release Archives - Mindfulness Association

For a Long Time – Mark Nepo

Fay Adams — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 17:07:20 +0000

I had this idea and imagining it and
building it brought me alive. I was never
as engaged as when it was half-built. I’d read
the blueprint in my heart and carve another
piece. Once finished, I lived in it. It was where
I’d go to look out on the world. For years it was
a peaceful place in which I grew. I thought it was
my nest. But slowly, I grew so big that I couldn’t
get out of my idea. It became a cage. I panicked
and railed at what I’d made, afraid to give up
any of my growth. Trapped and exhausted, I
sat in the middle of all I’d built and began to
listen to the rhythm of things that never die.
In time, I grew smaller and smaller till I was
thin as the breath of life. Only then could
I slip through the bars of my idea. Like a
quiet breeze, I returned to the world.

by Mark Nepo

In Mark Nepo‘s book The Endless Practice, we are told how poem was written after a ‘disturbing and liberating’ dream. He elucidates the meaning of the poem by speaking about how, as he’s grown older, he has found himself gradually giving up on the notion of getting anywhere and building anything, so that he can arrive back into what is essential.

‘Until, like the breeze in my dream, I can slip through the bars of my own idea of life and join the actual pulse of life.’

When I look back on my own life, I can see myself passing through veils of self/life concept. I can see that I was living in a series of different realities created by my psychology at the time. I wonder about my veils now. Are they growing thinner? I think so.

With mindfulness, I think we can pierce through the veils to catch the shimmer of the actuality of the present, free of overlays. This is the reward of mindfulness – being in touch with the real, with the true pulse of life. Of course, we might not always come upon peace or delight there in the shimmer. Sometimes it might be the shimmer of loss or struggle that we meet. Mark Nepo tells how through nearly dying of cancer he learned that the only refuge is the moment:

‘To my humble surprise, each moment was a threshold to the sanctity that waits inside any circumstance.’

How about taking this as a daily life mindfulness practice: Ask yourself what construction of reality am I looking through here? Can I grow light and thin enough, humble or open enough, to float out between its bars and return to the actuality of the world as it is, now?

For example, I can see that I often live in a reality of progress, which to me in this life stage is mostly focussed on developing my work. In moments when my head gets tight and I’m feeling fixated on my To Do List, I find can just drop it all and look out of the window. Then feel my heart and breath and connect with the pulse of life within and around me. In a way, that is all there is.

PS If you’d like to explore the freedom from limiting concepts and constructs, we offer an indepth four stage training pathway that moves from mindfulness to compassion to insight and wisdom…

Photo by Dustin Humes on Instagram

She Let Go – Safire Rose

Kristine Mackenzie-Janson — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 10:31:23 +0000

She let go.
She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of the fear.
She let go of the judgments.
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice.
She didn’t read a book on how to let go.
She didn’t search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back.
She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go.
She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.
She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn’t call the prayer line.
She didn’t utter one word.
She just let go.
No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort.
There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be.
A small smile came over her face.
A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

by Safire Rose

A mindfulness classic, this poem by the spiritual life coach, facilitator and poet Safire Rose. How does it land with you?

I think it raises a very interesting question: what enabled her to let go? Some issues – or ‘holding ons’ – may be in place for years, decades even, and it can be hard to believe they will ever shift, despite practising with it, journaling on it, therapy about it etc. I found that there was a certain paradoxical comfort in dropping into a place of acceptance that ‘this might just be with me for the rest of this life’. And yet (or maybe because of that?) I’ve found that an unexpected letting go is possible (and ‘in the space of letting go, she let it all be’), and that a profound shift can happen in these same ancient issues that leave them as ‘not an issue anymore’. Wow, who’d have thought!

But what enables it? How come now, after all these years? Maybe it’s a bit like an apple, ripening on a tree branch. Until it drops it may feel like it never will, and there may be a real wisdom in accepting its hanging there. This is how it is, in this moment. But just because that’s how it is, doesn’t mean it will be like that forever. And you may find that for no discernible reason, one day, wholly and completely, letting go happens. And meanwhile, practising kindness and acceptance definitely won’t go amiss!

PS and what better place to practice kindness and acceptance than within a supportive group of fellow mindfulness and compassion practitioners? A recent feedback form from a participant in a weekend course in Samye Ling said ‘I gained so much more from being in a group setting than I thought was possible. Very helpful to have the support of others…’ There may be one just right for you in our list of upcoming courses or retreats!

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Release – Julia Fehrenbacher

Kristine Mackenzie-Janson — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 08:40:05 +0000

This morning
as my eyes blink
open
it occurs to me
as if for the first time
what you, miracle body, have been up to

All night long, while I let go
you pumped blood through veins
to fingertips and toes
grew cells and eyelashes and nails
inhaled and exhaled
countless times

all this while the sun
tirelessly
birthed new
life

all this without a thought or a word
or a worry
without a drop of help
from me

I laugh when I remember
that just yesterday in a torrent
of heart-numbing
stories

I seriously thought
I
needed to do something

by Julia Fehrenbacher

Does this sound familiar, this belief that everything depends on me, that I need to make things happen, almost as if the world would stop turning if I didn’t keep running on the treadmill? I love the surprise and laughter in the poet Julia Fehrenbacher‘s poem-voice, catching herself on it. Of course there’s a time and a place for doing, for initiating this and putting a stop to that. But it seems to me that many of us, myself very much included, could do with a little more reverence for and surrender to that which is happening without my involvement. The miraculous workings of the body, of nature, of others with their own resourcefulness and wholeness… and in practice, the moment-by-moment unfolding of our experience.

Can I let go a little more? Can I actually rest in the midst of what is here, without grasping at some of it and pushing the rest away?
Resting with what’s present in practice, wise effort in daily life. How about that for a daily intention!

PS if you’d like to practice a life of more ease and joy, join us in this journey of discovery starting with an in-depth course in mindfulness…

Photo by Tyler Casey on Unsplash