Hello,
and welcome to our first issue of this spring!
The Vernal Equinox has passed,
and we're now in the season of rebirth and renewal,
of longer days and warmer air.
And for those of you in the southern hemisphere,
enjoy your autumn and
the journey
towards your winter months!
If you are a strong-willed and accomplished person, you may
often give the impression that you are invulnerable to feeling
inadequate or insecure or hurt. This can be very
isolating and ultimately cause you and others great
pain. Other people will be all too happy to take in that
impression and to collude in propagating it by projecting a
Rock of Gibraltar persona onto you which doesn't allow you to
have any real feelings. In fact, you can all too easily
get out of touch with your own true feelings behind the
intoxicating shield of image and aura. This isolation
happens a lot to fathers in the nuclear family and to people
in positions of relative power everywhere.
Thinking of yourself as getting stronger through the
meditation practice [or similar practices] can create a
similar dilemma. You can start believing in and acting
out the part of the supremely invulnerable, correct meditator--one
who has everything under control and is wise enough to deal
with everything without being caught up in reactive
emotions. In the process, you can cleverly arrest your
own development without even knowing it. We all have an
emotional life. We wall ourselves off from it at our own
peril.
So, when you notice
yourself building up an image of invincibility, or strength,
or special knowledge, or wisdom based on your experiences,
thinking perhaps that you're getting somewhere in your
practice, and you start talking a lot about your area of
expertise in a way that is self-promotional and inflationary,
it's a good idea to bring mindfulness to that mind-set and ask
yourself whether you are running from your vulnerability, or
perhaps from grief you may be carrying, or from fear of some
sort.
If you are truly strong, there is little need to
emphasize it to yourself or to others. Best to take
another tack entirely and direct your attention where you fear
most to look. You can do this by allowing yourself to
feel, even to cry, to not have to have opinions about
everything, to not appear invincible or unfeeling to others,
but instead to be in touch with and appropriately open about
your feelings. What looks like weakness is actually
where your strength lies. And what looks like strength
is often weakness, an attempt to cover up fear; this is an act
or a facade, however convincing it might appear to others or
even to yourself.
TRY: Recognizing the ways in which you meet obstacles
with harshness. Experiment with being soft when your
impulse is to be hard, generous when your impulse is to be
withholding, open when your impulse is to close up or shut
down emotionally. When there is grief or sadness, try
letting it be here. Allow yourself to feel whatever you
are feeling.
Notice any labels you attach to crying or
feeling vulnerable. Let go of the labels. Just
feel what you are feeling, all the while cultivating
moment-to-moment awareness, riding the waves of "up"
and "down," "good" and "bad,"
"weak" and "strong," until you see that
they are all inadequate to fully describe your
experience. Be with the experience itself. Trust
in your deepest strength of all: to be present, to be
wakeful.
We
have some
inspiring and motivational books that may interest you. Our main way of supporting this site is
through the sale of books, either physical copies
or digital copies for your Amazon Kindle (including the
online reader). All of the money that we earn
through them comes back to the site
in one way or another. Just click on the picture
to the left to visit our page of books, both fiction and
non-fiction!
The first time I heard the word Mystery I did not understand
what it meant. As an avid reader of mystery stories, I had the
idea that something is a mystery only because its solution has not yet
been found. But mystery is different from Mystery. By its
very nature Mystery cannot be solved, can never be known. It can
only be lived.
We have not been raised to cultivate a sense of Mystery. We may
even se the unknown as an insult to our competence, a personal
failing. Seen this way, the unknown becomes a challenge to
action. But Mystery does not require action; Mystery requires
our attention. Mystery requires that we listen and become
open. When we meet with the unknown in this way, we can be
touched by a wisdom that can transform our lives.
Mystery has great power. In the many years I have worked with
people with cancer, I have seen Mystery comfort people when nothing
else can comfort them and offer hope when nothing else offers
hope. I have seen Mystery heal fear that is otherwise unhealable.
For years I have watched people in their confrontation with the
unknown recover awe, wonder, joy, and aliveness. They have
remembered that life is holy, and they have reminded me as well.
In losing our sense of Mystery, we have become a nation of burned-out
people. People who wonder do not burn out.
Everything and everyone has a dimension of the unknown. Mystery
helps us to see ourselves and others from the largest possible
perspective, as a unique and possibly endless process that may go on
over lifetimes. To be living is to be unfinished. Nothing
and no one is complete. The world and everything in it is alive.
A sense of Mystery can take us beyond disappointment and judgment to a
place of expectancy. It opens in us an attitude of listening and
respect. If everyone has in them the dimension of the unknown,
possibility is present at all times. Wisdom is possible at all
times. The Mystery in anyone may speak to them and heal them in
the grocery store. It may speak to us and heal us too.
Knowing this enables us to listen to life from the place in us that is
Mystery also. Mystery requires that we relinquish an endless
search for answers and become willing to not understand. That we
be open to witness. Those who witness life may eventually know
far more than anyone can understand.
Perhaps real wisdom lies in not seeking answers at all. Any
answer we find will not be true for long. An answer is a place
where we can fall asleep as life moves past us to its next
question. After all these years I have begun to wonder if the
secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing
unanswerable questions in good company.
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
Everyday
happiness means getting up in the morning,
and you can't wait to finish your breakfast.
You can't wait to do your exercises.
You can't wait to put on your clothes.
You can't wait to get out--
and you can't wait to come home, because the soup is hot.
