Just Breathe....You Are Enough – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Touching Joy

There are many contemplative traditions that emphasize the importance of balance. First Nations traditions - in reference to the Medicine Wheel - will speak of balance, the balance, for example, of the emotional, physical, spiritual, and intellectual aspects of ourselves.  Many First Nations traditions will hold that, by bringing these aspects into balance, we become a balanced, whole, harmonious person.

Chinese traditions, historically, have also had strong influence in our understanding of balance. The symbol of the yin yang is, at least in part, about the balance of opposing principles. The inner and the outer, the black and the white, where there is white inside the black and black inside the white.  By coming together in a balanced way, often our parts are understood to become a whole.

The ancient Indian tradition, from which Hindu and Buddhist traditions arise - the origin of Indian understandings of enlightenment – sees harmony and wholeness in a slightly different way.

We are part of a whole. We will be whole to the degree that we connect to that wholeness of which we are apart. The means to connect to that wholeness is not so much a question of balance as it is a question of alignment. Our inside world and the outside world is composed of many composite elements. Our well-being depends, they would say, on those composite elements coming into alignment.

In this view, there is an organic alignment of things. Humans are connected to a cosmic whole: the inner world of the body and the individual person can only mirror this much larger flow.

It is similar to the Chinese understanding of the Ta0. There is a way of things, an ordered and sequenced flow of things.

For my students, I illustrate this idea by telling a simple creation story which outlines this view. Once upon a time, there was a golden egg. It floated on an ocean that existed in the time before time.  This ocean has always existed:  it will always exist.  There is nowhere for it to go. The golden egg floated…and it moved. It opened…and the top became the sky, the bottom became the earth, and the space in between became the atmospheric realm in which we all live.

The ocean is life itself. Although it would be perceived and articulated differently as Buddhist and Hindu traditions would develop each in their own way, both traditions would begin - in the time period between about 1500 and 500 B.C.E. - with a view that says: there is life itself which pervades everything.  It is just like water:  the water in our bodies, the water in my teacup, the water in the rivers, and the streams, in the oceans of the earth, in the ocean that is the sky (for if it were not an ocean, it would not be blue! If it were not an ocean where it could rain come from!)

There is this quality of the mirror, a reflection. Life is just life.  Water is just water. It will take different forms, and different shapes, in different places or different times, perhaps a bit in the way that water is liquid, or solid, or steam. Yet life is just life. It is present with us. We don't earn it. There is no question of deserving. It just is, in the way that oxygen in our atmosphere is.  We are enough.

Life is just life. Will we vibrate with it - celebrate with it - be fed by it as if connecting to an electrical current, or will we somehow come to feel cut off, or atrophied and desiccate . We are parts of a whole. We will feel whole to the degree that we connect to that wholeness of which we are apart.

At its most basic, the old Indian worldview is a tripartite system:  heaven, and Earth, and the space in between, where the opposing poles of anything serves simply to define – to help us to see - that space in between in which we all live.

Watch a sunrise or a sunset, and notice.  Because of the opposing poles of heaven and earth, we are able to see this space which is everywhere, inside and outside the world of form. The hand, or the body, or the stars under an electron microscope will show itself to be 99.999% space, the space inside of us and outside of us in which we live. It is as omnipresent as water. This space is life itself. We are able to see it when it is defined by this structure of colour and shape and form, because of the limits of earth and sky.

We can see the room that is created as a result of the structure of the walls. The one is dependent on the other.

In some counts of the system, heaven, Earth and the space in between are each understood to have their own top and bottom and space in between. So the vision of the world by that count has seven elements. The bottom, the middle, the top of the earth, which is the bottom for the middle and the top of the atmosphere, that is the bottom for the middle and the top of the sky.  It is like a three-story apartment building:  it has seven parts. 

It wasn't just seven elements, though.  It was eight, because the wholeness which was the entirety of this composite group of seven was also considered to be an element. So eight would become, an ancient India, the number of wholeness representing a cosmic infinity. 108, 1008, 100,0008:  eight would come to symbolically represent the entirety of the cosmic whole of which we are apart.

The part and the whole would be a fascination for much of ancient Indian ritual and philosophy. We have wholeness because of a seemingly infinite series of elements that somehow all seem to line up and come into place:  the ordered succession of the seasons, the ordered movement of the planets and the stars, the ordered unfolding of the generations one after the next.  

Like the individual human body, it would come to be understood as a system of systems of pieces joined: the skeletal system, muscular system, circulatory system, endocrine system, the mechanism of sensory perception, of cell division, the layers of the skin.  It is a system of systems of pieces joined. 

For me, among the most easy to visualize is the spinal column: a system of systems of pieces joined. There is fluidity of movement because of the precise alignment of these composite parts. One small piece slightly out of place and the movement becomes obstructed, the body loses its flow.

Life is like that.

In this vision of the ancient Indian world - with its pictorial description of enlightenment - we relate to our lives like the bones of a spinal column. It is a system of systems of pieces joined. When these pieces relax into place, there is a flow of movement that happens without obstruction.

This alignment - as a real for the individual, as for the social, the natural and cosmic whole - was named with an ancient Sanskrit word  “rta”.  It is a vocalic “r”, rolled a bit like the Scottish or Gaelic “r”. 

How this vision, or idea, becomes rendered into European languages varies with the cultural lenses that have sought to understand it each in their own way. German Indologists have tended to render it as “truth”.  Trained in Paris, it is perhaps my cultural bias to appreciate the French understanding of one of the tradition’s early female Indologists, Lillian Silburn, who described it as “agencement exact”, the harmonious alignment of things, like the movement of the spheres, the movement of the stars and the movement of the spine.

“Agencement exact”, an alignment that is “juste”, or “true”, in the way that an arrow flies “true”, without obstruction:  when our pieces come into place, we experience wholeness, we feel the flow of things.

“The flow of things” is how the ancient poets saw it in 1500 BCE,  like a golden river in the sky.  It was the union and transcendence of water and fire, the union and transcendence of masculine and feminine principles, the experience of the enlightened mind.

This golden flow of things pervades life itself; it is life itself.  We, as individuals, come and go: the sun, and the sky, and the ocean remain. It is in us. It is of us. We do not possess it.  We live our life; we do not own it.

The central story in the oldest Sanskrit text of the Indian sub-continent describes how to remove obstacles to this flow.  The great hero, whose name is Indra, wields the thunderbolt and kills the dragon whose name means literally “obstacle”. We become the hero ,in the story of our lives, to the degree that we wield our thunderbolts and overcome our obstacles. It is the prototype - the origin story - for both Hindu and Buddhist understandings of enlightenment.

Obstacles to what?

The hero wields the thunderbolt and destroys - or overcomes - obstacles to the flow of things. The sequential unfolding of time, the in-breath and the out-breath, the expanding and contracting of the heartbeat:  our lives are a system of systems of pieces joined.  When the parts of our lives come into alignment, we taste the flow that is joy.

This self-existing flow, the life principle, is always there. It cannot go anywhere. We may be born and die:  life itself remains.

In the same way, our health and vigor, our vitality and joy, our inspiration:  it cannot go anywhere.  It is like the sun in the sky.  We may see it or not: this is irrelevant. It is the Earth that turns: the Sun remains. The sun doesn't go anywhere. There is nowhere for it to go.

Our joy is like that. It is self-existing, inherently enough. We may connect with it or not, as we work with the obstacles that show themselves in the course of our days.

If you are feeling cut off from your joy, consider the possibility:  is there something here - in my life, in the unfolding of my world - which has somehow come out of alignment? Is there an obstruction that somehow needs to be overcome in order that I can reconnect with my delight? Do I need to pick up my thunderbolt to cut through an obstacle?  Or is there some other adjustment – a re-alignment of my wheels - that needs to take place?

The joy is self-existing.  We either cut ourselves off from it or not.

When our parts come into alignment, we connect with the flow and touch joy.

 

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  Come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com” and join the JBYAE community.

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening.

 

Copyright © 2019, Adela Sandness

Roll in the Sand

 

As some of you know, this week was moving week on the university campus where I teach. Extensive renovations in one of our main office buildings meant that we moved out of that office building into temporary housing for about one year's time. They stripped that office building down to its bricks to do a major renovation. This week we, and our countless boxes, moved into the completed new building.

