#91 Training the returning muscle

     “When your mind wanders, as it surely will, gently bring your awareness back to what you are meditating upon. Your repeated attempts to keep your awareness there as long and as steadily as you can is meditation.”

       Alter RM, Alter J. “How Long Till My Soul Gets It Right?: 100 Doorways on the Journey to Happiness.” Regan Books, 2001. 

#90 Meditation

     “Meditation is very simple. It is an attempt to turn our awareness toward a place within our selves that is continuous and unconditionally loving, peaceful, wise, and happy. This place exists within our own beings as the core and ground and essence of us. In some spiritual traditions, it is called the Self. Meditation is the quintessential act of Self-awareness.

     I teach meditation in my therapy practice because I believe that the ultimate goal of therapy is to show people that there exists within all of us a loving, peaceful, wise, and happy inner place; that this place has never been disturbed or even touched by all the troubles and traumas that we’ve all gone through in our lives; that we can learn, with practice and over time, to direct the beam of our awareness to this place; that once we’ve learned to direct our awareness to this place, we start living our lives with more love, peace, wisdom, and happiness. The ultimate goal of meditation and all healing is to permanently establish our awareness in this place and finally realize who we really are. Once enough of us have realized who we really are, the world will become what it really is, a garden of paradise for our stewardship and enjoyment.”

         Alter RM, Alter J. “How Long Till My Soul Gets It Right?: 100 Doorways on the Journey to Happiness.” Regan Books, 2001. 

#89 And how has that been working for you?

     “There is a certain criterion by which you can judge whether the thoughts you are thinking and the things you are doing are right for you. The criterion is: Have they brought you inner peace? If they have not, there is something wrong with them.”

     Peace Pilgrim: “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”

     “A quiet mind cureth all.”      Robert Burton, “The Anatomy of Melancholy.”

     “When faced with choices in my life, I use as my rule the criterion of the quiet mind. This means that when there are two or more courses of action possible for me, I take the one that will lead me to have a quieter mind, the one that will result in the fewest number of afterthoughts.”

     Alter RM, Alter J. “How Long Till My Soul Gets It Right?: 100 Doorways on the Journey to Happiness.” Regan Books, 2001. 

 

#88 Avoidance-Approach Dichotomy

     “We are a creative process in action; change is inevitable, as is our responsibility for our growth. The opposite of responsibility is avoidance, which apathy and fear often engender. Perhaps more than any single attitude, our unwillingness to notice the inner significances of our lives and to understand and care about another serves as the portent of stagnation of person and society.”

     Hart T. From information to transformation. Education for the evolution of consciousness. Peter Lang Publishing, NY, 2009.

     “Experiential avoidance occurs when an individual engages in strategies to blunt, alter, or control distressing private experiences, such as thoughts, emotions, and physiological sensations.”

     Hayes SC et al. “Experiential avoidance and behavioral disorders: A functional dimensional approach to diagnosis and treatment.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1996; 64(6): 1152-1168.

     “… we compound our suffering by trying to avoid it. The anxious person is particularly determined to avoid the discomfort of fear. A feared stimulus can be external, such as snakes (simple phobia), a mall (agoraphobia), or office parties (social phobia); or it can be internal, such as a racing heart (panic disorder) or blasphemous thinking (obsessive-compulsive disorder). Most anxious patients recognize that their fear is irrational, but recognition is not sufficient to alter avoidant or escape behavior during periods of heightened arousal.

     Mindfulness is a technology for gradually turning the patient’s attention toward the fear as it is happening, exploring it in detail with increasing degrees of friendly acceptance.” 
     Germer CK, Siegel RD, Fulton PR eds. “Mindfulness and Psychotherapy.” The Guilford Press, NY, 2005.

#87 Approach & Embrace Challenges

     “When human development happens well, we embrace a new way of interpreting the world because it can account for things that the old way no longer could. We can acknowledge considerations previously ignored, take more facts into account, and extend hospitality to questions that earlier we could not entertain.

