#768 BASICS #3: What are We Actually Doing during Meditation?

      The way our mind normally works by default, is as if we were drowning, desperately trying to grab anything nearby, to keep us from sinking. It takes some level of introspection & insight to become aware of this chronic tight, cold, jittery uneasiness.
      Occasionally, we feel expansive, at ease, "blessed." But very quickly, this turns to worry - "This can't last - how can I hang onto this?", or "How can I make this even better?" Because it's our "normal," we're not generally aware of our "anxious quiver of being."
      When we sit down to meditate, our self-centered obsessional self-talk keeps running as always. The big difference: during meditation, we become aware of this endless self-centered obsessional self-talk! 
     This imaginary identity & world that the mind creates is nothing more than a bit of electrical current passing through our brain! It has NO objective reality. YET, we unwittingly maintain & amplify it by obsessing over it & conversing with it. AND we let it govern most of our lives! Our imaginary identity - "ego" - keeps most of us convinced that if we don't continuously obsess about our own survival, we will die immediately. Western psychology refers to this unhealthy situation as a "noisy ego" up to "narcissism."
     During meditation practice, we practice persistently LETTING GO of all unhelpful mental games (compulsive planning, worrying, regretting, wallowing, daydreaming, slipping off to "our happy place.") Initially, letting go of an unhealthy, noisy ego can feel like impending physical death. But we're NOT trying to "kill" anything, or even to completely get rid of our ego. We're only taming an unhealthy, hyperactive ego "down to a dull roar" ie to a healthy, quiet, functional state. So we keep fully showing up, EMBODYING Mind, Heart & Gut - ALL of who/what we truly are, in the here & now. This has many names & levels of maturity: from "quiet ego" all the way to wisdom, awakening & enlightenment.
     Bottom line: during meditation, we consciously, intentionally, repeatedly CHOOSE to practice letting go of "normal" robotic autopilot state, and instead, consciously, intentionally, repeatedly CHOOSE to practice visiting, & gradually stabilizing in, direct intimate engagement with actual reality.

     “Either you try to transform yourself for the sake of serving others and everybody wins, or you stay inside the bubble of ego and everybody loses. Because by desperately trying to be happy just for your own sake, you don’t help others or yourself.” Matthieu Ricard
     Matthieu Ricard, Christophe Andre, Alexandre Jollien. “In Search of Wisdom. A Monk, a Philosopher, and a Psychiatrist on What Matters Most.” Sounds True, 2018.

 

Sharing Silence by Gunilla Norris

Within each of us there is a silence
—a silence as vast as a universe.
We are afraid of it…and we long for it.
When we experience that silence, we remember
who we are: creatures of the stars, created
from the cooling of this planet, created
from dust and gas, created
from the elements, created
from time and space…created
from silence.
In our present culture,
silence is something like an endangered species…
an endangered fundamental.
The experience of silence is now so rare
that we must cultivate it and treasure it.
This is especially true for shared silence.
Sharing silence is, in fact, a political act.
When we can stand aside from the usual and
perceive the fundamental, change begins to happen.
Our lives align with deeper values
and the lives of others are touched and influenced.
Silence brings us back to basics, to our senses,
to our selves. It locates us. Without that return
we can go so far away from our true natures
that we end up, quite literally, beside ourselves.
We live blindly and act thoughtlessly.
We endanger the delicate balance which sustains
our lives, our communities, and our planet.
Each of us can make a difference.
Politicians and visionaries will not return us
to the sacredness of life.
That will be done by ordinary men and women
who together or alone can say,
“Remember to breathe, remember to feel,
remember to care,
let us do this for our children and ourselves
and our children’s children.
Let us practice for life’s sake.

#763 Overview of Meditation PRACTICE

     Our life, at times, appears to be under control - "I've got this!" Though we more-or-less sleep-walk through life, "doing things half-assed," we assume we're smart enough to get away with it. We're self-absorbed, lost in youthful naivete, (imagined) power & bright future. At this level of unconsciousness, we're not interested meditation at all. For a variety reasons, some of us remain at this level of maturity.

