practice

meditation is a practice…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

  

meditation is a practice


coming back to reality ~
here i am. 

this is my breath coming in 

and going out.

this is my body aching or at rest.
hearing the sounds of this moment.

taking care of oneself in this reality ~
i feel my body. i feel any tension or pain.

i hold it with tenderness and breathe into it
and breathe out of it. 
i hear the confusion in my mind.
thoughts racing nowhere.
i hold this feeling with understanding
and compassion.
letting go and coming back to my breath. 
i hear the lovely sounds of life around me.
i am grateful and smile.

staying open to reality ~
my heart has the capacity to hold 

the entire world and all of life.
my mind, the wisdom to let go. 
i stay open to the present, 
trusting life and my true nature, 
trusting the capacity of my heart to 
stay open and grow.  
and in this space of understanding 
and compassion 
– in this openness – 
i am able to be of benefit 
to others’ well being 
and their end to suffering 
as well as my own.

~j

Thich Nhat Hanh mantra…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

  Breathing in,

I see myself as a flower.
Breathing out, I feel fresh.
Breathing in,
I see myself as a mountain.
Breathing out, I feel solid.
Breathing in, I see myself as space.
Breathing out, I feel free.
~Thich Nhat Hanh

act in faith, act with love…

~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

two quotes to inspire, when times seem dark, when our faith wanes and what we can do, feels like too little…

“You’re not allowed to lose faith. You’re not allowed to lose hope on behalf of all people who are suffering around the world”.
~ Jane Goodall

“My advice for people is to love the world they are in, in whatever way makes sense to them. It may be devotional practice, it may be song or poetry, it may be by gardening, it may be as an activist, scientist, or community leader. The path to restoration extends from our heart to the heart of sentient beings, and that path will be different for every person.”
~ Paul Hawken

Love can be found anywhere…
little heart in palmact in faith, act with love…
wishing you happiness and peace as we practice, in faith, this love together
~j

2015, a year for Love…

~ jaysen ~ 4 Comments

dearest friends ~

i write to you this New Year’s Eve with a heart full of gratitude for the year that has past and abundant optimism and faith in our ability to grow in Love in the year ahead…impermanence is a good thing.  so much potential ready to manifest given the right circumstances.  and i feel like the circumstances are chomping at the bit – ready – waiting – for us to open and surrender to Love.  to let go, to let be into Love.

on one hand Love can and will do what Love can and will do…but Love is all about relationship and Love is extending a hand to a dance partner willing to dance.  are we willing to take that hand?

i feel like this past year, i have had this growing aspiration to extend my hand in return.  and this year i plan on honoring that more fully.  for me this means, to do so in my art and writing – to be more disciplined and generous with my time to those areas of my life.  for me this means, to do so with my meditation practice – getting up earlier (which means going to bed earlier) to secure that time for such devotion and practice.  for you, it may mean something else entirely.  perhaps based in your religious tradition or practice, or perhaps not if you do not have one.  perhaps your practice in opening to Love will be through your work, or your family.

Love is calling us to dance.  we may not be the ones to find a cure for cancer or some other disease – but we may hear Love call us to the bedside of a loved one, friend, or even a stranger.  we may not be the one to save a life through some epic act of heroism, but we may hear Love call us to smile at a stranger, share a kind word with someone who is hurting, to open our hearts towards those outside of the majority – those targeted, those rejected by religion, state, or other powers.  we may not be the ones to put an end to war, but we may hear Love call us to end our own battles and wars within our own hearts.  we may hear Love call us to embody peace with our patience, our calm, our gentleness and capacity to allow life to simply be.

and it can change day to day…

a couple of days ago, it was connecting with my friend Mario who answering Love’s call shared with us the Love Button campaign to spread Love.  it is such a simple, yet awesome idea.  please read all about it, by clicking on the link.

Love Button

and sometimes the call can surprise us.  today i woke up to snow – for those that don’t know, i live in a little rural area north of San Diego, called Hidden Meadows.  this area hasn’t seen snow in 47 years.  i’m not talking about a light dusting – i’m talking about full on snow…for us, anyway.

