Can We Live A Contemplative Life In A Modern World?

May 26th, 2011 by Kathleen

Can We Live A Contemplative Life In A Modern World?  In a word, ‘yes’.

Does this mean sitting on the proverbial rock?  Does it demand following an established, proven meditation practice?  Does it require divesting ourselves of the world’s events, activities, routines and pleasures?  In a word, ‘no’.

If we are fully in anything, surely we can see that to be fully in life we must have a contemplative relationship with it.  Origins of the word suggest that to contemplate something is ‘to observe it in a temple’.  Early definitions include the notion to ‘observe omens carefully’.  With these meanings as background, living a contemplative life in today’s world is not only possible, it is critical and paramount on so many levels.  Consider the evidence: the environment, world economy, international security, universal peace efforts, developing countries, and more.  Let’s face it, from the perspective of observing in a temple and observing omens carefully, we have abundant indications and ample opportunity.  This post is not going to go down that road, however.  Instead, my invitation lies a little closer to home.  It is an invitation for you and for me, right here in our own backyard.  Will I live a contemplative life?  Will you live a contemplative life?  Can we each live a contemplative life in our little corner of the modern world?

What does this mean and what might it look like?  We can answer that only for ourSelf.  And it does require response…. for our present world and most certainly for the future we are creating.  Varying from individual to individual and ultimately from community to community and culture to culture, its importance is universal.  I can offer my own version and ask you to consider what yours might be.

For me, living a contemplative life is ‘Quiet Luxury’.  It is meeting my existence every day in all circumstances from this state.  These two words are for me, the very EssenceExpression of my being.  Of course, yours are different – different from mine and from every other human being’s on the planet.  Therein lives the very elegance of our unique lives, each one’s integrity and impeccability.  In touch with this core of my being, I have a touchstone that guides my path and illuminates my process.  From this place, I can maintain a discipline of inquiry-exploration-discovery in support of living a contemplative life.

What is this Inquiry-Exploration-Discovery process?  It is both simple and powerful, subtle and impactful.  At the level of inquiry, it has me pay attention to the question that emerges in my circumstances and then take the question to my life for exploration.  It may seem obvious and yet, we are wired for something else.  We are not trained for ‘observing in the temple’.  Our instruction has provided us with structures that move us quickly to answers.  Contemplation is viewed as slower, less direct, and lacking analysis.  It is too bad because taking this less familiar, less automatic path leads directly to Discovery, the third element of the triad.

Resting in Inquiry and staying present in Exploration are the keys to a contemplative path that keeps us fully in life rather than taking us out.  These cornerstones expand our vision and widen the highway to the destinations of pure desire.  Inquiry and Exploration lead naturally to the gift of Discovery over and over and over again.  Day in and day out, year after year from the innocence of youth to the wisdom of age.

In our modern world, these three cornerstones and the distinction of our EssenceExpression living at the core of our being are keys to the unique life that is each one of us.  Aware and awake or oblivious and asleep, it is our individual choice and our greatest opportunity to ‘observe in the temple’ and bring the difference we are to our modern world.

What’s the EssenceExpression of your being?  Where do you stand with respect to living a contemplative life in a modern world?  What is your experience of Inquiry-Exploration-Discovery as a way of life?

The Surrender Of Strategy

May 17th, 2011 by Kathleen

‘There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it.’…. Ralph Waldo Emerson

This post is an invitation.  It comes with an RSVP.

The invitation is to try something new – to leave behind an old, well-used methodology for a new option.  We’re generally pretty good at choosing.  We take choices for what we want.  Choice is explicit and finite, assuming preference between options.  Achievement is available through discernment and determination.  We’re presented with alternatives.  We make a definitive selection that results in one verdict over another.  One choice is NOT it.  The other choice IS it.

However it is that we come to it, consciously or unconsciously, we strategize choice.  We eliminate what doesn’t meet our criteria to focus on what does.

We are used to strategy.  It is our default way of being in the world.

Desire requires more presence.  It is gentler in its invitation, somewhat softer and a little more subtle in its initial calling.  Desire chooses us.  It is implicit and infinite, assuming affinity among variations.  Fulfillment is available through exploration and recognition.  Presented with opportunity, willingness and attention allow collaboration of complementary possibilities.  Desire is realized through a multitude of available choices or combination of choices.

Desire nudges us, grows in us and takes up residence in our being.  We cannot strategize desire.  It just is and in its presence, we don’t think about criteria.  We experience the all of it.

