Our efforts in pursuit of substitutes preoccupy and distract our attention enough to shield us from the raw sensation of feeling unloved or unworthy.
Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance, pg 138
Oh my, oh my lol. I don't know how it happens or why it happens, it just does. By that I mean, I don't know why the learning shows up in my life the way it does, why those poems plop out of me onto the page, why my life circumstances are the way they are....why I am pulled here every single day when there are a thousand other things I could be doing in that hour or so that I am here. Sigh!!! All I know for sure, in some deep part of my being, is that it is all connected by a force I cannot even begin to understand fully with this little mind of mine, let alone put on paper in a way others could understand. It is just beyond "me". That in itself is so amazing.
Synchronicity
After I wrote...excuse me...after that poem came out of me yesterday (I reworked it a bit)...I was reminded that rehab is soon over for a loved one, a perfect example of a "hungry ghost", suffering from addiction.
I found myself yesterday fretting and worrying about what will happen next. Only five weeks in a program that he expressed "did no good" was not enough rehab. I worry about him. Are we going to just slip back into those same patterns of living? I worry about others who have been or could be impacted by his choices and I worry about myself. I don't like being on hyper alert all the time, questioning, doubting, wondering, assuming, protecting myself and others. It is draining not to trust. And I feel guilty...so, so guilty... for not trusting , for judging and assuming the worst just so I stay ahead of it in my desire to protect him, others and myself. It isn't fun dealing with such extreme addiction!
To continue on the choo-choo train of synchronicity ...what video do I tap into today from Tara Brach but one on Desire and addiction...which fit perfectly with the poem and the situation we are facing. Is that just another weird coincidence? lol.
The Delicate Fringe of Addiction
I know I am not alone here. Many, if not all of you, have touched the delicate fringe of addiction in yourself or a loved one, have you not? In fact, I believe, as I said many times before, we are all addictions waiting to happen. It is in the nature of our unconscious un-evolved minds to grasp and cling and this is addiction is not?
Addiction is Addiction
I am not addicted to "the dangerous" substances per say but, oh my goodness, I know I easily could be if I wasn't careful about what I put into my body.
I am addicted to tea. I have 2-3 cups in the morning with the same tea bag or diffuser. Seems innocent enough, right? Visit me some morning when I realize I have run out of orange pekoe...not so innocent lol. I would be miserable and make everyone in my life miserable without my morning tea. I also like sugar, which Christiane Northrup teaches, is the like poison for menopausal women like myself but I still seem to be powerless to my craving for sweets.
The Physiology of Addiction
These are addictions most of us joke about without realizing that the same thing that drives these is often the same thing that drives the gambler to the machines and the heroin addict to the needle. In all forms of addiction we are seeking a dopamine fix from a brain that has been rewired by stress to become chronically deficient in that neurotransmitter. ( Tara Brach)
Dopamine is our pleasure center. Without my fix of caffeine in the morning, my day is not pleasurable and I am not pleasurable to be around. My good old fashioned limbic system loves me enough ...in its strange...poor parenting way...to want me to be happy. The only problem is...the more I depend on substances or activity to get a dopamine charge...the more deficient I become in it...and the more and more I need of this external whatever to put a "Good Morning" smile on my face. Not only that, that part of my brain that controls my impulses becomes less active, the more 'I use' and thus I lose my ability to restrain myself from not pouring that cup in the morning.
The Psychology of Addiction
Psychologically speaking what makes us more likely to develop addictions is our need to fill in internal holes..."holes in the soul" that come from unmet needs, usually but not always in childhood and to "numb" or check out from the pain of our truths. We are looking for substitutes to the nurturing, belonging and love our souls are telling us we need, that we didn't get enough of. These unmet needs lead to a certain "stress response in the body and mind"...a sense that something isn't right with us. So we seek to soothe ourselves with something that makes everything alright if even for a short time.
So I drink my tea and get my sugar fix. Maybe you work 60 hour weeks or cling to a need to make more and more money. Maybe someone you love smokes or overeats. Others may drink excessively to the point it interferes with family life or other social obligations. Some may not be able to get though the day without smoking marijuana or something stronger. Regardless of what the substance or activity, addiction is addiction....psychological or physical or both.
Socially Sanctioned Addictions Vs. Non-Sanctioned
What is different, is how society judges our drugs of choice. Like I said, people would laugh and say "Oh you are so silly" if I told them I was addicted to tea and sugar. ...or even if I was an overeater or excessive exerciser. It 's all still cool. Now that pot is legal and our youth are convinced that "it isn't addictive" we see an increase in the "420" population. It is socially okay to get stoned everyday. Drinking is okay as long as we don't break the law and get behind a wheel and are up in time to go to work. And working beyond the average hours /week and a desire to achieve more and more ...society applauds that.
What isn't okay is those behaviours that society doesn't sanction as acceptable. Say if I overeat to the point I gain an extra 250 lbs...does society see that as okay? If I drink too much and show myself in places where drinking isn't the norm...I become a "drunk". If I have a sex addiction and act upon it, "I am a whore.". If I do illicit drugs...I am a "junkie" and therefore a "liar" and a "thief". I am a "danger to the moral fibers of the society" I am in. I am judged and condemned by others as unacceptable, deficient etc. Now if society is judging me, how do you think I will judge myself? Even more harshly.
Condemnation from society and self, Tara Brach teaches, becomes the biggest problem for many addicts.
The Vicious Cycle
Let's look at the cycle of non sanctioned addictions. The "innocent" and divinely perfect individual gets wounded and has certain needs for safety and belonging, love unrequited. This leads to a stress response and an internal sense that there is something wrong with self. Dopamine is drained from the brain. The wounded soul with unmet need seeks to soothe itself in some way and discovers an activity or substance that increases dopamine in the brain temporarily and helps to numb them from the pain of not being enough. They go to it again and again and it becomes a habit. Dopamine becomes more and more deficient and the prefrontal cortex becomes less active. The person loses their ability to restrain themselves from the impulsive grasping for that substance or activity. They are labelled as "addicts". Society steps in and judges them and condemns them for their addictions and wants them "off the streets" because of their dangerous behaviours. They are in a sense "shunned" from mainstream. The external condemnation becomes an even deeper internal condemnation. The individual labelled as an addict begins to hate and condemn self. This increases their sense of stress and deficiency, that" hole in the soul" seems to grow. They seek to repair it, fill it with the thing they are addicted to again and again but sadly more and more is required.
A Hard Look Inside Myself
I feel when I look at the individuals I love who are suffering from such non-sanctioned conditions that I have been harsh in my own judgment and condemnation. Part of me did not fully recognize their choices as an "illness" but as a weakness they could learn to control if they really wanted to. In my mind I was stuck on the theory of choices that they were responsible for owning and fixing. Not only that...there was always an "us" and a "them" when I referred to addicts. I recognize that we are all addicts in one way or another but I drew a line in the sand between those of us who were addicted in socially sanctioned ways and those who were addicted in socially condemnable ways. Addiction is addiction!
