Resolutions II: starting over

The cultural cliché of New Year resolutions is, however, based on a deep pattern, reflecting nature at this time. It seems evident that there is a need to mark change at this time, be it at New Year, the Winter Solstice or in Advent. We too look for the new to emerge from what is resting or decaying, just as nature does at this time. Unfortunately our need to participate in this natural rhythm can make us pressured and down, far from the natural growth it intends to imitate.

So how do we work with this good desire for change, without falling into the culturally-driven anxiety around our life or our career, our fitness, or our goals? How can we look at the desire for major life change without falling into self-criticism and judgement? We can best do this by bringing mindfulness and the attitudes which ground it to our desire for self improvement, to prevent us from running after something, no matter how worthwhile it seems, which will just substitute one form of unhealthy striving for another. Change which is not based on the attitudes of kindness and acceptance of self will only lead to a waste of energy and greater frustration.

Bringing mindfulness to our desire for change can help us focus on our intention. Is it to find greater harmony and balance in ourselves? Or is it focused on greater acceptance by others, or a desire to fit into an external story as to what is right, successful or happy? Looking at the story we are telling ourselves behind the desire for change is one of the gifts that mindfulness can bring. The possibility of genuine change begins with accepting oneself at the deepest level of one's core sense of self. Befriending ourselves, not running away from ourselves, allows any change come in a natural way, and is therefore sustainable.

Thus any aspiration we make these day needs to be firm and realistic without becoming rigid. We can do this by not placing the emphasis on controlling the outcome, but focus on starting out and starting over and over again each time we falter and fail. We practice non-judgement towards ourselves and simply say when things go wrong, "I was doing well and I will start again". In this way our desire for new growth proceeds in a steady but gentle way, and we do not waste time and energy on criticizing ourselves or getting discouraged.

This shift in focus is attitudinal: You simply do what you care about as well as you can. This is a humble attitude, but it is exactly what's needed for you to sustain your resolution. In so doing, you free yourself from your judging mind that thinks it can control results and creates the grandiose expectation that you can do more than you can do in the present moment. You become a more effective person by simply learning to use your time and energy to do what you can do right now.

Phillip Moffitt

Resolutions I : Judging

In many ways celebrating the end of the year today is an arbitrary choice, having little or no meaning. We have seen that the Church calendar started New Year already four weeks ago, while the ancient Celts marked their new year at Halloween. For other peoples and faiths, the Winter Solstice on December 21st marks the turning from one year's darkness into a new years light.

And yet this day can take on a lot of meaning for people and can provide fertile ground for the judging mind. It is true that discerning, comparing and evaluating are part of the function of the mind and necessary in many contexts. Discernment in particularly can be accompanied by gentle kindness and contains wisdom and openness. However, this is not always the case with judging which we get so used to that often we do not realise we are doing it. Whatever we are looking at, in every situation, there is a constant commentary going on in our heads – that is not good, she is wrong, that is ugly, what a rude person. We frequently notice the mind coming to immediate conclusions about people we hardly know; spontaneously finding some things wrong with this or that person.

Unfortunately, we tend to turn the judging mind on ourselves, especially on a day like today. We have not "achieved" as much as we wanted this past year, we do not have a good a social life as those who are going to nice parties this evening, we are not doing as well as we think we should be. These fear-driven observations then give rise to (unconsciously) fear-driven resolutions " I will do such-and-such next year" "I will do better, do more..." If we look deeply we can notice a heaviness associated with these resolutions, a hint of pushing and impatience. This type of thinking is just another aspect of our inability to accept ourselves without the spontaneous wish to fix ourselves, and tends ultimately just to lead to more dissatisfaction. Pushing to change ourselves based on unwholesome motivations will not lead to greater contentment with ourselves or our lives in the long run. Furthermore, these motivations tend not to produce the commitment needed for real change so do not last.

What would it be like today just to have one resolution: to accept ourselves deeply as we are, dropping the judging mind which splits the world into "them" and "me". If we stopped the mind's continual question - "what's wrong with me" - for a year, what type of change would that lead us to?

When you dwell in stillness, the judging mind can come through like a foghorn. "I don't like the pain in my knee... This is boring...I like this feeling of stillness; I had a good meditation yesterday, but today I'm having a bad meditation... It's not working for me. I'm no good at this. I'm no good, period..."

This type of thinking dominates the mind and weighs it down. It's like carrying around a suitcase full of rocks on your head. It feels good to put it down. Imagine how it might feel to suspend all your judging and instead to let each moment be just as it is, without attempting to evaluate it as "good" or "bad." This would be a true stillness, a true liberation. Meditation means cultivating a non-judging attitude toward what comes up in the mind, come what may.

Jon Kabat Zinn

Ways of seeing

I remember one afternoon as I was sitting on the steps of our monastery in Nepal. The monsoon storms had turned the courtyard into an expanse of muddy water, and we had set out a path of bricks to serve as stepping-stones. A friend of mine came to the edge of the water, surveyed the scene with a look of disgust, and complained about every single brick as she made her way across. When she got to me, she rolled her eyes and said, “Yuck! What if I’d fallen into that filthy muck? Everything’s so dirty in this country!” Since I knew her well, I prudently nodded, hopping to offer her some comfort through my mute sympathy.

