April 2009

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,
I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.
Press close bare-bosom’d night — press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds — night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night — mad naked summer night.

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of the departed sunset — earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth — rich apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.

Taken from Song Of Myself
Leaves Of Grass by Walt Whitman

Something one of my teachers said, brought home to me the core of what it means to live a meaningful life. She asked me, “What if you were a cosmic traveler and came to Earth, what would be your purpose for coming here?” I replied  without thinking about it, what first popped into my mind. I said, “To enjoy myself and to enjoy what is here.” Simple really, that is what we are here for. To enjoy what Creator, both cosmic and oneself, has manifested.  The key to this enjoyment is appreciation. It is the root source of all the virtues by which we can live a life of enjoying ourselves and enjoying our earthly sojourn.

Appreciation is the forerunner of gratitude, of acceptance of what is, of compassion for oneself and others. When we appreciate ourselves and life itself,  we have access to the wealth of our endless creativity. We connect to the Source of infinite energy when our minds and hearts are open and appreciative. On the other hand, there is nothing more destructive than the feeling of dissatisfaction that attracts the company of gremlins such as self-loathing, anger, jealousy, and meanness.

There was a stone-cutter who was dissatisfied with his position in life. He envied the village’s wealthiest merchant and wished he too was as rich and successful. So he became a merchant and was the most prosperous of all the villagers. When the king came to visit, even though he was the wealthiest man, he still had to bow before the king. He was unhappy about his position, being a subject of the king. He set out to become a king himself, and became the most powerful king of the land. One day he noticed how the sun gave him discomfort with its heat. He thought that the sun was more powerful than him, the greatest of kings. He envied the sun and went about becoming the sun and shone with the brightest light. One day however, a passing cloud covered his glory and made him wish to become a cloud. He became a cloud that was pushed around by the wind. He then became a mighty wind which could blow everything except the heavy stone. He became the stone, thinking nothing was as powerful as the stone. As he stood proudly in the wind, he asked himself what could be more powerful than a stone. He looked down and saw a stone-cutter, his own original self, sculpting him with a chisel.

Appreciation for who we are, who we were and who we will become is at the heart of a life well lived. It is the grounding cord for all of our other endeavors. As paradoxical as it may seem, we must first be satisfied with just who we are, before we are able to make change. It is only with acceptance of ourselves and what is in front of us that we are open to love. It is when our hearts are open, that we can unfold the greatness of our Truth and manifest our highest gifts. All our wanting to be better than this, whether it is our position in life or how we can be of better service to others, must originate from a feeling of inner abundance and a deep satisfaction that is independent of outer circumstances. So the most meaningful work we can do in life, is to enjoy ourselves and enjoy what is here!

In my previous post Lightening Your Load I wrote about the forgiving process. Forgiving is not easy, it takes a long time to let go. It is especially difficult to forgive those things we told ourselves we will never forgive. They have become deeply rooted in our hardened mistrust. We tell ourselves that we did not do anything wrong, so why should we forgive? I am suggesting that we can touch the heart of forgiveness by starting off with the small stuff. If we are able to feel the freedom that forgiving brings to ourselves, perhaps we might venture into looking at the bigger issues, the ones that cause us the most pain.

The more we push these more troublesome issues away, the more they follow us. It is the grudges that we resist letting go of, that binds us in their grip, in fear, grief, and trauma. We need to accept our resistance and to feel the pain that keeps our hearts closed, that holds us in fear of ever letting ourselves be hurt again. It is this ability to accept what is, that allows us to practice mindfulness, the first step to freedom from suffering. To acknowledge that it is just the way it is, and to wait until we feel ready to let go, has a natural healing quality to it, a softening, a reprieve.

It is the work we do in the forgiveness process, the giving time to contemplate our anger, distrust and hurt, that begins to slowly open the door.  There will come a time when replaying the stories, the holding on to the losses, and the hurt feelings, will begin to feel tiresome. The heart will know when it is time to stop resisting, to lighten up the unkindness of the mind, and open up to let love in again. Although we may be opening our hearts to another, it is we who are being healed. It is this tending to “unfinished business” that will lead to freedom and wholeness for ourselves.

The Buddhist tradition has a three part forgiveness meditation for giving love back to ourselves. We first start by forgiving ourselves for something. In the second part we choose a situation to ask forgiveness of another person.  In the third part we choose to forgive someone. So starting out with the small stuff, this is what my meditation would look like:

I was 5 years old, when, on the way home from school, I was taking a short-cut through a meadow, where I stepped into a mud hole. I  walked all the way home with my left leg caked in mud up to my knee. I felt so humiliated and ashamed when my friends laughed at my misfortune. I was angry and blamed my older sister for not warning me to be careful. Although this was so long ago, I could bring up the feeling of being laughed at quite vividly, and feel the anguish and resentment. This is definitely a small matter, although at the time it was the end of the world!

