If you’re not ready to listen – then don’t speak

Sometimes my quiet time surprises me – like when I observe what arises in the silence and realize that I’m attached to the feelings that are standing before me – up in my face as if to say “What about this Bitch?!”.  And then that’s where it ends.  No enlightenment. No “letting go”. No “moving on”.  No flow.  Just “here I am”.  Me and my feeling – going nowhere fast.
I like what Sharon writes below about living in a world where we still speak out; we take action – but not without also paying attention to ourselves,  listening from a place of acceptance and nonjudgment about our own feelings.  Because unless I do this first, how can I ever be in a place to acknowledge someone else with all their varied feelings and perspectives?
If  I cannot acknowledge and accept the darker side of myself and am always in a rush to change it “quickly”  without listening to it – then I’m doomed to rush others and not accept where they are.  I’ll never listen to them.
Kindness and Understanding begin at home.  Cultivating a compassionate listening ear begins with the Self.  There is no sense in speaking out unless you can also listen to yourself  first. Why bother even trying to listen to another without doing this step, cause you’ll never even hear them.

– Sharon Salzberg writes:Mindfulness enables us to cultivate a different quality of attention, one where we relate to what we see before us not just as an echo of the past, or a foreshadowing of the future, but more as it is right now.

Making the effort to truly see someone doesn’t mean we never respond or react or take very strong action. . .

We can and do attempt to restore a failing marriage, protest loud cell phones in public places, or try, with everything in us, to rectify Injustice.

But we can do it from a place that allows people to be as textured as they are, and that admits our feelings to be as varied and flowing as they are.  A place open to surprises.  A place that listens. . .

spacious enough to contain painful parts, and not trying to pretend things are other than they are

the following quote was sent to me thru Tricycle today and it made an impression:
The practice of lovingkindness is, at a certain level, the fruition of all we work toward in our meditation.  It relies on our ability to open continuously to the truth of our actual experience, not cutting off the painful parts, and not trying to pretend things are other than they are.  Just as spiritual growth grinds to a halt when we indulge our tendency to grasp and cling, metta can’t thrive in an environment that is bound to desire or to getting our expectations met.

In lovingkindness, our minds are open and expansive—spacious enough to contain all the pleasures and pains of a life fully lived.  Pain, in this context, does’t feel like betrayal or an overwhelming force.  It is part of the reality of human experience, and an opportunity for us to practice maintaining our authentic presence.

– Sharon Salzberg

you say you want a revolution . . .well, ya know

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”
Thus, the transformation of sociological and psychological structures must take place initially in our own minds. . . (this is) the blueprint for revolutionary change,  first in the individual, then in the community of which he or she is a part. . .if we truly hope to address the root cause of social suffering   -Charles Johnson

i’m a creep

When this homeless guy sang this last part of the song’s lyrics he got a little teary-eyed –
“What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here…”

watch the ripples change their size but never leave the stream of warm impermanence

If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever.
Your mind is your predicament.
It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death.
But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.

Dan Millman

Source: Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

Spanking the Monkey won’t help – but patting it gently will

Taming the Monkey

The biggest hindrance to (mindfulness) is constant intrusive thoughts.

This is normal for everyone and from the beginning you should expect it. The nature of our mind is to think, and it is childish to imagine that we can simply turn that process off when we wish to.

Our minds have been almost completely out of control for most of our life.

Recognizing this can help us to be practical and patient—it may take us some time and a lot of skillful practice to tame the crazy “monkey mind.”

-Bob Sharples