Category Archives: relaxation

What I learned on my summer vacation

1 Reply

Family vacations are wonderful times to learn a lot about ourselves and our way of being in community and in the world. I remember one extended family vacation that my mother put together in a beautiful spot with perfect weather. Though everything went well, she was mostly tense and dictatorial and I was often grumpy and defensive. My main job as I saw it was to assure the safety and well-being of my two year old son and to pitch in cooperatively to keep the shared household running smoothly. But she saw me as her personal assistant and servant to assure the happiness of my brothers and their families whom she saw as the ‘guests’.

Because in the U.S., most of us don’t live in multi-generational family situations year-round, when we live for brief periods with our family of origin, a lot of old patterns resurface, and a lot of reactivity that replicates our childhood coping mechanisms shows up as well. We might be surprised, even horrified, to discover that those emotional cesspools are still within us when we felt we had become ‘better’ people.

It helps to see the pattern unfolding, even if it’s difficult to stop it from playing out. Just noticing it makes a big difference, helping us to understand its origins and its fleeting nature. We can rest assured that when the gathering is over, we will return home to our ‘normal’ adult ways. Being able to see these patterns arise gives us the chance to pause, send metta (lovingkindness) to ourselves and the rest of the family, so that we reconnect with our core intentions.

Because I had had negative experiences on family-gathering vacations my mother had hosted, I didn’t try to host one myself after I became a family matriarch. But a few years ago we happened to stay as overnight guests at a vacation home with our son and his family, and I discovered what I had been missing. Yes, extended time together can be stressful, but it can also be incredibly rich, sweet, funny and insightful. So I’ve started hosting simple little three-night summer mountain getaways, and I’m so glad I did.

We just returned from a mountain lake that has a rustic family resort vibe. It was a perfect choice for the age our youngest grandchildren are right now. We had a great time relaxing together, doing whatever anyone was in the mood to do, free of any agenda. As well as the fun of our group conversations, I had time alone with each family member — sweet moments I especially cherish.

My morning meditation got short shrift, as our grandchildren visited us when they woke up while their parents slept in, and I was too busy whispering and laughing. But my longtime practice helped me to stay grounded and present to enjoy it all and to hold the experience lightly. It would be so easy to get caught up in grasping and clinging, wanting to hold onto this special time and place forever. But impermanence is our nature. All we can do is savor the current experience and let it go, without regret or anticipation of the next great thing.

I didn’t completely master the advanced art of the zipped lip that all parents of adult children must learn if life is to be enjoyable, but I think I did pretty well, considering. I find the key is when judgy words are about to burst forth to ask myself, ‘What is my intention here?” and also “What is most important in this situation?” As a compulsive tidier and responsible tenant of vacation rentals (Oh, the pride I take in our AirBnB rating!) my first answer to what’s important defaults to making sure everything is just so, but with even a moment’s reflection I see that my relationship with my family is infinitely more important. And after all, it’s only for a few nights.

We are fortunate to not have reason to get into heated arguments, but decades ago I had that experience with other family members. I learned then to go to bed before alcohol consumption fueled wee hour dysfunctional disagreements. And again, to question my intention in needing to be right. Ah, the ‘I don’t know’ mind really comes in handy! Cultivating spaciousness for all voices to be heard without getting into battle. And if we let go of the need to convince someone of our view, we have the opportunity to learn more about what fears motivate their views, and that’s valuable information for us all.

All my past lessons helped me enjoy the gathering, but there’s always more to learn, and here are several I came away with this time:

#1 Explore off the beaten path
On the last day, after packing up, we took a little walk and decided to head away from the lake instead of toward it. (It’s understandable that we would always be drawn to the lake, but curiosity finally took us in another direction.) We discovered that right behind our cabin there was a beautiful wooded walking path to the grocery store, that was not only a short cut but a much safer way to walk with two children than on the street.

It makes me wonder what obvious/autopilot ways I have been taking in my life, ignoring beautiful and possibly even more direct routes.

Using this lesson, on the drive home down the mountain, we stopped in Jamestown, an old gold mining town off the beaten path. A passerby gave us the peace sign, a relic of a bygone era for sure. It’s main street is about two blocks long and it has all the requisite architectural features of the old West circa 1856, with raised wooden sidewalks under overhanging balconies. It had the requisite number of antique shops for any small California town before it becomes too popular for shopkeepers to sell some old bottles for a dollar each for our grandchild’s Harry Potter magic potion collection and then carefully wrap them in a gift bag.

