Mary will facilitate this week.
Following on Marie’s beautiful thread from last week, I would like to share my personal practice of sitting — a practice that helps me to “build a home inside yourself to love and heal yourself”. During dharma sharing I will invite you to reflect and share your own experiences. Why do you sit?
I sit because it makes me happier. I sit alone to enjoy the calm. I sit with others to enjoy the peace and rest of connecting with others in silence without needing to engage in conversation.
I also sit to create new neural pathways, new more skillful ways to act and react to old stimuli in order to decrease the suffering I cause to myself and others. Modern neuroscience has helped elucidate the brain’s process to do this challenging work. Consistent repetition of new learned behaviors appears to be key. Thich Nhat Hahn (Thay/teacher in Vietnamese) teaches the time-honored way to do this using a metaphor of ‘watering seeds’ in our store consciousness/subconscious. By watering the positive seeds within ourselves and others, these seeds or tendencies will grow and thrive. By refraining to water the less helpful seeds in ourselves and others, they will wither from lack of nourishment and fall away.
Sitting meditation practice contributes so much to my overall sense of contentment and satisfaction with life despite all the suffering that exists. On some days, I use analytical meditation approaches. Sitting in quiet stillness provides the place for me to look deeply at the not-so-skillful things I have done or words that I regret having said as well as the suffering it has brought to me and others. Sitting provides a safe container to look beneath the surface to the deeper roots of what may have been going on within me and the other person. With this new understanding or insight, compassion for myself and others arises. Only then can I let the story line go and begin the process to forgive myself and others and ask for their forgiveness.
As Thay has said over and over, true love is composed of understanding and compassion. Understanding arises out of deep listening to oneself and others. Compassion flows out of this understanding. Without understanding and compassion, there can not be true love…for oneself nor for others.
Emphasizing Thay’s words from How to Love which Marie shared last week:
...You can’t offer happiness until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside by accepting yourself and learning to love and heal yourself. Learn how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment. Then you have something to offer the other person…
I find that sitting in the early morning lets the Universe provide her support. Dropping into meditation is easier for me at this time due to the vast stillness. In this quiet space, I am on my own little island, sitting on my cushion, with only me and my mind at play. Any unremembered dreams along with my internal mud get a chance to settle down and bring me clarity to set my intentions for the day. If worries or concerns or plans try to barge in, I mentally note them and then remind them that this is my sacred time for other work and they will have to wait until later.
I have a room on the top floor of our home that looks out to the rising sun through some tall trees. There’s a low shelf in front of the windows filled with images and pictures of beloved teachers, family, and friends who have parted. I am reminded of all they have contributed to my life and who I am. This gives rise spontaneously to gratitude. They are in me and I am in them. We ‘Inter-Are’ as Thay teaches. There are also favorite stones I’ve collected from various special places in the world, reminding me of my deep connection to Mother Earth. Small candles provide the only light until the sun comes up.
I often start off sitting meditation sessions with a Metta/Loving Kindness meditation for myself and others needing support:
May I feel safe and protected.
May I be contented and satisfied.
May my body and mind support me to do what I need to do.
May my path unfold with ease, full of joy, understanding, and compassion.
May _name(s)_ feel safe and protected.
May she/he/they be contented and satisfied.
May her/his/their body and mind support them to do what they need to do.
May her/his/their path(s) unfold with ease, full of joy, understanding, and compassion.
Metta prepares me to sit. It focuses my mind and opens my heart.
Metta helps me to better understand and develop compassion for my own shortcomings. Sometimes these are habit energies that I have inherited from my ancestors, but often they are patterns of acting and reacting that I have developed over this lifetime. Metta also opens my heart to grow my understanding and compassion for those who contribute to my suffering. I sometimes forget to do metta for myself first and jump ahead to offer it to my children or spouse or others I know are suffering at that time. When I realize I have forgotten myself, I stop and go back to offer metta to myself. I know that I can’t really benefit others if I forget to care for myself.
I close with this short Buddhist prayer to dedicate benefits of my practice:
May all beings everywhere have happiness and the root causes of happiness
May they be liberated from suffering and the root causes of suffering
May they never be separated from the joy that is free from sorrow
May they rest in equanimity(balance), free from attachment(craving) and aversion(hatred).
I invite you to reflect on a few questions before we meet:
Why do you sit?
What practices do you most enjoy?
What helps you to open your heart to see others’ suffering and happiness as not separate from your own?
I look forward to being with you on Monday night!
Much love,
Mary