Acceptance with Intention - Tolle

Hugh Byrne - Jul 14

 

Dorothy Hunt - 

Wendell Berry - the peace of wild things

Wisdom in Turning towards our experience

What I resist, persists. Languishing in Victimhood?

Eckhardt Tolle: what you accept fully you go beyond?

Triggered by someone? Something  I need to look at  … why cling to it.. if there is suffering, there is something I’m doing to support that suffering, something I’m clinging to … can I be with this? What an I feeling in my body?

If I can stay with it, expand my window of tolerance, I will see its changing nature  a wisdom in turning towards it  I can experience the feelings in my body, allow myself to feel  all the separate energies of fear will come and go and I will be able to see it —- make the obstacle the path “

If A restless mind is the obstacle to being calm, then my attention to that can be the antidote  instead of  saying my mind is too busy, I can’t meditate, instead I turn towards it, and say yes  

neurosis is always a way of avoiding existential intensity. Bruce Tift.  A variation of Jung’s comment. Neurosis

We can learn to ride the waves of difficult experience . Nothing lasts forever. 

Rilke: What appears to us as the most difficult … only a dragon who needs love. Who needs our attention. 

Bringing in the heart, bringing in compassion in a moment of compassion. Bringing in kindness to ourselves. 

Book by  Christina Feldman- the boundless heart - compassion as an attitudinal  commitment. Bringing love and kindness to all our experience and to all people even those who push our buttons. 

Include all in our Lovingkindness practice. 

High Byrne, April 21, 2024 - 'about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses'

Live Session Summary, Sunday, April 21, 2024: It was good to be with you for our Live session today. The theme of the talk was “Making the obstacle the path.' 

Here are some of the main themes, quotes, and poems: 

In Zen Buddhism, it’s said that ‘the obstacle is the path.’ Rather than thinking that difficulties and challenges are something to be avoided or resisted, they can be a doorway to greater clarity, peace, and freedom.

Almost four centuries ago, the French philosopher and thinker Blaise Pascal said: ‘All of humanity’s problems come from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.’  There is much wisdom in this statement: When we are unable or unwilling to be present with what is arising in our experience—in our bodies, emotions, thoughts, reactions—we tend to try to escape from our experience or react in ways that lead to suffering for ourselves and others. 

When something happens to us that is unpleasant or disagreeable—like being stuck in a traffic jam, being in conflict with someone, experiencing discomfort, or wanting something we don’t have—the story in our mind is very often that ‘this should be different’—this person, this experience, this feeling, ‘shouldn’t be like this.’ 

The problem, however, is when we struggle with how things are, when we come into conflict with reality, it is a cause of unhappiness and suffering because no matter how much we want something to be different, right now it is as it is. 

• Spiritual teacher Adyashanti said: “We may think, ‘So-and-so shouldn’t have said that to me,’ but the reality is that they did. As soon as the mind says something shouldn’t have happened, we experience internal division. It is immediate. Why do we experience division? Because we are in an argument with reality. This much is assured: if we argue with reality, for any reason, we will go into division. That is just the way it works. Reality is simply what is.  

… [T]here isn’t a justified reason to argue with reality, because we’ll never win the fight. Arguing with reality is a sure way to suffer, a perfect prescription for suffering.’ (Adyashanti, The End of Your World, p143)

The alternative to arguing with reality—wanting things to be other than they are; not being willing to be present with what is—is to turn towards the difficulty and accept this moment as it is. When we do this, we make the difficulty into an opportunity for growth and freedom. 

• Eckhart Tolle puts it this way: “Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life—and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.’ (Tolle, The Power of Now, p28)

When we resist any experience, we create division and suffering within ourselves. As Carl Jung said, “What you resist persists.” When you bring awareness to a difficult experience—without resistance or judgment—the feelings, thoughts, and sensations can come and go and cease to be a ‘problem.’ 

• Eckhart Tolle: “What you accept fully you go beyond.”

When we learn to stay with our experience, things become much less problematical because we’ve stopped resisting reality, we’ve ceased to throw fuel on the fire. We can welcome all our experiences, all the ‘guests’ in Rumi’s image. Then, difficult feelings, thoughts, and emotions can come and go in their own time. When we cease to resist what is, we allow life to be life. We can be at peace with all our changing experiences and, seeing that clinging and resisting lead to inevitably to suffering, we find freedom in meeting everything with acceptance and kindness. 

Saying yes to our experience doesn’t mean passivity, doing nothing, or not trying to change anything. It also doesn’t mean we have to like what’s happening. We can take action to change what we can change—and when our actions come from acceptance of the truth, from non-resistance to reality, we bring peace and compassion into our engagement in the world rather than fueling division and suffering:

• Eckhart Tolle: “To be in alignment with what is means to be in a relationship of inner non-resistance with what happens. It means not to label it mentally as good or bad but to let it be… Does this mean that you can no longer take action to bring about change in your life? On the contrary, when the basis of your action is inner alignment with the present moment your actions become empowered by the intelligence of life itself.”  

Other quotes and poems I shared include:

• Poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “If we only arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.” (Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)

• Poem by Muhyiddin Ibn al Arabi, “There was a time…”

It was good to be with you today. Wishing everyone a good week ahead—and Happy Passover to those celebrating. And happy Earth Day tomorrow. See you for our next live session on Sunday, May 12 at 9am eastern. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜 🌻

Saying ’yes’ to life / Byrne

Live Session Summary, Sunday, March 17, 2024: It was good to be with you for our Live session today. The theme of the talk was ‘Saying yes to life: The heart of our practice.’ 

