Fear and Love

 

Audre Lorde

https://insig.ht/N2WK1BnKC5b

Support for the living and the dying

What to Say to Someone Who Is Dying

Renshin Bunce on presence, listening, and the words that truly bring comfort.

Renshin Bunce

28 November 2025

When the doctor sent my mother home to die, I went with her even though I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. In those days, hospice offered little support beyond a weekly nurse visit. I moved in, kept my mother clean, took care of her cat, made smoothies for her as long as she was able to swallow, and stood back when my aunt and sister came and went. I often told her I loved her.

But I made one mistake. When the nurse told me my mother would die that day and then left us alone, I laid down next to her and said that she didn’t have to be afraid, because God was waiting for her in heaven. We weren’t religious, and it rang false even then. I said it because I didn’t know what else to say.

A decade later, I left my conventional life and moved into a Zen monastery where I ordained as a priest. And a decade after that, back out in the world, I found work as a hospice chaplain. No one can teach you how to be a chaplain, so in learning what to say to dying people, and finding the courage to open my mouth and let words come out, I found my own experience to be my best teacher. I moved from wanting a person or a book to tell me exactly what to do and say, to contemplating for myself: What is this person really asking? What would I want, if I were them? What is helpful? 

For some decades, death was hidden in hospitals behind closed curtains, turned over to the experts as if it were a failure, so my hospice patients were often surprised to learn that this time they weren’t going to get better. I believe that understanding what’s happening makes it easier to accept, and that acceptance is the key to grace, so I tried to talk openly with them. I used qualifiers, such as “just in case” or “if the doctors can’t find any more treatments,” to cushion the news that death was approaching. 

It’s harder to listen than to talk, and my meditation practice helped me pay attention, to discern whether the information I was delivering was useful or hurtful, whether I should continue or whether I should back off and rest in platitudes. It was up to my patients. My only job was to not turn away.

I’d been a chaplain for about a year the first time I talked directly with someone about his death. By that time, I’d seen enough to have an idea of how his death was likely to go and had visited him enough times that there was trust between us. One afternoon when we were alone in his darkened hospital room, I asked whether he wanted to talk about his dying. He was eager to hear what I had to say. He was very old and worn out and had been bedridden for months, so I felt safe in telling him that watching death is like watching the lights go out gradually in a large house, one at a time, until the building is dark. I told him that his death would probably be like that, a fading away, and that he probably wouldn’t feel pain or even distress. He was grateful and, as it turned out, his wife and daughter told me that his death was indeed gentle, and my talking about it with him was the kindest thing I could have done. 

Many people struggle to hold on to life. When death approaches, they grow restless and agitated. They fight. Sometimes what people need to know is that their job of waking up one more day, no matter what their circumstances are, is over. They can relax. 

I found something useful to say when I told a dying woman, “You know, this is only going one way. The doctors say they’ve done all they can do, and you’re probably not going to get well this time. You have before, but not now.” Another thing I said, because that’s what I would want to hear, was “You are safe.” 

What I’d tell a lot of people is that curiosity about death can replace fear. I’d say, “This is just death. You’re okay. I mean, I know that’s easy for me to say. You’re the one who’s doing it, not me, but this is the very natural thing that we all know is coming. It’s just coming soon for you.

“We’re afraid of death because we think we’re separate, and we have to keep our walls up. There’s something else going on, though, and I think you already know about it—you’re a part of the universe and will never be separate from that no matter what happens to your body. It’ll help if you can remember that you’re connected.

“And there’s something else I’ve heard about working with the fear of death. I heard this in a talk from a great American Zen master. He said his wife was dying and that she was facing it with an attitude of curiosity, asking over and over, ‘What is this?’ If you’re engaging with curiosity, there’s no room for fear.”

There were times when words weren’t possible. My patient Catherine had outlived her friends and her money, so she was living in a sad facility. She was cheerful and well-liked, and such staff as there were, were glad she had a regular visitor at last. The only time I heard her complain was when she said she’d been left in a dirty diaper for hours over the weekend. When we first met, she was nearly deaf, so I would slowly shout answers to her questions. As her hearing became worse, even that was impossible, so I’d ask her to tell me stories about her childhood and settle back and listen. We became friends. By the time death was near, when it was clear she was down to her final hours, the only way I could offer comfort was to sit by her bed and put my hand on her arm to let her know she wasn’t alone. I believe she knew I was there, and I believe it was enough.

