heart – Page 195 – Mindfulbalance

Midway

February 1, 2012January 31, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations. Thoreau, Walden

In the old Celtic and Gaelic calendar, today, February 1st, is the start of Spring. It was the Celtic feast of Imbolc, which centred around the lighting of fires, celebrated because it is halfway between the winter and the spring solstices. Similarly tomorrow, the feast of Candlemas, traditionally involved a procession of candles and the blessing of candles for use in the home. It would seem that there was a need for people to remind themselves of warmth and light around this midway point – when the cold weather can return with a vengeance as it has this year – as encouragement that new growth will soon be here. It is the same for us today, for we all can find ourselves at midway points from time to time, not sure where we are arriving, but too far away from where we started from to recognize it and go back. We have no overall map for this journey, we can lose our sense of direction and easily get lost. It can feel, as Dante says, as if we are “midway in this way of life we’re bound upon …. in a dark wood, where the right road was wholly lost and gone”.

It is no surprise that journey narratives appear so frequently in all wisdom traditions and mythologies. We are never really in just one place, even when things are quite stable, but always somewhat in-between. Still, whenever we’re moving into anything new we often feel a hesitancy within and tension or unease arises because we prefer to stay as we were, where we felt comfortable. And the brain tends to interpret our underlying unease as anxiety and therefore as negative, leading us to be afraid because something new is demanded. And this can feel like darkness and being lost. However, what these ancient feasts remind us is that this darkness is often the gateway from one place to another, and a natural part of a cycle that leads to new depths. Trust is needed as is mindfulness, which allows us to hold the feeling of unease in awareness, without reactivity, and without the need to run away or fix it. We can thus tolerate the experience of being lost without believing the story of being lost. This holding of awareness is like holding a candle in the darkness – it allows us stay in the darkness without fear until it teaches us what we need to learn.

This month, allow yourself to feel

February 1, 2012January 31, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Meditation practice is a period of self-reflection that offers an opportunity for us to feel. To feel is to be present, which allows for depth and insight to occur. By learning to feel, we can contact the inherent openness of our being – known…in the Shambala teachings as basic goodness. This universal nature is characterized by kindness and compassion. A successful meditation practice is one in which we intimately connect with this naturally occurring love in our hearts and then embody it in our lives…. Resting in this space is self-empowerment minus the ego. By contacting that open feeling , the inherently pure stream at the depth of our being, we are laying the seeds for those feelings of love to grow within our own consciousness. Then those potent seeds will materialize in our life.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Stop, Relax, Wake up

Sometimes we have to hold open the questions

January 31, 2012January 31, 2012 Karl Duffy2 Comments

Heavy snow here in France and very cold weather is forecast for the next few days. Here is a poem from Mary Oliver in similar conditions as she walks in a landscape covered in its white blanket. The beauty of nature changes the way we hold the questions which are always present in our lives.

The snow began here this morning and all day
continued, its white rhetoric everywhere calling us back to why, how, whence such beauty and what the meaning; such an oracular fever! flowing
past windows, an energy it seemed would never ebb, never settle
less than lovely! and only now, deep into night, it has finally ended.
The silence is immense, and the heavens still hold
a million candles, nowhere the familiar things: stars, the moon,
the darkness we expect and nightly turn from.

Trees glitter like castles of ribbons, the broad fields smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions that have assailed us all day
remain — not a single
answer has been found –
walking out now into the silence and the light
under the trees, and through the fields,
feels like one.

Mary Oliver, First Snow

Everything today is special

January 31, 2012January 29, 2012 Karl Duffy2 Comments

So many of us have been trained to think that being particular about what we want is indicative of good taste, and that not being satisfied unless our preferences are met is a sign of worldliness and sophistication. Often, this kind of discernment is seen as having high standards, when, in actuality, it is only a means of isolating ourselves from being touched by life, while rationalizing that we are more special than those who can’t meet our very demanding standards.

The devastating truth is that excellence can’t hold you in the night, and, as I learned when ill, being demanding or sophisticated won’t help you survive. A person dying of thirst doesn’t ask if the water has chlorine or if it was gathered in the foothills of France. Yet, to be accepting of the life that comes our way does not mean denying its difficulties and disappointments. Rather, it means that joy can be found even in hardship, not by demanding that we be treated as special at every turn, but through accepting the demand of the sacred that we treat everything that comes our way as special.

Mark Nepo, Being Easily Pleased

The work within us

January 30, 2012January 29, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Real growth in life is slow and can sometime pose its challenges. It requires that we keep the space within us open in face of the unknown and move towards being comfortable with that. Often this means that we have to keep our heart curious and vulnerable, resisting the impulse to close down the experience by putting labels on it, or on ourselves. When faced with the unknown, the temptation is to put on armour in case we will be hurt. And our experience now can often bring us back to where we were once wounded or where our needs were unmet and release old fears. However, it is by having a conversation with the unknown in our lives that we can clarify what we need to hold on to and what we need to let go of. Only then can we take the next step on a journey into something bigger, into who we can become, into where our life actually is now.