Inner Smile on a Cold Day

Yesterday was one of those days, you wake-up completely on the wrong side of the bed. Tripping, spilling, cursing the morning away. I thought for sure it was going to be a horrible day. To boot, I’m late and there is ice all over my car. So, after de-icing the car and cranking up the heat I feel the heat of being late. Not that I was going to get in trouble, I just really hate to be late anywhere. So, there I am in my car, driving through my neighborhood, thinking of nothing but being late and how bad of a morning it was.

Freeze……Can you see how the day is shaping? It’s going to be bad and I’m determined to make it so. Ok Go!

As I get to a corner in my neighborhood I notice my neighbor and her grandchild waiting for the bus. This woman always waves to me and I wave back but it will take a huge undertaking to remove my negative thoughts. And then it happend. Although I might have been 20 degrees and ice everywhere, her Grandchild looked up with that pom on top of her knitted cap and her stripped mittens to “smile and wave” at me. I was stuck in my tracks, unable to move.

The moment of seeing a child smile and wave changed everything. I felt that “Inner Smile” blurb up and fill my body. The last thing to hit was the smile on my face. A simple act of joy and a smile melted me, turned everything around.

I couldn’t stop smiling the whole way to work…..then it cascaded to a spring in my step and my humor…….I felt like bouncing to every meeting.

The “Inner smile”, from Lao Tzu to Buddha, a concept of love from the inside.

What I felt was a massive amount of Qi cultivation at that moment, continuing throughout the day, thinking of my Qigong instructor saying “let a smile float up to your face” only brought more Qi. My practice of “Loving-Kindness” as of late came to mind as well and I was again washed in Qi and calm.

Some call it the Buddha Nature or Loving-Kindness and some call it the “Inner Smile”, I called it unexpected.

This just goes to show how much of a quality day we create by just thinking it as well as the power of a wave and a smile from another being.

For meditation and more articles:

Meditation from Yoga Journal

Metta: The Practice of Loving Kindness by Kris Vockler

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Update “Spread the Love NOW! Group Writing Project”

Photo Credit

As many of you know we were part of a wonderful project called “Spread the Love NOW! Group Writing Project“. Created by those wonderfully enlightened folks at [The Middle Way], [Zen-Inspired Self Development], and [UrbanMonk.net]. The project was fantastic and led me to a whole new group of enlightened ones to read and be a part of on this crazy path we each share yet walk alone. To read Beyond Zen’s part of the project, check out this post: A Story of Compassion and Dying.

I want all of our readers to also enjoy some of the great writing from this project; stories of compassion, concepts of compassion from many spiritual themes, and discussions on definition of the word “Compassion”. The list is below, enjoy!

~La Boheme

Entries

Ben Lumley at The New Horizons Project.

Kris Vockler at Beyond Zen.

Corinne Edwards at Personal Growth with Corinne Edwards.

Isabella Mori at Change Therapy.

Paula Kawal at Journey Inward Coaching.

Liara Covert at Dream Builders.

David Bohl at Slow Down Fast.

Deb Estep at Deb_Inside.

Swami Nirmalananda Giri and ReddyK at the Atma Jyoti Blog.

Mary Jaksch at Goodlife Zen.

Takuin Minamoto at Daily Action and Natural Expression.

Robin at Reflections on Compassion, posted at Yogini Myspace Blog.

Karen Zara at Abaminds.

Jenny Mannion at Heal Pain Naturally.

Evan Hadkins at WellBeingAndHealth.Net.

Shawn Williamson at do you LIVE or simply EXIST.

Patricia Singleton at Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker.

Alex Blackwell at The Next 45 Years.

Akemi Gaines at Gratitude Magic.

Vitor Bosshard at The Fractal Forest.

CG Walters at Into The Mist.

John Torcello has also contributed an entry by email, I’ve included it in the comments below.

Brightdays at Brighter Days for you and me!

Karen at Loving Awareness.

Krista at Lucid Amphibology.

Karen Lynch at Live The Power.

Andrea Hess at Empowered Soul.

Waters at Waters: The Last Thing I Wanted To Give.

Eric Grey at Deepest Health.

Stephen Hopson at Adversity University.

Em Dy at Pulse: Intention to Treat.

Iain Hamp at Follow Your Passions.

Rahul at Raw Speak.

Stephen Miracle at AltNoise.Net.

Pearl at Interesting Observations.

Mark at My Tropical Escape.

Matthew at Loving Awareness.

Daylle Schwartz at Lessons from a Recovering Doormat.

Charities Link at Charities Link.

Mihaela Lica at Pamil Visions eWritings.

David at Virginia Breeze.

