It can’t be learned. It is inherited.
It’s hidden in the within and in the inbetween.
It can only be cultivated in silence and harvested in devotion.
Meditation
Perfect Imperfection
By nature, life is imperfect.
So, what makes us expect our lives to be perfect?
Why are we giving ourselves such a hard time “trying to be perfect”?
We try to find “the perfect solution” – for problems we don’t even fully understand.
We want the perfect body, the perfect mind, the perfect relationship, the perfect job, the perfect life…
We create perfect brands to attract “the right” audience.
We seek “the perfect client”.
We always (want to) have a perfect answer.
Can you see a pattern? What are we trying to manipulate?
Are we over-achieving life?
What if we responded to life instead of trying to control it?
What if we valued our unique abilities over perfection?
What if we served more than just ourselves?
What if we cooperated with (our own) nature instead of trying to dominate it?
And YES, I’m asking questions without having an answer.
Meditation
Can you be intimate with the moment?
Can you be intimate with your self?
Can you take the time to sense?
Can you really listen to the silence?
Focus
Focus.
Dive deeper.
Quench the thirst.
Extract the essence.
Respond to Life
I just had an interesting revelation about now.
To respond to life means to respond to now.
This is what it means to take responsibility for my own life.
For some reason I always projected responsibility outwards to some point in the future.
This caused distress in my life, because it enforces constant worry about the future.
How will I take responsibility for my life?
What does this question actually mean?!
There is no right answer.
The moment to respond to life is now.
What can I do now?
Everything else is projection.
And by projecting some potential outcome into the future I’m giving away control.
And this is what I suffer from every so often….
For the past couple of days I’ve been pondering the question: “How am I in control of my life?”
The answer is: By being present! That’s it.
It is so simple. And it is such a relief….
I realized it on my walk this morning. I have neglected these walks, but this morning I understood how much it helps me to arrive.
If I don’t arrive I will never be able to take responsibility. The phrase “taking responsibility” is actually misleading, because I can’t take responsibility.
I can only respond to life. Now.
The Headless Buddha or “Meeting Myself With Compassion”
For about two weeks I’ve been trying to make sense of it: The Headless Buddha.
…It was one of those moments when I was caught up in a spiral of self-doubt and self-flaggelation, when I re-discovered my heart.
In despair I was challenging the youtube-oracle.
I discovered a talk on “The trance of unworthiness” by Tara Brach, a teacher I really value for her compassionate pursuit:
“We can only meet ourselves with compassion,” she concludes the human striving for liberation.
Finally, I’m swallowing the medicine.
Suddenly I’m placing one hand on my heart and one on my belly.
I’m holding myself.
This is when I understand:
My mind deteriorates my self-esteem.
My mind strangles myself with reproaches.
Meeting myself with compassion – that’s the least I can do!
It is that simple.
And so I am lying there on the couch. One hand on my heart and one on my belly. My eyes filled with tears of relief.
I breathe and I cry.
That’s all it takes.
I remember the teachings of yoga I had received.
I let my body do the work.
A couple of moments later: All anxiety vanished.
I find myself going for a short walk.
What happened next still blows my mind:
I’m walking slowly towards the nearby park, contemplating the Buddhist teachings of impermanence – “anicca, anicca, anicca…,” echoing in my head…
When I gaze towards the bushes, suddenly, I see a headless Buddha standing there right at the framing of the sidewalk!
It is one of those decorative candle bearers a lot of people have standing in their bathroom or on the wardrobe.
Its head is accurately positioned where the candle is supposed to shine.
Immediately the omnipresent quote: “If you meet the Buddha, kill him!,” comes to my mind.
What does this quote, apparently firstly stated by Linji Yixuan, signifies?
Back home I immediately start researching:
“Killing the buddha” asserts ‘to quiet all concepts’ – about Buddhism, spirituality and ‘the path’ in general.
It’s about finding the teacher within.
It implies the actualization of emptiness by self-observation and unbiased contemplation.
The next thing I read is the word Kenshō, which is widely translated as “seeing one’s true nature”. Accordingly to Wikipedia it is often used interchangeably with the word satori, which signifies ‘comprehension’ or ‘understanding’.
It is often being mistaken for ‘enlightenment’, but this is not what it is. It is one step on the path, one realization of the non-personal nature of our lives….
I remember the moment on the couch earlier. The moment of surrender that lifted a weight off my shoulder and my chest.
It was the moment when I finally understood that this body is solely a vessel. It’s a precious vessel, because it maneuvers me through my physical experience here on earth.
My mind keeps me in chains, while my body sets me free.
There is so much more to say about that! There are so many terminologies and symbolism to study, but for now that’s all I’m able to share here – my personal encounter with the headless Buddha.
Productive Gratitude
There is SO MUCH moving right now. This “stream of consciousness” moved through me just now. So I decided to let it out:
There is a fundamental truth I understood on a different level: We are all the same. We all have the same life force. We are all walking through this life with the same intention: To move energy – no matter if we are aware of it or not.
At the end of the day everyone of us is crucial.
Everyone of us has a purpose – the purpose to just be.
Omg, this purpose is so simple that it literally blows my mind when I try to put it into words, because as soon as I am trying to phrase it, it sounds so pathetic – too simple to be true.
Bizarre and surreal to most human beings who ‘distant’ themselves from aliveness so far off.
Still there is truth no one can deny: We are transforming matter from one state to another. Our emotions are our fuel to transform that matter, because they dictate what we do – short term and in the long run…
There is no human better or worse. There is no one on a higher level. The guru is us – you, me.
