Buddhism – Contemplative Spirit

Buddhism, Healing, Meditation, Mindfulness

Brief Practice – Grateful Brain

September 25, 2021September 25, 2021 indigo bellz

The Covid Daze – I am so aware of the strains it has placed on myself and my world. I am a little short on joyous and grateful states of mind and short on enthusiasm. Apparently, this is a pretty common reaction from such an event and is actually a perfectly reasonable response to trauma. A malaise state. but I am feeling a little done with it personally.

Throughout these “times” I have continued to check in and sit with a group of Insight Meditators – on line. They have been my anchor point to return to practice again and again. “Just Begin Again” being my motto for 2021.

Sitting with Mission Dharma this week the teacher Howie Cohen shared his wife’s technique for gratefulness. She is using the phrase “I get to” instead of “I have to”. I get to go to work. I get to clean the house. Etc. I tried “I get to pay my taxes” and it brought the benefits I receive from the tax system to my mind!

It is an insightful short practice to interject into the day here and there. Reframing the lens the mind is viewing through. Creates the added benefit of giving a positive spin to something that needs to be done. I found it helpful with my “ Malaise”. Doing it with a compassion for self is even better. These have been strange days indeed.

–

🌎Peace

2020, Buddhism, Contemplation, Meditation, Mindfulness

On being – slowed

September 15, 2020September 25, 2021 indigo bellz

I lived for a time on a small island in the Salish Sea. I was so used to being in the “busy” city of Vancouver that I would get in my car and drive around the Island a few times just to do something. I’d take the ferry to the next Island and back just for a feeling of busy . I am doing the likes of that again. While trying hard to react and respond with sanity to first The Covid situation and now deep smoke from the disastrous fires along The West Coast of North America … some days working on projects in my little yard, townhouse and on my self, are just not enough. I get in my car and drive around the neighborhood for no good reason. I am in many ways – back on the Island

Apparently the neural pathways laid down in childhood stay there for life. My family were not sitting still folks. It was go go go. Lots of car trips, people, parties along with a good dose of parental relationship chaos sprinkled in. The family method to cope with any stressor was to kick into action. A favourite of my father’s was to throw the four kids into a car with The Wife and head down Interstate 5 to California for fun. Just Go was the motto.

I am grateful for much of what the current situation is teaching me but gawd it is not easy. The greatest gains seem to come from stillness and reflection and not action. A complete reversal of my life long strategy. At times I wonder if we are in a chapter of the Bible’s Revelations, experiencing the end of a Kalpa or if I myself will just be taken out by this virus. My mind can run amok pretty easily with it all. .,

I am grateful to the Teachers of Calm who put themselves on Apps like Insight Timer for so many to access. I am also deeply grateful to Sanghas like Insight Meditation Scottsdale.

🌸 Peace

Buddhism, Contemplation, Meditation, Mindfulness

Simultaneous Co-existence

March 2, 2019July 22, 2019 indigo bellz

I have come to believe that we are energetic beings existing here materially as we co-exist simultaneously – elsewhere. This belief formed via a meditation/vision where I caught a glimpse of myself as quite connected to a realm beyond. I had a sense of 80% of myself in the “elsewhere” with the rest filtering down a connecting cord into my body. The body – the ‘I’ was experiencing the material world and sharing it with The Elsewhere. As fast as I saw this – it disappeared. Just a glimpse, a moment’s insight.

The vision reminded me of the Chilean scientists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varella. I studied them during my thesis writing days. I perceived in their theories the notion that that mind is not located in the brain nor body. Mind connects through us in relation to others, perhaps – The Elsewhere. I reviewed their writings thinking that I could find a concise quote about their take on this to share here. It couldn’t be easily found and I realized that what I thought they had said was actually my personal synthesis and understanding of their very complex work. I have no doubt over simplified it. Still – something there resonated with my meditative insight. We are more than what our day to day conscious being is aware of. We are not in this alone.

I get to thinking that all Earth beings are looping here in the material world. Cycling our material bits about the constructs of the planet – like water does on earth. A cloud one day – dinosaur pee the next. “Ashes to ashes – dust to dust but Then I get a glimpse of myself coexisting in more than one dimension. A powerful spiritual moment that leads me to believe in the etherical cycle along with the material one.

PEACE 🌼