Creating conditions conducive to practice

How would you like to have a room set aside for meditation in your home. Apparently that's something of a fad - well specialty rooms that is. The article I'm bringing you this morning is called "Domestic 'Insperiences' Are on the Rise" and here are a couple of passages:

What do you get when you cross inspiration and experiences? Insperiences--one of the hottest new marketing trends.

For the past few years we have seen a consumer society dominated by experiences. In fact, a recent Unity Marketing survey found that consumers' spending on experiences nearly doubled in 2005. What's new, however, is that experiences, which have been traditionally viewed as unique and fulfilling activities in which individuals participate outside the home, are now being brought into the domestic environment.
...
Another sign of the insperience trend is the growth of in-home retreats. Whether feeling stressed out from a tech-filled culture that keeps people plugged in 24/7/365, or seeking comfort and security post-September 11, 2001, people are looking for ways to soothe the psyche, promote togetherness, and build sanity into their everyday lives. They are finding these qualities in what Dawn Ritchie calls the emotional house. In a recent article Ritchie wrote, "Everyone is stressed and needs a place to escape and regroup."

Toll Brothers, the luxury homebuilder, is responding to this need by offering new homes complete with "calming rooms" designed for meditation, yoga, or massage. Those not looking to build a new house are turning underused space into personal specialty rooms like wine cellars and tasting rooms, meditation and yoga rooms, and in-home spas.

I really recommend that you set aside at least a corner of one room for meditation where you build a little shrine or altar and where you have a chair or cushion appropriate for your meditation practice. Then when you have a few minutes to meditate you can just sit and do it - you won't have to make a production of it.

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

You are already whole

Who or what is the real you? Definitely not your ego. And definitely not the afflictive emotions that cause suffering. Here's a passage from Coming to our Senses by Jon Kabat-Zinn that speaks to this:

Your awareness is a very big space within which to reside. It is never not an ally, a friend, a sanctuary, a refuge. And it is never not here, only sometimes veiled. But knowing it is subtle. The realm of awareness requires visiting many times, if every so briefly. Aiming, sustaining, aiming, sustaining, aiming, sustaining. If you appeal to
awareness in your doubt, in your unhappiness, in your confusion, in your anxiety, in your pain, these mind states are no longer "yours." They are just weather patterns in the mind and body. That dimension of "you" that already knows that you are doubting, unhappy, confused, anxious, in pain, resentful, is not any of those things, and is already okay, already whole. It will never not be what and who you actually are at the most fundamental level.

We visit that awareness during meditation and regular formal meditation teaches us to have that awareness at other times during our day. It is so worth it to do this practice because of the profound alleviationg of suffering meditation makes possible.

Impatient nation

I want to share a CNN article with you today entitled, "U.S. is an impatient nation, poll finds". Here's an excerpt:

An Associated Press poll has found an impatient nation. It's a nation that gets antsy after five minutes on hold on the phone and 15 minutes max in a line. So say people in the survey.

The Department of Motor Vehicles, the U.S. version of the old Soviet bread line, is among the top spots where Americans hate to wait. But grocery stores are the worst.

Almost one in four in the AP-Ipsos poll picked the grocery checkout as the line where their patience is most likely to melt like the ice cream turning to goo in their cart.

And it seems people don't mellow with age. The survey found older people to be more impatient than younger people.

Nor does getting away from the urban pressure cooker make much difference. People in the country and the suburbs can bear a few more minutes in a line before losing it than city inhabitants can, but that's it.

In short, Americans want it all NOW. Or awfully close to now.
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Overall, 60 percent in the survey said they can usually wait no more than 15 minutes in a line before losing their cool.

Their fuses are even shorter on the phone.

Nearly four in five respondents in the survey said their patience has run out while being kept on hold.

Now you know this impatience is not good for us! Do remember that meditation is wonderfully effective for cultivating patience. Not only do we simply become more willing to wait after we become meditators, we actually have something to do when we're not able to escape waiting. We can meditate during that time. If you use a mantra or a memorized visualization as a support for meditation you can practice easily while waiting in line or on hold. I recommend it.

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

"When the conditions are ripe"

In Coming to our Senses by Jon Kabat-Zinn, there is a chapter called, "Mindfulness and Democracy". I want to give you a passage today in observance of Memorial Day:

Of course, democracy can take root and grow in a particular culture only if and when the conditions are ripe. It cannot be imposed from without, any more than we could impose meditation on anybody, even though it too may be intrinsically beneficial. As a culture, we may be committed to nurture conditions for universal freedom, and liberation from oppression, exploitation, and ignorance as best we can for a complex set of reasons and motives that sometimes generate policies that seem to support the exact opposite. But to the extent that we care about true democracy emerging elsewhere, we also have to be patient, waiting for the unseen metamorphosis and inward transformation to take place, nourishing it as best we can, to the degree that we can, yet without forcing the chrysalis to open before its time, at least if we hope for a butterfly to emerge.

Since the potential for wisdom and emotional states such as kindness, compassion, empathy, devotion, joy, and love are already folded into our deepest truest nature as beings, their conscious development and deployment may make the difference between peace and perpetual war, between true security and perpetual insecurity, between rampant dis-ease and true liberation of human society from its own self-destructive tendencies. What do we have to lose by moving more intentionally in this direction, other than those ingrained habits of inattention and perpetual self-distraction that distance us from ourselves and keep us living in perpetual fear, forgetting that we are already whole, already complete, and that our true security is in a healthy body politic, in which we all paly a critical role?

Let us each cultivate kindness, compassion, empathy, devotion, joy and love through our meditative practice. And let us be the peace we long to see.

Managing emotions

Here's a really wonderful entry in that little book I've shared with you before called 1,001 Meditations by Mike George:

Emotions can feel uncontrollable - we have no choice but to experience them. But to live by our emotions is to live under a tyrant's rule. Acknowledge emotions for what they are, without shame or guilt, and then allow them to pass through you like wind moving through the leaves of a tree. Remember that it is only with your permission that feelings can change the way you behave.

It's easier to let go of emotions when we're regular meditators because the meditative process is one of continually letting go. That way we have a lot of practice.

Making stuff up

One of the ways we cause ourselves to suffer is to make stuff up. We make stuff up about what we think the future holds and we make stuff up about what others are thinking. We also make stuff up about who and what we are. Jon Kabat-Zinn describes how meditation can help relieve us of this habit in his book, Coming to our Senses:

We recognize the proliferations and the endless construction projects of the mind, and how easily we get absorbed in them, how easily we get emotionally involved in them. We recognize how easily we cling to them and have opinions about them, whether positive or negative, pleasant or unpleasant. When it comes right down to it, all of this, we see, is mere fabrication. So we keep watching the mind's constructs arise and pass away. We rest in awareness itself, beyond thinking altogether, even thoughts of watching and knowing. We rest in this awareness momentarily, and this "momentarily" is itself beyond time.

Over time, such timeless moments emerge out of the background of proliferations and fabrications and are seen and known because they become more familiar to us and therefore more visible and more accessible. We are naturally drawn to reside in undisturbed peacefulness and clarity no matter what is happening. We have momentarily at least gotten out of our own way, at which point the way becomes evident, bright, and undisturbed, even when the proverbial stuff is hitting the proverbial fan, maybe even especially when the proverbial stuff is hitting the proverbial fan.

Lets try to see and know what's actually happening in the moment and not make up stories about what's happening. We will prevent much personal suffering that way.

Friday cat blogging!

