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Thursday Tidbits: The Whole World That is Home

Posted on May 2, 2013May 1, 2013 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Oneness, Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits considers home, in particular the miles and years that make up the distance between what was home and what is home. It is surprising how far one will travel only to discover that one was always home.

Just recently, I made such a trek, a physical distance of over 2000 miles, and a trip in the making for many years. Some months ago, I finally made the plane reservations and as much as possible, I went into training by increasing my daily exercise and experimenting with different foods.

There was never a doubt the trip would require much more of me than the everyday life I have come to know.

I flew across the United States, leaving the subtropical climate of the American South for the high plains desert of the American West. It is no exaggeration to say that I went from sea level to a mile high in a matter of hours. My body is still recovering.

Of course, there is no way to prepare for such a trip home, even one without such altitude extremes for what was home is now another place entirely with a life and tempo all its own. It is, essentially, no longer home.

“lift the veil
that obscures the heart
and there
you will find
what you are looking for”
Kabir (India, 15th century)

A visit to a location that was home requires us to open our eyes to what that hometown is now, a place we no longer call home and a place that no longer calls to us, save in memory. That is the veil we lift if we are to experience home at all.

There are streets not much changed and others completely new but already familiar to those who now make this town their home. There are new houses with new lives, making memories, and old houses no longer in evidence, not even a brick or board, but in memory they remain home.

The hours I spent in my former hometown— long enough to see the sun set and rise—was a constant barrage of sixties moments competing with the growth that marks us all, the march of time. The torrent of memories rained into the next few days, as we drove across one state into another, all familiar roads like the town that once was home.

For over four decades, the wide-open, windy vistas of the American West defined me–birth, youth, adulthood, and most of middle age—place was prominent in my life that was, often the only anchor in tempest-tossed seas.

It is not lost on me that I mix the imagery of that past life–so arid and wild–with the life I have now, not as wild nor arid at all.

The place that I call home has changed from desolate, vast plains and mountain slopes of snow to the verdant green carpet surrounding Waverly pond as well as the Gulf of Mexico, blue beneath towering palms. And I have changed with it.

Now a sexagenarian, home is among the live Oaks draped with moss, creating one canopy road after another. In every season, something blooms or yet another color emerges in the ever-changing foliage. There is lushness in my later years and for me, that is as it should be.

I came late to the realization of “If you look for the Truth outside yourself, it gets farther and farther away” (Tung Shan). Yet, without those early years of traversing the high plains desert that held my heart, I might never have realized that what I sought was always within me.

My trip home, these many years later, confirmed a life lived is just that, which is a lot. Driving across the desert plains in spring, I saw that old life in every sagebrush stock, rock outcropping, or hogback hill that whisked by my window. It all passed so quickly—just as it had when I lived it–vast and sweeping but complete in itself.

“The whole world is you,
yet you keep thinking
there is something else.”
~ Hsueh Feng

For years, I thought there was something else but as I have shared on this blog many times, what is inside each one of us is the whole world that is each one of us. What is inside us colors the way we are in the world, for our everyday lives are a mere reflection of what is in our hearts.

The two regions I have called home are worlds apart geographically and geologically, and I am grateful for the gifts of each, for only now is home no longer a location but the whole world that I am in any place, in any moment.

Thursday Tidbits are weekly posts that offer choice bits of information to celebrate our oneness with one another through our unique perspectives. It is how we connect, how we have always connected but in the 21st century, the connection is a global one.

Ringing the Bell of Uncertainty

Posted on April 21, 2013April 20, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Inspiration, Oneness

“Suffering is a meditation bell, not an enemy” appeared in a recent update on Jeff Foster’s Facebook page. The context of the quote is that in suffering, we identify ourselves as a single thing, image, or sensation, thereby confining ourselves to that single identity. It is only when we remember that we are “no-thing” do we discover our true nature, “which is everything” (Foster).

Suffering grabs our attention as a signal that our “okayness” is about to change. It is the ringing of the bell of uncertainty. We can resist and suffer or we can accept and “allow” as Anita Moorjani calls it.

Allowing or accepting is not passive in any regard but rather, an open-arms welcome to the uncertainty inherent in each of our lives. In allowing, we transcend duality, forgoing the labels that make us this or that. Allowing is discovering our true nature, and it is a lifelong trip.

“To access the state of allowing, the only thing I had to do was be myself. I realize that all those years, all I ever had to do was be myself, without judgment or feeling that I was flawed. At the same time, I understood that at the core, our essence is made of pure love” (Anita Moorjani).