     … requires incessant recomposing of what is true for the self in relationship to a world of others. ...
      Within (this) moment of disequilibrium … lies a threefold task. First, the conflict and the questions it awakens must be allowed, felt, and made fully conscious. Then it must be clarified: what is really amiss? Third, the conflict must be tolerated with openness to a solution – no matter how remote it seems. That is, the conflict must neither be glossed over nor otherwise suppressed, and it must be held in a sense of hope.

     The conflict must also be wrestled with. The moment of conflict cannot serve the process of transformation so long as there is only a contradiction of vague generalities. One must enter into the particulars of the puzzlement, tugging unruly thoughts and feelings into view. The elements of the conflict need to be put at right distance – ‘putting the phenomenon, so to speak, out of gear with our practical, actual self’ and thereby looking at it in a new way.

     … it may be exhilarating. On the other hand, facing a new complexity and the specter of a new truth may sometimes also require a measure of courage.

     learning that matters is ultimately … transforming … intimately linked with the whole of life.”

     Parks SD. “Big questions, worthy dreams. Mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, and faith.” John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2000.

#86 Facing Basic Fear

     “I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life ... there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious (spiritual ***) outlook on life.”
      "Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose."             Carl Jung

     “The secret cause of all suffering is mortality itself, which is the prime condition of life. It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed … The conquest of the fear of death is the recovery of life’s joy.”          Joseph Campbell

     Humor: "I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes." and "Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing."     Anon

     *** See: http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/04/psychospiritual-technologies.html 

#85 Phoenix Process

     “Everything can change in a moment; we have little control over the outer weather patterns as we make our way through the landscape of life. But we can become masters of the inner landscape. We can use what happens on the outside to change the way we function on the inside. This is the moral of the great teaching myths. The hero conquers a monster; the heroine completes a quest; the reward at the end was there all along – the true self, the awakened consciousness. Joseph Campbell said, ‘What all myths have to deal with is transformation of consciousness. You have been thinking one way, you now have to think a different way. Consciousness is transformed either by the trials themselves or by illuminating revelations. Trials and revelations are what it’s all about.’
     When we have been through a trial and survived it – or better still, transformed its terrors into revelations – then we begin to approach other adversities with a different attitude. Change & loss may still knock us off the horse, but soon we are back in the saddle, stronger & wiser than ever. As life progresses, and we continue to transform and refine our consciousness, we gain more insight & humility, greater strength of character, and deeper faith in the meaningfulness of life.
     But how do we do this? How do we transform terror into revelation? How do we stay sane & courageous in the midst of a trial? … the process of transformation (is) a journey of brokenness leading to openness, descent to rebirth, fire to Phoenix. Difficult journeys are best taken in a sturdy vehicle, or at least with a trusty guide & a helpful toolbox. …
     The practices I used most often to stay on track during a Phoenix Process are meditation, psychotherapy, and prayer. These tools continually encourage me to keep my heart open and my mind awake when I would prefer to shut down or go back to sleep. The practice of meditation has helped me develop a steady heart and a less reactive & agitated mind. Psychotherapy had opened me up to an inner world of cause & effect. At a critical time, it pushed me to take responsibility for my own happiness – to stop waiting for that elusive someone or something to mend & define me.
     Sometimes … meditation & therapy – seem tedious & boring; at other times they can be intimidating & challenging. We may want to give up. But the hard work demanded by a Phoenix Process, and the courage required to break open & stay open, are worth every moment of struggle. The payoff is enormous: We come into the liberating presence of our authentic self.”

     Lesser E. “Broken open. How difficult times can help us grow.” Villard, NY, 2005.

#84 Shipwrecked - now what?