While I was unpacking one of those boxes, I came across an envelope of photographs that had gotten lost at the back of a filing cabinet about 10 years ago. It contained one of the best photographs that I have of Sarah The Wonder Dog, my magnificent golden retriever who died just over three years ago.

In the photo, Sarah – as a two year old – is sitting on the beach, at sunset, chewing on her stick. Where else would she be? And what else would she be doing there? Of course she is on the beach chewing her stick.

The beach in that photograph is about a 15 minute drive away from the beach where she had her last big play before she died at the age of 13. It was a miraculous Christmas day here on the East Coast of Canada where - very oddly - the snow had melted, and the sun was warm, and the weather tasted of spring. As a Christmas present to both of us, Sarah and I went to her favourite beach. It was a very flat beach, that we could access from very close to the car:  at the age of 13, she could no longer climb over rocks or walk up steep hills.  This was a very flat beach, with very shallow water, and it was possible to walk on a flat surface for quite a long distance.

We walked for about a half hour.  It felt like a long time, because at home – with her sore hips – we would walk about two blocks before it was time to head back.

On one side of the beach was the ocean with its waves and the pull of the tide. She knew that she wasn't strong enough to be in the pull of that tide, but she realized that on the other side - maybe some hundred metres away - there was an inland lake without tide, and she had even managed to get a little bit wet in that water. We were both so delighted by the treat of this!

We had finished our walk on the beach, and we were heading back to the car, when suddenly there arrived a Christmas miracle:  three dogs and their humans, all six of them visiting from away, came out of a car.

There was a big, black and fluffy, very friendly and lovely, Newfoundland dog. There was a smaller dog who had been hit by a car and recovered with some difficulty. So this dog also knew what it was to have to struggle a bit in order to play on the beach. Then there was a blond, gentleman dog, a golden retriever just like her, an elegant noble gentleman dog slightly larger than herself who was wise enough to understand her perfectly.  In all of her years, I had never seen her look at another dog with such love.

It was as if this Christmas day on the beach – the last big play of her life - had been predestined for many lifetimes before and dreamed of in many dog dreams. The humans who belong to these dogs knew what it was to work with a pack and how to play in a way that included everyone. They had helped the smaller dog heal from the car accident. So they knew how to include in the play someone who moved more slowly than the others.

Sarah was so happy when she encountered these dogs that she immediately lay down on her back and began to make snow angels in the sand, wiggling back and forth with such joy - paws flailing in the air - and all of us, the three dogs, the three humans and me, stood around in a circle watching her as she made a full 360 Dog Angel in the sand. She was ecstatic.

Then it came time to play with the stick on the beach. Now the younger dogs, they could run far and fast to fetch that stick, and if the stick went into the water they could swim against the current in the ocean in order to bring back that stick. Sarah understood this, and you could see that she was both engaging the play but also holding back, tentative and feeling a little bit sad that she couldn't quite run like the others.  She was happy to be with them, but also knowing that she wasn't quite a part of it, until - in a moment of genius - one of the other humans did a fake throw of the stick, pretending to throw the stick far into the water. All of the other dogs ran madly after the fake throw of the stick, but the humans showed Sarah that they still had the stick, and they threw the stick right in her direction, about 18 inches away.

She was able to pick up that stick. She was the one who got the stick. The others came running madly back, and she had the stick, and the miracle of this moved through her entire body. It is perhaps the happiest moment that I witnessed in her life that - even at this very end of her days -she got the stick. The other humans, and the other dogs, somehow understood the miracle of this and celebrated with her.

The gentleman golden retriever - so much like Sarah that they were hard to tell apart except that he was larger - understood Sarah's situation. When the play moved into the ocean, into the pull of the tide, he would swim slightly behind her and very close to her:  it was very obvious that he was taking care of her. He knew she would not be safe swimming in the ocean by herself. So he stuck by her and - because he was there - she could swim out into the waves of the ocean, and then swim back again because he would be there to help her if something went wrong.  Again and again, the two of them went out into the ocean and back again. In her 13 years, I may have never seen her so consciously feeling cared for and loved by another dog.

In another great moment of that miracle Christmas Day play, the gentleman golden retriever took this stick and gave it to her, in order that they could play pull the stick, in the way that dogs play the pulling game. He pulled on the stick as gently as one would feed an infant with a spoon - so unbelievably gently - in order that Sarah was able to play the pull game, but she would not be hurt by it. It was, I think, the most glorious day on the beach of her life.

The day of her very last big play Sarah the Wonder Dog taught me about sticks.

Action and reaction. Cause and effect. In our reflections on karma, we have observed that humans, by nature, must act. All creatures that move, by our nature, act, and when we act we must also receive the result of that action. So it is that we, too, will pick up both ends of a stick.

The trick is, what we do with those sticks once we've got them? In my experience, it is an oddly short list of options.

Sometimes we hit ourselves with our sticks or hit other people with our sticks. In that action and reaction, sometimes we cause harm to ourselves or to others.

Some sticks are fun, and we pick them up, and we play fetch in the companionship of our pack. We pick up our sticks, and we toss them in delight. We run after them, and fetch, for the pleasure of picking them up again.

Sometimes we chew on our sticks. Is there a stick that you're chewing on at the moment? Something that's eating you, that you can't quite digest? So you keep chewing on it… enough to get splinters in your jaws?

If you play fetch with a dog on the beach, you may observe that – sometimes - among the hardest things is to know how to drop the stick.

How do we let go?

Sometimes we couldn't hold on anymore even if we wanted to.  Sometimes we simply decide to drop it.  Sometimes we forgive, and our end of the stick naturally falls away.  Because we’re ready to forgive?  Because it hurts us less to forgive than it does to keep holding on? 

Action and reaction. Cause and effect. We pick up both ends of the stick. Then what? Do we hit ourselves with it? Do we hurt someone else with it? Do we sit and chew on it? Do we delight in the tossing of it and the playing of fetch? Do we trip over it? Who is to say?

But I learned from Sarah the Wonder Dog that we do need to drop the stick before we can roll in the sand.

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  Come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com” and join the JBYAE community.

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening.

Copyright © 2019, Adela Sandness

Breathe Through Your Heels

“Now, take this huge tree here, son.  If someone were to hack it at the bottom, its living sap would flow.  Likewise, if someone were to hack it in the middle, its living sap would flow; and if someone were to hack it at the top, its living sap would flow.  Pervaded by the living essence…, this tree stands here ceaselessly drinking water and flourishing…  The finest essence here – that constitutes the self of this whole world; that is the truth; that is the self…).  And that’s how you are….” (Chandogya-Upanishad 6.11.1-3, c. 500 BCE).

Today, we reflect on how to “breathe through the heals”.

Perhaps my favourite tree passage is from “The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine”, dated approximately 2000 BCE.  It is the earliest known reference to the Chinese practice of “standing like a tree”, “standing still without changing”, a form of chi kung practice.  The meridians, or internal energy pathways of the body identified by traditional Chinese medicine, are here compared to the branches and limbs of a tree which is the means by which humans connect – and are connected by – the heavens and the earth.  The vital essence, or chi, is said to flow through the body as sap flows through a tree.  The passage reads:

“I have heard that in ancient times there were the so-called Spiritual Beings:

They stood between Heaven and Earth, connecting the Universe;

They understood and were able to control both Yin and Yang, the two fundamental principles of nature;

They inhaled the vital essence of life;

They remained unmoving in their spirit;

Their muscles and flesh were as one –

This is the Tao, the Way you are looking for.”

One of the key themes of my research in the oldest Sanskrit text of the Indian subcontinent is “rasa”, or “sapfulness”. It names the vibrant and vital “juiciness”, the essence of life itself, which is the whole of which we are a part. You taste it when you encounter “juicy” people, ones who know how to feel the heartbeat of the earth, the pulsing of the heavens, and somehow move in rhythm in that space in between.  This ability to feel the pulse of the earth beneath the feet, and move in the flow with it, is called – in the writings of the Taoist master Chuang Tzu – the ability “to breathe through the heals”.

