Living from the Center

The Guest House
by Rumi

This being human is a guesthouse.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness
Comes as an unexpected visitor
Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Welcome difficulty.
Learn the alchemy True Human Beings know:
The moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given, the door opens.

Welcome difficult as a familiar comrade.  Joke with torment brought by the Friend.
Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets that serve to cover, and then are taken off.
That undressing, and the beautiful naked body underneath is the sweetness that comes after grief.

Rumi speaks clearly here of the core of what we are doing together – learning how to live from our center so that we don’t get caught in reactions.  And when we do, we “invite them in…for they have been sent as a guide from the beyond.”  This is certainly my experience – that every single thing that happens in our lives is either an invitation to be fully here with life or an invitation to see what takes us away.

The past and future mediation is a simple and direct way to begin to see the story that takes us away rather than always being lost in it.  Below is a description of that meditation.

Find a comfortable seat where you can be quiet for a little while. Choose a focus – your breath, sensations in your body, sounds around you, etc. – and be curious.  Whenever you discover that you are paying attention to your thoughts again, see if the thoughts are about the past or the future.  If they are about the past, squeeze your left hand and say past and then return to your focus.  If they are about the future, squeeze your right hand and say future and then return.  If it takes more than a split second to see what thought is doing or if you are just spacing out, squeeze both hands and say thinking and return to your focus.  It doesn’t matter if you are taken away a hundred times.  Just keep on returning.