Category: Basic Goodness

Claiming our Inheritance

February 18, 2020

Basic Goodness, Buddha-nature, Overcoming self-hatred, Self-care, Self-Kindness, Uncategorized

Narcissus, Photo by Celia

“The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing”

~ Saint Francis and the Sow

BY GALWAY KINNELL

“Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements. The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones discerns that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones — there is development of the mind.”

~Pabhassara Sutta: Luminous (AN 1.49-52), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013).

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself you have built against it.” ~Rumi

Dear Friends,

I am writing this evening about something I’ve encountered in both young and not so young individuals. It’s what we call self-hatred. At this moment you may be nodding with understanding. You may know the voice that criticizes, the numbness around receiving admiration, and the constant feeling that somehow people will see that you aren’t quite right—not put together properly and barely holding yourself together. Or, perhaps, the words self-hatred are something beyond your reality—something you have heard of, but due to either your own work or the blessing of having a supportive, connective upbringing, you can clearly see yourself as ultimately lovable and worthy of being loved. If you fall into the second category, that’s wonderful—and if you fall into the first category, you have a great opportunity to learn how to suffer less.

In our country, we have a robust culture of self-improvement. Beyond the healthy desire to create wellbeing and integrate healthy habits into our lives, some of us come from a deficit where we believe we are less than. One of the most telling aspects of this belief is the inability to believe we are worthy of receiving help—and the inability to believe we are loveable. If we were raised to be seen and not heard, to be a helper and not ask for much…attention, affection, understanding, or consideration, we may have the mistaken idea that needing some care makes us a burden and we are a problem to be solved, an interruption in other people’s lives.

This belief in our smallness belies our true nature as beings who carry a lineage of connection to the past and are connected to all things in the present. This is the understanding of “interbeing.” That not only do we carry the genetic information, the love, and teaching of our blood and spiritual ancestors, we are also part of this Earth. We belong on this planet as much as the stones, the trees, and all living things.

Isley, Scotland. Photo by Barbara Richardson

Something that I love about the Buddhist way of thinking is the belief in our basic goodness. In the West, there is a cultural belief that we are fundamentally sinful and if we trusted our own wisdom, we would become some sort of greedy Godzilla monster wrecking everything with our unskillfulness. The Buddhist path teaches us that we are pure luminous light. We are love at our core, and when we get out of our own way, we can trust this awakened heart-mind to be a presence of love and compassion for ourselves and others. We don’t have to be afraid of what is in us because it is purity. Our true nature is holiness.

It may be frightening for some of us to consider who we would be if nothing were wrong with us—if there was nothing to fix, to strive for; what if everything belonged? What would it be like to believe we were a Buddha in the making for a day, an hour, five minutes?

A well-known story from Dharma teacher Sharon Salzberg recounts how she spoke to the Dalai Lama in 1990, at the Mind and Life Institute Conference and asked him what he thought of self-hatred. He was absolutely baffled by this concept. He explained that this was wrong thinking because we all have Buddha-nature. Buddha-nature is part of the Mahayana lineage and includes the belief that all sentient beings, even insects—contain the seeds of awakening and all beings can become Buddha. The Mahayana Uttara Shastra from the 4^th Century, C.E. declares, “This clear luminous nature of mind is changeless as space. It is not afflicted by desires and so on, the adventitious stains, which are sprung form incorrect thoughts” (Arya Asanga, recorded by Arya Maitre, translated by Rosemarie Fuchs, 1999). If we believe that we all contain the seeds of enlightenment and are descendants of the Buddha, how is it possible to hate and denigrate that inheritance?

One practice I’ve found that can help us connect with our own ability to see ourselves as worthy is through visualization of our beloved. This visualization works equally well utilizing a visualization of someone who is alive or someone who has passed. Our beloved can be a teacher, a grandparent, a dog, a cat, or a child. Holding the image of someone dear to us, someone who is delighted to see us, we can see their face and their happiness, feel their delight at our being with them. This is an opportunity to investigate what arises in the presence of a beloved. How are our shoulders, our hearts, our minds? What is the quality of our consciousness at this moment?

