With our belief in the importance of "still the mind, open the heart, nuture the body, and honor the soul" Three Sisters' Spirit opened its doors in November of 2008. Our vision was to create a place of respite from the hectic pace of every day life.

Whether it's heart centered gifts, (everything from the irreverent to the sacred) a wellness sanctuary for the mind, body and spirit (offering individual sessions of reiki, massage, integrative therapies, counseling and life coaching) or programs, classes, training and workshops to empassion the soul and ignite the creative spark, Three Sisters' Spirit offers guidance, encouragement, and support.


Saturday, February 6, 2010

I'm Loving This Book -- Maybe You Will, Too!

I’ve been reading a great book, and I wanted to share a bit of it here with you:

Loving-Kindness and Meditation

When we start to meditate or to work with any kind of spiritual discipline, we often think that somehow we’re going to improve, which is a subtle aggression against who we really are. It’s a bit like saying, “If I jog, I’ll be a much better person.” “If I had a nicer house, I’d be a better person.” “If I could meditate and calm down, I’d be a better person.” Or the scenario may be that we find fault with others. We might say, “If it weren’t for my husband, I’d have a perfect marriage.” “If it weren’t for the fact that my boss and I can’t get on, my job would be just great.” And, “If it weren’t for my mind, my meditation would be excellent.”
But loving-kindness – maitri – towards ourselves doesn’t mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy, we can still be angry. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.

Curiosity involves being gentle, precise, and open – actually being able to let go and open. Gentleness is a sense of goodheartedness toward ourselves. Precision is being able to see clearly, not being afraid to see what’s really there. Openness is being able to let go and to open. When you come to have this kind of honesty, gentleness, and good-heartedness, combined with clarity about yourself, there’s no obstacle to feeling loving-kindness for others as well. (Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty)

Too often, we use spirituality or spiritual practice as just one more way to flog ourselves and remind ourselves how we are flawed. Reading this passage in the book, and really taking in some of the others, has helped me clarify the ways in which I self-criticize – which means I can try to break those habits!

Happy reading!

Carolyn

1 comment:

Shannon said...

I love Pema Chodron, but have not yet read this book. Thank you so much for sharing this!!
(Love the new blog, too!)