#679 How We Keep Pulling Away from Life

     Very few of us, even if actively trying, can consistently embrace life with an open heart-mind. Why not? 

     We can see the reasons most clearly during sitting meditation. Self-talk, self-comfort, self-preservation, self-promotion - we incessantly, continuously obsess over "me, myself & I", despite the fact that doing so actually guarantees suffering. We observe this most clearly during meditation, but it's something we do all the time!
     Egocentricity, though extremely common, is pathological and unwise, because it does not bring us happiness; nor will it keep us living forever, so we must learn to release this obsessive-compulsive death-grip on the "self"!

     Opening our heart-mind towards the welfare & genuine happiness of others (allocentric), animals, & the environment (ecocentric) is wise, because it does bring everyone, including ourselves, genuine happiness and a meaningful life.

Monet's flowers

#678 Each Moment is Brand New & Unique - Is Your Response?

      Each moment presents an absolutely new, absolutely unique, never-to-be-repeated set of circumstances, to which we're asked to respond in an absolutely brand new unique open fashion. Can we be absolutely fresh, authentic & true to what is?

     Each moment holds incredible freedom of choice & creative potential, as long as we are the very energy of an alert, loving, spacious, open heart-mind. Can we be fully alive?

Fire juggler in front of the Basilica of the Sacre Coeur, Montmartre

#677 Beyond Black-or-White Alternatives

     Our usual way of thinking & speaking is dualistic, constantly comparing opposites: good / bad, beautiful / ugly, desirable / repulsive, etc. How does this habit make us feel? Incessant up & down mood swings, moment by moment! To try to minimize the trauma, we do our best to grab & hold onto the good / beautiful / desirable, and avoid & push away the bad / ugly / repulsive. It's an exhausting, unwinnable battle, resulting only in constant tightness and misery.
       Wordlessly opening up to and accepting what is natural, with curiosity, and even an attitude of loving embrace, brings about an ease, a spaciousness of heart and mind. And yes, if we "pick our battles", we even gain a greater facility to do something about things that can and should be changed.
     This does require letting go of puffing up our ego with incessant mind-numbing self-talk: "I like this", "I hate that", etc etc etc etc. We need to examine very carefully what such a simplistic, unexamined identity does to our quality of life. Once we see its affects clearly, we'll want to minimize it's corrosive effects as quickly as possible.

#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

#675 Do What Works

     We tend to assume that we can control our world to keep us happy. So we attempt constant adjustments to the environment, others, ourselves, trying to seize & hang onto whatever feels good, and avoid all that feels bad or threatening. What gradually dawns on us is the fact that we're almost constantly uncomfortable, despite all our manoevres. 
     There are many dysfunctional responses to this steady state of unsatisfactoriness, all involve denial / avoidance / escapism: trance-like relentless pursuit of pleasure via materialism, hedonism, substance abuse, workaholism, & other simplistic belief (& non-belief) systems.

     An alternative is facing reality with as much clear awareness and acceptance as possible (both improve with practice). It's remarkably difficult to accept life's existential facts - that we cannot really control anything, especially things that truly matter: aging, sickness & death of those we love, including ourselves. No wonder we're so compulsive about distracting / deluding ourselves! But that too gets old. 
     Mindfulness practice is a gentle, natural, universal way of making friends with things as they are. Accepting reality with an open heart-mind is an amazing journey. As we progress along this path, life progressively changes for the better. "Better" is not what we expect or typically wish for, but it does become better and better. Keep practicing!

while he plays piano ... 37, rue de la bûcherie — 75005 Paris, France

#674 No Time to BE Mindful ???

     "Definitions of mindfulness ... focus upon a number of qualities

          (a) a deliberate intention to pay attention to momentary experience, 

          (b) a marked distinction from normal, everyday modes of consciousness, 

          (c) a clear focus on aspects of active investigation of moment-to-moment experience, 

          (d) continuity of a precise, dispassionate, non-evaluative, and sustained moment-to-moment awareness of immediate experience, and 

          (e) an attitude of openness, acceptance, kindness, curiosity and patience."

       Hofmann FG, Grossman P, Hinton DE. "Loving-Kindness and Compassion Meditation: Potential for Psychological Interventions." Clin Psychol Rev. 2011 November ; 31(7): 1126–1132. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2011.07.003. 

     Since we tend to live "in our heads", theories are important, too important. We don't really consider BEING mindful in our own daily, moment-by-moment life - at least not now, maybe later, when we're not so busy ...... 

     Even sincere young people taking & apparently "enjoying" an 8-week MBSR course typically "don't get the chance" to practice between classes, often "get too busy" & drop out before finishing the course, and "don't get around" to filling out a one-page course evaluation.

     But mindfulness is NOT THEORETICAL, and it's not just another "add-on" to one's overcrowded litany of stuff to get done.  

     Mindfulness is about actually living RIGHT NOW within our most evolved operating system, with an open heart-mind. How can we not have time to live optimally?

How To Enter?

 

#673 Forced to Care about Others, the Big Picture

     "When China burns coal, that pollution doesn't just stay above Chinese skies, nor does nuclear radioactivity from Fukushima stay only in Japanese coastal waters. The same is true generally for humankind and the rest of the natural world: when the ecosystems of the earth become sick, we become sick. In short, the ecological crisis is also a spiritual*** crisis: we are challenged to realize our interdependence - our larger 'self' - or else. What the earth seems to be telling us is Wake up or get out of the way."
       David Loy. "Awakening in the Age of Climate Change." Tricycle, Spring 2015.                               ww.tricycle.com


     *** "spirituality ... ‘the personal quest for understanding answers to ultimate questions about life, about meaning, and about relationship to the sacred or transcendent’."
       Greeson JM et al. "Changes in spirituality partly explain health-related quality of life outcomes after Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction." J Behav Med 2011; 34(6): 508-18.

     Atheists also recognize the critical role of spirituality - see:
       Sam Harris. "Waking Up. A Guide to Spirituality without Religion." Simon & Schuster, 2014.