Moorjani’s book, Dying to be Me, is a fresh approach to accepting ourselves as we are. It is also an accounting of her recovery from physical illness that includes a near death experience, which is not the focus of the book, at least not for me.

Quite specifically, she writes that her story is just that–her story—of recovery from cancer that led her inward to her true nature, which is entirely unique to her. Likewise, what her story may or may not mean to any of us is just as unique.

“I don’t advocate that if we ‘believe’ a certain way, it will eliminate disease or create an ideal life…. Having awareness, on the other hand, just means realizing what exists and what’s possible—without judgment. Awareness doesn’t need defending” (Moorjani).

Moorjani does refer to a kind of “clarity” that she had as she lay dying. In a coma, she considers where she was as a state and not a place. There are no conversations with God or with any other being just awareness:

“…I instinctively understood that I was dying because of all my fears. I wasn’t expressing my true self because my worries were preventing me from doing so.

“I understood that the cancer wasn’t a punishment or anything like that. It was just my own energy, manifesting as cancer because my fears weren’t allowing me to express myself as the magnificent force I was meant to be” (Moorjani).

Moorjani’s book focuses on present moment awareness of the self– the exploration of one’s true nature— and within that journey the necessity of loving ourselves unconditionally in this realm that is here and now. Repeatedly, she indicates her healing was not positive thinking or mind over matter but consciousness, which she calls “magnificence…a state of being…the part of me that’s eternal, infinite, and encompasses the Whole.”

Moorjani is well-versed in all of the Eastern traditions as well as Christianity. She is not a physician or a scientist but a woman who nearly died of cancer seven years ago and is completely recovered.

In previous posts, I have mentioned Deepak Chopra’s Quantum Healing and Perfect Health regarding the role of consciousness in one’s health, specifically the “intelligence” inherent in the physical body. I have read other medical and scientific works as well. In the 21^st century, there is a growing body of work in neuroscience—and to some extent, physics–that is exploring the role consciousness may or may not play in our health. I find it fascinating, all of it.

To me, it is increasingly evident that our level of health is inextricably tied to our true nature. Our physical and emotional health reveals our level of awareness of our true nature, in essence whether we resist or accept our lives. Who knows? Attaining our optimal health may begin with our response to the meditation bell of suffering.

In the coming months, I plan to explore optimal health and consciousness. As always, I appreciate your thoughtful comments and that you take time to read my blog. Thank you, dear reader.

Time for a break; regular posts will resume in May.

Thursday Tidbits: Unhooking the Pain

Posted on April 18, 2013April 18, 2013 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Oneness, Spirituality, Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits considers “shenpa…the all-worked-up feeling of…getting hooked on a negative emotion” such as pain (Pema Chödrön). In order to unhook ourselves from shenpa, we must give our full attention to our pain and that includes physical discomfort as well. We must immerse ourselves in our pain in order to release it.

KMHuberImage; oneness; St. Mark's Refuge FL — KMHuberImage

In giving our full attention to our pain, we open up to the experience of it and not the drama or storyline we have told ourselves about our pain. Our storyline is what hooks us until we sit down in the middle of what is hurting us, forsaking its interpretation for its reality.

Anyone who has ever experienced chronic pain—physical, emotional or both–knows that this kind of shenpa can easily become the only story we ever live. Yet, when we give chronic pain our full attention, we change the idea of our pain. We are no longer content to live its story.

Unhooking ourselves from shenpa does not mean that we will be completely pain-free but it does mean we give our full attention to living the lives we have as the beings we are. Being in our pain completely is where all healing begins.

KMHunerImage; McCord Park; Tallahassee — KMHuberImage

Essential to all life is water, and it has more than one form, yet it is either flowing or frozen. Mark Nepo suggests that how we deal with our pain resembles the form water takes. “For when trees fall into the ice, the river shatters. But when a large limb falls into the flowing water, the river embraces the weight and floats around it” (Book of Awakening).

If we view our pain as ice, jagged and hard, we risk living shattered lives of fear and worry, holding our shenpa close. But if we give our pain our full attention and release it branch by branch into the river of life, it becomes a burden we can bear.

We release the idea of our pain and experience it as is, moment by moment, within our flow in our own time. “Once given full attention, you will come back—one drop at a time— into the tide of the living” (Nepo).

Like the river’s path, our lives wend in ways we never imagine. It is life’s way, and pain is only one part, although it can last a lifetime. It is up to us whether pain remains sharp or a bubble in our daily flow.