     “To undergo shipwreck is to be threatened in a total and primary way. … what has dependably served as shelter and protection and held and carried one where one wanted to go comes apart. What once promised trustworthiness vanishes.
     On the other side of these experiences, if we do survive shipwreck – if we wash up on a new shore, perceiving more adequately how life really is – there is, eventually, gladness. It is a gladness that pervades one’s whole being; there is a new sense of vitality, be it quiet or exuberant. Usually, however, there is more than relief in this gladness. There is transformation. We discover a new reality beyond the loss. Rarely are we able to replace, to completely recompose, what was before. The loss of earlier meaning is irretrievable and must be grieved and mourned. But gladness arises from the discovery that life continues to unfold with meaning, with connections of significance and delight. ... There is deeply felt gladness in an enlarged knowing and being, and in a new capacity to act.
     the gladness on the other side of shipwreck arises from an embracing, complex kind of knowing that is experienced as a more trustworthy understanding of reality in both its beauty and terror.”
     Parks SD. “Big questions, worthy dreams. Mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, and faith.” John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2000.

#83 Undivided life

     “Being cautious about the degree of congruence between outer appearance and inner reality is one of our species’ most ancient ways of seeking safety in a perilous world.  
     ‘Is this person the same on the inside as he or she seems to be on the outside?’ Children ask this about their parents, students about their teachers, employees about their supervisors, patients about their physicians, and citizens about their political leaders. When the answer is yes, we relax, believing that we are in the presence of integrity and feeling secure enough to invest ourselves in the relationship and all that surrounds it.  
     But when the answer is no, we go on high alert. Not knowing who or what we are dealing with and feeling unsafe, we hunker down in a psychological foxhole and withhold the investment of our energy, commitment, and gifts. Students refuse to take the risks involved in learning, employees do not put their hearts into their work, patients cannot partner with physicians in their own healing, and citizens disengage from the political process. The perceived incongruity of inner and outer – the inauthenticity that we sense in others, or they in us – constantly undermines our morale, our relationships, and our capacity for good work.  
     So ‘masked and armored,’ as it turns out, is not the safe and sane way to live. If our roles were more deeply informed by the truth that is in our souls, the general level of sanity and safety would rise dramatically. A teacher who shares his or her identity with students is more effective than one who lobs factoids at them from behind a wall. A supervisor who leads from personal authenticity gets better work out of people than one who leads from a script. A doctor who invests selfhood in his or her practice is a better healer than one who treats patients at arm’s length. A politician who brings personal integrity into leadership helps us reclaim the popular trust that distinguishes true democracy from its cheap imitations.  
     The divided self may be endemic, but wholeness is always a choice. Once I have seen my dividedness, do I continue to live a contradiction – or do I try to bring my inner and outer worlds back into harmony?  
     The divided life is a wounded life, and (our true self) keeps calling us to heal the wound. Ignore that call, and we find ourselves trying to numb our pain with an anesthetic of choice, be it substance abuse, overwork, consumerism, or mindless media noise. ... in the end what will matter most is knowing that we stayed true to ourselves …  
     Living integral lives … we must achieve a complex integration that spans the contradictions between inner and outer reality, that supports both personal integrity and the common good. No, it is not easy work. But … by doing it, we offer what is sacred within us to the life of the world.”
     Palmer, P.J. “A hidden wholeness: The journey toward an undivided life – Welcoming the soul and weaving community in a wounded world.” John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2004.

Photo: Brigitte Lorenz   http://www.brigittelorenz-photography.com

#82 Presenteeism vs Living

     When something new catches our attention, we have to learn a bit about it. We grab a few catch words, maybe pass these along, then we forget about it, the new item fading from our lives. The same goes for diets, exercise programs, hobbies, mindfulness. Cool ideas, but I'm busy ....

     In health-care continuing education the term "knowledge translation" refers to how (if) the course you take on Saturday effects your clinical practice on Monday. If it doesn't, you've wasted your time and money on the course. The learning was not "transformational".

     We unconsciously keep new information at a conceptual level in order to maintain stability in our lives. Unfortunately, we do the very same with desirable, positive learning experiences such as mindfulness training. We literally need to take a conscious vow to continuously proceed along a chosen path - otherwise the "momentum of our lives" ie inertia will keep us stuck in old worn-out habits. This is "living" like a zombie - most of us know this well. If only exotic vacations, nice homes, fancy cars and designer clothing actually added meaning, value and purpose to life ...

