We have returned from the mountains and the lake... in the end we had such a wonderful time. I did a lot of writing, Jimmy did a lot of resting, in between we swam and kayaked.
Back home life is continuing to weave a new strand for me, one I'll have to observe and nurture and give time to grow, before I want to publish any of it.
So, here is where my tale ends for now.
I still intend to collect and write down everything that feels relevant and see if in the very end it will be a book worth publishing. I will keep you posted.
In gratitude to life in all it's splendor!!
Monday, August 17, 2009
Escaping into Middle America
Thursday, August 13th
It's the first night of our writing retreat.
We are in the Adirondacks, in Piseco, at the Irondequoit Inn.
At first, the place is a bit of a disappointment. On the website the rooms looked more well cared for, the landscaping more spacious, the beach more secluded, and the parking lot and tennis court right next to the building had not been completely visible at all. Yes, the view is utterly beautiful, and yes, the inn has historic charm... BUT... there are a LOT of little buts... and I watched how each of us got tangled up in several of them.
On arrival we ran into a group of people sitting on the front porch celebrating happy hour with drinks, pretzel sticks and potato chips. Friendly as they were, something repelled me, was it that they talked a little too loudly with alcohol infused voices? Was it that they acted a bit too much like they owned the place? Was it that their way of communicating was long winded in an irritatingly impersonal way? While waiting for the Innkeeper to appear we soon learned that all of them have been coming here from their respective home towns around New York City for years, every summer...
Next Jimmy found the smell in the house objectionable... it reminded him of a gas odor... while I though it merely an old house smell. The room was quite too bare for his taste, and the colors too muted. The interior a bit too run down.
Then the seats in the sitting room downstairs looked pretty worn out... when I tested one of the cushions, I could feel the wooden structure underneath my butt, and I started wondering whether there would be be a comfortable enough seat anywhere in this inn where I could be sitting for long stretches of time in order to write...
Walking down the little trail downhill to visit the beach, we passed four cabins. They were built, even though mostly out of sight, right smack below the inn, each with view of the water... walking past them I felt all of a sudden like we were going through other peoples front yard, all of a sudden the remote beauty of the lake below the inn was inundated with various large groups of unexpected strangers, who had spilled out of their small windowed brown cabins, complete with barbeque smoke and beach towels spread out to dry... maybe worst of all too many car tires had violated the soft ground and had turned it into an unkempt dirt road which cut through the natural grass area in front of the beach. What I had imagined as an uninterrupted flow of lovingly tended nature from the steps of the inn all the way down to the beach didn't exist.
I had pictured myself walking down to the lake to go for a swim at night before going out for dinner, but now that somehow didn't feel inviting any longer.
Our boisterous new friends had informed us of the dining options and discouraged us from visiting the Ox Bow Inn, which Chad, the owner, had recommended as a place with good and inexpensive food, a place where one can get "all that good stuff". All of a sudden I remembered he had used the same phrase on the phone when I had asked him what they serve for breakfast, and he had said: Oh... eggs and omlets and waffles and pancakes and "all that good stuff". Curious little phrase. And what was it again he said when he showed us our room? Pointing at the small stack of white towels: These are your towels, we give you fresh ones every day and "all that good stuff". Hmm... Anyway, the good stuff he alluded to at the Ox Bow Inn didn't sound all that good from their experience and they directed us toward the Speculator Inn for better dining. There were other choices too, but how they distinguished themselves had been lost in the longish drawl of the advice. One place served tex mex... Jimmy liked that. We thought it was the Inn.
The first thing I noticed when we entered, was a worn out dark wall to wall green carpet which in the path of the entrance had been reduced to it's gray backing. A fleeting thought crossed my mind: don't ever eat in a restaurant with a dirty old carpet... but I ignored that warning. The walls above the paneling were dark green too. So were the blinds, half of which were drawn... and... below the ceiling... yes, there were last winters season decorations: plastic pine garlands entwined with christmas lights...
