Enough

These words won’t resonate for some, but for others they are crucially important:

How much is going to be enough?

How many promotions are you going to say yes to, because they asked, because they want you? Rather than because you want it, have the bandwidth for it, can manage your other responsibilities, be there for the ones you love and take the job.

How many marathons is enough marathons? Who are they for? What is it that you think they say about you, when your knees are shot and your back hurts? Is all that pain for that moment of glory a good deal?

How perfect does that event have to be? Are you micromanaging every tiny piece of it, lest something be missing or someone find fault with it? What does it look like when you find a way to say this is enough, leave the rest to grace and let things be. How might life be different then? Less stressful, more grounded.

How much love is enough love? Do you really need everyone to like you? Do you feel discomfort that that one person over there doesn’t seem to like you very much? Can you live with it? Can you find a way to let the love that surrounds you (I have no doubt of this) be enough?

How far?

How fast?

How many?

How perfect?

Before you understand that no amount of external can bring you peace internal.

Before you realise that you are unique, whole, loved and that everything is going to be ok.

Everything is going to be ok. Let go and let be a little more. Search inside yourself for the feeling of trust.

The photograph above is the perfect illustration: you’ve been stretching towards that final room for too long. That’s where you think love, acceptance and safety lie.

But look around you, it is here. You are already in the room. You are alive, loved and brilliantly you and there is no other who is just like you in the whole world. Your folks don’t love you because you are perfect, they love you for your insconsistencies and foibles. Those are things that make you wonderfully human.

And the ones who don’t love you? That’s their choice. There is nothing you can or should do about it. Not loving is their problem to solve, not your challenge to win.

You are enough. I know you have been broken, made mistakes and stumbled. Did you think there could be a life without pain if you just worked hard enough?

Stop killing yourself for the eternal something or someone else that will prove you are good. Learn the art of love in all its forms and acceptance, energy and joy will surely follow.

Sarah x

Beginners Mind 2 - Chandogya Upanishad

In the Chandogya Upanishad, an enlightened teacher sends his son for his traditional 12 years learning about spiritual teachings an rituals from a spiritual teacher. The son returns from this teaching thinking he knows it all - he has become a little arrogant and proud. He is young; we have all been that person.

His father sees straight through him. He asks his son what he has learned & the son lists everything.

The father admits this is very impressive, but asks: “Have you learned that by learning which everything else is known?”

The son admits he does not know this teaching. He is confused by it and humbly asks, “Please teach me, sir.”

There is a very famous story from Zen, which illustrates this need to stay humble if we are to learn important things:

A learned man once went to visit a Zen teacher to inquire about Zen. As the Zen teacher talked, the learned man frequently interrupted to express his own opinion about this or that. Finally, the Zen teacher stopped talking and began to serve tea to the learned man. He poured the cup full, then kept pouring until the cup overflowed.

“Stop,” said the learned man. “The cup is full, no more can be poured in.”

“Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions,” replied the Zen teacher. “If you do not first empty your cup, how can you taste my cup of tea?”

Likewise, in this story from the Chandogya Upanishad, the son was so full of his own accomplishments that he had failed to learn the most subtle of teachings.

Now, the father through 16 volumes of verses of the Chandogya Upanishad explains that everything in the universe is one.

“Tat tvam asi” says the father all the way through: “You are that”

He teaches that all beings are intimately connected to universal energy and cannot be separated from it. Everything emanates from that energy and returns to it. All is one. A split seed seems to contain nothing, but from that ‘nothing’ grow great trees. In the same way consciousness, which you cannot see, is the source of the entire universe, is what you are and cannot be separated from.  

Tat tvam asi – you are that. All one.

The power of the father’s own attainment allows the son to get what 12 years of spiritual learning could not teach him. When the son’s wisdom comes, it comes not from books or intellectual understanding, but from being open to receiving it.

Like all Upanishadic lessons, the teaching itself is very simple: to learn the truth, open your heart, listen and be humble. Maintain a willingness to suspect that you know nothing yet. Have an open heart, an open mind and the capacity to listen, so that what is true can fall into your lap.

Sarah x

Life Plans

The paths of our lives are not ones that we sat down and mapped out beforehand.

As it turns out, we are all simply putting one foot in front of the other in the general direction in which we are hoping to go. Usually we get to find out where we are actually going once we have arrived.

We all know this and yet how much time and energy we have all wasted trying to chart the map for ourselves.

If only we could embrace the idea that we are always walking into mystery, then we would would only concern ourselves with how ready we are for the journey, rather than trying to control the journey itself.

What readies us for the journey is not to arm ourselves in preparation for imagined dangers, or to build fences to try to protect ourselves from the danger of sorrow and loss.

No, what prepares us for life and what we should be teaching our children, is that life is surprising in wonderful and sometimes terrible ways. But with a brave heart, a calm mind, a generous soul and a flexible attitude, each of us will walk that path in courage and honesty. Your strength will sustain you in ways you don’t know and your willingness to be vulnerable will bring you the loving support of your community.

As always, yoga helps.

Happy travels.

Sarah x