This story fits into the three part meditation, so I will use this one incident for the whole process.

Sitting in a comfortable, relaxed posture with my eyes closed, I focus on my breathing. I become centered and calm. I begin with forgiving myself:

• Bringing an image of myself at 5 years old, feeling my shame, I say, “I forgive you. I forgive you.”
• Opening to the spaciousness of letting myself off the hook for doing a dumb thing, I notice the softening in my body, in my belly, in my throat.
• I sit in the stillness, in the warmth, in the patience of allowing myself to just be okay as I am. I feel the mercy of compassion for me then and now, letting these feelings fill my whole body.
• I allow the image of myself to dissolve.

Then I bring an image of my sister forward, and ask her to forgive me:

• I sense her resentment for my blaming her for something she had no control over.
• I say, “Forgive me for blaming you for not taking care of me.”
• I let any hard feelings she has, float in the tenderness of her forgiveness.
• I ask her to let me back into her heart, to forgive me for however I caused her pain in the past; in anger, in confusion, in guilt, intentionally or unintentionally through my words, thoughts or actions.
• I feel her forgiveness and allow it to enter into my heart.
• I bask in the softening in my body, the relief, the letting go of guilt.
• I thank her and see her walking away.

Then I bring forward the image of the children who laughed at me. I will work at sending forgiveness to them.

• I feel myself 5 years old,  with the walls of resentment around my heart.
• I look at the children and say, “I forgive you and release the shame you caused me, intentionally or unintentionally.”
• I let my forgiveness touch them, at least for this moment, and feel the softening in my belly and in my throat.
• I notice my holding back, the unkindness, the judgment and allow these feelings to float in the mercy of compassion.
• I allow the image of the children to take in the warmth and stillness of the patience of my forgiveness.
• I thank them for giving me this opportunity to learn from.
• I watch them walk away, noticing how my body and mind feel lighter and clearer.
• I bask in the feelings of spaciousness, of softening and allow any remaining difficult feelings to float in the mercy of compassion for myself.
• I think, just as I suffer from not forgiving myself, so do others, when I do not forgive them.
• I extend this blessing: May all beings be freed from suffering caused by anger, fear and confusion. May all beings know the joy of their true nature. May all beings know Peace!

This practice may have to be done many, many times, as images and feelings keep coming back. As we continue to practice, the mind will gradually trust and open to this process of letting go. Eventually our hearts will open to let love in again, and we will become free of suffering.

image credit: alicepopkorn

The family members sat around the council fire and each person spoke in turn, regarding the fate of the young man sitting restlessly outside. He had murdered his friend, the son of the grieving family who now pronounced the death sentence in revenge. But Old Grandfather spoke up, “Will killing him feed our people? Let us look at this matter carefully” The family deliberated through the night, then they called the young man to his fate. They told him that the tepee and the horses that belonged to the dead man now belonged to him; that he was now their son and he was to take the place of the man he killed. He became a devoted son and by the time he died, he was known by all the tribes as the model of a loving son.

This is a true story that happened in the late nineteenth century in a Native American tribe as it was told to Gary Zukav by Brown Bear. Our own stories may not be as dramatic, but we all have experiences where we had to forgive to lighten the burden of not forgiving. For when we do not forgive, our energy is tied up to the thing we are not able to forgive and  our creativity is hindered. Every time we hold on to a grudge, it is like putting a brick into a sack that we carry on our own backs. After a while it becomes too unbearable for us, even though the perpetrators of our hurts may be walking around lightly. And just as we become tired, achy and grumpy from carrying around a heavy load, not forgiving the past can cause us physical, mental and emotional dis-ease. It is essential to forgive for our health and well-being. Not only do we need to forgive others but also ourselves. For all the times we have been angry at ourselves for not doing the right thing, for failing, for all the ways we feel disappointment in unmet goals etc.

Forgiveness is a choice, one which we would be wise to make, for in every circumstance no matter how difficult or justified, the willingness to determine our own freedom from suffering is ours to initiate. So how do we go about forgiving? First we must understand what it means. Many of us do not forgive because we misunderstand what it truly means.

• Forgiveness does not mean that we condone what was done.
• It does not mean that we forget what was done. We need to remember so that we do not let it happen again.
• It does not mean that we have to reconcile with the person we are forgiving. We do not have to remain in contact with the person who has hurt us and can continue to hurt us.
• Forgiveness does not depend on an apology from the perpetrator or that they change their ways, otherwise they will continue to hold power over us indefinitely.
• Forgiveness is recognizing the suffering of the past, the understanding of what brought about the act of the perpetrator. This is usually ignorance. Someone who has not healed their own pain, and consciously or unconsciously acts in the same way to hurt another.
• Forgiveness is recognizing that we are sharing in the burden of the cosmic pain. We can choose to meet our pain with joy.
• Forgiveness is about creating peace of mind for ourselves where we can heal the past and begin to trust others and ourselves again.
• Without forgiveness we perpetuate the illusion that grudges can heal our pain or change the past for the better.