When we took a look at the menu it was clear this was NOT the tex mex restaurant. Jimmy made a feeble attempt to talk me into leaving, but didn't pull me out of my hesitation. My hesitation in turn didn't stem form wanting to be here, but from a purely strategic worry: if this was indeed the best place in town and we now left for the other restaurant and it was even worse, and we wanted to come back here, then it could be embarrassing, more embarrassing even than leaving now.
So we stayed, and we regretted it.
I realized something. I realized how spoiled we are. How much we take good eating for granted. I had forgotten how unsettling it is not to be able to eat at least good, nourishing, fresh, simple food. The outlook onto three days of malnourishment, of carelessly, uninspiredly prepared meals began to seriously depress us. It didn't help that the waitress was just as unengaging as the food she brought us. The one and only highlight was a truly wonderful homemade blueberry pie Jimmy needed to order to bring himself back to life after chewing through the awful meatloaf with ungracious amounts of mystery gravy, and the glob of watery mashed potatoes.
On the way home we checked out the other restaurants and concluded that we must have indeed ended up in the worst place of them all. Even the ominous Ox Bow Inn looked cheery with its red and white checkered curtains and its sun washed wood paneling. Looking forward to a peaceful night in our little old fashioned room, we found the sitting room of our Inn occupied by the same group of people, still with glasses in their hands... had they been drinking all night long? I was surprised by my own judgement when I noticed that they actually annoyed me, even ever so slightly. What was it about drinking I objected to?
We could still dimly hear their voices upstairs in our room. After the first five paragraphs of writing I ran out of battery juice for my computer, and discovered that the electrical outlets in our room had never been upgraded to the three prong plug. Wondering if that might be enough reason to leave the Inn the next day I laid down to sleep. Jimmy was already twitching in his dreams next to me. The bedframe is a bit screechy, but the mattress nice and soft, the pillows a bit too thick and puffy, but the sound of the summer crickets and the soft gurgle of a mountain stream made up for it with it's sweet lullaby.
We woke up to a white fog shrouding the trees outside our window and footsteps and vigorous voices coming up from the porch. The shared bathroom is cute enough and only steps down the hallway, but ran out of water as soon as I wanted to brush my teeth in the morning. The omlet I had ordered with a choice of tomatoes, scallions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese, featured the tomatoes and mushrooms in their canned version, the orange juice of course was not fresh either, not even make belief fresh with pulp, but at least they had some herb teas.
But right now... all woes are washed aside.
Now I am sitting with my labtop on one of the brightly painted green chairs on the front porch. The flowered pillows provide just enough cushioning beneath me, Chad has given us some very "good stuff": a plug adapter and an extension cord, feeding my computer with new energy, I have just enough shade to be able to see the screen clearly and I have this enchanted view in front of me: over the lawn to the right down to the silvery water, the sparkling treetops straight ahead just low enough to see the mountains at the horizon in their blue silhouettes... the sky is filled with a boundlessness of white fluffy clouds, the warm breeze plays a soft music with two little chimes, some human voices wafting up from the beach now and then, some teenage boys are playing tennis on the court all the way over to the right, and our friends from yesterday, who at times seem to gravitate annoyingly to all the same places we want to be in, have finally left this part of the porch.
Half an hour later, after reading some e-mails, the weather has changed, the breeze has turned into chilly gusts and rain is falling out of the sky.
Oh, how fragile, our little thin zones of comfort. How hard we work to match something around us that makes us feel GOOD. That makes us feel safe... and at home... and healthy. How many nuances there are that we think we need to reject in order to feel that we have been true to ourselves.
Now it's beginning to pour, and people are coming back from everywhere to find shelter under the roof of the Inn. We had considered taking the double kayak out onto the lake to paddle to the little island... now I am glad writing took up more time and we stayed in.
Somehow it seems we needed to leave the comfort of our home in Old Chatham, the almost prefect way in which it fits our lives, and surrounds us with comfort, in order to encounter the different needs and habits of middle Americans escaping from their daily life, enmeshing themselves into this timeless idyllic land, this eternally beautiful spot of nature. If that is so, we are in the right place after all.
