"Now I adore my life"

Here's a poem worth pondering:

Once More, the Round

What's greater, Pebble or Pond?
What can be known? The Unknown.
My true self runs toward a Hill
More! O More! visible.

Now I adore my life
With the Bird, the abiding Leaf,
With the Fish, the questing Snail,
And the Eye altering All;
And I dance with William Blake
For love, for Love's sake;

And everything comes to One,
As we dance on, dance on, dance on.

~Theodore Roethke

Serving one's vision

Carolyn Loomis sent me this today:

When I dare to be powerful -- to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

-- Audre Lorde

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

Two from Gandhi

Oh, I like both of these:

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."
~~~
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

--M.K. Gandhi

Suffering and impermanence

Here's a very thoughtful reflection on suffering (or pain) and growth:

Suffering, I was beginning to think, was essential to a good life, and as inextricable from such a life as bliss. It's a great enhancer. It might last a minute, or a month, but eventually it subsides, and when it does, something else takes its place, and maybe that thing is a greater space. For happiness. Each time I encountered suffering, I believe that I grew, and further defined my capacities--not just my physical ones, but my interior ones as well, for contentment, friendship, or any other human experience.

-- Lance Armstong

Sheer beauty

Today as I was driving home for lunch I heard the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams on the radio. I have loved it since I was a teenager. Here is a very nice performance by a youth orchestra:



Listen to it as a meditation. That is, listen just to listen - not to analyze or evaluate or to assign meaning. Just let the music be itself. You will be all the richer for it.

Friday cat blogging!

Harriet on top of the hall tree

Photo by Ellie Finlay

There's something to be said for this!

Bow meditation

I was taught to do prostrations both as a preparation for sitting meditation and as a meditation in its own right. We were not bowing down to any anything exterior. Rather we were lowering our ego in deference to our own fundamentally enlightened state - our truest nature, if you will. Here's a short piece I found today on bow meditation:

Bowing is one of the most humble and spiritual acts a human can perform. It is an action that simultaneously signifies acceptance and a deep understanding of and feeling toward its object.

Ilchi Lee calls bow meditation "sincerity meditation," because we awaken to the nature of sincerity in the process of bowing. This meditation involves motions through which we become one with the universe.

Choose the number of bows you wish to perform. Bow meditation is also a good meridian exercise. During the meditation, your lower back will be strengthened and your lower abdomen will become warm.

I was also taught that this is a good purification meditation. It's also good for shifting very deeply ingrained habitual tendencies.

The quiet that's already there

I found this in The Times of India. Very true:

Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It's a way of entering into the quiet that's already there - buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.

--Deepak Chopra

Our Lady

In honor of St. Mary the Virgin whose feast day is today.

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

The words of two great teachers

Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.

--Thomas Merton

The whole purpose of religion is to facilitate love and compassion, patience, tolerance, humility, forgiveness.

--H.H. the Dalai Lama

Lost in a daisy

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

Cynthia also sent me this:

"One can get just as much exultation in losing oneself in a little thing as in a big thing. It is nice to think how one can be recklessly lost in a daisy!"

-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Monday meditative picture blogging

This has been making the rounds by email. I have received it from several people.

Some quotes on emptiness

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself...
- early Christian hymn quoted by St. Paul in Philippians

Why are you unhappy?
Because 99.9%
Of everything you think
And everything you do
Is for yourself
And there isn't one.
- Wei Wu Wei
(Open Secret)

The good seems to us as a nothingness, since there is no thing that is good. But this nothingness is not unreal. Compared with it, everything in existence is unreal.
- Simone Weil

A spiritual seeker went to visit a monk to ask for advice. The monk received him and, after the two chatted for a bit, served tea. He poured the seeker's cup full and then kept on pouring, causing it to overflow. The visitor watched this and finally exclaimed, "It is too full. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," said the monk, "you also are too full. How can I teach you until you first empty your cup?"
- traditional monastic story

It's the nothing that makes us something; it's what we miss that hits the mark.
- 7-Up jingle

It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me.
- St. Paul

"Your best self"

Here's a comment about meditation that comes from a blog called "Peace of Mind":

Meditation is more than than just a manner to experience better in the moment. It is a transformational nerve pathway to your best self. Transformation is not a inactive activity. Even a caterpillar may look on the outside to be resting in its cocoon, but, in fact, there are many alterations beneath the surface to go a beautiful butterfly.

There's more that goes on in meditation than what the uninitiated observer sees.

Here's a great meditation

Yes, I've done this one a lot. I definitely recommend it:

Many people claim they don’t have time to meditate or that they do not have the ability to specify a specific time every day to devote to meditation. If you are one of these people, I would invite you to have your pets BE your meditation.

For example, many times when I am sitting at my computer in my home/office, my cat Vinnie will come up to me and meow and want attention. He is a wonderful meditation timer. Now, I stop what I’m doing, if only for a minute or so, and sit on the floor with him and BE with him.

My petting of my cat becomes my meditation.

Pets live fully in the moment, and you can join them in the NOW if you choose too! So next time you think you don’t have time to meditate. Sit down with your pet and BE with your pet. Make that your meditation. You will gain so much from it, and of course your pet will too!

Very true.

Friday cat blogging!

Harriet

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

What makes us happy?

Rhonda Steiner sent me the following video. Take a look:




Psychologist Dan Gilbert challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we don't get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel real, enduring happiness, he says, even when things don't go as planned. He calls this kind of happiness "synthetic happiness," and he says it's "every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for."