     As the years roll on, some of us are forced to learn hard lessons, become more humble, recognize how minimal our ability is to control life, and start searching for a deeper, more reliable form of happiness that's independent of conditions. Meditation now becomes more relevant.

     NOW the entire world is in turmoil: Covid 19 crisis / financial meltdown / climate crisis / direct or proxy warfare / refugee crises. "Normal" times have evaporated, possibly forever. It's time to wake up & engage with life CONSCIOUSLY, WISELY. 
     Einstein said that we can't solve a mess with the same level of consciousness as the one with which we caused it. We MUST evolve / mature to a higher level of consciousness. Now meditation practice is a vital asset.

     The various mindfulness meditation (MBSR) practices all have us concentrate our awareness on an object of meditation, in real time. The physically-felt details of our object of meditation (eg breath in our belly) are to completely fill our awareness. No part of our awareness should remain with which to be anxious, sad, to obsess, or daydream. Stable, one-pointed concentration - absorbed only on one "object" in silence & stillness (without metal chatter, without physical / emotional restlessness), in and of itself, feels pleasant & can therefore be effortlessly maintained. Profound mental rest & therefore stress relief are relatively easily & quickly obtainable.
     But initially, we ALL behave according to our lifelong training - unconsciously follow our deeply conditioned habits. So we follow the instructions in a "half-assed" way, "just going through the motions," remaining lost in our trance: self-talk about "the story of me," continuing to catastrophize, wallow, or daydream. Then we quickly jump to self-judgment & want to quit meditation "because we're no good at it."
     Our greatest obstacles are: 1) Lack of practice,  2) Impatience, & 3) Expecting dramatic results.
     1) A regular daily meditation PRACTICE must be established to replace our old outdated conditioning with new more appropriate conditioning / training. The more we practice wisely, the better we become at it. Without this disciplined approach, we derive ZERO benefits, no matter how much we read & talk about meditation. As with skiing, tennis or golf, we improve in direct proportion to the quality & quantity of our practice.
     2) IF we PATIENTLY persevere, and accept our old conditioning (untrained, distracted mind), treat ourselves with incredible patience, gentleness & kindness - holding ourselves in safety & unconditional love - carefully following the meditation instructions - zooming in on the details with curiosity, we WILL INEVITABLY SUCCEED. 
     Our mind is the organ of change. Wise, consistent training invariably transforms our mind to work FOR us (instead of against us). We will turn our life right around. From feeling helpless, vulnerable & needy, we gradually shift to embody the source of safety & unconditional love first for ourselves, and subsequently for others. 
     3) When we stabilize our awareness on a physical sensation (even for 10 seconds), we release our habitual shallow level of consciousness ("noisy ego") and become our deeper intelligence, experiencing peace, stillness & silence. The first few times, we tend to get either bored or all excited and so pop right back up to the shallows & start blabbering to ourselves, which of course immediately ends the experience. 
     If we expect meditation to deliver fireworks & levitation, we might actually overlook the subtle quality of profound peace, stillness & silence, and judge it boring, a waste of time! 
     If however we have suffered, or are now suffering from a lot of emotional anguish, then experiencing profound peace, stillness & silence will feel absolutely heavenly. Gradually, we do learn to feel comfortable & stabilize in this profoundly peaceful, still, silent, loving space of deep intelligence where we are deeply connected to, engaged, intimate with ourselves, others, the environment, life itself: http://www.johnlovas.com/2020/03/appreciating-subtle.html

     Let us PRACTICE regularly, wisely, patiently, kindly every day, formally and informally. We've created a desperate mess with our noisy ego. Now we must clean up this hot mess, but can only do so by embodying our deep intelligence. We know how; we can do it!

#722 Suffering & our Sense of Self

     “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 because it’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

Above transcribed from this video:

#701 Self-talk Drives Us Crazy YET We Cling to It - Why?

     When we first learn to meditate, many of us try desperately to "get rid of our thoughts." No wonder! Doesn't self-talk feel nightmarishly repetitive?
     Then why do we also compulsively entertain every thought that comes by? Because we seem to assume that self-talk IS our very self! 
     IF this internal chatter were "a direct readout on reality," emanating from our "self", then of course we should hang onto it. BUT doesn't internal chatter strike us as irritating, superfluous noise? AND when we have rare moments of mental stillness, peace & quiet, instead of dying, doesn't it feel wonderful? Don't we actually feel MORE vibrantly alive?

     With a bit of courage & lots of persistence, we gradually let go of clinging to ("entertaining") passing thoughts. As we do, we can progressively become healthier.
     Shunryu Suzuki, a highly regarded Zen teacher, advised:
               "When you sit,

               you leave the front door open,

               you leave the back door open,

               and you don't serve tea."

#598 Relaxation & Clarity

     "When there is less intensity, the mind becomes more relaxed and thereby able to quieten and open to its innate spaciousness and clarity."

     This statement runs so contrary to our cultural conditioning, that we need to experience its veracity before we believe it. And the momentum of our habits is so strong, that we need to experience it many times before we trust it sufficiently to intentionally put it into practice. Yet ...

     "As we deepen our sense of ease with ourselves, the fundamental wounding to our self-identity will soften. This softening leads to a greater inner space that can more naturally respond to others. While we are caught in our wounded self-preoccupations, we have no space for others. An inner atmosphere of compassion and acceptance slowly softens the rigidity of our wounding. As we become less self-preoccupied we begin to find the capacity to respond to others, and we may discover that we are able to be present, compassionate, and caring without judging. Our compassion grows as we allow others to be who they are with their faults and struggles, their unique qualities and gifts."

       Preece R. "The Wisdom of Imperfection. The Challenge of Individuation in Buddhist Life." Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca NY, 2006.

 

Antonio Celso Lima Mollo, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

#588 To Evolve OR Blame? - THAT is the Question!

     As we start to practice sitting meditation, all sorts of apparent impediments arise: mental, physical & emotional irritations that we blame on the practice, teacher, room, time of day, hunger, noise, weather, work, our own ineptitude ... We find all sorts of excuses for not being able to just sit still.
     Mindfulness practice is a structured process that can enable us, initially, to simply remain aware and accepting while sitting comfortably - how stress-free can we get! The more we train, the more able we are to rest in awareness during increasingly challenging "real-world" situations.
      Paradoxically, the more completely we let go of excessive self-concern ("noisy ego"), the greater our freedom and true happiness. Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is a powerful study of this universal human process of transformation or evolution of consciousness / heart-mind, found outside of, as well as within, all wisdom traditions.

Winfield Parks, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

#209 Choices, choices, choices ... Moment-by-moment

     You may recall stories or cartoons of a little angel sitting on one shoulder whispering advice to do the right thing, while on the opposite shoulder sits a little devil, whispering the opposite advice into the other ear. Angels and devils notwithstanding, we do, consciously or subconsciously, make innumerable decisions daily. These decisions are often between short-term self interest ("noisy ego") vs long-term interest for all (plain common sense when one is hypo-egoic).
     North American society has traditionally idolized the "self-made" individual, who quickly rises above everyone else to become rich & famous. If we think for a moment in terms of biology and ecology, what type of cell quickly rises to dominate all other cells? Cancer. What impact does it have on the whole body? Is it sustainable?

     Can we progressively become more consciously aware of moment-to-moment choices? Can we progressively choose in the direction of what makes sense for the long-term welfare of us all?

Tangled Garden, Grand Pré, Nova Scotia   http://www.tangledgardenherbs.ca/