Just Take One Step at a Time ...

      “if you just take one step at a time, you can do anything. … your limits are mostly in your mind.”

        O’Halloran M. “Pure Heart Enlightened Mind: The Zen Journal and Letters of Maura ‘Soshin’ O’Halloran.” Charles E. Tuttle Company Inc, Boston, 1994. (a profoundly inspiring book)

johneb   www.dpreview.com

Heart Can & Should be Cultivated

     "The only way an individual can be secure in knowing he or she has heart is to have determination, fortitude, perseverance, persistence, stamina, tenacity, and conviction successfully tested. Once beyond this critical test, that person will have self-confidence based on knowing he or she has internal power.
     It is the authors' hypothesis that heart can be cultivated and fortified. ... Developing heart is a gradual process that involves practicing 'going the extra mile' and rehearsing this skill during small, predictable, controlled experiences. Unfortunately, because long-term benefits of cultivating heart have not been clearly understood, many scoff at this practice. As a result, far too many people do not foster the development of 'heart' in themselves or their children. The consequence of this shortcoming is that when the need for heart presents itself, individuals lack an internal toughness that allows them to respond adequately. Preparing one's fighting spirit is vital in the struggle of life, because negative aftermaths can happen to all of us. It is not what happens to us that matters most, however; it is how we respond and how we overcome adversity that defines us."

       Bell CC, Suggs H. Using sports to strengthen resiliency in children. Training heart. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am 1998; 7(4): 859-65.

 

Loren Klein   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/

Have Patience & Keep on Truckin'!

     Hui-neng, an illiterate laborer, on accidentally hearing the Diamond Sutra, had an immediate profound awakening. He immediately inquired about the Sutra, and sought instruction from Hongren, the 5th patriarch of Chan Buddhism.
     Most of us take a much slower, more circuitous path - gradually (instead of suddenly) awakening. I read about Zen for 30 years, finding it captivating, but really understanding nothing. Then I slowly got into a sitting practice. It's been a very slow 15 year journey so far. Unlike Hui-neng, it's quite remarkable how slow many of us are catching on, and to what extent it happens.
      We're repeatedly advised to focus on the process itself, not the goal - awakening. Doing so becomes easier, the further one is down the path. Impatient zeal gradually transforms into infinite patience, persistence ...
     Initially, our priorities are egocentric AND we're so unaware of our egocentricity, that we would argue vociferously to the contrary.
     Gradually we see present reality with increasing clarity, gradually we let go of self-cherishing, and gradually we open our heart-mind to what is. Clarity and ease come very slowly, but they do come, and it's well worth the effort. Slow and steady wins the race. "Keep on truckin'!"

Studio 21 Art Gallery, Halifax, NS   http://www.studio21.ca/

"Doing your Best"? Yes, but "Try Harder" - sort of ...

in memory of - John T. Smith - a fine martial artist

     If one were able to know and understand the effects of ALL of the inputs: genetics & environment (nature, nurture ± past lives) that make up an individual's "causes and conditions", their behavior under any new set of circumstances would be more predictable. Even identical twins behave differently, because their inputs, though similar (if raised in the same home) are not identical. Basically, expecting a person to behave differently than they do is unreasonable.
     Recently, I asked a colleague for a minor favor. It was a perfectly reasonable request that most people would expect to happen, but I had no expectations at all (due to my colleague's health). When he agreed to help, I was truly elated and happy. It was a wonderfully pleasant surprise.
     Most of us have inadequate insight even into our own causes & conditions, so we should try to have an open mind, & a patient, non-judgmental attitude even towards our own behavior. I suspect that each one of us has a heavy load of stuff to process in this lifetime. Each of us has different abilities to carry out this life's task. And each of us tries our best to be gentle, intelligent, patient, as together we slowly, tirelessly, persistently all move towards wisdom.

     An inspiring recent movie that you might find nurishing:

Undefinable

     “In silently wondering deeply without knowing, the conceptual world is left behind. Are we going into the question in this way?
      All too often our yearning for something to alleviate the inner suffering gets in the way of deep inquiry. Rather than asking, ‘What is enlightenment?’ can we question our inner feeling of insufficiency? We have tried to fill it with fantasies of all descriptions, with entertainment, acquisitions, achievements, relationships, spiritual searching, and solemn vows – anything to fill the aching void. But have we ever really explored it directly, unconditionally?
      Becoming conscious of it … can we be with the ache of emptiness, not calling it by any name? Let all labels fly into thin air and stay with what is here, discomfort without calling it discomfort. Staying here with what’s indefinable. Not resisting, not fighting, not looking for anything else. Just letting what is here be here in its entirely, physically, mentally, totally. Letting it be without knowing. Not becoming the doer for or against it. Just this quiet presence in the midst of the silence of chaos. In this there is an unfolding transparency. It happens when one sits patiently, silently, unconditionally. By ‘sitting’ I simply mean being totally with what is here. Not moving away or toward something else, just remaining with the whole thing – an intense presence that includes all the bodily sensations, breathing, wind-storming, raining, sunning, birding, coughing, fans humming – everything right here, all at once, without a seam. Observing thoughts coming up, emotions, feelings, sensations arising and more thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations unfolding and abating – being with it all. There isn’t any place to escape to. Everything is here without separation.”

       Packer T. “The Wonder of Presence and the Way of Meditative Inquiry.” Shambhala, Boston, 2002. 

TimR32225   www.dpreview.com