Good night. The alarm woke me up at six but I very quickly realized although I had slept well I was feeling very grumpy, irritated, angry. And so of course I started to think about what was making me angry -being forced to eat breakfast in the dining room, all the things I have to do that I am failing to do without being able to decide in what order to do them. It’s not the fact of having to eat breakfast in the dining room but the way the decision seems to be taken: I think Catherine and Mary Katherine‘s little conference in the laundry room the other evening was discussing this among other things. And it started maybe with Mary Katherine being concerned about the fact that the newbies were being left on their own at breakfast. And then it becomes not taking food up to our room and I get cross because Katherine has a kitchen and Laurence has a kitchen and Mary Katherine has a fridge and who the fuck are we kidding and why should my morning be taken away from me? I don’t mind if it’s part of the Dean’s duties to be present at breakfast but I do really resent the fact that I’ve been told what to do until 9:15 in the morning, without being consulted.
But all of that is beside the point as I was well aware as I sat down at 6:30 in the chapel. Cynthia Bourgeault's idea about the three centers, intellectual, physical (what she calls moving) and emotional and then an entirely random and unjustified introduction of the concept of heart which she doesn’t explain but says is the driver for everything else. Clearly my emotional centre was disturbed! anyway I tried to relax about it and observe my feelings; rather to my surprise Lachlan and Julienne joined me at 6:30. I do get very irritated by Lachlan!
And then it came to me in the second meditation which I strenuously did in French for the benefit of our visitors but they completely failed to participate although one of them did read the psalm in French. But I realize that I am completely free, to do whatever needs to be done when I think it needs to be done, not to worry about it, just to do it freely and easily and in the flow. Not to be driven by ego, anxiety, fear or rage; stay centered, stay balanced, stay in the moment. Eat when hungry drink when thirsty.
When a person is poised in all three centers, balanced and alertly there, a shift happens in consciousness. Rather than being trapped in our usual mind, with its well-formed rut tracks of issues and agendas and ways of thinking, we seem to come from a deeper, steadier, and quieter place. We are present, in the words of Wisdom tradition, fully occupying the now in which we find ourselves. Presence is the straight and narrow gate through which one passes to Wisdom.
This state of presence is extraordinarily important to know and taste in oneself. For sacred tradition is emphatic in its insistence that real Wisdom can be given and received only in a state of presence, with all three centers of our being engaged and awake. Anything less is known in the tradition as “sleep.” It is like the disciple Peter suddenly sinking beneath the surface of the waters [Matthew 14:30].
Everybody has all three centers (head, heart, moving) in them. Most people are born into the world favoring one center or another. We learn to make one our dominant center for our own orientation to the world. And in the Western culture, I would say that’s overwhelmingly, shockingly, the intellectual center. In traditional schools, that’s the capacity we train, with maybe a little bit of space left for the kinesthetic moving center through sports programs, and virtually nothing for the emotional center. Any budget cutback and what leaves? Arts and music, the primary channels through which the emotional center is still trained. So in the West we’re formed as heavily lopsided intellectual-center-oriented beings. That’s how most of us get our start.
In pop culture, we say, “Well, find your center, acknowledge it, and live in it.” But the inner tradition work calls us to develop our under-utilized centers. If we over-use the intellectual center, then our work lies in bringing the emotional and moving centers fully online and integrating them.
The “work” is to discover our starting position and reach out to incorporate the other two so that they are fully—and in a balanced way—part of our perceptual center. Whatever center you may find yourself to be, don’t detain yourself on it, because it immediately sets out your job of discovering where the other two are hiding inside yourself and bringing them forward. It’s only when you have balanced the three centers—kinesthetic moving center, emotional center, and intellectual center—and integrated them that you become conscious. We’ve got to have all three as the basis of a good, strong tripod before we’re really awake.
and then a great morning. Mary Katherine a bit antsy (I think there's a grumpy vibe going round) in the Rule discussion and tried to pinch my workforce after, but I sent them off to the spring to start cutting and clearing the reeds. Came down with the fuel for the strimmer to find them mooning about looking at the flowers "waiting for me" as if Danielle wasn't perfectly capable of getting stuck in without me; I left them to it and walked back via Thomas's parcel - he's erecting his poly tunnels, size of aircraft hangars - cleaned the loos, watered plants and started writing a fire safety plan. Time to ring the bell.