We also chose a more scenic if less speedy way into the Bay Area, and arrived home refreshed. A perfect ending to a lovely getaway.

#2 Vacation food is not offset by exercise
Well, to be honest, I wasn’t doing that much exercise. We walked around quite a bit but also did a lot of lounging on the beach enjoying the sight of our kids and grand-kids playing in the water, and all the various families with children and elders of all ages having a great time together. I have never heard the word ‘grandma’ spoken from so many different young mouths.

I used to see vacation as an opportunity to over-indulge, but since I’ve found a way to eat in a balanced and satisfying way, my treats were tasty but sporadic and my reward was that I felt good. If my scale on returning home begged to differ, that’s its problem!

#3 Having better cell phone coverage is not always a blessing
Some in the family had AT&T and were blissfully free from knowing whether anyone was trying to reach them. We have Verizon, whose infinitely better coverage in remote areas is much appreciated in almost all circumstances. Except this one. Eventually, I had to just turn it off and put it in a drawer. We were surprised to discover that even though we couldn’t text each other our whereabouts or make plans, we kept finding each other quite naturally, just like we all did before cell phones were invented. 😉

#4 Put away the camera most of the time
With my phone in a drawer, I was without a camera. But I have found that ‘capturing’ the moment as a future memory is sometimes really losing the moment because I’m focused on framing and adjusting and not paying attention with all my senses. A camera cannot capture the experience anyway — the feel and smell of mountain air, the textures of sand, water and sun-warmed skin — and while a video camera gets the sounds as well, it imposes itself into the situation, altering behavior. Our grandchildren hate having their photos taken anyway.

#5 Always bring seat cushions
We just happened to toss in some outdoor seat cushions as we were packing for the trip, and boy did they come in handy! The cabin kitchen table had a hard bench banquette that was much improved by the cushions, and they were easy to transfer out to the picnic table on the deck where fast and furious games of Yahtzee taught the grandchildren a lot of math skills. Our kids took the cushions to outdoor movie night and said they wouldn’t have survived without them.

So let’s consider this: Where in life might we add a little extra cush? It doesn’t have to be a physical cushion. Our language, for example, has cushions that make conversations more comfortable like  ‘please’, ‘thank you’, and ‘maybe you’re right.’ Hugs, pats, holding hands — small gestures convey a lot of love and soften the sometimes rough edges of life’s interactions.

#6 Apply practical lessons to inner life
We are all learning things every day. These are usually new facts, practical solutions, etc., but it can be helpful to see how they could apply to other areas of our lives, including our inner lives.

So, what have you learned lately?

Tranquility? What is that?

1 Reply

lake-clouds-500In our investigation of the Seven Factors of Awakening, we arrive at Tranquility. Ahhhh. The word has such a sense of relief/release/relaxation, doesn’t it? It’s as if you’re sitting by the edge of a peaceful lake, enjoying sun gently warming your skin and being lulled by the sound of softly lapping water.

Taking this imaginary experience a little further, perhaps you swim in a leisurely way to the middle of the lake and lie on your back. Feel the buoyant support of the water as it ripples. Gaze up at the sky and rest in the beauty of the clouds drifting by.

Ahhhh. This is a lovely imagination meditation to remind ourselves of what’s possible in our experience. But if we think the only way to experience tranquility is to go on a vacation, either physically or in our imagination, then we are chasing after peace and calm, and making an enemy of all else that arises in our experience. Chasing after such tranquility is actually a hindrance to awakening and a cause of suffering. Bummer, because I really liked just relaxing on the lake. Didn’t you? 

Fortunately, we can still relax on the lake any time we want and consider it a valuable experience. It trains us to notice the qualities of tranquility that we can cultivate in our lives.

When we were on that lake, remember that sense of buoyancy? At any moment in our lives, regardless of what is going on, there is that same buoyant quality of support. We’re often just too entangled in thought to notice it. We can experience it if we have cultivated awareness, compassion, energy and joy. We don’t need to tense up to hold everything in our lives together. Whether this sense of buoyancy comes naturally or not, we can let go of any habit of scolding ourselves for not seeing it, or blaming the world for not providing it.

