Silence

When you allow whatever arises to come into your mind, you see that all of it is impermanent. In that seeing, there is a letting go, and past the letting go is silence. A silent mind allows you to see impermanence even more clearly, which leads to more letting go, and in turn deeper penetration into silence. These two things feed each other, what I'm calling wisdom and what I'm calling silence. Each deepens the other.

It is true that on the threshold of silence we often experience fear. It is the ego that is afraid. In the panoramic attention required for choice-less awareness, the ego is not allowed to occupy center stage, where it thinks it belongs, and it begins to wonder what life will be like in silence, where it won't be present at all. This fear resembles the fear of death, because entering into silence is a temporary death for the ego. Naturally, it is afraid.

When this fear comes up, you shouldn't regard it as an obstacle or hindrance; it is just one more aspect of the noise. Your encounter with this fear is very valuable, and the skill called for is just to stay with it. In time, like every other phenomenon, it will pass away. When it does, all that will be left is silence.

—Larry Rosenberg, Breath by Breath

Happiness

Commentary by Rod McIver from Heron Dance:

There was an interesting radio program this past Monday on the radio show On Point on the subject of happiness. The guest was a scientist, Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at the University of Riverside and author of The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. Ms. Lyubomirsky has conducted extensive research on the subject of happiness. The happiest people, she said, are:
- more grateful- more forgiving- less likely to compare themselves with others- less likely to dwell on little things- more likely to live in the present moment- more likely to set goals and seek to meet them.

Fifty percent of what makes a person happy, she says, is genetic. This is based on research with twins who embark on very different paths in adulthood. Of the rest, about 10% is based on endowments: looks, brains, inherited wealth, romantic partner. The rest we can influence by how we think and live day to day.

Her biggest surprise in conducting this research was that adults with children are noticeably less happy, on average, than people without children. People who are highly motivated by material possessions are less likely to be happy. People who serve others are more likely to be happy if their life involves voluntary service. People who are forced into that role, for instance by having to be a primary caregiver to an incapacitated relative, tend not to be very happy.

I left Wall Street to find happiness, and it is a subject I’ve thought a fair amount about. The radio show led me to ask myself once again: When am I happiest? What immediately came to mind is walking in the woods and finding a quiet place inside.
We all need a touchstone, a place in the center of our lives that we can touch from time to time, hopefully daily. The still point. It doesn't have to be the woods. It can be listening to classical music in the dark, or The Who, Live at Leeds, played at high volume. It can be pottery. It can be running on the beach at night. It can be gardening. We need a place where we come into close contact with something deep, meaningful and something that embodies love. By making time for that, we express the view that we are important to ourselves, and probably also that there is something out there beyond words that is important, that plays an ongoing role in our lives, even if it cannot be put into words.

In celebration of the Great Mystery of Life!

Unity

In the ocean of being
There is only one.
There was and there will be
Only One.
You are already fulfilled.
How can you be bound or free?
Wherever you go,
Be happy.

-Ashtavakra Gita

The Swinging Door

Heart, then, is a direct presence that allows a complete attunement with reality. In this sense, it has nothing to do with sentimentality. Heart is the capacity to touch and be touched, to reach out and let in. Our language expresses this twofold activity of the heart, which is like a swinging door that opens in both directions. We say, "My heart went out to him," or "I took her into my heart." Like the physical organ with its systole and diastole, the heart-mind involves both receptive letting in, or letting be, and active going out to meet, or being with. In their different ways, both psychological and spiritual work remove the barriers to these two movement of the heart, like oiling the door so that it can open freely in both directions.
--John Welwood, Toward a Psychology of Awakening

Presence

Feel everything
Question everything
Resist nothing
Live like you're dying
Live like you're dreaming
Love like you're dancing
Widen your world

Raphael Cushner

Faith

If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.

-Mahatma Gandhi


Vision looks inward and becomes duty. Vision looks outward and becomes aspiration. Vision looks upward and becomes faith.

- Rabbi Stephen S. Wise

Expand

Feel everything
Question everything
Resist nothing
Live like you're dying
Live like you're dreaming
Love like you're dancing
Widen your world

Raphael Cushner

Truth

What is your truth? Ask your heart, your back, your bones, and your dreams. Listen to that truth with your whole body. Understand that this truth will destroy no one and that you’re too old to be sent to your room.

Move into your truth as though it were an old house. Walk through each room. See, hear, and feel what it is to live there. Try to love what you find, and remember the words that come to you as you explore.

If you embrace it, if you are faithful to it, your truth will reward you with unimaginable freedom and intimacy with yourself and others. You won’t land in a world made to order; some people in your life may not like what you write. But those who remain will be allies, people who breathe deeply and listen. It will feel good to be seen completely and loved as you are.

—John Lee from Writing from the Body