Why tell the story of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche?

Tulku Urgyen was father to four sons (being a householder yogi rather than a celibate monastic).


Each son, as gifted as their father in learning and meditation, shared a ready sense of humour.



1

Son Number One, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche was born in Tibet and escaped with his father and family, aged eight.
A student once asked Chokyi if he could read minds.


“No, no… I just watch your faces. They tell me everything.”  Then he added, “If you want privacy, relax your forehead.”



2

 Sadly, after a productive life overseeing monasteries, nunneries, and practice centres in Tibet, India, Bhutan, and Sikkim, the second son Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche died from a stroke-related illness in 2020, aged 68.


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3

Son Number Three, Tsoknyi, was born in Nepal in 1966.

Once during a retreat, a woman told Tsoknyi Rinpoche she felt tense, tight, and spiritually “not good enough.” He listened, nodded, and replied:

“First thing: eat more chocolate. Then meditate."

She burst out laughing, just as he intended. Then he explained:
“When the body relaxes, the mind stops attacking itself.”



4

Son Number Four is Mingyur Rinpoche, born 1975. 

An airport security officer once asked Mingyur, a robed monastic, what he did for a living.

Mingyur Rinpoche replied, smiling: “I teach people to do nothing, very well.” The officer stared, confused, and waved him through without further questions.


An interesting detail about Mingyur Rinpoche is that he suffered debilitating panic attacks from childhood until a young teen. 


Surprising, eh? Wouldn't you consider someone from a long line of meditators to be above such things? Aren't panic attacks for common folk such as us?


What's that all about?


Find out in the next post!

​Issue 17
March-April 2024
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From my fruity neck of woods to Yours  
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• A fruit theme. An ashram lychee orchard story; why I love sour cherries; health benefits of cherries.
• The Finding Spaciousness meditation course in full swing. 
• A relaxing, soothing ten-minute hand breathing practice.
• Links to Jon Kabat-Zinn and Tara Brach.
• Film recommendation: Rolling Thunder Revue (2019) by Martin Scorcese about Bob Dylan. 
• The Yoga Nidra Network​

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•  The upside of having just had pneumonia.
• The Pneumonia diet
• Tergar's Joy of Living online meditation program with Mingyur Rinpoche
• I've just started the teacher training for Tergar's Anytime Anywhere Meditation program.
• An early video assignment ​Mindfulness versus Awareness.
• Nightmare of the year: the 2024 US Presidential Election.
• Conclusion of Joyfulmind's 2024 Enjoyathon.
• A hindi home movie festival on Netflix.
• A new grandson.
• Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans (John Lennon).

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• Othering.
• A landmark year.
• More about the Anytime Anywhere Meditation Program.
• Get a screen protector for your phone!
• Ditch the cozzie
• A mini lie-down.
• "Let Them" .
• The "selfing" part of "othering".
• Father David, The Danger of Certainty
• The basted turkey.
• Triggering rage and grievance,.
• Film: "The Lost Daughter" 2021, Netflix.

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• Information Superhighway
• Brainrot: word of the year 2024
• Judson Brewer: addiction and curiosity.
• Plato and the invention of writing.
• Urge surfing.
• Film: Stuck Together (French language) 2021, Netflix.​

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You know what it's like.
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You pick up your phone to do something specific, and before you know it you're scrolling through a bunch of videos.

Catching my eye the other day: a baker moulding dough into a massive balloon that constantly shifted shape like a creature alive. 
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Hands folding, slapping, turning, stretching the dough. ​

Letting in the air.
Filling the dough with space.


That's what meditation can do for your mind.

Make it flexible, stretchy, workable. A good dough.

How? Through a simple, disciplined training.

Yup, the serene meditator, still as a statue, might look like they're blank inside, peaceful, thought-free. Kinda checked out, mentally.
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But that's not the case.

They're actually busy fielding incoming thoughts, looking for gaps, stepping back, observing the circus, making space.

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If you're reading this before February 2024, it's not too late to join the Finding Spaciousness course! (places allowing, I favour small groups of up to eight participants so you can get personal attention and meet your meditation needs.)

Join me to discover how meditation can knead space and flexibility into the dough of your daily mind.

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Grab a cuppa, fluff up the pillows, settle in.

Here's a tale about my mother-in-law Aileen, who moved to Kyogle from Sydney in 1996 at the ripe old age of 80. Motivated by escape from Sydney winters, her sights were on Southeast Qld but there was a catch: her older brother Keith. ​

Keith had suffered from bi-polar since his late teens. Out of all nine siblings, big-hearted Aileen took it upon herself to see he was looked after through the decades. Nish, as a kid, remembers Keith over at their place, talking to the mantelpiece.

