Letting Life Live Through You (AHCW)

Letting Life Live Through You

• Salt Thrown into a Lake
• Dealing with stronger pain
• When it is less tolerable give it space
• Widen and expand
• throw salt into sink vs. salt into a lake
• Practice RAIN from a larger space.
• Accessing Our Larger Space
• Sense space beyond the room, light outside (a sense of exterior space)
• let yourself relax outward into that
• Find in your body where it is pleasant or neutral
• going into different zones (safe/loving, difficult/unpleasant)
• increase a sense of tolerance, including what is difficult. It is painful but not suffering.
• Strategies:
• RAIN (Nourishing helps soften the feel)
• When It's Too Much: Sensing Our Oceanness (Case Study #1)
• Connecting with a larger space
• Rest in love
• When we are caught in pain
• "Ocean" and the waves. 
• stay with the wave and sense the experience and the contour. 
• in that presence you feel the oceanness
• waves come and go, can be unpleasant but it is not suffering
• stretch out your consciousness, and sense the oceanness
• rest in love 
• This Very Body is Our Gateway to Freedom (Case Study #2)
• By replanting in this bodily universe, we start discovering a level of freedom and aliveness. 
• "Keeping my heart in my body became my practice"
• The invitation is to  have our practice be more and more to wake up these senses and feel from the inside out. 
• inevitable to encounter difficult emotions and difficult sensations
• then navigate with RAIN or at times with resource ourselves with something larger, sensing that space in there. Going back and forth.
• We understand first hand that in the moments we try to control it, stop it, grasp at it - we are going to suffer. We get small.
• When we let be, we discover a quality of aliveness and presence. 
• Practice: Live with the World Inside You
• Sit comfortably and alert.
• Let your intention be to arrive and inhabit this living body.
• Let this life be a portal. 
• Scan your body. Notice. 
• Is there a center to this aliveness? Is there any boundary?
• Keep letting go into the changing flow
• Can you sense the space that everything is happening in?
• Poem:

Hokusai says look carefully

He says pay attention, notice.

He says keep looking, stay curious.

He says there is no end to seeing.

He says look forward to getting old.

He says keep changing, you just get more who you really are.

He says get stuck, accept it.

Repeat yourself as long as it is interesting. 

He says keep doing what you love.

He says keep praying. 

He says every one of us is a child, every one of us is ancient, every one of us has a body.

He says everyone of us is frightened. 

He says every one of us has to find a way to live with fear.

He says everything is alive,

shells, buildings, people, fish, mountains, trees.

Wood is alive. Water is alive. 

Everything has its own life. 

Everything is inside us. 

He says live with the world inside you.

It matters that you care. It matters that you feel. 

It matters that you notice. It matters that life lives through you. 

Contentment is life living through you. 

Joy is life living through you.

Satisfaction and strength is life living through you.

Peace is life living through you. 

He says don't be afraid, don't be afraid.

Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.

Let life live through you. 

My Notes:

Something I never really thought about or understood before is this sense of belonging. For so long I've felt so alone. I know I'm not and haven't been, but the feeling of being separate and alone in my suffering is something I'm very familiar with. I think it started with my family, and my need for more affection. I used to see myself as this needy person, but in reality I just really wanted to belong. It is so deep in my needs to belong and be part of a family, or a community that feels like a family. Unconditional love and support. Being with a group of people that love and accept me. Amongst loved ones where I am allowed to make mistakes, without judgements or criticisms. Where I feel support and safety. Where I feel positivity and warmth. A place where I am not expected to provide and not pressured so much. The freedom to be me, freedom from fear to disappoint. I've wanted this for a long time. I don't get these needs from my immediate family, I get it more from other family and from friends I consider family. So my needs do get met, but I feel guilty. I feel like an intruder.  I still want to belong. 

Listening to Tara talk about others feeling this way, and not being alone has helped me feel less depressed about this. The sense of belonging with the world, other people, the earth. With strangers, animals - we all belong to one another. We aren't alone. 

I'm trying to find my "nitch" when it comes to strategizing during times of trance or emotional turmoil. RAIN helps a lot. One thing I have been doing is scanning this sign I made for myself.. it reads:

When angry,

Pray - Please may this serve me to awaken.

When anxious,

Reminder - I am part of this vast ocean. Surf the wave.

When in trance, 

Be kind and nurturing. Then come back.

When rushing,

Reminder - Going half as fast, I can notice twice as much.

When judging,

Nurture, pray, change my intention, and practice love and compassion.

When obsessing,

Ask - Who would I be if there was no problem to be solving?

When distracting and numbing myself,

Remind - Be here. Recognize, allow, identify, and nurture. Don't delay, take it ALL in. It is necessary to transform. 

These are the "flags" for me. My sufferings. Trying to practice, it helps being able to identify them. It has changed a lot for me. Sitting down with the unpleasant sucks to high hell, but being able to finally figure out the steps to get through this sh*t and then taking them with trust, and love.. this is the embodiment, and the freedom I've been searching for.  

The Hokusai Poem is wonderful, simple and profound. 

I need to hand write this or print it on something pretty and hang it on my wall. Maybe I'll commission one of our artists at Kindling to make a beautiful watercolor background and print his words on it. Even more meaningful. They make everything with love. 

".. don't be afraid, let life take you by the hand.."