Ethel being lazy on the front porch

Photo by Ellie Finlay

Meditation across the board

I came across an article in the Kansas City Star by Bill Tammeus called "Meditation has a role in our faiths". Here's an excerpt:

It turns out meditation is one of those techniques or traditions that crosses all kinds of religious lines. It is mostly associated with Eastern religions, but also has had a long and honored place in the Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity and Islam (or at least the mystic path of Islam, Sufism).

Meditation is not a big part of the Protestant tradition of which I’m a part. Oh, you can find some Christians in my area of the faith who engage in contemplative prayer or something called centering prayer. But, truth be told, a lot of us seem to be satisfied with what true contemplatives and people who do serious meditation probably would call drive-by prayer.

A few years ago I attended a weekend-long retreat on contemplative prayer — and confirmed I am not a contemplative, though I was glad to know more about the practice. Nor do I have much experience with meditation, though I saw it practiced in various ways when I lived in India for two years as a boy.

But the world — and increasingly the Western world — is full of opportunities to learn about and engage in meditative practices, both religious and secular.

I think the most engaging book I’ve read on this subject is Keeping Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey, by University of Arizona scholar Fenton Johnson. In it, Johnson describes growing up Catholic (in fact, as a neighbor of a famous Catholic monastery in rural Kentucky) but having to find his way back to Catholicism through experiencing the meditative practices of Buddhism.

There also are countless other books by people who have become known as meditation leaders. For instance, Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj, a native of India who was educated as a scientist in the United States, has written such books as Inner and Outer Peace Through Meditation and Empowering Your Soul Through Meditation.

The common thread, if there is one, among practitioners of meditation seems to be a desire to tap into the benefits — physical, emotional and spiritual — of focusing one’s mind in healthy ways. The term meditation gets used to refer to many kinds of practices, including prayer. So it’s hard to be very specific about what meditation is. But concentrating the mind in some way seems nearly always to be part of it, and it has been adopted even in many parts of the secular world as a tool for achieving better physical and mental health.

It's good to see an article that treats meditation as a universal practice and not the province of a particular faith tradition. That's what St. John's Center for Spiritual Formation is all about. Participants are from many different religious and non-religious backgrounds and current commitments. But we all come together to practice settling the mind and gaining deep insight into how our minds work. And we all benefit as a result.

Anger

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

--The Buddha

Just be yourself

Here are two reminders of how important it is not to try to be somebody else. First this simple poem:

SO WHAT IS THERE TO REALIZE?
Peonies bloom on peony trees.
A cat doesn't become a chicken.
Tulips are tulips, not roses.
Why can't we realize this true fact?
That to be me is great.
I don't have to be anyone but me.
I am blooming as I am in my life, just as
a peony blooms on a peony tree.
Further, a beautiful peony flower does not
worry about when it will wilt and fall to the ground.
It does not compete with the flower next to it;
rather it blooms with its whole self.

-- Sensie Oguifrom "Zen Shin Talks"

And now a simple observation:

The privilege of a lifetime is to be yourself.

-- Joseph Campbell

How happy we will be if we choose not to compete with others but rather rejoice in who and what we are!

Wednesday life form blogging

This is Frank Ford's dog, Duge. He is 8 years old.

Striving for inner peace

I found the following quote on Gratefulness.org:

Instead of condemning others, strive to reach inner peace. Keep silent, refrain from judgement. This will raise you above the deadly arrows of slander, insult and outrage and will shield your glowing hearts against all evil.

-- St. Seraphim of Sarov

The fundamental aspiration of inner peace will definitely alleviate and prevent suffering and that's a powerful motivator!

Relaxation and pain

Here's a small tidbit from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation. It one more piece of information about how meditation - the relaxation part - can help with pain management:

Some physicians claim stress is the original source of all illness. Even in cases where illness or the source of pain isn't caused by stress, stress-reduction techniques can promote healing and reduce the experience of pain. In one study conducted by the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, after an eight-week training period in the clinic during which patients were taught a variety of stress-management relaxation techneques, 75 percent of patients with chronic pain achieved a 33 percent reduction in their pain (according to how they rated their pain on a questionnaire), and 61 percent of pain patients achieved at least a 50 percent reduction in their pain. In addition, most showed an improvement in their ability to engage in normal activities and a drop in negative mood states.

Meditation is a basic relaxation technique. It is more than that, of course, but it is at least that!

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Bill Miller

Meditation and cancer treatment

Here's an article found in an Australian paper entitled, "Disease opens door to meditation":

THE constant chatter and stress that once consumed Maree Reeves' mind has vanished since cancer shook her life almost two years ago.

The vicious disease had never crossed her mind until a routine pap smear signalled a total life change.

The then 50-year-old businesswoman had cervical cancer but was adamant she would fight the disease and get on with the next stage of her life.

"I was devastated but I realised you have to get used to this and accept it,'' Mrs Reeves said.

"I learnt you have to enjoy every day while you can and be positive. After all, you might be dead in six months.''

A complete life overhaul came as she found a new spiritual calling towards the calming technique of meditation.

While at the height of chemotherapy she started meditation as an alternative therapy.

Three days a week she meditates in her lounge overlooking the sea.

"It has the power to unearth a mind-body connection producing a calming flow. It stops that chatter in your mind,'' Mrs Reeves said.

"If you are constantly thinking of the disease it just upsets you too much. This can change your entire outlook.''

Mrs Reeves is tackling her second bout of the disease after discovering a tumour in her neck last June but remains a picture of good health.

Tomorrow she will find out the result of her six-monthly check-up and is expecting a positive result.

"You don't want stress in your life. I think that has a lot to do with (cancer). With meditation you don't focus on the past or future. You visualise on getting rid of the tumour,'' Mrs Reeves said.

"My mantra is in every day and every way to get better. I concentrate on that and not the disease,'' she said.

Next month I will be giving a talk to the medical staff at the Tulsa location of Cancer Treatment Centers of America on the benefits of meditation. I'm so glad medical people are waking up to the importance of inner work in their treatment plans.

Meditation is a lifesaver.

Literally. Read this:

Trapped upside down in his car after it flipped over on a slippery Hecker Pass Road in Gilroy in April, John Martinu did the only thing he could think to do under the circumstances: He practiced his Buddhist meditation exercises. When rescuers finally arrived and found Martinu to be remarkably calm, they said that in light of the injuries he had sustained, his composure helped save his life.
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"The paramedic said that not panicking was the best thing I could have done," Martinu said.
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"Meditating helped me keep my blood pressure and pulse from skyrocketing. I had internal injuries, and fighting to try to get out of the tangled seat belt would have made them worse under the circumstances," Martinu said. "I stayed perfectly still and calm, and they said it was amazing how little blood I lost.

The above passages are from an article called "Calming the Mind" by Kat Teraji. A very good instruction on meditation is included:

Begin meditation by finding a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for at least 20 minutes. Meditation does not mean spacing out or going blank. You are not switching off your mind or allowing it to just drift.

Meditation can be practiced while sitting, standing or walking. Lying down, however, is generally not recommended because the tendency is to become too relaxed. Your mind should not be too relaxed, but it should also not be too tight, which can make the body tense and uncomfortable.

It is best to find a natural balance between alertness and relaxation. Choose a position that's comfortable for you, whether cross-legged on a pillow on the floor or sitting in an ergonomic chair. Keep your spine relatively straight, so that breathing is easy. Focus on the way you breathe, and notice the subtle changes in sensation as you breathe in and out.

When your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to the rising and falling of your abdomen. Try to remain uninvolved with thoughts about other things as they come and go; just enjoy the simple experience of breathing in and breathing out. After 15 minutes, slowly move your body, stand up and resume your everyday activities.

