Remaining present...

and intimate with the moment.

American Tibetan Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chödrön gives us two beautiful Buddhist concepts:

Maitri
and
Ye tang che

She says it is imperative to master these two concepts.

What is Maitri?

Maitri is the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness towards oneself. It is how we deal with what happens to us. In Maitri, we do not try to solve a problem. We do not strive to make pain go away. We do not work on becoming a better person. In Maitri, we give up control.  When we realize and internalize the fact that whatever occurs is neither the beginning nor the end, and that our experiences are what everyone goes through, and what everyone has been going through since the beginning of time, we reach the state of Maitri. Thoughts, emotions, moods, memories come and go but the basic NOW remains here and now always. In fact, in Maitri we let go of all those concepts and ideals into which we are busy trying to jam and fit ourselves.

What is ye tang che (a Tibetan expression)?

Ye means totally, completely
Tang che means exhausted, tired out

Thus, ye tang che describes an experience of completely giving up hope - hope as in longing, ambition, anticipation, expectation: there's somewhere better to be, there's someone better to be, there's something better to do, there's somewhere better to go to.....This is the beginning of the beginning. It is only when we completely give up this kind of hoping that we will be able to relax with where we are and who we are...

Conditions don't have to be perfect...

for us to give of our very best...for us to give all that we are capable of.


I came upon this plant quite by chance, and it captured my heart. Had to share...

This pretty flowering plant (I don't know the name of it) is not blaming anyone for the condition it finds itself in - no flower pot, old soil which the roots have encircled so as to hold it in tightly, not a very pleasant place to grow in since the yard is not cared for. No one waters the plant or cares for it. And it cannot take care of itself. Yet, it did not give up hope. When Nature gave it the conditions it needed, the plant grew, stretched out and spread its branches, and at the right time burst into bloom...pretty, lavender-coloured flowers. Small, they seem to float above a bed of leaves. Just beautiful!

No one would ever see the plant unless one made the effort to look out of the window and specifically 'see' it. We usually look around without really seeing anything....and this very ordinary plant in this dreadful condition, in a sad-looking yard would be the last thing on anyone's minds... And yet there it stood in all its natural glory and beauty...

Truly, we don't need perfect conditions to give of ourselves. If we tune in to Nature, we will see that where we are is where Nature meant for us to be. Nature provides all the conditions we need in the place where we are. We don't need to blame fate for where she has placed us. We don't need to crib at life for having given us a raw deal. We don't need anyone to arrange things for us so that we can do our work, nor do we need anything to make our space 'conducive to productivity'. We don't need a lot of money and care to spread love, kindness, and goodwill. We don't have to have a perfect face and body to smile at the people we see, even if they are strangers. We don't need the right conditions to be courteous and polite. We don't need to rush around trying to fix things so that we are in a comfortable place. We need to be still, and do what we are meant to do in the most beautiful way, in the place where we are...

Getting trapped...

The worst kind of trap is our mind. Not only do bad things create a trap in our mind, but the good things do too.

When sad or bad or unfortunate things get trapped in our mind, we find ourselves on a Ferris Wheel of crazy behaviour. We do all the things that only push us further and further into the quicksand of misfortune. Our actions and words land us in one disaster after another. When our mind gets trapped in sad or bad or unfortunate things, it seems to take on a life of its own and starts working in a frenzied manner. The result, we find that we have pushed ourselves far, far down in a chasm of despair. We become desperate and finally realize that unless we free ourselves from this mind trap, all is lost.

It is the same with materially good things. These too create a trap in our mind. The result is that we become greedy for the 'good things in life', so greedy in fact, that we may not realize what we are doing and thus end up doing something quite unfortunate. We become blind to rules and behaviour, blind to our values, blind to everything other than the drive to get what we want. We become desperate because we have to have this, that or the other. Finally, something - and this is usually something quite drastic - happens to bring us back to our senses and we see the folly of what we had allowed ourselves to do and become.

We need to go back to the Zen practice of being still. Be still till the turbulence in the mind eases off and clear thought and reason come back...

A very strange thing happened...

yesterday. I was witness to an unhappy scene. At the gym, one elderly, not at all fit, and rather opinionated man said something quite, quite personal and unjustifiably unkind to a girl, young enough to be his daughter. I was in the room with her - we were doing weights. I couldn't understand the language, but I understood from the tone that he was saying something not good, and this girl's reaction proved that. She gave him a piece of her mind. (I heard the conversation, quite aggressive in tone, going on in the main hall). I felt helpless I could not go and take this girl's side, because of the language issue. However, when the fool went off, and the girl came back to resume her weights, I asked her what had happened. Of course then I put in all at my command to help her wipe the incident off her mind.

These kind of unjustified things hurt. Hurt badly. And it is only human to react. The trouble is that when we do react to something unfair and hurtful, it does not leave us with a feeling of peace. There is always a vestige of bitterness that remains in the mind. And it takes time for this horrible feeling to pass.