IMG_6024

this was exciting and when it calmed down a bit and some had melted away under the midday sun, i decided to take advantage of the opportunity to practice what i mentioned above and i began some walking meditation.  the walking meditation out in the cold crisp air, while i was all bundled up, was exquisite and peaceful.  as i walked, feeling my feet kiss the ground (as Thich Nhat Hanh has said), feeling the air fill my lungs and hearing the distant laughter of children playing in the snow, i decided to begin with some metta (or loving-kindness meditation)

may all beings be happy, be peaceful and at ease
may all beings be free from fear, from anger, from attachment, from suffering

which led into some chanting under my breath of the Tibetan compassion mantra Om Mani Padme Hum.

and then i saw it.  a worm.  a worm struggling on the drying cement driveway under the warming midday sun.  are you rolling your eyes?  well, hold off, this story gets more worthy of eye rolling.  it was instantly clear to me, and convincingly so, that i could not pass the worm and ignore its perilous situation.  it was clear on a profoundly simple yet concrete level that i was the worm and the worm was me (go ahead roll ’em).  so…i found a little blade of dried grass to assist me in grasping the worm who would have otherwise been further tortured by my fumbling fingers.  i scooped up the little me and found a shady area under a bush with some soft muddied dirt.

there.  my work was done and kind of felt good about it all.

then, i saw another worm in a similar predicament, though this one looked a little worse for wear.  but it isn’t my place to judge whether it was close to death or not.  this new little me had movement and well, at least it could die in the shade of that bush next to the first little me, if that was its destiny.  why leave it to bake?  so, i followed the same protocol as i chanted Om Mani Padme Hum.

and i have to say at this point, that what happened next gave me pause.  as i turned from rescuing the second little me, i saw oh so many more worms.  at least a dozen.  now my eyes were open.  and now with my eyes open i could not close them to the suffering in front of me.  are these worms any less divine?  is their life any less sacred?  probably not, but my hands were freezing at this point – so i got to work.  slipping the blade of grass beneath the wiggly, if not writhing body, into my hand and onto the muddied dirt.  then i would dip my hands under the drainage pipe for a scoop of water to keep the dirt moist…eventually covering all these little “me”s with some watery mud, giving them what i hope was a second chance at life.  here are a couple of pics of a few of them partway through this effort.

saving worms 1saving worms 2

i wonder what the neighbors were thinking as i walked around, up and down the driveway and road, back and forth.  but it doesn’t really matter.  we don’t know how, when, where, or why Love will call – and it very well may seem insignificant or silly.  our only choice really is whether we answer the call or not.  answering the call is honoring the soft spot in your heart, the seed of love – bodhicitta.  devoting yourself to answering is the act of a Bodhisattva – one who devotes their practice, and their life (even over many lifetimes as some believe) to ending suffering.

my aspiration for 2015 is that i learn to stop, to open, and to listen a bit better. compassion is Love in action.  to have compassion is to suffer with – even if the one who is suffering is a little worm, a little Buddha to be.

here below are some wonderful tools for opening up and practicing a compassionate life, from the wonderful Pema Chödrön:

THE SIX WAYS OF COMPASSIONATE LIVING

~Generosity. Giving as a path of learning to let go.
~Discipline. Training in not causing harm in a way that is daring and flexible.
~Patience. Training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed. If waking up takes forever, still we go moment by moment, giving up all hope of fruition and enjoying the process.
~Joyful enthusiasm. Letting go of our perfectionism and connecting with the living quality of every moment.
~Meditation. Training in coming back to being right here with gentleness and precision.
~Prajna (or transcendent wisdom). Cultivating an open, inquiring mind.

wishing you all a year filled with growth in Love.  may your year be surrounded in friendship and peace as we journey forth together practicing compassion in this ever-changing, always beautiful life.

bows of gratitude for your friendship and for being – Happy New Year!
~j
12.31.14

Me Snow Meditation

For Warmth, a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh…

~ jaysen ~ 1 Comment

 

 

Thich-Nhat-Hanh-arrives-by-Kelvin-Cheuk+copy

 

I hold my face in my two hands.
No, I am not crying.
I hold my face in my two hands
to keep the loneliness warm –
two hands protecting,
two hands nourishing,
two hands preventing
my soul from leaving me
in anger.