Holding this image of a beloved one, we can meet their gaze and radiate our own happiness and appreciation back to them. For some of us, it may be helpful to hear that this being totally understands and forgives us. We may want to offer our forgiveness to this being as well. Touching into a relationship of love, practicing receiving love and consciously noting what it feels like in the body/mind to actively receive it, can help removes some of the protection and defense we have built around our hearts.

When we practice opening our hearts to ourselves and the loveable qualities we possess, we learn to be unafraid to offer this love to others. Our hearts become more radiant and fearless. We can begin to believe that we are made of an unstainable purity of mind and believe it is our birthright. When we allow ourselves to experience the inherently loveable qualities in ourselves through another’s eyes, we can gradually fill the void of unworthiness in ourselves and trust that we are worthy of love, worthy of care, a Buddha to be.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

Calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh

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The Care and Feeding of Intention

April 2, 2019

Basic Goodness, Big mind, Busyness, Changing habit patterns, compassion, Creating intention, Detached Action, Good Heart, Mindfulness, Uncategorized

Biddeford, ME, Photo by Celia

“The quality or purity of any spiritual practice is determined by the individual’s intention and motivation.” ~ H.H. The Dalai Lama

“If you were at the end of your life looking back, what would matter about today?” ~Tara Brach

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

Dear Friends,

More than twenty years ago, I was driving home from a writing class late at night. After years of creating my own business and being someone in the eyes of the world, I was overworked and unhappy and looking to change directions. I was searching for my path that would keep me from falling into the sea of nothingness, where I would flounder and let my life ebb away in meaningless flailing towards a new identity. The class was my floatation device. I remember that very unpleasant fear that if I gave up what I knew, even with all its stress and pain, reaching towards the unknown would be a worse—some sort of soulless, bland existence. Without putting a name to it, I was looking for something bigger than my business, bigger than my own self, I was looking for an intention.

I don’t remember the radio show I was listening to that night, but the topic was about creating a framework for your life—it was nothing new in the world, but new to me. Listening, the interviewees gave examples of big intentions. For example, if your life’s work was to bring beauty to the world, you could garden, paint, write a book, raise a child, become an environmental activist, all things in line with your intention, or life’s purpose. Up to that point, my life’s goal as a designer was to make enough money to live and to be respected—which was something I could not control. The respect and recognition I longed for would come from outside myself and gauging my worth according to my approval rating effectively gave away all my own power for happiness. I could see in my writing class that I was merely transferring this small goal to another discipline. My life’s work was not money or fame; it needed to transcend myself. As the poet, David Whyte writes, “Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anyone or anything that doesn’t bring you alive is too small for you.” What I recognized was that I had mistaken the smallness of a goal for the intention of a lifetime.

There is a knowing in the body that resonates with a true intention. You can feel it—guaranteed. Getting 10,000 followers for your blog or find that one perfect partner and living a fairytale romance is not a true intention, but a mark of achievement. This is common in our culture that looks to financial success and power as the worthy aims of our lives. When we assign ourselves a task—even a noble one, such as raising children or reversing climate change, we can tend to focus on the outcome and transfer our habits of busyness and achieving onto a more wholesome scaffolding—but we can still be tied to our judgment and evaluations of how well we are accomplishing, still caught in desire for rewards and praise and lose touch with what connects us to our larger and more selfless nature.

A true intention must also be large enough to hold everyone we encounter, including ourselves. I can’t be passionate about clean water and air and ignore the suffering in my relationships that pollute my own life—that is not integrating my intention. My intention to be a presence of care for others must also encompass myself and my family. An intention to be peace cannot thrive in a house where there is fighting and hurt. Intentions do not overlook any relationship, any moment; they are a magical size that can enfold all experiences and conditions of life.