Jerry Summers at Nothing Like Now.

Wishbone at Wishbone.

Arvind Devalia at Make Things Happen.

Samir Bharadwaj at Samir Bharadwaj dot com.

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A Story of Compassion and Dying

The Three Monks of blogging– Wade of The Middle Way, Kenton of Zen-Inspired Self Development, and Albert of Urban Monk.Net - have asked in this holiday time of year for us to share our stories of compassion. To see the original post please click he following links: [The Middle Way], [Zen-Inspired Self Development], and [UrbanMonk.net].

Here is my story…

My Grandfather died just over a year ago, today would have been his birthday. The call I got just before he died is one I’ll never forget; “Kristi, this is Grandma, I need your help, Grandpa is stuck in the bathroom”, “I’ll be right there I said”.

I would do anything for my Grandfather, he was in my mind the embodiment of everything that Buddha taught but didn’t know it. For about a year my Grandfather had begun a slow downhill fall to leukemia so it wasn’t a surprise at the end but that didn’t make it any better. When I got to my Grandparents house, there was Grandpa, stuck between the toilet and the wall, naked. He had grown too weak to help himself and was too heavy for my Grandmother to help him. He was in pain but we still had a chuckle as he said; “Little girl, I’m stuck” and I said; “and naked!”. He always had a fantastic sense of humor and kept it until he could not speak anymore. We wrestled a while as we tried to figure out how to get him back to his chair and after some time we did it at the expense of some humiliation on his part and pride on mine to be able to aide the man I adored so much.

Although he wanted to live to the end in his home, we both knew it was time for him to go to the hospital, the leukemia effects had fully taken over and his body was shutting down. Calling my Father to tell him he better come over, we needed to get Grandpa to the hospital, was rough as he at the same time was dealing with losing his father and being an only child and feeling fully responsible for his parents well being.

We stuck by him at the ER until it became obvious he needed hospice to aide in his final moments in this life. While in the hospital I had gotten a call from a good friend that his step Mother was also in the hospital across town and in her final moments in dealing with cancer. For the next few nights I spent time between a family who’s wife and mother I had grown very fond of and my own Grandfather, both about to die. During this, I started to lose my grip on “what was death” and “how could they go” and “what is next”. Keeping my family and theirs in humor and food was my goal, at least it pushed my agony away.

I wasn’t present for either of their passing, it happened late at night, but I was fully present in my own misery and suffering, as well as a possible loss of faith to boot. They both died within an hour of each other.

The next day when word had gotten around that Grandpa had passed and I was still in shock, the most kind act of compassion came my way. A friend had sent me an email, simply saying; “I know how this feels and we are thinking of you. Can I do anything for you?” Along with it she sent a graphic, seen below, of Buddha’s passing and those around him in agony.

Her simple act of; expressing her knowing of being in my shoes, a simple question of how can she help me, and an image of Buddha’s passing all swarmed in my head. This was the simple act I needed to keep my belief in Buddhism, humanity, and how a life lead with compassion is the only way to live. Thank you my friend.

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Clean Your Room?

Today over email a friend confided in all the seemingly crazy events occurring, all coming in waves and each one hitting harder. A relationship fading away, money issues causing worry, family drama and all the such. In reply I was pleased with my thoughts, having been through times like this I felt I was finally able to draw on my experience as well as relate to concepts of Buddhism. So, here is what I formulated:

It totally is cleaning house and a huge lesson. We all know, especially our circle here, that there is more out there than what we see in front of us. Our veils are very thick at times. This is one of those times where all energies are focused so you can clean house. It reminds me of why I picked a study of Buddhism, to clean things out of the mind, or to clean the room that is the mind. It’s like cleaning your room, as I heard a monk say once. All you see is the clutter in front of you and on that day you don’t see that the sun is shining and the neighbor is washing his car and people are shopping. Although, and this is another lesson, to be cleaning the clutter but thinking of shopping, this is the untrained mind. I guess my point is, you are cleaning house and you are meant to focus on this aspect right now. When you are done, the energy of the universe will shift as you need it to. Often when we enter a spiritual practice, things will die off; relationships, habits, ways of thinking. Just to make room for new understanding. It may not feel good right now but I am very happy you are cleaning house. 6 months from now you won’t have these negative attachments clinging to you and taking up resources for what you are meant to be doing.

Not that I’m some great Yogini or Buddhist teacher but once in a while I get excited when a concept makes sense through this veil of mine.

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Metta: The Practice of Loving Kindness

This article was originally published on Helium.com, to see the article, please go here.

