My Digital Hiatus

by Bindu Wiles on September 12, 2012

I’m on a Social Media Hiatus.

It’s been going on for about 8 weeks now with no end in sight. 

I’m enjoying privacy, fresh air, writing (a new memoir), IRL non-profit work, and the miracle of love.

If you are interested in working with me on a one to one basis about your writing, your life, or the effects in your own life of a global, mostly-ego-driven digital fishbowl, you can email me at binduwiles@gmail

I only check email once a day, (sometimes less) and I don’t carry my iPhone anymore.

I’ll pop up again here sometime!

 

 

 

 

 

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Renunciation and Letting Go.

by Bindu Wiles on July 17, 2012

If you asked me what life comes down to, I would answer that I believe it all comes down to Letting Go.

Dynamics between people, situations, emotions, get to the point where it’s just not working or it’s simply intolerable.

You don’t feel heard or understood. The way someone chooses to engage is intolerable. You’ve experienced someone doubling back one to many times.

A vulnerable trust is broken yet again. Sometimes, actually often, people feel so justified in their actions and it makes it even harder to be at peace within ourselves.

You are flat out on the ground waving the white flag from the sheer exhaustion of trying.

You’re broken-hearted and disappointed in yourself with how you acted under pressure with throat-choking fear.

This all leads to this radical and daring place of Letting Go.

Or as it’s called on the spiritual path, Renunciation.

From a Buddhist perspective, Renunciation has to do with letting go of holding back.

It’s about seeing clearly all the ways we pull away, shut down, close off, hold back, deny, ignore, and then learning how to open.

How we actually stay open has to do with coming up against our edge. That’s the moment when we learn what renunciation means.

You know how rivers flow down mountains? And then at some point, the flow of the water gets blocked by big logs and boulders? The water can’t move any further, even though it has tremendous force and energy, it just can’t move.

That’s what happens with us. We get blocked–out of the fear of the unknown, or fear of what happened in the past, we put up these blocks, these dams that basically say no to life and feeling.

How do we let go at these moments? How do we renounce? How do we say yes to opening further and let the water keep flowing, and keep our life-force evolving?

How do we not freeze and instead take another step toward the unknown?

Whenever you realize you have met your edge, you can be honest with yourself, by just gently acknowledging that you are saying some version of “No”.

The whole journey of renunciation, and letting go–which are just two phrases that mean saying yes to life– is realizing you’ve come up against your edge, that every single cell, molecule, bone, neuron within you is saying No, and then at that point softening.

The paralyzed quality, and the quality that causes us and others pain, seems to be the hardening or refusing quality.

The letting go, or the renunciation of that attitude is simply feeling the whole thing in your heart rather than your head and letting it soften and penetrate you so that you actually sit there with the troubling feelings and let them soften you some more.

You feel compassion for your predicament and for the whole human condition.

You reach out from inside yourself, the heroine of your own journey of awakening, constantly coming up against big challenges and then learning how to soften, open, and connect.

It’s a journey you can be proud of making on behalf of all beings, including of course, yourself.

*this post is adapted from the teachings of Pema Chodron.

 

 

 

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What is Spirituality?

by Bindu Wiles on July 12, 2012

if you are viewing this on a mobile device, please click here to see my iphoto of a rowboat at sunset.

“Spirituality is solitary. Its companion is conflict, a gnawing at the soul that cannot be ignored. We are engaged. There are no rules.

There are no maps. We live with the discomfort and ambiguity of our own authority.

At times, it is lonely, often informed by pain.

On other occasions, it is the body submerged in a phosphorescent tide, every movement sparking a trail of illumination.

Afterwards, we sit on the shore in moonlight. No candles are necessary.

Spirituality exists when we are present, buoyed up by the waters of attention.

We learn the courage of faith.

It is a peace that is earned.”

-Terry Tempest Williams

* Sunset Rowboat at Lowtide, Cedar Beach, Connecticut, iPhone4, Camera+app

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Freedom.

July 3, 2012

please click here to see my Freedom photo collages if you are on a mobile device. It’s Independence Day here in good old U.S. of A. As Buddhists, we don’t celebrate Independence as much as we do Interdependence, but we do contemplate Freedom quite a bit. It’s a terrific time to contemplate and reflect on [...]

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The Maitri Group

June 26, 2012

please click here to see my photo of the buddha if you are viewing this on your phone. Last week after I posted What Are We Doing All This For Anyway I got an email from a woman asking if I would be interested in starting what she called a Maitri  Support Group. I instantly [...]

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Violence and Moral Dystopia on the L Train

June 21, 2012

Here’s what happened: I was on the L train yesterday at around 1pm. It was fairly empty in my car–maybe about 15 or so of us. It was 95 degrees and I was going to stay in Williamsburg in air conditioning as I haven’t put mine in yet and my apartment was getting unbearable. Across [...]

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What Are We Doing All Of This For Anyway?

June 20, 2012

Please click here if you are viewing on a mobile device so you can see the beautiful photo I shot and be more inspired reading! I was going to post today and then this came into my inbox and just blew me away because it’s what I have been thinking about listening to people talk [...]

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The How and Why of Simplicity. A Template.

June 10, 2012

Please click here to read on my site if you are receiving this on your phone, so you can see the pretty photos, or click display images up top. Even though it’s Monday, would you consider clearing your Saturday or Sunday this coming weekend and not having any plans at all? I mean like none [...]

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Got A Summer Project?

June 6, 2012

I’m working on a book project with a deadline of December 31, 2012. Its working title is The Refuge Project: An Active Guide to Self-Care and the Genuine Heart of Sadness. Or, my other working title is 100 Ways to Ease Your Suffering When Life Hurts Like a MutherFucker. Whatever the title ends up being, [...]

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Emerson and Effort.

May 31, 2012

Lately, I’ve been putting a lot of effort into changing some emotional habits I have. In Buddhism, we train to wake up to the ways we are avoiding our lives and our emotions out of fear and past hurts. This is not easy work by any stretch of the imagination. Change takes awareness, willingness, razors-edge [...]

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