Tag: meditation

Practice…and Beyond

Photograph © 2019 Peggy Kornegger

Remember the old joke about the tourist asking directions in New York? “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice, practice, practice.” That answer could also be given to the spiritual question “How do I get to the enlightened state?” Practice—a lifelong commitment to finding peace of mind and God. Your practice becomes your life, and vice versa. And yet it is not until the practice softens and becomes a relaxed inner flowering rather than a rigid outer striving that everything shifts. The virtuoso pianist and the devoted meditator discover the sound and light within them, not on an external stage or altar. Carnegie Hall and enlightenment are not destinations; they are experiences.

Only when we let go of the need to arrive somewhere do we find that what we were looking for existed already, right in front of us. Dorothy traveled over the rainbow to Oz only to realize that “Home” was in the faces of those she loved…and in her own heart. The enlightened state, too, appears to be over some distant rainbow, yet what if it exists inside us? We only have to deepen our awareness to feel its expansive presence. This deepening is the softer sense of practice, the spiritual sense.

Growing up, we are taught that if we practice enough, we will achieve whatever we focus on with intent and purpose. Practice is seen as a repetitive routine that leads to a specific goal, like playing a musical instrument well. This meaning has a certain truth; if we practice anything diligently enough, we can achieve proficiency. But there is a step beyond proficiency that can only be reached by an almost indescribable surrender wherein we become the music (or the meditation) itself. In spirituality, diligent meditating does not necessarily lead to enlightenment. Ultimately we have to let go of trying and open to something greater than ourselves. In this opening, practice falls away, and there is only spirit. The experience and the experiencer are one.

When you come to realize that God is within you, then that awareness literally opens your eyes to the truth of who you are. Beyond practice is grace, in music or in spirituality. You become one with the flow of life, and you begin to flow yourself, whatever you are doing. You see the divine light within you that is reflected in the world around you. In every person and in every thing. This is enlightenment. A state of being, not a state of practicing.

Master musicians and spiritual masters share one attribute: connection. They are connected to something greater than themselves, and that is what lifts them into a state of pure being—oneness with music or oneness with God. This is the future of all of us who were born on the planet at this time. Our destiny is to softly step beyond the edges of practice into a life of awakened presence: spirit embodied in form, fully aware of both our humanity and our divinity. In any given moment, we can shift our awareness into this peaceful space of expansive perception. It’s not as difficult as it may seem. It just takes practice…and then letting go of practice.

Celebrating Solitude

Photograph © 2018 Peggy Kornegger
Even though I’ve been in a couple for 35 years, I love being alone. It’s been a part of my life since childhood. I grew up as an only child on five acres in rural Illinois, where I spent a good portion of my childhood playing outdoors alone (or with my dog) and sitting in trees reading. I don’t ever remember feeling lonely. My parents and I were close, so I was with them a lot too, and I had school friends who came to visit, but at the core of my life was time spent in solitude. It became the peaceful center from which I lived outward into the world. As an adult, I always relied on time alone to come back to myself, away from jobs and social situations. Don’t get me wrong—I loved my friends, but there was a certain point at which I had to step away and be alone. It was like breathing to me.

I have so many memories that involve finding joy in being by myself. One of the most vivid was when I worked for a senator as a student intern in Washington, DC, in college. One lunch hour I wandered around outside the Capitol Building alone and then sat in the sun in a quiet spot where no one else was walking. I can remember having a sudden flash of absolute exhilaration when the thought crossed my mind, “No one else on Earth knows where I am right now.” There was something incredibly exciting about that to a 19-year-old living in a new city, trying out grown-up life on her own. I’ve never forgotten that feeling—of being an alive, independent, free spirit in the world.

When I took up bird-watching many years later, I felt a similar thrill being alone in nature: a magical aura that surrounded a sudden encounter with a migrating bird in a bush or tree. If I were absolutely still and silent, the birds came closer and continued with their bird lives as if I weren’t there. It was a precious gift. There were even times when a wood thrush or warbler would land in a branch close to me and sing its heart out. Some kind of special connection occurred then—a living awareness that passed between us. I treasured those moments. It was perhaps my first conscious experience of the spirit of life that is in all beings.

After I embarked on a spiritual path in my 30s, time spent alone in meditation or contemplation became central to my journey. I found it absolutely key to have those daily periods of solitude in order to connect with my own soul and with God. In solitary silence, “stillness speaks,” as Eckhart Tolle has written. Divine connection is an inner experience that comes only when we set aside all external distractions and open our hearts and souls to something greater, beyond the material world.