     Real "life-long learning" is about life-long maturation as a human being. It must be intentional and consciously continuous if we wish to enjoy "a life worth living."

Photo: evel79   www.dpreview.com

#81 Conscious Awareness

     “Much of what happens in the mind is not within consciousness, yet these non-conscious processes have an impact on our health. Bringing these negative thoughts, such as fear, hostility, betrayal, or sadness, to awareness is part of basic health, because those thoughts – what in (psychiatry) are called unintegrated neural processes – are basically like black holes. They have so much gravity to them that they suck the energy out of life. They influence the health of the mind, its flexibility and fluidity, its sense of joy & gratitude. They impact relationships, leading to rigid ways of behaving or explosive ways of interacting. They also influence the body itself, including the nervous system and the immune system.
     So an exploratory process like mindfulness that brings those fearful negative thoughts to awareness can be very beneficial. Sometimes you have to name it to tame it. A number of studies suggest that when you bring something into awareness, and describe it, you can move that previously negative energy – a draining thought or cognition – into a new form.
     With mindfulness, what was not available to awareness becomes available. We need to support people in that journey, because bringing more of what’s going on in the mind to awareness can be a very helpful development in a person’s life.”
       Daniel Siegal MD, clinical professor of psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine.

Photo: LolloRiva   www.dpreview.com

 

#80 Emotions & Approach-Avoid dichotomy

     “One definition of practice is the willingness to be with our life as it is. But this is a difficult concept to comprehend: that practice is not about having a particular state of mind, such as calmness, or being free from problems. Furthermore, understanding this intellectually is very different from understanding it with the core of our being.
      This is not to deny that through practice we will, in fact, experience more equanimity, and that problems will not seem so burdensome. But, ironically, when we demand that life be a particular way it almost guarantees the opposite – a continuing state of unease and dissatisfaction.
      Here’s something to consider: Can you imagine the possibility of having anxiety and not being anxious about it? Or having depression and not being depressed about it? In other words, can you imagine feeling discomfort without trying to get rid of it? The question is, how do we learn to live in this way? There is no easy answer, but the key is to learn how to welcome – with curiosity – whatever our life is in each moment.” Ezra Bayda

Photo: Mark Devine   www.dpreview.com

 

#79 Emotional honesty

     “Life and death are not, as they say, rocket science. We can all understand them because we all can, and must, experience them. When we take up meditation or go into therapy, at the most basic level, we are looking for a way to cope with the fact of impermanence, which ultimately comes down to the fact of our mortality. At first, we inevitably try to deny it, control it, or avoid it. Eventually, if we stay with a real practice of emotional honesty and awareness … we may discover the joy that underlies life as it is – this fleeting, ungraspable, uncontrollable life-as-it-is.”                     B. Magid

 

#78 Authenticity

     There is “… a longing for ways of speaking of the human experience of depth, meaning, mystery, moral purpose, transcendence, wholeness, intuition, vulnerability, tenderness, courage, the capacity to love … it arises from the hunger for authenticity, for correspondence between one’s inner and outer lives. … there is a desire to break through into a more spacious and nourishing conception of the common life we all share.”

     Parks SD. “Big questions, worthy dreams. Mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, and faith.” John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2000.

Photo: WinterTraveler   www.dpreview.com

 

#77 Mind AND Heart

     It’s not a matter of mind or heart, but mind and heart, despite the fact that the two, at a superficial level, would appear to be mutually exclusive. As we grow older, we feel an increasing pull to live congruently, to live a non-dualistic life.

     “… a mature adult … can hold both conviction and paradox.”
     Parks SD. “Big questions, worthy dreams. Mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, and faith.” John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2000.

Photo: Pat Curley   www.dpreview.com

 

#76 Growth

     “growth … may be understood as transformation of the boundaries that have defined home. These boundaries may be continually revised outward to embrace the neighborhood, the community, the society, the world, and even the inexhaustible universe in which we dwell. … (as) our sense of inclusiveness and ultimacy is continuously expanded, we experience home as a familiar center surrounded by a permeable membrane that makes it possible both to sustain and enlarge our sense of self and other, self and world.”

