Swanwick Star Issue No. 13 (2020)

A Loveliness of Being

UVic Stillness Within Meetup (online)

Saturday, July 25, 2020

We enjoyed this virtual get together in July on Cultivating Equanimity. Five of us looked at some practices that may prove useful in reducing stress, increasing a sense of well-being and strengthening overall emotional resilience. We listened to a few video clips, including a guided excerpt from Rick Hanson’s “Meditations for Happiness”.  The group shared some of their own strategies, such as reframing challenges as opportunities to grow and evolve ourselves.  We also talked about Lester Levenson’s story – a man who discovered that his key to enduring peace and happiness was to find love within every relationship… and to use his own form of personal inquiry to see what might be in the way of love fully expressing.

Krishnamuriti points to love as a wellspring of deep inner peace and comfort as well:

“The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.”

At the same time, Krishnamurti suggests that happiness is not something to be pursued:

“Happiness is strange; it comes when you are not seeking it. When you are not making an effort to be happy, then unexpectedly, mysteriously, happiness is there, born of purity, of a loveliness of being.”

Whether we can or can’t bring about our own deep joy and peace could be debated at length. Still, it’s really a joy to gather, to share our inspirations and challenges and to let the stories fall away for a spell, just to be.

Shannon Mullen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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