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25.01.2022 THE SENSATION OF BLISS A few years ago I was overwhelmed by deep anxiety, a fundamental, intense anxiety with no storyline attached. I felt very vulnerable, very afraid and raw. While I sat and breathed with it, relaxed into it, stayed with it, the terror did not abate. It was unrelenting even after many days, and I didn’t know what to do. I went to see my teacher, Dzigar Kongtrül, and he said, Oh, I know that place. That was reassuring. He told me about times in his life ...when he had been caught in the same way. He said it had been an important part of his journey and had been a great teacher for him. Then he did something that shifted how I practice. He asked me to describe what I was experiencing. He asked me where I felt it. He asked me if it hurt physically and if it were hot or cold. He asked me to describe the quality of the sensation, as precisely as I could. This detailed exploration continued for a while and then he brightened up and said, Ani PemaThat’s a high level of spiritual bliss. I almost fell off my chair. I thought, Wow, this is great! And I couldn’t wait to feel that intensity again. And do you know what happened? When I eagerly sat down to practice, of course, since the resistance was gone, so was the anxiety. Pema Chodron: Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears, page 54.
24.01.2022 As a musculoskeletal event, a breath, repeated twenty thousand times a day, is a key phenomenon shaping you. The filling and emptying of the lungs is expansive of its own accord, and the motion interacts with your holding patterns, moods, activities, and overall health. Your lungs, those fluttering butterfly wings of your heart, shape your other organs as well, living as they due in the tidal ebb and flow of your breath waves lapping at those visceral shores. Your breath has the power to fill you with energy as well, charging and brightening the light of you shining in this mortal form. If ever you are "jonesing" for a delicious treat, try a few deep breaths freely drawn. Gil Hedley - Integral Anatomy
23.01.2022 Gil Hedley, Integral Anatomy If the purpose of anatomy were to parse bits from the whole and argue or agree about names, I seriously would not spend my time on it. I study anatomy not to separate, but to integrate; not to sort parts, but to explore relationships; not to memorize conventions, but to gain experience. The more deeply you can connect yourself while in this physical form, the easier it is to know yourself regardless of it.
23.01.2022 ABANDON HOPE (AND FEAR) Hope and fear is a feeling with two sides. As long as there’s one, there’s always the other. This is the root of our pain. In the world of hope and fear, we always have to change the channel, change the temperature, change the music, because something is getting uneasy, something is getting restless, something is beginning to hurt, and we keep looking for alternatives. In a nontheistic state of mind, abandoning hope is an affirmation, the beginning of the beginning. You could even put Abandon hope on your refrigerator door instead of more conventional aspirations like Every day in every way I’m getting better and better. Pema Chodron: When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, pages 40-41
22.01.2022 If you consider how very similar is our experience, perhaps it is because we are part of a common project, and share one body. Being so, when we lift another up, we lift ourselves up. When we touch another's heart with care, our own heals; and when we pray sincerely for our enemies to experience perfect joy, the narrow gate to source swings wide open. Gil Hadley
21.01.2022 HERE, NOW, ALWAYS This is a work in progress, a process of uncovering our natural openness, uncovering our natural intelligence and warmth. I have discovered, just as my teachers always told me, that we already have what we need. The wisdom, the strength, the confidence, the awakened heart and mind are always accessible, here, now, always. We are just uncovering them. We are rediscovering them. We’re not inventing them or importing them from somewhere else. They’re here. Tha...t’s why when we feel caught in darkness, suddenly the clouds can part. Out of nowhere we cheer up or relax or experience the vastness of our minds. No one else gives this to you. People will support you and help you with teachings and practices, as they have supported and helped me, but you yourself experience your unlimited potential. Pema Chodron; Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears, page 51.