A few minutes later, Raphaele, another friend of mind, came to the path through the swamp. “Hup, hup, hup!” she sang as she hopped, reaching dry land with the cry, “What fun!” Her eyes sparkling with joy, she added: “The great thing about the monsoon is that there’s no dust.” Two people, two ways of looking at things; six billion human beings, six billion worlds.

Matthieu Ricard "A Way of Being."

Mindfulness and Social Anxiety

Most people get nervous when asked to give a presentation or meet a new group of people. However, for those who suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder, also known as Social Phobia, the idea of addressing a crowd often triggers more than just jittery nerves. Headaches, sleep problems and persistent thoughts of failure or embarrassment are common. This anxiety may be provoked by a variety of social situations, not just public speaking, but also by challenges such as participating or presenting at meetings or talking with a group of people.

In a study at Stanford University, headed by psychology researcher Philippe Goldin, participants with Social Anxiety Disorder underwent the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Programme. Results of the study were published in the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy in early 2009. Goldin focused on the negative thoughts which dominate the anticipated future for those suffering from anxiety: "The idea is that if a person has the psychological flexibility to shift freely from one mode of thinking to another mode, then that is a sign of health, It's when we get stuck in certain thinking patterns that our beliefs become maladaptive.". The study found that mindfulness meditation helped patients develop this flexibility.

On a day-to-day level, Goldin encourages patients battling Social Anxiety Disorder to take "meaningful pauses" throughout the day as a way to monitor and take charge of their fears and self-doubts. "It breaks the circuit," says one participant. "I always thought that anxiety had me in its grip, but I realized it's the other way around. I have it in my grip. It's a matter of learning to let it go."

Looking inside

“Your vision will become clear
only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens.”

C.G. Jung

Solitude

One reason we do sitting meditation is to strengthen our capacity to be with ourselves. It is, as has been said, a profound act of gentleness towards ourselves, because we allow ourselves to simply be, without any need to achieve or do. It is a calm moment, touching genuine natural calmness within. This development of our capacity to be alone with ourselves is a key to happiness, growth and to real relationships with others. It is not a surprise that all the major wisdom and religious traditions recommend setting aside time, or a day, to pause, rest and be with ourselves.

No other person will completely feel like we do, think like we do, act like we do. Each of us is unique, and our aloneness is the other side of our uniqueness. The question is whether we let our aloneness become loneliness or whether we allow it to lead us into solitude. Loneliness is painful; solitude is peaceful. Loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation; solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community.

Letting our aloneness grow into solitude and not into loneliness is a lifelong struggle. It requires conscious choices about whom to be with, what to study, how to pray, and when to ask for counsel. But wise choices will help us to find the solitude where our hearts can grow in love.

Henri Nouwen

The Gift

For my Father, buried this day, 1973.

Did someone say that there would be an end,
An end, Oh, an end, to love and mourning?
What has once been so interwoven cannot be raveled,
nor the gift ungiven.
Now the dead move through all of us still glowing....
What has been plaited cannot be unplaited -
only the strands grow richer with each loss
and memory makes kings and queens of us.
When all the birds have flow to some real haven,
we who find shelter in the warmth within,
Listen, and feel new-cherished, new-forgiven,
As the lost human voices speak through us
and blend our complex love,
Our mourning without end.

May Sexton, All Souls

A Change in tone

Today broke very cold and frosty after some mild and wet days. An abrupt change when things were proceeding in a certain direction. It is the feast of St Stephen, a tale of violent death. It is striking that this feastday is celebrated one day after the birth of a child, the Prince of Peace. Perhaps to draw attention to the reality of our changing experience, that sadness can follow joy very quickly, or disappointment come when least expected. Or maybe to the reality of the world, as many people experience violence and hatred every day, no matter what time of year.

You can see that there are seasons in your life in the same way as there are seasons in nature. There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they fade. And finally, of course, there are times of cold and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream.

These rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing, not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are. If you realize that each phase of your life is a natural occurrence, then you need not be swayed, pushed up and down by the changes in circumstance and mood that life brings.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, How to Rule

Do not be afraid

It is striking that the first words spoken by the angels in the Christmas Story are "Do not be afraid". They echo the words frequently said to people in the Old Testament or in the Gospel. It is as if one of the most important messages needed to be communicated to us in our lives is for us not to be limited by our fears. The mind likes to dwell in fear. In fact, it is amazing to notice how much of our day-to-day life is tinged with an undercurrent of fear, which lurks behind a lot of our habits. It is why it is so hard to just sit still or stand still — not doing anything in particular — without feeling anxious or fidgety.

However, different spiritual traditions teach that true human freedom and joy is possible under any circumstances, if we know where to look. One starting place is with ourselves, by developing a kindness and warmth towards ourselves, by cultivating the eyes of these angels towards our inner self. Maybe these divine visitors see more clearly into our true nature, and remind us to look to that, and not to the fearful thoughts that discourage us. At times we find it easier to see ourselves in a limited and impoverished way, with our repeated patterns of thinking reminding us that we are weak or struggling. These texts can help us fully acknowledged our dignity and the natural courage deep inside us. They encourage us to believe, to dare, to open up to possibilities. Fully becoming who we are begins with where we are, actually, at this point in our lives. If they can see goodness and courage in us, why can't we?

