Aloha Sangha

ancient wisdom for crazy times

Category: psychological issues

  • you can’t win if you don’t play

    you can’t win if you don’t play

    Experiment infusing your meditation time with playful qualities such as curiosity, lightness, awe, and child-like delight in the present moment’s unfolding.

    The comedy improv teacher Jimmy Carrane mentioned in a blog post that the Illinois State Lottery once had a slogan that went:

    You can’t win if you don’t play.

    Although I’m not endorsing gambling here, we can apply this slogan to how we practice mindfulness. If we approach our practice as a grim duty to sit in formal meditation for so many hours per week, or to always be mindful in our daily life, well, it just doesn’t work.

    mindfulness as play

    But if we view our practice as play, we can experiment infusing our meditation time with playful qualities such as curiosity, lightness, awe, and delight. This can make the journey to enlightenment so much, well, lighter, and more fun. 

    When we actively encourage these beautiful qualities, supporting them as they arise, our practice deepens. Our life finds more dimensions in which to grow.

    Can we infuse our practice with these playful qualities?

    As we engage with all the challenging tasks we face in our day to day lives, can we bring in a little curiosity and lightness?

    We’re not trying to figure anything out; we’re simply being with whatever is happening, inviting awe and a child-like delight in the present moment’s unfolding.

    And keeping the channel open, as Martha Graham once commented:

    There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action… and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique…You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.

    You have to keep yourself open … Keep the channel open.

    Martha Graham on the Life-Force of Creativity

    mindfulness as improvisation

    I’m reading this week about improv performers and how they train. What goes into training in the improv arts- in jazz, dance and comedy– aligns so well with our approach to our mindfulness as play.

    We are all improvisers, right? Whatever prefab scripts we apply to our daily challenges don’t always fit well; we are often going off script, improvising.

    And as it is so clear to see in our meditation practice: we don’t know the next thing that’s going to come to our mind, we can’t control our minds, nor should we even try.

    The improv performer and Buddhist meditator Martha Lee Turner sums up the core skills of improvisation:

    Stay in the present moment, listen carefully, do not get tangled up in your ego, keep letting go of your idea from a second ago, and trust what emerges from the group.

    from Half of the Holy Life

    trust the present moment

    This is big for many of us- to trust what emerges. As the actor and stand-up comedian Brian Posehn has this to say:

    Trust in the moment you’re experiencing right now, it will always move you to the next moment.

    Sometimes, Brian says, his improv work allows him to step out of familiar routines and scenarios that “impede freedom” as he puts it. A work which I am guessing helps him discover more opportunities for stepping free of entanglements and than he otherwise would see.

    Perhaps he would agree he is discovering ever-deepening qualities of curiosity, lightness, awe and delight as he keeps the channel open.

    Maybe those who crafted the Illinois State Lottery slogan were sly, secret mindfulness meditators, teaching us from within the belly of the beast- you can’t win if you don’t play.

  • in praise of maladjustment

    in praise of maladjustment

    Who is maladjusted? It is someone who lost the ability to be surprised. We must re-learn how to be surprised.

    Alice Walker has good advice for all of us who practice mindfulness meditation:

    Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.

    As a meditation teacher, I’m happy when folks describe feelings familiar from childhood resurfacing in meditation, such as waking up in the morning and feeling excited for no particular reason.

    Feeling causelessly excited by life; it just bubbles out of our true nature, which we uncover in our meditation practice.

    the delight of watching young children play

    When our kids were little Katina and I would delight in watching them play in the big yard in our old house. Our son would spend hours in perpetual wonder and surprise, digging in the yard, looking at bugs, and playing with lizards and geckos.

    We delight in the company of children because they remind us of our own wondrous capacity to be surprised and delighted.

    Mindfulness meditation allows us to play in a kind of continual surprise, as we let go of that heavy know-it-all part of us, and just bask in the unfolding moments.

    Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel, the late Polish-born American professor of Jewish theology, had this to say:

    An individual dies when they cease to be surprised. I am surprised every morning that I see the sunshine again. When I see an act of evil, I’m not accommodated… I’m still surprised. That’s why I can hope against it.

    We must learn how to be surprised. Not to adjust ourselves. I am the most maladjusted person in society.

    what is maladjusted? It is being brainwashed by consumerism and the conspiracy of mediocrity.

    be maladjusted!

    What a thing to say–that he is the most maladjusted person in society! Who, then, is maladjusted?

    Anyone, it seems, who’s not drinking the Kool-Aid served by the media 24/7.

    He is saying we could do well to challenge the messages we receive on multiple media channels subtly encouraging mediocrity and mindless consumerism.

    Luckily for us, mindfulness meditation has a built-in channel of innocent delight and contentment. As we sit quietly in meditation, contentment seeps into our being like the smell of the sweet pikake blossoms on the evening breeze.

    to be spiritual is to be amazed

    Abraham J. Heschel again:

    Get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.

    Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

    Meditation helps us stay content and sane in this crazy world. Who exactly is maladjusted? It means not being content with your life as its is.

    Genuine contentment is one of the most revolutionary acts for a person in the 21st century; it goes against cultural norms and conditioning. This all begs the question: just what is this contentment?

    being maladjusted to society is being content with what we have
    being maladjusted in our society is being content with what we have

    being happy

    For me, it’s about being happy with who I am right now: overweight, under-exercised, and not looking forward to the hour-long drive home in heavy morning traffic from my night shift job.

    Krista O’Reilly-Davi-Digui, a Holistic Embodiment Coach, writes:

    What if I just accept this mediocre body of mine that is neither big nor small? Just in between. And I embrace that I have no desire to work for rock hard abs or 18% body fat. And I make peace with it and decide that when I lie on my deathbed, I will never regret having just been me.

    What if all I really want is a small, slow, simple life.

    I used to feel quite depressed. A part of me was still consumed with fantasies and expectations: my kids, my marriage, my meditation practice, my night shift job, my… my… my…and “I” always fell short of those fantasies.

    no regrets

    What is maladjusted? It means living a life of no regrets. I’m much happier now. I am living Krista O’Reilly-Davi-Digui’s line above:

    …when I lie on my deathbed, I will never regret having just been me.

    Nothing terribly dramatic happened. No huge epiphany. No burning bushes. No lights, sparks or kundalini rush.

    discover contentment here and now

    Discovering contentment is about letting go of these fantasies, and realizing that life is truly amazing without them. I would even say–especially without them.

    It’s about embracing my limitations and not being defined by them. It’s about relishing in being maladjusted.

    As we silently watch these fantasies arise and fall within mindful awareness, we see how powerfully they filter our perceptions, how they distort our view of things, just as they are.

    let thoughts come and go

    We experience the relief of letting thoughts come and go. As psychologist Elisha Goldstein says:

    It’s like being at a laundromat watching the clothes tumble in a big dryer. We don’t have to tumble along with the clothes; we can just watch them fall through space.

    The mind doesn’t need to go blank–we just need a little distance from thought so we don’t tumble along with them. As we gently let them pass through us, and we see how incredibly awesome this precious life truly is, just as it is right now.

    As we expect nothing, we join hands with Alice Walker and Abraham J. Heschel, living frugally in surprise and amazement.

