"As the mind becomes a little more quiet the sacredness of everything
within and without becomes clear to us.”
-- Zen Teacher Norman Fischer
“Be still. Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity.
When there is silence one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself.”
― Lao Tzu
In
the midst of the scurry of the past couple of weeks, I
was especially aware of
how precious each morning's meditation was to me.
As it is, for most of us, we can't sit around "doing nothing" all day. There is a life to be lived. Here, our ability to focus on the breath has another, very practical, benefit. Unlike a lot of other healing resources, the connection to our breath is freely available and always accessible (at least until we croak.) So, in our time off the meditation cushion, we find that we can pause for a few slow, deep, conscious breaths, feel our bodily sensations, relax a bit, and tune in to our visual and auditory experiences of the space around us. This can ground us -- and connect us with the our lives more deeply again. In fact, in lucid dreaming practice and Tibetan Dream Yoga, it is possible to experience our breathing and our Practice through various stages of dreaming as well.
As Practice Deepens
When there is silence one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself.”
― Lao Tzu

Sitting here now, mindful of my breath and body, relaxing into the space that surrounds these sensations,
I come to rest in this moment's open awareness.
In my mind's eye, I
can see light at the end of the tunnel. I am 78 years old, after all. In the long haul of human of human life, I'm probably somewhere in the final lap.
Taking another full, conscious breath, continuing to relax and open,
the tunnel and the light dissolve into the clear, luminous brilliance
that is beyond endings and beginnings. I'm at peace at hOMe Sweet OM. Home is where the Heart is.
Sitting here at this aging MacBook Pro, my heart glows in
gratitude for Practice.
Touching Stillness, even for a few brief moments, is like feeling the warm glow of a fireplace, snuggling at home on a
snowy evening peering through the window at the moon. Paradoxically, it's
also like sipping
clear, crisp spring water on a steamy summer day. In Stillness, a
Presence emerges. In a silent whisper, it sings of the Ineffable, that
infinite space where the fundamentally mysterious and completely ordinary meet
to form the fabric of Life itself.
Simply Sitting Still
Although I use a variety of meditation techniques, have an active prayer life, and practice a set of daily spiritual rituals, the foundation of my personal practice for decades has been shikantaza. I simple sit still with what Zen
teacher Norman Fischer calls "the basic feeling of being alive." Seated erect, my attention is allowed to rest in the moment to moment experience of my breath and body, I relax into the embrace in the expansive spaciousness of what contemporary spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle calls the Eternal Now.
Of course, this is often easier said than done. It takes Practice.
Conditioned as we are in this society, our attention is usually drawn into the thoughts and images and memories and daydreams cascading through our mind. Rather than sitting still, observing the experience of the present moment with a relaxed open gaze, we find ourselves lost in thoughts and images of the future or the past. (My "go to patterns" often have included rewriting scenes from past arguments to put myself in a better light -- or fretting about fear-based worst case scenarios of future events. Oy ve. LOL )
Conditioned as we are in this society, our attention is usually drawn into the thoughts and images and memories and daydreams cascading through our mind. Rather than sitting still, observing the experience of the present moment with a relaxed open gaze, we find ourselves lost in thoughts and images of the future or the past. (My "go to patterns" often have included rewriting scenes from past arguments to put myself in a better light -- or fretting about fear-based worst case scenarios of future events. Oy ve. LOL )
This happens, again and again and again.
Yet, the moment we simply notice this, a moment of Practice emerges. If that noticing is clear, open, calm, and non-judgmental, we have engaged Mindfulness, a qualitatively different mode of consciousness. Mindfulness becomes the Gateless Gate to Pure Awareness. As Practice deepens, there are times that Reality Asserts Itself. In a flash, we are Present in a qualitatively different way -- and we know it. Ultimately, we come home to our True Nature. We realize that that we are all inseparable from the Universe, embraced by a mysterious, boundless, Love. This Sacred Unity is the source and the destination of all that exists and could ever be.
Yet, the moment we simply notice this, a moment of Practice emerges. If that noticing is clear, open, calm, and non-judgmental, we have engaged Mindfulness, a qualitatively different mode of consciousness. Mindfulness becomes the Gateless Gate to Pure Awareness. As Practice deepens, there are times that Reality Asserts Itself. In a flash, we are Present in a qualitatively different way -- and we know it. Ultimately, we come home to our True Nature. We realize that that we are all inseparable from the Universe, embraced by a mysterious, boundless, Love. This Sacred Unity is the source and the destination of all that exists and could ever be.
At times, it is just that simple. Yet, simple doesn't necessarily mean easy.
Throughout
our lives, we have developed complexes of thoughts and emotions that
have a great deal of power over us. They arise, unbidden, to dominate
our attention. Without Practice, we are unconsciously propelled into each moment by our past, again and again.
We are, literally, creatures of habit. Much of who we are at any one moment, the way we "see" and react to our experience, is primarily a result of our conditioning. Most
of the time, we don't choose to think what we are thinking or to feel
what we are feeling. It just bubbles up from our subconscious. Without
Practice, without a conscious commitment to put in the time and effort
to discover who we really are, we are held in bondage by our past.
Without Practice, moment to moment, we are just a bad habit. We are likely to continue to create a
future that contains the same old, same old, suffering that
characterizes much of the human condition.