Ira Byock, an expert on death and dying who has written many books, says we should tell dying people four things: “Please forgive me,” “I forgive you,” “Thank you,” and “I love you.”

Although those words don’t come naturally to many of us, they need to be said, either with words or actions. When patients’ families asked me what they should do, when it was clear that their loved one was going through the final hours of life, what I could tell them with confidence is that their job was to love. I’d join them in prayer if they were Christian. If they asked me to beg God for healing, I’d suggest acceptance instead. Many of my patients were not practicing Christians, yet they also wanted some spiritual reassurance. They often asked me where I thought we’d go after death, and I always said I didn’t know. “Sit with your mother and love her,” I’d say. “Let her know she’s not alone, and that her work here is finished. That’s what she needs now.”  

One day when I was visiting in a large facility, I entered a long corridor and heard someone repeating, “Hello? Hello? Hello?” I saw an old lady standing in an open door, leaning on her walker and calling out. I went to her and introduced myself and soon realized that she was blind and her talking watch had been mis-set and was telling her it was time for dinner when it was only mid-afternoon. We went into her room and chatted for a bit. I was able to use my phone to find instructions for setting the watch, and I took care of that. But for me, the time and the dinner weren’t the point. The loneliness was, the calling out for help into the silence.

She was giving voice to what we all feel, what we all need: “Hello? Am I alone? Does anybody see me?” In death and in life, the one best thing there is for us to say to each other, however long we might have between this day and our death, is “I see you. You’re not alone.” 

If I had my mother’s death to do over, knowing what I know now, I’d do just what I did then, except for that one thing I said at the time of her dying that I can’t take back. We had already offered and received forgiveness and gratitude. So, I’d only say I love you, again and again, letting those be the final words she would hear as she left this life.

Live the Questions Now, by Rainer Maria Rilke

LIVE THE QUESTIONS NOW

https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=747

In the great silence of these distances, I am touched by your beautiful anxiety about life, even more than I was in Paris, where everything echoes and fades away differently because of the excessive noise that makes Things tremble. Here, where I am surrounded by an enormous landscape, which the winds move across as they come from the seas, here I feel that there is no one anywhere who can answer for you those questions and feelings which, in their depths, have a life of their own; for even the most articulate people are unable to help, since what words point to is so very delicate, is almost unsayable.

But even so, I think that you will not have to remain without a solution if you trust in Things that are like the ones my eyes are now resting upon. If you trust in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge.

You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within you the possibility of creating and forming, as an especially blessed and pure way of living; train yourself for that -- but take whatever comes, with great trust, and as long as it comes out of your will, out of some need of your innermost self, then take it upon yourself.

--Rainer Maria Rilke, from "Letters to a Young Poet"

Fwd: Live the Questions Now, by Rainer Maria Rilke

From Rainer Maria Wilke's letters to a young poet. 

Dear D, you had a portion of what I boldfaced below on your refrigerator when you lived on L Avenue in SP back in the 70s, early 80s. Love from your bro, Chick

But even so, I think that you will not have to remain without a solution if you trust in Things that are like the ones my eyes are now resting upon. If you trust in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge.

You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within you the possibility of creating and forming, as an especially blessed and pure way of living; train yourself for that -- but take whatever comes, with great trust, and as long as it comes out of your will, out of some need of your innermost self, then take it upon yourself.

--Rainer Maria Rilke, from "Letters to a Young Poet"

https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=747

Fwd: Pensée de la semaine - Dec 15, 2025

Pensée de la semaine MATTHIEURICARD.ORG ‍Le sommet du Jitchu Drakey se reflétant dans le lac Tsophu ‍Nous avons un long chemin à parcourir dans nos vies futures, et la mort n'est qu'un seuil à franchir. Un seuil que nous franchirons seuls, avec pour unique secours la foi en notre maître et notre confiance dans la pratique spirituelle. Nos parents, nos amis, notre puissance, notre richesse et tout ce sur quoi nous avions l'habitude de compter nous feront défaut. ‍DILGO KHYENTSE RINPOCHE (1910-1991) ‍DU CÔTÉ DE KARUNA-SHECHEN Manju Devi & Taramuni Devi : Quand lire et écrire redonnent de la dignité Au Bihar et au Jharkhand, l'alphabétisation des femmes reste sous la moyenne nationale indienne (71,5 %). Pour y répondre, Karuna-Shechen a lancé dès 2011 un programme d'Éducation Non-Formelle (ENF) dans plusieurs villages. À Usewa, Manju Devi et Taramuni Devi témoignent de ce que l'ENF a changé pour elles : apprendre à lire, écrire et compter, mais surtout gagner en confiance dans un espace sûr, et avancer vers plus d'autonomie. Lire la suite   Découvrir leur histoire ‍