KMHuberImage; McCord Park; Tallahassee; Florida — KMHuberImage

We have to show up for every moment of our lives, pain or no, giving our full attention to life, trusting that we will absorb our pain and not be shattered by it.

For the people of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for the people of West and the state of Texas, we open ourselves to each and every one of you—victims and family members—for as long as it takes to absorb the pain. There is no limit on your courage or on our love.

Thursday Tidbits: A Lasting Innocence

Posted on April 11, 2013April 11, 2013 by KM Huber in Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits considers April’s Bloggers for Peace theme, children and peace. Whenever I think of children, I think of animals for both remind that life on the physical plane is ever ongoing, is ever born in innocence, is ever lasting.

Within all of existence, innocence is born again and again, always with the possibility of peace everlasting. For neither innocence nor peace carry the burden of judgment nor do children and animals.

Indeed, they are “all bright and beautiful as well as great and small.” Perhaps that is not a fair paraphrase of the opening lines of the Cecil Frances Alexander poem but I cannot think of children or of animals without remembering that classic poem. It is in their eyes that one sees the world as it is.

I am not a parent so my experience with children is limited to nieces and nephews that have always delighted. Another favorite experience was working with young writers eager to tell their stories yet they were also just as eager to listen, if the story was good enough. These days, I enjoy the grandchildren of friends and count myself most fortunate in that. The world through a child’s eyes is ever expanding.

Perhaps what is most revealing in both children and animals—beyond being forever young–is they are also ever present. It may be their greatest gift, this constant revelation that peace resides in the lasting innocence with which we are all born, and all we need to do is awaken what we allow to sleep within so soundly.

Animals stay present their entire lives–no matter how long they live– they never lose their innocence of being, despite what some endure just to survive. For those whose innocence lies calloused beneath scars that nearly break them, they remain present. Innocence is, no matter how deep.

Unfortunately, what some children must endure just to survive can bury their innocence, too. Yet, innocence is the birth right of all beings on the physical plane. We do not readily recognize our innocence as adults—for we struggle to be present, if we are that aware—we look to the children for innocence we once knew, perhaps making sure it still is.

No doubt, it sounds unrealistic to view innocence as everlasting, and some would argue that a lasting peace is just as unrealistic but sometimes we pass life by, too busy defining what it should look like when all we have to do is look into the eyes of the nearest child or animal to remember what life actually does look like.

This week’s video features “Bless the Beasts and the Children,” sung by the Carpenters and complete with images of both beasts and children.

Hope you have a moment to browse the related posts about children and their stories.

My favorite children’s author is Adrian Fogelin. Her latest novel for children, Summer on the Moon, placed second in the Florida book awards for 2012. The book link is to her website so you may read all about her. She also blogs at SlowDance Journal where you will always find thoughtful essays.

Peace Garret provides six children’s story recommendations.

Bayard and Holmes remind us just how amazing and bright young people are with their youth achievement awards.

Grandmalin provides parent wisdom as well as words to the wise for the rest of us in respecting children in her April Post for Peace.

In Buddha Nature, No Excuse is Necessary

Posted on April 5, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Writing

“The reason everything looks beautiful is
because it is out of balance,
but its background is always in perfect harmony.

This is how everything exists
in the realm of Buddha nature, losing its balance
against a background of perfect balance.

So if you see things without
realizing the background of Buddha nature,
everything appears to be in the form of suffering.

But if you understand the background of existence,
you realize that suffering itself is how we live,
and how we extend our life.”

~Shunryu Suzuki

My blog posts are a bit out of sync for this has been a week of resistance, meaning accepting what is has not come easily. Whenever we resist what is, we suffer, for we hold on and tug at a moment, as if to reshape it and the future, as if we could.

That kind of attachment never works, ultimately. The freedom inherent in every moment is not only more palatable but more realistic, for every moment is framed within the harmony of Buddha nature.

When suffering is viewed through Buddha nature, resistance reveals itself as a struggle against what is being extended to us. If we just open up to whatever the moment is offering us, if we just trust the harmony of Buddha nature, we do not escape suffering nor do we push it away for another day. We accept and move through it.

It is tempting to trot out reasons and excuses for why we resist–some of them are really good stories in and of themselves–yet resistance relies on past moments that are beyond changing, which is not to say those moments may not find themselves in a story. Writing extends life to any moment as a new story playing out within the balance of Buddha nature.