Aileen wanted to move but refused to leave Keith behind in Sydney at the Salvos home where he lived.

What to do? She wanted him nearby, where she could bring him the regulation carton of cigarettes, but there were no beds for him in Queensland.




THICK AS THIEVES


Enter the knight in shining armour, my partner Nish, who had a spectacular brainwave. "How about I try Kyogle, mum?" He rang Kyogle aged care (in those days housed at the old hospital building). 


Miracle of miracles: they had a bed! Available straight away!


The very next DAY Keith was flown up from Sydney (for free). Aileen followed soon after. We'd found her a lovely flat in Kyogle Rd; her sale in Sydney came through just in time. 

Two years later our son Ned was born; grandma and grandson became thick as thieves. Keith passed away; Aileen and Ned endured until she died the year Ned was in Year 6. Sadly missed!!





SAVOURING PRACTICE


I tell this story in connection with the negativity bias, the ingrained habit of the brain to focus on bad news and overlook the good. And its remedy, gratitude and savouring practice.


For months, for years on end, Aileen never tired of recounting the chain of auspicious events:
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• We found a bed for Keith immediately that brought her to wonderful Kyogle.

• He was up here the next day.

• She had a lovely new unit, she couldn't have asked for better. And in walking distance to Keith.

• Kyogle is wonderful, the people are wonderful, she rarely has to vaccy, and doesn't have to wear stockings.

• We’ve given her an adorable grandson.

By recounting the feel-good moments again and again, Aileen was demonstrating, without meaning to, a sure-fire route to flourishing mental health.



CLINICAL STUDY


A study from 2017 gave worriers the chance to try one of two practices: mindfulness meditation or savouring various activities. The result? Savouring offers benefits similar to meditation—and some additional ones.

Both mindfulness meditation AND savouring improved participants’ anxiety, negative emotions, and curiosity. The marked benefit of savouring over mindfulness meditation however, was to boost participants’ positive emotions. (Though to overcome negative rumination, mindfulness meditation won the day).




A BOOST


Savouring practice isn't something unfamiliar; it's similar to gratitude, tho takes it a bit further. 


Both gratitude and savouring are proven reliable methods for increasing happiness and life satisfaction, while boosting optimism, joy, pleasure, enthusiasm, and other positive emotions.


Savouring is unique in that it includes a somatic component: drinking in the good at the level of body sensation. You absorb the good feelings. Marinate in them.

Your nervous system will love you for it.



copyright Shakti Burke 2023

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​How do you like your towels?

Rough and scratchy? Raspy as sandpaper? Not a fan of gravel rash? Me neither.
 
Soft and fluffy! Lovely on the skin and does a better drying job, too*.


 
You can create a soft, silky environment in the mind when your meditation includes self-kindness.

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With guidance, you'll discover a simplicity that is supportive and rejuvenating. No matter how antsy you are at the start.

 
Meditation points you to your north star. The place you feel comfortable with yourself.



Happy just being.
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Cheers, Shakti x


 
*Apparently best practice for a fluffy towel is (1) not too much detergent (2) not too much heat: a hot wash and hot drier batters cotton fibres.

JOIN MY ONLINE SELF-COMPASSION INTENSIVE

OVER FOUR EVENINGS IN MARCH 2023


A chance to cultivate warm-heartedness and support your wise heart.
Four Wednesday evenings 75 minutes each
March 8th - 29th 2023

6pm - 7.15 AEST (Australian eastern standard time)

AUD $80
early bird $70 by 25th February
​

Not up for a read? Listen instead.

 
SUSPICIOUS?
 
Our bravado culture is suspicious of self-compassion.
 

• What if it saps our motivation?

• Loses my drive, my edge?
• Isn’t it a bit soppy?
• Self-centered?
• Self-absorbed?

 
 
Helloooo.

Who ever felt better from self-criticism, overwork, aggression, shame or feeling unworthy?
 
The stoic approach?
No one wins.
 
In fact the opposite is true.
 
 
 
VETERANS

 
Clinical research by Dr Kristin Neff (University of Texas at Austin) into PTSD in returned veterans found:
 
The factor determining whether the veterans would slide into PTSD was not the amount of combat they’d seen.
 
It was their level of self-compassion.
 
Whether they could be kindness toward themselves. Instead of self-flagellating or feeling like a failure.
 
 
SELFISH?
 
