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In This Article:
- How completing a spiritual pilgrimage shifted the author’s inner world
- The role of ego in blocking lasting peace and how to recognize it
- The feminine archetypes of wisdom across global traditions
- Why awareness, not external circumstances, creates a true sense of home
- How surrender and trust lead to inner stability and freedom from longing
How to Feel at Home in Yourself
by Anna Howard, author of the book: Quest for the Enlightened Feminine.
Undertaking, and completing, the Tara Peace Pilgrimage brought about changes that were not easy for me to describe or even discern at the time, but which are more easily understood now. Over the 18 months it took to complete the pilgrimage, I gradually became more and more “settled” within my own mind.
I had completed the project, which was an accomplishment in itself. Prone to bright ideas and initial surges of enthusiasm, I could easily lose interest in projects or plans and give up rather easily if that happened. Finally, I had moved back “down South”, where I come from and where my family was still living.
It wasn’t easy, however, being back in the thick of what Buddhism would call “the samsaric world”, in our ordinary society, whose values are a real muddle of greed and compassionate action. I did flounder and had no real idea where I wanted to be or what I wanted to do. I needed a job and a place to live. I was living close to my mother and stepfather at the time, which offered us all a wonderful opportunity to spend time together and get to know each other again, but it wasn’t a long-term arrangement.
A "Call" and Purposeful Challenge
One day, out of the blue, came an invitation from the chairman of a charity in Oxfordshire: The Abbey in Sutton Courtenay. I’d spent a year there, living in community, several years earlier and had found it both rewarding and challenging. The community was undergoing something of a grassroots revival, having fallen on hard times, and would I be willing and like to return?
Although there were many questions and doubts, deep down I knew this was a kind of “call”. I was ready to return, up for the challenge, and grateful to have been offered a purpose that would not only allow me to put into practice all that I’d learnt being away but also provide a context within which to do so: a home, a small salary, and a meaningful project to be a part of.
The Abbey is a beautiful old building set in attractive grounds in a pretty village that connects Oxford and Abingdon via the River Thames, that lovely old river I’d known and whose banks I’d lived on for much of my life—in Sunbury, Henley, Oxford, London, and Sutton Courtenay. It was a friend.
At The Abbey, despite its Christian roots, the emphasis was on each person finding or following their authentic path. So there was no resistance to what unexpectedly began to emerge as a “new devotion”.
The Meaning of True "Holiness"
I began to better understand the importance of wisdom in the Buddhist tradition and see that true “holiness”, wherever it is found, is always marked by the simultaneous presence of both compassion and wisdom. Indeed, it is said that we cannot ever hope to fly towards enlightenment unless we have the two wings of compassion and wisdom equally alive within our mind.
It also began to dawn on me that wisdom seemed to be represented in many traditions by the Feminine—by Tara in Buddhism, Mary or sometimes the more esoteric Sophia in Christianity, The Mother of the Book (Umm-ul Kitab) in Islam, and Saraswati in Hinduism. She is usually more hidden, seemingly less important for being so, but in fact an equal and vital force within the spiritual world.
On and off the cushion, living in community, my own enquiry deepened, and wordless answers filled my heart. There were times when my ego got a grip or crept invidiously through fictitious corridors of my mind. But all the while, wisdom really did seem to be dawning.
I saw for myself that the source of all experience was my own mind. That everything that appeared as a thought, feeling, perception, event, another person, my own body; in fact, any form whatsoever, came and went within my own experience; that there was a kind of “stable awareness” that allowed all of this; and that the true identity of the oh-so-familiar “I” was found in this, not in the ever-changing events happening at a more superficial level of consciousness.
The nature of this stable awareness was clear, translucent, impersonal, yet very intimate and personal. It had no judgements, although it could discriminate and discern distinctions effortlessly, but there was no assessment of these distinctions; they just came and went according to causes and conditions that held no moral or ultimate value.
The Emptiness at the Core of Everything
I saw that at the core of everything that appeared to exist and, in a relative way, did indeed exist (though not in the way we usually think of it) was this “emptiness” that Buddhism spoke about so often and correlated with wisdom.
“Emptiness” seems like a strange term to us, but it refers to the fact that things are “empty” of solid form, independent existence, and individual identity. Their nature is much more akin to particles moving in space in an often-repeating but nevertheless ever-changing sequence of patterns and, as such, they cannot be said to “be”, to exist in any permanent or meaningful way.
When we apply this wisdom to the normal content and activity of our minds, we can see how we create a kind of pseudo-reality for ourselves every time we take seriously and make meaning from the many thoughts, feelings, perceptions, sensations, and experiences that constitute our daily life.
We can see why we are so often advised to “let go” of whatever is in our mind when seeking peace and so often find it so difficult to do so, for who are we without our stories? What happens to our sense of self without our individual interpretation of events?
The Battle between Ego and Liberation
This battle between the ego’s wish for identity and the true self’s wish for liberation is one I think anyone on a spiritual path will recognize. It is usually a long, slow process of loosening the ego’s grip and surrendering to the “is-ness” of our natural being, free of the many distracting activities of mind that constantly compete for our attention. We have to become familiar with this “is-ness” and aware of the limitations and problems arising from identifying with the ego as the self.
As time went on, I noticed something else: that the searching had stopped, and I no longer had the same sense of burning longing. The “dramas” of my everyday life, and in particular my emotional world, had changed. It wasn’t that they had entirely disappeared but rather, they had ceased to grab and control so much of my attention. I could see through them, and although I still got caught up from time to time, I was aware that this was happening—a red flag for me to pay attention to what my mind was up to, rather than believe its version of reality by default and react accordingly.
From the outside, to those who knew me well, it was clear that I was happier. I didn’t have all the things that we generally associate with happiness in our culture; in fact, during the 10 years after leaving The Abbey, I didn’t have any of them: no home, no fixed job, no relationship, very little money.
But my mind was calmer, steadier, more stable, and more peaceful; feelings of loneliness and of “not belonging” were there from time to time. At such times I would turn towards these feelings and just feel them, without judgment, and in that relationship of acceptance, they would invariably transform and my heart would fill with gratitude and the now familiar feeling of “coming home”.
Feeling At Home in Yourself
Home for me became an inside job. If I could feel at home in myself and practise staying connected to that awareness, then it mattered less and less that I didn’t have an external home of my own. It was curious then that, after leaving The Abbey, my work became that of a companion carer, helping elderly people remain in their own homes for as long as possible. I was privileged to live alongside these people for short periods.
I got to observe the many different ways in which they lived in their own homes and helped them continue to do so in ways that gave them comfort and reassurance. I realized just how important home is for so many people, a fundamental and basic need in life, and one that we in Britain work hard to obtain. And yet, I’d given mine up over and over again.
I learnt, once more in a rather acute way, what it means to “live in the present” without knowing what is coming next. There were times I wobbled, but on the whole, over the many years of ending up in fairly extreme situations or circumstances, I learnt to have deep trust, which replaced the terrible insecurity I felt as a child and that had continued through much of my adult life. Eventually, that trust gave way to something even more intrinsic: a quality of “knowing” that I was okay and everything would be okay, even if the worst-case scenario of meeting an untimely death were to happen.
Over the many years of seeking, of following the “call”, I would invariably recognize this interior quiet when it came as a very personal and intimate feeling of rest, of putting down the world and its cares and coming home.
It didn’t matter where I was. When the chattering mind settled down and my true self came to the foreground, it was always the same. Thus, I learnt that there was no one way to God, to the Divine, to the Higher Self; there were as many paths as there were moments when the thinking mind gave way to what lies beyond: pure awareness.
Finally, I was home. I am home.
Copyright ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
Adapted with permission from the publisher,
Findhorn Press, an imprint of Inner Traditions Intl.
Article Source:
BOOK: Quest for the Enlightened Feminine
Quest for the Enlightened Feminine: Faith, Tara, and the Path of Compassion
by Anna Howard.
Can traditional spiritual practices bring about radical change for a happier existence in modern life? Touching the deep core of human longing, Quest for the Enlightened Feminine is a story of faith, courage, and determination. Illustrating a path to freedom and happiness,
Anna Howard shows how the divine feminine can awaken our enlightened potential. Interwoven with Tibetan Buddhist teachings and methods, including practices with Green Tara and White Tara, Tonglen meditation, and exercises for working with the 21 Taras, this book reveals how to put these sacred teachings into practice in your own life.
Click here for more info and/or to order this paperback book. Also available as a Kindle edition.
About the Author
Anna Howard, M.A. (Oxon), is an Oxford-educated student of Buddhism, whose work focuses on the healing and transformative energies of Tara. A workshop facilitator, teacher, healer, and writer, Anna lives in Dorset, England.
Article Recap:
In this deeply personal account, Anna Howard explores what it truly means to feel at home within oneself. Through spiritual inquiry, service, and surrendering the ego, she finds that lasting peace comes from cultivating awareness and trust, not external accomplishments. Her story illustrates that home is a state of being rooted in acceptance, wisdom, and presence.
#InnerPeace #SpiritualJourney #SelfAcceptance #Mindfulness #EmotionalHealing #FeminineWisdom #ComingHome #LetGoOfEgo #QuestForPeace #AwakenedLiving
