OPENING THE TREASURE BOX

Within each one of us there is a treasure box full of the bliss bestowing jewels of paradise. But we don’t want to open this box. Why?  As one of my teachers, Charlotte Joko Beck said we live in the “if onlys”  If only I had  _____ , I would be happy. If only my spouse would love me, if only I had a better job, etc, etc. We keep looking outside of ourselves for something only we (or God) can give us.  But the treasure box doesn’t lie outside of us. That is the mistake we continually make.

Each day I work with my therapy clients to help them open their treasure boxes which lie deep within them right down amongst their pain.  Of course, being with these difficult feelings is exactly what we don’t want to do. But that is exactly where our treasure boxes often lie: right in the midst of our anger, sadness, longing, hurt, and loneliness.  And we open them with radical acceptance and loving awareness. These are the keys to our treasure boxes and with them we gradually open our hearts as wide as the world with all its joys and sorrows. Our open hearts ARE the treasure box! 

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Free Sunday Evening Mindfulness Meditation in Pasadena 6-7:30PM

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am now doing a regular free Sunday evening mindfulness meditation offering at East Village Yoga in NE Pasadena at East Village Yoga Pasadena 

1720 E. Washington Blvd. Suite 204  Pasadena, ca 91104. This occurs every third Sunday from 6-7:30PM. There is plenty of parking in the rear of the building off Sinaloa Ave. 

I am concentrating on somatic connection (body awareness) right now as this is critical for our physical, mental, and spiritual healing and growth. Below is a description of the class for this Sunday. Please drop in and check it out. Also, Jenny Buchanan who runs the yoga studio is a personal long time friend and colleague.

More info: robertbcornellspirit@gmail.com

Best Wishes, Robert Cornell LMFT

SPIRITUAL  FIRST AID

 There is a wonderful way to stay centered  and connected with our inner divinity even when we are upset. When we are triggered into some difficult emotion, we are tempted to pull back from our experience, to try to avoid or to control our emotion. This puts us into conflict with our experience and often makes our suffering worse. And it does not to lead to healing.

 When we encounter a difficult emotion, one excellent way to engage with and heal it is to put one of our hands on our heart space and the other on our belly. Our hands have the most nerve endings of any part of our body. When we put our hands on our heart and gut, we are connecting directly with our bodily experience. And by doing so it is if to say to our vulnerable hurting selves, “ I am here for you.”

 This practice of loving presence brings healing to our inner hurting selves. This practice can be one of the most effective and loving things we can do for ourselves.As we do this practice we are re connecting  with ourselves. And this connection is the healing.

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WORKING WITH OUR ANGER

 Very often when someone triggers our anger, there is a strong impulse for us to say something hurtful or spiteful in return. This is practically a reflex action and if we do this, we are acting on automatic pilot. It might feel good at first, letting it all hang out, telling them what we think of them, but often we regret it later for the damage it causes to our relationship with the other person.

 What would be the alternative? We work with our anger like any other challenging emotion. First we hold it  compassionately in our awareness (not suppressing it), watching for and refraining  from any impulses to act out. This is one of the reasons why some kind of contemplative practice is so valuable for daily living. Mindfulness practice in particular gives us the ability to have this perspective on our strong emotions.

 It is important that we not judge ourselves or blame others for our anger. Instead when we are away from the triggering event we can start to inquire as to what the anger is about.

 We can listen compassionately to our inner dialogue of anger and ask ourselves: does it seem familiar, like an old story we have experienced over and over? Does it require us to do something that might be different than the way we have usually reacted before? Gradually as we work with our anger the patterns and meaning becomes clearer to us and we can act with more intelligence.

THE UPSIDE OF ANGER

Anger is often seen in spiritual practice as undesirable and to be let go of as soon as possible. And in a general sense it’s true; we  have all seen people who hold onto their grievances and resentments and carry them around like valuable possessions, bringing toxicity into their own lives as well as those around them. However, while it’s good general advice to release our anger quickly, it does not always help us in the nitty gritty of our own daily lives.