Interrupting habitual tendency

Someone once said, "If you keep on doing what you're doing, you'll get more of what you've got." How true. Take a look at this excerpt from today's meditation on DailyOM:

Whether our intention is to change ourselves or some element of the world around us, we cannot simply wish for transformation or hope that our lives will be altered through circumstance. If our patterns of thought and behavior remain unchanged, our lives will continue to unfold much as they have previously. Patterns in which fruitless efforts prevail can be overcome with self examination and courage. It is our bravery that allows us to question the choices we have made thus far and to channel our effort into innovation. Asking questions and making small adjustments to your thought processes and behaviors will help you discover what works, so you can leave that which does not work behind you.

"Small adjustments" are the important words here. Don't try to make dramatic changes all at once. That can be overwhelming. Just make little changes and be sure to give yourself credit for each one. That will make it much more likely that you will be able to maintain the change you start out making.

Spirituality and children

The Spirituality and Practice website has a list of eight ways to nuture the spirituality of children. Here are three of them:

• Give thanks before you eat, not just for the food, but also for everything that contributed to your having this meal--the earth, the rain, the sun, the farmer, the store, the cook, even the cooking equipment. Gratitude is an essential spiritual practice.

• When watching television or a video, choose a favorite or interesting character and “step into the story” to see how you would act in his or her place. This exercise uses imagination and supports compassion for others and hospitality toward the media.

• Experiment with silence by lying on the ground for 15 minutes without saying anything. Pay attention to what you are thinking about. Then notice the reports of your senses of sight and smell. This is the practice of wonder.

I think the third practice I've listed here - the one about silence - is the most important. Children are bombarded with noise pollution most of their day. I'm so grateful for the large periods of silence that I experienced as a child. I'm sure that at least partly accounts for why I have continued to have an interest in the spiritual life.

5 meditation mistakes

I found an article this morning called "Top 5 Mistakes in Establishing a Daily Meditation Practice". Here they are:

1. Procrastinate Starting Your Daily Meditation Practice
2. Don’t Prepare Your Meditation Environment
3. Don’t Set a Definite Time for Your Daily Meditation
4. Think Meditation is Too Hard & Give-up
5. Look for Immediate Results

Each one of these mistakes is explained in the article so click through to read more.

Then the writer closes with the following:

So today, setup your environment, decide on a time, don’t worry about success or failure and JUST BEGIN YOUR DAILY MEDITATION PRACTICE. There is nothing in life more important that this.

Remember the Nike slogan: Just do it!

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by my friend, Walter Calahan

A whole world of meaning

Clyde Glandon sent me this excerpt from the writings of Thomas Merton:

The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, or rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside. What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!

Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.

"...a whole world of meaning." Isn't that wonderful? If we can tear ourselves away from our radios and televisions and iPods, this kind of deep listening will be possible.

Mindfulness and stress

Take a look at a little article called "Mindfulness program reduces stress" . Here's part of what it says:

William Mies of Arnold has a new way to reduce stress and it doesn't involve screaming or banging pots and pans.

Called mindfulness-based stress reduction, the program uses breathing, yoga and meditation to help participants learn to handle stress.
...
During the meetings, Mr. Mies encourages group members to discuss things that triggers stress in their lives. Often, the sessions get personal with participants revealing painful memories.

"Many people think they can get rid of the pain and suffering by getting out of it; you have to go through it," Mr. Mies said. "The way to joy and freedom is to go through it.

"Stress is not what happens to you; stress is the way we deal with what happens to us."

Meditation teaches us how to deal skillfully with what happens to us. Not instantly, of course. It takes time and practice. But the benefits are real.

Meditative reading

Here's a wonderful piece by one of my favorite poets, Wallace Stevens:

The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

Friday cat blogging!

Harriet

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

Immortality

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us. What we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.

-- Albert Pine

Ditch these myths

This afternoon I decided to clean off the coffee table in my office and I found a photocopy someone had given me of a Family Circle article on meditation. I thought I'd type out the content of one of the sidebars for you:

Ditch these myths:

Meditaion is religious. It can be part of some people's faith practice, but you don't have to buld an altar, dress in robes, burn incense or light candles to meditate.

You must sit in a special position. Although many people like to sit cross-legged or on a cushion with their knees lower than their hips, there's no need to if it's uncomfortable.

You have to make your mind blank. The human brain is always spewing out thoughts. But when you meditate you don't follow them or grab onto them; you clamly let them drift in, then out again.

You need a mantra. While some people choose to repeat a single syllable, word or phrase to themselves, it's just as effective to focus on your breath. [And I would add that other supports such as sound or a visualization can be used as well.]

You go into a trance. On the contrary, you become more focused and aware.

Don't be misled by inaccurate information about meditation!

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from the Free Gallery at exZOOberance

Mini-meditations

I found a little article today entitled "2 Minute Meditations". Here's a sample:

1. Go to the nearest window and look up at the sky. Simply gaze at the vastness of the heavens above us. No matter how far the eye gazes, the sky is still there. Visualize the task you have at hand held up against this immense sky. Realize how small it really is in comparison, and take a moment to reorganize your perspective.

2. Keep a photograph of your loved ones on your desk, in your wallet, or clipped to your sunvisor of your car. When caught in a situation where you feel you are about to lose your temper with another person, take a minute to glance at that photograph. Imagine the words you are about to say being said to someone you love dearly. Remember that no matter how rude or unintelligent the person you are dealing with may seem to you, they, too, have people who love them. Try to treat them as you would have those you love be treated.