     Parks SD. “Big questions, worthy dreams. Mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, and faith.” John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2000.

#75 Intimately interwoven

     “all life is interrelated” … we are all “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Martin Luther King Jr

      “When we can recognize ourselves in others, as well as others in ourselves, and realize that others, too, want, need, and deserve the same as we do – and, moreover, suffer and struggle similarly in order to achieve their heartfelt wishes and deep desires – who then can we harm? Who would we exploit? Who would we discriminate against, oppress, or abuse?” LS Das

 

#74 Attitude

     “The attitude with which you undertake the practice of paying attention and being in the present is crucial. … if your energy and commitment to practice are low, it will be hard to develop calmness and relaxation with any consistency. … if you are trying to force yourself to feel relaxed and demand of yourself that ‘something happen,’ nothing will grow at all and you will quickly conclude that ‘meditation doesn’t work.’  
     To cultivate meditative awareness requires an entirely new way of looking at the process of learning. Since thinking that we know what we need and where we want to get are so ingrained in our minds, we can easily get caught up in trying to control things to make them turn out ‘our way,’ the way we want them to. But this attitude is antithetical to the work of awareness and healing. Awareness requires only that we pay attention and see things as they are. It doesn’t require that we change anything. And healing requires receptivity and acceptance, a turning to connectedness and wholeness. None of this can be forced, just as you cannot force yourself to go to sleep. You have to create the right conditions for falling asleep and then you have to let go. The same is true for relaxation. It cannot be achieved through force of will. That kind of effort will only produce tension and frustration.”

     Kabat-Zinn J. “Full catastrophe living. Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain and illness”. Dell Publishing, NY, 1990.

Artist: Tom Forrestall   http://www.forrestallfineart.com/index.php

#73 Perceptual shift

     “Mindfulness is not about fixing anything, but about seeing things as they actually are and then being in wise relationship to them, even if it is difficult or painful.” Jon Kabat-Zinn

      “mindful awareness is flexible, self-regulated and does not involve conceptual processing. Therefore, it is theoretically at odds with the type of attention involved in catastrophizing, which involves interpretation, conceptual processing, judgment and is most often automatically invoked rather than intentional.”
 
      Schutze R et al. Low mindfulness predicts pain catastrophizing in a fear-avoidance model of chronic pain. Pain 2010; 148(1): 120-7.

Photo: Ralph_L   www.dpreview.com

 

#72 Making friends

     “Working with my mind and my emotions through meditation, I had learned that when I resist suffering, it festers and grows; and when I make friends with suffering, it softens and changes, eventually transforming altogether. I also learned to practice kindness and gentleness toward myself. Learning to open my heart to my own pain and struggles gave me the confidence to open my heart to the pain of others.”
 
       Rutledge R, Walker T. “The healing circle. Integrating science, wisdom and compassion in reclaiming wholeness on the cancer journey.” The Healing and Cancer Foundation, 2010.

Photo: Lan   www.dpreview.com

#71 Reality - as it is

     “Wisdom requires that we relax our hold on our picture of how things ‘ought’ to be, and learn to make peace with things as they are. We can only do this moment by moment, here and now, by responding with open hearts and minds to the changes that occur.”

     Dass R. “Still here. Embracing old age, changing, and dying.” Riverhead Books, NY, 2000. 

#70 Maturation

     Adult maturation is not merely about physical decline, much more importantly it’s about transcending instinctive fear-based self-centered reactivity (noticing inward tightening, closing-off, rigidity, coldness, cynicism), and re-establishing love- or kindness-based connections with ourselves, others and the environment (noticing expansion outward, opening-up, flexibility, warmth, gratitude).
     Our protective reptilian habits try to keep our wounded inner child safe from being re-traumatized and acting out. But what we really need is to trust that our adult self is now strong enough to relate directly to all of life in the authentic manner of a mature human being.

