"Einstein said that we cannot solve the problems of he world from the level of thinking that we were at when we created them. I think a lot of people embrace this concept, while underestimating what it really means. A different level of thinking means a different level of thinking. It does not even mean just a different kind of thinking. It does not mean a different emphasis in our thinking. It does not mean a more loving kind of thinking. It means what he said, a different level of thinking, and to me, that is what meditation brings. Meditation can change the world because meditation changes us. That is the point. The world will not change until we change. The state of the world is a reflection of who we are. The state of the world is the effect; the state of consciousness of human beings is the cause. Mahatma Gandhi said the problem with the world is that humanity is not in its right mind and that is what meditation addresses. It returns us to our right mind, and until there is this evolution in consciousness, we will stay locked in a fear based perspective in which we continue to see ourselves as separate from each other, and in which we continue to think we can do something to someone else and not reap the result ourselves." Marianne Williamson
Ed Shapiro, Deb Shapiro eds. "Be the Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World" Sterling Ethos, 2011.
One of the simplest (MBSR) tools we offered people who wanted to live more mindfully was the word STOP itself. Practicing with STOP allows us to have a tiny little mini-retreat right here, right now. Many people use stopping practice to help reduce stress and tension. The relief of stress can be a wonderful side effect of learning to recognize our awakened nature. For me, the power of stopping practice lies in its simplicity and adaptability to every situation. The first part of stopping practice is “S”: learning to actually stop. Whatever you are doing, thinking, or saying, alone or with others, you can always pause. You can stop for a moment, or for a longer period of time. Stopping is powerful, especially if you are busy and hassled. You can practice pausing throughout the day, turning it into a new habit. Maybe you can set a bell to ring on your computer, or put a little sticker on your phone that says, “STOP!” If you’re with other people, you can say, “Can we just take a little pause before we continue?” Or, “I just need a moment.” The next part, the “T,” stands for “take a breath,“ “take a moment,” or “tune in.” We breathe, pause, and remember we have a body, not just a busy mind. We directly and intimately encounter whatever is here, without judging it or needing it to be different. When the Buddha sat down and vowed to be still and quiet, his awakening revealed some universal truths to him. He realized that the main obstacle to seeing clearly is our wish for things to be different, our desire to fight reality. If things are good, we want the good times to go on forever. If things are bad, we want them to change into something good. When we stop and tune in, we can clearly recognize our longing for things to change or to stay the same. We realize that when we try to fight reality, we always lose. Once we have stopped and tuned in, we are ready for “O.” We can “open” to everything: first to our own sense perceptions, thoughts, and emotions, and then to the whole wide environment in which we find ourselves. This is the moment when we see the morning star, when we discover the iguana in the tree. In this opening, clarity arises in our thoughts as well. We may turn the “O” into “Oh! How wonderful!” Or, it can be “Oh! How awful!” The important part of opening is not whether we like or dislike what is happening, but that we are seeing what is happening clearly. Finally, there is “P.” After the opening, after the clarity and spaciousness of our widened view, we know what to do. We “proceed” if that’s what seems to be the wisest course. We take action. Meditation practice is not only about sitting around and being quiet and still. It is about seeing clearly how to be effective participants in the world. Instead of adding to the suffering and pain we find everywhere, we can contribute to healing and reconciliation. Of course, because being a human being involves taking chances, when we make a decision to do or say something, we may discover that we are wrong. Our clarity and wisdom may be missing a few important pieces of information, and we may receive feedback directly or indirectly that we have made things worse. At that point, we can start all over. The “P” could also stand for “pull over and park.” Maybe it’s time to turn off the computer, take a nap, have a snack, or call a dear friend. Throughout the day, we can practice STOP in an endless cycle of pausing, acting, and learning. Even if we are at an actual silent retreat, the habit of stopping is still necessary, because the mind doesn’t come to a rest simply because the body does.
