Acceptance of what is there can gives us choices - aversion can create tension and negativity

The great Sufi poet expresses this in his poem 'The Guest House'. Notice what feeling arises in you when you read it - is it positive, negative or neutral? Do you feel accepting of this idea of 'acceptance' or do you feel an aversion to it as if it is something that you should reject?

'The Guest House'

 This being human is a guest house. 
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and invite
them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Jalaluddin Rumi, in 'The Essential Rumi', translated by Coleman Barks, 1999

This concept is quite alien to most of us. Why would you 'invite in' any negativity into your life?

The challenge for us all is that negativity is there whether we like it or not - and so, it isn't about trying to magically make negativity disappear - which - let's face it - we sadly don't have the power to do - instead it is about choosing what to do next when that negativity is there. In order to choose - to really make an active choice - we have to accept that it is there - whether it comes from within us or from the outside. This act of 'accepting that it is there' can be scary and unfamiliar but it can also be very powerful. We see it for what it is. We gain more insight into where it comes from. We see the effect it has on us.

Once we accept that it is there - by acknowledging it and observing it - choices open up to us.

What choices are there if we reject the negativity - denial? masking over it? pushing it deeper inside of us so that it doesn't rear its ugly head but comes back to torture us later?

I'll take my chances with 'acceptance' first.

The Serious Risk of Wilful Blindness - Margaret Heffernan on a major human problem

Sometimes, not being mindful can be just plain wrong. This is a poignant short talk about a small town in Montana where a woman was doing work on gas meters and noticed that a lot of middle age men were on oxygen tanks. When her Dad died at a relatively young age, and then her mother died also at a relatively young age she started to wonder why these deaths were happening. She puzzled over this and started investigating vermiculite mine nearby. Vermiculite (we know now) is a very toxic form of asbestos. She started to talk to the community about the link between vermiculite and the deaths but they didn't want to know. Nobody believed her. She kept campaigning until a researcher came to town to research the mine and she told him her story and he eventually checked the facts and realised she was right. The community still didn't believe her and said things like 'the doctors would have told us'.

Eventually she convinced a federal agency to come to town to screeen 15,000. They discovered that the mortality rate of the town in 2002 was 80 times higher than any where else in the United States. Even then, people didn't look at the vermiculite lining the playground where her grandchildren played.

This is what Margaret Heffernan calls wilful blindness. It's not ignorance. It is a legal concept where there is information you should and could know but somehow you haven't learnt it. You have chosen not to know. This is happening all over our society - in businesses, in banking, in the church, in government. In big and small scales. A lot of people know there are problems but they are too afraid to raise them. There is a lot of silence and blindness. People don't talk out of fear, or they don't think it will make a difference or they feel that they will be deemed as 'whistle blowers'. Those that are whistle blowers in fact tend to be loyal, proud, and compelled to act.

This talk is not only a critical reminder about the importance of being mindful, being aware and being honest but it makes a seriously compelling case about the responsibility we all have to not be wilfully blind, to speak out and speak up for the sake of everyone.

When people are dying or being mistreated, we have to act. How can we not?

PS: She talks about the qualities of those who are willing to speak out and I think it is worth highlighting these qualities. They:
- use the freedoms they have
- use the arguments against them to make their arguments stronger and better
- are persistent
- are willing to have a lot of rows with people - they collaborate with their opponents
- are determined not to blind
- are patient
- are ordinary - just like you and me. 

A new tact for encouraging things to go the way you want in life

"A traveller to a small Greek island once watched as a yound boy tried to perusade the family donkey to move. The boy had vegetables to deliver and he'd carefully loaded up the animals's panniers. But the donkey wasn't in the mood for moving. The boy became more and more agitated and started to raise his voice at the donkey, standing in front of him and pulling hard on the rope. The donkey dug in its hooves firmly. Very firmly.

The tug of war might have gone on for a long time if it wasn't for the boy's grandfather. Hearing the commotion, he came out of the hourse and took in the familiar scene at a glance - the unequal battle between donkey and human. Gently, he took the rope from his grandson. Smiling, he said, 'When he's in this mood, try it this way: take the rope loosely in your hand like this, then stand very close beside him, and look down the track in the direction you want to go. Then wait.'

The boy did as his grandfather had bade him, and after a few moments, the donkey started to walk forward. The boy giggled with delight, and the traveller watched as animal and boy trotted off happily, side by side, down the track and round the far bend."

Pg 111-2 Mark Williams, Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World

New Perspective: The 'Importance' of Money

"This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much most of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper; which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy". 

Douglas Adams

All Things Pass - Lessons in Heartbreak

During a meditation retreat, I crawled out of bed at 6.30 to attend the mornings meditation and as my mind woke up, it was slowly overwhelmed by the loss of a great love. I felt very sad. I sat to meditate and let the feeling sit with me, trying to focus on my breathe. Tears rolled down my face as I breathed. I gave myself a 'break' and just let it all be and at the end of the meditation - the teacher read out this poem. I chuckled to myself at its poignancy - the timing was perfect. Heartbreak is hard but all things pass.

All Things Pass - Lao Tzu

All things pass
A sunrise does not last all morning
All things pass
A cloudburst does not last all day
All things pass
Nor a sunset all night
All things pass

What always changes?
Earth...sky...thunder...mountain...water...wind...fire...lake

Do man's visions last?
Do man's illusions?

Take things as they come.

All things pass.

One of my biggest fears: dying having never really lived

Fearing death is understandable. Not many people talk about it lightly and it feels weird to think about not being here one day. However, a bigger fear for me is dying feeling that I didn't live my life fully. The Dalai Lama says that the thing that surprised him most about humanity was man ,

"Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices his money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present: the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die and then dies having never really lived." 

Now that is a scary thought! That freaks me out much more than the idea of dying itself!

So what does it mean to live you life fully? I read something (which annoyingly I can't find the reference for) that if we only spend a couple of hours everyday actually being 'in the present moment' instead of thinking about the past or the future, or being on autopilot and not really engaging fully in what we are doing then this means that we actually only have about 6 years left of being really present. That doesn't sound like very long to me!!

There isn't anything wrong with being on autopilot sometimes, or thinking about the past or the future. That is a mis-understanding of what being 'mindful is'. What is helpful is to be more aware of these things and make more choices about when we want to be in these states. There are some activities in life which people are drawn to because they connect us with the present moment - sky diving (for damn sure you won't be day dreaming during that experience!), racing a fast car or other adventure sports, eating something you love, taking drugs. People are often drawn to these experiences because they are fresh, exciting, they make us feel really alive. It is this quality of 'feeling really alive' that mindfulness helps us bring to more of our lives. Why not have that connection to the present everyday from more 'regular' activities. Having a really nice shower and feeling the warm water on our skin instead of our mind moving forward to conversation that you will have with your colleagues about the programme you watched last night. Or eating your breakfast and tasting more than the first two mouthfuls before your mind wanders off to what time it is and all the things you have to do before leaving the house. There is a lot we can experience in an average day and perhaps being more aware, connecting more with each of those things - might just add some more years on to how much of life we really live.

For a little exercise on connecting more or being more aware of an experience - there is a post on the 'raisin exercise' (see blog topics on the right of this blog).