Here are some of the main themes, quotes, and poems: 

I began with a quote from 17th century French philosopher and inventor Blaise Pascal, "All of humanity's misfortunes stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone" and shared highlights of a 2014 study reported in Science and summarized in an article as, “People would rather be electrically shocked than left alone with their thoughts.”

When we are unable or unwilling to open to our feelings, emotions, and thoughts, we tend to act out our painful mind states in ways that cause conflict and division with others as well as separation from oneself. 

I highlighted the main theme of the talk: When we open fully to our experience, saying ‘yes’ to what is present, we come into alignment with life and this is the path to awakening and the deepest freedom. When we say ‘no’ to our experience, we are in conflict with life and become divided from ourselves and this leads to dissatisfaction and suffering. 

In the words of Anthony de Mello, “Enlightenment is absolute cooperation with the inevitable,” and Eckhart Tolle, “What you accept fully you go beyond.” 

We discussed different ways we resist our experience and get in conflict with reality, with life: 

• When we complain about something or someone, we are essentially saying, ‘This situation/person/experience shouldn’t be like this’ and we are divided between how things are (reality) and how we want them to be. In this gap or division we experience suffering;

• When we are worrying, anxious, or stressed, our body and experience (tightness, tension, fear, etc.) are here, but our mind is in the future, trying to control or rearrange how things could turn out—in the gap between the two, the present and the future, how things are and how we want them to be, we experience discomfort and suffering;

• When we are clinging or believing we need something we don’t have—or we’re wanting something unpleasant to go away—there is the same gap between how things are and how we want them to be or think they should be and we experience this as suffering. 

Whenever we resist life, resist our experience, we are locked in suffering. The way out of this unconsciousness and suffering is the same: to turn towards our direct experience and to open to it—to say yes to life just as it is, to end the conflict with reality.

I shared reflections on this theme of saying yes to life from contemporary teachers of awakening Eckhart Tolle and Adyashanti:

• Tolle: “Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life—and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.” (The Power of Now, p28)

• Adyashanti: “We may think, ‘So-and-so shouldn’t have said that to me,’ but the reality is that they did. As soon as the mind says something shouldn’t have happened, we experience internal division. It is immediate. Why do we experience division? Because we are in an argument with reality. 

This much is assured: if we argue with reality, for any reason, we will go into division. That is just the way it works. Reality is simply what is.  As soon as we have anything in us that judges it, that condemns it, that says it shouldn’t be, we will feel division. (143)

[When we come to see things more clearly] “we realize there isn’t a justified reason to argue with reality, because we’ll never win the fight. Arguing with reality is a sure way to suffer, a perfect prescription for suffering.” (The End of Your World, p143)

Elsewhere, Adyashanti says, “Thankfully, we will all lose our argument with reality. It’s a good thing. Some of us have an extraordinary endurance to continue the argument. I had a fair amount of endurance myself, unfortunately. But no matter, we will all end up losing the argument with what is. And the more you lose the argument with what is, the more you recognize what always is. What doesn’t come, what doesn’t go.” (“An Invitation to Awaken, Part 1”, Talk)

I finished by inviting us to reflect on where we find ourselves divided, in conflict with reality—clinging, resisting, complaining, worrying, ruminating, judging, escaping—and to practice being with the underlying experience here and now that we are trying to get away from. Through coming home to ourselves and our experience we come to understand that everything is changing, nothing can be clung to as ‘I’ or ‘mine’ and that realization leads to letting go and the deepest freedom. 

Other quotes and poem I shared include: 

• Chogyam Trungpa’s instruction to come back to ‘square one’ (in Pema Chodron’s Taking the Leap, p27) and Pema Chodron’s invitation to “Learn to stay. Learn to stay with the uneasiness, learn to stay with the tightening, learn to stay with the itch and urge of shenpa [attachment, being hooked], so that the habitual chain reaction doesn’t continue to rule our lives…” (p20)

• James Baldwin, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

• Poem by Lynn Ungar, “The Way It Is.” 

I hope this is helpful. Please let me know if I missed anything. Good wishes for the week ahead. I look forward to seeing you next Sunday, March 24, at 9am eastern for our next live session. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜 🌻

Hugh Byrne - Mar 17, 2024 - St. Paddy's Day

Quotes from Adyashanti

https://www.azquotes.com/author/38150-Adyashanti

Book recommendation: "The end of your world as you know it"  -- by Adyashanti

Feeling division as soon as I reject what is, when I reject what I am experiencing. 

Not getting into an argument with what is.  'Getting out of the wrong side of the bed' is a way to describe a satisfaction w/ what is at this early morning time. 

re Gaza, accepting/ saying this is true...absolute cooperation with the inevitable is accepting what is happenging right now, life as it is right now. (Anthony de Mello)

A practice to help: learning to stay w/ the tightening, stay with the discomfort per Pema chodron...rather than fueling the habitual unhealthy responses. 

Coming back to square 1' (Chogyam Trungpa) ...can I meet this moment wholeheartedly? Can I make the obstacle the path?  Being hear and now with what is...saying Yes to life is the attitude that brings us to the other shore.

To be in alignment w/ what is ...is to allow what is be.... Eckhardt Tolle....coming into alignment w/ life by accepting what is.

James Baldwin...not everything we face can be changed...but no thing can be changed until it is faced. 

The Guesthouse by Rumi

Welcome the Guests 

There is a very Simple Secret to being happy. Just let go of your 'demand' on this moment. Any time you have a demand on the moment to give you something or remove something, there is suffering. You're Arguing with 'What Is' - Your demands keep you chained to the 'dream-state' of the conditioned mind. The desire to 'control'... is, ultimately, our unwillingness to just be awake. 

~ Adyashanti

Imagine trusting silence more than any thought you can come up with.

Adyashanti