Tenderness

The tender mercy of our God has come to visit us Luke 1: 78

For Christmas morning, on seeing the mystery of a God come as a child


Tenderness is the language of the body as a mother holds her child, as a nurse touches a patient's wound, or as an assistant bathes someone with a disability. Recently in a buddhist monastery, I watched a sister as she served us food and tea with great delicacy; it was as if the meal itself was sacred, revealing a presence of God. And so it did, because it was treated so.

Tenderness is the language of the body speaking of respect: the body honours what it touches. It honours reality. It does not act as if reality has to be changed or possessed; reality belongs to humanity and to God. Is not this the way we should relate to all living beings, plants, animals and the earth?

Isaiah wrote about the Messiah
"He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard on the street;
a bruised reed he will not break
and a flickering wick he will not quench"

Jean Vanier Becoming Human

What We Feel is not who we are, Part Two

Another reflection on a similar theme to the earlier post by Henri Nouwen, this time from a Buddhist perspective:

It is essential to understand that an emotion is merely something that arises, remains and then goes away. A storm comes, it stays a while, and then it moves away. At the critical moment remember you are much more than your emotions. This is a simple thing that everyone knows, but you may need to be reminded of it: you are more than your emotions.


Thich Nhat Hahn, Healing Pain and Dressing Wounds

Not looking forward

Advent is a season of waiting, it is true, but not in the sense of thinking everything is going to change in the future. It allows the cultivation of patience as one of the interior attitudes necessary for a happy life. However, it does not encourage us to fall into the trap of comparing our life now with some future happiness, thus increasing our discontent now.

Peace can only exist in the present moment. It is ridiculous to say “Wait until I finish this, then I’ll be free to live in peace”. What is “this”? A diploma, a job, a house, the payment of debt? If you think that way peace will never come. There is always another “this” that will follow the present one. If you are not living in peace at this moment, you’ll never be able to. If you truly want to be at peace, you must be at peace right now. Otherwise there is only hope for peace “some day.”


Thich Nhat Hahn, The Sun my Heart

Mindfulness and some anxiety problems

Mindfulness has been studied in the treatment of certain anxiety complaints, with some promising results. In meta-analyses carried out by Baer in 2003 and Bishop in 2002, it was found to reduce distress across a number of anxiety disorders, including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This is perhaps not surprising because neurobehavioural research has found that the orbital frontal cortex in the brain is involved in people making emotional assessments and judgements about danger in their environment. This part of the brain can be overactive in people with obsessive compulsive disorder, with the increases in metabolism giving a heightened feeling that something is wrong. Because mindfulness trains a person to observe inner experiences with calm and without immediately responding to them, it can assist people to learn different behaviours in response to their anxious feelings. For people with OCD, this means that they can notice what is happening at a certain moment rather than automatically engaging in a ritual or compulsive behaviour.

These finding were supported by a small study conducted on a student population by Hanstede, Gidron, and Nyklicek, published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease in 2008, which found that mindfulness had a significant effect on OCD symptoms, letting go, and thought-action fusion.

Not knowing

I would love to live
Like a river flows
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.

John O'Donoghue

Patience

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The Season of Advent places an emphasis on waiting in patience and in silence. We often do not know what is really going on in the overall plan for our lives. One metaphor used for this is the farmer who waits for the fields to produce the crop he has planted many months earlier by seed.

There are plenty of opportunities for patience in our lives these busy days. Being stuck in an airport because of flight delays, road and rail travel in chaos due to bad weather, even longer queues than normal at the checkout. However, most of the we don’t like waiting. And often when things go against us, or we get frustrated we certainly don’t wait in silence. A lot of the time, we hurry and we push. We split time into tenths of seconds. When stressed we get anxious when a traffic light turns red and holds us up for a bit.

If we practice with these small opportunities for patience we may grow in the wisdom needed to see the overall plan in our lives. The model for this type of patience at this time is Mary, about to give birth. Like all the figures in Scripture she can be seen as a model for our interior and psychological life, showing a wisdom that leads to true happiness. She prepared to give birth, faced with the difficulties of travel at that time. She did not know what was happening to her, who this child to be born was, what her overall life purpose was. But she trusted and, we are told, " pondered all these things in her heart". At times all we can do is wait and trust, not knowing, living in the present moment.

What We Feel is Not Who We Are

From the Christian author Henri Nouwen, some ways of working with negative thoughts, from a deeper perspective of our inner self, rooted in meaning:

"Our emotional lives move up and down constantly. Sometimes we experience great mood swings from excitement to depression, from joy to sorrow, from inner harmony to inner chaos. A little event, a word from someone, a disappointment in work, many things can trigger such mood swings. Mostly we have little control over these changes. It seems that they happen to us rather than being created by us.

Thus it is important to know that our emotional life is not the same as our spiritual life. Our spiritual life is the life of the divine within us. As we feel our emotions shift we must connect our spirits with the Spirit of God and remind ourselves that what we feel is not who we are. We are and remain, whatever our moods, God's beloved children."

