Contentment seems more about switching off, at source, some of the driven aspects of our personalities,
rather than achieving that “more” which we think will fulfil them.
It is related to a quality of not-always-leaning towards something else:
A person is satisfied not by the quantity of food,
but by the absence of greed.
Gurdjieff
photo timothy krause
I had one or two conversations this week which led me to reflect on how to live life where we find ourselves, when there are so many places elsewhere that seem more attractive, more lively, and have more to offer. Sometimes the place where we are can seem so small and limiting. Then I came across these thoughts from the always stimulating Parker Palmer and he sums up what I was thinking, and says them much better than I could ever do. So I simply offer them here for reflection:
I love this poem, and it needs little commentary from me.
Behind it lies a question many of us ask ourselves from time to time: Given my small, ordinary, un-famous, and fleeting life, what can I do that’s of true worth and value? Then it offers an answer that I find simple, real, moving, and doable.
I re-read this poem occasionally and ask myself, “Using everything I have — including my own ‘costly gifts of hunger, choice and pain’ — what can I do today to keep raising the ‘modest shrine to meaning’ I’d like to create with my life?”. Maybe it’s planting a tree, maybe it’s a random act of kindness to a stranger, maybe it’s offering comfort to someone who’s hurting, maybe it’s writing a thank-you letter to a mentor who saw your potential and drew it out…
There’s always something meaningful I can do to honor the gift of life in myself, others, and the world around us. Just do it!
Leonard Nathan, So
So…
you aren’t Tolstoy or St. Francis
or even a well-known singer
of popular songs and will never read Greek
or speak French fluently,
will never see something no one else
has seen before through a lens
or with the naked eye.
You’ve been given just the one life
in this world that matters
and upon which every other life
somehow depends as long as you live,
and also given the costly gifts of hunger,
choice, and pain with which to raise
a modest shrine to meaning.
Parker Palmer, Your Life is a Shrine to Meaning
We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.
But great moments often catch us unaware –
beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.
Kent Nerburn, Make me an Instrument of your Peace: Living the Prayer of Saint Francis
Spaciousness does not come by arriving at a state of mind where thoughts and emotions simply do not arise and disturb us. On the contrary, difficulties are part of life, and emotions connected to them will always arise. Rather it comes when we can hold such mental events in awareness in such a way that we do not give them, or the stories and dramas that make up our personality, the importance that they clamour for:
Yes, there is the purity of these autumn waters extending out to the horizon
But how does that compare with the haziness of the moon on a Spring night?
Most people want to have pure clarity
But sweep as you will, you cannot empty the mind
Keizan Jokin, the “Great Patriarch” 1268 – 1325, second founder of the Soto Zen School
We spend a lot of time creating suffering through imagining scenarios that never actually come to pass. These can be with us even as we get up in the morning. One way the different traditions try to help with this is by encouraging us to drop into the natural calm that lies beneath the restless thoughts – our natural wakefulness, our “true face”. Being mindful is something intrinsic to the mind, not something foreign we are trying to bring in. It is like sinking below the ripples on the surface of the lake and finding calm depths beneath.
In this high place, it is as simple as this,
leave everything you know behind.
Step toward the cold surface, say the old prayer of rough love
and open both arms.
Those who come with empty hands
will stare into the lake astonished
there in the cold light, reflecting cold snow
the true shape of your own face
David Whyte, Tilokal Lake
In our daily activities we often get caught up in a rush from one thing to the next. The morning is a good time to develop slow habits where we can pause and reflect, before the activities of the day begin. In the cup of tea we take time for ourselves. We can pause, and as Tuesday’s post said, hear the song and remember the lake:
In my own hands I hold a bowl of tea;
I see all of nature represented in its green color.
Closing my eyes I find green mountains and pure water within my own heart.
Silently sitting alone and drinking tea, I feel these become part of me
Soshitsu Sen XIV, 1893-1964, Japanese Tea Master
photo hyougushi
Mindfulbalance 