It's fascinating to think of a newborn baby having an oceanic relationship with the external world - no sense of separation. Gradually, she gains a sense of being a separate individual, though still very much identified with her caretakers. Later she comes to identify with & tries hard to "fit in" with her peers. As a young adult, she will differentiate somewhat from her cluster of friends. But in all probability, she will remain more-or-less unconsciously identified with her tribe (sex/gender, religion, nationality, race, ethnicity, etc). She may even intentionally join some cult, which demands conformity to their group-think. See: http://www.johnlovas.com/2016/11/memberships-benefits-and-drawbacks.html Very, very few of us evolve past tribal consciousness. This requires a surprising amount of courage, as well as patient, intentional, disciplined practice of letting go of absolutely everything we assume our "self" to be - that's letting go of a lot. But ...
If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. And if you let go completely, you will have complete peace. Ajahn Chah
Perhaps the most common misunderstanding about mindfulness is that it doesn't work in the "real world" (of competing, adversarial egos). Our ego insists, not surprisingly, that the only way to "win" is by being self-centered (noisy ego, egocentric), on autopilot (fear-based reactivity, brain stem), and ignoring our mind-heart (prefrontal cortex). But as we gradually mature with age, or are forced to rapidly mature (see Post-traumatic Growth:http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/search?q=post-traumatic+growth) we directly experience the truth that the only real success is authenticity. And authenticity is what's left after all our conditioned defensive & offensive reactivity drops off. Let's see how Lionel made out with authenticity in the "real world":
Lionel Sanders of Windsor, Ontario, overcomes addiction & sets a new world record in perhaps the most challenging of human sporting events - the
Ironman Competition, completing the grueling triathlon in 7 hours, 44
minutes, 32 seconds. Carol Off: It's just an absolutely remarkable story in
every way — including how you got into it. Can you give your secret?
What do you have to do? What do you have to have in your psyche and in
your body in order to do this? Lionel Sanders: Sure. I think the biggest thing has been that I
really try and cultivate lovefor what I am doing and a passion for what
I'm doing. And the day-to-day training, I don't dread it. I love every
minute of it. And it wasn't always that way, you know. But I always try
and put into perspective of just how much of a privilege this is — just
to have the use of your body. So I always cultivate that. And that brings a certain level of awareness and presence to my day-to-day training, which allows me to push my limits. And
then as well, I would say the other thing is after every race, I try and
look at it objectively — the bad ones in particular — and I try figure
out a way to correct all the things I did wrong. And I do that after
every single race, and I'll do that after this race as well. And there
was still lots of things that I could improve upon for the next time
around.
“The right attitudes (towards Insight Meditation) practice are: • to be open, receptive, allowing, acknowledging; • being willing to fully experience the moment with patience, without expectations or demands; • being responsive, caring, interested.
These skillful attitudes towards practice are all the qualities of loving-kindness. Remind yourself to recognize the present moment with these attitudes of mind.”
Steve Armstrong, Lesson 5 Practice, Introduction to the Manual of Insight - online course, Kamala Masters & Steve Armstrong, Sept 24 – Nov 12, 2016http://learn.wisdompubs.org/academy/
Don't we want to be talked about with admiration: "Oh, she's SO busy!" How many of us are workaholics, with tremendous drive & stamina, mostly wasted on busy-ness, spinning our wheels, trying to prove to ourselves & others how hard we work, how important & indispensable we are? “Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress."Alfred A. Montapert
Then there's "non-doing" - the sense of rightness & effortlessness, arising from authenticity & congruence. It happens when behavior is skillful, decreasing suffering & increasing happiness long-term for oneself & others. There's no inner conflict, friction or noise, only silence, stillness, peace. The ego is quiet, allo- & ecocentric (rather than egocentric). Centeredness.
