Tag: heart

Space for the conditions of life

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To free ourselves from our neurotic ego is ultimately to accept the conditions of existence and to see ourselves not as victims or opponents of the givens of reality, but as adults who face up to them honestly. These givens include the following: things change and end; life is not always fair; we pay for growth with suffering; things do not always go according to plan; people are not always loyal or loving.

Accepting the conditions of existence means first of all admitting our vulnerability to them. When we realize that the givens of life – no matter how ferocious – are not penalties, but ingredients of depth, lovability and character, we can let go of the belief that we are immune (or need to be). “That can’t happen to me” or “How dare they do that to me” changes to “Anything human can happen to me and I will do my best to handle it”. The strength to handle challenges, in fact, is directly proportional to how much we let go of entitlement.

David Richo, How to be an Adult in Relationships

Having room for everything and everyone

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The silence of the mind is like the space in a room. The spacious mind has room for everything. It is like the space in a room, which is never harmed by what goes in and out of it. In fact, we say “the space in this room,” but actually, the room is in the space, the whole building is in the space. We can apply this perspective to the mind, using the “I” consciousness to see space as an object. In the mind, we can see that there are thoughts and emotions —  the mental conditions that arise and cease. Usually, we are dazzled, repelled, or bound by these thoughts and emotions. We go from one thing to another, reacting, controlling, manipulating, or trying to get rid of them. So we never have any perspective in our lives. We become obsessed with either repressing or indulging in these mental conditions; we are caught in these two extremes. With meditation, we have the opportunity to contemplate the mind and the spacious mind has room for everything.

Noticing the space around people and things provides a different way of looking at them, and developing this spacious view is a way of opening oneself. When one has a spacious mind, there is room for everything. When one has a narrow mind, there is room for only a few things. Everything has to be manipulated and controlled, so that you have only what you think is right  – what you want there – and everything else has to be pushed out.  Life with a narrow view is suppressed and constricted; it is always struggle. There is always tension involved in it, because it takes an enormous amount of energy to keep everything in order all the time. If you have a narrow view of life, the disorder of life has to be ordered for you; so you are always busy, manipulating the mind and rejecting things or holding on to them. 

Ajahn Sumedho

Natural kindness

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Had some lovely visitors to the garden this morning, as an adult wagtail fed its chicks, probably not long out of the nest. The young ones followed the adult, waiting for food and running across the grass when they saw some being offered. We do not normally get wagtails visiting the garden, even allowing for the fact that they keep a  low profile when nesting. However,  this year we are extremely lucky with the amount of birds we see, especially the blackbirds who are nesting in the trees at the end of the garden. After the thunderstorms of the past two days they love to fill the air with song.

The instinctive tenderness of the adult’s care for the chick was very moving. It seems to me that, when we are not afraid, we have a natural movement of kindness and compassion towards others. It is only when fear enters into the equation that we withdraw and hold back, and our natural desire for caring connection is blocked and gets confused.  At some level, even though we may not be aware of it, this causes a division within, some kind of cognitive dissonance and we deal with this by blaming the other or by justifying ourselves. These stories simply mean that we stay cut off from our deep self and from others, ensuring that we will never be fully happy as most of the energy from that part of our life or our history goes into splitting and withdrawal rather than into kindness.

Mindfulness practice is about cultivating a space in our minds and a harmony with our inner capacity for compassion. This means noticing when the mind is fearful or defensive. When we see this  it is a good practice is to focus on the warmth of our own kindness and direct it first and foremost towards ourselves. We need to have the same tenderness that the mother bird demonstrated this morning towards the hungry,  weak and frightened parts of our own heart. In this way we gradually find strength not to automatically run away from the fear when it arises. We can let go of what we carry within and relax in the more natural condition of love and trust.

The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes.

Pema Chodron

A friendly space for all experience

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Mindfulness practice allows us to create a more spacious mind when we’re actually involved in our walking-around activities. This gives us that ability to actually check-in with our subjective experience, instead of just reacting out of our subjective experience….. it actually kind of stops you in your tracks; and you can have this “holding” of your own experience where you can continue to experience without doing the verbal or nonverbal or emotional reactivity that people do place on each other. It allows you to be able to have your own experience; and then a bit of freedom to respond to whatever is going on.

So here’s a definition of mindfulness: it’s a strengthening of your concentration so that you can be more precise and clear in recognizing your experience. It’s also a strengthening of your equanimity — your ability to be relaxed and open in the face of your experience. The concentration part of mindfulness is a little like drinking a cup of coffee; it kind of wakes you up. It’s like the straight spine of arousal or awareness. The equanimity part is like the relaxed limbs of the body. The spine is straight, and the limbs are relaxed. This relaxation part is a receptivity and acceptance to things as they are. It’s a kind of “friendly audience” to your own experience; a sort of “Hello. Wow! OK.” attitude — a gentle, matter-of-fact awareness of your experience, rather than a reactive pulling back.  All mindfulness practices cultivate both of those, the concentration and the equanimity, so that you can be clearer, more precise and more relaxed in the face of whatever is happening to you —whether it’s loud noises coming in from a jackhammer running in the next building, or a pain in your knee, or your emotions about your spouse.

Polly Young-Eisendrath

Hold on lightly – let feelings pass through awareness

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Meditation is a special kind of dance in which we commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the practice of deconstructing the materialistic view of reality. The challenge is simultaneously to hold on and to let go; it is to see clearly what we are doing and at the same time see through it.

Ajahn Amaro

When you think you are not “good enough”

Karl Duffy2 Comments

The goalposts for what counts as “good enough”  always seem to be out of reach. No matter how well we do, someone else always seems to be doing it better. The result of this line of thinking is sobering: Millions of people who need to take pharmaceuticals every day just to cope with daily life. Insecurity, anxiety, and depression are incredibly common in our society, and much of this is due to self-judgment, to beating ourselves up when we feel we aren’t winning in the game of life.

So what’s the answer? To stop judging and evaluating ourselves altogether. To stop trying to label ourselves as “good” or “bad” and simply accept ourselves with an open heart. To treat ourselves with the same kindness, caring, and compassion we would show to a good friend — or even a stranger,  for that matter. Self-compassion provides an island of calm, a refuge from the stormy seas of endless positive and negative self-judgment, so that we can finally stop asking, “Am I as good as they are? Am I good enough?” By tapping into our inner wellsprings of kindness, acknowledging the shared nature of our imperfect human condition, we can start to feel more secure, accepted, and alive.

It does take work to break the self-criticizing habits of a lifetime, but at the end of the day, you are only being asked to relax, allow life to be as it is, and open your heart to yourself. It’s easier than you might think, and it could change your life.

Kristan Neff, Why Self-Compassion trumps Self-Esteem