It's the first night of our writing retreat.
We are in the Adirondacks, in Piseco, at the Irondequoit Inn.
At first, the place is a bit of a disappointment. On the website the rooms looked more well cared for, the landscaping more spacious, the beach more secluded, and the parking lot and tennis court right next to the building had not been completely visible at all. Yes, the view is utterly beautiful, and yes, the inn has historic charm... BUT... there are a LOT of little buts... and I watched how each of us got tangled up in several of them.
On arrival we ran into a group of people sitting on the front porch celebrating happy hour with drinks, pretzel sticks and potato chips. Friendly as they were, something repelled me, was it that they talked a little too loudly with alcohol infused voices? Was it that they acted a bit too much like they owned the place? Was it that their way of communicating was long winded in an irritatingly impersonal way? While waiting for the Innkeeper to appear we soon learned that all of them have been coming here from their respective home towns around New York City for years, every summer...
Next Jimmy found the smell in the house objectionable... it reminded him of a gas odor... while I though it merely an old house smell. The room was quite too bare for his taste, and the colors too muted. The interior a bit too run down.
Then the seats in the sitting room downstairs looked pretty worn out... when I tested one of the cushions, I could feel the wooden structure underneath my butt, and I started wondering whether there would be be a comfortable enough seat anywhere in this inn where I could be sitting for long stretches of time in order to write...
Walking down the little trail downhill to visit the beach, we passed four cabins. They were built, even though mostly out of sight, right smack below the inn, each with view of the water... walking past them I felt all of a sudden like we were going through other peoples front yard, all of a sudden the remote beauty of the lake below the inn was inundated with various large groups of unexpected strangers, who had spilled out of their small windowed brown cabins, complete with barbeque smoke and beach towels spread out to dry... maybe worst of all too many car tires had violated the soft ground and had turned it into an unkempt dirt road which cut through the natural grass area in front of the beach. What I had imagined as an uninterrupted flow of lovingly tended nature from the steps of the inn all the way down to the beach didn't exist.
I had pictured myself walking down to the lake to go for a swim at night before going out for dinner, but now that somehow didn't feel inviting any longer.
Our boisterous new friends had informed us of the dining options and discouraged us from visiting the Ox Bow Inn, which Chad, the owner, had recommended as a place with good and inexpensive food, a place where one can get "all that good stuff". All of a sudden I remembered he had used the same phrase on the phone when I had asked him what they serve for breakfast, and he had said: Oh... eggs and omlets and waffles and pancakes and "all that good stuff". Curious little phrase. And what was it again he said when he showed us our room? Pointing at the small stack of white towels: These are your towels, we give you fresh ones every day and "all that good stuff". Hmm... Anyway, the good stuff he alluded to at the Ox Bow Inn didn't sound all that good from their experience and they directed us toward the Speculator Inn for better dining. There were other choices too, but how they distinguished themselves had been lost in the longish drawl of the advice. One place served tex mex... Jimmy liked that. We thought it was the Inn.
The first thing I noticed when we entered, was a worn out dark wall to wall green carpet which in the path of the entrance had been reduced to it's gray backing. A fleeting thought crossed my mind: don't ever eat in a restaurant with a dirty old carpet... but I ignored that warning. The walls above the paneling were dark green too. So were the blinds, half of which were drawn... and... below the ceiling... yes, there were last winters season decorations: plastic pine garlands entwined with christmas lights...
When we took a look at the menu it was clear this was NOT the tex mex restaurant. Jimmy made a feeble attempt to talk me into leaving, but didn't pull me out of my hesitation. My hesitation in turn didn't stem form wanting to be here, but from a purely strategic worry: if this was indeed the best place in town and we now left for the other restaurant and it was even worse, and we wanted to come back here, then it could be embarrassing, more embarrassing even than leaving now.
So we stayed, and we regretted it.
