Destination The Journey

For some reason I was thinking about roses yesterday. Maybe because it was snowing with a high of eighteen degrees in Boulder.

I thought about my Grandmother’s rose garden. If I were to take a still of it, there would be some roses open fully to the sun, some half-opened, and some still tightly closed nascent buds, without a hint of bloom.

Each of these roses– perfect in it’s own timing, it’s own process– is a sacred becoming. And I suppose if I really thought about it it isn’t even a becoming. It is a “just is”. 

If I were to go forward with this knowledge fully in my heart from moment to moment, then when I witness my own unconscious moments, or other’s unconscious moments, I would be far more accepting on the deepest level. I would not be as judgmental. I might even feel deep love and compassion for them. Their process is every bit as sacred as my own, however it looks. 

~

Tomorrow I am leaving for a silent meditation course in Texas. I’ll be back to the blogosphere on Feb 9th. On Feb 1, I’ll begin the 100 days of practice that I blogged about here. 

Some time ago, a fellow blogger who goes by bezen.wordpress.com posted this on his site. It feels appropriate to use it (again):

“The more you talk and think about it,

the further astray you wander from the truth.

Stop talking and thinking,

and there is nothing you will not be able to know…”

excerpted from Verses on Faith-Mind by Seng-T’san (translated by Richard B Clark)

“Every spiritual tradition has stressed that this human life is unique, and has a potential that ordinarily we hardly even begin to imagine. If we miss the opportunity this life offers us for transforming ourselves, they say, it may well be an extremely long time before we have another. Imagine a blind turtle, roaming the depths of an ocean the size of a universe. Up above floats a wooden ring, tossed to and from on the waves. Every hundred years the turtle comes, once, to the surface. To be born a human being is said…to be more difficult than for that turtle to surface accidentally with its head poking through the wooden ring. And even among those who have a human birth, it is said, those who have the great good fortune to make a connection with the teachings are rare; and those who really take them to heart and embody them in their actions even rarer, as rare, in fact, ‘as stars in broad daylight’.”

~The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche

Says the wise ones, make haste slowly.

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of consciousness that created them.”  

~Albert Einstein

“There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy.

Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; my philosophy is kindness”

~Dalai Lama

If we could remember this in our hearts from moment to moment as we move along during the day, we’d probably be kinder to others and kinder to ourselves. If we remind ourselves upon waking that we are the temple, and come back to that continuously, things would indeed shift more.

On January 6th Wild Fox Zen wrote about a 100-day home practice that will begin In March for Zen practitioners. Although I am not a Zen practitioner, the 100-days of home practice got me thinking. He listed three aspects necessary for this home practice. They are “make a commitment, work your edge, and follow through.” 

I decided this seemed like a really good idea for me with my practice, from many angles. Not just the actual sitting meditation, but the follow-through in day to day life, in my dealings with myself and other people. I have made the decision to begin a “100-day practice” that will begin February 1 and continue until May 11. I have chosen to begin on February 1 because I will in fact be attending a ten day silent meditation during this time, and thus it feels appropriate to kick it off then.

In addition to being scrupulous about the meditation practice, the practice will also be, for me, about being more authentic in day to day life. That means being honest when it is difficult to do so, really being diligent in observing my response to others as it is happening to work through my restrictive habit patterns. It will be about being softer and more loving with myself. It will be about less black tea and sugar.

Does anyone wish to join me? You don’t have to do it for 100 days, and it could be for anything that will benefit you in your process…like giving thanks every day, taking fifteen minutes alone to breathe when you wake up in the morning, exercising more for the benefit of the physical body, going for a walk in the woods daily, anything. There are numerous ways to facilitate our own growth and expansion.

It seems to me that there are those of us that need goals, need structure, and those of us who don’t. At this time I am one of the ones who needs it. In my own life I have found that when I have the structure in place to push myself, to push my edge, then the edge eventually becomes more of the normal resting place and I can push it even further. And like that I grow. My husband, on the other hand, doesn’t need this kind of structure.

Here’s to evolution. When we bring awareness to it, it changes. “Make a commitment, work your edge, and follow through.”

