Present moment – Page 347

Being with our experiential body

November 8, 2011November 9, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche talked about mindfulness meditation as a process of “touch and go.” “Touch” means really acknowledging, really appreciating, the texture of a particular mental content, not just bouncing off of it. It is the difference between a gentle squeeze and a superficial tap. This touching, acknowledging, appreciating, is the seed for developing insight — a way of being present to phenomena that invites fresh meanings to emerge. Because Westerners tend to be more split off from the experiential body than people in more traditional cultures, the practice …..can facilitate our ability to touch genuinely what arises in the mind-heart in a non-discursive way. As Pema Chodron recently advised a questioner with doubts about her meditation practice, “There is a secret ingredient — direct, nonverbal experience.”

David Rome, Searching for the Truth that Is Far Below the Search

Stopping the spinning

November 8, 2011November 7, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

One way to cultivate relaxation is through the practice of meditation. The practice of meditation has two elements: simplicity or peacefulness and insight, or clarity. The application of mindfulness allows us stop the world from spinning, by stopping the spinning of our own minds. This is the essence of the simplicity or peacefulness of shamatha. Then we can see the confusion. We can shine the light of vipassana, or clear seeing, on confusion, and that brings the clarity of seeing things as they are. When we begin to see the situation as it is, and when we begin to see our own minds clearly, we diffuse the panic. From this experience we have in meditation, we may begin to see how we can relax on the spot in the midst of the most difficult experiences in our lives.

Carolyn Rose Gimian, Smile at Fear.

Breaking down our identification with what is passing…

November 7, 2011November 5, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Awareness watches the sensations that occur with the natural coming and going of the breath. When we bring attention to the level of sensation, we are not so entangled in the verbal level where all the voices of thought hold sway, usually lost in the “internal dialogue.” The internal dialogue is always commenting and judging and planning. It contains a lot of thoughts of self, a lot of self-consciousness. It blocks the light of our natural wisdom; it limits our seeing who we are; it makes a lot of noise and attracts our attention to a fraction of the reality in which we exist. But when the awareness is one-pointedly focused on the coming and going of the breath, all the other aspects of the mind/body process come automatically, clearly into focus as they arise. Meditation puts us into direct contact – which means direct experience – with more of who we are.

We see how thoughts we took to be “me” or “mine” are just an ongoing process. This perspective helps break our deep identification with the seeming solid reality of the movie of the mind. As we become less engrossed in the melodrama, we see it’s just flow, and can watch it all as it passes. We are not even drawn into the action by the passing of a judgmental comment or an agitated moment of impatience. When we simply see – moment to moment – what’s occurring, observing without judgment or preference, we don’t get lost thinking, “I prefer this moment to that moment, I prefer this pleasant thought to that pain in my knee.” As we begin developing this choiceless awareness, what starts coming within the field of awareness is quite remarkable: we start seeing the root from which thought arises.

Stephen Levine, A Gradual Awakening

This Sunday, stop, be aimless…..

November 6, 2011November 7, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Does the rose have to do something? No, the purpose of a rose is to be a rose. Your purpose is to be yourself. You don’t have to run anywhere to become someone else. You are wonderful just the way you are. We already have everything we are looking for, everything we want to become. Just be. Just being in the moment in this place is the deepest practice of meditation. The Heart Sutra says that there is “nothing to attain.” We don’t need to search anywhere. We don’t need to practice to obtain some high position. We can enjoy every moment. People talk about entering nirvana, but we are already there. We have everything we need to make the present moment the happiest in our life, even if we have a cold or a headache. We don’t have to wait until we get over our cold to be happy. Having a cold is part of life. I am happy in the present moment. I do not ask for anything else. I do not expect any additional happiness. Aimlessness is stopping and realizing the happiness that is already available.

Thich Nhat Hahn

Our deepest calling

November 3, 2011November 3, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood,

whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be.

As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks –

we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.

Parker Palmer

When we are hurt in our life

November 3, 2011November 4, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Sitting with and through all sorts of conditions that don’t fit our picture of how we want our life to go may be a far more valuable practice than being able to settle into a calm or blissful quiet. When we sit we are doing two things. First, sitting becomes a container; whatever has happened we sit still and feel it. The other side of sitting is the stillness of non-reactivity. We feel all…without doing anything to anybody. The feeling becomes our own responsiblity. Instead of our attention being directed, as it usually is, to making somebody else treat us differently, the way we want to be treated, we come back to experiencing what is at stake in being treated this way, what the hurt is really all about, and who we think we are that we can be hurt.