  • lucid dreaming and meditation

    lucid dreaming and meditation

    Just as in a moment of lucid dreaming we realize Wow, I’m dreaming, we can similarly realize while meditating Wow, I’m thinking.

    I had this dream the other night that allowed me to see similarities between lucid dreaming and meditation.

    In the dream, lines from an obscure American poet kept haunting me, and I couldn’t remember the poet’s name. I tried searching the Internet for the name, putting the lines I remembered in quotation marks:

    “I called the ocean by its first name.”

    “The invisible telephones of the wind are ringing…”

    Odd results came up. A florist in Akron, Ohio. A tub boat manifest. The life cycle of a deer fly.

    Then two thoughts struck me: 1) search results aren’t reliable in dreams, which was immediately followed by 2) hey, wait a second, am I still dreaming?

    Lucid dreaming and meditation

    At that precise moment, awareness questioned what it was perceiving. This is a skill that comes in handy as we progress in our meditation practice. And, in fact, our meditation practice enables our “dreaming” mind to tolerate the often bizarre or troubling images the dream state produces.

    Just as our mindfulness meditation builds the capacity to unemotionally witness the unfolding imagery in our waking state, such as the seemingly unreal images flashing on our television screens of pro-Trump demonstrators storming the Capitol building yesterday–it also allows our dream-awareness to neutrally observe its own late night show.

    Dream Yoga

    Mystically inclined cultures throughout the world have harvested this neutral dream witness, giving us a rich spiritual heritage. Dream Yoga in Taoism and Tibetan Buddhism are two well-known examples.

    In these weekly newsletters I suggest one aspect of our practice to explore.

    Sleeping, dreaming, and waking consciousness

    This week let’s explore the distinctions we normally hold between our sleeping, dreaming, and waking consciousness. There are a wealth of angles for you to explore this week!

    Don’t we assume the dreaming mind only has a glimmer of self-reflective awareness–nothing like the meta-cognition we develop through our mindfulness practice?

    Can we actually be more with-it in our dream state than many folks are in the waking state?

    Do some folks seem like they are sleep-walking through their life? Even in our so-called waking state, don’t we sometimes wander around in a state of semi-consciousness, barely aware of the present moment?

    Lucid dreaming and meditation- Part of the "Fisherman's Dream" exhibit by artist Gary Greff.
    Part of the “Fisherman’s Dream” exhibit by artist Gary Greff.
    Original public domain image from Library of Congress

    Awareness of thinking while meditating

    Let’s leave philosophical speculations and dive into the brass tacks of our daily meditation practice. Consider this analogy: our dream awareness questioning itself, as in lucid dreaming, even if it only lasts a fraction of a second, is like being aware of thinking while meditating.

    Just as in a moment of lucid dreaming we can exclaim Cool, I’m dreaming — we can similarly declare while meditating — Cool, I’m thinking.

    The trick is to sustain these moments of self-reflective awareness such that awareness just keeps on being aware of what is unfolding in the present moment.

    Just like we do with our breath, or body sensations, or sounds. One breath simply and elegantly follows the next.

    Thinking is bad?

    Thinking is tricky one to practice with because of unexamined assumptions that thinking and meditation are at odds with each other. That a “good meditation” is one in which we have few, if any, thoughts.

    That our job as a meditator is to sweep the mind of thoughts, as if that were even possible. Sound familiar?

    If we bring any of these ideas into our meditation practice, we will find ourselves resisting or fighting our thinking. This just creates more anxiety and restlessness, as if we didn’t already have enough of these.

    Thinking is just nature

    Rather, let’s listen to the advice the Burmese meditation master U Tejaniya Sayadaw frequently gives:

    Thinking is just nature. Can we stop nature or avoid nature? It’s impossible. Instead we merely need to see that thinking is nature. This is Right View. With this view we can skillfully be with thinking instead of resisting the nature that is thinking.

    The lucid moment we are aware we are thinking while meditating we step out of the grip of thought, out of the story thought is telling.

    Our job is to remain interested in the mind that is aware that it is thinking without squashing that awareness.

    You know what I mean here–the beginning meditator’s lament: Ugh, thinking again!

    With good practice it can become the mature meditator’s gleeful:  Cool, thinking again!

    The intention to think

    With practice, Sayadaw U Tejaniya says we can even notice the intention to think–before a thought even manifests in the mind!

    He writes:

    The mind wants to think. We want to become able to see this desire clearly. Sometimes when we ask ourselves, “Why is my mind thinking so much?” we can detect the desire to think. Once we see this desire objectively in this way, we don’t get lost in thought.

    But that’s graduate school level stuff. Let’s just keep our practice nice and simple.

    This week, can you appreciate the thinking mind vs depreciating it?

    I welcome any thoughts you might have on the matter below.

  • a moment of well-being

    a moment of well-being

    Despite all that is wrong, I can still take delight in a moment of well-being.

    News stories are not the conversation starters they used to be. In the day, I could fill an awkward gap by saying “Guess what I heard on NPR this morning?”

    I don’t use that line anymore.

    These are intense times. We need to find our footing in an information age that may be getting the best of us. We need to find some balance here.

    Sometimes a poem jumps off the page and invites you to see the world with new eyes, if only for a moment.

    a poem can change everything in a moment

    I was looking at the world through those Anxiety Eyes before I read this poem by the Irish poet Derek Mahon, who left this earth just a couple of months ago.

    Tonight is the final presidential debate in what many are calling the “election of a lifetime” (which is how I felt about Bush-Gore). No sense here going through the litany of everything which is wrong with the world.

    Then I read his poem: Everything Is Going to Be All Right

    How should I not be glad to contemplate
    the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
    and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
    There will be dying, there will be dying,
    but there is no need to go into that.
    The poems flow from the hand unbidden
    and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
    The sun rises in spite of everything
    and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
    I lie here in a riot of sunlight
    watching the day break and the clouds flying.
    Everything is going to be all right.

    Everything is Going to be All Right, Derek Mahon

    “There will by dying”, he acknowledges, “but there is no need to go into that.”

    Yes! That line averted my Anxiety Eyes, telling them, it’s OK, contemplate impermanence, but don’t hold on to it, you can let go.

    The poems flow from the hand unbidden
    and the hidden source is the watchful heart.

    I feel Derek letting me inside his heart as it relaxes, taking a little sip of joy as the lines flow from his pen, from his “watchful heart.”

    And in spite of everything–the election of a lifetime in less than 12 days, continuing racial injustice, the economic and environmental pillaging– the sun rises, and the beauty of the “far cities” will be there for us when we can travel again.

    delight is all around, help yourself

    Yes, this can sound trite, but it doesn’t to me.

    For me it means that despite all that is wrong, I can still take delight in a moment of well-being.

    Like the anonymous person in this well-known Zen story from the classic 1957 collection published by Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones:

    A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge.

    The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away at the vine.

    The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

    Tigers and a Strawberry

    Yes, there are tigers everywhere we look.

    But there are also moments so sweet they stop the mind from whining. And they are everywhere, if you just relax those Anxiety Eyes, as Derek shows us, letting us into a most intimate moment of the morning, in bed, lying

    in a riot of sunlight.

    … watching the day break and the clouds flying.

    How sweet those moments of well-being are!

    read another?

