Good morning, everyone. I found an interesting collection of quotes about sitting while looking up something entirely different on Google. Somoe are relevant to our quest, others thought-provoking or just amusing.
I'm still have extraordinary difficulty meditating just before sleep. Until I tried this, I had no idea that just under my tired consciousness my mind was preparing for a night of dreaming. The thoughts, issues and concerns that arise so strongly are precisely what I dream about in metaphorical form. It's like my mind in the hour before sleep is tidying up, collecting what needs to be worked on, preparing the images and ways of approach.
I will learn how to work with this particular tide of nightly thoughts. It is fascinating.
But I've had to add another meditation time to the day. Where it's much easier to slip through the gaps and silences of the mind to the ground of being. And be refocused, refreshed, happy and unified.
Sorry to go on & on like this! I'll perhaps try to write a post to help me clarify this....
{{{big hugs}}} for everyone- I come to 100 Days at least twice a day and read everyone's comments, and they are an oasis.
Hi All. Finally got back to it last night. Sat twenty minutes and then did the ngondro, just seven accumulations.
Ill-tempered the whole time; seldom had a session, especially of ngondro, that didn't turn such a mood. But I just stayed angry.
A tentative proposal for having an event about "women and the dharma" were made on a mailing list of my center. Someone promptly dismissed the idea as "reverse sexism."
I'm used to this sort of thing, but the dismisser was my closest friend at the center, my dearest IRL friend after Martha. I've been angry ever since. Responded publicly with a short and I hope moderate email, privately by a bit a rant. We've gone back and forth a little. The anger just rolls along, undeterred.
Shantideva has good advice for what to do about anger: nothing. Wait. Let go. Like all states of mind, it's impermanent; if it stays in place it can only be because I'm holding it there. But I'm finding this a struggle.
Thanks. You all are a big support, and a big reason for me getting back to my practice -- it's been idle ten days, I think -- you're doing me good even when I'm silent. Probably especially when I'm silent :-)
udge, I forgot to thank you for your wonderful quotes, two of which I promptly stuck on a blog I had just written about sitting and gardening (sort of!) before I rushed out late for work. I have copied and pasted them and today i particularly love I have discovered that all human evil comes from this: man's being unable to sit still in a room.
I am observing the agitation - inability to sit - next to me at work when things are not 'active' and directed, and am enjoying just being in the space!
Dale, it's always lovely to hear from you and welcome back (well, actually you never leave us!). Oh the anger. Thank you so much for that. Rolling along undeterred is such a good expression. Julian is constantly asking me to just let his anger be and it will pass (of course it always does). I ask the same of him with so many other emotions and yet I have so much judgement around anger.
Did you read the Dalai lama and Goldman's book on 'Negative Emotions' anyone? I want to go back to it. Feel ready for another stab. Such an important subject. There really is nothing 'wrong' with the feeling, only with the wrong thought or action which is committed in it's name.
I love all the quotes and debate that arise here. Keep sitting everyone (and make sure you run some too otherwise you'll end up with a sore bott like me!)
Didn't sit this morning and now thoroughly regret it. Wonderful quotes about sitting and gardens. Been reading Kunitz's Wild Braid book... I'm piiiiining for green...
Dale, thanks for your comments about anger. Timely for me, and helped me feel a little less alone today. I don't get angry often, but boy when I do... and it's such a painful emotion for me.
I find it somehow very reassuring to hear that even Dale has days of being angry and irritated :-) This makes me feel much better about my own imperfect emotional balance.
The quote from Pascal that Ruth mentioned ("The source of all evil ... being unable to sit still in a room") could serve as our motto.
13 Comments:
Good morning, everyone. I found an interesting collection of quotes about sitting while looking up something entirely different on Google. Somoe are relevant to our quest, others thought-provoking or just amusing.
I wish everyone health and happy sitting.
In spite of my silence I am still sitting. Just don't know how to talk about it at the moment ...
Mary, you just did! :-)
sat 20 minutes. see today's blog. off to work now to face the demons.
