pandasheart (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pandasheart) wrote2011-01-10 09:20 pm
pandasheart) wrote2011-01-10 09:20 pm
Entry tags:
Contemplation
My introduction to contemplation meditation came this past Sunday as part of my Shambhala level 1 training. To help us choose our contemplation, the instructor read us the following poem by Mary Oliver and had us choose the one line or phrase that called out to us.
"Wild Geese"
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
The line that I chose was "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." Of course, those who know me well may find it hard to believe that I did not select the part about not being good.
Once the phrase is selected, the next step is find the actual thought/emotion that it evokes. That is what the contemplation centers around.
The "soft animal of your body" made me think of one's heart, even more so the black heart, and this led me to unconditional love; specifically that I have the basic goodness in me to both give and receive unconditional love.
Very powerful.
"Wild Geese"
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
The line that I chose was "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." Of course, those who know me well may find it hard to believe that I did not select the part about not being good.
Once the phrase is selected, the next step is find the actual thought/emotion that it evokes. That is what the contemplation centers around.
The "soft animal of your body" made me think of one's heart, even more so the black heart, and this led me to unconditional love; specifically that I have the basic goodness in me to both give and receive unconditional love.
Very powerful.