The Practice of Being Present
Attend the breath
let the rhythm
slow and settle.
Filling, emptying,
draw the outside
in, and then release.
Nothing to do but
breathe, relax and
feel the free
movement of air
and life force,
watch the play
of energy and
sensation, allow
everything to be,
without the need
to change or fix or
make it different.
This moment, you
can listen to your
soul. This breath,
you can have no
goal but being. You
are already complete.
This, just this, is
what it means
to be whole.
Awakening Rights
We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are
when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved,
and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed
and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time.
Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world
but to unglove ourselves so that the doornob feels cold
and the car handle feels wet
and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being,
soft and unrepeatable.
-Mark Nepo
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of it’s furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably,
he may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
– Rumi
I Am Not I
I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.
– Juan Ramon Jimeniz
Enough
Enough. These words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now.
– David Whyte
The Cookie Thief
A woman was waiting at an airport one night,
with several long hours before her flight.
She hunted for a book in the airport shop,
bought a bag of cookies, and found a place to drop.
She was engrossed in her book, but happened to see,
that the man beside her, as bold as can be,
grabbed a cookie or two from the bag between,
which she tried to ignore, to avoid a scene.
She read, munched cookies, and watched the clock,
as the gutsy “cookie thief” diminished her stock.
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,
thinking, “if I wasn’t so nice, I’d blacken his eye!”
With each cookie she took, he took one too.
When only one was left, she wondered what what he’d do,
with a smile on his face and nervous laugh,
he took the last cookie and broke it in half.
He offered her half, as he ate the other.
She snatched it from him and thought, “Oh, brother,
This guy has some nerve, and he’s also rude,
why, he didn’t even show any gratitude!”
She had never known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed for the gate,
refusing to look back at the “theiving ingrate.”
She boarded the plane and sank in her seat,
then sought her book, which was almost complete.
As she reache in her baggage, she gasped with surprise:
There was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes!
“If mine are here,” she moaned with despair,
“The the others were his and he tried to share!”
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
that she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief!
– Valerie Cox
Insights Into Letting Go of the Past:
“When we choose to keep the past more alive than the present,
we interfere with the flow of the life force.
We distort the ‘present’ because we begin
to view everything happening ‘today’ through the past,
thereby weakening our bodies and spirits.
We become diseased from ‘carrying the dead’ with us for too long.”
– Carolyn Myss from “Anatomy of the Spirit”
“Our judgments of the past keep the pain alive.
The idea that we could have done anything differently
is only an illusion of our mind.
However, the pain we feel about the past is real;
it lives in our current reality.
The solution is to embrace our pain,
discover its roots,
and become willing to embrace
the fear associated with love.”
– Stevhan Caldwell, PhD
“The only meaning of anything in our past
is that it got us here…
…the past is merely a thought we have.
It’s literally all in our minds.”
– Marianne Williamson from “A Return to Love”
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we ar powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brillian, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
– Marianne Williamson from “A Return to Love”
Two Kinds of Intelligence
There are two kinds of intelligence: One acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,
and it doesn’t move from outside to inside
through the conduits of plumbing-learning.
The second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.
– Rumi
No Boundary
(an excerpt from)
I have a body, but I am not my body. I can see
and feel my body, and what can be seen and felt is
not the true Seer. My body may be tired or excited,
sick or healthy, heavy or light, but that has nothing
to do with my inward I. I have a body, but I am not
my body.
I have desires, but I am not my desires. I can
know my desires, and what can be known is not
the true Knower. Desires come and go, floating
through my awareness, but they do not affect my
inward I. I have desires, but I am not my desires.
I have emotions, but I am not my emotions. I
can feel and sense my emotions, and what can be
felt and sensed, is not the true Feeler. Emotions
pass through me, but they do not affect my inward I.
I have emotions, but I am not my emotions.
I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. I can
know and intuit my thoughts, and what can be
known is not the true Knower. Thoughts come to
me and thoughts leave me, but they do not affect
my inward I. I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts.
I am what remains, a pure centre of awareness, an
unmoved witness of all these thoughts, emotions,
feelings and desires.
– Ken Wilbur
Meditation on the Mind
I sit on the cushion and watch
my thoughts. How strange, this
world that I concoct, full of
worry, danger, details and
possible scenarios that never
actually play out. The mind
is engineered for this, for
solving problems, listing differences,
casting about for things to fix.
Though it can bind me as effectively
as rope and leg irons,
I couldn’t do without it.
And yet, there’s also this. Within,
behind, or deeper than the surface mind
there’s something vast and unified,
where first and last are not opposites,
but equal partners on a path so
paradoxical it can’t be tamed or grasped.
There is peace so unmoving,
it embraces both reality and pain.
There is the stark truth that
nothing on the mind’s to-do
list is important enough to lose
touch with what’s essential.
Peace and problem-solving
are not mutually exclusive.
It’s up to me to recognize
the potential for judging
neither as wrong or
right. After all, the whole
spectrum is contained in a
single ray of natural light.
– Danna Faulds
Self Observation without Judgment
Release the harsh and pointed inner
voice. It’s just a throwback to the past,
and holds no truth about this moment.
Let go of self-judgment, the old,
learned ways of beating yourself up
for each imagined inadequacy.
Allow the dialogue within the mind
to grow friendlier, and quiet. Shift
out of inner criticism and life
suddenly looks very different.
I can say this only because I make
the choice a hundred times a day
to releae the voice that refuses to
acknowledge the real me.
What’s needed here isn’t more
prodding toward perfection, but
intimacy–seeing clearly, and
embracing what I see.
Love, not judgment, sows the
seeds of tranquility and change.
– Danna Faulds
The Practice of Being Present
Attend the breath
Let the rhythm
slow and settle.
Filling, emptying,
draw the outside
in, and then release.
Simplicity and ease.
Nothing to do but
breathe, relax and
feel the free
movement of air
and life force,
watch the play
of energy and
sensation, allow
everything to be,
without the need
to change, or fix, or
make it different.
This moment, you
can listent to your
soul. This breath,
you can have no
goal but being. You
are already complete.
This, just this, is
what it means
to be whole.
– Danna Faulds
Let it Go
What if you were to
let go of the ways you thought life
would unfold; the holding of plans
or dreams or expectations?
What if you were to let is all go and
save your strength to swim
with the tide? The choice to fight
what is here before you now will
only result in struggle, fear, and
desperate attempts to flee from the
very energy you long for.
Can you open to the possibility of letting go?
Letting it all go and flowing with the grace
that washes through your days whether
you receive it gently, or with all your
quills raised to defend against invaders.
Take this on faith: the mind may never
find the explanations that it seeks, but
you will move forward nonetheless.
If you let go, the wave’s crest may carry
you to unknown shores, beyond your
wildest dreams or destinations.
If you let it all go,
you might just find the place of rest and
peace, and certain transformation.
– adapted from Danna Faulds
Allow
By Danna Faulds
There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
stream and it will create a new
channel. Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground. The only
safety lies in letting it all in –
the wild and the weak; fear,
fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of
the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice
becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes.
The Invitation
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
-Oriah Mountain Dreamer