The true human, the authentic human, breathes through the heals.

Says Chuang Tzu:

“….How do we know that what we call the Heavenly (in us) is not the Human? and that what we call the Human is not the Heavenly? There must be the True (hu)man (the “authentic” human), and then there is the True knowledge. What is meant by 'the True (Hu)Man?'

The True (humans).. of old did not reject (the views of) the few; they did not seek to accomplish (their ends) like heroes (before others); they did not lay plans to attain those ends. Being such, though they might make mistakes, they had no occasion for repentance; though they might succeed, they had no self-complacency. Being such, they could ascend the loftiest heights without fear; they could pass through water without being made wet by it; they could go into fire without being burnt; so it was that by their knowledge they ascended to and reached the Tao.

The True (humans) of old did not dream when they slept, had no anxiety when they awoke, and did not care that their food should be pleasant. Their breathing came deep and silently. The breathing of the true (humans) comes (even) from (their) heels, while (humans) generally breathe (only) from their throats. When (humans) are defeated in argument, their words come from their gullets as if they were vomiting. Where lusts and desires are deep, the springs of the Heavenly are shallow.

The True (authentic humans) of old knew nothing of the love of life or of the hatred of death. Entrance into life occasioned them no joy; the exit from it awakened no resistance. Composedly they went and came. They did not forget what their beginning had been, and they did not inquire into what their end would be. They accepted (their life) and rejoiced in it; they forgot (all fear of death), and returned (to their state before life). Thus there was in them what is called the want of any mind to resist the Tao…. Such were they who are called the True (authentic humans).” (from “The Writings of Chuang Tzu, Book 6:  “The Great and Most Honoured Master”, translation by Stephen R. McIntyre)

The truly human breathe through their heels.

If you can where you are, take off your socks and put your feet on the ground. If you can be outside, put your feet on the ground outside.  If you can be outside beside trees, stand outside beside the trees. If you are driving, or in a bathtub, or otherwise cannot put your feet on the ground, it doesn't really matter, because you know what it feels like to feel your feet on the ground. 

Feel your feet on the ground.  Bring your attention to the feeling of your feet on the earth. Feel that connection with the earth.

Can you breathe from the place of that feeling? Can you feel the strength, the vigour, the vital sap of the earth come up into you?

These days, I am teaching a class about the body.  Part of what I am inviting the students to consider is to ask: what is the difference between your body and the earth? The carbon in your body, the carbon in the earth:  what is the difference? The water in your body, the water in the earth:  what is the difference? The body and the earth:  how could we ever have imagined there might be a difference? The body and the earth are one. 

Can you feel the earth breathe? Can you feel the pulse and the rhythm of that breath, that heartbeat, like the flow of the sap, like the pulse and the rhythm of the tide? Can you feel the strength of the earth come up through you as you breathe through your heels?

The strength of the earth and the strength inside of you:  what is the difference? You are stronger than your fear. Feel the connection between the feet and the earth, and breathe.

Feel that connection and no matter where you are - with the business client, in the job interview, in the difficult conversation at the difficult meeting – pause and feel the strength of the Earth pulled up through your feet, through your heels.  Wherever you are, observe that you can no more be pushed around than the tree that digs deep with its heels and drinks from deep inside the earth.

What is the difference between the body and the earth? Oh, this is the great and glorious thing of the human experience!

For, can you breathe through the heels and then observe:  what is the difference between your breath and the sky? What is the difference between your breath and the wind? The breath inside of you, the space outside of you:  what is the difference?

That is the human experience. Like the tree, we stand with the earth. We reach up into space, and we breathe through our heels the life that connects the two the way the sap flows up through a tree.

We know the practical, the concrete, the physical, the embodied. We know the vision, the potential, the dream, the possibility, the perspective of the eagle’s view high around us, and we stand in that space in-between, joining heaven and earth, and breathing it together, making our dreams, and our visions, and our possibilities possible.

Space, breath - embodied -  makes dreams come true.

Breathe with the heels.

Can you feel that current that flows through your whole being from Earth to Heaven? Inhale and exhale. Can you breathe with that current, feeling the rhythm and the pulse of that vital sap, that essence of existence?

That you are.

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  Come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com” and join the JBYAE community.

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening. 

Copyright © 2019, Adela Sandness

We Celebrate Valentine’s Day

 

“The minute I heard my first love story – I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.  Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere – they’re in each other all along.” (Rumi)  The Hindu god of love is named Kama. My favorite story of Kama is told by the classical Sanskrit poet Kalidasa in the text known as the Kumarasambhava. Once upon a time, there was a demon named Taraka. Taraka had been promised that he could only be killed by a child of Shiva.   The god Shiva is the great practitioner of yoga!  He wears cremation ashes, is emaciated and wanders in cremation grounds. So the demon decided that surely he will live forever because no one would ever become the wife of Shiva, and therefore Shiva will never have a child, but there was a goddess named Parvati who, in a past life, had already been a wife of Shiva. She took birth as child of the mountains: her father was Himavat, the Himalayas. She was very beautiful, and, from an early age, she loved the god Shiva.  She recited his name, and rejoiced in his presence, and there were special markings on her body that foretold that she would become the wife of the great Yogi, the god Shiva. Parvati, assisted by other gods - including Kama, the god of love - set out to try and seduce Shiva, to lure him into marriage.   She tries with her beauty, her radiance, her sensuality, but Shiva only becomes angry that his meditation has been disturbed.  So Parvati begins to seduce him by her own practice as a yogini.  She becomes as strong a practitioner as he, and she wins him through the heat of her own spiritual practice. Shiva, who wears the moon in his hair, says: “From this moment, O Parvati, I am your slave, gained by the heat of your spiritual practice, O woman of healing beauty”, and all the weariness of her effort left her in that instance, for out of exhaustion, once desire is satisfied, a new strength arises.” They were married, and the poet Kalidasa, in Chapter 6 verse 91, tells us:  “With the day and the night the same to him, Shiva spent his time making love, and he passed twenty-five years as if it were a single night, and his thirst for the pleasure of loving never became any less in him, as the fire that burns below the ocean is never satisfied by the rolling waters.” Kama, the Hindu god of love, shoots with an arrow and a bow like Cupid, the winged matchmaker well-known to those in the West who recognise Valentine's Day. Cupid is inspired by the Roman god of love, desire, and erotic love, attraction and affection. He is the son of Venus, the Goddess of Love, and Mars, the god of war. His Greek counterpart is Eros, and the one who is shot by Cupid's arrow is filled with uncontrollable erotic desire. Cupid, they say, has wings, because lovers are flighty and likely to change their minds. His symbols are the arrow and torch, because love wounds and inflames the heart. Cupid carries two kinds of arrows. One has a sharp golden point and the other with a blunt tip of lead. A person wounded with the golden arrow is filled with uncontrollable desire, but the one struck with lead desires only to flee. In both ancient and later art, Cupid is often shown riding a dolphin, perhaps portraying how swiftly love moves in its wild ride. The modern mid-February festival of love and romance is, like Imbolc, inspired in part by the Roman festival called Lupercalia. It was a fertility festival celebrating the coming of spring. The mid-February fertility festival becomes Christianized in the 5th century by Pope Galaceus who declared February 14 to be Valentine's Day, the day of St. Valentine. There is more than one St. Valentine canonized by the church. One of these St. Valentines was a defiant Roman priest who lived in the third century under the Roman Emperor Claudius the second. Claudius was an ambitious ruler, and his armies required vast armies of men to abandon their families for long periods of time. It meant that there was a military that was often downhearted and homesick. So determined was Claudius to strengthen his army by stripping it of love that he banned marriage altogether. There was, we are told, a priest named Father Valentine who thought the ban was unjust, and he defied the ban by continuing to marry young lovers in secret. The Emperor eventually found out about the priest's actions, and arrested him and sentenced him to death. It is believed that young couples that he had secretly married visited him in his cell, passing him flowers and notes through the bars as symbols of their gratitude and appreciation. The condemned Father Valentine fell in love with the jailer’s daughter, and, on February 14th, the day he was executed, he passed the young woman a note which was signed “from your Valentine”. So, it is said, the tradition was born. It's in the 1300’s, under the influence of Chaucer who fostered the idea of courtly love, that this holiday in the spring – at the beginning of the bird’s mating season - becomes clearly associated with romance. By the 1400’s, the first Valentine's Day greeting cards had appeared, and by the 1600’s people in Great Britain had begun the tradition of exchanging Valentine's Day letters and cards. Valentine's Day cards begin to be mass produced in the 1840’s. Today, one billion cards are exchanged on Valentine's Day along with, I'm told, some 220 million red roses. In the spring, when life begins to return to the world, our attention moves to the celebration of love, with cards, and flowers, and chocolates, and the sweetness of things: this flow of the sweetness of life itself that we know, and we feel, and perhaps - at times like these - we remember even better how to see. “If you press me to say why I love him, I can say no more than because he is he, and I am I”, Michel de Montaigne. “You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and, just so, you learn to love by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.” St. Francis de Salas