    [wp_show_posts id=”24118″]

  • a peaceful, uneasy feeling

    a peaceful, uneasy feeling


    I feel that I should be above it all, but mostly I’m not.

    I struggle with my emotions.

    Practicing mindfulness of emotions helps a lot, but sometimes I am just plain sad or overcome by all that is untenable in the world, borrowing a line from Brother Steindl-Rast.

    I feel that I should be above it all, but mostly I’m not.

    Reading lines from ancient Zen stories, ones that say meditation is about discovering “the happiness not based on conditions,” doesn’t help much. I just get more depressed!

    Some folks find happiness in the smallest acts: watching a sunset, or getting their errands done before it’s time to make dinner. Others I know struggle to find happiness in even the most ideal circumstances.

    thriving on unhappiness?

    Some folks even seem to thrive, in an odd sort of way, in their own unhappiness. I am sure you know people who find reasons to be miserable, dwelling on the past or creating problems when clearly there aren’t any.

    I am sure you know of at least one person in your life who struggles to put things behind them, or who seems to relish in playing the victim.

    Or for whom dissatisfaction seems to be second nature.

    emotions

    In these cases, as well as in my own, emotions emerge from sensory inputs that last but a fraction of a second. They seem to well up out of nowhere. But we grab on to them as defining a part of who we are in this world.

    And we propagate them, creating a story-line explaining or justifying our feelings to ourselves. I notice this in my own meditation practice. It’s at the crux as how I experience meditation as a life-saving activity.

    yeah, I’m depressed

    I struggle with depression at times. Not feeling a little blue every now and then. I mean full-on clinical depression. And that’s how I mean meditation saves my life.

    What exactly does meditation do for me that other interventions cannot?

    It enables me to experience a sometimes strange yet simultaneously very familiar happiness in the midst of feeling unhappy.

    a real happiness

    Not the happiness of the victim or the secondary gain of the neurotically unhappy. A real happiness, which, well, is not based on conditions at all, I’ll admit.

    Let’s call this a peaceful, uneasy feeling.

    Or perhaps, being happy with feeling unhappy.

    I know, I know; this doesn’t make sense. But little does when you get deep with this stuff.

    we can’t stitch moments together and call it happiness

    I’ve discovered the hard way that real, deep happiness is not a series of fleeting states we try to stitch together into a happy life.

    Hedonic adaptation dampens even the best of them.

    Meditation has shown me this happiness is with me when my boss publicly shames me at work, when my kid is sick, when the rent check bounces, and when my partner gets on my case for leaving the freezer door open for the fifth time this month.

    acceptance

    We talk a lot in these mindfulness circles about accepting your emotions rather than pushing them away. In this practice, you feel what you feel, and you let go of the urge to make everything okay. You’re not pretending that everything will be alright.

    Because, maybe, it won’t, and that’s the bottom line sometimes.

    This is at the heart and soul of our mindfulness practice: seeing what is, being with it, and not trying to change it into something else.

    right now, it’s like this

    The US-born Buddhist monk Ajahn Sumedho, who trained for decades in Thailand and is now 84 years old, has a very simple saying that sums up the whole point of meditation:

    Right now, it’s like this.

    Let’s say I am having a challenging night at work. Maybe I started my night shift a little sleep deprived and not really wanting to be there. Then a patient who always seems to know which of my buttons to push finds just that right button. I take a breath and remember “Right now, it’s like this.”

    I’m not saying it’s okay, or that I’m suddenly cool with what’s happening. No, it really sucks, and I feel I don’t have the energy to deal with him.

    The phrase re-directs me to feel what this feels like, and realize I can be with it without freaking out.

    I like what the phrase doesn’t say. Sure, dealing with this patient right now is a drag, but the phrase discourages me from creating another story-line, like–he needs to calm down, this always happens when I’m on, I should just quit this ridiculous job.

    No, the phrase simply points out it’s like this, end of story.

    impermanence

    The phrase works well also because it has the central Buddhist notion of impermanence built right in. Sure, this job is nuts (I work in a psych hospital), but it pays the bills; but more importantly it isn’t always this crazy of a place to work.

    I realize that most nights I actually enjoy this job!

    One of my favorite meditation teachers, Cheri Huber, reminds us that

    It’s not so much what happens as it is how we are with ourselves regardless of what happens –that makes the difference in our lives.

    How are we with ourselves throughout our day? It helps to check in and see.

    Emotions well up, yes; we can’t stop this from happening. But meditation reveals how we keep the emotion going through our thoughts. And meditation gives us that blessed pause between stimulus and response that Viktor Frankl famously described:

    Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

    This is the profound blessing of our simple mindfulness practice.

  • suffering is natural

    suffering is natural

    As a species we seem to have solidified a very real revulsion for the inevitable, as well as toward the smaller slights along the way. We hide death and suffering like some grand failing; we distract ourselves into oblivion as if to avoid taking our predicament seriously. 

    Another of my early teachers, Sharon Salzberg, tells the story about a friend of hers who had to explain to her four-year-old son that the woman who had been providing child care for him since he was born was going to move away. 

    Sharon’s friend took the matter step by step, assuring her son that his caregiver loved him, and that they could talk on the phone after she moved to live with her family. 

    The little boy listened carefully, then said to his mother, “Mommy, tell me that story again but with a different ending.”

    For sure, there are times we wish we could change the endings to our life stories. Serious illnesses, car accidents, betrayals, eviction notices, layoffs, blowing up at a loved one when we are tired and grumpy. 

    We can do more of the same, tense up, space out, or regress, or we can turn toward these universal life experiences as a source of spiritual power and vitality.

    The Buddha claims that really knowing dukkha thoroughly with the introspective tools of progressive meditative calm and insight, gives our life unshakable peace and fullness. 

    This can sound counter-intuitive, even masochistic. But trauma therapists know very well the only way past the hurt and pain of trauma is through it, but skillfully, with care. 

    Any attempts to make an end run around suffering just creates more suffering. There is actually a term for this — spiritual bypassing.

    In her talk, Sharon observes, tantalizingly, about the teachings around dukkha:

    “When we look deeper into this teaching, we begin to unfold its integrity. For in any experience, even a painful one, we can find the end of suffering right in the heart of the moment.”

    The shit hits the fan eventually for all of us. What do we do when “changing the end of the story” is not an option? This is where we can really see the “integrity” of this teaching unfold. 

    We prep ourselves through daily contemplations of the obvious—we see how everything is always changing, changing, and how holding on only brings short-lived results. 

    In our daily mindfulness practice we learn to embrace discomfort in little ways. We learn to be with pain, physical or emotional, but not be defined by it.

    The gradual alchemy of mindfulness turns the straw of raw emotions into the gold of liberating insight and freedom. Let’s let Sharon Salzberg describe this alchemy of the heart:

    We look at the suffering and discover the immense capacity of our hearts to include all aspects of life in our awareness. When we experience this immensity of heart, we recognize that it is not actually the pain itself, but the loneliness of feeling alone in the pain that is unnatural and cruel.

    Really seeing and feeling how discomfort and discontent sway our lives changes our lives. 

    We do this not to wallow in or exaggerate our suffering, but rather to be more open to the truth of how things are for us, and for all beings.

  • savor the resistance

    savor the resistance

    Do we feel we are missing out on some better, or more spiritual, experience by being stuck with a mountain of laundry, a sink overflowing with dishes, or a yard full of leaves to rake?