Thankfully, there is Practice.
Due to the power of our life-long conditioning, sometimes we need to
prime the pump a bit before we can Simply Sit Still.
We have to rely on "skillful means. "There a specific techniques that help develop
the concentration and energy needed to sustain us on the journey of
unfolding discovery that is Practice.
Among
the various schools of Buddhism, and in other spiritual traditions as
well, a common first step in the Practice is to use our own breath as
the object of meditation. Focusing on the actual sensations of
breathing is a powerful means of developing concentration. It also
releases the energy that is wrapped up in our habitual,
stimulus-response, emotional reactions and ruminations. Although other
meditation objects can be useful as the means of developing this
concentration, conscious awareness of breathing has several important
benefits:
First,
this focus enhances the mind-body connection. All too often, we're "in
our heads." Most of our attention is consumed by the thoughts and
fantasies going through our mind. We literally loose touch with the embodied
dance of sensations, emotions, and energies that are the basis of our
lives. Bringing our mind to our breath as it is experienced in our body
joins the mind and body. There, we engage a calmer, yet more energized, state of being. Simply Sitting Still, the breath, body, and mind naturally relax.
Secondly, a focus on the actual experience of our breathing process grounds us in the present moment.
This is huge.
Left to our own devices, the habitual flow of thoughts
and feelings are oftentimes focused on ourselves, on what we want (or don't want) or how we are doing. Even when we are thinking of others or events that are occurring in the "outside world," our attention collapses inward.
Lost in our thoughts,, we are then often carried off into the future or the past. The future evokes fanciful or fearful fantasies. The past, all to often, evokes discomfort, guilt, and shame. As Buddha, and many contemporary
teachers from all spiritual traditions have pointed out, our connection
to the present moment can take us beyond our fixation on our thoughts and feelings to connect us with others, with the world around us, and with a vast, sacred, reality that is,
literally, beyond belief.
Over time, we can learn to place some of our attention on our breath and engage our Practice
throughout the gamut of our
waking hours. In fact, in lucid dreaming and Tibetan Dream Yoga, it is
possible to experience our breathing through various stages of dreaming as well.
(Sometimes
it is helpful to use specific techniques to develop ability to
concentrate our attention even more fully on the breath before we can
Simply Sit Still. Here are Two Helpful Tools. )
And Then
As it is, for most of us, we can't sit around "doing nothing" all day. There is a life to be lived. Here, our ability to focus on the breath has another, very practical, benefit. Unlike a lot of other healing resources, the connection to our breath is freely available and always accessible (at least until we croak.) So, in our time off the meditation cushion, we find that we can pause for a few slow, deep, conscious breaths, feel our bodily sensations, relax a bit, and tune in to our visual and auditory experiences of the space around us. This can ground us -- and connect us with the our lives more deeply again. In fact, in lucid dreaming practice and Tibetan Dream Yoga, it is possible to experience our breathing and our Practice through various stages of dreaming as well.
Sometimes
it is helpful to use specific techniques to develop ability to
concentrate our attention even more fully on the breath before we can
Just Sit Still. Here are Two Helpful Tools. )
At
a certain point, the techniques used to concentrate your attention can
be released. You are able to relax and stay Present, to include all
that is in the soft, loving, gaze of your Practice. You can simply sit still and rest in an open heart and a clear mind. There, you can feel
the open, expansive, mysterious, beneficence at the heart of the Universe. Over time, you come to realize that this infinite, spacious, One Love always has your back.
Of
course, this may not happen immediately. Our conditioning is deep and
pervasive. There are layers and layers of this conditioning locked into
our bodies and minds. At times, our own skeletons may emerge from the
subconscious closets as memories, powerful emotions, even flashbacks.
Yet, with Practice, it becomes easier and easier to return your
attention to the spaciousness of the present moment, to what you see
right in front of you, what you hear in the space that surrounds you, to
the sensations of your breath and body.
At other times, you may be able to focus directly on the thoughts that have emerged. Then, letting go of the habitual narratives that have arisen, you can explore the actual bodily sensations emotions, and energies themselves. 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, at this point, isn't to get rid of "negative" feelings. Instead we choose to experience them directly and allow them to diffuse into the 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 Practice allows us just to experience the feelings, the pre-conceptual energies of fear, sadness, anger, confusion, etc. -- and relax into the open and clear, spacious awareness that embraces them.
There in the spaciousness of open awareness, the Heart/Mind heals itself.
Loving Your Neighbor AS yourself
At a certain point, the universality of these feelings becomes self-evident. Rather than locking down and identifying with "my" suffering, we see clearly that it is transpersonal. It is the pain of the human condition. No longer resisting it, opening to accept it as it is, we are released from its bondage.
Here, the ancient Tibetan Buddhist
practice, Tonglen,
can be especially helpful. (See Tonglen Practice: Taking It to Heart) Rather than turn away from difficult emotional energies, we 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. Tonglen Practice has been extremely important to me for the past couple
of weeks as we navigate our way through the current political madness.
The Long Haul
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, Simply Sitting Still
gets easier. The Practice ends up doing you more than you are doing it.
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.
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.
2 comments:
❤️๐งก๐๐๐๐
Great read ♡
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