#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.

#661 Life's Short - Clarify the Mind

     “There is no question I am having the most fulfilling time of my life,” British political strategist Philip Gould wrote in his book When I Die: Lessons from the Death Zone, which he began after receiving a terminal diagnosis of esophageal cancer. “… I have had more moments of happiness in the last five months than in the last five years.”
     A death sentence is a licence to take shears to what remains of your life, leaving only what is vital. “I feel intensely alive,” Oliver Sacks wrote in a New York Times essay that was far more popular than any story featuring “multiple metastases in the liver” has a right to be. “I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight. … I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential.”

       Elizabeth Renzetti, "We can't live every day like it's our last, but dying does seem to clarify the mind." The Globe and Mail, Saturday, April 4, 2015
         http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/we-cant-live-every-day-like-its-our-lastbut-dying-does-seem-to-clarify-the-mind/article23793614/

two of Monet's flowers

#637 Inevitably

     "He made me so mad", "I had no choice in the matter - I had to do it" ... The longer we live, the less we believe such excuses.
     Nobody, no circumstance can force us to abandon our own authentic nature. We keep dropping internal friction, inner noise, needless suffering. We keep simplifying till we return home to our core essence: loving conscious energy.

Seaport Market, Halifax, Nova Scotia, February 7, 2015

#629 Curiosity, Waking up

     "To consider that you might play a part in your own difficulties is like a loss of innocence.
     Loss of innocence comes with some advantages though, the main one being self-knowledge. If you no longer believe that the problem is entirely outside, you can be curious. If you are curious about your thoughts, then your thoughts become hypotheses, which you can test. You don't have to believe your thoughts or the conclusions and fears that go with them.
     This is thrilling but also deeply disturbing, because you thought you were your thoughts, and now you begin to suspect that you are not. In which case, who are you? Who is thinking? Being curious - about who you are and your part in your life - is a first step. But into what? Probably into a meditation practice."

       John Tarrant. "Hidden in Plain Sight. The truth is hidden in the last place we look - the moment that's happening to us right now. That's why we meditate." Shambhala Sun, March 2015

#593 Naturally

     While stuck in the muck of the ego - the small, tight, scared, anxious, fearful, angry, sad, time-poor, jangled, self-talk-filled, tiresome, stressful, painful old nightmare - the idea of embodying qualities like clarity, peace, silence, timelessness, stillness, kindness, lightness and effortlessness, may sound like a frustratingly impossible list of "shoulds".
     But it's neither externally imposed, nor a far-off, hard-to-reach destination. It's right here, right now, always, effortlessly available, to all of us. Just remember the direct experience - how you feel while:
                    • hugging a beloved human or other living being; 
                    • wordlessly awed in Nature;
                    • selflessly bringing healing to another.

     This is the freely flowing process of NATURAL human life. Just keep remembering & come back to reality, gently, kindly, peacefully, seamlessly, with timeless patience, as soon as you feel the muck of the ego. THIS WAY of returning, IS having returned already.

#583 Sticky Stories are Just Stories, NOT Who I Am

     Stories we continuously tell ourselves differ from what happened in our past, what's happening now, and what will happen. They're not true. The "story of my life" is a mental fabrication, like a recurrent nightmare, NOT a direct readout on reality.
     Direct perception IS a direct readout on reality. This can only happen when we're engaged in real time - perceiving reality, being real, AS actual life rapidly unfolds microsecond-by-microsecond. There's no self-talk, no "thinking about" when we're fully engaged with life.
     We have more in common with heroin junkies than we care to admit. Our "monkey mind" incessantly drops out of reality to spin a story, then, instead of "being real" we literally live in - are cognitively fused with - our story. For the vast majority of our life we live in the trance of our story. Were this story always, or even usually a "good trip", then escaping reality might be understandable, but our stories are usually depressing or riddled with anxiety!
     So why on earth hang onto a miserable story as if my life depended on it? Because we actually believe that my story IS me, who I am, my core identity as a person! No wonder we have self-esteem issues!
     A basic aim in psychotherapy is to effect cognitive defusion - help people let go of this common pathological identification with the nightmarish stories they trap themselves in AND get back to reality. There's a whole movement in psychology studying the problems caused by the "noisy ego", and benefits of the "hypo-egoic state", and ultimately, of transcending the ego.
     Downsizing the ego from its dictatorial stranglehold is an absolute necessity if one wishes to be truly happy in a wise, mature way. See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/search?q=Wayment

savolio   www.dpreview.com

#561 Towards Clarity of Vision & Wisdom

     While the news tends to focus on human beings at their lowest, our destiny is qualitatively, spectacularly beyond what most of us can currently imagine. And we do have what it takes within us to get there.

