zen

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Mindful Mondays

Mindfulness is THE buzzword in self-improvement and New Age circles, but what does it really mean? If we go back to basics, we find that it is rooted in Buddhism, and can be easily explained in two simple phrases.

Chop wood. Carry water.

This is actually a pared down version of a slightly longer Zen story, wherein an enlightened monk recalls his process to enlightenment. He stated “When I was unenlightened, I chopped wood and carried water. When I became enlightened, I chopped wood and carried water.”

A lot of the time it can feel like we’re carrying wood and chopping water – not really getting anywhere, flailing around with a dripping axe. But when we stop, focus and concentrate, usually things become smoother, get done quicker and with little drama. Some may not want that – they enjoy the distraction that the flailing causes, or the drama, but after a while it can wear thin. Applying mindfulness, which is simply paying attention, can help alleviate any dis-ease that we may feel in our lives. That’s not to say that we’ll feel great all the time, but just by being in the present moment and not attaching to past experiences, dwelling on them or getting stuck in an emotion we can just get on with plain living.

So, with all that in mind, I’ve decided to dedicate an entire day to mindfulness each week. Ideally, I try to be mindful all the time, but I’m no Buddha. Having an entire day to focus on this will hopefully trickle down into the rest of the week, and all my thoughts, actions and their consequences. I’ve deemed this my Mindful Mondays.

So, what does this all mean? It means that when I’m eating breakfast, I’m just eating breakfast – not reading a book or article. When I’m washing the dishes, I’m just washing the dishes and not singing along to the latest Taylor Swift album. When I’m out walking, I am walking mindfully, at whatever speed, paying attention to my steps and my surroundings – not planning my evening meal. When I’m stroking my cat, I’m not thinking about writing the next chapter of my book. When I’m driving I’m really feeling the road beneath me, not dwelling on the driver that decided to overtake me on a blind summit. When I’m out for a meal with friends, I’m really paying attention to what they are saying, and not already forming a reply to their words before they’ve even finished talking.

Mindful Mondays are all about paying attention.

With that centred awareness, with that focus, we can simplify our lives immensely (part of my New Year’s resolution). People often fear that we will be less productive, but actually we will do jobs better, more efficiently, if we maintain that focus.

Being aware of your movements as well is doing a great kindness to your body. When we are walking down the stairs, we are focusing on our body moving. We will find that our movements may become less hurried and more graceful. A calm descends on our way of being. Like a leaf falling from the tree, we simply are in that moment, either floating down serenely or caught in a whirlwhind – either way it is done with grace.

So, like the monk who realised that life doesn’t change after enlightenment and that you still have to do the things you have to do, what you can change is how you do them. Mindfully, with awareness, focus and concentration. Give it a try, and let me know how you get on! Even if a day is too much, try an hour or half an hour each day. You don’t have to change your schedule, just do everything in it mindfully.

May you be peace as you chop wood and carry water.

ch5

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Zen Druidry

My first book with Moon Books in the Pagan Portals series, this little introductory book shows how to blend Zen Buddhism with Druidry to create a life that is awake and aware to the natural world around us, fully immersed  and living life in accordance with the flow.

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Kindness

lotus-flowerKindness – in our modern Western world, this beautiful concept has become twisted, where in a “dog eat dog” world it equates to weakness.  We have to push, we have to grasp at life, beat out the other guy in order to get the biggest piece of the pie.

The truth is, there is no pie.

Forget what the media tells you, forget what other people may tell you, that you need to be better than others, that to show your humanity you will soon slide down that corporate ladder. There is no ladder either.

There is no me. There is no you. All is illusion.

We are all made up of each other, there can be no separation. The tree and the coyote, the fox and the mountain, the sunlight and your brother are all made up of matter and energy. Matter and energy cannot be destroyed. They cannot come out of nothing. They only wait for the right conditions to manifest, for the right circumstances in which to come into a form that we recognise. They are always there. We have always been here. We have always been a part of this world, and a part of each other.

As humans, we have become very judgemental beings. We allow our emotions and thoughts to overide the reality of many situations. It’s far easier to judge the behaviour of others than to look deeply at our own selves. Each time we judge something, we tighten up in our hearts and in our bodies.  An open heart is one that does is not judgemental. If there is no separation, there is nothing to judge.

We need to notice when we are forming judgements of people and of situations.  We need to see when we are contricting our souls, when we are not open to what life really is in this present moment. We need to really begin to know what the word kindness means.  If we truly see that we are all related, why would we be unkind to anyone or anything?