    Karen Maezen Miller, in a piece in Lion’s Roar, describes the domestic practices of ancient Zen masters as intimate daily life transformations. Following in their steps she reflects:

    In the fall, the broad canopy of giant sycamores in my backyard turns faintly yellow and the leaves sail down. A part of every autumn day finds me fuming at the sight of falling leaves. Then, I pick up a rake.

    Tell me, while I’m sweeping leaves till kingdom come, is it getting in the way of my life? Is it interfering with my life? Keeping me from my life? Only my imaginary life, that life of what-ifs and how-comes: the life I’m dreaming of.

    Do Dishes, Rake Leaves

    At the moment I’m raking leaves, she seems to be telling me, THAT is my life, and it is all of me.

    the fear of missing out

    Do we feel we are missing out on some better, or more spiritual, experience by being stuck with a mountain of laundry, a sink overflowing with dishes, or a yard full of leaves to rake?

    I like Josh Korda’s line, that our mindfulness practice is “not really about being above it all; it’s about being with it all.”

    Whether in sitting meditation or raking leaves or doing the laundry, the practice is to notice what is happening.

    and savor the resistance that comes up

    As you get better at this, you touch your experience without getting hooked by the story line.

    don’t feed it, and it will recede

    A wave of irritation, anger, boredom, or whatever it is, naturally recedes on its own if you don’t feed it by dwelling on it and spinning a compelling narrative around it.

    This is not just detachment; it’s learning to open to the sadness or grief that seeks our attention and triggers depression, blame or fear.

    I love how Pema Chodron describes this essential skill:

    We join our loss of heart with honesty and kindness. Instead of pulling back from the pain of irritation we move closer. We lean into the wave. We swim into the wave.

    swim into the wave

    Mindfulness is this simple: we pay attention to what’s happening in the moment, let go of any stories we may be telling ourselves about our experiences, and “swim into the wave.”

    As you get better at it, you realize that challenging mental states are just the resistance to what is. And they rise and recede within the silent space of your own awareness.

    Jack Kornfield tell us:

    Whenever I would go to my teacher Ajahn Chah to speak about some experience I felt to be important—a terrible fever, a luminous meditation—he would smile like a grandfather being shown sandcastles by his three-year-old and remind me, “If you hold on to any expectation, you miss the wisdom. It is impermanent. Be the One Who Knows, the witness to it all.

    Wise Heart

    be the One Who Knows

    When you sit down to meditate today, let all your thoughts and images dissolve back into silence and just be this “One Who Knows” – this silent witness.

    Feel any resistance which may come up — to aches, pains, or mental states such as boredom, restlessness, or doubt.

    Savor the resistance

    like a fine wine. And as it dissipates, feel the joy of the quieting mind.

  • no self help

    no self help

    Mindfulness meditation leaves the self-help mindset in the dust by challenging the existence of the very thing we are setting out to improve, the self.

    In an article on the self-help movement in New York Magazine back in 2013, Kathryn Shultz observed she knows people who “wouldn’t so much as walk through the self-help section of a bookstore without The Paris Review under one arm and a puzzled oh-I-thought-the-bathroom-was-over-here look on their face.”

    (Back when there were bookstores to hang out in).

    Some of you reading this may have found appropriate advice at times in self-help literature, while some others may cringe at the mention of the topic.

    Many self-help authors now embrace what our culture is calling “mindfulness” as part of the tools and skills they recommend their readers. And the research does show it helps overcome anxiety, stress, lower your blood pressure and re-wire your brain to be more caring and empathic.

    more help, less self

    In her critique of the self-help literature in the New York Magazine piece, Shultz quips:

    God knows we all need more help, but possibly we need less self.

    To which contemporary Buddhist authors might add — “touché.”

    freeing up a stuck system

    Mindfulness meditation leaves the self-help mindset in the dust by re-evaluating this thing we are setting out to improve, the self.

    Mindfulness “teachings” do this when they enlist the help of their Buddhist host philosophy. A few clean, surgical incisions from Bodhisattva Manjushri’s razor-sharp wisdom sword can free up a very stuck system.

    And after all, stuck-ness is the raison d’etre of self-help genre, right?

    Many of us find ourselves stuck in financial worry, feeling awful for being over-weight, under-loved in a relationship going nowhere, existentially depressed or lost in a millennial haze of desperate distractions.

    Maybe this is why we started meditating in the first place.

    Buddhist mindfulness practice leads to clear insights into how we make up in our own heads the very self we are trying make happy. When these insights take firm root in our day to day life, the need to fix or cater to this fickle self can seem pretty hilarious when we’re in the right space to take this in.

    the pure joy of the unconditioned

    Before reaching for the next self-help trending book in your news-feed, if your are feeling low in mood, confused, or anxious, pause.

    Contemplate these lines from William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Circus Animals’ Desertion,”

    I must lie down where all the ladders start
    In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

    Just lie down in the perceived stuck-ness of your heart.

    Give up hope and fear.

    Don’t rush to pull yourself out.

    If you can hang with this mindfully, patiently, softly … an extraordinary joy can sneak up on us.

    As the contemporary Buddhist writer Susan Piver writes, it’s …

    the most rare kind of comfort … the comfort of coming into contact with the unconditioned.

    Just life as it is, moment by moment, released from any compulsion to make it conform to some notion we have in our head.

    Ah, mindfulness!

     

     

  • everyday mysticism

    everyday mysticism

    There is a way to live your ordinary life in pristine peace and joy just as it is right now. This is the way of everyday mysticism, yet it’s not about any “ism” at all.

    This year, I don’t think I’ll make any resolutions. Well, except for maybe one. I resolve to live a little more happily.

    And that comes by clearly seeing how I make myself unhappy. How I keep carrying this heavy bag of “me” around. Even after I put it down temporarily in meditation, I manage to pick it right up again after a little while.

    self-improvement an oxymoron?

    Making a set of resolutions implies needing to improve myself, be better at something, or change my body somehow. But Pema Chodron asks us to consider whether self-improvement is an oxymoron- does what we already have really need improving?

    We might get into this hoping meditation will improve us, but it’s really about accepting ourselves as we are right now. Let’s avoid any fantasies of some ideal future self, which are subtle aggressions against who we really are.

    no regrets

    The blogger Krista O’Reilly-Davi-Digui, a working, single mom who writes about minimalism and the anti-consumption movement, recently wrote:

    What if I just accept this mediocre body of mine that is neither big nor small? Just in between. And I embrace that I have no desire to work for rock hard abs or 18% body fat. And I make peace with it and decide that when I lie on my deathbed I will never regret having just been me.

    seeing through the masks

    This year, I resolve to see how I am when I am being inauthentic. I resolve use mindfulness to see through the heavy masks I make to hide behind.

    I resolve not to keep trying to be someone I am not. Some fantasy I want to grow into, a Tom 2.0.

    Everyday mysticism and the art of Picasso: Woman in a Hat with Pompoms and a Printed Blouse.
    Woman in a Hat with Pompoms and a Printed Blouse- Pablo Picasso (1962)

    the way of everyday mysticism

    There is a way to live your ordinary life in pristine peace and joy just as it is right now. This is the way of everyday mysticism, yet it’s not about any “ism” at all.