Meditation is a lifesaver in more ways than one. John Martinu's experience can serve as an inspiration to us all.

Moving meditation

Here at the Center we do some walking meditation during each daily meditation practice. I want to share a passage with you from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation about mindful movement:

If sitting can be meditation and walking can be meditation, can anything be meditation? Yes, anything can be meditation. With practice, you can maintain a state of mindful awareness 24 hours a day. So once you've learned to meditate while sitting and meditate while walking, expand your meditation practice to other areas of movement. If movement is more your style, get out your energy with dynamic meditation before you attempt sitting meditation.

For centuries, various cultures have attempted to extend the meditative state into other areas of physical activity, resulting in many forms of mind-body-spirit fitness programs, from yoga to whirling. Each of these systems is designed to nurture, maintain, strengthen, and actualize the entire self. To reap the maximum benefit, they are best practiced in a state of mindfulness.

Whether you're looking for an interesting variation to your regular fitness program or want to immerse yourself in the spiritual dimension of your favorite tradition, consider adding moving meditations to your meditation repertoire.

I often recommend mindful sitting and mindful standing as a movement meditation. You slowly sit and then stand and repeat these movements for the duration of the meditation period. You can do this using a chair or sitting on the floor. Just sit and stand over and over but do it with great care and appreciation for your ability to do so. This is a very effective meditation for people to do when they're very agitated.

Friday cat blogging!

Henry in the living room.

Photo by Ellie Finlay

Keeping your word to yourself

I have often made the point in my teaching that the most important spiritual practice we can do is to keep our word to ourselves. This strengthens self-esteem, respect, commitment and the ability to change. Carol Adams makes this point as well in The Inner Art of Vegetarianism Workbook: Spiritual Practices for Body and Soul.

Meditation is the process of calming the restless mind's ceaseless wanderings. Through meditation, we develop attention and learn how to focus awareness. The practice cultivates the mind, awakens something within us, and allows us to focus attention on the present moment. When I wanted to bring meditation practice into my life, I decided to meditate for ten minutes. The energy that was released by meditating for ten minutes became a part of me. Besides the morning energy that desired a meditation practice, there was now also the energy generated by the practice itself, as well as the energy that flowed from the excitement of keeping the promise. Keeping promises to ourselves is a way to say to our unconscious, "I will meet you here" and, by doing so, we signal our commitment. The art of doing it is important.

When we don't keep our word to ourselves we are devaluing ourselves. Be willing to assign significant value to your own inner journey. We do that by following through on our commitment to meditate. Even if it's only for five minutes a day we will reap enormous benefits.

What is a mandala?

Mandala by Kenneth Croneland.

I want to share a website with you called, "The Mandala Project". Here's passage from one of the pages:

The pattern of creationThe word "mandala" is from the classical Indian language of Sanskrit. Loosely translated to mean "circle," a mandala is far more than a simple shape. It represents wholeness, and can be seen as a model for the organizational structure of life itself--a cosmic diagram that reminds us of our relation to the infinite, the world that extends both beyond and within our bodies and minds.

Describing both material and non-material realities, the mandala appears in all aspects of life: the celestial circles we call earth, sun, and moon, as well as conceptual circles of friends, family, and community.

"The integrated view of the world represented by the mandala, while long embraced by some Eastern religions, has now begun to emerge in Western religious and secular cultures. Awareness of the mandala may have the potential of changing how we see ourselves, our planet, and perhaps even our own life purpose." (From Mandala: Journey to the Center, by Bailey Cunningham)

Some years ago I decided to create mandalas as a part of my inner work. I got a sketch pad and traced circles on the pages using a coffee can. Then I just let my imagination run free.

It was very illuminating to interpret the symbols I used as if I were interpretting a dream. Carl Jung did this as part of his inner work and that's how I got the idea. You can begin by exploring the site I've mentioned above and studying some examples of mandalas. Or you can print out a mandala you particularly like and use it as a support for meditation.

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo by Bill Miller

Breath awareness

Today I spent some time hanging out in a used book store and I found The Inner Art of Vegetarianism Workbook: Spiritual Practices for Body and Soul by Carol Adams. I want to share with you this passage on breathing:

Breathing time is space to recover, to become refreshed, to start again. Breathing time helps us to experience how we are the breathing partners of plants. This breathing technique reminds us of our relationship with the plants who need our carbon dioxide just as we need the oxygen they produce. It also helps us relax and become energized.

* Sit comfortably in a chair or in the meditation posture on the floor...
* Inhale slowly through your nostrils.
* As you inhale, imagine that the air you are inhaling is a white cloud filled with pure oxygen.
* Watch as this white cloud fills your lungs completely.
* Suspend your breath (neither inhale nor exhale) and watch as this white cloud permeates your lungs, enters your bloodstream, and travels throughout all of your body - all the way to your fingertips and your toes.
* Exhale slowly, releasing what remains of the white cloud.
* Watch as it exits your nostrils as a smoky, de-oxygenated cloud.
* Suspend your breath (neither inhale nor exhale) and imagine that your lungs are empty. See the plants and trees that surround you absorb the carbon dioxide.
* Repeat this breath-sharing practice at least ten times and notice how you feel afterwards.

Once you have practiced this technique sitting, you can practice it standing, while cooking, or in the midst of other movements.

It strikes me that this would be a good settling exercise before beginning to meditate - that one could do it instead of stretching or in addition to stretching in order to calm the body. Or, as described, it can be an exercise that stands on its own.

Meditation and pain

Today I found a really good article on meditation and pain management. It's called, "Meditation brings calm in medical storm". Here are some passages:

Robert Shearer has had painful migraines since he was 12 years old. His headaches are so bad that he took disability leave from his job. To relax and deal with the pain, the 43-year-old Richmond resident practices meditation.

“It’s difficult to do a 40-hour a week job when I don’t know from one day to the next what my pain is going to be like,” Shearer said. “Meditation is not a cure, at least not for me, but it sure helps me cope.”

Meditation is a practice that can be used to achieve many goals — to elicit a relaxation response, focus the mind, create greater awareness, or as part of a spiritual journey. It is widely — and increasingly — used in concert with medical treatment to help patients deal with their conditions, from cancer to AIDS to anxiety and mild depression. Techniques vary, from the use of mantras and visualization to focusing on one’s breath.
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[Dr. Magdalena] Naylor said she teaches patients techniques so they are not overwhelmed by their pain. Shearer does meditation to elicit a relaxation response, a state that through many years of practice, he can bring on within several minutes. Although his headaches are still just as painful, Shearer said he can deal with the ache better as a result of meditation. He also said meditation helps him clarify his thinking and concentrate better.

“Through the use of meditation you can reach a point where you feel pain but you don’t suffer. You don’t get the distress that goes along with pain,” Shearer said.

The distinction between pain and suffering is an important one. Pain may be necessary but suffering is not. Suffering can be defined as pain plus judgment or non-acceptance. Interestingly, that non-acceptance (or fighting against the pain) tends to increase the pain itself so when we meditate we not only alleviate suffering, we also sometimes reduce the actual pain as well.

[Another patient] worked with Dr. Arnold Kozak, a Burlington psychologist who teaches mindful meditation to patients, many of whom have serious medical conditions such as cancer, AIDS or heart conditions, or have impulse-control problems or mild depression.

“Coping with their conditions is one thing,” Kozak said. “What circulates through people’s minds tends to be the problem.¤... People are engaged in a story about what’s going on with them and it causes regret, anxiety and worry.”

