Hari Om

Two poems today. The first by Adrienne Rich titled The Problem or Contradictions: Tracking Poems Part 18.

These two poems sum up today's sit, which comes in at a lenghty 48 minutes or so. Enjoy!

All In Love,

Michael

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We have to learn how to be penetrable. To be without our defenses up so that we may be bared to the world and receive. I know firsthand how terrifying this can be for a person who carries immense pain and fear from past traumas as if they are still occurring. I do. I also know that I have felt liberation in small moments from time to time, and letting my heart break open is a gift.

Hari Om

Hello Friends. I am happy to share this practice with you today. This one has more contemplation and a few short breaths together. There are times when just a few mindful breaths are all it takes to bring us home.

All In Love,

Michael

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Hari Om

You do not have to know. You are enough when you do not know as well as when you do. In fact, it is in the not knowing that we are free to expand who we thought we were.

All In Love,

Michael

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Hari Om

Finding unexpected emotional expressions comes with myriad reality shifts. Insecurities, fears, resentments, and these uncomfortable feelings can take the forefront. The practice we hold will determine how we respond or react to this discomfort. We must become tender and be tenders to these emotional expressions.

All In Love,

Michael

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Hari Om

Our Love must be brave to be free. If we are hiding, this is where the hurt, the anger, the rage, the disconnection will also hide.

All In Love,

Michael

Hari Om

How does what we practice on the cushion affect our practice off the cushion? We spend far more time in our lives outside of a disciplined exercise session. If we are practicing anger at ourselves, disappointment, judgment, or shame and guilt, then we are spending more time practicing punitive perfectionism than we do accepting our imperfections as the very thing that brought us into our practice in the first place!

ALL IN LOVE,

Michael

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Hari Om

Today, I found some understanding of one of my unconscious habits. I have a secret practice of stealing. I steal from myself, I steal from others, I steal from experiences, I steal from memories, and I steal from possibilities—all of this in the most seemingly innocent ways, by comparison. Through comparing my self or others, I am stealing the now-ness of the moment. The opportunity to be in love with what is is stolen away in an aggressive swap for what used to be or what should be.

Imagine being with a person who claims to love you, and all the while, they are telling you that you used to be better. Now imagine telling someone you love that they are lovely but not as lovely as another. If we were healthy in our relationships with ourselves, we would find an easy boundary against these things. Even so, this is the very relationship we maintain and sometimes even encourage in ourselves daily. We are the source of this suffering, and we are the ending of it as well. “The healing comes from the place where the hurt comes.”

So, what is the way through?

No spoilers, but it is practicing awareness.

As indicated through a spontaneous bout of lucidity this morning in the practice, awareness comes to us in many ways, and our ability to tap into it is strengthened greatly through daily practice. Turning what could be a session of woeful regrets and self-punishment into a time of reflection and fierce compassion allows us to see our behaviors not as abhorrent mistakes but rather as valiant and flawed attempts to motivate or soothe ourselves. We have learned that comparison is an option from the training we have received from the culture built upon never being enough. If you are never enough, you will be more likely to shop more, work more, pay more, sell more, more more more and on and on. Healthy people are sleeping at 1 a.m., not scrolling Temu for new and interesting ways to contribute to the landfill crisis. Those of us

who are chock full of regret and worry, self-doubt, and insecurity keep the world economy of suffering afloat. We are the ones sinking.

Allow your practice to pivot and utilize the awareness you are cultivating to bring a loving mind of shift and transform your relationship with yourself, which is to say, the world.

Hari Om

How often do we find ourselves turning adoration into resentment by simply bringing comparison into the relationship? Thousands-year-old teaching tells us that our ability to be in joy and in this moment is stolen when we compare ourselves to others or ourselves to ourselves. Perhaps we can practice non-comparison.]

All In Love,

Michael

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This morning the best teacher I had was dog poop. This is not hyperbole, and this is not written for shock value. This is honest and true.

I jumped out of our bed to the sound of rain on our tin roof, a usually welcomed morning song, but not today. I knew the van windows were down from the evening before and was rushing down the stairs to put them up when I stepped into the darkened room below bare-footed into a fresh pile of dog poop. It was not how I wanted my morning to go, not at all. Cleaning my foot and fending off the distraction to immediately clean the floor, I continued to the van in nothing but shorts and a headlamp in the rain to find that the van battery was dead. When I finished jumping the van in my shorts and a headlamp in the rain, I returned indoors to find our home battery (we live off-grid) dangerously low and my headlamp blinking out. So there I am, cleaning dog poop by candlelight, just like the ancient ones!

With each of these inconveniences, I hardened myself against the discomforts of my day, making the succession of irritating things even more intolerable. I was in full defensiveness when my son came downstairs and asked me why the candles were all lit, and I snapped a quick and miserable answer in his general direction. I was toast. I knew it. I felt it. I needed to step back, tend to my irritation, and meet my needs. But what were my needs? It was simple when I stopped thinking about it. Soften myself. Breathe gently and soften myself. Accept and receive. So, that is what brought me from there to here. Listen or watch video for more.

All In Love,

Michael

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