#765 From Fear & Suffering - to - Love & Joy

     “Wisdom is deep understanding and practical skill in the central issues of life, especially existential and spiritual issues.
      Existential issues are those crucial and universal concerns all of us face simply because we are human. They include finding meaning and purpose in our lives; managing relationships and aloneness; acknowledging our limits and smallness in a universe vast beyond comprehension; living in inevitable uncertainty and mystery; and dealing with sickness, suffering, and death. A person who has developed deep insights into these issues – and skills for dealing with them – is wise indeed.
      Visionary wisdom sees that conventional ways of living are rife with suffering. Practical wisdom begins when a person recognizes there must be a better way to live and commits to finding it. The quest to awaken begins.
      Wisdom recognizes the awesome power of the mind to both create and cloud our experience, to produce ecstasy and suffering, and to learn or stagnate. Once you appreciate the all-consuming power of the mind, learning how your mind works and how to train it become vital goals.”

     Roger Walsh. “Essential Spirituality. The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind.” John Wiley & Sons Inc, 1999.

     "Our unwillingness to turn towards & relate kindly to negative mind states causes suffering." Bill Morgan

   “Our suffering is caused by holding on to how things might have been, should have been, could have been.” Stephen Levine

 

    "... investigate how resistance turns pain into suffering, the unpleasant into the unbearable." Stephen Levine

      “Our intelligence and dignity themselves are developed by our being alive for everything, including the mundane anguish of our lives. Just our awareness of our sensations, of our experience, with no object or idea in mind, is the practice of not preferring any particular state of mind. Intimacy with our activity and the objects around us connects us deeply to our lives. This connection – to the earth, our bodies, our sense impressions, our creative energies, our feelings, other people – is the only way I know of to alleviate suffering. To me, our awareness of these things without preference is a meditation that synchronizes body and mind. This synchronization, the experience of deep integrity, of being all of a piece, is a very deep healing. It is unconventional to value such a subtle experience. It is not encouraged in our culture. We’re much more apt to strive to feel special, uniquely talented, particularly loved. It’s extraordinary to be willing to live an ordinary life, to be fully alive for the laundry, to be present for the dishes. We overlook these everyday connections to our lives, waiting for the Big Event.
      Because our conditioning to avoid unpleasantness, the hardest thing may not be bearing the unpleasant experiences we have so much as learning how to experience the details of our suffering so thoroughly that ‘suffering,’ ‘stress,’ and ‘pain’ lose their distinctive character and just become our lives, and rich lives at that.”
      Darlene Cohen. “Turning Suffering Inside Out: A Zen Approach to Living with Physical and Emotional Pain.” Shambhala, 2002.

“If this world is to be healed through human efforts,

I am convinced it will be by ordinary people

whose love for life is even greater than their fear." Joanna Macy

      Joanna Macy “discovered that when people opened up to the pain they felt for the world, they began to sense a deeper connection with life.”

     “Wisdom is deep understanding and practical skill in the central issues of life, especially existential and spiritual issues.

      Existential issues are those crucial and universal concerns all of us face simply because we are human. They include finding meaning and purpose in our lives; managing relationships and aloneness; acknowledging our limits and smallness in a universe vast beyond comprehension; living in inevitable uncertainty and mystery; and dealing with sickness, suffering, and death. A person who has developed deep insights into these issues – and skills for dealing with them – is wise indeed.”

     Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield. “Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. The Path of Insight Meditation.” Shambhala, 2001.

P. Michael Lovas photograph

#762 Overview of the Meditative Path

     While busy raising a family, establishing a career, and coping with the effects of various traumas, little time or energy remains to get one's bearings. A recent radio show: "The Death of Leisure" discussed how current societal pressures & priorities are so narrowly focused on productivity (work), that opportunities to "think about how to pursue the things we value" are disappearing. "So how do we reconfigure our relationship to the time we have and open it up so we can pursue the good life?" https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-death-of-leisure-1.5470259
     A small proportion of us do seek out, and do obtain symptomatic relief from stress through meditation, including mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR).
     After children have grown & become independent, career has peaked (or starts winding down), and psychological issues have more or less resolved, a gnawing "lack" often still remains - or becomes more pressing than ever before. 
     But because most of us have so exclusively devoted ourselves to "productivity," our profession becomes our entire identity, so we often find ourselves lost & feeling empty by middle-age, and especially after we retire. So some swear "I'll never retire"; some quickly go back to work after a very brief retirement; and some very quickly die after retirement. The momentum of a lifetime of constant struggle & striving for financial security, material success & professional respect is powerful & enduring. 
     All life transitions are challenging, perhaps especially retirement: loss of identity; diminished prestige, income, control & social contacts; diminishing physical & mental health; fear of death; and perhaps the most frightening of all - becoming consciously aware (perhaps for the first time) of what's actually going on. Retirement is an inherent part of wise aging - something in which most of us have ZERO training, knowledge, or even interest. http://www.johnlovas.com/2011/12/successful-aging.html

     Serious meditation practice can help us far more than we can imagine:

      “Beginning meditation may be difficult. Just sitting immobile for a half hour can be arduous at first and intensive practice over a period of days can be powerful and at times disconcerting. Any unresolved psychological conflicts tend to surface as soon as attention is turned inward and the restless agitated nature of the untrained mind rapidly becomes apparent. Powerful surges of arousal and emotion may alternate with deep peace and joy.
     Even a few hours of intensive practice can easily demonstrate that our usual levels of awareness and perception are grossly insensitive, distorted, and outside voluntary control. Indeed, it rapidly becomes apparent that our usual degree of voluntary control of psychological processes is far less than commonly assumed. Amazingly enough, we can live a whole lifetime without recognizing the fact that these perceptual processes continuously control, create, and distort our reality as well as our ideas of who and what we are. Most people who have tried would probably agree that training the mind and bringing it under voluntary control is one of the most difficult tasks a person can undertake.
     The rewards of meditative practice tend to be subtle at first. Increased calm, sensitivity, receptivity, empathy, insight, and clarity are some of the qualities that may be experienced early as a result of regular practice. Old assumptions about oneself and the world are gradually surrendered, and more finely tuned, comprehensive perspectives begin to emerge.
     Such immediate benefits, however, are only tastes of what is potentially a profound transformative process, for when practiced intensely, meditation disciplines almost invariably lead into the transpersonal realm of experience. Advanced practitioners report states of consciousness, levels of perceptual sensitivity and clarity, and degrees of insight, calm, joy, and love that far exceed those experienced by most people in their daily life. A progressive sequence of altered states of consciousness can occur, which may ultimately result in the permanent, radical shift in consciousness known as enlightenment or liberation.”

       Roger Walsh. “Meditation: Doorway to the Transpersonal.” In R. Walsh, F. Vaughan eds. “Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Dimensions in Psychology.” JP Tarcher, 1980.

    For more depth & detail: http://www.johnlovas.com/2020/02/maturing-beyond-ordinary-happiness.html

#760 From Black-and-White Thinking towards Intimacy

     We all experience "ups & downs," "good times & bad," etc. In fact, our contact with life's "opposites", and our "approach-avoidance" reaction to them, started in utero!

     “From the very beginning of our lives, even from before we are born, we organize ourselves in response to our environment. We pull away, with our body and our consciousness, from whatever is painful or overwhelming, and we constrict those parts of ourselves that are experiencing pain. Our pulling away from abrasive stimuli is not just a mental process. It is an actual constricting against the sensation of pain.
     … trauma (is) any event that is too intense, too painful – emotionally or physically – or too confusing to be fully received.

     (This) is simply the ordinary human condition. We all grow up to some extent limited in our human capacities, such as our ability to love, to speak freely, or to think clearly, by (trauma-induced) holding patterns … Although we may be aware of feelings of tension in our body, most people are not aware of the limitations in their ability to receive and respond to life, unless these limitations become severe. Most of us accept our limitations as being ‘just who we are.’ ” Judith Blackstone

     We approach pleasurable opportunities to promote well-being & survival. Conversely, we avoid or withdraw from painful experiences as protection from harm. This biological approach-avoid dichotomy underlies all motivational tendencies, forms the basis of emotion, & promotes adaptation.
     We're biologically & culturally programmed to seek pleasure & avoid discomfort. But life includes pleasure, pain, as well as uncomfortable periods of growth that take place beyond our comfort zone - in liminality - a state of in-between-ness, ambiguity confusion & even boredom.
        Lovas J, Gold E, Neish N, Whitehorn D, Holexa D. "Cultivating Engagement through Mindfulness Practice." Poster Presentation, American Dental Education Association annual meeting, March 19, 2012, Orlando, FL. 

     Our struggle to avoid pain & liminality, and cling to happiness is the basic obstacle to joyful, full engagement with life.
     Particularly in our youth, we might assume that "really living" is a wild roller coaster ride. During periods of calm & peace, we may actually become anxiously "bored." With age, however, we tend to prefer peace over emotional extremes.

     Mindfulness practice cultivates wise acceptance of, & the ability to work equanimously within the entire range of what life brings us - embracing all the apparent opposites, even all apparent paradoxes. 
     Our minds cannot comprehend this - a serious, often permanent road-block for many. HOWEVER, for the few who are sufficiently interested, patient meditation practice allows us to experience the fact that literally "everything is workable," moving us well past mere acceptance, towards intimacy with ALL of life.

#751 The Courage to Thrive

“... vulnerability is at the center of fear and shame, 
but it is also at the center of joy and gratitude and love and belonging.”     Brene Brown

 
"The secret of happiness is freedom.
And the secret of freedom is courage."    Thucydides


“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”    Anais Nin


“It takes courage to endure the sharp pains of self discovery, rather than 
choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.”    Marianne Williamson


“To wake up to our lives and to develop and sustain mindful awareness requires great courage. Mindfulness is not for the faint-hearted, nor for those timid or afraid of bearing witness to the often overwhelming brilliance, intensity, and complexity of their lives and world. To care deeply enough about waking up to our lives that we apply ourselves diligently to cultivating mindfulness, is a great act of courage, curiosity, and commitment. Properly practiced the intention to sustain mindful attention is supported by the attitudes of curiosity, openness, acceptance, and loving discernment."    Joel Levey

#743 Existential Loneliness

     "Loneliness is one of the most common of all human conditions, but it is largely misunderstood by the general population and clinicians alike. In this article, I draw sharp distinctions between 'pathological loneliness' (what people usually mean when they say they are lonely) and 'existential loneliness,' the central focus of this paper. I briefly review the former in order to differentiate it clearly from the latter, arguing that pathological loneliness derives from the unsuccessful resolution of existential loneliness. The two are fundamentally inseparable, constituting different manifestations of the same human condition. 

     Existential loneliness springs from our very nature as human beings. It speaks to the fundamental emptiness & disconnectedness we feel as we grapple with the profoundest questions of the uncertainty of life and death. I argue that we must come to grips with our existential loneliness if we are to fully embrace our humanity and that love is the only healthy response to our dilemma.

     Finally, I discuss our need to resolve our existential situation by adopting an alternative epistemology - unitary consciousness - an epistemology that understands the fundamental oneness of being." 

       Booth R. “Existential Loneliness: The Other Side of the Void.” International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 1997; 16(1): 23-32. 

La Femme en Bleu by Alice Mason   https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/AliceMasonArtist?ref=l2-shopheader-name

 

#710 Heart & Happiness

www.elephantjournal.com

#707 Choosing To Change

www.elephantjournal.com

#705 Love, Love, Love, ...

"Love is the sauce
and
the Source."

Una Nicholson

WisdomAtWork.com

"There is only love.

All else, repeating stories exhausting themselves."

Rashani Rea

rashani.com

#704 Choppy Waves AND Profound Stillness Beneath

www.elephantjournal.com

#703 Behaving At Home

www.elephantjournal.com

#700 Koan, Open Question, Summary?

"There is only love.
All else, repeating stories exhausting themselves."

Rashani

rashani.com

#697 Choosing to Nurture Wisdom over Ignorance

     At our deepest level, we all know to what degree we're being honestly authentic.
     From this depth of authenticity, we act with innate loving wisdom, increasing joy and decreasing suffering for all.
     Yet, fear and ignorance can lock us into our small selves, small cults, small dogmas, and other self-serving ideologies, leading to hate crimes against our fellow humans, other living creatures, and our environment. 
     So all of us carry both seeds of wisdom, as well as seeds of ignorance.  
     But what determines how we actually live our lives?

     An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
     The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
     The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
        http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TwoWolves-Cherokee.html


     “... I have seen evil men become good and that’s the only miracle that interests me.”                                     Satprakashananda
       Dana Sawyer “Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper. Living the World’s Religions. The Authorized Biography of a 21st Century Spiritual Giant.” Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY, 2014. 

#695 Accepting Ourselves, Accepting Others, and Then ...

     We keep trying so desperately to be accepted, valued and loved. We're acutely aware, at some level, of our many imperfections. And we fear our very survival hinges on eliminating, hiding, or overcompensating for our "defectiveness".
     After a while, we start realizing that nobody is perfect; and that unconditional love is painfully rare. Imperfection is tolerable, but life without unconditional love is brutal. What can we do about it? We know that we can't make others do anything. 
     But we can learn to accept ourselves as we are, then it's relatively easy to accept others as they are, and then, perhaps, we ourselves can become the source of unconditional love - the absolutely most precious, nurturing aspect of life. Perfection within imperfection?

     “When you came into this world, you cried and everyone else smiled. You should so live your life that when you leave, everyone else will cry, but you will be smiling.”                         Paramahansa Yogananda
        Dana Sawyer “Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper. Living the World’s Religions. The Authorized Biography of a 21st Century Spiritual Giant.” Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY, 2014.

Public Gardens, Halifax, NS

#688 Loosening the Grip

     I suspect a lot of us are burdened by an impossible-to-achieve, idealized image of how we'd dearly love to be perceived. 
     It's very instructive & humbling becoming aware of the number & variety of maneuvers we execute to avoid consciously experiencing the painful gap between this ideal & reality. We pour so much of our energy into guarding & mending the hurt part of ourselves that never could, nor ever will be able to live up to others' expectations. No amount of work, dieting, fancy clothes, fancy trips, booze, drugs, plastic surgery, or any other compulsive activity or avoidance helps.

     Could it be that life is not, after all, about perfecting our appearance, possessions, intelligence, wealth, or fame? One of Adyashanti's guiding principles: "to progressively realize what is not absolutely True is of infinitely more value than speculating about what is."

     What if letting go of terrified, obsessive self-concern, is not only feasible, but in fact transforms each of us small, starving-for-love particles, into so much more than we can currently imagine?

Monet's Bedroom

#676 Brokenness & Unconditional Love

     People seek help from psychotherapists when they feel broken and want to feel whole. 
     Ideally, psychotherapists themselves first undergo psychotherapy. Doing so, psychotherapists are better able to hold both their own brokenness and their own wholeness. Before we can accept others, we must learn self-acceptance.
     Psychotherapists ideally hold clients in "unconditional positive regard" and "meditative equipoise." These terms suggest great spaciousness, porousness, awareness, acceptance, unshakable love, understanding, peace, stillness, silence, wisdom. These therapists' qualities ideally remain stable, despite the variability & severity of problems and personalities of their clients.
     Obsessing about our needs, our brokenness, how we didn't receive unconditional love as children, is an endless wallowing in misery. It's also backwards. To heal, an inversion must occur.
     Unconditional love does appear to be the very core of human life. But our wholeness, authenticity, true happiness - all appear to be proportional to the degree to which we embody, we are the source of, unconditional love. Indeed, when a person feels utterly miserable, the best thing she can do for herself, is to help others in similar or worse situations.
     Traumas do hurt, traumas do crack our armor, and mercifully, the cracks do light our darkness. But our authenticity is in shining - being unconditional love.

Springtime at Luxembourg Gardens, Paris

#671 What Feels Healthy?

     Fear shuts us down. It makes our heart-mind, our whole body feel tight, constricted, stiff, rigid, cold, shaky, lousy.

     What do we fear? We fear constant change, aging, sickness and death. We fear having little or no control over our lives, others' lives, our stuff, our world. We fear meaninglessness.
     Fear is feeling unloved. Above all else we want unconditional love.

     What if each of us is the SOURCE of unconditional love?

     How does it feel while we radiate unconditional kindness towards anyone, anything & any activity?
     How does the above compare with how we usually feel caught up in our cravings, aversions & self-absorbtion?
     Which of these clearly feels healthy?

#665 Negativity isn't Enough

     "... natural negativity bias ... is our hardwired tendency to notice and amplify threats. It explains why so many people tend to believe that human life is brutal and cold, despite all evidence to the contrary. Negativity bias is the essence of natural selection: people who run away from a man with a gun or avoid a car running a red light are more likely to pass on their genes to the next generation. And these harrowing moments are more likely to burn themselves into our neurons than the gentle ones, so that we can avoid similar threats in the future." Jeremy Adam Smith "You Can Count on Goodness" Shambhala Sun, May 2015

     So, many (most?) of us are "nattering nabobs of negativity". Like those who are drowning, we'll latch onto anything that floats by - strongly-held opinions, dogmas etc. Even something as dysfunctional as cynicism seems more secure than "not knowing". But the fact is that we don't know much, and right within this space of "liminality" is where learning, creativity and growth happen. While rigid adherence to a jaundiced philosophy of life, though common, is pathological. See: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=rigidity
     Instead of rigidly closing down in the face of uncertainty, we can thrive in our complex, ever-changing reality using a very different approach: bravery, curiosity, openness, resilience, perseverance and love. We can intentionally, progressively let go of fear-based rigidity, and learn to live vibrantly, embracing life as it is. See: http://www.johnlovas.com/2015/04/heart-mind-porousness-meditation.html

Gretel

#664 Awareness & Love

     "How few understand what love really is, and how it arises in the human heart. It is so frequently equated with good feelings toward others, with benevolence or nonviolence or service. But these things in themselves are not love.
     Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now, and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection, that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person, or this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves.
    The first act of love is to see this person or this object, this reality as it truly is. And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping your desires, your prejudices, your memories, your projections, your selective way of looking ...a discipline so great that most people would rather plunge headlong into good actions and service than submit to the burning fire of this asceticism.
     When you set out to serve someone whom you have not taken the trouble to see, are you meeting that person's need or your own?"                                                          Father Anthony de Mello

#659 Do We Have It All Backwards?

     We (particularly men) rigidly pretend that happiness, our very survival, is entirely under our control. How? By surrounding ourselves metaphorically with a perfect semi-permeable membrane that keeps bad stuff out & pulls good stuff in. Many of us are obsessive doormen. Such a simple boundary, between a separate 'self' and a foreign, hostile environment, may be OK for amoebas, but ... 

     As we mature, we gradually release this illusion of control. Increasingly we recognize how deep quality of life is found in embracing every aspect of life - "the full catastrophe" - with an open heart-mind. Mindfulness practice is about consciously, intentionally maturing, coming home to our full potential, right now.
     Rather than anxiously flipping back & forth between aversion & craving, we gradually stabilize awareness, acceptance, spaciousness, ease & love. 


     No Boundaries: http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/01/healing-growth.html
     Wise Aging: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/search?q=aging

lewynn   www.dpreview.com

#657 You Can Count on Goodness

     "... consistently demonstrated in many domains of research: that daily human life is not characterized by violence, exploitation, or indifference. Far from it. The research ... reveals that we care deeply for one another, and that we would rather help our fellow beings than not. Even more, the science shows that refusing to help others can have debilitating, long-term mental and physical consequences for ourselves. Isolation hurts, physically; so does aggression. Every angry word we utter fries neurons and wears out our hearts.

      ... research currently suggests: If you want to find and foster the good in society, you need to start by searching for the goodness inside yourself."

       Jeremy Adam Smith, "You Can Count On Goodness" Shambhala Sun, May 2015     greatergood.berkeley.edu