"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, July 24, 2021

Judge Not

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“We sow the seeds of our future hells or happiness by the way
 we open or close our minds right now.
 ― Pema Chodron

I don't think there is any greater freedom than being Present, engaging life as it is without the distortion caused by Judgment Mind.  

Growing up immersed in a society that is highly judgmental, most of us have been deeply conditioned to experience our lives in terms of good/bad, right/wrong, should be/shouldn't be.  In fact, our ego sense, with its perceived separation and isolation from "the other" is maintained by the thoughts, opinions, and various mind states that emerge from this conditioning.  Even in its mild form of liking/disliking, Judgment Mind can generate thoughts and feelings that serve to separate us from the peaceful, calm, and caring Presence we have access to in every moment.  
 
If we are overly self absorbed, distracted, stressed, moving too fast, it's easy to get lost in our conditioned reactions to Life.  Adrift in Judgment Mind, we loose Presence.  We create an alternative reality and forget that the world is really not as it appears to us at that moment.  This deeply ingrained process of evaluating what we experience as bad, wrong, condemnable, is part of our social conditioning.  It appears as discontent, complaints, blame, and self-blame.  If we aren't paying attention, it can and will dominate our lives, moment to moment.
 
Seeing For Yourself
 
One of the fruits of meditation is that we can see how that process works directly.  We can see for ourselves that Judgment Mind isn't only the thoughts going through our heads at the moment.  It's deeper than that.  It is embedded in the emotions we are experiencing.  It's embodied in the tightnesses and discomforts of our body.  It directly effects the quality of our consciousness, our state of mind.  
 
It is actually quite fun to see for yourself how that plays out on the meditation cushion.  
 
If you're paying attention, the emergence of Judgment Mind is obvious.  You'll know that you've have lost touch with the relaxed, warm, bright, open, spaciousness of a open heart and clear mind.  Instead of a profound sense of Connection, you'll collapse into the ego's self-protective reaction patterns.  The emotional energies of those patterns can be fiery hot or icy cold, yet there is a tightening, discontent, and a sense of disconnection.
 
This contraction can happen in a heartbeat.  We can be Present, aware of the sacred expanse of the moment.  Then, Zap!  The gracious spaciousness of an open heart and mind collapses and our attention is consumed by the ranting and raving and blaming of judgmental thoughts as they cascade across the surface of discordant feelings.  
 
As Practice develops, we get more adept at noticing exactly when the shift occurs.  Then,  sometimes, we can dispel Judgment Mind readily.  Taking a breath, bringing kindness and openness to our hearts and minds brings us into the moment more fully -- and Judgment Mind dissipates.  
 
In any one moment, this can literally be the difference between heaven and hell. 
 
Of course, sometimes we may get swept away for awhile.  Then a gentle patience with yourself is helpful.  In my case, the process often ends with me noticing that I'm being judgmental about being judgmental!  That moment of recognition often brings on a grin or a chuckle these days. The poignancy of the Divine Sitcom apparent, the energy of humor emerges -- and my heart opens.  I'm immediately Present again.  There I can feel the Presence of the One Love. 

In one of those meditation experiences awhile back, I saw how the thoughts "I don't like myself.  I'm bad." provided a wonderful opportunity to examine the experience carefully.  Having learned how to let go of the particular narratives generated by Judgment Mind, the experience became a kaleidoscope of sensations, feelings, and energies.   Moments of anger, fear, confusion, humiliation and pain emerged.  Yet, within the space of several breaths, they dissipated.  Without the support of the same old narratives, these energies had nothing to cling to.

Instead, what emerged was a relaxed, open, clear, warm, expansive quality of consciousness, -- and a sense of wonder.  A boundless sense peace and a warm-hearted appreciation permeated my breath and body. 

I can live with that.  Hopefully, I can die with that as well.