21.01.2022 THE PRESENT MOMENT IS OUR ALLY We might ask, Given my present situation, how long should I stay with uncomfortable feelings? This is a good question, yet there is no right answer. We simply get accustomed to coming back to the present just as it is for a second, for a minute, for an hourwhatever is currently naturalwithout its becoming an endurance trial. Just pausing for two to three breaths is a perfect way to stay present. This is a good use of our life. Indeed, it is an excellent, joyful use of our life. Instead of getting better and better at avoiding, we can learn to accept the present moment as if we had invited it, and work with it instead of against it, making it our ally rather than our enemy. Pema Chodron: Taking the Leap, page 50
21.01.2022 There are chronic "givers" and chronic "takers." Chronic givers often build resentment within until a grimace lurks beneath that smile. Chronic takers are also filled with resentment believing they deserve even more while not valuing what they already have. Neither are particularly happy. Few will line up to admit they are chronic takers, but many will admit to being chronic givers. Yet what do any of us have to give, truly, that was not ultimately gifted us first? And who among us truly appreciates the depth of grace whereby we live? To address either malady, there is a lot to be said for engaging in stealthy acts of kindness. By doing others, even total strangers, secret good turns, you practice the art of giving with no expectation of return. You give thanks for the gift of your own life, and find joy in that. Gil Hedley
20.01.2022 Immersed in designing a workshop on Happiness. This has been a fascinating week.
20.01.2022 CONTACTING PAIN When you contact the all-worked-up feeling of shenpa [getting hooked on a negative emotion], the basic instruction is the same as in dealing with physical pain. Whether it’s a feeling of I like or I don’t like, or an emotional state like loneliness, depression, or anxiety, you open yourself fully to the sensation, free of interpretation. If you’ve tried this approach with physical pain, you know that the result can be quite miraculous. When you give your full attention to your knee or your back or your headwhatever hurtsand drop the good/bad, right/wrong story line and simply experience the pain directly for even a short time, then your ideas about the pain, and often the pain itself, will dissolve. Pema Chodron Living Beautifully, page 10
20.01.2022 HUMOR AND OPENNESS Learning how to be kind to ourselves is important. When we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn’t just ourselves that we’re discovering. We’re discovering the universe. When we discover the buddha that we are, we realize that everything and everyone is Buddha. We discover that everything is awake, and everyone is awake. Everything and everyone is precious and whole and good. When we regard thoughts and emotions with humor and openness, that’s how we perceive the universe. Pema Chodrun: Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion, page 125
18.01.2022 Many consider the closing of their heart to be the only sane strategy to deal with the world, painful as it often is. Relationships can hurt, betrayals blindside you, losses inevitably occur, much of it seemingly out of thin air. I am convinced more than ever though that it is only by the continual opening of your heart that it is possible to recover from the blows this world deals. Let the dams burst and the streams within you overflow their banks. Whether you ease it open or fling it open, the open heart has the power to heal our wounds. - Gil Hedley,
15.01.2022 THREE-BITE PRACTICE You can do this anytime you eat a meal. Before taking the first bite, just pause and think of those men and women of wisdom and mentally offer them your food. In this way, you connect with the virtue of devotion. Before taking the second bite, pause and offer your food to all those who’ve been kind to you. This nurtures the virtues of gratitude and appreciation. The third bite is offered to those who are suffering: all the people and animals who are starvi...ng, or being tortured or neglected, without comfort or friends. Think, too, of all of us who suffer from aggression, craving, and indifference. This simple gesture awakens the virtue of compassion. In this wayby relying on our teachers, our benefactors, and those in needwe gather the virtues of devotion, gratitude, and kindness. Pema Chodron: No Time to Lose page 147
11.01.2022 The world within is the world without. As you open your awareness to the blessed universe you are, the benefits shower down upon us all. Self-evolvement is world-service. Mass transformation is a function of inner work, doesn't require a protest and doesn't cost a dime. The anticipation of opening your heart is scarier than actually doing it. Gil Hedley
10.01.2022 LIFE IS SHORT Every act counts. Every thought and emotion counts too. This is all the path we have. This is where we apply the teachings. This is where we come to understand why we meditate. We are only going to be here for a short while. Even if we live to be 108, our life will be too short for witnessing all its wonders. The dharma is each act, each thought, each word we speak. Are we at least willing to catch ourselves spinning off and to do that without embarrassment? Do ...we at least aspire to not consider ourselves a problem, but simply a pretty typical human being who could at that moment give him- or herself a break and stop being so predictable? My experience is that this is how our thoughts begin to slow down. Magically, it seems that there’s a lot more space to breathe, a lot more room to dance, and a lot more happiness. Pema Chodron: When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, page 141
10.01.2022 REAFFIRM YOUR INTENTION Fortunately, when we break the commitment to take care of one another, it’s easy to mend. We start by acknowledging that we broke it, that we hardened our heart and closed our mind, that we shut someone out. And then we can retake our vow. On the spotor as a daily practicewe can reaffirm our intention to keep the door open to all sentient beings for the rest of our life. That’s the training of the spiritual warrior, the training of cultivating courage and empathy, the training of cultivating love. It would be impossible to count the number of beings in the world who are hurting, but still we aspire to not give up on any of them and to do whatever we can to alleviate their pain. Pema Chodron: Living Beautifully, page 71
09.01.2022 FREE FROM FIXED MIND Rather than living a life of resistance and trying to disprove our basic situation of impermanence and change, we could contact the fundamental ambiguity and welcome it. We don’t like to think of ourselves as fixed and unchanging, but emotionally we’re very invested in it. We simply don’t want the frightening, uneasy discomfort of feeling groundless. But we don’t have to close down when we feel groundlessness in any form. Instead, we can turn toward it and say, This is what freedom from fixed mind feels like. This is what freedom from closed-heartedness feels like. This is what unbiased, unfettered goodness feels like. Maybe I’ll get curious and see if I can go beyond my resistance and experience the goodness. Pema Chodron: Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change, page 18.