Quite often, I lose my balance in life, unlike the old woman whose story I am writing. She knows her story and accepts Buddha nature as basic but she did not always. Writing a story is secondary to living one but like real life, story plays out on a blank canvas, as choices color each scene, ultimately revealing Buddha nature.

I try to remember the old woman when I slip away from Buddha nature for her story shows me what is possible—no matter what—but unlike the old woman, I do not have the benefit of knowing all my story, not yet. Rather, my advantage is the clean slate that every moment presents to me, as a writer and as an old woman, uncertain in both and curious about what happens next for either.

“Do not try to know the truth, for knowledge by the mind is not true knowledge. But you can know what is not true—which is enough to liberate you from the false. The idea that you know what is true is dangerous, for it keeps you imprisoned in the mind. It is when you do not know, that you are free to investigate. And there can be no salvation, without investigation, because non investigation is the main cause of bondage.”

~Nisargadatta Maharaj

Shedding: An Act of Immortality

Posted on March 31, 2013April 15, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Oneness

Spring knows many faces but regardless, it is renewal, a restoring to existence. Present moment awareness is like spring in that each moment is new, unattached to any outcome, full of the breath of infinite possibilities.

Each moment sheds itself for the next, an ongoing renewal of life, our own cycle of the seasons, our own glimpse into immortality, if we are willing to embrace the unknown and let go of the known.

Shedding is a term I learned from Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening; he is a great teller of stories for he knows their power. One of the early stories of humans shedding their skin comes from the North Borneo Dusuns who believe when “God finished creating the world, He announced that ‘Whoever is able to cast off his skin shall not die’” (Nepo).

Stories of immortality evolve around the inevitable change involved in choice.

The Melanesians of the New Hebrides offer a story of such a choice (Nepo). In the beginning, humans shed their aged skins for the new skin of youth, as is the way of immortality.

One day, as an old woman cast her skin into the river, she noticed that it caught on a branch downstream. The woman returned to her home in her new skin. Her child, however, wailed inconsolably for the mother’s old, familiar skin. The woman returned to the river to retrieve her skin and live in it, as is the way of mortality.

In the twenty-first century, we know our physical bodies undergo a lifetime of transformation, a sloughing of old cells for new, whether we are spiritual beings having a human experience or mere mortals seeking a spiritual experience.

Perhaps present moment awareness mirrors our ongoing physical shedding of our cells. Transformation, it seems, will out.

“In essence, shedding opens us to self transformation. Paradoxically, those of us who refuse such renewal will, sooner or later, be forced to undergo transformation anyway as a result of being broken or eroded by the world. Very often both occur at the same time: that is, we shed from within while being eroded from without” (Nepo).

Like immortality, transformation at any level exacts a choice for we are shedding the skin that has been familiar to ourselves as well as to the world. Often, the outer world reacts immediately to the loss of what was, rather than responding to the new that is now.

There is no way that we ever prepare ourselves or anyone else for the outcome of shedding a worn skin for one that is new, unknown, and uncertain. Yet, if we do not shed what is no longer us, we lose “access to what is eternal” (Nepo). It is a choice, an immortal one, but a choice.

Shedding moment after moment to access the ever-expanding field of possibilities—the unknown—is a renewal the outer skin knows only from the inside out, as is the way of immortality.

Thursday Tidbits: The Zen of Kitchen Tasks and Meditating Cats

Posted on March 28, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Cooper and EmmaRose, Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits post considers Zen as revealed through meditating cats and kitchen tasks, the everyday of Zen spirituality.

“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”

Alan Watts

Perhaps more than I should admit, Zen spirituality is a constant in my kitchen, which is not to say that I am able to tend to the task at hand completely, far too often not. Rather, as I am chopping onion I consider what the next moment might offer. Rarely, do I consider the onion.

EmmaRose in MeditationKMHuberImage — EmmaRose in Meditation
KMHuberImage

Often my musing ranges far beyond the physical plane–my own private “soaring with the over-soul”*–rather than considering the outcome for the onion, usually mere mush.

At best, I might be considering whether I will scramble eggs or shred lettuce for a salad; both are dictated by the state of the onion and just how far my thoughts have strayed.

It is scrambled eggs if I am envisioning the next scene in my old woman novel but the salad may be saved if I have only strayed to whether or not laundry needs to be done. The answer to that is always the same, a crisp, clear “no.”

Every time I immerse myself in the Zen spirituality of the mundane, I discover something new. It never fails. To be fair, when my thoughts are anywhere but the task at hand, there are also discoveries, including the best tasting cup of coffee is made from the proper proportions of both water and coffee.