~Thich Nhat Hanh
(written after the bombing of Ben Tre, during the Vietnam War)

Non-attachment…

~ jaysen ~ 2 Comments

ENSO

 

below are the words i texted a friend who admitted her struggle with “detachment”.  i shared with her a bit of my own journey with this along with some insight of how this has found resonance in my life.  i want to share these thoughts here as well, for you my friends…

 

Non-attachment

I have had to move away from the word “detachment”. It birthed within
me an emotional reaction akin to indifference or even denial, which
didn’t marry itself well to the aspiration of working for the benefit
of this world, etc. I have found that working with non-attachment as
“letting go” or better yet, as “abiding” meant I could still care –
still be present, but it also left open the possibility that in doing
so I don’t have to be tied to outcomes or adversely affected. I don’t
have to suffer. Anyway, just a few thoughts on my experience
practicing non-attachment.

namaste

~ j

support networks…

~ jaysen ~ 2 Comments

Solidarity Thursday
Thursday, November 8, 2012

Today’s Solidarity Thursday blogging topic is “support networks”…which like most things for me, I see through a particularly spiritual lens. This is not to say that this lens is sans practicality. From my perspective spirituality is best when it is practical. It is not just sitting on a cushion or attending Sunday services. Spirituality IS feeding the poor, visiting the prisoner, working for peace, opening our door to our neighbor, and greeting the person working behind the counter with a smile and an open heart. It doesn’t seem to matter much if we can answer the big questions like – Why am I here? Is there life after death? Is there a God?” – if we are unable to feed the hungry next door, or properly take care of the earth, or even find peace in this moment. Perhaps they all go hand in hand. Perhaps as we practice at being kind and compassionate, mindful and awake, patient and open, we discover who we are and why we are here. Perhaps we find God within all of it – the joy and suffering. Perhaps if we are living life so fully in this moment, in love with one another, in love with life, then it doesn’t matter much if there is life after this.

Perhaps it does.

Whatever the case, walking this journey together is a gift. No matter how much we want to believe that we are completely self-reliant, that we can conquer and attain anything we set our minds to if we work hard enough…Life, fully and honestly lived, will humble us. We will face illness and loss, we will face death. And in those moments we will realize that having loved ones, family, friends – people who support us and hold us up, who care what we do and how we do it, people who feel our pain and seek our happiness – is a great part of what defines what this life is about.

Why is The Buddha so emphatic about this? Why does he correct Ananda with such clarity? Would you argue with Ananda on this point? It seems fair to say that good friendship is a “part” of life. The Buddha in his teachings seems to be pointing toward something greater though – to wholeness, to unity. It is, after all, our perceived separation and deep desire to avoid change that causes us to suffer so greatly. If we see ourselves as separate, then we grasp – we cling – we are unable to let go.

Life is letting go…and becoming aware that the nature of life is change, that the nature of life is us. There is no separation. Life is One, expressing Itself in all the beautiful diversity that you see in you, around you. All is gift.

For some reason, though, we need to learn this or perhaps re-remember this through first experiencing separation. Life is so often paradoxical. It seems we first need to learn duality and eat from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, before we can see through to the deeper unifying Reality, Wholeness that contains light and shadow. It seems we must first leave the Garden before returning to Paradise. We must fall, before we can rise above. We begin life within the body of our mothers. Living as one – eating as one, breathing as one. Doctors say we continue to feel as one with our mothers even after birth. Soon after though, we begin that very difficult journey of becoming aware of being other from our mothers, becoming aware of being separate. The best of religion, the truest of spirituality points us back to our Wholeness with all of Life…not just our mothers. And what is most fascinating and inspiring, is now science is showing us how this is true biologically, chemically, and atomically. All is gift.

It is like the Zen proverb says – first we notice the mirror clouded as it is, then we wipe the mirror and wipe the mirror, only to one day realize that there was never a mirror at all.

How do we learn this? Where do we learn life?

In our relationships. In community. In Sangha. Sangha is the Buddhist term for spiritual community. Isn’t all of this spiritual community? Aren’t we all one Body of Christ? Aren’t we all one expression of Life? I challenge you to find this out for yourself. In this One Body, this One Community, this One Life – we learn patience, we learn humility, we learn grace. In this Sangha, we are broken and our hearts are grown wide and spacious in their capacity to hold and let go in love. In this Body, we are wounded and healed, we die and are reborn. In this Life we don’t become Whole, we become aware that we are already Whole. All is gift.

Is there a better “support network” than that?

For more reading on this Solidarity Thursday topic, please check out these wonderful blogs: The Horizontalist and Church in the Canyon. And this week, joining us for the first time with a truly unique take on all things Solidarity Thursday is Triskaidekapod. Welcome!