Unlike Shearer, who does meditation to relax, Kozak teaches mindfulness meditation as a way to pay attention to what is happening in the present moment, usually in the body. Relaxation is generally a side effect, but not the primary focus, Kozak said. Other benefits include increased ability to cope, reduced anxiety and stress levels, some increase in positive emotions and acceptance of chronic pain.

“They can use it as a tool, just as with medication, to cope with conditions,” Kozak said. “It helps them be able to actively intervene.”

Isn't that what we really need - the ability to intervene and not be taken hostage by our situation and our mental reactions? But it's really necessary to practice meditation regularly to get these benefits. It won't work if you only try it when you're in distress. The skill must be cultivated.

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Bill Miller

A patch of blue

Here's a visualization that will help us work skillfully with thoughts during meditation. It's found in Beginning Mindfulness by Andrew Weiss:

One meditation teacher invites us to envision the true nature of our mind as a clear blue sky. Thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions are clouds that come and go across the blue sky. Some clouds are white wisps, others dark gray thunderheads. Sometimes the clouds are few; sometimes they reach from horizon to horizon. Yet, however many clouds may obscure the blue sky, the blue sky is always there. Just as a small patch of blue often appears during a hurricane, the blue-sky true nature of our mind/heart can reveal itself through the clouds of thinking, feeling, and perceiving, no matter how dense they become.

Envisioning our thoughts and feelings this way can help us let go of the impulse to try to control our mind. Control is not necessary because the blue sky is just there. We don't have to engineer it in any way.

More on gratitude

There's a self expansive aspect of gratitude. Very possibly it's a little known law of nature: the more gratitude you have, the more you have to be grateful for.

~~ Elaine St. James

Bird migration

Here's a really marvelous passage from 1,001 Meditations by Mike George:

Each year, with the onset of winter, flocks of birds from the Northern hemisphere fly long distances to warmer territories in the south. Birds navigate their way by following internal compasses comprising tiny grains of a mineral called magnetite stored in their brains. During rest stops they recalibrate their inner compasses using the positions of the stars to account for the fact that magnetic north lies 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the North Pole. When rest stops are too short, birds can get disoriented. In a similar way we possess a sense of inner knowing that helps us to find our way in life. But, unless we allow ourselves daily periods of time alone in which to tune into this inner knowing and recalibrate it against changing circumstances, we, like migrating birds, can lose our way.

How very true. Don't deprive yourself of meditation time. It's just too important.

Blessedness

Claiming your own blessedness always leads to a deep desire to bless others.

~~ Henri Nouwen

Friday cat blogging!

Leroy

Photo by Ellie Finlay

We become what we worship

A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives and our character. Therefore, it behoves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping we are becoming.

~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Mindful eating and drinking

Andrew Weiss, in Beginning Mindfulness, offers the following:

FIVE CONTEMPLATIONS BEFORE EATING

This food is the gift of the whole universe - the earth, the sky, and much hard work
May I be aware of the quality of my deeds as I receive it.
May I practice mindfulness to transform greed, hatred, and ignorance.
May this food nourish me and prevent illness.
In gratitude I accept this food so I may realize the path of love, compassion, and peace

DRINKING A CUP OF TEA, SODA, WATER, OR ANY LIQUID

This drink is my cup of mindfulness.
I hold the present moment
In my hands.

AFTER THE MEAL

My plate is empty. My hunger is satisfied,
And my body's strength is fully restored.
I use my power for the benefit of all.
May all beings have the nourishment they need.

Mindful eating and drinking can be very soothing and centering. And, as always, a reminder to practice gratitude is truly valuable.

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo by Bill Miller

Working skillfully with pain

I want to bring you another passage today from Andrew Weiss's wonderful book, Beginning Mindfulness. This one is about an effective way of bringing mindfulness practice to pain management:

When we truly disengage from the drama and the narrative we create around the feeling, when we enter into an awareness of the feeling without judgment, without opinions, and without labels, we encounter the feeling itself. And that may be very different from what we imagine the feeling is. Zen Master Bo Mun likes to say, "Don't give back to the pain any more than it gives to you." If you have a pain in your leg, you may be more aware of your feelings about the pain - your fear of pain, your anger at being hurt, your desire to be free of pain - than you are of the pain itself. The pain is simply pain; what we give back to it is our opinion of the pain (we don't like it), our judgment of the pain (it's bad), and our label for it (the word and concept of "pain", with all the emotional freight that goes with it). When we are present with the pain in this way, without concepts, opinions, and judgments, we are present with it in true mindfulness. And free from our opinions and judgments, the pain can simply be there and show us its true face.

We can practice mindfulness with either emotional pain or physical pain; the process works the same way with both. One helpful way of accepting pain is to confront our (possibly unconscious) sense of entitlement that we be 100% pain free all the time. That's simply not a guarantee anybody has in life and when we look at it that way, we let go of our unreasonable demands on reality.

Are you a drama queen?

The ability to accept a feeling without judgment is one of the most important skills we can learn from the meditative process. This point is expanded upon in a marvelous paragraph from Beginning Mindfulness by Andrew Weiss:

Most of us find it difficult to be present with our feelings. When a feeling is one we label "good," like joy or pleasure, we want to grab onto it and fix it permanently in time and space. When the feeling is one we label "bad," we want to avoid it. As ways to avoid the reality of what we are feeling, we usually engage either in dramatizing the feeling - acting it out - or in suppressing it. Neither approach really allows us to stay steady with our feelings. When we act our feelings out, we may think we're getting rid of them, when all we're doing is making the seeds of those feelings stronger by feeding them. When we deny or suppress our feelings, we may think they will not bother us. In fact we're creating a big pressure cooker. Sooner or later the feelings we didn't want to know about will explode and we will end up acting them out anyway. When a friend asks you if you are having a nice day and gets a tirade of everything that's gone wrong for the last ten years, you can be sure you've suppressed some strong anger, hurt, or resentment, and that you are acting it out on your friend. Even if you don't act the feeling out, the drama you create around the feeling - the story you tell yourself about what caused it, why you feel the way you do, who is responsible, and so on - creates far more suffering for you than the feeling itself does. In Shakespeare's play by the same name, Othello creates a terrible drama out of his inability to tolerate his feelings of jealousy; ultimately he destroys himself and his beloved Desdemona. We create dramas of our own all the time; drama is a habit of avoidance just as potent as suppression.

These are some very powerful observations. Be willing to accept whatever feeling you have but don't feed the feeling by either condemning it or justifying it. (It's possible to over-dramatize either one.) And do remember impermanence. You've never before had a feeling that was permanent so the one you're having now is not the one. Accept. Let time pass. Then accept again. This is a system that will work for you for the long haul.

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Bill Miller

Mindfulness

Here's a wonderful description of mindfulness. It's from Beginning Mindfulness by Andrew Weiss.

Mindfulness is the energy or state of being within which concentration and insight arise. You have already tasted the fruit of mindfulness in your practice every time you maintain your attention on your breathing. As you experienced the change in your breathing and the space that opens within you with each breath, you experienced concentration, a oneness with the object of your attention. As you further deepen your practice of mindfulness, one of the insights that arises is the experience of the disintegration of your sense of isolation. You may notice this in a sense of spaciousness within you that incorporates the sounds or sights around you, even if just for an instant. Or you may be looking at or talking with someone and suddenly know inside you what it is like to be that person.

This is the path to true empathy. Mindfulness enables us to experience another person with awareness and solidarity. We break through our narcissism when we practice mindfulness with a deep willingness to be present to beings other than ourselves. This is extraordinarily powerful.

