The seed of suffering in you may be strong,
but don’t wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.
Thich Nhat Hahn
Tag: Present moment
Dealing with reality, step by step
What is actually important is here and now. Now is definitely now. There’s no point in thinking that the past that exists we could have now. This is now. This very moment. Nothing mystical, just now, very simple and straightforward. From that nowness however, arises a sense of intelligence, always, that you are constantly interacting with the reality, one by one, spot by spot, constantly. We actually experience fantastic precision, always. But we are threatened by the now so we jump to the past or the future. That’s the problem. And that is not trusting the nowness properly. Now possesses a lot of powerful things. It is so powerful that we can’t face it, therefore we have to borrow from the past to invite the future, all the time
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Accepting our nature…
Carl Jung had a few years when he suffered from some type of illness, which meant that he withdrew from teaching at university and found himself unable to read any serious scientific literature. He also was unable to write much during that time. However, this outward inactivity led him to a very important interior realization, which is close to what we work at in mindfulness practice each day – to accept the “conditions of existence” as we simply see them. It seems to be a strange psychological truth, affirmed by him and by Carl Rogers, that when we accept something in this gentle way, shifts begin to occur and change happens more easily. Being fully open to whatever is happening means that we can let go of fear and control and of our tendency to place demands on this moment, insisting that it be other than it is:
Something else, too, came to me from my illness. I might formulate that it was an affirmation of things as they are: an unconditional “yes” to that which is, without subjective protests – acceptance of the conditions of existence as I see them and understand them, acceptance of my nature, as I happen to be.
Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections
Getting caught up in the content of our lives
For all of us, the experience of our entanglement differs from day-to-day. I know from personal experience how strong the habitual mind is. The discursive mind, the busy, worried, caught-up, spaced-out mind, is powerful. That’s all the more reason to do the most important thing — to realize what a strong opportunity every day is, and how easy it is to waste it. If you don’t allow your mind to open and to connect with where you are, with the immediacy of your experience, you could easily become completely submerged. You could be completely caught up and distracted by the details of your life, from the moment you get up in the morning until you fall asleep at night.
You get so caught up in the content of your life, the minutiae that make up a day, so self-absorbed in the big project you have to do, that the blessings, the magic, the stillness, and the vastness escape you. You never emerge from your cocoon, except for when there’s a noise that’s so loud you can’t help but notice it, or something shocks you, or captures your eye. Then for a moment you stick your head out and realize, Wow! Look at that sky! Look at that squirrel! Look at that person!
Pema Chodron.
The most profound teaching
What I encourage is a moving towards simplicity, rather than complexity. We’re already complicated personalities. Our cultural and social conditioning is usually very complicated. We’re educated and literate, which means that we know a lot and have much experience. This means that we are no longer simple. We’ve lost the simplicity we had as children and have become rather complicated characters. What is most simple is to wake up…it’s as simple as that. The most profound teaching is the phrase “wake up”. Hearing this, one then asks, “What am I supposed to do next?” We complicate it again because we’re not used to being really awake and fully present. We’re used to thinking about things and analyzing, trying to get something or get rid of something; achieving and attaining. In awakened awareness there is no grasping. It’s a simple, immanent act of being here, being patient. It takes trust, especially trust in yourself.
Ajahn Sumedho, The Sound of Silence
Seeing the secret
Another writer, Eugene O?Neill, describing a moment – when he looked up at the stars in the night sky – when he saw something as if for the first time. Although difficult, we try to bring some of this quality to each encounter and each moment, not meeting them through the filters of our conditioning, fears or preconceived notions:
For a moment I lost myself – actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the…high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life.. – to Life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way…. For a second you see the secret – and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning!
Eugene O’Neill, Long Days Journey into Night