A study of 100 couples, trained in self-kindness, showed they have the edge on un-trained bods. They are:

• More caring.
• More capable of intimacy, and kinder.
• Less controlling, grant more freedom in the relationship.
• Get angry less often.

 
It seems when we’re wrapped up in our own shortcomings, failures, mistakes and misdemeanours- ie, not self-compassionate- we have less to give to others.
​

And more blame to dole out.
 

Listen to the FAQ:

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN I NEED SELF-KINDNESS?


You’ll be:

• “Shoulding”

Look out for the “shoulds”! I should be …, I should have, they should have …

• Overthinking

During difficulty, we panic and throw everything at a scrappy quick fix.

• Blaming

Blaming seems easier than feeling the feels.

• Avoiding

We push away the feel of discomfort by overdoing other stuff (food, substances, streaming)

• Feeling alone

A big part of self-kindness is taking the birds eye view and recognising that suffering is a familiar and shared human territory. We're not alone, we're connected!

 


WHAT'S THE HARDEST THING ABOUT SELF KINDNESS? 
​

• Recognising you need it.

Empathy towards our self is never our first reaction. Fear always takes precedence.

• Feeling guilty about needing it. Or superior. Or unworthy.
•  Self-centred, weak, soft, soppy?

The opposite proves to be true.


Self-kindness has us strong and resilient. It expands our horizons.  We’re better able to step outside our head and see a situation clearly. We're no longer absorbed by our thoughts or captive to harmful reactions.


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What's not to love!!!
​
Self-kindness: it's the strength you need.

 Shakti Burke is a mindfulness enthusiast based in northern NSW, Australia.
www.joyfulmind.net.au
Invite me to be a presenter at your online course.
​

They do that, spiders. Dash. Out of nowhere. Suddenly.

Son, who has a serious spider phobia, squeals, shrieks and  squirms.
 
“Oh for heavens sake” I mutter, calm cool mum. “It’s only a spider”.
 
There's lots of them around here, it’s bushland. Of an evening they spread their hand-sized bodies on window or wall, fleuro green night-eyes glowing like  sci-fi jewels.

 
ACTION STATIONS

Here we are, the car and the wriggling, squealing son.
The nonchalant mother.

As far as huntsmen go, it was quite a small one. I wasn’t too concerned.
Until… until!
 
All of a sudden the spider sprints over to my end of the dash.
 
It races down the upholstery towards the steering wheel ... crikey, soon its furry crawly body will be all over my hands!
 
I slam on the brakes, thud to a stop, jump out the door screaming “abandon ship!”
 
Agghhhhhhhh!
 
To this day, my grown son calls the story (amid his hilarity), ‘abandon ship’.

 
RUN AWAY!
 
The story is a good example of the “flight” side of the autonomic nervous system. Flight to escape.
 
Flight as opposed to ‘fight’.

(Fight, for goodness sake, who’s about to engage in hand-to-hand combat with a ginormous spider!)

'Fight or Flight' go hand-in-hand in discussions of the stress response.
 
"Flight" in this instance was automatic, instantaneous. And appropriate. I didn’t have to think too much about it; it just happened. 

 
APPROPRIATE?
 
But ‘flight’ is not always appropriate. 
 
Thing is, in our post-stone age world, the knee-jerk 'flight' aspect of the nervous system is often ... err, stone age. Great for escaping spiders … but look how it carries over to humdrum situations, reaching into our body and keeping our system on high alert.


FLIGHT SITUATIONS 

Less appropriate flight is when we're:

• Seized by the desire to run away during a tedious argument with spouse.

 

• Over-indulge in stimulants to escape our woes.

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• Watch endless Netflix re-runs instead of getting down to that damn assignment/run/whatever/ we promised our self.

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• Wishing we were somewhere else instead of content to be where we are ... even when that is actually quite a nice place.

 
Flight is when we flit into a doorway to avoid the difficult person approaching down the street. It’s in action when kids gaze out the window to escape a boring school lesson.

It's when we can't concentrate.

It's physically compelling. Flight is not abstract. It reaches deep into our body, sparking electric sensations, confusion, restlessness.
 
Flight is escape. It’s the desperate, undeniable need to run away, abandon ship. Flee the spider. Leave the premises, whether that premises is an external place or somewhere in our heart and feelings.

 
LEARN TO NOTICE FLIGHT
 
We can learn to recognise the sensations of flight.

​Start to notice how it feels in the body. How it trips the mind. Just noticing, as it's happening, gives you the power to intervene. To chose your response rather than be dumped in it.