Keep dancing.
Keep practicing.
Practice makes practice.
Practice is perfect.
Be open to discovering what keeps you dancing. (Hint: if what inspires you to keep dancing is something outside of you, dig deeper.)
In several traditions, facing death is a technique to help uncover what is so precious that you would practice until it appeared. For example, Pema Chodron poses this question:
Since death is certain,
and the time of death is uncertain.
what is the most important thing?
The most important thing, for me, is to create space for love, acceptance, empowerment, joy and trust - with my family and friends, with my beloved and irritating acquaintances and with the people I have not yet met.
The more I practice being loving awareness of experience, the more I experience being loving awareness of experience.
This is the link to the Deepak Chopra video.
I am the loving awareness of being me in this moment - tired, grateful and ready.
Something that I struggle with is being in the moment and taking one day or one situation at a time. I can talk a good game, however catch myself worrying about what a particular thing may mean going forward, going into the future. Whatever the thing is, I can jump ahead and think; but if I do it this way it can mean this to another person. Or if I respond in this way, how is that going to be taken. I find that I can start wanting to get out of doing something that otherwise I would enjoy, just because I'm not sure what it would mean in the future.
ReplyDeleteI have to remind myself to be in the moment, experience what is happening and just go with it. Thinking to take one day at a time or one experience at a time helps me relax and truly enjoy things as they come to me.
Thanks for sharing that, Dan. I'm reminding myself of things all the time. And I'm finding the more I remind myself, the less I need to!
DeleteSo here goes, my first comment ever! I have never even been on FB, my Love Like That friends...Anyway, so when I read your hint, Anna, I froze in my reading tracks. So, if we are to detach, shift our ego out of focus when things are not going as planned, then it would follow that we are doing the same when things feel good (or dare I say even, great). Ugh! I tend to wait for the other shoe to drop when things go "right" already. So then what do we do with feelings like pride, the feelings that come with a sense of accomplishment, something we've done that has taken dedication, commitment, and hard work? Oh, how to be, people?!
ReplyDeleteMary... welcome to the on-line group engagement experience!
DeleteFor me, the practice is always the same - feel my feelings without attaching to them. Feel happy and excited! Feel sad and angry. Suffering occurs when I get attached to the story around my feelings. Like if I planned for something to happen and it did happen I would feel happy. If I then started getting attached to the thinking, "who I am is a person who is happy when things work out the way I plan them to" I am setting myself up for suffering. Like, if someone speaks to me in a way I don't like I would feel angry. If I then get attached to a story that "so and so is rude and doesn't respect me" I am setting myself up for suffering.