“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.” Washington Irving

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.” Thoreau “You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.” Barbara De Angeles. “Those who love deeply never grow old. They may die of old age, but they die young.” Sir Arthur Pinero Love is a verb,  a behavior, an action: to love, honor and cherish. It's part of what is implied by the Hindu term “bhakti”. The word is commonly used to name the loving relationship between the human and a god such as Krishna. Bhakti. The word is derived from BHAJ- which means “to participate”. “To love, honor and cherish”: it is to participate, to engage fully in life itself by bearing witness, by showing up, engaging fully, and participating in the life of another and the life of ourselves. The cards, the chocolates, the flowers - at the time of the old English mating season of birds: the fertility festival that is Valentine’s Day - at the beginning of the beginning of spring - is a celebration of the sweetness of things, the sweetness of being alive, the sweetness of life itself. We discover this sweetness – represented by the chocolates, the flowers and the cards - when we connect and participate in our experience of being simultaneously both separate and one. To love, honor, and cherish:  it is showing up with patience, good humor and the strength and resilience that comes from the seeds of that basic meditation posture with its strong back and open heart, a heart open to receive whatever it is that comes and then to work with it.  In bearing witness, we participate and then draw out this sweetness, that inner taste of things we call love. For a long time now, I have been a proponent of the “birth week”  A birth-day is just too much pressure. Something goes wrong, something messes up, and somehow there is a loss that - even if we wait a whole other year – we will never again be able to set it right. The solution is very simple:  welcome the birth week!  It gives time to set things right in the moment, to try and help what we wish, and what is, to begin to be able to match. So I offer this suggestion, that - in the same way we can celebrate a birth week - we also celebrate Valentine's Week, or at least Valentine's weekend. Let’s consider celebrating Valentine's Week: to love, honor, and cherish, to participate and show up, to share cards and letters and chocolate as we move towards Spring and remember that sweetness of being alive. If you are inspired and if you wish, consider choosing what it is that you can do to offer this gift of sweetness for yourself. Your relationship with yourself is your longest term relationship. How can you honor, cherish and celebrate that relationship with yourself this Valentine's week. Then if you are inspired, if you wish, choose someone in your life that you very actively appreciate, and choose some way this Valentine's Week that you can acknowledge and celebrate the sweetness of the presence that person brings to your life. Oh and then - if it registers on your vibe-o-meter, if you're inspired and if you feel it - consider choosing someone that you would like to invite to participate in your life in a deeper, dynamic and more engaged way. Celebrate that sweetness by leaping and asking for a date. It can be intimate, romantic or otherwise; it can be with someone that has four feet if you wish. Invite that person on a date this Valentine's week. Remember, as you celebrate love, that life itself is worthy of honor, dignity and respect.  You are alive. Therefore, you are also worthy of honor, dignity and respect. To show up – to honor and cherish ,and participate in the flow of life itself - is to taste that inner sweetness we call love.

Says George Edward Moore: “The hours I spend with you, I look upon as a sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it.  You and you alone make me feel that I am alive.  Others, it is said, have seen angels, but I have seen you, and you are enough”.

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  Come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com” and join the JBYAE community. 

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening.

Copyright © 2019, Adela Sandness

 

 

The Space In-Between in Which We All Live

The house is freshly cleaned.  It was deep cleaning that happened this past weekend.  The fridge and closets and cupboards – all the storage spaces – were sorted.  What needs to be let go, re-purposed and released?  What has a place in my world? Putting things in place, one after the other:  it creates structure.  Because of this structure, there is space.  It is a space in-between in which we all live. Thank you for joining us as we reflect on limits, and limitlessness, and the space in-between in which we all live. What gives us space?  It is because of the walls of the room, the ceiling and the floor, that we have a space that we call a “room”.  The walls make it a room.  There is the sky and the earth, the top and the bottom:  we live sandwiched in that space in-between.  It is beautiful, pragmatic logic which was much appreciated in the ancient Indian worldview.  We all live in that space in-between the sky and the earth.  We all live in that space in-between our birth and our death.  We are mortal.  Because we are born, we will die.  In this world, where time is round, because we die we will be re-born.  It happens all the time.  We die to what was in order to create the space in which to welcome what is to come.  It is why we do deep cleaning in the spring:  we let go in order to be able to receive with an open hand…in that space in-between our birth and our death. It’s like that space between cause and effect, between action and re-action, between the seed and the fruit.  Because of our limits, we live to grow beyond them. In the ancient Indian world, Yama was the god of the dead.  His name means “to constrain”.  He is “constraint”, or limit, personified.  Death is the ultimate limit.  Perhaps that’s why we call them “deadlines”. God of the dead, Yama is king of the ancestors.  He gives us our life on loan:  he will take it back again.  We possess our life; we do not own it. We embody it for a time; in the end, we must let go of it. So he offers us a life that has meaning:  now matters because it will never come again; today matters because one day I will die. It is the structure of things – boundaries and limits – that gives us lives that have room to grow in, just as surely as we have a room because of its walls.  Do our walls hold us in, hold us up, or hold us back? How we work with what appears to be our walls creates the shape of lives in that space in-between. Much of the beauty of the natural world is revealed to us by means of its structure:  the discipline of timing as the sun comes up and goes down again incrementally increasing length of day or length of night. The veins that form the structure in the leaves, the veins that permit the blood flow through my body and yours:  it is the disciplined structure of things that creates the space through which our life flows. It is a respecting of structure and limits that gives us room to move:  the discipline of time, the discipline of working with money…because we know how to respect limits, we know how to give ourselves space, the freedom to have room to move.  Because there are boundaries in relationship, there can be closeness. Are the longest lasting relationships those that best know how to give each other space so there is room to grow as individuals and also room to grow together? We are born, we live, and we die.  Live as if we were going to live forever – as if our actions had no consequences – and somehow we become less alive….as if nothing mattered. Our days they say are counted like so many beads on a prayer string. The sun comes up; the sun goes down:  one bead is counted after the other. Ancient India had no word for continuous time.  What was understood was a series of moments – like a series of heartbeats.  What is to say that one heartbeat will follow the next:  nothing at all.

Do you know someone – or perhaps it is yourself – who once received a fatal medical diagnosis?  Who once had a doctor come to them and say:  I am so sorry but this could kill you?  Maybe it was cancer.  Maybe it was something else.  That person who was told that she would die:  did she somehow become more alive afterwards? Often it happens only when life shows us mortality very clearly that somehow we become more alive. We see more clearly what is important and what is not. We choose to do what matters. We let go of what does not. All those things that we wish to do someday, somehow we make room for them now.  We live because one day we will all die. It is our limits that give us our life and our death. Can we distinguish between the limits that are real and the limits that are not?  What are the limits that serve us like the walls that hold up my room and to give me space in which to live?  What are the limits that do not serve us, that somehow hold us back or keep us contained, so that we are squeezed and confined, and it becomes not room to live but rather confinement in which we slowly die.

Sometimes limits are real, like the space in-between our birth and our death. Sometimes limits are imposed upon us in ways that appear but are not really real at all. It is one of the old definitions of enlightenment:  the wise can distinguish between appearance and reality, between the true and the false.

