It is completely counter-intuitive to turn in to suffering. In fact, most people spend their entire lives trying to aim for pleasure and avoid suffering. The problem with that strategy is that suffering is a fact of life, we cannot avoid it. The best we can hope for is to learn to become free of our attachment to pleasure and our aversion to suffering. If that sounds like a hopeless premise, consider that once we learn to accept what is, we can simply relax in the moment with what ever is happening.
Good evening and welcome to Monday Group Meditation. We will be sitting from 7:30 to 11:00 PM Eastern Time. It is not necessary to sit for the entire extended time, which is set up to make it convenient for people in four North American Time Zones; sit for as long as you like and when it is most convenient for you. Monday Group Meditation is open to everyone, believers and non-believers, who are interested in gathering in silence. If you are new to meditation and would like to try it for yourself, Mindful Nature gave a good description of one way to meditate in an earlier diary, copied and pasted below:
"It is a matter of focusing attention mostly. In many traditions, the idea is to sit and focus on the rising and falling of the breath. Not controlling it, but sitting in a relaxed fashion and merely observing experiences of breathing, sounds, etc. Be aware of your thoughts, but don't engage in them. When your mind wanders (it will, often), then return to focus on breath and repeat."
Sangha Co-hosts for meditation are:
7:30 - 10:00 Ooooh and davehouck
9:30 - 11:00 thanatokephaloides
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A lot of people think that means sitting back and being inactive in the world, however it means nothing of the sort. When we are able to relax with what is, it opens us to levels of creativity previously unavailable, because we were using so much energy trying to manipulate reality to suit our purposes. Once we stop wasting energy on trying to mold reality we are free to create from openness and curiosity, and a clear understanding of the situation at hand. So instead of always acting against things we don’t like in the world, we are able see clearly and offer action inspired from our curiosity and a desire to help or make something better.
Some people might wonder what the difference is. In this dual-nature reality we live in, people have been pushing back and forth for all eternity at things they don’t like, with the winners or dominant forces enforcing their solutions or ideas on everyone else. Then the opposing force gains momentum, the proverbial tide turns and they shift reality to suit themselves.
Perhaps one of the best examples of this is Roosevelt’s New Deal, it was a response to the situation at a current time in history. And as long as the policies created by the New Deal have been in effect forces who opposed the enactment and implementation of the New Deal have wanted to get rid of them; it took a lot of years until the opposing forces gathered the necessary power to shift things, but over the last 30 years we have seen a steady and effective attack on New Deal policies and programs. Push-pull, back and forth, on and on. If we look at history we can see these cycles for what they are, even if they take a long time to mature and turn, it is the play of duality in action. We don’t notice it because we are caught up in the stories, and because frequently the cycles last longer than many people are physically alive to remember or notice.
Some people see the roots of some of our current political strife in the South’s opposition from all the way back to the Civil War. I’m not sure if this is actually the case, but it points to the long arc the play of duality can take to manifest a cycle.
Once we personally stop trying to manipulate reality to maximize pleasure and avoid suffering, our actions in the world, which come from a different motivation, have a different effect. Actions inspired from a clear observation of a situation frequently fit like a custom tailored solution. There is no push back response, because they are not inspired by the motivation to push back at something we dislike.
This is not about compromise, or coming from the mushy middle, this is something else entirely. It may seem like fanciful thinking, but through my own experience I know this is so. I’m not claiming to be enlightened, but I have seen that when my actions come from a place of non-resistance to what is, they have a remarkably different effect than ordinary, dualistic reactivity. We do not have to be enlightened to act in the world in this fashion; if we can bring ourselves to a state of non-resistance, there is room for us to become curious about what we might contribute. By giving up our opposition to a situation, we open to curiosity and inspiration. Certainly actions guided by curiosity and inspiration may seem to be a very subtle difference than similar actions guided by resentment and resistance; but when we are baking a cake we can't substitute vinegar for honey and expect the results to be the same, because the two substances have different constituent qualities. It is the same with our actions.
I’m not suggesting if one surrenders, for example, to Climate Change the perfect solution will arise within. It starts with curiosity and inspired ideas that we can put into action ourselves, inspired actions that we have the personal power to enact in our own corner of the world. Now, I’ll admit to a bit of fancy when I suggest that when people begin to act from curiosity and inspiration in greater numbers, it could create a movement with the power to change the world, not to enforce our ideas for what’s best or right, not to push back in fruitless duality inspired cycles, but rather with ideas inspired by our non-resistance and curiosity to change the things we can, building and creating momentum to work together in larger and larger spheres of influence to make real and lasting change that transcends the cyclical effect of duality.