Posted inHenry's Messages

Message from Henry: The Deep Middle

February 17, 2021

There’s more gratitude in the middle, and with that comes more humility, more of a sense of the bounty around us, and naturally enough, more desire to act out of kindness.

I used to think equanimity sounded boring. Being centered sounded dull. Like many artists I swung regularly from exaltation to despondency and back again. I didn’t really want to hang around in the middle, apparently.

Yet what meditation can teach us is that the center is not a neutral place to be. Rather, it is a place of joy. Once we’re more settled in the middle, we have the psychic space and calm to notice the world around us, and to appreciate things in a vivid way.

There’s more gratitude in the middle, and with that comes more humility, more of a sense of the bounty around us, and naturally enough, more desire to act out of kindness. All of which is surely good in and of itself, but has the additional benefit of making us feel happier. But it’s a different, more stable, and in a way deeper happiness, born not of exhilaration and excitement, but something somehow truer, more in accord with how things really are – with the Dharma.

Every time we sit we are chipping away at our habits, making it just a little easier – whether we know it at the time or not – to come to rest in the deep middle.

Message from Henry is from our February 15, 2021 Newsletter
Image: Drop by m63mueller, from Pixabay.com
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