Solstice

At Newgrange in Ireland, a huge Neolithic burial chamber dating from about 3200 BC was built in such a way that sunlight reached into the inner chamber just once during the year, at dawn on this day, the winter solstice.

It seems that many ancient people held special celebrations around this time, attuned as they were to the rhythm of nature. It is certainly true that the divine was recognized intensely by the Celts and other peoples in the workings of nature and easily discerned in the changing seasons. We can only wonder what this meant for them, and ask does it mean anything similar to us now?

In spite of all our modern technology, a huge part of our mood is related to the sun, and we are ever more conscious of the weather. It may be that there is a deep interior need to mark the shortest day by reminding ourselves of the light, of renewal or rebirth. Even at the darkest point of winter, we can believe in the return of the Sun. It reminds us that no matter how dark our interior life can become, light can still penetrate to illuminate and warm us.

May we too celebrate hope and light on this day.

Seeing life from your own stories

"Have you ever noticed that
when you get on the highway at rush hour
that it is everyone else who is the traffic,
never you?"

Ajahn Armaro.

Sunday morning

Every moment is a fresh beginning.

T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party

Transitions

One metaphor used for our lives is that of a journey. Sometimes we can get insights when we travel, on a plane, in a car or simply walking. A journey can help us understand the changes we are experiencing in our life. It can have three parts: a beginning, an ending, and a neutral zone. It can be seen as a rite of passage, a movement from one period to another in our lives.

Often we think of change as setting out, a new beginning, but to do so jumps over the other two necessary and important components. Often setting out starts easily, or is prompted by new encounters or a change in circumstances. However, it is strangely in in the neutral zone that we can go through feelings such as loss, doubt, anxiety and confusion that we are most vulnerable, and yet unexpectedly most open to creative growth. We need to trust the process of the journey, to believe that it will lead to a new place. Not always the destination we imagined at the start. However, the only way to learn about life is to explore.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

AnamChara : Soul Friendship

The practice of meditation is an investment of time in our inner life. This can often appear strange or a waste of time to people today. Today's world has no difficult with us investing time and energy into our career, our body or relationships and seeing that this will lead to our happiness. However, meditation and other practies which nourish our inner selves and our sense of meaning can be less valued. However, true, lasting happiness, in the deepest sense, is somehow connected to our development of those aspects of our life.

This may be especially true when faced with the big questions, such as death or illness, or at times of difficulty or inner strife, as we tend to turn to the values which we have chosen to underpin our day-to-day existence. Often what is revealed is that our real, actual, refuges at times of stress are things like alcohol, food, sex, shopping and so forth. At times like these we show what defines our humanity. The question we fall back to is how do we take on difficult reality as it unfolds, navigate it, while staying truly awake and alive in this moment of life, whatever its shape. How can we pay attention to the deepest stirrings of our inner lives in dialogue with the ever-changing circumstances of the world in which we live.

One reason we may take refuge in things other than our inner self is that we are afraid to let others see us as scared or needy in times of difficulty. That is why our relationships have to be open to all aspects of our being, including the development of our inner lives. As adults we have the difficult task of developing our own self-nurturance while remaining open to deep relationships with others. For this reason, relationships which are safe and allow us reveal our inner selves - withour struggles and weaknesses - are one of the greatest blessings in our lives.

The late poet, philosopher and priest John O'Donoghue made popular the notion of Anamchara, an Irish word from early monastic times, which meant a spiritual director or one whom you shared your spiritual life with. The translation of the word means "soul friend". In O'Donoghue's writing it has a wider sense than the original but is deeper than word "soul mate" used in English today. It means a true friendship, which is open to the deepest values in the person. This sort of friendship comes rarely into a person's life and one is truly fortunate when it occurs:

"With an Anam Cara you can share your innermost self, your mind and your heart. This friendship was an act of recognition and belonging. In everyone's life there is a great need for an Anam Cara, the superficial and functional lies and half truths of acquaintance fall away, with them you can be as you really are. Anam Cara's understand where you are coming from and understanding is precious, where you are understood you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging".

When you love, you open your life to an Other. All your barriers are down. Your protective distances collapse. This person is given absolute permission to come into the deepest temple of your spirit. Your presence and life can become their ground. It takes great courage to let someone so close. When you are blessed with an “Anam Cara”, the Irish believe, you have arrived at that most sacred place: home. This bond between friends is indissoluble: “This, I say, is what is broken by no chances, what no interval of time or space can sever or destroy, and what even death itself cannot part”.

Strength

The second antiphon moves from creation to the theme of God intervening in history, revealing himself to Moses and leading him out of slavery in Egypt. He then shows a way towards happiness in his law. The ancient metaphor of an arm outstretched is a way of talking about strength and protection.

We too need to draw on many sources of strength, both internal and external, as we move into unfamiliar territory or leave behind those places in our lives where we have been held captive. Egypt is not simply a country; the Hebrew word Mitzraim means “a narrow place.” Going out from Egypt means going from a narrow place, a place where we are stuck, to a wider place, a place where we are free. So often we get trapped in "narrow places", stuck in situations or in our views of our own capabilities. At times of change we need to keep our focus on words and ideas that give us strength, that link us to our fearless nature.