Forgiveness is Required
And what do we all need but forgiveness, compassion and love. I need to offer more compassion and empathy to my loved ones who suffer so, not my judgement and fear. I need to encourage them to forgive themselves, to see their own inherent goodness beneath the mess addiction has made. And that could begin by me seeing and saying, "It is not your fault!"
Hmmm! I also have to forgive myself for my judgment and condemnation. I take responsibility for my behaviour as I would expect those with addictions to do but we cannot be responsible if we are contracted with guilt.
A truly responsible heart is an open one. And an open heart is a forgiven heart. The first step then to healing from addiction is opening the heart. The heart can only be opened with forgiveness and loving kindness.
All is well.
Tara Brach (2003) Radical Acceptance. New York: Bantam
Tara Brach (March 2020 ) Sheltering in Love- Desire and Addiction. [Part Two] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u--mnOOMUiQ
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Monday, July 20, 2020
The Feast
Another bout of serendipity or what Carl Jung called synchronicity has led to the creation of this poem.
The Feast
My strange looking brothers are gathered together
around the long, expansive table,
eyeing and drooling over the reams of food stuff on it .
I take my seat before the main dishes
expertly cooked to perfection.
The spices and rich sauces send whiffs
of savory sweetness through the air,
and the many pastries and pies tantalize the fingertips
with their delicate flaking shells.
I can't help myself . I grasp.
Though it seems that each inch of the table
is covered in some delicacy
my companions call out to the bone weary servants,
who bring platter after platter in to us.
"More! More! More!" they shout
as they bang and clang cutlery against the solid wood
hidden beneath the fine, crisp, white linen,
making the servers frantically run about
to bring us more.
The table just gets longer and longer
with each entrée we are offered.
I hear my hoarse and constricted voice
among the many calling out my orders,
and reprimanding those winded waifs
who do not scurry fast enough.
I slap away the trembling hands
that plop dishes down in front of me
that are not to my liking.
I am hungry, like the many dining with me...
so very hungry.
I can not get enough. I want more.
"Bring me more!!!" ,
my demanding echoes compete with the others.
I feel the rumblings of my craving within me,
threatening to expose all that lay beneath it
in tightly wrapped containers I stuffed away long ago.
My grief, my fear, feelings of not being enough
unravel inside me,
eating away at my internal flesh,
leaving craters and deep ulcerating voids.
And I try so desperately to push it all down
and keep it down
by digging my spoon into the plates before me....
to fill the growling emptiness within my core once and for all.
But atlas my belly continues to growl
and my cries for more are not being answered fast enough.
I look around the table at my ugly and deformed dinner companions.
I can see why they are still complaining of their hunger
despite how much they have before them.
The silver spoons they hold to their mouths are too big
for the pin sized opening that is there.
Nothing can enter and even if it did no food stuff would be able to
pass down their grotesquely long and much too slender throats.
In some cruel twist of fate, they are not equipped to swallow.
Their huge and swollen bellies receive only air
with each bite they attempt to take.
I can understand why they are so hungry.
But what about me? I am not like them.
Why can I not fill the gaps within me
when there is so much before me?
Reluctantly, I lift the eyes I have held down too long
to the mirror that gleams and shines
on the wall behind my brothers' disgusting forms
and see a shadow of myself staring back.
I gasp in horror.
The mouth that once opened so easily
in a big and awkward smile for others
has been shrivelled to a dot by cries for "Me, my and mine"
as I learned to focus only on
defending and protecting my earthly form.
The throat that was once full and wide enough
to accommodate my laughter
has been constricted to a slender tube
by talk of not enough and a need for more.
My resistance to what is
has whooshed me away from my moment
and led me here to this table of ghostly forms
with unquenchable desire.
I run my hand along my belly to feel
it bloated and hard with my longing.
I too am now a ghost like figure
that will never get enough from the feast
provided to satiate my hunger.
Desire will always be my prison...
"Why?" I call out to those still ignorant of their deformities.
They ignore me as they continue
to dig and dig into the plates they can not eat
and I listen why they cry out for more and more to no avail.
I point to the mirror with my own trembling hand,
the thick blueberry from the pie I could not eat dripping from it.
"Look!" I cry but they do not look up from their busy doing.
They are too intent on their striving to notice what they have become.
I close my eyes and pull my chair away from the unsatisfying feast
that causes so much suffering.
I place a hand on my throat.
I may not be able to swallow, I tell myself, but I can breathe.
I breathe in, knowing that I am able to breathe in.
I breathe out, knowing that I can still breathe out.
In that breath I find the true island of refuge within me,
that removes me from this greedy feast.
I feel the Life force moving through me, filling me and healing me.
The air that fills me is enough. I have enough. I need no more.
I allow it to enter me, to cleanse me and to open me.
Breath goes to my craving and desire
and brings it to my heart to be held and embraced.
It goes to each of those packages of memory and emotion I have stuffed away
and opens them, slowly, gently,one by one,
bringing them to my heart to be held and embraced.
With each thing I hold, each breath I take, my heart gets bigger.
I then look about at all the servants scurrying about ,
I ask for their forgiveness.
I look at my reflection, my brothers and all beings
and I hold them awkwardly in my ever growing heart.
The "Me, my and mine " of my imprisonment slips away
and my mouth is widened once again into a peaceful smile.
The need for more is replaced with a feeling of enough
and my throat expands in laughter once again.
My longing gives way to Love
and my belly shrinks to a healthy size
filled in a way it never was before.
I stand up and excuse myself.
I am freed and with me,
so is each of my dining companions.
The unforgiving hunger is finally over.
Dale-Lyn (July, 2020)
Very, very rough! Among other things that serendipitously came to my attention all at once, this was inspired by the below video. All is well!
Plum Village ( Nov 2019) Dharma Talk by Sister Dang Nghiem . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Ogs3oA6Kg
Sunday, July 19, 2020
Crossing the Bridge from Longing to Belonging
Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly.
Let it cut you more deep.
Let it ferment and season you as few humans
and even divine ingredients can.
Something missing in my heart tonight
has made my eyes so soft,
my voice so tender,
my need for God absolutely clear.
Hafiz from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/495676-don-t-surrender-your-loneliness-so-quickly-let-it-cut-you
Note:
I debated working the below poem. I see the glaring imperfection in it and being that it did not come out in a blurp of inspired urging but just from reading my last entry...I thought it was a poem I could work. But, right now I am not going to lol. It is what it is.
I do notice something pretty cool though. When I write something and go back the next day to check my stats and readership, I notice that similar entries are being pulled from the archives. Hmmm! Whether that is coincidence or purposeful is irrelevant...still cool lol.
Somehow, somehow...it brings me to the topic of today's entry.
