Aloha Sangha

ancient wisdom for crazy times

Category: expectation & goals

it’s now or never
Mindfulness loosens the “interminable chain of longing” as Robert Frost puts it, so I have half a chance of living this moment now.
One of my first meditation teachers, Sharon Salzberg, often talks about her early days learning how to meditate in India under her teacher, Munindra. One of his first counsels to her was:
Try to be with each breath as though it was your first, and as though it was your last.
Anagarika Munindra
Being with each breath as if it were the first is a training wheel exercise for being with any moment as if it were for the first time.
Can we live each conversation we have over breakfast with our housemate as it it were our first?
Can we search for that super important email as though it were for the first time we misplaced an email- without the uncessary inner friction (e.g. why does this always happen)?
if I don’t remember this, I get bored or restless
I notice that when I don’t try to do this I fall into a kind of wistfulness, boredom, or restlessness; mind states Robert Frost perhaps describes in this line from one of his last poems:
All is an interminable chain of longing.
The Anxiety of Happiness
Just being here, being present is enough– I didn’t do a good job at modeling this maxim of mindfulness to our kids as they were growing up. When some cool new event was coming up, like a birthday, or an outing, I would remind tell them from time to time- you know, your friend’s birthday party is coming up.
As if anticipating a birthday party were more important than whatever it was we were doing at the moment, like getting ready for the day or eating dinner.
Isn’t this something we all do- sacrifice the present moment for some imagined future one?
I catch myself wanting, waiting for, or expecting something, anything but this boring present moment- practically all day long.
It’s like I’m on hold on a call I placed to myself.
Mindfulness helps loosen the “interminable chainof longing” as Frost puts it, so I have half a chance of living this moment now. And having a more intimate experience with whatever is arising.
Sayadaw U Tejaniya of Burma reminds us:
Nothing is ever the same, every moment is always new. Once you can really see this, your mind will always be interested in whatever it observes. No moment will ever bore because your experience shows that “things” are forever changing
Sayadaw U Tejaniya
Mindfulness loosens the grip of concepts and opinions have on me about how things should be. I feel more open and soft with how things are if I can remember to invite mindfulness.
U to Shirasagi by Utamaro Kitagawa (1753-1806); original from Library of Congress
That last part of Munindra’s advice to Sharon, to be with each breath as though it were the last, becomes more meaningful the older I get. It brings front and center a complacency that can set in when my practice starts to feel stale.
It’s amazing how out of touch with reality I can get if I’m not mindful.
Sharon’s teaching partner of many decades, Joseph Goldstein, observes:
It’s like we’ve been put under a spell—believing that this or that is going to be the source of our ultimate freedom or happiness. And to wake up from that spell, to be more aligned with what is true, it brings us much greater happiness.
This is the priceless gift of our mindfulness practice- to be intimate with our moment by moment experience whatever it is– is to wake from this spell of postponement.
To answer that call you placed to yourself after being on hold so long.
In the words of the late Krishnamurti:
Freedom is now or never.
Choose now.
08/06/2023
don’t let the mind become a lonely hunter
You have all you need. The bounty is already laid out at your doorstep.
(The title here steals from Carson McCuller’s remarkable debut novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, published in 1940 when she was only 23.)
Our mind can easily turn into a lonely hunter when it thinks there is something to get or achieve in meditation.
When we eat breakfast, can we just eat? Just taste the oatmeal or the cereal or the fruit?
Can we relish the wisdom of our senses as they taste and smell toast and jam, and not give way to the push and pull of the mind?
Yes, we have thoughts, we are not trying to become mindful robots.
But can we be there for the forming of language? And equally there for the arising of thoughts of liking and disliking, catastrophizing and fantasizing?
Let’s see.
- 1. As you are making breakfast, you hear a ping sound and as you check out a notification on your phone you …
- 2. notice the toast is burning.
- 3. The thought arises: my morning is ruined.
Can we simply hang there a second in the space that sees the thought “my morning is ruined?”