But all of that is beside the point as I was well aware as I sat down at 6:30 in the chapel. Cynthia Bourgeault's idea about the three centers, intellectual, physical (what she calls moving) and emotional and then an entirely random and unjustified introduction of the concept of heart which she doesn’t explain but says is the driver for everything else. Clearly my emotional centre was disturbed! anyway I tried to relax about it and observe my feelings; rather to my surprise Lachlan and Julienne joined me at 6:30. I do get very irritated by Lachlan!
And then it came to me in the second meditation which I strenuously did in French for the benefit of our visitors but they completely failed to participate although one of them did read the psalm in French. But I realize that I am completely free, to do whatever needs to be done when I think it needs to be done, not to worry about it, just to do it freely and easily and in the flow. Not to be driven by ego, anxiety, fear or rage; stay centered, stay balanced, stay in the moment. Eat when hungry drink when thirsty.
==========================
Mind, Body, Heart
Developing a Wise Presence
Cynthia Bourgeault : how Three-Centered Awareness—heart, mind, and body—allows us to be fully present to ourselves, our lives, and God.
When a person is poised in all three centers, balanced and alertly there, a shift happens in consciousness. Rather than being trapped in our usual mind, with its well-formed rut tracks of issues and agendas and ways of thinking, we seem to come from a deeper, steadier, and quieter place. We are present, in the words of Wisdom tradition, fully occupying the now in which we find ourselves. Presence is the straight and narrow gate through which one passes to Wisdom.
This state of presence is extraordinarily important to know and taste in oneself. For sacred tradition is emphatic in its insistence that real Wisdom can be given and received only in a state of presence, with all three centers of our being engaged and awake. Anything less is known in the tradition as “sleep.” It is like the disciple Peter suddenly sinking beneath the surface of the waters [Matthew 14:30].
Everybody has all three centers (head, heart, moving) in them. Most people are born into the world favoring one center or another. We learn to make one our dominant center for our own orientation to the world. And in the Western culture, I would say that’s overwhelmingly, shockingly, the intellectual center. In traditional schools, that’s the capacity we train, with maybe a little bit of space left for the kinesthetic moving center through sports programs, and virtually nothing for the emotional center. Any budget cutback and what leaves? Arts and music, the primary channels through which the emotional center is still trained. So in the West we’re formed as heavily lopsided intellectual-center-oriented beings. That’s how most of us get our start.
In pop culture, we say, “Well, find your center, acknowledge it, and live in it.” But the inner tradition work calls us to develop our under-utilized centers. If we over-use the intellectual center, then our work lies in bringing the emotional and moving centers fully online and integrating them.
The “work” is to discover our starting position and reach out to incorporate the other two so that they are fully—and in a balanced way—part of our perceptual center. Whatever center you may find yourself to be, don’t detain yourself on it, because it immediately sets out your job of discovering where the other two are hiding inside yourself and bringing them forward. It’s only when you have balanced the three centers—kinesthetic moving center, emotional center, and intellectual center—and integrated them that you become conscious. We’ve got to have all three as the basis of a good, strong tripod before we’re really awake.
==========================
and then a great morning. Mary Katherine a bit antsy (I think there's a grumpy vibe going round) in the Rule discussion and tried to pinch my workforce after, but I sent them off to the spring to start cutting and clearing the reeds. Came down with the fuel for the strimmer to find them mooning about looking at the flowers "waiting for me" as if Danielle wasn't perfectly capable of getting stuck in without me; I left them to it and walked back via Thomas's parcel - he's erecting his poly tunnels, size of aircraft hangars - cleaned the loos, watered plants and started writing a fire safety plan. Time to ring the bell.
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