George Burns
Not What They
Seem
My wife and I were driving on
a highway a couple of weeks ago when something interesting
happened. It was a two-lane highway, and it wasn't
divided. We ended up behind a truck that was moving rather
slowly, so I was looking for an opportunity to pass it when I
could. Eventually, we ended up with a broken yellow line and
no oncoming traffic, so I turned on my blinker and started moving
into the other lane to pass. Then something interesting
happened--the truck moved halfway into the lane I was now in and
blocked us from passing. Of course, our original reaction
was "What the heck is he doing?"
But a quarter of a mile later, it became clear that even though
there had been a broken yellow line, that was not a safe place for
passing. We reached a spot where a third lane was painted in
the middle of the road for a turn at an intersection, and while at
that particular moment there were no other vehicles present, the
potential for disaster was pretty great. Also, the truck
that we wanted to pass took a right turn there, so there was no
real need to pass him at all. What had looked like simply a
rude driving tactic was actually the trucker's way of letting us
know that we probably shouldn't have been passing there.
Great Spirit, help me never to judge another
until
I have walked in his moccasins for two weeks.
Sioux Indian Prayer
It would have
been very easy to get upset at the driver and feel
angry. After all, he prevented us from doing
something that we wanted--and felt we needed--to
do. But when we held of just a bit in making a
judgment about his action, we found out that our
judgment would have been entirely inappropriate and
quite simply wrong.
As a teacher, I find myself on the receiving end of
such judgments pretty regularly, especially as far
as grades are concerned. While I would love to
give everyone high grades, it simply makes no sense
at all--if I know that a particular student really
doesn't know the material that he or she is supposed
to know, then there's no way I can pass that student
on to the next level. The grade that I assign
is based on what I've seen of the student's
knowledge and/or ability, yet I get judged as being
unfair or even mean for assigning a low grade.
To the students, it seems as though I'm being
unfair; my effort, though, is to be accurate and
completely fair.
How often are we truly aware of the motives
behind another person's actions or words? How
often do we judge another person as being rude or
inconsiderate, when the truth is that the person is
nervous or afraid? Perhaps the other person
didn't seem like he or she wanted to talk with us
because that person is painfully shy, and isn't very
good at social situations.
Whoever
undertakes to set him or herself up as a judge of Truth
and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
It's important
that we not jump to conclusions if we want our lives
to be happier and less stressful, especially if
those conclusions are negative. It doesn't
help us a bit as human beings to feel anger or
frustration at someone else, and it's even less
helpful if those feelings are misplaced. Since
we can't really see into another person's heart,
it's impossible for us to know what's going on in
there, and as soon as we deign to judge another,
we're showing a very simple lack of respect and
we're putting ourselves onto a pedestal that we
don't belong on.
Sometimes, though, we do need to be very careful and
trust our instincts. On the other side of this
coin lies the fact that sometimes, it's important
that we approach something in just the opposite
way. These are the times when someone is
trying to manipulate us by being kind to us, to get
something out of us by misrepresenting him- or
herself. While jumping to conclusions and
accusing the person of something like lying is still
inappropriate if there's no actual evidence of
lying, we should be very careful and take plenty of
time to make up our minds after searching out
the evidence we need to either confirm or refute a
person's words.
In these cases, too, things often aren't what they
seem. The person who's telling you how much
money you'll earn if you'll just invest two hundred
dollars is not telling you the whole truth, no
matter how much you want to believe him or
her. The child with an elaborate explanation
of how something got broken may be trying to get you
to believe that it wasn't his or her fault, and is
hoping that you'll believe the explanation rather
than simple, straightforward evidence.
The man in the truck seemed to be doing something
very negative when he cut me off and didn't allow me
to pass, yet his action turned out to be a positive
one; the person who's after your money is presenting
a very pretty picture that soon will become very
bleak if we take the story at face value.
It
is very unfair to judge
any body’s conduct, without
an intimate knowledge
of their situation.
Jane
Austen
We need to
avoid jumping to judgments. They can stress us
out for no reason at all, or they can raise our
hopes to incredibly high levels before we get let
down with a huge crash. We need to pay careful
attention to the evidence that every situation
offers us, and not limit ourselves to our emotional
reactions, which are very often mistaken. Of
course, life isn't all black and white, and evidence
can be misleading, but if we examine it carefully we
can see when the evidence doesn't seem to add up to
what it should add up to.
If we're not jumping to judgment, then we're making
our own lives better, but we're also contributing
something very important to the lives of
others. I affect someone a great deal if I
turn around and say "What a rude person you
are," but if I take the moment necessary to
find out that the person made an honest and simple
mistake, I show patience, love, and
compassion. And those are much better things
to share with our fellow human beings than anger and
stress and judgment.
For
the rest of that day my mind was occupied with thoughts of simple
pleasures. Those things which we often overlook or deny
ourselves: reading a good book, taking a walk by ourselves, holding hands, watching the summer sky for
falling stars, writing a letter to a friend, stopping to enjoy a
sunset, taking in the smells after a rainstorm, cuddling by the
fire, watching birds play in the morning sun.
I believe every person has within themselves inexhaustible
reserves of potential they have never even come close to
realizing.
I believe each person has far more intelligence than they have
ever used.
I believe each person is more creative than he or she has ever
imagined.
I believe the greatest achievements of your life lie ahead of you.
I believe the happiest moments of your life are yet to come.
I believe the greatest successes you will ever attain are still
waiting for you on the road ahead.
And, I believe through learning and application of what you learn,
you can solve any problem, overcome any obstacle and achieve any
goal that you can set for yourself.
Life is short
and we never have
enough time for gladdening the hearts
of those who travel the way with us. O, be swift to love!
Make haste to be kind.
Henri Frédéric
Amiel
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.