I realized something. I realized how spoiled we are. How much we take good eating for granted. I had forgotten how unsettling it is not to be able to eat at least good, nourishing, fresh, simple food. The outlook onto three days of malnourishment, of carelessly, uninspiredly prepared meals began to seriously depress us. It didn't help that the waitress was just as unengaging as the food she brought us. The one and only highlight was a truly wonderful homemade blueberry pie Jimmy needed to order to bring himself back to life after chewing through the awful meatloaf with ungracious amounts of mystery gravy, and the glob of watery mashed potatoes.
On the way home we checked out the other restaurants and concluded that we must have indeed ended up in the worst place of them all. Even the ominous Ox Bow Inn looked cheery with its red and white checkered curtains and its sun washed wood paneling. Looking forward to a peaceful night in our little old fashioned room, we found the sitting room of our Inn occupied by the same group of people, still with glasses in their hands... had they been drinking all night long? I was surprised by my own judgement when I noticed that they actually annoyed me, even ever so slightly. What was it about drinking I objected to?
We could still dimly hear their voices upstairs in our room. After the first five paragraphs of writing I ran out of battery juice for my computer, and discovered that the electrical outlets in our room had never been upgraded to the three prong plug. Wondering if that might be enough reason to leave the Inn the next day I laid down to sleep. Jimmy was already twitching in his dreams next to me. The bedframe is a bit screechy, but the mattress nice and soft, the pillows a bit too thick and puffy, but the sound of the summer crickets and the soft gurgle of a mountain stream made up for it with it's sweet lullaby.
We woke up to a white fog shrouding the trees outside our window and footsteps and vigorous voices coming up from the porch. The shared bathroom is cute enough and only steps down the hallway, but ran out of water as soon as I wanted to brush my teeth in the morning. The omlet I had ordered with a choice of tomatoes, scallions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese, featured the tomatoes and mushrooms in their canned version, the orange juice of course was not fresh either, not even make belief fresh with pulp, but at least they had some herb teas.
But right now... all woes are washed aside.
Now I am sitting with my labtop on one of the brightly painted green chairs on the front porch. The flowered pillows provide just enough cushioning beneath me, Chad has given us some very "good stuff": a plug adapter and an extension cord, feeding my computer with new energy, I have just enough shade to be able to see the screen clearly and I have this enchanted view in front of me: over the lawn to the right down to the silvery water, the sparkling treetops straight ahead just low enough to see the mountains at the horizon in their blue silhouettes... the sky is filled with a boundlessness of white fluffy clouds, the warm breeze plays a soft music with two little chimes, some human voices wafting up from the beach now and then, some teenage boys are playing tennis on the court all the way over to the right, and our friends from yesterday, who at times seem to gravitate annoyingly to all the same places we want to be in, have finally left this part of the porch.
Half an hour later, after reading some e-mails, the weather has changed, the breeze has turned into chilly gusts and rain is falling out of the sky.
Oh, how fragile, our little thin zones of comfort. How hard we work to match something around us that makes us feel GOOD. That makes us feel safe... and at home... and healthy. How many nuances there are that we think we need to reject in order to feel that we have been true to ourselves.
Now it's beginning to pour, and people are coming back from everywhere to find shelter under the roof of the Inn. We had considered taking the double kayak out onto the lake to paddle to the little island... now I am glad writing took up more time and we stayed in.
Somehow it seems we needed to leave the comfort of our home in Old Chatham, the almost prefect way in which it fits our lives, and surrounds us with comfort, in order to encounter the different needs and habits of middle Americans escaping from their daily life, enmeshing themselves into this timeless idyllic land, this eternally beautiful spot of nature. If that is so, we are in the right place after all.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Passing the Test
Thursday, July 30th
My father keeps struggling after his return from the hospital. It's now been five weeks and he is weaker than a couple of days after the surgery. Ted has worked on him twice without any lasting results, I have tried to help him via other channels, through Byron Katie's work, and just talking and being there and holding him in nothing but love and trust and knowing that this too shall pass... as his condition remains the same... week after week.
Mami, interestingly, has tapped into an unexpected source of strength feeding her. Throughout this period of non-recovery she has been remarkably strong, without doubt or despair. She, who felt so weak in April, who was sure she wouldn't survive the summer herself... now is able to take care of Papi and the house and the garden and the shopping and the cooking and the cleaning without ever running on empty. She is resting in the knowledge that he will get better. She also firmly believes that for some undiscovered reason this is something he has to go through. He wants to believe this too, but it is so damn hard for him... all this weakness, all this numbness, all this pain in his skin, and his back, the ringing in his ears, the intestines so sluggish, the appetite for food so small... the body's troubles keep him from sleeping well... and this lack of good sleep has now accumulated since they first put a tube into the old kidney when I was there in May... that's over two(!) months ago... a long time to be losing sleep. He tries to catch a glimpse of: why, oh WHY is this happening to him... again...??? and receives no answer... he envies Mami's and my ability to communicate and receive guidance and resolution and an understanding of purpose for what is there in front of us... but no matter how hard he tries, he can't receive such messages, can't create such lasting peace of mind.
Oh, I feel with him. There is a peculiar added layer to his suffering, a part within me that feels I should be able to find something that helps him. If I can't reach him through the Journey, why isn't there something else showing up that works? And... is it for me to find that for him? As it is I can do nothing but reassure him that what IS, must be right. That has become my conviction through my experiences.
Last night Mami received one of her messages through her Christ energy. She heard: he has passed the test, now he can recover and he will. She heard: I too have passed the test. Papi is relieved to some degree, much of him trusts these messages that come through to Mami, mysterious as this source that communicates to her is to him, it is so close to him, it speaks out of her mouth, and in her loving voice. But... He doesn't know what the test was.
I myself wonder if for my part this was another exercise to let go too, to come anew face to face with my desire to relieve suffering, and to have to just... let it be. To imagine that this indeed is what is best for him right now, even when he can't feel that.
Tuesday, July 25th
Daily Practices
Much to catch up on.
In the meantime I have been to one very, very different kind of workshop at Kripalu... the divine feminine weekend, and then back to another three days of teaching Mahamudra practice with Mingyur Rinpoche at the Monastery in Woodstock.
When Jimmy and I got back from Garrison we started a new daily rhythm. We wake up and sit right up in bed and meditate for 20 min. The getting up part is usually the hardest, even more so when I don't have a schedule forcing me to jump out of bed. Without school, without any regular work, the temptation to just linger and stay curled up daydreaming under the soft flannel sheets is almost irresistible. Meditating in bed tricks us both into doing it pretty soon after the alarm goes off at 7:30.
Ideally we are done and out of bed by 8:00 and on our way downstairs to then do Yoga. If we use the yoga CD we began using last year, we are busy twisting our limbs for another 45 min, even after editing and cutting some of the very slow bits out of the sound track. If we are in a hurry, we either skip one or two exercises or we do a spontaneous variation which I talk us both through... a combination of Uwe's favorite Yoga postures and our CD. That's the new part of the morning.
Next I take Jacky for her eagerly awaited morning walk, while Jimmy starts making breakfast, faithfully after over 3 years that still consists of buckwheat, or more precisely: cooked kasha over copped up celery, cucumber, tomatoes and avocado. All of it gets a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, Braggs aminos, and tahini. We love that stuff. It's from our alkaline diet. Zippy breakfast. That's what they call it in the book. Mmmm.
If we are not under too much time pressure, we read after breakfast, which really means Jimmy reads out loud to me, whatever book we are currently savoring.
And that completes the morning portion of our daily program.
At 6:00 pm we intend to stop whatever we are doing and meet in the living room for another 20 min of meditation. I say: we INTEND because we don't always manage to keep this in our schedule, but hey, those days are the exception right now. On top of that Jimmy had intended to stop work at 4:00 and put in some physical exercise, but that has not happened yet. Not once. Shows you how much work he's had.
I am really proud of us. Adding meditation and yoga in every day feels like a huge accomplishment. I have been wanting, and trying, and attempting to meditate daily for years and years, and never managed to keep it up. Now it's all of a sudden soooo easy. Thanks to Mingyur Rinpoche.
What I have learned from him about meditation has turned my world almost upside down. It seems as if what I am doing now is almost the opposite of what I was aiming for in the past. Then I thought meditation was there to give the brain more examples about living in a more right brain state of being, going for the totally expansive and source like state of mind... somehow I think I imagined that at some point your brain experience reaches a critical mass and it simply switches over for good and at that point judgements and striving and pressures are all left behind for ever and then you'd be... almost enlightened.
Now I have a new understanding of meditating. "Resting in awareness". I wont attempt to explain this in more detail here, Mingyur Rinpoches does a much better job at this than I ever can... suffice it to say that his way of teaching meditation has not only made it easy to do twice a day, but has also created the possibility to transform any other activities into meditation. So, I do a walking meditation when I walk Jacky, a driving meditation when I drive around, a watching or listening meditation when I am around other people, a thinking meditation when my brain idles without a job... whenever I think of it, I do whatever I do with awareness.
It's amazing to me how much useless stuff constantly washes through the brain with my unfocused thoughts. I am noticing the categories that return over and over again: Improving some situation or helping someone... things I could do to create success for my work... things I could have said in a better way to explain myself... or things I could say or do that would make me more seen or respected... hmmm... yes, those come back over and over again. Interesting.
I wonder if this expansion of awareness, this surrendering into the simplicity of self in action in the moment, has a similar effect as surrendering into an emotion when we do a Journey. The emotion disappears... successively all layers of emotion disappear until there is nothing but the vastness of source. I imagine that in a similar way the continued surrender into the self might cause all the layers of the self to disappear. Woooosh... gone.
Well, much slower of course. We'll see.
My father keeps struggling after his return from the hospital. It's now been five weeks and he is weaker than a couple of days after the surgery. Ted has worked on him twice without any lasting results, I have tried to help him via other channels, through Byron Katie's work, and just talking and being there and holding him in nothing but love and trust and knowing that this too shall pass... as his condition remains the same... week after week.
Mami, interestingly, has tapped into an unexpected source of strength feeding her. Throughout this period of non-recovery she has been remarkably strong, without doubt or despair. She, who felt so weak in April, who was sure she wouldn't survive the summer herself... now is able to take care of Papi and the house and the garden and the shopping and the cooking and the cleaning without ever running on empty. She is resting in the knowledge that he will get better. She also firmly believes that for some undiscovered reason this is something he has to go through. He wants to believe this too, but it is so damn hard for him... all this weakness, all this numbness, all this pain in his skin, and his back, the ringing in his ears, the intestines so sluggish, the appetite for food so small... the body's troubles keep him from sleeping well... and this lack of good sleep has now accumulated since they first put a tube into the old kidney when I was there in May... that's over two(!) months ago... a long time to be losing sleep. He tries to catch a glimpse of: why, oh WHY is this happening to him... again...??? and receives no answer... he envies Mami's and my ability to communicate and receive guidance and resolution and an understanding of purpose for what is there in front of us... but no matter how hard he tries, he can't receive such messages, can't create such lasting peace of mind.
Oh, I feel with him. There is a peculiar added layer to his suffering, a part within me that feels I should be able to find something that helps him. If I can't reach him through the Journey, why isn't there something else showing up that works? And... is it for me to find that for him? As it is I can do nothing but reassure him that what IS, must be right. That has become my conviction through my experiences.
Last night Mami received one of her messages through her Christ energy. She heard: he has passed the test, now he can recover and he will. She heard: I too have passed the test. Papi is relieved to some degree, much of him trusts these messages that come through to Mami, mysterious as this source that communicates to her is to him, it is so close to him, it speaks out of her mouth, and in her loving voice. But... He doesn't know what the test was.
I myself wonder if for my part this was another exercise to let go too, to come anew face to face with my desire to relieve suffering, and to have to just... let it be. To imagine that this indeed is what is best for him right now, even when he can't feel that.
