Insights for February 2018
Awakening:
IMG_1394 Feb 2018
“Enlightenment is our true nature and our home, but the complexities of human life cause us to forget.There’s a sense of a path of awakening we’re walking from first breath to last, and probably before and after that too. It has stages and aspects, sudden leaps forward and devastating stumbles. While what we awaken to is the same for all of us, how we awaken and express that awakening in our lives is endlessly idiosyncratic and gives the world its texture and delight.
For Westerners especially, it's important to keep remembering that awakening is something different from the projects of self-improvement and self-actualization we're used to. It's not about being a better self but about discovering our true self, which is another thing entirely....the process of awakening is less a matter of actualization and more a matter of 'truing" - of becoming aware of the way things already are. Rather than developing an enhanced and therefore more solidified self, we dissolve into something that existed before we did. We become aware of our continuity with enlightenment, which is none other than the universe itself.We still have bodies that break down in all sorts of amazing ways. We still face injustice and conflict. Awakening isn't a waiver from the shared circumstances of human life. But it does radically transform how we experience them. We are no longer beleaguered exiles but instead are now people at home even in the most difficult times, searching for ways to respond that encourage the bursting forth of the enlightenment that is present always and everywhere." Joan Sutherland, Roshi, Lion's Roar, March 2018.
“Things are empty of the mistaken reality we project in them.”Pema Chödrön, Lion’s Roar, March 2018, pg. 66.
“This is the great invitation - to live with a trusting heart. This is our freedom. The greatest Zen masters say, "Enlightenment is fulfilled by the trusting heart." Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present,"Zen Master Philip Kapleau assured his students that when their boundaries began to dissolve during retreats, "You can't fall out of the universe." Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present,"Thich Nhat Hanh tells a story of awakening from a dream in which he was having a conversation with his beloved mother a year after she has passed away. He’d been close with her, and after her death he grieved the loss terribly. But on a moonlit night in his mountain hermitage in Vietnam, he awoke from a dream of his mother, fully feeling the reality of her presence. "I understood, he said, "that my mother never died." He could hear her voice inside himself. He went outside, and she became the moonlight tenderly caressing his skin. As he walked barefoot among the tea plants, he was able to feel her with him. The idea that she was gone simply wasn't true. He realized his feet were "our" feet, he said, and "together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp evening soil." Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present
"Nothing in Life is a Straight Shot." Sharon Salzberg, Getting real with Sharon Salzberg, Mindrolling Podcast
"Become the loving witness of this human life.
Don't try to change the mountain, just sit on it." Jack Kornfield, The Essence of Buddhist Psychology, Heart Wisdom
“Your worst fears rarely come true, though sometimes it's difficult to get your mind off them. Imagine anxiety is a form of energy that can be converted into positive and creative expression. It helps to master this exchange process, given how much paranoia the world is dishing out these days.” Eric Francis, Planet Waves Astrology
"We don't know what the self is and we don't know what the self is not." Robert Thurman, shared by Mark Epstein, The Task is Being You, Tricycle Talks Podcast.
"Meet challenges with equanimity... Become your own refuge." Mark Epstein, The Task is Being You, Tricycle Talks Podcast.
"You are timeless. Whenever you forget this and identify with your mind's stories about who you are, look again." Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present.
“Nothing is hidden. We can find it in books. We can find it in the sutras. We can find it by asking. And, most important, we can find it simply by looking into ourselves.” John Loori, Asking to Exhaustion, Tricycle.com.
Healing:
"Learn to trust your body. Begin by mindfully and lovingly feeling what is going on in your body. Sense the state of your body today, its signals and needs. Listen carefully to what your body has to say to you. What healing does it want? What care? What wisdom does it have to offer you? Your body has been waiting for your attention. Trust it. Even if you have been out of touch for a long time, you can regain confidence step-by-step by trusting your bodily experience." Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present
“No matter how hard you try, you can’t please your inner critic. There is an alternative to the critic. It’s found in the movement from judgment to discernment. Discernment makes space, helps is to have perspective, and allows more of our humanity to show up.” Frank Ostaseski, The Five Initiations, pgs. 135,143.
Meditation:
“Insight meditation turns the mind away from delusion, our confused notions about ourselves, others, and our world. It turns the mind toward the reality of things as they truly are. Insight meditation helps us understand, in a series of progressive steps, the truths of egolessness, emptiness and great joy.” Gaylon Ferguson, Lion’s Roar, March 2018.
“Since you come to the cushion with the mind you have, thoughts, feelings, and perceptions will be present in your meditation. It is your relationship to them, and your awareness of their place in your meditation, that will shift as you deepen your practice.” Jules Shuzen Harris, lion’s Roar, March 2018.
[In Vipassana Meditation] “You can let go of the idea of engaging in battle with your thoughts. You don’t need to force anything. If you refrain from trying to stop your thinking process, you allow it to stop by itself. When a thought comes into your mind, whatever it might be, let it come into your mind. It is just a thought. Then release it. You don’t have to follow or pursue it. Your mind will begin to calm down.” Jules Shuzen Harris, Lion’s Roar, March 2018.
Grief:
“Every thought, every emotion, every action, every moment of time, has multiple causes and reverberations-tendrils of culture, history, hurt, and joy that stretch out mysteriously and endlessly. As with us, so with everything: all things influence one another. This is how the world appears, shimmers and shifts, moment by moment.” Norman Fisher, Lion’s Roar, March 2018, pg. 66.