#spiritual practice

“It is such a small movement, coming back to the sensation of the body and breath. And yet this is the key to the kingdom. This is worth repeating: In Pali, the language of the earliest Buddhist texts, ‘sati,’ a word used for mindfulness literally means to remember the present moment. Remembering the present moment can be something very small, noticing the warmth of our hands around the coffee mug (or the lusciousness of a bite of dark chocolate). But remembering the present can also be profound and vast. Suddenly remembering that we are alive on the earth and under a sun and part of a cosmos. The whole of our lives, everything that has every happened to us, is contained in the present moment, and we see that our being here at all is suddenly revealed to be miraculous.“ 

—Tracy Cochran, Easter 2019. Read the full post here.

Pictured: David Marcu, Ciucaș Peak, Romania (Unsplash)

Ever elusive yet all pervading, silence is known by those who take the leap. The adventuresome hiker seeks areas untrampled by the masses. The successful inner voyager treks to the precipice, and then, having encountered the Unknowable, brazenly discards map and compass and boldly treads onward. The yearning heart echoes the cry that seized the Psalmist: ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ 

John Roger Barrie on the mystical heart of silence. Read the full essay here.

“But many prefer the comfort of noise, the bustling crowds, the constant engagement of new thoughts and interesting repartee. To embrace silence means splicing off a certain arena of the familiar and venturing into heretofore uncharted territories. While one may fruitfully participate in communal spiritual activities, quite often the deeper stages of this voyage are undertaken by oneself. It is, as Plotinus maintains, “The flight of the alone to the Alone.”6 To keep the mind occupied with external concerns is to point the inner compass in an outward direction. This is the most subtle trap to which the feeble mind continually succumbs. For to interact constantly with the objects of the senses is to eclipse entirely the realm of silence, which is first experienced within. When repeatedly accessed, the decibel level of true silence will deafen the resolute mystic." 

—John Roger Barrie: “The Deepest Silence,” from PARABOLA, VOL. 33, No 1., Spring 2008: SILENCE.

To read the entire essay, click here.

Pictured: Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606-1669) Meditating Philosopher, 1632

“Spiritual practice is direct experience. When we follow our breath in the Zen tradition, or repeat the names of God in Islam, or kindle the Sabbath candles and welcome the Shekinah on Shabbat, or offer the light of a butter lamp to Mata Durga, we are harnessing timeless technologies precisely engineered to open the heart and transform consciousness. Practice knocks on the door of the soul and it opens to the presence of the sacred. It shifts us from the intellectual realms of theology into the embodied space of spirit as it pours into and animates all that is.”

—Mirabai Starr in conversation with PARABOLA in our Fall 2014 issue on spiritual practice

Read the full interview here.

“Thus year follows year in endless succession. ‘What was will be again.’ The individual may enjoy this endless repetition throughout his life without ever reaching any kind of reckoning. Every year will be for him just one more old year, the same old dream without end, the same vicious circle from which there is no escape. That is why the schofar is sounded, its simple ear-assaulting cry. Its wordless wailing (since no words are understood by all) consists of two broken blasts, a lamenting for what was, for what has been. This is followed by two warning notes, for what may still lie ahead to entrap and degrade, and culminates in two shouts of victory: the promise that, in spite of everything, there is a possibility that the coming year will be more than a mere repetition of its predecessor, that within the cycle of the seasons there is room for hope that the coming year may be truly 'new.’” —Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz on transforming repetition into renewal

Read the full article here.

Pictured: Marc Chagall (1887-1985), “The Shofar,” 1911

“There is a longing that burns at the root of spiritual practice. This is the fire that fuels your journey. The romantic suffering you pretend to have grown out of, that remains coiled like a serpent beneath the veneer of maturity. You have studied the sacred texts. You know that separation from your divine source is an illusion. You subscribe to the philosophy that there is nowhere to go and nothing to attain, because you are already there and you already possess it.