Loneliness
I tapped into another great video from Tara Brach this morning on loneliness, that feeling we are separate and cut off from the world, each other and ourselves. Painful! But this experience, I learned, is actually a biological aversion to motivate us to seek that connectedness that makes us who we really are. I shouldn't say "seek' as if it is something we need to find for the first time. I should say "remember" because that Oneness, that connection is always there. We just forget it in those moments we feel lonely.
The "Story" of Loneliness
The problem isn't so much the feeling we get when we find ourselves "alone" but it is what we tend to do with it. We allow our anxiety to increase. People who admit to feeling lonely are often anxious. Well if we are biologically designed to be in a pack and we find ourselves outside of one ...whether that is a perceived or actual occurrence...we are going to be hyper-vigalent about the dangers out there because we feel extra vulnerable without the pack's protection. So loneliness focus increases our anxiety
A perception and self perpetuated "story" about our loneliness also decreases our motivation and desire to look after ourselves. Why bother exercising , staying slim, shaving our legs if no one is going to see us right?
Most sadly we tend to fall into spirals of shame when we tell ourselves stories about our loneliness. "There must be something wrong with me if I am lonely or not belonging to the pack." A poet quoted in the video said that loneliness is "an embarrassment of poverty" . hmmm.
Loneliness = Vulnerability and Exposure
So I guess loneliness reminds us of our vulnerability and we do not like being vulnerable and exposed, do we? What we tend to do is try to cover that up with layers of numbing, distracting, achieving, redeeming etc. We take false refuge in whatever we can to avoid that feeling.
What we fail to realize is that vulnerable place loneliness exposes...is the very place from which we can heal. It allows us to connect with Self in a much deeper and meaningful way if...if we allow the loneliness to "cut more deeply" through us to reveal the "sacred longing" that exists in all of us.
Loneliness Can Lead Us Home
If we were willing to simply sit with our loneliness instead of running from it; if we were to gently and patiently call it forth to us as if it were a frightened feral child ( our frightened inner child) and embrace it softly...the unpleasantness of it, the judgment of it, the story line surrounding it would disappear. (Spirio, video below) and our healing would begin. This healing is a return to Love and a recognition that we do belong in a way we could not see before.
Hmm! Something to think about!
Tara Brach (April, 2020) Sheltering in Love Part V- Loneliness as a Portal to Sacred Presence ( part 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_V__PzcXhA
Rupert Spira ( July 17, 2020) Exploring Vedanta and Tantric Approaches to Emotions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykqA6aBqopw.
Let it cut you more deep.
Let it ferment and season you as few humans
and even divine ingredients can.
Something missing in my heart tonight
has made my eyes so soft,
my voice so tender,
my need for God absolutely clear.
Hafiz from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/495676-don-t-surrender-your-loneliness-so-quickly-let-it-cut-you
Note:
I debated working the below poem. I see the glaring imperfection in it and being that it did not come out in a blurp of inspired urging but just from reading my last entry...I thought it was a poem I could work. But, right now I am not going to lol. It is what it is.
I do notice something pretty cool though. When I write something and go back the next day to check my stats and readership, I notice that similar entries are being pulled from the archives. Hmmm! Whether that is coincidence or purposeful is irrelevant...still cool lol.
Somehow, somehow...it brings me to the topic of today's entry.
Loneliness
I tapped into another great video from Tara Brach this morning on loneliness, that feeling we are separate and cut off from the world, each other and ourselves. Painful! But this experience, I learned, is actually a biological aversion to motivate us to seek that connectedness that makes us who we really are. I shouldn't say "seek' as if it is something we need to find for the first time. I should say "remember" because that Oneness, that connection is always there. We just forget it in those moments we feel lonely.
The "Story" of Loneliness
The problem isn't so much the feeling we get when we find ourselves "alone" but it is what we tend to do with it. We allow our anxiety to increase. People who admit to feeling lonely are often anxious. Well if we are biologically designed to be in a pack and we find ourselves outside of one ...whether that is a perceived or actual occurrence...we are going to be hyper-vigalent about the dangers out there because we feel extra vulnerable without the pack's protection. So loneliness focus increases our anxiety
A perception and self perpetuated "story" about our loneliness also decreases our motivation and desire to look after ourselves. Why bother exercising , staying slim, shaving our legs if no one is going to see us right?
Most sadly we tend to fall into spirals of shame when we tell ourselves stories about our loneliness. "There must be something wrong with me if I am lonely or not belonging to the pack." A poet quoted in the video said that loneliness is "an embarrassment of poverty" . hmmm.
Loneliness = Vulnerability and Exposure
So I guess loneliness reminds us of our vulnerability and we do not like being vulnerable and exposed, do we? What we tend to do is try to cover that up with layers of numbing, distracting, achieving, redeeming etc. We take false refuge in whatever we can to avoid that feeling.
What we fail to realize is that vulnerable place loneliness exposes...is the very place from which we can heal. It allows us to connect with Self in a much deeper and meaningful way if...if we allow the loneliness to "cut more deeply" through us to reveal the "sacred longing" that exists in all of us.
Loneliness Can Lead Us Home
If we were willing to simply sit with our loneliness instead of running from it; if we were to gently and patiently call it forth to us as if it were a frightened feral child ( our frightened inner child) and embrace it softly...the unpleasantness of it, the judgment of it, the story line surrounding it would disappear. (Spirio, video below) and our healing would begin. This healing is a return to Love and a recognition that we do belong in a way we could not see before.
Hmm! Something to think about!
Tara Brach (April, 2020) Sheltering in Love Part V- Loneliness as a Portal to Sacred Presence ( part 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_V__PzcXhA
Rupert Spira ( July 17, 2020) Exploring Vedanta and Tantric Approaches to Emotions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykqA6aBqopw.
Saturday, July 18, 2020
Old Neighbour
Old Neighbour
I catch a glimpse of an old neighbour,
someone who I only see
in vague and random memories
or the odd foggy dream snippet at night.
He looks different than I remember,
once thick and wavy hair thinning at the top
but I know it is him.
I watch him from across the parking lot
converse with the blue over-alled mechanic
who dots his forehead with the black stained rag
he holds in one matching hand,
in between the bouts of laughter the two share.
A certain sadness falls over me
as I scrunch down into the seat of my SUV,
and realize how the decades have unceremoniously
folded over us,
changing and distancing...
Yet ,I know within his form,
now wider and shorter
than my stubborn mind will allow me to accept,
is the same lean, freckled faced boy
who lived next door to me,
who laughed and challenged life in a way few ever did ,
and to whom I pledged my undying love
when we were seven.
In me is still the skinny,
half toothless,
messy- haired little girl,
who loved everyone and everything
with reckless freedom
and who danced and danced and danced,
to his raspy a capella,
spinning in big beautiful joy filled circles
under a perfect summer sky...
before ever learning what fear was.
Dale-Lyn July, 2020
Friday, July 17, 2020
I am not going to write today...well at least not now or here. I am going to pull out one of my bigger projects and have a go at that. Why?