    Mary Oliver’s poem “Yellow” reminds us:

    There is a heaven we enter
    through institutional grace
    and there are the yellow finches bathing and singing
    in the lowly puddle.

    Can you reflect on what it means to just be here, now, without pretense, free and open, relaxed and at peace – “bathing and singing in the lowly puddle” of our life as it is?

    sitting quietly and breathing

    There are moments in our breath meditation practice when we are just sitting and breathing. There is a feeling of being breathed, instead of breathing to get something.

    A maturing practice, a deepening practice, is a more chill practice. Just the innocence of a body sitting quietly and breathing.

    Meditation can turn into a kind of extreme sport, with elaborate training programs for those aspiring to the elite ranks.

    But what if we set aside those fantasies for a while and just chilled?

    small, simple and slow

    Krista O’Reilly-Davi-Digui continues:

    What if I embrace my limitations and stop railing against them? Make peace with who I am and what I need and honor your right to do the same. Accept that all I want is a small, slow, simple life.

    That’s’ all I want – a small, slow, simple life.

    unfolding into wholeness

    Carl Jung envisioned a major shift in understanding the spiritual path –rather than ascending a steep mountain path seeking perfection, instead we “unfold into wholeness.”

    The wholeness that is who we are right here and now.

    We are not so much attempting to vaporize our bad karma or destroy our demons, as it is really hard to do a decent job of this; our well-meaning attempts can easily leave us with more problems.

    the life we have been given

    Rather, perhaps we need to chill a little, and settle into the “small, slow simple life” we have already been given?

    And embrace it is in this moment — messy, incomplete, yet alive, fresh, and unfolding — without trying to improve or tweak anything.

    un-tweak-able

    Trying to tweak things just brings more frustration. And really, the present moment is un-tweak-able.

    This is a quiet and deep joy that, in a way, has always been there, covered over by strata of reactivity and compulsiveness which subtly rule our lives, in one form or another.

    a simple path

    The path is simple. Here are the instructions (from Thich Nhat Hahn) … ready?

    Smile, breathe, and go slowly.

    Can we practice like this?

    read another?

    [wp_show_posts id=”24118″]

  • emotions

    I would like to address a couple of misconceptions I often hear regarding meditation and one’s emotional life. The first is we meditate to either to get rid of negative emotions, such as anger, or to manufacture positive ones, such as joy. The second is meditation erases our emotions altogether, leaving us emotional flat-liners.

    nothing is supposed to happen

    Let’s start with the basics: the meditator’s job, as Gil Fronsdal says, is to free ourselves from the idea that something is supposed to happen. We simply use whatever is happening in the moment, just staying present in a very simple way for what is, as a way seeing your life in a deeper way than is usually possible in our busy lives.

    Meditation allows us to peek under the hood and more clearly see the forces that drive us, motivate us, and push us around. The forces we often automatically react to. By applying “wise attention” to our lives, we discover a space that allows us to make better choices, and lessen our pain.

    frozen emotions

    When strong emotional feelings become the “what is” that we pay attention to, we can see how we entangle ourselves in a mix of a judgment, aversion, clinging, and resistance. These reactions can freeze emotional experience, and we easily succumb to either repressing them or acting out on them.

    Mindfulness can create a safe inner space that allows “what is” to simply be. When we let the present moment be as it is, free of our usual over-involvement, we experience a radical unfreezing of our inner experience.

    With mature mindfulness, we discern subtle flow; we see deeply into the impermanence of all phenomena, releasing the grasping or resistance that causes so much pain and sorrow.

    the middle way

    Meditation opens us a marvelous “middle way” to our habitual freezing, repressing or acting out, our emotional experience. Meditation allows our rich inner life to simply be there as it is in the present, and to discover a kind of freedom that allows our emotional life to flow through you.

    This can be powerfully transformative. We discover a healing, safe and wonderful depth in our emotional life we never knew was there.

    naming our experience

    In our practice we use the breath to settle the mind. The instruction is to then pay attention to whatever is so compelling that is consistently draws your attention away from the breath.

    Let’s say anger arises and pulls you way. We are instructed mindfully label it, such as “anger…anger.” There is something magical about naming our experience this way that takes away its power to entangle us.

    Tara Brach says that when you mindfully label a powerful experience such as anger, you are doing so from a place where you are not caught by or lost in it. You label from a place that’s already free and spacious, and this spaciousness seeps in to the experience.

    Mindful noting also allows you to see the attraction of the story the emotion is telling, and to not get sucked in. We just come back to mindful labeling.

    natural joy is liberated

    Labeling gives us a chance to allow the emotion to do its thing, to not resist it, and not be in conflict with it. As we saw last week, Diana Winston calls this a practice of “non-contention.”

    Joy, rather than being somehow manufactured by the meditation process, is liberated from deep inside. It seeps into our being causelessly, unrelated to having things a certain way, when we allow this free flow of emotions, thoughts and feelings.

    When we are mindful of our emotions like this, we drop the clinging and aversion that keeps us bound up and joy naturally bubbles through.

    We discover an amazing treasure we never knew we had.

  • boredom

    boredom

    The creator of a popular Mindfulness app was on Jimmy Fallon Live last Friday night talking about how boredom happens because we have lost the skill of paying attention, and that we are all distraction junkies.

    Andy Puddicombe guides Jimmy and the Tonight Show audience through a brief meditation that can be done anywhere.”

    Holy Moly, I thought, the Mindfulness ship has landed.

    Yes, there was that Time Magazine Cover a couple of years ago; and yes, Anderson Cooper did that story and his colleague Dan Harris is a convert. And of course the Lakers and the Bulls were coached by a Mindfulness guru.

    But there was something about seeing the entire Tonight Show audience and band doing mindfulness meditation with their eyes closed with competent guidance that, well, took my breath away.

    Now everyone wants to get in on this thing

    Everyone and their aunty seem to want to get in on this now. Attendance at our weekly mindful get-togethers keeps going up. Yes, despite the initial enthusiasm, as a teacher getting people to stick with meditation is a major deal.

    One of the most common complaints is that it’s so darn boring. This stops a lot of folks from meditating, as they don’t see the point of doing something that seems to be doing nothing for you.

    Well, how long does it take to see results from the gym? Do you just give up if you don’t see any results after a couple of weeks?

    boredom is just part of what happens when you close your eyes

    Boredom happens. So do a lot of other mind states. Then they pass. They are mind states.

    I read a hilarious description of the particular species of boredom that preys on mindfulness meditators by Brent R. Oliver writing over on the ultra cool blog Morpheus:

    Amidst the insanity of your non-housebroken mind and the travails of domesticating it, there will be long, face-numbing stretches of pure tedium. It’ll make your ass go numb and your slack mouth drool…, you just sit there in the midst of a vast, arid stretch of featureless ennui, your mind is as listless and dull as Kristen Stewart’s acting.

    You start to wonder if you somehow died and didn’t notice. Or maybe the timer on your phone had a stroke and will never buzz to release you from this yawn-fest..”

    the old guitarist (boredom) Picasso-1903
    Picasso’s Old Guitarist (1903) expresses this pervasive boredom in our culture

    Often when folks get started with mindfulness practice, it’s can fell very new and intriguing, and a cool thing to do. Sometimes little insights bubble up, like “I can really see how I make problems out of nothing, or “I never realized how active my mind is.”

