MIndful in the midst of a raging fury

One of the most difficult things to learn is that mindfulness is not dependent on any emotional or mental state. We have certain images of meditation. Meditation is something done in quiet caves by tranquil people who move slowly. Those are training conditions. They are set up to foster concentration and to learn the skill of mindfulness. Once you have learned that skill, however, you can dispense with the training restrictions, and you should. You don’t need to move at a snail’s pace to be mindful. You don’t even need to be calm. You can be mindful while solving problems in intensive calculus. You can be mindful in the middle of a football scrimmage. You can be mindful in the midst of a raging fury. Mental and physical activities are no bar to mindfulness. If you find your mind extremely active, then simply observe the nature and degree of that activity. It is just a part of the passing show within.

–Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Sponsored by www.vaness.ws

People we’d rather avoid

Metta (lovingkindness) is to be extended towards all beings and all manifestations, yet most of our difficulties lie with people. It is much easier to love birds, dogs, cats, and trees than it is to love people. Trees and animals don’t answer back, but people do, so this is where our training commences. . . . Sometimes people find they don’t feel anything while practicing metta meditation. That is nothing to worry about; thoughts aimed often enough in the right direction eventually produce the feelings. All our sense contacts produce feelings. Thoughts are the sixth sense, and even if we are only thinking metta, eventually the feeling will arise. It is one means of helping us to gain this heart quality, but certainly not the only one.

In our daily activities all of us are confronted with other people and often with those whom we would rather avoid. These are our challenges, lessons and tests. If we consider them in that manner we won’t be so irritated by these experiences. . . . When we realize that such a confrontation is exactly what we need at that moment in order to overcome resistance and negativity and substitute metta for those emotions, then we will be grateful for the opportunity.

–Ayya Khema, in When the Iron Eagle Flies
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Sponsored by www.vaness.ws

The Peaceful Sage

Let not a person revive the pastOr on the future build his hopes;For the past has been left behindAnd the future has not been reached.Instead with insight let him seeEach presently arisen state;Let him know that and be sure of it,Invincibly, unshakeably.Today the effort must be made;Tomorrow Death may come, who knows?No bargain with MortalityCan keep him and his hordes away.But one who dwells thus ardently,Relentlessly, by day, by night It is he, the Peaceful Sage has said,Who has one fortunate attachment.–Lomasakangiyabhaddekaratta Sutta, in The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, trans. By Bhikkhu Bodhifrom Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book Sponsored by www.vaness.ws, www.vagel.wordpress.com, www.inspiredmen.wordpress.com, www.inspiredwomen.wordpress.com, www.inspiredworld.wordpress.com, www.inspiredhealthy.wordpress.com, www.inspiredwallet.wordpress.com