As the late Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah remarked, if the house is flooded, can we just have a flooded house, and not also a flooded mind?
Can we for just a brief second notice what the mind is up to? Can we name it?
The Zen teacher and poet Norman Fischer observes, “naming a soup salty or spicy or vegetarian is different from experiencing it on the tongue, on the lips, drawing it from the spoon.”
Our mindfulness practice exposes the conditioned guts of our own mind.
Vanity Sounds the Horn and Ignorance Unleashes the Hounds Overconfidence, Rashness and Desire (from The Hunt of the Frail Stag), 1525
But there is nothing you need to go hunting for, it will all show up with just a little patience with the simple instructions of our mindfulness practice.
All that is necessary is for us to show up
… on our cushion, or in the moment as we notice what the mind is up to while paying a parking ticket or shopping for groceries.
And as we show up again and again, our practice matures; we can see more of this conditioning arise and pass away. We let go more easily and naturally.
We just show up to dance with our sense impressions.
And what an exhilarating, mournfully jubilant and spontaneous dance!
The dance of our life!
Ajahn Chah described this practice as committing to “taking the one seat.”
As his student Jack Kornfield describes it:
Just go into the room and put one chair in the center. Take the seat in the center of the room, open the doors and the windows, and see who comes to visit. You will witness all kinds of scenes and actors, all kinds of temptations and stories, everything imaginable. Your only job is to stay in your seat. You will see it all arise and pass, and out of this, wisdom and understanding will come.
It’s just this simple. Don’t make it complicated. And don’t let your mind talk itself into becomg a lonely hunter.
You have all you need.
The bounty is already laid out at your doorstep.
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07/06/2023
a contemplative life
What makes the difference in the contemplative life are the qualities of heart we bring to our everyday experiences.
When asked the value of contemplative life, the 13th century Japanese monk Dogen said it allowed him to feel “an intimacy with all things.”
Mindfulness allows us to see a flower, or watch a sunset, or eat a mango, with nothing in between us and the experience. When you are this intimate, you have gotten over yourself.
an additional dimension to life
Many practitioners report discovering an additional dimension to life, similar to what Emily Dickenson describes:
Life is so astonishing; it leaves very little time for anything else.
But at the start, far from fresh and marvelous discoveries, we discover our minds are actively judging, evaluating and comparing ourselves and our experiences.
The judging mind takes us far away from this intimacy Dogen spoke about. Although we may long for a deeper connection with the world, our conditioning to judge and react based on those judgments, gets in the way.
working with the judging mind
Intentionally working with the judging mind in meditation allows us to open up to whatever arises, and rest deeply in the mindful presence that judging blocks out.
When thoughts form an endless procession
I vow with all beings
to notice the spaces between them
and give the thrushes a chance.
Robert Aitken, Zen Vows for Daily Life
A Ground Thrush on an Ebony Orchid Branch
Doing this allows brief gaps in the judging mind to be recognized. This gives us a chance to be simply alive to the world without the burden of habitually grasping for more of the pleasant, resisting the unpleasant, and checking-out by opening our phones or engaging in compulsive activities.
As Larry Rosenberg puts it, by practicing non-judgment we come into the space where we are
being with life, not just dealing with it.
All the stuff that irritates, disappoints, or saddens us just needs to be given a seat at the table, to be received as if returning home from a long journey.
Tara Brach describes the magic of mindful attention this way:
Attention is the most basic form of love. By paying attention we let ourselves to be touched by life, and our hearts naturally become more open and engaged.
Landscape background (1846-1848) George Catlin, from The Smithsonian Institution.
the feeling of really being alive.
Attention is the most basic form of love. By paying attention we let ourselves be touched by life, and our hearts naturally become more open and engaged.
As you pay attention to more and more aspects of your everyday life, you will see progress. As Joseph Campbell once noted, it is not so much the meaning of life that we want, but the feeling of really being alive.
