crucial moments in our lives, growth involves us  going down into the depths, paying attention to what has been neglected, hidden or buried.  This can happen in the mid to late twenties when we are forced to finally leave the shadow of our parents or in the “mid-life” years when we awaken to these depths as their demands oblige us to redefine our understanding of who we truly are. At these times we are called to a more  genuine relationship to our deepest selves and the journey we are on. This can be prompted by a loss or a period of deeper reflection, or by a restlessness or boredom which leads us to see that we are not fully content.

At moments like this we are led to consider the values which will lead us to living a richer, larger life. The way we have lived life’s challenges to date may no longer feel authentic to us. Although it may feel like a crisis or be deeply uncomfortable, we know we are being called to deepen the paradigm which we use to guide us through life.  The question of our most real identity will not go away.  The untended parts of our lives seek expression. Do we have the courage to go with this new prompting and be rewarded with a deeper, more fulfilling story?

One’s own self is well hidden from one’s own self;

Of all mines of treasure, one’s own is the last to be dug up.

Friedrich Nietzsche