A Gentle Embracing of What Is

Learning to 'be with'
When you sit to practice or engage in your day the most important thing is "to gentle embrace what is". You may want to feel peaceful, or contented or relaxed and that is important but the way to this isn't to by-pass but to be with whatever is presenting.

In some cases it can be emotions like fear or sadness or negative thinking like self-hate or blaming my circumstances on others or even worrying about the future. It can also include psyhical pain in the body, illness, headaches and so on.

From this example two types of suffering arise: One the direct experience of the emotion or pain or thought form and secondly, how we react to it. Most of the time there is little we can do to change the first type of suffering, although we try! We live in a society based on quick fixes, a pill for everything and we try to apply this philosophy to all aspects of living.

But where we have most choice is the second type, what I call Type 2 suffering. For example, I start to feel sad and I don't want to be with the sadness, or it overwhelms me. It takes me away from my centre and for that time I lose a sense of who I am, my self, my identity. The suffering of losing myself (centre, ground) or running away from my sadness is much worse than the sadness itself. It can create mental instability, illness, neurosis, and a litany of other psychosematic problems.

Hence, we need to anchor ourselves in some way so that when difficult thoughts arise I can be with them and yet still remain with myself. This way of bring requires practice, as for many of us it doesn't come easily.

Anchoring has two dimentions, internal and external. On an external level, I can anchor my Psyche using nature, or paying attention to what's going on around me. This helps my mind to focus and thus alleviate the stress and mental noise I'm carrying. When I walking in nature and looking at the leaves and paying attention to the fresh air and things around me I am giving my Psyche a chance to rest.

Internal anchoring can be practiced using a candle, sacred image, mantra, watching the breath, and so on. Again it helps to develop my internal focus and relax my Psyche.