Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Stop Running with Vipassana and Samatha

 It is possible to live our daily life in such a way that every moment becomes a moment of healing.

Thich Nhat Hanh 

I have a desire to heal, and I have been looking deeply into my running tendencies lately. I am reminded of the practice of Vipassana and Samatha and of a poem I wrote years ago. (Not sure if my poetry takes away from the expression of these two beautiful concepts or adds to it???) Vipassana, as we discuseed in a previous entry, is the act of looking deeply into what is to gain insight. Samatha ( absent of an accent over the s) is a practice of calming the body and mind. 

 If you are deeply wounded, you want to heal. And healing is possible with the practice of stopping. If you don't know how to stop running the healing cannot take place. That is why the purpose of Samatha is to help you to heal. When you breathe in, you brethe in in such a way that makes the healing possible....Your in breath is an expression of arrival....And if your in breath is like that, it has the power of healing.

Anyway, feel a compulsion to share that poem as imperfect as it is: 

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 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 I always can be found.


Dale-Lyn  May 2020

All is well!

Thich Nhat Hanh/ Plum Village App ( December, 2024) Stop Running. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qch5ISD9Bxo

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