True compassion

Let your soul lend its ear to every cry of pain as a lotus bares its heart to drink in the morning sun. Let not the fierce sun dry one tear of pain before you yourself have wiped it from the sufferer's eye. But let each burning human tear fall on your heart and there remain, nor ever brush it off until the pain that caused it is removed.

-- Traditional Vedic meditation

Meditation helps prevent depression

Here's good news for people who are prone to depression. It's been scientifically proven that meditation really helps. Here are a couple of passages from an article entitled, "Meditation Improves Mental Health":

"Our research is identifying the mental muscles that people build that protect them against depression and enhance their well-being," says Adam Anderson, Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Toronto.

Anderson is using brain imaging to actually see why "mindfulness meditation" - which emphasizes non-judgemental, moment-to-moment awareness of your feelings and thoughts - is so effective in preventing depression relapse.
...
"We found that when people focused on simply being aware of how they were feeling, their brain activity moved from the problem solving, judgmental part of the brain that is closely linked to depression, to an older part of the brain that's focused on body awareness," says Anderson. "And this move is very calming. It's like moving into the eye of the storm. You're actually turning off the judgmental part of your brain."

Anderson believes his research will help build a strong case for the use of mindfulness meditation in treating depression. His next step is a clinical study that will examine the effectiveness of meditation in preventing depression relapse, specifically among patients who've taken anti-depressants.

One important warning here: If you're taking anti-depressants do not stop taking your medication without your doctor's knowledge and approval. Meditation is appropriate in addition to medical treatment - not instead of!

Friday cat blogging!

My favorite picture of Leroy

Photo by Ellie Finlay

Unconditional acceptance

I feel quite confident in saying that everyone has a longing for complete and unconditional acceptance. We can't always get that from another person but we can certainly get it from ourselves. In fact, giving ourselves unconditional acceptance will cure any "hungry ghost" tendencies we may have in which we're constantly seeking approval and affirmation from other people. Here's a story I found in 1,001 Meditations by Mike George that illustrates this principle:

Consider the snake. In an old folktale a snake was once asked whether it would have preferred to have legs, if given the choice. The snake was mystified by the question. "No," it said. "I am what I am." We are what we are. We need have no wish for anything that we do not have.

So let's remember the snake and not make the impossible demand on ourselves that we be other than we are.

Chanting meditation

If you use a mantra as your meditation support, try chanting it if you have privacy. Here's a paragraph about that from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation:

No matter what tradition you believe in, chanting helps prolong the exhalation of the breath, calm the mind, slow the heart, and after long periods, helps bring the meditator into an alternate state of consciousness. Whether this is due to the effect on breathing, the effect of one-pointed thinking, the effect of the repetition, the vibrations of the mantra itself, or (most likely) a combination of the four hasn't been proven, but chanting or reciting mantras does seem to be a highly effective form of meditation for people of many beliefs, traditions, and cultures. It might be just the technique for you.

You don't need to know any particular tune in order to chant. You can simply chant your mantra on one pitch that's comfortable for your voice.

Here are some possibilities for mantras if you don't already have one:

Peace
Love
Joy
One
One is all, all is one
Let it be
Compassion
Spirit
Shalom ("peace" in Hebrew)
Om shanti shanti shanti ("All is peace, peace, peace" in Sanskrit)
Om (The primal sacred syllable)
Kyrie Eleison ("Lord have mercy" in Greek)

Wednesday life form blogging

My friend Walt's dog

Photo by Walter Calahan

Meditation and ADD

Here's another article about the benefits of meditation for children with Attention Deficit Disorder. Needless to say, it works for grownups too! The article is entitled, "Treatment options, from medicine to meditation". Here's an excerpt:

Dr. Alarik Arenander, of the Brain Research Institute in Iowa, said the practice of transcendental meditation has worked wonders for some children. Children who practice it twice a day, he said, have shown marked improvement almost immediately.

Arenander, who spoke recently at Bastyr University, described the treatment as empowering. Children do not have to rely on a pill, or on a counselor, to improve their behavior, he said. They can improve their own behavior whenever and wherever they choose — on the bus, in the classroom or at home.

"It gives back control to these kids," said Arenander. "They realize they now have a tool that makes them who they want to be."

Whatever challenges we may have in life, the meditative principles will help. And they can help on the spot. No matter where we are or what we are doing we can apply the principles of mindfulness. They are both calming and focusing.

"Inscape"

Here's another suggestion from 1,001 Meditations by Mike George:

Perceive inscape

The nineteenth-century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins attempted to reveal what he called "inscape" - the pattern of distinctive characteristics that constitute the individual essence of a thing. In your daily life take time to pause and absorb the inscape in the people and things you see around you. Try to move beyond superficialities to perceive the uniqueness of each thing. Appreciate this uniqueness as an expression of the spirit.

Well, it's another outlook on mindfulness, isn't it? Looking for "inscape" is also an aspect of "penetrating insight". This practice will help us avoid the mind poison of delusion - or the need not to know. When we look for "inscape" we are actually cultivating the willingness to know a thing on a deep level.

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Bill Miller

Scientist meditator

Now here's an interesting news story:

UW scientist named one of Time’s 100 most influential

UW-Madison professor of psychology and psychiatry Richard Davidson has been named one of Time magazine’s most influential people of 2006.

According to a University statement, Davidson has devoted his career to understanding the human brain in regards to how it regulates emotion.

Davidson is the director of the UW-Madison Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, which researches how the brain produces emotions like depression and anxiety.

Davidson became famous in the ‘90s for his research on how meditation affects the human brain, work that was done at the request of the Dalai Lama.

Davidson, who meditates regularly, still communicates with the Dalai Lama.

It's very encouraging, isn't it, when somebody who studies the brain believes it is important to meditate. That can be a truly motivating realization for us.

Peace and love

Peace and love are always alive in us, but we are not always alive to peace and love.

~~ Julian of Norwich

Hermit Power

Here's another suggestion from 1,001 Meditations by Mike George:

Hermit Power - This visualization will put you in touch with a more contemplative way of living - an antidote to the action-oriented culture of Western society. Imagine that you are living like a hermit in a cave. Completely alone, free from the demands and restrictions imposed by work, family, relationships and the rest of the outside world, there is little to distract you from the present moment. Whether you are tending to your basic needs for food, warmth and cleanliness, or engaged in quiet contemplation, you are completely present with yourself - able to appreciate the joy of simply being alive. How would it feel to live such a life? Consider how you can bring some of the benefits of hermit-living into your everyday routine.

Well, one way is to cultivate the "hermitage within". We can be surrounded by people and activity and yet have a place within that is solitary and deeply quiet. But, of course, we need a certain level of literal silence in order to learn how to find that place reliably. Get creative. Find ways of being alone for the purpose of getting to know your own deep center. It will then become easier and easier to tap into the reality of silence and solitude.

Gratitude and sympathetic joy

It's always good to remember the importance of gratitude. This quote by Steven Levine also refers to mudita - or "sympathetic joy":

Gratitude is the state of mind of thankfulness. As it is cultivated, we experience an increase in our "sympathetic joy," our happiness at another's happiness. Just as in the cultivation of compassion, we may feel the pain of others, so we may begin to feel their joy as well. And it doesn't stop there.

— Stephen Levine in A Year to Live

Whenever you're out of sorts, remember gratitude. Make the effort to call to mind something for which you are thankful. Start with your five senses. Be grateful you can see, hear, etc. That will get you started. Then other awarenesses are sure to follow.

