Being Real

 

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space.  He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
-- Albert Einstein

 
"Compassion and resilience are not, as we might imagine, rarefied human qualities available only to the saintly... In fact, these essential and universally prized human qualities can be solidly cultivated by anyone taking the time to do it." 

-- Norman Zoketzu Fischer,

Trainings in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong

Really, Dude?
 

"Yikes.  I did it again," I thought.  

Moments before, I had proclaimed with utter certainty that MY take on what was going on, was absolutely the truth of the matter.  I was even quite uppity about it.  

Then, quite quickly, Reality asserted itself.  

My certitude that my friend was "wrong," and that I was "right," disintegrated in the clear light of a sunny day.  

Duh.

Thankfully, my friend was gracious.  She didn't skewer me for my not immediately noticing the tightness in my chest -- and shutting the fuck up.  

Once again, I had missed the opportunity to pay better attention to the emergence of ego's hard headed clinging to its limited point of view.  I first noticed it in the tension in my voice. Yet, the momentum of ancient patterns had propelled me into a rather strident declaration of the facts at hand.  Then, to make matters worse, I immediately reacted defensively to her questioning my take.

Thankfully, the Universe -- and my friend -- were kind.  No 15 round knock down, drag out, battle ensued. Within a few moments,  I could see quite clearly that I was mistaken.  I had to give it up. 

Whew.  

At this stage of the journey, I actually was grateful for my "mistake." The Universe had pointed out, once again, that who I am at any moment in time can be nothing more, nor anything less, than a bad habit.  I've learned to appreciate those moments.

As a 5'2", 79 year old white, working class, cis, male (an Aries, no less), who emerged from a significantly chaotic and traumatic childhood, I can be a real jerk.  My supercharged need to be "right" is a deeply conditioned way to drive away the demons of existential angst -- and prove my worth.  Yet, these days I can bow to that reality with a grin more readily. It's easier to move on into the next moment with a bit more Presence.

I blame the Practice for that.

The Real Deal

Over the years, it has become more and more obvious to me that much of human life is dictated by habit.  Although it may not feel like it, who we are is not a fixed, free standing, independently existing, subjective reality.  Our current "point of view" emerges from a cauldron of causes and conditions, many of them beyond our ken -- or control.  We experience life through what Albert Einstein called an "optical illusion" of human consciousness.  We've learned to perceive ourselves as fundamentally separate from everything -- and everybody -- else. 

Spending much of our time lost in thought, adrift in habitual moods, we are driven by a set of deeply ingrained, mostly subconscious (and often contradictory) beliefs about ourselves and the world.  Immersed in these states of mind, we rarely are present to the deepest dimension of our lives.  Yet, all the while, in the vast silence within and beyond each moment, a sacred reality calls to us.  A boundless expanse of support and potentiality, it's presence energizes all that is.

Yet, we rarely hear it calling.  There's too much noise. 

When we aren't distracting ourselves with one of the myriad external amusements readily available, our inner world is usually a cascading current of thoughts and emotional energies. For some, the restlessness embedded in this noisy jumble will even emerge as bodily fidgits.  

To make matters worse, the noise in our heads resonates with the prevailing noise in the collective consciousness of today's world.  It dominates our attention. Oblivious to the subtle energies dancing within the infinite space of each and every moment, we don't experience our fundamental unity with all that is, has been, and ever could be.  We don't experience our connection to the One Love that is the ever-unfolding source, sustaining energy, and destination of all life.  

Thankfully, this fundamental sense of disconnect is nothing more --and nothing less than -- a bad habit.  

Embedded in that habit is the deep disquiet of what some have called existential angst. Most often, a restlessness for relief creates layers of addictive patterns to fill the void. Each is a grasping, an attempt to find happiness in all the wrong places.  Buddha described this as the cause of all human suffering.

So, it's no surprise that we creatures of habit find ourselves in tough straits. Each of us is awash in a culture where capitalism, scientific materialism, and a dysfunctional religious dogma have been woven into most every nook and cranny of human life -- for centuries.  The individual and collective subconscious of generations of human beings have been increasingly conditioned to create and feed this habitual sense of separation.  This pervasive "us vs them"mentality creates our day to day life as the individual struggle it appears to be.

Yet, all the while, in the still and silent space of our Heart of Hearts, the fundamental connection exists.  As we come to rest in the warmth of an open heart and clarity of open awareness, it becomes mysteriously clear.  We are not separate from the One Love.  From there, moment to moment, emerges a way of being that is truly clear, calm, kind, compassionate and wise.  This basic goodness is our True Nature. 
 

But, here's the rub.

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Lighten Up!

"The key to feeling at home with your body, mind and emotions, to feeling worthy to live on this planet, comes from being able to lighten up. When your aspiration is to lighten up, you begin to have a sense of humor. Things just keep popping 

your serious state of mind."

---Pema Chodron, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living

"Get your mind unbound and free; and then from the loosest, highest, best place you have, with the fastest and most humorous mind you can get together, you can reach out and make a try at understanding Spirit."

---Stephen Gaskin, This Season's People

All too often, it seems like those of us who are sincere spiritual seekers can get a bit too stodgy, a bit too stiff, a bit too serious about it all.  

 

It's not surprising, I suppose.

Although it's true that some of the folks drawn to Buddhism had experienced lives of relative comfort, achievement, and success (before realizing that there was still something lacking,) I think many folks were like me. I'd had a hard go of it.  

 

Growing up in what the psychiatrist, addictions specialist, author and teacher Dr. Gabor Mate describes as a toxic culture, my life, like the lives of many of us had included serious trauma.  I just about ace'd the freakin' ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) test!