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Tonglen Practice: Taking it to Heart

 “You take it all in. You let the pain of the world touch your heart and you turn it into compassion.  It is said that in difficult times, 
it is only bodhichitta that heals.”
 -- The Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa
quoted by Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: 
Heart Advice for Difficult Times

"So, when we are willing, intentionally, with this kind of attitude, this vision, to breathe in the suffering, we are able to transform it easily and naturally; it doesn't take a major effort on our part, other than allow it."
-- Norman Fischer, Training in Compassion: 
Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong

I was chatting on the phone with an old friend, rambling on about my continued wonder at the Lojong Teachings in general, and Tonglen Practice in particular, when she stopped me in my tracks.

 "That's backwards isn't it? You meant breathe in the good and send out the bad, right?" she said, not unkindly.  I think she was politely trying to point out that my aging brain cells had gone dyslexic.

After a moment's pause, taking a breath to relax -- and to make sure that I hadn't verbally zigged when I had intended to zag -- I continued.

"No.  I actually do mean that I breathe into my heart the difficult and challenging darker emotions that have emerged.  This could be my own sadness, fear, frustration, or the perceived suffering of others.  In fact, when I pause to consider that there are countless others who have felt or are feeling what I'm feeling at the moment, my heart naturally expands with that in-breath and the energy is transformed.  Then I am able to breathe out a sense of relief, a healing energy of light and love with the aspiration that myself and others be healed, be at peace.  I visualize that as an energy radiating from my heart.

She paused for awhile -- perhaps to relax and reconnect with a basic openness of mind herself in light of my rant.  Then she simply replied, "Oh?" She didn't sound convinced.

Hers was not an uncommon response.  Raised in a highly materialistic capitalist society, the basic premise of this ancient Tibetan Buddhist system of mind training seems "counter-intuitive." Rather than grasping at the "good" and pushing away the "bad,"we do the exact opposite.  Opening our hearts to the entire gamut of human emotions is seen as a path of Awakening.  Crazy?  It most certainly is. 

Crazy like a fox.

The Lojong Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, which consist of 59 training aphorisms are supported by two meditation practices: Basic Sitting Meditation (Shamatha-Vippasyana) and Tonglen.  Although I had practice Basic Sitting Meditaton in several traditions over the course of thirty six years, I had never been exposed to Tonglen.  

It has changed my life.  

For the past 15 years, Tonglen has continued to expand my ability to better engage the world with an open heart and an open mind.  To be sure,  I still struggle at times with the blindness of my Aries, male ego and the various wounds of my conditioned personality.  And, at times, I am deeply saddened and confounded by the energies of greed, hatred, and ignorance that are all too prevalent in the world today.  Yet, my life has changed for the better.  I no longer plunge into the long periods of depression and anxiety that plagued my younger years.  Instead,  I now am fairly content and at ease most the time.  I also experience many moments of deep wonder, appreciation, and gratitude for the sacred miracle that sings silently within and beyond us.  I'm now convinced that the One Love is always present. 

Bringing It hOMe Here and Now

As I sit here now and pay attention, pausing to become aware of the sensations of my breath and feel my body, I also become aware of a clear, bright, vast, and open sense of spaciousness.  Sitting here, I can rest in its embrace.  Proceeding, still connected to this invisible, formless, seemingly limitless expanse of awareness, the dance of my fingers along the surface of this keyboard continues to fling words across the screen of this old Mac laptop.  

Becoming aware of my body and my breath,  I see that milliseconds before the fingers move, thoughts emerge instantaneously, seemingly from nowhere in particular.  Although, these thoughts are most certainly prompted by my intention to write this blog post, and connected to my own experiences over time, they are also connected to the long lineage of human beings that crafted the English language -- and to everything else.   They appear to be emerging by themselves, quite mysteriously.  

Although Western science claims that our thoughts are merely "epiphenomena," brain secretions of some sort, at this moment this process feels much grander than that.  There is a Presence, a boundless sense of wonder and joy that emerges from the luminous silence that embraces me as the letters emerge on the screen.  The sensations of my body, my breath,  the clicking contact of my fingers on the keyboard, the soft humming of the computer, the traffic outside the window are woven into a tapestry of experience that is reminiscent of dabbling with psychedelics back in the day.  (Oops. TMI? LOL)

But, I digress -- sort of.
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