I caught glimpse of an old neighbour today, someone who appears in both of the books I am presently writing and I realized, with a certain sadness, how the decades have folded over us, changing and distancing...Yet I know within his form is the same freckled face boy who lived next door to me, who laughed and challenged life in a way few ever did and to whom I pledged my heart when I was seven. In me is still the skinny, half toothless little girl who loved everyone and everything as she danced and danced and danced in joy before learning what fear was. Hmmm! Yeah...I have to tell our story.
All is well!
I caught glimpse of an old neighbour today, someone who appears in both of the books I am presently writing and I realized, with a certain sadness, how the decades have folded over us, changing and distancing...Yet I know within his form is the same freckled face boy who lived next door to me, who laughed and challenged life in a way few ever did and to whom I pledged my heart when I was seven. In me is still the skinny, half toothless little girl who loved everyone and everything as she danced and danced and danced in joy before learning what fear was. Hmmm! Yeah...I have to tell our story.
All is well!
Thursday, July 16, 2020
The Flow of Life
When we look at nature, doing nothing makes way more sense than we think.
-Einzelganger
I have listened to three videos that I seemed to have coincidentally come upon today. Was it a random grouping? I think not. Each video spoke to something I had on my mind...this idea of doing or thinking our way into a better life..."striving" as it was referred to in Wayne Dyer's video.
The flow of Life Vs Striving
Now I know there is nothing wrong with action and nothing wrong with thinking as long as we are not so attached to these two things that we identify ourselves by them and thus fail to let go to the Flow of Life.
Each of the videos addressed, in some form, the human tendency and need to control, manipulate, work hard, focus on out come, push, be hard or rigid etc in an attempt to meet our goals and live an idea of life we think we should be living. We identify as form and use form to diminish the dissatisfaction and sense of lack of fulfillment such identification causes. We are, as a result, often swimming against the current rather than just going with it.
We need to let go of our resistance and let go to the flow:
That which offers no resistance
overcomes the hardest substances
That which offers no resistance
can enter where there is no space.
translation of Tao Te Ching/ Einzelganger
When we do this amazing things can happen.
What is the Flow?
The flow is the way, the Tao...that formless force that exists within us all that is eternal and nameless. A balance between action and nonaction; between acute anxiety and boredom. This force is beyond thinking, worry ...is gentle and fluid like water and is as powerful as water against the rigid and the hard. When we flow with this force rather than against it, as we tend to do when we attempt to control life or nature to meet the needs of form...we flow in the path of least resistance. Athletes refer to it as "being in the zone". Things become easier. When we flow against this force...things are harder than they have to be and we tend to get farther and farther away from what we want.
We automatically slip into this flow when we realize who we are beneath the form and live from there and act from there.
This God realization or living from our spiritual, formless nature means we can overcome the hardness and rigidity of form and can go anywhere even into those tight closed off places of fear and despair that we develop in our minds and hearts.
Hmmm...something to think about.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. Henry David Thoreau from Walden https://socratic.org/questions/where-is-this-quote-from-go-confidently-in-the-direction-of-your-dreams-live-the
Eckhart Tolle (July 7,2020) the Beginning of Awakening and Essential Identity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_o2iOavxYI
Einzelganger (August 2019) Taoism-the Philosophy of Flow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtGtqmC5wU4
Just Motivation-June 2020 Dr Wayne Dyer's Life Advise will Leave You Speechless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIl2gCrSGnA
-Einzelganger
I have listened to three videos that I seemed to have coincidentally come upon today. Was it a random grouping? I think not. Each video spoke to something I had on my mind...this idea of doing or thinking our way into a better life..."striving" as it was referred to in Wayne Dyer's video.
The flow of Life Vs Striving
Now I know there is nothing wrong with action and nothing wrong with thinking as long as we are not so attached to these two things that we identify ourselves by them and thus fail to let go to the Flow of Life.
Each of the videos addressed, in some form, the human tendency and need to control, manipulate, work hard, focus on out come, push, be hard or rigid etc in an attempt to meet our goals and live an idea of life we think we should be living. We identify as form and use form to diminish the dissatisfaction and sense of lack of fulfillment such identification causes. We are, as a result, often swimming against the current rather than just going with it.
We need to let go of our resistance and let go to the flow:
That which offers no resistance
overcomes the hardest substances
That which offers no resistance
can enter where there is no space.
translation of Tao Te Ching/ Einzelganger
When we do this amazing things can happen.
What is the Flow?
The flow is the way, the Tao...that formless force that exists within us all that is eternal and nameless. A balance between action and nonaction; between acute anxiety and boredom. This force is beyond thinking, worry ...is gentle and fluid like water and is as powerful as water against the rigid and the hard. When we flow with this force rather than against it, as we tend to do when we attempt to control life or nature to meet the needs of form...we flow in the path of least resistance. Athletes refer to it as "being in the zone". Things become easier. When we flow against this force...things are harder than they have to be and we tend to get farther and farther away from what we want.
We automatically slip into this flow when we realize who we are beneath the form and live from there and act from there.
This God realization or living from our spiritual, formless nature means we can overcome the hardness and rigidity of form and can go anywhere even into those tight closed off places of fear and despair that we develop in our minds and hearts.
Hmmm...something to think about.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. Henry David Thoreau from Walden https://socratic.org/questions/where-is-this-quote-from-go-confidently-in-the-direction-of-your-dreams-live-the
Eckhart Tolle (July 7,2020) the Beginning of Awakening and Essential Identity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_o2iOavxYI
Einzelganger (August 2019) Taoism-the Philosophy of Flow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtGtqmC5wU4
Just Motivation-June 2020 Dr Wayne Dyer's Life Advise will Leave You Speechless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIl2gCrSGnA
Understanding the Stressed Mind
This is a perfect universe. There is no stress in it, only people thinking stressful thoughts.
-Wayne Dyer
Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking may have been the first self help book I ever picked up in the beginning of my search for a better understanding of how thought impacts our lives, but Wayne Dyer soon became my go-to. I have or read almost everyone of his books and meditation tapes, CD's etc I have even seen him in person. Ya... he was ( and is) a big influence on my life. I am very grateful for all he taught me and countless others. It was nice to tap into a little video of his teachings today as I ponder this idea of thought and how it influences our lives.
The Prison of the Mind
I see people I love suffering so much in self imposed prisons of the mind, weighed down by the heavy shackles of depression and anxiety and I feel so helpless. (When I say "self-imposed" I am not saying they are purposefully doing this to themselves...they are just so wrapped up in the habit of their pain[understandably] they do not see and even actively resist that there is a way out.) I want to help but "I don't know" how.
