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Reblogged from Bliss Blog:

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. In  loss  there  is  gain,  &  in  gain  there  is  loss,  but  awareness  remains  - always. . . . . “S o m e t h i n g   I s   T h e r e . . .”   * N E W   V I D E O ! “S o m e t h i n g . . . “   * N E W   B O O K ! . . Twitter The Doctrine of One ZEN Shredding ~ The Prequel ZEN ~ Shredding Soulananda Soulananda ZEN Shredding ~ Unpluged . If you have enjoyed these posts and you would like to make a donation to support my work, your contribution would be gratefully appreciated… . (c) Copyright – Michael Sean Symonds. All Rights Reserved Worldwide .

Roshi Joan Halifax

Image by Mari Smith via Flickr

I love working on this blog.  I find that it feeds a part of me that has been missing doing end-of-life care and grief work day in and day out… I love teaching, helping people to see that illness, dying, and grieving are natural parts of human life.  And I feel so honored when people share their stories and share their love stories.  I love letting people know about mindfulness, metta, tonglen, etc can be great ways of being with all of these life events.

It was very hectic during my “daytime” life and I have hours of school work and some meditation time to go before I can lay my head down.  So I won’t be posting a full blog but share an excerpt from a book I love, written by a teacher that moves me and inspires me, Roshi Joan Halifax.

This is taken from her book, “Being with Dying“.  It is from an early chapter is from a meditation exercise entitled “How do you want to die?”  I think that it’s a great passage and I have not written for some time on end-of-life or being-with-dying so I thought it was a good choice.  I hope you feel so too.

Roshi shares a short dharma story, a Hindu epic.  The son of the lord of death asks, “What is the most wonderous thing in the world?” and a king answers, “The most wondrous thing in the world is that all around us people can be dying and we don’t believe that it can happen to us.”

Roshi goes on to say that she uses this as a teaching story.  She asks participants, “what is your worst-case scenario for how you will die?”  Then she asks, “How do you really want to do?”  And then she says this:

“Finally, after exploring how you want to die, ask yourself a third question:  “What are you willing to do to die the way you want to die?”  We go through a lot to educate and train ourselves for a vocation; most of us invest a great deal of time in taking care of our bodies, and we usually devote energy to caring for our relationships.  So, now please ask yourself what you are doing to prepare for the possibility of a sane and gentle death.  And how can you open up the possibility for the experience of deathless enlightenment both at this moment and when you die?” pg 8

Is that not a lovely passage?  What a generous invitation from Roshi to sit with this as the object of our meditation.  This is what I will sit with tonight, after my school work and dishes are done.

May the merit of your practice

bring compassionate to the world.

May the merit of your being present

bring comfort to those you are with.

May the merit of all our deeds

bring an end to suffering.

Metta  ~~ Jennifer

Reblogged from Inviting the Bell:

Today was a “bad day”. I’m always careful to keep that thought in perspective… nobody died, fell seriously ill or had a personal tragedy. But it was one of those days where things just went wrong instead of right. As I ruminated this evening I found myself keeping a list of everything that was wrong with the day: fire after fire needing to be put out at work, consuming most of my day multiple angry clients taking out their frustration wife and daughter both out of sorts bank putting needlessly …

If you read my last blog entry you know that I just wrote a comment about being with what’s going on with you, here and now. I think this post is a great illuminating example of just that. Thank you for showing us it’s not all black cushions, tea pots, and facing the wall.
Remember from other posts as well that there is a difference between pain and suffering. . . the first is a part of life that is unavoidable. . . the other we “choose”….

Reblogged from The Zenful Blogger:

Nangchen Nuns http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGGWBbYol_s&feature=player_embedded The Giant Buddhas (Trailer) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip2NDXKE1DY Meditate and Destroy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to1cNDooT70&feature=player_embedded Enjoy! -TZB

I’m particularly reblogging this because of the embedded clip from Noah Levine, dharma teacher and son of Stephen and Ondrea.
You might not be too sure why I am suggesting you watch it, so here it is: Because using mindfulness or even Buddhism (the Eight Fold Path) does not mean that you will always been seen with a smile that lights up the darkest of times like HH the Dalai Lama nor will you always sit serenely as so Thich Nhat Hanh is so often depicted.
Noah appeals to younger people but for all of us what he does is normalize the path… you can be genuinely who you are, not put on pretenses, being authentic and genuine and still practice.
I chuckle at work when people say things to me like, “I can’t believe a Buddhist would say that” or other such things. First, they don’t know anything about Buddhism and second, they don’t understand the practice.
We have moments… filled with grace, filled with anger. . . there are days that we wish we weren’t alive or that our loved one was not ailing or had died. . .the practice of mindfulness doesn’t say, “sit, smile, act like it’s all okay”… it says, “sit (or lay or stand or walk or kneel), become present, acknowledge, let go, repeat.” It’s about learning to have compassion for your experience in the here and now and learning to bring that forth to the world. It’s not a blanket check that says you can act mean to people and all will be forgiven; it is a cloak of acceptance that says, here and now, this is what I am experiencing.
If you don’t know Noah’s work, check out his podcast on Itunes for free.
Metta.

