To Meditate or Not

It’s true. Whether you meditate or not things still happen. Births, joy, depression, celebration, anxiety, happiness, misery, health, illness, accidents, dying, death, all manner of human experience and existence still occur. Meditation simply, although not simple, allows a front row view of human experience and with a turning inward a realization that we are that human experience. 

Seated meditation is a controlled experiment of the investigation of self. Sitting still unimpeded by tasks or duties, shoulds or shouldn’ts, we have the opportunity to become familiar with and make friends with the skeletons in our closets and discover our true nature. 

Meditation cannot guarantee happiness. There are absolutely no absolutes, no guarantees of anything except that birth is a death sentence. What happens in life, happens. How we view, experience and respond to what happens in life, well that is a matter of choice. The only truth of meditation is that the moment we stop, sit, look and listen with open minds and open hearts we experience that truth is right before our eyes. This is it.  The whole kit and caboodle; the meaning of life is life itself. 

Meditation changes our perception of the experience of living.  We cultivate an awareness that the comings and goings of this existence are what life is.  They are not separate. They are as inevitable as the seasons. 

With the acknowledgement of change as a constant we can accept the gift of equanimity and that we are life it self. All experiences, whether we call them good or bad, negative or positive will and do happen. “This too will pass.” simply says that nothing is permanent that all things in this vast universe are subject to change. When we embrace and face change we begin to respond to life with an open hearted acknowledgement of the preciousness of each moment. 

Meditation helps to settle this knowledge deep into the bones, tissues and muscles of our human experience. Indeed, only when we become present with what is do we stop making an enemy of this moment. When all is said and done this moment is where life happens all ways, always. 

Curious

Do you ever feel like the odd leaf out? Instead of believing it is embarrassing to be red, or simply different, perhaps cultivate a curiosity about this.

Relatively speaking. we are unique individuals in a unique body. Although in an absolute or  energetic sense  we are very much one. We are blessed with the unique opportunity to explore this lifetime, through these eyes, these senses, these experiences.

Herein lies the great and wonder-filled opportunity to honour our individuality while paradoxically at the same time know that there is no separation.  That which animates this person typing is the same as that which manifests you reading. 

Another paradox is that to understand there is no separation between out and in, we simply start from a quiet place to be with. This is meditation. Through meditation we cultivate a relationship with presence.

Exploring these glorious seemingly opposite qualities, one~as ~one and one~with~all, playing together synergistically in this moment is how we come to understand our unique oneness and our holy, wholly wholeness.

Compassion Addendum

Greetings my compassionate friends,

My up island friend Bonnie reminded of the great movement at: charterforcompassion.org


Please do check it out.

Remember, we are all in this together.

In joy.

Compassion

Angel Card today, Compassion.

The handy dandy New Oxford American Dictionary on this computer defines it as “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.” Interesting that sympathetic is coupled with pity. Alone pity, to me, suggests an almost demeaning quality.  It implies those that are pitied are less than. 

However, sympathetic pity conveys a sense of unity. It is an understand of what the other is going through. It is an empathetic sharing of feelings. Compassion is infused with a sense of love and oneness for self and others. It is the notion that we are all in this together. It is not easy to live in a place of compassion. Perhaps, if we could look through the belief of, as Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” we come closer to the value of compassion.  Linus Pauling adds a twist that comes even closer to the practice, “Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error."

Let us thank Albert Einstein for this take on the universal truth of compassion. 

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” 

Looking at all through the eyes of compassion brings us closer to waking up to who we truly are.  Together.

Befriending The Present Moment

We make an enemy out of the present moment as we gaze longingly to the future and as we cling desperately to the past. Yes, as Eckhart Tolle writes, “The present moment is sometimes unacceptable, unpleasant or awful. However, “It is as it is. Observe how the mind labels it and how this labeling process, this continuous sitting in judgment, creates pain and unhappiness.”  He further explains, “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”

The question is why be present when the present is unpleasant. The answer is simple.  Everything happens and can only happen in the present. When the events we recollect of the past were lived, they were lived in the present moment. Now IS where the action happens. Do we really want to hurtle towards our death by wishing this moment away? Do we want, on our death bed, to regret all the precious moments we missed? 

Byron Katy so succinctly summed it up when she said, “The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.” ... “I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.”

Put in these terms it just doesn’t make sense to make the present moment an enemy. If choosing to be unhappy makes you happy then choose it. Being here now, with the mind, is a practice. Lucky, we are equipped with a wonderful practice tool, breath. Paying attention to breath brings the attention back to the here now. When we remember. 

Just Say Know!!!

Just Say Know!!

What do I mean by this!  I mean know that you don’t have to be dependent on Big Oil.  Know that you can stand up and say No to Enbridge not just from the N.I.M.B.Y. prospective but say No with your actions. Imagine if we all took our foot off the gas and put on the brake to Big Oil.  Stop single occupant driving! Take a bus! Ride a bike! Carpool! Ride a horse! Walk, run, skip, hop! Seek the cheapest way to transport. Until we stop fueling the need for oil, we will continue to be at the mercy of Big Oil. By all means, get out, stomp your feet, shout your protests, unfurl your signs, wave your fist in the air... but then speak with your actions. 

Go home and do what you can do! 

Stop this insane need to consume! 

It only fuels Big Greed! 

A Few Thinks and A Couple of Firsts

Here's something. Ive been thinking about and practicing. For years I've worked on becoming more comfortable in my own skin, managing anxiety and mood swings and getting consciously higher with meditation and yoga. Even though I knew this on a gut level and even visited these beliefs in the past. I am now very aware that to make psychological and spiritual growth I need to prune the past of lingering core beliefs. 

This may sound like an endorsement for the work I've being doing with the leftkoe system on recreateyourlife.com and I guess it is. 

In a very logical and systematic way I am not only discovering core beliefs  but actually eliminating them.  How can I say this? My life is experentially different than it was before I started the program. The burdens of not being good enough, no longer resonate to my very core.  They are becoming like ghosts of life past, insubstantial and seen through. 

Those are the thinks. The firsts are:

~ First headstand with wall support

~ First blog post from iPhone which actually didn't work so I guess I would have to say the first try to blog.  Now I will have figure out why it didn't ~ troubleshooting is my middle name.   

in joy

T