Shot Down Suggestions
I offer suggestions, when they cry, "What do I do with all this emotion in order to feel better?" and the suggestions get shot down before my sentences are even completed. " Yoga?" "Meditate?" "Simple Mindfulness practice?" "Body scanning?" "Read this , read that?" "Breath awareness?" "Allow and accept the emotions?" "PMR?" "Exercise...just move teh body?" "Walks in the woods?" "Journal?" "Meditate?" "Chart and reconstruct your thinking?" "Pray?" "Put it all on a canvas?"(one of my loved ones is an artist)"Ask for help?" "Be kind to yourself and to your feelings....remove the judgment and the story?" "Gratitude journal...just find two things you are grateful for everyday and think about them, dwell in them for a moment or two?" "Do something or think something positive for someone else?" "Get out into a different environment for a few minutes once a week?" "Meditate?" "Work on this BPD journal and this workbook I bought you?" " Sense awareness for present moment focusing?" "Dance it off to music for 10-20 minutes each day? "Meditate?" "Do the opposite of what you feel like doing....known in DBT as "opposite action"? "Meditate?" You probably notice that I offer the meditation suggestion quite often lol. The resistance to that is sooo great right now.
Resistance: Emotional Mind Has the Reins
I get shot down again and again...even though I am just answering the question. I realize that at the moment the question is asked...a part of them ( that old resistant ego/pain body) doesn't want solutions. Sure the inner part of them wants freedom from the pain...but the habit mind takes over so quickly and automatically. The "emotional mind" is given the reins and after trampling all over "rational mind" it heads off into the deepest yuckiest place because it has become familiar. The pain seems to hide in itself, finding comfort there. It doesn't want to be exposed to light again. (Well of course, "I don't know" anything...just assuming.) I would really like to understand this "resistance" element better because I see that as the real source of the problem??? hmmm.
Anyway...I feel so heavy and helpless after meeting up with this resistance (which can become quite sharp and aggressive) that I have to go and do many of those things on my solution list in order to cope with my own emotions in a compassionate and self loving way. And they help me...they really do. These solutions work for me but that doesn't mean they will work for others.
When Rational Mind climbs Back On
To my loved ones credit...Eventually, if I wait patiently, I will see them doing things I had suggested previously . They call me, when rational or wise mind takes back the reins and they are no longer wrapped in emotional mind, and tell me that I was right...that the suggestion they resisted so long is or does make them feel better. And I see them trying...doing the work of getting better, making progress. I sigh in relief , until emotional mind is given the reins again...and off they go galloping by, calling out behind them as they pass me, "What do I do?"
And I will answer, between each slap of the reins, "Meditate?" "Yoga?" "Mindfulness practice?"....
Sigh...what else can I do?
I guess...on my part it is all about trust, trusting what Wayne Dyer refers to as the "essence of the universe", which is cooperation and harmony. Eventually, the sufferer may find a balance between these parts of the mind...cooperation and harmony, and thus a little peace and joy will follow.
All is well.
Just Motivation ( June 2020) Dr. Wayne Dyer's Life Advice Will Leave You Speechless...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIl2gCrSGnA
-Wayne Dyer
Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking may have been the first self help book I ever picked up in the beginning of my search for a better understanding of how thought impacts our lives, but Wayne Dyer soon became my go-to. I have or read almost everyone of his books and meditation tapes, CD's etc I have even seen him in person. Ya... he was ( and is) a big influence on my life. I am very grateful for all he taught me and countless others. It was nice to tap into a little video of his teachings today as I ponder this idea of thought and how it influences our lives.
The Prison of the Mind
I see people I love suffering so much in self imposed prisons of the mind, weighed down by the heavy shackles of depression and anxiety and I feel so helpless. (When I say "self-imposed" I am not saying they are purposefully doing this to themselves...they are just so wrapped up in the habit of their pain[understandably] they do not see and even actively resist that there is a way out.) I want to help but "I don't know" how.
Shot Down Suggestions
I offer suggestions, when they cry, "What do I do with all this emotion in order to feel better?" and the suggestions get shot down before my sentences are even completed. " Yoga?" "Meditate?" "Simple Mindfulness practice?" "Body scanning?" "Read this , read that?" "Breath awareness?" "Allow and accept the emotions?" "PMR?" "Exercise...just move teh body?" "Walks in the woods?" "Journal?" "Meditate?" "Chart and reconstruct your thinking?" "Pray?" "Put it all on a canvas?"(one of my loved ones is an artist)"Ask for help?" "Be kind to yourself and to your feelings....remove the judgment and the story?" "Gratitude journal...just find two things you are grateful for everyday and think about them, dwell in them for a moment or two?" "Do something or think something positive for someone else?" "Get out into a different environment for a few minutes once a week?" "Meditate?" "Work on this BPD journal and this workbook I bought you?" " Sense awareness for present moment focusing?" "Dance it off to music for 10-20 minutes each day? "Meditate?" "Do the opposite of what you feel like doing....known in DBT as "opposite action"? "Meditate?" You probably notice that I offer the meditation suggestion quite often lol. The resistance to that is sooo great right now.
Resistance: Emotional Mind Has the Reins
I get shot down again and again...even though I am just answering the question. I realize that at the moment the question is asked...a part of them ( that old resistant ego/pain body) doesn't want solutions. Sure the inner part of them wants freedom from the pain...but the habit mind takes over so quickly and automatically. The "emotional mind" is given the reins and after trampling all over "rational mind" it heads off into the deepest yuckiest place because it has become familiar. The pain seems to hide in itself, finding comfort there. It doesn't want to be exposed to light again. (Well of course, "I don't know" anything...just assuming.) I would really like to understand this "resistance" element better because I see that as the real source of the problem??? hmmm.
Anyway...I feel so heavy and helpless after meeting up with this resistance (which can become quite sharp and aggressive) that I have to go and do many of those things on my solution list in order to cope with my own emotions in a compassionate and self loving way. And they help me...they really do. These solutions work for me but that doesn't mean they will work for others.
When Rational Mind climbs Back On
To my loved ones credit...Eventually, if I wait patiently, I will see them doing things I had suggested previously . They call me, when rational or wise mind takes back the reins and they are no longer wrapped in emotional mind, and tell me that I was right...that the suggestion they resisted so long is or does make them feel better. And I see them trying...doing the work of getting better, making progress. I sigh in relief , until emotional mind is given the reins again...and off they go galloping by, calling out behind them as they pass me, "What do I do?"
And I will answer, between each slap of the reins, "Meditate?" "Yoga?" "Mindfulness practice?"....
Sigh...what else can I do?
I guess...on my part it is all about trust, trusting what Wayne Dyer refers to as the "essence of the universe", which is cooperation and harmony. Eventually, the sufferer may find a balance between these parts of the mind...cooperation and harmony, and thus a little peace and joy will follow.
All is well.
Just Motivation ( June 2020) Dr. Wayne Dyer's Life Advice Will Leave You Speechless...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIl2gCrSGnA
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Freedom Through Light
Freedom Through Light
In the darkness that seems to wrap around your eyes and ears like a canvas covering,
filling your mouth with its prickly threads and making it hard to breathe,
in the chains and shackles that rattle and chafe against your tender exposed flesh,
in your unsuccessful attempts to swat away that which buzzes around annoyingly,
sometimes painfully stinging and creating large bumps of swollen suffering in your psyche,
and in your restless squirming and cringing as the memories of what you did or didn't do
remind you with their hissing reprimands why you are where you are. ...
remember the light.