But what about this yearning? What about the way a poem by Rilke or Rumi breaks open your heart and triggers a sorrow that could consume you if you gave in to it? You’re pretty sure this is not a matter of mere psychology. It has little to do with unresolved issues of childhood abandonment, or codependent tendencies to falsely place the source of your wholeness outside yourself. The longing is your recognition of the deepest truth that God is love and that this is all you want. Every lesser desire melts when it comes near that flame.”

—Mirabai Starr: Teresa of Avila—and grief—teach a mighty lesson. 

Read it here.

“The Native American notion of All My Relations views all of reality and life as related and interconnected. Every aspect of life is seen as part of one intrinsic family. In the Blackfoot tribe, when people meet, they don’t say ‘How are you’ but 'Tza Nee Da Bee Wah?’ which means, 'How are the connections?’ If the connections are in place, we must be all right. If the connections are not in place, then we need to tend them first. Inherent in the Native American view is that our well-being is based on how everything goes together. There can be no lasting individual health unless there is a working harmony among all living things. The practice that grows from this worldview is the need to discover, name, and repair the connections that exist between all things. This is considered sacred and necessary work.”

—Mark Nepo on eight traditional ways to wholeheartedness and authenticity from our Winter Issue: HOPE.

Read it here.

Pictured: Arthur Rafton-Canning (1864-1952), Blackfoot Teepees, Glacier National Park, 1933

“The art of cleaning is a simple spiritual activity that is often overlooked. The image of the monk sweeping the courtyard has a deep significance, because without the practice of cleaning there can be no empty space, no space for a deep communion with the sacred. Outer and inner cleaning belong to the foundation of spiritual practice, and as the monk’s broom touches the ground, it has a particular relationship to the Earth. We need to create a sacred space in order to live in relationship to the sacred within ourselves and within creation.“

—Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee and Hilary Hart from “The Art of Cleaning,” in our Summer 2017 Issue: “Happiness.” This issue and many other back issues in print are now available for 50% off as part of our warehouse clearance sale in our online store.

Pictured:Girl Sweeping. William McGregor Paxton, 1912. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Mindful Writing Workshop
with Tracy Cochran
Saturday June 22nd, 2019 | 10:00am – 4:00pm

Join editor Tracy Cochran for a MINDFUL WRITING WORKSHOP, Saturday, June 22nd from 10:00am-4:00pm at New York Insight Meditation Center. 

Join us as we combine mindfulness meditation with short writing exercises geared toward personal reflection, discovering our ways of being heroic, including relaxing and letting go. Creating a safe space together, free from judgment and striving, we will explore how mindfulness can bring us to life, leading us to our own insight and wisdom. Everyone is welcome. Participants are not required to share their work. Bring a journal, a pen, and a spirit of adventure. 

For more information, please visit NYIMC here.

parabola-magazine:

“We are continually aligning or relating ourselves to those energies or actions which we perceive as being favourable or desirable. Our bodies take us to food, sex, rest, recreation. Our minds take us towards knowledge of all kinds. Our feelings attract us to the arts, to nature, even to spiritual pursuits. This is all natural and desirable….But is it not strange that we do not, at the same time, turn more frequently to the supreme energy, to the Self veiled within each of us, for the profundity of which we only have human words?”

—William Segal, Openings, (Continuum, 1998). Collected under ARCS in our Fall 2018 issue: THE JOURNEY HOME

Photograph: William Segal by Roger Sherman

Am I my thoughts or my emotions? If I sincerely look at this question, I see that they are not mine, they are simply just an automated process running through me. Is there something behind all of of these thoughts just a-thinking, and these emotions just emoting in me?

I feel there is a subtle presence in all of us that is timeless and changeless. It speaks to us through silence and in a foreign language of vibration that is felt throughout the body, much like a tuning fork when it’s struck-a wordless resonance of differing qualities.

The difficulty is, my default state lies on the surface where thoughts, tensions, and emotions creat a great deal of noise and tensions. I cannot hear the call that’s always there, let alone nourish this real and undeniable part of myself. So the question is: how to relax that grip, and let all of that go. To trust the silence that allows me to drop down into this body, here and now. To listen deeply, to breathe, and to sense the vividness of being alive.