As strange as it sounds, meditation may reveal that we are happier than we thought we were. We may discover that ancient conditioning rather than present circumstances is causing our dissatisfaction, and that this moment is quite sufficient or even wonderful, and we simply hadn’t noticed.
Wes Nisker
I love this time of year when the poppies grow alongside and inside the fields of wheat. With the wind of today and yesterday they sway, attracting our attention as we walk along the lanes. They are a splash of colour on a grey day. However they do more. They are, as Mary Oliver says, an invitation to happiness. And then it dawns on me that innumerable things each day are the same. Sure. like every one of us, I am tempted, from time to time, to “drown” in moments of darkness, but so many things – like these flowers – remind me that I am given opportunities each day to collect moments of colour, little miracles of light , that give me courage to go on and renew my joy. They invite me to not just live life, but to celebrate it.
The poppies send up their orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation
of bright dust, of thin and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place in this world that doesn’t
sooner or later drown in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while, the roughage
shines like a miracle as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold, black, curved blade from hooking forward—
of course loss is the great lesson.
But I also say this: that light is an invitation
to happiness, and that happiness,
when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,
touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed in the river
of earthly delight—
and what are you going to do—
what can you do about it—
deep, blue night?
Mary Oliver, Poppies
Image by John Ecker | Pantheon Photography.
A huge change in the weather yesterday and today, and objectively it is much grayer here. However, had a number of meetings with people who reveal an inner light and a courage in the face of difficulties. It is love which brightens each day and the capacity to appreciate what we have, not wishing things be different.
We are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love.
William Blake
The art of living…is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past….on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.
Alan Watts, The Wisdon of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Uncertainty
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
Meditation begins 
now, right here. If you wish to free yourself from the frantic television mind that runs our lives, begin with the intention to be present now. Nobody can bring awareness to your life but you.
Meditation is not a self-help program – a way to better ourselves so we can get what we want. Nor is it a way to relax before jumping back into busyness. It’s not something to do once in a while, either, whenever you happen to feel like it. Instead, meditation is a practice that saturates your life and in time can be brought into every activity. It is the transformation of mind from bondage to freedom. In practicing meditation, we go nowhere other than right here where we now stand, where we now sit, where we now live and breathe. In meditation we return to where we already are – this shifting, changing ever-present now.
Steve Hagen