The Buddha is recorded as saying that all mindstates and mental qualities require food. In the Food Discourse, Ahara Sutta, SN 46.5, the Buddha described the nutriments that feed both the “skillful and unskillful, blameworthy and blameless, gross and refined.” There is a type of attention that feeds the desires of greed, anger, and the belief that I am separate from the world, and there is that the food that feeds the intentions that connect me to the truth of living in the temporary housing of a body that is part of a much larger interrelated world. The food the Buddha spoke of is the “appropriate attention” to the goodness that is arising and sensitivity to the experience of the wholesome when it is manifesting. Through attention to how we are already living in alignment without our intentions—and using this experience as our food to create energy and persistence, we nurture our own goodness and commitment through appreciating our own efforts. In short—we strengthen our own commitment through experiencing our own good heart.

For a while now, I have had the intention to be a presence of care in each moment, for myself and others. This is a big intention and one that can sound theoretical and live in the mind. When we commit to our intention, there is an inquiry into sustaining it—giving it the necessary nutriments to keep it alive. We also notice what starves our intention. In my experience, there is nothing so deadly as time pressure to make me forget my true purpose.

When we are rushing and filled with deadlines, the world can become very small. We forget we are connected to others. In my life, I know that more I am rushing, when others are an obstacle instead of an opportunity, I lose my intention. Intention is made of Attention. One simple thing I do each day is to recall my intention. When the Buddha used the word remembering, sati [mindfulness], his message was that through remembering the path to liberation and the four steps leading out of suffering, we all could become ennobled. Our worth was not determined by birth, but through the goodness of our actions, our thoughts, and words…and the way we made ourselves noble was by remembering how much choice and power we do have over our habitual thoughts and actions. So, remembering our larger intention is a daily practice.

Peace activist and Buddhist teacher Donald Rothberg suggests writing out intention on a piece of paper and looking at it before a meeting or having a difficult conversation. Some days, I have written my intention on my arm in pen and am contemplating a tattoo, but things keep changing, don’t they? This week you may want to consider your larger intention in the world. Ask yourself, what is the thing that brings me alive? Leaning back into the gifts of the ancestors, the kindness we have received in our lives, the wisdom teachings, what do we want to continue and bring forth into the future to bless ours and other’s lives? How do we make our beautiful dreams into the scaffolding of our lives? If your intention is to bring healing to the world, how are you manifesting that towards yourself? Towards this moment? Are we willing to nourish our intention with appreciation for the moments that our intention is manifesting? Aligning our work, and our life with our truth and intention that can infuse the whole of our lives with purpose and the nourishment of appreciation gives us strength to continue.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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If I Stop, I’ll Be Lost

May 11, 2018

Advice, Basic Goodness, Buddhism, Mindfulness, Mindfulness of feelings, Resting, Self-care, stopping, Uncategorized

Azalea, photo by Celia

“I run and then I hop, hop, hop

I wish that I could fly

There’s danger if I dare to stop and here’s the reason why

You see I’m overdue

I’m in a rabbit stew

Can’t even say Good-bye, hello

I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.”

~from the White Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland, lyrics and music by Bob Hilliard, Sammy Fain, Oliver Wallace, Ted Sears, Mack David, Al Ho.

“One of the most significant negative habits we should be aware of is that of constantly allowing our mind to run off into the future. Perhaps we got this from our parents. Carried away by our worries, we’re unable to live fully and happily in the present. Deep down, we believe we can’t really be happy just yet—that we still have a few more boxes to be checked off before we can really enjoy life.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Breath: A Practice for Our Busy Lives

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I shared a half day of mindfulness with some folks new to practice. It was a lovely day. We sat, ate mindfully, slowed down and allowed the body to relax and feel safe. Several people spoke about the feeling of concern that arose when they gave themselves the permission to stop, take time to eat, and enjoy the simple acts of breathing and walking. This worry stemmed from the belief that if we allow ourselves to relax and drop the habit of anxiously leaning into the future, we will slip the leash and never return to our jobs or responsibilities. This belief comes from a feeling of distrust, that at our core, we are unreliable.

