Category: Writings

Writings: Closing the door, opening the mind, with Thay

It is always wonderful when there is a story of wisdom making its sometimes slow but always sure way around the circle we live in…sometimes around the world. Here’s one from one of my favourite teachers, Master Thay:

CLOSING A DOOR
“With the energy of mindfulness, every action in our daily life can become pleasurable. ”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
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One day, when I was a novice monk, my teacher asked me to do something for him. I was very excited to do it for him, because I loved my teacher very much. So I rushed out to do it. But because I was so excited, I wasn’t mindful enough, and I slammed the door on my way out.

My teacher called me back and said: “My child. Please go out and close the door again. But this time, do better than you did before.” Hearing his words, I knew that my practice had been lacking. So I bowed to my teacher and walked to the door with all of my being, every step with mindfulness. I went out and, very mindfully, closed the door after me. My teacher did not have to tell me a second time. Now every time I open and close a door, I do so with mindfulness, remembering my teacher.

Many years later, I was in Kentucky with Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, and I told him that story. He said: “Well, I noticed that without you telling me; I have seen the way you close the door.” A month after I left his monastery in Kentucky, he gave a talk to his students and told them the story of me closing the door.

One day many years later, a Catholic woman from Germany came on retreat to our Plum Village practice center in France. On her last day, she told us that she had come only out of curiosity. She had listened to a recording of Thomas Merton’s talk, and she had come to see how I closed the door.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, At home in the world
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Photos at Tu Hieu Temple, Hue, Vietnam

Writings: It’s the dream we carry, with Olav Hauge

It’s the dream we carry
that something wondrous will happen
that it must happen –
time will open
hearts will open
doors will open
mountains will open
spring will gush forth from the ground
that the dream itself will open
that one morning we’ll quietly drift
into a harbor we didn’t know was there

by Olav Hauge

Writings: When will you ever learn?

There’s my math teacher, so many years ago, noticing me make the same mistake on three straight exams:
When will you ever learn?

There’s my exasperated dad, showing me for tenth time how to not grind the clutch:
When will you ever learn?

There’s the fourth or fifth tough breakup, and the voice in my head:
When will you ever learn?

There’s the song’s line, that stays with you echoing after we wonder “Where have all the flowers/soldiers/husbands/graveyeards gone?”….
When will you ever learn?

And today as the lessons pile up, the practice continues, and the crowd of teachers in my life watch the pace I keep, I wonder if they’re thinking that, too:
When will you ever learn?

Gotta say – thanks for asking. I’m as interested as you in finding out.

Let me know how it’s going with you, too.

Much love – 
Brother Ian

Art by Tara Turner:
https://tara-turner.pixels.com

Every once in a while…

It actually doesn’t matter where you have been swimming, or where you’re going to, but it does better where you’re swimming right now. It is only when we identify what grows in this moment that we have the chance to live fully.

Before & after – this leads to growth in our heads. Now – this leads to growth in our hearts.

It is within this mode of operating that we can grow and grow and grow.We find this by living each moment fully. That creates moments that are more memorable & a future that is more attainable.

You just watch.

Writings: Moving into the age of intuition, by Jessica Francis

As the vibration of this planet continues to accelerate, we are being called to awaken our intuitive nature. We are starting to clearly see how our own perception itself creates our outer reality and our life experience. And as we are moving from the age of information towards the age of intuition we are outgrowing the old paradigms of fear, anger, and separation. Flipping the script and discovering a high-vibrational perception which supports oneness, compassion, love, co-creation and joy. Have you ever noticed that you and I are living in a phase of transition? The more we learn how to feel our own personal vibration and work intentionally with energy, the more we can transform ourselves and our lives. To use our intuition is to step into this new time.

Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without factual proof, evidence or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was received. It means that our perception is shifting and the way we perceive life.

Intuition development
In the new perception, there is no past, present, and future. There is only the now. Intuitive guidance will not come through when you are projecting into the past or the future. Intuition comes when you are centered into the present moment. This inner knowing comes when the mind is clear and not distracted. With developing/remembering our intuitive nature is to tune into the present moment more and more. Our intuition grows with awareness, practice and spiritual growth.