Reblogged from Hands-of-Faith Holistic Healing Centers® Blog:

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It could be that ache in your back, or that pain in your hip. It could be what the doctor prescribes for your postsurgical recovery. It could be because your 10 work deadlines, five appointments, and three kids’ soccer games have just about put you over the edge this week. There are many reasons you might seek out massage, and each session might find you on the massage table for different objectives. Here are just a few of the reasons you should call your massage therapist today. Research Shows It Works …

I’m a huge proponent of mind/body medicine… Especially when it comes to longterm illness, dying, and grieving. Touch alone is so power and healing. I like this post and the blogger gives a ton of great links to help you learn more! Great Job!

Reblogged from Beyond Meds:

When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight. When you see in yourself the wish that the other person stop suffering, that is a sign of real love. – Thich Nhat Hanh from Peace Is Every Step ____________________________________________________ More by Thich Nhat Hanh: ●  The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation ●  You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment ●  Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child

Sadness

Image by Alexis Tejeda via Flickr

Emotional Reactions

  • Sadness
  • Anger
  • Relief
  • Numbness
  • Irritated
  • Jealousy
  • Anxiety
  • Fear
  • Shame
  • Powerlessness
  • Hopelessness
  • Resentful
  • Conflicted
  • Alienated
  • Worried
  • Appreciative
  • Paralyzed
  • Euphoric
  • Grateful
  • Feelings of emancipation
  • Guilt

I think when most of us think about grief, we think about emotions — ours or the people around us.  The list is unending.  And we may experience one of these emotions or several all at once.  And some of the emotions come over us in waves.  We can feel like we are stuck or we can feel like we are on a rollercoaster.

One thing that we can be sure of is that is that no matter how long it “feels like” we have been in the midst of any of these emotions, none of them last.  If someone has been sick a long time and profoundly suffering, a loved one may feel a sense of emancipation for years of caregiving.  They may feel guilt for feeling that way.  And in a moment, a week, a month, etc. they may feel hopeless, irritated, or relief.

Knowing that our suffering is only temporary does not make it feel any better.  But as mindfulness meditation teaches us, as we pay close attention is that our feelings, thoughts, and sensations are moment to moment.  We perceive them like a pearl necklace, one entity that is unchanging.  But in reality our feelings could be described more like the individual pearls before being strung and we perceive a continuity to them that creates our feeling of sustained emotion, grief or others…

Mindfulness meditation can be one simple but profound way to learn to touch all of these pearls as they enter into our consciousness. . .we may be sitting and be aware of tremendous sadness… then remember a sweet memory of the person who died… then alienation because we feel like we may no longer experience that kind of sweetness… and then we may form a picture of the person who died and feel relief that their pain no longer exists.  And all of that can happen in a matter of minutes (sometimes seconds).  We can learn to be in the moment with our thoughts, feelings, and sensations and learn to label them and allow them to pass rather than attaching to them and running away with the story lines that create that pearl necklace.

Jon Kabat-Zinn‘s work on mindfulness is a great starting place — pick up anything with his name on it and it will get you started.  Also, Stephen Levine‘s on being with dying or “The Grief Process”.  Or Ron Siegel’s book ”Mindfulness Solution”.   Any of these great works will teach you how to compassionately be with you emotions and thoughts.  With practice, you will see that although they feel solid and unchanging, our emotions connected to grief  are ever-changing and are not unending.

Reblogged from Beyond Meds:

An article in Scientific American is entitled, Panic Attack Sufferers Are Unaware of Symptoms: Panic attacks seem to come out of nowhere but research finds symptoms appear up to one hour before the sufferer is aware of the attack. The conclusion of this article ends with a statement and a question: The study authors note that this lack of awareness may explain why meds work better for sufferers than Cognitive Behavioral Therapy does: How is the patient supposed to work on something that they are unaware …

I agree with the author… meds are not the only way through anxiety. Neither is CBT. Mindfulness is a wonderful tool to helping with anxiety-based problems. Another option, though most likely somewhat more expensive is biofeedback. I have several pieces of biofeedback equipment, some as simple as a digital thermometer for less than $20.00, that are a great adjunct to mindfulness or other kinds of meditation practice. Using these tools help you to understand and be more mindful of the physiological affects of your anxiety and your workign with it… kudos!

Reblogged from Memory Bears by Bonnie:

Two years after my son’s death, I am doing okay. There are times when I start to cry without even thinking about Jon. I find no explanation for it. Sometimes, I see or hear something that may bring a few tears and a melancholy moment, but when I tear up without any prompt, I am without any explanation. It’s not something I worry about. I think grief has become part of me, as my son is part of me. Both are with me, as one goes with the other. I celebrate Jon’s life and I am proud he is my son. I say …

What a lovely expression of love… here we see a mother living with her loss, being touched by it, inviting it in, and healing. Some would want to call this complicated bereavement and I think that is utterly crazy on the part of the American Psychiatric Association. This is what living with loss is and it is beautiful. I honor all this love!!!!

Reblogged from The Existential Addict:

This has been a difficult time for me and for Kat’s family.  Knowing how many people read of Nathan and Kat gave us a sense of community – extended globally, touching the unknown who we now embrace as family. Your comments and support have been so important to us, and we will share them with Kat when she is old enough to understand. She still doesn’t really understand, and that is to be expected with her age. The first thing she tells people when she sees them is “My daddy died.” I’ve watched so many …

What a great story of a tragedy and healing… Thank you for sharing this story with this community!

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