Insights for January 2015
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Free EBook download from Adyashanti http://www.adyashanti.org/wayofliberation/
“To stay present in everyday life, it helps to be deeply rooted within yourself; otherwise, the mind, which has incredible momentum, will drag you along like a wild river.” Eckhart Tolle
“First see through it. Then, move through it.” Mantra for 2015. Margaret Gervais
"This new transit of Saturn in Sagittarius has resonance with the Solstice, as Saturn will not leave Sagittarius {Saturn moved into Sagittarius from Scorpio, Dec. 23, 2014} for good until the Capricorn Solstice of 2017. Saturn holds together the structure of our consciousness within our skeletal system on a personal level, and on a collective level coordinates the innumerable ingredients that form our consensus reality, or the predominant agreements that define what we mean by "reality." Saturn has a palpable impact on our lives by transit, and we can immediately feel the impact following its ingress into a new sign through personal experiences and collective events." Gray Crawford Astrology http://graycrawford.net/author/grayastrology/
"Like seeds in a garden, words of wisdom blossom as you cultivate them." Sakyong Mipham, Learning by Heart, Shambhala Sun, January 2015.
"...feelings are often slower to adapt to unexpected change than the intellect." Liz GreenePractice continuously and unhurriedly.
“We need to look at our spiritual development in terms of the big picture, over a long period of time (even lifetimes), rather than get stuck in what does and does not happen in the short term. Whether we practice vipassana, lamrim, or tantra, our practice is only effective when done continuously and unhurriedly rather than pushing ourselves to extremes in short bursts. The highs and lows we experience along the way are temporary fluctuations, like the peaks and troughs of waves pushed by the wind. When we become obsessed with short-term results, our mind becomes tight and agitated.” Patrick Lambelet, Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition Mandala, October-December 2014
Grief (see my collection of insights on grief at http://theinsightcenter.net/grief-insights/
“Our death is the gift we make for the life we have enjoyed. The fact that it is a required gift doesn’t mean that we can’t give it with graciousness and an open heart for all beings who will benefit from it. It is a gift to our children and grandchildren and to rocks and trees that need the passing of life in order to live and grow themselves. Without the change resulting in our death, there would be no new beings coming into the world – no joy of holding a newborn, seeing the smile of a child or the leaves of a young tree facing the sun. We would have never grown up, helped others, learned new things, known the joy of spring. Death is our gift to the universe, the dues we pay for the joy of our lives.
This does not mean it’s not hard to let go of this life. Dag Hammarskjold wrote in Markings, that when he was in his twenties, death was one of the crowd. But now, in his later years, death sits beside him at the dinner table. Sometimes death is a good companion and tells us wise things. Sometimes we look at death and are grief-stricken and angry. It’s normal to grieve for our lives and be angry at their being taken – saying we shouldn’t is only putting a layer of suffering on our pain. None of us wants to go.We know, in the last analysis, that there’s nothing for us to do but let go of life and trust the universe to do something good, something useful, something we would have liked with it.Death is not and end. It is a change. The elements that made us up are still there, just as yearn is still there in a finished hat. It is itself, but it’s something else, also. Even though we’re in a sense still here, “self” as we know it is gone. That “self” won’t be appreciating the sunrise tomorrow. But, still, we are here in the places where our elements alight – a tree, a bird, a rock. Remember that things had to die so we could be born – stars, rocks, dinosaurs, plants. As we give up this life, we can thank them for sharing it with us so we could be here for a while.” Zuiko Redding, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly, Winter 2014.
Relationships! I keep finding really insightful information about death and grief and I wondered why I am not finding great insights about relationships, and then I see this post by Ram Dass. It’s a really good post at https://www.ramdass.org/when-i-look-at-relationships/. I'll share my favorite parts the next few days and will start a blog post at The Insight Center blog http://theinsightcenter.net/relationships/ about relationships, where I will gather insights about relationships.
"The image I always have when I am performing a wedding is the image of a triangle in which there are two partners and then there is this third force, this third being that emerges out of the interaction of these two. The third one is the one that is the shared awareness that lies behind the two of them. And the two people in the yoga of relationship come together in order to find that shared awareness that exists behind them in order to then dance as two. So that the twoness brings them into one and the oneness dances as two, and that’s a kind of a vibrating relationship between the one and the two. So that people are both separate, and yet they are not separate. And they are experiencing that the relationship is feeding both their uniqueness as individuals and their unit of consciousness.
Now, that is extremely delicate because it is so easy to get entrenched in your own “I need this,” “I want this,” “You are not fulfilling this for me” and seeing the other as object. But the delight, which all of you have experienced, is of being with somebody where you are sharing an awareness of the predicament you are both in. And you are sharing an awareness of the predicament even when you are having an argument with each other – there is an awareness that you are both almost delighting in the horrible beauty of it. We’re hating it and enjoying it both – because there are these levels we are playing at all the time. We come into relationship often very much identified with our needs. I need this, I need security, I need refuge, I need friendship, I need this. And all of relationships are symbiotic in that sense. We come together because we fulfill each others’ needs at some level or other.
…if somebody upsets me, that’s my problem. This is a hard one. Because we don’t usually think these ways in this culture. What I see other people as, I see them as trees in the forest. You go to the woods and you see gnarled trees and live oaks and pines and hemlocks and elms and things like that. And you are not inclined to say, “I don’t like you because you are a pine and not an elm.” You appreciate trees the way they are. But the minute you get near humans, you notice how quick it changes. It’s a way in which you don’t allow humans to just manifest the way they are. You take it personally. You keep taking other people personally. All they are are mechanical run-offs of old Karma. Really, it’s what they are. I mean they look real and they think they are real, but really what they are is mechanical run-off. So they say, Grrrh! And you karmically go Grrrh! And then one of you says, “We’ve got to work this out.” And the other says, “Yes, we must.” And then you start to work it out. It’s all mechanical. It’s all condition stuff.
So somebody comes along and gets to me. They get me angry or uptight or they awaken some desire in me, wow am I delighted. They got me. And that’s my work on myself. If I am angry with you because your behavior doesn’t fill my model of how you should be, that’s my problem for having models. No expectations, no upset. If you are a liar and a cheat, that’s your Karma. If I’m cheated, that’s my work on myself.
My attempting to change you, that’s a whole other ballgame. What I am saying is if I will only be happy if you are different than you are, you are asking for it. You are really asking for it. Think of how many relationships you say, “I really don’t like that person’s this or that. If they would only be this. If I could manipulate them to be this, I can be happy.” Isn’t that weird? Why can’t I be happy with them the way they are? You are a liar, a cheat and a scoundrel and I love you. I won’t play any games with you, but I love you. It’s interesting to move to the level where you can appreciate, love, and allow in the same way you would in the woods. Instead of constantly bringing in that judging component which is really rooted out of your own feelings of lack of power. Judging comes out of your own fear. Now I fall trap to it all the time. But every time I do, I catch myself.” Ram Dass, When I Look at Relationships, https://www.ramdass.org/when-i-look-at-relationships/
“We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.” Jack KornfieldFive Reasons Why Everyone Should Meditate http://www.mindful.org/mindful-magazine/meditation-excuses-and-reasons