These quiet moments are extremely precious to me. They are at the core of my life as a human/spirit on this Earth. Ultimately, too, they bring me closer to those around me. I am fortunate in having a life partner who understands and supports my wish to have alone time. She too needs time to herself. When we come together from our separate solitudes, our connection is even deeper and more loving.

Words are often unnecessary with friends and family who share this kind of connection. Something beyond verbal language is passing between us. We recognize and celebrate one another’s souls when we are together and carry our heart connection with us when we are apart. This is life on Earth at its most expansive and wonderful. To me, time spent alone is an essential part of being human, of being conscious spirit in physical form, which is why we incarnated at this particular time on this particular planet. The world is full of so many distractions. It is only in stepping aside and looking inward that we find the true nature of who we are in this extraordinary universe. Every day I say a prayer of gratitude for the solitude that is a sanctuary of peace in my life.

 

That’s Wonderful

Photograph © 2017 Peggy Kornegger
When I told a good friend recently that I had lost my connection to God and could feel nothing during meditation, he responded, “That’s wonderful.” A month or so later, when I told him that the house where my partner and I rent our apartment was for sale and we would probably have to move, he again said, “That’s wonderful.” In both instances, he was expressing the wider perspective that something greater often arises out of a seeming loss. That turned out to be absolutely true. In the first case, the emptiness I felt opened me to an even deeper and more expansive divine connection; I had to be swept clean in order to receive it. In the second case, that For Sale sign was indeed a “sign” that it was time for Anne and me to move, which is now becoming an exciting exploration of possibilities.

My friend’s responses were a perfect reminder and reflection of my own evolving consciousness as I more continuously see “wonderful” myself in all of life’s day-to-day events and changes. To be able to look beyond the present circumstances at the full spectrum of life’s experiences and possibilities can be a tremendous comfort. For nothing is good or bad except in our judgment of it. The things we deem to be “bad” may turn out to hold within them the biggest blessings of our lives. Ultimately, everything that occurs is for our soul’s evolution and expansion into light, and indeed, that it is incredibly wonderful. Gradually, we learn to accept “what is” and allow the process of life to unfold without judging or categorizing; to celebrate all aspects of life as “wonderful” because from the vantage point of the soul, they are.

There is an old Chinese parable about a farmer whose life gains and losses over the years were viewed by his neighbors as good or bad luck. His own reaction was always noncommittal. Each time, the “bad” ultimately held the “good” inside of it. His son’s broken leg from a fall spared him from being taken away to fight in the emperor’s war. The wisdom in this teaching story is that judging current circumstances is essentially useless because everything is always changing, and nothing is just one thing. I have come to see this as a universal truth as I live my life and gain greater awareness about the interconnectedness of everything.

When we focus on the present moment, and practice coming back to it in meditation, we are no longer at the mercy of mental meanderings into the past or future. In the “now,” experiencing the inner peace of our heart and soul, all is well, and nothing is good or bad. We connect with the God within and see our lives with conscious awareness of the infinite expanse of beingness. This perspective allows us to let go of the need to predict or conclude, to anticipate or fear. Instead we just surrender to the divine trajectory of our own lives; our hearts are open, and we trust that whatever happens is for our greater growth and soul evolution.

For me, this has repeatedly proven to be the most expansive and wise way to live my daily life. That didn’t happen overnight; it’s an ongoing practice, and there is sometimes a mental delay of several minutes (or longer) before I re-center my consciousness in the moment. The breath is my touchstone, because you can’t breathe in the future or the past, only in the now. So when I take a deep breath and then let go completely, suddenly everything is indeed wonder-full, and I see life as the miracle, blessing, and adventure that it truly is.

First, Last…Now

Photograph © 2017 Peggy Kornegger
There are moments in our lives when we are completely immersed in what we are doing. So much so that the past and future do not exist. Everything is fresh, new, and fascinating. We are seeing with what Buddhists call “beginner’s mind,” as if for the first time. Babies and small children see this way. People at the end of their lives often see this way too, as if for the last time. At either end of the first-last spectrum, it’s the immediacy of the experience that is so powerful. We are not lost in thought or distracted by irrelevant details. Life presents itself front and center, and it has our full attention. The question then becomes “how do we live like that all the time?” Is it even possible? I believe it is, but it is definitely a practice, not a casual, passing wish. You have to align yourself with it, make a promise within your own heart not to get lost in forgetfulness.