Regardless of the outcome, discovery expands the moment to its brim. There was a time that a burnt coffee carafe or hot, coffee-colored water dismayed me, and although I may greet those moments in resignation, I am able to see them in their own Zen spirituality.

Living with animals has taught me more about Zen spirituality than any other resource, including kitchen tasks. This week’s video, courtesy of ZenFlash, features just over a minute of cats meditating, which I found illustrative of Zen but not the kind of meditation that feline EmmaRose has taught me.

EmmaRose has always been a meditating cat but not with any kind of object, especially round and especially large, as she tops the scale at five-and-one-half pounds. For EmmaRose, small, round objects are for batting and chasing into obscure areas invisible to human eyes. She prefers meditating at the window, which she does daily, and she considers the panes carefully.

Choosing Her PaneKMHuberImage — Choosing Her Pane
KMHuberImage

Often, squirrels are visible from the right pane while the left side might offer a darting, lime-green lizard–EmmaRose seems to sense the season for lizard viewing–the middle pane offers the most sun on any day. Whatever these moments provide EmmaRose, she is at her window to discover anew each day.

Who is to say whether or not she “soars with the over-soul”* for she has the light of day, which may offer a squirrel or the infrequent lizard as well.

I and my onion can only aspire.

*“Soaring with the over-soul” is from a satirical essay Louisa May Alcott wrote regarding her father’s involvement with 19th century transcendentalism.

On My Way to the Way With Everyone Else

Posted on March 24, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Oneness

I do not believe there is only one way for everyone—never have—but rather, we are all on our way to the Way. We have various labels for the Way–Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism—regardless, the Way always has been and always will be.

“The Tao is both named and nameless. As nameless it is the origin of all things; as named it is the Mother of 10,000 things” (Tao). Our path is our experience of the 10,000 things of the Way: “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6).

“Everyone practices in order to find out for him or herself…how to be balanced, how to be not too tight and not too loose. No one else can tell you. You just have to find out for yourself” (Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape).

Any and all of the ways teach us, no matter what label resonates individually: God, the Universe, the Source, the Unified Field, Spirit, Creator, Krishna, Buddha, or the eternal phenomena of the Chinese “web that has no weaver.” The unique expression that is each of us is also our connection to one another.

Deepak Chopra says “we are all God in different disguises”; God is having a unique experience on the physical plane through each one of us. As such, we are the energy that is God, the Oneness that is our connection to one another.

It seems we should celebrate our connection to one another but often we separate rather than celebrate, disconnect rather than connect, although we are hardwired to love and belong—it is in our DNA. When we separate from our own way, we leave the path to the Way, and we suffer.

We all know suffering–no matter how we label craving and clinging—we do not have to know others’ experiences nor they ours to feel what DNA is tugging on us to do: connect with one another. When we are separate, we do not trust our way to the Way.

“Going out and changing the world doesn’t work for me…It only feeds into the same judgmental energy….Instead, letting go of attachment to any way of believing or thinking has made me feel more expanded and almost transparent so that universal energy can just flow through me. More positive coincidences happen in my life when I’m in this state of allowing” (Anita Moorjani, Dying to be Me)

The need to connect with one another keeps us in search of our way to the Way. Our journey begins at birth. We bring our own bits of light and dark to the being that is our life. The darkness and lightness of each of us is what we offer to the world, what we come to know as our path to the Way.

We do not have to live as labels for it is in our Oneness with one another that we find our way into the Way.

Thursday Tidbits: Digging Deep for “Meraki”

Posted on March 21, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Lupus, Oneness, Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits considers meraki, a modern Greek word for that “extra something” we add to whatever we’re doing, no matter the task. Usually intangible and often inexplicable, meraki helps us immerse ourselves into whatever is at hand. We dig deep for meraki.

Over the last few weeks, I have had to reinvent my diet, in fact my entire daily way of being. Thanks to Prompts for the Promptless, I now have a word for it, meraki, which actually is often associated with cooking, that hard to identify ingredient or quality so essential to adapting to life.

Although I thought I was on a Slow Boat to Fitness, it seems it was not my boat at all. Last November, I began supplementing my diet with a few legumes, bread made from brown rice, and a few fruits. I was able to tolerate the extra carbohydrates but steadily the inflammation increased as did the discomfort. Only apples are still allowed.

At first, I thought it was the yoga so I modified my practice yet eventually, I had to stop. I continued with my walking but as the inflammation and discomfort increased, my distance lessened. Yet, after five months, I finally had a meraki moment.