     "I salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you, and I am that place within me, we shall be one."                              Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Sioux (circa 1840-1877)

Zoran Stanko, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

#555 Doing the Right Thing at the Right Time

     Don't we err a lot? How often do we look back on situations and say "YES, I did precisely the right thing - exactly as I should have!"? Why is messing up so common, while behaving appropriately is so rare?

     Could it be that we're supposed to learn to become more & more mindful, wise, & appropriate?

 

#552 The Greatest Risk of All

     "There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction."          John F. Kennedy

     I'll never forget the video clip I saw on TV of an old donkey that labored all its life drawing water from a well, by walking in a circle, pushing a long pole. When it was old and spent, they untied the donkey. What did it do? It kept walking in a circle.
     In large poultry operations, chickens are kept their entire lives in a tiny cage, laying eggs or rapidly fattening-up for slaughter. Quality of life - for chickens, farm workers, & consumers - is efficiently minimized to maximize rapid profit. Most of us, much like the chickens, don't know & don't care. Work, eat, sleep, die - comfortable inaction of "a life unexamined".

     There are healthy alternatives! We can intentionally become more aware, more conscious - buy free-range chicken, free-range eggs, we can become vegetarian, we can become vegan. We do NOT have to go along with every dysfunctional consumer trend like zombies!

     "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."          Henry David Thoreau
 
     While it's very easy to become "comfortably numb" from routine work, especially in a consumer society, our quality of life depends on our creativity & other aspects of our evolving consciousness. We don't have to physically go elsewhere, but do have to WAKE UP!
     We can & must live an "undivided life" - from our deepest core values. Nothing else is worth our life!

#548 Is being Cynical the same as Realistic?

     How often do we hear an uplifting story or an interesting plan of action quickly drowned out by someone's pessimistic or sarcastic putdown? Cynics believe that their worldview is accurate, and assume that the rest of us can't see how harsh life really is.
     Fear, anger & aggression dominates such peoples' lives - the egocentric, adversarial approach. And yes, life is indeed brutish in this primitive, yet all too common mode. The 2013 movie "August: Osage County" nicely illustrates this mindset within a family. This quality of relating is also common in the world's troubled hotspots, where groups have been slaughtering each other for generations. They clamor for revenge, "make the enemy pay", "make them suffer"! They don't understand that "doing more of what doesn't work, and expecting different results" is not just unreasonable, but the definition of insanity. But suggesting to either side that the "eye for an eye" approach hasn't, doesn't & won't work evokes indignant rage! Leaders of such warring groups may inspire rabid followers, but their obvious lack of emotional / spiritual intelligence ensures severe continuous widespread suffering.
     All the wisdom traditions guide us to let go of egocentric, adversarial orientation and open ourselves to a loving, nurturing relationship with all of humanity, all creatures, all of the world. This requires a qualitative shift in our operating system - from reptilian, to homo sapiens sapiens.
     From the evolved homo sapiens sapiens perspective, our more common, reptilian (fear-based egocentric adversarial) way of being appears ridiculous - and vice versa! Therefore, many aspects of mindfulness may initially seem somewhat puzzling or even counterintuitive.

Beast & Prey, Rome, Italy

#513 Well-worn Grooves & New Perspectives

     At some point, we recognize that we're "creatures of habit". Of course those who know us, are well aware of our patterns of speech & behavior. We tend to react in a typical, fairly predictable fashion, to many situations. It's as if the infinite numbers & varieties of stimuli that we perceive from outside & inside our skin boundary could only "push" one of a small number of possible "buttons".
     The instant we become aware of the repetitive pattern of our thoughts, speech or behavior, we become conscious or mindful - no longer fused with, or trapped in "the momentum of our life". But it's very common and seductively easy to remain in a trance- or dream-like momentum. Even those who have some knowledge of mindfulness retain a strong emotional bias towards leaving their lives, warts & all, in the same old well-worn groove. They strongly resist shifting to greater consciousness. This is VERY similar to a sleepy, grumpy person being unhappy that it's time to wake up, get out of bed, & face the new day. They do not appreciate attempts, no matter how gentle or well-intentioned, to get them up.
     To the extent that we identify with the part of us that is in that sleepy, semi-conscious dream state, we resist change ie resist waking up. Filling life with distractions & addictions helps keep us asleep & keeps our attention away from the sad fact that we're living "a life unexamined".
     If we learn to be our own excellent sports psychologist, life coach & trainer, we can live a progressively more conscious, evolved quality of life. To the extent that we get fed up with sleeping our life away, we intentionally, progressively wake up. This is why we participate in mindfulness training.

     Below is a very good, recent overview of mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn speaking in London.

#429 To Affect the Quality of the Day

     “Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to being present. There is no 'performance.' There is just this moment. We are not trying to improve or to get anywhere else. We are not even running after special insights or visions. Nor are we forcing ourselves to be non-judgmental, calm, or relaxed. And we are certainly not promoting self-consciousness or indulging in self-preoccupation. Rather, we are simply inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intention to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and right now.”

      “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” 
 
      “To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” Henry David Thoreau

        Kabat-Zinn J. “Wherever you go, there you are. Mindfulness meditation in everyday life.” Hyperion, NY, 1994. 

#393 Awareness, Acceptance & Dwelling in Two Apparently Distinct Realities

     As a natural consequence of ongoing mindfulness practice, we gradually become increasingly clearly aware of what's going on - both within and outside of ourselves. This is often described as "waking up" as if from a dream, or becoming conscious after being on "autopilot".
     Another natural consequence of our ongoing practice, we gradually stop believing the brain stem's judgment of all that we perceive as either "good" or "bad" (black-or-white thinking), and are thus more & more able to replace primitive egocentric (brain stem) reactivity with wiser allocentric perspective & behavior (prefrontal cortex).
     Interestingly and importantly, our brain stem remains in place & functional, so we remain aware of our own ongoing immediate egocentric judgments. However, meditation practice progressively rewires our brain, changing it structurally & functionally. So the brain stem's messages are perceived less & less as commands for immediate action, and are increasingly perceived as dubious options with a long track record of leading to suffering. And because of our direct experiential knowledge, we fully understand - and have compassion for - both ourselves & others when we more or less automatically obey brain stem reflexes.
     As our prefrontal cortex becomes increasingly dominant, we increasingly recognize not only our own, but other people's inherent clarity, wholeness & wisdom. We recognize & nurture this amazing natural human capacity in ourselves and others. This is the ultimate height & depth of human activity.

#366 Invitation to Live Life Fully - "Be All that You Can Be"

     We have a "… diminished view of ourselves as isolated, as separate, as inadequate, as that which so often leads us in fear to ... keep 'the fullness of life at bay while we negotiate our way into a safe, thin, colorless cage.'
     (Mindfulness training) is nothing less than an invitation to liberate ourselves from the habitual and confining prisons of our own creation***, to begin to listen to the inner callings of the heart, and to literally cook in the fires of direct experience, and in doing so, to grow ripe and savory and complete in who we actually are." 
       Jon Kabat-Zinn

        Santorelli S. “Heal thyself. Lessons on mindfulness in medicine.” Bell Tower, NY, 1999. 

     *** See "Growth" : http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/05/327-ideas-about-happiness-vs-real-thing.html

 

lex32   www.dpreview.com

#18 Normal Human Development

     
      Life experiences "condition" us, so we can end up with fairly inflexible thoughts about ourself. A natural part of maturing is seeing through and beyond these incorrect and limiting mental "straight jackets." We tend to underestimate crucial aspects of ourselves.

     "Self-transcendence relates to decreases in attachment to one’s own perspectives, view points, truths, and construal self, as well as extension of care, compassion, and concern toward others including both past and future generations. ... a developmental process that involves a change in perspective and orientation of self in relation to others, social status, and objects. … a self-transcendence orientation is part of a developmental process towards liberation from biological and social conditionings.”

     Le TN. Life satisfaction, openness value, self-transcendence, and wisdom. Journal of Happiness Studies 2011; 12(2): 171-182.