In 2012, I began this blog to share some of my experiences as a long-time student of mindfulness, meditation, and spiritual practice. For several years, one day a week I would spend as long as it took to sit at this same MacBook Pro to write, post, and share these musings. Over the course of time I generated a couple of hundred weekly posts.
Then, at a certain point, life being life, things shifted. On one level, it seemed I had covered most of the "important points." I had spent hours and hours sharing the experiences, understandings, and practices that had brought my life into deeper harmony with the Sacred.
When friends suggested I compile the posts into a book, I thought "no way." It seemed too daunting. My time and energy were already invested in a full and busy life. But, I did begin going back over earlier posts, week by week, looking back at what I'd posted that particular week in the past.
That process blew my mind. I was often amazed at how helpful re-reading a post was to me! Looking back, I saw patterns and cycles play themselves out through the seasons.
At times, I recognized a deepening of my own understanding. At times, I experienced a greater appreciation of the challenges and difficulties of being human. The following post, originally published in 2013, did both. Here is an updated and revised version. I hope you, too, find it helpful.
Argh!!
Originally posted July 26, 2013. Revised.
“We can suppress anger and aggression or act
it out,
either way making things worse for ourselves and others.
Or we
can practice patience: wait,
experience the anger and investigate its
nature. ”
---Pema Chodron
The
Universe is exquisite.
Once you hitch your wagon to Practice and roll out, you are going to get the lessons along the way that are needed to take you deeper --whether you like it or not!
---Pema Chodron
“Just because anger or hate is present does not
mean that the capacity to love and accept
is not there; love is always with you.”
mean that the capacity to love and accept
is not there; love is always with you.”
---Thich Nhat Hanh
Once you hitch your wagon to Practice and roll out, you are going to get the lessons along the way that are needed to take you deeper --whether you like it or not!
This might be especially true if
you have the unbridled chutzpah to publicly ramble on about your experiences.
More than once here in this blog, I've spent time presenting the notion that simply "cutting loose of the storyline," is an immediate fix to disturbing emotions. When we have enough presence of mind to refocus our attention from the realm of discursive thought to explore what is going on in our breath, body, and heart, sometimes hell dissolves and heaven is revealed in the blink of an eye. (See Your Courtesy Wake Up Call: Once Upon a Time...)
The operative word here is -- sometimes.
As the years roll by and the Practice deepens, I have experienced such an instantaneous transformation quite often. Yet, during the last past week, Life interjected a pretty dramatic bevy of upset apple carts and broohahas into the Grand Mix. It seems a bit of Karmic Comeuppance was necessary. Hopefully, getting my tail burned with my own anger will burnish my humility and compassion a bit. It's certainly been enough to remind me that it can take a lot of work and a whole lot longer than a "blink of an eye" to learn something from a situation -- and regain a sense of wonder about it all.
The lesson?
Being a calm and kind, clear and compassionate, human being is NOT that easy. It is a daunting discipline. It takes commitment, courage, patience, skill, time and effort. It takes Practice.
Then and Now
Long ago, I had an extremely bad temper. Having grown up in the midst of a lot of anger and physical violence, I would react to things in my world with bursts of violent emotions -- and violent behavior. Throughout childhood, I could fly into a rage and smash things and strike out with the worst of them. My kid brother and I fought like cats and dogs. This lasted into my young adulthood. Our last furniture breaking brawl took place when I was in college.
It would still take years to quell those patterns.
Perhaps, the deepest gratitude that I have to the Practice is that I am no longer likely to get extremely angry. Annoyance and irritation usually is about as bad as it gets. I'm grateful that it usually doesn't spill out of my mouth without immediate recognition and re-calibration.
Yet, life being life, usually doesn't mean never. This weekend, I hit a deep pool of anger for the first time in quite awhile. I was angry. Really angry. Thankfully, after launching a few unkind words, I withdrew. ( I wish I had withdrawn before I launched those misguided missles, but, obviously there were deeper lessons to be learned.)
(READ MORE)
More than once here in this blog, I've spent time presenting the notion that simply "cutting loose of the storyline," is an immediate fix to disturbing emotions. When we have enough presence of mind to refocus our attention from the realm of discursive thought to explore what is going on in our breath, body, and heart, sometimes hell dissolves and heaven is revealed in the blink of an eye. (See Your Courtesy Wake Up Call: Once Upon a Time...)
The operative word here is -- sometimes.
As the years roll by and the Practice deepens, I have experienced such an instantaneous transformation quite often. Yet, during the last past week, Life interjected a pretty dramatic bevy of upset apple carts and broohahas into the Grand Mix. It seems a bit of Karmic Comeuppance was necessary. Hopefully, getting my tail burned with my own anger will burnish my humility and compassion a bit. It's certainly been enough to remind me that it can take a lot of work and a whole lot longer than a "blink of an eye" to learn something from a situation -- and regain a sense of wonder about it all.
The lesson?
Being a calm and kind, clear and compassionate, human being is NOT that easy. It is a daunting discipline. It takes commitment, courage, patience, skill, time and effort. It takes Practice.
Then and Now
Long ago, I had an extremely bad temper. Having grown up in the midst of a lot of anger and physical violence, I would react to things in my world with bursts of violent emotions -- and violent behavior. Throughout childhood, I could fly into a rage and smash things and strike out with the worst of them. My kid brother and I fought like cats and dogs. This lasted into my young adulthood. Our last furniture breaking brawl took place when I was in college.
It would still take years to quell those patterns.
Perhaps, the deepest gratitude that I have to the Practice is that I am no longer likely to get extremely angry. Annoyance and irritation usually is about as bad as it gets. I'm grateful that it usually doesn't spill out of my mouth without immediate recognition and re-calibration.
Yet, life being life, usually doesn't mean never. This weekend, I hit a deep pool of anger for the first time in quite awhile. I was angry. Really angry. Thankfully, after launching a few unkind words, I withdrew. ( I wish I had withdrawn before I launched those misguided missles, but, obviously there were deeper lessons to be learned.)
(READ MORE)
