Balance: Noticing the Opposites - iRest

Artist- Puisi

Our experience always changes.  We have idealized
expectations of what we think life is supposed to be.
Life will do what life does, despite trying to
control our experience.

Balance is born out of transformative embrace of the
fullness of life in its ups and downs, not dependent
upon on external life circumstances.

Flow with the waves of life, noticing the *sensations*
in the body, exploring the opposites in the body,
the heaviness and lightness; feeling both sensations
in the body at the same time; as well as opposite
emotions and beliefs.

Every experience has an opposite.
Once explored and underlying sense of well-being
and ease can shine through, a true balance emerges.

Trying to control our experience [causes stress],
instead set life free to be what it is through allowing
life to be as it is, in balance and harmony with the
opposites, through the simplicity of noticing.

From an iRest meditation
from a free meditation series
through the iRest Institute

~

Photo - Art by Puisi

 

"Choice"/No-Choice - a meandering...

"... it is not necessary to accept the choices handed
down to you by life as you know it.  There is more
to it than that - no one HAS to do something he
doesn't want to do for the rest of his life."

Hunter S. Thompson

The Proud Highway

from Whiskey River

~

A Meandering...

While I would like to agree with the above quote,
from my own personal experience, there are times
when you are placed in a position of "no choice" in an
"untenable" (impossible) situation; some call it the
"choiceless choice."

That happened to us a year ago - because we couldn't just
turn our backs on a family member and send her out to
be homeless on the streets (as some suggested we do),
where she obviously wouldn't survive;  nor drop her off
at Rehab, where she refused to go.  We were told we
couldn't put her in a Nursing Home/Care Facility against
her will, as she was still capable of making her own
decisions - and made it clear she wouldn't go!
You can't force someone to go where they don't want to
go, as much as we would have liked to.  We felt we had
no other choice but to take her in, while looking for
alternative places for her to stay, that never worked out.

We were always told we were in an "untenable situation" -
because there was no other choice, no other workable option...

It is what it is - I know...  What's so is what's so - yes...

Accept and Navigate... okay

So we navigate the rough waters daily, struggling to keep
from drowning in an ongoing impossible situation..

~ 

Beware of simplistic answers to sometimes complex
situations that Life hands you...

MM

Blessings to all who are dealing with "untenable"
life situations and challenges...

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Foliage Mosaic

 

Drop the Judgement...

There is no judgement about what we do
or don't do - about what is said or not said...

Drop the judgement and see what happens...

Everything is just what it is.

Everyone is just what they are.

If you drop the judgement
you drop the anger...

Judgement is like resistance -
it binds the heart...

You can't get people to change...

The issue is to drop the judgement
and just allow things to be the way they are -
because that's the way they are...

When I can 't feel compassion
I need to drop the judgement...

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 30, 2023

12:52 am

(I'm still working on it :)

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Choosing What Is - Ivan Granger Commentary

I vow to choose what is...

You would think the unavoidable nature of "what is" makes a
statement like this meaningless, but the human mind is not
entirely sane.  It often chooses fantasy and imaginings,
shoulds and coulds, possibilities and even impossibilities over
what is.  Very few of us truly dwell in reality.  Rarely do we
fully experience the moments of our lives.

What is it that we are straining for as we constantly lean away
from "what is"?  What do we think is missing that we need?  We
don't need someone else's life.  We don't need a perfect marriage,
better finances, or a better place in society.  We don't even need
to be a saint living in the mountains.  What's missing is ourselves.
What we really need is to stand in our own shoes, to be utterly
ourselves.  We need that missing ingredient - being present.
We need to live, with honesty and an open heart, the life that
already moves through us.

[.....]

The power of a practice like Zen is that it defines the human 
journey, not as escape, but as coming home, of settling into
ourselves and being present with the present.  It challenges us
to actually live the moment that continuously arrives and
passes and renews itself.

By making this journey to "what is," we finally meet ourselves
and learn what this amazing thing is that we call life, with all
its rich, joyful, painful, and transitory beauty.

Excerpt from a commentary by Ivan Granger
on a poem of vows by Hogen Bays
you can read the full poem and commentary here

~

Personal Note:  As some of you know, I'm being challenged to
 accept and be present to "what is"in my daily life experiences.
My ability to accept what is fluctuates from day to day.

~

Swirls with Craypas Oils
done with fingers
Mystic Meandering
2011

 

Aligning with What Is - Eckhart Tolle on Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti spoke and traveled almost continuously all
over the world for more than fifty years attempting to convey 
through words - which are content - that which is beyond words,
beyond content.  At one of his talks in the later part of his life, he
surprised his audience by saying, "Do you want to know my secret?"
Everyone became very alert.  Many people in the audience had
 been coming to listen to him for twenty or thirty years and still
failed to grasp the essence of his teaching.  Finally, after all these
years, the master would give them the key to understanding.
"This is my secret," he said.  "I don't mind what happens."  He
did not elaborate, and so I suspect most of his audience were
even more perplexed than before.  The implications of this
simple statement, however, are profound.

When I don't mind what happens, what does that imply?  It 
implies that internally I am in alignment with what happens.
"What happens" of course, refers to the suchness of this moment,
which already is as it is.  It refers to content, the form that this
moment - the only moment there ever is - takes.  To be in
alignment with what is means to be in a relationship of
inner nonresistance with what happens. It means not to label
 it mentally as good or bad, but to let it be.  Does this mean you
 can no longer take action to bring about change in your life?  On
 the contrary.  When the basis for your actions is inner alignment
 with the present moment, your actions become empowered by
 the intelligence of Life itself.

Eckhart Tolle on J. Krishnamurti

From Simon Bartholome

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo Mystic Meandering