Tuesday, July 25th
Daily Practices
Much to catch up on.
In the meantime I have been to one very, very different kind of workshop at Kripalu... the divine feminine weekend, and then back to another three days of teaching Mahamudra practice with Mingyur Rinpoche at the Monastery in Woodstock.
When Jimmy and I got back from Garrison we started a new daily rhythm. We wake up and sit right up in bed and meditate for 20 min. The getting up part is usually the hardest, even more so when I don't have a schedule forcing me to jump out of bed. Without school, without any regular work, the temptation to just linger and stay curled up daydreaming under the soft flannel sheets is almost irresistible. Meditating in bed tricks us both into doing it pretty soon after the alarm goes off at 7:30.
Ideally we are done and out of bed by 8:00 and on our way downstairs to then do Yoga. If we use the yoga CD we began using last year, we are busy twisting our limbs for another 45 min, even after editing and cutting some of the very slow bits out of the sound track. If we are in a hurry, we either skip one or two exercises or we do a spontaneous variation which I talk us both through... a combination of Uwe's favorite Yoga postures and our CD. That's the new part of the morning.
Next I take Jacky for her eagerly awaited morning walk, while Jimmy starts making breakfast, faithfully after over 3 years that still consists of buckwheat, or more precisely: cooked kasha over copped up celery, cucumber, tomatoes and avocado. All of it gets a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, Braggs aminos, and tahini. We love that stuff. It's from our alkaline diet. Zippy breakfast. That's what they call it in the book. Mmmm.
If we are not under too much time pressure, we read after breakfast, which really means Jimmy reads out loud to me, whatever book we are currently savoring.
And that completes the morning portion of our daily program.
At 6:00 pm we intend to stop whatever we are doing and meet in the living room for another 20 min of meditation. I say: we INTEND because we don't always manage to keep this in our schedule, but hey, those days are the exception right now. On top of that Jimmy had intended to stop work at 4:00 and put in some physical exercise, but that has not happened yet. Not once. Shows you how much work he's had.
I am really proud of us. Adding meditation and yoga in every day feels like a huge accomplishment. I have been wanting, and trying, and attempting to meditate daily for years and years, and never managed to keep it up. Now it's all of a sudden soooo easy. Thanks to Mingyur Rinpoche.
What I have learned from him about meditation has turned my world almost upside down. It seems as if what I am doing now is almost the opposite of what I was aiming for in the past. Then I thought meditation was there to give the brain more examples about living in a more right brain state of being, going for the totally expansive and source like state of mind... somehow I think I imagined that at some point your brain experience reaches a critical mass and it simply switches over for good and at that point judgements and striving and pressures are all left behind for ever and then you'd be... almost enlightened.
Now I have a new understanding of meditating. "Resting in awareness". I wont attempt to explain this in more detail here, Mingyur Rinpoches does a much better job at this than I ever can... suffice it to say that his way of teaching meditation has not only made it easy to do twice a day, but has also created the possibility to transform any other activities into meditation. So, I do a walking meditation when I walk Jacky, a driving meditation when I drive around, a watching or listening meditation when I am around other people, a thinking meditation when my brain idles without a job... whenever I think of it, I do whatever I do with awareness.
It's amazing to me how much useless stuff constantly washes through the brain with my unfocused thoughts. I am noticing the categories that return over and over again: Improving some situation or helping someone... things I could do to create success for my work... things I could have said in a better way to explain myself... or things I could say or do that would make me more seen or respected... hmmm... yes, those come back over and over again. Interesting.
I wonder if this expansion of awareness, this surrendering into the simplicity of self in action in the moment, has a similar effect as surrendering into an emotion when we do a Journey. The emotion disappears... successively all layers of emotion disappear until there is nothing but the vastness of source. I imagine that in a similar way the continued surrender into the self might cause all the layers of the self to disappear. Woooosh... gone.
Well, much slower of course. We'll see.
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