Our minds operate, and thus we live, predominantly, in one of two very distinct modes. Conditioned mode: Based on the capacities we inherit (DNA) and the influences of our environment, we learn a set of reaction patterns that favor our (DNA's / progeny's) survival. This is basic conditioning shared by all animals - like training rats in a cage. This set of reaction patterns is who we assume we are most of the time - our identity! It feels easy, automatic / autopilot, "natural", "don't rock the boat", trance-like. It's one more-or-less continuous, uninterrupted "story of me". We (and others) do gradually start seeing how predictable we are. So this approach to life does increasingly become repetitious, boring, almost claustrophobic. Awake awareness mode: Sporadically, spontaneously, we sometimes feel very bright, alert, we sense everything much more clearly, are speechless (wordless), feel a sense of awe, gratitude, and feel amazingly alive. This silent, brightly alert, deeply peaceful sense can also be felt witnessing nature, a loved one (human or pet), hearing or reading poetry, wisdom literature, music, etc. This quality of awareness / life can be intentionally cultivated through, and experienced during meditation. What is awake awareness? Who are we?
During the day, we can learn to regularly notice which mode we're in. We learn to increasingly choose awake awareness - to see with fresh eyes, think fresh creative thoughts, behave in fresh healthier ways. http://www.johnlovas.com/2016/07/fresh-opportunities-many-times-per.html Returning to the land of the walking dead (conditioned mode) is less and less palatable.
1. Each time you focus on or return to the anchor, you are building your concentration 2. Each time you focus on the anchor, you detach from your thought stream. This is a practice of letting go in the moment, which translates to letting go in the rest of the world. 3. Each time you notice that the mind is wandering, that is the moment of mindfulness — not a moment of failure. 4. Each time you are kind to yourself when your mind wanders, instead of criticizing yourself, you are exercising and strengthening your self-compassion for challenging moments in the rest of your daily life. 5. Each time you notice where the mind is wandering, that is an opportunity for insight into your mind’s habits and patterns — what we might call wisdom or self-understanding.
Christopher Willard. "Growing Up Mindful: Essential Practices to Help Children, Teens, and Families Find Balance, Calm, and Resilience." Sounds True, 2016.
At university, while studying for exams, I sometimes felt an incredible urgency to rearrange the furniture in my residence room. Obviously it was an attempt to escape pre-exam anxiety. The urgency was proportional to my anxiety, so the more inappropriate the time reallocation, the more likely I was to carry out the furniture rearrangement!
Our attempts to avoid truly meaningful priorities in life is mirrored by the degree of our distractedness during formal meditation practice. Can we notice this with equanimity? As we do become aware of this pattern, we're gaining insight into our conditioned mind-body doing it’s conditioned thing. Of course we still can train the our monkey mind to cause ourselves & others a LOT less suffering than it does now - to serve us instead of work against us: http://jglovas.wix.com/awarenessnow#!Worthy-of-Our-Precious-Time-Energy/c17jj/57797ba20cf231c9c3fabfc4
1. Mindfulness is not intended to be a blissful experience. Like exercise, it can be uncomfortable. In fact, mindfulness is about learning to recognise, allow and be with all of our experiences, whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, so that we can begin to exercise choices and responsiveness in our lives.
2. Mindfulness practice is not a panacea. It’s not the only way to reduce stress or increase wellbeing, nor is it right for everyone. People should select an approach that matches their interests and needs, whether it be mindfulness, physical exercise, cognitive-behavioural therapy or some other approach.
3. Mindfulness practice is intended to be invitational and empirical. Participants are invited to experiment with the practices in an open-minded and curious way and to be guided by the evidence of their own experience, continuing with practices that seem helpful and letting go of those that don’t.