We get little tastes of this when we notice the hues of colors in a sunset, the feel of your partner’s hand as you walk on the beach, or the sensations of eating a bagel and finishing it with a hot cup of tea, of playing with dogs, or watching birds.
As the late Zen teacher Toni Packer observed:
We rarely contact this simple moment. So used to constant input and excitement, we lack fine-tuning into all the subtleties of this instant, the ability to register a quiet aliveness without the stirring of expectation.
A Quiet Aliveness
These are all natural, everyday happenings. What makes the difference are the qualities of heart our practice of mindful attention can bring to these experiences.
It’s a seeing, a knowing, that is utterly pure. It’s without thought, without associations. It’s nonverbal, completely intuitive. Some say it is pre-verbal.
In these precious moments, we give the thrushes a chance, as Robert Aikten would say.
And perhaps …
register a quiet aliveness without the stirring of expectation.
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04/20/2023
on having no goals
As you set out on your meditation journey- avoid aggressive self-improvement. There isn’t anything to improve; the present moment is just fine as it is.
One of the trickiest aspects of mindfulness meditation is the whole thing about letting go of goals. It seems to make no sense at all to not have any goal for our meditation practice. I mean, if there weren’t any real benefits to this practice, sure, there would be no reason to continue this odd behavior.
But since there are, and we feel them, what’s wrong with seeing these benefits as goals? Like feeling more relaxed, happier, more peaceful and present. What’s wrong with wanting to feel more peaceful and less harried?
the problem with goal-directed meditation
We are told the problem is goal-directed meditation impedes appreciating the peace that’s already here. That goals trick us on a pre—conscious level into believing there is something better down the road as long as we keep up the practice.
A better, more improved peace. A peace 2.0. But If we bite on this hook, the here and now feels less peaceful.
That’s what makes this practice so tricky. Biting on that hook keeps us on the hamster wheel of evaluating and comparing. Of liking/ disliking. Of wanting/ not wanting. Of not good enough.
Sure, we are drawn to meditation out of a desire to feel better in some way–in an everyday sort of way, or perhaps in a more existential way. But here’s the rub–desire is desire, even if it’s wearing a cosmic cloak.
we can get agitated if a meditation session doesn’t turn out the way we expected
If we meditate with this desire to feel good, we internalize that meditation is all about feeling good, calm, and peaceful. And when we don’t feel calm or peaceful, we can get frustrated, even agitated.
We’ve just encountered the central issue the historical Buddha emphasized in his whole teaching career–that we somehow insist on having an experience other than the one we are having.
Every moment our nervous system is engaged in pre-conscious binary processing of sensory input as safe/ dangerous, of pleasant/ unpleasant. Then liking and disliking happen, which leads to the hamster wheel of wanting and not wanting.
The Buddha called this last process tanha, thirst. And if we examine all our day-to-day activities the Buddha claimed, we encounter this thirst on many levels. Even the small shifting movements you make while sitting on your chair in your office–not liking the sensations arises, so you shift, only to later not like those, either.
the four Noble Truths
This is the first of the Buddha’s well-known Four Noble Truths: the arising of tanha in the mind sets off a subtle chain reaction of –>> liking/ not liking–>> wanting/ not wanting–>> eventually culminating in the many varieties dukkha–stress, disappointment, pain, loss, anguish.
How we can skillfully relate to this tanha, evident even at the per-conscious level, is the central concern of our meditation practice.
This is on a micro-level. On a macro-level, this plays out as the insatiable greed of empires, the hatred between religions, the delusion of indoctrination and indifference.
But it’s the very same mechanism, which starts pre-consciously with evaluation, comparison, liking, disliking and quickly proceeds to happiness and sorrow on increasing orders of scale, often below the horizon of conscious awareness.
the Buddha’s answer
The Buddha’s answer was to nip liking and disliking in the bud, before it has time to muster an army. As we notice the thoughts, sensations, and sounds that arise in the mind, we practice non-reactivity.
The thoughts will settle on their own. We notice liking and not liking, but we don’t bite the hook. We don’t jump in and take sides. Expecting our meditation to produce certain results is taking sides big time.
