Gratitude & Joy

There are two sides to every coin. Gratitude and Grief. Joy and Sorrow.

Imagine creating a vast container to hold the entirety of your experience. Like a big bowl of guacamole with a bunch of colorful ingredients and textures: beautiful avocados, finely chopped onions and tomatoes and cilantro. Tiny bits of serrano. Pink salt and black pepper. Maybe a squeeze of juice from a bright yellow lemon. Crispy chips to dip and crunch forever. And through all the colors, the reminder that sometimes chopping onions makes us cry.

I remember years ago working in an onion plant in northeastern Oregon and separating onions for twelve hours a day. I had recently moved back to the US and was missing Mexico. The onions made me cry and so did my sadness for being away from the sea, friends and family here. I could let the tears roll and keep pulling the bad onions from the good ones and let myself be. No one asked, Why so many tears?

As I’ve shared before, our family is moving through and towards big transitions with changes in our work lives, our home life, identities and the upcoming graduation of our youngest who will turn eighteen in one week.

Last week, Javier and I spent two nights in our home on the ranch. Friday night and then again Wednesday. Friday was a reprieve. We arrived at the house, unloaded the groceries and I fell asleep on the couch. Saturday morning, we wandered and hiked and talked and laughed and explored the trails and I remembered again: so much land! So much to be grateful for. Trees, rocks, all the variety of colors and textures in soil alone. The beauty of a house I had the privilege to imagine and draw and then Javier took the plans and had it built. After all the years of creating peaceful abodes for clients. This one is for us. It was so wonderful that we said, Let’s come back on Wednesday! The kids need more space. With Dylan at home at the age of twenty-five, we feel safe being just a fifteen minute drive away.

Wednesday night, seeing the full on darkness around the house, I felt hit by grief. Homesickness. This was too much too soon. At the same time, it was a necessary reset. A reminder to appreciate one another. To give each other more space when we are on the same piece of property and remember, we still have time together before the next chapter. We don’t have to rush things or try to get ahead of the grief. As if we could in any case. Everything unfolds in its own time. And, we can't go around what we have to go through.

I remember when my son graduated from high school and went off to college and the year of grief and thinking, no one told me this would happen. How can I grieve when the person is still alive? Grief is not exclusive to death as we can grieve letting go of anything: a chapter in our lives, a home, a relationship, a career, a friendship, the way things were ten minutes ago and so on.

Grief and sadness, loss and letting go are hard and part of life. Sadness serves a purpose. Sadness and tears help us let go. When I think of sadness and joy, I remember a poem I read at the age of sixteen that has stayed with me for life, On Joy and Sorrow, by Khalil Gibran. Two sides of the same coin. As our capacity to feel sorrow deepens, our capacity to feel joy expands. As we allow ourselves to grieve for our losses, our gratitude for the blessings and privilege of being alive deepens. Taking things for granted becomes a luxury we can no longer afford.

Javier has often recognized the depth of my gratitude which I hadn’t really appreciated until he mentioned it early in our relationship over twenty years ago. His words of recognition made that part of my being and way of being felt seen in a new light. For that I am grateful too.

Gratitude and Generosity go hand in hand as part of the series of attitudinal foundations of Mindfulness Meditation.

The attitude of gratitude reminds us that this is enough. I am enough, you are enough, there is enough, nothing is lacking. As we learn and grow and evolve, we can continually practice the attitude of gratitude: ‘this moment is enough’ feels different than, ‘it would be better if…..’

After I feel hit with the weight of grief, when I resurface, that feeling is imbued with gratitude for the blessings I have been given. When I feel it is too soon to let go a little too much of a home I have lived in for more than twenty years – recognizing it is a privilege to have the time and choice to let go slowly – I remember with compassion this is the home where I have lived the longest. The only other home I remember belonging to my family was one I lived in in northern California where my father lived his last days decades ago. We moved a lot and traveled up and down the west coast of the US and throughout Mexico while I was growing up. To witness my children, live in one home for the first eighteen years of their respective lives is a dramatic contrast to my first eighteen years of moving and living with family, friends, and alone in La Paz at the age of sixteen when there were no high schools in Los Barriles to attend. Different upbringings, attachments, and different experiences in letting go. I am filled with gratitude for this life, this home, this family, and the experiences I have been given and have made me who I am and will help shape who I will be tomorrow and the next day after that for as long I live. To be alive is to learn for life.