Often we get stronger because we fight against limits and eventually strong enough to let them go. Who defines the limits of that space in between in which I am living? Am I acting because of my perception of what is possible for me, or am I confining myself to someone else's perception of what is possible for me? My concept of me is a reflection of me.  Their concept of me is a reflection of them. Our limits give us our life and our death:  believe in limits that are not really real, and it becomes a means not to live but instead to die.

The structure of things:  it’s what gives us the room, to explore, to discover, to live, and to grow. We are limited, and limitless simultaneously. If it is our death that makes this moment have meaning because it is limited, how we choose to respond and to rise up in this space in-between can be beyond measure.  Finite and infinite, limited and limitless:  it is a space in-between in which we all live. 

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  Come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com” and join the JBYAE community.

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening.

 

Copyright © 2019, Adela Sandness

 

A Reflection of You

Do you try to squeeze yourself into a box that someone – or something - else has shaped for you? Does it feel artificial, contrived, and far too small? Today we reflect, and observe, that their concept of you is a reflection of them. Your concept of you is a reflection of you.

You don't need to buy-in to limits set by someone else’s story. We are each the hero of our own story. 

What are the limits that you have set for yourself that you believe to be true?

Very often, it seems to me, our limits become limits when we believe them to be true.  We bang up against constraints all the time in the course of our days.  Somehow, the banging hits harder, and hurts more, if we believe those constraints to be solid.

If the shape of the world is carved by the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we are told by others, who is it that carves the shape of you? Who is it that carves the shape of your world?

Somehow, as winter is turning to spring, in this crack of the changing of the seasons, I feel I am seeing many struggles of this kind unfold around me, as people seem to hold on tight, and to hold onto tightly by others…resisting change.

Is someone trying to squeeze you into their box, the small box that is their concept of you? The story line they tell themselves about themselves, are you acting out the role they have given you in their story?  Are you being shaped and carved by someone else’s limits for you? This is an invitation that, often, one can choose to decline.

Their concept of you is a reflection of them.  Your concept of you is a reflection of you.

Have you seen that happening in your life and the life of people around you? Someone has an idea of you, a concept of you:  iIs there a sense that you must be small, squeezed into their limits, by what they say or do, or by what they don’t say or don’t do, or by the veil of silence as they ignore? 

Do you find that you have handed over the sovereignty and authority over your own life to someone else’s picture or concept of you?  Did you somehow take their concept of you as if it were your own?

“Who are you to think you could do that? Women can’t do that. Men aren't like that. People of African descent don’t do that. You can't do that.” Sometimes people are frightened, and weak, and they seek to puff themselves up by seeing other people as being small.

Don’t believe it.  Their concept of you is a reflection of them.  Your concept of you is a reflection of you.

How they think of you, and see you, or don’t see you – how they try to wrap plastic around you to hold you into place, it says a great deal about them.  It says absolutely nothing about you, unless you make a mistake….and believe it. It has nothing to do with you unless you believe it to be true. It is your concept of yourself that matters.

Do you have the confidence that you need to retain – to own your own authority, your own right and responsibility - to shape your own self? Are you the author of your own story?  Are you the hero in your own story? Is there someone, or something, that you need to edit out of your own storyline?

Such stories are only true if we believe them to be.

The story you tell yourself about you isn’t really real either.  It is always also subject to change, an illusion like a reflection of ourselves that we might see in the water.

A concept is just a concept. It is an idea like any idea. It is not really real. So, the boxes we build for ourselves – that we squeeze ourselves into to be shut down or taped in – aren’t really real either.

We don’t need to believe in the limits that we set for ourselves any more than we need to believe in the limits that others might seek to set for us.  We can step out of our smallness and into the vastness of our potential.

Your concept of you is a reflection of you.  Their concept of you is a reflection of them.

Your potential is measured by its limitlessness, not by its limits.

We can enjoy the freedom that comes from living outside of anyone’s box.

The Beginning of the Beginning of Spring

 

I am told that the North American celebration of Groundhog Day was established in Pennsylvania, with the help of a newspaper story, in 1887. It is said to be an adaptation of a German tradition, where it was a Badger, I am told, who poked its head out of the ground to check to see if it's time yet to come out of a long winter's nap.

I began to feel it last weekend, the instinct that it’s time for deep cleaning on the inside, and deep cleaning on the outside.  It's accompanied by a need to increase the greens in my day:  more greens in the stir fry, more greens in the soup, and double the greens in my favourite Indian-style lentil dish.  This weekend, I will order my seeds for the garden, and plant some microgreens to grow under the grow lights.

We will celebrate Imbolc - the midway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox - this Sunday, February 3rd at 11:31 pm AST. We will have officially have crossed the line, the beginning of the end of the winter that is the beginning of the beginning of spring.

The German tradition of the badger was part of the old celebration of Candlemas, a Christian term given to an old celebration of the return of the sun and the season of spring. This time of year was known as Lupercalia to the Romans, Sul-Minerva to the ancient Brits, and Imbolc – Brigid’s day – for the ancient Celts.  There are Neolithic megalithic stone structures which mark the light of the rising sun on this day:  the astrological midpoint between the equal night and equal day in the arriving season of spring, and – in the north – the deepest, coldest, darkest days of the year.  It is one of the cross-quarter days between the four major points in the wheel of the year.

Imbolc:  I am told that the word means “in the belly”.  It marked the beginning of lambing season in Old Celtic culture, and it comes with the sense that somehow everything is pregnant, with this sense of possibility and expectancy. Yet it’s only just visible, if visible at all, like the gentle curve of a just showing pregnancy. It is a promise of renewal, of hidden potential, and a quickening.

It is this sense of quickening that most speaks to me, the time of the quickening of the year. The sap of the trees - and somehow the sap of me - pulls in in the midwinter season. We hold the seeds underground - and we heal, and we nurture, and we rest, and we dream - but now the days are getting longer.

It's like the pulse of the earth has begun to quicken, and my sap begins to flow again a little bit more vividly. Here, in eastern Canada, before too long it will be time to tap the maple trees so that we can make maple syrup, because the sap has begun to flow again at this time of the beginning of the beginning of spring.

Sometimes this word “Imbolc” is said to derive from an old Irish word for “milk”. The lambs and cattle are pregnant with the spring, and lambing season means that the ewes are lactating. It's possible again to have new milk, so special cheeses and the churning of butter was part of the celebration of Imbolc, as if now it was possible to let go of what we were holding back.  It is time to just let things flow again. The days get longer, the light gets brighter, and it brings with it the hope and potential of being born freshly with the rebirth of the year.

Imbolc is associated with the Celtic goddess Bridget who will enter into Christian tradition as Saint Bridget. The Celtic goddess in her maiden form of the sun:  it is said that she spread her green cloak across the land releasing it from the grip of winter. So light, and heat, illumination, blazing bonfires, hearth fires, candles and food symbolizing the power of the sun are part of the celebration.

As we cross the line out of the grip of winter and into the hope of spring, it's a time for ritually burning off and releasing the old year: a shedding of skin, and a letting go of what is gone. It is time for making space in the inside, and space on the outside, for nourishing the new.

It is the time of quickening, to wake up the dormant seeds that have lain inside of us in wait for their time to come, and as the sun gets stronger, and the days get longer, somehow we are also called to awaken to being alive in a fresh and new way. A time for the birth of new possibilities, new ideas, and new thoughts as we are reborn from the seeds of our past. With the turning of the wheel of the year, somehow we, ourselves, also reborn in a new way.

The earth is quickening, and our transformation also accelerates. We stoke our fires to burn off the old year, and invite the new and fresh potential of the life-giving strength that comes with the return of the sun.

My mind began to feel it last weekend.  There was a sense of “why hasn't this happened yet?” and “why hasn't that happened yet?”. This seed of possibility that I know is just lying there, why isn’t it sprouting?

Like the year, we are all somehow pregnant with the potential of what our lives will show themselves to be for us, in this time of rebirthing, as we poke our heads out of the ground, and look about, checking to see if we see our shadows or if we see the sun.

Is it time to wake up yet? Is it time to go back to healing, nourishing, resting ,and the growing that can happen under wraps underground? The beginning of the beginning of spring: we have crossed the line in that space in-between.

