“Do not pursue the past,
Do not lose yourself in the future,
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.
Looking deeply at life as it is
in the very here and now;
the practitioner dwells
in stability and freedom.
We must be diligent today.
To wait till tomorrow is too late.
Death comes unexpectedly.
How can we bargain with it?
The sage calls a person who dwells in mindfulness
night and day
‘the one who knows
the better way to live alone’.”

Recently, I discovered this beautiful video by filmaker, Andrea Dorfman, and poet/singer/songwriter, Tanya Davis…instructions on entering the space of mindful aloneness–the space of being…ENJOY!

In disciplined silence the channel opens.
With wandering talk, it closes.”

- RUMI -

So often we are listening with an agenda. Looking for validation, affirmation, agreement, disagreement, judgment, comparison, evaluation, opinion. We are focused on what to say next, how to say it and already anticipating the response.

What if your listening was simply about creating space and possibility? What if your listening could transform conflict into harmony? What if the act of listening could bring you more deeply into your own center?

Here are some questions that I ask myself–how am I listening? Is my listening posture non-defensive? Am I willing to be influenced by what I am hearing? Am I listening for what is possible; for what might be? Am I listening to “attend” to the person I’m with? Am I in a hurry? Am I rushed? Bored? Feigning interest? Busy judging? Looking for agreement or validation?

Deep listening is an act of generosity. When your listening is free of defensiveness; when your listening is open-minded and open-hearted, assumptions and reactive patterns fall by the wayside. Possibility, creativity and intimacy flourish.

Open-hearted acceptance of events that do not meet your expectations, along with acceptance of the ever-changing nature of life frees you to take action that is non-reactive. How often do you find yourself in an internal argument with reality, insisting that you shouldn’t be having the experience you’re having? Facing what is in front of you without judgment and accepting that “the way it is, is the way it is” opens the doorway to inner harmony and the capacity for conscious choice.

Acceptance is not resignation; it does not mean that current circumstances are acceptable. It simply means that you are willing to discontinue your argument with what is, or with what was, and turn your attention toward your experience in this moment. When you turn toward the moment with an open heart, rather than resisting, denying or efforting to escape, there is usually a profound sense of relief. Acceptance unleashes the energy that is fettered by beliefs, judgments, resentments and resistance to being fully present and vibrantly alive.

“Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.”

- WILLIAM JAMES -

Growing up, I heard the expression, “practice makes perfect.” So I practiced playing the piano, playing the flute, doing equations, memorizing and conjugating verbs in French. There was always something more to attain. I was continuously striving and judging myself when I fell short of my own expectations. For fourteen years, I sat at my Lockerbie potter’s wheel and practiced centering–making plates, bowls, mugs, vases, teapots. The “perfect” pot was never made. In my twenties and thirties, my motivation to meditate, to experiment with being a vegetarian, to explore yoga, to sit at my wheel, was all about finding inner peace, or maybe more to the point, about looking peaceful on the outside regardless of what I was experiencing on the inside.

Danin Katagiri Roshi, who taught at the Minnesota Zen Center, summed up Zen practice in this way: “Continue to show up under all circumstances; make positive effort for the good daily; don’t be tossed away…” Show up for your “formal” practice of mindfulness–sitting on your cushion; doing walking meditation; mindful eating; mindful movements and allow your formal practice to support your “informal” practice of daily life.

All these years later, I still vividly remember that Santa Cruz retreat. I remember my appointment with Babajii–the power of his presence; his radiance and the sense of being completely enveloped in unconditional love. I remember him bestowing me with a mantra and how he explained its meaning in broken English…how I understood what he said and how when I looked up the Sanskrit word later, it meant something completely different. I know now that practice makes practice. That I am practicing patience and presence on my cushion so that I can bring patience and presence into daily life.

“As I dig for wild orchids
In the autumn fields.
It is the deeply bedded root
that I desire,
Not the flower.”
- IZUMI SHIKIBU, Japan (974-1034)  -

You work with what you are given,
the red clay of grief,
the black clay of stubbornness going on after.
Clay that tastes of care or carelessness,
clay that smells of the bottoms of rivers or dust.

Each thought is a life you have lived or failed to live,
each word is a dish you have eaten or left on the table.
There are honeys so bitter
no one would willingly choose to take them.
The clay takes them: honey of weariness, honey of vanity,
honey of cruelty, fear.

This rebus-slip and stubbornness,
bottom of river, my own consumed life -
when will I learn to read it
plainly, slowly, uncolored by hope or desire?
Not to understand it, only to see.

As water given sugar sweetens, given salt grows salty,
we become our choices.
Each yes, each no continues,
this one a ladder, that one an anvil or cup.

The ladder leans into its darkness.
The anvil leans into its silence.
The cup sits empty.

How can I enter this question the clay has asked?

- JANE HIRSHFIELD -

(*Rebus — “A representation of words in the form of pictures or symbols, often presented as a puzzle.”)

The act of experiencing the present moment with your heart.

The practice of paying attention, on purpose to the present moment without judgment.

The source of light in the darkness, allowing us to see clearly our life experience in relation to everything else.

What happens when you begin to pay attention and become aware of the judging mind? Paying attention without judgment is a tall order for most of us…the voice of judgment is continuously engaged in “I like it…I don’t like it…it’s good, bad, right, wrong….I care, I don’t care, I want it, I don’t want it, it’s fair, it’s not fair…” Mindful practice invites you to suspend your habitual mental models and to simply “be” with your experience…to go “out of your mind” literally.

If you’re new to this idea, I invite you to explore it. Consider how much of your day is spent on auto-pilot. Think about the time you spend multi-tasking…eating while texting, while listening to the news, while thinking about the argument you had with your boss and what you should have said…doing this thing in order to get to the next thing and the next and the next. Never really being completely connected to your experience in the moment.

Right now, just as an experiment, close your eyes gently and allow your face to soften, your shoulders to drop…tuck your chin in slightly, lengthening the back of the neck…and breathe in and out slowly, with awareness, three times…notice how you feel. This is the beginning of coming to your senses…of exploring mindful practice.

YOU READING THIS, BE READY

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sounds from outside fill the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life—

what can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

- WILLIAM STAFFORD -

In this culture, the quest is all about achieving a static state of enduring happiness. The “I’ll be happy when…” approach. I’ll be happy when I have the perfect house; the perfect body; the right car; the right relationship; the right job; the right amount of money in my bank account and so on. Engaging in this quest can leave you with a gnawing sense of discontentment  and dis-ease of mind and body.

The cultivation of mindful practices opens a doorway to inner peace, acceptance of impermanence and the possibility of coping with the stresses of daily life differently. In the days and weeks to come, you will be invited to create breathing space in your own life…to pause and to reflect. Thank you for visiting and I hope you will return often. For now, enjoy this poem by Dawna Markova…

I will not live an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid, more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;

to live,
so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

-DAWNA MARKOVA -