Strangely, last night when I checked my phone for one last time before turning in, to my great surprise, I got this message from a colleague:

I felt as if the concentration to deal with this through the day (I was intent on getting this young girl back to her usual self), had, in fact, brought this message to me. I can think of no other explanation.

Neither good and bad situations nor good and bad interactions with people will have any power over us unless we go on thinking about them and so allow them to have power over us. Nay, indeed, we give them power over us. We cede the space in our heart and fill it with the thoughts that this power generates.

By investing bad interactions or bad situations with power, we let them take away from our self-esteem and self-worth. We need to be vigilant about this, and careful not to let this happen. Likewise, by investing good interactions or good situations with power, we must guard ourselves against becoming proud and arrogant...

Little things...

matter.

It's the small nod of the head - an acknowledgement of the person who cleans the stairway of our apartment building...

It's the cheery greeting to a stranger we see on the same sidewalk...

It's a smile to a person who obviously is not having a good day...

It's picking up a scrap of paper that has been carelessly thrown on the pavement...

It's doing something that noone sees, or acknowledges, or thanks us for, or recognizes, that make the difference.

Likewise,

It is the little things that give us away.

Sometimes we shoot our mouths off about something, but then, right afterwards we give the lie to what we just said...

We do something that we have shouted from the rooftops as being the wrong thing to do...

We are horrible to someone when just before that we have been talking about how we should respect all people...

We snipe at someone who is not in the room, after we have been righteously telling people we should not talk behind anyone's back...

We do the exact opposite of something that we take great pains to impress on people as being something we don't believe in...

We have to be aware of ourselves....of what we say and do and are...We need to strive to be real...always, just be real. Then, when we fall short, we can fix what is lacking in us...Being something we are, in our essence, not, will only complicate things for us. Better to grow into the things we admire and respect, and want to be, but are still not...

Communication...

is the greatest gift man has. It is an ancient human gift.

Ursula K. Le Guin says: Every act of communication is an act of tremendous courage in which we give ourselves over to two parallel possibilities:

the possibility of planting into another mind a seed sprouted in ours and watching it blossom into a breathtaking flower of mutual understanding.

And

the possibility of being wholly misunderstood, reduced to a withering weed.

We may try to be as clear as possible, choose the right words, put what we are saying in a context, use the right tone of voice, even, and yet there is always that niggling thought at the back of our mind of whether we have been able to convey what we wanted. There is that bit of uncertainty, no matter how small that bit is. We wonder if we have been able to communicate what we actually want to say. We have all been in situations where our enthusiasm has met with a cold, frosty look. We have been in circumstances where we are conveying some good news only to be looked at with skepticism. We have been in situations when an innocent remark has drawn blood. There have been occasions when an off-the-cuff statement has got a scathing response.

And yet, we want to talk....we want to communicate, because, there have been times when we have had pleasant conversations, meaningful dialogues and happy chatting.

Human communication is more than just information giving. In talking with each other, we actually share a part of ourselves.

In our humanness we want - crave - communication precisely because it is a giving and receiving of our self with another self. However, we also need to be careful we don't hurt another person, because our wounded hearts and bruised sensibilities may get scarred badly by wrongly chosen words. Our communication should not be such that we are unaware of everyone and everything but our own intense need to communicate. And, most of all, we must never try to confuse a person with our communication.

Buddha says we should talk only if we can improve the silence. This may take time for us to achieve, meanwhile we need to be conscious that communication is a communion of souls...

We all go through times...

which we know are not going to end well. We make friends who we know deep inside our heart are not good for us. We plan things that we know are not going to work out. Sadly, these are all conscious decisions that we make and strangely, even as we make them we know they are wrong for us. But something drives us on to take these decisions. Having taken these decisions, very few of us backtrack on them for some vague reason or other, or have the guts to tell ourselves this was a wrong decision and we need to opt out before it's too late. Wrong decisions have only one outcome - they leave us with a bad taste in the mouth, a deep sense of loneliness and a terrible feeling of shame.

What we need to do first is to tell ourselves we're human and this was one of those unfortunate times...We have to release the shame that goes with the wrong turn that happened on our road. We need to tell ourselves that well, this is a mess in which we find ourselves, but we will see ourselves through the mess. We have to do this for ourselves, because we are our only best friend. Some people may be lucky to have a good pal hold their hand through the mess, but many of us don't have pals we can trust. So, it is necessary to tell ourselves - okay, too bad, but we can ride this through....we can get through this.... and with time, we are sure to......we are able to find the strength to get out of the mess we landed ourselves in.

We all have dark parts in our selves. We have parts in us that cry out for love. We have parts in us that want to be accepted by people around us. There are parts of us that want to fix everyone's problems. There are parts of us that want to be in control. There are parts of us that want to establish our place in the sun. We have parts that are always looking for approval from everyone. There are parts of us that are trying to impress people....and so it goes...