“The separate self that we have invested our whole identity in is being exposed in this investigation as being completely nonexistent. It’s not there. The self, the separate self around whom we have our lives, our thoughts, and feelings and activities and relationships have revolved for so many decades – when we look for it – it’s not there. Now it takes courage and love and clarity to begin to look. And many of us, not all of us, but many of us have to suffer intensely before life pushes us to ask these fundamental questions. Others come to it through other ways. But for many of us it’s repeated failure and suffering that makes us say ‘Hang on. Just stop. How much longer am I going to go on thinking and feeling this way. Why don’t I look at the fundamental presumption.’ And that starts with ‘What am I?’ ‘Am I this image, this cluster of sensations?’ And as soon as we start looking – we don’t have to look very deeply – it’s obvious that we’re not what we thought we were." above transcribed from the Youtube video: "Rupert Spira - 'The Seamless Intimacy Of Experience' - Interview by Renate McNay" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAEwC4VjvyE
“The only thing suffering cannot stand is being seen clearly. The reason for that is, that at the root of suffering is an illusion. You can’t do anything to an illusion, because there’s nothing there. You can’t do anything to the water in a mirage. You can’t go and collect it, you can’t purify it, you can’t drink it. You can’t do anything to it becauseit’s not there. The very best you can do is go up to it and see that it’s not there. That seeing relieves the desire to manage it or collect it. It’s like that with suffering. At the heart of suffering there is an illusion – a nonexistent self. You can’t do anything to a nonexistent self. There is nothing there to do anything to. Seeing, which means experiential understanding, clear seeing is the best you can do. And as a byproduct of that clear seeing, this suffering vanishes, dissolves in time. Because in order to remain present, suffering needs the illusion of a separate self. It revolves around the illusion of a separate self. If that is truly seen to be nonexistent, the suffering simply cannot stand. There may be old habits in the body-mind that run for some time. But because they are no longer supported by the belief and feeling of a separate self, these old habits gradually dissipate. So suffering vanishes as a byproduct of this exploration, not as its goal. Suffering vanishes in the same way a headache vanishes. You wake up in the morning with a headache, you get to the evening and you realize ‘Oh, my headache’s gone. I don’t know when it went. I don’t know where I was when it went. I don’t know how when it went.’ You just notice it’s not there any more. That’s how suffering disappears. It’s a byproduct, not a goal. Its disappearance is a byproduct, not a goal. If you make it your goal, you perpetuate suffering. In fact this is one of the ways the separate self perpetuates itself, sometimes for decades, by trying to get rid of itself. Suffering is to the mind what pain is to the body. You put your hand in the fire, you experience pain. The pain is not a mistake. It’s not something that’s wrong. The pain is there – it’s the intelligence of the body telling you ‘Take your hand out of the fire.’ So pain is working on behalf of your wellbeing. Suffering is exactly the same at the level of the mind. It is cooperating with your desire for happiness. It’s telling you ‘You’ve got your hand in the fire.’ In this case, it’s telling you ‘You’ve mistaken yourself for a separate, limited awareness. Take a look. Take a look.’ So suffering is to the mind what pain is to the body. It’s just a wake-up call. It’s saying ‘You’ve mistaken yourself for an object, for a limited self. Have another look.’ You’re taking a look in order to look at the separate self that you have mistaken yourself for. In that moment you are thinking and feeling on behalf of a separate self. So you are now looking at the separate self on whose behalf you are thinking, feeling and acting. It’s like you spend your life preparing jars to collect the water in a mirage. Your suffering tells you ‘Go and have a look in the mirage. Go and have a look at this water you are spending your entire life organizing and planning around.’ What’s going to happen when you go up to the mirage and see the water isn’t there? What’s going to happen to your water jar business? You’re just going to lose interest in it. You’re just going to stop manufacturing. There’s no water to collect. You just forget it and move on. Suffering is saying ‘Go up to the mirage. See that there is no water there. Go into your experience. See that there is no separate self there.’ That seeing will take care of everything else. And then if you want, you can engage in these loving contemplations, which is a kind of cooperation with the dismantling of the water jar business. It’s post-going-up-to-the-mirage. It’s post-enlightenment sadhana. Enlightenment is seeing what we are. The dismantling of the water jar business is a post-enlightenment sadhana. It’s what we do after the recognition of our true nature and it’s just a gentle, loving cooperation at the level of the body, with what we have already understood. We’re just helping the body feel itself in a way that is consistent with our new understanding. … Don’t worry if this extraordinary event called enlightenment doesn’t seem to have taken place. Remember that enlightenment is not 'an event'. It doesn’t 'take place'. The mind is not party to it. It’s not present when this non-event occurs. It knows nothing of it. So don’t worry about that. Just keep exploring what you truly are. Am I a separate limited awareness? Or is the awareness I know myself to be, totally open, unlimited and ever-present? Because the belief and the feeling that what I am comes and goes, and is limited, and therefore lacking - that single belief and feeling, is at the heart of all your suffering. That’s the only thing in suffering that needs to be explored, not the whole paraphernalia of whatever it is that seems to be causing the suffering. Because if you explore each of the causes in turn, it’s just endless – money, work, relationships … it goes on forever. All these different colors, different facets of suffering, ... It all hinges on one thing: the belief that what I am, the ‘I’ that is knowing my thoughts, and hearing these words right now, the awareness I know myself to be shares the limits and the destiny of the body-mind. That’s it. With that belief, we seem to shrink into a separate self and all our suffering is dependent on that belief and feeling alone. So once that’s clear, you become naturally one-pointed. You see that all your suffering is just based on one thing. So all your disparate energies are now gathered together in that one direction. What am I truly? You even forget about suffering, because you’re dealing with what’s at the heart of it. You forget about the paraphernalia of suffering. Who is this one, this self that is suffering? Who is this one on whose behalf I spend my life thinking and feeling, acting and relating, I spend my life serving? This self – who is it? I’ve never seen it. Where are you? Come out. I want to make your acquaintance. Show me what you’re made of. The analogy is of a servant who’s been living in this big old house, serving an old man all his life. And the old man is extremely demanding and unreasonable. The servant is up at five o’clock every morning, cleaning his shoes, making his fire, doing his breakfast etc and he spends his whole life, morning till night serving this old man. He never actually sees the old man. The old man is a bit of a recluse and lives in his bedroom. The servant just has a routine. He just goes through his routine. He begins to get curious. He goes to the pub every now and then on a rare day off and his friends tell him ‘You know you should go and talk to the old man. You should go and see him if he’s so unreasonable.’ So eventually he plucks up his courage and knocks on the bedroom door to discuss his work with the old man. He doesn’t answer. The next day he plucks up courage again, he doesn’t answer, so he takes a peek through the door – can’t see him. The next day he has a bit more courage and opens the door a bit more, puts his head inside the door - he’s not there. So then he get’s a bit bolder and goes in, looks around – it’s funny, he’s not there. He looks in the bathroom – not there. He explores the whole room. And he realizes that this man I’ve been serving all my life, this tyrannical man on whose behalf I’ve been laboring, he’s not there! He was never there! The separate self is like that. We spend our lives thinking, feeling, acting and relating on behalf of a self that is not there. So that’s what we do here. We explore all the bedrooms, then the bathroom, then the cupboards, then the drawers. We look everywhere. The more we look, the greater our confidence grows in knowing that he’s not there. Now it doesn’t necessarily happen at one moment – ‘OK now I’ve discovered that it’s not there’. There’s just a growing confidence day-by-day. It may come in one moment, but it usually doesn’t. It’s just this confidence, this conviction grows in you. He’s not there. And in proportion to that conviction, your thoughts, feelings, activities and relationships begin to change accordingly in direct proportion to your conviction that the old man is not there. You may never be able to say ‘At that moment I discovered he wasn’t there.’ It’s not necessary. Most people can’t say that.” Rupert Spira
"Basically, when we are talking about mindfulness, we are talking about awareness - pure awareness. It is an innate human capacity that is different from thinking but wholly complementary to it. It is also "bigger" than thinking, because any thought, no matter how momentous or profound, illuminating or destructive, can be held in awareness, and thus looked at, known, and understood in a multiplicity of ways which may provide new degrees of insight and fresh perspectives for dealing with old problems and emergent challenges, whether individual, societal, or global. Awareness in its purest form, or mindfulness, thus has the potential to add value and new degrees of freedom to living life fully and wisely and, thus, to making wiser and healthier, more compassionate and altruistic choices - in the only moment that any of us ever has for tapping our deep interior resources for imagination and creativity, for learning, growing, and healing, and in the end, for transformation, going beyond the limitations of our presently understood models of who we are as human beings and individual citizens, as communities and societies, as nations, and as a species." Jon Kabat-Zinn PhD, Mindful Nation UK
Many of us have a strong, recurrent tendency to waste a lot of time, energy & heartache on external events that have already passed, or are unlikely to happen in the future. In no way is this useful or practical such as seriously deciding to change our behavior, or drawing up a real action plan. By obsessing over the contents of consciousness like this, we inflict tremendous unnecessary suffering on ourselves.
“We are all prisoners of our minds. This realization is the first step on the journey to freedom.” Ram Das “When water is still it is like a mirror …. And if water thus derives lucidity from stillness, How much more the faculties of mind? The mind of the sage being in repose Becomes the mirror of the universe.” Chuang Tzu
We're free to effortlessly shift from attending to the contents of (our noisy egoic) consciousnessto directly experience the depth of stillness & silence within - the vast field of consciousness itself. Contents can be compared to clouds, while (transpersonal post-symbolic) consciousness is the sky in which clouds occasionally float by. See: http://jglovas.wix.com/awarenessnow#!Two-Levels-of-Consciousness/c17jj/56f14e0c0cf266a292561f27
Automatically, reflexively, by default, we "look out for #1" - "me, myself & I" - we're self-centered. We're primarily concerned with our own safety, nutrition, shelter, health, wealth, power, prestige, fame, etc, etc, all of which, we assume (hope), means our personal happiness will be more or less assured. And there's nothing wrong about wanting to be happy - it's perfectly normal & reasonable. Many of us behave as if our happiness will increasein proportion toour health, wealth, power, fame, and the opulence of our clothes, homes, cars, vacations etc. But research shows that above a certain surprisingly modest family income, which permits having reasonable basic necessities, there's NO gain in happiness or quality of life with increasing wealth. I see parallels with ethanol consumption - a drink or two may feel good; being drunk does not; while alcoholism is heading for "rock bottom". Doesn't the phrase "Looking for love in all the wrong places" somehow resonate? If we're at all self-reflective, we'll notice a hunger or yearning that we can't seem to satisfy for any length of time, no matter what. Smart, young, energetic university students often seem certain that they control their own futures. Ahhh, the sweetillusion of control!However, as the decades flow by, we repeatedly see just how little control we have over our own & our loved ones' lives. The healthiest, most intelligent approach to transcending this hunger or yearning is found by discovering our true identity - who we really are. Wisdom traditions have known this for thousands of years: http://jglovas.wix.com/awarenessnow#!The-Real-Voyage-of-Discovery-New-Eyes/c17jj/56afc4e40cf2062bd412b06e
How can we let go of clinging to life, near the end of life?
“Be happy in every moment. … You don’t need to change anything. Let everything happen just as it comes. Just flow with it. It’s the process; everything dissolves into you, so change with whatever happens.”
“What practice makes it easier to let go of this life?”
“The best practice, is calm abiding. Remain with the breath. Develop calmness inside. Join awareness and the breath. Trusting these. Trusting the knowing. Trusting the calmness. Not pushing yourself to make any changes. And not paying attention to what others say about it.” Khandro Rimpoche in: Olivia
Ames Hoblitzelle. “Ten Thousand Joys & Ten Thousand Sorrows. A
Couple’s Journey through Alzheimer’s.” Penguin, NY, 2008.
“If you accept life and death without any conditions, your life will become supple instead of rigid. You will not create strife." Katagiri D. “You have to say something. Manifesting Zen insight.” Shambhala, Boston, 1998.
