Amita Schmidt

Buddhist Meditation Teacher

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Return to the Feminine

A few years ago Molokai Kapuna Alexander Pua’a offered this wisdom to me:

“Each of us has a bowl full of light.  We fill this bowl with stones which are the masculine.  We have covered the bowl of our feminine with stones.  There is too much male energy.  We need to return to the feminine and intuitive energy.  Things heal through the feminine.”

How do we do return to the feminine as Kapuna Pua’a suggests?  Both men and women can do this.  Here are some daily practices I have found helpful:

  • Slow down.  There is a Cherokee saying, “As the world speeds up, slow down. The faster things go, the slower you go.” It is through the masculine quality of quickness/speed that we are getting flooded with anxiety, fear, overwhelm, and over-consuming.  Slow your pace down. The feminine is timeless.
  • Acknowledge the Earth.  Each day recognize the ‘aina or Mother Earth, and with a sincere heart say, “I’m sorry” and “I love you.”  In Hawaii this is the practice of ho’oponopono or making things right.  The earth is our very essence and when we honor Mother Earth we honor ourselves.
  • Speak less, connect more.  Mothers regulate their babies through attunement. Attunement is connection through the eyes, the skin, and the heart rate.  Even as adults, whenever we are at arms length from someone our heartbeat attunes to the other person. Get arms length in real time.  Look into someone’s eyes. Touch them. Speak less. Love more.
  • Focused love.  Each day do some silent meditation, prayerful movement, chanting, or focused practice to remember a power greater than yourself.  If you get quiet, you can call upon a much clearer wisdom than your own thinking.
  • Connection through service.  Give loving service to children, elders, your community, animals, ecology, spirituality and the arts. The feminine connects through kindness, healing, creativity, inclusion and love.
Artwork: “Hatching the Universal” by Judy Chicago

 

 

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This is it, is not it

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At age thirty, while on a three month Buddhist retreat, many deep insights arose in my practice.  In my weekly interviews with teacher Joseph Goldstein, I would proclaim my new “this is it” version of life. Then of course the “this is it” would change, and I’d start seeking again, until the next “this is it” arose, which would change again, and so forth. Joseph compassionately listened to all my insights, and eventually gave me this mantra; “This is it, is not it.” I kept that mantra for many years. His simple wisdom stopped me from clinging to any insight as the final stopping point. It allowed more flow with the process of discovery, rather than the illusion of finding a final resting place. As human beings, it’s a natural tendency to want to find the “it.” The “it” is our imagined perfect balance of mind and body and spirit. It’s our human sweet spot, and enlightenment is the ultimate sweet spot.

This is it, is not it.

If you let this be true, it unhooks the endless game of “I’ve got it, I’ve lost it.” It unhooks the exhausting pattern of seeking and guarding. My teacher U Pandita told me, “You will always be seeking or guarding experiences. When you find what you seek, then you will try to guard it. In this way, your mind will always be disturbed. Know what is neither guarding nor seeking.”   And of course this doesn’t mean we eschew insights.  Simply let them come and go, as they will on their own, like the weather.

This is it, is not it.

If you let this be true, it unhooks the game of “you.” You don’t have to seek the perfect truth. You don’t have to wait for a stay-tuned-for-later version of life. And if you’ve had a life changing experience, you don’t have to maintain it. You don’t have to keep checking over your shoulder to make sure you still know it. Let yourself just be how you are, right now.  In your natural state, there is no state to maintain.

One meditation student remembered how as a child everywhere he would go, he would joyously and loudly exclaim, “I am here!”  This is such a natural expression of our essence;  “I am here.” That is enough. You are here. You didn’t need to be thinner, richer, wiser, or more enlightened to be here. You are here. And that is always enough.  Enjoy.

 

http://www.dharma.org/joseph-goldstein