Forgiveness: a safe place to practice

Forgiveness is a powerful and scary practice. I think it's important to note that forgiveness does not mean forgetting what happened or letting bad things happen to us again. Forgiveness often must go with setting limits. But lack of forgiveness is a burden that we carry, and we are the only ones who can lighten our own load. In order to do the hard work that goes with forgiveness we need to operate from a place of safety.

In Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood, Wayne Muller suggests that we need to do the work of forgiveness from a safe place. He writes (p. 13-14), "Find a small corner in a bedroom or some other quiet place in your home. This will become your place of refuge, your personal spiritual sanctuary. ... Find a low table, bench, or even a cardboard box, and drape it with some pleasing material, using this as a focal point for your own journey. ... Allow yourself to visualize what is most beautiful, inspiring, or sacred in your life, those thing that represent the healing, inward journey of your heart. ... Collect a few of those meaningful objects and place them on table. ...
Make time each day to sit in your place of refuge. ... You only need sit, feel and listen. Allow this to be a place without judgment or expectation, a new home, a place of rest."

This could be your listening space as well, and/or your meditation space and your thank you space.

Mindfulness: Listening in a Sound Space

W. A. Mathieu writes:
You don't have to have an altar to pray or a special place to practice listening. There are monks who meditate in Grand Central Station. Adepts are always in their sound space, or so I'm told. But temples can make you feel holy, and it is useful to have a sound temple, a trusted place where you can let sound all the way in and listen all the way out.

Any place that pleases you is good. Maybe you won't have to look far. Your sound space could be your bed, or a corner of your living room. Maybe you'll have to adjust something for a few minutes, pull the plug of the refrigerator (don't tell a soul and be sure to replug). Or wait until the kids have piped down a bit. Or wait until the neighbor's stereo is off. Maybe you'll have to get the jump on the natives by waking up earlier. Maybe you'll even have to travel some. But sitting quietly in a place where ambient sounds don't trigger negative responses is worth the effort of getting there.

If you look for such a spot you will no doubt find it. People have the habit of going to the country, of seeking out wilderness. But you can find a little wilderness of your own wherever you are.

What is OK in your sound space:
o Sounds of nature
o Live sounds, including speech, especially at some distance
o Lots of different kinds of sounds, including traffic, or even those listed below, if these are sufficiently diffuse or distant not to offend you or hook you into their drama

What is not OK in your sound space:
o Recorded music or anyone practicing music
o Any radio or TV
o Unrelenting mechanical noise
o Anything unpleasantly loud or close, or that makes you uncomfortable

The idea is to create a space that not only protects you from unwanted sound but also releases you from any impulse to close your ears. The exercise is to open up, and wherever you can do that best is your sound space.
W.A. Mathieu, The Listening Book, Boston, MA: Shambala, 1991, p. 17-18.

Mindfulness: Listening, Symphony of Place exercise

Get a pencil and paper. Become aware of all the sounds you are hearing now, this moment, as you read. Make a list of them. Close your eyes from time to time. Swivel your head slightly to change the mix. Make a sweep from nearby sounds to distant sounds. Fall into the distance. Become transparent. Now fall into the nearness. Make a sweep from the highest sounds to the lowest ones. Disappear into the stratosphere, reappear underground. If your space is quiet enough you will hear your own internal sounds: breath, maybe your blood in your ears. Or the subtle sounds of cloth against cloth, skin against skin. Count everything; write everything down. Use words economically. Later, if you like, you can set the scene and go into detail.

Now make your sweeps into scans so rapid that you have the illusion of hearing everything at once. Now close your eyes and hear everything at once. Now cup your hands behind your ears. Technicolor!

This is the sound of your now, your Symphony of Place.
from W. A. Mathieu, The Listening Book, Boston, MA: Shambala, 1991, p. 10-11.