“Last forever!” Who hasn’t prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying.
Annie Dillard
Tag: Mindfulness
Our thoughts about our difficulties
We suffer a lot through our thoughts, more commonly so in the West nowadays than through physical problems. And in meditation we start to recognize that any physical pains that we do have can be made much worse by the attitude with which we hold them. Much the same goes for pain from a mental, perceptual source. Thinking forms a significant part of the way physical pain is held; it is charged with emotional drives that give rise to that ‘trapped, desperate, this shouldn’t be happening’ mood. Then there are the pleasant sensations or mental states accompanied by ‘more of this, this is the way it should be’ and the neutral accompanied by ‘well, shouldn’t something be happening?’ Although these moods do the holding, they in turn are backed up and incited by the thinking process. ‘I was feeling OK until I started thinking about the rotten deal I got, or what someone else is getting, or the way it was, or the way things ought to be…’
Ajahn Sucitto
Just stay
In meditation we discover our inherent restlessness. Sometimes we get up and leave. Sometimes we sit there but our bodies wiggle and squirm and our minds go far away. This can be so uncomfortable that we feel it’s impossible to stay. Yet this feeling can teach us not just about ourselves but also about what it is to be human. All of us derive security and comfort from the imaginary world of memories and fantasies and plans. We really don’t want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience. it goes against the grain to stay present. The instruction is, Stay…stay…just stay. So whenever we wander off, we gently encourage ourselves to “stay” and settle down.
Pema Chodron, The Places that Scare you
Light and darkness
When you possess light within, you see it externally, Anais Nin.
Yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the northern hemisphere’s longest day of sunlight, the official start of Summer in this part of the world, when the northern polar axis of the earth tilts most sunwards and longer days of sunlight follow. Traditional cultures knew the significance of this date and marked it by lighting bonfires. This tradition passed into the Christian era with the lighting of bonfires and fireworks on Midsummer’s Day or in some European countries on the eve of the feast of Saint John, le feu de la Saint-Jean.
Fire, light, festivals. They remind us that our lives need moments of joy and celebration. We can forget this when we are in a difficult place, like when we are faced with new challenges. Our mind switches into danger mode and narrows its focus, dominated by thoughts of the difficulty. The Chinese Proverb “When you only have two pennies left in the world, buy bread with one and a lily with the other” reminds us that even in hardship, we need to create reminders of beauty and warmth. Our circumstances are always changing. Life can at times be difficult or dark. It it how we live in those dark moments which determines whether we suffer. Even with little means we can decide to celebrate, we can choose to notice the beauty in our lives. It is true that we can certainly be cheered when the sun shines outside. However, largely our sense of contentment is determined by what we do within. “Difficulties are inevitable, suffering is optional” the phrase reminds us. To paraphrase that in the light of the start of summer – a lack of sun may be inevitable from time to time, but darkness within is optional.
Always starting over, each moment
If the angel deigns to come
it will be because you have convinced
her, not by tears but by your humble
resolve to be always beginning;
to be a beginner.
Rilke
Thoughts on seeing the dawn on Solstice day
“Make of yourself a light,” said the Buddha, before he died.
I think of this every morning as the east begins to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first signal – a white fan streaked with pink and violet, even green.
An old man, he lay down between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything, knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward, it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire –
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches, he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
Mary Oliver, The Buddha’s Last Instruction
