friendship with oneself

 

 

 
Despite what we might think much of the time and what the news programs imply,
 we all wish to be sane and open-hearted people. We could take our wish to be
 more sane and kind and put it in a very large context. We could expand it into
 a desire to help all other people, to help the whole world.

 But we need a place to start. We can’t simply begin with the whole world.
 We need to begin by reaching out to the people who come into our own lives
 our family members, our neighbors, our coworkers.

We need to work on ourselves. When we do this work on ourselves, however,
 we can still think of it in the wider context of our community, our nation,
and our world. Viewing the work we do on ourselves in this larger context
 is very important. I don’t mean to be harsh, but I have to say that a lot of people
 who do so- called spiritual work can be somewhat selfish. Their spiritual path
 is all about taking care of themselves, and they may not notice that what makes
 them feel comfortable and secure is actually at the expense of other people.

When we look at the world around us — our immediate world and the bigger world beyond —
we see a lot of difficulty and dysfunction. The news we hear is mostly bad news,
 and that makes us afraid. It can be quite discouraging. Yet we could actually
 derive inspiration, from these dire circumstances. We could recognize the fact,
 and proclaim the fact, that we are needed.

A lot of the most painful conditions in the world are initially motivated by fear.
 Fundamentalism, for example, comes about when we feel we need something
 definite and solid to protect ourselves from those who are different from us.
 That arises from the fear of losing control. Likewise, our addictions come from
 trying to assuage the discomfort we feel inside, the fear that things are out of our control
 and we have no secure ground under our feet. Whatever form fear hardens into,
 it continues to escalate and results in actions that can do great damage.
 It escalates into wars and riots. It escalates into violence and cruelty.
 It creates an ugly world, which breeds more fear.

Yet the raw fear initially emerges as a dot in space, as a doorway that can go either way.
 If we choose to take notice of the actual experience of fear, whether it’s just
 a queasy feeling in our stomach or actual terror, whether it’s a subtle level
 of discomfort or mind-numbing dramatic anxiety, we can smile at it,
believe it or not. It could be a literal smile or a metaphor for coming to know fear,
 turning toward fear, touching fear. In that case, rather than fear setting off
 a chain reaction where you’re trying to protect yourself from it,
 it becomes a source of tenderness. We experience our vulnerability,
 but we don’t feel we have to harden ourselves in response.
This makes it possible for us to help ourselves and to help others.

So the very first step, and perhaps the hardest,
 is developing an unconditional friendship with oneself.

Developing unconditional friendship means taking the very scary step
 of getting to know yourself. It means being willing to look at yourself clearly
 and to stay with yourself when you want to shut down. It means keeping
 your heart open when you feel that what you see in yourself is just
 too embarrassing, too painful, too unpleasant, too hateful.

If you do stay present with what you see when you look at yourself again and again,
you begin to develop a deeper friendship with yourself. It’s a complete friendship,
 because you are not leaving out the parts that are painful to be with.
 It’s the same way you would develop a complete friendship with another person.
 You include all that they are. When you develop this complete friendship with yourself,
 the parts you’re embarrassed about—as well as the parts you’re proud of—
manifest as genuineness. A genuine person is a person who is not hiding anything,
 who is not conning themselves. A genuine person doesn’t put up masks and shields.

When we wall ourselves off from uncertainty and fear,  we develop an “iron heart.”
 When someone develops a true friendship with themselves, the iron heart softens
 into something else. It becomes a vulnerable heart, a tender heart.
 It becomes a genuine heart of sadness, because it is a heart that is willing
 to be touched by pain and remain present.

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ Pema Chödrön

excerpts from talks given in the Bay Area in October 2010

 with thanks to Lions Roar

 

 

 

 

thousands of voices

 

 

 

 

 

 Do you bow your head when you pray or do you look
up into that blue space?

Take your choice, prayers fly from all directions.
And don't worry about what language you use,
God no doubt understands them all.

Even when the swans are flying north and making
such a ruckus of noise, God is surely listening
and understanding.

Rumi said, There is no proof of the soul.
But isn't the return of spring and how it
springs up in our hearts a pretty good hint?
Yes, I know, God's silence never breaks, but is
that really a problem?

There are thousands of voices, after all.
And furthermore, don't you imagine (I just suggest it)
that the swans know about as much as we do about
the whole business?

So listen to them and watch them, singing as they fly.
Take from it what you can.

~ Mary Oliver

from  Devotions: The Selected Poems 

 

 

empty of a separate self

 

 

 

 

We too are full of so many things and yet empty of a separate self.
Like the flower, we contain earth, water, air, sunlight, and warmth.

We contain space and consciousness.
We contain our ancestors, our parents and grandparents,
education, food, and culture.

The whole cosmos has come together
to create the wonderful manifestation that we are.

If we remove any of these “non-us” elements,
we will find there is no “us” left. 

 

 

 

 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 from The Art of Living

 Photo by Paul Kozal

 

 

 

still

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I'll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:

but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is

magnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:

I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up

and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:

I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:

at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!

 

 

 

 ~ A. R. Ammons

from Selected Poems

with thanks to Poetry Chaikhana

 

 

 

 

not knowing

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would not sacrifice my soul
for all the beauty of this world.

There is only one thing
for which I would risk everything:
an I-don’t-know-what
that lies hidden
in the heart of the Mystery.