Friday cat blogging!

Henry

Photo by Ellie Finlay

A thought on stress

You know, I have a lot of respect for The Complete Idiot's Guide series of books. They are invariably very well written and organized with really helpful material. Well, today I bought The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation, Second Edition. I'm enjoying thumbing through it and finding all sorts of meditative tips and information on the benefits of meditation. Here's something interesting:

Anyone who maintains an aquarium know that caring for fish involves paying attention to what's called fish stress. Small details such as water, tank size, and temperature all contribute to the health of the fish. If even one thing is off too much, or everything is off a little, the fish are said to be "stressed" and will die. People should take care of themselves the same way. Incidentally, studies show that people who keep fish in aquariums have lowered stress levels, particularly when looking at their aquariums.

Stress reduction is important and meditation will help. If we meditate regularly it will also help prevent stress from building up in the first place.

Something to think about

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.

~~ Winston Churchill

Silence

It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.

— Thomas Merton

Wise Old Man

I've come across an interesting little book called, 1,001 Meditations by Mike George. Some of the suggestions are actually visualizations or contemplations. Here's one:

The figure of the Wise Old Man is a Jungian archetype. A source of ancient spiritual wisdom, this figure can take us to higher levels of consciousness, giving us new perspectives on our lives. To contact this archetype imagine yourself walking along a path through a dark forest. Suddenly you break through the trees and see the rocky summit of a mountain towering above you. Continuing up the path for some time, you see an old man sitting at the mouth of a cave. Approach the man with respect and introduce yourself. Describe the situation you are facing and ask for advice. What is his response? It may take the form of words, actions or images. How does his response shed light on your current predicament?

Of course, when we do this exercise we are really making contact with our own inner wisdom. But we bypass the controlling ego with the visualization if we do it in an open and spacious way.

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo by Bill Miller

San Diego Zoo

The dark night

Don't most of us feel we need to avoid dark times at all costs? Actually, according to one of the great psychologists of the spiritual life, St. John of the Cross, such times are necessary for our development. Here's a wonderful statment about that:

Even though the night darkens your spirit, its purpose is to impart light. Even though it humbles you, revealing the depth of your wretchedness, its purpose is to exalt and uplift you. Even though it empties you of all feeling and detaches you from all natural pleasures, its purpose is to fill you with spiritual joy and attach you to the source of that joy.

~~ St. John of the Cross (1542-91)

So don't expect the journey to feel like uninterrupted progress. There will be times of great difficulty and the feeling that we're getting nowhere. The thing for it is to persevere anyway and remember the importance of practicing distress tolerance. In time we will see that the dark period actually contributed to our maturity.

Patience is essential

I want to share with you another excerpt from Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. In this passage he exposes and corrects another common misconception about meditation:

Misconception 11: A couple of weeks of meditation and all my problems will go away.

Sorry, meditation is not a quick cure-all. You will start seeing changes right away, but really profound effects are years down the line. That is just the way the universe is constructed. Nothing worthwhile is achieved overnight. Meditation is tough in some respects, requiring a long discipline and a sometimes painful process of practice. At each sitting you gain some results, but they are often very subtle. They occur deep within the mind, and only manifest much later. And if you are sitting there constantly looking for huge, instantaneous changes, you will miss the subtle shifts altogether. You will get discouraged, give up, and swear that no such changes could ever occur. Patience is the key. Patience. If you learn nothing else from meditation, you will learn patience. Patience is essential for any profound change.

I'm so glad I didn't give up early in the game. Sure it's taken years for profound effects to manifest. But the years have actually gone by fairly quickly. And they will for you too. Don't give up. This is a sure bet. Meditate regularly and you will benefit. And the years will still go by whether you meditate or not. So why not meditate and improve your quality of life along the way?

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Bill Miller

You might like to check out Bill Miller's blog, Tulsa Time. He has a series of photos on his most recent posting of stately old houses in Tulsa. Bill regularly contributes his photos to Meditation Matters. Our thanks to him!

What about bliss?

I have found an interesting new meditation book - new to me, that is. It's called Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. I've noticed that many meditation books start off by saying what meditation is not and this is no exception. Today I'd like to bring to you what this writer has to say about the misconception that meditation is about bliss states:

Meditation does produce lovely blissful feelings sometimes. But they are not the purpose, and they don't always occur. Furthermore, if you do meditation with that purpose in mind, they are less likely to occur than if you just meditate for the actual purpose of meditation, which is increased awareness. Bliss results from relaxation, and relaxation results from release of tension. Seeking bliss from meditation introduces tension into the process, which blows the whole chain of events. It is a Catch-22: you can only experience bliss if you don't chase after it. Euphoria is not the pupose of meditation. It will often arise, but should be regarded as a byproduct. Still, it is a very pleasant side effect, and it becomes more and more frequent the longer you meditate. You won't hear any disagreement about this from adavnced practitioners.

People are sometimes disappointed when bliss states do not arise. It's important not to judge your meditation. The whole point is to learn to accept whatever thoughts arise without judgment. Let your meditation be what it is. As long as you're bringing your mind gently back to the meditation support then you're meditating.

The importance of attention

How very true:

Permit me to say without reservation that if all people were attentive, if they would undertake to be attentive every moment of their lives, they would discover the world anew. They would suddenly see that the world is entirely different from what they had believed it to be.

— Jacques Lusseyran in Against the Pollution of the I

Earth Day

I just found a new website called Spirituality & Practice. There's a page there called, "Earth Day: 12 Spiritual Practices to Honor the Earth" that I want to call to your attention. Here's one of the suggestions:

Rededicate yourself to the live lightly and respectfully on the planet. Repeat this vow:

We join with the Earth and with each other.

To bring new life to the land
To restore the waters
To refresh the air

We join with the Earth and with each other.

To renew the forests
To care for the plants
To protect the creatures

We join with the Earth and with each other.

To celebrate the seas
To rejoice in the sunlight
To sing the song of the stars

We join with the Earth and with each other.

To recreate the human community
To promote justice and peace
To remember our children

We join with the Earth and with each other.

We join together as many and diverse expressions of one loving mystery: for the healing of the Earth and the renewal of all life.

— U.N. Environmental Sabbath Program
(quoted in Prayers for Healing edited by Maggie Oman)

And I would be remiss if I did not share with you my favorite way of connecting with the Earth: Go outside barefoot and find a place to stand. Place your consciousness in the soles of your feet and have the sense that a stream of energy connects you to the center of the planet. Just stand there for a while and relish the relationship between you and your environment.

Meditation and anxiety

Here's an article by a therapist named Tom Moon that talks about the benefits of meditation as part of a treatment program for anxiety disorders. Moon has a very insightful take on the deeper issues behind the anxiety response:

The spiritual issue in anxiety is that we’re all fragile and mortal, and can’t ever make ourselves completely safe from danger. No matter how well we take care of ourselves, we’re all going to get sick, we’re going to get old (if we’re lucky), and we’re all going to die. We’ll all experience the loss of people we love, as well as our share of disappointment and pain. That is just how life is. As human beings, we’re all aware of this fact, and the consequence is that all of us experience some degree of anxiety.

Meditation helps prevent this angst from getting out of hand by focusing awareness on the present moment. Anxiety is an anticipatory response – it’s always about the future. When we train our minds to focus on the present, we make a remarkable discovery—that the present moment, however unpleasant it might be, is always essentially safe.

