Real practice is just being here right now
and not adding anything to this.
Charlotte Joko Beck
Tag: Spirituality
When you are centered
You’re very busy doing your practices……and you get into a state of mind where you accept that whatever is happening is happening. Even the most awful things that happen, if you’re centered, you’ll be O.K. If not, the most trivial thing will send you off. It has nothing to do with the experience or the circumstance: it is the attitude that’s important. We have to stop clinging to the conditioned path and learn to be open to the unconditioned path.
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
Inner nourishment
As adults we can sometimes fall into the trap of blaming others for where or who we are. Instead we work at letting go of resentments and becoming responsible for nurturing ourselves. Our parents may not have provided the care we needed deep down, or others may have failed to support us in our lives. However, now we take on that role by acknowledging our own deepest needs and listening to what our inner self has to say.
We are, in a sense, our own parents, and we give birth to ourselves by our own free choice of what is good.
St Gregory of Nyssa, Homily on the Book of Ecclesiastes
……stop running
A traditional Jewish tale says: Rabbi Levi saw a man running in the street, and asked him, “Why do you run?” He replied, “I am running after my good fortune!” Rabbi Levi tells him, “Silly man, your good fortune has been trying to chase you, but you are running too
fast.”
Wayne Muller, Sabbath
A simple truth…
….but like all the truths about mindfulness, it does not mean it is easy. However, it does help us to recall that meditation is a simple human capacity, not a strange esoteric exercise. It can be a useful reminder when we are busy or stressed. At times like that, the brain moves into survival mode, and increases its thinking about – and analysis of – the “problem” It becomes convinced that the best way to work with stress is to get busy and think a lot. When this happens, you can find yourself constantly replaying something in your mind or dwelling on the ins and outs of it all, even through the night. This active brain resists moments of inactivity, such as meditation, seeing it as being less useful. Ironically, it may be the most useful thing that can be done in these periods and taking the pressure off doing it, by seeing it as being as natural as breathing, can help.
Solitude and sharing
To be a part, that is fulfillment for us:
to be integrated with our solitude into a state that can be shared.
Rilke
Mindfulbalance 