#748 Just How Conscious are We?

     Much of the time, we're in one of two "doing" modes: either "mindless" or more or less "focused." And when we actually experience "non-doing", we may find it baffling & confusing.

      Very common examples of mindless doing (acting on autopilot, with a wandering mind) include arriving somewhere & realizing we have no recollection of the details of actually driving (or walking) there. Conscious awareness was far from the here & now, busy with daydreaming, planning, worrying, regretting etc. 
     A relatively new & increasingly common practice is exercising while simultaneously listening to podcasts. 
     Whether our untrained mind simply gets lost, or we intentionally choose "a divided life" instead of engaging with the present moment, we're undermining both quality of life & effectiveness. A wandering mind = a divided mind = unhappiness & inefficiency. See: Killingsworth MA, Gilbert DT. “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Science 2010; 330(6006): 932.

     Many times we're more or less "focused" while doing, but we're paying way too much fear-based attention on the doer. The "noisy ego" is kicking up all sorts of friction & noise. Have you ever seen a little kid at his first track & field event, pouring all his energy into showing his parents how hard he's trying to run - grimacing, exaggerated body movements, groaning, gasping - so that minimal actual energy remains for actual running - a great example of ego noise. The extreme opposite is a world-class 100-yard-dash runner whose face & upper body appear silent & still yet she hurtles forward at record-breaking speed. No energy is wasted on (fearfully protecting) "I, me & mine." 
     It's unimaginable what a wonderful world we'd have if we pooled our combined energies & talents and did what's needed, instead of acting out of fearful self-interest.

     "Non-doing" is action marked by effortlessness, silence, stillness, calm, peace, timelessness, very bright & vivid awareness, no egocentricity / "I" am doing this. Action is extremely efficient & feels effortless, even when there's life-threatening danger. This may explain why "heroes" when interviewed afterwards typically downplay the event, & are very reluctant to accept credit for "their" behavior. Other fascinating examples of non-doing is found in the world of creativity among physicists, composers & song-writers. The best of them typically claim that the discovery or music, even entire symphonies for Mozart, came to them all at once, and they just quickly copied it down. Again note the effortlessness, timelessness, vivid awareness, & no sense that "I" did this. The late rock & roll star Tom Petty described his song-writing process using very similar language: "Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Running Down A Dream” 2007 Bogdanovich film on Netflix.)

     "Doing" mode is prioritizing our own needs instead of what present circumstances actually require, for our own & others' long-term benefit. To the extent that our past influences (colors, biases, distorts) our perception, our past needs ("must haves" & "must avoids") determine how we act now, regardless of what's most appropriate right here, right now. At some level, we are aware of this inner conflict (friction, noise, cognitive dissonance, "divided-self"). 
     Sadly, fear-based self-interest (which includes tribalism, partisanship etc) is caused by our understandable need for safety, comfort, predictability & control in today's increasingly stressful, unsafe world. YET, our world is becoming increasingly frightening & dangerous BECAUSE of escalating fear-based self-interest (tribalism, partisanship, nationalism, intolerance, hatreds, warmongering ...). See the excellent book review: Julie Wronski. "Intergroup Identities, Moral Foundations, and Their Political Consequences: A Review of Social Psychology of Political Polarization by Piercarlo Valdesolo and Jesse Graham (Eds)." Soc Just Res (2016) 29:345–353.

     Deep self-reflection during meditation practice allows us to become increasingly aware of our own mind's unconscious primitive survival patterns of thinking (& ensuing behavior), some of which is delusional, illusory, and even work against our own & everyone else's best interests. An exceptionally useful book that carefully examines our thinking & behavior from the perspective of evolutionary psychology is: Robert Wright. "Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment." Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Katie Hoffman      "Petrichor"      www.katiehoffman.com

#662 The Ultimate Nature of Human Existence

     "Do we understand the domain of being, or do we not? 
      Can we inhabit our lives while we have them to live, as if they were worth actually knowing with some degree of intimacy, so that we could live the lives that are ours to live and do actually the work that's ours to do, as opposed to being driven by a whole range of complex motives...?"                                     Jon Kabat-Zinn

#563 Meditation Training for Restless, Unhappy Minds

     Researchers in Virginia asked "college-students (to) spend time by themselves in an unadorned room (for 6 to 15 min) after storing all of their belongings, including cell phones & writing implements. They were typically asked to spend the time entertaining themselves with their thoughts, with the only rules being that they should remain in their seats and stay awake.
     ... simply being alone with their own thoughts for 15 min was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer an electric shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid. 

      Research has shown that minds are difficult to control, however, and it may be particularly hard to steer our thoughts in pleasant directions and keep them there. This may be why many people seek to gain better control of their thoughts with meditation and other techniques, with clear benefits. Without such training, people prefer doing to thinking, even if what they are doing is so unpleasant that they would normally pay to avoid it. The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself."
       Wilson TD et al. "Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind." Science 345 (6492): 75-7; 2014.

#495 Is the Devil in the Details?

     A few years ago, during a break in a continuing medical education course, I overheard a group of young female physicians chatting about their children. One comment stuck: "I just hope they don't grow up to be assholes!"
     Isn't that our hope for ourselves as well? And yet, much of our lives are spent reacting to minor details - "sweating the small stuff", making a big deal out of them, then recuperating by zoning out with mindless distractions, booze, sleep etc. Our life too easily gets pilfered away, lost in details.
     Of course there's nothing wrong with the details themselves, the waste is in the sour attitude of "putting out fires": http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2014/02/493-how-we-fail-to-prioritize.html Such an attitude assumes that we're constantly battling annoyences. NO - we're actually LIVING, & CHOOSING the QUALITY of our LIFE. Our problem is settling for the wrong attitude. A wise person once said: "Every day is a good day." Statements like this really irritate some people - where's the locus of control? See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2014/02/494-we-know-were-heading-wrong-way-when.html and: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/search?q=attitude

William McIntosh   http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtsacprof/

#425 Arising Urges to Be a Squirrel

     I'm quietly working on something, then suddenly an urge arises to do something else. One moment I'm peacefully engaged in an activity, the next moment I'm slightly anxious - an emotion, then the urge to act by going off mentally and or physically. The actual nature of the "something else" could be anything at all & doesn't really matter - it could be planning a vacation, work on another project, what's for dinner?, need to urinate, what time is it?, desire for coffee ... 
     This is precisely what keeps happening - and we see it so much more clearly - during sitting meditation! We're sitting still, engaged in the act of observing the breath, then suddenly the focus of our attention slips off target, onto another topic. Why does this happen? The longer we remain on the new topic(s), the more momentum (energy) the stories we tell ourselves gather. This weaving of stories is mental activity, which in turn may prompt physical activity eg getting up & doing something, or it may remain in an intermediate stage of planning to do something. In sitting meditation, we train to let go of this "anxious quiver of being", and gently return to being peacefully engaged with what we've decided was appropriate activity for this set period of time ie properly engage with the process of meditation for the predetermined time period.
     Why are we anxious being peacefully engaged in appropriate activity? Why do we trust primitive squirrel-like random thinking/doing activity (analogous to randomly trying different number sequences to open a found combination lock) more than deliberate peaceful action arising from the much more evolved aspects of ourselves? Could it simply be that we're so used to using the old primitive part of the brain that we don't yet fully trust this newfangled prefrontal cortex?

     See "Trust": http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/04/119-trust-quality-5.html

Samer AIR   www.dpreview.com

#420 From Anxiety to Peace

     At some point when we're learning to swim, we stop flailing wildly & hyperventilating, - and we begin to relax in the water, breathing slowly, deeply - both our strokes and breathing becoming infinitely more efficient and effective. We're no longer struggling against water, but instead, we're savoring the process of swimming. It's a huge experiential shift when fear mysteriously drops away, and we're embracing the whole experience - suddenly, we know everything's OK.

     Somewhat analogously in meditation, at some point - inevitably if we persevere in our practice - we stop relying on frantic mental / physical activity "to keep on top of things", and instead, begin to relax, trusting inner stillness & silence - innate wisdom. Wonderful.

katarina   www.dpreview.com

#119 Trust (Quality 5)

     "Trust = Trusting both oneself, one’s body, intuition, emotions, as well as trusting that life is unfolding as it is supposed to."

       Cardaciotto L. Assessing Mindfulness: The Development of a Bi-Dimensional Measure of Awareness and Acceptance. PhD Thesis, Drexel University, 2005.

dspace.library.drexel.edu/retrieve/4264/Cardaciotto_LeeAnn.pdf

     We put a huge amount of unwarranted trust, time and energy into, and stake our happiness on, spinning stories about our past and future. Mindfulness practice suggests we reallocate these precious resources - this trust - to engaging directly with reality - right here, right now.

#48 Engagement

     As we grow older, we increasingly encounter the complex real-life existential challenges of constant change, aging, sickness and death. We're repeatedly forced to choose our response: some form of avoidance (shutting down) - OR - full engagement (opening up).

     Avoidance behaviours are very common, easy, and lead to psychological difficulties. Engaging with reality is uncommon, challenging, and leads to a peaceful, deeply satisfying life.
     A major component of mindfulness training is noticing and accepting our own cognitive, emotional and physical resistance (avoidance) to even simple projects eg sitting still for 5 minutes. Under the laboratory-like conditions of this training, we learn experientially that it's our resistance, not discomfort, that causes most of our suffering. Acceptance of temporary discomfort, not judging it negatively, but developing a scientific curiosity about its changing characteristics, and persisting in the activity (eg sitting still for 5 minutes) becomes progressively easier, and more peaceful.
     Through mindfulness we learn to remain fully engaged, with valued current action, despite discomfort, (initially) to achieve long-term valued goals. With practice, the present moment expands, we learn to rest in the process, yet quietly, goals also are met. Mindfulness appears to be a training in full (mind-heart-body) engagement - wholeness - itself.

Photo Sonia   www.dpreview.com

#46 Non-doing

     “Do not confuse motion and progress. 
     A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.”                   Alfred A. Montapert
 
     “Effortless activity happens at moments in dance and in sports at the highest levels of performance; when it does, it takes everyone’s breath away. But it also happens in every area of human activity, from painting to car repair to parenting. Years of practice and experience combine on some occasions, giving rise to a new capacity to let execution unfold beyond technique, beyond exertion, beyond thinking. Action then becomes a pure expression of art, of being, of letting go of all doing – a merging of mind and body in motion. … magic of true mastery … moments of grace and harmony.
 
     Thoreau said, ‘To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.’”
 
       Kabat-Zinn J. “Wherever you go, there you are. Mindfulness meditation in everyday life.” Hyperion, NY, 1994.

photodottom   www.dpreview.com