The Merriment of Metta

People often ask me after I tell them I’m going on silent retreat, “how can you do that?” My feeling on the matter is, “how could I not?!”

For me being in silence and meditating for a few days is profoundly life changing, but it isn’ta walk in the park by any means.  When you strip away the distractions of daily life and you live with just the basics, of eating, sleeping, walking, and sitting amongst a community, it is in this state you so easily meet yourself and in some cases meet versions of yourself you didn’t know were there.

I recently went on a metta and qi gong retreat, where not only did I experience the inner workings of the mind, but I met the power of the heart.  Qi gong (movement meditation) was a brilliant method of prepping the body for what was to come throughout the whole week.

We meditated with the heart opening practices of metta (loving kindness), karuna (compassion), and mudita (empathetic joy).  We evoked a deep wish for all beings to be happy and safe, no matter what, because ultimately we all have goodness at our core that we can wake up to. We experienced feelings of compassion for the self and others, wishing that we may all hold our suffering with ease and tenderness.  When we celebrated other people’s joys in life and resonated in that feeling, we tapped into supreme joy without our own hearts.

After a heart work out like that, you can hold the sufferings and the joys of others and have equanimity in the face of whatever comes your way.  It can soften anger into courage, fear into beauty, and sadness into compassion.  I feel that inner strength can only come from wisdom, the type of wisdom that one feels deep in their bones, that to this day I have found most profoundly comes from meditation.

Understanding and observing what compassion feels like in your body on an energetic level, felt like training for a fierce heart.  Before the retreat my heart ached for the conditions of the world today, feeling soft and vulnerable.  After the retreat, there’s a strength in there now and a capacity to hold what’s to come my way.

What exactly I will do with this open heart, I am not certain.  But one thing is for sure, it starts with the people that cross my path and my hope is by touching them, it will ripple out further and further to reach more communities.

Finding Gratitude During Challenging Times

I’ve been in those places, and I’m sure you have too: where your mood is not the best, things just don’t seem to be going right, some other challenging aspect of life is meeting you head on, and somehow the world around you appears to be a stressful, depressive one.  Being with all of that, you wonder how will I overcome it, change my mood, or find a smile on my face?

I’ve combed through many types of “feel good” strategies over the years: mediation, yoga, journaling, dance, exercise, alcohol, friends, books, talks, affirmations, prayer, travel, nature. You name it, and I’ve probably tried it in effort to quell the storm that sat inside my head.  The thing that kept coming back as a practice to feel ok again, maybe even joyful or blissful in some circumstances, was the practice of gratitude.

When my heart was hard, it softened.

When I worried much, it brought me back to the present.

When I was self- absorbed with my troubles, I opened up to all sentient beings around me.

It has been difficult in the past when my mood was down   to sit and force a sense of gratitude for things in my life. During these times, it can be challenging to find a connection with a compassionate heart that emerges from gratitude.  So I figured out something, instead of naming off in my head life scenarios related to work, home, relationships, and health, I meditated on something a bit more simplistic.  I tapped into gratitude for the senses that come with being human and the nature on this planet that has stood the test of time. This became a gateway back to the heart softening that felt so familiar from other gratitude practices I’ve experienced in the past.

I began finding gratitude for the parts of my body that are in good working order.  I was grateful for my skin that warms and protects my body; my mouth for being able to eat delicious foods; my eye sight for seeing the beauty of a redwood forest; my breath that supplies and connects me with the air that surrounds us; my legs that are able to take me to all sorts of places.  I began being grateful for the the plants, animals, oceans, lakes, and rivers that nourish us on this planet.

All of these simple things we often take for granted are always there for us.  Taking a moment to recognize their impact in the middle of a stormy life could very possibly bring a smile inside your heart.  Gratitude is not just for when we are feeling good.  It’s actually one of the most useful tools we have when life is difficult.