There was a distinguished Indian diplomat calld Apa Pant who was a practitioner of meditation and yoga. He asked his teacher over and over again, every time he saw him, how to meditate. One day his teacher was smilig, enjoying a “Lama Dance”, and Apa Pant pestered him yet again. The meditation teacher replied in a manner that would indicate this would be the last time he would answer this question. “Look, it’s like this: When the past thought has ceased, and the future thought has not yet risen, isn’t there a gap?”  ”Yes,” said Apa Pant.

“Well, prolong it: That is meditation.”

(from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche)

How clever I thought, just comes down to the space between. 

~~~~~~

Also from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: (it is such a fabulous book)

Dudjom Rinpoche advised: “In a sense, everything is dream-like and illusory, but even so, humorously you go on doing things. For example, if you are walking, without unnecessary solemnity or self-consciousness, lightheartedly walk toward the open space of truth. When you sit, be the strong-hold of truth. As you eat, feed the negativities and illusions into the belly of emptiness, dissolving them into all-pervading space. And when you go to the toilet, consider all of your obscurations and blockages are being cleansed and washed away.”

Make every moment count. Your state of mind during the day matters.

“Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink

his remedy in silence and tranquility…”

~Kahlil Gibran

I say all of our pain is self-chosen. And to realize the strength of the ego, the habit patterns that are the root of our suffering, is to be completely humbled, and eventually liberated. The path can lead to happiness, but it sure doesn’t feel good all of the time. The funny thing is that when it doesn’t feel good– that is when the real practice begins. And that is when it is so easy to say “This ain’t working for me.”  Just clouds passing in the sky.

Love the shitstorm.

(or not)

“The Dalai Lama talks often of the lack of real self-love and self-respect that he sees in many people in the modern world. Underlying our whole outlook is a neurotic conviction of our own limitations. This denies us all hope of awakening and tragically contradicts the central truth…that we are all already essentially perfect.”  

–from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche

How true is that? Look inside, deep inside. Do you really unconditionally love yourself? (If I did I would have thrown out those cords that are about a size and a half smaller than I am right now, about two years ago–they are still in a box in a garage because one day I am bound and determined to wear them again) 

Even within our own practice we tend to forget that we are perfect where we are– not where we are going.

Give yourself a hug and say I love you.

As I drove home yesterday evening I looked out into the darkness and saw a fire raging in the foothills to the northwest of Boulder, amid twinkling lights of homes and lives being affected. There it was–the hot raging beast that had caused 11,500 homes to be evacuated since mid afternoon. Wow, I thought to myself, I am driving home on another normal day for me, while someone out there in the night is losing their home. 

Then it dawned on me that someone isn’t just losing their home, but someone out there is losing their life. If we were able to take a still of the earth, there would be more than a few approaching their last inhale. There would be many struggling with serious life-altering illnesses, the loss of a life-partner, a child. There would be far too many people lying on the ground in a weak cachectic state because they don’t have anything to eat. This is reality as it is.

And this is why we practice. The vicissitudes of life will arise and pass away, of that we can be certain. And most of the time the stuff we deal with is relatively minor compared to losing our life or our child or our home. But when the big stuff does happen we are put to the test. And then we can see how far we have (or haven’t) come. 

As I type, the winds outside continue to gust and the fire is but 30% contained.

Disengaging. Not retreating from life and hiding from responsibility, but extracting oneself from the harried chaotic velocity that has become mainstream in our culture in order to face the real issues. It takes strength to say no, I won’t be there because I need to sit quietly and feel my breath as I would sit on the shore in awe  of the lapping waves.  I need to know the miracle that is happening inside of me, intimately. It takes courage to own up to the fact that maybe you don’t want what everyone else has because that would mean your  life would be a fast-paced race to pay for it, at the expense of the most precious gift you have– your time here. It takes honesty to come to terms with the fact that you would rather know the dew on the petals at dawn, the fragile spider web fluttering in the breeze, the smell of the earth in the forest after a rain, feel the quiet breath breathed by the universe as the sun arises, than spend hours in a concrete jungle searching for something to ease the anxiety and depression arising from your perceived separation from the all-that-truly-is. Disappoint others in order to be true to yourself. Don’t have any regrets when the hour of your death is upon you.