To practice gratitude is to shift from the attitude of scarcity to abundance. When our well is full, when we are satisfied and grateful for the blessings and recognize the privilege it is to be alive, then we can give from a place of fullness and share with others. What do we share? Our innate goodness, our presence, our humanity, our ability to listen and capacity to see them in their mix of divinity and humanity. We can share stories, laughter, space and tears, our gratitude and joy. And we can give each other the gift of space and trust in letting us each be.

Gratitude practice recognizes the blessings in our lives and from that place, we can also rejoice in the joy of others. Much like the practice of loving kindness, we can repeat phrases that honor the blessings we feel in our own lives and then offer heartfelt phrases wishing joy and happiness for others.

Below you will find an excerpt from the book by Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart, and the practice from class this week.

“Let yourself sit quietly and at ease. Allow your body to be relaxed and open, your breath natural, your heart easy. Begin the practice of gratitude by feeling how year after year you have cared for your own life. Now let yourself begin to acknowledge all that has supported you in this care:

With gratitude I remember the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures of the sky and sea, air and water, fire and earth, all whose joyful exertion blesses my life every day.
With gratitude I remember the care and labor of a thousand generations of elders and ancestors who came before me.
I offer my gratitude for the blessing of this earth I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the measure of health I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the family and friends I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the community I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the teachings and lessons I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the life I have been given.

Just as we are grateful for our blessings, so we can be grateful for the blessings of others.

Now shift your practice to the cultivation of joy. Continue to breathe gently. Bring to mind someone you care about, someone it is easy to rejoice for. Picture them and feel the natural joy you have for their well-being, happiness, and success. With each breath, offer them your grateful, heartfelt wishes:

May you be joyful.
May your happiness increase.
May you not be separated from great happiness.
May your good fortune and the causes for your joy and happiness increase.”

Thank you for reading and for being. I am grateful for your presence in my life. Near or far, thank you for being who you are. 

Namaste,
Tehroma 

On Joy and Sorrow by Khalil Gibran

“Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.”

Kindness

Imagine the quality of softness. Internal softening when harshness – towards yourself or another – arises. Internally or externally. Harshness can feel prickly, tight, uncomfortable. Whether it is the inner critic, another person’s mood affecting your relationship to the moment, to scary happenings in your community or world wide that bring up fear or simply thinking this moment should be different than it is and balling up inside.

“The attitude of kindness can act like fabric softener for experience. When kindness is present, judgment and harshness will recede. We see what happens in a different light.” Christiane Wolf, MD, PHD and J. Greg Serpa PHD (excerpt from their book: A Clinician’s Guide to Teaching Mindfulness).

Softeness has space. Tightness is limiting. When we feel safe, when leaning in and opening up is possible, we can see with a broader lens. When we tighten, we narrow our view and limit our perspective and experience.

While kindness is related to softness, it is important to remember this is not a weakness. The attitude of kindness takes courage, heart, awareness, compassion and practice. The attitude of kindness is in being which is different than the act of kindness which is in doing. Being and doing are equally valuable as is understanding of the difference between the two.

Somewhere in between being kind and carrying out acts of kindness is metta, loving kindness, a compassionate practice of internal action.

Compassion arises when a situation touches our heart and we want to take action with the intention of alleviating suffering. Compassion is not sympathy or pity where one might feel superior to another. Compassion is a practice of equals. There is no hierarchy. Loving kindness, the practice of metta can bridge the distance between being and doing and offer us some kind of internal action taken through the repetition of phrases. This can be heartening and refill our well of hope when we don’t know what to do to better a situation. Lovingkindness does no harm and there is no harm in offering phrases of well wishes to another being.

I remember years ago going out for lunch with a friend and noticing our waitress was a bit short in her words and tight in her face and body language. I noticed that I started to tighten too, feeling like I was asking too much in ordering drinks and food, even though this was her job, it was palpable that she was having a difficult time. What I am about to share was – full disclosure—partly self serving as an enjoyable afternoon lunch with my friend was on my wish list of the moment. Silently, I began to send the waitress well wishes:

 

May you be filled with lovingkindness

May you be free from harm and suffering

May you experience peace and happiness

May you be well

 

A little while later, when the waitress reemerged from the kitchen to check on us, her face and body language had transformed into softness, a smile and she put her hand on my shoulder before asking if there was anything else we needed.