07.01.2022 THE BEGINNING OF GROWING UP Opening to the world begins to benefit ourselves and others simultaneously. The more we relate with others, the more quickly we discover where we’re blocked. Seeing this is helpful, but it’s also painful. Sometimes we use it as ammunition against ourselves: we aren’t kind, we aren’t honest, we aren’t brave, and we might as well give up right now. But when we apply the instruction to be soft and nonjudgmental to whatever we see at this very moment, the embarrassing reflection in the mirror becomes our friend. We soften further and lighten up more, because we know it’s the only way we can continue to work with others and be of any benefit in the world. This is the beginning of growing up. Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion, pages 125126.
04.01.2022 WE’RE IN THE SAME PLACE I try to practice what I preach; I’m not always that good at it, but I really do try. The other night, I was getting hard-hearted, closed-minded, and fundamentalist about somebody else, and I remembered this expression that you can never hate somebody if you stand in their shoes. I was angry at him because he was holding such a rigid view. In that instant I was able to put myself in his shoes and I realized, I’m just as riled up, and self-righteous a...nd closed-minded about this as he is. We’re in exactly the same place! And I saw that the more I held on to my view, the more polarized we would become, and the more we’d be just mirror images of one anothertwo people with closed minds and hard hearts who both think they’re right, screaming at each other. It changed for me when I saw it from his side, and I was able to see my own aggression and ridiculousness. Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chödrön, pages 22-23 See more
03.01.2022 THE EMPTY BOAT There’s a Zen story in which a man is enjoying himself on a river at dusk. He sees another boat coming down the river toward him. At first it seems so nice to him that someone else is also enjoying the river on a nice summer evening. Then he realizes that the boat is coming right toward him, faster and faster. He begins to yell, Hey, hey, watch out! For Pete’s sake, turn aside! But the boat just comes right at him, faster and faster. By this time he’s standin...g up in his boat, screaming and shaking his fist, and then the boat smashes right into him. He sees that it’s an empty boat. This is the classic story of our whole life situation. There are a lot of empty boats out there. We’re always screaming and shaking our fists at them. Instead, we could let them stop our minds. Even if they only stop our mind for 1.1 seconds, we can rest in that little gap. When the story line starts, we can do the tonglen practice of exchanging ourselves for others. In this way everything we meet has the potential to help us cultivate compassion and reconnect with the spacious, open quality of our minds. Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty, pages 103-104
03.01.2022 DISCOVER THE GENUINE HEART OF SADNESS Bodhichitta is our heartour wounded, softened heart. Now, if you look for that soft heart that we guard so carefullyif you decide that you’re going to do a scientific exploration under the microscope and try to find that heartyou won’t find it. You can look, but all you’ll find is some kind of tenderness. There isn’t anything that you can cut out and put under the microscope. There isn’t anything that you can dissect or grasp. The more you look, the more you find just a feeling of tenderness tinged with some kind of sadness. This sadness is not about somebody mistreating us. This is inherent sadness, unconditioned sadness. It is part of our birthright, a family heirloom. It’s been called the genuine heart of sadness. The Pocket Pema Chödrön, pages 3940.