Metta: the Practice of Loving-Kindness

By Kris Vockler

Just about every human being goes through varied degrees of contention in a lifetime, a feeling of swimming against the current of a river. This being a form of suffering in life is, at the base, a concept that spawned Buddhism in the eyes of the Awakened One, Buddha. Life is inherently full of suffering and we all experience it at different levels, some with great foreboding and fear and others with just having a bad day. According to Buddha, one of the practices that can cultivate a vaccine for this type of suffering is the practice of Metta or Loving-Kindness cultivation.
Metta is a Pali word, a language in which the cannon of Buddhism was written a language of Southeast Asia (Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, India, and Nepal) during the First Century BCE (100 BC). Also known as the Classical Era, this time period is most marked as the declining years of the Roman Republic in Europe.

Yet, what is Metta and how can one use it, since it appears to be a tool to thwart the negative in life. At its seed, Metta is a quality of the heart that sees life without conflict or contention. What sounds rather naive is actually very profound and takes work to cultivate. Imagine an experience where one does not fume through the day because of a long commute in traffic or freedom from negative thoughts towards one who may have wronged us. The why we would want to do this can be summed up in a quote from Buddha; “When angry the first reaction is to pick-up a hot coal with the intention of throwing it at your enemy in hopes of causing as much harm as they caused you, yet the only person who is harmed is you by the hot coal and burns on your hands”.

How does one go about cultivating this golden bit of life lesson left out by our teachers and society? Through training the mind in meditation and re-training the brain to see over and around the mountain as opposed to at the mountain which is the big obstacle. Cultivation of Metta is a mental factor and thus can be created if one wishes to train their mind.

Most Buddhists under practice start with Mindfulness Meditation and then move on to a Metta Meditation method to further progress through what the Buddha had taught yet it is something that can be done by a lay person or a beginner in Buddhist study. Cultivating this line of thinking creates unconflicted relationships, freedom from fear, a greater feeling of connection to the world and as a result a softening of the heart and much calmer waters to swim in.

To start a practice one must only do some simple steps; set-up a comfortable place to meditate daily and open your heart. In a comfortable sitting position, let your gaze relax and pay attention to the tickle of air moving in and out of your nose. After a short while you most likely will be bombarded with thoughts from the mind like; this is boring, I need bread and milk from the store, I wonder what my sister is doing. It’s important to just let those thoughts drift in and out and when you notice them, bring your attention back to your breath.

The goal of the Metta practice is in generating the loving kindness on yourself first, then towards a loved one, thirdly to one you may consider an enemy (could be the barista who make your latte wrong this morning), and finally towards all beings on earth.
Once you have sat for a few moments and are comfortable, think about an aspect of yourself you love and respect or when you may have helped another just because. Let a smile rise to your face for what a good feeling this brings about. Say to yourself in your mind or out loud:

May I be safe from danger
Maybe I be happy
May I be healthy and strong
May I have a sense of well being

Continue to bring the mind back when it wanders and keep the thoughts you had that made you feel good about your loving aspects. At this time, especially if you are new to meditation, you may conclude the meditation and do it again tomorrow. But if you are able to sit for longer the next step is to hold in your mind someone you love and respect, thinking and feeling the reasons why you love and respect them. As before, recite to yourself:

May you be protected from inner and outer harm
May you be happy and peaceful of mind
May you enjoy strength, vitality and health in body
May you be blessed with ease of well being

Feel these statements and let them sink into your consciousness, feel what it feels like to truly have a well wishing for this person. This process is best stopped here and continued like this for as long as you feel it should. It could take some time to notice the bleeding over into daily life, yet when you do notice a greater feeling towards yourself and a greater feeling towards others; this is the time to add the third part; bringing Metta to those who challenge us.

Each time you sit and meditate you start with the self, move to a loved one and eventually move to those who challenge us. When you are ready for the first meditation with the challenged ones, do the first part mentioned above and when ready, bring to your mind someone who may have been a part of causing some resentment or anger in you and recite the following:

Just as I wish to be happy, so may you be happy
May you be touched by loving kindness
May you be free of mental and physical suffering
May you live in peace and harmony
May all being everywhere be happy, peaceful and at ease

You may be saying to yourself; how can this be done, the feelings over this person are so strong. One must remember that feelings are fleeting and pass as quickly as they came but a true mental attitude is rooted and set. This practice will take time and that time will vary for each person but results will be seen and a greater sense of well being and ease will be the product.

During the day when you pass a flower market and catch a whiff of a great smelling flower or when you stop to get your latte and someone holds the door open for you, notice that moment and how wonderful the feeling of ease feels. Know to yourself, this is the mental state you are cultivating in your Metta practice and all living being will benefit from its ripple effect.