The taste of finite pleasure
leads nowhere.
All it does is exhaust the appetite
and ravage the palate.
And so, I would not sacrifice my soul
for all the sweetness of this world.

But I would risk everything
for an I-don’t-know-what
that lies hidden
in the heart of the Mystery.

The generous heart
does not collapse into the easy things,
but rises up in adversity.
It settles for nothing.
Faith lifts it higher and higher.

Such a heart savors
an I-don’t-know-what
found only in the heart of the Mystery.

The soul that God has touched
burns with love-longing.
Her tastes have been transfigured.
Ordinary pleasures sicken her.
She is like a person with a fever;
nothing tastes good anymore.

All she wants
is an I-don’t-know-what
locked in the heart of
the Mystery. . . .

I will never lose myself
for anything the senses can taste,
nor for anything the mind can grasp,
no matter how sublime,
how delicious.
I will not pause for beauty,
I will not linger over grace.
I am bound for
an I-don’t-know-what
deep within the heart of the Mystery.

~ John of the Cross

from Glosa á lo Divino 

 translated by Mirabai Starr
photo by Jeremy Thomas

the nativity

 

 

 

 

 

No man reaches where the moon touches a woman.
Even the moon leaves her when she opens
Deeper into the ripple in her womb
That encircles dark to become flesh and bone.

Someone is coming ashore inside her.
A face deciphers itself from water
And she curves around the gathering wave,
Opening to offer the life it craves.

In a corner stall of pilgrim strangers,
She falls and heaves, holding a tide of tears.
A red wire of pain feeds through every vein
Until night unweaves and the child reaches dawn.

Outside each other now, she sees him first.
Fresh of her flesh, her dreamt son safe on earth. 

 

 

 

 

~ John O'Donohue

from  Conamara Blues

art by Gustav Klimt 

mother

 

 

 

 

 The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind is the word “Mother,”
and the most beautiful call is the call of “My mother.”
It is a word full of hope and love,
a sweet and kind word coming from the depths of the heart.

The mother is everything –
she is our consolation in sorrow,
our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness.
She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness….

Everything in nature bespeaks the mother.
The sun is the mother of earth and gives it its nourishment of heart;
it never leaves the universe at night until it has put the earth to sleep
to the song of the sea and the hymn of birds and brooks.

And this earth is the mother of trees and flowers.
It produces them, nurses them, and weans them.
The trees and flowers become kind mothers of their great fruits and seeds.
And the mother, the prototype of all existence,
is the eternal spirit, full of beauty and love.

 

 



 ~ Kahlil  Gibran

on the hill late at night

The ripe grassheads bend in the starlight

in the soft wind, beneath them the darkness

of the grass, fathomless, the long blades

rising out of the well of time.  Cars

travel the valley roads below me, their lights

finding the dark, and racing on.  Above

their roar is a silence I have suddenly heard,

and felt the country turn under the stars

toward dawn.  I am wholly willing to be here

between the bright silent thousands of stars

and the life of the grass pouring out of the ground.

The hill has grown to me like a foot.

Until I lift the earth I cannot move.

~ Wendell Berry

from Farming Poems

photo from kathleen connally

the silent articulation of a face

Love comes with a knife, not some

shy question, and not with fears

for its reputation! I say

these things disinterestedly. Accept them

in kind. Love is a madman

working his wild schemes, tearing off his clothes,

running through the mountains, drinking poison,

and now quietly choosing annihilation.

A tiny spider tries to wrap an enormous wasp.

Think of the spiderweb woven across the cave

where Mohammad slept! There are love stories,

and there is obliteration into love.

You've been walking the ocean’s edge,

holding up your robes to keep them dry.

You must dive naked under and deeper under,

a thousand times deeper! Love flows down.

The ground submits to the sky and suffers

what comes. Tell me, is the earth worse

for giving in like that?

Don’t put blankets over the drum!

Open completely. Let your spirit-ear

listen to the green dome’s passionate murmur.

Let the cords of your robe be untied.

Shiver in this new love beyond all

above and below. The sun rises, but which way

does night go? I have no more words.

Let soul speak with the silent

articulation of a face.

* * *

~ Jelalludin Rumi 
(1207 – 1273)

 translated by Coleman Barks

everything has two endings

Everything has two endings -

a horse, a piece of string, a phone call

Before a life, air

And after

As silence is not silence, but a limit of hearing.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Come, Thief

formless and perfect

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was something
formless and perfect
before the universe was born.
It is serene. Empty.
.

Solitary. Unchanging.

Infinite. Eternally present.
It is the mother of the universe.
For lack of a better name,
I call it the Tao.
.
It flows through all things,
inside and outside, and returns
to the origin of all things.

 

 

 

 

 ~ Lao-tzu

Tao Te Ching

an empty boat

 

 

 

 

 

 

If a man is crossing a river

And an empty boat collides with his own skiff,

Even though he be a bad-tempered man

He will not become very angry.

But if he sees a man in the boat,

He will shout at him to steer clear.

If the shout is not heard, he will shout again,

And yet again, and begin cursing.

And all because there is somebody in the boat.

Yet if the boat were empty,

He would not be shouting, and not angry.

If you can empty your own boat 

Crossing the river of the world,

No one will oppose you,

No one will seek to harm you.

~ Chuang Tzu

translation by Thomas Merton
from The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton