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10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows

And so another chapter begins. We roll from the festive season into life ... and loss, and misunderstanding; joyful moments and moments that bring us to our knees. We press up against those we love and try our best to show kindness to those who challenge us. I know many are already finding the new year difficult and heartbreaking, ripples of disquiet upsetting their equilibrium.


The wise and kind words of Jack Kornfield may offer solace and guidance:


'Meditation and spiritual practice is not meant to be a grim duty, it’s meant to be a rediscovery of the love and secret beauty that’s within you. Through practice we begin owning with gratitude the fact that we are here alive in this beautiful, mysterious human incarnation.


Your job, then, is to be fully present for your life, with its 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows. It’s not to get something. You have enough. If anything it’s time to give some of that stuff away, it’s true. But it’s to understand that actually what you most deeply long for is who you are, is coming back to your own heart, to your own beauty, your own wellbeing that you were born with, to that secret beauty.


When we rediscover this in ourselves, we begin to see the secret beauty everywhere and in everyone. Instead of making others, ‘them,’ we become an island of generosity, we become the seed planters of the world, we become a force of connection and love.'


My Franklin River Yin Yang rocks
My Franklin River Yin Yang rocks

'Lifes 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows' - I love this. It is a reminder of the cyclic nature of life, the yin and the yang, the dark and the light. One doesn't exist without the other. It reminds me that when I am in a dark mood, maybe thinking 'Why me?' the question should really be 'Why not me?'.


Term one started this week, and classes have been chatty with all the catching up. Some saw the northern lights and patted reindeer. Some went to East Vic Park. Some have struggled with family dynamics. Some are heavy with grief, having lost, or are losing, loved ones. Some spent weeks in bed with a weird virus. Others in hospital with intestinal meltdown. Children graduated. Bones broke. Mountains were climbed. The yin. The yang. The joys and the sorrows. The walls of the studio absorb them all, creating a kind of non-judgemental karmic strata.


No matter whether you are in the light or the dark, I encourage you to own with gratitude the fact that we are here alive in this beautiful, mysterious human incarnation.

Show kindness to yourself in the simplest form of a deep breath, a big sigh and a sinking deeper into your lovely self. Sending so much love to you, especially if the light is hard to find at the moment.


With gratitude for our time spent together, whether here or in the studio,

❤️

Amanda xx


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Guest
Jan 31
Rated 5 out of 5 stars.

💚

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Guest
Jan 31
Rated 5 out of 5 stars.

Lovely always to hear your ponderings Amanda.

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