Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now of grief, and of getting past it;
I feel my boots trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart pumping hard. I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.
Mary Oliver, Starlings in Winter
Winter has finally arrived here, with snow on the nearby mountains. So a little reflection on working with the things that we cannot change or with things that inconvenience us:
A disciple asked the Zen master Tung-shan: “When the heat of summer and the cold of winter arrive, how can we escape them?” Tung-shan answered, “Why don’t you go where there is no heat or cold?” “Where is this place,” asked the disciple, “where there is no heat or cold?” At this the master replied, “When it is hot, be completely hot; when it is cold, be completely cold.”
The disciple’s question had a symbolic meaning, and the answer was given on the same level. Heat and cold stand for circumstances that affect our daily existence but are out of our hands to regulate or rectify. Impersonal facts with far-reaching effects on us include: general economic conditions; situations of war, violence or peace; accidents; laws, policies and prejudices; possibilities and opportunities available in a particular community; mechanical and technological breakdowns and so on. The disciple wished to know how to escape such restraints. He wished to live in an ideal country where it is never too hot or too cold.
The Zen master’s reply was also symbolic. Instead of offering an escape route, he invited the disciple to plunge directly into the current situation and become completely hot in summer, completely cold in winter. According to an interpretation by Francis Dojun Cook, the Zen master was suggesting a radical affirmation of one’s very conditionedness in order to transcend it. By plunging directly into the current, one flows with it and on it. When resistance is futile, yielding to the flow of the current of events offers the promise of life. In order to understand the reply of Tung-shan, we have to realize that he was speaking of a change in attitude. Rather than attempting to change the facts of the situation, or escape them by flight, we may change our attitude, accept things as they are, and thereby move beyond them to a point where we find peace of mind. That point or region of peace is the country where “there is no heat or cold.” These conditions no longer exist as problems for us, although they continue to exist as facts. What has changed is our attitude toward them.
Charles Cummings, The Best Place to Live
Happiness is accepting and choosing life, not just submitting grudgingly to it. It comes when we choose to be who we are, to be ourselves, at this present moment of our lives; we choose life at it is, with all its joys, pain and conflicts. Happiness is living and seeking the truth, together with others in community, and assuming responsibility for our lives and the lives of others. It is accepting the fact that we are not infinite, but can enter into a personal relationship with the Infinite, discovering the universal truth and justice that transcends all cultures: each person is unique and sacred. We are not just seeking what others want us to be or to conform to the expectations of family, friends, or local ways of being. We have chosen to be who we are, with all this is beautiful and broken in us. We do not slip away from life and live in a world of illusions, dreams, or nightmares. We become present to reality and to life. We become present to reality and to life so that we are free to live according to our personal conscience, our sacred sanctuary, where love resides within us and we see others as they are in the depth of their being. We are not letting the light of life within us be crushed, and we are not crushing it in others. On the contrary, all we want is for the light of others to shine.
Jean Vanier, Essential Writings
We practice so that every moment of our life becomes real life. And therefore when we meditate. we sit for sitting. We don’t sit for something else. If we sit for twenty minutes, these twenty minutes should bring us joy, life. If we practice walking meditation, we walk just for walking, not to arrive. We have to be alive with each step, and if we are, each step brings real life back to us. The same kind of mindfulness can be practiced when we eat breakfast, or when we hold a child in our arms. Each breath we take, each step we make, each smile we realize, is a positive contribution to peace, a necessary step in the direction of peace in the world.
Thich Nhat Hahn, The Heart of Understanding
I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing, or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of ones being, satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some arena, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
Martha Graham, American dancer and choreographer.
Joy isn’t something we have to find.
Joy is who we are if we’re not preoccupied with something else.
When we try to find joy, we are simply adding a thought – and an unhelpful one, at that – onto the basic fact of what we are.
Charlotte Joko Beck
Mindfulbalance 