practice

fear…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

  

fear constricts, freezes, suffocates and enslaves life. often expressing itself through aggression and violence. it alienates us, enforcing the illusion of separateness. fear runs counter to life. 
but love, the very ground of our being, opens us. with practice and cultivation it strengthens us, equipping us to take further steps into vulnerability and mystery. love reminds us of our interdependence and interconnection with each other and all life. with love as our foundational practice, we embody understanding, generosity, patience, compassion and kindness. this embodiment of love and recognition of our interdependence and interconnectedness is what gives our lives gratitude and joy. 
it is this life of love that can be our place of refuge in a world filled with change and dramatic events. even as the storms rage and swirl around us, we can be a still beacon of light for all who need it.
~j
#fear #aggression #violence #separateness #illusionofseparateness #life #love #interdependence #interconnectedness #practice #meditation #generosity #understanding #patience #compassion #kindness #vulnerability #openheart #gratitude #joy #JMW #TheMettaGarden

reverence…

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as I grow in this practice, I’m beginning to become aware that “reverence” begins even at the cellular level and is born out of gratitude.
am I grateful for the cells in my body? that I may see? that I may walk and write? that I may eat and digest? that I may think and speak?
in my gratitude, do I honor these cells? do I smile to them, breathing in and out, as Thich Nhat Hanh says? do I watch what I feed them, including the thoughts and emotions I cling to? 
do I see them as the life that they are and honor that life within them? a life they are living, making it so that I may live?
this passing body is more them, than it is “me.” have we thought about that?
and we can ask ourselves, how am I honoring this gift? how am I embodying this gratitude I feel swelling in my chest? how am I living with reverence in the short time I am here? and how can I extend this to others in this delicate, beautiful, passing life?
~j

11.16.15
#reverence #life #gratitude #practice #peace #ThichNhatHanh #meditation #mindfulness #TheMettaGarden #JMW

this, your very heart…

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this, your very heart.

broken open, heals the world.

dam breaks, water flows.

~j

11.11.15
“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” ~ Zelda Fitzgerald
“O, that my monk’s robe were wide enough to gather up all the suffering people in this floating world.” ~ Zen poet-monk Ryōkan
“The practice is never for ourselves alone.” ~ Joseph Goldstein
#heart #HeartBrokenOpen #healing #suffering #love #CapacityToLove #interdependence #community #sangha #practice #meditation #compassion #metta #LovingKindness #Zen #haiku #quotes #JMW #TheMettaGarden 

Dia de los Muertos

~ jaysen ~ 4 Comments

  
Dia de los Muertos
a day to reflect on those who have passed, but haven’t left us. a lifting of the veil revealing that we are all One, interconnected through space and time, life and death, in this always moving ground of Being. through memory and ritual, offering prayers of honor, respect and gratitude.
the theme of death is an integral part of Buddhist practice, not as some morbid practice – but practice for what is inevitable and a sacred part of life. something we so desperately try to avoid in our culture, namely – sickness, aging, and dying – change.
practicing “death” is practicing “life.” each out breath is a death and each in breath is life reborn. an opportunity to be grateful for, an opportunity to continue this adventure of learning to love better and open our hearts.
perhaps this is what our loved ones, who have passed, are trying to tell us.
~j
“In trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. It’s easy to forget that life and death are part of the natural scheme of things, intrinsic to our lives in an eternally shifting universe.”

~ Ronna Kobatznick
#DiaDeLosMuertos

#life #death #practice #love #meditation #buddhism #interdependence #change #family #relationships #ghosts

listening…

~ jaysen ~ 1 Comment

  

if what is presented in Buddhism -that we are interconnected and all things are impermanent and changing – is indeed true, then our most grateful and honorable response is to aspire to and practice toward authentic engagement with life. in other words…Presence. to be Present, we can practice a most beneficial skill…Listening. and the first step toward skillful listening is to stop talking.
~j
#RightListening #StopTheChatter #presence #relationships #communication #practice #listening #authenticity #ThisMoment #impermanence #interconnection #change #life #meditation #Buddhism 

wake up…

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“The teachings of Buddhism are directed at people who don’t have a lot of time to waste. That includes all of us, whether we’re aware of it or not. From the point of view of the teachings, thinking that we have ample time to do things later is the greatest myth, the greatest hang-up, and the greatest poison. That, along with our continual, deep-seated tendency to try to get away from what we are doing, clouds our perceptions and our thinking. 
If we knew that tonight we were going to go blind, we would take a longing, last real look at every blade of grass, every cloud formation, every speck of dust, every rainbow, raindrop—everything. If we knew we were going to go deaf tomorrow, we would treasure every single sound we heard. The teachings try to scare us into waking up to how little time there is and to the preciousness of human birth.”
~ Pema Chödrön

breathe…

~ jaysen ~ 1 Comment

  

breathe…one of my favorite Thich Nhat Hanh calligraphies.
the breath is life, to reconnect with the breath is to reconnect with life. to be present as one breathes is to be present in this moment, to be present with life. we cannot be lost in thought, in worry, in anger, if we are with our breath – paying attention to it as we breathe in. does it feel cold, is it warm? does it tingle at the nose? does the chest rise, does the belly expand as the breath fills our bodies? when we breathe out, do we feel the belly sink in, the chest fall, the body relax?
this is meditation. to find a comfortable sitting position, settling our bodies, back straight, eyes softened or closed, finding and releasing tension, and then observing our breath. thoughts can come and go. we let them. we allow them to come and go without judging or correcting ourselves for having them, and without running away with them. when we do run with our thoughts and we become aware that we have, we simply return to observing our breath. practice. this is what we practice. we do this each day so we grow a capacity to “be” with life, no matter what has manifest. we practice so we can learn to pause before our reactions, so we can make a thoughtful choice of action.
(breathing in)

calm body

(breathing out)

calm mind
when we breathe in we are giving our body oxygen, life. a body provided for is a calm body. when we breathe out we are letting go, we are surrendering – quite literally – our life, our breath, along with all of our fears, worries, or anger. a mind provided for is a calm mind.
I know this, just as I know life is filled with impermanence and change (and there has been plenty of that both professionally and personally this year). and although we more often than not have an aversion to change, which causes us suffering, it is important to remember that without change there’d be no possibility of something better, no opportunity for our growth as precious human beings in this life to find a new home, a new place to continue our learning and growth.
yet when change comes heavy and fast, it can be jarring, unsettling and painful. the ground is removed from under our feet and we feel insecure. it is discomforting and heart aching to witness this happening to those we care about and not have a way to fix it or make it better. as was the case today. 
so I remind myself as I remind them and all of us, breathe…
~j

09.01.15

Cecil…renewed call to Wake Up

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Whether Walter James Palmer, as a proud trophy hunter, thought this hunt was legal or not (though apparently he was found guilty of poaching in a previous incident) is really beside the point.
After shooting Cecil, this majestic lion, with an arrow and then allowing him to experience pain and suffering for 40 hours as his life drained out of him, he finally ended Cecil life, beheading and skinning him.
The disconnection from another life, the perceived separation, the false hierarchy and inflated ego that leads to such cruelty, lack of empathy and recognition of another’s suffering, along with the lack of awareness of the consequences and repercussions of such actions is what concerns me. 
I do not know what fate will befall Mr. Palmer. And as a practitioner and cultivator of peace I cannot encourage more harm or an increase in suffering. But, I do hope that in the wake of such tragedy, an opportunity arises for not just Walter James Palmer, but all of us, to wake up.
~j
“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.” 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“I do not care for happiness which is sought at the price of others’ suffering.”  

~ Siddhartha Gautama, The Buddha