You know those times when you get the urge to purge and simplify — I’m in one of those. Wanting to give some things away. Books. Wanting to tidy up a few piles that I keep thinking I’ll get to. But I must acknowledge it’s been a year of dust collecting on my desk. I’m the kind of human that generally connects outer to inner. These things on the outside — well, they have quite a bit to do with a desire for inner simplifying. A simple heart and simple mind — these are powerful. I’m learning that. Again.
This week’s purging included an old journal that I’d started to catch some of the day’s learnings. It was a little 4×6″ book with ruled lines and pages, given to me by a friend. I wanted to put it to good use. Which I did. For a month or so. It’s just that my catching of learning grew into a few other forms. I opened this journal to a first entry — January 8, 2016. Lots of things get started in the new year, don’t they. I was reading Pema Chodron at the time, the American Tibetian Buddhist. Again, lots of good things get started in the new year. My effort would have been to simplify my heart and mind. I copied a few great passages that January. Here’s a few of them.
- “We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.”
Oh, to grow in awakeness, right. - “Make friends with our hopes and fears.”
Oh, to reach beyond the surface that so often grips us, right. - “This very moment is the perfect teacher.”
Oh, to see in the moment, more of the everythingness that is in play, right. - “All addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can’t stand it.”
Oh, to understand our addictions, right — whether to substances, or hard work, the substance of which is meeting an edge. - “Those events and people in our lives who trigger our unresolved issues could be regarded as good news. We don’t have to go hunting for anything. We don’t need to try to create situations in which we reach our limit. They occur all by themselves with clockwork regularity.”
Oh, let’s forget this one. Just kidding. Oh, to have the patience, good friends, or even dumb luck, to see the trigger as teacher and gateway to more of the inner awakeness.
I’m glad for gifts. I’m glad for journals. I’m glad for musings with a date on them that momentarily take me back to the hope of new starts with simple mind and heart. I’m glad for these moments of permission to purge and to get more simple.