Fear

More verse by Rumi

 ——— —— ——--——--

Be empty of worrying

Think of who created thought

Why do you stay in prison

When the door is wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear thinking.

Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always

Widening rings of being.

~Rumi 🤍

Hugh Byrne - dec 17 taking refuge in the dharmma...

Dhammapada  They go to many refuges:  mountains, monasteries, forests, trees are not true refgugess...but to the Buddha, dharma (the truth), sangha...there you seek the true, secure refuge.  
Buddha: the awakened one...taking inspiration in this historical figure.
dharma is the teachings of the buddha...4 noble truths...dhamma is also known as the 'truth', reality -  the teachings are here which we can follow to attain freedom from suffering. 
Sangha: community-- taking refuge in those who are learning to take refuge in the three jewels. 
HOWEVER: These three are considered an 'outer' refuge...looking for inspiration outside ourselves. Safer places. 

Hugh suggests we consider the refuges to be 'transformational' not 'inspirational'. Use these understandings to notice clinging...how we focus on the wrong supports in the wrong way. Use of this 
Inner refuge is about transformation: these teachings help us understand the nature of the inner refuge...we all have the capacity to realize the untangling of our lives from suffering.

Be a lamp unto yourself... hold fast to your buddha nature...having capacity to wake up.  The present moment allows us to wake up. Paying attention to our present moment selves is the doorway to awakening..turn the spotlight inwards.  Turn the attention inwards...it's easy to get caught up in fear or other emotions. Eckhardt Tolle...what is brought to consciousness is reduced. Caught up in psychological fear... we turn our consciousness inward onto our own experience...to be able to end clinging in our lives.

REFUGE IN THE DHARMA: refuge in the present moment. Turning our attention to situation in the hear and now. Just be present with what is right now...turning attention to our experience. What's going in the body in our emotions, in our thoughts, our plans. nonjudgmental awareness. 

we are welcoming our experience.  'The Guest House' -- welcoming the guests...eg.  tightness, self-judgment, peace calm joy ...  Say 'yes' to what is... this is my experience. this is how it is:  Tara brach calls it 'radical acceptance' ...deep rooted acceptance. ...we are turning towards the truth..non denial, non-escaping, being here with our experience. --- Anthony Demello: complete awakening...absolute cooperation with the inevitable ... what obtains right now is unavoidable.  what is here now is what is here now. Reb Anderson: once you realize there is no alternative to the present moment, you are on the path to buddhahood. 

Meeting our experience wholeheartedly...not fight with our experience...this will bring on suffering. the gap btw what is and my wanting something different.  the space btw the two is 'suffering'... we can make actual change from a place of acceptance. James Baldwin: not everything you face can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. this is the deeper meaning of taking refuge in the dharma...taking refuge in reality, in the truth, non-rejection of how things are...it's non-clinging, non-judging, non-resisting...'Via Positiva' -- pointing to the truth...how to take refuge in the dharma...what is ...what is right...we turn towards our experience. no clinging. the more we cling the more we resist. the suffering that leads to more suffering...drinking salt water which does not bring relief. if I get what I want, we still don't get relief. the hamster on the wheel.  the wheel of samsara -> turn the spotlight to our experience.  can I be with it just as it is? The doorway to happiness. come back to our experience....the direct path to liberation...mindfulness shines the light on our experience. 

Nothing is permanent, freedom comes from the end of suffering when we ..dance with life...being in relationship fluidly... not try to pin life down. Life will be life. THE INNER REFUGE is finding peace in what is, in our present experience. 
 

