Fierce love

Knowing what will happen in the future,
we are faced with a simple choice:
either we resolve not to become attached
to people and things,
or we decide to love them even more fiercely.

Amélie Nothomb, The Character of Rain

Two modes

I've discovered there are only two modes of the heart. We can struggle, or we can surrender. Surrender is a frightening word for some people, because it might be interpreted as passivity, or timidity. Surrender means wisely accommodating ourselves to what is beyond our control. Getting old, getting sick, dying, losing what is dear to us, is beyond our control. I can either be frightened of life and mad at life - or not. I can be disappointed and still not be mad. Stopping being mad - when I can - translates, for me as being compassionate - to myself as well as to other people.

Sylvia Boorstein, That's Funny you don't look Buddhist

On taking a risk and being fully alive

You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing.

But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me. Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to me.

There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a dead dog nine days unburied.

When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks — when you hear that unmistakable pounding — when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming—then row, row for your life toward it.

Mary Oliver Prose Poem

Wrestling

The afternoon of life is just as full of meaning as the morning; only its meaning and purpose are different. C.G. Jung

Nikos Kazanzakis recounted a talk he had with an old monk about the development of the inner life. He asked him "Do you still struggle with the devil?" "Oh, no," the old man replied, "I used to struggle with him, when I was young, but now I've grown old and tired and the devil has grown old and tired with me. We leave each other alone!" "So it's easy for you now?" asked the young Kazantzakis. "Oh no," replied the old man, "it's worse, far worse! Now I wrestle with God!"

The monk is referring to one of the great images of the Old Testament when Jacob wrestled with God all night long. No easy, soft, spirituality there. No. Sometimes to grow we have to fight. What the monk seems to suggest is that there are different challenges at different times in our lives. In the early part of our life our main task is to develop our ego sufficiently to leave ones parents and establish oneself in the world. There is a certain, necessary, focus on establishing a career, independence and relationship, with a paradigm of succeeding. So one struggles with the strong forces of greed and ambition, of sexuality and of the search for intimacy, the need for achievement, position and a recognized role. However, although powered by an inner force, this drive is often unconsciously influenced by the models of parents and society. It's not easy to make peace with this drive inside us and satisfy all the voices that challenge us.

The task in the second part of life is quite different. The struggles can be can be other than what we had to face earlier on. The drive for successs which marked the first years has acheived all it can or has not delivered the fulfillment it promises. The underlying needs of the greater Self begin to assert themselves. A new paradigm is needed. A deeper struggle, this time largely inside the person, takes place, to fill in the missing pieces of the personality, neglected up to now. The challenge is to become more aware and more whole, to free what was blocked and live life most fully. We have to wrestle with our deepest Self, often through a crisis, defeat or loss, in order to leave behind patterns or strategies that are no longer effective and will no longer bring us growth.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!

What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.

I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament ...
Whoever was beaten by this angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.

This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater things.

Rilke, The Man Watching

More effects of MBSR

The MBSR Programme and Mindfulness practice seems to promote a “left-shift” in the brain. This means that there is increased activity in the left frontal activity of the brain after MBSR training. This change in function seems to reflect the development of an “approach state,” in which we move towards, rather than away from, a difficult external event or difficult internal thoughts and emotions. The development of this approach mentality, or an openenss to be aware of difficult emotions, seems to be related to emotional strength and resilience.

A second effect which is being noticed is an improvement in immune function. Not only is general resilience developed, but the body’s ability to fight infection is improved. I have already written about the studies which have seen this in HIV cases.

Thirdly, the MBSR Programme is related to participants expressing a greater internal sense of stability and clarity. This is certainly my experience in the Programees we have run here in Geneva. However, it has been studied in a pilot study at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center by Daniel Siegal. He found that adults and adolescents with attentional problems achieved more executive function improvements sustaining attention, diminishing distractibility) than are accomplished with justmedications for this condition. This research links in with the work done by Alan Wallace, Richie Davidson and Amiji Jha who have also found significant improvements in attentional regulation in those who have had mindfulness meditation training, such as enhanced focus.

All this joy

Hopkins says it well. Spring fills us with joy and with the energy of life. He believes it is because we link back to the freshness of life in the Garden of Eden, when everything was optimistic and without deceit or disappointment. Maybe. It certainly gives one a new energy as all around we see nature reawakening. We know we have to leave the Garden. But moments there refresh us. We will not spoil it by thinking ahead.

NOTHING is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89)

The body and the mind

Increasingly research is showing how the mind plays a significant part in how our body feels. This is of interest to us who are working with stress. It also helps us understand how mediatation, simply sitting and observing the mind, can be an effective way of working with difficult emotions and events.

For example, research has shown that the body responds to abstract thoughts as if they were real. Work done at the University of Aberdeen found that when participants were asked to recall the past or imagine the future, their bodies acted out the metaphors contained in the words. So when asked to remember, they leaned slightly backward; when imagining the future, their bodies moved forwards. Though these shifts amounted to just a few millimeters, the results were consistent enough for researchers to conclude that they could ‘take an abstract concept such as time and show that it was manifested in body movements.’

Nils B. Jostmann of the University of Amsterdam observes: “How we process information is related not just to our brains but to our entire body. We use every system available to us to come to a conclusion and make sense of what’s going on.” This is consistent with the way stress manifests itself in the body as headaches or heart conditions. It can also be seen when we have had a difficult encounter and we go around with a knot in the stomach. It supports the approach of Mindfulness meditation in its focus on the mind as a part of a whole body response to life's stresses.

See more at www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/science/02angier.html/

All is good

The weather has been strange these past days. Friday started with rain, then the temperature dropped and we had snow on the mountains. Then in the afternoon it was like Spring again with the sun bursting out and the temperature rising to 15 degrees. It was like four seasons in a day. And we had no control over it and can just watch as the different conditions come and go.

It is not surprising that the weather is used as a way of reflecting on our inner life. Things change rapidly there too, even within a day. What we are trying to move towards is greater acceptance of these different conditions and the ability to not label things "good" or "bad". Fear often drives those labels and they lead to a closing of the heart.

In Spring, hundreds of flowers.
In Summer, refreshing breeze.
In Autumn, a harvest moon.
In Winter, snowflakes accompany you.

If you do not have
the upside-down views
every season is
a good season for you.

Buddhist classic texts
translated by Eido Shimano Roshi

Forgiveness

Today Holy Week starts, the most significant week in the Christian understanding of the human condition and the understanding in it of how we can be happy. Central to that, and to this week, is the place of forgiveness and reconciliation. Somehow it seems crucial to becoming fully human as this week's story reveals:

Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, but forgiveness changes the way we remember.

When we forgive our parents for their divorce, our children for their lack of attention, our friends for their unfaithfulness in crisis, our doctors for their ill advice, we no longer have to experience ourselves as the victims of events over which we had no control. The only people we can really change are ourselves.

Forgiving is first and foremost the healing of our own hearts.

Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

Moving towards

Inner division wears away the personality
and this division can be overcome
only by making a choice,
by selecting a definite object for one's love.

Nicholas Berdyaev
Russian philosopher

In between

At every moment we are all in mid-process.

We are between what has happened (and which is now just a memory, but may be quite active in our emotions and fears) and what might happen (which is at this moment just a thought). We are in the present, which is really the only time anything is. This may lead us to feel divided. However, it is actually a richness which can help us respond to life in creative and new ways. For example we can break down the future, which can sometimes overwhelm and frighten. We do not have to live the whole of the future. Just this step. Then the next step.

It changes our attitude towards ourself also. If we can be mindful in this moment, we bring a gentle non-judgment to ourselves and to our life. This helps us soften in the moment, and resist the natural tendency to become rigid, especially if we are going through a difficult period. It goes against a primitive defense mechanism, which Melanie Klein referred to when she said that one problematic way of dealing with anxious thoughts is simply to avoid them and remove them from awareness. Unfortunately this only prolongs the problem. Awareness can help us break repeating unhelpful or frightening patterns of thinking, or slow down intrusive and unpredictable feelings. It allows us move beyond the categories of whether someone is right or wrong, by focusing on just being with what is going on inside ourselves at this moment. Gently. Without adding the extra burden of bad self or bad other.

This is not so easy, because if we notice stong emotion in the moment it normally means that we are already caught or hooked by a reaction. However, contrary to our normal instinct, it is by learning to become more open to others and to what is happening that we grow stronger. It has been said that the whole of the inner life begins with generosity in the heart, because that is about creating space. Space for this actual moment. It softens us rather than freezing us into what Srikumar Rao calls the "if - then" model. "If only this moment was different then I would be happy"....If only such or such happens then I will be happy"

Being present in the present moment is a skill, that we try to cultivate in our practice. I find that life continually gives me occasions for practicing this skill and a lot of time I fail. However, when I do, I find I do not add to life's difficulty by struggling with it, or by resenting it, or by resisting it. I find my mind relaxes when I remember to be generous and non-judgmental, firstly towards myself and then towards others and the world.

In-between is where humans always are,
thats what we have to welcome,
a story with an uncertain ending.

And this condition is interesting if you inhabit it;
it's alive.

If I'm facing something that I don't know what to do,
the "not knowing" is what is true,
and the resources that I have,
deeply ignorant that I am,
will have to be enough.

John Tarrant

Friendships

As the Dalai Lama reminds us, everyone wants to be happy. The problem is seeking it in ways that may not lead to full contentment. Our mindfulness practice is based on the understanding that deep contentment is first of all related to the process of getting to know the mind, and only secondly due to external factors, such as our job, or wealth or even our relationships. My work with people brings me into contact with a lot of different experiences of relationships. Today's society places a great emphasis on happiness coming from finding the right relationship, placing a huge burden on an aspect of life which was never designed to carry it. It becomes one of the main carriers of our hopes for contentment, this search to find someone who will through whom I will be complemented and completed.

This fusion model does not seem to be working and is not the only understanding available. The Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle stated that there were three types of friendship, only one of which brings about a real contentment and happiness. Today's emphasis leans toward the first two, which he says ultimately do not lead to contentment, and in many cases can actually increase our lack of fulfilllment.

The first type is a friendship of pleasure, mainly as sexual partners, which feels good in the moment but which is not fulfilling in the long run. Aristotle said this is normally seen in younger people, "as passions and pleasures are great influences in their lives". The second type is a friendship of utility, where people are in a friendship but thinking of themselves. Thus, they use the other for status, or to feel good about themselves, or for prestige, or for beauty or money, or because they add to their own sense of self by being with the other. He calls this friendship shallow and "easily broken".

In contrast to these two, Aristotle described a third type, which he called a friendship of shared virtue. In this case you discover a friend who gets you in your deepest self, your soul, and inspires you to grow into your highest potential. He called these people soul mates or "soul-nurturing mates", as the friendship touches our deepest self. It gives us the energy and courage to grow into better people. Being with this type of friend allows us to believe in our dreams and feel bigger than ourselves, more confident in our daily lives. He believed this was directly related to our deep happiness. This type of friendship is long-lasting but hard to find, because it takes a lot of work and a resilience to develop.

A reflection on love

I visited Paris recently and while there spent time in the Orangerie, standing before Monet's beautiful series of Water Lily paintings. What struck me most is the different emotions contained in each painting, from tranquil to agitated, light to dark, as each canvas reflected a different period of the day or different season of the year. I looked on them as a reflection on light, on the passing of time.

However, since coming back I have read that Monet painted these works after the death of his beloved Alice, moving from the more realistic portrayal seen in his earlier style to the abstract swirls and splashes used here. So more than a reflection on light, they are a reflection on love. These huge circular canvases around the walls come to represent eternity, and the emotions within them the never-ending love which he found in that relationship. Not all light, but shadows and shades. But all within the beauty of a love remembered.

I come again to see
the serene, great picture that I love.

Here space and time exist in light
the eye like the eye of faith believes.
The seen, the known
dissolve in iridescence, become
illusive flesh of light
that was not, was, forever is.

O light beheld as through refracting tears.
Here is the aura of that world
each of us has lost.
Here is the shadow of its joy.

Robert Hayden, Monet's Waterlilies

Happy

The purpose of life is to be happy

The Dalai Lama

Spring has arrived and with it a new sense of life and of joy. We see the signs of growth all around, buds on the branches, birds building nests, spring flowers in bloom. Seeing all that this week has made it easy to feel joy, that inner experience that is deeply refreshing. It liberates us from our fears. It allows us to be content.

This has been a strange week, with news of sadness and with success in other areas. And as such it is the stuff of which life is made. We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that joy is only to be found in a life without difficulties. We can think that happiness will only come if the circumstances of our lives change a lot. However, as the phrase reminds us, difficulties - ups and downs - in life are inevitable but suffering is not. It depends on how we work with the difficulties. We discover joy in the midst of the ups and downs of each week, of a life. All things change constantly, even those which are most precious to us; it is just the nature of this life.

And in the midst of life we discover that each one of us has inside ourselves a natural deep joy that we can access. We can drop into it and let it bloom. This allows us to celebrate our lives - the small and large things in each day - and not get caught up in complaining and resenting what happens. As nature blooms we can see that we are connected to a wider life and come to realize that our own personal story is unfolding in a much larger context. It leads us to practice gratitude for all that is happening, which helps the mind expand into a fuller sense of life. We then can notice that we frequently have a choice - to celebrate what is happening or to reject it. Mindfulness practice is a type of training that allows the mind develop an inner narrative that leans towards acceptance, kindness and joy and away from rejecting, from fear and from sadness.

We learn in our guts, not just in our brain,
that a life of joy is not in seeking happiness,
but in experiencing and simply being
the circumstances of our life as they are;
not in fulfilling personal wants,
but in fulfilling the needs of life;
not in avoiding pain,
but in being pain when it is necessary to do so.
Too large an order?
Too hard?
On the contrary, it is the easy way..

Charlotte Joko Beck

The best laid plans of mice and men....

Sometimes life does not turn out exactly as you imagined or maybe hoped for. Yesterday I started a new project, one I had set as one of my goals for this year. And it did not go exactly as I had planned.

When this happens the first thing we tend to doubt and blame ourselves. It is noticable that when some thing goes wrong we quickly move to think that we are wrong. In those moments, if we look closely, we can feel separate and alone. Our gut sense of us as deficient can come into play. However, mindfulness helps us to see that stories - about ourselves and about how our lives are going - are always arising in our minds and we can mistake them for reality. Some of these can arise from our own personal history and the patterns we have built up to help us deal with disappointment. These thoughts can keep us in limiting beliefs and lead to suffering. They are not easy to leave behind because our nature tends to easily generate self-depreciating comments. Practice helps us to see this as a story about our self and an unhealthy one at that - a story of falling short - and when we notice it as such we turn our attention to how do we want to work with it. In other words space enters in.

However, when we reflect a bit more, we can see some other dynamics at play. One of these is our tendency to project. Our work, just like our relationships, is a primary place where we project our identity and our need for sustenance, which we seek by being beneficial and constructive in our achievements. By doing this we wish to allow our inner spirt attain its need for growth. The letting go of projections is nearly always a painful process. However, it is useful because it reminds us of our tendency to look to things outside for the happiness which comes from inside.

Another thing we notice is our habit of turning our plans into some sort of goal, and losing our focus on the path which is always ongoing. In other words, we already have a fixed outcome in our mind and failing to acheive that creates dissatisfaction. We are attaching our satisfaction to something in the future which may or may not happen. This means that we do not find it as easy to respond to what actually happens, and to stay in the present moment. Our practice is to find happiness in what is actually happening and not attaching it to what we thought should have happened, and then going on to blame ourselves, others or events.

Walls

We may never find ourselves in situations of such danger that our lives are endangered; yet anguish and pain are undeniable aspects of our lives. None of us can build walls around our hearts that are invulnerable to being breached by life. Facing the sorrow we meet in this life, we have a choice: Our hearts can close, our minds recoil, our bodies contract, and we can experience the heart that lives in a state of painful refusal. We can also dive deeply within ourselves to nurture the courage, balance, patience, and wisdom that enable us to care.

Christina Feldman

The human dilemna

We are wired for attachment
in a world of impermanence.

How we negotiate that tension
shapes who we become.

Robert Neimeyer

Facing up to the truth

The reason why silence is so disturbing to us [is this]: As soon as we begin to become silent, we experience the relativity of our ordinary everyday mind. With this mind we measure our space and time coordinates, we calculate probabilities and count up our mistakes and successes. It is so useful and familiar a state of mind that we easily think it is all there is to us: our whole mind, our real selves, our full meaning.

Life, love, and death frequently teach us otherwise. We bump into silence at many unexpected turnings on the road of life, in unpredictable ways, in unexpected moments. Its greeting has an effect which is both full of wonder and yet often terrifying. Our thoughts, fears, fantasies, hopes, angers and attractions are all rising and falling moment by moment. We automatically identify ourselves with these fleeting or compulsively recurring states without thinking what we are thinking. When silence teaches us how unreliably transient these states really are, we confront the terrible questions of who we are. In silence we must wrestle with the terrible possibility of our own non-reality.

Laurence Freeman

The experience of loss

All though our lives, we experience loss, in little and big ways. Some we acknowledge explicitly and grieve for. Others we may not have had the time or space to grieve for and they can come up later on in life, and attach themselves onto some other loss. There can also be the gradual loss of our hopes and dreams, or the plans we have invested in our work, or the direction of our lives.

Robert Neimeyer, who has written extensively in this area, says that when we go through a significant loss we have an undoing of our individual and collective life histories. It affects our world, and changes our sense of self. If it is a significant loss, such as the death of one who meant much to us, or the loss of a partner or even a move from work or familiar suroundings, we can feel uprooted and homesick. He says that what is needed at such times is having people to turn to who care for us, as we "tell and retell our story". We need someone who can listen.

Why is this? Because as humans we like to give our lives meaning by underpinning them with a coherent and consistent story. Thus when we experience these losses we need to reorganize our sense of sense and our sense of meaning in life. We reach a limit where we are invited to tell our story again, but in a new way. The losses of life can make us hard and fearful of life or can make us more open, more caring for others.

The Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa talks about a soft spot, a raw spot, a wounded spot on the body or in the heart. A spot that is painful and sore. A spot that may emerge in the face of a loss. We hate such spots so we try to prevent them. And if we can’t prevent them we try to cover them up, so we won’t absentmindedly rub them or pour hot or cold water on them. A sore spot is no fun. Yet it is valuable. Trungpa Rinpoche calls the sore spot embryonic compassion, potential compassion. Our loss, our wound, is precious to us because it can wake us up to love, and to loving action.

Norman Fischer, Love, Loss and Anxious Times

Barney

For the last few months our cat Barney would sit by me as I sat meditating. I always found it a comfort as he sat there, looking on. He brought to meditation, as he brought to our lives since he arrived at our doorstep some thirteen years ago, a gentleness and strong support. He also could rest in himself and sleep, with one eye on me, without any concern or worry, without needing to wonder where his life was going.

Even as I was sitting beside him I could not match his contentment. I found it hard to leave my self-centred thoughts, those opinions and judgments about events and people which really have no solid reality one day after they appear. He rested, content, simple, of one piece; I spun around my petty concerns, my stories which I exaggerate, my scattered mind racing and worrying. He was a living lesson in meditation, in being content to rest in the warmth of the sun.

It reminded me of this early Irish Poem, written by a monk in the 8th Century about a cat called Pangur Ban, or White Pangur.

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Pangur bears me no ill will,
He too plies his simple skill.

Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

When a mouse darts from its den
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

Loneliness and solitude

Loneliness is the poverty of self;
solitude is the richness of self.

May Sarton

Change

On the day you cease to change,
you cease to live.

Anthony de Mello

The two wolves

A Native American grandfather was speaking to his grandson about violence and cruelty in the world and how it comes about. He said it was as if two wolves were fighting in his heart. One wolf was vengeful and angry, and the other wolf was understanding and kind. The young man asked his grandfather which wolf would win the fight in his heart. And the grandfather answered, “The one that wins will be the one I choose to feed.”

So this is our challenge, the challenge for our practice and the challenge for the world — how can we train right now, not later, in feeding the right wolf? How can we call on our innate intelligence to see what helps and what hurts, what escalates aggression and what uncovers our good-heartedness?

Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap

My use of time

How do I kill time?
Let me count the ways.

By worrying about things
over which I have no control.
Like the past.
Like the future.

By harbouring resentment
and anger
over hurts
real or imagined.

By disdaining the ordinary
or rather, what I,
so mindlessly
call ordinary.

By concern over what's in it for me
rather than what's in me
for it.

By failing to appreciate what is
because of might-have-beens
should-have-beens
could-have-beens.

These are some of the ways
I kill time.

Leo Rock, s.j.

A new voice

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!" each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

Letting go of your cows

We all have different ideas as to how to get to happiness. Mindfulness practice helps us see that it can be increased if we stop trying to hold onto our idea of what life should be like, and instead move towards what life actually is like. This means we have to let go, including letting go some of some ideas we have about happiness and the conditions we feel must be fulfilled in order for happiness to come.

There is an old story from the Buddhist tradition which illustrates this, here told by Thich Nhat Hahn:

One day the Buddha was sitting in the forest with some monks when a farmer approached them. The farmer said, "Venerable monks, did you see my cows come by? I have a dozen cows and they all ran away. On top of that I have five acres of sesame plants and this year the insects ate them all up. I think I am going to kill myself. It isn't possible to live like this"

The Buddha felt a lot of compassion toward the farmer. He said "My friend, I am sorry, we did not see your cows come this way". When the farmer had gone, the Buddha turned to his monks and said "My friends, Do you know why you are happy? Because you have no cows to lose"

I would like to say the same to you. If you have some cows you have to identify them. You think they are essential to your happiness, but if you practice deep looking, you will see that it is not these cows that have brought about your happiness. The secret of happiness is being able to let go of your cows.

St Patrick's Prayer

Beannachtai na Féile Padraig oraibh go léir! Happy Saint Patricks Day

An ancient prayer, attributed to Saint Patrick. It certainly reflects one aspect of his personality - his determination. Once his calling to come to Ireland was made clear, he left all to follow it. We look for that same courage, the strength to take the road that we need to, or make the changes that need to be made, and the perseverence to stick to what we have chosen.

It is better than some of the twee sentimental blessings you will see attributed to Ireland on this day.


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

I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me:
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,

Comparing

The reason we practice is not seen on the meditation cushion, but in the rest of our life. We practice so that we can better accept the present moment, where our life actually is, rather than always imposing conditions: it must be this way or that way, or we can’t be happy. These conditions can lead us to look elsewhere for happiness, and not realize that the all we need is already in our lives right now.

As we sit we notice that the mind has a lot of different ways to avoid just being in the present moment. One of them is to compare. It compares this sitting moment - "boring" to other moments we could be having - "much more interesting, much more productive". And this habit of comparing extends to our life in general. We compare our present self to a better self, or our lives to others' lives, or to the ideal portrayal of lives which we find in society or which our insecurities about ourselves have generated. We find that a lot of our anxieties arise because we are trying to match up to what we think our life "should" be like, or what others portray as being happy. We are continualy presented with a model of success in career and in relationships which seems so desirable. Often other people seem to have gotten it all together and have all the answers, when we find ourselves feeling frantic, or worried or uncertain inside. Thus we fall into the trap of comparing "our insides to other peoples' outsides" and we find that we come up lacking.

Comparing can lead us to feeling divided and unhappy, pulled in different directions. It manifests itself as a restlessness and unease because it does not allow us rest in what is here, now. This restlessness comes from the fundamental cognitive dissonance or tension that arises when we are caught between wanting two different things. The dissonance caused by such contradictions creates a tension in the mind, which can range from minor irritation to deep anguish as long as it continues.

As humans we try to reduce our anxiety by stabilizing our life and looking for certainty as much as possible. We also do not like holding opposite ideas. Thus we try to convince ourselves that we are consistent and coherent. We need to reduce dissonance in order to maintain our positive self-image and feel good about what we are doing One way to do this is to deny one direction completely. However, such strategies do not tend to work and our deep sense of anxiety remains.

Mindfulness helps us because it allows us see the different ways we try to escape from our life as it actually is. It allows us relax by teaching us that happiness is to be found in how we are, not how our comparing thoughts tell us how we should be. We see them as thoughts, and like all thoughts they increasingly lose their solidity, become more transparent and we do not need to follow them

Endings

For last year’s words
belong to last year’s language
and next year’s words
await another voice.



And to make an end
is to make a beginning.

T.S. Eliot

Sabbath

As I said, another reflection, in Irish,
This time, on the Sabbath

Dé bheatha chugainn, a Dhomhnaigh bheannaithe,
lá breá aoibhinn tar éis na seachtaine,
lá breá aoibhinn chun Críost a agallamh.
Corraigh do chos is téire chun an Aifrinn.
Corraigh do chroí agus díbir an ghangaid as.
Corraigh do bhéal chun bréithre beannaithe.

Féach suas ar Mhac na Banaltran,
Mac na hÓighe, ós é a cheannaigh sinn,
gur leis a bhuafar beo agus marbh sinn.


We welcome you here, O happy Sabbath,
a fine pleasant day at the end of the week,
a fine pleasant day to talk to God.

Move your feet and go to Church
Move your heart and drive out bitterness.
Move your lips to happy words.

Look up towards the Son of the Healer,
the Son of the Virgin, for it is he who redeemed us,
that by him in life and in death we may prosper.

The sins of the fathers

In the Old Testament we are told that the sins of the fathers are visited on their children. At first this seems a judgmental relic from a different culture, a way of explaining inherited illnesses or chance misfortune. However, there can be another sense, which accords with what can be found in modern psychology and what I have seen in my discussions with people.

A lot of behaviours which we see in adult life are actually responses to the unconscious traces left by experiences had in childhood. In general these experiences allow the child to make a judgement about the world, as either predictable, stable and nurturing or uncertain and precarious. Our parents all had their own emotional and relationship patterns and ways of dealing with anxiety. These patterns were primarily played out in their relationship to each other, which impacted upon us as a child. From this we drew our conclusions as to how to deal with the world, and how to develop our own relationships. This parental wound - or the places where our parents got stuck - has a huge influence on our own inner life. The inner world we form as a child will replicate what we see in the outer world and then as an adult we gravitate towards situations that replicate this inner world dynamic.

We tend to do this by repeating the pattern or by being determined to do the opposite. However, because the opposite behaviour is undertaken in response to the parents' way of behaving, we are still defining ourselves by it and end up strengthening the dynamic rather than weakening it. A lot of adult neurosis or anxiety can be understood as a part of the self looking to discover its full development away from the narrow confines of the family of origin. A repeating way of doing things or a rigid personal style is a clue to the original place of lack or neglect. Our minds love habits, even when they hurt us.

One way this appears in our adult life is that we project onto others, or onto work, the parts that we instinctively know we were lacking when young. Projection is the process of attaching some aspect of your inner life onto someone or something on the outside. And often we project the underdeveloped part of ourselves onto another person, thus ironically repeating the dynamic which was present in our family of origin. We look to another person to fill in our missing pieces in our own emotional development, sometimes without realizing that we are simply reinforcing the lacks which we inherited. The only true way to recognize the limited nature of the early strategies which we have incorporated into our personality and begin the slow work of healing by no longer acting on them.

Wider applications of mindfulness

The preventative effect of mindfulness training for individuals who face extreme stress, such as firemen, soldiers and trauma surgeons, has been examined in a recent study by cognitive neuroscientist Amishi Jha of Penn University and Elizabeth A. Stanley of Georgetown University.

They provided mindfulness training to U.S. Marines before deployment to Iraq in a training program called Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT™), which aimed to cultivate greater psychological resilience or "mental armor" by bolstering mindfulness. The study found that the more time participants spent doing daily mindfulness exercises, the better their mood and working memory - the cognitive term for complex thought, problem solving and cognitive control of emotions.

The study also seems to point towards the fact that sufficient Mindfulness practice may protect against high-stress challenges that require a tremendous amount of cognitive control, self-awareness, situational awareness and emotional regulation.

Our findings suggest that, just as daily physical exercise leads to physical fitness, engaging in mindfulness exercises on a regular basis may improve mind-fitness," Jha said.

"Working memory is an important feature of mind-fitness. Not only does it safeguard against distraction and emotional reactivity, but it also provides a mental workspace to ensure quick-and-considered decisions and action plans. Building mind-fitness with mindfulness training may help anyone who must maintain peak performance in the face of extremely stressful circumstances, from first responders, relief workers and trauma surgeons, to professional and Olympic athletes."


www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/179294.php

Freedom then and freedom now

Last Sunday was the Third Sunday of Lent and the reading told of the story of Moses in the desert. In fact, the 40 days of Lent is really a period of reflection about the desert. The Readings in the Divine Office follow the Book of Exodus, recounting the tale of the People of Israel as they left the familiar place of Egypt to spend 40 years wandering in the desert.

Like all the parts of the Scripture, this can be understood on different levels. The heart of the Judeo-Christian belief is one of escape from slavery to freedom. Originally it had a political sense. However, over the centuries since that story was first told, "Egypt" has ceased to be just a country; indeed, the Hebrew word used - "Mitzraim" - means “a narrow place.”

So getting free from Egypt means moving out from the "narrow places" in our lives, the places where we have gotten stuck, to a wider place, a place where we are have greater freedom and greater potential. So often we get stuck in situations that trap us, and prevent us from reaching our full happiness. Or maybe we repeat narrow emotional patterns learnt in early childhood, which limit our view of our own capabilities. So, when difficulties arise, we adopt a narrow or smaller view of ourselves, and see ourselves as weak or insufficient. We can see ourselves as the cause of the problem or as the weak and vulnerable victim. We quickly feel, when something seems wrong, that the source of wrong is me. And in some circumstances this can lead us to settle for less than what we really deserve and we choose situations which match our narrow sense of what we deserve.

It is significant that the core message of the Judeo tradition is that freedom is possible, that we can more into a more expansive spacious place, that we can move towards a fuller fulfilling of our needs. The starting place is to step out into unfamiliar teritory even if the familiar seems safer. Sadly people often prefer the familiarity of troubled relationships, dispiriting jobs or the script of society, rather than taking the risk when it presents itself. It is also hard to face the inner work required to leave the narrow places of our ideas which worked for one part of our life and risk taking on new ideas which will lead to a wider place. It may involve leaving things that once seemed important to become a more integrated, more fulfilled whole.

Each thing has to transform itself into something better,
and acquire a new destiny.

Paulo Coelho

Shaky ground

Sometimes we are made realize that the ground we stand on is not very sure. A visit to a hospital brings that home. There we see people in different stages of pain and despair. And seeing that can cause fear to arise in us as we are reminded of our own weakness and limitations.

All illness can remove the masks which we like to keep on when we are healthy. We like to show our strong side and our independence. We like to think that our value comes from what we achieve when we are strong. However we cannot always be strong. At times we fail. We let people down. Illness forces us to realize that basing all our worth on what we can achieve will ultimately let us down.

The world breaks everyone.
Afterward, some are stronger at the broken places.

Ernest Hemingway

Ups and downs

We can notice our mind changing hundreds of times in the day, from liking to disliking, being content to being unhappy, calm to agitated. We can start the day being nervous about an upcoming meeting. Then find ourselves delighted as the meeting goes well, leaving us feeling very positive about ourselves and the future. Then afterwards we can get into a misunderstanding with a friend or colleague after which we find ourselves feeling very negative about ourselves and about the future. Up and down, down and up.

The mind can move quickly from being spacious to being narrow when it encounters something which is negative. However, what we label as "negative" often just means that we think that reality will not fit into the way that we want, or we can’t have something we think we need. We find that the mind contracts and feels tight, and then normally starts immediately to work on a story to defend that tightness, exaggerating negative aspects of people or situations, or other objects of our bad feelings. If we are focused on other people, it normally starts with statements about other people - "They are in the wrong, they cannot listen" and then moves on to statements about the future - "There is no point trying, this will never work out"

If we can become aware of this dynamic, the heart can move from its defensive pattern to pausing, then to being open and appreciative. The normal sequence for these changing mind states goes something like this: "This is the way I want things"..... "I like it".... "If I cannot have it like this, I am sad, I am angry"....and then through practice...."this moment is just like this". This pattern is the same whether the matter is great or small, although the intensity can vary hugely. It can sometimes flare out strongly as jealousy or anger if we allow ourselves be convinced that we are missing out on something that we really want.

In the end, we quieten down in two steps. The first is that the mind stops struggling with reality and says, “I wanted something different, but this is what I have.” The second is when we can rejoice in the new situation and be genuinely happy that it has turned out like this, for ourselves or for other people. One of the greatest antidotes for the feeling of hurt is to cultivate positive feelings or blessings towards others. This works against the mind's tendency to think that someone else's joy is actually taking away from our joy. Instead, we find that when the mind is relaxed, it does not feel needy, and does not need to defend itself.

We have two kinds of fears. One is a fear that whatever is going on is going to go on forever. It’s just not true - nothing goes on forever. The other is the fear that, even if it doesn’t go on forever, the pain of whatever is happening will be so terrible we won’t be able to stand it. There is a gut level of truth about this fear. It would be ridiculous to pretend that in our lives, in these physical bodies, which can hurt very much, and in relationships that can hurt very much, there aren’t some very, very painful times. Even so, I think we underestimate ourselves. Terrible as times may be, I believe we can stand them.

Because we become frightened as soon as a difficult mind state blows into the mind, we start to fight with it. We try to change it, or we try to get rid of it. The frenzy of the struggle makes the mind state even more unpleasant.

The familiar image is a children’s cartoon character, like Daffy Duck, walking along freely and suddenly stepping into toffee. In a hasty, awkward attempt to extricate himself, he might fall forward and backward and eventually be totally stuck in the toffee. The best solution would be the nonalarmed recognition, ‘This is toffee. I didn’t see it as I stepped into it, but I felt it after I got stuck. It’s just toffee. The whole world is not made out of toffee. What would be a wise thing for me to do now?'

Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think

Encouragement

One of the most beautiful gifts in the world
is the gift of encouragement.

When someone encourages you,
that person helps you over a threshold
you might otherwise never have crossed on your own

John O Donoghue, Eternal Echoes

More on speaking and listening

In light of the fact that St Patrick's Day is coming soon, I may post some reflections inspired by some Gaelic or Irish sources.

A Prayer in Irish about the right balance in speaking. It is delightful in its simple directness:

A Íosa, Mhic Dé, a bhí ciúin os comhair Phioláit, ná lig dúinn ár dteanga a luascadh gan smaoineadh ar cad tá againn le rá agus conas é a rá.

O Jesus, Son of God,
who was silent before Pilate,
don't let our tongues wag
without thinking about what we have to say
and how to say it.

Looking in the Wrong Places

The core issue is that we are not comfortable with life as it is - changing, with indistinct boundaries, not meeting our unrealistic expectation. As children most of us learn, from parents, relatives, peers, and caregivers, to want something else, such as external approval, the security of things that don't change, only pleasurable experiences, or the self-satisfaction of always being in the right.

We are like the drug addict looking for an unending high. We don't find it with one drug, so we try another drug, then another and another. The variations are wonderfully creative and endless. Looking for the perfect partner, job, community, or profession, can be the drug. Looking for the perfect spiritual teacher can also be the drug. We might hop from one to another, exuberant for a while, and then disappointed. We move on.

When we walk the path of mindfulness, we are encouraged to try a radically different approach. We calm our minds, we focus on the present moment, and we embrace what we find.

Pema Chodron

Fear

We are often - even sometimes without being aware of it - driven by fear. I do not mean the nervousness that comes if we have to go to a difficult meeting or give a presentation, or the useful type of stress which allows us perform better. What I mean is a deeper, more fundamental type of fear, a more deep-seated anxiety, which appears and reappears or can keep us awake at night. This type of fear is only intensified by our normal strategies to push it away, or to distract ourselves from noticing it. All that does is play with the fear, like the cat with the mouse, pushing it away briefly so as to allow it return even more nervous.

All fear is really related to our desire for safety, to feel secure in this world, a world which is by its nature insecure and unreliable. This is deeply ingrained in our make-up after centuries of evolution. However, the deeper roots of this anxiety comes from the fear to be with ourselves. We can see this most clearly when we sit down to practice. Our minds will do anything to avoid just being in the simple present with ourselves, and will run to thinking and planning and dreaming. We can notice that a lot of this thinking revolves around fixing ourselves, our lives and others.

And why are we afraid to be with ourselves? Because if we are forced to be just with ourselves we might feel that we are not good enough, that we may not measure up to the standards which we or others have set for us and which we have internalized. It is hard to be just with oneself, and not discuss with, or ask permission from, the presences in our heads, with whom we unconsciously and continually dialogue. To defend ourselves, we construct stories and fantasies, perfect futures which we use to distract from a not-so-perfect present. Fear is what happens when these stories run up against the reality of daily life and our deep inner selves. Other common strategies we use to avoid facing ourselves is that we keep extra busy, or throw ourselves into work, hobbies, a relationship or something else outside ourselves.

However, what we gradually see is that the whole purpose of practice is to work with our heart in the presence of our fears. Not in the way that many who start meditation think, namely, that it will make all fears go away. On the contrary, people often lament that they notice much more fears and anxiety after they started practicing and things were calmer before. What practice gradually does is stop us running. It gives us the courage to stay. That is why I love the simplest of all meditation instructions, the simple "Take your seat". If we can do that consistently, and gently stay with ourselves, we go against the natural instinct of the fear and the slow healing can begin.

Is it good or bad?

A Taoist Tale:

There was an old man with a small farm in China many years ago. He had one son, who did most of the work on the farm and a a neighbour, himself old with a son.

One day the old man's horse ran off, and the neighbour, seeing this, said, "How terrible, your horse has run off, now work on your farm will be so difficult." To this the old man replied, "Maybe good, maybe bad, we'll see."

The next day the old man's horse returned leading a group of wild horses, and the neighbour, seeing this, said, "How wonderful! You have many horses, now you have great wealth and may live easily." To this the old man replied, "Maybe good, maybe bad, we'll see."

The next day the old man's son was thrown from one of the wild horses and broke his leg, and the neighbour, seeing this, said, "How terrible, your son has broken his leg, now your work will be doubled as nurse and farmer." To this the old man replied, "Maybe good, maybe bad, we'll see."

The next day the king's men came to the farms seeking all able men to fight a distant battle, and the neighbour, sobbing as his son marched off, said "How fortunate you are for having an injured son, mine will surely perish." To this the old man replied, "Maybe good, maybe bad, we'll see."

We do not know the meaning of what is happening to us now. Life-defining moments often become clear only in hindsight. We often miss what is in front of us by leaning too far into the future, or having too fixed a plan for our life.

Ups and downs

Today it has gotten really cold again with a sharp north wind. The poor crocus who bloomed in last week's mild weather is closed and bent over and the olive tree is back under its covers.

A lot has changed over the last few weeks, and not just in terms of the weather. We feel growth in life is best supported when the outside conditions are constant, when we have support and warmth. Sometimes, instead, we find inconsistency and even hard winds, those whom we rely on are not there, things do not go as we wished and we falter.

However, even if at times it is difficult, this type of change is good because we learn that we are not in charge of what happens over a period of weeks, even over a period of hours. Often we cannot choose what happens, just as we cannot choose the weather when we step out of work in the evening. However, what we can choose is how we respond. We naturally have a preference for the pleasant over the unpleasant, but the practice is to come back to what is happening now and to keep cultivating a mind that is not fighting with it.

Losses

One of the more important things for our psychological health is how we have to cope with disappointment. Losses are present in our lives from infancy onwards. Indeed, as Winnicott reminds us, a certain amount of disappointment is necessary as infants in order to allow a secure sense of self to develop. The parent has to gently "disappoint" the child in order to allow the child develop the independence to take on certain tasks for itself, to face the world without relying totally on the parent. This allows the infant have the resilience for facing the ups and downs of this world, as well as understanding that there is nuance in every person, that we cannot expect anyone to perfectly satisfy all our needs.

If established well, the person can be comfortable on their own and have the space in later life to deal with the inevitable ways in which others let them down. If not, then one can struggle when a partner changes, a parent disillusions, a relationship goes sour or a job turns out to be unfulfilling, because one has looked to them to give life meaning. Another negative aspect could be that the child feels responsible for the loss and may pick up the mistaken idea that negative emotions are wrong, and to admit them is to show weakness or a lack of self-control.

Over the years all these losses add up. Some we have time to acknowledge, some not. Stephen Levine reminds us that grieving that has to go on for all the little losses and disappointments that happen throughout our days. He calls this "our ordinary, everyday grief" which builds up following the "disappointments and disillusionment, the loss of trust and confidence that follows the increasingly less satisfactory arch of our lives".

One thing we can do in response is try to avoid feeling this grief, by hardening our hearts or denying to ourselves that the loss had any real meaning. However, although this provides a momentary feeling of safety, it can either lead to a gradual deadening of our experience of the world or reappear in our unconscious as anxiety or repeating behaviours. A better option is to stay open to life and acknowledge its inevitable losses, even the little ones. Ultimately, being open to feel the fear of loss is the only way to integrate it. It’s also the only way to a genuine relationship with others, because closeness to others cannot be founded on neediness or on the fear of being alone. Before we can be in relationship with others, we need to be able to accept a certain type of aloneness in ourselves. If we do not see that we will always be disappointed in the things that we think will fill it.

Speech and silence

In the MBSR Course this week we are looking at relationships and stress. We considered the idea that we sometimes see the other person through the filter of the stories which are going on in our own lives. We see them not as they are, but as we are.

To really relate we need to really listen. This can mean dropping our own narrative for a moment to have space for the other. So mindfulness leads us to reflect on the meaning of silence and space.

Do we have the confidence to stop, to be just with ourselves, and to be content when there?
Or do we need to distract and reassure ourselves with our plans, our projects, our reminders that we are needed?

Yesterday we did together the Retreat Day. We kept an exterior silence in order to look at our interior chatter. Silence has always been part of the world religions and wisdom traditions, as in the life of the Desert Fathers who simplified distractions in order to see what was really important.

A man may seem to be silent,
but if in his heart he is criticizing others,
he is babbling ceaselessly.
But there may be another who talks from morning till night
and yet he is truly silent,
because he says nothing that is not profitable.

The Desert Fathers, Abba Pimen

I am not speaking of the silence of the tongue,
for if someone merely keeps his tongue silent,
without knowing how to be content in mind and spirit,
then he is simply unoccupied and becomes filled with damaging thoughts.

There is a silence of the tongue,
there is a silence of the whole body,
there is a silence of the soul,
there is the silence of the mind,
and there is the silence of the spirit.

The Desert Fathers, John the Solitary

Types of insecurity in relationships

In our early years we lay down a pattern for later relationships. We construct our inner psyche out of the materials that are at our disposal in those first experiences. If some of those experiences are less than optimal, and the person's early life is lacking in adequate consistent responses, the person's relating style in later years can reflect that. From my work I am always interested to see how adults have taken into their own inner selves characteristics of their caregivers - which may have been exaggerated or inadequate - and then defend these defective structures as their own self.

For example, a parent can use the child for its own emotional needs by holding on to the child to compensate for lacks in the relationship with the partner. This can produce in the child - and later in the adult - a reduced capacity for real relationships. We might see this as a need to contol in relationships, in an attempt to gain back the security of that first closeness. On the other hand, a parent who is inconsistent in their affection can give rise to an insecurity in the child who draws conlusions about future relationships based on what they see in the parent.

Dan Siegel, in his book The Developing Brain writes about the desired "attunement" between the caregiver and child, which allows the child to “feel felt.” This attuned state shapes the young brain. It builds neuronal patterns that underpin the child’s resilience and grounds the ability to connect in meaningful relationships later in life.

However, all is not lost. What science is discovering recently is that the brain can be re-shaped later in life. So, even if we grew up with an insecure attachment pattern, we can grow in our security later in life, reducing our need for control or withdrawal. In other words, we can retrain the brain, which shapes our emotional security or felt sense in relationships. One way to do this is through sitting meditation which seems to work on the same part of the brain that is shaped in those early months. We rest in silence and that calms gradually the anxious messages remembered deep in our unconscious.

Seasons

You begin to see that there are seasons in your life
in the same way as there as seasons in nature.
There are times to cultivate, 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 begin to fade.

And finally there are those times that are cold and cutting and empty
times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream.

Thiose 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.


Chogram Trungpa Rinpoche, How to Rule

The Rose

How did the Rose
ever open its heart
and give the world
all of its beauty?
It felt the encouragement
of light against its being,
otherwise we all remain
too frightened.

Hafiz

Relating to problems

We cannot always change the perplexing conditions of our lives

– but we can change how our minds relate to them.

Tara Bennett-Goleman

Fragment by fragment, moment by moment

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination.
Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.

Anaïs Nin

Love

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.

Rumi