Tag: Present moment

Stay awake!

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It is the acceptance of death that has finally allowed me to choose life. Elizabeth Lesser

The gospel in this morning’s  liturgy is a well known one, reminding us of the need to be always on the alert for the return of the Master. It advises us to “stay awake, for you do not know the day or the hour“. We are urged to “always keep the lamps lit“. Initially understood as a reference to the immanent return of Christ,  it became applied to the awareness that life itself is precarious and that sickness and death can strike when we least expect.

This awareness of death can be very real when someone close to us is ill. However, it is also common in different wisdom traditions, including in Catholic and Buddhist practice,  to consciously reflect on death and on what legacy we would like to leave behind. The Dalai Lama recommends this as an ongoing practice, reminding us that death is part of life itself and is not bad in itself. He states that his daily meditation includes preparation for death: “Thinking about death not only serves as a preparation for dying and prompts actions that benefit future lives, but it also dramatically affects your mental perspective”

There is another way this morning’s text can be applied to our practice, not referring to the future or to our death. It simply reminds us to be awake , at every moment, to the different ways in which life presents itself, second by second. It is only in the present moment that we can fully be alive, as recent quotes on the blog remind us. We miss so much of life’s richness by not being present, or wishing to be elsewhere. We can often prefer the jabber in our heads or dreaming about some imagined future to the real life that is before us. Our minds love to be busy, running outward toward something they see and want, and then in the the next moment, turning inward toward some thought that feels good or planning for the future. The problem with this busyness, even when we are concerned with important things, is that we are not aware. We are thinking. The wisdom in this gospel text is lost if we use it just to prepare for death. We are called to be fully alert to all the ways that we can love life in each moment by being aware of what is going on.

Nothing spectacular….just learning to be here.

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……Just being totally engaged in the  moment –  that’s arduous enough! I’ve known a number of students over the years who feel like they have to do something spectacular, something more difficult than that. It is plenty difficult, just to continuously bring yourself back to this moment.

Even while driving a car we can space out and drive for miles on the freeway and still make all the right turns. It’s amazing how tuned out we can be, and yet still seem to be functioning — not functioning full well but nevertheless we’re getting by. But we’re spinning in our own thoughts, we’re not really here. So it’s arduous enough to just bring ourselves back to this moment. That’s practice enough for anyone.

And we shouldn’t think there are some special moments for it, such as the times that we spend on a  meditation cushion. Of course there are those moments, but if we split up our life that way – “Here’s my special moment when I go off to sit in meditation” — well does that make any sense? The rest of your life now, what are you doing, just not paying attention?  There doesn’t need to be that kind of a break. And gradually with some maturity of practice some people start to catch on to that and just learn to be here.

Steve Hagan

Deepening your Practice 3: Be aware of the mind’s reactions

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Mindfulness is not necessarily concentrating on an object. Being aware of confusion is also being mindful. If we have all kinds of things coming at our senses -noises, people demanding this and that- we cannot concentrate on any one of them for very long. But we can be aware of the confusion, or the excitement, or the impingement; we can be aware of the reactions in our own minds. That is what we call being mindful. We can be mindful of confusion and chaos. And we can be mindful of peace and tranquillity.

The path of mindfulness is the path of no preferences.

Ajahn Sumedho

How to lift your spirits

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In every walk with nature, one receives far more than one seeks.

John Muir

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu

What is good about disappointment

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I frequently say to people I work with that one of the key things is how we deal with disappointment. It is a necessary skill,  because it is a frequent and inevitable occurance in an imperfect world. Each one of us has our own way of working with the  discomfort coming from disappointments in our plans or in other people. These ways are often based on how well our parents helped us deal with early shocks and disappointments, or whether they tried to shield us from the ups and downs of reality. Sometimes a parent can think that the best way to raise their child is to shower them with protection and insulate them from moments when they or the world are less than perfectly loving. However, the child has to learn to live in the real world, and the real world isn’t perfect. In other words, it is right –  and leads to the development of a healthy psyche – that the child is gently disappointed and comes to understand that it is not always possible to have people around them who understand and respond perfectly to their every wish. Even from an early age we have to learn to share, take our turn in games, postpone our own gratification and  acknowledge that other people have needs, moods and different agendas.

Rather than a parent having to being perfect  all the time, English Psychotherapist Winnicott said that they just had to be “good enough”.  This means that the parent provides enough support –  or “holding”  – to support the child without going to the extremes of  stifling it or of abandoning it.  The skill of the “good-enough parent” is to give the child a sense of loosening when faced with new situations rather than the shock and subsequent fear of being ‘dropped’. This allows the child develop resources, maintain a sense of control and  stops them from feeling that the world is unsafe all the time.

If this happens successfully,  the challanges of life do not frighten because the child builds up interior resources. It means that relationships does not threaten because, paradoxically, a smothering early closeness can trigger fears of engulfment in later life. And it means that the adult has a healthier structure for dealing with disappointment because as a child he or she has learned that life and people can not be perfect all the time. Often our disappointments do not arise so much from what actually happened, but more from how we compare what happened to our expectations, our inner patterns or our fixed version of reality. Disappointment show us that life –  like the good enough parent –  is not always available to us in the fixed way we want or whenever we demand it, but is still good despite that.

For this reason disappointments are good teachers. They allow us to see that there is more to us than our conscious thoughts and desires. They reveal how we can be attached to a specific version of how things should be, or of what life owes us. This does not mean they are easy because trying to avoid what disappoints is deeply ingrained in the human psyche. However, we grow more quickly if we are open to working with disappointments rather than avoiding them. Rather than being negative, they can become positive moments of growth,  leading us away from the suffering which is based on our lack of understanding of the deep reality of change.

Our culture has evolved into one that is pleasure-based and ego-identified, and that emphasizes immediate gratification. It also began to define success as your ability to control outcomes. Today, we teach our children that if you are an effective person, you can control your life. You can get and do what you want. If you do, you win in life. This modern image portrays “winners” as people who have it all together. You are not supposed to have internal conflicts, stress, or anxiety—that means you are incompetent. …… But this perspective flattens life. It denies the possibility of finding a deeper meaning to your experience. If you measure your self-worth and effectiveness according to these superficial cultural standards, then each time you suffer you are forced to interpret suffering as humiliation. Why would you choose to acknowledge suffering if it only stands for failure?

Phillip Moffitt, How Suffering got a Bad Name

If I let go will I float?

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Everything is meant to be let go of.

Meister Eckhard

Got some reminders today that changes of direction and endings are an inevitable part of our lives, touching our plans, our enthusiasms,  our things, our friendships. In fact, one of the core things we realize in meditation is that nothing is permanently satisfying or reliable. This challenges our need to be in control at all times, a need which is often driven by fear. The opposite of this need for control – of the future, our our plans, of others – is to trust, to let go. Deep down there is nothing to hang on to. Our mistake is that we look for certainty, for solid ground, when in actual fact, the deep reality which we come to accept is that nothing is really lasting or solid. Ironically, realizing that brings us the greatest freedom.

And to die, which is the letting go
of the ground we stand on and cling to every day,
is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself down
into the water, which receives him gaily
and which flows joyfully under
and after him, wave after wave,
while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown,
more like a king, further and further on.

Rilke