When It Rains...

"The way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face to face...When we want to complain about the rain, we could feel it's wetness instead."

-- Pema Chodron

“The best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain. ” 

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

At age 72, I'm extremely grateful to be a retired old coot. 

No longer spinning on the hamster wheel of a forty hour work week (to then take care of all the rest of my life in this hyped-up version of human "civilization), I often have the time and space to wander aimlessly a bit, maybe even take a nap in the afternoon.

Not so this week.  

Time and time again, when I thought I could finally get some down time, something else came up.  

When it rains, it pours.

When it rains...  

Not content with metaphor, Mother Nature now is making that old adage literal this weekend.  Gazing at heavy gray skies at the moment, the weather prognosticators are predicating rain for the entire weekend and into Monday.  After a stretch of perfect sunny days, most of which had me in meetings, gatherings, or in front of the computer for hours at a time, it appears Mother Nature is going to pour her heart out when I have time to play.  

There was a time that "rainy days and monday's would always get me down."  If the truth be told though, these days I actually don't mind rain.  In fact, I usually love it.  It is always a chance to get real.

Whether it's a soft foggy drizzle or a thunder-booming rip-snorting whizzbanger -- or anything in-between -- once I'm just present for the actual experience, there is something immensely alive and vibrant about the rain.  Dancing beyond our ability to control it, Mother Nature just is.  She will just do what she will do -- no matter how we think or feel about it.  Why not relax and dig it!? 

At this very moment

I feel a lot of gratitude for Mindfulness Practice at this very moment.  

As I pause, take a few conscious breaths and actually look at the sky outside the window, it isn't the flat, two dimensional battleship grey surface I'd first perceived it to be.  It's variegated, textured, marbled with colors ranging from soft lemon pale grey to that of deep smoke. Through the open window, there's birdsong and the hiss of tires along wet pavement.  Aware of my breath and my body, the wind dances through that window and caresses my skin.  The sounds ebb and flow.  The sensations ebb and flow.

Life is like that, too.  
(READ MORE)

Judgment Day

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”
― J. Krishnamurti

"Judge not and ye shall not be judged"

 ― Yogi Jesus of Nazareth

I don't the think there is any greater freedom than being Present to our lives without the distortion caused by Judgment Mind.  

This deeply engrained process of evaluating what we experience as bad, wrong, condemnable can dominate our lives.  It is embedded in the language we use to describe and communicate our experience.

If one is paying attention, the difference between the warm, bright, spaciousness experienced as we maintain the clarity of an open heart and mind, and the constricted, narrow, claustrophic texture of a quality of  consciousness imbued with judgmental thoughts and feelings, is obvious.  In any one moment, it can literally be the difference between heaven and hell.

Growing up immersed in a society that is highly judgmental, most of us have been deeply conditioned to experience our lives in terms of good/bad, right/wrong, should be/shouldn't be.  In fact, our ego sense, with its perceived separation and isolation from "the other" is largely built on and maintained by the thoughts, opinions, and various mind states that emerge from this conditioning.  Even in it's mildest form, that of liking/disliking, Judgment Mind  generates thoughts and feelings that serve to separate us from ourselves and others in any particular moment. 

It is actually quite fun to see for yourself how that plays out on the meditation cushion.  

At times, we can clearly see Judgment Mind in full blown operation.  The gracious spaciousness of mind at rest collapses as the ranting and raving and blaming of judgmental thoughts cascade across the surface of discordant feelings.  

As Practice develops, we get more adept at noticing whether we can just take a breath and put some kindness and space around that and let Judgment Mind go it's merry way-- or whether we get swept away, ultimately getting judgmental about being judgmental!  Watching the process closely, it can pretty quickly become another obvious example of the Divine Sitcom that we humanoids are capable of co-creating.

In one of those episodes, I saw how the thoughts  "I don't like myself.  I'm bad." provided a wonderful opportunity to examine the experience carefully, in the lens of Mindfulness.  Letting go of the particular narrative generated by Judgment Mind, the experience became a kaleidoscope of momentary feelings flowing through my awareness. Moments of anger, fear, and pain emerged -- and soon dissipated.  Without the support of the storyline, they had nothing to hold onto.

At that point, I was able to look deeply and explore the paradoxical nature of "Self. "  Just "who" the hell it is that doesn't like "who?" Peering at that brought a sense of wonder -- and a chuckle.

What a Hoot! 

(READ MORE....A FEW TIPS ON PRACTICE)

Me and My Shadow

“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back...They’re like messengers that show us,
with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck."

 --  Pema Chödrön

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, 

but by making the darkness conscious...Knowing your own darkness is the best method
for dealing with the darknesses of other people."”

-- C.G. Jung

Many folks experiencing a lot of stress in their lives are drawn to meditation.  It's only natural to want to chill out and, to be sure, Mindfulness Practice can provide many moments of deep calm and clarity.

Yet -- and this is generally not proclaimed in the slick internet ads  -- it is also true that a regular mediation practice can bring to the surface a lot of feelings that we have assiduously managed to repress, deny or avoid as we scurry ahead in our lives.

Conditioned to operate in a fast-paced materialistic society, one that keeps us focused outwardly for fulfillment, we just keep moving.  Once we slow down and sit still for awhile to focus inwardly, our world changes.  Although we can experience greater calm,  it is also not uncommon to encounter darker, more distressing emotions at times.

Contrary to what we might think, this is a Good Thing.  It's a sign that the Practice is working!

In the process of a deepening Practice, we no longer skim across the surface.  We actually begin to get in touch with the aspects of our conditioning that have subconsciously operated to create the way we see and react to the events of our lives.  (How often have you winced and thought "damn.  Why did I say/do that!?)  

The good news is that, with Practice, we are able to make conscious what had been subconscious.  Over time, we are able to observe and navigate the more troublesome aspects of ourselves with increasing clarity and ease. 

Truth in Advertising

Adrift in momentary delusions of grandeur, I sometimes joke about beginning a high profile advertising campaign for Monday Morning Mindfulness with full page bold print ads, billboards and television commercials proclaiming something like:
(READ MORE)

Here Comes the Sun?

 "Things are not as they seem - and nor are they otherwise."

-- Lankavatara Sutra

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake 

is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”
― Pema Chödrön

I'm awake at 4:30 a.m. and the birds are beginning to stir in the pre-dawn balmy air outside the window.  Maybe I can catch my first sunrise of the season.

Sunrise? 

Calling that moment "sunrise" is, of course, a classic case of our human propensity to conceptualize things from our  limited perspective.  That isn't really a problem.  The problem is that we then tend to grasp onto the words that describe those relative positions as the absolute truth.  This leads to a whole lot of delusion and suffering.

I imagine any number of Zen students over the years have been whacked by their teachers along the way for being so sloppy in their use of language as to appear to be claiming that they really know what is going on -- while missing the point entirely.

If I choose to believe what I learned back in science class in elementary school -- and in this case I do because it seems that we have actually had some folks brave enough (or crazy enough, perhaps) to place themselves on top of a huge tin can full of explosive chemicals to be then catapulted high enough into the sky to look over their shoulders and take snapshots of our situation from a different perspective -- the sun isn't actually rising at all.  It's got a different set of motions through space.  

It seems to me that we could just as readily call that magic moment of cosmic peek a boo "earth-fall"as the horizon "drops" down to expose the sun which is maintaining pretty much it's same relative position to earth.  Of course, that certainly doesn't seem nearly as positive and promising as Sunrise.
(READ MORE)