Posts Tagged ‘Pema Chodron’
Leave the Nest of Certainty
Thursday, November 3rd, 2016
I’d rather live my dreams scared than look back and say I did nothing afraid. ~Mary Anne Flanagan
In Pema Chödrön’s book, The Places That Scare You, she writes about the experience of leaving the nest. In an excerpt from the book Pema Chödrön’s writes, “All too frequently we relate like timid birds who don’t dare to leave the nest. Here we sit in a nest that’s getting pretty smelly and that hasn’t served its function for a very long time. No one is arriving to feed us. No one is protecting us and keeping us warm. And yet we keep hoping mother bird will arrive.
We could do ourselves the ultimate favor and finally get out of that nest. That this takes courage is obvious. That we could use some helpful hints is also clear. We may doubt that we’re up to being a warrior-in-training. But we can ask ourselves this question: “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?”
I sat in meditation to listen to the message of leaving the nest:
Leave the nest of the past. Continue to remove the covering around your heart and fly farther out into the world. You have experienced tremendous heart expansion and have gifted it to others as well. You have chosen a path of self-love and awareness. Spread your wings to more people. Soar higher and trust that you have everything you need. Leave the nest – it’s time to leave the comfortable and fly into uncertainty. Continue to fly with vulnerability and engage the world with your whole heart – your wild, cosmic heart. Some may think you are crazy. You are – with love. You love so deeply, you want others to experience that within themselves. Show the world your deep laughter, your love of nature, and your willingness to do it afraid. Leave the nest of certainty. For what awaits is far more delightful.
Amen.
Be Present and Lean In
Thursday, July 25th, 2013
Meditation:
Be present. Lean into discomfort.
Bring the light to each experience.
Listen for the open mind – the free mind – the fun mind.
Let go of exaggerations and delusions of the mind.
Ask: What am I saying no to? What am I saying yes to?
Exhale stress. Inhale light.
Be present. Let go of the past. Release the anxiety of the future.
Be present with each experience and lean in.
As Pema Chödrön says, “The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you’re feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in. Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering—yours, mine, and that of all living beings.”
Showing Compassion
Monday, July 22nd, 2013
The Pali word for lovingkindness, metta, means unconditional friendliness, warmth, love or care, and the Pali word for compassion, karuna, means to “feel with,” to bear suffering with an active sympathy. In his wisdom the Buddha realized that by purposefully awakening lovingkindness and compassion, we invite the alienated hurts and fears into consciousness, and free ourselves into a wholeness of being.
Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart
My books all have the same theme lately —compassion. The word “compassion” seems to be in neon lights. First I read a quote by Pema Chödrön, “Just as nurturing our ability to love is a way of awakening bodhichitta, so also is nurturing our ability to feel compassion. Compassion, however, is more emotionally challenging than loving-kindness because it involves the willingness to feel pain. It definitely requires the training of a warrior.”
Then I came across the book, Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong, by Norman Fisher. There were many sections on empathy and compassion. Fisher writes, “Remember that compassion literally means to feel passion with. Passion means pain. Compassion is the willingness to feel pain with another, to feel another’s pain as one’s own.” He goes on to write, “And it turns out that it’s impossible to take in the pain of another unless we are able to take in our own pain.”
This gave me the clarity I have been seeking after taking some time off to heal and rest. I noticed how difficult it was for people to show compassion. They wanted to reach out and be kind, but somehow the offerings were more about advice-giving, cheerful words, or awkward silence. I realized that what I really wanted was for people to listen, to feel, and to acknowledge.
By sitting in the pain, we allow it to rise up, be acknowledged, and then bless it. Having a witness – a friend – to do that with makes it all the more holy. Looking at our own pain gives us the ability to sit with others in theirs.
What are your experiences or thoughts on compassion?
Compassion, Courage, and Breath
Thursday, June 20th, 2013
Sitting with compassion for others and myself led me to a beautiful meditation:
Fill yourself up with compassion with each breath.
What do you look like when you are living with compassion?
Show yourself some compassion right now.
Allow your hand to move and breathe compassion into your body.
Notice your body and breathe compassion.
Let compassion move your hand.
How are you transmitting compassion?
What is your message of compassion today?
Listen to compassion.
Take a deeper breath in and out.
Breathe compassion.
When you see the world with compassion, what’s possible?
And take a nice big breath.
Be compassionate to you, always.
Beam compassion with every interaction.
And so it is.
As Pema Chödrön writes, “Just as nurturing our ability to love is a way of awakening bodhichitta, so also is nurturing our ability to feel compassion. Compassion, however, is more emotionally challenging than loving-kindness because it involves the willingness to feel pain. It definitely requires the training of a warrior.
When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion, to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance.”
Stay with your breath. Stay with yourself. Stay with compassion.
We Have What We Need
Thursday, January 17th, 2013
“This is a work in progress, a process of uncovering our natural openness, uncovering our natural intelligence and warmth. I have discovered, just as my teachers always told me, that we already have what we need. The wisdom, the strength, the confidence, the awakened heart and mind are always accessible, here, now, always. We are just uncovering them. We are rediscovering them. We’re not inventing them or importing them from somewhere else. They’re here. That’s why when we feel caught in darkness, suddenly the clouds can part. Out of nowhere we cheer up or relax or experience the vastness of our minds. No one else gives this to you. People will support you and help you with teachings and practices, as they have supported and helped me, but you yourself experience your unlimited potential.”
~Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears
{Photo by Mary Anne Flanagan}
Leaving My Nest
Thursday, December 6th, 2012
I’d rather live my dreams scared than look back and say I did nothing afraid. ~Mary Anne Flanagan
In Pema Chödrön’s book, The Places That Scare You, she writes about the experience of leaving the nest. In an excerpt from the book Pema Chödrön’s writes, “All too frequently we relate like timid birds who don’t dare to leave the nest. Here we sit in a nest that’s getting pretty smelly and that hasn’t served its function for a very long time. No one is arriving to feed us. No one is protecting us and keeping us warm. And yet we keep hoping mother bird will arrive.
We could do ourselves the ultimate favor and finally get out of that nest. That this takes courage is obvious. That we could use some helpful hints is also clear. We may doubt that we’re up to being a warrior-in-training. But we can ask ourselves this question: “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?”
I sat in meditation to listen to the message of leaving the nest. This is what came:
Leave the nest of the past. Continue to remove the covering around your heart and fly farther out into the world. You have experienced tremendous heart expansion and have gifted it to others as well. You have chosen a path of self-love and awareness. Spread your wings to more people. Soar higher and trust that you have everything you need. Leave the nest – it’s time to leave the comfortable and fly into uncertainty. Continue to fly with vulnerability and engage the world with your whole heart – your wild, cosmic heart.
Amen.
Relaxing into the Unknown
Thursday, September 20th, 2012
Welcome to the Unknown. As I sat in meditation this week, I was drawn to the unknown, unnamed, and unthought. As my mind started conjuring up fearful thoughts, my body fidgeted, I took a long inhale and exhale. I let silence fill me. And then my higher meditative self welcomed me home – welcomed me to the unknown. I am having a ‘reception’ for my unknown self. I am not ready to embrace it yet, but I will offer the unknown a toast.
As I read though my emails, there was a message to remind me just how much I can relax into the unknown. “It’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness. When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for that is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human.” Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change, Pema Chödrön
How are you with uncertainty? What ways have you embraced relaxing into the unknown?
Photo by Mary Anne Flanagan
The Wild Territory of the Heart
Thursday, September 13th, 2012
I have noticed how listening to my heart has yielded some changes. Rather than reacting, I am responding. I am no longer saying yes when I really want to say no. And I am opening to people and work that has meaning. It’s a path of uncertainty that I am opening to more and more. I feel like I am in the wild territory of my heart. I am an adventurer in my own life, digging deeper, exploring the unknown. The exploration of my wild heart has me curious, scared, vulnerable, humbled, hopeful, and grateful. It’s a journey of the heart and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And you? What is the wild territory of your heart saying to you?
As Pema Chödrön said in her book, The Wisdom of No Escape, “Wholeheartedness is a precious gift, but no one can actually give it to you. You have to find the path that has heart and then walk it impeccably….It’s like someone laughing in your ear, challenging you to figure out what to do when you don’t know what to do. It humbles you. It opens your heart.”
How Do You Show Yourself Compassion?
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
While giving my forgiveness telecourse, I read a quote by Pema Chodron:
“It all starts with loving-kindness for oneself, which in turn becomes loving-kindness for others. As the barriers come down around our own hearts, we are less afraid of other people. We are more able to hear what is being said, see what is front of our eyes, and work in accord with what happens rather than struggle against it.”
The forgiveness course is about making space for more love, peace and forgiveness in our hearts and in our lives. Each week has a specific focus and last week our focus was compassion. I shared with students my definition of compassion:
Compassion is our capacity to love – without the story attached to it. It’s the acts of doing and the heart of being. It’s being our own best friend & having the capacity to befriend others.
I ask students in the course to share how they show themselves loving-kindness and compassion. We take time to reflect and write down a few ways we are compassionate with ourselves. In every course, many students struggle to name ways of how they treat themselves with loving-kindness and compassion. It reminds me of how hard we are on ourselves and that giving comes from our capacity to give to ourselves too. Compassion is our ability to find relief and lead with our hearts.
The invitation is to practice compassion with yourself. Notice ways you show yourself loving-kindness. Ask how does loving-kindness and compassion show up in my life and HOW do I respond when it does?
As the Dalai Lama says, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Mary Anne
Come As You Are
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
In a recent conversation with one of my closest friends, we spoke about what it means to show up with strength and vulnerability. In our desire to pay attention to our Happiness Projects, we developed our mantras and actions that deepen our awareness of our bliss. We have spent over a month developing our project and getting really clear about what we want. I shared that I wanted to have more clarity with how I express myself.
A teacher recently said in class, “Clarity brings confidence.” Amen! How can we bring clarity and the type of precision needed to really ask ourselves the deep questions that unearth our soul’s answers? How can we move with what is now and not live from the past? And how can we acknowledge ourselves with love and compassion as an every day practice? As soon as those questions went from my pen to paper, I turned to see Pema Chodron’s book, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving Kindness, on my table. I opened to the following excerpt:
“Come as you are. The magic is being willing to open to that, being willing to be fully awake to that.”
“Inquisitiveness or curiosity involves being gentle, precise, and open—actually being able to let go and open. Gentleness is a sense of goodheartedness toward ourselves. Precision is being able to see very clearly, not being afraid to see what’s really there, just as a scientist is not afraid to look into the microscope. Openness is being able to let go and to open.”
“Basically, making friends with yourself is making friends with all those people too, because when you come to have this kind of honesty, gentleness, and goodheartedness, combined with clarity about yourself, there’s no obstacle to feeling loving-kindness for others as well.”
How do you makes friends with yourself? Ask and then let go and let love lead you.
At the end of a meditation in a Yoga class, the following words came flooding in as I asked for clarity: “I will wait for you – always. In your time, I am here.”
Come as you are,
Mary Anne