"Mindfulness and Meditation allow us to open our hearts, relax our bodies, and clear our minds enough to experience the vast, mysterious, sacred reality of life directly. With Practice we come to know for ourselves that eternity is available in each moment.

Your MMM Courtesy Wake Up Call:
Musings on Life and Practice
by a Longtime Student of Meditation

Saturday, February 20, 2016

Tough Job, But...

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”
― Pema Chödrön

“Where ever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, 
and more true than you can hear.”
― Shunryu Suzuki


One of the most interesting edges of Practice that emerges for me these days is the continuing examination of the dance of energy that emerges in the interplay between what we think of as "self"  and "other".  When I slow down, chill out, and pay close attention to my mind on the meditation cushion things get pretty mysterious.  When I  then look carefully to grasp a distinct, solid boundary between myself and everything else in the Universe, I'm left empty handed.

Although "I" readily can think in terms of an "I" that can think in terms of an "I", beyond those thoughts there is a seemingly seamless reality where "inner" and "outer" aren't so clear.  Beyond the conceptual designations, a strict boundary between "me" and "that" (and the "space" between me and that and surrounding me and that) isn't discernible.  What remains just is.  A vivid display of energy and space, seemingly infinite. 

Nowadays, that seems to happen more and more off the zafu as well.  In those precious moments, as I feel the dance of sensations that exists in what appears to be the inside of my body, the presence of a vast spaciousness within and beyond the apparent "confines" of that physical form becomes more obvious.  Paradoxically, the more solid and grounded I feel in the moment, the more transparent I feel. 

This state of affairs certainly makes it easier to lighten up -- much the time.

Of course, there are still those moments where life appears to get very HEAVY.  Two of weeks ago it happened a number of times over the course of a couple of days .  Most of those moments were quite clearly the times when I was, once again, "self-absorbed".  The bulk of my attention had been commandeered by patterns of thought/emotion characterized by my own fear and grasping.  At those times, I found myself repeatedly rewriting a recent past event I had deemed "unacceptable" and/or projecting it into the future in screenplay dialogues where I either created a "successful" outcome (the word for ego in Tibetan translates as "me victorious") -- or,  in other instances, creating an image where I once again, "blew it" and failed to say or do the "right" thing.

In those moments, it became obvious: I was HOOKED.  Rather than relax into the clear, blue sky that exists within every moment, I'd become condensed into a cloud of "self-concern."  Although those clouds can be appealing at times (especially when my fantasy is of "triumph"), I've found that they usually thicken and darken, blocking the sun.  Having seen, again and again, that oftentimes those clouds will then lead to lightning and thunder, it has generally gotten easier to choose to let go of the thoughts and emotions that hold those clouds in place.  More and more, it has gotten easier to just turn my focus elsewhere to take care of the business at hand.

In this case, though, that particular array of thought clouds kept returning.  In this case I chose to focus on examining the whole process more carefully during my regular daily periods of meditation for a couple of days.  Looking deeply,  it became clear that underlying this particular inner drama was the energy of an entire history of experiences where, in my eyes, I just didn't "cut it" (i.e. events didn't emerge according to my model of good/bad, success/failure).  At a number of times in my life, I had identified so strongly with that set of mindstates that I was quite incapable of shaking the obsessive thoughts and feelings involved in any consistent manner.  Having developed an acute form of workaholism  (itself propelled, paradoxically, by the attempt to avoid those feelings), I then burned myself to a crisp, even blowing a fuse pretty dramatically a couple of times. 
(READ MORE)
The Fruits of Practice
I'm grateful at this point in my life for the Teachers and the Teachings -- and the Practice.  More and more, cutting loose of the current story lines of thought and getting in touch with the underlying feelings, breathing the feelings through my heart or doing Tonglen practice, I can take it deeper.  Over time, bringing the energy of mindfulness to these subconscious patterns of emotional energy gives them the opportunity to "breath" -- and release their energy. 

After a couple of periods devoted to exploring the current knots, there on the meditation cushion I was able to connect once again with the ghosts of similar episodes running back through time into my childhood, the memories of several incidents of perceived failure -- and humiliation at the hands of my mother.  At that point, feeling the echoes of that pain, I proceeded to practice Tonglen for myself and all children emotionally harmed, either intentionally or unintentionally, by their parents.  After awhile, I then moved on to sending love and forgiveness once again to my mother, a person who had struggled throughout her life with mental illness before her passing years ago.  By the time the hour had ended, the sky had cleared and a warm sun was shining among a few dancing clouds.  Peering deeply, I couldn't find a crisp boundary between "me"and the vast warm, clear, spaciousness of the One Love. When the bell rang,  I was ready to greet the day with a sense of ease, lightness, and joy.

Tough job, but somebody's got to do it, right?

2 comments:

Welcome to a New World said...

Thank U for sharing this Great Blog Dear Friend. I really appreciate U holding up the mirror,as I often have liked to do for mostly my close friends, relatives & clients in my 25 year old NL "Holistic Practice for Selfinsight & Consciousness ", as a well educated clinical psychologist - astrologer- ecologist & ft meditator in the practice of Daily life Mindfullness. Now I seem to have evolved into holding up a mirror to many more "friends & followers" on the Internet,as I have given up the need to put myself first & became a Conscious Lightworker/Communicator in Service to the Whole. Much Love & Light in Peace of Heart & Mind to U & All. We Are All ONE & All is Interconnected in the Multidimensional Field of Collective Consciousness. I AM

Lance Smith said...

Your Welcome, Anne. Thanks for the kind words. This is, indeed, a Wondrous LightShow. Being one another's mirrors, we can see it through! Blessings on your Work!
One Love,
Lance