When I visited South Africa last fall, I lived each moment intensely throughout the trip. No past, no future, just one continuous stream of present-moment awareness. Traveling is often like that. Because everything is unknown, never-before-seen, your mind focuses intently on what is happening now; nothing else exists. In the African bush, I was alert and super-aware all the time. As I learned to carefully look around for the eyes of predators when leaving my hut or tent at night, I found that my senses were sharply focused on every detail of my environment.

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

Riding in a safari jeep, in close proximity to elephants, giraffes, and zebras, was an experience I had only imagined having, yet there I was living a reality vastly more vivid that my imagination. From a riverboat at sunset, I saw buffalo, waterbuck, crocodile, and saddle-billed storks along the river’s edge, and then as the sky darkened, thousands of fireflies lighting up the African night. During those two weeks, there was no need to think about living in the moment—there just was nothing else.

Upon returning to the U.S., I used my meditation practice to bridge the immediacy and novelty of adventurous travel with the habits of daily life. I focused on my breath and opened up to that timeless space within that is pure awareness. Every day when I went for a walk, I reminded myself to look for something different and to choose new routes. In my garden each morning, I noticed every newly opened flower—orange lilies, purple spiderwort, yellow coreopsis. The key was to keep “seeing with fresh eyes” in order to step out of routine. To reinvent the ordinary in whatever way I could so that I was constantly stepping into the unknown, the unexpected, in every moment.

It’s not really difficult to live focused in the present. Your physical senses automatically show you how to do it when extraordinary beauty or sudden danger crosses your path. You are immediately aware and intensely alive in those moments. At other times, you can expand your awareness by giving yourself memory mantras, as Thich Nhat Hanh does when he repeats “present moment, wonderful moment” in his mindfulness practice. The breath too is a built-in tool for re-centering in the now. The more I embrace the idea that there really is nothing but the present moment, the more aware I become of how precious it is. So then, whether I’m in the African bush or in my own backyard, everything around me is new and exciting—a first-last, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Neutrality and Inner Peace

Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
The word neutral can be used in many contexts. Beige is a neutral color. A car in neutral is not moving. Switzerland was a neutral country during two world wars. In the dictionary, the first definition of neutral is “impartial.” If we give the word a spiritual application, we could say that the soul is neutral. In other words, it is impartial. It is just quietly witnessing life as it unfolds. While the personality or ego may react strongly to people or situations, the soul just observes it all without attachment to any particular outcome. The soul experiences life through us, but it does not have opinions about anything that transpires.

The soul abides in neutrality. It is not at war with our experiences. If you allow your soul to move to the forefront of your being, you can be at peace with everything within and around you. You can accept all emotions and events with equal receptivity. You will not be thrown by circumstance, and you will refrain from labeling things as positive or negative. Inner peace arises from neutrality, impartiality—from soul connection.

Which doesn’t mean that your humanness is permanently disabled or on hold. It just means you have cultivated a connection to your soul that creates awareness. That greater awareness gives us pause, literally. You may be upset by something, then immediately become aware of your reaction, and take a moment to breathe and center yourself in acceptance, neutrality. Accepting your feelings too. It may take longer than that for awareness to resurface, but the more we connect with our souls on a regular basis, the more we become immersed in inner peace, no matter what else is going on.

Connecting regularly to the soul is a practice. It can be meditation or walking in nature or just becoming aware of your breath during the day. The soul, the spirit in all things, is always patiently waiting for us to connect. A quiet moment, a deep breath, a stunning sunset, and you are connected—soul-centered and aware. Calm, receptive, neutral. At least that is my own experience. I find that the more frequently and consistently I do one or all of these things, the more aware I am—and the more peaceful.

In recent weeks, as I’ve dealt with ongoing uncertainty about an eye diagnosis, I have repeatedly been drawn to silence and inner reflection, which allows my soul to surface and soothe my humanity with its expansive awareness. Life is constantly changing, never just one thing—simple or complicated, easy or difficult, comic or tragic. It is all of these, and in embracing all of them, we can flow with whatever arises, day by day, moment to moment.

When I see my life as part of something much larger, a soul within infinite beingness, always evolving and expanding, then I am better able to relax into neutrality. Human concerns are real but they are also illusory within a greater context. We are infinitesimal cells of a living consciousness that spans universes. There is a Great Mystery before which we will always remain unknowing. If we open ourselves to soul awareness, that unknowing will not faze us, for we will be grounded in an inner peace that transcends understanding. God too abides in peaceful neutrality.