    As folks settle in to the routine of meditation, the experience may lose the coolness it had. It begins to seem like a chore.

    And then sometimes the complaints come that nothing is happening, this is not working, or one seems to be getting nowhere at all.

    And then: This is just so boring!

    nothing needs to happen

    Consider the possibility that nothing needs to happen.

    I am not saying here some voodoo Zen thing, like we have to make our minds into “nothing” or get ourselves into some mystical other-worldly state of “nothingness.”

    I just am saying, plainly, nothing (that is, no special mind states) needs to happen. It’s OK that nothing’s happening. Let’s see why that is.

    When nothing seems to be happening in our mediation practice, we can become a little antsy. I suggest this antsy-ness is really a tiny “jonesing” for a fix – of anything, even uncomfortable thoughts. We just don’t do well with bland-ness, repetition, or engaging in insanely simple tasks over extended lengths of time.

    Such as being with the breath sensations at the nostrils or abdomen.

    we are intensity junkies jonesing all the time

    Our culture induces a craving for intensity, a Jim Carrey-esque manic pursuit of peak experiences. Monster Energy drinks are everywhere, and prescriptions for powerful sleeping medications have risen many-fold in the last decade alone.

    We just simply get to a point in our meditation practice, organically, where awareness sees that nothing is intrinsically boring.

    Initially, relating to boredom in mediation is like seeing a blurry image, but as our senses rest a little, we start to discover intricate details.

    nothing is boring

    Our senses delight in details; they wake up a little. This is no easy path to be sure. But when you get through once, you realize you can do it again, and again, and again.

    Mindful curiosity and careful clear seeing can take you out of the trance of conditioning so you experience of your life, just as it is.

    And you begin to taste real freedom.

    It’s a lovely taste.

  • the lychees, or letting go of thinking

    the lychees, or letting go of thinking

    The work of meditation is finding a home in the present moment and letting go of anything that tries to pull you away.

    The lychees didn’t fruit much this year. In fact, barely at all. I thought maybe it was something I said? Some freaky karma thing?

    Two years ago, our family was excited to see the tiny new buds of incredibly young lychees like a slow-breaking wave of green on the venerable tree in our backyard.

    Of course, not all of the tiny, incredibly young buds would make it to full lychee-dom. But I hadn’t expected so many not to make it. I remember getting out the rake and gathering all the incredibly young casualties of nature.

    In time, we would see the first tinges of red in the young lychees, like an adolescent blushing at an awkward remark, spreading through the branches and scraggly canopies of leaves in the old tree.

    anticipation leads to expectation, which leads to grasping

    We would hear remarks from the folks who come to meditate on Thursdays at our home – “any day now” as they would glance at the tree in the last rays of the Manoa evening sky, some relishing the sight in their post-meditative glow.

    Then came the days when our family would pick so many lychees we could not possibly eat them all, even after giving some away, and having the Thursday meditation crowd savor them, post-meditatively.

    So we peeled and froze them for the smoothies and ice cream toppings of the future.

    lychees, or letting go of thought
    lychees, 18th century China

    All the while I kept raking up the ones that didn’t make it, landing on the ground under the ree after being half eaten by birds, or wrenched from their homes by the occasional gusts of Manoa Valley wind, breaking open when they reached the ground, their white flesh exposed like glistening bandages under their red, spiny skins.

    But that was then, and now, it’s hardly worth raking lychees, there are so few. There was a sorrow that would come over me as processed this letting go and all the memories and anticipations arund the lychees.

    impermanence again

    I think about impermanence, and all the different projects I have going on; many won’t last past the conceptual stages, more letting go.

    I ask myself what does it feel like, letting go of the lychees? And what does it feel like, letting go of everything that isn’t arising and passing in the present moment?

    Can I drop thinking about my life over and over, and all that’s left undone, like so many unborn lychees?

    can we le go of concepts?

    We tend to taking a simple moment of experience—a sensory experience, a thought, or a feeling—and spinning a web of concepts around it.

    It’s not that simple to observe a thought without getting involved in its orbit. We tend to follow, resist, or judge our thoughts.

    Before you know it, what began as the thought “Where are they lychees this year?” becomes a swirling mass of intertwining concepts and ideas along with eddies and tide pools of emotion and reactivity.

    Rather, we easily get sucked into a vortex of thinking about the practice, comparing and contrasting meditation practices, resisting doing it, and, of course, judging our practice against a perceived ideal.

    letting go of anything that tries to pull you away

    The work of meditation is finding a home in the present moment and letting go of anything that tries to pull you away- intentions, schemes, expectations, projects, and grasping.

    Lisa Dale Miller, Ph.D., in a recent talk, commented:

    When we practice letting go again and again, a spacious quality of mind that is naturally open and free emerges from the background of our consciousness into the foreground of our experience. If we can stay with the freshness of what is unfolding, aspects of our being conditioned by grasping and reactivity are gradually able to release.

    Can we stay in the freshness of now, even when we contemplate all that hasn’t even happened yet, like so many unborn lychees?

  • drink deep

    drink deep

    Meditation practice is about coming back to love and compassion, and celebrating the one who is doing it, AKA self-compassion.

    In one of Tara Brach’s online talks on self-compassion, she tells a story about the work of Dian Fossey with gorilla groups in Rwanda. Ms. Fossey was asked how her research group was able to obtain much more information on the social world of the gorillas than anyone had previously.

    “We didn’t bring guns” she replied.

    Love and compassion

    She was saying that the gorillas could sense fear, and could sense where the strange looking newcomers were coming from deep down.

    Meditation practice is a lot about coming back to love and compassion — and celebrating what we are doing, and the one who is doing it: self-compassion.

    self-judgment happens

    Of course, self-judgment happens. It’s just a matter of noticing when it first arrives, being with it a little, and then gently coming back to the breath, or sounds, or sensations.

    Self-compassion naturally arises, if only briefly.

    Writing in the online magazine Elephant Journal about the ups and downs of her mindfulness journey, Amanda Johnson reminds us:

    Love yourself for being bold enough to try. Being mindful isn’t always comfortable. Failure is not an indicator of a lack of ability—it is a reminder of where our current limitations are and an opportunity to grow.

    unhealthy relationship with imperfection

    I think a lot of the self-judgment that folks come up against when learning mindfulness is due to an unhealthy relationship with imperfection.

    One of the hardest things for me to get across as a teacher to folks just getting started, is that being mindful is not about being perfect.

    It’s not about tweaking yourself, or fixing anything. There’s no Mary or Robert 2.0 at the end of this path.

    mindfulness is simple

    Being mindful is simply hanging out in each moment as often as possible.

    It is also having self-compassion.

    Feeling a connection with those around me as much as I can while I am being mindful.

    The only mistake in any of this, is when you forget to be mindful. But then you remember – no problem.

    the only mistake is forgetting to be mindful

    Of course, mistakes happen in our lives. We forget to pay the rent or the water bill, but then we remember, and it’s done. No problem.

    The founder of Soto Zen, Dogen Zenji, purportedly stated

    My life has been one continuous mistake.

    self-compassion and true humility

    This is humility and self-compassion served piping hot in a sizzling bowl. This insight makes it easier to let go of shame, guilt, and self-judgment.

