Tag: balance

Let go

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As the days begin to shorten, we are reminded that darkness is as much of life as is light. And each day we have moments of birth and moments of loss. They give an opportunity in the practice of taking some aspects of ourselves and our lives with less importance, of letting go or dying to our fixed sense of self:

Die while you’re alive
and be absolutely dead.
Then do whatever you want:
it’s all good.

Bunan,  17th century Zen Master.

The third noble truth says that the cessation of suffering is letting go of holding on to ourselves. By “cessation” we mean the cessation of hell as opposed to just weather, the cessation of this resistance, this resentment, this feeling of being completely trapped and caught, trying to maintain huge ME at any cost.

Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness

Growing old

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Here is one of the practices I referred to in the post this morning. It comes from the community established by Thich Nhat Hanh.  I like it because it balances an awareness of the human condition and the inevitability of change with a focus on present actions.

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill-health. There is no way to escape ill-health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are the nature to change.

There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.

My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

Thich Nhat Hanh,  Plum Village Chanting Book

Opening to the invisible

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 keyboard_hands

This evening we celebrate Halloween which is based on the most important Ancient Irish and Celtic feast, that of Samhain. The Celtic year was divided into two parts, the bright half from the 1st of May until today,  and the dark half, starting tomorrow. Today stood in-between, when Summer not quite fully over, but the old year was dying and  winter was about to  begin. On this in-between day  it was felt that the normal barriers between the visible and invisible worlds were less strong. The normal Celtic sensitivity to the hidden world – their awareness that the other world was always there right beside them – was heightened, So for us too, it can be a day to be more aware of deeper dimensions, by not rushing past the “ordinary” or the routine, by not expecting real happiness to be elsewhere, but by tuning in to the “bits and pieces of everyday” as poet Paddy Kavanagh reminded us.

One comes to know the interior of the exterior. One comes to know the inside of every outside. It’s not only human beings that have an interior or an inside, but that the world around us as well can be known inwardly. Life is dense with those levels of experience, but we need to calm ourselves, get clear, get quiet, direct attention, sustain the attention, open up to what is normally invisible, and certain things begin to show themselves. Maybe gently to begin with, but nonetheless it deepens and enriches our lives. If we are committed to knowledge, then we ought to be committed also to exploring the world with these lenses, with this method in mind and heart.

Arthur Zajonc,  Professor of Physics,  Amherst College

Short pauses….

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Try pausing right before and right after undertaking a new action,

even something simple like putting a key in a lock to open a door.

Such pauses take a brief moment,

yet they have the effect of decompressing time and centering you.

David Stiendl Rast

Gratitude as a choice

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two doors

Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint. I can choose to grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly.

Henri Nouwen

Finding through losing

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This is the simple truth

– that to live is to feel oneself lost – 

He who accepts it has already begun to find himself to be on firm ground.

José Ortega y Gasset, Who Rules the World.