“Trying harder and putting in that extra bit of exertion was so counterproductive!”
Throughout our time together, we slowly learned we were not responsible for each other’s happiness. True happiness can only be found within ourselves.
If we want to release tension or rumination, we emphasize the exhalation and the gap at the end before the inhalation. If we want to energize, we emphasize the inhale, and the place at the top of the inhale.
When we have committed to the path of meditation, we tend to impose this desire for consistency on that, too, so should we experience any sort of dip in our meditation practice, we feel uncomfortable, dissatisfied, insecure — all those bugaboos start vying for our attention.
In my childhood, I had horrible panic attacks. I don’t know exactly what their true cause was, but I reacted to many ordinary events with terror. For example, I panicked during storms. Where I come from, there is thunder and lightning all summer long, and winter brings snowstorms.
If our modern relationship to food had a motto, it would likely be borrowed from that potato chip brand’s famous slogan: “Bet you can’t eat just one!” There’s a lot to unpack in that playful dare, but it certainly sums it up.
When we sit on the cushion and all the circumstances are good, plus the environment is cooperating, then we have some experience of meditation. But when we get off the cushion and move into everyday life, then sometimes — even though we know that, theoretically, we can practice daily meditation anywhere, anytime — we forget what that really means.
Although the good qualities are right there within us and all around us, if we fail to recognize them, there’s not much they can do for us. But if we recognize them, it opens up a world of possibilities.
The golden thread that runs through all of the Joy of Living is awareness. Mingyur Rinpoche introduces us directly to awareness by virtue of a practice he calls “open awareness.” To use the traditional analogy of the ocean and the wave, this is an introduction to the ocean — the vast, clean, pure expanse that is our inheritance. It is our abiding nature, always there, and can never be made better or worse. This is who we truly are.
The mind is just like a mountain, just like the sky. No matter what you’re experiencing at present, your mind remains the unchangeable ground, like a mountain. Like the sky, it’s free and pure, and it has the wondrous quality of allowing thoughts, feelings, and perceptions to appear and dissolve like clouds.
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