Tag: heart

Stillness through non-interference.

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still water

Ajahn Chah would  explain that the mind’s nature is still, yet it’s flowing. It’s flowing, yet it is still. He would use the word “citta” for the knowing mind, the mind of awareness. The citta itself is totally still. It has no movement; it is not related to all that arises and ceases. It is silent and spacious. Mind objects — sights, sounds, smell, taste, touch, thoughts, and emotions — flow through it. Problems arise because the clarity of the mind gets entangled with sense impressions. By contemplating our own experience, we can make a clear distinction between the mind that knows (citta) and the sense impressions that flow through it. By refusing to get entangled with any sense impressions, we find refuge in that quality of stillness, silence, and spaciousness, which is the mind’s own nature. This policy of  non-interference allows everything and is disturbed by nothing.

Ajahn Amaro, Small Boat

Nothing to become

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Mindfulness provides a simple but powerful route for getting ourselves unstuck, back in touch with our own wisdom and vitality. The most important point is to be really yourself and not try to become anything that you are not already.…. being in touch with your deepest nature, and letting it flow out of you unimpeded.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mindfulness Meditation for Everyday Life

What is not essential

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Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry. To know this spot of inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it. This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential. Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core.

Mark Nepo, Unlearning Back to God

Letting life’s lessons sink in

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Another post inspired by the season of Lent, but a reminder for all of the value in slowing down, making space, “meandering” in life, rather than always focusing on driven, purpose-filled activities.

More than giving up or self-denial, Lent, when practiced intentionally, can allow time for self-examination, reflection, and preparation. It’s a time of slowing down, intentionally, so that life is given a chance to sink in, not just run off in so many directions. Induced meandering, if you will.  The slowing that is an inherent part of Lent is not just for the sake of slowing down, but so that life can sink in. In so doing, this season of irrigation provides health and vitality long after its rains have passed. Lent offers us an opportunity to slow down, to meander rather than to rush, to allow life to sink in a bit, to find ways to go deeper and not always stay on the surface. A time to observe, to pay attention, and then to act — and in so doing provide the space to move from rush to replenish. When we take this practice seriously, we plant its blessings so that they benefit not only us in our lives for this season, but also extend to the world around us.

Erin Dunigan, The Induced Meandering of the Lenten Season

The seeds within

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Mindfulness involves paying attention to and nurturing what is helpful, as well as evaluating,  and not allowing a footing to, those seeds which will cause confusion and distress:

If we take good care of everything in us, without discrimination, we prevent our negative energies from dominating. We reduce the strength of our negative seeds so that they won’t overwhelm us. Mindfulness means to be present, to be aware of what is going on. This energy is very crucial for the practice. The energy of mindfulness is like a big brother or big sister, holding a young one in her arms, taking good care of the suffering child, which is our anger, despair, or jealousy. So mindfulness recognizes, embraces, and revives. Mindfulness helps us look deeply in order to gain insight. Insight is the liberating factor. It is what frees us and allows transformation to happen. 

Thich Nhat Hahn, Taming the Tiger Within

photo Ude

Taking responsibility

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The capacity for growth depends on one’s ability to internalize and to take personal responsibility.

If we forever see our life as a problem caused by others,

a problem to be ‘solved,’

then no change will occur.

James Hollis, The Middle Passage