One of my favorite teachings in Buddhism is impermanence. It gives our short lives meaning. We had better pay attention 100% while we are here because we aren't here very long. I love to meditate on the idea that matter is neither created nor destroyed but only transformed and imagine what my body was before and what it will become. It gives me peace and I feel truly connected to the universe. I really enjoy your writing. Thank you for sharing your inspiring words with us!
Thank you so much for saying this, Dawn. It is really nice to hear directly from someone else who takes deep pleasure in the truth of transformation without needing to “be there” to witness the next manifestation. To me, the idea that when I die I become EVERYTHING is as elating as enlightenment itself. I don’t care that my “self“ won’t be coming along because I really am learning that self is just an idea that I am attached to. And being attached to that idea makes life itself kinda suck.
I love this sentiment about becoming EVERYTHING after death. Reminds me of this awesome Alan Watts quotation:
“You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”
Alan Watts
We build up, crash and rebuild… eventually receding into the totality of the sea/universe, of which we were always a part… but for a brief period we were a distinguishable part of the whole.
Nice, thanks, Dan! I read three or four of Alan Watts's books a few years back. Thich Nhat Hanh also likes to use wave metaphors. We are waves, he says, and we believe that we are big or small, beautiful or insignificant, long-lived or short, powerful or not, when our actual reality is that we are the ocean.
Don, We are in sync - with my "Existence, Awareness and Bliss" and with this gift from John O'Donohue that I sent to someone yesterday on this same topic of being present:
A Blessing for Presence by John O’Donohue
"May you awaken to the mystery of being here
And enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gift
And find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame and anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift, Woven around the heart of wonder."
In the shower is where we heal. Wash away all impurities and start afresh. Look in the mirror and face reality and eternity full on. No judgements, just here. In a steamy bathroom 🙏
This sparked a memory from years ago that I'll share. I was just getting into the practice of mindfulness and I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I finished a chapter and went outside to take a walk with my dog. We walked every day so that wasn't new but the way I saw the world was. I was focusing on presence and mindfulness, truly being on that walk. The world felt so much more alive and as a result I felt so much more alive too.
From that point on the practice of mindfulness has been a consistent piece (and peace) of my life.
That's a great story, affirming the power of books. I also read that, and I continue to read all sorts of books on mindfulness, meditation, and dharma, to keep inspired and to keep my awareness growing.
But I do understand that feeling of walking out your door and everything feeling crisp and bright and new and intensely beautiful. Luckily, we can cultivate that kind of awareness and experience it often!
Love the power of now. I also love Eckhart's chuckle every once in a while in his videos. I listened to his book driving from NYC To Georgia and it helped a lot. It helped me not to complain about driving long distance and my cramped body, knowing that the pain body is only a small part of us and can be eased by mindfulness.
I love this. After being raised in a “high demand religion“ for half my life, and yes, I could use a different word :-) one of the schools of thought that was critical to healing my mind and rebuilding my worldview was Buddhism. And while I’m not a Buddhist, I have great love for the wisdom found therein.
The human mind is so fascinating! It's funny that we have to specifically re-train ourselves to a child-like state of noticing *this moment right now.* Because then, it's also so beautiful the way our mind is constantly capable of transporting and weaving us among then, and now, and yet, and even imagination. Interesting how our pasts and futures seem to really elbow out the present and imagination in adulthood.
I've found, in this middle age, that as a storm of memories and hopes and plans and worries and doubts has risen on the waves of physical changes beyond my control, grounding in the present has taken on a new texture. If I can do something very present, like weeding, or walking in nature, or hanging laundry on the line, the present becomes this really gentling landscape for all my mind's wanderings among past, present, and future. Because I do notice these very present moments - a tiny sparkling beetle in the dirt, the drift of birdsong on the breeze, the dapple of sunshine on my eyelids. And as any challenging past and future thoughts drift among these present beauties (and the imaginations they often prompt!), sharp edges and thorns and hooks are softened, their hold on my state of mind lessened.
I really notice how interwoven they all are, and each has less power to dominate :) But without a mindfulness in the present...yikes! (I hope I've described this in a way that makes sense🤣)
The thing I really like about what you say here, Sydney, is that you make something clear that even in all my meditations, I had not pinpointed yet. We are not ever going to completely banish all thoughts and memories and musings from our minds in the pursuit of a quiet moment attending to the here and now (and we shouldn't be trying to). Why fool ourselves? I think maybe the "gurus" and "sages" have given some of us the false belief that we can do that.
Here you are adoring the landscape of here and now as a place that these thoughts can drift in and out of comfortably. A beautiful melding of the two.
That's not to say that calming the frantic mind is not a good thing, just that we needn't think of it as an all or nothing goal.
Thank you, Sydney, for this wise and beautiful reflection on the real purpose of mindfulness; to appreciate things as they are, and that means our surroundings as well as our mind and all its activities.
I often find that your essays set my wheels turning, putting words to things I hadn't necessarily had a reason to describe before, and I enjoy the exercise so much! :) Thanks for your kind words, always such a joy connecting with you!
This made me think of an Alan Watts talk I once listened to, can’t remember which, but he talked about how gurus and sages will give all sorts of crazy instructions, like to banish all thought completely, specifically to get the student to realize it can’t be done.
Of course it can’t! But we wouldn’t know unless we tried. And this is one way to be convinced that we ought to cultivate a better relationship with out minds, and realize we don’t have to go down every rabbit hole, rather, let the waves keep coming, as they will regardless of our futile attempts to stop them
That’s cool, Faye. You often hear advice on how to “manage“ distracting thoughts, but you seldom hear anyone admitting that achieving a totally empty mind is probably impossible. Mind and thought are the same thing! But I say probably because I don’t really know. And I’m also not going to worry about it! Peace and equanimity are a goal but not holiness. 😇
To "think" we're in control of mind - that it's "ours" in the first place - is the fallacy that trips s many of us up, at least, that's been my experience in cultivating a relationship with eros. It's the lens + focus we can alter, not the contents of consciousness.
I mean, sure there are periods in which thought subsides, but do we really want no thought? One of the reasons practices of pleasure in all forms (whether that be a traditional meditation practice, walking in nature, creating art, self pleasure, etc) are so transformative is because they change the root experience & relationship with thought in the body, from dread to curiosity. That's where the shift to peace and equanimity comes in. It's not in not thinking.
"from dread to curiosity" yes. That sounds good and right. That would certainly describe what's been happening in my mind over the past five years, since I started meditating, and treating my thoughts and feelings as "not mine."
I love mindfulness. The shower is a great escape for me, especially with 3 small kids and everyone and everything demanding my time. I'm very good at just being in the shower. It's where the best ideas are born and it's hardly ever because I'm actively thinking about them.
I love how you expand mindfulness, presence, from the sensual aspects of taking a shower and actively listening to someone in trouble, to the beingness of being human. I love “we are happenings” and reading this helped me imagine a world where everyone was this mindful. What a world that would be! Thanks for putting your mindful vibes in the world. 💛
Marta, this is so kind of you! I really appreciate your taking the time to leave a thoughtful comment. That’s so helpful and affirming for a writer and I don’t take it for granted. Thank you 🙏🩷
Love this. I’ve been playing with the idea that consciousness is the most subtle gentle phenomenon, and it helps me catch my loud thoughts or inflamed personality…really liking the gentleness more, it leads to such peace & quiet.
Beautiful piece, Don. I think about this often, with showering, cooking, walking. In all three of those acitvities, at one time or another, I've listened to a podcast. I think of Thich Nhat Hanh, and how he said even washing the dishes can be pleasurable, if you experience the moment fully. It's amazing how much novelty you can find in the most mundane things, when you're open to it.
Funnily enough, I'm laid up with a broken leg at the moment, and it's been the most I've appreciated the small things in a long time, and the most I've slowed down. It's actually been a real blessing on that front. A shower is now, once I manage to get myself in there, pure bliss. Sitting on the porch, getting some sunshine, seeing the blossoming trees... pure revelation. Your post was such good timing, in the midst of this. As always, so pleased to read your writing. 🙏
Thank you so much, Rob. I'm so glad you enjoyed my piece at an opportune time. And sorry about your leg! Thich Nhat Hanh is a favorite, and in fact part of my tone has been adopted from reading so much of him (for instance, when I say things like "We are paying one hundred percent attention to our friend") He has this loving way of approaching his subject.
One of my favorite teachings in Buddhism is impermanence. It gives our short lives meaning. We had better pay attention 100% while we are here because we aren't here very long. I love to meditate on the idea that matter is neither created nor destroyed but only transformed and imagine what my body was before and what it will become. It gives me peace and I feel truly connected to the universe. I really enjoy your writing. Thank you for sharing your inspiring words with us!
Thank you so much for saying this, Dawn. It is really nice to hear directly from someone else who takes deep pleasure in the truth of transformation without needing to “be there” to witness the next manifestation. To me, the idea that when I die I become EVERYTHING is as elating as enlightenment itself. I don’t care that my “self“ won’t be coming along because I really am learning that self is just an idea that I am attached to. And being attached to that idea makes life itself kinda suck.
Thank you for checking in! Keep in touch :-)
I love this sentiment about becoming EVERYTHING after death. Reminds me of this awesome Alan Watts quotation:
“You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”
Alan Watts
We build up, crash and rebuild… eventually receding into the totality of the sea/universe, of which we were always a part… but for a brief period we were a distinguishable part of the whole.
