Author: HFY

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Mary Oliver, 1935-2019

The first time I heard a poem by Mary Oliver was during Savasana in a yoga class in San Francisco. I was immediately enamoured and sought out her works to explore them further. Her words inspired me, spoke to me in places hidden deep within. Her reverence and abiding love for the natural world mirrored the supreme peace and calm that arose in me when surrounded by forest, mountains, ocean, stream. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words and that can most certainly be true, but so too can a few choice words touch our hearts and give rise to a thousand cherished images within.

On January 17th, 2019, the world lost a much beloved literary voice. At the age of 83, Mary Oliver had enchanted us with her poetry and prose for more than 50 years. As a small gesture of respect and gratitude for all that she has given us, I dedicated my class on Friday to her memory and shared several works with my students – some had heard of her, some had not, and all left with new warmth in their hearts. As Mary said in her poem Mysteries, Yes, “…people come, from delight or the scars of damage, to the comfort of a poem.”

To choose a single favourite from among her poems would be like choosing a favourite star in the sky. Instead, I take inspiration from last night’s full moon, the Wolf moon, and share with you Mary’s poem of the same name.

Wolf Moon ~ Mary Oliver

Now is the season
of hungry mice,
cold rabbits,
lean owls
hunkering with their lamp-eyes
in the leafless lanes
in the needled dark;
now is the season
when the kittle fox
comes to town
in the blue valley
of early morning;
now is the season
of iron rivers,
bloody crossings,
flaring winds,
birds frozen
in their tents of weeds,
their music spent
and blown like smoke
to the stone of the sky;
now is the season
of the hunter Death;
with his belt of knives,
his black snowshoes,
he means to cleanse
the earth of fat;
his grey shadows
are out and running - under
the moon, the pines,
down snow-filled trails they carry
the red whips of their music,
their footfalls quick as hammers,
from cabin to cabin,
from bed to bed,
from dreamer to dreamer.
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Live the questions


“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

A friend shared an article with me recently that included this quote.  It is one that gives me pause every time I read it, and this time in particular it resonated deeply. Over the past few months, I have written often about mindfulness, its myriad benefits and also its challenges. Given the latter, some might say that true mindfulness is not for the faint of heart! When we embark upon the journey of mindfulness practice, we seek to embody certain attitudes that guide the way we respond to what arises within us and in the world around us, moment by moment. Among the most challenging of these attitudes can be Patience and Acceptance – which is exactly what Rilke asks of us in this beautiful passage.

The more we practice, the more familiar we become with two important realities: uncertainty and impermanence. Nothing is guaranteed, and nothing that arises will remain exactly the same for any length of time. Put another way, for all the beauty and possibility that lies in our hopes and dreams, we must acknowledge that we can never truly know what is coming until it is here, and the only certainty we can rely upon is that everything in our life will inevitably change. How then do we continue to hope and dream and imagine in the face of this reality? We learn to embrace the very things that challenge us and welcome them as opportunities to learn and explore – ourselves, each other, the world we live in.

I think it is safe to say that we have all experienced impatience at some point in our life. It can be as simple as the impatience of waiting for a delayed flight, an appointment with someone who is running behind, a traffic jam that makes you late for an important event.  What do all of these things have in common? They are external circumstances that have caused us frustration or inconvenience – and they are all beyond our immediate control.  This is where mindfulness can step in, providing a refuge from our frustration and an antidote to the spiraling thoughts that can easily lead us down a path to anger or fear or impulsive reactions.  When we notice ourselves becoming impatient and annoyed, it can act as a mindful reminder to acknowledge what is and is not within our control, and to accept what we cannot change.  As always, this is easier said than done, but then that is why we call it a practice – we are practicing these skills, honing our abilities, cultivating them like seedlings planted in our garden.

It takes time to build a deep and abiding mindfulness practice – perhaps a lifetime. A vital part of this journey is to be patient as we encounter challenges and disappointments, as we look to the horizon for answers and find only questions. If we can accept that change is inevitable and the future will always remain unknown to us, perhaps we will find a sense of peace that allows us to truly inhabit the present moment and embrace whatever it may bring – to love the questions and to live them fully, right here and now.

