Tag: Ajahn Brahm

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Another 365-day journey around the sun

So here I am again… Another journey around the sun completed. It’s been a weird one, but then it seems that nothing can surprise anyone anymore in 2020!

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Thank you, Friends 🙂

 

I’ve been enjoying summarising my years since 2017. Then another post followed a year later,with the latest one from China.

So what’s happened since?

  • I enjoyed most of my post birthday summer last year in Shanghai – having friends there too made the whole experience beyond exceptional!
  • I started having some work done on the house – actually more than had planned for and, my oh my, it’s still on hold and it’s still driving me bonkers :-/
  • I really got back into climbing and have been making progress, especially with my leading skills
  • I completed Climbing Wall Instructor (CWI) course
  • I’ve meditated (almost) on daily basis- if not, I substituted it with some positive affirmations. Perhaps one or two might have slipped through the net? But I guess that’s my opportunity to being nice to myself and truly understand that it’s ok to have a slip up and/or to make an occasional mistake.
  • I attended Wisdom Born of Stillness weekend retreat with Ajahn Brahm at Gaia House – and Ajahn Bear was there with me, of course 🙂
  • I attended Love To Break All Boundaries: Metta Retreat with the Venerable Canda at The Barn: things aren’t always so fluffy and easy as they sound, but they’re definitely worth it!
  • I’ve started yet another Masters degree! Yeah, I know 🙂 But I’m loving it, despite an occasional tantrum 😉
  • Despite some rather rubbish past experiences, I’ve braved the weird world of online dating again… This though requires a whole new and separate post, if not a book 😉 Maybe some time soon. I have a plan. You may hear it about in not so distant future 🙂
  • …and since you’re asking, yeah, I’m enjoying it this time 🙂
  • I’ve met amazing, supportive, kind and lovely people – I just can’t imagine not feeling grateful  for who (and what) I have in my life 🙂
  • I experienced being furloughed
  • I’ve been asked to be my good friend’s bridesmaid 🙂 We even managed to go on a great hen do in Spain and be back just in time for lockdown…
  • I might be getting more ideas about what I want to do when I grow up… 😉
  • I’ve learnt some online teaching skills!
  • Life goes on…

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Ok, the thing is that not everything in the last year was all hunky-dory…And of course I experienced a lot of emotional ups and downs. But as 2020 seems to generate lots of (so called ) negative feelings and emotions, I just wanted to focus on good and meaningful events in my life. What have I learnt? Hmmm….The biggest takeway for me was to learn to set up and/or assert my boundaries much better and develop abilities not to get sucked in into somebody else’s’ dramas (especially happy with this one!). The old Polish proverb ‘Not my circus, not my monkeys’ has finally started making sense to me. I’ve learnt freakishly lots about myself in a relatively short period of time. I recognised my strengths and excepted my vulnerable self more. I love being a human being , though this often requires that vulnerability, which I’m still working on. I enjoy being ‘a work in progress‘ kind of person as for me it’s more realistic, more true and authentic than pretending that I’m (almost) perfect. I know that there’s plenty I need to work on, but for now I’ll stick to being (just the right amount of) enough.

I think here’s only one more thing to say :

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME 🙂 🙂 🙂

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A few bad bricks

Mistakes happen. To everyone. Sooner or later something will go not so great or not as intended and it’s a part of life. These moments are often moments when we can learn, reflect and/or starting again. However, it seems that not everyone deals with mistakes in the same way- some people are more able than others to learn, let go and move on from their mistakes.  Me? Hahaha,  did I say ‘let go’ ? I wish…

For a long time in my life holding onto my ‘wrongdoings’ seemed to be the ‘right thing to do’, often actively encouraged -mostly by a religious organisation- so there was no way I could just let go of them. But that was a long time ago and since then I’ve started learning that it wasn’t a healthy way of dealing with mistakes.

I made a mistake today at work. First I was gobsmacked and then I started physically trembling. I was staring at the screen of my laptop and couldn’t take it all in. I’m very good at what I’m doing (yes, I finally started to believe it!)  and I like my job, so how come could  I make a mistake? This incident  automatically brought back a story about Two Bad Bricks. What bugs me sometimes is the view that  in today’s world some people choose not to see those 198 good bricks also in others , but only focus on those 2 bad ones.  And sometimes they actively look for them and then hold them against you- this can happen in personal life or professional one.  And this can bring about fear, lack of trust and feelings of insecurity.  I realise though that recently my level of anxiety has gone up, hence my view could have also been a bit distorted and things may look bleaker than they really are. It’s good that it’s just a point of view- this can be changed after all.

