Tag: Present moment

The light of Summer

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File:Summer Solstice Sunrise over Stonehenge 2005.jpgWe can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark;
the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Plato

Demystifying the relationship we have with our mind, our thoughts and emotions, is the essence of the mindfulness practice. It is like switching on the light in a dark room; no matter how long a room has remained in a state of darkness, once we turn on the light, everything is illuminated.

Dzigar Kongtrul, Light Comes Through: Buddhist Teachings on Awakening to Our Natural Intelligence

However your day is

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It is the imperative in the mind that this moment somehow be different, that causes suffering. Peace is possible, here and now, in the middle of the world, in the middle of a life, in the middle of a body, in the middle of however you are and however the world is. Change may or may not happen in a way that we like. But the mind has a capability of saying “It’s like this, and I can manage it”, without creating extra difficulty. There is a path to peace. The path is a doable, cultivable skill of awareness in the mind.

Sylvia Boorstein, Greet this moment as a Friend

The basic instructions

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Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Mary Oliver, Sometimes

Sunday Quote: How we live where we live

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The value of a life does not depend on the place we occupy;

It depends on the way we occupy that place.

Therese of Lisieux

…and on finding beauty close to home

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Men build their dreams as they build their circles of friends. God is in the bits and pieces of Everyday. A kiss here and a laugh again, and sometimes tears; A pearl necklace around the neck of poverty.

Today being Bloomsday, I Felt I should post something from an Irish writer. Not Joyce, but rather I chose the poet Patrick Kavanagh, whose  poems celebrate the ways in which the most trivial things reveal God. He saw the sacred in the small details of everyday life and in the unexpected places of ordinary events.   He believed that meaning can be found within and in the mundane tasks of each day, even in the poor landscape where he lived in Ireland. For him, there was no task or moment in the day which could not become an occasion for grace and where meaning could be found.

This reminds me today to try to pay attention. When I am not conscious of this, I can be  pulled by more exciting or demanding sights on my journey, sounds, fashions, headlines, and the advertisements that are specially designed to capture my attention.  I can get distracted by my desire to be part of something more stimulating elsewhere and neglect the quiet routine in my daily life. These  big attractions always suggests that more and somewhere else is better, that our lives are not complete until we have what we feel is missing. However, often what we need is not missing; We do not have to go far, but can find it right in front of us, so we need to cultivate the vital work of noticing in our practice. As the quote below reminds us, not paying attention is a type of terminal sleepwalking through life, missing out on all the richness presented to us each day:

Heedfulness is the Path to the Deathless,heedlessness is the Path to Death.
The heedful do not die,the heedless are as dead already.
Dhammapada 21

Letting go of knowing

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One thing that we notice very quickly when we practice meditation is that our experience is always changing. Thus practice helps us develop a mental flexibility by keeping us in the present moment, accepting what is present in the body and in our lives. We work with life as it is, without always being able to see the overall picture. Sometimes things become clear  only long after the event. We come to see that there is a larger context in which our life is unfolding and accept change as being one of the great realities of life. When we understand the impermanence of things, as the old saying tells us, we cease to struggle.

Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change.

Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet