Learning How to Suffer.

 

I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.

Anne Frank  https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/suffering-quotes 

Do you know how to suffer? 

I still don't know how to suffer. I guess, I still don't completely understand the suffering I experience through this little clump of flesh, this mind, this "persona" I call "me". 

I have been feeling so depleted once again.  My own body feels heavy and slow and tired. My thinking is slow.  I am closing up and stepping back again in some Self protective stance. 

Why? 

Depressed? 

I automatically go to and at the same time resist the word "depressed". I am sure this is what feeling "depressed" feels like but I cannot own that word  because this little seemingly seperate entity I appear to be is convinced it has evolved beyond that crisis of seperation. I don't mean that as a statement  of any  mental superiority ...only that I truly see now that I am not my circumstances; I am not what is happening around me or through me; I am not this body.  That realization is a part of my reality now so I don't feel I can be personally depressed in the way society views it.  

At the same time when one thinks of the word depressed from a scientific stand point  rather than a social or mental helath one: a reduction in activity, quality, amount or force;( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/depression)...I can say this :   "Yeah,"little self" or ego feels depressed. It is being squished, weighed down, diminished.  My external self is less active, offering less quality to the world, and it does not feel very powerful or forceful right now." Hmm! 

That's a good thing right? As we evolve we want to see less and less of our egos and more and more of who we really are.

Then what is the issue? 

Exposed

The shells we wear around who we really are, the inner Self, the  higher Self...also serve a protective purpose.  They offer a "space suit"like protection for us to manuever our way though this human experience in.  Sure, over identifying with the external covering, seeing it as all there is to us poses a great obstacle in our understanding of Truth...but the control system for our  active sensory antennae and our egos  are there for a reason. When they begin to wear away we may become momentarily unprotected. 

I have very strong sensory atennae...the roots of which extend deep within this version of humanity I call "me". I have always, ever since I can remember , been like a sponge soaking up other people's emotions.  Without ever understanding it, I could become completely physically and emotionally depleted after only a few moments of talking to certain individuals. If I am in a  room where there is anger or stress...I feel angry or stressed. I feel people's grief and sometimes even physical pain.   The same person who is happy one day can "make" my day and the next day I can absorb all their anger or despair. 

And I usually do not know how much I have been affected by encounters  until after I am away from that person. Though there are a few people out there that I can name who I actually and consistently feel more energetic and happy around or people who do not affect me either way ...most of the time dealing with others is an up and down ride for me. My emotional regulation is somehow affected by theirs.  Even just talking to someone on the phone I seem to pick up and soak up emotional energy. It is so bizarre. 

It is just lately that I am looking back and realizing all this.  I was called "overly sensitive"..."too emotional"..."neurotic"...for as long as I can remember.  I never liked  being in crowds or mingling.  I much prefer to be with animals.  It seems "safer". And the sad thing is that my daughters seem to have this "sensitive nature" too and it seems to be much harder on them than it is on me. It breaks my heart.

So now that I am "evolving" ( and I use that word loosely) and the thin shell of protection I had is getting even thinner  and more depressed....I seem to have less protection from the feelings of others.  I am soaking up all the emotions, the experience of suffering others around me are having and sometimes it feels like I am drowning in ego suffering...ego suffering that is not all my own.  (And again...there really is no "own" or seperate suffering but you know what I mean) . 

Whose Feeling is This? 

I have really come so far in so many ways. I still, however,  have an ego that is reactive and inflamed and I know that some of this "stuff" I am experiencing is coming from "my" mind.  I truely know that it is not  circumstances that cause suffering  but "my"  mind. It  still likes to own it all and add story, drama, judgement , bias, preference and detail, right? When I "feel" something intensely it wants to know why.  It pulls me back into its chaos and asks, "Okay what thought stream of yours brought this on? What reaction to circumstance did you choose that caused this emotional crisis?" 

And so often lately it is like, "I don't know.  I have no idea why I am feeling this way.  I was feeling so good a second ago until this person walked past me or until I talked to that person. There is like a heavy, dark weight over me in this environment and I can't explain it.  My stomache gets all knotted up when I go near that person.  I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck go up when that person walks by. I know this person truly cares and wants to hear my "story" and I know that other person doesn't."

 And it doesn't matter what these people are saying or how they are acting.  They may be loved by all and seem to be nothing but kind and loving towards me.  I can still get that feeling leaving  me confused and guilty. So I will spend a great deal of time and energy creating story and deatil to rationalize the emotional experience.  It is exhausting!

Sigh!

Thank God, I still have a lot of "Oh I just love being near that person.  I always feel more energetic and alive. This person seems to make me feel better just by being near me.Yeah, there is absolutely no harm meant from this person. This person is safe!" 

Anyway... if I look at myself  as a seperate entitiy here and now I guess I can say that I feel "depressed.  I feel depressed in a good way...my sense of "me-ness" is depressed.  Yeah!! That is what I was going for. 

 But unfortunately for "little me" or fortunately for "Greater Self" that also means that emotionally and physically I am feeling depressed because of the emotional energy I am picking up from the world around me.  There is so much suffering and I do not know how to diminish it nor do I know how to protect this little clump of flesh I am in from it so that I can stay healthy enough to serve, to help make a difference.

Hmmm!  That is my dilemna.   

All is well in my world. 

Taming the Mind to Be a Friend

 Who is your enemy?  Mind is your enemy. No one can harm you more than your own mind untamed. And who is your friend? Mind is your friend. No one can help you more than your own mind wisely trained-not even your own mother or father. 

The Buddha? Obtained from Jack Kornfield in the below video.

It has been debated if these words actually came from the Buddha as such or if it is a paraphrased form of his teachings.https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/who-is-your-enemy-mind-is-your-enemy-who-is-your-friend-mind-is-your-friend/  It doesn't really matter I suppose...I can see it as something the Buddha would say...what any enlightened master would say. The importance is the truth in those words. 

Mind, untamed,  can be the enemy

Our unconscious minds are the problem not what is going on around us.  Our reactivity, our anger, our fear, our despair all are products of an untamed mind. It is this that causes our experience of suffering.  And if we learn to tame the mind, train it so we are not being used by it...so it becomes instead  a tool used by us...suffering will subside. 

Jack Kornfield, in Levels of Liberation explains there is three levels to becoming more mindful and thusly more free. We need to become more aware of content, process and then consciousness.  

Content

In regards to the content of our experiences...we need to be able to "feel" what is happening in our bodies and minds...what the senses are picking up.  Whenever I begin meditation I close my eyes and do a quick body scan, noticing without judgment what is going on in my body.  Am I experiencing any pain anywhere?  Any heaviness? Numbness? Coolness? tingling? Warmth? etc.  I just notice where in my body I am having these sensations and I sit with those.  I make it a point not to resist...but to allow and accept and examine almost.  

Then I go to my surroundings.  What am I hearing? Smelling? Feeling? as I sit where I am.  I do my best not to look at any "noise" or environmental sensation as an interuption.  I just notice, allow and investigate it a bit. 

Then I go to my emotions?  What am I feeling and where in the body am I feeling it?  What does it feel like? Again I do my best not to resist but to name it briefly, accept, allow and even embrace the emotion I might typically want to run from. 

So I become aware of the content of my moment, of my life.

Process

Then I become mindful of the process.  I watch how the sensations in the body come and go.  I might have a pain in my shoulder and as I breathe into it I might notice it subsides.  Then suddenly I have a cramp in my foot.  I watch that as it comes into my awareness, as it peeks, and as it leaves me.  I go to my surroundings...noticing how the sounds get louder maybe or come in and then they are gone.  I go to my feelings and watch as I allow one emotion to be...it fills me, then it leaves.  Behind it is another emotion.  

The thing about examining the coming and going of all form is that it connects us to the coming and going of life.  All things come , stay for a while then go.  Everything is constantly changing, switching, moving, fading.  Everything that is, except our awareness, our consciousness. When I watch the process I am distancing myself from it.  I am watching a movie being projected onto a screen...interested in the technology and how it is doen but knowing taht what I am being shown is not me.  All the pics that flash before my eyes...come and go...they are in constant transition.

Consciousness

That brings me to the final level...awareness of consciousness.  We suddenly become aware then that we are not the movie being played but the watchers of the movie. We become aware of the deeper demension of Self and all the external tings:  feelings, pictures, thoughts, stories, roles, the body, the personality become almost insignificant.  I mean we know that we need all those things as part of our human experience but we do not have to be overly attached to any of them.  We can enjoy watching them without being lost in them or overwhelmned by them. 

This awareness brings freedom, peace, joy and well being. 

  There is a reason why we want to tame our minds.  We can't necessarily change all the things going on in the world around us but we can change our minds, our attitudes, ourt view points...our responses to Life. 

Hmm! Someting to think about.

All is well.

Jack Kornfield ( Nov, 2017) Episode 66-Levels of Liberation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZADtWxZ1vFM

Reunion Vulnerability

 

Reunion at the Diner

A tight smile and a hyervigalent  posture 

offer a flimsy shield within  which I hide

the rawness, the bits of residue sadness, 

and the deep unrelenting sense of unworthiness 

that has been steeping inside this body

for longer than  they have known me.

But like the cover of the little metal tea pot 

the masked waitress has just placed in front of me

it doesn't shut completely,

letting my brokenness slip out like wisps of  steam,

leaving my insides  cold.

My eyes, which  pay too much attention to  

the wrinkled fingers around my cup, 

and  the hestiation in my voice 

betray me like they always do. 

Wanting to run, wanting to stay 

I listen because it is easier

and look up every now and again 

to their beautiful animated  faces 

as they speak with a confident knowing 

that what they say  is important.

I don't know what is important anymore.

My life..I fear will bore them 

or make them uncomfortable...

so I make a mental pledge to share only the joys.

Like pictures of plump smiling baby faces 

captured on a cell phone screen

 I will  pass them around

when asked...

if asked...

Of course they ask...

but before I can tap on the picture button

the 10,000 sorrows,

stuffed  inside for other occassions,

push their way past the neatly lined up joys 

and come pouring unceromoniously out of my mouth 

in garbled broken speech,

that leaves awkward and inappropriate punctuation 

in the middle of our sentences, 

interupting the smoothness of each transition of 

fork from plate to mouth.

I wish I could herd those disbehaving details  up

and pull them back in.

 I wish I could swallow what just came out 

of my imperfect form

as I gulp on the cold tea 

but I can't.

I sigh in relief when the conversation 

quickly gets rerouted

to the stories their confident voices tell. 

I nod my head 

and I find comfort in the listening. 

As I watch my fingers

now trembling ever so slightly

I settle into being there. 

 

In the pauses, 

I look out the window

at passer bys and

I think about this being human thing...

how awkward and  complicated it can be sometimes. 

