• There’s no Zoom meeting this Sunday (March 10th) as I will be hosting a retreat that same day. • For information about the retreat I’ll be facilitating in Colorado, July 17-20. Click here. • I have two upcoming house concerts, Sunday, April 28th in North San Juan, CA and Saturday, May 11th in Sonoma, CA. For details, email me at: john@johnastin.com.
I am excited/anxious - can I just relax into that as how life is presenting in this moment rather than meditate, medicate, or in other ways try to escape what can't be escaped and is only made "worse" by trying in vain to escape?
So simple. So beautifully written. So difficult. (-:)
Easy to say when life isn’t too bad. At times life is so painful it’s impossible to not try to do something, anything,to ease the pain. Reminding yourself that this is it doesn’t really matter then.
I understand, Marine. But just to clarify, doing what we can to mitigate pain isn't exclusive from also seeing what it's nature is, beyond the ways we may typically be holding it to be conceptually.
By all means, I take steps to ease pain when that seems the prudent, wise thing to do. But, also coming to see the way in which even the grittier moments of life are expressions of the absolute reality ("Home") can, in my experience, often transform what it's like to experience what we call pain and discomfort, sometimes in very subtle, barely perceptible ways and sometimes in profoundly liberating ways.
Ahhhhh...nothing to do..figure out...or achieve
The Great Perfection
So simple. So beautifully written.
I am excited/anxious - can I just relax into that as how life is presenting in this moment rather than meditate, medicate, or in other ways try to escape what can't be escaped and is only made "worse" by trying in vain to escape?
So simple. So beautifully written. So difficult. (-:)
Love,
Tom
Reading this brought me home. Nothing to seek, nothing to resist. Here it is. Beautiful.
Easy to say when life isn’t too bad. At times life is so painful it’s impossible to not try to do something, anything,to ease the pain. Reminding yourself that this is it doesn’t really matter then.
I understand, Marine. But just to clarify, doing what we can to mitigate pain isn't exclusive from also seeing what it's nature is, beyond the ways we may typically be holding it to be conceptually.
By all means, I take steps to ease pain when that seems the prudent, wise thing to do. But, also coming to see the way in which even the grittier moments of life are expressions of the absolute reality ("Home") can, in my experience, often transform what it's like to experience what we call pain and discomfort, sometimes in very subtle, barely perceptible ways and sometimes in profoundly liberating ways.