Soon after my mind started offering me reassurance: ‘it’s ok’, ‘it happens’, ‘it doesn’t matter’ etc. Ok, but I was still trembling… What is it that makes me, and I bet some other people, want to focus on bad rather than good? I felt like my mind wanted me to run away from what my body was feeling, but I decided not to. It wasn’t pleasant, but I chose to stay with it and just accept it. I didn’t want to listen to my mind’s excuses or words of comfort- as much as I’m grateful for those, I needed to face what was happening at that moment. And I did.  Although I’ve already done my  morning pages for the day,  I decided to sit down and write about what I was experiencing.

I’ll, no doubt, lay some ‘bad bricks’  again during the process of building my life, but what if I choose to focus on  those 198  ‘good bricks’ instead? What if I choose to call my ‘two bad bricks’ a feature  and value them more than I do now?

I felt that there was a lesson for me to learn from today’s experience : to stop, to be more present, slow down and…to take a break from work too! And then I felt at peace…

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Links to some talks on letting go:

Four Ways of letting go:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USC5MJVZLy8

When to attach and when to let go?   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_3coMDunIM

Letting go of letting go- Abandoning Attachment:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuuryU-qnSI

Letting go of fear : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7rFsrdtMM8

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3.44

I woke up suddenly. It was dark and chilly. Within few short moments I realised I wouldn’t fall asleep again. I looked at a clock: 3.44 am.  Great conditions for my mind to go wild, crazy and self-destructive, I thought. It happened before, too many times. But today I decided it wasn’t going to happen. I chose not to just lie in darkness and let my monkey mind do the rounds in my head as it pleased. I took action. I took my laptop, went on YouTube and typed ‘Ajahn Brahm guided meditation‘  and randomly chose this meditation – just because….My mind got used to the way I had been meditating for some time now and things weren’t working well for me anymore, so I changed  a couple of things today : my meditation posture and I let myself be guided again.  But before Ajahn, which means ‘a teacher’ in Thai,  started guiding me (and others) through the meditation process, he gave a little talk. He talked about patience and allowing time for the body and mind to slow down and stop and be still and peaceful. Ajahn said he had developed two types of patience:

1.  Waiting on the present moment’: Imagine you’re a waiter in a restaurant and you look after your guests. You’re there, observing, waiting on them not to fast, not to slowly, brining dishes in the right moment, being here when the action happens, not lingering, but being aware what’s going on right now.

Another simile of waiting on the present moment is a simile of being like a host at the party- you greet your guests as they enter your house. You asked them to come in, but you don’t have time to talk to them as another guest is coming in. So you welcome your guest, shake their hand, let go and move on to greeting your next guest. It’s like a procession: you don’t linger, you focus on one person at the time, just be with one present moment at a time. This is the right kind of patience.

So here’s what my thoughts behave- they try to come in all at once, they run and rush, and push each other and shout and jump and they all want to be inside at the same time. I can’t control how many of them will arrive, but it’s up to me to ensure how they come in, how I let them in. And it’s easier said than done. To greet, acknowledge and welcome them in my ‘house’ and be kind to them ,especially they cause some pain,  is a challenge- and a choice- but I can’t ignore them- that’s the present moment.

2.   ‘Waiting in the future : waiting for something to happen, waiting for…. [whatever]’. And that’s why when people  meditate sometimes, nothing happens. This kind of patience is the opposite to being in the present moment. This is not the right kind of patience. Don’t ex-pect, but in-spect what’s going on in the present moment.
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To meditate is to go nowhere… It’s emptiness. Vanishing. Stillness.

Have you ever thought about what ‘nowhere’ means? I surely haven’t till Ajahn enlightened me (pun intended…). It means ‘now–here‘ ! When I’m ‘nowhere’ I’m ‘now‘ – ‘here‘…Short. Sweet. Profound. Emptiness. Vanishing. Stillness. How come I’ve never noticed it?

I wasn’t following the guidance all the time, but I noticed that my mind felt calmer than the last time I tried to meditate in silence.  Ha,  just a little change, yet I felt it. It’s ok to be guided from time to time. It’s ok to be a receiver. It’s ok not to be perfect.