I see this restrictive guarding growing from the unconscious ground of deprivation. Many people do not have the luxury of scheduled lunch breaks. They eat at their desks while answering e-mails, or in medical settings, grab a few bites between clients. Taking time out from work or uncoupling from social media may set up the fear of missing out (FOMO). We will get behind in our work, not respond as expected and there is the rationale that it is better to keep the wheel spinning as fast as possible since pausing for a moment will create an insurmountable workload we won’t be able to dig out from.

We live in an age of extremes, of deprivation and binging. We supersize our cravings and when we indulge—we go hard. “Binge-watching,” television is the new norm. We can observe the prevalence of restrictive diets that allow one “cheat day” a week, and the culture of obsessive exercise, work, and food. The Buddha counseled a middle way in life. One that does not fall into the ascetic practice of denial and self-mortification, but does not overfill the senses with too much of a good thing. This moderation doesn’t come from distrust and the belief that left to my own care, I will never get out of my pajamas, leave the sofa, turn off Netflix, or do anything requiring effort. The middle way comes from seeing the basic human need for sovereignty and self-dignity.

As a culture, we do not value time for self-care. It is seen as a privilege or a sign of vanity. The courage to step away from the pull of doing may be an act of self-preservation. A college survey in 2016 showed 62% of students felt “overwhelming anxiety.” Increasing, the expectation of constant response to the boundless connections of work, our online platforms, and social media can create a never-ending cycle of anxiety and insufficiency.

The Buddha is reported to have said, “Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking & pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness” (Dvedhavitakka Sutta: Two Sorts of Thinking, MN 19, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, trans.). This is what neuroscience calls neuroplasticity, the ability of the mind to increase connectivity and structure based on use. When we train in time scarcity and deprivation, that becomes our belief. Stopping, resting, or calming will feel alien, even unwelcome and frightening. And yes, the world dumps more into our inbox while we sleep. Few individuals get the permission to take time to stop. The 19^th Century Tibetan teacher Patrul Rinpoche said, “Preoccupations do not end until the moment we die. They end when we put them down. This is their nature.” The world believes in busyness and gauges the importance of individuals on the fullness of their calendars, not on the contentment and peace in their hearts. This balance is increasingly challenging, especially for young people growing up in a digital world where constant evaluation, comparing, and responding is expected and the barometer of lovability.

I wish I had the magic cure to give folks the permission to trust their wise selves and return to the body that is speaking to us all the time and to the heart and mind that are calling out for attention. The middle way in the Buddha’s time was revolutionary, not falling into hedonism nor deprivation, and it remains so today. It is counter-culture to listen to ourselves with respect and consideration, valuing our own well-being more highly than the approval of the world. It is hard work and sometimes lonely to turn inward, to care, to set aside time to be healed and whole. But this is the birthright of all beings and the work that makes living a pleasure, not a punishment.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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What’s the Deal With Anger?

April 30, 2018

Activism, Anger#, Basic Goodness, Buddhism, Detached Action, Happiness, Loving Kindness, non-violence

Red Headed Soldiers, photo by Celia.

“When anger comes up in us, we should begin to practice mindful breathing right away: ‘Breathing in, I know that anger is in me. Breathing out, I am taking good care of my anger.’ We behave exactly like a mother: ‘Breathing in, I know that my child is crying. Breathing out, I will take good care of my child.’ This is the practice of compassion.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“If you aren’t feeding the fire of anger or the fire of craving by talking to yourself, then the fire doesn’t have anything to feed on.” ~ Pema Chodron

“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.”

