Donna Ashworth

It’s not a new theme that the best-selling Scottish poet Donna Ashworth shares here, this recognition that often we can’t quite see the good we do or what we mean to others. The classic Christmas movie ‘It’s a wonderful life’ comes to my mind, as well as the much more recent book ‘The Midnight Library’ by Matt Haig. But clearly this reminder is important at times when we doubt our own value and what we contribute. And there is something hopeful about having my impact on the people around me affirmed – and inspiring too: how can I lighten the load and brighten the lives of others, in seen and unseen ways?

The spiritual teacher Adyashanti shines another light on this, when he says that “the greatest gift that any of us have is our state of consciousness. We are all transmitting our state of consciousness whether we want to or not.” So it’s not just what we do, but also very much the way that we do it, that is shared with others… and practising mindfulness and compassion no doubt is a powerful contribution to that gift.

And… I’m perennially wrestling with the question how I contribute meaningfully and ‘trail a bright pathway’. What are my gifts to contribute within the hours of each day, within the amount of energy and resources I have available? Where does my ‘deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger’ meet, as Frederick Buechner said? In today’s world with so much dire need for every positive gift of kindness and compassion we could possibly offer, where are each of us best placed to contribute to that?

No easy answers there, but they can be (in Rilke‘s words) ‘living questions’ to ponder and keep alive as intentions, so we may ‘gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer’…

PS if you’d like to explore with others how to bring your compassion into action, there’s an in-person weekend course in Samye Ling designed to do just that…

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

by Rumi, translated by Kabir Helminski and Camille Helminski

What is it with Rumi?! When I read some of his poems, I feel like my brain flips over! This poem is one such. It’s like he’s writing from a place so much more vast, connected to a reality so much beyond my usual ‘known’, that rational thinking just gives up. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing left. When I drop into the body, I find all kinds of goings on. With this poem I’m uplifted, something rises in my heart wanting to heed the call Rumi is making, recognising a truth and pushing towards the possibility of it.

So, let’s grapple with this. What comes first, gratitude or abundance? And further, what comes first, gratitude or contentment? We assume that being grateful is something that arises without our conscious involvement and as a result of something good happening. But what if the state of gratitude is its own reward, generating a perception of an abundance around us? And what if we can choose deliberately to enter into it more? Something good becomes visible to us by allowing gratitude’s glowing warmth to embrace us into an abundant world.

‘Hunt for bounty with the net of gratitude’ is Rumi’s parting line. Well this much is clear – practicing gratitude is recommended. Letting gratitude be a net in which you can catch the abundance, beauty and poignancy of life moment to moment. But I sense that what Rumi really wants to do is to beckon us towards this instruction: relish getting caught in the net yourself, get caught into the net of ‘the Generous One’; be lifted into being and surrendering to the essential abundance of life.

Ps. Our mindfulness and compassion training pathway teaches you how to bring gratitude alive in your own life. Check it out here.

Photo by Herbert Grambihler on Unsplash