"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, January 5, 2019

The Long Haul

  “Be still.  Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity.
When there is silence one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself”
― Lao Tzu

“Space and silence are two aspects of the same thing. The same no-thing. They are externalization of inner space and inner silence, which is stillness: 
the infinitely creative womb of all existence.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment 


With the 12th Day of Christmas upon us, the final family gatherings and bestowing of presents happens this weekend.  It's been a busy, and sometimes unsettling, holiday season.

In the midst of the scurry of the past couple of weeks, with hours spent in cars, buses, and subways, others in doctor's offices and hospitals, I was especially aware of how precious each morning's meditation was to me.  Flowing through days and evenings full of travel and visitations and meals and excited flurries of paper-ripping, my cushion has been an oasis.

Touching Stillness, even for a few brief moments, is like sipping clear, crisp spring water on a steamy summer day.  Paradoxically, it's also like feeling the warm glow of a fireplace, snuggling at home on a snowy evening peering through the window at the moon.  In Stillness, the Presence emerges.  In a silent whisper, it sings of the Ineffable, that space where the fundamentally mysterious and completely ordinary meet to form the fabric of Life itself.  

Although I use a variety of meditation techniques, I've found that the foundation of Practice is
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to simply Sit Still and Be Present.   Known as shikantaza in Soto Zen, one's attention is allowed to rest on the moment to moment experience of breath, body, and mind.  We simply Sit with what Zen teacher Norman Fischer calls "the basic feeling of being alive."  This is often easier said than done.  It takes Practice.

Conditioned as we are, we soon notice that our attention is drawn into thoughts and images and memories and daydreams.  Rather than sitting there feeling our bodies breathing, we find ourselves scurrying through the streets of New York City, rewriting a scene from yesterday's argument, working out the budget for the month, etc., etc.   Again and again and again.  

Yet, when we notice this, we are instructed to just make a mental note "thinking", and gently and persistently return to focus on our breath.  With effort, time, and patience, we find that our breathing naturally slows and deepens, and a calmer and more expansive quality of consciousness emerges.  We are able to simply Be Still, to Be Present more fully.

As Practice Deepens

As one devotes time and effort to meditation, over time, longer periods of a calm and clear awareness will emerge. Yet, there will sometimes be  "bumps in the road" as well.  In the Gracious Spaciousness that emerges with practice, long repressed feelings and memories can sometimes emerge.  This is actually a good thing.  You are making what was subconscious, conscious.  You are becoming clearer about who you really are.

At these times, you can gently return your attention to your breath/body, or you may choose to focus directly on what has emerged.  Letting go of the storylines, you can explore the actual bodily sensations and energies underneath the narratives that thought creates.   It is there, beneath and beyond the level of conscious thought, that the deepest patterns reside.  These patterns determine the way you perceive and react to the events in your life.  

The aim here isn't to get rid of "negative" feelings.  Instead we choose to experience them directly and allow them to diffuse into the increasing spaciousness of an open heart and mind.  Unlike western therapies that seek to find an intellectual explanation of those feelings (oh, that comes from the time i was three years old, etc....), the object is just to experience the feelings, the pre-conceptual energies of fear, sadness, anger, confusion, etc. -- and relax into the open and clear space around them.  There, the Heart/Mind heals itself.

At a certain point, the universality of these feelings becomes self-evident.  Rather than identifying with "my" pain, it becomes "the Pain" of our shared humanity.   Here, the ancient Tibetan Buddhist practice, Tonglen, can be especially helpful.  Rather than turn away from the more troubling feelings, we are instructed to draw them into our hearts on the in-breath with the aspiration that all who feel such feelings be free of such suffering and the roots of such suffering.  Then, on the out-breath we release the feelings, and breath out relief with the aspiration that all be at peace.   

This Practice has been extremely important to me for the past couple of weeks as friends and family faced the specters of serious illness and death amidst the holiday celebrations.

The Long Haul

As we devote more time and effort and heart to the Practice, as Mindfulness broadens and deepens, I've found that things really do smooth out.  When you're in it for the long haul, Sitting Still gets easier.

Over time, beyond the difficulties and challenges of engaging with Life As It Is, a simple and mysterious Knowing, without words or beliefs, emerges.  Life's Sacredness becomes self-evident.

As in childhood, the simple wordless wonder of Just Being Alive emerges --both on and off the meditation cushion.

It just takes Practice.

1 comment:

from the void said...

Dear Lance
Another great article , i read it again and again

Again Thank you
Love
rinus< = hfsurfing>