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dear Friends,

As a child I often heard the expression, “everyone is entitled to their opinion.” Maybe that was because back in the day, there was a tacit agreement of civility around expressing one’s opinion. I don’t think it’s my imagination that the level of social discourse has fallen into an extreme mosh-pit of bullying, shaming, and terrorizing those who don’t share our views. It’s all very angry and the loud shouting leads to louder shouting. It makes me wonder how to use our awareness of suffering and injustice in a way that doesn’t resort to hatred and violent words and is consistent with the Buddha’s teachings on Right Thought, Right Speech, and Right Action.

In the Buddhist texts, anger is always unwholesome and labeled as one of the ten fetters that must be undone to find the way out of suffering. There is a clear categorization of the Buddha’s classification of anger as unwholesome and negative. Anger is consistently associated with hatred and ill-will (dosa) and always an obstacle to spiritual progress. Buddhist teacher, activist, and author, Donald Rothberg (2006), in his book, The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, defines when anger and hatred are at the base of intention, the resulting action, and kamma or karma, will be harmful to self and others (p. 152). This single interpretation of anger as a vehicle for actions rooted in hatred, vengeance, and the desire to harm another, is the basis of the Buddha’s prohibition. This type of anger is akin to blind rage and causes damage to the one lost in anger.

The Buddha warns of the ruinous rage that makes blind in an excerpt from the Kodhana Sutta: An Angry Person, “A person overwhelmed with anger destroys his wealth. Maddened with anger, he destroys his status. Relatives, friends, & colleagues avoid him. Anger brings loss. Anger inflames the mind. He doesn’t realize that his danger is born from within” (Thanissaro, trans. 2010). In the early Buddhist texts, the word for anger is often “khoda,” translated as anger, this leaves little room for the range of intensity that presents itself in anger. Anger, in western culture runs from irritable sniping on Twitter, righteousness, and condemnation, to full-blown assault, aggression, and violence. The Dalai Lama and Donald Rothberg (2006), consider “afflictive emotions,” “ill will or hatred,”(p. 152) to be more accurate translations.

The western view of anger is more nuanced, ranging from outright retaliatory rage to a feeling of moral grievance at the ill-treatment of the weak. Rothberg (2006) writes that anger in the ancient Greek world and in the West is seen “as an appropriate response to what is socially inappropriate, immoral, or unjust” (p. 153). The interesting thing about anger is that when it is used as a catalyst for action, and there is an intention of loving kindness and compassion, it ceases to be poisonous.

The Buddha said that the discernment of what is wholesome or unwholesome thought, speech and action rests on our intention before, during, and after producing the thought, words, or act. Kamma, or karma, in Sanskrit, means volitional action and its implied consequence. All kamma is made through the intention of the actor, “Intention I tell you is kamma. Having intended, one performs an action through body, speech, or mind” (AN 6:63) (Rothberg, 2006, p. 60). Someone who sees injustice and feels anger at a system of oppression, or at the treatment of oppressed people can act in a variety of ways. What separates wholesome from unwholesome kamma is the mind of compassion and goodwill or the mind filled with anger, revenge, and hatred.

Kamma is not like a restaurant tab that accumulates and is presented for payment as a tool of reckoning. We can experience the result of our kamma in this very moment. We can feel into the body’s response to judgmental thoughts of meanness and blame, or how our body responds to thoughts and words that arise from the kindness of an unbound heart. One way to do this is to call attention to bodily sensations of pleasant and unpleasant while watching the news. It’s not hard to find the kernel of bitterness and resentment that fuels many political groups who look to hurt and shame those with opposing views.

Anger is a strong emotion that calls for us to pay attention. When we can utilize anger as a wakeup call without letting it pull us into hatred or ill will, we see it can be used as the fuel for action in social justice actions that are based on non-violence and compassion for the poor and powerless. In the struggle for India’s independence, the US Civil Rights movement, and Catholic worker movement, anger at the systemic discrimination did not result in ill-will but catalyzed marginalized groups to act with non-violence and sought to liberate both the oppressors and the oppressed.

