Creating boundaries: The loving practice of NO

I am on retreat. There are about 20 monastics and a handful of “regular” mindfulness practitioners living in a shared space—shared bedrooms, bathrooms, dining room, kitchen, and practice spaces. We’re very close—physically. It isn’t always fun. Creating boundaries is not only necessary here; it conveys a deep caring and respect for ourselves, each other, and the practice of mindfulness. 

Not sure how to operate the camera: brain freeze

My retreat job is to prep food for the next day’s meal. I place a piece of masking tape and write NO on the top of each container of food that I prepare. NO stands for Not Offered. In an environment where offerings are key, generosity is encouraged, and sharing is a must if everyone is to make it through each day, being extremely clear about what is NOT offered is efficient and wise. If even a few of us help ourselves to the food that isn't offered, we will not have enough to feed everyone the next day.

NO apple ginger salad with toasted pumpkin seeds for you! (until tomorrow)

Creating Not Offered boundaries is also efficient and wise in everyday life. Can you imagine how less frustrated, angry, resentful, and taken for granted we would feel could we simply place a NO label on whatever is not up for grabs in our life? What would be on your Not Offered list—the 1.5 hours you need to make it to the gym? the fresh berries you bought to pack in your lunch? your willingness to listen, when somebody calls you to gripe and complain?

Being exact about what we will not give away can actually align us more with heartful giving. In fact, when we do not give away those objects, efforts, time, and so on, that are necessary for our own health and happiness, we can use them to become healthy and happy. And a healthy, happy person gives—for no reason other than their unencumbered heart and mind truly want to make offering.

Platform from which scraps are tossed to birds that fly above the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Nova Scotia

Love After Love, by Derek Walcott

The time will come 

when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other's welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life.