3. If you do not have a photograph when you feel yourself losing your cool, take a moment to remember the last time you had a REALLY bad day - and how you treated others on that day. It is a basic psychological principle that we tend to attribute angry words we say based on our feelings at the time (which are always changing), but we tend to judge other's anger or foolishness as a basic trait of their character. Remember that every one of us is human, and that the person you are dealing with may be having a day that is even worse than yours. Instead of making it worse, try to make their day better by treating them with civility and respect. Chances are, doing this will make your day improve as well.

There are two more suggestions for brief meditations that will help us center during the day. Do click through and read the whole article!

Wisdom

Elizabeth Thompson sent me the following:

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while the pessimist sees only the red stoplight. The truly wise person is colorblind.

-- Albert Schweitzer

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo art by Cynthia Burgess

Patience and equanimity

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

-- Carl Jung

Thought for the day

I've always liked this:

DO or DO NOT. There is no TRY.

--Yoda

The ocean breath: guided meditation exercise

Friday cat blogging!

Harriet

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

Interfaith meditation

I found an article entitled "ARKANSAS: Diocese building broad retreat ministry" that interested me very much. Take a look:

The Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas has begun a capital campaign to support House of Prayer, a new ministry of the diocese and St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, Little Rock.

The ministry is meant to provide a silent refuge for prayer and meditation to persons from all faith traditions as well as those with no church experience.

It also has the potential to unite the ecumenical community, according to Arkansas Bishop Larry Benfield.

Information about the House of Prayer capital campaign was mailed to all Episcopalians in Arkansas in May and is also available on the House of Prayer website.

It's very encouraging to learn of another diocese trying to do something similar to what St. John's Center is doing.

True wisdom

Here's something I just found that's by that wonderful author, "Anonymous"!

Mile by mile, life's a trial.
Yard by yard, it's not so hard.
Inch by inch, it's a cinch.

Take it one day at a time. Heck, take it one moment at a time.

"Thank you"

Here's something I found yesterday:

There are all sorts of books which describe how to meditate and what formulas to pronounce during these meditations. I do not deny that they are beautiful, useful, and effective. But there are two words which are never mentioned, words which for me are the most powerful of all, words which clarify, which harmonize, and which heal, and these words are "thank you".

-- Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Actually, I would not say that those words are "never" mentioned. But I agree that they are infrequently mentioned and that it would do us good to employ them often.

Wednesday cat blogging

Harriet Finlay

Sorry folks! I just can't wait until Friday to show you the newest member of my family who was adopted yesterday. Harriet was abandonned with her six little kittens and taken in by the Humane Society of Tulsa. She was on display at Woodland Central Animal Hospital where I take my dog every day for day care. I knew when the kittens were old enough that they would be easily adopted but I also knew that it would be hard to find a home for the mother. She has tugged at my heartstrings for weeks now.

Harriet is being isolated in the guest room while the other cats get used to her scent and sounds. She is very sociable and wants very much to join the others. But this needs to go slowly!

It's hard to get a picture of Harriet because she won't be still but you can be sure I'll try. More on Friday!

Music and Life

Meditating for peace

Here's a moving story about interfaith meditation. The headline is "Catholic, other religious leaders, laity try silence when peace talks fail":

ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka... Amid the barely audible hum of the air conditioners, more than 100 people – half of them local religious leaders, the other half lay guests – meditated on peace for six hours a day for five days, July 3-7.

Intense extended meditation was the cornerstone of the "Peace Building and Reconciliation" workshop run by Centre for Peace Building and Reconciliation (CPBR), which says meditation is common to all religions. So the Buddhists, Catholics, Hindus, Muslims and Protestants all sat in silence and meditated.

The organizers used silence to stress the urgent need for peace in a country plagued by decades of civil war between Tamil separatists and the Sinhalese-led government. They chose a conference room overlooking a large reservoir built by a long dead king that is renowned for its calm serenity.

To Sri Lankan Buddhists, ancient Anuradhapura is sacred because that is where bhavana (meditation) was introduced to Sri Lanka about 2,200 years ago.

Many locals and foreign tourists quietly watched the meditating people from corridors, an unusual sight in a tourist resort more attuned to entertainment.

Besides daily meditation, the participants also discussed the war and its vicious cycle of hatred and violence, and contemplated how to bring peace. An important meditation focused on love and compassion.

Perhaps it is too much to hope for that we all worship together but certainly we can keep silence together. How sad that it takes a civil war to make such a practice possible.

Awareness meditation

Here's an interesting meditation instruction from an article called "Meditation in a Busy Life":

Awareness meditation: This is simply the process of becoming consciously aware of your actions, your body, or your surroundings. This is an easy way to reduce stress, bring quiet or stillness to your mind, and bring calm understanding to almost any situation. It can also be done anywhere, anytime for a few seconds or for much longer periods. The technique is to simply notice what is happening. I like to use this when I need to relax or slow down, or when I start feeling worried or uptight about something. The point is to calm the mind and allow you to consciously decide where to put your attention rather than allowing your untamed thoughts to keep running the show.

* If you choose action awareness, focus your attention on exactly what you’re doing and how you experience it. If you are walking, become aware of how the sidewalk looks and how it feels when you put your foot down to take a step. Become aware of the temperature of the air surrounding you and the sounds in your environment. If you are eating, become aware of how your food looks, tastes and smells. Try to become aware of how your body feels as you eat. If you are washing dishes, become aware of how you hold the sponge and what the water feels like running across your hands.

* If you choose body awareness, try the process of feeling the energy flowing in your body. Can you feel the energy in your hands? There is life pulsing through your hands so there is definitely energy there! How about feeling energy in your legs or your shoulders? Can you locate any tension in your body and bring awareness to it? Notice how it feels.