This week I invite you to check in with your own intentions before, during and after, thinking, speaking and acting. Ask the questions, “What is my true intention? How is my heart? Is compassion and understanding present?” Once we know that we have a choice of the root of our thoughts, speech, and acts, we can choose to cultivate only the beautiful blooms that grow from a wide-open loving heart.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

References:

Thanissaro, B., trans. (2010). Kodhana Sutta: An Angry Person (AN 7.60). Access to Insight: BCBS Edition. Retrieved from: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an07/an07.060.than.html .

Rothberg, D., (2006). The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World. Boston, Ma: Beacon Press.

2 comments on What’s the Deal With Anger?
The Remedy for Doubt

April 3, 2018

Basic Goodness, Buddhism, Enlightenment, Gratitude, Happiness, Healing Ourselves, joy, The Five Hindrances, Thich Nhat Hanh, Uncategorized

Buddhas among the daffodils, BlueCliff Monastery. Photo by Celia

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

“The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.”

~ H.H the Dalai Lama

“Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.”

~Pablo Casals

Dear Friends,

Wishing you lots of joy this Passover and Easter season. This is the time of year when many of us, especially in New England after a long winter, feel the effects of worldly joy, the sun on the skin and the warm air. We see the flowers grow and bloom. Bees get busy and all the birds agree that it’s time to start serious real estate inquiries for the future. Spring can be a time of great rejoicing, but it can also be a time of doubt, both personal and societal.

In spring it may appear that the whole natural world is moving forward, while we are still here, treading water with the same amount of delusion and obstacles we had last year. We may come up short in our assessment of where we want to be spiritually, professionally, and personally. Our government may have us doubting its commitment to bettering the world as we watch our administration veering into the dangerous territory of reactive and punitive legislation and creating a country that cannot sustain itself peaceably.

There is benefit to doubt. It helps us get unstuck and look at what we doing objectively. It allows us to question our means and methodology and check in with the course we are setting for ourselves. This is a healthy constructive doubt. The doubt that the Buddha speaks about is the doubt that leads to confusion and immobility. It can convince us that nothing will get better and lead us to abandon the path out of despair.

For many of us, inclining the mind to what is wrong through comparing and projecting actions and results into the future can fuel our doubt. Doubt is one of the five hindrances that obscure the mind from progressing towards enlightenment. These five are the desire for sense pleasure, aversion or anger, sloth and sleepiness, restlessness and agitation, and doubt. Doubt is one of the stickiest.

The Buddha describes doubt as a “bowl of water that is turbid, unsettled, muddy, placed in the dark. If a man with good sight were to examine his own facial reflection in it, he would neither know nor see it as it really is. So too, brahmin, when one dwells with a mind obsessed and oppressed by doubt, and one does not understand as it really is the escape from arisen doubt, on that occasion one neither knows or sees as it really is one’s own good, or the good of others, or the good of both” (Aṅguttara Nikāya, V 193, Bhodi trans.) The remedy offered by the Buddha to escape from the oppression of doubt that has arisen and doubt that lays in wait is to use clear seeing and to know the goodness of one’s actions and of the goodness and kindness of others. This is the way to remove doubt about our progress and the fear and doubt of others.

We see this recollection and belief in one’s goodness in the enlightenment story of the Buddha. According to Buddhist tradition, when the Buddha was an unenlightened Bodhisattva, and close to enlightenment, he sat beneath a Bhodi tree and vowed to stay in meditation until he achieved liberation. As he sat, he was tested by the embodiment of sensual desire and evil, the god Mara who wants to keep people trapped in rebirth and delusion. Mara sent his terrifying armies to the Buddha to frighten him while the Buddha sat. Unable to upset the Buddha to be, Mara sent his three beautiful daughters to tempt the Buddha into abandoning his quest, but the Buddha was not swayed. In a final push to keep the Buddha from finding the way out of rebirth and suffering, Mara threw the final dart of doubt and claimed the seat of enlightenment for himself, saying his spiritual achievements exceeded the Buddha. But the Buddha sat and reached out his hand and touched the earth with his fingertips, calling upon the Earth herself to witness to his goodness and his spiritual achievements. In this remarkable moment, the Buddha relied upon the wisdom and witness of this earth and the continuum of his goodness in his past. He understood the interdependent life he shared with and through the earth and calling upon the accrued wealth of kindness shown to those who dwell on the earth and to the earth herself was the last task for the Buddha. This brought his clear seeing and freedom.

We all are gifted with Buddha nature, the promise of clear seeing and the ability to wake up. Whether we believe it or not, we all have a luminous mind and purity of heart. This week, I invite you to spend time reflecting on your goodness. Settling into attending to the breath and body, bring to mind your deepest aspirations and intentions. How have you lived these beautiful qualities in the world? Maybe you looked with understanding eyes upon a co-worker who was caught in frustration, gave financial support to someone in need, noticed and spoke to a homeless person who is commonly treated as less than human, or spoke out against injustice raising your voice for those who aren’t heard.

Allowing ourselves to witness to our goodness in the past and commit to practicing our intentional life in the present can dispel the doubt and inertia we all encounter when we don’t see the fruit of our practice. This week, let yourself be touched by your own kindness and rest in the refuge of your care and compassion. We can stop looking for beauty outside of ourselves and return home to claim our birthright, an awakened heart.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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Training the Grateful Heart

November 19, 2017

Advice, Basic Goodness, Gratitude, Happiness, Inner Peace, joy, love, Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh, Uncategorized

Isley, Scotland, Sunset. photo by Barbara Richardson

“It’s a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.”

~ Germany Kent

Waking up this morning I smile

knowing there are 24 brand new hours before me.

I vow to live fully in each moment,

and look at beings with eyes of compassion.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Morning Gatha

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

~ A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.”

~ Meister Eckhart

Years ago, I was relieved to read that humans have a biological inclination towards pessimism. That meant I wasn’t the only one. The perpetually cheerful people I knew were like a different species, not of my tribe. How did they wake up smiling each day and just be so dang cheerful all the time? Why couldn’t they take a vacation from enthusiasm and be depressed and negative for a few days? Not everything is so great. I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to put a pin in their bubble of happiness because it was so annoying.

I have learned much about gratitude and happiness. For most of us, it isn’t a natural trait. It’s a state we work to create. That’s right, we work on gratitude. Cultivate is another way to say we train, we prepare, we pay attention to, we expend effort to bring gratitude into our lives. For most of us, due to our heritage, our conditioning, our exposure to the media, and the innate propensity to track what can harm us, we focus on what’s wrong.

When we watch elite athletes, artists, or musicians, we get the idea that they are gifted. They came out of the womb super talented. What we don’t always see is the years of training and cultivation that is beneath what looks effortless. It is the same with any skill. Gratitude is a skill we can develop and not just for Thanksgiving. Gratitude is a shift in awareness. It is letting go of the deadly habits of judgment, comparing, and holding on. Gratitude opens us up to noticing what is alive in us and around us. What is going right for you today?

A few years ago, I was speaking to dharma teacher, Joanne Friday. She remarked that she was always amazed how smoothly the traffic ran, even with tie-ups and delays. She focused on all the millions of journeys that happened without accident, delay, or problems. How many people navigate roadways safely every day? We all tend to focus on the frustrating, the obstacles and getting rid of what’s in our way.

There’s a beautiful reminder of what we are given from Benedictine monk, Brother David Seindl-Rast. It’s a five-and-a-half-minute video on gratefulness, well worth the time. When we spend time bringing our attention to what is good in our lives, we change our minds. In Buddharakkhita’s translation of The Dhammapada, the second stanza reads, “Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.” Several thousands of years later, we have fMRI’s that show us where we spend our time, creates neural connectivity. The brain is amazingly plastic, and we can actively create connection and synchronicity in our thinking. If we spend our time thinking about all that is wrong, all that we don’t have, we feel resentful and poor. When we spend our time appreciating what we do possess, we are suddenly rich and blessed. This shows us that our happiness and contentment is a choice. Making this choice part of our lives requires diligence and attention. We can shift from a life of lack to one of abundance if we commit to this training.