 

So, when I stumbled across Buddha's Four Noble Truth's I was transfixed.  The First Noble Truth -- that Suffering is inherent in the impermanence of the human condition -- rang True.  I knew suffering to be real in my life.   

 

The Buddha's witnessing of sickness, old age, and death were part of my experience.  My grandmother disintegrated as she lost her bout with cancer.  A special friend disappeared from the school playground because of a failed tonsillectomy.  And beyond these examples of the universal human condition, my childhood had been especially chaotic and troubling.

 

By the time I was six, I had witnessed my mother being swept up into extreme mental states and behaviors.  She disappeared from my life for large swathes of time.  Each time she was hospitalized in a state institution, my father's inability to work full-time and take care of four children (three under the age of 6, the first time) led to him finding"foster" settings -- seemingly with families that just needed the money.  I experienced sexual abuse in each.  

Although my inherent capacity to experience the wonders of childhood curiosity, exploration, and discovery remained intact (most often while wandering around alone), I suffered through a revolving door of frightening and painful experiences throughout elementary school and junior high school.  

During that time Mom would get well and the three youngest would return to live with her.  Then, she would get "unwell" -- and we were off to live with strangers.  Then she would be fine.  And then she wasn't.  My world was a kaleidoscopic swirl of new teachers, new schools, new homes, new "families," detention centers, truant officers, social workers -- and police officers.  I was touched by the kindness of some.  I wasn't touched so kindly by others.

Extremely sensitive ( my radar had been fine-tuned to Mom's moods to know when to seek safety), I also saw and felt suffering in the folks around me -- whether expressed or not.  So many folks seemed unhappy, frightened, angry, sad.

I also saw suffering in the larger world around me as it played out in the stark black and white of television.  The mystery, cowboy, and army shows bristled with malevolence, murder, and mayhem.  The television news was probably even worse because it purported to be real.  

The First Noble Truth? Suffering part of life? Check. I read on.  

When I discovered that the man known as the Buddha asserted that there was a specific cause for suffering, I was intrigued.  Then, when he proclaimed that there was a freaking way out of suffering,  I was hooked! 

Seriously? Damn! Sign me up! 

 

(Of course, at that time, living in rural Northern Illinois, there weren't a whole lot of Buddhists around.  But that's another story for another time. )

 

Getting Serious

 

I've discussed spirituality with lots of folks over the decades -- many of who were drawn to other spiritual traditions.  It seems there often was a similar dynamic. Whether seeking nirvana or heaven,  sat chit ananda or atonement, most were seeking some form of release from a painful, dissatisfying, confusing, seemingly meaningless, existence.  We were all looking for Light at the end of the tunnel.  Then, whatever our specific path, at a certain point we knew that we had to make a committed effort.  We get serious about it. 

Unfortunately, some of us then got deadly serious about it.  I, for one, know that I got way too fanatical about it.  I was on a mission to point how how serious our situation was on this planet, how important spiritual practice was.  It's all I wanted to talk about.  My friends used to hate to see me coming.  I could quickly squeeze the life out of any party. 

 

It wasn't until that "oh so serious"bubble burst with a quip and belly laugh (and a joint) that I began to lighten up again.  I saw clearly that what some folks call the Cosmic Joke was for real!  Sometimes, the wise crack is how the Light gets in!  A sense of humor is one of humanity's superpowers. 
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Judge Not and ...

 

“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 Connection we have access to in every moment.  

 

If we are overly self-absorbed, distracted, stressed, moving too fast, etc., it's easy to get lost in our conditioned reactions to Life.  Adrift in Judgment Mind, we loose Presence.  We get lost in the alternative reality we have created -- 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, diatribe, enmity, 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.  

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Me and My Shadow

 

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, 

but by making the darkness conscious...
Knowing your own darkness is the best method
for dealing with the darknesses of other people."

-- C.G. Jung

 

“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments 

that teach us where it is that we’re holding back...
They’re like messengers that show us,
with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck."

 --  Pema Chödrön

Many folks experiencing a lot of stress in their lives are drawn to meditation.  It's only natural.  There appears to be a deep human yearning to chill out.  

 

And, to be sure, Mindfulness Practice can provide many moments of calm and clarity.

Yet -- and this is generally not proclaimed in the slick internet ads  -- it is also true that a regular mediation practice can bring to the surface a lot of feelings that we have assiduously managed to repress, deny, or otherwise avoid, as we scurry along in our lives.

Conditioned to operate in a fast-paced materialistic society, one that keeps us focused outwardly for fulfillment, we are programmed to just keep moving.  So, once we slow down and sit still for awhile to focus inwardly, our world changes

 

Although we can experience greater calm, it is also not uncommon to encounter darker, more distressing energies during periods of meditation.

Contrary to what we might think, this is a Good Thing.  It's a sign that the Practice is working! (How often have you winced and thought "Damn.  Why did I say/do that!?  Wouldn't you like to know?)

In the process of a deepening Practice, we no longer skim across the surface.  Turning toward and embracing our Shadow, we actually begin to get in touch with the aspects of our conditioning that have subconsciously operated to create the way we see and react to the events of our lives.  

 

The good news is that, with Practice, we are able to make conscious what had been subconscious.  Over time, we are able to observe and understand the more troublesome aspects of ourselves, and navigate our lives with increasing clarity and ease. 

Truth in Advertising

Adrift in momentary delusions of grandeur, I sometimes joke about beginning a high profile advertising campaign for Monday Morning Mindfulness.  Full page bold print ads, billboards, and television commercials would proclaim something like:
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