Forgiveness takes courage, clarity and compassion, it does not come easily nor does it happen quickly. Some people say forgive and forget, but it is not so superficial. It is a process that goes through many stages. We will be going through grief over our losses, anger, and sadness over our pain.   When we eventually make the choice to forgive,  we release the clutches of the past and let love enter our hearts again. We soften our bodies, our minds and our emotions. It is a process that we have to do over and over again until we can truly let go and become free of suffering. Here are some steps to take:

• Have clarity as to  what about the situation is not okay.
• Ask yourself what needs to happen for you to feel okay again.
• Give that to the hurt part of yourself by visualization, whether it is acknowledgment of being hurt, to feel loved, to be told that you are now safe and protected etc.
• Look for ways to get what you want, through acts of kindness to yourself and others, where love and beauty surround you, rather than playing out your grievance stories.
• Remember that forgiveness is about your peace of mind, nobody else has to know about it.
• Take charge of your reaction to what happened. It is about empowering yourself. Blame and grievance dis-empowers us by making others responsible for our feelings.
• Let go of expectations of others and how they should behave so that you could be happy.
• Recognize that your pain now is not caused by what happened in the past whether it was recent or long ago. It is the thoughts, the hurt feelings and physical holding about the past that you are now engaged in, that is the source of your suffering.
• When disturbing thoughts and feelings arise, breathe, feel your weight on the seat or on the ground if you are standing and become aware of your body. Relax your body and come into the present moment. Say to yourself, “let it go, let it go.”
• Bless yourself, bless those who hurt you and let the past be a learning experience.
• If you are unable to forgive, ask yourself what investment you have in holding on to the grievance.
• Remember that this process takes a long time, for every hurt that we have ever experienced in this life or in past lives, have a ripple effect on the pain we experience in any given circumstance.
• Be patient with yourself and continue to do these suggestions over and over again.

Related Posts:

Still There

Restoring The Peace

“The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think they know—and their name is legion—how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination.
So if you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not themself learned how to live in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is.”

The above quote was from Joseph Campbell. It comes to mind as I think about a conversation I had with a friend recently. My friend has started to devote herself to daily spiritual practices and she is simultaneously coping with painful childhood memories which seem to arise as she engages more deeply in her spiritual practices. My friend is dealing with her issues by seeing a therapist, speaking to her parents, and staying focused on her daily practice of sitting meditation, mindfulness, eating fresh healthy food and getting plenty of physical exercise outdoors.

Even though my friend is doing all of these things, she still holds a lot of stress in her body, and finds herself working very hard to please others, both at work and in her social life. As we spoke more about her childhood, she admitted that although her parents parted amicably in divorce and she had a reasonably stable life shared between two households,  she still carries disappointment of her expectations for a home where her mother and father were together and lived happily ever after. Now in her adult life, she attracts situations where there is conflict and she is the one who is working hard at keeping it all together.

My friend asked why, despite everything she has done and continues to do, to heal her life, she is still in pain and continuing to attract unhealthy relationships with women in her life. I had no answer for her. I do know that this is the way it just is. In life we suffer loss after loss, it is just the nature of physical reality. Our friends move away to a distant location. Our children grow up and leave the nest. Relationships end. Our jobs get downsized. Students must leave their teachers and become autonomous. People die. All these experiences in life cannot be avoided, but how we live with these losses will determine how well we live life, whether we “learned how to live in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is.”

It is interesting that even though my friend thought that she had already dealt with her childhood issues through years of therapy and personal growth work, the sadness and disappointment is still coming up. Teachers of eastern spiritual practices tell us that as we go deeper, our impurities come up to be cleared away. They recommend that we stay with the practices of mindfulness, meditation and chanting to keep clearing these impurities. By impurities, they mean all the past impressions of pain and suffering we hold in our physical and etheric bodies. When we are not able to let go of our experiences, energy does not flow but becomes trapped. As we begin to loosen these “knots” of past impressions through spiritual practices, we  revisit these painful areas that we may not remember, since they may have even originated in past lives.

The Buddhist practice of Loving-Kindness and compassion is a way to cope with these painful memories as they arise. It is when we say “yes” to what is, opening to the pain, allowing it to be there with a loving, heartfelt kindness to our selves, that we are able to truly let go. It is paradoxical that it is in feeling the pain, that we can let it go and uncover the joy that was masked by what we held on to. And as Joseph Campbell implied in his quote, it is only when we embrace the good along with the bad and the ugly that we can become enlightened.