Dale-Lyn  February 2021

Lovely reunion with old friends but I felt vulnerable for some reason...a little bruised up from the last few months of circumstances and I didn't quite know how to "be" there at first.  Kind of lost my center...and felt very, very human.  I am not sure if they picked that up but it is all good.  It was so good to see them.

All is well! 

Serenity and Coming Home

Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.

If you don't realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.

Tao Te Ching, Verse Sixteen as transalted by S. Mitchell from http://thetaoteching.com/taoteching16.html

I love this and it applies so beautifully when we are talking about training our minds...so beautiful  and poetic.

I love the word "serenity"...I love the way it sounds, I love what it means, I love the way it makes me feel to say it.  It is just a word but it hits me in the same way "Namaste" does.

I prefer Mitchell's translation to James Legge's.  It is more relevant I suppose to this era. 

This verse speaks to the power and joy of mindfulness, of embracing teh now, of meditation...of going beyond thought to peace...beyond mind to heart...beyond the turmoil of running off to the coming back to the Source.  This coming back is serenity. 

Serenity is a coming home, a returning to that place or no place from which we came.  It is a remembering who we are beyond these bodies and minds. 

How important is it to remember where we came from?

We often feel "confusion and sorrow" because we do not realize from where and from Whom we came. So busy, are we, stressing,  seeking, straining, fighting, grabbing, clinging for things that are external to "home" and that do not satisfy this longing for home because we do not know that it is home we are longing for. When we "remember" we naturally and so easily become more tolerant of life and others...we are in awe of Life but not attached to the "things" it provides.  We are kind and giving without a thought for self ( like a grandmother).  Yet we are "dignified like a king" because we know our worthiness...becasue we know who we are...expressions of God or the Tao.

When we are immersed in the wonder of our spiritual beingness, our presence, our essence we can deal with what external life brings us.  We do not need the outside world to change...to be anything it isn't.  We accept what is.

And we are not afraid of death as we know. it  We are not afraid to shed the physical form because we know it is just a well used outfit we were wearing that no longer is needed.

Sigh!  How beautiful, is that?

All is well in my world. 

Observing and Training the Mind

 The Unobserved Mind creates the unhappiness.

Eckhart Tolle

Running After Thought

I often say that, don't I? That it is not the circumstance that causes our suffering but what our mind does with it.  As long as we are lost in story we are not observing what the mind is doing...if you are not watching the dog you have taken off leash...it might run off ...chasing one thought form after the other.  When we are unhappy, confused, angry and reactive we have not only taken our mind off its leash, we have let it run off.  It is so important to recognize that it has run off and call it back before it gets too far. Just call it back.

Awareness: Knowing You are Thinking

As soon as you recognize that you are lost in a thought stream, you are becoming more aware.  As soon as you realize what you are feeling and see that as a "result" of your thinking...you are getting even more aware. When you become aware of specific thoughts...awareness is increasing...when you see the unhelpful effect of those thoughts on you,  you are even more aware.  

When you can say, "Man this thought I had about the bills that was causing me to worry and go off on a mental tangent is not useful at all.  In fact it is counterproductive and destructive to my peace of mind." ...you are almost there. 

Training the Mind to "Come Back"

Before you can get to the depth of spaciousness on the other side of thinking, the presence on which the thought emerges, you do have to deal possibly with a resistant mind.  The thoughts in the mind create a momentum effect...like the dog who begins to run away...getting faster and faster...it may be resistant to your call to "Come back".  

Resistance and Momentum 

The mind  is often caught up in the momentum effect. You know what that is like right?  When you are on a worry or anger or self pity trip, the mind keeps adding one thought, one story after another to rationalize your spiral downward...and if someone tries to offer evidence to the contrary or reassurance to bring you out of it...what do you want to do to them? Not always nice, eh? You are caught up in this downward thought spiral and it almost feels "comforting"in its discomfort  or "Pleasant"in its unpleasantness. 

The quicker the thought comes, the farther you get away from presence...the harder it is to come back.  Have you ever tried to put a yet-to -be-trained  dog back on a leash when it has been freed and running off? Not always easy, is it...to get them to come back?  So expect to meet some resistance when you begin training your mind to come back from thought streams.  But commit to the training!

Reward, Don't Punish

And by no means scold yourself for going off.  If the mind thinks it is going to get reprimended and punished everytime it comes back...it will resist coming back even more.  Rule number one when trying to get a dog to come back to you...do not growl or punish them when you do manage to get them back on that leash. Make coming back something it wants to do...reward it. Reward your mind with understanding and compassion. 

Understand that Thinking is Natural for the Mind

And understand that the mind, like the dog,  is just doing what minds and dogs naturally do.  Chasing and running are what dogs do.  It is not doing anything "wrong" or "bad". Thinking is what the mind does...thoughts come naturally to the mind.  We do not want to train that natural instinct out of the dog nor do we want to train it out of the mind.  We just want to "tame" it...that's all. 

A tamed mind will still run off but if you are a vigilant owner you will recognize it when it goes off and you will call it back automatically...and the mind, once tamed, will gladly come back to presence. So stay observant!  

An observed mind, is a conscious one.

All is well.

Eclhart Tolle (February, 2021) School of Awakening: Become Free of the Overthinking Mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_0ICsolRcU

Revealing Circumstances

 Circumstances don't make a man, they reveal him...

James Allan 

Hmm! I am hoping that isn't true lol.  What would the circumstances of my life say about me?  

I have amazingly wonderful circumstances in my life:...I am surrounded by beings I love...both the furry kind and the skinned, I live two minutes form my beloved woods where I can go everyday if I need to surround myself with the healing presence of nature. I have a roof over my head and food on the table. I get to do what I love to do everyday...write...and it doesn't matter if I make a cent doing it. I have a big family and good friends ....I have my yoga and my meditation practice....I have my morning  tea and the opportunity to go inward everyday. I am learning and growing everyday. The more I see myself as something beyond this body...the more its limitations do not hold me back. I really am waking up to a new understanding that is freeing me in ways I never thought possible.  I love this process! I have so much.

Yet... I also have circumstances that challenge me and they have to do, I suppose, with being surrounded by the reality  that suffering exists.  I see the suffering of loved ones all around me.  I want to help.  I often don't know how...it leaves this knot in my core when I cannot take away another's pain. And sometimes when circumstance comes raining down on me like a storm...I don't see clearly...I don't see the learning in it, the "grace" in it and I perceive that Life just wants to drown me.  I get lost in those moments, and I have been feeling lost lately.  I have been feeling a certain "stuckness" and when I look around at "circumstances" I say they are manifesting my "stuckness".  

There was a quote in Wayne Dyer's The Power of Awakening that kind of reinforced this idea that I was stuck and manifesting stuckness:

You got to trust that you'll know it's time to make a change.  If you don't the universe will tell you-you'll get the signal in some way, and you indeed will move along.  If you continue to stay where you don't belong, the universe will start making you deteriorate. 

I felt like I was deteriorating...I found myself closing down, feeling sick again, not there enough for others. I have also  been looking about me and everyone seemed to be deteriorating... so "stuck" in an unhealthy way. I thought a change was required and I ws teh one to direct it.

So, I was about to make some very major changes in my life less than a month ago...was in the process of orchestrating what I thought was best for all...they were even in the works...but ....Life  had other plans.  She threw another couple of  curve balls in my direction and the changes went 360. She brought me and others right back to where we were before the change.  There is no doubt in my mind, she did so for a reason.  So instead of fighting and resisting like I was...I am recognizing, accepting, allowing and trying to figure out what I am meant to learn from all this. I am finding a certian peace in letting her decide what she wants for me and others.  It was never up to me to make that decision.  

Hmmm.

So what do my circumstances reveal about me?  I am a student of Life...a student who is finally recognizing that she is not here to tell the teacher what to do or how to teach...but to simply be open to the learning provided, trusting in the process.  Yeah...the lessons are pretty complicated and seemingly imcomprehensible but I will catch on eventually.  When the teacher wants me to to "do" something she will tell me.  For now, I just have to sit back, listen, watch, and appreciate the learning. 

All is well. 

Wayne Dyer (2020...Post humously) The Power of Awakening. Hay House. Kindle Edition

Climb to Clarity and the Five Hindrances

Climb to Clarity and the Five Hindrances

 I took a step toward the mountain that seemed so very steep.

My goal and intention  was to climb it, to sit upon its peek

so I could, upon its  craggy perch, look out and truly see

all that was real and perfect in the world, and all that was in me.

The sky was pure and clear around me as I began the tall ascent;

 I could see where I was heading, and the purpose I was meant.

The path, however, was quite bumpy  and it seemed so very, very long.

But I, determined, took one step upon the other and promised to be strong.

Hindrance One: Sensual Desire

And just when   my breath was heavy and the thirst burned  within my throat

I spotted a caravan along the path in a place so deceptively remote.

 Its ownwer dressed in finest silk came out to greet me and kindly sit me down

in amongst the beautiful people who gathered all around.

He offered me the finest food and drink and everything my heart desired

and I found myself so pleasured, I forgot that I was tired. 

"That road to the top  is very hard" he cried, " full of sweat and agony

stay with me instead and surround yourself in perfect luxury." 

I  wanted what he had to offer,  all the pleasure he wanted me to share

but remembering my promise politely I declined  and left with pockets bare.

Hindrance Two: Ill Will

I began once  again up the mountain, intent on getting to the top

but a dark cloud filled the sky, pouring  down its fury until I had to stop.

There squatting on the side of the path, gasping and in pain 

I saw a fellow travellor cursing and crying out  at the rain.

I stopped to see what was happening , to make sure he was okay

but he just swore at me with hissing breath and  swatted me away.

Yet when I walked past he  grabbed me and pulled me to the ground

he kept me a victim in his hold and I couldn't make a sound

until he had the opportunity to pour on me all his negativity and despair. 

When he was done he spat at me and released me from his snare.

Hindrance Three: Sloth and Torpor

When I walked away his dark cloud followed, hiding away the light

and my mind so full of darkness seemed to take away my fight

but I remembered my promise and  I travelled on, dragging  heavy feet

along the path to nowhere ,a path I wasn't sure I would conplete.

Though I kept on moving, with every step  I was pushing through a wall

How I despareatly just wanted to lie down somewhere and curl up in a ball.

The promise I made did haunt me though and I could not give up right then

so I continued to walk  up  the twisted  path that never seemed to end.

Hindrance Four: Resltlessnes and Worry 

Suddenly  I felt my step quicken and my heart become more free 

as the heavy weight of  torpor released its debilitating  hold on me.

It wasn't long however, before other  travellors came to block my way

worry and its restless forms had a million things to say.

 They jumped back and forth like monkeys, pulling me here and there;

they  listed all the things that could go wrong and told me to beware.

Chattering, spinning and pulling at my mind  they left me in a knot,

It took my promise and determination to fight them off with everything I got.

Hindrance Five: Doubt and Skepticism

Pushing past their grabbing hands, I carried on and headed up the hill

until another traveller got my attention and played havoc with my will.

In a voice all too familiar she listed the many reasons why I would surely fail

in getting to the summit at the end of this long and dusty trail.

"You are just  not good enough." she wailed. "You do not have what it takes to succeed

Besides what awaits at the top is just fantasy, it won't give you what you need."

Her words were so convincing they broke me, they dropped me to my knee

and I was about to give up on the journey and my desire to truly see

until I felt the sun break through the cloud, shining faith down on my head

and I was reminded of the promise I made and what the wise teachers said.

I got back up and walked past the doubts that were noisy and unkind

and followed the trail that before me began to so gracioulsy unwind.

Finally, I reached  the top of this mountain with its glorious scenic  ledge,

there I released the pressure of promise  I held within me and put away my pledge 

I sat down on its craggy edge and looked out before my inner eyes

to see the world clearly in all its amazing beauty without the mind's disquise.

I said a prayer of gratitude for all the hindrance that tempted and taunted me

and bowed my head and thanked it all for helping to set me free. 

Dale-Lyn February, 2021

Another poem that ego is screaming at me not to put up here but that I  feel compelled to put up anyway. I may or may not work on it to make it at least tolerable to ego ...but something tells me to put it up despite its glaring imperfections...to get past that need for things to be "perfect" and just let them be.  This poem just is.

Anyway...came from watching the below TedX talk on the climb to Clarity and the Five Hindrances.

Ted x (February 2020) Master Shi Heng Yi-5 hindrances to self mastery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-079YIasck

 Life circumstance pulled me away again...I will be back soon enough. Though definitely challenging...

All is well. 

February Light

 

The February sunshine steeps your  boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.

William Cullen Bryant

It is lovely out there.  I love the light in February especially over a world covered in the reflective white of snow.  Everything seems so bright...the sky seems so blue in contrast....the world so crisp and alive. February  offers many photo ops.  

I have not been shooting.  I did not lose interest in photograpaphy...just found myself having to reprioritize what I do.  It is challenging to shoot right now...I am having some issues with my favorite lens and with one of my camera's.  If I took a couple of hours(or maybe a day)  I could probably figure it out and fix it up or at least learn how to work around it,  but those hours seem so unavailable to me for some reason.  That  doesn't make sense because I am not as active in my doing as I used to be.  Some would probably question, "What does she do with her day, anyway?" 

My mornings, I allot to my spiritual/healing work. That is my priority...(figure I need that to get through everything else) Then I try to come here for an hour.  Following that, I have the busy work of caring for others...cleaning ( yuck!), cooking, driving, walking, talking, listening, helping in some way and I, of course,  have my yoga practice. I am so exhausted by the time I am done.  I rationalize by saying that I  have knitting and Netflix to do in my down time lol. 

It seems, compared to life before, I do so very little. I am not even doing the "other" writing I wanted to be able to do.  I am stuck on old stuff and though so many ideas come to me ...I just cannot seem to go there. It is like, "When? When do I write? When do I get my cameras fixed up so I can shoot again? " I tell myself, when Life settles down a bit, when everyone and everything is sorted out, when I am not so darned tired, I will shoot again.  I will write again. I cannot remember the last time I took  my camera down and shot despite the bugs? 

So though I have come a long way from my need for checking off items on "To-Do" lists...I still feel this gnawing in my gut when my mind takes me to the proverbial list and whispers, "You have soooo many things left to check off".  Sigh! 

Writing is important to me, shooting is important to me...but so are the people I love.  As a compartmentalizer I have learned how to deal with life situations.  I critically think through the things that come my way and say "Okay...that needs my attention now!  That can wait! I will go there...I will put that aside until after this is dealt with etc" It just seems like I have been constantly doing that lately because so many things have been coming my way. And photography is not in the "priority compartment". 

Anyway...it is all good.  It is as it is.  I can still enjoy that light even when I am not behind the glass.

Shot four February's  ago... sigh!

All is well.

Quotes

 For in truth, it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deems yourself a giver, are but a witness.

Kahlil Gibran

I came across two quotes today that touched me deeply.  There is the one above that reminds us that we are merely witnesses of Life, not the givers of it.  We really need to stop trying to control it and settle into sitting back and watching it unravel before us...all its beauty, all its pain.  Trying to "resist" it or "fix" it is such a waste of time. 

Do not carry a rose to our beloved because in it is already embodied a message, which unlike our language of words cannot be analyzed.

Tagore

And I love this one! Life in all its complexies cannot be reduced to words and concepts that the mind analyzes. There is so much intense meaning in all that Life provides...like a rose...that the mind cannot comprehend.  So stop trying to analyze your way through life, to "narrate" your experiences with mere words...instead just watch and appreciate Life as it does its amazing dance before your eyes. It just is.

All is well

Wayne Syer (2020) The Power of Awakening. Hay House. Kindle Edition.

Returning to the Root

 

Become  totally empty.

Let your heart be at peace.

Amidst the rush of worldly comings

and goings,

observe how endings become

beginnings.

Things flourish, each by each,

only to return to the source...

to what is and what is to be.

To return to the root is to find peace.

To find peace is to fulfill one's destiny.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, translator?

from Wayne Dyer's :The Power of Awakening

Witnessing Self-ishness

Can you learn to witness your life, rather than idenitfy with it? 