Do not believe in the illusion. Immerse yourself deeply in the awen, the poetic inspiration that opens the door to seeing the interconnectedness of all things.  Open your heart to the wonder that is life all around you. Look into the eyes of your supposed enemy, and see their condition of being. Look into the circumstances that created their life, and see yourself reflected in that. You are them and they are you.

Being aware of each judgement we make, being aware of our thoughts about other people, being aware of what is coming out of our mouth makes such a  difference to our lives.  When we speak ill of someone, we are doing ill to ourselves. When we treat others unkindly, we are being unkind to our selves. Our hearts do not like to be constricted.  The flow of awen, the flow of circulation in our bodies, the flow of a river or the flow of life itself moves better when we are open.

Our practice in life is simply kindness.  It’s not hard, but we make it hard for ourselves.  We have to lose our self-centred ego, our sense of self-importance, our sense that the world should be as we desire it to be, and not as it already is.  When we have stepped away from that way of being and move into a way of being that is centred on others, be they bird or bee, refugee child or murderer, basking shark or polar bear, we see that the world is much greater than the small worlds we create around ourselves.  We are released from anger and depression, hate and worry. We see how our little selves can take over, and we realise what is much more important that our little selves.

Kindness.

Have no fear – we will not become doormats for people to abuse if we are kind. We will not lose our place in life if we are kind. We will be happier, more free and really living as opposed to simply doing things.  Kindness is not weakness – it is the truest form of being. It takes courage to be kind to someone who has hurt us. We do not have to allow them to continue hurting us, but we do not need to seek revenge, or punish them for their actions. We can let them see that they have hurt us, and we can try to understand them with an open heart free of judgement. We can look critically at a situation without judging it, without letting emotion or non-factual elements into the equation. We can release our self-centred perception to get a look at the bigger picture, and try to help others instead of focusing on our selves.

It’s not easy, changing the way you think and behave. We have to really pay attention. We have to be really aware of how we are, how we react, what we say and do in any given situation. We need to look deeply into our being, through practice and meditation, through every single act of our waking lives. We have to be willing to change out of our old habits and our old ways of self-centred thinking. We have to try, again and again, to step outside of our little selves.

When we do, the world opens up in wonder.

May your life be filled with wonder.

 

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Solstice Practice

This post was originally  displayed on SageWoman’s channel, on my blog DruidHeart at Witches & Pagans.

Around the winter solstice is the time of year when many people get together, families and friends, to celebrate the holidays. If we are fortunate, we have some time off to be together, all together in one place – we may not have such an opportunity until the next solstice season rolls around. It can be a wonderful time of loving hugs, good conversation and deep, belly filled laughs. It can also be a trying time, when the bonds of friendship or family can become tested as we are all thrown together, our usual routines and habits left behind and we are faced with situations that are perhaps out of the norm.

My home is usually very quiet, filled with deep silence and stillness. In that silence I find my personal sanctuary, where peace is around every corner. I’m not a big fan of crowds or noise. However, at this time of year, I leave behind my little sanctuary and venture out into the world of lights and noise, family and friends when I’d really rather be sitting on my meditation cushion in the dark, with a candle and some incense.

It’s quite a shift to deal with. There is constant noise around me, different noise to that of my own home. It’s the noise of other people, which I am not accustomed to. Loud televisions, conversations, arguments, laughter – it’s a bit of an assault on my senses. Dealing with other people’s behaviour when there is no opportunity to “escape”. I have to confront everything that upsets me head on, or lose my temper, say something in anger as my “sanctuary” is thrown out the window.

Or is it? Yes, it’s difficult. Even as I type this blog, there are interruptions by people walking in and out of the room, asking me what I’m doing and other various questions. Nemetona, my goddess of sanctuary, has taught me that she is ever within me even as she is without – I take her with me wherever I go, and where I go she is always there.

In my Zen practice, this time of year provides me with innumerable ways to really practice. Life becomes difficult when things don’t go our way. When we realise this, and when we see that life is simply going ahead whether we like it or not, things can become easier. I have to deal with behaviour that I don’t like – this gives me a chance to practice and to try to understand that person’s behaviour. Often I can see myself reflected in it, or see that they are lost in their own suffering. I can try to ease that, when I remember to try to understand it. When it just pisses me off, I’m not trying to understand, and anger can erupt. When this occurs, I realise that I am not practicing very well, that I am not aware of my own reactions and behaviour. It’s a constant reminder to look deeply at myself, to see my patterns and to alter them in order to have peace and harmony both within and without. My goddess and my Zen practice help me with this understanding.