    This is an insight about not taking oneself seriously, or taking one self at all.

    Self-judgment is not a mistake, it just happens. Just notice with supreme gentleness and come back to the breath – and celebrate.

    One of my teachers, Sharon Salzberg, calls the point when you notice your mind has wandered, “the magic moment.” She says:

    It’s the moment when you have a chance to do it differently; the time when you can be gentle with yourself and simply start again.

    We learn over and over again that our lives are imperfect. The body ages. We say stupid things sometimes. Where are those keys, not again?

    Mindful of our mind states, we see pride and self-interest front and center.

    As the compulsive thinking layer of mind thins out, we begin to touch the refreshing inner springs of self-love and self-compassion.

    Drink deep.

  • mindfulness: unfolding into wholeness

    mindfulness: unfolding into wholeness

    I was recently reading a very inspiring book by Mary O’Malley, the title of which I love: What is in the Way is the Way. In the bio blurp on inside back cover Mary writes that she “barely survived childhood.”

    The compact bio continues: “Throughout her youth, she experienced an ever-deepening descent into darkness, culminating in hospitalization in 1968. After a number of suicide attempts, she had a life-changing realization in which she saw through the games of the struggling mind and experienced a full and complete connection with life which is the foundation of her work.”

    I saw elsewhere in the book that she was born in 1945, and has been in private practice as a social worker and counselor for over forty years.

    There is one line which truly spoke to me in her book:

    When we dissolve our cloud banks of struggle through mindfulness and heartfulness, we can see, hear, taste, touch and smell the exquisite sacredness of all of life.

    Most of us find ourselves living from a place of struggle more often than we may care to see. Our days can be visited by many little struggles, an occasional big one, and some that are just nonsensical. Mindfulness and this “heartfulness” Mary talks about can truly allow us to live from a place of openness and ease, even while experiencing deep challenges and struggles.

    Back in the late 1930’s Carl Jung described a paradigm shift in understanding the spiritual path — rather than climbing up a ladder seeking perfection, he explored an unfolding into wholeness. He clearly saw the inherent flaws of trying to transcend or vanquish the difficult aspects of our life, our struggles and challenges, which we often associate with something being wrong with us.

    Without an appreciation of our difficulties in a way which truly accepts and honors them as a part of us, fear, shame, jealousy, and anger, and other reactive patterns tend to become emboldened by our disdain for them.

    But, as Mary O’Malley wrote so eloquently, mindfulness and heartfullness can dissolves these cloud banks of struggle. But we need to develop the patience and the emotional maturity to allow our stuff to marinate in mindfulness, and tenderize with heartfullness. Otherwise they simply harden into anxiety, depression, or stuffing or numbing ourselves.

    Mindfulness helps us turn around and embrace life in all its messy brokenness.

    Pema Chodron points out what can really keep the struggles going is a feeling that we can fix the stuff that we struggle about, or somehow fully resolve everything, though pushing through for some sort of magic breath through in our spiritual practice.

    Consider this from Pema:

    “We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.”

    Pause here a moment. Let this sink in.

    Things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall part again.

    I talk to a few folks in our group who tell me they are having a very difficult 2016 so far. But after a little prodding, sometimes I get a “but …”

    As in: “Its been hell, but it’s weird, at times I feel more grounded and open than I have ever felt before.”

    A kind of trust emerges in the wholeness, or holiness, of the ways things are.

    There are two lines I am particularly fond of from the Persian poet Rumi:

    Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.

    What he seems to be saying is that right outside of this world of your mind that is always liking/ disliking (AKA struggling) a completely other deal is happening.

    Maybe at first it’s just a glimpse, or an intuition, of spaciousness, ease, joy.

    Mindfulness allows us to be open to these small moments of joy and peace, such that we don’t cut them short like we always do, as we scurry back into worry, regret or second-guessing ourselves.

    This “other place” is actually really a deep inner place which is always here for you. And it is absolutely trustable. It is not always likable, but it can be trusted, no matter what is happening.

    It is possible to know deeply what Pema Chodron means when she says “enlightenment is all about relaxing into our life just as it is right now” — imperfect as hell, messy at times, but it’s here and now that glimpses come.

    And as they come, we begin the process Jung wrote about above, that rather than trying to climb up a ladder seeking perfection and to fix or resolve things, we are unfolding into the wholeness moment by moment of the way things are.

  • the monkey pod tree in the beach park

    the monkey pod tree in the beach park

    Life just as it is, is eloquent. The world is its own magic. We need to need to stop seeking some additional meaning and just let things come forward and enlighten us to their magic in their own time.

    Have you ever had the experience of being irritated with someone or about something, like a parking ticket, while waking somewhere when suddenly you notice a gorgeous sunset is also happening?

    How long did it take you to let go of the “irritation voices” in your head to take in the sunset?

    Or maybe you simply ignored nature’s evening show and continued in miffed rumination?

    The ego wants to know how we can justify pausing to take in yet another boring sunset when we do not have enough time to do all we need to do, and plan for.

    But as we learn to just be in the silent simplicity of meditation, we slowly let go of the life-robbing habits of worrying, planning, and seething.

    As James Finley, a teacher of spiritual contemplation and student of the late Thomas Merton, writes:

    We must be patient with ourselves as we devote ourselves to this lifelong, transformative process of meditation. Taking the time to transcend the tyranny of time is time well spent. In God’s good time, an underlying meditative awareness grows within us to the point of becoming our habitual way of experiencing everything that we experience.

    “In God’s good time” = not according to the ego’s timetable. We are often so concerned, thinking Am I doing this mediation thing right? I should definitely be seeing some changes by now.

    Results of meditation simply happen when they happen, no sooner.

    Growing out of the shell of ego, leaving the nest ego has made for us, can be a little scary. It’s just part o the process, and you can’t accelerate this thing once it gets going, or you’ll risk what some folks call “spiritual bypassing.”

    The caterpillar spins its cocoon of contemplative practice and emerges as a free flying being “in God’s good time.” Trying to break a little piece off the cocoon sends the whole thing crashing on the rocks of disappointment, resentment, frustration.

    Mindfulness is allowing seeing just to see

    This is a poem from Swami Nirbhayananda, who lived in North India in the nineteenth century, which describes this process of what some psychologists call “transpersonal individuation”, or the gradual shedding of the tyranny of ego.

    In this extract the Swami is speaking to his own ego:

    Your thoughts are restless, mine are forever peaceful.
    You are attached to name and form.
    I go beyond them.
    O dear one, I listen to you, but am not quick to respond.
    O mind, we part company and are friends.
    I salute you a thousand times.
    You are all pain and tears.
    I am peace and perfection.

    Life just as it is, is eloquent. The world is its own magic. We need to need to stop seeking some additional meaning and just let things come forward and enlighten us to their magic in their own time, not ours.

    This liberates us from the tyranny of our mind, borrowing James Finley’s powerful word. We are then potentially liberated by every moment in our life, if we allow ourselves to enter into them in intimate way mindfulness allows.

    What’s the meaning of life? That sunset over there. Or that the monkey pod tree in the beach park.

    There is a quiet, dignified feeling to sunsets and trees. Also to animals, children, food, sitting in the dentist’s chair, disease, frustration, impatience and death.