Did I gain weight? Yes one day and no the next and then yes again, the usual roller coaster that has been my experience with the inflammation from degenerative arthritis and lupus. Overall, my weight did not change, which I attribute to the doshas of Ayurveda, of which I am kapha, mostly. Ayurveda eased me into my meraki moment regarding my food.

The ancient art of Ayurveda is not concerned with classifying carbohydrates, proteins, and fats but concentrates on the six tastes found in food: the hot tastes of pungent, sour, and salty; the cold tastes of bitter, astringent, and sweet. Those tastes carry different messages to the body and it reacts accordingly. Ayurveda is so much more than that but I am just beginning.

For me, Ayurveda provides a way to practice my meraki with maitri or loving-kindness as I let go of a diet that I enjoyed but did not provide my body the fuel it must have to fight inflammation and support my joints. I was looking outside myself for answers that were always within me:

“If you look for the truth outside yourself,
It gets farther and farther away.
Today walking alone, I meet it everywhere I step.
It is the same as me, yet I am not it.
Only if you understand it in this way
Will you merge with the way things are.” ~ Tung-Shan ~

Meraki helps me listen to my body rather than sending it commands to which it cannot comply because it does not have the energy. A return to yoga is actually relieving some of the discomfort in my joints, and the walking is easier.

With meraki, which always involves one’s enthusiasm for life, I have added daily trips to the delightful blog, Zen flash, an online temple offering daily posts of solitary images and transcendent lines. It is a part of my morning meditation practice but I also visit at other times to remember:

“Everyday life

is not divorced from

the Eternal State.

~~Sri Ramana Maharshi

In the spirit of Zen flash, this week’s video offers Schumann’s Opus 15 as a moment of merkai from me to you.

Joy Without the Hangover

Posted on March 17, 2013March 17, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Oneness

The “trust in our fresh, unbiased nature brings us unlimited joy– happiness is completely devoid of clinging and craving. This is the joy of happiness without a hangover” (Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You, 2009).

To experience the unlimited joy of every moment, we trust the innate goodness of our open heart. Joy is no more an adrenaline rush than it is an attempt to keep a moment from passing, no hanging on or yearning allowed, only gratitude. It is a matter of equanimity in all matters in all moments.

In revisiting Buddhism through Pema Chödrön, I am reminded of just how basic joy is and just how difficult. As Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Nowhere is this more evident than in practicing the “four limitless qualities” of joy, equanimity, love, and compassion where ego never dares to tread.

In this past week, I knew moments of suffering in the Buddhist sense–any feeling or action outside the four limitless qualities–I also knew moments of happiness. In either, I did not want the hangover of holding onto the happiness or avoiding the suffering. I just wanted to be.

Unexpected as the events were, I practiced staying and not straying from each moment, difficult as it was. Equanimity in any moment—trying to remain unbiased—allows us to receive what each moment offers. We look within ourselves to our open heart for our compassionate response.

In opening ourselves to our own worth, each of us finds our way “to the truth that we have always been warriors living in a sacred world” (Chödrön). Within our truth is “the ongoing experience of limitless joy” if we will just trust ourselves within that experience.

“At the beginning joy is just a feeling that our own situation is workable. We stop looking for a more suitable place to be” (Chödrön). When we stop looking outside for what is inside us, we immerse ourselves in reality. No matter what is occurring, we are alive, and we rejoice in all that we have and all that we are for “it is easy to miss our own good fortune” (Chödrön).

The practice of unlimited joy is our life’s work in every moment we have. “Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts… Everything we see, hear, taste, and smell has the power to strengthen and uplift us” (Chödrön). All we have to do is show up and be amazed, moment by moment.

As unique as each one of us is, we are all connected in our suffering and happiness of our everyday lives, our source of unlimited joy. “In a nutshell, when life is pleasant, think of others. When life is a burden, think of others. If this is the only training we ever remember to do, it will benefit us tremendously and everyone else as well” (Chödrön).

Our connection with one another is the expression of our love for the unlimited joy inherent in life, in whatever way it is served to us. We keep life simple, as it is, and not simpler, making it something it is not.

“This simple way of training with pleasure and pain allows us to use what we have, wherever we are, to connect with other people. It engenders on-the-spot bravery, which is what it will take to heal ourselves and our brothers and sisters on the planet” (Chödrön).

To face every moment with equanimity is not always possible but doing the best we can with what we have lessens any hangover and increases unlimited joy.

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