I saw the waitress again months later, at a different restaurant when our family went out for dinner to celebrate Saint Patty’s Day. The place was packed with people. She was working other tables and saw me from across the room. She walked over to me smiling, gave me a huge hug and said, "It is so good to see you!" I said, "It is so good to see you! How have you been?" It was an unexpected exchange and I could tell that we are both a little taken aback by the spontaneity and warmth in our reencounter and touched by it too. I credit metta and the practice of loving kindness for the experience of connection with this lovely lady who I have seen again from time to time around our small beach town and when we see each other, we smile and wave.

When we offer well wishes to another human being, these words run through our own hearts and minds softening our being inside as the well wishes flow out into the world.

While there are different ways of practicing metta (loving kindness), one teaching I have heard across the board is the encouragement to create our own phrases so the practice feels infused with personal resonance. And, while sometimes repeating the phrases might feel mechanical, all my teachers have said invariably, Do it anyway. You never know when the practice of lovingkindness might arise to wrap you in its warm embrace.

I remember a morning when I was spiraling in shame after reading an email from a client who’s project we are in the final stages of completing. The client was disappointed, not in the product or design itself, but in the amount of attention I gave them. Their expectation was to receive more of my time, my creative energy, one on one. Our company was constructed of a talented team. Not a one person show. I was proud of the design and I knew in my bones that the quality of attention our team had provided was top notch. Nothing lacking. Still, that disappointment felt personal and hit a sore spot that I’ve worked on for years to heal: The belief that I didn’t do enough, that I let someone down, that someone suffered because I fell short. All of the latter arose and hurt after reading that email from the client. I took that shame spiral out into my yard and puttered around. After a while of feeling like human sludge, metta and loving kindness arose in these words: May be I be held in loving kindness, May I be held in Compassion, May I be well. And I felt a deep relief begin to emerge, a softening in my center, gratitude for practice. I felt my vulnerability, humanity and wish to alleviate suffering and do no harm to myself or another being. And the wisdom to remember that I cannot control another persons experience or perception or fullfill all external expectations. Then, instead of internalizing the experience and keeping it private as I often do, I walked back into the house and shared with my husband who listened, didn’t try to fix or change what I was feeling and he made me breakfast.

Metta can be like balm for the heart. Practicing loving kindness phrases does no harm and it can be helpful in moments when there may be nothing we can do to change what is happening but feel the deep need to do something to alleviate suffering. Well wishes flow through the heart and all hearts connecting as one. No hierarchy. Compassion is  a practice of equals.

Mindfulness Meditation is a practice in befriending ourselves, family, friends, community, the entire world. A lifelong friendship with this moment to moment experience of being human in all its  complexities and simplicities and all the spaces in between.

May you be filled with lovingkindness

May you be free from harm and suffering

May you experience peace and happiness

May you be well

With Metta,

Tehroma

 

A Friendship Blessing by John O’Donohue

May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where
there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them;
may they bring you all the blessing, challenges, truth,
and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam ċara.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patience

With everything from chocolate cakes to hurricanes. Everything has a beginning, a middle and an end.

Patience is one of the attitudinal foundations of mindfulness. Like pieces of a puzzle, these attitudes fit together to support us moment to moment and whatever is arising in our bodies, breath, thoughts, and emotions, as well as, how we are relating to our experience. 

There are eleven attitudes all together: patience, curiosity, kindness, gratitude & generosity, acceptance, nonjudging, nonstriving, letting go & letting be, humor, trust and a beginner’s mind. More about the Foundational Attitudes can be found in my previous and future writings this year, as well as, one of the sources for my practice and classes: A Clinician's Guide to Teaching Mindfulness by Christiane Wolf, MD, PHD and J. Greg Sherpa, PHD.

Another way to imagine these attitudes is like herbs and spices by the stove. Every attitude and how we combine them flavors our experience.

Interestingly, the best time to practice patience is when we feel impatient. When we notice a tightening in the chest, maybe even a holding of the breath – or however impatience feels in your body, remembering that mindfulness is an embodied practice – we can pause and slow down our breathing and inquire, Is this urgent? 

When the moment isn't a matter of true urgency, and as life moves through and by so quickly, it is valuable to check in from time to time and inquire, What is the hurry? Can I be with this feeling and wait a little while longer before...?

It is important to remember that some moments truly are urgent. A matter of life and death. And, we honor those and move quickly as quickly as possible. 

