Sit, Walk, Don't Talk by Jennifer Howd

Author:Jennifer Howd
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Parallax Press
Published: 2017-05-30T04:00:00+00:00

I smile to myself, struck by the synchronicity. The people I’d observed earlier in the day were, literally, walking between the ants and the mountains, the overwhelming majority not considering where they literally stood.

“This is humility,” Trudy explains. “When we forget our place and elevate our own needs, we can see how that can put us in conflict with not just the nonhuman world, but with ourselves and with each other.”

And then I see it: the quote from Chief Lyons, Jr., and Trudy’s further comments about it, not only speak to the people walking through the ant colony—their words also apply to me.

During my earlier struggles with Sari Woman making noise during our first sitting meditations, I had elevated my own needs to be more important than whatever needs had caused her to make the noises—and I’d created inner conflict for myself because of it. Had I not taken a vow of silence, I might have ended up saying something rude to her, which could have then escalated the conflict to include us both.

My experiences on this retreat seem to keep building on each other, circling back around and pointing to the same lessons.

I’m digesting all this as Trudy tosses out another quote, one from Anaïs Nin, that really sums up my experiences: “We don’t see things as they are—we see things how WE are.”

I chuckle to myself, noting how this has certainly been the case for me on this retreat.

Trudy concludes the evening’s talk by reading the lyrics to a song by Larry Gallagher entitled “Earnest Went Out of His Mind,” a witty tale reminding us that freeing ourselves from the confines of our mind is a choice that’s always available to us.

I smile to myself as I listen to the song’s poetry, reflecting on the day’s insights and eager to wake up to my fortieth birthday the next day.

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