O Adonai, and Leader of the house of Israel,
You appeared to Moses in the burning bush,
and gave him the Law on Sinai:
come and save us with an outstretched arm.

A poem in memory of those who are no longer with us

For my Father, who died just before Christmas
and for all those whose passing we mark at this time.

Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or might or pain can reach you.

We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us:

To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.

John O’Donohue

Wisdom

Today marks the beginning of the immediate preparation for the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ. For the next seven days the liturgy sings the O Antiphons, beautiful ancient invocations, chanted since the fifth century. They can easily become wishes to guide us through each day. Today's one is a prayer for wisdom.

In the Old Testament wisdom was a quality in the person which was seen as coming down from God. Thus it was something we cultivated that tuned us into a deeper perspective. It is something that we all need in order to see things clearly and get a balance in our lives.

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other,
and softly putting order in all things:
Come and teach us the way of balance.

Melting our difficulties

It has begun to get quite cold here and a lot of snow is forecast for the weekend. The barrel used to gather rainwater in the garden has a solid layer of ice on top. It reminded me of this passage, about how we can feel when problems and accompanying difficult emotions turn our warm heart - or our courage - into a solid frozen mass within us.

Our habits and patterns can feel just as frozen as ice. But when spring comes, the ice melts. The quality of water has never really disappeared, even in the deepest depths of winter. It just changed form. The ice melts, and the essential fluid, living quality of water is there. Our essential good heart and open mind is like that. It is here even if we're experiencing it as so solid we could land an airplane on it.

When I'm emotionally in midwinter and nothing I do seems to melt my frozen heart and mind, it helps me to remember that no matter how hard the ice, the water hasn't really gone anywhere. It's always right here.

So I work on melting that hardness by generating more warmth, more open heart. A good way for any of us to do this is to think of a person toward whom we feel appreciation or love or gratitude. In other words, we connect with the warmth that we already have. If we can't think of a person, we can think of a pet, or even a plant. Sometimes we have to search a bit. But as Trungpa Rinpoche used to say, "Everybody loves something. Even if it's just tortillas." The point is to touch in to the good heart that we already have and nurture it.

Pema Chodron, Shambala Sun, 1998

Let Go

Sometimes we notice that we put a lot of our hopes into how we wish people, career or situations should be. We often project onto others, or onto the future, all that we unconsciously want to experience or feel is lacking in our own lives at this moment. We can build up stories around things fixed in certain ways. However, life, no matter how much we would like it to be, is never fixed, not even briefly. It is always changing. It can let us down. These changes have a way of loosening projections, and this allows us, even in the midst of disappointment and desolation, to take responsibility for our own happiness.

We need to recognize, let go and move on. Recognize the need for happiness which has been placed onto the person, the event or the future development. Let go of the projections and the unconscious baggage we have placed on them. Move on, letting the past take care of itself and keeping ones focus on the present. The easiest starting point to work on this is to notice the tendency to want things to be different from what they are and to practice giving up that strong preference.

By letting it go it all gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try.
The world is beyond the winning.

Lao Tzu

Balance

"When we are well with ourselves, then whatever happens, it really doesn't matter, because we have equilibrium and stability. We don't feel any lack of confidence.

If not, we're always on edge, waiting to see how someone reacts to us, what people say to us or think about us. Our confidence hangs on what people tell us about how we are, how we look, how we behave.

When we are really in touch with ourselves, we know ourselves beyond what others may tell us. So these three qualities - a good heart, stability, and spaciousness - these are really what you could call basic human virtues".

Sogyal Rinpoche

After A Stroke

I read a very interesting interview with Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist and spokeswoman for the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, who had a stroke that damaged her left hemisphere. For a period she could not walk, talk, read, write, or remember many of the incidents of her life. She underwent major brain surgery to remove a golf-ball-sized clot in her brain’s left hemisphere. She describes her experiences in the book My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey.

In the book she draws attention to brain patterns or circuity, and states that we have much greater choice in the circuits we run than we think we have. For example when we get sad or angry or fearful she says we have a choice - to run with that circuity or to observe it. It can be easier to engage the circuitry and then it becomes us. We identify with the emotion - I am my anger, I am my sadness, I am my fear.

However, there is another approach which is to say - I am in this moment running this circuitry; is this the circuitry I really want to run? And how long am I going to run it? She states that we do have a real choice on which way we want to go. When angry we can be aware of the process of anger and see it as the brain working in a certain way, or as she says "I’m running my anger circuitry, I can feel what this is like in my body". Then, she believes, we have a choice if we want to stay with it or not.

She also writes about how we can develop this capacity to observe our brain circuity. I think the most important thing is to consciously choose to bring your mind to the present moment. How do you do that? You decide that you’re going to see what your eyes are looking at; you bring your consciousness to the present moment. When you are going up the stairs, you look at the steps, you look at the handrail. Most of us unconsciously climb the steps, never think about the steps, can’t even say what the color of the carpet is, if there is a carpet, because we’re somewhere else.

Pay attention to the present moment. Bring your mind, bring your ears to the present moment, start savoring the awareness of the information you perceive in the present moment, and let that grow. And it’s like with any circuitry: the more you concentrate on it and experience it, the more it will develop itself.

The full interview can be found in Spirituality and Health, May/June 2009

Gaudete

"Rejoice always." 1 Thess 5:16

It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look. - St. Francis of Assisi

Today,the third Sunday of Advent, is called Gaudete Sunday from the Latin word Gaudete, "Rejoice". The season of Advent originally was a fast of forty days in preparation for Christmas, starting the day after the feast of St. Martin (12 November), and was called “St. Martin’s Lent” from as early as the fifth century. This Sunday was a break from the penitential atmosphere in that it focused on joy because the coming celebration was near. Originally the reason to be always happy was due to the belief in the immanent return of Jesus. Nowdays the injunction becomes an inner wisdom, directing us to notice what is good and not stay with the mind's habitual tendency to see what is negative. It also points us towards finding true contentment with how our life is actually at this moment.

The Spiritual life can often be seen as a serious business and can become heavy and even oppressive. Joy is not always associated with it. G.K. Chesterton had the right idea on the need to keep a light touch and not take ourselves too seriously:

Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. This has been always the instinct of Christendom, and especially the instinct of Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented all his angels, not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Seriousness is not a virtue. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.

Memory

A similar theme, in the greatest of the Irish poets.
I suppose we all have "mountain hares" that we struggle to let go of - people, events, hurts, childhood stories, family myths.



One had a lovely face,
And two or three had charm,
But charm and face were in vain
Because the mountain grass
Cannot but keep the form
Where the mountain hare has lain.

W.B. Yeats

Letting things define us

It is strange that we can define ourselves, at times, by what we do not have. The mind seems to have a great capacity to compare its condition to other more "desirable" conditions. This can include losses we perceive ourseves to have had. When we look at our life in terms of what we do not have, or what did not work out for us, we feel a deep sense of lack and can cultivate a profound sense of dissatisfaction. If we spend more time noticing what we have lost rather than what we actually have, it is clear that, paradoxically, it is not truly lost, but is still present and recurring in a transformed form to remind us or even haunt us with its presence.

Losing too is still ours;
and even forgetting
still has a shape in the kindgdom of transformation.

When something's let go of, it circles;
and though we are rarely the center of the circle,
it draws around us its unbroken, marvelous curve.”

Rilke

Two Simple thoughts

"Wherever there is a human being,
there is an opportunity for a kindness".

Seneca

"Thousands of candles can be lit
from a single candle,
and the life of the candle
will not be shortened.

Happiness never decreases
by being shared".

The Buddha

Born to help

There was an interesting article recently
in the New York Times
saying that generosity and kindness may be innate:

www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01human.html?_r=2&emc=eta1

Innate or not they can certainly be cultivated. We are always practicing something, and in today's rushed world it can often be impatience and fighting to get our own way. It is good to practice kindness and patience at times during the day because it strengthens our patterns of behaving in those ways.

It seems that reflecting on compassion may also help. Research at the University of Wisconsin used advanced brain imaging to show that meditation may increase the human capacity for empathy.

In the study, researchers compared brain activity in meditation experts with that of subjects just learning the technique (16 in each group). They measured brain activity, during meditation and at rest, in response to sounds—a woman in distress, a baby laughing, and a busy restaurant—designed to evoke a negative, positive, or neutral emotional response.

The researchers found that both the novice and the expert meditators showed an increased empathy reaction when in a meditative state. However, the expert meditators showed a much greater reaction, especially to the negative sound, which may indicate a greater capacity for empathy as a result of doing meditation.

Mindfulness Approaches and Depression

A study, published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, claimed that Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy was as effective as maintenance anti-depressants in preventing a relapse into depression and more effective in enhancing peoples' quality of life. The study also showed MBCT to be as cost-effective as prescription drugs in helping people with a history of depression stay well in the longer-term.

Funded by the British Medical Research Council, the study was led by Professor Willem Kuyken at the Mood Disorders Centre, University of Exeter, in collaboration with the Centre for Economics of Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, Peninsula Medical School, Devon Primary Care Trust and the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit.

The study involved 123 people who had suffered repeat depressions and were referred by their doctors. The participants were split into two groups. Half continued their on-going anti-depressant drug treatment and the rest participated in an MBCT course and were given the option of coming off anti-depressants.

Over the 15 months after the trial, 47% of the group following the MBCT course experienced a relapse compared with 60% of those continuing their normal treatment, including anti-depressant drugs. In addition, the group on the MBCT program reported a higher quality of life, in terms of their overall enjoyment of daily living and physical well-being.

Professor Kuyken said: "Anti-depressants are widely used by people who suffer from depression and that's because they tend to work. But, while they're very effective in helping reduce the symptoms of depression, when people come off them they are particularly vulnerable to relapse. MBCT takes a different approach - it teaches people skills for life. What we have shown is that when people work at it, these skills for life help keep people well."

Mindful eating

People who eat mindfully are less likely to be overweight, according to a study led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The researchers found that people who ate mindfully – those were aware of why they ate and stopped eating when full – weighed less than those who ate mindlessly, who ate when not hungry or in response to anxiety or depression. The researchers also found a strong association between yoga practice and mindful eating but found no association between other types of physical activity, such as walking or running, and mindful eating.

"In our earlier study, we found that middle-age people who practice yoga gained less weight over a 10-year period than those who did not. This was independent of physical activity and dietary patterns. We hypothesized that mindfulness – a skill learned either directly or indirectly through yoga – could affect eating behavior" said Alan Kristal, associate head of the Cancer Prevention Program in the Public Health Sciences Division at the Hutchinson Center.

"Mindful eating is a skill that augments the usual approaches to weight loss, such as dieting, counting calories and limiting portion sizes. Thefindings fit with our hypothesis that yoga increases mindfulness in eating and leads to less weight gain over time, independent of the physical activity aspect of yoga practice," said Kristal.

Living fully

I have heard news of some deaths recently, one sudden, one after an illness,
and also am aware of people who are facing challenging illnesses.

I remembered a story that Irish poet and priest John O'Donoghue told, with great warmth. He was sitting at the bedside of a dying man, offering his comfort and his presence. The man turned to him and said, with a great sense of calm, that he had no regrets, because he had taken a great big bite out of life.

It would be a significant thing if I could say that, not just about my life, but at the end of each day.

A Prayer in Irish for those who have gone before us, whose passing has made us sad:

Go maire na mairbh agus a mbriongloidi
I bhfoscadh chaoin dilis na Trinoide

[May the departed and their dreams ever dwell
In the kind and faithful shelter of the Trinity]

Falling

Sometimes we can only move forward if we let go of the past.

Learning to fly takes the courage to step out. Standing at the edge can seem frightening. We have to let ourselves fall into the unknown.

This requires faith. But the changing seasons tell us: things may seem frozen, nothing seems to grow, but new birth is taking place in the stillness of winter months.

Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn it?

They fall, and falling,
they're given wings.

Rumi

Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

Mary Oliver Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

Focusing

"Your brain will do what you ask of it" states David Rakel, Director of the University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine Programme. Instead of multi-tasking, he suggests taking a few minutes every day to focus on one positive thought, like the word "happy". Doing so, he explains, creates new neurological networks in your brain and helps you feel happy and compassionate more easily. On the contrary, focusing on angry thoughts can create networks that make you feel more negative about life, more often.

Saint Nicholas and the practice of generosity

Today is the feast of Saint Nicolas, which is at the origins of gift-giving to children around this period. In some countries these gifts are left in childrens' shoes. The tradition is based on his generosity as Bishop of Myra, as he was accustomed to leaving gifts for the poor while they were asleep.


One story tells of a poor man with three daughters. In those times a woman's father had to offer prospective husbands something of value, a dowry. The greater the dowry, the better was the chance that a young woman would find a good husband. Without a dowry, a woman was unlikely to marry and was in danger of poverty, prostitution or slavery. But this man was poor, and so his daughters, without dowries, were destined to be sold into slavery. Mysteriously, on three different occasions, a bag of gold appeared in their home - providing the necessary dowries. The bags of gold, tossed by the Bishop through an open window, - as seen in this exquisite painting by Fra Angelico - landed in stockings or shoes left before the fire to dry, while the girls slept unaware in bed.

There is so much in this tale, about generosity, or awareness of what we have been given, or the real meaning of this period, or about caring for those who are in difficulty at this time.

" In the African understanding of ubuntu, our generosity comes from realizing that we could not be alive, nor could we accomplish anything, without the support, love, and generosity of all the people who have helped us to become the people we are today. Certainly it is from experiencing this generosity of God and the generosity of those in our life that we learn gratitude and to be generous to others."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

"I think that generosity has many levels. We have to think generously, speak generously, and act generously. Thinking well of others and speaking well of others is the basis for generous giving. It means that we relate to others as part of our 'gen' or 'kin' and treat them as family. Generosity has to come from hearts that are fearless and free and are willing to share abundantly all that is given to us."

Henri Nouwen

Tune in

Remembering the positive side of everyday happenings can be a struggle for people suffering from clinical depression. But by developing skills to tune into the positive, depressed people can strengthen their mental health, a new 2009 Ohio State University study shows. By staying mindful of the positive elements of daily events, and even documenting each days happiest moments in a journal, you may lower your stress levels. “Positive emotions build resilience to stress, in addition to having an undoing effect on depression” says Alan Keck, Psychologist at the Centre for Positive Psychology.

On hearing a wren sing

There is always something magical about birdsong. Yesterday I heard a wren sing for the first time in many years. For the briefest moment nothing else was heard and the world stopped.

Birdsong brings relief
to my longing.
I am just as ecstatic as they are,
but with nothing to say!
Please, universal soul, practice
some song, or something, through me!

Rumi

I do not know which to prefer
The beauty of inflections
or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after

Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

The arrival of winter

Winter has begun to make its presence felt, muted light, paler days, the bare sky, the bare trees. Grey on grey. Snow on the mountains. Or the frosty white landscape in the morning, tree trunks and bare branches, ghostly in the early mist. Now that it has arrived there is almost a feeling of disbelief. Things come to a halt rapidly, they die, and the ground hardens and tightens.