Deadlines and expiration dates are part of life. We all have an expiration date. Unknown. It isn’t written anywhere like box of milk. Because we are not products or here to simply produce. We are human and here to live. To inquire. To be curious and hold our experience lightly as we increase our wholehearted capacity to do so.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” Rainer Maria Rilke

In meditation we are continually noticing how we are relating to our experience and recognizing when our experience is pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. It is natural to want the the pleasant moments, the joy and happiness and everything that feels good to last. Forever! And all that feels unpleasant, tight, heavy, the hard to hold emotions and those feeling states to go away. And stay away, forever. And those moments in between, the neutral moments that could easily pass through and by unnoticed, the moments of calm or even boredom. What about those? Do we cling to them or push them away or even notice them at all?

From chocolate cake to hurricanes and almost forgotten moments in between, everything that arises, has a beginning, then a middle and finally, an end. We can notice this in our breathing. Taking a slow breath in and noticing the beginning, middle and end. Space between the breath. However subtle. Slowly exhaling and sensing the release in the beginning, middle and end of the out breath. Space before the inhale. However brief. We can notice when we are in a hurry to fill our lungs -- or space, time, our bellies -- and also when we are in a rush to let go, to move on, scurrying from one thing to the next, thinking the next moment, place, relationship will be better than the one we are experiencing in this moment.

When we are in the middle of a storm, whether it is a full on hurricane taking its time to tear up trees and roll waves with crashing rocks and pull up structures as it slowly roars by or an emotional storm of overwhelm due to illness, accidents, life transitions, stress of changes or whatever is tearing at our hearts, we can find solace in the earth by pausing to feel our feet touch the ground and then the ever present companion of the breath. When the experience is too much to hold, internally, we can practice zooming out and dropping deeper into the steady rise and fall of the breath. When the breath isn’t appropriate and anxiety producing to be with, we can move our bodies, walk in nature, sweep the floor, hang the laundry, wash the dishes and in doing so, bring our attention to the sacredness of movement and attention to the task at hand. There is solace is knowing floors always need to be swept and dishes washed. Before, during and after the storm. Dishes will need care and moving our bodies in the simplest of ways, feeling the soapy suds in our hands, smoothness of glasses and shininess if water on drying plates all stacked neatly by the sink. Then, they will need to be put away. And later adorned with a colorful meal. And so on. While internal and external storms roar within and without, we can count on ordinary things to ask for our attention while we let the storm pass. Because it will as everything that arises also passes away. In the middle of it all, loads of compassion to hold us in the midst and wake of every storm.

And what about the delicious moments that we want to last forever and know in our hearts will end as all things do? Enjoy every bite and write a love letter to the baker. Let them know you appreciate their full attention in heartfully creating a marry worthy chocolate cake.

As we move towards closing this piece, a few inquiries from class this week, remembering that mindfulness is a practice of embodied awareness:

• Where does patience arise naturally for you? How does this feel in your body?
• Where is it challenging for you to access patience? What brings up impatience? How does this feel in your body?

When impatience tightens my chest and I find myself thinking that I want to leave here, this moment, because there, some next or far off moment will be better in some way, I ask myself, Can I find the grace in my heart to let this be? When I find myself in the middle of a joyous moment that I wish would last forever and know it will also come to an end and change as all things so, I ask myself the same question, Can I find the grace in my heart to let this be? And everywhere in between, the same inquiry. 

I remember the words from a poem by Mary Oliver, A Summers Day, “Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” My answer? Be here and live everything. As patiently, ccourageously, wholeheartedly and fully as possible.

May your well of patience continually refill so you may live your one wild and precious life as fully as your heart desires.

Namaste, Tehroma

The Patience of Ordinary Things by Pat Schneider

"It is a kind of love, is it not?

How the cup holds the tea,

How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,

How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes

Or toes. How soles of feet know

Where they’re supposed to be.

I’ve been thinking about the patience

Of ordinary things, how clothes

Wait respectfully in closets

And soap dries quietly in the dish,

And towels drink the wet

From the skin of the back.

And the lovely repetition of stairs.

And what is more generous than a window?'

 

Beginner’s Mind

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few.” Sunryu Suzuki

A beginner’s mind is sparked with curiosity, awe and wonder. Imagine for a moment the inquisitiveness of a child. The openness to each experience and the brand newness of the moment.