Remember that within you, beneath your imprisoned and tortured form, is a light.
It is not like the light they shine unmercifully in your face when they ask their many questions.
It does not burn, it does not blind, it does not make you sweat.
It is a gentle beam that can not be found in noise, or speech or activity,
only in silence...
and despite how much you fear right now, this is the perfect place for you to find it.
So take your breath...breathe in deeply and notice the silent pause as your belly expands
against the restraint you are strapped within,
notice the stillness of your being ,
then breathe out , feeling your belly soften and your bruised and battered self relax.
In this silence, in this stillness, feel the warm embers like tiny fingers within your heart opening up and reaching out.
Watch with internal eyes as the light, the once clenched fist releases, emerges and shines so softly,
yet so clearly, on your state of imprisonment,
like slithers of precious sunlight through a darkened canopy, exposing all.
Then wait, within the pause between each breath
and each tick of the old clock on the wall behind you
as this light becomes a beautiful saber of powerful energy,
slicing through your shackles and restraints
and burning away the covering that blurs and muffles your senses.
Look about this well lit space and see where you really are, and where you have always been;
see your captors as your smiling brother, as yourself
and your prison as your welcoming home.
Trust that this light of clarity and wisdom will always be there to set you free.
Dale-Lyn July 2020
Inspired By:
Plum Village ( July 24, 2016) Behaviour and Wisdom-Summer Retreat-2016- Thay Bhap Dang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HJhVCwIwME
and the suffering I witness daily in those who suffer from depression and hopelessness.
In the darkness that seems to wrap around your eyes and ears like a canvas covering,
filling your mouth with its prickly threads and making it hard to breathe,
in the chains and shackles that rattle and chafe against your tender exposed flesh,
in your unsuccessful attempts to swat away that which buzzes around annoyingly,
sometimes painfully stinging and creating large bumps of swollen suffering in your psyche,
and in your restless squirming and cringing as the memories of what you did or didn't do
remind you with their hissing reprimands why you are where you are. ...
remember the light.
Remember that within you, beneath your imprisoned and tortured form, is a light.
It is not like the light they shine unmercifully in your face when they ask their many questions.
It does not burn, it does not blind, it does not make you sweat.
It is a gentle beam that can not be found in noise, or speech or activity,
only in silence...
and despite how much you fear right now, this is the perfect place for you to find it.
So take your breath...breathe in deeply and notice the silent pause as your belly expands
against the restraint you are strapped within,
notice the stillness of your being ,
then breathe out , feeling your belly soften and your bruised and battered self relax.
In this silence, in this stillness, feel the warm embers like tiny fingers within your heart opening up and reaching out.
Watch with internal eyes as the light, the once clenched fist releases, emerges and shines so softly,
yet so clearly, on your state of imprisonment,
like slithers of precious sunlight through a darkened canopy, exposing all.
Then wait, within the pause between each breath
and each tick of the old clock on the wall behind you
as this light becomes a beautiful saber of powerful energy,
slicing through your shackles and restraints
and burning away the covering that blurs and muffles your senses.
Look about this well lit space and see where you really are, and where you have always been;
see your captors as your smiling brother, as yourself
and your prison as your welcoming home.
Trust that this light of clarity and wisdom will always be there to set you free.
Dale-Lyn July 2020
Inspired By:
Plum Village ( July 24, 2016) Behaviour and Wisdom-Summer Retreat-2016- Thay Bhap Dang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HJhVCwIwME
and the suffering I witness daily in those who suffer from depression and hopelessness.
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Reaching Out With Compassion
We invite compassion into our lives when we act compassionately towards ourselves and others, and we feel connected in our lives when we reach out and connect to others.
-Brene Brown
Connecting Dots in Learning
Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even if it leads you off the well worn path.
Steve Jobs https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/connecting-the-dots.html
I guess what I do here... is connect dots? Connect dots between all the snippets of learning I come across from great mentors and teachers, from my life experience, from the poetry that spills out of me and from my own inner reflections.
So I am going to connect the dots between the video I seen with David Bohm and Krishnamutri , the videos I watched lately with Tara Brach, my reading of Radical Acceptance, as well as all the others I read recently including The Three Magic Words & A Complaint Free World, from all I learned from the teachings of Eckhart Tolle over the years, A Course in Miracles ( have to get onto the next ten lessons, don't I?) and The Tao Te Ching, and all the great dharma talks that were originally derived from Thich Nhat Hanh that I have encountered, especially this last one I listened to ( see below). This little quote, (supposedly but not for sure, from Lao Tzu)...connects all beautifully.
Watch your thoughts; they become your words;
watch your words, they become your actions;
watch your actions, they become your habits;
watch your habits, they become your character;
watch your character, that becomes your destiny.
Lao Tzu ?
It is truly all about the thinking isn't it? If we want to transform and change our lives or the world...we need to first begin by understanding what is happening in our minds...more specifically what we are thinking, watering and believing.
In a dharma talk from a practiced student of Thich Nhat Hanh, Thay Phap Dang...the same truths cited above in Lao Tzu's teaching... is offered in a beautiful Buddhist perspective. The teachings here center around the idea of needing to recognize our behaviours so we can trace them back to their roots for better understanding. We need to understand in order to sublimate the negative behaviours for positive and thus change the way we perceive, relate, feel and experience our emotions, and cement "belief" in our psyches.
Most of us are living on "auto pilot" going through Life directed by our habit minds, not really conscious of what we are doing and not experiencing Life in a full and healthy way. We do not see a problem so we do not see the solution...but there is a solution: transformation.
How do we Transform?
First step Notice what the Mind is Doing?
We need to notice, first of all, any 'unhealthy' or 'un beneficial' behavioural traits that are strong in us. Thay Phap Dang offers these for example of the many we can develop a tendency for: aversion, attachment, reactivity, domination/control, envy/jealousy, anger, doubt, destructiveness, negative thinking, sensuality/passion seeking, and judgment/criticism. These things do not serve us or the world. When they become firm in us they block the way to understanding our true positive nature and potential.
Once we see these traits n ourselves we recognize that they create our personality, our habitual pattern of living that we sometimes get so attached to, seeing ourselves as these separate and unique selves or egos. Ego is just an idea we have of self...an identification with our behaviours and our behaviours are both our actions and our thoughts.
Our behaviours , according to this teacher, is just habit energy which is comes from impulses ( a neural pathway) when latent energy is triggered and the mind consciousness now has new growth in it from seeds that were once stored in stored consciousness.
Those seeds that were once stored dormant in store consciousness have become the personality traits of aversion/attachment, reactivity, domination and control etc etc. By watering we allow the energy to be released ( and it is all just energy) and to grow/travel up through the mind, latent energy and along the neural pathway to become our impulses, then our habit energy which becomes our behaviour. Our personality is just our behaviours that we express to the world. It is not, however, who we truly are!
