The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. Including everything in mindfulness draws us more intimately into the reality of our lives.  Touching uncertainty and vulnerability can open our hearts to our shared human condition.  We can develop the inner resources we can draw on and that we can offer others in times of difficulty.  Our embodied presence makes so much possible.  We can create the conditions for our inner truths and deeper wisdom to arise.

We practiced a guided meditation inspired by Oren Jay Sofer.  Oren is author of the Sounds True Audio course, Speak Your Truth With Love and Listen Deeply:  A Training in Mindfulness Based Nonviolent Communication.  I’ve studied with Oren for a number of years.  This course is a beautiful and thoughtful training in how to bring our embodied presence to the world can support our relationships and help us to grow as compassionate actors in the world.

We heard Padraig O Tauma’s poem The Facts of Life. Padraig is an Irish poet and theologian.  He presents Poetry Unbound a program produced by On Being Studios. This poem encourages us to bring our hearts to live and love in the world.

Guided Reflection

Thank you so much for being here today.  Last week we explored how mindfulness practice can help us to accept ourselves and each other unconditionally.  Why is that so hard?  What gets in the way of this unconditional acceptance in which we can release expectation and judgment?  I’ve been sitting with these questions this week as I prepare to host my family for the holidays.  

I can already feel a sense of anxiety combined with hope.  What am I anxious about?  What do I hope for?  I turn to mindfulness for answers.  Another way of thinking about mindfulness is embodied presence.   Being present with direct experience isn’t easy.  Everything around us seems to conspire against pausing.  There are so many demands for our attention.  

And being present doesn’t always mean feeling good.  Being truly present means being real.  It’s about being honest with ourselves about what’s happening in our lives. Life includes experiences that are uncomfortable, even painful.  So if like me, you’re feeling anxious, presence draws you closer to that.  Mindfulness is about getting intimate with our life and that includes everything.  

Meditation instructor and communication instructor, Oren Jay Sofer, shares one of his most important learnings as a meditation student:

. . . to discover a deeper and more enduring sense of peace as a human being means opening our heart to the full range of our experiences and learning to find balance with the things that are . . . hard also.

Facing uncertainty disturbs my sense of peace.  Opening my heart and finding balance with the way things are is sometimes a real challenge.  

Oren offers this insight: 

. . . [U]ncertainty . . .  puts us in touch with the vulnerability of ourselves as human beings.  . . .The more we’re in touch with this, the more we can take meaningful risks in our life.  . . .  The more we’re able to embrace [uncertainty]  it becomes a source of strength and freedom.  We can learn to live with . . .  the truth of what it is to be human. . . . 

I am finding my way with uncertainty by trying to bring presence into more of my life.  Oren suggests that

. . .  the uncertainty or vulnerability of being alive . . . might put you more in touch with living in a shared world.  . . . The more aware we become of ourselves the more aware we become aware of everyone and everything else.

I find this hopeful.  I am grateful to have family and friends that are compassionate and kind.  I am glad they’re in the world with me.  After all we live in a world of ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows.  I think Padraig O Tuama’s poem, The Facts of Life, summarizes our human situation:

That you were born
and you will die.

That you will sometimes love enough
and sometimes not.

That you will lie
if only to yourself.

That you will get tired.

That you will learn most from the situations
you did not choose.

That there will be some things that move you
more than you can say.

That you will live
that you must be loved.

That you will avoid questions most urgently in need of
your attention.

That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg
of two people who once were strangers
and may well still be.

That life isn’t fair.
That life is sometimes good
and sometimes better than good.

That life is often not so good.

That life is real
and if you can survive it, well,
survive it well
with love
and art
and meaning given
where meaning’s scarce.

That you will learn to live with regret.
That you will learn to live with respect.

That the structures that constrict you
may not be permanently constraining.

That you will probably be okay.

That you must accept change
before you die
but you will die anyway.

So you might as well live
and you might as well love.
You might as well love.
You might as well love.

Let’s bring compassion and loving presence to ourselves now.  Find a position in which you can be at ease and aware.  You might take a few slow deep breaths.  Roll your shoulders a few times.  Your eyes can close or rest in a downward gaze.  Begin drawing your awareness inward.  Gradually opening to what’s happening now.  Sense the quality of your attention.  

You  may become aware of sensations in the body, thoughts, emotions, sounds.   Memories, images or plans might drift through awareness.  You can center attention somewhere as a way of steadying yourself in the present moment.  You might feel your hands resting in your lap, the rhythms of your breathing or sounds naturally arising and fading away. You could be feeling the weight of the body resting on the ground.   Notice the places your body touches the ground beneath you.  How does it feel there?  Can you feel the pressure the contact?  Notice something steady, solid, stable beneath you.  Can you begin to give your weight to the earth allowing yourself to be supported?  

It’s natural for attention to drift.  There’s no need to control the mind.  See if you can let go and begin again with patience and warmth, with friendliness toward yourself.  You’re connecting with your heart, your body, your breath.  Settle and receive one moment at a time.  

This slowing down, this settling, this gathering of attention forms the path of calm abiding.  We’re calling our attention back home and finding an easeful place inside.  As you become more present you might look more deeply into your heart and mind.  You might see more clearly.  You can always come back to ask yourself “How am I right now?”  See if you can enter into relationship with what’s happening in a curious and friendly way.

You might ask “What’s needed right now?”  “What does my heart need?”  Is there a quality or a way of being you could offer yourself right now?  It might be patience or kindness, a deeper acceptance or maybe energy or courage.  You can take this time to listen inside.  What is needed in this moment, this time in your life?  See if you can relax thinking and listen to discover.  Like you’re listening or looking for a bird or flower.  See if you can let there be sensitivity and receptiveness.  “What does my heart need right now?”

Imagine whatever you sense, however faint or strong, imagine that quality were already within you.   Perhaps the seed of this quality is already available.  Invite the smallest bit into your experience.  It might be a memory of an experience where you felt it, you knew it.  Let your imagination help you access what is needed.  If you’re longing for connection you might recall seeing a good friend.  Invite this quality into your experience in a way that’s true for you. How does it feel in your body?   How does it feel in your heart? 

You can observe whatever is present in your experience right now:  sensations, thoughts, memories, moods and emotions.  How is it to be alive right here and now having nourished your heart in this way?  How does your body feel?  How does the space of mind appear?  How does your heart feel entering our human condition in this way?  How is it to touch the tender vulnerability we all share?  

What’s the feeling in your heart bearing witness to this human experience as it is right now?   Perhaps as Oren believes “ . . . The more aware we become of ourselves the more aware we become aware of everyone and everything else.”   We gather together like we gather our attention so that we might  “. . . [open] our heart[s] to the full range of our experiences and [learn] to find balance with . . . things that are . . . “   We gather so that we can relate to the difficult and joyful Facts of Life.  

 

So [we] might as well live
and [we] might as well love.
You might as well love.
You might as well love.