Science supports our exploration
The regular practice of meditation cultivates a spaciousness that allows for a deepening understanding of the permeability of all matter. Our habit of mind is to experience objects as solid. But are they? In fact they are not. Tell that to my toe that just stubbed itself on a stone, right? But we know that all existence is made up of molecules and that every molecule is mostly space. Why does this matter?

Even though in practical ways, we experience matter as solid — very important so that we take responsibility when, for example, we are driving a heavy vehicle around fragile pedestrians — at a more intuitive level, we can also recognize the impermanent, fleeting and ultimately permeable nature of being.

Making room for both of these ways of seeing is important. Life is not either/or. It is both/and. Yes, objects are solid. And yet they are not. This is a challenging mental leap if we were raised in an either/or world, which most of us were. When we were born, that solid seeming world was the knowledge we lacked, and we needed to learn it to get around. It would be careless to raise a child without that understanding. But can we leave room also for the more permeable perceptions? Can we release into the all-one-ness of being?

Thus begins our exploration of tranquility which we will continue in the next dharma post. For now, see if you can pay attention especially to tranquil moments during the week. Then, instead of grasping and clinging to them, notice the qualities of those moments. What do they feel like? Is it just the absence of aggravation? Or is there something there? What is that quality? What is this tranquility? How does it feel?

In your meditation, when thoughts arise, you might recognize them as permeable, transparent, mist. I find those three words help me to understand the nature of thoughts and emotions that arise in my experience, and this noting allows them to dissipate and disappear.

Leaving the gently lapping shores of tranquility in their wake.

North Platte of the Mind

2 Replies
In the late 60’s or early 70’s, for some reason my mother drove on her own from Philadelphia across the Midwest. She happened to be in North Platte, Nebraska at dusk, so that’s where she decided to spend the night. As she settled into her motel room, she realized that for the first time in her whole life no one knew where she was spending the night.

The cell phone hadn’t been invented yet and to make a long distance call for most people was costly. So Mom would have felt no need to call my father to tell him where she was or even that she was okay. He would have been alarmed to receive a phone call, assuming something bad must have happened.

How different from today! As long as our loved ones have their phones with them,we figure we can get in touch with them. Which is comforting, right?

But imagine my mother sitting in her motel room in the very center of a vast country, considering her solitude. Did it make her feel afraid or lost? No. She told me later that it made her feel wonderful to be so completely unaccounted for. Part of her feeling was the sense of not having anyone anywhere expecting anything from her in that moment. She could eat whatever she wanted, or not eat anything. She could go to bed early or go to bed late. She was free to simply be. She could simply sit in silence without explaining ‘what’s wrong’. (The word meditation wasn’t a part of daily life in most of western culture either.)

I thought of this the other morning in meditation when I realized that in this moment no one anywhere expects anything from me. There was still a to-do list and later in the day there would be certain expectations from others. But IN THIS MOMENT no one anywhere expected anything from me. Tension I didn’t even know I had began to soften and melt away.

So we might say that meditating, or even just pausing in the moment in the midst of busyness, creates a kind of North Platte, Nebraska of the mind.

But the key is that we have to acknowledge it, the way my mother did. She could kept her mind busy with worry about what was going on at home in her absence, or speculation about how the traveling would go the next day, or wondering about what would happen when she got to her destination. There were a million places her thoughts could have gone. But she let them rest in the awareness of being at ease in her body and mind.

When we don’t take the time to acknowledge it, the mind operates under the assumption that we are still on duty, or at least on call, that there is something we should be doing, planning, reviewing or stewing about.

The mind relies on our cues to let it know when it is off duty. So learning how to send these cues is very important for our well being.

In meditation class there are simple common rituals that tell our mind we are switching gear here. We arrive, we find our spot, we turn off our cell phones. Our mind understands that we have made this choice. The very sight and feel of the room where all we ever do is meditate is a cue that our body-mind understands. (When we do these things on auto-pilot, the mind fails to notice the transition and we have a difficult time settling in.)

What about when we are not in class? Hopefully we have a time and place we set aside to meditate on a regular basis. But what happens when we are traveling? What happens throughout the day when we very much need a sense of ‘North Platte’? What are the cues we can give the body mind to let it relax?

First and always, we anchor into physical sensations. Pleasant and unpleasant sensations make themselves known. With mindfulness practice, we can simply note these preferences, and return to our focus of the breath, rather than following the lure of associated stories, judgments and physical reactions. The more we can see this process, the more we can stay present in this moment in all the senses.


Exercise
Notice the next sensation that comes up in your body. An itch, twinge, or restless limb perhaps. Quite naturally you will have the urge to react in some way, ‘to fix the problem.’ This might be scratching an itch, adjusting a strap, or clearing the throat. Now try NOT doing whatever the urge is to do, at least for a moment. Just be still with the sensation. This is not torture. This is an opportunity to notice that the sensation changes over time on its own whether or not we react to it.

If the urge is still there after sitting with it for a bit, feel free to go ahead and act. Sometimes the denial of the ability to react will make the sensation more pronounced. The mind gets worried and tension sets in. Maybe the whole body gets itchy or squirmy. But when the mind is relaxed and we simply notice the sensation, it generally transforms into some other sensation or disappears altogether.


When we do this kind of practice during meditation and throughout the day whenever we think of it, and especially when we notice tension arising in the place our body chronically holds tension, we create a spaciousness and ease, a place where nothing is required of us in that moment except to be here, present for whatever arises. A kind of North Platte of the mind. Thanks Mom!

Releasing Tension

2 Replies
In last Thursday’s class we explored the tension we hold in our bodies. During meditation we practiced relaxing and releasing any tension we found, just as we normally do as we enter our meditation. But this time we purposely made note of any places we find that chronically hold tension so that it will be easy to revisit at any time, especially in a stressful moment.

We can pause when we’re feeling overwhelmed or stressed and notice how scrunched up our shoulders have become, for example. Releasing physical tension releases our grasping onto whatever fear-based thoughts or emotions are adding suffering to our experience. But the places we chronically hold tension are usually somewhat tight even in relatively relaxed moments.

Exercise:
Close your eyes and sense into your body to see where there is tightness — not post-exercise muscular tightness, but chronic tension. It could be in your furrowed brow, your squinting eyes, your pursed lips or clinched teeth. It could be in your locked jaw, your stiff neck or your shoulders hovering up around your ears. It could be in your fisted hands or your tumultuous stomach. What is true for you in this moment?

Having noted one or two places that are holding tension now, set the intention to check in several times during the day, especially at moments of stress, to notice the area(s) again. Developing a habit of noticing physical sensation is a key to bringing ourselves into the present moment, and noticing tension is particularly useful, because we can skillfully let go of the tension to the best of our ability. We can also use the tension as a gateway for self-discovery, which I’ll talk more about later.

RELEASING TENSION
Many of us feel that in order to release tension we need to eliminate those things in our lives that are causing the tension. This is skillful to the degree that we understand we have the power to change our lives, to take different turns that are more attuned to our deepest values so that we are not conflicted. That internal conflict causes stress and therefore tension. But believing that there is some external cause and some external cure for tension — a massage, a yoga class, a tropical vacation — is dis-empowering. We have the capacity to cope with the tension that arises in our bodies!

Noticing
Becoming aware of the tension in our body is one of the most skillful things we can do to change up the energy, to come fully into the present moment and to develop clarity and compassion. Why? Because tension is restriction. It is a pattern of reactivity that is mirrored in our mental and emotional activity. The tight knots of tension we hold in our body are in direct correlation to the tight knots of circular, fear-based convoluted thinking that we have going on in our minds. Both are ways we hold onto thoughts and feelings about the past and the future, using them as fuel for our current decisions and activities. But this is fossil fuel! It’s very polluting! Besides, the mileage is pitiful and this fear-based fossil fuel causes frequent breakdowns. So instead we want to access our infinitely more powerful and life-affirming, joy-affirming energy to fuel our lives. Access to this energy is always here, now and relaxed.

So we take a moment to sense in to our body. This could be a moment standing in the elevator, standing in the grocery store checkout line, or waiting on hold on the phone. We don’t lack for opportune moments in this busy modern life! We just don’t recognize them as the opportunities they are!

When we recognize we are in this opportune moment, we then tune in to the overall sensation of the body. Perhaps this is a neutral or pleasant sensation of all systems fully functioning, a sense of well-being — not hyper-caffeinated nor sluggish, but healthy, perhaps even radiant with life flow. In this state it is easy to be present, easy to smile, easy to take pleasure in the smallest things we notice in our experience.

But perhaps instead, as will often happen, we notice that the energy level is more to one extreme or the other. This is important noticing. This is not a fault-finding mission. It is not a directive to get out of the grocery store line and go get an energy-boosting beverage to change the situation. Instead we focus on the inhalation of our natural breath to raise our energy, feeling the incoming air oxygenating our system; or if our energy is frenzied, we focus on the exhalation, letting the outgoing breath release the excess energy, leaving us feeling calmer and more balanced.

Then we notice any specific area(s) where we are holding tension, the way we just did in the exercise. We don’t have to close our eyes to do this if that isn’t convenient. We can simply turn our awareness inward. Again if there is no tension, just the overall sense of well being, that’s fine. We can go on about our day taking pleasure in this sense of well being. But if we notice a sensation of tightness, we can take a moment — literally a few seconds to skillfully release some or all of that tension. With practice we develop the positive habit of noticing, relaxing and releasing tension in the body.

RELEASING
When I lead meditation, I usually guide the group in an overall body scan, using a variety of words to encourage relaxing and releasing tension. I suggest my students notice which of these words is the most powerful and effective. For example, those of us who took Lamaze childbirth classes may still be cued to respond well the word ‘relax!’ However, we were trained to respond to our mate-coach saying the word. I am sure if my husband said that word today, I would respond with full relaxation. But it’s not skillful in our practice to depend on someone else to provide the key for our release!

Here are some of the words I use.
Relax…..Release….Let go….Soften….Melt

This last word, melt, has an image associated with it. I will sometimes tell my students, especially in the summer, to imagine the spine as a popsicle stick and the muscles as the ice cream melting on the stick.

Try these words out for yourself and see which one(s) are most effective in releasing tension. There may be others that you think of that are even more effective. Whatever you find that works for you, remember to use it! Each of us is developing our own set of valuable skills, our toolbox of meditative techniques, that through our own experience, we know serve us. The word that most effectively releases built-up tension is indeed a valuable tool.

COMPASSION
As we quiet down through meditative practice, we can begin to notice all the sensations that compose this thing we call tension. We can find that each area of sensation is a whole series of smaller, subtler sensations that we begin to notice if we simply sit with the experience. This level of refined noticing is skillful, but even more important than the degree to which we notice is the compassion we are able to bring to our noticing.

Sometimes we may think of tension as the enemy and we just want to get rid of it. But tension is just the way our body holds unprocessed painful memories and anxious thoughts about the future. When we are doing self-inquiry, this is a gateway to insight and understanding. Compassion allows us to relax, release, soften and let go. It isn’t about pushing away or getting rid of anything.

One student brought up the challenge of being both compassionate with ourselves and still fulfill obligations, like the commitment of getting to work on time. A sense of needing to meet others’ expectations, is a common source of tension in our lives, so let’s look at it more closely.

The tension that arises is rooted in the fear that we will be judged and found wanting, and that this judgment will render us unacceptable. If we are unacceptable, we will be set out on the proverbial ice floe and left to die. That may sound like a crazy extreme, but this is what we believe in some form or another, even though we would word it very differently. That is why this area is all so dire and why we are willing to sacrifice our health and well being for the sake of meeting commitments. We are afraid of being separate. We are afraid of disappearing. Fears seem to come in all shapes and sizes but they all have that common denominator. We don’t want to be cast out. Even if ‘ve vant to be alone,’ it is on our own terms, and may to a certain degree be rooted in our discomfort with the tension we feel around others, based in this fear of being labeled unacceptable. Even if our voluntary solitude arises out of a sense of being comfortable in our own skin, a sense of connection with the natural world, or a rich inner creative life that needs solitude to work, we can get so out of the habit of being with people that we are uncomfortable with them. Or we may be used to working on our own and when we are working with people or for people, suddenly the tension comes in, even though we are doing exactly the same kind of work we were doing before. It something interesting to explore.

Through noticing and being present, it is quite possible to realize that we are inherently an intrinsic expression of all being, that we can never be separate, and that our ultimate disappearance from this form, just like all of nature, is simply energy transferring to another form. Think of a drop of water flying above a cascade. We each are that drop of water! We each believe ourselves to be separate, but in fact we are and always will be an inseparable part of being, just as the water drop is part of the river, the ocean, the clouds and the rain. We are not separate ever, so we can let go of the fear of any cause or condition making us so.

