Tag: Present moment

Where we grow

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We never grow by dreaming about a future wonderful state or by remembering past feats. We grow by being where we are and experiencing what our life is right now. We must experience our anger, our sorrow, our failure, our apprehension; they can all be our teachers., when we do not separate ourselves from them. When we escape from what is given, we cannot learn, we cannot grow. That’s not hard to understand, just hard to do. Those who persist, however, will be those who grow in compassion and understanding. How long is such practice required? Forever.

Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen

Letting go in Winter

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As the embrace of the earth welcomes all we call death,

Taking deep into itself  the right solitude of a seed,

Allowing it time to shed the grip of former form

And give way to a deeper generosity that will one day send it forth,

A tree into springtime,

May all that holds you fall from its hungry ledge Into the fecund surge of your heart.

John O’Donohue

Faith in the possibilities of this day

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Being alive necessarily means uncertainty and risk, times of going into the unknown. If we withdraw from the flow of life, our hearts contract. We hold back so much that we feel separate from our own bodies and minds, separate from other people, even people we really care about. In the grip of other intense emotions, like grief and jealousy, we might feel anguish, but fear shuts us down, arrests the life-force. To be driven by fear is like dying inside. When the suffering is overwhelming, we may try to recoil from how bad it feels by numbing our reactions. Many of us survived childhood in just this way. But, ultimately, cutting ourselves off from what is happening locks us into fear and makes us unable to see that we might find another way to respond outside the small section delineated by the dots, defined by our assumptions.

Faith, in contrast, reminds us of the ever-changing flow of life, with all its movement and possibility. Faith is the capacity of the heart that allows us to draw close to the present and find there the underlying thread connecting the moment’s experience to the fabric of all of life. It opens us to a bigger sense of who we are and what we are capable of doing.

Sharon Salzberg, Faith

The basics of Mindfulness practice 4: Patient Practice

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Too many meditators get discouraged at the beginning because their minds won’t settle down. But just as you can’t wait until you’re  strong before you start strength training, you can’t wait until your concentration is strong before you start sitting.  Only by exercising what little concentration you have will you make it solid and steady.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Building your mental muscles

From time to time,check in with the senses

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To orientate ourselves to the present moment we can do this simple exercise. We pay attention to the doors of the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and body to see what exactly is happening there. Just as the captain of a ship checks his compass to determine his position; so we can check each of the sense-doors to determine our position – which is, of course, the present. If we are not careful, these inner worlds of ours easily become choked with troublesome thoughts, perceptions, memories and characters. But are these private worlds we drag around a true reflection of the outside world? Aren’t they just based largely on our own mistaken perceptions? How many times do we pass judgement on something, only to have it promptly overturned moments later? Our inner worlds are – for the most part – disconnected from reality, from what is actually going on right now.

And so it is crucial that we learn to be mindful of what is happening around us; that we pause to pay attention to what is occurring, in the present, at each of the sense-doors. The sense-doors are our windows to the world, and to stop the creation of more mental proliferation we must be vigilant and learn to just observe. To be mindful of what is actually happening around us puts a break on these meanderings of the mind and we become aware of what is right in front of our noses. This practice serves to help remind us of the simplicity of the moment.

Ajahn Manapo, Dhamma Diary Blog

The basics of Mindfulness practice 3: Use the breath to centre yourself

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 Breath is the bridge that connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold again.

In our community, where people are practicing the mindfulness of doing laundry, washing dishes, eating, walking and so forth, everybody learns to use breath as a tool for restoring mindfulness.

Thich Nhat Hahn