Tag: Be fully present

Softening, allowing, being with today

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Softness means opening to whatever is there, relaxing into it. At such times try this “mantra”: “It’s Ok. Whatever it is it’s Ok, Let me feel it”. This is the softening of the mind. You can open to your experience with a sense of allowing, and simply be with whatever predominates, a pain, a thought, an emotion, anything.

Softening the mind involves two steps. First, become mindfully aware of whatever is most predominant. That is the core guideline for all insight meditation. So the first step is just to see, to open. For the second step, notice how you are relating to whatever arises….The easiest way to relax is to stop trying to make things different. Rather than try to create another space, simply allow space for whatever is going on.

Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation

What are you waiting for?

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I only recently discovered this beautiful poem, on not living in the future, or waiting for some other moment to begin living fully. As Jon Kabat Zinn frequently says, nothing needs to be added to this moment to make it complete. And yet we often fall into the trap of thinking that sometime in the future, the conditions will come together, and we will start to fully live. As the poem says, there will be nothing in that future moment that is greater than now, than this day, when you stop reading this.

Starting here, what do you want to remember?

How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened

sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world

than the breathing respect that you carry

wherever you go right now? Are you waiting

for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this

new glimpse that you found; carry into evening

all that you want from this day. This interval you spent

reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

What can anyone give you greater than now,

starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

William Stafford, You Reading this, Be Ready

Photo courtesy photos-public-domain.com

Sunday Quote: Dropping into a calm inside

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You who want knowledge,

Seek Oneness within

There you will find

the clear  mirror already waiting

Hadewijch II

Running from shadows

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I remember, when I was a very small child, often trying to jump into the middle of my shadow, but however hard I jumped I just landed on the shadow’s feet. And I would run after my shadow and then jump  – but where would I land? Just in the same place all over again. And this is what we do with our lives  – the things that we desire, it’s like running after shadows. You try to catch hold, reaching for the desire so close, and then you grasp it and then . . .and you haven’t really got it. Somehow it’s not what you expected, it’s different, not what you really wanted. And then to run from your shadow  – to be afraid, you keep turning around: ‘It’s still behind me, run faster, got to get away.’ When we stop and look though, we realize: ‘Well, it’s just my shadow.’ You can’t get away from it, but there’s nothing in it to be afraid of, it’s just a shadow. So when we stop and rest in the stillness of knowing, we know in our hearts that all we desire, all we fear, are just shadows. There is no substance there – nothing which can make us more complete and nothing which can threaten us. This is the real freedom of mind.

Ajahn Amaro, Real Freedom

Don’t get caught up today

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What we need is to be interested and to watch, but not interfere or be caught up in what we are thinking. Don’t think of the past, don’t anticipate the future, don’t get fascinated by the present.

See it as it is. Just be there with it. A thought is just a thought. An emotion is just an emotion.

It is like a bubble. It will burst and another one will come up.

Ani Tenzin Palmo, Reflections on a Mountain Lake

Focusing just on the now

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The past is a memory of a former now; the future is a mental projection of an expected now. Strictly speaking, nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the now. Nor will anything happen in the future; it will happen in the now. It sounds almost simplistic or meaningless, and yet there is a deep truth in it: that life and now are one.   Eckhard Tolle

As this quote reminds us,  there is a value in staying in the immediacy of the present moment. However, this can be quite difficult.  We frequently carry into the present habits and roots from the past,  which can be tied up with fearful emotions and inhibit our freedom. Or we find ourselves scanning for danger, warning ourselves about the dangers in proceeding based on past experiences. We find ourselves always moving away from the present moment into an imagined future that we give more importance and credence to, or creating possible scenarios  based on how our mood is in this moment. This worrying about the past or living already in the future frequently puts one at odds with the actuality of the present moment.

We all wish to enter fully into life, to live as if our lives can make a difference. However, so many of these mental habits lead us away from fully being here. We often see this moment as a means towards some other end, rather than complete in itself. To work with what is in front of us, in this moment, and then let go and start again,  is  the way to making the most of our life, not waiting for something dramatic to come along in the future.