When true Desire is present, we lean into it.  We imagine, feel, and surrender to it.  It becomes a part of what we carry and embody.  This is not our default way of being in the world.  And we could have it be so.

Understanding that Desire creates our Choices, we could give our time and attention to desire.  We could soak in its fulfilled circumstances and in our rest, give it space to emerge the perfect choice.  All we have to give up is strategy.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  The path to fulfillment comes with an invitation to give up strategy in favour of surrender to desire.  In juxtaposition to what we have been taught, strategy and surrender change position.  We lead with surrender.  Strategy follows.  Surrender provides what is fresh and what we can’t know.  Choice in the right time and place calls for strategy.

We live in the tension between these two.  Desire is ever calling us to notice and acknowledge its invitation and fully engage its experience.  Choice lures us to determine and activate an option.  Both are necessary.  Trouble is we most often employ one without presence to the other.  We scan our options and make a choice, never fully experiencing, leaning in and surrendering to Desire.  If we gifted ourSelf this one adjustment, we could in turn, surrender strategy and rest fully into the choices emerged by desire.

Will you accept the invitation?  What will you RSVP?  Are you willing to give up strategy in favour of surrender to desire?  To what desire fulfilled will you surrender?

 

Gratitude Expressed For What’s Shown Up

May 8th, 2011 by Kathleen

‘GRATITUDE EXPRESSED is inviting.  This gracious practice appreciates receiving.  Welcoming ‘What’s shown up’, we confirm ‘I’m done’ and celebrate completion.’ …CONSTRUCT DevelopmentConversation, QuintessentialYou Design

Gratitude Expressed is the culminating ninth practice of the QuintessentialYou Practices.  Journeying through

Desire~Specificity~Certainty~

Being At Ease~Being Observant~Attending To Intuition~

Willingness To Be Surprised~Opportunity Seized, we culminate with Gratitude Expressed.

With this culmination, we begin the cycle again newly present to Desire and a new journey.

Through the three stages of QuintessentialYou Practices, we are consciously focused on realizing desire and potential, perhaps somewhat differently than how we are generally taught to pursue them.  At the first inkling of DESIRE we have an internal hint – that nudge that has us stop long enough to sense a calling toward something.  If we are awake and aware enough to notice, this message leads us to inquire into this initiation.  We heed the nudge and at the very least, wonder about what it might be like or where it might take us.  If it is strong enough, we accept the call and take steps toward SPECIFICITY with respect to what we have sensed.  We begin to consider what it might be like to realize this possibility and eventually, we are able to imagine its components, characteristics and qualities.  We start to take on the idea, the experience and the state of this distinguished desire.  We assume its viability and feel its CERTAINTY.  At Certainty, activation of this internal Desire has occurred.  Desire arose, Specificity clarified, Certainty confirmed.

Beyond this Certainty, our work lies in engaging the distinguished Desire.  This ‘work’, although it appears less active than the planning and tasks we normally equate to success, requires high commitment and steady discipline.  The next three QuintessentialYou Practices support this steadiness and discipline.  BEING AT EASE has us relax enough to see what’s not being explored.  With this new attention and expanded presence, BEING OBSERVANT sheds light on new considerations.  Not only do we see newly, we broaden perspective to include a capacity to hear internal messages that come viscerally from ATTENDING TO INTUITION.  At this juncture, desire is emerging.  Being At Ease has us choosing, Being Observant has us noticing, Attending To Intuition has us listening.

With Attending To Intuition firmly planted,  we have readied ourselves for fruition.  Desire is firmly planted in the field and we are prepared for recognition.  The final stage of QuintessentialYou Practices ensures fulfillment.  WILLINGNESS TO BE SURPRISED is my personal favorite practice.  It meets its intention by showing us what we have not considered plausible or possible before this stage.  It spontaneously gives us something we can no longer ignore.  Assuming the cumulative effect of the practices that came before it, OPPORTUNITY SEIZED then expects acknowledgment of the chance laid out before us.  Ah and finally, that chance becomes outcome, the completion point when actualization has occurred and GRATITUDE EXPRESSED is inevitable.  Willingness To Be Surprised opens us, Opportunity Seized has us take right, inspired action, Gratitude Expressed has us ‘done’.

Activation Engaging Actualization.  Essence Emerging Form.  Opportunity Realizing Potential.  Gratitude Expressed For What’s Shown Up.

What Desire is nudging you?  What might be realized in the journey through your individual expression of QuintessentialYou Practices?