Lately, I’ve been trying to choose times when the light is most beautiful to go out with my camera. Earlier this week I waited until almost sunset to take a walk at nearby West Medicine Lake Park.
I found
Ineffable Grace
in the twilight landscape and lake scenes. Everything felt soft and gentle. There was a quietness in the air despite the presence of many people enjoying the evening at the park. I wondered why I didn’t go out this time of day more often.
Along with my photography practice and beginning to prepare material for the fall photography classes I’m scheduled to teach, I have been spending time returning to the words of some of my favorite meditation teachers this week, reminding myself to be present in the moment and let go of judgment. My return to reading mindfulness material was actually a result of realizing that I was not experiencing ineffable grace in my own life for most of the week.
Wisdom tells me I’m nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows.
― Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN
This past week both my husband, Jon, and I have been feeling like we’re fighting off some sort of virus. The main symptom was a lot of muscle and body pain. Before I realized that what I was experiencing might be a virus I felt very frustrated and unhappy. I felt as if all the work I’ve been doing to become stronger and fitter made no difference at all. And I got stuck in a pity party that was very unpleasant. Finally I noticed my thinking was causing me more suffering than the physical pain I was experiencing. So I returned to using mindfulness tools to explore what was going on.
There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.
― Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha
Grace in the Pause
The pause helped me to relax my grip on trying and thinking and allowed me to see that I was repeating old patterns of trying to figure out and fix life instead of relaxing and letting life flow.
Learning to pause is the first step in the practice of Radical Acceptance. A pause is a suspension of activity, a time of temporary disengagement when we are no longer moving toward any goal. . . . The pause can occur in the midst of almost any activity and can last for an instant, for hours or for seasons of our life. . . . We may pause in the midst of meditation to let go of thoughts and reawaken our attention to the breath. We may pause by stepping out of daily life to go on a retreat or to spend time in nature or to take a sabbatical. . . . You might try it now: Stop reading and sit there, doing “no thing,” and simply notice what you are experiencing.
― Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha
I don’t know who I would be or what I would be like if I hadn’t started exploring mindfulness and meditation decades ago, but I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t be experiencing the ineffable grace that I so often find in life. And I know that I would not be experiencing the everyday joy that seeing life through eyes filled with wonder and awe brings me.
The poet Rumi saw clearly the relationship between our wounds and our awakening. He counseled, “Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.” When we look directly at the bandaged place without denying or avoiding it, we become tender toward our human vulnerability. Our attention allows the light of wisdom and compassion to enter. In this way, times of great suffering can become times of profound spiritual insight and opening.
― Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha
Gratitude and Joy
Today I am wishing that you also find ineffable grace in some part of your life in the coming week, that you say yes to everything that is happening in your life, messy or beautiful, that you find wonder in seeing the beauty of the world and that you choose gratitude and joy.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.— Rumi
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