Fear of mistakes

Hugh Byrne on working with Fear

Live Session Summary, Sunday, October 15, 2023: It was good to be with you for our Live session on working with fear in our practice. Here are some of the main themes, quotes, and poems:

I spoke about fear as an emotion that underlies many of our most difficult emotions and states of mind—such as stress, worry, anxiety, and various kinds of unease and tension.

Fear, anger, and sadness are often called ‘negative’ emotions and contrasted with joy, love, awe, gratitude, serenity, which are seen to be ‘positive’ emotions. A problem with speaking about ‘negative’ emotions is that it can lead us to think that they are in some way ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ and we need to get rid of them.

A more helpful way of viewing emotions is as states that give us useful information—anger, for example, lets us know that we need to take action to make something right; fear alerts us to danger that we need to deal with; sadness tells us that we need help or comfort. When we understand these emotions as natural and helpful, we can explore the most appropriate ways of responding to them so that they don’t cause us suffering or dominate our life.

These emotions can become problematical when we respond to a triggering situation or experience unconsciously or habitually and without awareness. I gave an example of someone getting caught up in ‘road rage’ and causing harm because their mind has been ‘hijacked’ by anger. 

Exploring the emotion of fear, I distinguished two kinds of fear: The first is where there is an immediate danger that we need to respond to. This is present-moment fear, which we will respond to by doing what is needed to protect ourselves. The second is where our fear concerns something that might happen in the future—this is the kind of fear that Eckhart Tolle calls ‘psychological fear’ and that we are mainly focused on. Tolle discusses this second kind of fear:

“The psychological condition of fear is divorced from any concrete and true immediate danger. It comes in many forms: unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness, tension, dread, phobia, and so on. This kind of psychological fear is always of something that might happen, not of something that is happening now. You are in the here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap. And if you are identified with your mind and have lost touch with the power and simplicity of the Now, that anxiety gap will be your constant companion. You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection—you cannot cope with the future.’ (Tolle, Power of Now, p35)

After discussing ways in which fear can affect our life—for example, when they develop into phobias about going outside or encountering germs, or where we are caught up in intense stress or anxiety—I finished by discussing a four-step approach to working with fear:

1) Turn towards your experience and open fully to the bodily sensations and emotions that are present: Say ‘yes’ to whatever is present, welcoming the ‘guests.’  

2) Bring awareness to the mind—the thoughts, narratives, beliefs that come up—and choose not to fuel them or identify with them.

3) Uncouple the sensations and emotions from the story or narrative, staying grounded in the body and emotions—opening to your direct experience here and now, rather than getting pulled into an imagined future. 

4) Bring in the heart: Invite reflections of loving-kindness, compassion, equanimity, gratitude, or other state that helps open your heart.

When we ‘uncouple’ the present-moment bodily sensations and emotions from the stories and narratives, we break a link that often keeps us locked in suffering—where the fears about what might happen trigger more tension and fear in the body, which in turn leads to more fearful, stressful, or anxious thoughts in a vicious cycle.

Quotes: Viktor Frankl, ‘Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

The story of a horse and rider galloping along at top speed. Someone shouts to the rider, ‘Where are you going?’ The rider responds, ‘Don’t ask me, ask the horse!’ When we respond reactively to fear, it’s the ‘horse’ that’s in control. 

Poem: Wendell Berry, ‘I go among trees.’

It was good to be with you today. Join us tomorrow at 7pm ET for a special Live session for Peace and Healing in the Middle East and in the World: 

https://insighttimer.com/live/d7b85a6d-e122-4fcc-bac6-6a44e2f5f558 Our next regular Sunday Live will be on October 29 at 9am ET. Have a good week. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜 🌻

Meditating on Death (Episode #26) | Plum Village

Meditating on Death (Episode #26) | Plum Village

from the Way Out is the Way In Series, 2022 on Plum Village site

Wendell Berry: I Go Among Trees

 

I Go Among Trees 

by Wendell Berry

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

~ Wendell Berry from Sabbaths

offered by Hugh Byrne today, feb 27, 2022...makes me think of 'interbeing', moving beyond fear.

Hugh Byrne (Feb 27, 2022) on Rilke, kindness towards self, overcoming fear with kindness towards self

Summary of Live Session, February 27, 2022: 

"It was good to be with everyone today and hold in our hearts and meditation the people of Ukraine at this extraordinarily difficult time. The theme of our session today was ‘Working Wisely and Kindly with Fear.’ 