* If you choose awareness of your surroundings, notice where you are, what you see, what it sounds like, what the temperature is, and whether there is silence that you can find between the sounds.

A wonderful description of meditation

This is from the website of the Samye Ling Tibetan Centre and Monastery in Scotland where I have spent some time. (Wonderful place!)

Meditation is the art of finding peace and happiness within by using simple methods of calming and stabilising our minds. Modern life can be stressful and busy. Most of the time we are carried along by the force of emotions, habits and conditioning to the point where we end up feeling nothing but tired and stressed by our everyday lives. Cultivating the practice of meditation can change this. Meditation can help bring about a natural sense of peace and well-being that can extend to every aspect of our lives. People who meditate regularly tend to sleep better, handle the ups and downs of daily life with more clarity and ease and relate to others with more compassion and warmth.

At the heart of it, meditation is simply the practice of paying attention to what we are doing while we are doing it, whatever this may be.

That's very consistent with my favorite definition of meditation which is "knowing what's happening while it's happening, no matter what it is."

Friday cat blogging!

Henry (hiding in closet)

Photo by Ellie Finlay

Trying to be "good"

Cynthia called this to my attention and I really like it:

You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.

--From A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

Consistency

I found a little article today called "5 Tips for Developing a Good Meditation Practice". Here's a little excerpt:

Meditation should be a pleasant and welcome experience, once you get into a routine, you may find your mind hankering for those moments of peace. But if you feel uncomfortable committing to 15-20 minute sessions, allow yourself the freedom to practice regularly and briefly. It's better to invest 5-10 minutes every day in meditation, that to sporadically enter into 30 minute meditation marathons. Remember the benefits of regularity, and focus on developing a self-healing habit that's easy for you to maintain.

Also, just because you miss a day doesn't mean you have to throw in the towel. Once a great musician was asked the secret of his success. He replied, "Whenever I get off track, I get back on." That really is the secret. Whenever you get off track in your meditative practice, just get back on!

A daunting observation

As you sow, so shall you reap:

This world is a mountain, in which your works are echoed back to you.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi

Make friends with the inner dragons

I'm amazed at how many people believe that by condemning themselves they can somehow do better. It actually doesn't work that way:

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

How very true

So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.

-- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Thoughtfulness

For some reason I decided to do a web search on the word, "thoughtfulness" a few minutes ago. In doing so, I found a website - a blog really - that related the following story:

I remember reading a story by Duras about a young English pilot who was shot down during WWII in a small town in France. The war was days from being over and this bold young 20 year old pilot was launching his attacks on the German troops wherever he could find them. One night his plane was shot down and landed atop a tree in a French village. He was nearly dead and the people of the village had no means to rescue him. So they gathered around the tree with torches and what musical instruments they had. All night long they sang to him and prayed for him and kept him company until his spirt left this world. The next day they managed to free his body from the wreckage. He was only a boy of 20, they didn’t even know his name. But they carried his body to one of their homes, cleaned it and washed it and wrapped it. They buried him by the church and every day they put flowers on his grave. For years and years. When Duras visited the village in the 1970s they were still putting flowers on the grave of this young, unknown, brave British pilot and they spoke of him with tender affection and admiration as if he belonged to them.

The posting is entitled "Sober Thoughtfulness" and it's by the writer, Kathleen Valentine.

Friday cat blogging!

Henry

Photo by Ellie Finlay

Past errors and present contacts

So far as past errors are concerned, forget them and start afresh, as if it were your first day in this body; but so far as your present contacts are concerned, be kind to them, as if it were your last day in this body.

-- Paul Brunton

Very good advice on thoughts

Here's how to handle thoughts arising in meditation:

Whatever thoughts and emotions arise in meditation, allow them to rise and settle, like the waves in the ocean. Whatever you find yourself thinking, let that thought rise and settle, without any constraint. Don't grasp at it, feed it, or indulge it, don't cling to it, and don't try to solidify it. Neither follow thoughts nor invite them; be like the ocean looking at its own waves, or the sky gazing down on the clouds that pass across it.

-- Sogyal Rinpoche

When we care what others think

Kay Huculak sent me the following:

What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.

- Paul Valery

That is certainly so very true. If we are bothered by someone else's opinion of us, it certainly is worthwhile to look within and see what that is about.

Transcend

I just read an article about Judy Collins and in it she quotes the following:

Disasters may well change us deeply, but they will pass. We must keep our deepest convictions and remember our goals. Whether we remain ash or become the phoenix is up to us.

All she says is that it's from a Zen 365-day meditation book. She doesn't mention the author's name.

Great quote

"Life and death are only temporary, but freedom goes on forever."

-- Last line of the movie Crazy in Alabama

Running away

But just remember the old saying: "Wherever you go, there you are!"

Pray and meditate for the healing of the earth

There is a movement afoot called "Fire the Grid" to try to get people to meditate in any way they please - according to their own belief systems - for the healing of the earth on Tuesday, July 17th at 11:11 Universal Time which will be 6:11 a.m. here in Oklahoma. The Center will be open at 6:00 a.m. for anyone who is willing to join me for this meditation.

Please go to the Fire the Grid website to read how this movement came about. It is a very, very moving story.

By the way, you don't have to believe in Shelley's interpretation of her experience in order to participate in the July 17th meditation. Obviously, something extraordinary happened to her. Feel free to interpret that according to your own world view and belief system.

You might like to watch this video in addition to visiting the website:



Part 2:



Now for Part 3:



Part 4:



You can find parts 5-8 at the source.

Let go or get dragged!

Here's something very wonderful by Lama Surya Das:

A friend of mine named Eva, who manages a Buddhist retreat center in the mountains of Switzerland, has a yellow sticky hanging above her mouse pad as a reminder. It says: “Let go or get dragged.” That about sums it up for me.

I have been thinking a lot lately about acceptance, and how it actually changes things. For example: have you ever noticed how hard it is to change your mate, while a little more acceptance goes a long way towards transforming your relationship? Ultimately, I can change myself; that is about as far as it goes, although the ripple effect definitely filters further outwards. In a deeper sense, transforming myself transforms the world.
...
Incessant craving and greed knows no end, like drinking salt water in a misguided attempt to alleviate thirst. Cultivating contentment and gratitude helps us appreciate what is given rather than focusing on what may be missing or imagined.

Radical acceptance implies unconditional friendliness, the kind of openness and love that allows us to meet life as it is; which never throws anyone out of our hearts, even if we don’t like what they may think, say or do.

So let us let go of our "incessant craving" that things be other than they are. This does not mean that we are to go passive in the face of wrongdoing, injustice, or disaster. It means that before we can do anything in a skillful way, we must first accept that things are as they are.

Friday cat blogging!

Leroy

Photo by Ellie Finlay

The only prayer

It's a well known saying but it bears repeating:

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

-- Meister Eckhart

Compassion and emotional maturity

Compassion is the ultimate and most meaningful embodiment of emotional maturity. It is through compassion that a person achieves the highest peak and deepest reach in his or her search for self-fulfillment.

--Arthur Jersild

American meditation: Finding liberty within

Today I found a web page describing what the authors call "American meditation". This couple writing together sees a connection between the politics of tyranny and the personal tyranny of stress and worry. Take a look:

In March, 1775, a group of patriots convened at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. At that convention a thirty-nine year old man rose to his feet to deliver one of the most inspiring speeches in world history. Although he spoke about the desire to be free from the tyranny and oppression of the British Crown, Patrick Henry’s words could very well apply to the stressful, complicated and uncertain nature of modern American life and our own personal desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. “They tell us that we are weak, unable to cope. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction---by lying supinely on our backs hugging the delusive phantom of hope---until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak---if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power.”

Names and forms have changed dramatically since Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech, but most human beings are no less plagued today by the painful stress of daily life, the desire for freedom from worry and the endless search for happiness. In addition to our own personal duties and responsibilities, the world around us presents many challenging uncertainties. With apologies to Thomas Paine, “These (too) are the times that try men’s souls.”

With history as our guide, it’s easy to conclude that the desire to end pain, misery and bondage is universal and timeless. How to fulfill that desire---in the midst of every circumstance and relationship---is the essence of American Meditation.

Concerning such provocative questions, Henry David Thoreau offers some helpful insight. “I went to the woods,” Thoreau explains, “because I wished to live life deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Unlike Thoreau, American Meditation does not require that we “go to the woods . . . to front the essential facts of life.” True freedom and happiness can only be experienced from within our own constellation of relationships. Toward that goal, life itself is the greatest of all teachers---if we can develop an ear to hear and an eye to see.

American Meditation provides the framework to experience the peace of mind and happiness we seek. Unlike the physical sciences which investigate the laws of the external universe, American Meditation is a tool for knowing our internal landscape, the nature of our consciousness. The sages teach that we are citizens of two worlds---the outer world of names and forms and the inner world of thoughts, desires and emotions. To be free, we must learn to act skillfully according to our objective knowledge of both worlds.

"American meditation" turns out to be classical meditation from an interfaith point of view. Certainly we would do well today to ponder what it is in our lives that oppresses, that keeps us in bondage, and be willing to do whatever it takes to live in liberty.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Inspiration

This is truly the most inspiring thing I have ever seen. Just watch it - please:

The beauty of life

An aspiration worth cultivating:

The beauty of life is, while we cannot undo what is done, we can see it, understand it, learn from it and change. So that every new moment is spent not in regret, guilt, fear or anger, but in wisdom, understanding and love.

-- Jennifer Edwards

Eagle meditation

Here's an interesting meditation I found today:

Eagle is a bird that views from the top. Its vision is amazingly sharp. In the same way, this meditation is practiced with open eyes to develop your physical and mental vision. Therefore it has been called Eagle Meditation.

With eyes open, ask yourself which all objects of red color are present around you?

On opening your eyes in the morning, while going to the washbasin, on the way see which red-colored objects are present. Search for at least 5 red objects around you.

Make a resolution every day to see different colors. Green the second day, blue the third day, orange some other day, and so on.

In this way, you will start knowing about the objects in your home. We have stopped seeing our home and the objects present there. With this meditation, we increase our power of observation. There are many things we have actually stopped seeing. But with this meditation, you will be surprised that you start seeing again. It may happen then when you decide upon pink color, then you don't easily get objects of this color. If you take violet, then you won't be able to see violet objects very easily. But if you want to see those colors, then you will have to see your whole house very carefully and meticulously.

After about after 12 days, all colours would have been exhausted. This is when your observation is truly put to test. There are many colors. Take different shades of a color such as light blue, dark blue, etc. and continue practicing this meditation.

This strikes me as a very effective exercise for cultivating observer consciousness.

About equanimity

Equanimity is one of the "Four Divine Abodes" or "Sublime States". I want to call your attention to a little essay I found that is simply called "Equanimity". Here is an excerpt:

From time to time, as we are passing through various experiences, we simply "fall into" states of relative equanimity. If we are alert to this whenever it happens and use it as an opportunity to explore the nature of equanimity, then it will happen more frequently and last longer.

