If you don’t try to stop whatever is going on in your mind, but merely observe it, eventually you’ll begin to feel a tremendous sense of relaxation, a vast sense of openness within your mind – which is in fact your natural mind, the naturally unperturbed background against which various thoughts come and go.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.
Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what’s going on.
Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty
There is a classic text which tells of a sitar or lute player who gets discouraged in his meditation practice and asks the Buddha for advice. “What happens when you tune your instrument too tightly?” the Buddha asked, to which the musician answered “The strings break,”. “And what happens when you string it too loosely?”, the Buddha continued, “When it’s too loose, no sound comes out,” the musician answered, “the best tune comes from a string that is not too tight and not too loose.” “That,” said the Buddha, “is how to practice: not too tight and not too loose.”
That should be our resolution for meditation for this year – not too loose but also not too tight. Too loose means that we do not make it a priority and do not structure it into our schedule; however too tight means that we are harsh with ourselves when we fail or it becomes another thing to feel bad about. The Cookie Monster does not have it completely right – we do not wish to nourish our familiar patterns of avoidance by running away from difficult moments, but wish to look at everything that arises in our every moment. However, he makes us smile and take things – and ourselves – a bit lighter and in that he is a good teacher.
You spend so much of your time
expecting to become someone else
always someone who will be different
someone to whom a moment
whatever moment it may be
at last has come
and who has been met and transformed
into no longer being you
and so has forgotten you
meanwhile in your life you hardly notice
the world around you, lights changing
sirens dying along the buildings
your eyes intent on a sight you do not see yet
not yet there
as long as you
are only yourself
with whom as you recall you were
never happy
to be left alone for long
William Stanley Merwin, American poet, To Waiting
Experiencing,
rather than trying to have special experiences,
is where real freedom lies
Ezra Bayda, At Home in the Muddy Water
photo berit
Summer was like your house: you know where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.
Through the empty branches the sky remains. It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Trees at Bolton Abbey, Moone. Co Kildare
