Tag Archives: Susan Piver

Three Truths and One Wish

2 Replies

1. Truth: If you relax, everything is workable. No need to push or force or panic or flee. Aggression isn’t necessary. Relax, soften, settle, let go. This doesn’t mean collapse or become too loose, but rather open your fist, rest your palm, open your hand, your heart as if you are giving something away or waiting to receive, to accept–open and aware and mindful and still.

In this relaxed state, you’ll know what to do, if anything needs done. You’ll know when to act and when to wait. Watching will be true seeing, hearing will be real understanding, what arises won’t hook you, you won’t resist or reject what is, but rather peacefully abide with it. You will taste meaning, bitter and sweet. Your words will find the river and dissolve. You might expect good, but you’ll open your door to whatever comes, and let them go when they go.

Image: federico stevanin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

2. Truth: Your power is in being wholly, fully, and truly yourself. For you and for the world, this is necessary. You are who you are, you can’t change that, no matter how you try. Certainly, you can change habits or opinions or affiliations or memberships or addresses or hairstyles, but that fundamentally true part of you, that collection of love and wisdom and dirt and breath and blood is you as only you can do it. It is the best, most brilliant you can give, and the most brave you can be. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

fortune taped to my computer monitor

3. Truth: You are good. During meditation instruction, Susan Piver of the Open Heart Project often shares this mantra, a contemplation she begins her sessions with: “You are good. You are aware that all other beings share this same goodness. Recognizing this, your heart opens. With an open heart, you can change the world.”

Image: graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One wish: That you relax completely into who you are, aware in each moment of your basic goodness, your natural wisdom and kindness, and in this way, you will be of benefit both to yourself and the world.

Relax. Be yourself. You are good.

It’s okay. Cheer up. You’re perfect.

Joy Jam

7 Replies

What were the 3-5 things that gave you joy this week?

1. My dogs. The very first time I did a Joy Jam post, I listed “these three boys” in reference to Eric, Dexter and Sam. I could put the three of them on every Joy Jam, gratitude, Something Good, favorites, things I couldn’t live with out list I ever make. But this week, I think because I’ve been doing the Small Stones posts and have been more attentive to everything, and I spend so much time with them, I have really been noticing how much I adore my dogs. Every single day they bring me joy.

2. Laughing with Eric. It wouldn’t do any good to explain the exact moments, because sometimes there are things that are only funny to you, and won’t make sense to anyone else.

3. Missing Obi. Any of you who have lost someone close to you know that grief can sneak up on you at the oddest times. The wind blows or a door slams or you see something out of the corner of your eye and turn to look, and suddenly you are right there, in the exact moment you lost them, as if it is happening again, right now in this moment. I was in my meditation room the other night, and I caught a glimpse of a picture frame I have on the shelf there–it’s one of those kits that you can make a hand or paw print on one side and put a picture in the other. I made this one of Dexter and Obi’s paw prints, the day before Obi died, and put in one of my favorite pictures of them.

I know it seems strange to mention this in a list of things that brought me joy this week, but the depth of loss and grief I feel for Obi is a reminder, a joyful one, of the capacity for love and connection.

4. Ease and Freedom. These are two things I don’t feel very often, but when I do, I appreciate them so much. This week, there were several times that I felt one or the other, or even both at the same time. Writing on Monday (I made four blog posts that day, and felt ease as I did so), walking the dogs in the snow on Tuesday morning, watching two owls with a student I’d just met (both of us standing so quiet and still, paying attention and wholly in the moment, appreciating the magic), sitting on my meditation cushion last night, practicing yoga this morning, and walking the dogs this afternoon (home early from work on a Friday, a windy but beautiful day).

5. Relax. I have talked many times about Susan Piver and her Open Heart Project. If you sign up to be on the mailing list, a few times a week she sends videos and a written message. One video is typically a discussion of some issue related to meditation (life), important teachings for free. I am continually amazed by her brilliance and generosity. In one of her most recent videos (I apologize for not remembering exactly which one), she talked about how Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche said (she was paraphrasing) that the more he studies, the more he thinks the entire path, the whole dharma, the truth and the teaching and the way could be summed up in a single word: Relax.

This makes me so happy. I’ve heard him say similar things before, so it wasn’t the first time I’d heard the idea, but when Susan reminded me, I felt what I always do: relief, and then joy. It really could be that easy. Something in me says “yes” every time I contemplate the idea. If you relax, you find freedom, space, ease–everything is workable. Seriously, I’ve been trying to disprove this idea with multiple scenarios, but I can’t think of a single situation where things wouldn’t be better simply by relaxing into reality, accepting what is as it is.

  • Where did you find joy this week?