I have two choices when I find myself in difficult circumstances – get upset or not get upset. When people are shouting in the kitchen, or using words unkindly, or their behaviour is totally out of sync with creating harmony, I feel a tightness, a contraction within my body. Getting upset with this only tightens that contraction even further, making me miserable, or lashing out in anger in a misguided attempt to alleviate the tightness within. Seeing people mistreat each other, taking each other for granted – all of these things can cause contractions within. Passive/aggressive behaviour, words that are intented to provoke, noise levels louder than they need to be – all these things cause a contraction within my body. I want to loosen that contraction, but how?

Sitting and walking meditation practice, daily, really help me through this challenging time. By sitting, I am aware of my body, and aware of my thoughts. I see patterns in my behaviour. I see the self that is screaming for attention, for comfort, for sanctuary. I also then see the illusion of the separate self, and the inter-connectedness of all things. We are all dependent on everything else – the sunlight, the rain, our parents, the air, food. Without any of these things we could not exist. We are in them and they are in us.

When people’s behaviour challenges us, it helps to remind ourselves of this inter-connectedness. They are in me, and I am in them. It’s easy to do when out in the forest, becoming one with nature. But in challenging situations, with people we are often more directly faced with egos and personalities, with habits and the ego’s constant self-regard. When someone says something that upsets us, instead of thinking “I’m so upset that he said that” we can just realise that he said something. That’s the truth of the matter. Someone simply said something. We can act on what they said, of course, if they are saying inappropriate things. But we don’t have to act on it in anger, simply in awareness. Things happen. People behave the way they do. We can either get upset and lose our practice, or we can see the opportunities to become even more aware of our selves. In this awareness lies peace.

Slowly losing our separate sense of self, our egos begin to dissolve. We listen more. We apologise more. We find a deep well of peace to draw from, where we nourish that which brings peace and harmony. We don’t ignore our feelings, but we don’t feed those that create discord. We’ve no wish to stay in that contraction, no desire to create it in others.

Use this time of year as an opportunity to practice, to see how in nature we are all connected. See how the awen flows, how we are inspired by each other in each and every moment. Use difficult situations as the chance to become aware of your self and the world around you. It’s not easy, I’m being challenged constantly. It’s also a wonderful opportunity to fully immerse in the flow of awen, and not to be bashed against the rocks and caught in the swirls and eddies in the river of life. When life isn’t going the way that you would like it to, simply remember that. When we are angry or depressed, remember that it is because life isn’t going the way we want it to. Work with those feelings, work with others, and the practice will begin to show its rewards in less contraction, less anger and less upset. Peace begins to seep in, trickling through out insight, aware of the delicious drops of awen upon our tongue.

Isn’t that what this time of year is all about? Peace and love, awareness of the darkness and the returning light, the times and tides of life. May this time of year bring you many chances to practice, and may you find true joy in that practice.

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Ask the author

From now until 20th December, I am taking questions about any of my books on the GoodReads website – please do feel free to get in touch!

Awen blessings,

Jo. x

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Green Buddhism

I recently came across this article from PBS Newshour, and thought I would share. I sincerely hope that it isn’t just talk, but actual action, compassion and love for all things – not merely politics. x

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Food for Thought

food_for_thoughtWe’ve all heard the term, “you are what you eat”. We know that if we put bad things into our bodies, we’ll end up feeling pretty poorly. Equally, if we put good, wholesome, nourishing food into our bodies, we will feel much better. How much different is it to take this idea over to our thinking minds?

Our minds need nourishment too. All too often, we overload it with media and television, with constant thinking, worrying and getting stuck in our emotions. These things also help us to distract ourselves from our true self, from our true or “pure” thinking and emotions. We can get so wrapped up in them that we can’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak.

We all have things like fear and anger within our minds and within our bodies. The key is to not nourish these things, but instead nourish more positive things like compassion and love. This isn’t a rejection of our anger or our fear – they will always be there. It’s only human. We simply don’t have to engage with them, dance with them so much in order to live our lives fully. If I am angry, sitting with that anger, meditating with it helps me to see the underlying cause of it. I can see that the root cause of anger lies within me, and not another being that has ’caused’ it. Often it is through past experiences that we relate the anger to the present moment. If I can let my anger go, if I truly experience it and then let it go, what am I left with? The same can be said of fear. Fear is pretty much always based on change, and once we realise that all life is impermanent, the fear no longer lies within us and simply falls away. We will have to sit with these emotions time after time, but as long as we are practicing with them, we will get better at understanding them both within ourselves and others.