I suggested to my friend that she might perhaps want to explore doing some forgiveness work around her childhood issues, that perhaps, even though she has come to terms with what was, she needs to take it further. In practicing forgiveness, we make peace with ourselves and all the ghosts of the past. It is a way of truly letting go.  We are told to forgive, but we are not taught how to do it. In my next post I will write on what I learned about the process of forgiveness.

Related posts:

Restoring The Peace

Lightening Your Load

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The sage Nisargadatta Maharaj taught that spirituality is very simple, that understanding life properly, is the essence. He said that everything else that we do in the name of spirituality is pure entertainment.

People make it very complicated.  We engage in all sorts of external practices hoping to attain something, to reach some spiritual height, to become enlightened. But the sage taught us that all that is found is untruths. The Truth cannot be found in the external; it is only when we let go of everything, all concepts, all striving, when we rest in Beingness, in the sense of witnessing, we come to realize, “I am That.”

“That” is the root of all that is true and eternal. The realization of “I am That” is the foundation of spirituality. The feeling of “I am…” is the birth of ego. For example: I am a spiritual person. Identification with some name or form other than just “I am” sets us up for forgetting our true nature or pure Consciousness. Anything that comes after “I am” is ephemeral, it comes into manifestation and dissolves back into Consciousness. In his talks Nisargadatta Maharaj referred to ego consciousness or our normal state of awareness and differentiated it from pure Awareness which is Consciousness or the “hum of Beingness.”

“That” is pure Consciousness.  Nisargatta Maharaj urged us, “Have a firm conviction that you are pure Consciousness…This should be done spontaneously; it is the only way.” In his talks he constantly emphasized that it is essential to make a firm, determined effort to realize that we are the formless, pure Consciousness. He said that spirituality is simple and easy if we hold on to the knowledge that we are the “self-luminous reality” or Consciousness.

The realization of “I am That” is reached through self-attentiveness, the meditation on one’s own nature. As we meditate on “I am that self-luminous reality,” slowly the mind will become quiet and the formless Consciousness that is at the root of all existence, will be uncovered. Then we will come to recognize that whatever exists is not separate from ourselves.

Nisargadatta Maharaj encapsulated the heart of spirituality in these words: Nothing has to be given up. Just realize that whatever you “know” is different from who you are.

It’s April Fool’s day today and I am thinking about what The Fool represents on the spiritual healing journey. The first card of the Tarot Card deck is The Fool, its number is zero, the first of the major arcana. In the Rider-Waite pack, The Fool is depicted as a young man with a small bundle of his belongings slung over one shoulder, a flower in one hand, a dog at his heels and he is about to step off a cliff, surrounded by snow capped peaks and the sun at his back.

In common interpretation, The Fool is the seeker stepping into the unknown, leaving the sure-footed safety of his milieu. He takes with him only the bare essentials for his physical survival. He has an appreciation for beauty in nature. He is ever pursued by the realities of life, his humanness like a dog constantly nipping at his heels and distracting him. In the eyes of society he is a fool, leaving behind the outer mores of success, and instead is turning inward towards the mystical with a child-like abandon. He travels alone, but he is accompanied by the sun shining behind him, his divine inspiration, his wisdom and inner illumination. He has an exuberant look on his face and he walks tall and confident as he seems to step off a cliff, risking everything.

The number zero represents The Fool and signifies the quality of surrendering of the ego and becoming whatever he is seeking. He has renounced the world, he becomes nothing, no identification with worldly names and forms. The Fool of the Tarot Card deck is the symbol of the spiritual seeker, though in modern times the seeker looks less like the wandering monks of the East who wander the countryside in search of spiritual masters. In India, the sight of the wandering Sadhu with his begging bowl and yoga stick is closer to the image of The Fool of the Tarot Card deck.

There was a time when “the calling”  was limited to the few, who, in wanting to follow their more spiritual inclinations, it meant that they had to leave their families and friends. It seems that in our generation we are evolving to integrate the worldly and the spiritual life. Many seekers who took large chunks of time off to study with their spiritual teachers in the last two or three decades are now  living a balanced life in the world, doing their spiritual practices, living with awareness and applying the wisdom teachings.

It is paradoxical that all spiritual teachers tell us that what we are seeking is inside of us and yet many of us are addicted to hanging out with our teachers. I suppose it is a lifestyle more like the traditional seekers, who lived the wandering life of The Fool.

The experience of living the life of a seeker, spending time with spiritual  teachers, has a magical quality of wander-lust, a care-free abandoning of worldly things even though the desires have not relinquished their hold on us. Like many others of my generation who have lived the privileged life of living with spiritual teachers, I am very appreciative of the joy of living in the world with the awareness and wisdom acquired in following the path of The Fool. And like The Fool, I continue to evolve, enjoying the journey for what it is and focusing on what is lasting and true, buoyed by inspiration and freedom.