Second Step: Wisdom and Insight
We can practice transforming our behaviours that do not serve into behaviours that do by enlisting the help of wisdom or the "clear mind" which is like a "light saber" that can cut through the negative behaviour in a process of "looking deeply". We recognize and shine the light on that which we are thinking and doing that does not serve. This wisdom is a light of tranquility, calmness and concentration.
We can develop and enhance this wisdom and insight through a practice. The teacher in this video tells us that the practice includes taking refuge in a teacher or mentor; being sincerely and honestly open to share our vulnerability and our lack of knowing; detaching from body and mind's need for pleasure; maintaining virtue and learning the dharma well; by being energetic and diligent in our desire to diminish suffering in the world; by being mindful of how we outwardly express ourselves...making what we say count and avoiding rambling, complaining and pointless talking; and finally by being willing to look and see the human mind for everything it is by going inward.
Of course, this is just my summary of the video...more or less a regurgitation of what was said. Please watch it yourself if you want to have a better understanding of it.
My point is ...it all connects doesn't it...all this learning?
Anyway, all is well!
Plum Village ( July 24, 2016) Behaviour and Wisdom-Summer Retreat-2016- Thay Bhap Dang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HJhVCwIwME
Steve Jobs https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/connecting-the-dots.html
I guess what I do here... is connect dots? Connect dots between all the snippets of learning I come across from great mentors and teachers, from my life experience, from the poetry that spills out of me and from my own inner reflections.
So I am going to connect the dots between the video I seen with David Bohm and Krishnamutri , the videos I watched lately with Tara Brach, my reading of Radical Acceptance, as well as all the others I read recently including The Three Magic Words & A Complaint Free World, from all I learned from the teachings of Eckhart Tolle over the years, A Course in Miracles ( have to get onto the next ten lessons, don't I?) and The Tao Te Ching, and all the great dharma talks that were originally derived from Thich Nhat Hanh that I have encountered, especially this last one I listened to ( see below). This little quote, (supposedly but not for sure, from Lao Tzu)...connects all beautifully.
Watch your thoughts; they become your words;
watch your words, they become your actions;
watch your actions, they become your habits;
watch your habits, they become your character;
watch your character, that becomes your destiny.
Lao Tzu ?
It is truly all about the thinking isn't it? If we want to transform and change our lives or the world...we need to first begin by understanding what is happening in our minds...more specifically what we are thinking, watering and believing.
In a dharma talk from a practiced student of Thich Nhat Hanh, Thay Phap Dang...the same truths cited above in Lao Tzu's teaching... is offered in a beautiful Buddhist perspective. The teachings here center around the idea of needing to recognize our behaviours so we can trace them back to their roots for better understanding. We need to understand in order to sublimate the negative behaviours for positive and thus change the way we perceive, relate, feel and experience our emotions, and cement "belief" in our psyches.
Most of us are living on "auto pilot" going through Life directed by our habit minds, not really conscious of what we are doing and not experiencing Life in a full and healthy way. We do not see a problem so we do not see the solution...but there is a solution: transformation.
How do we Transform?
First step Notice what the Mind is Doing?
We need to notice, first of all, any 'unhealthy' or 'un beneficial' behavioural traits that are strong in us. Thay Phap Dang offers these for example of the many we can develop a tendency for: aversion, attachment, reactivity, domination/control, envy/jealousy, anger, doubt, destructiveness, negative thinking, sensuality/passion seeking, and judgment/criticism. These things do not serve us or the world. When they become firm in us they block the way to understanding our true positive nature and potential.
Once we see these traits n ourselves we recognize that they create our personality, our habitual pattern of living that we sometimes get so attached to, seeing ourselves as these separate and unique selves or egos. Ego is just an idea we have of self...an identification with our behaviours and our behaviours are both our actions and our thoughts.
Our behaviours , according to this teacher, is just habit energy which is comes from impulses ( a neural pathway) when latent energy is triggered and the mind consciousness now has new growth in it from seeds that were once stored in stored consciousness.
Those seeds that were once stored dormant in store consciousness have become the personality traits of aversion/attachment, reactivity, domination and control etc etc. By watering we allow the energy to be released ( and it is all just energy) and to grow/travel up through the mind, latent energy and along the neural pathway to become our impulses, then our habit energy which becomes our behaviour. Our personality is just our behaviours that we express to the world. It is not, however, who we truly are!
Second Step: Wisdom and Insight
We can practice transforming our behaviours that do not serve into behaviours that do by enlisting the help of wisdom or the "clear mind" which is like a "light saber" that can cut through the negative behaviour in a process of "looking deeply". We recognize and shine the light on that which we are thinking and doing that does not serve. This wisdom is a light of tranquility, calmness and concentration.
We can develop and enhance this wisdom and insight through a practice. The teacher in this video tells us that the practice includes taking refuge in a teacher or mentor; being sincerely and honestly open to share our vulnerability and our lack of knowing; detaching from body and mind's need for pleasure; maintaining virtue and learning the dharma well; by being energetic and diligent in our desire to diminish suffering in the world; by being mindful of how we outwardly express ourselves...making what we say count and avoiding rambling, complaining and pointless talking; and finally by being willing to look and see the human mind for everything it is by going inward.
Of course, this is just my summary of the video...more or less a regurgitation of what was said. Please watch it yourself if you want to have a better understanding of it.
My point is ...it all connects doesn't it...all this learning?
Anyway, all is well!
Plum Village ( July 24, 2016) Behaviour and Wisdom-Summer Retreat-2016- Thay Bhap Dang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HJhVCwIwME
Monday, July 13, 2020
Delivery
Delivery
I do not know what tomorrow will bring,
Maybe more of what today dropped at my door,
or something completely different,
will arrive in another brown unmarked box
or a bubble wrapped envelope with my name on it.
I can't control what it will be.
I spend so many moments,
searching through the items
Life has to offer,
displayed
on my mind's never weary screen,
picking and choosing
that which will make things easier,
better , safer,
more pleasurable for me and my loved ones,
while I quickly click past the unwanted.
And though I kind of remember
what I ordered
as well as the promised dates of arrival,
and I wait with predicted knowing,
I am often surprised
by what shows up.
When I hear the familiar beeping
of the delivery truck
as it backs into my drive,
I will run to the window
and not wanting to appear
too eager or too desperate,
will hide somewhat sheepishly
behind the curtain
as I peer out.
From my veiled place,
I will strain to hear
the kind but tense
voice of the parcel carrier
as he gently reassures my barking dogs
that all is well,
and the plop of the parcel
as it unceremoniously
lands on my step.
And I will wait,
my heart beating excitedly
within my chest,
for him to drive away before
running to retrieve the package
that was left for me,
tearing it open as quick as I can....
anticipating, hoping...
but often ,
surprised
by what I find inside.