For example, let's say that you have been working with a physical discomfort. At some point you notice that even though the discomfort level itself has not changed, it somehow seems to bother you less. Upon investigation you realize that you have spontaneously fallen into a state of gentle matter-of-factness. By being alert to this and by exploring the state, you are training your subconscious to produce the state more frequently.

Often we think of equanimity as being associated with Buddhism but take a look at the following:

Early and Medieval Christianity placed a great value on equanimity. Indeed it was considered one of the primary Christian virtues. This is because Christianity viewed itself as a path of radical spiritual cleansing (katharsis), with equanimity as the main tool for achieving this goal. The church fathers, who wrote primarily in Greek, had three words for equanimity:

Nepsis: "Sober observation"
Ataraxia: "Freedom from upset"
Apathia: "Dispassion"(N.B. Apathia does not equal apathy!)

In Christianity, the theory of purification through equanimity constituted a major branch of spiritual study known technically as "ascetical theology."

Whatever our belief system, equanimity is a quality worthy of cultivation. It contributes deeply to happiness and to the alleviation of suffering.

Friday cat blogging!

Mama cat adopts baby squirrels:



Here's a great lesson for all of us!

CNN on meditation

How interesting. I just found a CNN article on the benefits of meditation. It's called "Meditation: The key to calm" and here's part of what it says:

Says Maitreyabandhu of the London Buddhist Center, "Meditation is about being in life. People tend to think its about blanking your mind: it's not, it's about becoming more alive -- alive to your own experiences, the world and others."

How does it help?

According to many practitioners, learning meditation helps to manage daily stress, concerns and pressures. Says Maitreyabandhu, "Lots of people come to meditation because they want to relax. Some people come because they want to live more vividly. I meditate now because I want to gain some sort of transcendental awareness of the universe. It's about that experience that changes you completely - so it's not just a fluffy, relaxing, muesli eating thing."
...
As a result of our rushed lives we can also lose touch with ourselves. Meditation then becomes a way of "checking-in" and assessing how things are going.

Says Maitreyabandhu, "We can become alienated from our more subtle emotions. We are alienated from our bodies. There is a real need to get in contact with something alive. We easily get stuck on the surfaces of ourselves. In the west we forget the mind has depths. There are depths of the mind that are really satisfying and profound."

It's a good little article. Go read all of it if you have time.

Awareness meditation

Recent studies with brain scans have indicated that if we simply name our mind states they have less power over us. Here are instructions for an awareness meditation that enable us to do just that:

• Relax and focus on any meditation object.
• Make good contact with it. It is the seat from which you watch the stream.
• Every few seconds, name the most obvious thing in the mind, whether it is important or not: "sore knee ... hungry ... TV ... money ... traffic...."
• Don't lose contact with your basic meditation object. Spend at least half the time with it, and check that you're actually relaxing. In fact, go as deep into the object as you can without ignoring the peripheral thoughts and sensations.
• Notice how the scenery changes the deeper you relax.
• Notice that when you wait for thoughts, they often don't come!
• Enjoy the bland, impersonal quality of the clear mind.

By "bland" I don't think the writer means boring or unimportant but rather non-agitating and a state that does not prompt or stimulate attachments.

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

Another look at happiness

This is so true:

It is not by accident that the happiest people are those who make a conscious effort to live useful lives. Their happiness, of course, is not a shallow exhilaration where life is one continuos intoxicating party. Rather, their happiness is a deep sense of inner peace that comes when they believe their lives have meaning and that they are making a difference for good in the world.

-- Ernest A. Fitzgerald

Remember that the whole purpose of meditation is to alleviate suffering and promote happiness. Your meditative practice will help create the conditions within that make it possible for you to believe that your life has meaning and that you are making a difference.

One way to happiness

Epictetus is surely my favorite philosopher from ancient times:

There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

--Epictetus

Monday meditative picture blogging

Chicago Peace rose

Photo by Bill Miller

More on brain scans and meditation

I want to call your attention to another article on the neurological benefits of meditation. It's called "Brain scans show meditation changes minds, increases attention" and it's published in The University of Wisconsin-Madison News. Here's part of what it says:

For hundreds of years, Tibetan monks and other religious people have used meditation to calm the mind and improve concentration. This week, a new study shows exactly how one common type of meditation affects the brain.

Using a scanner that reveals which parts of the brain are active at any given moment, the researchers found that meditation increased activity in the brain regions used for paying attention and making decisions.
...
Practitioners were instructed to focus attention intently on a stimulus, and when the attention wandered off, to simply bring the attention back to the object, explains [study leader Richard] Davidson.
...
Davidson says scientific studies of meditation are proving traditional beliefs about the mental benefits of meditation. Yet although meditation is often associated with monks living a life of simplicity, poverty, and prayer, "There is nothing fundamentally mysterious about these practices; they can be understood in hard-nosed western scientific terms."

And, he adds, a growing body of "hard-nosed neuroscience research" is attracting attention to the profound effects of meditation.

This is not a matter of faith - although I do not want to belittle the role of faith in meditative practice. It is a matter of emperical demonstration. Meditation works. Please don't neglect it!

A new acquisition

"Light"

I just wanted to share with you all that I have recently bought the painting above and it should be delivered soon. It's going in my new living room.

If you haven't yet discovered the work of C. Robin Janning may I heartily recommend that you do so now. Here are her blog sites:

Gramercy Galleria

Gramercy Digital Diary

ECVA Sketchbook: Art in the Desert

I'm planning to save my pennies and acquire more of her work before too long!

