Reflections on MBSR: Week 2

Inviting the Uninvited

This week, Dr. Shutt asks us to meditate on Rumi’s “The Guest House”.   This poem illustrates the importance of inviting the uninvited. MBSR is teaching us to accept all of our experiences. Read and consider:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexepected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
Because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Translation by Coleman Barks

My meditation on Rumi:

Control makes us miserable. We may be grasping for control without any awareness. Other times, control may give us a false sense of calm and comfort. We try so hard to control people, events and ourselves. How well has this worked? For myself, I have felt most out of control when I was trying too hard to predict outcomes, resist moods, or change others.

Mindfulness teaches us to be observers instead of interpreters. By constantly striving to interpret our experiences, we exhaust our greatest resource – the mind. Reacting, catastrophizing, personalizing – all of these thought patterns create a cloudy existence. Every pain could lead to death. Thoughtless, benign slights turn into grave offenses. How many times have we lashed out and overreacted?

Rumi challenges us to invite the uninvited. We are all vulnerable to sadness, pain, grief, and shame. We may choose to ruminate, getting lost in dark pathways of the mind. We cannot control what shows up, but we have an amazing power available to us through mindfulness practice. When we meditate, we allow ourselves enough space to process our experiences without judgment. When we extend an invitation to all of our experiences, we see with clarity our universal experience. When I sit with myself, I am honoring all parts of being. Today, I live with a grateful heart.

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