If we feed fear or anger, they will only get bigger and bigger. Have you ever punched your pillow? Did it make you feel better? Have you ever crawled under the duvet and feared coming out? Did this make anything better? Most likely not – acting on the anger and misplacing it on your pillow solves nothing, and also means that you have acted out aggressively and with violence to a mere pillow. If we keep feeding this sort of behaviour, how long until we act that out on another human being? Equally so with fear, if we constantly act on our fears they do not go away, but rather take control of our lives until we become so tied up within them we cannot move.

It’s not just a case of switching over to ‘positive thinking’ either. Thinking only good thoughts will not make the bad ones go away – they will be there. We have to acknowledge them first and then deal with them. Sitting with them helps us to understand them. Then we can nourish more positive thoughts. If we see that fear is keeping us immobile, if the root of our fear lies in past relationships and experiences, we can then look at it objectively and apply that reasoning to our current situation, in the present moment. We might fear that we will lose our job, but fear lies in change, something that we humans hate. We seek stability and reassurance constantly, it’s our nature. If we look outside ourselves, however we see that in nature nothing is ever constant, things are ever flowing and changing, never the same twice. Every morning we wake up a different person.

We will always have fear, we will always have anger. How we engage with them is what is most important. Friends might say something that sets off anger within ourselves, but if we sit with it and look at it, we often realise that this is based on how we think they should behave. People are never going to behave exactly as we want or expect them to – they are their own person, with their own experiences. We cannot get inside their head. All we can do is see that they share the same sufferings along the path of human existence as we do, and can see also where we have failed. When we see that, we don’t have these expectations of others, and we don’t have the anger when the expectations aren’t met, or the fear that things are changing.

Find what nourishes you most, and work with those thoughts while being in touch with those that don’t nourish. Try not to engage with the thoughts that don’t nourish – simply notice them and be aware of them within yourself. Nourishing things like love, compassion, creativity and acceptance will make the road of life a lot easier to manage.

Take a look at your food for thought. What is nourishing you?

Awen blessings. x

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Holistic manifestation – the nature of awen

In my previous blog post on my other blog, DruidHeart for SageWoman, I wrote about how we are never born, and how we can never die: we are simply manifest for a while in one form, and then we manifest again in another when the conditions are right. For me, this represents reincarnation, the nitty gritty basics of it and the science behind reincarnation.

Another aspect of manifestation is that we are not separate beings on this planet, or indeed in this universe. We cannot be, for we are all made up of different elements of existence. A human being is made up of non-human elements, such as calcium and magnesium, sunlight and wave, clouds and stars. All manifestation has a shared existence, for we cannot exist without everything else. This is explained beautifully by Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh in what he called Inter-Being. We cannot exist alone, we can only inter-be with everything else on this planet. It is a wonderfully evocative and holistic way of thinking that sits very well within my vision of Druidry. When we realise that we are not separate from the whole, we immediately act with a different intention, and live our lives filled with compassion and love instead of alienation and fear.

Our ancestors are with us all the time. Though their bodies may have long since physically disappeared to our eyes in the soil, their manifestation has not – it has simply changed its form. Energy cannot be destroyed, it cannot go anywhere. Neither can it be brought forth out of nothing. We are all manifestations of energy, energy that has existed on this planet for 4.54 billion years. This is a shared energy, one that we cannot claim as our own. If we cannot claim this energy as our own, how can we claim anything to be our own?

Ownership requires the belief that we are separate creatures. In our brief manifestation as human beings, we may think we own our house, our pets, our cars, however this is all illusion. We are only borrowing them, using them for however long or short a period of time before we are changed in form upon our so-called “death”. This death is not a singular, separate event, but merely a way to describe the cessation of a certain manifestation. Equally, there is no birth, simply the beginning of a new manifestation. The energy behind the manifestation is always there.

This shared energy is in the heart of the sun, in the rocky surface of the moon, in the wind and in the rain. It is in the bee and in the bear, in the holly bush and in the snow. The icicle is made up of non-icicle elements. The cat is made up of non-cat elements. This is what it means to have a shared existence. Not shared existences, but a singular shared existence.

If we are all a part of each other, we will see that if we fight with another person, we fight with ourselves. If we grieve for another person, we grieve for ourselves. If we act with love and compassion for the world, we also act with love and compassion for our selves.

The plant that has died is still there, in another form. It is still a part of our self as well, for we have breathed in its oxygen; we are in its soil as its soil is within us. There exists a beautiful garden in our compost heap. The sea is held within the sky. I am within a woman grieving in Palestine, and she is within me.

Keeping this thought close to my heart, I can reach out and touch the awen that connects the threads of all existence. That energy where soul touches soul, where boundaries fall way, where we are beautifully inspired by the acknowledgment of another being and seeing that being reflected and existing in our souls – this is at the heart of Druid teaching. Walking awake and aware in the world, seeing the connecting threads, seeing the shared manifestation and shared existence fills our souls with beauty and awe in the wonder that is the world.