      "I was born when all I once feared
       I could love.”                                                      Rabia

#69 Breakthrough

     “There are at least two ways to picture a broken heart, using heart in its original meaning not merely as the seat of the emotions but as the core of our sense of self. The conventional image, of course, is that of a heart broken by unbearable tension into a thousand shards—shards that sometimes become shrapnel aimed at the source of our pain. Every day, untold numbers of people try to ‘pick up the pieces,’ some of them taking grim satisfaction in the way the heart’s explosion has injured their enemies. Here the broken heart is an unresolved wound that we too often inflict on others. 
      But there is another way to visualize what a broken heart might mean. Imagine that small, clenched fist of a heart ‘broken open’ into largeness of life, into greater capacity to hold one’s own and the world’s pain and joy. This, too, happens every day. Who among us has not seen evidence, in our own or other people’s lives, that compassion and grace can be the fruits of great suffering? Here heartbreak becomes a source of healing, enlarging our empathy and extending our ability to reach out.” 

       Palmer PJ. The politics of the brokenhearted. On holding the tensions of democracy. Fetzer Foundation, 2005.
       http://www.couragerenewal.org/parker/writings

Photo: Andre Gallant   http://www.andregallant.com/

 

#68 Roadblocks?

     “… tools and techniques … are not the most challenging aspect of bringing truth and beauty into the world. The real challenge is … the formation of the human heart behind the skillful hand.”
       Palmer, P.J. “A hidden wholeness: The journey toward an undivided life – Welcoming the soul and weaving community in a wounded world.” John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2004.

     Mindfulness practice is about noticing when we drift away from our mature, authentic being mode (open, warm, kind, peaceful, no agenda), into fear-driven, reptilian, doing mode (tight, anxious, angry, scared, strong agenda), then gently coming back to home base, again & again & again & again & again & again .... endlessly … We thus alleviate suffering and do the least harm – to ourselves and others – naturally, by being authentic.
     We all wish to be happy, so we observe what doesn’t & does work, then completely naturally, we do less & less of what doesn’t work, and do more & more of what does.

     “When wanting and fearing aren’t restricting the view, there is the freedom to love.”
       Packer T. “The Wonder of Presence and the Way of Meditative Inquiry.” Shambhala, Boston, 2002. 

Photo: Andre Gallant   http://www.andregallant.com/

 

#67 "If it don't kill you ..."

     “traumatic life experiences can be conducive to the development of (personal) wisdom, a notion prominent in concepts such as post-traumatic growth, stress-related growth, or growth through adversity. After negative experiences such as accidents, life-threatening illness, or the death of a close other person, many people report self-perceived increases in aspects of personal growth such as compassion, affect regulation, self-understanding, honesty and reliability, spirituality, and self-reported wisdom itself. While such self-perceptions of growth may be delusional, it seems plausible that personal wisdom is fostered by the experience of fundamental changes that ‘force’ individuals to grow by challenging them to reorganize – but not completely destroy – their assumptions about life and priorities.”
         Staudinger UM, Gluck J. Psychological wisdom research: commonalities and differences in a growing field. Annu Rev Psychol 2011; 62: 215-41. 

Photo: Take5   www.dpreview.com

#66 Openings

     “The more we open ourselves, the more our energy and effort in practice flow. We become a channel or conduit for energy. This energy is the power of expansion and opening, not an energy of struggle. It is a power of the heart. If we are willing to bring a wholehearted effort to every aspect of our practice, the very effort itself brings more energy as we touch this great capacity within us.”           J Goldstein & J Kornfield

      “I just went through a series of heart attacks, and the greatest gift that’s come out of that for me is a deeper appreciation of vulnerability, which is usually seen as weakness. But I’m experiencing it as a kind of porousness, of feeling less defended, less armored. If we can impart to younger people the gift of that vulnerability, it may help them to embrace aging.”                                       Frank Ostaseski

Photo: RuthC   www.dpreview.com

#65 Embracing the "Full Catastrophe"

     Zorba the Greek led a tumultuous messy life, and loved all of it - the "full catastrophe" - passionately. Most of us tend to pick and choose, so are not really engaged with our lives - and suffer as a consequence. A famous Zen master gave one advice: "Only have no preferences."