Letting go

I decided to do a web search on the words "letting go" and see what I could find. I came across a little article on the About.com website entitled just that: Letting go. Here's part of what it says:

People who are very stressed often have increased muscle tension. This tension can result in headaches, neck and shoulder pain, joint pain (such as TMJ pain), and other problems. Various relaxation techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation, biofeedback, and hypnosis all help people reduce muscle tension. Physical approaches such as massage therapy and yoga can also be very helpful. People participating in these techniques learn to let go of this tension in their body. Many find it easy to let go of cares and worries during a time when they are also letting go of muscle tension.

We are beginning to discover that there are health benefits to letting go. People who worry a lot and hold on to problems may be more vulnerable to physical problems than people who are able to let go. Anger and hostility have even been associated with heart attack risk. At least two personality types have been connected with an increased risk of heart attack. Type A and Type D personalities both involve an inability to let go. The type A person is pressured and driven, while the type D person is worried and anxious. By learning to let go of cares, worries, anger, deadline pressure, and similar concerns we may be lengthening our lives. We are certainly making them more enjoyable.

What was not mentioned in the first paragraph of the excerpt is, of course, meditation. The "how" of letting go becomes clear to us as we practice mindfulness and/or "calm abiding" meditation. One more motivation, folks!

Alzheimer's and meditation

Well, early this morning I found a VERY interesting article about meditation called "Meditation holds hope for Alzheimer's in tiny, early study". If you EVER needed a reason to jump start your motivation to meditate, this is it:

For the first time, there is evidence that daily meditation appears to improve memory loss and may strengthen parts of the brain affected by Alzheimer's disease.

That has to be welcome news to the millions of Americans facing the threat of this brain-destroying disease — expected to strike in epidemic numbers among aging baby boomers in the coming decades.

However, experts warn that the study showing that meditation improved memory function and increased blood flow to vital areas of the brain lacked scientific controls and was too small to actually prove meditation can delay or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's.

Even so, the preliminary findings are provocative — suggesting that a simple, inexpensive mind-body exercise with known health benefits may fortify our brains against mental decline as we age.

The results were presented this month at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference on the Prevention of Dementia in Washington, D.C. The study was funded by a Tucson-based foundation.

Practiced for centuries in ancient cultures — and now studied for its effects on human health — meditation, in its various forms, indeed has proved good for the body and the brain.

Studies show it can reduce stress and pain, ease depression, lower blood pressure, boost the immune system, increase attention, and promote stability in handling crises.

This is the first study to indicate positive effects on memory.

Okay, folks. Even if the results aren't conclusive, they are, as the article says, provocative. And even if there's a CHANCE that meditation might help prevent or delay Alzheimer's, it's worth giving it a go.

The rest of the article is fascinating, by the way, so click through and read it all if you have the time to do so.

UPDATE: I just found an article entitled "Alzheimer's: Prevention, Treatment, and Slowing Down". It is excellent. I suggest we all study it and take it to heart.

Friday cat blogging!

Henry in my lap

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

An observation

I heard Writer's Almanac on NPR as I was driving to Oklahoma City for a meeting and was very struck with today's poem:

Thistles
for Persia

Under ledge, under tar, under fill
under curved blue stone of doorsteps,
under the aggregate of lakebed rock,
under loss and under hard words,
under steamrollers
under your heart,
it doesn't matter. They can live forever.
The seeds of thistles
push from nowhere, forming a rose of spikes
that spreads all summer until it
stands in a glory of
needles, blossoms, blazing
purple clubs and fists.

-- Louise Erdrich

There is something to be said for perseverance, tenacity.

Solstice

Well I don't want to be remiss about reminding you that today is the Summer Solstice. Actually it literally took place at exactly 18:06 UT (Universal Time) - what used to be called Greenwich Mean Time or GMT.

You might find it interesting to read the Relgious Tolerance article entitled "Summer solstice celebrations: ancient and modern".

Everyone, please do enjoy this, the longest day of the year!

Let's not be fools!

We will all do well to ponder the following:

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Pure silence

For some reason today I decided to do a search on the word "silence". I found an interesting site with which I do not entirely agree but which offers this gem:

Pure Silence is within you. It is not just the absence of sound, or lack of noise. It is the ground, the basis of your very being. There is nothing to find out, nothing to prove. Just listen with your whole being to what is here, now. It is the most amazing thing you can ever discover.

It is with you now. It is you. The only way to find this is to stop everything else. Everything! Just be.

What would happen if we gave ourselves permission to "just be"? I don't think that would mean we would turn passive and useless. I think it would mean that we would become free.

Tuesday meditation picture blogging

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

The value of compassion

I've called a number of articles to your attention recently about the effects of meditation on the brain. Here's another one from the Wall Street Journal called "Scans of Monks' Brains Show Meditation Alters Structure, Functioning". Here's an excerpt:

"We tried to generate a mental state in which compassion permeates the whole mind with no other thoughts," says Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk at Shechen Monastery in Katmandu, Nepal, who holds a Ph.D. in genetics.

In a striking difference between novices and monks, the latter showed a dramatic increase in high-frequency brain activity called gamma waves during compassion meditation. Thought to be the signature of neuronal activity that knits together far-flung brain circuits, gamma waves underlie higher mental activity such as consciousness. The novice meditators "showed a slight increase in gamma activity, but most monks showed extremely large increases of a sort that has never been reported before in the neuroscience literature," says Prof. Davidson, suggesting that mental training can bring the brain to a greater level of consciousness.

