heart – Page 195 – Mindfulbalance

Bring compassion to what happens

February 10, 2012February 9, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Meditation is an experiment we are making, bringing us out of our normal habits of intense self-judgment, comparing, and impatience. Mindfulness isn’t about what is happening; it is about how we are relating to what is happening — how much awareness, balance and compassion are bringing to this moment’s experience, whatever it is. For example, it is very likely you will find your attention wandering, not 45 minutes after you first begin, but probably within a few seconds. You get lost in a fantasy, or fall asleep. That is normal and not a sign of failure. What I emphasize is that the critical moment in your meditation is the moment you see you’ve been distracted; instead of falling into our usual habits of self-condemnation, that’s a time we can practice letting go while being kind to ourselves, and work with the renewing power of beginning again.

Sharon Salzberg, Meditation and Mindfulness for All of Us.

A value in being lost

February 9, 2012February 7, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

There is immense value in “finding ourselves lost” because we can find something when we are lost, we can find our selves. Indeed, the deepest form of wandering requires that we be lost. Imagine yourself lost in your career or marriage, or in the middle of your life. You have goals, a place you want to be, but you don’t know how to reach that place. Maybe you don’t know exactly what you want, you just have a vague desire for a better place. Although it may not seem like it, you are on the threshold of a great opportunity. Begin to trust that place of not knowing. Surrender to it. You’re lost. There will be grief. A cherished outcome appears to be unobtainable or undefinable. In order to make the shift from being lost to being present, admit to yourself that your goal may never be reached. Though perhaps difficult, doing so will create entirely new possibilities for fulfillment.

Surrendering fully to being lost – and this is where the art comes in – you will discover that, in addition to not knowing how to get where you had wanted to go, you are no longer so sure of the ultimate rightness of that goal. By trusting your unknowing, your old standards of progress dissolve and you become eligible to be chosen by new, larger standards, those that come not from your mind or old story or other people, but from the depths of your soul. You become attentive to an utterly new guidance system.

Bill Plotkin, Being Lost but not lost in Life

Wait and let things settle

February 8, 2012February 7, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

While thinking about our difficulties is useful to a point, we tend to take it too far and become obsessive…. Creating some spaciousness and tranquility in our minds can be a large step towards solving a problem. Consider the “forest pool” metaphor so popular in Buddhism. After inclement weather, the pool is muddy, full of sediment and debris. We cannot clear it by trying to control the contents – that would make the pool worse. We can only wait for all the sediment to settle to the bottom, leaving the pool clear again. So in meditation, by concentrating on the breath or our body or on sounds we can hear in the present moment, we create a space for clarity. We often find that in this spaciousness, an answer to a problem will simply “pop up” to the surface. Sometimes it won’t, but our bodies will thank us for a break from all the worrying.

Sarah Napthali, Stewing

Our habit of running

February 7, 2012February 7, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

If we can’t rest, it is because we have not stopped running. We began running a long time ago. We continue to run even in our sleep. We think that happiness and well-being are not possible in the here and now. That belief is inherent in us. We received the seed of that belief from our parents and grandparents. They struggled all their lives and believed that happiness is only possible in the future. That’s why when we were children, we were already in the habit of running. We believed that happiness was something to seek for in the future. But the teaching…is that we can be happy right here, right now. If you can stop and establish yourself in the here and now, you will see that there are many elements of happiness available in this moment, more than enough to make you happy.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Happiness

Letting it all pass through

February 6, 2012February 2, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Just go into the room, and put one chair in the center. Take the one seat in the center of the room, open the doors and windows, and see who comes to visit. You will witness all kinds of scenes and actors, all kinds of temptations and stories, everything imaginable. Your only job is to stay in your seat. You will see it all arise and pass, and out of this, wisdom and understanding will come.

Ajahn Chah

Practice is about our fears

February 4, 2012February 1, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Good practice is about fear. Fear takes the form of constantly thinking, speculating, analyzing, fantasizing. With all that activity we create a cloud cover to keep ourselves safe in make-believe practice. True practice is not safe; it’s anything but safe. But we don’t like that, so we obsess with our feverish efforts to achieve our version of the personal dream. Such obsessive practice is itself just another cloud between ourselves and reality. The only thing that matters is seeing with an impersonal searchlight: seeing things as they are. When the personal barrier drops away, why do we have to call it anything? We just live our lives. And when we die, we just die. No problem anywhere.