I look forward to reading Pat’s posts. They are so fresh and free-flowing- so immediate. A couple of times now I’ve sat down with the intention of producing something deep and insightful, but no luck. The harder I try the less that comes out. I know this place well from my time at school and even when writing retreat blurbs for the Shalom brochure - hours and hours of fiddling with words, willing myself to be creative. It’s torture.
One thing that is definitely not torture for me these days is meditation. We sit for an hour in the morning and sometimes for a couple more in the evening. Zen is all about letting go of the thinking mind and focusing on direct experience. The Japanese Zen term for this is shikantaza – “just sitting”. Not as easy as it sounds because the thinking mind never stops. “OK, I’m going to do nothing but just be here. No wait, wasn’t that a thought? I’m supposed to just sit, not think. OK, just try harder. That’s it. Now I’ve got it! Hold on, I just did it again. How about now?” And on and on.
In Big Mind, we work with some of the “10,000 faces" (voices) of the self by giving them a name and getting to know them. Not by thinking about them, but by being them. So now I sit in meditation and play at embodying whatever voices show up. It has transformed my practice.
Tonight I start with the voice of gratitude and think about the way that Terry, Shawn and Victoria have stepped forward, doing their part to make sure that Shalom Mountain continues. And suddenly, I’m there. My chest swells up and tears of gratitude pour down my face. For a moment, I find myself thinking, “What if I completely lose it here?” And then the thought drops away and I return to just being gratitude.
How fortunate I am to be here and doing this with Pat; to be discovering my own true nature; to witness others from around the world doing the same, all of us feeling the imperative of bringing our newfound discoveries to a world that so desperately needs it. To have the opportunity to experience this thing we call “precious human birth”.
The final bell rings. We bow to each other as the timekeeper recites the closing chant:
Let me respectfully remind you
Life and Death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost
Let us Awaken, Awaken
Take heed
Do not squander your life.
And we get to do it again tomorrow morning. It doesn’t get any better than this.
One thing that is definitely not torture for me these days is meditation. We sit for an hour in the morning and sometimes for a couple more in the evening. Zen is all about letting go of the thinking mind and focusing on direct experience. The Japanese Zen term for this is shikantaza – “just sitting”. Not as easy as it sounds because the thinking mind never stops. “OK, I’m going to do nothing but just be here. No wait, wasn’t that a thought? I’m supposed to just sit, not think. OK, just try harder. That’s it. Now I’ve got it! Hold on, I just did it again. How about now?” And on and on.
In Big Mind, we work with some of the “10,000 faces" (voices) of the self by giving them a name and getting to know them. Not by thinking about them, but by being them. So now I sit in meditation and play at embodying whatever voices show up. It has transformed my practice.
Tonight I start with the voice of gratitude and think about the way that Terry, Shawn and Victoria have stepped forward, doing their part to make sure that Shalom Mountain continues. And suddenly, I’m there. My chest swells up and tears of gratitude pour down my face. For a moment, I find myself thinking, “What if I completely lose it here?” And then the thought drops away and I return to just being gratitude.
How fortunate I am to be here and doing this with Pat; to be discovering my own true nature; to witness others from around the world doing the same, all of us feeling the imperative of bringing our newfound discoveries to a world that so desperately needs it. To have the opportunity to experience this thing we call “precious human birth”.
The final bell rings. We bow to each other as the timekeeper recites the closing chant:
Let me respectfully remind you
Life and Death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost
Let us Awaken, Awaken
Take heed
Do not squander your life.
And we get to do it again tomorrow morning. It doesn’t get any better than this.
1 comment:
hey Alistair, so good to hear from you on the Big Mind blog. I enjoyed reading your experience of being gratitude. I am taken with a word you used, imperative. I have a complex relation to the imperatives at work in my life. Reading you both gives me the idea that I could have them (multiple imperatives which I perceive as in conflict with each other) have a conversation with each other. Some of them are crowding others out. There is a bit of a dance of imperatives happening in my life I think now that I look at it. Thank you for the opportunity to reflect anew, Linda in Toronto
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