It can be deeply nourishing to notice this, and to make space to help our lives to come into harmony with the great cycles of the nature of which we are apart. It can be soothing, and harmonizing, nurturing and strengthening, to somehow more deeply feel home as together we follow the pathway of the sun. It helps to connect us with the cycles of the earth, and to remember the cycles of the ancestors who have shared with us in this experience of following the pathway of the sun.

So, if you would like to give pause and celebrate, you can look up online to discover when is the astrological midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox where you are now, or the midpoint between the summer solstice and the fall equinox if you are south of the equator.

Personally, I like to witness it. It's like being in conversation with the flow of things, and if you can feel your heartbeat and feel the blood pulsing through your veins, it's quite possible that you'll feel it when we cross the line and begin the beginning of spring.

It is the tradition of Candlemas to light all the candles. Whether you do it at the moment of change itself, or at some other time this weekend - and even if it's only for a brief time - light all the candles. Turn the lights on in all the rooms. If you're feeling it, build a big fire in the hearth, if you have one, or a bonfire on the beach, if you're there. The return of the sun is celebrated with fire and light.

In some cultures pancakes - golden and round - are symbols of the sun and form part of the feasting quality of the celebration of Imbolc or Candlemas. Spring cleaning certainly is also part of this time. I think this weekend I'm going to make sure it's a clean and fresh fridge, and discover what I can either burn through, or let go of on that list of undone things.

Can we eliminate from our lives the things that weight us down or hold us back -  old clothes and old dreams - and make space, inside and out, for new beginnings.

If you're thinking of the feast, it would often include warming spices. If you'd like, perhaps you can mull some cider or wine; enjoy spicy foods like curries ,or soups with onions and leeks. The potential of seeds is part of it. Sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds could be included as part of the feast, and by tradition there would be cakes with fruit and nuts, for nuts, of course, are seeds. If someone in your world enjoys dairy, in the time of lambing season and fresh milk, by tradition there would be butter and cheese: I'm sure the grandmothers would be just fine if it's almond milk or cashew cheese.

To live in a world where time is round is to know how to pass from one season to the next, to harvest in the time of the harvest, and to prepare for the planting of seeds.

I am told that ancient alchemists described the climactic day of an experiment - when base metals were being transmuted into gold - as being a day of projection. This is that time in the year.

In my neck of the woods, the spring equinox – the quarter day of equal night and equal day - will come March 20th at 6:58 in the evening, in the north in Atlantic Standard Time. We have from now until then to choose, to foster and to nourish, the seeds that we will plant.

It's a time of personal transformation when we are, in a sense, pregnant with ourselves, a period of projection when the dreaming of dreams that happened through the winter begins to take form.

For me, this is perhaps the most meaningful part of the celebration of Imbolc. There might be cardamom in the coffee, or Indian style ginger tea, perhaps some kind of a loaf or cake with fruit, and spices, and nuts. Perhaps it will be a weekend to enjoy camembert  or brie, or some other kind of special and festive cheese, and a conscious enjoyment of butter or ghee. Yet, as I light the candles and reflect on a clean fresh house - and the beginning of the beginning of spring - it is most deeply a time of projection, of setting intentions, of the making of wishes…for this is the season when wishes come true.

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  Come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com” and join the JBYAE community.

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening.

Copyright © 2019, Adela Sandness

 

 

“To cover all the earth with sheets of leather.

Where could such amounts of leather be found?

But simply wrap some leather around your feet

and it is as if the whole earth had been covered!

 

Likewise we can never take

and turn aside the outer course of things,

but only seize and discipline the mind itself

and what is there remaining to be curbed? “

 Today, we reflect on old Buddhist wisdom: remain like a log.

Yes, perhaps the man is behaving like an idiot, and what he said is exaggeration, if not an all-out lie. Perhaps he is behaving like a weak-willed and cowardly, disloyal cheat.  So will I publicly point out the obvious evidence to conclude the man is behaving like an idiot? Or will I decide to remain like a log?

She asks:  “does this make me look fat?”.  She asks you to listen, when you want to offer advice.  What to do? Remain like a log.

What is the greater wisdom? What is the greater act of strength?

Often, we know how to act because we know when and how to refrain from acting, not because we are afraid to act – because we somehow repress what we are unable to say or to do – but rather because we are wise and strong enough not to act.

Do you have the steady strength of mind to remain like a log?

The advice is that of the eighth century Indian Buddhist monk Shantideva. He is credited as author of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara, “The Way of the Bodhisattva”.

Shantideva was born a prince in a kingdom of present day Gujarat in India. Moved by the Buddha's teachings, and inspired by the bodhisattva of wisdom Manjushri, he renounced his royal life and become a monk at the famous Nalanda Buddhist university, located in the state of Bihar near sites where the Buddha taught.

Shantideva was believed to be lazy.  His fellow monks thought he was good for nothing but eating, sleeping and shitting.  So, they decided to try to shame him into leaving the university.  Every week at Nalanda, a public teaching was given, usually by a senior monk.  The monks decided to ask Shantideva to give the teaching.  He denied several requests, but one day – to their surprise – he agreed, and, at the appointed time, he sat in the teaching seat and asked those who were gathered:  would they like to hear a well-known teaching or to hear something new?  They asked to hear something new, and so Shantideva began to teach what has become among the most influential texts in Mahayana Buddhist tradition.

I was asked to answer the questions: how to work with guilt, anger and aggression? One way is to have sufficient self-awareness and mental strength to prevent the next thing we will feel badly about from happening:  know when and how to remain like a log.

Yes, perhaps the man is behaving like an idiot, both rude and ridiculous.

What to do?

As offered in the translation by the Padmakara Translation Group, Shantideva says:

 

“When the urge arises in the mind

to feelings of desire or wrathful hate,

do not act! Be silent, do not speak!

And like a log you should remain.

 

When the mind is wild with mockery

and filled with pride and haughty arrogance,

and when you want to show the hidden faults of others,

to bring up old dissensions or to act deceitfully,

 

And when you want to fish for praise,

or criticize and spoil another's name,

or use harsh language, sparring for a fight,

it's then that like a log you should remain.

 

And when you want to do another down,

and cultivate advantage for yourself,

and when the wish to gossip comes to you

it’s then like a log you should remain.

 

Impatience, indolence, faint-heartedness

and likewise prideful speech and insolence,

attachment to your side - when these arise,

it is then that like a log you should remain.

 

Examine thus yourself from every side.

Note harmful thoughts and every futile striving.

Thus it is that heroes in the spiritual path

Apply the remedies to keep a steady mind.

 

With perfect and unyielding faith,

with steadfastness, respect, and courtesy,

with modesty and conscientiousness,

work calmly for the happiness of others.

 

Thus with a free and untrammeled mind,

put on an ever-smiling countenance.

Rid yourself of scowling, wrathful frowns.

And be a true and honest friend to all.”

 

The man is behaving like an idiot.  Will I tell him this? Will I remain like a log…which, strictly speaking, is probably the best way to show him he is behaving like an idiot…because he will see it in the contrast.

He is rude. Will I also be rude? He is aggressive. Will I also be aggressive? She is disrespectful. Will I also be disrespectful? She is demeaning. Will I also be demeaning? Do I know how to remain like a log?

Can I choose when to act, and when not to act, what to say and how to say it? Not repressing, nor keeping silent, because I have been silenced, but do I have the strength and steadiness of mind to choose?

Action and reaction are two ends of a same stick. If he jabs me, must I jab him back with that stick?

Do we have the steadiness of mind to let go and relax. Can we be still and silent, not because we are weak, but because we are strong?

If I were to cover the whole world in leather, where could that much leather be found? But wrap leather around my feet, and it is as if the whole earth is covered.

Try to manage all of the outside things - the hurts and the shamings, the pride, and the pettiness, the bitterness -  it is as if we were to try to cover the whole earth in leather.

Learn how to be calm and steady of mind – practice the mental discipline of training the mind to be able to be still - it will be as if we covered the whole earth in leather, because we will have wrapped leather around our own feet.

