"Adopt the pace of nature: Her secret is patience."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Practice day
Session overview:
Beginner's mind - Body Scan - Dear You
Trust - Mindful Movement - Untethered
Non Striving - Sitting Practice - Allow
Acceptance - Leaves on the stream - Zen story
Non Judging - The Mountain - Wild Geese
Patience - Mindful Walking - Too soon to tell
Letting go - Silence - Forget about Enlightenment
The practice day consists of a series of themes, practices and poems without the usual sharing and discussion to really emphasise the practice itself. For more details about Jon Kabat-Zinn's seven attitudinal foundations of mindfulness click here.
Dear you,
You who always have so many things to do so many places to be your mind spinning
like fan blades at high speed each moment always a blur because you’re never still.
I know you’re tired.
I also know it’s not your fault.
The constant brain-buzz is like a swarm of bees threatening to sting if you close your eyes.
You’ve forgotten something again.
You need to prepare for that or else.
You should have done that differently.
What if you closed your eyes?
Would the world fall apart without you?
Or would your mind become the open sky flock of thoughts flying across the sunrise as you just watched and smiled.
- By Kaveri Patel
How it feels to be untethered, to be driftwood, unravelled, floating at the mercy of the current,
Perhaps I will one day understand it, becoming the fuel to start a mighty fire,
The structure that holds a home together, or disintegrate, nourishing the soil,
As I return to the natural cycles of change, providing solid ground for new creation,
All I can do is surrender and trust, in the gentle influence of the elements,
That the waves will take me where I need to go, not floundering at the mercy of the fast flowing water, but surrendered to the inevitable movement of change,
That we are powerless to resist, but can learn to channel, to surf,
Witnessing nature's creative rhythms, and how they move through us,
Like water polishing stone, we blossom, fall apart, plant the seeds, and begin the intention to reawaken, to start again, to move towards a yet unknown destination,
The earth gives us metaphors if only we look and listen, to live our lives by,
In the flowing natural timing, rather than the ticking of the clock,
Determining our success and evolution, not by pieces of paper and hours spent,
But in connection, in giving, in understanding, in being, in remembering,
In kindness and compassion, in beauty and being humble,
In seeing the perfection of our form, the fractals of creation, we share with the entire universe, right down to the microscopic level, up to the macro, the blueprint of creation, in the iris of our eyes, down to every single cell within our bodies,
And when we see that we are not apart from nature, we realise that we are not at the mercy of life's cycles, we are simply returning.
- Aiyana Rosel
Allow
There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado.
Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.
Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground.
The only safety lies in letting it all in – the wild and the weak; fear, fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of the heart, or sadness veils your vision with despair, practice becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.
- Donna Faulds
A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked if they could help her cross to the other side.
The two monks glanced at one another because they had taken vows not to touch a woman. Then, without a word, the older monk picked up the woman, carried her across the river, placed her gently on the other side, and carried on his journey.
The younger monk couldn’t believe what had just happened. After rejoining his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between them.
Two more hours passed, then three, finally the younger monk could contain himself any longer, and blurted out “As monks, we are not permitted a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?”
The older monk looked at him and replied, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”
- Old Zen story
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
- Mary Oliver
Too Soon to Tell
As the story goes, there was once a farmer and his only son in the days just before the Civil War. Having only one horse, the farmer and son worked long hard days, sun up to sun down, just to get by, with nothing left to spare.
One day as the father and son plowed the fields, their horse got spooked and ran off. The son was devastated; "What bad luck, now what will we do?" The father replied; "Good luck, bad luck, too soon to tell."
The father and son continued to work the farm. Then one day their horse comes running back over the hill with 6 other horses. The son exclaimed, "What great luck, now we have all the horses we'll ever need!" To which the farmer replied; "Good luck, bad luck, too soon to tell."
The next day as the farmer and son were working with the horses, one particularly difficult horse threw the son off his back and broke his leg. The son cried: "Oh father, I am so sorry, now you have to work the farm all by yourself. What bad luck!" Once again the father replied: "Good luck, bad luck, too soon to tell."
Several days later the Civil War broke out and all the able bodied young men were sent off to war. The farmer's son, having a broken leg, was forced to stay at home. After the leg had healed, the father had the only farm around with a son to help and seven horses to boot. They worked the farm and prospered.
Good luck, bad luck. It's too soon to tell.
Forget about enlightenment
Sit down wherever you are and listen to the wind singing in your veins.
Feel the love, the longing, the fear in your bones.
Open your heart to who you are, right now,
Not who you would like to be,
Not the saint you are striving to become,
But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.
All of you is holy.
You are already more and less than whatever you can know.
Breathe out,
Touch in,
Let go.
- John Welwood
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