     "We tend to approach pleasurable opportunities to promote well-being and survival, and conversely avoid or withdraw from painful experiences as protection from harm. This biological approach-avoid dichotomy underlies all motivational tendencies, forms the basis of emotion and promotes adaptation.

     We're biologically and culturally programmed to seek pleasure and avoid discomfort."

     But life includes not only pleasure, but also pain, as well as uncomfortable periods of growth that take "place beyond one’s comfort zone - in liminality - a state of in-between-ness & ambiguity.
     Avoidance of liminality is the basic obstacle to engagement. Mindfulness practice cultivates acceptance of, and the ability to work within liminality, and should therefore improve engagement."
     Lovas J, Gold E, Neish N, Whitehorn D, Holexa D. Cultivating Engagement through Mindfulness Practice. Poster Presentation, American Dental Education Association annual meeting, March 19, 2012, Orlando, FL.
 
     “‘Our overall psychological difficulties are roughly equivalent to the suffering that we’re either unwilling or unable to consciously face.’ A healthy person has access to his dark side without being overwhelmed by it; he is not afraid to face vulnerabilities and is quick to admit mistakes. The opposite tends to be true for the troubled soul.”
     Glickman M. “Beyond the breath. Extraordinary mindfulness through whole-body Vipassana meditation.” Journey Editions, Boston, 2002.

Photo: Rick Turner   http://www.naturephotographers.net/enter.html

#64 Just as things are

      “My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes – most of which have never happened.”                 Mark Twain
 
     “… it takes a bit of meditative presence to be with what is – just as it is – without being distracted by all the evaluations and comments that habitually arise about our situation. We suffer more from our stories than from the actual situation as it is.”                 Toni Packer

     “The most important thing is that we let ourselves be as present as we can. Out of that we will have a better sense of what might be helpful right now.”

     Wegela KK. “How to Be a Help Instead of a Nuisance. Practical Approaches to Giving Support, Service, and Encouragement to Others.” Shambhala, Boston, 1996.  

Photo: Michael Wood   http://miksang.com/

 

#63 Cognitive defusion

     "when we become skillful at noticing our habits of mind and letting them come and go without disturbing us, we realize that each state of mind, including strong emotions, only lasts for seconds before being replaced by another one. .... In this way we cultivate some freedom from the frantic imbalance created by each one."         Darlene Cohen (1942 - 2011)

Photo: Joel Sartore   http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/

#62 Open awareness meditation

     "Generate a state of total openness, in which the mind is vast like the sky. Maintain a clear awareness and presence open to the surrounding space. The mind is calm and relaxed, not focused on something particular, yet totally present, clear, vivid and transparent. When thoughts arise, simply let them pass through your mind without leaving any trace in it. When you perceive noises, images, tastes, or other sensations, let them be as they are, without engaging into them or rejecting them. Consider that they can’t affect the serene equanimity of your mind."                           Matthieu Ricard

Photo: Michael Wood   http://miksang.com/

#61 Awfully busy!

       “The rush and pressure of modern life are a form of violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”                        Thomas Merton

 

Photo: Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures  http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/

#60 Life - as it is

     “One definition of practice is the willingness to be with our life as it is. But this is a difficult concept to comprehend: that practice is not about having a particular state of mind, such as calmness, or being free from problems. Furthermore, understanding this intellectually is very different from understanding it with the core of our being.

     This is not to deny that through practice we will, in fact, experience more equanimity, and that problems will not seem so burdensome. But, ironically, when we demand that life be a particular way it almost guarantees the opposite – a continuing state of unease and dissatisfaction.

     Here’s something to consider: Can you imagine the possibility of having anxiety and not being anxious about it? Or having depression and not being depressed about it? In other words, can you imaging feeling discomfort without trying to get rid of it? The question is, how do we learn to live in this way? There is no easy answer, but the key is to learn how to welcome – with curiosity – whatever our life is in each moment.”                              E. Bayda

Photo: Keith Ladzinski   http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/