it's been warm in philly, finally, i guess. the weather has been unseasonably cool this summer. i decided to hike again. it was difficult to get up this morning. i've been having some funky dreams. i suppose my mind is cycling through some junk because it's been a menagerie of people who have passed through my life, weird situations that i never to be in, and other pictures of weirdness. i'm just a little too entertained by what's going on to wake up. but i did. and i was out of the house by 8:30 a.m., which is good for me. as i walked, i thought about my last post. one of the main purposes of the post was to explain my catharsis about being happy. however, the post took another direction. i felt somehow dissatisfied with this. i've received different signals that most people weather difficulties when they adjust their thinking. listening to npr the other day, i heard an interview with barbara bradley hagarty talking about the science of spirituality. while i think she wanted listeners to read and determine their own beliefs, she spoke about people whose spiritual experiences were simply too uncanny. one woman spoke about how she thought about her illness, and rather than viewing it as an obstacle, she viewed the illness as a learning experience. click here to listen to the story.
this story wasn't the only place i heard this message. when i spoke with rev. minju, she also indicated that we have a choice. we have a choice about how we think about the situations in which we find ourselves. we can choose to think that everything in our lives is happening to us, resisting and fighting it. or we can choose to accept it, and to think positively about it. her words echo what you hear when you work on your sobriety, a quote by Abraham Lincoln: "Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."
my week ended with a dharma talk on Saturday morning. meditation practice helps you to adjust your thinking about life. the woman who gave the talk compared meditation to taking a vacation. practicing stillness provides us with a way to calm our thoughts. when we calm our thoughts, we begin to see with clarity. she used the example of the oak tree. if we imagine an acorn that falls into a clearing, we might also imagine that it grows to be a sapling, with growing leaves and roots. but as the sapling grows, weeds and other trees might also move into the clearing and compete with the sapling. they might also deprive the sapling of necessary nutrients. but the sapling doesn't complain. it doesn't feel threatened. it simply continues in its silence. so i continue in mine. this week will be busy. i will go to the temple on tuesday to listen to a master speak. on friday and saturday, i will attend my first meditation retreat, conducted by jeff shore. on the 29th, i will receive a dharma name from won buddhism. while these are perks of attending such a great sangha, the stillness that i find in meditating has helped me tremendously. Sphere: Related Content
No comments:
Post a Comment