I shared that while many people view fear and anger as ‘negative’ emotions, it is more helpful to see them as intelligent, survival-based emotions that allowed our ancestors to respond immediately to threats and be able to survive and pass on their genes. These emotions provide us with helpful information and continue to be necessary and useful to us today—particularly in situations of danger. 

These emotions can get us into trouble when we do not respond to them with awareness and, particularly, when we create fear-based, future scenarios that may never happen, but keep us locked in a fight-or-flight reaction. I used the image of the Zen monk in a cave, who painted a tiger on the wall and was terrified every time he looked at the image of the tiger. We often paint pictures in our minds—sometimes catastrophizing—and then become activated and fearful when we think of the pictures or fears we’ve created ourselves. As Mark Twain reputedly said, ‘My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.’ 

So, when fear arises in the mind, rather than getting caught up in thoughts about what might happen, it is wise to stay grounded in our direct experience, particularly bodily feelings and sensations, and, meet them with kindness, letting them come and go. 

Two keys to working with fear are, first, to meet fear with awareness—making space for whatever we’re experiencing, ‘welcoming the guests’—and letting the sensations, feelings, and emotions come and go without resistance or getting lost in thoughts and narratives about the situation. 

The second essential way of working wisely with fear is to bring in the heart—to meet fear with loving-kindness and compassion, rather than with aversion and ‘fearing the fear.’ I shared the Buddhist legend of the origin of the practice of loving-kindness (metta)—of the Buddha giving his followers the practice of metta as an antidote to fear—and Sharon Salzberg’s reflection on the meaning of the story: that loving-kindness can penetrate and dislodge fear, but a heart filled with love and friendliness cannot be overtaken by fear. 

The stories and poems I shared include:

• Rilke’s ‘Letters to a Young Poet’—where he invites his young friend to ‘always trust in the difficult’ and turn towards what we fear: ‘Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.’ And he adds, ‘Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.’

• Wendell Berry’s poem ‘I go among trees’

• W.B. Yeats, “We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.” (‘The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore’)

• Romain Rolland, ‘There is only one heroism in the world: to see the world as it is, and to love it.’

• Some of Rumi’s ‘The Guest House’, Martha Postlethwaite’s ‘Clearing’, and Mary Oliver’s ending to ‘The Summer Day’—‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.’

Wishing you a safe and open-hearted week ahead. Let us hold the people of Ukraine in our hearts, prayers, and meditation—and do all that we can to support them in this hour of need. See you next Sunday at 9am eastern. Warmly, Hugh 🇺🇦💙 💛 🙏🏻

If it has terrors, they are our terrors -Rilke

~ Arrange our lives to always trust in the difficult.

~ the myths about dragons ...dragons are ultimately transformed into princes...acting with beauty and courage...opening to what is scary or difficult.

opening to whatever is scary...with courage, with kindness

Rilke on th emyth of dragons and transforming the scary into prince.

'this moment without judgment' ~  - Dorothy Hunt

may I be kind to myself....may I accept myself just as I am.

Perhaps everything that frightens us is helpless, wants our kindness ~ Rilke

Romain Roland   https://www.azquotes.com/author/12563-Romain_Rolland

only one true heroism...to see the world as it is, and to love it.

https://whatsmyquote.com/quote/there-is-only-one-heroism-in-the-world-to-see-the-world-as-it-is-and-to-love-it/page/2

Wishing oneself well, to love the world, we  must love ourselves first...lovingkindness and care towards self. Wishing this intention can plant the seeds of possibility... (include the people of Ukraine).

Kindness has no enemy...includes everyone. particularly today the people of Ukraine...even Putin himself. 

This is 'unconditional' ...for all beings.

Wendell Berry - I go among trees...It sings and I hear its song."

The painting in the cave & other - Hugh Byrne - Jan 30, 2022

January 30, 2022: Live Summary: The theme for the Live session was the ‘miracle’ of mindfulness. This was the title of an early book by Thich Nhat Hanh. Mindfulness is not a miracle in a supernatural sense or something we need to have special powers to develop, but rather it is wonderful in the way that our moment-to-moment awareness can take us all the way to the deepest freedom possible in this human life.

