Clouds In The Sky

 

 

What if the most disturbing thoughts could be seen as just clouds passing by ... distant fogs way up high ... not designed to pull us down or effect us in any way other than to occasionally block the sun?

Just as the ocean has waves, and the sun has rays, so the mind’s own radiance is its thoughts and emotions.  The ocean has waves, yet the ocean is not particularly disturbed by them.  The waves are the very nature of the ocean.  Waves will rise, but where do they go?  Back into the ocean.  And where do the waves come from?  The ocean.

In the same manner, thoughts and emotions are the radiance and expression of the very nature of the mind.  They rise from the mind, but where do they dissolve?  Back into the mind.  Whatever rises, do not see it as a particular problem.  If you do not impulsively react, if you are only patient, it will once again settle into its essential nature.

When you have this understanding, then rising thoughts only enhance your practice.  But when you do not understand what they intrinsically are ~ the radiance of the nature of your mind ~ then your thoughts become the seed of confusion.  So have a spacious, open, and compassionate attitude toward your
thoughts and emotions, because in fact your thoughts are your family, the family of your mind.

It is in the sky-like nature of our mind.  Utterly open, free and limitless, it is fundamentally so simple and so natural that it can never be complicated, corrupted, or stained, so pure that it is beyond even the concept of purity and impurity.

“Once you have the View, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear it’s not particularly disappointed either. There is a deep sense of contentment. 

                                           ~ DILGO KHYENTSE RINPOCHE


My Son announced his interest in Buddhism a few months ago.  During my own recovery, I have welcomed thoughts and ideas from many places so with my son's announcement, I took a trip to Barnes and Noble and found the most interesting books ...

I am not sure a Western Mind can fully grasp an Eastern nature but it has been enlightening to look at my world from a different point of view ... Most religions call us to a higher road with different ways of getting there with most people getting much more from their religion than they ever give. 

Do you ever wonder, in our Western world, if Jesus would recognize His words in the FAITH most people practice?  Sometimes, I wonder what people would think if a man with long hair, a loose robe and leather sandals walked into their church ... How would Jesus be received in His own house?  Sometimes, I wonder if "the faithful" have "played post office" with the TRUTH, passing it down from generation to generation, changing the words and their intent every time the story is told? 

I am NOT criticizing ... I am just wondering ...

I certainly am NOT analyzing generations of well meaning, God fearing people who could only see God through the filters of their generation ...

BUT

What if Jesus came to your house in your town?

In my life, I have imagined Jesus as a Judge, a Brother, a Teacher, a Confidant, an Advocate and a Friend ... depending on what was going on in my life at the time ... If my experience has been evolving, then perhaps it is the same with other individuals?  If individuals make up generations and their consensus creates their larger view ... then, what is wrong with shaking up the view every once in a while?

 

What happens if we dust off the frame and clean the glass?  Would our view be the same?

If Jesus, an enlightened soul, only had a short time to visit my town, I think He would get right to the point!  I don't think He would waste His time judging or criticizing or admonishing ... I think He would ignore the little stuff that takes up so much time and cut through the clutter that occupies our mind to say the thing we all want most to hear ... I think He would say,

"I LOVE YOU."

Period.  Not I love you because you love me, not I love you because you did this, not I love you because you didn't do that.  It wouldn't be about the house we live in or the car we drive or the place we work or the people we hang out with ... It would be Him looking through the fog and touching the deepest place in our hearts with ...

"I LOVE YOU."

Tags: Recovery, Healing, I Love You, Disturbing Thoughts, Passing Storm Clouds

COMPASSION

Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity.

Pity has its roots in fear and carries a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of “I’m glad it’s not me.”

As Stephen Levine says: “When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion.”

To train in compassion is to know that all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honor all those who suffer, and to know that you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone.

"Glimpses" by Sogyal Rinpoche

Tags: Recovery, Healing, Compassion

FILL 'ER UP !!!

If I were a water bucket, it would be fair to say that someone tipped my pail a few years back!  If Jack and Jill went up the hill, I would be the bucket ... tipped over and useless ... for a little while ...

I can't remember the nursery rhyme's ending but I lived the story of the tipped over pail ...

Of course, I was placed upright ... a little dizzy at first ... afraid of rolling all the way down the hill and being lost and forgotten ... and later, realizing, I'm not going to roll down the hill!  The worst had already happened!  For a while, I was content to watch everyone else scurry around ... still not able to fill myself up ...

Life filled me up!

 

I didn't even realize it was happening. 

To keep myself busy, I repainted a few rooms and rearranged the furniture and my house became a newer place to call home. 

I mowed the grass and planted flowers and fed the birds and my yard turned into a peaceful garden. 

I took pictures of friends and family and put the prettiest ones on my refrigerator.  There they still are among coupons and recipes and children's drawings and lots of ladybug magnets ... smiling faces from loved ones during fun times in the past three years.

If each picture is worth a thousand words, there are volumes of happy thoughts and well wishes in plain sight for everyone to see, each one a celebration of life ... a drop in the bucket ... but a life changing drop, just the same!

The dew ... an occasional rain ... even a few tears ... and the bucket that was me ... filled up!

How and when it happened
I don't think I'll ever know ...

But that it happened even once
Can be a source of HOPE!

I am not any more deserving

Than any one of you.
Anyone can do it

When there's nothing left to do.

If you're feeling empty,

Like nothing can fill you up ...

Hold on tight and live your life.

LIFE will fill you up!


Love and Light,

Taylor

Tags: Recovery, Healing, Life Filled Me Up

A Lifetime Looking For One Safe Place

 

ONE SAFE PLACE

(Marc Cohn Lyrics)

 

How many roads you’ve traveled
How many dreams you’ve chased
Across sand and sky and gravel
Looking for one safe place



Will you make a smoother landing
When you break your fall from grace
Into the arms of understanding
Looking for one safe place



Life is trial by fire
And love’s the sweetest taste
And I pray it lifts us higher
To one safe place



How many roads we’ve traveled
How many dreams we’ve chased
Across sand and sky and gravel
Looking for one safe place

Tags: Recovery, Healing, One Safe Place

Good Morning!

When The Lessons We Learn Come Home To Live

Yesterday, I asked a question ... WHAT IF?

It was a simple question that had many answers.

People hear what they hear.  People defend the place they are RIGHT NOW and that's PERFECTLY okay.

I asked the questions because I am just beginning to see something that I can't quite articulate, but I will try.

I recently had the experience of someone wanting to pull me into a power struggle.  I am capable of winning any power struggle I'm faced with as in I WIN - THEY LOSE but I decided not to engage this person or invest myself in the power struggle.  I chose to ignore it.  I was there to do a job and I continued working. 

Ignoring this person's actions only made her more determined to WIN ... She began to talk about me behind my back and other people came to me to tell me the things she was saying.  There was a time that would have pulled me into some truly delicious drama, but I saw the drama for what it was.  She was jealous of me and she wanted to bring me down.  Even though the talk was about me, it was not about me at all.  It was her issue and I consciously, mindfully chose to not get involved.

I told the people who came to "warn" me (just another word for gossip), "I appreciate you sharing your concern.  Please don't worry.  Everything will be okay."  I really meant it.  I really did believe that everything would be okay.  We were all there to work and this was just a distraction that could/would keep us from doing our best if we stop working to play out the drama.

 

We kept working.  We (the rest of the group) talked about other things.  We shared OUR OWN stories about things totally unrelated to the drama that almost was.  Gossiping and whispering about her would have been no different than what she was doing ... Gossiping would have given more power and credibility to the drama but ignoring it and continuing to do the thing we came to do gave more power to the cause we were working on.  We had work to do and we focused on the work, as we should have.

I was amazed at the difference my lack of reaction made to the overall work environment.  Instead of there being tension for everyone when she and I were in the same room, I consciously and mindfully treated her with the same care and compassion that I had shown for everyone else.  I treated her the same.  It wasn't an act.  I truly felt that she was the same.

 

We all know it is easy to be nice to someone who is nice to us ... but all we stand for comes home and takes root when we are able to be nice to someone who is not nice to us.  It confounds our enemies.  It gets their attention way more than if we get down in the mud with them!  They expected to make us angry.  They were trying to.  The LAST THING they expect is care and compassion!

No matter what she said or did, I continued to work and treat her like everyone else.  While I was working and listening to everyone else tell funny stories and sharing laughter, I had glimpses of intuition ...

When I had too much hurt in my own life, I wasn't always nice to the people around me.  It didn't make me feel better to be around happy people.  It made me feel worse.  I felt envious.  Why did everyone else seem so happy?  Why couldn't I be happy?  In another time, I was her ... In another time, under different circumstances, she may have been like me.  

I chose to be kind ... no matter what ... because kindness is a better choice for me.  She was and is free to make whatever choices she wants to make.  I don't expect she and I will ever be best friends but we could be, I suppose ... because this day and this time, I chose not to become an additional hurt or slight in her story. 

Her actions had no effect on me other than to teach me how to behave in a different way ... in a way that will work for me.

 

When I got home, I had this email: 


When you have learned, through discipline, to simplify your life (1. Keep your speech impeccable), and so practiced the mindfulness of meditation, and through it loosened the hold of aggression, clinging, and negativity on your whole being (2. Don't take anything personally), the wisdom of insight can slowly dawn (3. Don't make assumptions). And in the all-revealing clarity of its sunlight, this insight can show you, distinctly and directly, both the subtlest workings of your own mind and the nature of reality (4. Always do your best).

The practice of mindfulness, of bringing the scattered mind home, and so of bringing the different aspects of our being into focus, is called Peacefully Remaining or Calm Abiding.

All the fragmented aspects of ourselves, which had been at war, settle and dissolve and become friends. In that settling we begin to understand ourselves more, and sometimes even have glimpses of the radiance of our fundamental nature.

                                                                       "Glimpses" by Sogyal Rinpoche


You may not see the significance in Sogyal Rinpoche's words in the same way I did ... This was saying what I have been saying!  I saw the four agreements in these words.

The Four Agreements are something I read about and studied ... They are something I've talked and written about.  This past week, I learned how to LIVE THEM, and this email was like a confirmation that I am on the right path for me ... It was another one of those "God Winks" that I talk about ... a sign!

The practice of mindfulness, of bringing the scattered mind home, and so of bringing the different aspects of our being into focus, is called Peacefully Remaining or Calm Abiding.

I had learned by living it that if we quiet our own minds, we can see thing more clearly and react to others with more compassion.  Choosing PEACE and CALM is new for me.  I am a co-dependent in recovery.  In the past, I have made mighty mountains out of tiny molehills.  In recovery, I am watching mighty mountains dissolve into tiny molehills ...

Recovery is the place where I learned ...

~  Simplicity 
~  Integrity 
~  Compassion 
~  Emotion 
~  Mindfulness

This week, I learned that they have become a part of the way I live!

Tags: Recovery, Healing, Simplicity, Mindfulness, Compassion, Emotions, Life's Lessons

Losing Peace or Keeping It

I have been wondering ...

 

What would happen if the next time we get involved in a tug of war, we just let the other person win?

What if we did nothing?  
What if we didn't react at all?

 

Of course, there are things we need to stand up for, things we are even willing to die for ... But MOST of the things we lose our peace over won't matter 100 years from now or even 10 years from now or even a year from now!

I wonder if it is worth the cost to our minds ... our hearts ... our bodies ... our souls ... to give away our peace over every little thing that doesn't go our way?