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Conscious intention

Intention is the core of all conscious life. It is our intentions that create Karma, our intentions that help others, our intentions that lead us away from the delusions of individuality towards the immutable verities of enlightened awareness. Conscious intention colours and moves everything.

~Master Hsing Yun

A new year is upon us and we naturally look forward with eager eyes, filled with anticipation and curiosity about what might lie ahead. It has become common practice to make resolutions for the coming year, promises for what we will do, how we will be, changes we will make. What resolutions have you made in past years? How many of those promises were successfully fulfilled?

I have never really been one for New Year’s resolutions. Since mindfulness practice became part of my daily life, I find that what resonates with me instead is trying to live with intention – not just at the dawn of a new year, but every day. As Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Waking up this morning I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully each moment, and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.” We need not wait for a new calendar year to set intentions for how we will go about our day, how we will treat ourselves, how we will interact with the world around us.

Through mindfulness we learn to pay conscious attention to the present moment, and we come to realise that this moment is all that we are truly guaranteed. When we understand the impermanent nature of things, it is not that we must abandon all planning for the future, but we can invite a sense of perspective into our plans. When we plan a holiday, it can bring such joy and excitement to investigate all the sights we want to see, the food we want to eat, the adventures we want to take. However, with all of that planning, it can be deeply disappointing when the trip we imagined in our dreams turns out quite differently in reality. The same holds true for promises we make to ourselves or to others that in the end simply cannot be kept. We cannot truly know what lies ahead for us – change, challenge, the unexpected arises on our path and as a result plans may go awry and promises may go unfulfilled. While we are unable to anticipate exactly what the future holds, we can choose to open our hearts and minds and be willing to entertain all possibilities with a sense of acceptance and equanimity.

Practicing mindfulness teaches us how to live with intention. We can intentionally invite compassion and lovingkindness into our hearts so that we may nourish ourselves and share it with those around us. We can intentionally respond to challenge and duress with a sense of equanimity. We can intentionally accept the changing nature of life, releasing our attachment to outcomes we cannot control. As Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön advises, “Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have so we might as well work with it rather than struggle against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy.”

As you look to the year ahead, what intentions do you wish to invite into your heart? Perhaps ask yourself this question as you sit in meditation and notice what arises. We need not wait for a clock to strike or a calendar page to turn – we can infuse each day with conscious intention, welcoming each moment as a friend, a teacher, an opportunity to experience something new.


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Dream a little dream

Whenever we find ourselves experiencing transition in our life, it feels like a natural time to reflect. We reflect back upon the path that brought us here, we reflect inward and notice how we may have grown, changed, been affected by our path, and we look ahead with anticipation to what might lie on the horizon before us. The present moment may be the only moment we are truly guaranteed, but reflecting on our past brings our awareness to its teachings and enables us to apply those lessons as we embark upon the journey ahead.

Mindfulness practice teaches us to notice our attachments and judgments so we can then release them and observe what arises in an open and receptive way. Reflect upon the last 12 months with this sense of open curiosity; let it be an exploration that allows you to identify highs and lows, joys and sorrows, lessons learned that perhaps changed the way you do things, see things, respond to things. What challenged you this year? What caused you to feel pain or sorrow or anger or loss? Acknowledge the trials and the missteps and the frustrations with compassion. If they imparted some wisdom, opened a window to a new perspective or opportunity, you may wish to give thanks for their lessons. Now, what brought you joy this year? What made your heart sing? What lifted your spirits and made you come alive? Look back with a smile in your heart and be grateful for all of these shining lights that lit the way forward.

When you consider the highs of the past year, do you notice any themes or patterns? Are there certain actions, places, people that have woven a common thread of joy through your experience? There are no guarantees for our path ahead – there is only this moment and the way we respond to it. However, living with mindful presence does not preclude our dreaming and imagining and cultivating joy and light on the path ahead. The more joy we find in everyday occurrences, in simple acts, in our sensory experience of the world around us, the more inclined we are to joy. These actions and places and people that brought us joy this year are the starting point, the realisation that joy is possible even in the midst of our challenge and darkness and sorrow. When we look back and see our joys, they become familiar friends that we will recognise more easily the next time around – we will welcome them in each time they arrive and be grateful for whatever they have to teach us.