I shared the fundamental truth that life can only be lived in the present. Past and present are only memories and possibilities. The ‘past’ was the present when it was taking place and the ‘future’ will consist of present moments. It’s only by being present—alive, awake, aware—that we can experience joy, love, connection, peace, wonder. Only this moment is life. 

When we are present, we come into alignment with life itself—we ‘keep our appointment with life,’ in Thich Nhat Hanh’s words. We see that we are as inextricably part of the web of life as are the flower in the field, the deer grazing, the tree and mountain, but much of the time we are separate from ourselves and from life. (James Joyce in Dubliners said ‘Mr Duffy lived a short distance from his body.’) Mindfulness brings us back to ourselves; it brings us back to life. 

I spoke of two primary ways in which being present here and now leads to freedom of the heart. The first way is by helping us see where we are tangled in habits of mind and behavior that keep us disconnected from ourselves and our true nature—when we are caught up, for example, in fear, anger, blame, wanting, escaping, repressing, stress, worry, and other painful mind states and behaviors.

When we see our confusion with kind, non-judging awareness, we can let go of these habits of mind and action—we see that they are causing us suffering, not leading to well-being, and we can stop fueling them. We don’t have to get rid of them as something bad, but simply see them and let them go… 

We can see the way our minds create suffering—for example, by worrying about the future and fueling anxious thinking, so that we believe the stories that our mind is telling us. Like the Zen monk in a cave, who painted a picture of a fierce tiger on the cave wall and was terrified each time he looked at it. We paint the pictures in our mind and then through fueling the fear by repetition, we stay locked in fear and suffering. 

This is the path of abandoning, letting go of unskillful mind states and behaviors. The other path—we need both—is the path of cultivation of mind states and actions that lead to happiness, well-being, and freedom. When we cultivate presence—awareness of our experience here and now—beautiful states of mind naturally arise. We see more clearly the gifts that we’ve received from life and our oneness with all of life. Compassion, gratitude, loving-kindness, joy, arise in the heart and mind. 

Other qualities that arise naturally—and that we can consciously cultivate—lead to the deepest freedom of awakening or enlightenment. The Buddha emphasized seven qualities that flow towards freedom in the way that a river flows towards the sea. These are: 1) Mindfulness; 2) Investigation; 3) Energy; 4) Joy; 5) Tranquility; 6) Concentration; and 7) Equanimity. By cultivating these ‘seven factors of awakening’ and abandoning unskillful states, mindfulness leads us to freedom of the heart. 

I shared Mary Oliver’s poem ‘Wild Geese’ and a short poem by Thich Nhat Hanh: 

‘If we are peaceful, if we are happy

We can blossom like a flower,

And everyone in our family, 

Our entire society

Will benefit from our peace.’

Warm wishes to all for the week ahead. See you next Sunday at 9am eastern. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜

Prescription for the Disillusioned by Rebecca Del Rio

Prescription for the Disillusioned ~ Rebecca Del Rio

Come new to this day.

Remove the rigid overcoat of experience,
the notion of knowing,
the beliefs that cloud your vision.

Leave behind the stories of your life.
Spit out the sour taste of unmet expectation.
Let the stale scent of what-ifs waft back into the swamp
of your useless fears.

Arrive curious, without the armor of certainty,
the plans and planned results of the life you’ve imagined.
Live the life that chooses you,
new every breath, every blink of your astonished eyes.

– Rebecca del Rio

John O'Donohue: "A Morning Offering"

 

John O'Donohue: "A Morning Offering"

I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.



"A Morning Offering" by John O'Donohue. Text as published in To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings (Doubleday, 2008).

Rilke on trust and dragons and love

This material quoted from the work of Rainer Maria Rilke  - posted here - was discovered through Hugh Bryne's on Sunday morning presentations on Insight Timer. This first heard on Sunday, May 23, 2021. 

http://www.swans.com/library/art10/xxx108.html

We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we 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. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

So you mustn't be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better. In you, dear Mr. Kappus, so much is happening now; you must be patient like someone who is sick, and confident like someone who is recovering; for perhaps you are both. And more: you are also the doctor, who has to watch over himself. But in every sickness there are many days when the doctor can do nothing but wait. And that is what you, insofar as you are your own doctor, must now do, more than anything else.

“We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. If it has it terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, those abysses belong to us; if there are dangers at hand, we must try to love them… How should we be able to forget those ancient myths about dragons that at the least moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet