If you do not know how to stop running the healing can not take place..
Thich Nhat Hanh
Vipassana, according to Thich Nhat Hanh in the below video, is the process of looking deeply to get insight. Yet, we are reminded that we can not look deeply if we are running away from what is. Most of us, whether we know it or not, are running from our brokenness into the busy world. If we are so caught up in our busy work that takes us out of the here and now...there is no insight and if there is no insight, there is no healing.
We all want to heal...whether we know it or not. The first step to that healing is stopping. When you feel that urge to run...counter it. Stop! Breathe.
Your in-breath is an expresson of arrival: "I have arrived"
Shamatha is stopping...stillness...not running. It is being home.
Vipassana is not possible without shamatha and shamatha is not possible without vipassana.
I have to work on this, still. :)
Reminded of a poem I wrote many years ago when I first heard of Shamatha and Vipassana. In fact, it was this very same teaching and teacher below that inspired the poem.
Wings
Oh beautiful bird with expanded wing,
carry me away,
to the kingdom my Self longs for,
a place where I can stay.
I put away my running shoes,
my need to hide, to grasp, to seek
and close my eyes and wait for you
to clasp me in your beak.
Lift me up with gentle ease,
and save me from my fear.
Take me to that special place
that exists nowhere but here.
Place me on the graceful wing
where time is hushed and stilled
and where mind and body stop to breathe
as nature surely wills.
Upon your feathery pinion,
I will stretch out in passive form
giving up my struggles and my fight
to resist each passing storm.
I will surrender graciously,
as we glide through spacious sky,
and I will notice just how blue it is
while the grey clouds pass us by.
I will have faith in you my friend
to shelter and protect,
as I let go into the sureness of your strength,
my view you will correct.
As you hold me on your wing,
and we skillfully swoop and glide,
I will know that where you're taking me
is nowhere but inside.
And as I breathe in each precious breath,
I will observe each internal knot release
from the twisted pain of wounded cells
to settle into peace.
Then when there is no longer in me
a place for fear and grief to hide,
I will crawl so gratefully over you
to the wing on the other side.
There, I will lie and look about;
the wonders of the world, I will see
and understand so perfectly
the way it was and the way it's meant to be.
And without a noise of flapping wing,
you will gently set me down
in the home of Self where I never left
and where peace always can be found.
©Dale-Lyn May 2020
All is well.
Thich Nhat Hanh/ Plum Village (January 31, 2024) Stop Running/ Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qch5ISD9Bxo&t=511s
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