A look at this Body…..
Reading at Anara Spa 10/15/09
Kent Bond 28 by Kent Bond
“My Zen teaching has deepened to encourage people to really plunge into the world, into life. I want them to enter life, to embody their practice, tend it with their hearts. To attend to life, to this body, is to love it and bless it. Particularly we need to find a way to bless our wounds and the darkness we
find ourselves in. It takes patience to bless our wounded-ness,
because we haven’t been taught a respect for it. But if you
do bless your body, you notice that you find what is right for
you. You have the kind of pains that are right for you, as well
as the kind of joys that are yours, the experiences that you
have honestly earned.
When we listen to our bodies, our bodily wisdom grows. We
can feel the body’s urge to move and honor its cycles of rest,
we can meditate and dance, we can respect its need for solitude, we can allow its lively senses, and we can know its pleasures and limitations. Instead of fearing our body, its losses and strange vulnerability, we honor it. When the mandala of awakening includes rather than excludes the body, our gifts can flower and our heart remains free.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav tried to get his disciples to understand that:
“If you never want to see the face of hell, when you come
home from work every night, dance with your kitchen
towel, and if you’re worried about waking up your family,
take off your shoes.”
—-
Hakuin Zenji wrote in his ancient Song of Zazen,
“All beings by nature are Buddha, as ice by nature is water. How sad that
people ignore the near and search for truth afar like someone in
the midst of water crying out for thirst. . . . Truly, is anything miss-
ing now? Nirvana is right here, before our eyes; this very place is
the pure Lotus Land; this very body, the Buddha.”
Excerpts from After the Ecstasy the Laundry by Jack Kornfield
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“Particularly we need to find a way to bless our wounds and the darkness we
find ourselves in. It takes patience to bless our woundedness,
because we haven’t been taught a respect for it. But if you
do bless your body, you notice that you find what is right for
you. You have the kind of pains that are right for you, as well
as the kind of joys that are yours, the experiences that you
have honestly earned.” I really like this. It has been a hard lesson for me to learn – this love and acceptance of the “all” of me, including the dark places. But as I have learned to do this, I have become so much less judgemental of others, compassion and patience for others has been just a natural outcropping of this. Wonderful!
I’ve been wanting to read this book for some time now. I keep being reminded of it. Thanks for this post and the reminder and the encouragement it brought.
Aloha Ms. T-
Thank you for your continuing visits and comments – you are a very welcomed and you as always are a welcoming energy.
To me this self-forgiveness/acceptance/love is what is up for many (all?) of us….. Been slaving under the not good enough because of this seeming inadequacy ticket for too long now, don’t feel this is why we are here….