We have to acknowledge these dark parts. There are times when these dark parts try and derail us. They get the upper hand when we are weak and vulnerable. They creep up on us and before we know it, we're in their clutches. But it's okay. We don't need to trash ourselves for this. We don't need to think it is the end of the road for us. We don't need to give up on ourselves or on life. We need to stop, get a grip, and then peel away that dark layer and slowly get to the core of us which is beautiful. We will need to do that with each dark layer that appears. The question is not 'How many more layers?'....but.....'Wow! I beat that'... Once we get the hurdle of 'Why me?' out of our mind, we are sure to enjoy peeling away the dark layers.

Life, my friends, is the journey...

3 Gs...

of life.

Gracefulness--How we comport ourselves...there has to be elegance, refinement, and dignity in all that we do...every movement of ours. We need to work towards having an easy, flowing personality...

Graciousness--How we speak, how we act towards others, and, indeed, even our attitude to ourselves. Graciousness implies politeness, good manners, good taste, civility (tact and propriety) in our talk and behaviour, courteousness at all times, and well-mannered and respectful, no matter what the occasion, or situation, or who we are talking with. Graciousness has to be the hallmark of all our dealings too, even if they are fraught with unpleasantness. A generosity of spirit is a deep element of graciousness...

Gratefulness--Appreciative of and thankful for gifts or favors received. Warm and deeply appreciative, too, of kindnesses or benefits received. A smile and thank you to God and man goes a long, long way in making us beautiful...

Silence...

'is so powerful. Silence can be so loving. It takes a Warrior to be silent.'

Charles Alexander Eastman, OHIYESA SANTEE SIOUX goes on to say: "Silence is the cornerstone of character."  
     

When do we need to be silent?

When we hurt - either because someone has hurt us, or we have done something to bring us hurt, or, we experience a surge of feeling we are not proud of, such as anger, hatefulness. Instead of reacting or responding, what we need to do is this:

Sit tight. Sit quietly. Step back from the issue that brought this disturbance about. Breathe as slowly as we can.

While sitting quiet, acknowledge the hurt WITHOUT damning ourselves - “I am deeply hurt and it is okay to feel the way that I do.” "I am angry and it is okay to feel the way I do." "I am hating this, and it is okay to feel the way I do." If someone has unthinkingly and possibly unknowingly, but definitely unfairly, been judgmental, we could say--"Even if he/she has judged me, I don’t have to judge myself.” "What they say reflects on them not on me."

Thus, let the moment pass.

Two things happen:

1. We find that our heart beat has slowed and become stable. What has actually happened is that in forgiving ourself and being kind to ourself, the strong negative waves have ceased. We may even be able to extend forgiveness and kindness to others, especially to those who are the cause of us getting into a 'down state'.

2. The anxious, worrying, harsh thoughts that our monkey mind threw up are pushed away and we are distanced from them... We have been able to create a space around our core.

Another time silence helps is when we don't bring ourselves into a conversation. This actually does wonders for us - our inner selves. For instance, the person you are talking with is telling you about an incident. You had the same experience and maybe it ended well, or it ended badly. The natural instinct would be for you to narrate your experience. DON'T. Initially I found it difficult - very difficult - not to 'participate', but gradually I'm realizing that in fact, it is better not to talk about our own experiences and the way we reacted/responded to them (this would only set off its own fallouts)...........Best is that I've started feeling more composed, more calm and more at peace...

Try it. It works!! For, once those difficult moments pass, there is no negative or unsettling feeling lingering and spoiling the moments that are yet to come...

We HAVE to remember that...

Busy is a decision.

And,

Presence is more rewarding than productivity.


Busy is a decision we take, unconsciously most of the time. If we just stop a moment and think about this decision, honestly, we will realize that we are just trying to distract ourselves from living - living every moment. Doesn't matter if the moment is a happy one or a sad one, a good one or a bad one. A moment is one moment in the time line of our life and we need to accept this truth. We cannot have only the good - for it is the bad that shows us what the good is; it is the sad that highlights the happy.... If we remove the words 'I'm busy' from our vocabulary and lives, then we will not just skim life, or coast through it. We will live life. We will not mechanically fulfil our obligations. We will enjoy doing what we have to do. And we will not just DO the day, we will BE present in every moment of the day.

Likewise, being productive because we have to do something only lulls us into a trance. We passively go through all the motions of the day while our heart and mind and, indeed, our very being is somewhere else...or nowhere at all... We need to be PRESENT in every moment. We need to be conscious of our every action. We need to be actually in what we are doing. We need to be tuned in to every thought and every moment. We may see that we are 'producing' less, but in fact, what we are 'producing' will not only be of better quality, but we would feel good about ourselves while doing what we do. And, we will BE present in every moment.

Thus, instead of just going through every day, we will LIVE every moment of every day. We will BE PRESENT in the moment and in tune with our inner selves.