Sometimes I find
exactly what I ordered
beneath the scrunched up,
brown packing paper.
But more often I find
something different staring up at me;
sometimes smaller or uglier,
sometimes prettier or more grand
than what I thought
I was ordering.
Sometimes it is in the wrong colour
or the wrong size,
not fitting my frame and image
in the way I need it to.
Sometimes it is more spectacular
than the images on the screen
could ever be.
And Sometimes...
what I ordered
never arrives
and I will spend many hours
dealing with on line merchants,
searching for reasons why,
to no avail.
I will grieve the loss
of that which I never knew
and promise myself that
I will be more careful,
more diligent
in deciding who and what
to order from
the next time.
Hmmm!
I do not know what tomorrow will bring
but...
maybe, just maybe
I do not need to be so choosy,
so diligent and controlling
in the ordering process.
Maybe I can Let go...just a bit
and Let Life do the clicking.
Maybe, just maybe,
instead of hiding in the shadows
I can go out onto the step
when I hear the delivery truck
making its way to me.
I can hold out my hands
to receive the parcel
the tired carrier is holding
with a smile on my face;
I can even say thank you
and mean it
as I relieve him of his burden.
Maybe, just maybe,
I can remove the outer coverings
slowly and mindfully,
enjoying the sound of crinkling paper
and the pop and release of air
as I squeeze the bubble wrap
with my fingers .
And maybe, just maybe,
what I find inside will be
exactly what I need,
regardless of colour or size,
regardless if it is different than
the images in my mind
I was ordering from
and regardless if the package is empty
of the one thing I thought I needed.
Maybe, just maybe,
I can learn to trust that
Life delivers only
what is best for all.
© Dale-Lyn (Pen) July 2020
Inspired by :
Tara Brach ( May 2020)) Embracing Uncertainty-Sheltering in Love-Part IX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmGSCUb98Uw
Inspired by :
Tara Brach ( May 2020)) Embracing Uncertainty-Sheltering in Love-Part IX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmGSCUb98Uw
Knowledge and Letting Go
Let all go-
the big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things--let all go
dear
so comes love.
e.e. Cummings
from Let it go https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/115198-let-it-go----the-smashed-word-broken-open-vow
This cumming's poem, which I heard for the first time in another great talk from Tara Brach ( see below) addresses two great ideas that have recently been poured into my mind ( or the universal mind that I just clicked into lol) . The ideas evolve around the need to put away conceptual knowledge for presence which is Love and therefor ( the second idea) be able to let go into the uncertainty of what is.
How did I come up with these ideas?
By listening...by listening, fully and deeply as Krishnamutri expresses we should do in one of these videos in order to get past the wall that acts as a thick impenetrable veil between the ego's version of reality and Self.... to two seemingly very different videos which are, in actuality, discussing the same thing....though terminology differs greatly.
Listening with Total Attention
I listened to an interesting but very circular discussion between David Bohm and Krishnamutri about the limiting nature of "knowledge"...and more importantly, our identification with this "knowledge" which to me ( though it may not have been defined as such) is the ego. The two had a very long winded back and forth, round about discussion on how our need to accumulate knowledge, believe we are that knowledge, creates a wall between our little self (egos) and our true Self. This "knowledge" prevents us from "knowing" that we are "Love and awareness". It is only when we tap into that essence or presence that comes with full attention/awareness that takes us into the moment of egoless no thought ( not the terminology used in the video) will we be able to truly absorb the truth.
Then today I listened to Tara Brach speak to the idea of Letting Go into uncertainty and insecurity. Though they may not seem to be linked, I instantly seen the connection between the two videos and felt , once again, the serendipitous nature of my happening upon these two videos. The key point in both videos was that Love and awareness is who we really are and once we , in the moment, get beyond "knowledge", which can truly be in the way of us seeing clearly, and adopt a "beginner's mind" we can let go into uncertainty, into "not knowing". Krishnamutri uses the practice of "listening" to allow that presence and essence to emerge. He tells Bohm that if he were able to listen fully and attentively to what Bohm had to say...there would be no thought while he was listening. His full attention would take him into that space and for a moment the wall would disappear. At one point in Tara Brach's video, she relays the story of a stressed meditation teacher who finds his ability to let go through...listening to the sounds around him. The point is...stilling ourselves, getting quiet and being mindful can help us to transcend the wall. Listen to stillness!
What we need to do is let go. Let go of our need for more knowledge, our need for judgments, our need for more roles to create an idea of self, our need to protect and defend these ideas (as the first lines in Cummings poem [ which I did not include here] allude to), and our need to fix and control the outside world so that we feel safe in it.
When we are able to let go, we can open up to what is. We can surrender into the uncertainty of this human experience. We will then feel the spacious "emptiness" of peace. The wall that Krishnamutri and David Bohm discussed in detail...will simple fade away if we can do that.
Hmmm! Something to think about.
All is well in my world.
Tara Brach ( May 2020)) Embracing Uncertainty-Sheltering in Love-Part IX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmGSCUb98Uw
J. Krishnamutri & David Bohm ( Jan 2014) Brockwood Park 1980-The Ending of time-Conversation 13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHWyxci5egg
And I wrote this back in May, 2018 : https://dale-lynwritin.blogspot.com/2018/05/steps-to-waking-up.html
And I wrote this back in May, 2018 : https://dale-lynwritin.blogspot.com/2018/05/steps-to-waking-up.html
Sunday, July 12, 2020
Dancing sunflowers- Reworked Version
I think of them,
bending gracefully
Their great majestic heads,
vibrant and reassuring,
offered up
so cheerfully
to the fluttering
and humming Life
that passes by.
I think of their long
through which
their Life force flows.
I see their broad leafs,
in my mind's eye...
extended outwardly,
ceaselessly asking
for more and more
of what is needed to
allow their beings
to grow and flourish
accepting
with shameless gratitude
nature's ever giving
bounty.
I imagine the roots,
I can not see,
extended deep below
the top soil
I breathe and
I find myself relaxing
and letting go
into the breeze of my own
little existence,
supported and fed by this body
that holds me upright.
Reaching out
for what is needed
to sustain me.
Blushing,
my shame of needing;
I slowly,
ever so slowly ,
to appreciate all that
lands on my
outstretched appendages,
trusting all
into that which will
within the sky.
Though I can not yet
see my own roots,
I imagine them there
extending
and reaching out
to the Source of everything.
I let go and do my best
to trust the
© Dale-Lyn, July 2020
Did I over-write here?
I could go at this again and again and again...my mind will always find a need for improvement. Will always find something that could be tweaked or reworked. The question is: When does the poet stop driving and just allow what is to be? Isn't that what it is all about?
Hmmm!
Did I over-write here?
I could go at this again and again and again...my mind will always find a need for improvement. Will always find something that could be tweaked or reworked. The question is: When does the poet stop driving and just allow what is to be? Isn't that what it is all about?
Hmmm!
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