Meditation also decreases anxiety by revealing the depth dimension in our being. When the mind becomes quiet, we begin to sense a reservoir of unconditional love in the center of our hearts. This love isn’t something we have to cultivate. It’s our birthright, our true nature. Until we find it, we’re always somewhat restless and fearful. Once we do find it, we know it as the one thing that can satisfy the longing we’ve sought to fill in sex, in relationships, in work – in all our strivings. This love is the antidote to despair and meaninglessness, separation and loss. This love is what lifts us out of fear and allows us to live our lives with courage and peace. With regular practice, you can learn to center your life in that quiet love. Keep at it!

It is very difficult to meditate if you're in the middle of a really severe anxiety attack and sitting may be next to impossible. But I still want to recommend walking meditation at such a time. Force yourself to do slow, mindful walking even when anxiety is intense. Stay in the moment and don't judge the anxiety. Remind yourself of impermanence: the episode will run its course. Then when you calm down go back to ordinary sitting meditation.

Friday cat blogging!

Henry

Photo by Ellie Finlay

Gratitude

Gratitude is such a powerful healer. Here's a beautiful quote that expresses this:

While we cry ourselves to sleep, gratitude waits patiently to console and reassure us; there is a landscape larger than the one we can see.

~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

There's a lot to cry about in the world today - the destruction of the Earth, the current wars, the threat of nuclear war and economic devastation for many. The way to manage that pain and those fears is to accept what is and to be in the moment. Right this minute there is much to be grateful for. For this moment the world survives. Let that console us.

Look inside

Oh, this is good!

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

~ Carl Jung

Celebrating the now

This morning Studio Tulsa (on our local public radio station) interviewed Billy Collins so I thought I'd bring you one of his poems today. This one is such a wonderful celebration of the present moment that it is a delightful expression of the value of meditative principles:

I Ask You

What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside--
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.

But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.

No, it's all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles--
each a different height--
are singing in perfect harmony.

So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt--
frog at the edge of a pond--
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches.

~Billy Collins

Wednesday life form blogging

This picture was taken by my dear friend, Walt Calahan. Here's his website: http://www.walterpcalahan.com/

The vastness of the heart

Here is a beautiful poem that celebrates non-duality:

When you set out to look for the Way,
At once it changes to something
That is to be sought in your self.
When sight becomes no-sight,
You come to possess the jewel,
But you have not yet fully penetrated into it.
Suddenly one day everything is empty like space
That has no inside or outside, no bottom or top,
And you are aware of one principle
Pervading all the ten thousand things.
You know then that your heart
Is so vast that it can never be measured.

- Daikaku (1213-1279)

Perspective and adversity

Often we have perspective on an event after a lot of time has passed. What would it be like to have that perspective earlier in the game? Pondering the following can help. (It's a passage from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.)

Do you truly know what is positive and what is negative? Do you have the total picture? There have been many people for whom limitation, failure, loss, illness, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their greatest teacher. It taught them to let go of false self-images and superficial ego-dictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility, and compassion. It made them more real.

Whenever anything negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it, although you may not see it at the time. Even a brief illness or an accident can show you what is real and unreal in your life, what ultimately matters and what doesn't.

Seen from a higher perspective, conditions are always positive. To be more precise: they are neither positive nor negative. They are as they are. And when you live in complete acceptance of what is which is the only sane way to live - there is no "good" or "bad" in your life anymore. There is only a higher good - which includes the "bad."

It helps me to let go of judging situations as "good" or "bad" if I cultivate "don't know" mind. I really don't know. Something may seem bad when it happens and yet I may truly benefit from it down the road a bit. If I just remember that I truly don't know then I'm much more likely simply to be in acceptance rather than judgment.

Expectations

Many wise people have said essentially this throughout the ages:

Any kind of expectation creates a problem. We should accept, but not expect. Whatever comes, accept it. Whatever goes, accept it. The immediate benefit is that your mind is always peaceful.

~~Sri Swami Satchidananda

It's hard not to have expectations, I know. And I think we often have them unconsciously and then experience great disappointment when they're not met. The way to work with that reality is to accept the feeling disappointment without judgment when it arises and then to say, "Oh, I guess I had the expectation of such-and-such." The next step is to let go of the attachment to whatever the expectation was. In this way we can learn to sit loose to our expectations even if we can't eliminate them altogether.

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Bill Miller

Meditation as the way to peace

Today I found an article about a former Green Beret who believes meditation is the way to peace. The article is entitled, "Green Beret Turned Peace Activist Publishes Second Anti-War Book" and here are a couple of excerpts:

William T. Hathaway, award-winning author and former U.S. Special Forces soldier, has published a new anti-war novel set amidst the current war on terrorism.
...
Hathaway’s first novel, A WORLD OF HURT, won a Rinehart Foundation Award. Both it and SUMMER SNOW explore the attraction that war has for men and how they can be healed of the pathology of patriarchal machismo.

"In the first book I focused on the blocked sexuality and the need for paternal approval that draw men to the military," says Hathaway. "I was trying to uncover the psychological roots of war, the forces that so persistently drive our species to slaughter. Our culture has degraded masculinity into a deadly toxin. It’s poisoned us all. Men have to confront this part of themselves before men and women together can heal it."

SUMMER SNOW takes a more spiritual approach than his first book. Hathaway says, "My military experience convinced me that to prevent war we need to raise human consciousness. A look at the history of revolutions shows that switching economic and political systems isn’t enough. The same aggressive personality types take over and start another army. We have to change the basic unit, the individual.

"I’ve found Eastern meditation to be the most effective way to change people. Unlike prayer, it works on the physiological level, altering the brain waves and metabolism. It refines the nervous system and expands the awareness so that the unity of all human beings becomes a living reality, not just an idealistic concept.

"After a while of meditation people stop wanting to consume things that increase aggression, such as meat, alcohol, and violent entertainment. They become more peaceful.

"I think it’s very true that peace begins within you. As Gandhi said, ‘We have to become the change we want to see in the world.’"

As always, anything that motivates us to meditate is all to the good. Let's hope the desire for our own inner peace will keep us all meditating or inspire us to start up again if, for some reason, we've let ourselves backslide.

I Arise Today

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendour of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth
Firmness of rock.

~ Ancient Irish verse

Message of Resurrection

We will all experience Resurrection if we live by this principle:

I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace.

~~Diane Ackerman

May the day be glorious for everybody!

Happy Easter!

My favorite slogan of all time:

Don't believe everything you think.

Making a difference

A long time ago I had what turned out to be a very important realization. I realized that it really doesn't matter so much what I do. What matters is how I do it. That is made clear in the quote I have for you today:

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily difference we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

~~ Marion Wright Edelman

A lot of people want to make a difference with their lives and feel inadequate if their work seems to be ordinary. Actually we make a huge difference by just deciding to be open, kind and generous in all our dealings.

Meditation helps us with such a commitment because through meditation we relax our defenses and are less likely to view others as hostile or, at the very least, unhelpful. We see that others are full, complex, complete human beings just like us. That makes it much more likely that we will approach others with compassion and lovingkindness.

Found in a fortune cookie

Nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self.

Definition of happiness

This is truly worth pondering:

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

~Mohandas K. Gandhi

Thursday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Bill Miller

Meditation helps depression

Today I came across an article about mindfulness based therapy and how it helps patients with depression. The article is called "Social worker uses meditation therapy". Here's an exerpt:

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy... is a cutting-edge approach to treating people with anxiety and depression. Only a handful of therapists are doing it.

Developed in the late 1990s by a team of researchers led by Zindel Segal, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Toronto, the technique has been shown to be highly effective in staving off repeated bouts of depression.