Nice, thanks, Dan! I read three or four of Alan Watts's books a few years back. Thich Nhat Hanh also likes to use wave metaphors. We are waves, he says, and we believe that we are big or small, beautiful or insignificant, long-lived or short, powerful or not, when our actual reality is that we are the ocean.
Don, We are in sync - with my "Existence, Awareness and Bliss" and with this gift from John O'Donohue that I sent to someone yesterday on this same topic of being present:
A Blessing for Presence by John O’Donohue
"May you awaken to the mystery of being here
And enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gift
And find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame and anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift, Woven around the heart of wonder."
Source: O’Donohue, J., (1998). Eternal Echoes. Exploring our hunger to belong. London, Bantam
Books. p.13
This is one of my all time favorite blessings. Thank you Gary for sharing it here, it's always a delight to read♥️🙏🕊
Thanks for sharing, Gary. A Very inspiring and loving prayer. 💚
Love John o donohue. He expresses God through the landscapes, through humanity. Love his accent too. ❤️
Don, I write some of my best poetry in the shower. ☺️
And please don’t let me stop you from that! 😆
😀
In the shower is where we heal. Wash away all impurities and start afresh. Look in the mirror and face reality and eternity full on. No judgements, just here. In a steamy bathroom 🙏
This sparked a memory from years ago that I'll share. I was just getting into the practice of mindfulness and I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I finished a chapter and went outside to take a walk with my dog. We walked every day so that wasn't new but the way I saw the world was. I was focusing on presence and mindfulness, truly being on that walk. The world felt so much more alive and as a result I felt so much more alive too.
From that point on the practice of mindfulness has been a consistent piece (and peace) of my life.
That's a great story, affirming the power of books. I also read that, and I continue to read all sorts of books on mindfulness, meditation, and dharma, to keep inspired and to keep my awareness growing.
But I do understand that feeling of walking out your door and everything feeling crisp and bright and new and intensely beautiful. Luckily, we can cultivate that kind of awareness and experience it often!
Thanks for checking in, Amanda!
Love the power of now. I also love Eckhart's chuckle every once in a while in his videos. I listened to his book driving from NYC To Georgia and it helped a lot. It helped me not to complain about driving long distance and my cramped body, knowing that the pain body is only a small part of us and can be eased by mindfulness.
I love this. After being raised in a “high demand religion“ for half my life, and yes, I could use a different word :-) one of the schools of thought that was critical to healing my mind and rebuilding my worldview was Buddhism. And while I’m not a Buddhist, I have great love for the wisdom found therein.
Excellent! I don't call myself a Buddhist, either, though I feel the same way as you. Thanks for commenting; so nice to hear from you!
The human mind is so fascinating! It's funny that we have to specifically re-train ourselves to a child-like state of noticing *this moment right now.* Because then, it's also so beautiful the way our mind is constantly capable of transporting and weaving us among then, and now, and yet, and even imagination. Interesting how our pasts and futures seem to really elbow out the present and imagination in adulthood.
I've found, in this middle age, that as a storm of memories and hopes and plans and worries and doubts has risen on the waves of physical changes beyond my control, grounding in the present has taken on a new texture. If I can do something very present, like weeding, or walking in nature, or hanging laundry on the line, the present becomes this really gentling landscape for all my mind's wanderings among past, present, and future. Because I do notice these very present moments - a tiny sparkling beetle in the dirt, the drift of birdsong on the breeze, the dapple of sunshine on my eyelids. And as any challenging past and future thoughts drift among these present beauties (and the imaginations they often prompt!), sharp edges and thorns and hooks are softened, their hold on my state of mind lessened.
I really notice how interwoven they all are, and each has less power to dominate :) But without a mindfulness in the present...yikes! (I hope I've described this in a way that makes sense🤣)
The thing I really like about what you say here, Sydney, is that you make something clear that even in all my meditations, I had not pinpointed yet. We are not ever going to completely banish all thoughts and memories and musings from our minds in the pursuit of a quiet moment attending to the here and now (and we shouldn't be trying to). Why fool ourselves? I think maybe the "gurus" and "sages" have given some of us the false belief that we can do that.
Here you are adoring the landscape of here and now as a place that these thoughts can drift in and out of comfortably. A beautiful melding of the two.
That's not to say that calming the frantic mind is not a good thing, just that we needn't think of it as an all or nothing goal.
Thank you, Sydney, for this wise and beautiful reflection on the real purpose of mindfulness; to appreciate things as they are, and that means our surroundings as well as our mind and all its activities.
Such great discussion here, isn't it, Don?
I often find that your essays set my wheels turning, putting words to things I hadn't necessarily had a reason to describe before, and I enjoy the exercise so much! :) Thanks for your kind words, always such a joy connecting with you!
