Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them.
The least we can do is try to be there
Annie Diliard
Tag: Be fully present
No longer living on the surface
In personal practice we have a precise and potent way to understand the most important thing in our life, which is our mind and heart. We sit there day by day and watch something very private and intimate take place — the unfolding of our wisdom and compassion. Nobody else is watching. We know there’s nothing more important we could do, and yet we don’t write home about it. We don’t need to boast. We can simply enjoy a quiet sense of contentment, knowing that we have set aside the time to do something incredibly kind for ourselves. Without meditation as the bedrock of our sanity, how do we avoid being overreactive, coerced by quick solutions to our problems? These quick solutions come in the form of anger and frustration that the world doesn’t act the way we want, simply because we ourselves lack patience. Our mind becomes irritated, consumed with trying to align the outside world with our desires. If we could simply develop a level of peace in ourselves, our relationship to the world would be that much more harmonious.
As we deepen our mind through personal practice, we are able to dissolve our boundaries and rest in … the nature of how things actually abide. This personal time in which we experience the mind as fluid, unstuck, and without boundaries begins to affect our view of the world as a fixed and immovable place. We are no longer skimming life or our perceptions. We have broken through.
Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche
Letting go of our story lines
Meditation practice provides a powerful antidote to the story lines of ego. We become expert in recognizing when we are holding on to both overt and subtle versions of ourselves. In addition we also come to see how we re-create story lines as a way of pulling back from the very experiences we long for: spaciousness, clarity and compassion.…We may prefer to have a softer edge on reality when experiences arise that disconfirm our favourite story lines. We may subtly rework memories rather than see ourselves in an embarrassing or shameful light. We may also shrink away from our naturally tender and compassionate nature when to stay present means feeling our own pain or recognizing the pain of others……As we come to see our internal narratives for what they are – stories that distance us from our direct experience – they begin to lose their power.
Karen Kissel Wegela, The Courage to be Present
Running on tracks laid down by others
Like a lot of people I know, I struggle with taking too much on, with doing too many things, with moving too fast, with overcommitting, with overplanning. I have learnt that I must move, quite simply, at the pace of what is real. While this pace may vary, life always seems vacant and diminished when I accelerate beyond my capacity to feel what is before me. It seems we run our lives like, trains, speeding along a track laid down by others, going so fast that what we pass blurs on by. The we say we’ve been there, done that. The truth is that blurring by something is not the same as experiencing it.
So, no matter how many wonderful experiences come my way, no matter the importance placed on these things by others who have my best interests at heart, I must somehow find a way to slow down the train that is me until what I pass by is again seeable, touchable, feel-able. Otherwise I will pass by everything – can put it all on my resume – but will have experienced and lived through nothing.
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
How to get the most from the holidays: Holding who you are
All the Buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be – don’t try to become.
Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained.
Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.
Osho
Sunday Quote: Sitting, without speaking
The whole of practice can be simplified on this day: To be able to sit quietly with where our life is, and be at ease there.
Silence is pure and holy.
It draws people together
because only those who are comfortable with each other
can sit without speaking.
Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
