Tag: Mindfulness

Appreciate the goodness within

Karl Duffy2 Comments

When you relax more and appreciate your body and mind, you begin to contact the fundamental notion of basic goodness in yourself. So it is extremely important to be willing to open yourself to yourself. Developing tenderness towards yourself allows you to see both your problems and your potential accurately. You don’t feel that you have to ignore your problems or exaggerate your potential. That kind of gentleness towards yourself and appreciation of yourself is very necessary. It provides the ground for helping yourself and others.

Chogyam Trungpa, Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior

Changing our attitude towards ourselves

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Here – as always in his wise and clear way – Ajahn Sumedho gives us the practical way of working each day with this desire to fix ourselves. Not investing energy in our self-obsessive patterns is the best way of removing their hold on us:

We may not be the way we would like. There are many things about my personality that I can be very critical of. I don’t like myself that much or approve of myself on a personal level. I now see that as part of the path, not as an obstruction. So no matter what way you are right now – no matter how critical you might be, or how inadequate you might feel – change the attitude to one of learning from the way you are right now. Rather than trying to become something – rather than trying to get rid of the negativity, restlessness and confusion because you think these are flaws or defects that block you from enlightenment – just don’t believe any of that. Your conditioned mind will say anything, it is completely untrustworthy. That which we can really trust is the awareness.

Ajahn Sumedho, The Sound of Silence

…And seeing problems as openings

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A hugely important distinction is made here, one which saves us from the deep tendency we have to find problems with who or where we are. It allows for a much more nuanced view on the setbacks we find in life and in our inner selves, seeing that growth often happens in roundabout ways. 

Another problem with the idea of self-improvement is that it implies that there is something wrong with who we are. Everyone wants to be someone else, but getting to know yourself and love yourself means accepting who you are, complete with your inadequacies and irrationalities. Only by loving he soul in its entirety can we really love ourselves. This does not mean that we cannot hope to live a fuller life or become a better person, but there is a difference between self-improvement and the unfolding of the soul.  In the latter we don’t take the attitude of perfection; rather we draw close to those things that we feel as imperfect and let them be the openings through which the potentiality of the soul enters into life.

Thomas Moore, Soul Mates

Finding joy in what we are doing…

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A fish cannot drown in water. A bird does not fall in air. Each creature God made must live in its own true nature. Mechthild of Magdeburg
Part of the blessing and challenge of being human is that we must discover our own true God-given nature. This is not some noble, abstract quest but an inner necessity. For only by living in our own element can we thrive without anxiety. And since human beings are the only life form that can drown and still go to work, the only species that can fall from the sky and still fold laundry, it is imperative that we find that vital element that brings us alive… the true vitality that waits beneath all occupations for us to tap into, if we can discover what we love. If you feel energy and excitement and a sense that life is happening for the first time, you are probably near your God-given nature. Joy in what we do is not an added feature; it is a sign of deep health.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

And letting go of our habitual fears

Karl Duffy2 Comments

The sense of splendidness arises from feeling our wealth. We have confidence in our inherent goodness — the beating heart of each individual and all humanity… The energy of splendidness comes from being fully present in whatever we do. My father, Chögyam Trungpa,  put it this way: “You are not hiding anywhere.” Hiding means our splendidness is obscured by embedded habitual patterns. One characteristic of hiding is that we are always self-observing. Self-observing comes from not trusting our inherent goodness, and therefore keeping the reins tight on our mind. It is different from awareness or introspection because in observing ourselves this way, we are not really sensing or feeling the moment. We lack the lucidity to simply be splendid, so we tighten up and hide. We have half-thoughts and half-emotions. When we do experience something wholly and completely, it is disconcerting and disorienting.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Let it Shine!

Letting go our story lines

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The essence of practice is always the same:
instead of falling prey to a chain reaction
of revenge or hatred,
we gradually learn to catch the emotional reaction
and drop the story lines.

Pema Chodron