Soon we will celebrate the end of one year and usher in the next. Let this be an opportunity to reflect back on the year that was, to gaze inward and acknowledge what may have changed, and to cast your eyes and imagination forward to the year that lies ahead. While there may be sadness or pain in our future, there will always be opportunities to find joy – we need only open our hearts, our minds, our dreams and welcome it in.

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Hygge for the holidays

In the cold, dark days of winter, the people of Denmark invite light and warmth by cultivating Hygge.  Hygge (pronounced hue-guh) is a special feeling of cosiness, contentment, comfort, or happiness that occurs when a person is not only present, but they have slowed down to recognise and enjoy the present moment. Perhaps Hygge is at the root of why Denmark is routinely listed as one of the happiest countries in the world.

December 21st marks the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the day with the shortest period of daylight and the longest night of the year. This seems to me the perfect time to invite a feeling of Hygge, embracing the darkness while imbuing it with things that make us feel cozy and contented. Just as our mindfulness practice can be as simple as observing the movement of our breath, Hygge need not be complicated – in fact, simplicity is at the heart of this feeling of comfort and ease.  At a time of year when we are often so busy, creating simple rituals to welcome contentment into our days seems the ideal antidote.

What makes you feel cozy? When you close your eyes and imagine a feeling of happiness in your heart, what do you see around you? For some of us, this feeling might arise when we are surrounded by family and friends, while others might envision a quiet evening alone at home. Perhaps lighting a candle, wrapping yourself in a warm blanket while savouring a perfectly brewed cup of tea is your idea of contentment. Maybe it is a delicious home-cooked meal with friends, laughing and enjoying each other’s company, sharing stories in the kitchen while you prepare your favourite foods.  There is no right or wrong way to bring about a feeling of Hygge – you need only invite your attention into the present, slowing down so you can recognise all of the simple joys that moment brings.

As the longest night of the year approaches, welcome some warmth and light into your heart. Take the time to pause and look up from your holiday busyness to appreciate the simple joys around you. Breathe it all in and let it infuse your spirit with contentment and peace – like a cozy, warm hug on a cold winter day.

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The art of stillness

Today has been a quiet one, as I am working my way through a bout of bronchitis and am feeling particularly tired and achy. Whenever illness strikes and I take a quiet day like this, I inevitably feel guilty or anxious at some point. I feel as though I should be ‘doing something’, being productive, contributing to the world around me. When these thoughts and feelings arise, I try to remind myself that by taking this time to rest, to heal, to nourish my body so that I may become healthy again, I am practicing Metta, lovingkindness, and this is in itself a contribution to the world. If we do not care for ourselves, we will not have the strength to engage with the world in a mindful and compassionate way. When we take the time to stop, to listen to the needs of our own mind and body, and to respond with lovingkindness and compassion, we strengthen our inner resources and we build the capacity to respond in a similarly kind and loving way to the needs of those around us.

Illness and injury can force us to stop and take stock, but we need not wait to become sick or hurt to reflect within. Our mindfulness practices give us that opportunity every day, and it is particularly powerful when we allow ourselves to find stillness. Stillness has the power to heal, to nourish, to calm, to enlighten. It invites us to look with new eyes upon ourselves and the world, to open ourselves to new ideas and possibilities. Pico Iyer said it beautifully: “In an age of speed, I began to think nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”  

For more of Pico Iyer’s insight on the art of stillness, I invite you to enjoy his TED Talk.

Pico Iyer TED Talk, The art of stillness
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A balance of light & dark

When we assign labels or judgments to our feelings and experiences, we run the risk of diminishing what they have to teach us. Our natural inclination is to crave what feels ‘good’ and is deemed ‘positive’ by those around us, and we avoid what feels ‘bad’ and might be viewed as ‘negative’.  However, by only courting what is good and striving to ignore what is bad, could we not be depriving ourselves of fully half our life experiences? If we shun the dark, can we ever truly appreciate the light?

Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön reminds us that “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” We can try to hide from our fear, bury our anxiety, ignore our distress, but until we have acknowledged their lessons and allowed them to penetrate deep within, we will never be free of them. We will encounter them again and again on our path, sometimes in different shapes, with different faces, yet still they stem from the same roots. To shine a light on them, we must use our mindful awareness to look within, to reach into the darkness of our despair or uncertainty, our anger or fear, and allow ourselves to experience them fully. We open ourselves to the darkness or discomfort without judgment, without attachment, with a deep sense of self-compassion, and we listen to what these experiences are trying to teach us.

There is a reason we begin our meditation studies with awareness of the breath: it is the gateway between our external experience of the world around us and the inner landscape where our true and wisest self lies.  The breath lets us connect to our physical self in a simple, non-threatening way; it connects us to the familiar external world and the way it tastes, smells and feels, moment by moment.  We then begin to follow the breath as it moves within the body and we attune to the physical sensations we encounter there – the lungs, ribs and belly expanding and softening, the way the air feels as it moves through the nostrils and the throat.  Sitting in silent contemplation of the breath, the subtle beauty of the body rising and falling, enables us to connect to the present moment in a tangible way, and it provides an anchor that grounds us in the present and brings us back again and again as our attention drifts.  From this grounded place, we can then choose to open our awareness to the less tangible, to the ever-changing stream of thoughts and emotions that arise in each moment.  It is here that we are often most inclined to judge and label: welcoming happiness and pushing away sorrow, embracing the light as we run from the dark.

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung sagely observed that, “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.” What if instead of labeling happiness as good and sadness as bad, we simply accept them for what they are: feelings and experiences, in a lifelong journey of feelings and experiences? Perhaps if we can notice when we label and judge, we can begin to acknowledge that it serves no useful purpose. Perhaps if we let go of labels and judgments when they arise, we can instead choose to sit with experiences exactly as they are, opening up to their lessons as a guiding light from within.

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Why are we thankful?

I recently read about something that resonated with me: the idea of conscious gratitude (thank you author Danielle LaPorte).  I often speak of the benefit and power of practicing gratitude, especially in times of challenge and duress.  However, simply giving thanks for everything in a general sense runs the risk of glossing over why (and whether) we are thankful, as well as what lessons we learned and/or benefits we reaped from it.

The term ‘spiritual bypass’ was coined in the 1980s by Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist John Welwood.  Spiritual bypassing occurs when we use spiritual practices to avoid facing unresolved issues, emotions, or situations.  An example of this would be to say that because you like who you are today and where you are on your path, you must be thankful for all that has come before.  At first glance this sounds perfectly okay, and it is in line with what any number of self-help books and articles might recommend, but what happens when we dig below the surface?  What happens when we sit with our experience in mindful meditation and physical or emotional pain from a past event returns?

In our mindfulness practice we seek to rest our awareness in the present moment and experience all that arises with a sense of equanimity.  We cultivate the ability to become comfortable with the uncomfortable; we build our inner strength and resilience to weather storms that arise within, be they physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual.  However, is weathering a storm the same as being grateful for it?  Do we really need to give thanks for the lightning strike that cripples us, or do we instead use the tools of our practice to simply accept the strike and its effects? We learn many lessons from the challenges in our life, and we can certainly be grateful for those lessons, but we must also acknowledge and accept where they came from – glossing over a painful experience with a blanket ‘thank-you’ does not necessarily address the havoc it may have wrought upon us physically or emotionally, and that havoc might resurface again and again in different ways if we do not acknowledge the root cause.

The example of spiritual bypass I offered above – if I am content with where my path has taken me thus far, I must give thanks for all that brought me here – is one I have used myself, and it may be a familiar refrain for you as well.  However, my practice has taught me that I do not need to be grateful for something to accept it as part of my experience.  I do not believe that a loyal employee must give thanks to the employer who lays them off, just as I would never suggest that a shooting victim must give thanks for being shot.  To me, this kind of giving thanks indiscriminately is practicing gratitude on auto-pilot, without any mindful awareness, disconnected from our intuition.  That being said, even in the midst of challenge and suffering, there will always remain things in our life for which we can give thanks, including the teachings we uncovered through our suffering.  This is conscious gratitude.  We pay attention to our experience and use the tools of our practice to discern what we have lost, what we have gained, what we have learned; we acknowledge and accept all of it, the full catastrophe, as part of our experience, and then we decide what we are truly grateful for and we give thanks.

