noise

i have been noisy...

my life has been noise and movement and stimulation.

as i have come to experience moments of stillness, i am aware of how constantly stimulated i have been.

with movement . with taste. with sugar or chocolates or caffeines. with music. with talking. with something new and different. with exuberance. with confusion. with longing. with obligation. with hope. and with constant taking in (even many times without regard to what i was taking).

i am not suggesting it has all been bad. much of it has been noble and generous and loving. it has been about nurturing or giving or helping or working hard or achieving or accomplishing. much of it has brought me forward.

but as i have had longer and longer moments without stimulation or have had moments with complete quiet, and then returned to noise, the difference has become far more clear to me.

i am now called to greater stillness.

it isn't easy.

in spite of the rewards of deeper life, it isn't easy. as stressful as noise and frenetic activity might be, silence can be more difficult. initially for me silence felt huge and i suddenly seemed lost in an abyss. i felt incredibly small. but i began to see that in my noisy world i am perhaps not present at all, so feeling small in the silence makes me far more aware of myself than i am in the noise.

silence and stillness can be huge and overwhelming. but there is also a place in the quiet where i find mySelf, an existence that isn't found anywhere else.

i am being called to greater stillness.

and fewer things.

and more quiet.

i wonder why it seems so scary. and so hard.

when it feels so good...

action re-action

holding you
or being held by you
when i step deeply into one
that one seems to become
the other
so much so
that what i give to you
becomes
what i'm receiving too
and what you give to me
becomes
the thing that's serving you

but look beyond
this curious phenomenon
between two lovers
and we begin to see
a true philosophy
that resonates
through all the universe
that what we're giving out
becomes
what we are taking in
and what we do
becomes
what's being done to us

Holy...

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by so much to do and so much to learn...

When my learning and moving are large I find it harder to be here and write it all...

In truth I cannot write it all...

A message was given to me several days ago that our work is to do what is doable. This is where I need to be...doing what is doable. Not doing everything or even doing the biggest thing. But doing what is doable. And when we do what is doable, we change everything...

I do not hear every message. I struggle in trying to remember every one that I do hear. But what is doable is to pause each day and write a message I am given, a truth attempting to penetrate my consciousness. This I can do.

~ ~ ~
I am holy.

You...are...holy.

Sacred.

Belonging to or coming from God.

Holy.

We are holy.

And when we lose sight of our own holiness, our behavior forgets to reflect that we are holy.

This is my message today. This is my meditation today.

I am holy...

becoming conscious

drawn to the light
i struggle
to become conscious
and wrestle more
to remain so

coming into consciousness
is an eden
and yet how easy it is
to slip into unconscious ways

my efforts
not only to progress
are to hold dear
what has been opened unto me

i am saddened sometimes
when my mirror reflects
a moment of too little awareness
and yet that moment of recognizing
my own unconscious ways
seems in itself to make me less so

perhaps consciousness
like humility
the more i realize i don't have
the more i begin to have

then, too
the question begs an answer
how conscious is conscious
to be considered such

upon awakening
with consciousness stirring
can one be called so
or only fully into being
is one to claim his place

(am i become a swimmer
when i barely know one stroke
am i only so when i know all there is to know
…or is it somewhere in between)

it seems to me
my own consciousness
is not about how long i have been here
or how much of it i might possess
but that i am here this moment
and that i do it again
each moment in time

Thich Nhat Hanh's blessing

Sometimes we are gifted by the studies and the growth of our friends. My friend Carol is doing some wonderful work with a book calld The Zen of Eating. Wow, her work is powerful...

Carol shared with me her learning of mindfulness in eating. What a deeply moving experience this has become for her.

She shares with me a blessing from Thich Nhat Hanh...


As food is served:
I clearly see the presence of the entire universe supporting my existence.

While looking at a full plate of food:
All living beings are struggling for life. May they all have enough food to eat today.

Just before eating:
The plate is filled with food. I am aware that each morsel is the fruit of much hard work by those who produced it.

While taking the first four mouthfuls of food:
With the first taste, I promise to practice loving-kindness.
With the second, I promise to relieve the suffering of others.
With the third, I promise to see others’ joy as my own.
With the fourth, I promise to learn the way of nonattachment and equanimity.

Upon finishing the meal:
My plate is empty. My hunger is satisfied. I vow to live for the benefit of all beings.

I love this blessing. I have long believed in the practice of thankfulness (which I will lovingly discuss at length later), and this blessing takes thankfulness to a deeper level. This blessing takes me to a place of truly seeing the gift, poignantly understanding the contribution of others, piercingly points out my responsibility in receiving the gift, and leads me to my own completion for having done so. This is the acceptance of a gift. This is the giving of thanks...

more rumi...

i love the words of rumi…

i have a number of meditation practices in addition to my work, my studies and my writing. i often run out of time to include the study of poetry. so...i listen to rumi while driving in my car, a cd from coleman barks.

i love the words of rumi...

as i travel in and out of the city, rumi’s words surround me and penetrate me. his words, his phrases, his messages, linger with me, remain within me.

give up subtle thinking (i am impelled to go deeper)

love comes with a knife, not some shy question
and not with fears for its reputation

i say these things disinterestedly
accept them in kind

there are love stories and then
there is obliteration into love

no matter how many times i hear the lines, each time is as powerful as the first time i heard it...there are love stories and then there is obliteration into love.

you’ve been walking the ocean’s edge
holding up your robes to keep them dry
you must dive naked under
and deeper under
a thousand times deeper
love flows down

the ground submits to the sky
and suffers whatever comes
tell me
is the earth worse
for giving in like that?

forgiveness

Yesterday I learned about forgiveness.

