Lights in the Season of Darkness

Our Christmas tree is up. This year i'm decorating it only with lights--no ornaments. An uncluttered look, emphasizing lights in this season of darkness.

Where do we find our inner light in dark times? Meditation. Meditation. Meditation.

The other evening a Dharma friend talked about finding happiness in the midst of pain. Very early in my meditation practice, after the break-up of a relationship, i noted "Sorrow. Sorrow. Joy. Sorrow." and was completely surprised by that one-half second "vacation" of joy.

The blackness of the dark times turns out not to be as solid as we had imagined.

Light up the dark with mindfulness.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?
The need to pee? Your cat? Your dog?
The desire to go out to the garden?
The chirp of a bird calling you to put out a few sunflower seeds for its breakfast? (But no more than 2 tablespoons, so you won't attract bears.)

What wakes us up in our spiritual life?
Usually some form of stress, sorrow, or heartbreak calls our attention to a spiritual path. We are seeking relief. We want to reduce our stress.

We learn to practice mindfulness and begin to gain insight into the workings of our mind. We begin to see that our culture, our society normalizes greed, aggression, and delusion. Naively, we thought that was how the world was supposed to operate.

But our tender hearts were right all along. We want to follow the path with heart.
That's what will wake us up to Life.



Photo from http://mindfulbalance.org/2012/01/02/a-path-with-heart/