There is STILL such a huuuge misconception around the word ‘guru’. There is soooo much resistance created by splitting ourselves apart. We split us apart until nothing is left.
As soon as we’d understand that we are all one, that absolutely no being, no plant, not a single atom on this planet is separate, we’d find peace….
How could we do that? By FEELING OUR FEELINGS fully. And by assisting each other to do the same – safely. Without being judged and without judgment of ourselves.
I know that this is a long way to go. So let’s better start NOW.
If we take the time to just be there for a moment, be present with what and who is.
If we take the time to hold a hand, to look another person in the eyes, to not look through them, THIS is when we are creating change…
“Productive Gratitude” – this is a phrase my mind came up with the other day when I expressed my gratitude towards my fellow “yoga-retreaters” I journeyed with at “The Journey Through The Chakras” by Refeel Yoga.
All of a sudden I felt this huuuuuge connection – to myself, to this group, to the ALL.
And as sudden as this sensation arrived I felt it FOR MY WORK, for any work that I am doing – even the work I don’t love. The daily work. The 9-5. The 24/7. Whatever it is. I felt grateful for it and I DID IT with thankfulness for being able to do it.
If I am expressing my gratitude with EVERY SINGLE ACTION I will inevitably change the world.
How is this possible?
Because I am BECOMING gratitude. And by becoming it I am acting from a place that is not defined by trans-action.
I am doing and I am moving on at the same time (this is a small reference to Tao Te Ching;)
It is NOT easy. Definitely not. It is hard. In order to become gratitude I have to become myself first.
A quest of a life-time – a quest I am forever grateful for.
Namaste 🙏
There is Only Life
And all of a sudden, there it is again.
The life vibrating through my veins.
The eternal force bringing me back home.Creation itself is filling my lungs.
I am breathing clarity.
Inspiration is flooding my heart.Ideas are sprouting like leaflets.
Compassion is unleashing my chest.
Haaaaaaaaaa……. There she is again. My friend, freedom.
A Moment of Bliss
Curiosity is rising inside of me. There is only clarity. There is nothing I can see. The appearances of life don’t matter beyond the realm of my mind.
I arrive in my body. And I do it with delight. I feel a sense of care for myself. There is a pure source of love within my heart and my breath is the key to that door that I had locked with distraction.
I feel compassion for my old self. I let the anger fade like the clouds in the sky on that stormy day. The wind is blowing away my resentment towards myself and the world. No doubt is blurring my sight as I allow time to pass. And this is what I do – sitting and waiting and entering that state of bliss with all of my being. That chamber of excitement – bright and colorful placed inside of me is bringing me to life.
At the bottom of my heart I can be at rest. There is only peace. There is nothing to run from and nothing to run for. Because everything is already achieved.
I am earth. No need to “earth” myself.
There is a common ground within myself. This is why I feel compassion for the entire planet and not only for the people who are close and dear to me.
Non-judgement is the true nature of my being if I allow my thoughts to drop like snowflakes on an icy winter-afternoon. Thoughts can be fun, but they can also cause a lot of turmoil.
All of a sudden I am able to tap into that powerful being that I am. And I knew it all along. I feel grateful that I am finally able to hold my own hand. I finally found my tools – within.
Remember to Breathe
“Change doesn’t happen overnight.”
This truth revealed itself to me several times.
Sure, I can comprehend that intellectually.
But incorporating the patience to bear that truth – that’s a different story….
I AM IMPATIENT. With myself. With the world around me. With the people who are “waking up” right now in this world. I don’t want to be impatient. I want to have compassion.
How do I want to have patience with other people if I am my hardest judge?
“You should be more confident.”
“You should be somewhere else in your life.”
Yeah, I’m claiming myself to be empathetic. But when it comes to my own development I bounce my head against the walls of my own resistance. “Resistance to what?,” you might ask… My resistance to feel what really wants to be felt in the very moment.
Writing this down raises a smile on my face. Warmth is softening my chest. “Take it easy,” an internal voice whispers into my awareness.
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”
Mary Anne Radmacher
Honestly, this quote moved me.
How much time do I give myself? To evolve, to learn, to remember, to integrate?
How many times do I rush into a decision?
How many times do I not listen to my exhaustion?
What this whole pandemic thing (call it whatever you please) teaches me is: PATIENCE. And I am so freakin’ grateful for this – even if it’s the hardest lesson I have yet to learn.
What I learnt over and over again from my past is that life does not follow a chronological timeline.
I can manifest. I can picture my brightest future. As soon as I take steps new challenges arise. New insecurities show up.
Surprise, surprise – the body is striking. The mind is rebelling.
And here you are: “Wait a minute? I have asked for this, why is it that hard?”
Because we grow in sections.
Friction is a companion on our journey.
Challenge will never leave us.
Challenge comes when we least expect it and, surely, when we most need it in order to make our own decisions.
They are here to test us.
When universe asks: “Are you serious?”
Do you go all in?
All in often times means not to push hard. It means to pull back. To take rest. To cry. To sleep. To recover. To re-cover what you have buried beneath new layers of life experience.
Something you considered as healed may re-inflames.
And then it is up to you to open your eyes to reality. Will you take the time to heal? Or will you distract yourself again and not move on?
The best advice I can give myself these days (as a fire sign) is: SLOW THE F*ck DOWN. Do you. Keep clear. Don’t overdo. Move along, but do it in your own pace (or slightly slower.)
Is there something you have overlooked in your enthusiasm?
Is your body asking for something else than your busy mind does deliver?
Is there anything at all that needs to be done right now?
Do you remember to breathe?
Breeeeeaaaathe through discomfort.
Move through hardships with grace.
Accept the challenge.