Wayne Dyer

Sticky Emotions

I sit with the emotions of "overwhem, worry and grief.  And like sticky tape these emotions attract and trap all kinds of other emotions lingering around.  I am feeling guilt for not not driving L. certain places even though I had the discussion with others months ago about what I would and would not do for his sake as well as mine.  Yet I feel guilty for protecting anything that has a "my" attached to it...my time, my space, my health, my peace of mind, my self care, my autonomy. ...even if I see my assertiveness and follow through  as something that will promote his autonomy, his independence, his self care and his peace of mind in the long run. So I am feeling guilt right now as well. I am feeling helpless and powerless in helping another who needs so much more than my help. I am feeling so very sad when I think of the situation she is in.  I also feel anger and resentment when I allow this sticky emotional tape to sweep the environment.  And the worry just triples and quadruples when I look at others whom I  know or love that are suffering. Man...it sucks.  

Everything feels so heavy around me, a bit dark and my body responds to that with aches and pains, fatigue and a desire to do nothing. I am closing down, more than I am opening up.

Though I am committed to my practice of sitting with "what is", it is challenging to feel so many negative emotions all at once. And I use the term, "negative", with some hesitation.

Negative?  

Why is an emotion that brings less than a pleasurable feeling considered "negative"? 

If we were to step back from our attachment to the judgment of " good" or "bad", "negative" or "positive", "pleasure" or "pain"... would we not see as the Buddhists do...that there really is no dichotomy in emotions?  They just are.  Like all things and non-things they are just energy forms passing through our experience of Life.  They just are....both the same and different.

It is the mind that makes the dichotomy. 

Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

The Mind Decides What is Good or Bad

It is the mind that judges what is "pleasant "for me.  It is the mind that judges what is unpleasant.  The well meaning mind is just trying to protect me , to protect "form" which includes body and mind from harm and to make me happy in the way it was taught to do through centuries of collective conditioning . It will therefore deflect, push away, squish down or numb from what it has judged as "unpleasant" and it will reach out and grab, cling to, hang on to, wait for...anything it deems as "pleasant". 

And I, in my unconscious foolishness , have come to believe the mind is "me"...that it knows best...so I allow it to carry me away. 

Witnessing the Body

Thank Goodness I have evolved enough to truly realize the body is not me...and I can sit through physical pain now...I can go on doing what I feel called to do without my perceived " disability" and "limitation" getting in the way.  I totally forget both most of the time until the body gets good and loud with its own messages it needs me to hear. I really have come to see that the body is just a suit of clothing I am temporarily wearing...a "space suit" that allows me to experience life.  I want to protect it and take care of it but I am so far from being consumed by it. I "witness" it.

Witnessing the Mind

The mind, however, I am still obviously much too identified with.  I still get lost in thinking/story/mental chatter and therefore at times become overwhelmed with "emotions" and "feelings".  I am working on witnessing the mind in action and I have definitely come quite far in that regard.  I, for the most part, am aware of what it is doing.  Still...I have not mastered it.  Sometimes I forget that I am not the character on the screen but the person watching the character on the screen...especially when I notice how so many people around her are suffering and she does not seem to have the power to help ease that suffering or worse...somehow responsible for it. The acting and the writing is just too darn good...it draws me in. Thus my feeling of "overwhelm". 

I am working on it.  Peace of mind is still my biggest goal.  I honestly, honestly feel that if I truly want to "help" others ...I must start with learning to detach from the drama in my own  head. I do that when I become the "compassionate witness" rather than the main character in this drama.  My meditation practice is essential to me and to the world. So that is why I say "No" to certain things in my care of others, in my care of Self. I still "do" alot...don't get me wrong.  I physically serve in this world as much as I can...but I am learning to say "no" to certain things and am prioritizing my healing practice of learning to witness. If that makes me selfish, well, I guess I can learn to accept that too. 

All is well.  

Wayne Dyer (2020/Post humously) The Power of Awakening. Hay House. Kindle Edition

Acknowledging the Suffering in "Namaste"

 Namaste

means that my soul

acknowledges yours -

not just your light,

your wisdom,

your goodness,

but also your darkness,

your suffering,

your imperfections.

It is a recognition

and acceptance of

the inexplicable

divine absurdity,

the miraculous woven

into the ordinary,

light and darkness

intimately entwined

in magical, messy

humanity.

It means that I honor

all that you are

with all that I am.

So, namaste,

my fellow travelers.

I'm so glad we're on

this trek through

the universe together.”

― L.R. Knost

                                                        https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/namaste#:

 

 

 I think of this today as I read the wise words of Wayne Dyer and as I meditate over everything I have been experiencing.  I sit with suffering, the suffering of others mostly, and I hold it in my mind and in my heart .  I mean, my "self-protective" mind wants me to do the opposite of sit with it...it wants me to run as far from it as I can.  It wants to squish it down and shut it out because it makes me feel so powerless, ashamed, guilty, sad and uncomfortable.  

My wise Self knows better. I sit then, when I do,  with my resistance to the reality that others suffer, that suffering exists. As that resistance softens somewhat I can tap into suffering in a healing way.

So as I sat for a good forty minutes today ( pretty good for a resistant monkey mind) the word Namaste kept coming up repeatedly.  It is a perfect word for this...if we have to reduce all this down into a mere word, that is.  

