The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We explored ways of finding ease while caring for those in our web of being.  Our calm and caring presence can be a source of healing.  It begins by finding the still point in our thoughts words and deeds.  In stillness we can surrender our doing to the experience of being.  In the ease of being we can offer loving awareness and caring presence.

We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s  book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. Oren writes about finding ease by appreciating the moments in which “there is nothing special you need to do, fix, accomplish, get or have.” He encourages to take time to be still even in the midst of serving others.  Our calm presence can be the beginning of healing.

We heard Julia Fehrenbacher’s poem, The Most Important Thing.  Julia’s writing reflects her intention to “. . . be as present, as here as possible . . .  This being here is a constant practice, a practice that begins, and begins again, in each and every moment. And it is everything. Everything real and true is here – never there, never yesterday, never tomorrow. This is something I forget, and sometimes remember, every single day.”

We heard Matty Weingast’s poem Grandma Sumana. This poem is from Matty’s book, The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns, a reimagining of the Therīgāthā.  This poem is about a life of “looking after others” and warming in a blanket of every loving kindness offered along the way.

Guided Reflection

Last week we reflected on how loving kindness can manifest in caring action.  Hearing the call to care is one of our most precious capacities.  And sometimes that call is all one hears.  Many of us are serving as caregivers.  We care for those who are dear to us.  We care for those for whom we feel compassion.  We care for ourselves.  In an ideal world we manage to care in a balanced way.  In our real world this is often difficult.  It can be hard find the restorative ease we need to maintain our own well being.  Oren points to this in his writing about ease:

Instead of being born into the warm, familial comfort of a close knit community, we find ourselves in a disorienting and strained world that’s beset by conflict .  . . finding ease depends on feeling safe enough externally and internally to slow down.  . . . we don’t unwind by placing more demands on ourselves.  

How do we unwind when we feel the needs of those we care for so urgently?  How do we feel safe when we are beset with uncertainty and worry?  How can we find ease when our minds are so quick to judge? 

I recognize how my own mind can be a source of torment.  I wake up with worry. Worry over people and things I can’t control.  Worry about how I may have failed people.  Existential worry over how I will experience age, sickness and death.  In writing this, the sense of “I” is getting heavier, darker, demanding, even suffocating.  This “I” has forgotten they are an animal:  an animal whose mind can both ease and torment.  An animal who is inextricably interdependent with humans and more than humans.  

Oren reminds us that

Ease is not only about feeling calm but also about moving through the ups and downs of life without getting rattled.  . . . you can cultivate calm in the very midst of activity.  . . . Calmness supports skillful action, which itself offers an antidote to anxiety and a catalyst for ease. . . . Our clarity and calmness can assure others.  . . . Knowing that we are doing something can bring us a measure of ease – and begin to heal the wounds of the world.

We can trust that our calm assuring presence can begin healing.  Oren believes that meditation can help

. . .  to find ease by noticing any moment when your body relaxes or settles even the smallest bit.  . . . Pause.  Take a breath.  Appreciate being satiated.  You are an animal:  notice how it feels to be at ease in your body.  

As  in Julia Fehrenbacher’s poem, The Most Important Thing:

I am making a home inside myself. A shelter
of kindness where everything
is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch
of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,
where all that has been banished
and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released.

A fiercely friendly place I can claim as my very own.

I am throwing arms open
to the whole of myself—especially the fearful,
fault-finding, falling apart, unfinished parts, knowing
every seed and weed, every drop
of rain, has made the soil richer.

I will light a candle, pour a hot cup of tea, gather
around the warmth of my own blazing fire. I will howl
if I want to, knowing this flame can burn through
any perceived problem, any prescribed perfectionism,
any lying limitation, every heavy thing.

I am making a home inside myself
where grace blooms in grand and glorious
abundance, a shelter of kindness that grows
all the truest things.

I whisper hallelujah to the friendly
sky. Watch now as I burst into blossom.

I am reminded how everyone is deserving of compassion, a shelter of kindness, forgiveness.  Everyone deserves to be welcomed, spoken to and free.  

We are animal beings worthy of care and ease.  I invite you to find a place of ease, rest and support.    When you’re ready, begin to experience coming into stillness. Allow stillness to hold the subtlest movements of your body.  Settle.  

Notice what draws your attention:  sensations of weight, pressure, temperature, tension, relaxation. Be aware of how awareness moves and rests with these experiences. Notice how a responsive impulse may arise to care for yourself: adjusting, shifting, finding a blanket or pillow. Welcome ease and awareness. You might become aware of how your life is sustained moment to moment. You are living and aware.

As awareness rests with the body you can explore a sense of steadiness. Steadiness abides with breath, change, sensation, thought or emotion. Sense the nature of this abiding steadiness, the inner presence that is experiencing. If you find this inner focus to be discomforting you are free to change.  You are free to respond with self-care. You might place on hand on your chest and the other on your belly. See if you can relax and feel your body’s warmth. You could shift awareness to an outer focus – opening your eyes, letting them rest on a soothing object, a candle, a flower, a pet.

What is your experience of caring presence and responsiveness? As we practice caring presence we grow trust in ourselves. You can give yourself permission to find refuge.  Find what’s needed at any given moment. A refuge of healing or solace, a place of rest.  A place of self-compassion. 

Poet and writer Matty Weingast writes about caring presence and our humanness. His words are inspired by the Therīgāthā—a collection of 73 poems by the first Buddhist nuns—(The poems date from a three hundred year period, with some dated as early as the late 6th century BCE.) This one is called Grandma Sumana:

After
all those years looking after others,
this old heart
has finally
learned
 to look
 after itself.
Each act of kindness
a stitch
in this warm blanket that now covers me
 while I sleep.

I invite you to take refuge under the warm blanket you’ve stitched with each act of loving kindness.  Feel your body resting on Earth’s body. Become aware of how breathing sustains you. Earth. Breath. Making life possible. Can you sense the subtle energy inside your body, around your body? Can you open awareness to the greater Presence of which you are a part? I invite you to consider the refuge it offers. It is so close. It is within and around you at all times.

The word refuge means “place of shelter.” It is possible to find shelter – a place of calm, safety, belonging.  It might be an inner place of peace you can find in times of feeling overwhelmed, lost or in conflict. The Sufi poet Kabir speaks of Presence as “the breath inside the breath.” I invite you to practice caring presence as a way of finding and taking refuge. In this practice we are making a home inside, a shelter of kindness. 

I am making a home inside myself. A shelter
of kindness where everything
is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch
of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,
where all that has been banished
and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released.

May all beings know compassion.  May all beings be safe and sheltered.  May all beings have a shelter of kindness.  May all beings be welcomed, spoken to, listened to and free.