I thought I was a forgiving person. I think I was wrong.

Yesterday I was talking with my girlfriend, and she told me a story about another friend of hers. This friend, a man, had been married 17 years when his wife left him because she had fallen in love with one of his friends. Pretty tough stuff, I think. But this man, her friend, being a conscious man, later hired his ex-wife and her new husband to work for him in his company. And why not, he said, for he had forgiven his wife as well as the friend she left him for. Pretty big stuff, I think.

I began to ponder this. And as I pondered this I wondered if I would have been able to do that. As I pondered this some more I suddenly realized I don’t know much about forgiving. I know how to “tolerate.” In my history if you abused me or misused me it is likely I tolerated it (and inside denied I’d been misused). But that is not the same as forgiving. Not at all the same as recognizing inappropriate behavior and forgiving it. And forgiveness is pretty important stuff, I think.

I’ve heard people say you cannot forgive others unless and until you know how to forgive yourself. But the converse is also true. I have struggled with being hard on myself, and in order to be able to forgive myself, I needed to be forgiving of others. And yet, I was not forgiving others but rather tolerating their behavior. And in return I could never forgive myself my own missteps and mistakes. Pretty deep stuff, I think.

So as I pondered my girlfriend’s story, I suddenly realized I have not practiced forgiveness. And the moment I recognized this, I was filled with a sense of forgiveness.

But the lesson didn’t end there. Last night I was talking with another dear friend and in his conversation the subject came up of forgiveness (he being unaware of my earlier talk with my girlfriend), something about the need to forgive a second time and a third. He said to me, of course one must forgive again and again, otherwise it wasn’t real the first time. Forgiveness is continuous. Instantly it made sense to me. This is the meaning of forgiveness.

Tolerating inappropriate behavior is neither healthful nor beneficial. Forgiveness is that and so much more. Forgiveness is blessed.

This is the practice of forgiveness.

Can I tackle the big stuff, like Emptiness?

Someone asked about Emptiness. Someone asked about the Void. And I have been playing those words in my head again and again the past several days. I have become fascinated with my contemplation. Emptiness. Void. Nothing. And I don’t know that there is any such thing.

Some people seem to think in between two things there is “nothing.” For one thing, there is space. For another thing, there is much we can’t see, like oxygen, and tiny life our vision can’t grasp, such as gnats and mites. And there is the flow of energy (which is a big story in itself.) But take away those things we understand, and still there is no “nothingness.” I think there is a lot of “otherness.”

It works like silence. Silence is not merely the absence of noise. Silence has depth, and wealth. My parents live on an old dirt road that, while I was young, had very few other people living on it. Accustomed to its quiet, I was unaware of its power. But I have one vivid memory, one that never diminishes, of living away and then making a return trip. I spent many hours in a noisy car (isn’t it wonderful how quiet cars have become today?) with a chattering family and busy radio. And when I arrived at my folks’ house and stepped out of the noisy car and into the quiet wood, the silence overwhelmed me. The silence was deafening. It was not “empty.” The silence was almost painful at first with the dramatic step from complete noise into complete silence. I was surrounded by it and overwhelmed. I have never forgotten the true nature of silence, how full it is and how rich, and how I needed to acclimate to it. I have come to know Silence has something to give me, and if I do not spend time there, I am not being fed…

Oh, and meditation. How I struggled with what I thought was the “nothingness” of meditation. The difficulty of moving from conscious thought into “nothing” and sitting still with it. But there is no “nothing.” There is Something. This Something that appears as Nothing is the greatest place of healing and renewing I have discovered. I now seek every opportunity to meditate and step into this Something.
I remember when I listened to television to disguise my own voice. I remember when I preferred the sound of music to the sound of silence. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still like to watch television sometimes (especially when I am tired), and my life is still filled with the music that I love, but I am less inclined to use it to avoid the depth of my own self and far more likely to seek every opportunity to spend time with no thing.

thank you for your prayers...

i am doing a new work, a writing project bigger than anything i have ever done before. because i have been very busy with it and faced a significant deadline, several people expressed to me they would be sending positive energy or saying a prayer for me for the weekend.

i have taught my little granddaughter something an old boss taught me about the dividing line for worry and not-worry. i told her whenever we are tempted to worry, simply ask the question "will babies die as a result of this?" if the answer is no (and undoubtedly it is), then we are not to worry. almost nothing is worthy of worry. as she visited me and heard me express i am a little nervous about meeting my deadline, she said, "grandma, will babies die?" it took me a minute to realize what she was saying, but i soon recognized her reminder not to worry. then she, too, said she will say a prayer for me as i sit at the keyboard.

i wondered if i would be able to meet the challenge of this new wonderful work. but then, i felt the presence of all that positive energy and i felt the presence of angels. in fact, i have been reminded angels fight on my side.

thank you for your positive energy. thank you for your prayers.

energy matters. prayers make a difference. i am in the presence of angels. and my work is inspired.

i give thanks.

Blog life...

I enjoy and deeply appreciate everyone who has read my blogs and has left a comment or sent an email telling me so (you are in the practice of giving when you do so). Your participation enriches my life and I thank you.

A favorite blog of mine is http://marcoclicks.typepad.com/marcoclicks_weekly/ not only for the compelling photographs but for the rich insights of the photographer. I have been following him since the beginning of his blog.

When you enjoy someone's blog, take a minute to tell him or her. I have been richly blessed with response (which encourages my writing) and I know other bloggers welcome your feedback as well.

Thanks for listening...