And the quote above is a perfect quote.When I sit with the suffering of others, I am remembering our connection at a deeper level. My soul recognizes their soul...and seperate souls become one soul. I see the light in them as well as the darkness and suffering...seeing all as fibers woven together to create the Life we know as our "messy humanity". I  acknowledge our connection (not just on the familial level...most of those I think about are my children and family) but on a global level...I move from them to others and to the world at large in my confrontation of suffering. To bow to the light in others is to bow to and honor the "all" in others, the "all" in Life. Hmm!

What a beautiful word Namaste is. 

All is well.

Wayne Dyer (post humously) (2020) The Power of Awakening. Hay House. Kindle Edition

Face It! Sit With It!

 You only fear what you don't face, and what you don't face will control you.

Wayne Dyer

I am trying to sit with difficult emotions.  It isn't easy, especially when there is so many emotions at once. I sat through a guided meditation today entitled, "Sitting with Difficult Emotions," but I found myself struggling when they asked us to think of "one" particularly distressing situation that we have encountered recently.  I am like, "One? ...Which one do I start with? "

I am perceiving that I am struggling because there is just so much on my plate.  Tough there is a hundred different emotions jammed up inside me, the three chief emotions I feel are "Overwhelm", "worry",  and "powerlessness"...and these tie in somehow to all the situations. 

D. said to me today as we sat at the table with our tea and coffee, "You shouldn't worry!" 

I am like, "Yeah?  You think?"  

Then I heard myself saying, "But I am worrying.  I am feeling stress, right now...and a sense of 'overwhlem'.  The many crazy situations on my plate  are  in our experience right now...this is what Life is offering me/us. Do I turn my back on them and pretend they are not there...or do I turn toward them and face them and ask them "What would you have me do?" 

He just smiled and shrugged his shoulders.  

I didn't need him to answer. I know that if I don't face these life events, this feelings and judgments ...they will haunt me and control me until I do. My  meditation practice for the next little while, then,  will involve me  sitting with this component of life. 

I turn around to face it and I make my peace with it!  

All is well. 

Where Life Flows

 Love says 'I am everything', Wisdom  says,' I am nothing'. Between the two, my Life flows.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Keep an eye of February 12th's entry.  It is so interesting to see what happens when we lose our attachment to story and conceptual detail; when we go from pointing a finger outward to owning our own experiences.  It is never about the comings and goings of the very stuff of Life that determines our experience ...but of our internal world response to it. 

Do you get so lost in the details of external circumstance that you cannot see "Self" beyond it? Are you so focused on what others are doing or not doing, that you fail to see what you are doing or not doing to make your life all it can be? 

Circumstances and people are going to flow past us and through us all the time.  Sometimes they will seem like everything, sometimes nothing. The thing is not to get caught up in that external flow but to recognize the beauty and perfection of the internal one. Life is the perfect balance between love and wisdom.

Just let things pass through you!  Sure people are going to do silly and crappy things in their unconscious need to protect ego...or an external view of self.  Just know that is not who they are. People are going to make assumptions and judgements about you.  Just know that is not who you are. You are also going to do foolish and awful things to protect your ego; you are going to make assumptions and judgements...this is not you either.  So don't get too attached!

Just watch it all without getting too hung up on any of it.  

Ego likes a long detailed story to rationalize why you are seperated, alone, needing to defend and attack.  Just recognize that is what ego does and begin chipping away at the "story", the "drama" it creates.  It is amazing how much lighter we feel, how much more open we become to the experience of Life when we let go of detail and external world blame. 

Try it for yourself.

All is well.

Spot It? Removing Detail to See You Got It

 If you spot it, you got it!

?

I am coming back to this post which I will do several times to step by step remove  "story" from my being and feeling experience.  I am judging and percieving an injustice, assuming that I am a victim of an unfair assumption that affects not only me but others around me. I am also  feeling shocked, dismayed, "slighted", angry, upset, untrusting of a system  because of this story I relayed here. It is the drama I am reacting to and attached to.  So I am going to start removing it to see what happens. 

Fifth time:

If you spot it, you got it.  Good little axiom to live more clearly by, isn't it. So I spot something and I wonder what exactly it is that I got besides a good dose of stress induced reactivity. 

 I recently came across something that triggered a perception and judgment in me about someone . I perceived that what I found  represented  an "ego" reaction  on behalf of  this "other" who I judged as being in a semi-unconscious state, someone who I assumed felt threatened  or resentful about my expressed concerns.  A gut reaction I had weeks before was validated  and  I found myself   quite shocked, angered and upset over it.  I found myself pulled out of the present moment and back into the past...remembering painful, "unpleasnat" things. I felt very  unsettled by this judgment and perception of another and a situation. 

Even more unsettling was the axiom above. If you spot it, you got it.  If I recognize this ego reactivity in another , am I really seeing it within myself? 

I spotted reactive ego in another, that means my ego is still very active and reactive.   If I recognize chaos outside me, there must be chaos inside me.  If I spot someone's need to be right , I must have a deep, pathological  desire to be right. If I spot someone making assumptions about me, I must be making them about others. If I spot someone overly  attached to conviction, I must be too attached to conviction.  If I spot someone with an ego that is inflamed enough to be threatened, I must have an ego feeling threatened. On and on it went. Hmmm!

I spot it...I got it!

My clinging to detail , drama and story is just an indication of how involved ego is in this little situation. It wants to rationalize its reactivity The more I remove  the details, however, going from specifics to generality, the more I see what isn't important. The external story is not as important as what is going on within me. 

Besides,  I cannot control other people outside me.  I cannot control the world around me.  The only thing I can control here is my mind  by simply recognizing what it is doing.  

What a wonderful learning opportunity this is that presented itself to me with this experience. It is reminding me of my need to deal with my own reactivity. The reactivity of others is inconsequential. 

All is well

Releasing Chains: Teaching Stress Reduction

 

They will be happy learners of the lesson this light brings to them, because it teaches them release from nothing and from all the works of nothing.The heavy chains that seem to bind them to despair they do not see as nothing, until you bring the light to them. And then they see the chains have disappeared so they must have been nothing. And you will see it with them.  Because you taught them gladness and release, they will become your teachers in release and gladness. 

ACIM-T-Chapter 14: II:4:5-9

So this is what I do when I am stressed and I had a lot of stress in my life in the last little bit...let me tell you! What I do is I try to learn from it or try to remember what I learned.  I forgive myself for slipping up...and I did slip up.  (I was reactive around others who had different views than I did.) Then I go back to the quiet...to the body, the breath, the moment. 

One wonderful tool I have in my tool box to help me get there is yoga.  So when I am learning or relearning...you know what I have to do, right?  I have to teach.  So I went down into my studio to do a stress reduction yoga sequence video yesterday to offer anyone who wanted it. I put it on my yoga page for students and I will put the first part of it here. 

Awe!  Learning is wonderful...but teaching...that is in even better.  (Even though I know you cannot have one without the other. :)) 

All is well in my world! 

Truth and Conviction

Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth.

Gandhi

I have been for some reason directed to the Gandhi this morning as I find myself pondering over a complicated issue that effects a loved one and his family. 

He made a mistake, a big one, and as a result others feel in their heart that they can step in to take some of  his paternal rights away for the sake of "safety". I am all for safety, and supporting and helping...as you know...but the argument I am given over and over again to convince me that safety is an issue, and that these loving and caring individuals have a right to step in, is very weak. It makes no sense what so ever to the scientific part of my mind.  So respecting these individuals and wanting to remain open minded, I began hours of research to validate that this is indeed a safety issue.  I looked through past data I had on this subject (I taught about this at one point), I scanned through pages and pages of new research findings related to the issues (thinking that maybe it was a new thing I wasn't up on), I spoke to many  others about it, seeking  a second opinion to validate this and there was absolutely nothing found to support this argument.  I found myself in a conundrum.  

Wanting to remain respectful to the personal and professional means that brought  these individuals to this conclusion and at the same time seeing the breech of personal and legal rights it was imposing on my loved one...I did not know how to proceed. I did not want this to be about who was right and who was wrong...but that is what it became. I felt compelled to support my loved ones rights. 

They were so "shocked" and "dismayed" that I did not automatically agree with their point of view...believing that our getting together to discuss this turned out to be a "waste of time" because I questioned the evidence and the fact that a safety issue existed.  They seemed to be so caught up on the social connotation of this mistake, the "idea" of it that they could not see beyond it.  Unfortunately it was something I was ripped open to the reality of many times in my personal life....so it didn't have that "shock value" for me.  I just questioned, asking for more evidence, more explanation, more objective data to make me believe that what we were doing to my loved one on the trust and esteem level was warranted. The argument just kept  going around in circles but no sustainal evidence or objective proof was provided. 

When I looked over at him while we were arguing "over" him  ( and yes I did get reactive, frustrated  and even angry) ...my heart broke.  I saw that all he wanted to do was "obey" in order to keep peace...not because he agreed...he meekly said 2- 3 times, when given the opportunity to express that he did not agree with their point of view. 

So I backed off and agreed to be the one to do the intervention...just so peace within the family was maintained. I am still holding firm to my questioning if safety is  an issue as I have not been convinced otherwise...and they are holding firm to their conviction that it is.  I will support my loved one 100% regardless of  what he did or didn't do or any notions of right or wrong. At the same tme I seek to see the "love" behind the others' argument and I base my decision to intervene on that.

I also see that I am feeling a little self-righteous....thus the quote.  I did not remind these individuals who are simply concerned about safety out of love...that they or I have absolutely no legal rights what so ever to intervene.  We can calloutside  services... which we more than agreed to have done...but until a court proves otherwise, we have no rights. I tucked that bit of reality into my pocket as a means of self defense to use if needed in the future.

Yeah...I am feeling a bit self righteous right now and that can quickly replace my desire to stay open and compassionate here, if I am not careful. I see people lost in a conviction that is not fully supported by objective data, failing to see the whole pciture, assuming they have rights when they do not. I have my own disdain for attachment to conviction...fearing  such adherence to conviction to be one of the dangers of social life. I believe that all terorist attacks, war, riots, persecution and genocides have taken place in this world because  people got so hung up on conviction they did not see the harm they were doing.  

But am I any better? Part of me still wants to be "right".  To convince others I am. To do so I have to make the other "wrong".  If that becomes my motivation and my goal ...than we will get nowhere with this. 

So I stepped back , turned to my loved one and asked, "If you are surrendering to their point of view because  of  your desire for peace , would you rather have me intervene and be the one here with you?" He said yes.

So I agree to do so for peace and support for those I love....not for any conviction I may have. 

Then...just to complicate my decision to surrender... I am reminded of these other  words from Gandhi. I am now wondering if I should not argue more. If fighting for a sense of right is not the best option?:

A ‘No’ uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.

Man, this living thing is complicated sometimes, isn't it?  :)

All is well. 

Gandhi Quotes: https://wisdomquotes.com/gandhi-quotes/