I'm still have extraordinary difficulty meditating just before sleep. Until I tried this, I had no idea that just under my tired consciousness my mind was preparing for a night of dreaming. The thoughts, issues and concerns that arise so strongly are precisely what I dream about in metaphorical form. It's like my mind in the hour before sleep is tidying up, collecting what needs to be worked on, preparing the images and ways of approach.
I will learn how to work with this particular tide of nightly thoughts. It is fascinating.
But I've had to add another meditation time to the day. Where it's much easier to slip through the gaps and silences of the mind to the ground of being. And be refocused, refreshed, happy and unified.
Sorry to go on & on like this! I'll perhaps try to write a post to help me clarify this....
{{{big hugs}}} for everyone- I come to 100 Days at least twice a day and read everyone's comments, and they are an oasis.
"having difficulty" - oh, the ease of editing on screen, sometimes we miss remnants of other phrasing, leaving grammatical non sequiturs
The quotes about sitting are great ... thanks Udge, for finding these and passing them along.
This one came to me from an art teacher. As we started our brush painting and calligraphy, he would admonish us:
"don't do something,
just sit there"
I can hear from father turning over in his grave.
mary - "A flower does not talk"
Hi All. Finally got back to it last night. Sat twenty minutes and then did the ngondro, just seven accumulations.
Ill-tempered the whole time; seldom had a session, especially of ngondro, that didn't turn such a mood. But I just stayed angry.
A tentative proposal for having an event about "women and the dharma" were made on a mailing list of my center. Someone promptly dismissed the idea as "reverse sexism."
I'm used to this sort of thing, but the dismisser was my closest friend at the center, my dearest IRL friend after Martha. I've been angry ever since. Responded publicly with a short and I hope moderate email, privately by a bit a rant. We've gone back and forth a little. The anger just rolls along, undeterred.
Shantideva has good advice for what to do about anger: nothing. Wait. Let go. Like all states of mind, it's impermanent; if it stays in place it can only be because I'm holding it there. But I'm finding this a struggle.
Thanks. You all are a big support, and a big reason for me getting back to my practice -- it's been idle ten days, I think -- you're doing me good even when I'm silent. Probably especially when I'm silent :-)
love
d
udge, I forgot to thank you for your wonderful quotes, two of which I promptly stuck on a blog I had just written about sitting and gardening (sort of!) before I rushed out late for work. I have copied and pasted them and today i particularly love
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this:
man's being unable to sit still in a room.
I am observing the agitation - inability to sit - next to me at work when things are not 'active' and directed, and am enjoying just being in the space!
Dale, it's always lovely to hear from you and welcome back (well, actually you never leave us!). Oh the anger. Thank you so much for that. Rolling along undeterred is such a good expression. Julian is constantly asking me to just let his anger be and it will pass (of course it always does). I ask the same of him with so many other emotions and yet I have so much judgement around anger.
Did you read the Dalai lama and Goldman's book on 'Negative Emotions' anyone? I want to go back to it. Feel ready for another stab. Such an important subject. There really is nothing 'wrong' with the feeling, only with the wrong thought or action which is committed in it's name.
I love all the quotes and debate that arise here. Keep sitting everyone (and make sure you run some too otherwise you'll end up with a sore bott like me!)
Thich Nhat Hanh has a wonderful little book on anger, too, that came out a couple years ago. Titled just "Anger," I think.
Didn't sit this morning and now thoroughly regret it. Wonderful quotes about sitting and gardens. Been reading Kunitz's Wild Braid book... I'm piiiiining for green...
Dale, thanks for your comments about anger. Timely for me, and helped me feel a little less alone today. I don't get angry often, but boy when I do... and it's such a painful emotion for me.
I find it somehow very reassuring to hear that even Dale has days of being angry and irritated :-) This makes me feel much better about my own imperfect emotional balance.
The quote from Pascal that Ruth mentioned ("The source of all evil ... being unable to sit still in a room") could serve as our motto.
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