Serious news on the mad pash front!

Let go of desire! For a man who desires a woman is as tightly bound as a calf is to the cow. This is one of the buddhist teachings that I'm trying to get my head around today! Seems a pity at first glance. I think he must have been talking about how we externalize our happiness and get lost in the world, looking for it in others. I understand it through another idea: Do not neglect your work for another's, however great their need. However we justify our attention to other people's business and wellbeing, we are being distracted from our own. Without any selfishness, we need to learn to direct our thoughts within, back to ourselves. Not looking for endless improvement but appreciating our own spirit and reason d'être. Literally everything else is ephemeral. If you are lucky enough to have someone to love and who loves you, I have also happened upon 4 affirmations to achieve present moment participation rather than expectation or drama etc. 1. Darling, I am here for you. 2. Darling, you are here and I am happy that you are. 3. Darling, I see that you suffer and I want to help. 4. Darling, I suffer, please help me! You've got to love those!

Everything is continuously changing - Thank God!

Focus for a second on the impermanence of life. Nearly everything that is here today may be gone tomorrow. Usually the thought might make you feel sad and insecure, but not this time. Be glad of the movement, within which there is growth, repair, joy and other gear shifts and experiences to have. It is a blessing that we are not static and rooted to the spot.

Our meditation was on loving kindness yesterday afternoon - that was three meditations in one day, I can confirm, and I am on my way home completely illuminated! I expected some prescription in that meditation to show more empathy and compassion and live harmlessly, but no. The whole period was dedicated to remembering when you yourself were shown unconditional love and then show yourself the same regard. Two nice affirmations were mentioned. May I be happy, may I be well. When I asked afterwards why we weren't being encouraged to share the love, the words of Buddha were: You can search your whole life for someone more worthy of your love than you, but you will never find them.

The second insight was to be happy and share that and only then be compassionate. If you precede happiness, compassion can never be more than pity. I'm mulling that over and glad I've found my happiness again, so i can keep up the compassionate work. If you get a chance, I recommend coming away from your daily considerations and distractions and relaxing the over-stretched mind here in West Cork. No actual stretching but plenty of expansion. Very good for the soul.

Happiness is our true nature. Go beyond suffering immediately...if you were thinking of staying with it!

Today, instead of trying to alter the mind, simply let it settle…like a glass of chalky water.  I am on retreat at Dzoghen Beara in West Cork. The meditation room looks out over a vast expanse of water, with ever changing light, a series of rocky inlets and little groups of gulls flying by, heads to the wind, making only intermittent progress.

We started with our posture; make it majestic; be like a mighty leopard, ready to spring; alert, poised and yet totally calm. The next favourite of mine, to recommend, is to return from distractions. In my case, since I’ve stopped worrying about myself, I moved swiftly on to worrying about everyone else. That does not create a much better resonance, maybe even fractionally worse. Because I can direct my thoughts successfully but of course you can’t direct anyone else’s.

So first I got distracted for a moment by thoughts of my two uncles who I lost recently. I wondered if they’d got to heaven okay. I did a little clearing of any turbulence that might be holding them to this plane. I wondered if they were now officially guardian angels. I started asking them advice on decisions. Then I pulled myself back to an awareness of my breath, what I was gazing at and the present moment. I moved on to gratitude for all the people that are still alive, like my parents and Jani who is looking after Harmony Hall. Then I thought of the volunteers here. One has just finished a masters in dance at Limerick University. I wondered if I could do that. I laughed to myself that I applied to do a masters in mysticism at queens last week and only half way through the email communication did I realize I’d applied to Queens in Canada, rather than in Belfast!

At last my mind quieted and I was able to sit for a while, without self judgement or expectations. The good news from Buddha is that our true nature is beyond suffering and is happiness. That’s the same for everyone. Keep coming back to that!

A small but important difference

When it comes to soul loss there are a couple of key things to bare in mind. For many, it doesn't just happen once; on some fateful day, tragedy strikes or the deal breaker occurs. No, it is much more regular than that. Every time you return to your family's town. Every time you have a glass of wine. Every time you sit through a meeting at work with a handful of people still wrestling with a power struggle. Even when you apply yourself to the welfare of others, your soul can be compromised...indeed exchanged!...for the return of theirs. There are various symptoms that your will to live has left the building. For example, pressure in your head. Its easy to own the pain or upset and understand it via a story about your own life. You might say this or that happened. This is NOT one of the ways to get your soul back! Trying to make external changes, like avoiding people or situations also doesn't help. Nor keeping busy or trying to maintain a positive attitude! However, there are two things that retrieve your soul every time. Firstly self regard. Value that little spark of life that is you. Internally visit hell, the lost soul department and ego and collect the fragments. Assimilate them. Gently acknowledge how uncomfortable if might feel to accept them back and then relish the coherence of being back in one piece! Secondly, get creative. Create a bridge back to you by playing music, painting, gardening and dancing. Thereby, you prepare yourself physiologically to receive your soul back. The basic tenet being open up to the infinite organizing power of nature for recovery and growth. Do not close down and retreat to a darkened room with an overload of technology...however tempting. Over time, you might teach, or at least encourage your soul to stick around!

Dispel troubled illusions

Are you remembering to enjoy life? Here in the third dimension, we are literally beings made of light, who have mistaken ourselves as solid and differentiated. It is tricky not to take your illusion seriously. But don't stay with that perspective too long and do not think it is reality! You create your own reality, so make sure it rocks!...Rather than being on the rocks, at any given moment!

Winter

After a wonderful winter of films, it is again a beautiful time of year to go outside and explore. But our heads are still full of images, not even our own. Last winter, I wrote, the year before I painted, before that I read the entire Twilight Saga. Each time one must emerge eventually and shake off the drama, sometimes internal, sometimes external. The thing to remember, though, is that its never a true story. For those who watch the news or are busy with conflict or financial difficulty, you might feel like you are relating facts not fabrication. Look more closely at that feeling though. If you are in any way despondent or focused on bleak occurrences (in any tense or tension!) you cannot create improvements for spring. Try thinking thoughts that feel good.  Firstly, depersonalize the trouble...stuff just happens, it does not happen to you. Or anyone else! This frees you from victimization. Then take the power back...in a firm but friendly, Rage-Against-The-Machine kind of a way! A practical realization of this power might be something like getting around to sweeping the floor, tidying a surface or writing a letter. Even something more ground breaking! Clear your energy before you attempt anything else!

Total Detox in One Day

Emotional, Mental and Physical

Emotional - Don't put yourself down for a whole day. By breaking the cycle of self criticism, two things happen. You leave more room to play and feel good. Secondly you notice the people around you more objectively. The ones that join in the demeaning behaviour, you can distance yourself from. The ones who recognize your beautiful, infinite spirit...keep them around and return the favour.

Mental - Clear yourself of inner conflicts and worst case scenarios. People have, on average, between seven and eight hundred inner conflicts. Just using a pendulum, you can bring that figure down to zero. Then clear the adverse effects of having had to live with such polarity for so long. There is no need  to identify them individually, just heal them, like this, on an energetic level. Then, you can put your amazing mind to work on conscious creations. Direct your thoughts and aim them at what you do want.

Physical - Let your need for food go. Needs are always part of a lack perspective. Don't crave more nourishment, more sweetness, more energy, more vitamins, more variety, more convenience or more effort. By needing anything you push it away. Appreciate, instead, what is there in the cupboard. Cultivate the feeling in your body that you have everything you need. Just as microwaves literally change the composition of food, so can we. Consciously choose to imbibe all the goodness necessary to thrive and choose to release all the toxicity you've accumulated, in order to heal.