Winter can seem as a period of bareness, cold and sorrow. A period noted for its absence of colour. A period just to endure, to get back to the colours we long for with the coming of spring. However, to see it this way may miss some of the life lessons hidden in the season. Look at nature, it is winding down or in the case of animals, stocking up. Our cat is eating more, putting on weight, as instinctively he prepares for a time with less hunting. There was a time when the changing of the seasons dramatically affected people’s lifestyles also. In winter when the days were short, people would sleep longer, sit by the fire, tell stories, and wait.

However, these days our lives aren’t much different from season to season, The problem in work life is that there is really no slow season any more. How often do we hear these days "Things are really busy" as year end approaches, as there are exam papers to be corrected and reports to be written, and gifts need to be bought or trips to be planned. Even holidays can become another thing we are obliged to schedule and often even when people do go on a break, their blackberries and laptops go with them.

However, in our inner life we do have a choice. Slow down, simplify. As the animal kingdom testifies, we need rest at this time, and not just our bodies. Nature can teach us this simplicity and contentment, because in its presence we realize we need very little to be happy.

The All Day Retreat

Tomorrow is Saturday in week 6 of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course and as always we have an All Day Silent Retreat. Despite its formidable title it always turns out a calm, enjoyable, restorative day.

These days we are under continual pressure to do better, to be fitter, to be thinner, to get more education, attend more courses. It is almost as if rest equates with laziness. We so surrounded by hyper-achievers who are constantly overscheduled that we are tempted to consider busyness not only normal but right. Rest for some is a sign of weakness, a lack of ambition. And we can fall into the same approach even in how we approach our inner life. Even attending a MBSR Course or doing meditation can become another way to "fix" ourselves or another, latest, "self-improvement" project.

However, one of the most neglected of all inner pursuits seems to be quiet and rest. One of the most needful things for our sense of meaning is simply rest. A quiet day allows us this, a day without goals, just more time to be with our experience, whatever arises - a day of kindness to ourselves.

Disappointment

Sometimes things really don't work out as well as you think. It's true, no? You can buy the latest must-have gadget, find it marvellous for a few days and then it breaks, leaving you with a sour taste in your mouth.

Life can be even worse. You work hard on your career, or on a relationship or in changes to your lifestyle, but still you are not as happy as you assumed you would be "if only" this or that happened. Or someone who you thought you could be safe with can let you down. Our family stories can be complicated and painful. Or we may have a setback or rejection, and feel our hopes and dreams dashed. We can come to understand that something we always thought possible is never going to happen: a change in some behaviours, making peace with a difficult part of our history, realizing all the dreams and potentialities that we think we have.

One first step toward dealing with disappointment is to understand the forces that drive disappointment in our own view and in that of the culture around us. One is the deep seated belief that life can be free from disappointments and suffering. This is ingrained in today's society which needs us to think we deserve all the toys, thrills, and pleasures we can get, and that our fulfillment is linked to that. However, the teachings that are the basis for mindfulness tell another message, namely that life is challenging, even unsatisfactory, for everyone. Our physical bodies, our health, our plans, our relationships, all the elements in our story are fragile and subject ot change. This is a basic reality. The cause of our disappoinment, our suffering, is not the change in itself, but the mind's struggle in reaction to the change. Mindfulness proposes one way of dealing with suffering - training a non-struggling, peaceful mind.

A second step is to work directly with the sense of disappointment as it arises. We firstly stop being surprised when our internal life is not as smooth as we would like it to be, and simply try some practices gently and kindly. One practice is to say to ourselves, "I feel disappointed. I have made a desire such and such expectation so solid that I have let myself be identified with it. That is now causing me to suffer." Once we recognize this, we have a moment to choose between two possibilities - whether we want to go back to our story and wander around in it, and feed it more, or whether we can rest in the felt sense of disappointment and simply acknowledge it for what it truly is.

If we do the first we often notice that the disappointment can trigger our core beliefs, such as, "I am not good enough", "They always leave", "I'll never be happy". If we choose the second way it can help us gently break through the defensiveness and armour by looking at the distress directly. Maybe seeing that it is not as solid as we first thought. Although difficult, we try to begin by saying "I am disappointed. What does it feel like at this moment? Where is it in my body?" Thus, instead of maybe contracting into our disappointment, we allow some space for a broader picture to be seen.

From a worm's cocoon, silk.
Be patient if you can,
and from sour grapes will come something sweet.

Rumi

Wonder

"May you receive great encouragement
when new frontiers beckon.

May you take time to celebrate
the quiet miracles that seek no attention.

May you experience each day
as a sacred gift
woven around the heart of wonder."

John O'Donoghue,
Benedictus

Meditation in medicine

Conventional medical institutions are increasingly embracing healing methods once dismissed as alternative medicine and combining them with standard treatment. Meditation, is among the most popular techniques now going mainstream. ''It's not invasive, it has no side effects, it has tremendous benefits that are very well documented and it's something patients can do on their own so it doesn't cost anything,'' said Dr. Barrie R. Casselith, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's Integrative Medicine Service in Manhattan, New York

''It's not a cancer treatment,'' Dr. Casselith quickly added. ''It deals with quality of life and helps with symptoms. It can relieve pain, lower blood pressure and heart rate. It can make people feel calmer, it enhances mood. It does lots of good things.'' Her counterpart at Beth Israel Medical Center, Dr. Woodson Merrell, called meditation ''perhaps the most powerful tool for health.''