reflect

 

Let us reflect on what is truly of value in life,

what gives meaning to our lives, 

and set our priorities on the basis of that. 

~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

This is a serious question.

It's Mental Health Week (somewhere in the world, anyway) and to mark the occasion, I have composed an essay, of sorts, based on my recent experiences. It's called 

This is a serious question.

An essay, of sorts, on suffering, and when enough is enough, or becomes too much. 

Being brief and powerful, it seemed like something I could print on coloured paper, and put in coloured envelopes, and leave in certain precincts for people to find, read and contemplate, by way of raising awareness of mental health issues, and the supports available to them. Like an anonymous act of public service. I once heard senior organisational leaders opining that such a thing would be a useful tool to create a sense of importance and urgency around the issues of mental health in their workplace, and to stimulate acts of individual and collective duty of care. My essay, of sorts, meets all the criteria. Good writing, tick. On topic, tick. Timeliness, tick. Personal angle, tick. Relevance to that work place, high, tick. Low cost to implement, tick. 

But then I took a break and read it again. (Good mental health practice, right there). Did I mention it's based on my own recent experience? It is, to be honest, quite confronting. (Hence its potential impact). But do I want to be setting that free to work its chaotic magic in the hearts and minds of its audience? Now that it's written, it's always an option, I guess. But even with the careful language I have chosen and the deliberate structuring of its message, it is confronting. Potentially triggering. And I do not wish to stimulate any more suffering than that to which I have myself been exposed. That is part of my duty of care, my moral obligation to ensure the safety and wellbeing of others. I exercise that duty of care, it seems, even when it has not been exercised towards me.  

So, please take a moment to appreciate the generosity of my motives in writing such a piece, and admire my restraint in not circulating it widely at this most pertinent time. Perhaps my discretion and good judgement will inspire others to consider what actions they can take to assist those members of their own communities who are suffering for want of basic actions of care and access to otherwise inaccessible support. 

wouldn't you say

One Almost Might

Always true

This is Always true: 

it’s what you do next that matters the most. 

Freedom

It is our mind, and that alone, that chains us or sets us free.

~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Ripples

The truth of

the pool's reflection

is found only

by the pebble.

Simplicity

Move always

toward greater simplicity. 

(Zen practice) 

Trust

Trust your instinct to the end, 

though you can render no reason. 

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson  

Hangover

What's better than my all time favourite TED talk?  

Finding out there's a sequel. And it's just as powerful as the first - or maybe more so, because it probes the uncomfortable reality of the 'vulnerability hangover' that followed its delivery. 

It goes to the heart of the paradox of vulnerability: that it's not weakness. That it's our most accurate measurement of courage. That it's the birth place of innovation, creativity, and change. 

And that we can't unlock any of that unless we examine its paralysing flipside: shame. 

Overcome

Nothing in the world is softer and weaker than water.

However, when attacking that which is hard and strong,

nothing can surpass it and no one can equal it.

Weakness may overcome strength,

softness may overcome hardness,

everyone knows it,

but no one puts this knowledge into practice.

Lao-Tzu

The perfect quote?

Don’t you hate that?

Sometime in the last three days, I read the perfect quote.  It summed up a concept that I have since given a lot of mental air time.  I have visited the idea at least once in conversation of the deep and meaningful kind, in my own imperfect and fumbling words.  The quote expressed with rare precision and delicacy the sort of paradox that only the most universal and enduring life truths hinge upon.  It was the type of perfect quote that you read to anyone who will let you, share on Facebook, and enjoy the bubbling forth of creative reply.

But I’ve forgotten where it was.

I have retraced my virtual steps, and even gone so far as to walk around my house and gaze about each room, in case the source pages should leap into focus in my refreshed memory.  But to no avail. 

I try to remember.  I recall the moment of deep, dizzy recognition, a sudden intake of breath, the feel of the smile spreading across my face, and I read it again, this time the swirling words absorbed more slowly. A pause as the crystalline weight of the idea spreads inside my mind.  And then, a distraction, the sudden need to tear myself away from the passage, and a choice to put it down. 

Somewhere in the intervening busy-ness, it has slipped away from me, like a cunning teacher, or a secretive sage.

But I still feel the energy of the message.  I feel it in my solar plexus, as if the words are still connected to my body.  Perhaps the quote has escaped me deliberately, so I must try harder to connect the dots, learn the lesson, know the truth of it in my own way.  Or maybe the wisdom has not left me at all, but has burrowed deeper into my consciousness, in order to expand and find new expression in me, in my words - in my own perfect quote.