Wait till next week’s essay, where seeing a monster truck helps me realize I’m being judgmental! 🛻🚙😆
🤣Looking forward!
This made me think of an Alan Watts talk I once listened to, can’t remember which, but he talked about how gurus and sages will give all sorts of crazy instructions, like to banish all thought completely, specifically to get the student to realize it can’t be done.
Of course it can’t! But we wouldn’t know unless we tried. And this is one way to be convinced that we ought to cultivate a better relationship with out minds, and realize we don’t have to go down every rabbit hole, rather, let the waves keep coming, as they will regardless of our futile attempts to stop them
That’s cool, Faye. You often hear advice on how to “manage“ distracting thoughts, but you seldom hear anyone admitting that achieving a totally empty mind is probably impossible. Mind and thought are the same thing! But I say probably because I don’t really know. And I’m also not going to worry about it! Peace and equanimity are a goal but not holiness. 😇
To "think" we're in control of mind - that it's "ours" in the first place - is the fallacy that trips s many of us up, at least, that's been my experience in cultivating a relationship with eros. It's the lens + focus we can alter, not the contents of consciousness.
I mean, sure there are periods in which thought subsides, but do we really want no thought? One of the reasons practices of pleasure in all forms (whether that be a traditional meditation practice, walking in nature, creating art, self pleasure, etc) are so transformative is because they change the root experience & relationship with thought in the body, from dread to curiosity. That's where the shift to peace and equanimity comes in. It's not in not thinking.
"from dread to curiosity" yes. That sounds good and right. That would certainly describe what's been happening in my mind over the past five years, since I started meditating, and treating my thoughts and feelings as "not mine."
I love mindfulness. The shower is a great escape for me, especially with 3 small kids and everyone and everything demanding my time. I'm very good at just being in the shower. It's where the best ideas are born and it's hardly ever because I'm actively thinking about them.
I know exactly what you mean. That's how insight meditation works; keeping the mind empty open, and alert. 🩷 Thanks, Hanna!
I feel this. One of the things I wrote in my poetry book was “Sometimes a hot shower is all the therapy you need.”
Good for you, Vipul! Thanks for checking in! 🙏
I, like most people, find distractions comforting. I would like to drift away from that. Thanks for the great read!
Thank you, Padra. It’s so nice to have you here :-)
Reading this post was a great way to start my day. Many thanks.
Thank you so much, Victoria!
I love how you expand mindfulness, presence, from the sensual aspects of taking a shower and actively listening to someone in trouble, to the beingness of being human. I love “we are happenings” and reading this helped me imagine a world where everyone was this mindful. What a world that would be! Thanks for putting your mindful vibes in the world. 💛
Marta, this is so kind of you! I really appreciate your taking the time to leave a thoughtful comment. That’s so helpful and affirming for a writer and I don’t take it for granted. Thank you 🙏🩷
You’re welcome. 🙏🏻 🩵
I love this Don. What a great way to start my morning.
I’m so pleased, Noreen! 😊
A lovely essay, thanks for sharing it!
Thank you, Janine!
Love this. I’ve been playing with the idea that consciousness is the most subtle gentle phenomenon, and it helps me catch my loud thoughts or inflamed personality…really liking the gentleness more, it leads to such peace & quiet.
Thank you, Tara, I’m so glad you liked it. And it’s very nice to hear from you! ❤️
what a great read - brought back a post I wrote barely a month after I started CSW -
https://open.substack.com/pub/riclexel/p/after-the-storm?r=bcx26&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thanks, ric! 🙂
Beautiful piece, Don. I think about this often, with showering, cooking, walking. In all three of those acitvities, at one time or another, I've listened to a podcast. I think of Thich Nhat Hanh, and how he said even washing the dishes can be pleasurable, if you experience the moment fully. It's amazing how much novelty you can find in the most mundane things, when you're open to it.
Funnily enough, I'm laid up with a broken leg at the moment, and it's been the most I've appreciated the small things in a long time, and the most I've slowed down. It's actually been a real blessing on that front. A shower is now, once I manage to get myself in there, pure bliss. Sitting on the porch, getting some sunshine, seeing the blossoming trees... pure revelation. Your post was such good timing, in the midst of this. As always, so pleased to read your writing. 🙏
Thank you so much, Rob. I'm so glad you enjoyed my piece at an opportune time. And sorry about your leg! Thich Nhat Hanh is a favorite, and in fact part of my tone has been adopted from reading so much of him (for instance, when I say things like "We are paying one hundred percent attention to our friend") He has this loving way of approaching his subject.
Thanks for checking in, Rob. Keep in touch! 🙏
How beautifully written and nicely summarised. Now it makes sense. Now :-)
😆 Right here, right now; You said it, Aldo! Thanks, my friend. 🙏