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Watch Out for Monkey’s That Fling Poo or Your Ego’s Memory.

And how the monkey brain swings from tree to tree…This is one of my favorite topics because it’s the one most difficult part of being a human, in my humble opinion. Granted, if I had less of the basic needs taken care of I might say differently but from my perspective this is the big one for myself and many of you out there.For the last seven years I’ve been in the study of Buddhism, trying to see reality, and from this perspective the monkey brain is one to be trained to not swing and fling poo. We use daily meditation, moving the jumping thoughts and ego to the side, quieting things down so that we can even just for a moment see things as they truly are. Taking off the glasses so to speak. This allows one to step back, cast away attachments to the ego memories or thoughts, see the emotions or thoughts as they are; coming and going.What got me thinking this morning about this was a recent post by one of my favorite blogs “be Conscious now” on

How can I stop these compulsive thoughts from invading my brain?

K-L does a great job of relating to what most of us go through and offers some advice on how to quiet things down:

Realize that: “See, YOU are not your thoughts, nor your mind, nor your personality, nor your body. You are the eternal, unchanging consciousness within. ”

“The thoughts are automatic… they are generated based on your past, your personality, your emotions… they are inevitable. Yet they mean nothing.”

K-L makes a great point, do nothing about these thoughts, see them, separate from them and observe them. Great! Easy no? No. Not easy and not as simple as just looking at them. I don’t think one can just say I’m going to look at them but they won’t affect me, this is not possible. But this may be two lines of thinking, K-L vs. Laboheme. I am of the belief that it takes practice and time. It’s taken me years to make progress and I still spin out of control with thinking.

Once you realize, as K-L says, that these thoughts are not you but the reflection of your ego memories, you can start to detach from them. Once you realize that a mind untrained will create these thoughts and lead then to suffering.

If you have the ability to not attach to your thoughts then you are a long way down the path but if you struggle, from my perspective they only way to walk down that path is by training the mind; Mindfulness Meditation is the first and best place to start.

Here is a primer on how to start. At first you will find it difficult to sit for a long period of time but through training you maybe be able to sit for 30 or 60 minutes a day or even sit for 8 hours at a retreat. (I’m at the 30 min mark myself but I never go further than I can).

Find a comfortable sitting position, on a cushion, in a meditation bench, any position you can sit comfortably for an extended period of time. You can clasp your hands in any position or mudra you wish or not, it’s up to you and what works for you.

Close your eyes and just breathe……..notice the breath as it moves in and out just at the tip of your nose. You will feel the air move in and out, almost tickle. Focus on this, without words or thoughts, just focus on the breath coming in and out.

After a bit your mind will drift; maybe it’s the grocery list, maybe it’s the negative thoughts in your ego saying you are wasting your time or maybe it’s that itch on your leg. As soon as you drift come back to focusing on the breath and it’s coming in and out of your nose.

That’s it, simply a practice of allowing the mind to drift, placing no judgment on the thoughts and letting them drift away as you focus on your breath.

Start for 10 minutes and work your way up as long as you can but practice daily. What you will notice is how you will naturally do this during the day, you are training your mind.

This is a good topic, more on this later.

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Awakening the Heart

The pic above is of a lotus flower, a sacred and meaningful flower to Buddhists and other Eastern Philosophies. The reference to the lotus flower is a wonderful icon that describes the path we take to become enlightened. A lotus flower is the icon of purification of the body, the speech, and the mind; blossoming of insight into the true reality and then into liberation. The lotus makes reference to the path; growing from the mud (otherwise known as samsara), climbing through the muddy water to appear clean on the surface of the water (purification) as a bud, then moving to flower (enlightenment). It’s a wonderful thought, practice that leads to rising from the mud and into the light with purity. You have to give it to us Buddhists for great imagery. Although I think the Hindus have it on us.

Through all this talk of desire and feeling desire and working with desire and transforming desire, I forgot to do one important thing and that’s practice loving-kindness towards myself, metta. So I picked up a book by Thick Nhat Hanh called True Love; A Practice for Awakening the Heart. Less metta and more how to have an open heart for those we love. Without self-love one is not able to give present love to their family.

The book was great, I really enjoyed reading it. From it I took some good mantra’s or thoughts:

The Four Aspects of Love

• Maitri - loving-kindess, ability to bring joy and happiness to the one you love, training to do so is to practice deep looking toward the person you love. Understanding this person is love and without understanding love is not possible.
• Karuna - compassion, not just the desire to ease pain in another but the ability to do so. Deep looking to understand the suffering in another so that you can help the change. Meditation is key as it is the looking into the nature of things.
• Mudita - if there is no joy in love, it is not true love, suffering all the time (in yourself or causing it) this is not love, but the opposite.
• Upeksha - equanimity or freedom, when you love you bring freedom to the person you love, loving in such a way as the other person you love feels free; “Dear one, do you have enough space in you heart and all around you?”

