At the latest retreat in Vancouver, BC, I noticed again how much we are touched by the presence of warm curiosity in our lives, and by the way of living it suggests. And I realized afresh how much we love to laugh (as though this were news!). Having listened to a little of the recording, I believe the laughter did as much to open us as anything. There were some grand guffaws! (Holly helped a lot). Free, fresh, alive, spontaneous & responsive to the moment: what a way to live! I can\u2019t at the moment think of any other everyday experience that easily says so much about the nature of the Possible Life. <\/p>\n
Such an everyday thing, laughing! Why on earth have we believed that those delicious moments are only happy punctuations to an otherwise fretful life. Not that we could laugh all the time, but surely we can have free, fresh, alive, spontaneous responses to ANY moment. When there\u2019s sadness, it is there, just as a laugh is in its time. When there\u2019s joy, it is so. Confusion, impatience, anger, disappointment, fears \u2013 they are so. Why resist any of them? They all beg for attention and love in response. We think we\u2019ll be better off, happier, if \u2018negative\u2019 states pass quickly. Why? Why do we make them a problem? Can they be allowed their life the way we let laughter take us over completely? What would that be like? <\/p>\n
It\u2019s our brains that interfere with most experiences by naming and resisting them, but this is neither necessary nor helpful. The brain does this because all it can bring to itself is satisfaction – via a process, over time, to gain pleasure and avoid pain. That\u2019s all it can do. That\u2019s how it\u2019s built. And so it confuses joy, love and freedom as things to attain over time, like my next vacation.<\/p>\n
Yet laughter is just there, unearned, full and completely at ease in the moment. Could other experiences have as much space in us as a belly laugh? Laughter is easy and self-evident, if mysterious. <\/p>\n
Sadness, however, might be hiding some other deeper experiences and resistances. They may show themselves and tell their stories if there were enough room inside us to unfold themselves, like flowers. Then there may arise, spontaneously, some unexpected response. And the experience of sadness might transform into an experience of love.<\/p>\n
Once you\u2019re done crying, you might even laugh… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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