 Anger is a signal like any other emotion. Often anger signifies that an important personal boundary has been crossed and we need to listen carefully to the message contained in the angry emotion to discern what is to be done. And it might mean an old hurt has  surfaced that needs further healing. So it is important that we investigate what our anger is about before we either attempt to let it go or act in some way to defend ourselves. 

 Often there is an intermingling of a past hurt and a current situation that we are facing. For example we have a difficult relationship with a boss at work that lines up with old issues with a parent. This takes particular care to sort out as to what part of the situation may be our own issue and what part we have a legitimate cause for wanting to confront the other person, while not acting out and undermining our position.

HOW DO WE MEDITATE?

There are two basic paths in meditation practice: one is about detachment from thought and emotion and is typified by Buddhist meditation practices to develop insight into the empty nature of reality ( more about what emptiness means another time. ) And then there is the heart centered meditation practiced by mystical Christianity and Sufism.

 In my own practice I lean more and more to heart centered meditation and I am going to be teaching more about that in our group. In heart centered meditation, you bring your awareness to your heart center and let yourself open to the source of loving which Christians and other theistic faiths call “God.”  When we bring our consciousness to the heart, we feel deeply connected to our very selves and deeply connected to others and the world around us. 

GRACE

While we seek healing and spiritual growth for ourselves, there is another loving force operating from the other side. We could call this “Grace.” Unlike other things, Grace is unearned, unconditional love; it is given to us simply for being human beings. This is not the normal economy of the world where everything has to be bought and is also usually bargained for with others: you give me this and I will give you that.

 For most of us, even those who have had so called normal lives, we cannot imagine something that is given free of charge, so to speak. “So what is the catch?” the cynical or doubting part of you might ask. There is no catch; we simply have to open ourselves to receiving this grace. Of course this is just too good to be true for us with our experiences of being hurt by others, of being made to feel small and unworthy. It is very hard to imagine living in the economy of unearned Grace where no demands are made of us, no conditions are put on our being accepted, and there is no hidden agenda that could be turned against us.

So the work we are invited to do in spiritual practice is really an undoing, a letting go of all the old limiting beliefs that we harbor deep inside of us of being unworthy, of suspecting the motives of others – even God or our higher power, of holding on to the belief that nothing is for free… And giving up the old agendas of our ego self that has thought to buy this love and protect itself by trying to be successful, being a good or bad boy/girl, etc., etc. So there is a price after all: letting go of everything that gets in the way of receiving this love. This deep incredulousness about the gift of Grace is the fundamental wound of us human beings. It is everyone’s spiritual wound, without exception. And we heal it by gradually opening ourselves to this gift.

Peace, Robert

EFFORTLESS EFFORT

"Don’t just do something, sit there!"

 One of the things we learn to do in meditation is to “just sit there.” In Japanese Zen, they call this Shikan Taza – just sitting. To our Western culture this seems to be tantamount to just sitting on your butt, doing nothing – a highly dubious activity - seen as lazy and unproductive even self centered navel gazing. But something happens when we “just sit.” Our awareness begins to open up, we begin to pull back from our impulses, our feelings and our stories about ourselves and the world and to be able to see what is going on both inside of us and outside of us with new clarity. We are less and less run by our original programming. We experience increased freedom and clarity and we bang into other people less often because we are not so wrapped up in the fog of our own preoccupations.

 One way that we can help this process along is to notice when we begin to effort in our sitting. By this I mean any effort to bat a thought or feeling away rather than to just see it and let it go. Or a stiffening of the body as we resist some experience we are having. Or the thoughts that seem to have a life of their own which we either get entranced with or start to fight. All of this puts us back in the realm of doing and fixing and unneeded suffering.

 I used to be a champion efforter. I didn’t know how to do any kind of concentrative activity without tensing up my shoulders and pursing my mouth. Yoga has been such a good additional practice for me because it works with the body and releasing tension in it.When you adopt a pose in yoga the instructor will often remind you to release your jaw, your shoulders, etc. Ooops! As I was writing this I noticed I was tensing up my shoulders!  But I noticed. And that is what it takes. Patient moment by moment noticing and letting go. This is what meditation is: no big deal, no big plans for great enlightenment. Just moment after moment being with what is rather than resisting what we fear and hanging on to what we want.