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The unsung hero

“I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.” ~Joshua Graham

When we hear about mindfulness, its many virtues are extolled.  We are told that practicing mindfulness will make us more productive at work, improve our memory, help us sleep better, reduce our levels of stress and anxiety.  All of these things are true, and there are so many more benefits to bringing mindfulness into our daily life.  However, at the root of it all is one important benefit that I do not think gets enough mention: resilience.

When we come to our meditation practice, we sit with our present moment experience exactly as it unfolds.  That experience might include pain, anguish, sorrow, frustration, or anger.  Our mind might throw up defenses against these feelings, try to divert our attention, carry us away into dreams of the past or future, but despite its best efforts, we must eventually return to the present and whatever that moment holds for us.  The more time we spend sitting with experiences we label as unpleasant, the more familiar they become.  Rather than seeing them as something to fear and avoid, we recognise that they are part of us, part of our journey, part of the natural ebb and flow of our daily life and experience.

In the yogic tradition, resilience is embodied in the practice of Santosha, contentment.  Through Santosha we learn to accept whatever comes and whatever goes; we cultivate a sense of equanimity and seek to respond to challenges from that balanced place within us.  We grow stronger, building up our resources so that when storms lash at us from all sides, when the waves are so high we cannot see the shore, there is a well of strength deep within that keeps us buoyed until the weather clears.

Looking back at our life, we see grief and loss, joy and triumph, we climbed tall mountains and traversed dark valleys, and we survived through it all by drawing on the strength within us.  On the days when you feel the weather turning, when the skies are dark and the seas are churning, dive deep inside and ignite the fire within, let it burn brightly and guide your way through the storm.

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Lest we forget

Handmade ceramic poppies at the Tower of London, honouring the sacrifice of British soldiers in WWI

On November 11th each year, we remember the fallen, those who made the ultimate sacrifice, who gave their lives so that we might live in freedom.  Over the years, no matter where in the world I was living on November 11th, I always watched the Canadian Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa and honoured our many heroes with a moment of silence and reflection.  Hearing that lone bugle play The Last Post never fails to bring tears to my eyes, and I reflect with awe and deep respect on the young men and women who have left their families behind to defend against tyranny and protect our freedom.

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the Armistice that signalled the end of World War I, as well as Canada’s Hundred Days, a three-month stretch of extraordinary Canadian Corps victories from August 8th to November 11th, 1918.  The last living veteran of WWI died in 2012 – Florence Green, a British woman who served in the Allied armed forces; the last living Canadian veteran of WWI was John Babcock, who died in 2010.  With no remaining voices to share firsthand stories of those harrowing years, it is left to us to honour their memory and remember their sacrifice.

When we speak of mindfulness practice, our focus is usually on connecting to the present moment.  We remind ourselves that the past is gone, the future is not yet here, and the present moment is the only moment we are guaranteed.  While dwelling on past events can cause us suffering, remembering loved ones who are no longer with us can also give us perspective, teaching us lessons that we can apply to our present moment experience.  Bringing mindful awareness to our collective past helps connect us to the wisdom of that history so that we might use that knowledge to guide us on the journey ahead. What better way to honour sacrifice than to learn from the circumstances that led to it and avoid such sacrifice in the future?

It has been 100 years since the ‘war to end all wars’ came to an end.  To look at the world around us now, it might seem that we have learned little at all from our collective history, as we continue to repeat the same mistakes and fight the same battles a century later.  We can see echoes of this in the microcosm of our meditation practice – the same thought patterns, the same judgements, the same self-criticisms coming up time and again.  We could throw up our hands in despair and give up any hope of achieving peace – within ourselves, and in the world around us – or we could continue our mindful practices in earnest, radiating lovingkindness, compassion, acceptance and equanimity.  As Mahatma Gandhi reminded us: “A thousand candles can be lighted from the flame of one candle and the life of the candle will not be shortened.”  Our candle is lit from within and the flame grows stronger and brighter as we continually cultivate peace and love and compassion in our hearts.  At first glance, our practice might seem to strengthen only our own flame, and we might think sharing it could diminish its brightness; in fact, that strength empowers us to light a thousand more candles.  By cultivating our practice, by nourishing our own inner flame, we can help spread lovingkindness around the world – and maybe someday we can achieve the peace for which so many have fought and sacrificed.