 

“To keep a guard again and yet again

upon the state of actions of our thoughts and deeds -.

This and only this defines

the nature and the sense of mental awareness.

 

But all this must be acted on in truth,

for what is to be gained by mouthing syllables?

What invalid was ever helped,

by merely reading in the doctor's treatises?”

 

Yes, demonstrably the man is behaving like an idiot. Do I need to do the same?

Do I have the patience, mental strength, kindness and disciplined awareness of my actions and thoughts to make choices that I can live with, without regret?

Know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away and when to run.  Know when and how to remain like a log.

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  Come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com” and join the JBYAE community.

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening.

 

Copyright © 2019, Adela Sandness

 

 

The Precious Human Birth….

On Working with Guilt

"This human birth is precious. Our opportunity to awaken.

The body is impermanent and time of death is uncertain.

The cause and effect of karma shapes the course of our lives.

Life has inevitable difficulties. No one can control it all.

This life we must know as the tiny splash of a raindrop,

a thing of beauty that disappears even as it comes into being.

Therefore I recall my inspiration and aspiration (to engage the spiritual path) and resolve to make use of every day and night in order to realize it."

I have been told that, when the Dalai Lama first began to speak to western students, someone in an audience asked a question that he didn't understand. So he asked the translator to explain the question, and the question was asked, and repeated and again clarified. 

The translator was explaining to the Dalai Lama what guilt is.  I have been told the Dalai Lama expressed disbelief:   “Do you mean to tell me that I am speaking to a room full of people who somehow have the idea that they are basically and fundamentally unworthy and bad?”.

Who would think such a thing? Guilt was not known in his home culture.

Traditional Tibetan culture knows the idea of regret:  to do something, to feel badly about it, and then to seek to make it right.  Regret is the third step in a complete karmic act. A complete karmic act includes: intention, the action itself, and the presence or absence of regret.

To feel badly about something one has done, and then to work to make it right again:  this is regret. 

To do something that one feels badly about, and to take this as evidence one is basically and fundamentally bad and unworthy, so that the weight of this sucks and crushes life out of us - heavy, sticky, dragging us down, suffocating us as if we were trapped in some deep cavern, unable to be free of it enough to work to set things right again, to let go and move on:  how does this serve us?

Ancient Indian, like Tibetan, culture holds that life itself is fundamentally good. As humans we are alive - some days more than others – but we are alive.

Life itself is descent, worthy and fundamentally good – in a way so very far beyond any kind of a distinction between good or bad – and therefore so are we…because we are alive. 

We are basically descent, worthy, kind, wise, resourceful, strong and fundamentally good, like life itself.  There’s not much we can do about that.

There may be behavior that we regret, that we will learn from and seek to correct.  The being itself is good because life itself is good.

There may be a systematic and repeat pattern of behavior that causes harm or that we regret. That behavior is unfortunate.  The being is good, able to learn, to change and to grow.

I have been asked to answer the question how to work with guilt, the big stuff that weighs us down and suffocates, and the small stuff that eats you, that you think about in the night, and that – if we are not careful - you may think about on your deathbed.

How to work with guilt?

Let us begin by exploring the traditional Buddhist idea of the precious human birth.

"This human birth is precious. Our opportunity to awaken.

The body is impermanent and time of death is uncertain.

The cause and effect of karma shapes the course of our lives.

Life has inevitable difficulties. No one can control it all.

This life we must know as the tiny splash of a raindrop,

a thing of beauty that disappears even as it comes into being.

Therefore I recall my inspiration and aspiration (to engage the spiritual path) and resolve to make use of every day and night in order to realize it."

It is a rendering into English of a well-known passage by a 14th century Tibetan Buddhist master named Tsongkhapa.

The human birth is precious because it is our opportunity to awaken. We are, most fortunately, born with the human birth.  This means we are just confused enough to be able to learn, and to move forward in our gradual process of spiritual maturation.

This is the gift. It's a Goldilocks view of the human experience. We are just confused enough – it’s just right - to be able to see through that confusion, to learn and adjust, to let go and move on to the next learning.

In the traditional Buddhist view, there are six realms, understood as both internal and external states of the mind. There is a hell realm, where there is such intense suffering it becomes nearly impossible to see anything other than suffering.

There is a hungry ghost realm.  The hungry ghost has a very big belly and a very thin neck.  What it is we are starving for, we reach out for it, and it disappears even as it comes into our hand.  We can never be fed, so it is a life of craving, of deep starvation, and it becomes difficult to move forward.

The animal realm is said to be a realm where the being does not have enough self- awareness for there to be strong spiritual maturation or growth.  This is not to say that animals are less than humans.  Certainly Sarah-the-Wonder-Dog - the golden retriever I once lived with - had a very clear understanding of habitual patterns of the mind as it related to walks and cookies. In my biased opinion that comes through the lens of love, she was a remarkable being who chose to be in the body of an astonishingly beautiful dog in order to be of benefit to others. The tradition would understand that – as remarkable as she was when she came into that body -  it was difficult for her to spiritually evolve within the context of an animal birth because there is not sufficient self-awareness to be able to deeply learn and to grow.

In the jealous god realm, people are wrapped up quite strongly in pride; they think they are gods, but they're not.  They are constantly struggling to be what they're not, competing and measuring, and not able to be what they are because they are so focused on what they are not. The god realm is considered the realm of greatest happiness, one could say, but I'm told that, in the god realm life, lasts for a seemingly infinite period of time, and the time delay between the cause of an action and the effect of an action is so unbelievably long that it becomes basically impossible to learn anything.

In the space in-between the animal realm and the jealous gods lies the human realm, precious because it is the state that best permits our spiritual growth.  Just confused enough, we are able to make our mistakes, and then to see them, to work to make things right, to learn, let go and move on to our next learning.

By its very nature, among the richest opportunities to learn and to grow are those opportunities that come from having made the mistakes that we most deeply regret.

The stages of a complete karmic act:  the intention to act, the action itself, and the presence or absence of regret.  To this can be added a fourth step:  the person or situation that is being acted upon.

The tradition does not have a fifth step which is to say that one bears the weight of the guilt of one's mistakes and becomes immobilized and suffocated by it.

The purpose of our lives it is to live.  By virtue of the fact that we are born a human, we must necessarily act.  So we engage in an endless series of causes and effects, and we thus engage in an endless series of opportunities to grow, and to learn, from our mistakes and from the suffering that we have experienced or somehow imposed on others.

There is a beauty to life that we are missing if we somehow have the sense that we must be “perfect”, or behave “perfectly” - all the time - in order to be “good enough”.  Life itself is good enough.  We come along for that ride.  That ride is the journey of deep spiritual learning and growth.  Our growth requires our mistakes.

Life itself, of which we are a part, has a beauty beyond measure and its own inherent perfection. It is not that we must be perfect, or our behavior must be perfect, in order to be worthy of honor, respect and love, and our own forgiveness.

We are alive, and life itself somehow - in its perfection - unfolds in a way which permits us to taste with a ripe directness the effect of our actions, the intention of our actions, and the action itself.

Cause and effect are both ends of a same stick.  What good could come from beating ourselves with that stick?

If we taste the effect of our cause and find it bitter, then we taste the bitterness, and this permits us to make different choices, and to begin to behave in a way which will make our lives, and those that surround us, sweeter.

We engage cause and effect simultaneously.  We pick up both ends of a same stick.

The human birth is precious because it is an opportunity to awaken, to spiritually evolve, to learn and to grow. We honor life itself in part by engaging this opportunity, by permitting ourselves to learn and then also to grow.

Letting go of a weight of guilt when we are able is part of what permits us to move on, and the letting go of guilt can be itself a very valuable lesson to learn. Life is good. We engage a full range of human experiences.  We learn from it all.

The human birth is traditionally considered precious also because it is rare. 

How rare is it to have this human opportunity to learn, and to grow, to evolve and to move on?

It is said that it would be as if to take a pin and to place it in a large field.   You then you go up into an airplane, high about the clouds.  You reach out the window of the airplane holding a single green pea.   You drop the single green pea, and the single green pea goes out from your hand, from the window of the airplane.  It falls to the ground. It falls on the needle that you placed in the ground, and it stays there.

What are the odds that this could happen? It is essentially unimaginable.

These are the odds, they say, that we would find ourselves in a human body. It would have been much more statistically likely to be a mosquito, an amoeba or an ant.

As humans, we are just confused enough to be able to learn.

Guilt is a way of refusing this very core quality of being alive.   In this way, it is a shutting down and closing off of life itself. That's what makes it so heavy and suffocating.

It is somehow failing to appreciate that the miracle of the human experience of being alive is that we are able to act.  We will necessarily engage cause and effect simultaneously.  The intention, the action, the effect of these actions:  these are parts of a whole.   If we did not intend to cause harm, or if we regret having caused harm, then we've already begun to slowly and gently dismember  - or take apart - this harm that we have done.

If the guilt is heavy and hard, consider actively feeling and expressing regret.

I'm so sorry I did this.

It can be expressed internally. Perhaps you would like to journal or write it down. It may, or may no, be possible or appropriate to say it out loud to another.  Consider saying it aloud to yourself.   If there has been this suffering, then the feeling of regret is part of how we open to the possibility of letting go. Because we have opened to the possibility of letting go, we begin to open again to an engaging of life itself.

We are able to learn, and having learned, we are able make different choices in times to come. The human birth is precious. We are just confused enough to be able to learn, to grow, to evolve, to shift and change.  It requires the learning, and the growing, and then the ability to let go of that which we regret in order to open to the possibility of moving on.

It’s not about what we do.  It’s not about what we did.  It’s about who we are….and then what we do about it.

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  Come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com” and join the JBYAE community.

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening.

Copyright © 2019, Adela Sandness

 

Until the Water Runs Clear

and the Right Action Arises by Itself

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water runs clear?  Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?

I'm Adela, and this is Just Breathe....You Are Enough™. Together we will deepen our connection with our ourselves, strengthen our relations with others, and re-think together how we connect with our world.

If yelling back when someone yells at you was going to work, it would have worked by now. Thank you for joining us as we explore the potential of patience.

“The ancient masters were profound and subtle. Their wisdom was unfathomable. There is no way to describe it.  All we can describe is their appearance.

They were careful, as someone crossing an iced-over a stream. Alert as a warrior in enemy territory. Courteous as a guest. Fluid as melting ice. Shapeable as a block of wood. Receptive as a valley. Clear as a glass of water.

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action rises by itself?

The master doesn't seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, she is present and can welcome all things.”

It is Verse 15 of the Tao Te Ching, one of the foundational texts of the Chinese wisdom tradition known as Taoism. Its writing is accredited to the master Lao-Tzu who lived in the axial age of human philosophy, around 500 BCE; he and was a contemporary with Gautama Buddha – founder of Buddhist tradition - and Pythagoras, among other ancient Greek philosophers.

 

This afternoon someone asked me, “May I come and talk to you? I need you to help me figure out if I should do this or should I do that? It's a big decision. There are so many variables to consider. I am hesitant and confused…I don't know what to do."

If we don't know what to do, if the mind is in a turmoil - there are so many choices and so many possibilities and big consequences to consider – among the options is patience. Have the patience to wait, until your mud settles and the water runs clear; remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself.

In Buddhist tradition patience is considered to be an antidote to aggression.

Sometimes the waters that get stirred - and the mud that is churned happens in a way that is heated - and we express aggression to others or ourselves - or others express and show aggression to us.

Buddhist psychology tells us that patience is an antidote to aggression.

I sometimes have felt that I have learned about patience by having so much experience of impatience. Of the various ways that it's possible to express aggression in relation to the inside world, or in relation to the outside world, impatience is probably the one I am most familiar with:  wanting things to be other than they are. The situation in my inside world, or the situation in my outside world, should somehow be different. There must somehow be something wrong. This should be finished already! How could this not have happened yet! This is happening now! How could this possibly be happening now! He did this in the past. She did this in the past. They said in the past. How could they have done that!  The past should have been different. The past should not have been like that.

There is just something wrong.

The instinct to push way is one very basic understanding of aggression: I do not want him or her, or this or that. This should be different!  That should be different! I want my world to be other than it is. I do not want to be with my experience as it is. There should be a different now.

The antidote to the form of aggression that is impatience is to be patient. Can we be patient with ourselves, with other people, our situation, our lives?

If nothing else has the ease of being choiceless. Some things are so much easier to do because we must.  Experience now. We can wish now, or the past, or the future to be different.  Push away and wish it to be different if we want to, but wishing it different does not change the taste of now.  Now tastes of now.

To taste the taste of now does imply trust. Can we trust that now is enough?  Now has everything we need.  It – like us – has resilience, wisdom, insight  and strength.  If we just breathe, and be with it, it is OK.  It will show us what we need to do.  The answers are all there, behind the surface and beyond the drama.  The more we can just breathe and be present with now, the more we develop the taste for it, and the better we are able to recognize it when we are there.

Just breathe:  let go and relax. Can we be patient, until your mud settles and the water runs clear, until the mind stops churning, and we stop punching and kicking and fighting the choiceless ever-presence of now.

Just breathe:  let go and relax.  Be patient; the waters will run clear, and what we need to say or do will come to us, will show itself to us.  Chase after it too hard, and we can chase it away.

Do we have the patience to wait, until our mud settles, and the mind runs clear, and the right action arises by itself.

The wisdom traditions of China, or India, or Tibet have a strong appreciation for wisdom.  This includes the wisdom of common sense.

It's very good to have the patience to wait until the mud settles from a place of basic safety. If what we want to be different in our current situation is something that is taking away from our experience of basic safety, please do what is needed to be safe.  The mud settles so the waters can run clear only if we are basically safe.  Fear – like doubt – stirs the waters.

If it is a question of working with aggression, with our own or that of others, direct aggression in its variety of forms, passive or manipulative aggression in its variety of forms, aggression that is pre-meditated, that is unintentional, that is imposed because we can, that is acted out because we cannot stop ourselves…. 

First, please be safe.  If we are the ones acting out, press pause.  Then, consider applying patience.  It is old medicine.

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles, and the water is clear; can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?

If yelling back, when someone tells at you, was going to work, it would have worked by now.  Responding to aggression with aggression will increase aggression: it is based in fear; it must feed on fear; it will generate more fear and tighten the trap for everyone.

If someone is pushing away a now – a person, a situation, a behaviour, a thing – that they don’t want, sometimes what they most want is for someone to push back, to engage in the conflict.  If someone yells back, we can become distracted by that yelling – entertained by that drama – and be protected from tasting the taste of now.

Aggression burns like a fire.  If someone pushes away, and meets someone who will push back, then we have fuel for that fire.  Often when the person yells – in the infinite ways we have of yelling – what they most want is someone to yell with and then someone to yell back.  It is such strong protection – in its drama and distraction – from the taste of now.  The trouble is that now is all there is; it is the only thing that is real.  We can live life only in the now that is every breath.

Be patient.  Be present.  Hold a steady mind with one’s self.  Be generous enough to be patient with one’s self, the other person and the entire scene, and the mud settles.  The water runs clear.

We can trust now.  Now is enough.  Reach into it directly enough, deeply enough, and it is kind and wise and strong, sufficient, absent of absence:  now contains what we need.  Be patient.  Remain unmoving – offer space to ourselves, the other person and the situation as a whole – and the right action will arise by itself.

 

“The ancient masters were profound and subtle. Their wisdom was unfathomable. There is no way to describe it.  All we can describe is their appearance.

They were careful, as someone crossing an iced over a stream. Alert as a warrior in enemy territory. Courteous as a guest. Fluid as melting ice. Shapeable as a block of wood. Receptive as a valley. Clear as a glass of water.

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action rises by itself?

The master doesn't seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, she is present and can welcome all things.”

 

The quality of the relationship that you have with the outside world directly relates to the quality of relationship you have with yourself.  Come see us at “justbreatheyouareenough.com” and join the JBYAE community.

I'm Adela, and you've been listening to Just Breathe....You Are Enough™.  You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven't yet, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Join us next time, and thank you for listening.

Copyright © 2019, Adela Sandness