Zen

How to cultivate and nurture the practice of patience

Patience can be a trickster of a thing. We call it a lofty virtue as though it's something we can only ever aspire to. We know that it's something worth cultivating and yet we give it less attention or time than the things we and society convinces us we have to be doing all the time.

Conditioned as most of are to think our worth lies in all that we do, measuring that worth in the context of capitalism, ableism and consumerism, we put patience and pausing on the back-burner, telling ourselves we'll stop and give ourselves a break when things slow down.

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The enriching nature of mind weeds

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Meditation is tough. Sitting patiently with our selves, with our messy minds, is not an easy task. That's why we do it. Not for self-flagellation or ego-pumping determination. But to cultivate acceptance, discipline and calm.

The discomfort, the mess, the challenge, is part of the process. Intellectually that makes sense. Feeling it though, when you're sat there doing battle with your internal narrator (i.e. your little, vulnerable, weak and shouty self), it's enough to make you give up. Don't. Persist. This is where the lessons lie.

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Words to live by when you're struggling to find your own

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For days when you feel torn or dissatisfied, when you wake up and all the toughness of determination seems to be weakened for no apparent reason, the words of others can save you.

They can fill the spaces between moments of clarity or confusion with meaning.

Where you stumble to understand let alone express yourself, and where you understand but can’t do the feeling or the knowledge justice, it can be useful to delegate the task of communication.

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The restless whirlpool of life

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What is it that we’re saying when we talk of highs and lows? Why do we linguistically frame our lives this way? How have we even come to collectively associate and articulate “forwards” and “up” as signs of progress, while assuming “backwards” and “down” to be regressive?