Each day, moment and breath is brand new. While some are smoothe, others may be rocky. There are darker moments and those that shine with brilliance. And there are moments that fall almost easily forgotten in between. While we have each lived our own lives in the same body, with the same mind and heart, heard with the same ears, touched with the same hands and likely seen the world with the same set of eyes, our bodies are always changing, our senses continually refining and our perspectives have the potential to kaleidoscopically evolve. It’s like Sharon Salzberg wrote, “Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope, a slight change and all patterns alter.”

Last week, as I was reflecting on the attitudinal foundation of a beginner’s mind, a chilly rain fell in our beach town and over my dusty jeep. Before pulling out of the driveway and while behind the driver’s wheel, I turned on the wind shield wipers and watched the layer of wet dust move side to side, clarifying my view preparing for the road ahead.

As we drive, ride, walk around, sit down and look out at the world, we can continually wipe the dust from our eyes with the intention to see more clearly. We can also bring this metaphor into seeing our inner worlds with clarity, inviting an openness of heart and mind, an intention to hear with fresh ears and see with clear eyes. We might also notice that some days our perspective may feel murkier than others and invite the attitude of gratitude for our intention and the moments of crystal clarity that illuminate the path within and without. Because, as meditation teaches us: each moment, every breath, the new day are full of opportunities and possibilities to begin again.

“We can always begin again.” Sharon Salzberg

Practicing mindfulness and cultivating an intimate relationship withe the foundational attitudes is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle and noticing how the attitudes interconnect and interplay with one another. To begin again, it helps to strengthen our “letting go” muscle, our ability to let the experience be as it is. This doesn’t mean we condone harm or return to situations or relationships that are harmful. I remember an important relationship in my life that ended painfully years ago. The hurt and sense of betrayal ran deep and the healing from that experience has been a slow road paved with compassion and patience. For me, beginning again, in this case is to begin again in cultivating trust, trust in my own judgement regarding who I enter relationship with and trust in the other person I have opened to, as well as the relationship shared. 

Beginning again is living again with the openness to new experiences remembering time and again, we have never been here before. Each relationship --- whether it be with a person, our own being, a project, place, or whatever it may be --- forges a new path opening us to new facets within and without.

Beginning again honors our stories, our wisdom and intuition with the remembering that each new inner and outer facet has a spark of newness and gifts for us to experience, delight in, learn from and and sometimes fall down and get back up again. Holding back from new experiences because of old hurt doesn’t stop the hurt, it stunts possibilities unimagined and life we are new to.

As I've mentioned before, in meditation, we are always looking at the relationship, how we are relating to the moment, our experience, another person, place, project and so on.

In order to practice the attitude of a beginner’s mind and call forth the courage to begin again, it is important to feel safe. Safe enough to let go of preconceived notions about how an experience may unfold – whether we are in a familiar or unfamiliar situation. Safety is key when it come to opening the heart and allowing ourselves to feel vulnerable.

Remembering that everything offered here is brought forth in the spirit of invitation, below you will find reflections from class this week, an inquiry:

Is there any place – a location, relationship, project, practice or other – where you feel stuck or in a rut where the attitude of a beginner’s mind could rekindle the aliveness within you in relationship to this location, person, your own being, a project, practice or other?

As we move towards the closing for this week’s attitude of a beginner’s mind, the reminder to hold our experience lightly and feel the gentle embrace of the two wings of mindfulness: the nonjudgemental awareness and compassion. Heart qualities soften the edges of this minute to minute existence. Whatever is moving within you, feeling states are fleeting. The letting go and beginning again isn’t letting go of our experience in life or tossing our stories out the window, it is letting our stories be – not defining us or owning us – letting them rest as part of an ongoing story that we are each living. Individually and collectively. One moment and one day at a time.

To begin again is let go of the way things were – ten years ago, ten minutes or ten breaths ago – and open to the way things are moment to moving moment, breath to rising and falling breath. One wave at a time. Remembering, the waves will come and go and we aren’t trying to control or stop the waves. Through mindful practice, we are learning to surf the waves and notice that the water is different every day. Big stuff, small stuff, in between almost unnoticeable stuff, none of these stops. Life keeps moving. 

Mindfulness teaches us how to keep moving with acceptance, honing in on the reality of the moment, beyond what is happening around us and below the surface of our lives, connecting with our vulnerable and shared humanity and the deep underlying peace and stillness that is always here.

A Gaelic Blessing:

Deep peace of the running wave to you.

Deep peace of the flowing air to you.

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.

Deep peace of the shining stars to you.

Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.

Namaste, 

Tehroma