Hugh Byrne - 9/25/2022

• To love a person is to learn the song that is in their heart and sing it to them when they have forgotten. -Arne Garborg
• also spoke about suffering, boddhisattvas and Shantideva's verse about being a light for those who don't have light...
• Jack Kornfield on 3 qualities of the bodhisattva...including having a vision..'envisioning' sets our direction. 
• in 'The Wise Heart' by Jack Kornfield
• …to transform ourselves with the willingness to hold our suffering…

Don't Know Mind

 Use this practice to bring wisdom to a situation of inner or outer conflict.  Initially begin by sitting.  Later you can practice in social situations.

Sit quietly and easily, focusing on your breath or body. When you feel settled, bring to mind a time ten years ahead. Recognize that you don’t know what will happen then. Feel the not knowing and relax with it.  Think of the earth spinning through space with hundreds of thousands of people being born and dying every day.  Where does each life come from? How did it start? 

There are so many things we don’t know. Feel the truth of don’t know mind, relax and become comfortable with it.

Now, bring to mind a conflict, inner or outer.  Be aware of all the thoughts and opinions you have about how it should be, about how they should be.  Now recognize that you don’t really know.  Maybe the wrong thing will lead to something better. You don’t know.

Consider how would it be to approach yourself, the situation, the other people with don’t know mind.  Feel it. Don’t know. Not sure.  No fixed opinion. Allow yourself to want to understand anew. Approach it with don’t know mind. With openness.  How does don’t know mind affect the situation?  Does it improve it, make it wiser, easier? More relaxed?

Practice don’t know mind until you are comfortable resting in uncertainty, until you can do your best and laugh and say “Don’t know.”

This excerpt is taken from the book, ” “The Wise Heart”

Use this practice to bring wisdom to a situation of inner or outer conflict.  Initially begin by sitting.  Later you can practice in social situations.

Sit quietly and easily, focusing on your breath or body. When you feel settled, bring to mind a time ten years ahead. Recognize that you don’t know what will happen then. Feel the not knowing and relax with it.  Think of the earth spinning through space with hundreds of thousands of people being born and dying every day.  Where does each life come from? How did it start? There are so many things we don’t know. Feel the truth of don’t know mind, relax and become comfortable with it.

Now, bring to mind a conflict, inner or outer.  Be aware of all the thoughts and opinions you have about how it should be, about how they should be.  Now recognize that you don’t really know.  Maybe the wrong thing will lead to something better. You don’t know.

Consider how would it be to approach yourself, the situation, the other people with don’t know mind.  Feel it. Don’t know. Not sure.  No fixed opinion. Allow yourself to want to understand anew. Approach it with don’t know mind. With openness.  How does don’t know mind affect the situation?  Does it improve it, make it wiser, easier? More relaxed?

Practice don’t know mind until you are comfortable resting in uncertainty, until you can do your best and laugh and say “Don’t know.”

This excerpt is taken from the book, ” “The Wise Heart”

Present Moment as Teacher

**
The Present Moment is a Mirror
The present moment is the most profound and challenging teacher we will
ever meet in our lives. It is a compassionate teacher, it extends to us
no judgment, no censure, no measurement of success and failure. The
present moment is a mirror, in its reflection we learn how to see.
Learning how to look into this mirror without deluding ourselves is the
source of all wisdom. In this mirror we see what contributes to the
confusion and discord in our lives and what contributes to harmony and
understanding. We see the relationship between pain and its cause on a
moment-to-moment level, we see the bond between love and its source. We
see what it is that connects us and what it is that alienates us.

-- Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, /Stories of the Spirit, Stories
of the Heart/
from /Everyday Mind,/ edited by Jean Smith, a /Tricycle/ book