Using the brain scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging, the scientists pinpointed regions that were active during compassion meditation. In almost every case, the enhanced activity was greater in the monks' brains than the novices'. Activity in the left prefrontal cortex (the seat of positive emotions such as happiness) swamped activity in the right prefrontal (site of negative emotions and anxiety), something never before seen from purely mental activity. A sprawling circuit that switches on at the sight of suffering also showed greater activity in the monks. So did regions responsible for planned movement, as if the monks' brains were itching to go to the aid of those in distress.

"It feels like a total readiness to act, to help," recalled Mr. Ricard.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to cultivate that total readiness? The good news is that we can.

A truly healing practice

The purpose of meditation is to alleviate suffering and to promote happiness. Here's the first paragraph of a little article that explains this:

In the West, the word ‘meditation’ means a concentrated state of mind in serious reflection. The Latin root of the word meditation, mederi, means ‘to heal’. It is an effort to heal afflictions of the mind, the hurt ego, by trying to understand the cause of the problem and finding a way to solve it, that is, by knowing what counter-measures to take. To meditate thus, is to deepen a state of understanding.

We can heal ourselves if we truly want to. It takes time and it takes perseverance. But it really isn't very difficult.

No-self and kenosis

Clyde Glandon sent the following quote this morning:

We realize insight by practicing mindfulness of our body, feelings, mind and the objects of our mind... To reach truth is not to accumulate knowledge, but to awaken to the heart of reality... The doctrine of “not-self”... demonstrates to us that the concepts we have of things do not reflect and cannot convey reality. The world of concepts is not the world of reality. [note: Compare this “not self” of Zen meditative practice with the Christian concept of “kenosis,” or self-emptying, also practiced in contemplative prayer.]

-- Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Keys

I've always agreed that the Buddhist teaching of no-self is the same as the Christian "kenosis". Kenosis is a Greek work that means emptiness or "poured out".

Sunday gratitude blogging

This is EXCELLENT - simply excellent:

If you cannot be grateful for what you have received, then be thankful for what you have been spared.

- Yiddish proverb

Stress, obesity and meditation

I just found an article that looks at the connection between stress and obesity - particularly childhood obesity - and suggests that meditation is an important factor in addressing this problem:

Obesity among U.S. children has become of the most pressing health concerns for Americans current and future well-being...Uniting Americans in this epidemic is chronic stress, a risk factor that is enhancing our understanding of obesity and its potential treatments. Clinical respect is developing for the view that "stress is a risk factor for chronic illnesses such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension ... exhibiting greater weight, BMI and abdominal circumference," all of which are conditions that plague the U.S. population.
...
While scrunched faces and head-scratching often accompany the mention of "meditation," its techniques have proven to be one of the most effective non-pharmacological interventions for various ailments. Recent studies credit meditation with large improvements in mood and emotion, both of which are linked to more extreme eating and exercise habits. A study by the Duke University Department of Psychiatry found that "even brief instruction in a simple meditation technique can improve negative mood and perceived stress in healthy adults, which could yield long-term health benefits. ... Those most likely to experience negative emotions may benefit the most from the intervention." Children would presumably show an even greater result since the technique could be utilized at a preventative rather than a curative level of care. Also, currently obese children — widely reported as experiencing low self-esteem and self concept — could make major strides in enhancing their overall health by improving mood and emotion. This is a highly efficient means of stress reduction, with relatively low costs to train teachers in guiding simple meditation and priceless improvements in children's overall well-being.

Unfortunately, many fundamentalists believe that meditation is of the devil and so would object to having it taught in school. It would be wonderful if we could convince the naysayers that meditation is theologically neutral. One can be of any religious belief and none and still meditate.

Have you changed?

This is very interesting:

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

- Nelson Mandela

Friday cat blogging!

Leroy and Henry

(It's an old picture but I think it's a hoot!)

43 Things

I have just discoverd a website called 43 Things. It poses the question, "What do you want to do with your life?" and assists in helping participants reinforce their commitment to those aspirations.

I'm amazed at the number of people who want to learn to meditate or simply to meditate. As I write, 984 people want to learn to meditate.

Check out the site right here: http://www.43things.com/

Another reason to cultivate kindness

Isn't this lovely?

Kindness does wonderful things to a face.

-- Dixie Doyle

Light a candle

It's been a while since I've told you about the Gratefulness.org website. It's a wonderful place to go for consolation and inspiration and one of the things you can do there is light a virtual candle. We light a candle for someone's intention. That's a way of saying that we dedicate the action of actually lighting the candle as well as the symbolism of the light for a particular purpose. It's a way of helping us focus. Try it - both on line and in real life! (But be sure with real candles never to leave them unattended.)

UPDATE: I was wandering among the candles lit on the Gratefulness.org website and found this message by a candle:

Dearest Godchild Hannah, May my suffering be a substitute for your suffering now and forever. Blessings on your week!

— Aunt Shelly from NY, United States

This is an intuitive form of Tonglen - the "taking and sending" Tibetan meditation. How wonderful! A very fine instruction on this form of prayer or meditation is the little essay by Pema Chödrön called THE PRACTICE OF TONGLEN. Do click through and read it.

About that attachment to "progress"

Last night a priest friend, Clyde Glandon, sent me the following monastic story that I'd heard before but forgotten about:

"So, what is it that you do up here?" asked the inquirer who had never traveled up the hill to visit the monastery above his town.

The monk, who was sitting on a big rock that day, replied: "We fall down and we get up, we fall down and we get up, we fall down and we get up."

--Origin unknown

This is so true. And it's not something to be depressed about but rather to accept on a very deep level. Nothing will give us greater compassion or empathy for others than the realization that we ourselves continue to struggle and always will. Acceptance of this reality will give us a peace of mind we can cultivate no other way.

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo by Cynthia Burgess