When we understand our connection to all of life, when we feel the life force flowing through us, then when we make commitments we fulfill them naturally as an infinite connected conduit of open-hearted spacious loving energy. We do not become undependable, blissed-out or flaky, so self-involved we forget our commitments! We instead fulfill our commitments out of this connected sense of infinite love, out of mutual respect and a sense of honoring the time and feelings of others with whom we are co-creating life and experience. Out of love, we arrive where we say we will be at the time we said we would be there. From that sense of connection, we honor other people’s time as we do our own, so we show up on time, and when that’s not possible we let them know as soon as we know that we won’t be able to do so. We can fulfill commitments without drudgery or dread, simply by shifting into the more authentic core of caring and compassion from which we made the commitment in the first place.

(When in class I suggested that we can fulfill our commitments compassionately, allowing our intuitive sense of connection with others to guide us, the way birds fly in unison, just at that moment a bird landed on the deck rail, and hung around as if to hear more about it!)


How do we know if we are operating from love or fear? Easy! Sense in to the body and notice if there is a tight knot of tension somewhere. That’s the first clue to operating out of fear. It is so habituated that even advanced meditators will still hold residual patterns of tension that need to be noticed and released. If we judge the tension as a sign of our unskillfulness as meditators, then we are missing the concept. Let the tension be a teacher! Instead of finding fault with it, let it be a guide to the opportunity to sense in, relax, release — or whatever word is most powerful for you — and be grateful to be so instantly ushered into the present moment, where we have the power of our intrinsic interconnection to create space for all experience to exist within our open embrace.

TENSION & SELF-INQUIRY
Developing the ability to sense into physical sensation and to notice tension is skillful not just in order to release it. We can use the tension we notice as a springboard for self-inquiry. Why? Because tension is the way our body holds painful memories and anxious thoughts of what could happen in the future. If that sounds strange, try it for yourself to see if it’s true.

Exercise:
If possible have something to take notes with in case you want to have a record of your experience for future reference. Now close your eyes and notice tension in your body. Once you have located tension, then continue reading. (If you don’t notice any tension, try this at another time.)

Once you’ve located an area of tension, stay aware of the tension while allowing your mind to roam freely. Notice what images, memories or other thoughts arise. Make note of them — a word, a phrase, a short sentence will do.

Your thoughts and emotions will go to the very source of your tension. Sometimes it’s very clear, especially after a period of meditation, and sometimes it’s more challenging, especially if some aspect of self is investing in this ‘woo-woo stuff’ being wrong. But if you have come this far, you are more powerful than that little nay-saying aspect, so continue to explore. (Note to inner nay-sayer: Biologically speaking, this all makes sense — ask a neurologist or brain research scientist.)

Okay, back to the exercise: You might ask yourself, ‘What fear is present in this thought or emotion?’
Notice the wording. We could say ‘What am I afraid of?’ and that’s okay, but this wording can activate identity-based concerns (‘I’m no scaredy-cat!’) that can be distracting. So we can more accurately recognize fear as a free-floating agent in our experience rather than something that is intrinsically us.

Remember that the fear might present as something that has a whole story wrapped around it. Notice the story, Maybe write down a brief note about the story for further exploration, but also be looking for that common denominator fear of disappearing that is at the root of all fears we have, no matter what our story is. The story is useful because it is full of clues about the way we have shaped that fear. We can ask questions of the story, such as “Is this true?” and “How do I know this is true?” We do this with compassion and respect. We are not pooh-poohing the story, but we are holding it up to the light and seeing it, maybe for the first time, with clarity. Most of us have never questioned our stories. We have instead built our identity around them.

For the purposes of this dharma talk, I am just showing how tension can be a teacher, giving us access to a treasure trove of tightly held answers to the questions we have about why we suffer so. There are many other dharma talks on this blog about self-inquiry and self-exploration and I encourage you to check them out from the list of labels in the column on the right.

Whether we are noticing tension to release it in order to come more fully into the present moment, or we are noticing it to do an exercise in self-inquiry, this kind of awareness practice is highly beneficial. It is only effective however when we experience it for ourselves, so I hope you haven’t just read this post, but have done the exercises, noticing your own areas of chronic tension, experimenting to find what words or images are most effective for you to release tension, and have tried out doing a little self-exploration using tension as a gateway to discovery. If not, you can right now go back and actually experience it.

These dharma talks are only adjuncts to the experiential practice of meditation and self-exploration. It is your own development of meditative skills that will make the difference in your life. To read without practice is said to be like fixating on the finger pointing at the moon rather than seeing the moon itself.

So dance in the moonlight of your own awakening! Though we all dance together in a beautiful pattern of life loving itself, no one else can dance your dance!