We are all born intuitive
We all have been born with intuition. It is like an extra muscle that we are learning how to train. And is not a gift. It is inherent in us all. All human beings are intuitive beings. Just like we learn how to ride a bicycle, we can learn how to harness to power of our innate intuitive power. At one point in our lives we either develop our intuitive abilities or numbing down our intuitive voice by relying on the logical mind. Making decisions from logic rather from a heart based place.

Listen, trust and apply
Listen to and trust and apply your intuition in your daily life. As you become more conscious you become more capable of tuning into your intuition. You will learn how to differentiate between deep knowing and your mind chattering. You will have to learn how to see the difference between your logic mind and your intuitive heart. Your heart is also like a gateway to your higher self. Intuition never screams or demands, it comes with ease and grace. It never does any harm.

We learn through experience
Let’s do a fun exercise. Focus on a question you would like to know about yourself or a situation. Try to keep it as clear as possible, so that it will help you to receive the clearest answer. Bring yourself into this present moment by taking a few deep breaths and focus on your external surroundings. Close your eyes and start asking a question you would like to receive guidance on.

If you are interested in diving deeper into your intuitive nature. I developed a free 3-online training where you will be receiving 3 tools to awaken and train your intuitive abilities. Sign up for free here.

With all of my love from Ubud, Bali

Jessica Francis – Intuitive guidance for the Soul

The original posting (and Jessica’s work) is posted here:
http://www.littlerebelbuddha.com/moving-into-the-age-of-intuition/

Writings: Any way you look at it…

You have it. I have it. Most everyone you know has it.

It feels almost impossible to escape it. No matter what we see or develop feelings about, it ends up coloured by our old thoughts, our old wounds, our old successes.

Someone says, “Yay!” and we can’t echo the cheer, because we had a different experience.

Someone says, “I hate that!” about something we’re fond of.

And when we pat ourselves on the back because we have an open mind, because we see things clearly & others don’t, because we get it & they don’t…there’s a bit more.

See, everything we say comes from one place – our heart. And it’s great that each person’s heart is different from each other person’s heart. And whatever each of us sees & feels & knows is shaped by the life in front of us, the way we see it & feel it. There’s no way anyone else could see it exactly the same way.

And that’s beautiful. It’s our chance to share our angle on things with our friends, and sometimes with people who don’t have as good an angle.

It’s our chance to celebrate the people who see things differently (or not at all!) from us, because they have something to share, too. It gives us a chance of real understanding, while still learning to cherish the place we see life from as well.

And that’s the beginning of the chance to be kind.

Love to you all –
Brother Ian

Writings: Isn’t it hard to live in such an isolated place?

Couple of years ago, I ran into some visitors to Friday Harbor, around the time I was wrapping up living there for nearly twenty years, on San Juan Island. One was the nicest of people, and she said, “Isn’t it hard to live in such an isolated place?”

In our follow-up, I discovered that she got up each morning for an hour drive to San Francisco, went into her office each day where she worked until the ride home, and then watched TV till bedtime.

She discovered that I usually walked into town, saying howdy or swapping stories or sharing a hug, met my different clients at coffeeplaces and cafés, and then had soccer or basketball with the kids after school, and then something to eat at our place (with friends over) or at someone’s potluck. My kids and I didn’t have a TV, at least partly because I didn’t know when we would have had time to look at it.

So, all in all, it was a good question – I should ask her, “Isn’t it hard to live in such an isolated place?”

I love it that you share so much of the world with me. Now I gotta get down to the beach, before sunset. Wanna come?

Love you, in this light –
Brother Ian

 Be sure and check out Chris’ pictures – you’ll be glad you did!

Writings: Pity…not deep enough

From my friend Carmen:

Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity.

Pity has its roots in fear and carries a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of “I’m glad it’s not me.”

As Stephen Levine says: “When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion.”

