Thursday, April 08, 2010

Day Thirty-Two: Going for Real Emotional Peace and Freedom




We have had various experiences, and usually have ourselves locked into a narrow box, our interpretation of that experience. What if we began to uses our imaginations to stretch our heart and feeling and understanding of these events? Could that lead to an amazing inner peace?

Take some event in your life that was a “little bit” on the “bad” side. Not a major trouble area, but something that you have in the category of Not So Great. Or maybe Sort of Awful.

For that event write a very, very short 3 to 5 sentence rundown of what happened in this Not So Great event.

Then look at your sentences and feel what you usually feel. Write down your overall impression of that event.

Now, look at these sentences and give yourself another way of perceiving this than what you have sentenced yourself to all along.

Look at this event as interesting. Look at it as tragic. Look at it as amusing. Look at it as wonderful. Look at it as awful. Look at it is funny. Look at it as a big mistake. Look at it as a Gift. Look at it as a setback. Look at it as a great stimulus.

Obviously, different viewpoints will be a hard fit, and so what, this is to stretch us. Change means change means change.

If we always perceive things as we always perceived this, we are stuck. High functioning robot. Low functioning robot. Somewhere in between. But not free. Not awake. Not fully alive.

Anyway, look at the “sort of bad” event in many ways, and then come back to your body and your breathing and sensing yourself, and try to, play with this: look at the event just as What Is. Or What Was. Just as an event, without any up down or sideways take on it. Just pure experience.

And then take a little rest. Walk. Breathe. Smile. Drink some water.

Okay, now take an event that was “Sort of Good.” And run it through all the possibilities.

Then look at this event without any interpretation.

Rest between sections. Maybe walk. Maybe re-do one of the awareness and movement games we’ve done so far in this book.

Next: take a “Medium Bad” episode and run it through the options. Be sure to include, this was a Curse. And this was a Blessing. Then look at this event without any interpretation.


Rest, walk, move, draw, garden.

Back: Take a “Medium Good” time, and see it as Grand, as Awful, as Liberating, as Stifling, and as all the above possibilities and more you can think of. Then look at this event without any interpretation.

Rest. And if you are ready, take a “Really Bad” event, and let it go through your mind as Awful, and a Curse, and Wonderful and a Blessing. As the Worst thing that ever happened to you. And as the Best thing that ever happened to you. As tragedy. As comedy. As crippling. As liberating. As punishment. As gift.

Then look at this event without any interpretation. Make breathing and knowing your are breathing and sensing and being present the highest priority, from which you can scan back as see this event as just pure “happening.”


And now, after another rest, go about your day looking at everything as either something you can interpret one two three or more ways, and as something you can just experience without interpretation.

Judge not that ye not be judged. Somehow this fits in here. See if you can grasp this in a deep and nonverbal way.

Good.

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

death, taxes, and some real stuff

you know, the dumb phrase:
death and taxes

i guess it has something to do with the
"inevitable"

my, my
they could have said:
gravity and breath
and these would have been more useful
as everyday constants for life on Earth

even now
you know this good old now
thing i like to write about
and live from
gravity
where i sit
where you sit, stand, gravity is there

and air
all
around
and we breathe
and know it
or breathe
and don't know it

la,
la


here are some nice
quotes
about the real deal,
one from adyashanti
a sweet spiritual teacher,
who kind of enhances the Byron Katie Work

the quote goes like this:

"Enlightenment is nothing more
that the natural state of being.
If you strip it of all the complex terminology and complex jargon
enlightenment is simply returning to our
natural state of being."


This from a book, True Meditation.
He also has an article
in Yoga Plus
becoming something of an industry
and that's his business

the other quote
is one of many brilliant quotes
that could be "shared" from ,
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky's
New Translation of War and Peace

it's from a dream
Pierre, a central character,
who starts the book as a befudled
and "absent minded and ridiculous man,"
and ends the book, still a bit absent minded and
ridiculous, but full of wisdom

in the dream
a voice speaks to him
and says:


" ' Life is everything.
Life is God.
Everything shifts and moves, and this movement is God.
And while there is life, there is delight
in the self-awareness of the divinity.
To love life is to love God.
The hardest and most blessed thing is to love this life
in one's suffering, in the guiltlessness of suffering."


Page 1064.
you've been through a lot
by the time you get there.
Pierre is suffering
and growing hugely
when he has this dream.

Hint, for Pierre,
though not for everyone,
the book has a "happy ending."

ciao
chris


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