Luckily, increasing gratitude activates the reward network in our brain. This leads to increased neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, and the generation of oxytocin, the hormone that signifies the presence of love. We feel an increased experience of well-being or happiness. Gratitude actually makes us feel better. We can think of this gratitude practice as an outward and inward gift. Sharing our appreciations and gratitude brings happiness to others and shifts our own neural path towards happiness. As we head into Thanksgiving here is the US, I send my gratitude for all of you for your kindness and practice, for your wise and compassionate hearts. Please know how wonderful it is to be in this world with you.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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Imagine you, but Better

October 29, 2017

Basic Goodness, fearlessness, Happiness, Thich Nhat Hanh, Uncategorized

Tuba players. Dumfries, Scotland. Photo by Barbara Richardson

“We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.” ~Pema Chödrön

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”

~William Blake

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.”

~Mark Twain

Dear Friends,

I remember back when I was in junior high. It was in seventh grade when I saw a ninth-grade boy in his Converse high-top sneakers and army jacket, maybe he even had razor stubble and I thought to myself, how will I ever be that old? And then I had the thought that maybe one day I’d drive a car, but no, that was inconceivable. Perhaps that’s why I waited until I was in college before I tried it.

There’s an element of imagination and visualization in all change and transformation. We can’t imagine ourselves as babies, dependent and helpless, but we all came through that stage of life. In Buddhism, we spend time thinking about change and especially about transformation. This is essential for all human beings who want to live and die with grace and peace. If we don’t recognize and accept our ceaselessly changing bodies and life situations, we create suffering for ourselves and others. We see this is our elders who are taken by surprise, or angered by the effects of aging and react with fear and disbelief when they realize the experience of death also applies to them individually. Whatever you call it, resistance, unwillingness, or just inability to perceive these shifts, that lack of imagination can get us stuck.

The Buddha told Venerable Ananda in the Uppaddha Sutta, that good spiritual friends are the whole of the path. These are the people in our lives who show us what the qualities of kindness, generosity, and compassion look like so we can imagine and enact them. Acknowledging an example of wisdom, restraint, or generosity is a way to shift these qualities from lofty aspirations to everyday events. This is demonstrated by the Dhammapada verse, “Mind is the forerunner of (all good) states. Mind is chief; mind-made are they. If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, because of that, happiness follows one, even as one’s shadow that never leaves” (Narada Thera, trans., 1993, p. 5). This means that what I think and believe about myself, the quality of character I inhabit does make a difference to my own happiness and to the happiness of others. The willingness to see ourselves as capable and deeply connected to the strength of our ancestral stream can give us solidity and inspire us to become what we value.

Imagining ourselves living in accordance with our highest principles does not mean we will become narcissists, believing we are perfect faultless beings. Wondering if we are becoming vain and full of spiritual pride is a great indicator that we have some self-reference and aren’t floating in the superiority conceit. Believing and visualizing our goodness can offer us connection and release us from the egoic desire to be better than and actually save us from the no-win struggle of less than, greater than, or equal to. If I believe I possess goodness, I don’t need to convince the world and be combative. I will be able to see how to live beautifully, with courage, humility, and compassion for all beings. I invite you to imagine what your life would look like if you arrived at your own goodness, no need to strive. It’s already in you.

What would your day look like today if you saw yourself as complete? How would your life be different if you were free from judgment and worry? Can you imagine your pure mind where happiness follows you like a faithful shadow? This week I invite you to spend some time getting to know the body/mind/heart of your highest self. See what happens when you wake up and recognize your true nature, your own capacity for holiness.

May we all trust our light,

Celia

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