Petites Pensées Lundi: Live in Awareness to Find Freedom and Peace of Mind

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  PETITES PENSÉES

A new addition to TSLL's regular postings, available to all readers, non and Basic and TOP Tier members. Enjoy the Petites Pensées Lundi post each and every Monday as you begin the week, a shorter post replacing the Monday Motivational post, as I dive into completing TSLL's 4th book. This post, sharing thoughts to ponder, or as I am choosing to title them, Petites Pensées, 'small thoughts', while not small in depth of content, but rather small in length - no more than 1-3 paragraphs, with an introduction sharing from where the post was written or conceptualized wherever in the world I might find myself will offer a glimpse into one of the numerous and unique ways to live a life of contentment.

The Setting:

Lieu: Portland, Oregon’s Japanese gardens, a week after peak autumn foliage display
Thé/drink: Water enjoyed after wandering through the respite of the gardens upon returning to my vehicle
Des Sons: Falling water and babbling brooks splashing into pools and ponds, birdsong and hushed conversation of fellow visitors

“You are already enlightened. All you’ve got to do is stop blocking yourself and get serious about attending to what’s going on. You are not lacking a thing.” —Steve Hagen, author of Buddhism — Plain and Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day

Let’s go for a bike ride. Actually, let’s take ourselves for a bike ride.

In order to stay upright, we understand that we have to keep the bicycle in constant motion. This maintains our balance as we move with the momentum of the bike, keeping our equilibrium whether the road or path is smooth, bumpy, descending or heading up a slight gradient. We apply effort to pedal, use the foot or hand brakes to slow down to take the turns, and should an obstacle appear in our path, we slow down maneuvering around it. We respond to what is seen, not what we think might happen or what has happened in the past. Staying alert and aware is required as the world around us is moving constantly just as we are progressing along our journey. No two miles are exactly alike.

“We must be willing to see things as they are, rather than as we hope, wish or expect them to be.”—Steve Hagen

Should we experience a flat tire or a dropped chain occurs, we do not keep pedaling as that ignores the reality that needs to be addressed in order to continue forward once the issue is resolved. So we stop and either fix it ourselves or receive service or assistance from another capable of fixing it properly. Then, back on our bike we hop. We pedal on, again maintaining our balance, aware of the environment – weather conditions, traffic, and beauty that we see along the way as there is only one place we can be at one time.

“The point of Buddhism is to just see. That’s all . . . No words—Buddha’s, mine, or anyone else’s —can’t see for you . . . the message is always to examine and see for yourself. When you see for yourself what is true—and that’s really the only way that you can genuinely know anything—then embrace it. Until then, just suspend judgment and criticism.” —Steve Hagen

When we live fully in awareness, not ‘knowness’, we are being fully present to observe the moment as it is without projecting our expectations, beliefs, traditions, formulas, or doctrines on the moment. With awareness, we set ourselves free to fully see.

When we live in awareness, we are fully awake, alert, and “in touch with what is actually happening”. We then can live and make decisions from a grounded place of peace of mind, but we must experience life to know what is best for us. We cannot be told. Admittedly, we can be pointed in a certain direct through learning from a teacher, a guru, a parent, etc., but we must then live in the moment to see, to witness and experience in order to “remain balanced” along our life journey.

This is also why a tandem or any bicycle that seats more than one person is not sufficient for us to truly discover, learn and witness what is, what we actually see because if we share the experience on a tandem, we aren’t fully able to understand how much effort it requires, nor how to entirely maintain our own balance. Instead, it is better to go cycling with someone but on two separate bikes, analogically speaking. I liken the difference between a tandem and two individual bicycles as co-dependence versus secure attachment because with the latter both must be balanced on their own, you can pedal side-by-side and experience the same environment, but you still may respond to it differently and thus you will need to maintain your equilibrium to stay upright; however, knowing how to do this reveals you have knowledge fully of yourself, and that is a helpful insider’s bit of knowledge to ensure you choose a journey and a pace of life that suits you well because you will have gained first-hand knowledge of how you respond to various environments rather than being reliant on someone either telling you what is best or taking care of you to hinder your self-confidence and awareness.

“To be fully alive, we must be fully present.” —Steve Hagen

And that is what makes the bike ride of our lives deeply exhilarating and uniquely our own. No two journeys will be the same. So hop on the bike. Accept that at first you may be a bit wobbly and even need training wheels initially. But remember, an effective teacher (the training wheels in this example) is the one who has taught their students what they need to know, so they eventually go forth on their own. The skills of knowing how the mind works, how to stop it from ruminating, from longing or loathing, are the skills we may need to acknowledge we need to learn, for when we learn these skills, we can then be fully in the now. And even once we’ve learned this life-changing skills about mind, there will be moments when our mind wanders to the past or the future, or tries to cling to judgment or limited thinking, but the learned recognizes this ‘leaning mind’ as Hagen describes it, and all we have to do is be aware that it is leaning. Simply by noting that it is ‘leaning’ it will start leaning less and eventually remain in the present moment.

And when we are aware of how the mind works, every moment along our ‘bike ride’ is a delight and full of curiosity. A curiosity that guides us to what infuses us with energy, holds our attention and tickles our true self bringing it to life in the most amazing and seemingly magical ways.

Happy cycling!