tranquility

Insight Meditation

Gill Washington Buddhist Writings, Insight, Joseph Goldstein, Meditation, Spirituality , , , , 0 Comment

Excerpted from Insight Meditation

By Joseph Goldstein

The insights of insight meditation are intuitive, not conceptual. Intuitive in this sense does not mean some kind of vague feeling about something; rather, it means clearly, directly seeing and experiencing how things really are.

For example, you are sitting in meditation, watching the breath. All of a sudden your mind settles into a different space. Even if it is just for a couple of moments, you feel a deeper kind of calm and peace. Instead of struggling to be with the breath, you begin just to rest with the breath in a very calm, effortless, way.

That is an insight through direct experience into the nature of calm and tranquillity. You do not think about them or reflect on them. You know that daffodils are yellow because you have seen them. You know the nature of calm and tranquillity because you have felt them in your heart.

There are many such experiences, and many levels of each one; and each time we know them directly, it is as if we open to a new way of seeing, of being. This is insight.

But often our mind becomes so excited by each new experience that we start thinking. “Look at that. I’m so calm. This is great Or we start reflecting discursively on impermanence or suffering or whatever the particular insight-experience has been.

We need to take a lot of care. If we fail to note such reflections and become caught up in them instead – and Dharma reflections can become extremely compelling and interesting – they themselves become a hindrance to deepening insight. Sometimes people become obsessed with Dharma thoughts, with reflections about genuine insights they have had.

So try to differentiate clearly between true intuitive insight and thinking about it. Knowing the difference can save you trouble and delay. You do not have to worry about later finding words to communicate your insights. Our mind very rarely has a problem coming up with the words. Simply staying present with each new arising appearance allows the whole Dharma journey to unfold.

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Eternal Journey

Gill Washington Chris Roe, Poems, Spirituality , , 0 Comment

By Chris Roe

As the crimson flame of life
Breaks slowly
Above the horizon,
The white frosted meadows,
With trees and hedgerows
Of sculptured ice,
Speak loudly
Of your presence.
Once more
Upon this journey,
As another day begins,
Without effort
Or intrusion,
Through the peace
And tranquillity
Of your silent voice,
The moment becomes eternal
And the journey
Begins again.

The above poem is from

In Search of Silence

a collection of 45 poems written by Chris Roe including 7 watercolour prints by his brother Paul

Visit Silent Flight Publications for more details

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Willow

Gill Washington Anna Akhmatova, Poems , , 0 Comment

And I grew up in patterned tranquility,
In the cool nursery of the young century.
And the voice of man was not dear to me,
But the voice of the wind I could understand.
But best of all the silver willow.
And obligingly, it lived
With me all my life; it’s weeping branches
Fanned my insomnia with dreams.
And strange!–I outlived it.
There the stump stands; with strange voices
Other willows are conversing
Under our, under those skies.
And I am silent…As if a brother had died.

January 18, 1940
~Anna Akhmatova
Translated by Judith Hemschemeyer