The Three A's - Awareness, Acceptance, & Allowance

In meditation there are three main aspects being cultivated. These are what I call the three A's - awareness, acceptance, and allowance. Awareness is our natural ability to simply know what is happening in the moment. With awareness, we can dive into the present moment and experience what our lives are like right now; from sensations and emotions to thoughts and sounds, nothing is left out of awareness. Acceptance is the next A, and is crucial to any form of inner work. Acceptance allows you to face each moment, whether pleasant, painful, or neutral, without resistance. By accepting things as they arise in the moment you are creating a peaceful mind; a mind free of grasping for things to go your way all the time, and also free from aversion caused by resisting things you dislike. Naturally acceptance leads to the final A, allowing, aka letting go. By allowing whatever arises to be there, you are able to simply let it go - allowing it to be what it is, nothing more, nothing less. Whatever is present will arise and cease all on it's own. When you allow whatever has arisen in your awareness without judgment or labels, it's nothing more than a passing experience that neither needs to be suppressed nor acted on. As your practice deepens, the three A's will slowly become part of your everyday life, and rather than living habitually, you will learn to act out of an awakened mind - a mind that's aware, accepting, and allowing. Trust me when I say, it's a much more peaceful way to live. What are you waiting for...WAKE UP ALREADY!

Learning to Open

I have been reading, How to be an Adult in Relationships, and came across a line that captures the essence of my book: "Practice does not mean forcing yourself to improve but trusting your potential to open." Finding peace in your life doesn't come about by improving yourself but rather continuously opening to the present moment. Learning to rest in your ability to be the observer, or as meditation master Ajahn Chah would say "the one who knows," connects you with a peace beyond good/bad, right/wrong, pleasure/pain, and so forth. Being the observer, your thoughts, emotions, and body sensations no longer become "I" as the subject, but rather become an object within the vast spaciousness of awareness. As you learn to trust and rest more and more in this spacious awareness, the suffering in your life becomes more workable and less sticky. You become the spider, graciously walking across her sticky web, rather than the fly trapped and caught, waiting to be devoured. So how do you learn to open to your life? Simple! Take a few moments each day to fully experience whatever you are experiencing. Feel body sensations, observe your thoughts and feelings, notice the sounds around you. Do this in a way that excludes labeling and judging. Try to be with "the things themselves," rather than your ideas about them. You can also try to open by fully listening to others. When someone is talking to you, give them your full attention. Don't worry about what you are going to say back, or get caught in your ideas about the person, but really listen to what they are saying. Try this with one person today. Watch their facial expressions, see what mood they are in, really try to understand the message they are conveying to you. Not many people know how to truly listen, so you may be surprised what happens when you listen deeply to someone. Lastly, if you feel ready you can try and open to a difficult situation in your life - whether it be anxiety, physical pain, a person in your life, etc. Instead of reacting habitually to this difficult thing in your life, give it some space and really observe it. If it's an emotion or feeling, really explore it with your awareness; not trying to get rid of it, but connecting with the quality of it. See if you can label any thoughts or judgements about it as "thinking" and keep reconnecting with the actual energy, as it's felt in the body. If it get gets intense, take your hand to your heart and say, "It's really difficult to experience this suffering. May all people who experience this be free from it." Most importantly with all of these practices, don't have any expectations. Sometimes your bad feelings will vanish instantly, other times they will get more intense or stay the same. Do it to practice opening up to the moment, not to get rid of anything or see results. I wish you all well on your practice. I am always open to helping so feel free to post comments or email me at beyourshittyself@yahoo.com. I'd love to hear from you!

Raking the Leaves of Our Lives

Today my mother asked me to help her rake the leaves in my grandparents' yard. I happily agreed and met her over there early this morning. My grandfather greeted me when I arrived and gave me a rake to begin clearing the leaf-covered yard. Yet it seemed as though every time I raked a section clean of leaves, a gust of wind would blow them right back where they came from. The whole pile never blew back completely, thankfully, but many leaves would re-cover the grass I had just worked so hard to reveal. On top if this, the gusting wind would also put newly fallen leaves in flight which all seemed to have a direct path towards where I was working. As frustrating as this may sound, I wasn't upset or angry. I joyfully started raking again and again, and although the lawn never stayed truly leaf-free, it sure as hell wasn't as bad as when we had first started. I knew tomorrow the whole yard would be covered again, as there were still leaves-a-plenty in the ash and sycamore trees in the neighbors yard, yet it didn't matter. I joyfully raked away, momentarily clearing the leaves, placing them in little piles. At one point, an insight struck me like a bolt of lightening, saying this was our job as humans - to joyfully rake the leaves of our lives, knowing fully they will continuously be blown around time and time again. Sure, we may temporarily get a few nice piles, exposing the grass and dirt hiding underneath, yet there will always be a few loose leaves blowing around, and at one point the lawn will be covered completely all over again; it may even be as soon as tomorrow, as I'm sure it will be with my grandparents' house. But I say to you, rake the leaves of your life with joy and don't worry if the pile gets blown away, or if more leaves come falling down. Just keep raking, joyfully, each and every day.