In 2000, Segal and two other researchers published a study of 145 patients showing that those who took an eight-week course to learn how to practice mindfulness were half as likely to suffer a relapse into depression over the next 12 months as those who received only the usual treatment.

The technique was found to be most effective for those who have suffered three or more episodes of depression before receiving it, reducing the risk of relapse from 66 percent to 37 percent.

A follow-up study, published in 2002 by Teasdale and Helen Ma in Cambridge, produced comparable results, showing the therapy reduced the rate of relapse from 78 percent to 36 percent in those who had three or more episodes of depression.

Meditation really works!

Letting go

Here's another teaching by Papaji that we would all do well to consider:

Student: You are telling us to 'let go', but it is very difficult.

Papaji: That's because you have the idea that 'letting go' is something that you have to do. To move from one place to another may be difficult if the journey is long and hard. But if you don't have to move at all, how can you say that it is difficult? Just give up the idea that you have to do something or reach somewhere. That's all you have to do.

~~Dialogues with the Master Sri H.W.L. Poonja (Papaji)

Here is a really beautiful poem about utter self-acceptance:

You are the unchangeable Awareness in which all activity takes place.
Always rest in peace.
You are eternal Being, unbounded and undivided.
Just keep Quiet.
All is well.
Keep Quiet Here and Now.
You are Happiness, you are Peace, you are Freedom.
Do not entertain any notions that you are in trouble.
Be kind to yourself.
Open to your Heart and simply Be.

~ Papaji

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

The spiritual journey

A priest friend of mine just gave me a lovely little book called The Wisdom of Solitude: A Zen Retreat in the Woods by Jane Dobisz. Here's a little observation Dobisz makes that is definitely worth remembering:

When you are thirsty, no explanation in the world will quench your thirst like a glass of water. Similarly, when you embark on a spiritual journey, you have to taste it for yourself or it will never become yours. If it isn't yours, then it's never there when you really need it.

Sometimes people will demand more and more explanations and complain that they are unsatisfied when they don't "get it". Explanations don't help if what the person is resisting is the willingness to let go of being satisfied! Next time you don't "get" something, let that be okay and, instead, rededicate yourself to the practice of letting go of judgments in meditation.

The spiritual life

A genuine spiritual life is not one consisting of a series of disconnected and undefined experiences occurring at random; it is a constant dynamic process incorporating every element of our being.

~~Stephen Batchelor

More on the importance of silence

Silence is the mother of everything that has come out from the Depth. And Silence kept quiet about what she was unable to describe: the Unspeakable.

~Clement of Alexandria

Friday cat blogging!

Leroy and Henry

Photo by Ellie Finlay

All the good things

Syncronicity is very interesting. I had never heard of the Peace Pilgrim until a couple of weeks ago when I posted a quote of hers. How interesting that today my friend Charlotte Alexandre happened to send me a passage from the Peace Pilgrim's journal:

ALL THE GOOD THINGS

The Babemba tribe of southern Africa has a social structure with an elementary criminal code. Their close community living makes harshness unnecessary. A visitor was deeply impressed by the tribe's handling of antisocial, delinquent behaviors, which are exceedingly infrequent.

When a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he/she is placed in the center of the village, alone, unfettered. All work ceases. All gather around the accused individual. Then each person of every age, begins to talk out loud to the accused. One at a time, each person tells all the good things the one in the center ever did in his/her lifetime.

Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy, is recounted. All positive attributes, good deeds, strengths, and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length. No one is permitted to fabricate, exaggerate or be facetious about accomplishments or positive aspects of the accused person.

The tribal ceremony often lasts several days, not ceasing until everyone is drained of every positive comment that can be mustered. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe. Necessity for such ceremonies is rare!

You know, that works for individuals as well as tribes. The next time you disappoint yourself in some way, instead of scolding yourself, try affirmation instead. Tell yourself all the good you have done - not as a way of excusing yourself but rather as a way of calling to mind the kind of person you are in your deepest nature. Being convinced of your own fundamental goodness will do more to rehabilitate you than harshness or self-punishment any day.

The source of suffering

When you are in the world of the thinking mind, you are somewhere in the remembered past or the imagined future. You are in a world of thought, memory, concept, idea, opinion and belief. You are not here now. What you are experiencing is not of the present moment. It is not real. You are in a world of illusion... and yet you have come to believe that it real. Almost the entire human population is lost in this illusion. It is the sole source of our suffering.

~ Leonard Jacobson

Wednesday life form blogging

Dual Squirrels

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

The universal predicament

Undoubtedly one of the most important meditation teachers writing today is Pema Chödrön. Here she tells a traditional story and comments on it:

A woman is running from tigers. She runs and she runs, and the tigers are getting closer and closer. She comes to the edge of a cliff. She sees a vine there, so she climbs down and holds on to it. Then she looks down and sees that there are tigers below her as well. At the same time, she notices a little mouse gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries emerging from a nearby clump of grass. She looks up, she looks down, and she looks at the mouse. Then she picks a strawberry, pops it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly.

Tigers above, tigers below. This is the predicament we are always in. We are born and sooner or later we die. Each moment is just what it is. Resentment, bitterness, and holding a grudge prevent us from seeing and hearing and tasting and delighting. This might be the only moment of our life, this might be the only strawberry we'll ever eat. We could feel depressed about this or we could finally appreciate it. We could delight in the preciousness of every single moment.

--Pema Chödrön

Whatever predicament besets you in your life today, be willing to let go of any obstacles to peace you may be experiencing. And give yourself deep permission to enjoy the strawberry. "Each moment is just what it is."

Spiritual reality

Never fear the death of the body. Here is a beautiful description of union with the Ultimate:

It is as if a raindrop fell from heaven into a stream or fountain and became one with the water in it so that never again can the raindrop be separated from the water of the stream; or as if a little brook ran into the sea and there was thenceforward no means of distinguishing its water from the ocean; or as if a brilliant light came into a room through two windows and though it comes in divided between them, it forms a single light inside.

~St. Teresa of Avila

Quoted in 'The Virago Book of Spirituality' Ed. Sarah Anderson

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

True liberation

You are not your story. The world between your ears--all those beliefs, concepts, and images that make up this "person" you take yourself to be--is not real. It is just something you have made up. Enlightenment is seeing this. When you, as consciousness, as the witness, if you like, see it, the entire psychological and emotional component of thinking starts to fall away, and your head becomes astonishingly clear, and your heart opens wide. Then you live always, consciously, in the present, but no longer with any limiting sense of an "I" or "me" who lives in the present. You're just here, and you're truly free. It's wonderful!

~~ Jim Dreaver

More on happiness

I found this on a blog called Maggi Dawn:

Here are ten points from the Manifesto for Happiness.

* Get physical. Exercise for half an hour three times a week.

* Count your blessings. At the end of each day, reflect on at least five things you're grateful for.

* Talk time. Have an hour-long uninterrupted conversation with your partner or closest friend each week.

* Plant something. Even if it’s a window box or pot plant. Keep it alive!

* Cut your TV viewing by half.

* Smile at and/or say hello to a stranger. At least once each day.

* Phone a friend. Make contact with at least one friend or relation you have not been in contact for a while and arrange to meet up.

* Have a good laugh at least once a day.

* Every day make sure you give yourself a treat. Take time to really enjoy this.

* Daily kindness. Do an extra good turn for someone each day.

And I would add: meditate! At least 5 minutes a day. Everyone can do that much.

Constant awareness

Make your meditation a continuous state of mind. A great worship is going on all the time, so nothing should be neglected or excluded from your constant meditative awareness.

~Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa