The Usefulness of Mindfulness During a Stressful Time

On March 15 we received a phone call at 6:30 in the morning from our son-in-law, Christian, saying that our 38 week pregnant daughter, Emily, was in intense pain and they were going to the emergency room. Their neighbors would stay with our two year old grandson Ollie until we got there. We sprang into action and got to their house within an hour. Soon after, Christian called again: they were going to do an emergency C-section. Then no call for three hours!

How does one bring mindfulness to terrified thoughts which were coursing through my brain at that time? My conditioning from my parents is to expect the worst and hope for the best. Until we got the call that Emily and the baby were OK, I found the best response was to turn on the TV and watch Curious George with my grandson Ollie. He sat contentedly in my lap, my arm wrapped around his body. Whenever the terrified thoughts came, I acknowledged those parts of myself that were terrified, and then I looked at Ollie and gently hugged him closer. Even after Sophia's birth I had to deal with fears about her and Emily's health. From Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems, I have learned that those parts of me that expect and fear the worst are parts that were formed in my childhood and that those parts are trying to protect me. Rumi's famous poem The Guest House tells us that it is important to welcome those parts. Thich Nhat Hanh taught me how to welcome those parts: "hello old friend fear, come sit with me." During those three days when intense feelings arrived, I was able to welcome them. If I was in the middle of something, especially with Ollie, I would simply acknowledge them. If I had more space, I would feel the places in my body where they resided and take a few mindful breaths. Sometimes, I would radiate loving-kindness phrases to myself and our family: may I/you have moments of happiness, moments of peace, moments of freedom from suffering.

After the birth, Yvette and I realized we might be there for a few days, so we settled into watching Ollie. All he knew was that mama, dada, and baby sister were at a place called hospital and that he couldn't see them now, and he is two and we are seventy-four. Welcome to a marathon. So how did I practice mindfulness now that the worst had not happened?

First, I made the intention to pace myself. Three years after the aortic dissection which nearly killed me, I do not have the amount of energy that I had before, partly because of pills I take daily to lower my heart rate and blood pressure. I have learned during this time how to monitor my lower energy levels so that I don't crash. So I made the intention to be aware of moving more slowly throughout the day. I was often aware of taking a few breaths mindfully, and I made sure to take breaks when I realized that my energy was getting dangerously low.

I also identified situations that would likely trigger some reactivity on my part, for example, walking into the kitchen and their big golden retriever jumping up on me or walking in my path, and times when I was more likely to feel challenged by Ollie, like meal times and other transitions. Because of my intention to remember these situations, I was able to generally make appropriate responses-not yelling at the dog or being irritated with Ollie.

While Yvette and I are generally in agreement about how to deal with our grandchildren, we don't always agree. As the days wore on, we were more tired and there were moments of irritation with each other. In those moments, it was so helpful to remember the four questions the Buddha encouraged people to ask before they spoke: Is what I am about to say true? Will it be helpful? Can I say it kindly? and Is this a good time to say it? Most of the time, I could not answer yes to all four questions, and so I kept my mouth shut in those moments. Fortunately, Yvette also knows Buddhist psychology, so my silence was understood.

The only times during those three days that I actually meditated were when I was putting Ollie down for his daily naps and at bedtime. As I was lying in bed and he in his crib, I would sometimes simply breathe in and breath out for a while, sometimes I would practice a body scan, and sometimes the loving-kindness phrases, directed to him, Emily, Sophia, and Christian: may you be happy, moments peaceful, free from suffering.

On the evening of the third day Emily, Sophia, and Christian came home. Yvette and I drove back to Keene and collapsed, relieved that the worst had not happened and joyful for Sophia's arrival.

The next morning I was in the grocery store and realized how irritated I was. My wife and I had worked hard to keep it together during those three days and now was the predictable letdown. When someone was in my way, I was able to remember to feel that space between stimulus (they are in my way) and reactive thought (get out of my way), and I remembered that I had choices about how to respond. While I could have asked them to move, I realized that I was really irritated and that I probably couldn't make that request without irritation in my voice. I decided they didn't need to feel that irritation directed toward them, so I chose to move on or go down a different aisle and then come back later.

I used other practices and strategies, but this is already long. However, it gives a sense of what mindfulness looked like for me during these four days, and I know that there are many other practices and strategies that were also available.

Addendum: This last paragraph is for parents and grandparents of young children. Ollie has had moments of what I would call acting out or terrible twos but which my daughter calls "having big feelings." Here is how she handled one situation differently than Yvette and I did 35 years ago. The whole family was in the king size bed and Ollie started hitting Emily. Her response was to ask Ollie: "are you feeling like hitting me?" When he nodded his head affirmatively, she said "you can't hit me because it hurts. Would you like to hit the pillow?" He smiled and nodded. So he hit the pillow several times until he didn't need to anymore. Interestingly, this resonates with Jon Kabat Zinn's training for teaching Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, where he used aikido to model a different way of responding to aggressiveness. The aikido response is to meet that aggressiveness by acknowledging it and working with it as opposed to suppressing it

Bringing Mindfulness to Pleasant and Unpleasant Experiences

“When we're not mindful [of our response to what is happening in the moment], pleasant feelings habitually condition desire and clinging, unpleasant feelings condition dislike and aversion, and neutral feelings condition delusion, i.e., not really knowing what is going on. Yet when we are mindful, these very same feelings become the vehicle of our freedom.” In this quote Joseph Goldstein is pointing out an often overlooked Buddhist concept, that in every moment our minds are labeling the information coming into our awareness as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral (not important).

Two examples of the power of bringing mindfulness to this process
I was leading a body scan meditation to some Keene State College students. I mentioned that when you notice an unpleasant or even painful sensation, to see if you can simply observe it rather than hating it. Afterwards, a student said that she had gone to the gym the day before after having not gone for months. As a result, she was sore all over and hating it. After I made my comment, her experience of the sensations of soreness on her body went from being miserable and hating it to realizing that it wasn't that bad and that the soreness wasn't forever.

This is a snippet of a dialogue in a course I was taking after we had meditated for about 30 minutes.
Teacher: What did you notice?
Participant: I noticed that I felt sad.
Teacher: And then what?
Participant: I noticed that I didn’t want to feel sad.
Teacher: And then what?
Participant: I felt even worse.

The point in both examples is that while we can’t control what comes into our awareness, we can bring mindfulness to what we are adding to that experience. In the second case, sadness was the experience and the aversion to this unpleasantness was what was added. Over time we can notice when we are adding and realize that there are other choices.

Jon Kabat-Zinn operationalized this process in the well-known and researched Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course. These were his instructions:
For one week, bring mindfulness to one pleasant event each day, e.g., receiving praise or hearing a bird song.
Specifically, bring mindful attention to:
1) your body, e.g., being aware of your shoulders relaxing, a smile...
2) your emotions, e.g., joy, contentedness...
3) your thoughts, e.g., “That was sweet,” “It’s so nice to be outside"...
4) what you noticed as you reflected on the experience, e.g., "It was such a small thing, but I’m glad I noticed it."

For the next week, bring mindful attention to one unpleasant event each day, e.g., waiting in line or worrying about something or a headache. As before, bring mindful attention to what you noticed in your body, your emotions, your thoughts, and what you noticed when reflecting on the experience.

If you are hesitant to do so, you might want to read some of the insights that participants (in the MBSR courses that I taught almost 30 times) noted in our discussions.

Insights from bringing mindfulness to pleasant events
• "Fully experiencing a pleasant event changed my attitude for the whole day!"
• "Those happy moments become elongated and they followed me throughout the day."
• There are actually many pleasant events almost every day.
• “I had an increased openness to so many other pleasant events that often go unnoticed”; we are so often on automatic pilot.
• "Seeing beauty in the ordinary"
• Focusing on the pleasant was helpful to balance the tendency to focus on the negative, which is so common.

Insights from bringing mindfulness to unpleasant events
• When you bring curiosity and non-judgment to something unpleasant, "I realized that it’s not as bad as I first thought."
• When being mindful, the experience went from intolerable to just unpleasant.

This reminds me of a comment my mom made to me when I was adding to an unpleasant experience: she told me I was “making a mountain out of a molehill.” I'm also reminded of a quote from Mark Twain: "most of the worst events of my life never actually happened."

When we bring curiosity and non-judgmental awareness to the unpleasantness, it softens, and our experience can go from highly unpleasant to mildly unpleasant to sometimes just “this is how it is now.” The now is important because we often literally contract in reaction to the unpleasantness because we lose perspective; that is, that this unpleasantness is impermanent.

I acknowledge that it is sometimes almost impossible to bring mindful attention to something that is extremely physically or emotionally painful. In those cases, distraction can be a more useful choice. I was aware of this several times during my stay in the intensive-care unit and during my recovery from the aortic dissection.

I end with the Buddha's actual words: "the uninstructed person does not know of any escape from unpleasant or painful feelings other than seeking something that is pleasant." One of my meditation teachers gave a personal example. She was relaxing at home and suddenly had the desire for a piece of chocolate. Upon reflection, she realized that just before that desire for chocolate, a sudden feeling of sadness had arisen. When she allowed herself to sit with that feeling of sadness for just a few moments, that urge for chocolate dissolved.

If you decide to try out this exercise, other readers and I would love to hear what you noticed.

The Magic of Compassionate Presence

I want to tell two stories about compassionate listening and presence.

I taught mindfulness every week for about 10 years at the county jail a few miles from my house. I stopped when I had the aortic dissection almost two years ago. I spent two hours each week at the jail, an hour in two different cell blocks. Participation was voluntary, and over the years I had as many as 12 men in my sessions and as few as one.

Several years ago the number of men in one of the cell blocks dwindled to a single man. One day he asked me if I was being paid to come and I told him that I was a volunteer. That blew him away. He said that no one in his life had ever offered him something without expecting something in return. The first time a person in jail told me this I was blown away. Sadly, several men have told me this over the years.

I quickly realized that he really wasn't interested in meditation. He simply enjoyed having someone who would listen to his loneliness and anguish with compassion, which I did. A couple months later he was released and I didn't hear from him again. I assumed he had moved back to Ohio. A couple years later I received a letter from him. He reminded me who he was and simply said, "I am writing to say thanks. I want you to know your presence and your kindness gave me hope." He didn't say thank you for teaching me mindfulness meditation, but thank you for your presence.

In the second story, I was on the receiving end of compassionate listening. Over 25 years ago, our weekly meditation group decided to adapt the Quaker practice of listening into our meetings. We would meditate for 75 minutes (sitting and walking) and then someone would speak when they felt moved to do so. They would raise their hands in Namaste and the rest of us would also. Because there were often periods of silence during someone's turn, that person raised their hands in Namaste when they were finished.

During this time, my wife had become very sick and was in constant pain. After many months, we still had no diagnosis. We had two teen aged children at the time and I was a full-time college professor. One day I was just exhausted and full of despair. I poured out my pain and grief for several minutes and then I was finished. I raised my hands in Namaste and the others did also.

It was several minutes before the next person spoke and he said, "I've had a pretty rough week." I filled with tears. I realized that because of the format, no one had tried to reassure me with well-intentioned words. This enabled me to feel the pure gift of people who loved me holding me in their hearts with such deep compassionate presence. Note: my wife fully recovered from this illness.

I have been in the presence of many people who have embodied this quality, most notably Thich Nhat Hanh. You could feel his presence in each moment. When he listened it seemed like every fiber of his being was present in that moment. His body was quiet, his heart was open, and his mind was focused.

I realize that this is actually the best offering I can make in my daily life with family, friends, and others--simple, whole-hearted presence. It's not easy and I can often overcommit myself and begin hurrying. However, when I remember exemplars like Thich Nhat Hanh and stories like the two I have shared, my whole being calms down and I remember what's really important.

Addendum the next day: I was reading an interview today with Oren Jay Sofer, and his description of what presence means was beautiful: when we notice “how it feels when someone is really there, we really have the sense that they’re giving us their full attention. It’s very powerful and I think it sends a very deep message when we give someone our full attention.”

Habit energy: What's not working

Today's essay starts with a wonderful story from Martin Seligman, one of the pioneers of positive psychology.

One day he was out weeding in his garden with his daughter, Nicki, who was almost six. Martin is a serious gardener and also confesses that he is not really that good with kids. While he was focused on weeding, Nicki was having fun: weeds were flying up in the air and dirt was spraying everywhere. At one point, he yelled at her.

"Nicki got a stern look on her face, and she walked right over to me. 'Daddy, from the time I was three until I was five, I whined a lot. But I decided the day I turned five, to stop whining. And I haven't whined once since the day I turned five.’ Then Nicki looked me right in the eye, and said 'Daddy, if I could stop whining, you can stop being such a grouch.'"

Waking up on the wrong side of the bed
The other day I got up 'on the wrong side of the bed' and was generating a lot of negative thinking. At one point I caught myself and was able to turn the day around, and this is something that is actually quite accessible to anyone who has practiced the basics of mindfulness.

ACTION/OBSERVATION	COMMENT/THOUGHT
I woke up and realized that because of my sore hip, I had slept on my back all night.	Damn. My back aches.
I got out of bed. The bottoms of my feet were puffy again.	This has been going on for months. What's going on?
I poured some psyllium husks into a glass of water. Some of the medications I take cause constipation, so I take psyllium and use other measures to address this. Today I don't sense much movement in my colon.	I didn’t pay enough attention to fluids and fiber yesterday. Damn.
The bucket under the water filter overflowed onto the counter top.	Damned water filter wasn't made well.
I couldn’t find the pan I use to cook eggs.	Damn. This kitchen is always too cluttered.

Angeles Arrien: what's not working
Years ago I read Angeles Arrien’s description of one shadow side she called ‘focusing on what’s not working.’ I have realized that this is a long time habit of mine, learned from my father. I realized that this habit was operating strongly at this point. I acknowledged that I could continue to be negative or simply acknowledge the 'not working' thoughts and also focus on what is working.

Thich Nhat Hanh: habit energy
In a talk in 1997 in Plum Village, France, Thich Nhat Hahn (also referred to as Thay, which means 'teacher') mentioned "habit energy." He stated that we have positive energies which we can cultivate and we have negative energies which we can transform. The practice “is to recognize the energy of our habits and smile to them. And also to cultivate the new habit, the good habit, until the new habit begins to produce energy." I recommend Thay's whole talk on dealing with habit energy which you can access HERE or you can copy and paste this url into your browser: https://sites.google.com/site/tnhdhamma/Home/test-list/taking-good-care-of-our-habit-energies

Applying these ideas into my own life
For the first several months after my aortic dissection last November, I was so happy to be alive and then happy that the repair surgery was successful, that I was carried by this positive energy. However, in the last month or so I have noticed that a tendency to slip back into the 'what's not working' energy. I realized the other morning that some intention to focus on this habit energy would be wise.

I want to highlight Thay's articulation "to recognize the energy of our habits and smile to them." Thay emphasized that mindfulness practice is not about suppressing those parts of us that we don't like and want to get rid of, but rather bringing that same kind of loving attention to these parts that we would bring to a young child who is clearly upset about something.

So that morning, once I realized that I was being sucked down the rabbit hole of this energy, I just laughed used a practice that Thay had described in another talk. I smiled and said "Hello old friend, I can see you are suffering. Come sit with me." And I felt that part as I practiced loving-kindness toward it: "may you be safe and well, may you be peaceful, may you be free from suffering."

Victor Frankl comes in too
I also remembered that great quote from Victor Frankl: “[B]etween stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." In that moment, I was able to change my response to my growing irritability. A half hour later when I realized that I had forgotten to pour my decaf coffee out of the coffee pot before making my wife's caffeinated coffee, I just laughed.

Internal Family Systems
It is important to emphasize that it's not just Buddhist practice to deal with negative habit energies with kindness, it is also an essential component of a psychotherapeutic framework called Internal Family Systems which I wrote about in my August 12, 2019 blog post which you can access HERE. I worked with an IFS therapist for some time many years ago to ‘unburden’ my 'I’m not good enough' part.

What isn’t working and what is working
Since that morning last week, I have recognized the "what's not working part" many times each day. Sometimes I catch it early, sometimes not until it's a full blown storm, but I have been catching it more often. One day, when it was particularly strong, I told my wife that I probably should be by myself for awhile because my "what's not working part" was throwing a fit. She thanked me.

There's a lot in my life that's not working now:

• I am dealing with the trauma from the dissection which almost killed me;

• with having so little energy: the other day I went a a small gathering of people for two hours and then spent the rest of the day in the recliner watching TV and then in bed reading;

• with the inability to lift more than 20 pounds;

• with not being able to take care of my garden;

• with having to monitor daily my blood pressure, my fiber intake (otherwise I'm constipated), my potassium intake (the medications I take lower my potassium levels), and more;

There’s also so much that is working, that is wonderful, including two friends who have volunteered to help me with gardening! When I remember and acknowledge what is working, it makes the hard stuff so much easier to deal with.

It's a full time job to be mindful. I’m not planning on retiring from that job soon!

Loving-kindness Meditation and Healing a Relationship

Loving-kindness meditation
One the most powerful Buddhist meditations is the one called loving-kindness. There are many variations but one that I like involves bringing to mind someone who makes you smile or whom you care about and thinking about the love you have for them and the love you have received from them and given them.   The idea is to generate an awareness of this energy we call love, which is always available to us.

Then you say these phrases silently: 
May you be happy
May you be peaceful
May you be free

In case the person is suffering perhaps from a physical disease, the loss of a loved one, estrangement from a loved one, the loss of a job, etc. this modification has been found to be helpful by many people: 
May you have moments of happiness each day
May you have moments of peace each day
May you have moments of freedom from suffering each day

Difficulties with my father
Because I’ve had a challenging and difficult relationship with my father, who recently died, one year I decided to practice this meditation with him in mind for an entire year. 

My father was almost always angry when I was young, and my siblings and I have talked about the physical and verbal abuse. As we got older, we realized that he suffered from PTSD from his many experiences in WW2, and that helped us to develop some compassion and forgiveness towards him.

Even though I knew he loved me and was proud of me, as an adult I received a lot of verbal abuse because he was a very conservative Republican and I was the only liberal  among his four children. It infuriated him that I canceled out his vote every election. I learned over time never to bring up politics, though he frequently would.

Loving-kindness meditation for a year
About 10 years ago after one such tirade on the phone, and we had said goodbye, I had reached my limit. I said to my wife "you know I’m not going to share a tear when that son of a bitch dies" My wife simply said, "you might wanna sit with that," meaning bring that hurt and anger into my meditation. So I did. For the next year every time I meditated I included my dad in the loving kindness meditation: Dad, I wish you moments of happiness each day. Dad, I wish you moments of peace each day. Dad, I wish you freedom from suffering.

Of course I never told my dad I was doing this. He was not terribly thrilled that I had converted to Buddhism. However during our occasional phone calls I noticed a shift. I was less reactive and my responses to his outbursts were coming more from a place of compassion and were more measured, like "Dad this is not getting us anywhere. Can we talk about something else?"

More compassion and tenderness
Sometime after this we had a family reunion to celebrate his 90th birthday. He was still pretty angry and abusive. My two sisters and I decided upon an intervention.  As my dad and I were casually talking, I was monitoring my breath and reminding myself of my intentions in this conversation. Then I brought up the subject. This is how the conversation went:

"Dad, you’ve been angry and upset a lot and we understand that: you can't golf anymore, you’re going blind and deaf, and you’re living in an assisted living center. That would be hard for any of us.” 
He acknowledged this with a nod. 
"Dad, what could we do to help?" I asked.
"I don’t know," he stated flatly.
"What if I called you more often?" 
"I don’t like to talk on the phone and I don’t like to talk for a long time so I don't think that would work," he responded.
"What if we said that it would only be a half hour?  Would you like that?" I offered.
"Yes I would," he said after a moment’s pause.
"How often would you like me to call?" I asked.
"Well not every week," he stated firmly.
I proposed, "how about every other week?"
He paused and said gently that he would like that. 

So then instead of calling him only whenever I felt guilty, I began calling him every other week and continued this for the next six years until he died in February. We would talk often about sports and about how my children and his great-granddaughter were doing. 

Sometimes he would bring up politics and often start ranting. I would let him rant for a little bit, calm my breath as he was talking, and remind myself of my intention to meet his anger not with my own anger or irritation, but with love and kindness. 

A couple years later, my sister who lived close to him was able to persuade him to begin taking an antidepressant. He steadfastly denied that he was depressed, With her doctor's help she said the medication would help take an edge off his anger and anxiety.  He agreed. 

While I am not a big fan of the pharmaceutical industry, in my dad's case it made a big difference. Over the next several years, our weekly conversations were actually pleasant. He would even catch himself at times in the middle of a rant, and the rants became much less frequent. 

When he died, I did shed tears and even wrote an obituary in the local paper. While here were certain arenas we never me on, I am grateful for the work we both put into the relationship that developed and grateful for the practice that enabled me to see him more clearly, more compassionately.

Our choices always have consequences

In every moment of our lives we make choices, from whether to have soup or salad for lunch to how to respond to a made comment by someone. Over the course of a day we make thousands of choices, most of them unconsciously. However, all of those choices have consequences, often huge. Mindfulness helps us to remember this and to pay more attention to these choices and their consequences.

Mindfulness has taught me that when faced with a choice--especially about something unpleasant--it is important to pay much more attention to my responses to what is happening than to what is happening itself. Let me give and unpack some examples.

Three choices in the middle of the night
On many nights over the past four months, I have awakened in the middle of the night in a state of fear and not been able to go back to sleep immediately. I was aware that I had many choices in those moments.

I could do a light body scan or I could simply bring mindful attention to the most compelling sensation—an ache in my leg or the feeling of the back of my head on the pillow. I brought a curious and accepting awareness to that sensation and stayed there until another sensation pulled me away. Whenever I realized my attention had wandered, I simply brought my attention back to my body.

Or I could practice loving-kindness. Sometimes I juiced up the energy of this practice by asking what I was grateful for, for example, I was still alive as a result of medical intervention, I had a bed, food, and was being cared for. Then I voiced the simple phrases: May I (others) be happy, May I (others) be peaceful, May I (others) be free from suffering.

Or I could focus on my breath: simply breathing in and breathing out. Sometimes, I would silently say “here” when breathing in and “now” when breathing out. If my mind was restless, I would count the breaths, starting over when I got to 10 and smiling when I realized I had lost count and then starting over!

Sometimes I got back to sleep soon, other times not for a while, and a few times I didn’t get back to sleep at all. The key is it didn’t matter! That is the what (getting to sleep) is so much less important than the how (how am I responding now).

Of course, experiential knowledge helps. At a meditation retreat 40 years ago, the teacher said that sometimes people can’t get to sleep and that if that happened, either to pay attention to our breath or to do light body scans. He said that even if we got no sleep all night, if we could relax and not resist, that we would be fine. A few days later it happened to me and I followed his advice—I don’t think I slept a wink that night. When the wake up bell rang at 4:30, I got up and walked to the meditation hall. To my surprise, I was quite functional that day. This practice has been with me since then.

Floundering
I also floundered a few times during the past few months. One of those flounderings was when I had to be readmitted to the hospital after my surgery. I really did not want to be in the hospital again, my third stay in three months, and I was depressed that I was still having issues after the surgery. I was definitely ‘on the pity pot’ feeling sorry for myself.

Somehow, it occurred to me to go back to a fundamental of meditation which I expressed in my own words, “Can I be OK with what is happening in this moment now.” To my delight, I could always say yes! After all it was much easier for me to say yes than it was for at least a few billion people who are homeless, freezing, in prison or camps, or being physically abused. I immediately calmed down, and continued to say yes to each moment. It didn’t take long to get back to sleep. I have continued to use this simple, powerful response since then, when trying to get back to sleep and during periods of being down.

Sacrament of the present moment
I was recently talking to my sister who is a co-leader of a lay Catholic community she has lived in for the past forty years. She responded to my story with happiness for me and then told me that Catholics have a very similar practice called The Sacrament of the Present Moment. She explained how she has used this practice over the years, especially during difficult times. Her practice and my practice are in different traditions but their deep resonance was wonderful to recognize.

Victor Frankl
Interesting a new book of writings by Victor Frankl is entitled Yes to Life, and one of my favorite essays (which is an Article in the Inspirations section of my website), is called Say Yes to an Open Heart, and both convey the same message.

This is from the last two pages of Frankl's book “It is terrible to know that at every moment I bear responsibility for the next; that every decision, from the smallest to the largest, is a decision “for all eternity”; that in every moment I can actualize the possibility of a moment, of that particular moment, or forfeit it. Every single moment constrains thousands of possibilities—and I can only choose one of them to actualize it…It is wonderful to know that the future—my own future and with it the future of the things, the people around me—is somehow, albeit to a very small extent, dependent on my decisions in every moment…But on average, people are too sluggish to shoulder their responsibilities….Certainly the burden is heavy, it is difficult not only to recognize responsibility but also to commit to it. To say yes to it , and to life. But there have been people who have said yes despite all difficulties...And they achieved it under unspeakable conditions. So shouldn’t we all be able to achieve it today in, after all, incomparably milder circumstances? To say yes to life is not only meaningful under all circumstances—because life itself is—but it is also possible under all circumstances.” Yes To Life, pp. 106-107.

Christian, Jewish, Buddhist—it comes down recognizing that our choices all have consequences. And then recognizing (and remembering) the difference when we say yes to life as often as possible.

The first arrow and the second arrow

There are many versions of this powerful story that the Buddha told to illustrate the power of practicing mindfulness:

If a person is struck by an arrow, it is painful. If the person is struck by a second arrow, it is even more painful. The first arrow represents the unavoidable pains that come with life. The second arrow represents our reaction to the first, for example, I hate this, this isn’t fair, I didn’t deserve this…

I encountered a powerful illustration of this when I was taking the training to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.

After the meditation, one participant said she noticed that she was sad.
The teacher asked “then what”?
The participant responded “then I noticed that I didn’t want to be sad.”
The teacher asked “then what?”
The participant said, “Then I felt even worse.”

The teacher then held up her fist and said her fist represented the initial feeling of sadness. She then made a circle with her arms to represent how much bigger the sadness became by wanting it to go away.

We do this all the time. For example, we feel a toothache and it can quickly turn into a trip to the dentist, to a root canal and then a crown and $3000.

I recall getting really frustrated at a colleague when I was teaching. I’d put off scheduling my office hours until he got back to me about when our committee meetings would be held. I was irritated and fuming: “he’s so inconsiderate,” “he’s also arrogant; why don’t I just resign from the committee?”

While those stories may be true, the effect of going round and round in our heads is that those stories affect our state of mind. We have a rough day at work, the frustrations build up then we yell at our child or spouse for something minor, like accidentally spilling something.

Treatment
What I’ve learned from the first and second arrow story is not to suppress or fight those stories but rather [when I remember!] to first bring mindfulness to the physical effects of my reactivity. This is called “embodied mindfulness.”

When I do this with anger or irritation, I often notice the tension in my neck, my facial muscles, my shoulders. If my reactivity is anxiety, I notice the shortness of my breath, the pit in my stomach. This short period of mindfulness is almost always calming. Sometimes, the anger or irritation or anxiety goes away completely.

If you fully feel the effects of your irritation or frustration, you drop it just like you would drop a hot pan that you accidentally picked up.

Sometimes, when it is a recurring or a much bigger situation, a few moments of mindfulness does not result in the anger or anxiety going away completely. However, it still makes a difference.

In these bigger situations, the mindfulness can move us from being caught in the story to being able to witness the story. This is literally standing back, which gives us some perspective. With this perspective we gain some clarity and can then bring other tools. For example: Is this story serving me? Is it helping? How else might I deal with my emotions?

The trouble is that most of us are conditioned to other responses like wallowing in the story, I’m right, I don’t deserve this, this isn’t fair, I’ll show him, etc.

And that is why one translation of mindfulness is to remember!

Bend not break

Several weeks ago my wife and I were walking on one of Keene’s walking/bike paths. We paused for a few moments on a bridge. She noticed a tree that, in some storm, had been bent over and now its top was in the river. A powerful image of ‘bend not break.’ Click here to see the picture.

There are two other messages in that picture. If you look closely, you can see, in the background, another smaller tree that is also bent! The other message is that I have been on this path on my bicycle probably hundreds of time, but never noticed the tree!

I have long enjoyed the writings John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, and others bout learning from the Nature: bamboo is one of the strongest woods and is often referred to when talking about ‘bend but not break.’ From Bruce Lee: “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending in the wind.”

So what helps us to bend instead of breaking during these storms?

Presence and not turning away
Terry Tempest Williams in an interview with Krista Tippett about her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World: “You know, a good friend of mine said, ‘You are married to sorrow.’ And I looked to him and I said, ‘I am not married to sorrow. I just choose not to look away.’ And I think there is deep beauty in not averting our gaze, no matter how hard it is, no matter how heartbreaking it can be. You know, watching prairie dogs shot, standing before the mass grave of 30,000 human beings [from the Rwanda genocide]…I think it is about presence, bearing witness. I used to think bearing witness was a passive act. I don't believe that anymore. I think that when we are present, when we bear witness, when we do not divert our gaze, something is revealed. The very marrow of life. We change. A transformation occurs. A consciousness shift.”

Powerful words. Worth reading again and pausing to notice inside…

Not turning away is a theme I have encountered in so many places.

Last month I referred to the legend of Krishna and how the key to his survival was not turning away from the demons.

Many years ago I was leading a body scan meditation at Keene State College. When I got to the back, I said “this is a place where some people feel discomfort or even pain. If this is happening, see if you can not hate the pain.” At the end of the class, one participant said that she had gone to the gym the day before. She was out of shape, so she did a rigorous workout, and now she ached all over. Just before I made the comment about not hating the pain, she was miserable. However, with those words she was able to let go of hating the pain. All of a sudden it was just sensations. She was no longer miserable. And she was amazed. Such amazing things can happen when we don’t turn away.

Back to learning from Nature
I remember seeing eggs in a cactus wren bird nest when we lived in the desert. I visited the nest regularly, noticing the baby birds when they hatched and as they grew. One day I saw one of the babies making possibly its first flight back to the nest. Afterwards I realized that the bird doesn’t get a second chance. If it doesn’t do it right, it dies. And that was terrible…and it is how the natural world works. A friend told me of a similar experience but not with the same happy ending. She was watching two birds finding food for their young and feeding them. Once when both birds went away, a hawk swooped down and plucked the babies from the nest.

This is how the natural world works. Can you accept it? Can you not turn away?

Can you accept yourself? Can you not turn away from the parts of yourself that you don’t like?

Back to finding beauty in a broken world
When Tami Simon (from Sounds True) was interviewing Terry Tempest William, she talked about not turning away and asked Terry “how do you do that?”

Terry ‘s response was “How do you not turn away?”

Then she elaborated: “The word that comes back to my mind again and again is being present. If you are present, then there is no past, as you well know. And there is no future. You are there. And whether it is being with a family member who is dying, you are present with them. You are breathing. And in that breathing there is this commitment and communion to that breath. Presence. And you don't look away. It is this shared gaze.”

Three Methods for Working with Chaos by Pema Chodron
This article appears in the latest issue of Lion’s Roar and is excerpted from her book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. Pema writes that in her tradition they do not exorcise demons, but rather they treat them with compassion. The advice she passes on is: “Approach what you find repulsive, help the ones you think you cannot help, and go to places that scare you.”

Again, not turning away. This is true for what we find repulsive in the ‘outer’ world and in the ‘inner’ world: those parts of us that we don’t like, that we fear, that we turn away from.

A reminder that this is not an absolute maxim. Toward this end and going from the sacred to the sublime, I offer a quote from Kenny Rogers: “Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.”

Explore in the moment now
This notion of bend but not break can easily become just words, so I invite you to pause for a few moments. Where do you feel broken or possibly breaking right now? Breathe with those images and feelings…..See if you can allow yourself to be with the pain by witnessing the pain. What do you notice?………….

The Upside of Sadness
Steve Hickman writes about not turning away from sadness in this article which you can read by Googling the title. “It’s never fun, but over the course of a lifetime, sadness visits us all. What if instead of resisting, you could welcome it in and listen to what it has to say?... Locating the arising of sadness in the body (it is different in everyone) gives us a kind of steady place to direct our kind attention and begin to alter our relationship with sadness. The practice of mindfulness is about being present to every moment, not just the ones that are pleasant or neutral. In fact, going into the darker, more uncomfortable places—the ones we usually try to avoid—may yield powerful insights, and may sharpen our mindfulness and deepen our compassion, both toward ourselves and others.”

Two other metaphors
Both metaphors haven been helpful when I realize I am resisting, turning away, and suppressing.

The first metaphor is balance. However, its not like the balance point, which is static balance, but rather dynamic balance which is “the ability of an object to balance whilst in motion or when switching between positions.” When we lose our balance and fall down, we smile and get up. When I am working with this metaphor, I find a question from one of my teachers to be helpful: What is needed now in this moment? And I listen though my breath to what might come up.

The second metaphor is pretty self-explanatory: that of a pressure cooker and releasing the pressure before it blows up! There are many ways we can release steam, for example, laughing at ourselves, screaming into a pillow, going outside for a walk…

These are difficult times indeed. I hope that some of the ideas from this article provides more ability to meet that which we might habitually turn away from

May all beings be safe and well. May all beings find moments of happiness and peace each day. May all beings be free from suffering.