real mindfulness

Once sati is established, every moment is pregnant with the potential for awakening.

Analayo in Satipatthana : The Direct Path to Realization, p 252


The real challenge, the place requiring skillful effort, is in establishing sati, establishing sati in formal practice so it can bear fruit in every experience of life.

timelessness

"...thought, as one knows it, generally is in time; it is based on notion of time; thought itself is time; thought itself creates time; when there is no time there is no thought."

Ramesh Grover - reflections on Bohm and Krishnamurti The Ending of Time in Kalachakra Meditations


When you are dwelling in the past or the future - remembering, planning, regretting, fearing - you are not alive in this moment. You are missing this moment, lost in time. Time is a construct. The past does not exist substantially in the present, nor has the future come to be.

Can you choose to be alive right now? Can you choose to be fully open to this moment? To this breath? To sounds and sensations right here, right now?

Mary

lost in emptiness

Many questions come up about non-duality. This passage addresses one problem with embracing the experience or an idea about it too quickly. Non-duality includes a need to be deeply aware of clarity, spaciousness, and stillness but to also know clearly and immediately how to pay attention and navigate skillfully in the world.

The danger is that we hear too much too soon. We think we have understood shunyata, err on the side of the absolute in a nihilistic fashion, and are obscured by concepts. Nagarjuna said, "it is sad to see those who mistakenly believe in material, concrete reality, but far more pitiful are those who believe in emptiness." Those who believe in things can be helped through various kinds of practice, but those who have fallen into the abyss of emptiness find it almost impossible to re-emerge, since there seem to be no handholds, no steps, no gradual progression, and nothing to do.

Nyoshul Khenpo

active solitude - merton

Comments from Howard Griffin on Thomas Merton's view of solitude:

Actually, solitude for him was a realization, even kind of a creation as well as a liberation of active forces within him. As a mere condition solitude could be passive, inert, and basically unreal: a kind of coma. To avoid this condition he had to work actively at solitude.

Thus, the need for discipline, for techniques of integration that keep body and soul together, harmonizing their powers to bring them into one deep resonance oriented to the root of being.

thanksgiving

Our son came Wednesday night and stayed all day Thanksgiving. As we sat over our now traditionally non-traditional meal, my eyes fell on family pictures on the wall behind our warm happy gathering. I noticed especially my parents and considered the fact that they were once a vital part of all my holidays - once living, now gone.

After our son left, we sat quite full of both joy and sorrow at another sweet coming together and going apart that is characteristic of all holidays. With the sweetness also came the awareness of loss - of all precious losses, yet also awareness of how lucky and blessed we are to have these times at all.

We didn't want to read, to watch a movie, or eat. The poignancy of the moment was as rich as any that life can bring. We didn't want to miss or trivialize it. So we sat and talked awhile, staying in touch with our feelings and physical sensations. We had a meditation time and waited to hear our precious son was safely home -and fully aware that sooner or later we too will be part of the once living, now gone.