The countdown to Christmas was well underway as I slowly began to emerge from “retreat mode”. I had to go to the store, for non-holiday related things, and found myself in the midst of the chaos of the season. Most people call it hustle and bustle, but I’ve always seen it as chaos and misery. Happy, happy, joy, joy…Uhhhhhhh! The now recognizable first signs of old habits and patterns preparing to kick in began to arise. Amazingly they quickly faded and I found myself smiling. Wow!The effects of recent concentrated practice seem to be lingering. So how do I not let it slip away? The obvious answer is to keep going. Why stop because of simply flipping a calendar page ? Since the retreat I speak of was not at all a conventional “retreat” retreat, and one of the primary, and most challenging, aspects was to carry it with me wherever I went, why not just continue? These thoughts kept me company as I stood in line. And stood…and stood. Fortunately the line was long and allowed me time to reflect on a newly discovered willingness to receive each moment as it comes. Or to try anyway.
And so I am stepping back from my imaginary perception of chaos and misery this holiday season. Instead I will see the Dhamma. And I will smile.
May we all find peace, tranquility and wisdom.
4 comments:
This seems the way to go, Kris: to approach Xmas as a kind of mindfulness exercise - or a Xmas Retreat, if you like!!
That you recognized your old habits arising with regards to the Xmas rush & let go into happiness is wonderful.
Keep it up!
G
Oh, I forgot to mention that Forest Wisdom is changing its url this Friday. It's new address will be:
http://forestwisdom.blogspot.com
You might want to change the link to Forest Wisdom on the right side of Vitakka Vicara, Kris. (You can do this before Friday, if you want, as blogger.com will redirect to the present address - unfortunately, it won't work the other way around.)
Be well in the Dhamma,
Gary.
Gary,
Everything seems to be a mindfulness exercise these days! What a new and actually quite entertaining experience.
Kris
"Chaos and misery" is about as good as it gets if you allow yourself to get sucked into all the drama and the frenzy of the season. It seems like your practice is recognizing the chaos for what it is and letting go of the misery. There are certainly Dhamma lessons to be learned in the midst of the Christmas season, keep it up and be well in your practice.
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