6/2011- Metta

Assignment
Take through all of your bodies:
Mental mind Thinks.............
Physical Body Senses.............
Emotional Body Feels.............

Metta is unconditional love
Upadana is 'without attachment'

For the next 7 days we will be looking at Upadana and how it creates a space for Unconditional Love. Notice how loving kindness plays a specific role in allowance for Metta.

Again take your daily experiences through your bodies and keep a personal journal.
By the 7th please post your summary. One summary statement per person. Everyone in the community is being asked to participate.

For the next week you will notice, 'finding something'

this 'something' can be anything, a rock, a feather, a ray of sunlight, money, whatever, person, place, thing.

For this week you will 'KEEP NOTHING that you FIND'

Exercise:

1. Notice what you find
2. Notice your desire. What does it look like to you? Take it through your 3 bodies and write about it in your personal journal.
3. Ask how this 'finding' can serve you
4. Ask how do you serve this 'finding'?
5. Ask how do you serve the 'place where you found it'?

Again, do not keep it, do not touch it with your hands. Notice your own attachments. Notice where compassion and loving kindness move you to.

Summarize your accounts and your experiences and place in the 'Personal Experience' section of this forum.

Inlove and gratitude for each of you,
Willow JiMi

May 29th - 31st
Metta is unconditional love
Upadana is 'without attachment'
Peace and Ease are created through Metta, unconditional love as Compassion's Supreme Quality of "Loving Kindness"

Assignment
Take through all of your bodies:
Mental mind Thinks.............
Physical Body Senses.............
Emotional Body Feels.............

Define for yourself

• Metta
• Upadana
• Loving Kindness

One week summary to be posted in Personal Experience section.

June 1st - 8th Metta

Metta is unconditional love
Upadana is 'without attachment'
Peace and Ease are created through Metta, unconditional love as Compassion's Supreme Quality of "Loving Kindness"

Assignment
Take through all of your bodies:
Mental mind Thinks............
Physical Body Senses............
Emotional Body Feels............

Metta is unconditional love
Upadana is 'without attachment'

For the next 7 days we will be looking at Upadana and how it creates a space for Unconditional Love. Notice how loving kindness plays a specific role in allowance for Metta.

Again take your daily experiences through your bodies and keep a personal journal.
By the 7th please post your summary. One summary statement per person. Everyone in the community is being asked to participate.

For the next week you will notice, 'finding something'

this 'something' can be anything, a rock, a feather, a ray of sunlight, money, whatever, person, place, thing.

For this week you will 'KEEP NOTHING that you FIND'

Exercise:

1. Notice what you find
2. Notice your desire. What does it look like to you? Take it through your 3 bodies and write about it in your personal journal.
3. Ask how this 'finding' can serve you
4. Ask how do you serve this 'finding'?
5. Ask how do you serve the 'place where you found it'?

Again, do not keep it, do not touch it with your hands. Notice your own attachments. Notice where compassion and loving kindness move you to.

Summarize your accounts and your experiences and place in the 'Personal Experience' section of this forum.

Inlove and gratitude for each of you,
Willow JiMi

June 10 - 17

There is a place where we can go to hide from ourselves,
This place is called the abyss.
It lives within us and we call it dark, and when it peeks out we shove it under the rug, or in the closet, or we pretend that it is not there at all.

This place is scary to us, and when someone else notices it, sort of like a fragrance.
Well when it comes around and we know it is a part of us that we just don't want to see,
it becomes something of a monster.
It rules our days and nights and it becomes our protector. Protecting us from the very thing that we 'say' we are about or what we are looking for. This place is called the chaos of the abyss.
The cave of chaos of the abyss tells us that the Peace that we seek is too costly, too much effort, not really worthy of our attention.

Sometimes we look at this place and see that it is right, to give up our attachments to this place is going to disrupt our neatly or more likely not so neat conglomeration of artifacts which keep us safe from ever having to look at Peace as a real and valid place to live.
A story from my ancestors grandmother and grandfather,

Once there was an old hag who lived in the nearby hut.
Everyone would walk by her old house which was filled with dust and smelly old things.
She kept to herself and people only came to visit when they were wanting something from her, maybe a cure, or advise on how to make some sort of medicine.

It was an odd thing to visit the hag because when you looked at her she was very frightening. But when you looked her in the eye, it would take your very breath away because in her presence, you could see your soul.

One day grandfather was very upset with the yelling that grandmother was doing, and he insisted on some advise from the hag. He asked grandmother to please come to the hut and talk with the old woman, maybe there was something that could be done to right the wrong, what ever that was, which according to grandfather, beyond his knowing.

Well grandmother and grandfather went down to the old hut and called upon the hag. She was quite frightful with her knarly hands and crooked nose, her hunched down back and her walking cane. She looked like something out of the hansel and gretle fairy tale.

Well any way they went to see the old woman, each telling her of their side of the wrong way conversation, fight and.................

After hearing their words she closed her eyes.

Then she said look at me, this was to my grand father.
He looked into her eyes and there within the darkness of eternity, sat a woman, young and vibrant, hopeful and dreaming, there upon the meadow with dewdrops falling from the long grass in her hand. His heart stopped and he remembered.

