“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
— Jon Kabat-Zinn, godfather of therapeutic mindfulness
________________
I love the challenge of teaching people the power of meditation and mindfulness, especially those who fear the practice will “make them lose their edge”.
It was previously easier – but times they are a changing – to simply dismiss an inner path as only for hippies who were too introspective, who had too much time on their hands, who had no ambition, no juice for life.
The truth is the power of a life fully lived, a 200% life –
Where you have complete peace of mind and presence such that you have the internal resilience where you can “handle the jandal”, to use a New Zealand expression (a jandal being a make of flip-flop) –
Meaning you can dance with the unwelcome and unexpected; flow with the rhythms of life with complete grace and style; where you have the true stability and foundation for an extremely creative and dynamic means of taking care of your business.
Whatever you decide your business may be!
We all want that.
We all want more; until we discover the power of learning to choose to have enough; where your attachment and need for certain outcomes is replaced with a preference perhaps, but a knowing of how to be supremely content AND make a difference in your world; all without force and control.
To be a lighthouse and not a tugboat.
To be fulfilled in each and every moment, and an inspiration and a source of wisdom and comfort and hope for all those around us. Even – and especially – when we don’t say a single word:
That we walk our talk, and our walk is more than enough.
Such a wordy introduction. Apologies. I get carried away.
But meditation and mindfulness is beautiful in that it will show you how to live.
You still have to choose to follow through – to chose to live more skillfully and consciously; but the inner work done with your eyes closed – where you’re being, not doing – gives you greater and greater potential for this skillful and conscious action everywhere in life.
That’s the goal, right?
No regrets. No compromise. Agreements, and freely given because you want to give, but all based in having nothing to prove and nothing to hide.
And you have all of that – and the potential for a life lived like that – already within you.
That’s why the Tibetan word for meditation, “familiarisation”, is so beautiful and so apt.
It’s a lesson in itself.
How can you make your way in life, with the head that you have with all the voices and emotions that are prominent in any given moment, if you don’t know what is influencing you; if you’re not aware of the hand of cards you’re playing with?
Meditation and mindfulness in action is first of all about becoming familiar with now, and what your thoughts and feelings are saying about you in this now.
Not to change it, but in a total acceptance, to approach, to first of all fully see it …
“Not the story I’m telling myself, but what is the truth of the matter?”.
You learn the “half-step back”. The detachment from, in order to see and sense clearly.
You learn the truth of Jesus’s line, “Be in the world, but not of it”.
Not a denial or rejection of life, but not losing yourself in that part of life that you are not.
Observing, cleanly. Being, free.
From this clean and innocent observation and presence, comes the lesson that if you can’t change the reality of now, you can most certainly change your attitude and your approach to now.
It’s an important thing to realise. It’s the truth of the whole, “What you focus on, grows”.
We’re always judging –
The voices in our heads are full of approval or condemnation, acceptance or resistance, agreement or discord.
And the quality of the voices we listen to becomes the quality of our lives.
What you think, so you see, so you become.
Hence in my meditation practice, Ascension, we have a form of mantras which are actually called “Attitudes” – based on appreciation, gratitude, love and compassion.
These are the seeds that as you sow and nurture, you will reap.
So –
You learn to be aware and accept and embrace and appreciate –
You learn to see you in life clearly, you learn to define you and life as you see fit.
“Is this happening to me, or for me?”
From this you learn to act, and act you must, but it’s action from the best possible place.
In this sense, eyes closed practice is not enough. You still need to, and want to, follow through.
But the follow through is based on a complete knowing of now; and a complete positivity of now; and a complete desire to want to do things more skillfully …
To master the lessons life is giving you.
Mastery.
All from practicing being present and filled with clean awareness and familiarisation, free of attachment and need; nurturing a different attitude and taking steps forward.
Go well. Enjoy!
Arjuna