May we be the awen.

universe human

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Reblog: The Winter Solstice – No Birth, No Death

This is a reblog from my site, Druidheart, at SageWoman’s channel on Witches and Pagans. To read the whole post, click HERE.

With the Winter Solstice approaching, and in the cold dark months of the year, we have an excellent opportunity to reflect upon the deeper parts of our existence, those shadowy elements that seem to fade away so easily in the heat of the midday sun, those thoughts that require darkness and the teaching that it can bring. Thoughts such as life and death, darkness and light and the cyclical nature of existence are all excellent themes to meditate on at this time of year, with a natural introspective element to this season allowing us to perhaps go further, deeper than we could or would in the warmer, more outwardly focusing half of the year.

This season, with the increasing darkness and the lack of light here in the UK brings more sharply into focus thoughts of death and dying. It is often said in Western Paganism that the Sun God dies at Samhain and is reborn at Yule, when the days begin to lengthen and the light in our lives is increased. However, lately my thoughts have abandoned the concept of death, as well as birth, into a more Zen-like “No Birth, No Death” frame of mind.

Having meditated on this for a couple of months now, and seeing it reflected in nature around me, as a Druid this is how I internalise the teachings. For me, nature is the greatest teacher. I look to no other authority other than nature. It is the core of my religion, the core of my being. Having looked deeply into the nature of death and dying, of birth and living the concept of no death, no birth makes a lot more sense to me right now. Let me explain…

To read the full post, click HERE.

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Perception, assumption and suffering

How much of our lives are based around incorrect perceptions? How often does our emotional state and relationship with others fall apart based on incorrect perceptions? And just what is perception?

Perception is how we interpret the world, through our own subjectivity. We have a store consciousness built on our past experiences and those experiences related to us by others. We use this store consciousness to help inform us on our view of the world. It helps us to survive. We know that fire burns, so we don’t touch it. We know that cougars are dangerous, so we don’t approach. We look both ways (hopefully) before crossing the street. However, as our perception of the world is so subjective, how often do we get it wrong?

This is not to say that we should throw out all useful perception and experience. What we need to do is to become aware of our perceptions, and to see if we are making assumptions that aren’t based on actual fact. So much of our lives are built upon this, which is a rather shaky foundation.

Incorrect perception can lead to all sorts of problems and can create a huge amount of suffering. We might have the incorrect assumption that we are alone, which gives us the false perception that we are completely isolated from the rest of the world. We may react to a situation based on what we think someone said, rather than what they actually said, and thereby create a false perception of the actual event. We may assume from past experience that all politicians lie, and create a false perception that we cannot trust anyone, much less bother to vote. We might get angry at someone for their behaviour, without seeing the root causes behind it. Changing your perception leads to understanding, which is the essence of compassion.

We will still make mistakes, however. We have habits, ingrained learned behaviour that is difficult to overcome if we are not aware of it. However, once we see the patterns formed in learned behaviour, we can unlearn it. We can break free of negative, destructive cycles, beginning to heal ourselves and then work towards healing our community, our world.

By nature I judge everything – it’s simply a part of my personality. While it’s worth having to some extent, it’s also a detriment. What I have had to learn is how to judge without being judgemental. It may not sound like that great a difference, but really it is the foundation of trying to understand the human being.

Daily meditation helps with this on so many levels. Practising awareness for 10 to 20 mins a day in mindful meditation begins to seep into every aspect of your life. Once you become aware of your thought patterns and behavioural patterns, you can then learn to break free of these in order to live with more intention. Everyone can meditate to some extent – you just have to want to. You have to want to spend time with yourself, and thereby doing some pretty deep examination, coming to terms with the less than glowing aspects of your self, as well as embracing those parts of your self that nourish and bring peace. It’s very simple and sometimes very difficult. However, if you want to get off that treadmill of constant running, out of that vicious cycle you feel trapped in, it’s well worth the effort.

Next time you are angry, depressed or sad, take the time to look deeply into your perceptions. If you find that they are based on incorrect or unsubstantiated views, perhaps they are not perceptions but assumptions. You will have to let go of the anger, depression or sadness as well as the ego in order to fully see – things we like to cling on to for various reasons, ie. because we know we are right, because we know we are not good enough, etc. This knowledge is not true knowledge, but assumption based on false perception.

Doing this work can lead to a life filled with less suffering, and in doing so even bring more joy into the world. May we do the work with a peaceful heart and with pure intention.