Then in the same way she asked grandmother to do the same. Grandmother looked into the hags eyes and there she saw infinity, many many many visions of a boy, a man, a son, a father, a grandfather all hopeful of her acceptance and allowance. She remembered.

And so the story goes, that as we hold on to the things that protect and pain us, we become captive to brittleness, blindness and senseless hurt.

When we open our eyes and our hearts, we begin to see what we are missing. And in this heart of openness our minds have the opportunity to hope in a eternal memory of infinite dreams together.

Metta requires a certain kind of tenderness that can only be seen when we are willing to let go of our anger, judgementalism and fears for a moment.

This is where we begin, for metta can not live in the heart space of conditions which are based in judgments of better or worse than. These ideas form hatred, and hatred is violent.

Loving kindness requires that we look at how we support violence within ourselves and askes us to listen to the words and thoughts that we use to diminish another's freedom, and thereby diminishing our own sense of belonging and worthiness.

This week we will take ourselves on.

There is a 'common statement' that we use to hide our insecurity about peaceful ease. This statement is something we may say out loud or under our breath. It is the thing that keeps us apart, seperated, hotty and self righteous.

this week take a look at this statement, see how it serves.
Observe when you use it,
take it though your bodies and begin to understand where it lives in you and how it serves you.

In summary, post your statement of what you have learned and your choice to hold on to it or to allow it to transform into peaceful ease.

There is no right or wrong here, there are only conscious choices, it is in these choices that we begin to understand that Love is a choice,
to be loving is a choice. What do you choose.

Can you be kind to yourself?
Can you be kind to another?

Blessings in Peaceful ease
may we laugh with our shadows ever remembering that we can never truly hate that which makes us whole.

Inloving kindness may you visit here and move to a place where inner knowing and joy meet as compassion.

Willow JiMi

assign, 2
Summarize your accounts and your experiences and place in the 'Personal Experience' section of this forum.

In finding............HUMMMMMM

One day I found a single petal of a California Poppy along the side of the road. Very alone.
My desire was to touch and console it. Then as I let go of my own need to think that it belonged in any one place, I dreamed that night of its freedom to explore away from the inner circle, along the river bank. My mind thought that's a relief to remember that our choices are held by mother whether or not we as group, understand. My physical body relaxed in my solar plex, my emotional body felt moved by freedoms choice to leave.

One day I found two screws which I directly picked up without noticing that I picked them up and carried them with me for quite some time before realizing that I was unaware of what I committed to. I realized that there are times through habit of decisions made long ago for the protection of others, that I will pick up a nail or a screw, someone else's stuff, to maybe lessen the difficulty of the untrodden pathway. In my finely charted pathway, I can forget about myself and taking a break from taking care of others. My mind gets confused here. My physical body wants to find an easy stride, and my emotional body feels a bit weepy.

One day I found a bird saying prayers at the top of the tree at sunset, and I looked away, being reminded that sacred space is given by the universe and is a choice to be honored or not by another. Later that same day, while in my prayers, a man came close and rather than disturb my silence, gathered his energy, looked to the ground and walked continuing his business. I felt grateful for his honoring of my silence.
I realize again and again the importance of allowing myself and others the place of 'no interference', so as each may grow in authenticity of personal experience outside of my own judgements. I think freedom of thought here, emotionally I feel dedicated to allowance, and physically I experience the sense of completeness in my whole form.

So it is........
Just for today, let Metta be my guide
reminding me of freedom of choice
Inlove,
Willow JiMi

For those who have not completed the previous assignment please do so before moving on.

Metta, unconditional love without attachment.

For three days, Please take the following question and notice where it leads you.
Post in your personal sections.
On the third day,
go over your accountings of your gathering, day by day
and answer again.

I would like to see daily posting if possible.

Question:
"Am I the sound that makes you glad to be alive?"

Please post and outline of your process and summary by the second of July in, the Metta, personal experience share only section.

Inlove and grace,
Willow JiMi

How does "YOUR QUALITY" define your experience of Life as Art through the steps of Metta, thus being the sound that makes me glad to be alive, through Metta step One:

1. Generosity of Giving of Ones Self.

Metta in process

Is:

1. Generosity of Giving of Ones Self.
2. Virtue, morality, proper conduct.
3. Renunciation of Death or Surrender to Living Life or Living Life in Peaceful Ease.
4. Transcendental Wisdom, Insight.
5. Energy, Vigor, Diligence, Effort.
6. Patience, tolerance, forbearance, acceptance, endurance.
7. Truthfulness, honesty
8. Determination, resolution
9. METTA
10. Equanimity, Serenity

From the above,

consider that your 'Qualities' define your experience of your Art of Living through the steps of Metta.

For instance

My supreme quality is Beautiful Splendor.

Question:

How does Beautiful Splendor define my experience of Life as Art through the steps of Metta, thus being the sound that makes me glad to be alive?

Please take one step per week and record your experience through one of your Qualities that Brings JOY easily to you.

For instance:

The quality of Truth can be rugged in trying to work alone through Metta. However maybe "Simplicity" helps to experience more ease.

To be clear, choose one of your personal Qualities which are easy.

Assignment:

© JiMiTao-ABeautyWay 2024