Yes, we all start with a rebellious mind. That’s why this practice of goal-less non-reactivity takes a lot of patience. After we have been sitting for a few minutes, the mind can feel bored–> liking/ not liking. It wants to stimulate itself with some spicy fantasy, or when it’s melancholic, it wants to cheer itself up–> wanting/ not wanting.
And when it’s restless, tired, or cranky, it just wants to dive into a slice of Mac and Cheese Pizza.
don’t set yourself up for failure
As we set out on the meditation journey, it is crucial to avoid setting ourselves up for failure and avoid aggressive self-improvement. There isn’t anything to improve. It’s just about embracing now, without trying to improve or tweak anything. Trying to tweak things just brings more frustration.
And really, the present moment is un-tweak-able. It’s just fine as it is, and so are you.
When reflecting on his teaching experience the contemporary Burmese meditation teacher Sayadaw U Tejaniya observes,
Many yogis tell me that meditation is difficult. What they are actually saying is that they cannot get what they want.
Ok, so we just explored the tricky issues of having goals for your meditation journey. We saw how they can create more problems than they solve.
mindless zombies?
If that’s the case, then are we to become mindless zombies when we sit on our cushions to meditate?
No, the issue was that goals tend to lead us out of the present moment by the process of comparing and evaluating we just talked about.
However, the true goal of our practice has never changed: the continual awareness of the present moment just as it unfolds, prior to the arising of liking and disliking, free of conceptual overlays.
Sayadaw U Tejaniya offer this guidance:
Don’t practice with a mind that wants something, or wants something to happen, or wants something to stop happening. The result will only be that you tire yourself out. You are not trying to make things turn out the way you want them to happen; you are trying to know what is happening as it is.
Just hang in there with all the liking/ disliking, and watch the wanting/ not wanting without jumping in to fix your unease. Yeah, takes patience alright, but it’s worth it.
After practicing like this, goal preoccupation slowly starts to wither. Those thoughts may still crop up; you just won’t care about them as much anymore.
And If it doesn’t go like this for you at first, it’s alright. Just continue your goal-less, present-moment centered practice.
You’ll thank me later.
05/03/2022
let go of expectations
As we let go of expectations in our mindfulness practice, it generalizes in our life-we are more present and responsive, and less reactive.
Buddhist practice is not so much about answering the so-called big questions of life and death, but rather about dissolving the angst around the questions themselves.
mindfulness is about appreciating the present moment
Sure, when you try out something new, you have some expectations of what it will do for you. But meditation is really about seeing what’s happening in the present moment. When we look through the lens of expectation, it limits our ability to see what is actually happening.
let go of expectations like a boat at rest
All kinds of wonderful things may actually happen in your meditation practice, but we don’t see them because we’re so focused on our small band of expectation, of what’s supposed to happen, or what we want to happen, or what we believe should happen.
recognize expectations in real time
One critical part of this practice is to see expectations in real time: to recognize them and gauge how “sticky” they are when we meditate.
As we let go of expectations in our practice, it generalizes in our life-we are more present and responsive, and less reactive. We can’t live without expectations, but maybe we can re-frame this to expect the unexpected.
I love William Stafford’s poem, where he says:
It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out — no guarantees
in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
William Stafford from The Way It Is
If you let go of expectations, more ease comes into your mind.
It’s a kind of openness and relaxation, a willingness to receive into your own awareness what is actually happening. Then we can decide what to do about it or how to respond to it.
There is a Zen story I love that teaches us something about this:
Once upon a time, a Zen teacher was returning to his temple in the mountains after a long walk. His assistant asked,
“What have you been up to?”
“I’ve been strolling about in the hills, strolling about in the spring grasses,”replied the teacher.
“How was it?” asked the assistant.
“I went out following the scented grass, and came back chasing falling flowers.”
Ah, simplicity!
This is not a meditation you can do wrong. You can’t stroll the wrong way in the hills.
trust the process
We just trust the process. We show up and be mindful of what is, and simply be with what is happening as it’s happening, rather than expecting anything in particular.
Let your heart make up its own mind about experience, about life.
let go of expectations and remain spacious – Wind Swept Sands by William Merritt Chase
loosening the grip
In letting go of our expectations we loosen our grip. And loosening our grip, as the Buddha never tired of saying, is the way to happiness.
I went out, following the scented grass, and came back chasing falling flowers.
I have another favorite Zen thing. This is from the third Zen ancestor of China. He says,
The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
Now, he’s not saying, “Don’t have opinions,” because opinions come with the territory of being human. We can’t help but have opinions. But we don’t have to cherish them, and we don’t have to believe that our opinions are the truth. Sometimes they are far off the mark.
soften the hold of opinions
Letting go of expectations and softening our hold on our precious opinions allows a spaciousness in our very being. A spaciousness where everything belongs. A spaciousness where curiosity and openness are the coins of the realm.
A spaciousness, by the way, at the heart of coincidentia oppositorum, the neo-platonic term Mircea Eliade called “the mystical pattern”–a revelation of the sameness of things previously believed to be different.
In psychological terms, I love Carl Jung’s phrasing:
Emotional maturity is not about resolving the paradoxes and the conflicts, but growing large enough to contain it all.
I can’t think of a better description of our simple mindfulness practice.

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04/17/2022
expectation
Mindfulness meditation also goes by the moniker Vipassana, or insight meditation. When I mentioned this in our weekly classes some years ago, someone asked me well, just what sorts of insights do you get from meditating?
the insights from meditation
I was tempted to launch in to the standard Buddhist answer, providing a thumbnail sketch of the five skandhas and of how clinging creates dissatisfaction.
But, I thought better of it (I am getting the hang of this teaching thing) and I replied that we get to see how we create much of our own suffering by getting caught in an endless cycles of liking and disliking.
Of chasing after the pleasant and avoiding the unpleasant.
Of feeling disappointment when we actually get what we are after, not just when we don’t.
expectation
Let’s call this phenomena by just one word: expectation.
Before I seriously began to meditate, I had no idea expectation was behind my much of my feelings of irritability, tiredness, and existential indifference.
Of course, expectations are not bad; it’s just how we frame then in our minds that can be a problem.
expectation: the Buddhist view
From a Buddhist point of view, expectations are formed in our mind when we want particular outcomes. Unfortunately, this wanting is often tinged with desire, aversion, or anxiety, which can put that slightly compulsive spin we call expectation.
We are not just talking about big expectations, such as the ones in you relationships, career and family life – we suffer just as much, maybe even more, from the smaller ones we hardly notice at all.
The next time you feel a little just a little impatient, or perturbed, or flustered, ask yourself: what were you expecting?
enslaved by our expectations
Yes, you could be enslaved by your expectations of what a loving relationship looks and feels like; you can be just as enslaved by what a good frappuccino tastes like.
Small sufferings have a way of building and snowballing, so are not to de discounted; to say nothing of the big ones.
mindfulness
Mindfulness allows us the space to see, challenge and to choose to let go of expectations in real time.
Sometimes we can skillfully choose to hold on lightly, though.
In meditation a huge block arises when we have subtle and not-so-subtle expectations of how our meditation should be progressing in the long run, to say nothing of expecting how it should be today as you sit down to meditate.
Expectations can tie us up if we don’t see how we have bought in to them.
meditate without expectation for results
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Meditation can be simply described as recognizing and seeing through expectations and staying in the creative now space.
meditation is like brushing your teeth
Think of meditation like taking a brushing your teeth, or sleeping. It’s simply something you need to do every day.
A little lightness and humor helps. I remember Ram Dass quipping back in the early 1980s that as we get more acquainted with our inner stuff, like expectations, we become “connoisseurs of our own neurosis.”
I will leave you this week with one of my most favorite lines from Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”:
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or
ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now,
or with equal cheerfulness,
I can wait.
06/01/2017