To train in compassion is to know that all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honour all those who suffer, and to know that you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone…

~Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, chapter 12

Writings: Giving stage, playing small, or sharing your voice

I had an idea I wanted to share with you.  It’s one of those things that I wanted to see what you think. This draws from my experience as an actor onstage, a newspaper editor, and an admirer of this rather famous bit from Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
         ― Marianne Williamson,  A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

I hope it’s okay if I admit to you, my friend, that part of the reason this speaks to me is a lifelong habit of shrinking, of playing small. I often have have tried to avoid conflict, avoid confrontation, by pulling back from a fight. Occasionally this means that I am able to make a gracious exit from a problem, or to keep peace by letting a face-off fade. There’s a place for that, but I think I’m more concerned about when I shrink from engaging, when I know I need to stand up.

When I was acting, one of the things you gotta learn is when to “give stage,” which pretty much means if something is happening on stage that is bigger than whatever I’m doing, I need to not be “bigger” or more obvious (or louder or more active, or whatever) than the main action. This was hard for me to explain sometimes to the excitable grade eights I used to direct, but it makes for a better show.

And that’s where I think I get a bit balled up in my rules to live by. I know there’s a difference between giving stage & playing small, but I sometimes act as if one is the other, and when I really think about it, one is sometimes an excuse for not doing the other.

Which brings us to the third bit here: Sharing your voice.

When I edited an online newspaper called the San Juan Update for fifteen years, it was an exercise is finding my voice. Should I print this? Should I post that?  Was it my place to impose what I thought on people? What was useful about this was the discovery how the writing & the decisions were easier once I knew “what I say.”

Not what I had to say, or what I thought I should say, or what I better be careful about. Instead, the easiest writing was when I was speaking to my values (community working together to share & heal) and knowing there were people in the readership (we had about 3000 daily readers). And that’s what I do, what I say. And the words come.

As a friend during that period says, “You find your voice when your heart comes to play.”

In theatre, “sharing your voice” is what a director asks a timid actor to do, so everyone can hear his or her lines.

I hope that for you, my friend. Speak out & make sure the people in the back row can hear you. You have so much to give, and the people in the world are poorer when you hold it in, or hold it down.

Play on!

Love & blessings,

Brother Ian

Writings: Musings, with Joni

I don’t know if I’ve learned anything yet! I did learn how to have a happy home, but I consider myself fortunate in that regard because I could’ve rolled right by it.

Everybody has a superficial side and a deep side, but this culture doesn’t place much value on depth — we don’t have shamans or soothsayers, and depth isn’t encouraged or understood. Surrounded by this shallow, glossy society we develop a shallow side, too, and we become attracted to fluff.

That’s reflected in the fact that this culture sets up an addiction to romance based on insecurity — the uncertainty of whether or not you’re truly united with the object of your obsession is the rush people get hooked on. I’ve seen this pattern so much in myself and my friends and some people never get off that line.

But along with developing my superficial side, I always nurtured a deeper longing, so even when I was falling into the trap of that other kind of love, I was hip to what I was doing.

I recently read an article in Esquire magazine called ‘The End of Sex,’ that said something that struck me as very true. It said: “If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.” What happens when you date is you run all your best moves and tell all your best stories — and in a way, that routine is a method for falling in love with yourself over and over.

You can’t do that with a longtime mate because he knows all that old material. With a long relationship, things die then are rekindled, and that shared process of rebirth deepens the love. It’s hard work, though, and a lot of people run at the first sign of trouble.

You’re with this person, and suddenly you look like an asshole to them or they look like an asshole to you — it’s unpleasant, but if you can get through it you get closer and you learn a way of loving that’s different from the neurotic love enshrined in movies. It’s warmer and has more padding to it.

Joni Mitchell

Writings: Putting the ‘happy’ in the new year

These are days of miracle & wonder – this has been a year of change & transformation & transition & letting go for so many people around me.

I treasure that we have shared so much as we’ve walked together – and as everyone says “Happy New Year” tonight, I hope you know that the joy & happiness in your heart today is there for you to share tomorrow & through the new days ahead.

It’s not the New Year that will make you happy, but you who will bring happiness to these days we share.