    If I think “I see that monkey pod tree in the beach park over there” I am partly living in my own private conceptual universe, which is always a day late and a dollar short, as they say.

    Our practice is experience is simply letting seeing see or hearing hear. At that moment there is no time, no space, no self, no other. There just is what is, “full and complete, lacking nothing”, as the Zen masters of old used to say.

    Through our simple, quiet mindfulness practice, we shed our conditioned, conceptual approach to life.

    But that doesn’t mean we somehow destroy it, no, we simply grow out of the compulsion to only experience life in this protected, safe way.

    In the often quoted teaching to Bahiya, the Buddha just gave the briefest of meditation instructions, which hit the bull’s eye, and Bahiya awoke to his true nature.

    In John Ireland’s translation:

    “Then, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized.”

    In savoring a sunset or seeing a monkey pod tree in a beach park we let go of the experience of “I see” and doing something called seeing. There is just the seen.

    No mental overlays.

    Then our so-called mundane experiences, of stubbing our toe or our ego, become magical, revealing to us our natural essence, which many have said is love. In this inner shift of “In the seen will be merely what is seen” mindfulness lets us in on the magic.

    Of just this incredible tree. Or just this breath. Or a baby’s first tooth.

  • wholeness and redemptive suffering

    Redemptive suffering suggests that even in pain, there’s potential for positive change. We’ll look at practical ways to apply it in the context of contemporary mindfulness.

    Redemptive suffering is the idea that suffering can lead to growth. It can bring about a positive transformation. Theology sees suffering as a path to atonement. Philosophy views it as an opportunity for self-discovery. Psychology suggests it can build resilience.

    For Buddhism, this is the foundational insight.

    Suffering takes many forms. Physical pain is one type. Emotional distress, like grief or anxiety, is another. Mental anguish, such as depression, also counts. Spiritual struggles, questioning faith, are included too.

    Everyone faces suffering. It is an unavoidable part of life.

    The Redemptive Element

    How can suffering be “redemptive“? It can atone for past wrongs. It can help with personal and spiritual growth. Pain can breed empathy.

    By understanding our own pain, we grasp the pain of others.

    It’s vital to avoid romanticizing suffering. Pain isn’t inherently good. Don’t seek it out. Redemptive suffering is about what you do with the pain that you can’t avoid. Finding meaning in hard times is the key.

    The Benefits of Embracing Redemptive Suffering

    Facing suffering with intention can bring unexpected benefits. It can improve your mental state. It can improve your spiritual life.

    Increased Empathy and Compassion

    Suffering expands your understanding. It makes you more aware of the pain others feel. A person who has battled depression understands another’s struggle. This understanding can lead to acts of kindness. It can inspire service to others.

    Spiritual Growth and Transformation

    Suffering can shake your beliefs. This leads to reflection. It leads to a stronger sense of faith. Some call it a “spiritual awakening.” Difficult times prompt deep questions. They lead to profound changes.

    Developing Resilience and Strength

    Overcoming challenges builds resilience. It strengthens your mind. Redemptive suffering gives you coping skills. It improves your problem-solving abilities. Each challenge overcome makes you stronger for the next.

    Redemptive Suffering in Buddhism

    Buddhism sees suffering as part of life. It emphasizes detachment. Liberation comes from mindfulness. Meditation can reduce pain and suffering.

    redemptive suffering in Buddhism
    redemptive suffering in Buddhism

    Other Religions/Philosophies

    Judaism uses remembrance to give tragedy purpose. Islam views trials as tests of faith. Hinduism embraces suffering as karma to be worked through. Stoicism teaches acceptance of what can’t be controlled.

    Practical Steps to Finding Redemption in Suffering

    You can take action to find meaning when life gets tough. Here’s how to cope and grow.

    Acknowledge and Accept Your Pain

    Don’t ignore your suffering. Acknowledge it. Acceptance is the first step toward healing. It opens the door for growth.

    Seek Support and Connection

    Talk to others. Reach out to friends. Join a support group. Community helps you navigate tough times. Shared experiences make the burden lighter.

    Historical Examples of Resilience

    Nelson Mandela spent years in prison. His suffering fueled his fight for justice. The Civil Rights Movement arose from generations of oppression. Suffering can be the catalyst for social change.

    Redemptive suffering is about finding meaning in pain. It’s a catalyst for growth. It brings transformation. Embrace suffering as a chance to live a more meaningful life. There is always hope, even in the darkest times.

    As we surrender more deeply, we acknowledge our multi-layered resistances and face our egoic conditioning head on. Humility allows us to recognize and allow fuller access to these layers.

    Every one would agree suffering is a natural part of who we are: we are born, grow old and sick, we die. Along the way there are countless separations and insults. This aspect of suffering is undeniable.

    The Buddha also described a second, more subtle form of suffering.

    He taught this level of suffering was entirely of our own doing: the psychic displeasure caused by clinging, by our attachments, our reluctance to surrender our views, opinions and desires.

    In the Christian view, it seems Jesus took suffering and transformed it into love. He did not flinch. Through his courage we have come to know something very precious and transformative: suffering as redemptive.

    When we approach suffering as ultimately redemptive, I feel we can appreciate the work of humility. No matter how advanced you think you are in your meditation practice, if you lose sight of humility, your practice is hurtful.

    There is a tendency to think we can somehow get it all together with good meditation. That we can move past suffering for good.

    We can experience life with more spaciousness, with less reactivity, and more warmth, but I don’t see us getting out of suffering, no matter what we read. I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to take on the programming regarding the end of suffering that is so prevalent in the spiritual advertising handed down to us for hundreds of years.

    Rather, it might be more psychologically and spiritually grounding to acknowledge the saying attributed to one of the most celebrated spiritual figures of early Christianity, St. Anthony. He is said to have remarked “expect pain and temptation to the last day of your life.”

    This just feels truer. No matter how advanced you think you are, or will ever be, expect pain and temptation.

    I am speaking here from some forty years of Buddhist influenced meditation. I was taught over and over that there is an end to suffering. This sets up the expectation that this will come about with deeper and more correct practice.

    Rather, let’s acknowledge that this whole thing is fragile and frail all the way through, from bow to stern. It’s so easy to buy into some fairy tale like expectation of getting it all together.

    What if instead of getting it together, we allowed life to be fully tragic?

    Isn’t this humility?

    Cynthia Bourgeault, in a commentary on The Cloud of Unknowing, which I was listening to the other day on CDs received recently as a gift from a dear friend, quoted Helen Luke when she got to the Cloud’s teaching on meekness. I don’t have the exact words, but Helen writes something to the effect that wholeness is born out of the willingness to bear the struggle between the divine and the human.

    Wholeness, or the transformation we all seek (w-holiness?) doesn’t come from the divine somehow canceling out the human. We stop thinking along these collusive lines. Wholeness is simply the willingness to bear the struggle; to allow whatever is there to simply be there. And to let ourselves be moved.

    Self-emptying love

    I think this may be what Christianity calls self-emptying. It takes on a very rich context in Jesus’ self-emptying love.

    The heightened and extended practice of Buddhist nonattachment empties the self into nothingness; it is in this nothingness that we find peace. It is in this nothingness that Christian mystics find God.