Tag: Present moment

Working with our emotions 2: Stay open and look within

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

We may never find ourselves in situations of such danger that our lives are endangered; yet anguish and pain are undeniable aspects of our lives. None of us can build walls around our hearts that are invulnerable to being breached by life. Facing the sorrow we meet in this life, we have a choice: Our hearts can close, our minds recoil, our bodies contract, and we can experience the heart that lives in a state of painful refusal. We can also dive deeply within ourselves to nurture the courage, balance, patience, and wisdom that enable us to care.

Christina Feldman

Staying fluid 1: Fear and hurt mean we put labels on things

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Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. Thomas Merton

It is a good practice to keep the heart soft and the stories we tell ourselves fluid, but it is not always easy. We can get locked into the hurt of a certain moment and find it hard to move beyond that. It becomes attached to a particular story. Our practice encourages us to keep moving to the present, and not allow a past event limit how we enjoy life. Sometimes we will never get perfect explanations, or full understanding. We still have a choice: will we stay stuck in a moment we can’t get out of or accepting that it happened, open to the way the present moment actually is, as one full of new and future possibilities.

Someone is walking toward us — suddenly we freeze. Not only do we freeze ourselves, but we also freeze the space in which the person is walking toward us. We call him “friend” who is walking through this space or “enemy.” Thus the person is automatically walking through a frozen situation of fixed ideas — “this is that” or “this is not that.” This is what is called “wrong view.” It is a conceptualized view which is imperfect because we do not see the situation as it is.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

How to bring light into the dark places within us

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In the Christian Calendar today is the feast of Candlemas. While not as old as the Celtic feast of yesterday, it does date from the 4th Century in Jerusalem, and reflects the same need to mark this period of winter with light and hope. Traditionally it was celebrated by a procession of candles and the blessing of candles for use in the home.

From time to time difficulties occur in our lives which can then seem dark and without hope. Bringing awareness to what is going on inside us at those moments can allow light to shine in the darkness. We sit and observe  what arises and passes away in the mind and body. We  name it – “there is anger“, “there is fear” – thus creating a gap and allowing what we experience to become something known. In this way, our mood and behaviour will not be shaped entirely by invisible, unconscious conditioning, but can become a more reflective response.

When we meditate, we kindle a fire that never dies away.

When we meditate, we’re not idly passing time. In following the breath and learning to deal with our thoughts, we’re laying the foundation for a shift in attitude that has the power to change our lives in a truly meaningful way. There’s a lot of darkness and aggression in our world. Developing our best qualities has an immediate effect on ourselves and others. When we apply ourselves in practice, we’re not only doing something very present; we’re also creating the conditions for how our lives can move forward.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Living life more fiercely

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Yeats’ quote could almost be written about meditation.

I love the way he says we can life a “fiercer” life by touching into calm, or seeing what is truly important, by simplifying things down to the essential.

We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.

W B Yeats

Reasons to be cheerful

Karl Duffy3 Comments

In this mild weather the first snowdrops are beginning to appear in the garden. I love the old legend about this flower. Adam and Eve were banished from the warmth and security of the Garden of Eden. They longed for the original sense of belonging and attunement which they once had. And then,  to make matters worse,  it became cold and started to snow. Eve began to cry, believing that she would never see  warmth and love again. Seeing this,  an angel felt sorry for her,   caught a snowflake in his hand, breathed on it, and when it hit the ground it turned into these delicate flowers. This beauty gave  her comfort and hope in the winter of her difficulties. Like Eve,  we all search for that original safety which we know deep down. We all need little signs to keep us going. We can look for them today.

Cheerfulness comes naturally with meditation. It is a quality of space created within the mind. When there’s space in the mind, the mind relaxes, and we feel a simple sense of delight. We experience the possibility of living a life in which we are not continuously aggravated by emotions, discursiveness, and concepts about the nature of things…. Despite all the ups and downs of our life, we are fundamentally awake individuals who have a natural ability to become compassionate and wise. Our nature is to be cheerful. This cheerfulness is deeper than temporary conditions. The day does not have to be sunny for us to be cheerful.

When we practice meditation, we are encouraging this natural state of cheerfulness. We don’t have to regard meditating as a somber activity; we can think of it as sitting there and being cheerful. We are using a technique to build clarity, strength, and flexibility of mind. In training our mind in pliability and power, we’re learning to relax, to loosen up, so that we can change our attitude on a dime. Strength of mind and pliancy are the causes and result of cheerfulness.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Working with things we wish were different

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When meditating I use an App on my phone as a timer. When the timer elapses it rings a bell and a phrase appears on the screen. So for the last two years I have been greeted at the end of my practice by the words Anyone who understands impermanence ceases to be contentious.  By this time I know the words of this ancient phrase very well.  However, I realize there is a big difference between knowing the words and knowing this in reality. Sure, I know that things change, the seasons come and go, and mental states change frequently. But I still have a strong investment in things staying as they are. And so I struggle. And whenever we struggle with how life actually is we suffer to some extent.  So it seems to me that we really need to experience change in a very real and personal way in order to learn what it means to accept it as a fundamental principle of life. And sometimes  this is forced upon us when we lose something or someone dear to us, when we have to deal with  illness or when we are with someone who is close to death.

Sooner or later we all have to work with things in our life that we wish were different.  And distinguishing when to fight for something and when to let go is not always easy.  However, ther are times when we have to accept the message from others or from life that there is nothing we can do. When this is the case  we allow ourselves feel the sadness which these situations provoke because that is only natural and the pain is often substantial.   And then we try to do what  the wisdom traditions teach :  the best response to things that are beyond our control is to work at not struggling with them.  It is not an easy lesson to learn, and I find that this learning it is always ongoing. But it is the big challenge in this life, to become a knower of change and to let it teach us.