Peaceful abiding describes the mind as it naturally is… The human mind is by nature joyous, calm, and very clear.
In meditation we aren’t creating a peaceful state—we’re letting our mind be as it is to begin with.
Sakyong Mipham
Tag: Present moment
The sea
Went for a beautiful walk yesterday along the long golden strand at Portmarnock. Looking out at the sea to the islands and the horizon in the afternoon sun. The movement of the waves bathed in sunshine, their energy, and the force of the wind, was not as impressive as the unbounded vastness of the sea. It is greater than me and my story. We are held and contained by our experience. Life teaches us. We do not need to be afraid. We just need to let go.
There are no footprints on the sea
and no road-signs, not a single
guard-stone or post, and no
bends, only paths of light and dark
from which to choose, the choice is always
a difficult navigation
and the storm’s wingspan immeasurable
as the depths and the horizon, but
the sea holds you in its mighty hand
your life is a sea-blue tale
of love and death.
Åse-Marie Nesse
The myth of normality
A quote from my favourite book of last year on a similar theme to Monday’s post on loneliness.Wisdom begins with clearly seeing the dynamics which operate in the ways that society portrays happiness.
The common myth that is perpetuated in society is that the normal person is happy, balanced and integrated – otherwise there is something wrong with them; maybe they’re mentally unstable. We’re even alarmed by unhappy people. Everyone in the media is smiling and cheerful. The politicians are all smiling, cheerful. confident; funeral homes even make the corpses up to look smiling, cheerful and confident.
Meanwhile however, perhaps you’re not smiling and you don’t feel cheerful and confident. You know you can’t live up to any of the images of the model person. You don’t have the right appearance or status symbols, your performance doesn’t cut it, you’re out of touch with the latest trends, or maybe you are just poor – someone whom society doesn’t want to acknowledge. Unhappiness in Western culture is often treated as a sign of failure. Others think, “They’re not happy, maybe they didn’t do enough. And maybe they’ll want something from me so I’d better steer away from them”
Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth
How life is full of mysteries
Went walking this morning early in the forest around the Sources of the Allendon. It was particularly beautiful in the early morning light. The freshness of nature, the trees covered in moss, the noise of the river and the familiarity of the place relaxed and softened my heart. Nature is often like that: It creates those moments when we connect and feel spacious. It is not so easy in our everyday life with people: we have learnt to contract and pull away. The beauty of the walk brought to mind this poem by Mary Oliver:
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity, while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage, to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
Mary Oliver, Mysteries, Yes
Good days and bad days
Níl aon suáilce gan a duáilce féin. Irish Proverb
Acceptance of life’s up and down’s may be a wiser way to start the New Year and may reflect the wisdom worked out over the centuries in some of the religious and wisdom traditions. However, it does not mean that it is easy to do. The fact that we are continually surprised and upset by changes in our life is testimony to the resilience of our belief in – and wish for – something unchanging and permanent. We want things to last, to stay as they are, as indeed sometimes they should. Therefore, every time we have an experience that brings us face to face with the reality of impermanence, such as when someone moves away, a friendship ends or we lose something we care about, we suffer, sometimes deeply. It is a reminder that it is in the nature of the human heart to form attachments, and of the flip side of being fully involved in life. However, when we come to really understand that things are not guaranteed to remain the same, or that people are not always consistent , it frees us from always reading what happened as a story about us. It also saves us from defaulting to the usual pattern of interpretation that we use, such as that we are to blame or that we did not try hard enough.
It would seem that some awareness of the impossibility of holding onto things exactly as we would like to has been around since time began. Different cultures have tried to understand it in different ways. We can see this in the Irish proverb quoted at the start of the post. The Ancient Greeks tried to understand it by blaming the gods. As we can see in this extract from the Iliad, they believed that humans received either a mixture of up’s and down’s, good and evil, or received suffering, but never received pure good times that lasted forever: On the floor of Jove’s palace there stand two urns, the one filled with evil gifts, and the other with good ones. He for whom Jove the lord of thunder mixes the gifts he sends, will meet now with good and now with evil fortune; but he to whom Jove sends none but evil gifts will be pointed at by the finger of scorn, the hand of famine will pursue him to the ends of the world, and he will go up and down the face of the earth, respected neither by gods nor men.
Wherever
Wherever we are
we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine,
the presence of each other
and the wonder of our breathing.
Thich Nhat Hahn