Love for self can be applied accordingly, the same concepts can be applied to the ego-self relationship. Loving another is the fertile ground of study and understanding we Buddhists crave.

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It’s A Reflective Day…

It’s one of those days where you take a check of all the things you learned or ticked off your list. It’s been a crazy few months, as you can tell from the blog.

One of the biggest topics has been Desire and how one deals with it from a Buddhist perspective, this I call my greatest breakthrough to date but as we all know, it will go away and come back and stay and sit but will I deal with it differently? My guess is Desire will never go and now I can say I’m glad for that. For what I have learned is it’s in these tough times where the mind takes over that we are in the best spot for study and application of the Dharma.

In this first post on Desire, you can read into how much I was, still am, struggling with Desire. What I have learned as of late is that Desire is a crazy little bugger, it not only leads to suffering (i.e. having false expectations and such) but it brings out a ton of other emotions. All fertile ground for the mind to beat the crap out of us. Desire seeps into meditation, sleep, waking thinking and tries to rip apart mindful moments. See I was creating an aspect of suffering by thinking and trying to get rid of Desire, which is impossible. And not what Buddha taught.

With luck and practice I have been able, for at least the time being, to put Desire in a space right in front of me and I can say Hello to it if I want but I now know what it is and what it does. Allowing me to see how it works, which has given me permission to see what emotions it pulls out.

Now, this is very hard to do, to be able to sit and just observe the emotions or the Desire. It’s painful but what you are left with is a sense of calm and a lack of movement to cling to it, define yourself by it. It becomes just like anything else, that which will pass, only to come back. The world did not end.

I have to share something that really hit me and helped to ease the suffering of Desire. I posted that I needed help to my Sangha about Desire and this is what another community member sent to me, a quote from our Dharma teacher. heheh

“Oh Kris, I’m sure you are the only one dealing with Desire in this room”.

Kinda puts things in perspective and keep you from feeling isolated.

Hands down I have to say my study of Buddhism and the support of my Sangha have been a huge part of my life in trying to soften the ego.

Namaste everyone

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Ego, Human, Moment of Connection

We humans are an interesting lot, there is a raw and knowing inside that is guided, ruled, and directed by that all interesting ego. We repel feelings of connection as much as we repel that moment of nothing in our meditation. Fears of letting go, fears of feeling that nothing, all fueled by the ego and it’s desire to control and grasp. That which the ego hates most are the moments we should relish.

Reading Epstein’s Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart has given me some new insight, which is comforting. With desire or any other clinging aspect, this story struck a chord in me.

That would be the story of a woman who’s child had just died and she relentlessly held the child in her arms, crying to the villager’s to heal the dead child. She clung to him as she went from house to house until she encountered a person who said the Buddha was in town and to go to him for healing. She found the Buddha and asked him to heal her child. Buddha told the woman to find a handful of mustard seeds from a house that had not been touched by death and he would heal her child.

The woman clung to her child and went from house to house looking for mustard seeds from a house that death had not touched. After a long search in not being able to find such a house the woman laid her child to rest in the woods and went to the Buddha to tell him she could not find such a house. She learned the impermanence of life and that all beings experienced the same thing, clinging to say she was the only one became a non-issue.

Reminds me of what my Dharma teacher would say about desire, “Oh, I’m sure you are the only one troubled by this concept”. Or something like that. I will have to post the whole story, it’s great.

A monk named Ma-tsu sat diligently in meditation when his master came to him and asked; “Virtuous one, for what purpose are you sitting in meditation?”. Ma-tsu replied, “I wish to become a Buddha”. The Master picked up a rock and began rubbing it, the monk ask “what are you doing?”. “I am polishing this stone to make a mirror” said the Master but Ma-tsu asked, “How can you make a mirror by polishing a stone?” And the Master replied; “How can you make a Buddha by practicing meditation?”

Taking the obsessive mind and replacing it with a subtle version that must surrender, releasing into terror and fear as well as delight.

This is what I feel, this is a good thing.

One more concept struck me today as I’ve always pondered love and relationships. According to Epstein, “The major obstacle to love, I have found is a premature walling off of the personality that results in a falseness or in-authenticity that other people can feel. Love after all, requires a person to be open and vulnerable, able to tolerate and enjoy the crossing ego boundaries that occurs naturally under the spell of passion.”

Oh the ego is a crazy little bugger.

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