Frequently, in the journey of the soul, the most precious moments are the mistakes. They have brought you to a place which you would otherwise have always avoided. You should bring a compassionate mindfulness to your mistakes and wounds. If you visit this configuration in your heart, it will fall into place itself. When you forgive yourself your inner wounds begin to heal. You come in, out of the exile of hurt into the joy of inner belonging.
John O Donohue, Anamchara
Mindfulness encourages us to pay attention and rest in what is happening in the present moment. However, we often prefer to be elsewhere, or that the present moment be other than what it actually is. What we learn through our practice is the key to finding contentment is to be fully present with whatever we are doing, no matter how ordinary. This realization that the fulness of our lives is right in front of us, and not to be found in the future, is an insight found in all wisdom traditions and leads to true contentment .
The everyday tedium of our lives is the desert we wander, looking for the Promised Land. Our relationships, our work, and all the little necessary tasks we don’t want to do are all the gift. We have to brush our teeth, we have to buy groceries. we have to do the laundry, we have to balance our checkbook. This tedium — this wandering in the desert — is in fact the face of God. Our struggles, the partner who drives us crazy, the report we don’t want to write — these are the Promised Land.
Charlotte Joko Beck
As time passes, we are continually called to move out of our comfort zones and take on new challenges. Or we need to shake ourselves up and leave behind what has become too familiar and comfortable. At other times, growth may be painful, but we know deep down that we need to make choices which will lead us in new directions. In every case it is the same, an ongoing, organic process that has been in place since we were little: we move from an established secure base, stepping out to explore new worlds. To do this we need to let go of what is certain. It has always been that way. We often sense it deep down. Where do I feel stuck at this moment? What do I need to move on from?
To be human is to create sufficient order so that we can move on into insecurity and seeming disorder. In this way we discover the new.
Jean Vanier
Sometimes meditation practice can be used just to dampen down anxiety or to run away from facing difficult aspects in our lives or our history. As a strategy this is doomed to failure, sooner or later. The only way to full wholeness is to allow all things to be held in awareness, including the parts of ourselves or our life histories that frighten us, the things that disturb our “calm”. As the previous quote from Pema Chodron reminds us, all that comes into our life – including the experiences of our childhood and subsequent difficult moments – remain in us until they have taught us something and we have integrated the teaching. So our most important practice is allowing and acknowledging all the parts of our life, thus increasing our capacity to be free in their presence.
If, then, we want to be let in on the secrets of life, we must be mindful of two things : first, there is the great melody, in which things and scents, feelings and past events, dawns and dreams, all contribute their part; and second there are the individual voices which augment and complete this full chorus. And to lay the foundation for a work of art — that is, an image a life lived more deeply – of our more than daily experience — we have to put both voices, – the voice of this moment and the voice of the group of people living within that moment – into a proper relationship and reconcile them.
Rilke, Notes on the Melody of Things
Mary Oliver, The Sun
It is through the activities of our outer life that we grow in our inner life. All of us look to be coherent and not fragmented in our relations with the world. We strive to find the role in life that nourishes the sources deep inside us, makes us feel complete, and where we can be our true selves. Unfortunately, many people can underdevelop their talents and potential, or even deny parts of themselves out of fear of what others may think. Sometimes we need to be daring and believe. Our life’s mission is to bring all the key aspects of our being into our daily life or else we will not be fulfilled. We know when that happens because we feel alive, and real energy begins to flow. The question comes down to what we want to create with our lives.
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that?
We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.
We must believe that we are gifted for something
and that this thing must be attained.
Marie Curie
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