Surrender

"Most of us exist for most of the time in worlds which are humanly arranged, themed and controlled. One forgets that there are environments which do not respond to the flick of a switch or the twist of a dial, and which have their own rhythms and orders of existence. Mountains correct this amnesia. By speaking of greater forces than we can possibly invoke, and by confronting us with greater spans of time than we can possibly envisage, mountains refute our excessive trust in the man-made. They pose profound questions about our durability and the importance of our schemes. They induce, I suppose, a modesty in us." - Robert Macfarlane

There is nothing more humbling than a day in the mountains.  I realized this weekend how easy it is to bring our human ambitions, goals and strategies into the mountains only to realize that none are applicable in the untamed wilderness.  In the human world we like to set goals for ourselves and work diligently to accomplish them.  We think that we can control the outcome by neatly planning each step.  Our sense of success depends on our capacity to complete the task and achieve what we were aiming for.  Failure is defined as "the lack of success" and success is defined as "the accomplishment of an aim or purpose."  So what is our aim or purpose in the mountains?  If we come to the mountains with a goal, we will always leave unsatisfied.  There will always be a higher mountain to climb and harder route to explore.  What every seasoned mountaineer knows is that the mountain always wins in the end.  We can train all we want to be stronger in the mountains but we will always be fighting an unbeatable opponent.  How long do you want to fight?  I gave up my fight on the mountains three years ago and was challenged this weekend to maintain this surrender.  Human ambition is a great beast that calls out my name in the mountains telling me that I could push harder and train more to accomplish greater feats.  It feeds on itself with a promise of satisfaction when a goal is reached.  The problem is that the satisfaction only lasts a fraction of a second when I reach the summit before it disappears behind the next goal leaving me in a constant state of yearning.  This state of yearning usually encourages me to push my limits and always ends in injury.  When you fight the mountain the mountain always wins.  So this fabulous weekend of tempting goal making reminded me what my aim is in the mountains.  I go to the mountains to respect their beauty and soak in their healing energy.  I am humbled by their power without trying to fight against it.  I don't need to climb higher or faster to appreciate what the mountains have to offer.  They give me much more when I remain at peace with them.   

Acceptance

"Acceptance means the absence of a goal or program." - Thay.  

Living fully means not wanting things to be different in order to be happy.  It means accepting all that is right now without waiting on uncertain conditions to be met.  All of the conditions for our happiness are already present in us, it just takes being calm and aware enough to see them.  Nothing felt more liberating than washing myself clean of all the ideas of what could potentially make me happy.  All of the life plans that fit neatly into societal norms like a prestigious job, a husband, a family, a house, or even alternative plans like having written a book, being ordained as a nun, traveling around the world.  All of these different programs kept me constantly chasing something distant to finally make me happy.  The problem with these programs and goals is that there will always be one more.  When we live for goals we never reach the end.  When one program ends the next begins in a never ending cycle of chase.  Each little drop of dharma has allowed me to let these unmet conditions of happiness wash away revealing my potential for being happy right here and right now.  Look at what you are waiting for to be happy and ask yourself if it is really necessary.  Carry joy and peace within you even when your body, environment, and mind are not everything you want them to be. Let the unmet conditions of happiness that you built up in your mind melt away and take advantage of the happiness present in your life today.  When you are living well in the present all other problems seem to resolve themselves. 

Root Balance

This weekend I had the privilege to experience a sound therapy energy healing.  Sound therapy works with the properties of sound that resonate with the vibrations of our body.  Sickness is seen as a part of the body that is functioning at the wrong frequency and in altering its sound vibrations one can bring it back in tune with the rest of the body.  In tuning all the instruments of our body we can once again be in harmony with the orchestra of the world around us.
Elyah is the daughter of two clairvoyant healers and found her healing power through the sound of her voice.  She then went on to learn about various instruments of healers around the world and plays them in unison to reach every level of one's being, from the spirit to the cells.  She uses therapeutic diapasons, Tibetan sound bowls, crystal bowls, shamanic drums, the gong of the sun, the gong of the moon, the didgeridoo, chimes, and the Amerindian flute.  Each instrument works with a different chakra and may provoke a variety of reactions in one's body.  Some reactions may be pleasant and some can be very uncomfortable depending on what parts of your body need balancing.  The shamanic drum and the didgeridoo work with the root chakra and every time that she played these two instruments I felt extreme discomfort.  Anxiety, fear and restlessness passed through me in powerful waves as I fought these sounds from entering me.  It was as though I knew what they were trying to do and I didn't want to allow them to do it.  The root chakra is the first chakra and is found at the base of the spine.  It establishes the deepest connections with your physical body and your environment.  It is the most primal of the chakras and is where the fight or flight response is initiated.  It also connects us with our ancestors and helps us to harness their energies to survive trying times.
It is no surprise to me that these sounds are the ones that were the hardest for me to hear.  My root chakra has been a place of pain for me for many years.  The blockage of energy in this area was so great that it transformed into a back injury that has followed me for three years.  During my hardest moments I spent most of my time trying to runaway from the pain that I felt and hide from truths.  Instead of healing the wounds in my roots I severed them from my body and took off running.  Instead of helping me to rid myself of the pain I amplified it and it is only in slowly reconnecting with my roots that I am finding a slow process of healing.  At the end of the session Elyah said that a common mistake is to think that strong roots can prevent us from freeing our spirit to move upward but the opposite is true.  The stronger our roots are, the more support we have to allow our branches to reach higher.  There must always be a balance between our connection to the earth and our upward movement.  If we only reach upward and lose our roots, we risk getting caught in the wind and blowing in the wrong direction.  Our roots keep us steady and give us comfort in times of difficulty.  No branch grows without its roots.  This is why I am so excited to return to the place of my roots and reestablish my connection to the earth. 

Ever Evolving

Love has seemed like a threat to me for many years.  I saw it as a binding contract that would solidify me permanently into the form of myself that I was when I first fell in love.  Knowing that living means always evolving and growing, I figured that love would prohibit me from truly living.  What I didn't realize is that I was afraid of my notions of love and not of the actual experience of love itself.  In my mind love created obligations between me and the other person that I would then be permanently forced to carry out.  It meant maintaining something even if it was no longer what I wanted.  Putting these restrictions on myself also meant that I put them on the other person.  Loving someone came with expectations of what they should give to me in return for my love.  When they didn't meet these expectations and it hurt me, I assumed that it was my love that had hurt. I was wrong.  Love is never what hurts.  It is only our notions of love and the expectations that come with those notions that hurt us.  The sensation of love never hurts.  Thay says that we should look at all that is as an experience and not as a notion.  In this way we can experience love without contaminating it with our own expectations of what we should receive in return.  What helped me to let go of my notions of love was my understanding of impermanence.  Thay says, "If you suffer, it is not because things are impermanent but because you think that they are permanent and when there is a change you are disappointed.  If you do not accept the impermanence of the people you love, you suffer a lot when they are no longer around.  But if you understand their impermanence you can do your best to make them happy without expecting anything in return."  In this way we can love without the fear of one day being disappointed by those that we love.  We know that our relationship will continue to evolve and change and will never be permanent.  We can also be at peace knowing that the love that we developed for this person will not disappear when the person is no longer present.  In their absence the love that was created will continue to evolve and grow to include other people around us.  There is no need to be afraid of love.  We should never hold back the formation of love.  The love that we feel is never limited to one person and will never diminish with their disappearance.