Get tough and meditate. Meditate and get tough.

We meditate even on days when it hurts to meditate. Maybe it’s the body that hurts. Maybe it’s the mind or the heart. This sitting still and welcoming pain goes against what we have been taught—to distract ourselves from discomfort, find a way around it, or just muscle our way through. The bravest thing that I know to do when I experience pain is to go ahead and allow myself to hurt, be scared, be sad, and so on, without either reaching for the quick fix, calling up a friend who will tell me that it’s okay, or throwing myself a pity party. Some days we just need to get tough and meditate.

So what that you're scared? Meditate!

This moving up close to pain isn’t so different from training a puppy to stay. I once had a pug who loved mandarin orange slices. When I held one in front of his nose, his body quivered and he whimpered. But he stayed with all this discomfort until he heard “Okay." We’re not trying to be martyrs when we sit in meditation, but we are cultivating a strong sense of being with ourselves in every moment of our life, not just the ones that feel happy and easy. How can we expect to be with others who are in pain if we haven't learned to hold that space for ourselves?

The practice of being with pain, heartache, loneliness, and so on, is why I became a hospice volunteer—not because I’m so kind and loving, or because I thought that I could fix anything at all. Being with the dying has allowed me to be a student of mindfulness in a way that nothing else has. Someone dying is either lying down or sitting (prime positions for meditation). They are aware of most every breath (the instruction for meditation). And they live moment to moment to moment (bingo). As much as we may try to “live like we’re dying,” I can’t imagine that we will actually do that until we actually are. So for now, as we celebrate our life, maybe we can include even those moments when we quiver and whimper.

Sit, stay, quiver all you want

One day as I was telling my meditation instructor why I hadn’t been able to work on a writing project, she interrupted me with “Stop making excuses.” It stung to hear those words, and it helped. Staying present to what scares and hurts us can foster courage, confidence, and kindness. Bravo to the brave counselors, dear friends, and glorious teachers who are practiced enough to speak the truth in whatever way our ears can hear it.

Tired of Speaking Sweetly, by Hafez (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,

Break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage and

Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,

He would just drag you around the room

By your hair,

Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world

That bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly

And wants to rip to shreds

All your erroneous notions of truth

That make you fight within yourself, dear one,

And with others,

Causing the world to weep

On too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us,

Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself

And practice His dropkick.

The Beloved sometimes wants

To do us a great favor:

Hold us upside down

And shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hear

He is in such a "playful drunken mood"

Most everyone I know

Quickly packs their bags and hightails it

Out of town.

Celebrate your seasons

There are times to create, to grow, to nourish; these times feel full, rich, and expansive. Other times are concentrated and small, and it feels best to clear out, condense, reduce. In moments that are cold and stark, we may doubt that anything will ever spark for us again. Silent, still times allow for deep listening to inner landscapes. 

Landscape, by Renee

Just as nature has seasons, so do we. Throughout each day, each week, and into the months and years that we call our life, each of us has rhythms that are uniquely our own. It is honorable to recognize these rhythms and to live them as they arise. We can then stop looking for anything beyond ourselves to let us know whether or not we’re okay, if we’re good, and so on. We can stop being embarrassed about who we are.

Good egg, bad egg

It is brave to allow ourselves to be seen throughout the seasons of our life; it may be even more brave to see ourselves. This bravery is something to celebrate. We can celebrate stillness. Celebrate vitality and color. Celebrate having just enough and not one drop more. Such celebration is dignified, simple, without fanfare. We might drink tea from a good cup on the darkest cold day of our soul’s winter. We might raise our face to the sun and breathe in the sky. We might curl our body in on itself on a random afternoon and drift in and out of sleep.

Driveway vacation

Recognizing and meeting our rhythms in a way that is straightforward may be what is meant by living each moment of life. And that’s really something to celebrate. 

Keely rides winter, courtesy of Sam and Murphy

Stream of Life, by Rabindranath Tagore

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day 
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. 

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth 
in numberless blades of grass 
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. 

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth 
and of death, in ebb and in flow. 

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. 
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment. 

In the service of love: What brings you alive?

May this season's gift-giving include the most simple, ordinary acts of loving service that we can imagine.

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one,

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

      -John Lennon (1940-1980)