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.

Chaos Theory and Seeing Life as a River

Note to readers: My fascination with chaos theory began almost 20 years ago and with quantum theory almost 50 years ago. I have found both these fields to resonate with and inform my Buddhist beliefs and practices. Neuroscience research, which the Dalai Lama both loves and supports, is also pointing out amazing connections to what the Buddha spoke about 2500 years ago. This is my first attempt to write about how chaos and quantum theories inform my mindfulness practice, so I am especially open to, even asking for feedback--what ideas made sense to you, what didn't make sense, corrections and edits, and what you would like to hear more about. You can write me at tombassarear@gmail.com. Thank you in advance for any feedback you offer.

Ashuelot River
For about a year I have been playing with a new metaphor for life: floating down a river that is has many whirlpools and vortices that bump into and interact with each other. In my meditative walks last year along the Ashuelot River near my house, I noticed many such whirlpools. One day I filmed a twig flowing upstream at the edge of the river; you can see the film below. As it moves upstream you can see whirlpools, constantly moving, constantly changing, sometimes bouncing off each other, sometimes a bigger one swallowing a smaller one.

Chaos theory (complex systems)
Since noticing the whirlpools, I have been reinvestigating the idea of chaos theory. Wikipedia states that "within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition...and self-organization."

[Note: words and phrases in italics particular connect to mindfulness practices.]

In their second book on systems theory, Seven Life Lessons of Chaos, John Briggs and F. David Peat also find the metaphor of a river being useful. "Each part of a river acts as a perturbing effect on all the other parts. In turn, the effects of these perturbations are constantly being fed back into each other. The result is turbulence, a chaotic motion in which different regions are moving at differing speeds...A river demonstrates all the characteristics of chaos. Its behavior is highly complex, including random, unpredictable flows, eddies, and stable vortices."

They assert that chaos theory is "about letting go, accepting limits, and celebrating magic and mystery...The predicament of all life is uncertainty and contingency...Ancient and indigenous cultures handled their uncertainty through dialogues of ritual with the gods and unseen forces of nature. Western industrial society has taken a different route. We dream of eliminating uncertainty by conquering and controlling nature. The ideal of 'being in control' is so much a part of our behavior that it has become an obsession, even an addiction...Chaos theory demonstrates why such a dream is an illusion...The metaphor of chaos theory shows that beyond and between our attempts to control and define reality lies the rich, perhaps even infinite realm of subtlety and ambiguity where real life is lived. Chaos theory suggests that instead of resisting life's uncertainties, we should embrace them."

Three basic principles of systems theory
While there are many basic principles, these three resonate with and inform my mindfulness practices.

1. The whole system is interconnected.
This implies that each part affects the other, in both simple and complex ways. This was a central principle in Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings. He coined the word 'interbeing' to emphasize how critical it is that we see how deeply we are connected not only to each other but to all life.

2. Simple and complex
Phenomena that appear to be extremely complex may have a simple origin, while surface similarities may conceal something very complex. Scientists have studied huge termite mounds in Africa to understand how they can maintain a constant inside temperature throughout the year. Similarly scientists have studied starling flocks which can "turn on a dime." In both cases, scientists found very simple rules which the animals follow in order for these amazingly complex phenomena to occur.

Applying this to my own life, my attention is generally not on how to change a situation I am grappling with, which often has so many contributing factors, but rather to pay attention to how I am responding to the situation. When I am stressed and I check with the body--it automatically relaxes; I don't need to try to relax. When I check with the heart-I remember qualities that are useful to focus on, e.g., generosity, gratitude, appreciation, kindness. When I check with the mind--it moves from a 'figuring out/problem solving mode' to focusing more on listening to what responses make the most sense in this moment.

3. All systems are self-organizing
This is defined as a process "in which the internal organization of a system...increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source." We are also complex systems and the principles of systems theory also guide our behavior, just as they guide the behaviors of other complex systems like forests. Beginning with Isaac Newton's metaphor of "a clockwork universe," Western scientists have used machines as metaphors for human behavior, but chaos theory suggests a forest might be a better metaphor. More and more scientists studying forests suggest seeing an entire forest as a single organism and talk about the forest as a "wood-wide web."

I recall my delighted amazement in my high school chemistry class that the atom is over 99% empty space, that electrons spinning at phenomenal speeds create the illusion of solid matter, just like an airplane propellor is small compared the space it takes up. Taking this further, quantum physics is showing that it can be more useful to view ourselves as systems of energy rather that a mass of solid matter. Neuroscientists are showing us that at the microscopic level, thoughts and emotions are electrical currents and chemical reactions. Thus, it is more useful to view me as many interacting systems of energy. That is, my beliefs and biases, my personality, my various habits, legacy burdens and gifts from my parents are really systems in my brain/body that are constantly moving and changing, like whirlpools running into each other, sometimes bouncing off each other, sometimes merging...

Four concepts in systems theory that I find helpful.
1. Turbulence (in a river ) or messiness in a life
While turbulence is a natural part of any system, we have been conditioned to regard periods of turbulence as "something has gone wrong." Chaos theory and my meditation teachers suggest that there are lessons to be learned in periods of turbulence. I regard the dissolution of my first marriage, my time in the Peace Corps, and my recent aortic dissection as periods marked by extreme turbulence and also periods of important growth. Of course, almost every day has moments of small and big turbulence.

2. Bifurcation
Bifurcation is a fancy word for branching; think of the line from Robert Frost's poem: two [or more] roads diverged in a wood. Each bifurcation point requires a choice, and we make hundreds, sometimes thousands, of choices every day.

Chaos theory reminds us that systems are nonlinear which means that choices often have unintended consequences. Here is a nice example from a friend. If you throw a baseball, you have a sense of where it will land. If you make a small adjustment, you expect to see a small difference in where the baseball lands. In a complex system, you could make a small adjustment and the system could move in a totally different way, like the baseball landing a mile away.

During the early period of my dissection, when I felt the danger of dying much more than in the period before the dissection, there were times where I would oscillate between periods of fear and periods of love, often in the same day. From my old perspective, these periods of rapid oscillation were very unsettling: "what's wrong with me?" However, chaos theory suggests that these oscillations are not uncommon in complex systems.

3. Feedback: positive and negative
Feedback loops are a part of all life. A positive feedback loop is one in which one action makes another action more likely and back and forth. A negative feedback loop is one in which an action has a dampening effect on a situation. Both kinds of feedback loops can have positive or negative consequences.

Here is an example of a positive feedback loop with my wife. For several years I have been bringing coffee to her when she wakes up; I am a morning person and she is an night person. Recently when she was not feeling well for a few day, I began bringing breakfast in bed on a tray. When she felt better, she began doing things like cutting out the daily crossword in the newspaper for me or making a salad which I don't particularly like to do. In turn, I began doing things like vacuuming more often, which is hard for her to do. Before you knew it, we were looking for little ways to please each other. I laughed when I realized that we were in a positive feedback loop, each action reinforcing similar actions in the other.

4. Leverage
Leverage in a system is where you find a small behavior that can have a large effect. For example, as I my health improved from the dissection I decided that I had more energy to meditate and to focus more intentionally on being mindful throughout the day. I found that two small acts produced quite a large effect. I decided to carefully and slowly unfold my meditation shawl before meditating and then again after meditating, and I decided to say a simple grace which I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh before meals and before snacking.

Other people have found it quite helpful to have a meditation corner or meditation room and to have an altar which might have statues, pictures, candles, etc. Other people have found rituals helpful, for example, bowing before and after meditating, and my unfolding and folding the shawl...

Bringing this to a close.
I could and might write a long chapter about the implications of quantum theory, chaos theory, and neuroscience for mindfulness, but this post is long enough. My intention is to discuss these ideas more in the consequent blogs.

I will end with what feels more like a poem than a summary.

All life so mysteriously interconnected
I/we contain multitudes
Periods of order and turbulence
A forest, miraculous dance between order and chaos
Many roads diverge in a wood: proceed with caution and wonder
Down the rabbit hole: whee! oops!
Round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows
Looking for leverage points in the system that is me

Waiting

I had been telling myself that this time between getting home from the hospital on November 12 and my surgery on January 14 can be like a retreat—a time to move slowly, to savor my life, to walk every day on the river path near my house, and more. And it has been all that, especially the first couple of weeks at home after nine days in Intensive Care.

In the last few days, I realized that while the daily walks along the river are still amazing, I have been sinking into routines. This morning the combination of several powerful dreams plus my daughter’s Christmas gifts to me provoked one of those BFO’s (Blinding Flash of the Obvious): I have gotten into a mindset of waiting—waiting for the surgery to be over so that I can get on with my life.

I know that this mindset applies to many others too: waiting for the election to be over, waiting for covid to be over, waiting until the vaccine comes. Putting aside this past year, we actually get caught in these mindsets more often than we might realize, e.g., waiting until the kids are grown up, waiting until we retire, waiting until spring comes. These can easily become times of ‘treading water,’ and neither moving forward with our lives nor being fully alive.

Waiting
Christine Feldman, one of my meditation teachers, talked about choosing a New Year’s Intention to explore each year. One year, she realized that she spends a lot of her time waiting, because she teaches courses all over the world. She also realized that waiting is a mindset: it is generally not a time of being in the present moment, but rather either daydreaming, biding one’s time, or expecting and anticipating. She resolved to explore this “waiting” mindset and see what she discovered.

Exploring
Other teachers have talked about waiting. Two points have stuck with me.

First, when we are waiting for something, we are not here. We are generally expecting, anticipating, sometimes hoping, sometimes dreading. During these states, “we are being eaten by time.”

The other big point is to realize the relationship between waiting and me/mine. While waiting, if we observe the content of our thoughts, we realize that most will be about me/mine. And it’s usually wanting—wanting this period to be over, wanting something to happen, or wanting something not to happen. But our focus is generally self-absorbed with my needs, my wants.

When we realize we are in a waiting mindset, we have the opportunity to observe. We can begin with noticing what the body feels like (both sensations and energy), what the heart feels like (perhaps heavy, resentful, or anxious). With some calming, we can observe the qualities of the mind during these periods. Building on the notion that mindfulness can enable us to see things more clearly, we see that this mind state of waiting is not really serving us or the people that live with us and not leading to peace in our hearts.

Emily’s gift of watercolors
One of my daughter’s Christmas gifts to me was materials for exploring watercoloring: some paints, brushes, and paper. She had also found a book that encourages the reader to explore and to have fun.

My first thought was my utter failure in a watercolor class many years ago. My second thought was to wait until after the surgery.

However, her other gift was to learn how to play Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah (one of my favorite songs) on the piano. This is now beginning to sound like one of those commercials on TV: but wait, there’s more! Tying the song to watercolors, she had done her own exploring with watercolors—she had painted a beautiful orange-yellow wash on paper and then written, calligraphy style, the words to the song. A subtle hint that I might play with the watercolors myself!

So after the dreams last night, I will take out the watercolors today and begin some playful exploration!

Now

I am reminded of the last line of Mary Oliver’s poem Summer Day: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

A great question for all of us to explore.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with this precious moment, this precious day?

A metaphor, a meditation, and a new book

Phew! Election day. At last. So many things might happen. What also might happen is that we take time for what nourishes us. A few thoughts and offerings.

A metaphor for these times
Can we tend to our life like tending to a garden in a drought? Knowing and accepting that the garden will take more care than in normal times We might even have to learn what additional care is needed.

Two questions to explore:
What nourishes your body? Exercise, nutrition, sleep…
What nourishes your psyche/spirit/soul? Contemplative practices, connecting with others, recreation, time in nature…

Expanding the metaphor
In hard times, people whose garden is doing well can share with others or help them with their gardens. How might we support others who are struggling?

A loving-kindness meditation
This meditation appeared to me last night and has resemblance to some other meditations I have learned.

I began by taking time to connect with that universal energy of love, compassion, and good-will.

Then I began visualizing members of my family. And I smiled.

Then I thought of people I love and care about. Because I have friends all over the country and the world, images of a map of the US and the whole world appeared. I saw lights in those places where I have friends and family. And I smiled.

I expanded my focus to all humans, and lights came on all over the world. And I smiled.

I expanded my focus to include all animals. Images of all sorts of animals appeared. And I smiled.

I expanded my focus to include all plants and fungi. An image came of trees and the fungal network underground—a wonderful feeling of cooperation and symbiosis. And I smiled.

I breathed in to this wonderful network of life above and below the ground all over the planet. And I smiled.

And I saw myself as one bit of light in this incredible web of life. And I smiled.

A new resource
I highly recommend Diana Winston’s new book: The Little Book of Being: Practices and Guidance for Uncovering Your Natural Awareness. She is a wonderful writer and a long-time practitioner. The book includes a thorough presentation of classic mindfulness meditation practices, and she explains and offers practices to develop ‘natural awareness,’ a term used by many meditation teachers. The last section addresses Informal Practice. The short chapters include: Hang out with children and Tap into nature.

Wishing for all to develop and sustain the practices that support you, and being kind to yourself when things aren’t going well. I’ve had more than a few times like that in the past few months and am more grateful for all the practices and ways of being I have learned from so many people and animals!

Resting while you work

Eleven years ago, our Monday night book group was reading Sabbath by Wayne Muller. I came across some notes from that group recently.

One night a member of the group said that at the end of a meditation retreat, she complimented the cooks for such great food. The reply: “the food was good partly because we rested while we worked.”

Another person then recalled a story from a guide on how to climb a mountain: take a slight pause (rest) between each step. In doing so, and others found they found that they were less tired than they normally were after a long hike.

That led to a discussion about the possibility of resting while we work. So we decided to explore this idea.

Following are some of the gems from that exploration!
Relishing snacks of rest
When cleaning the house, one member found herself dancing through the house while dusting, and then dancing from one chore to another.

Being restful in work
“I used to do a lot of thinking while washing dishes but I felt tired afterwards. Then I tried paying attention to sensations while washing dishes. Now I don’t feel tired afterwards.”

Work as rest
“I used to hate to do the dishes. Then I tried paying attention to what I noticed while doing the dishes. Now I love to do them and I feel rested afterwards.”

The dance of restful work
This person explored the notion of resting while raking the leaves. Her initial thought: “This is a big job. I’ll rest when I get to a certain spot.” Then she decided to taking to time to rest whenever she felt it. She found a feeling of so much joy in looking around at the beauty in the scenery. She was surprised to find herself finished before it was time to pick up her daughter.

Putting work to rest
“I put all my ‘to dos’ in one room. This enabled me to do only what I could do. Such a relief! I went back to the other room and found that many of the 'to dos' didn’t need to get done after all.”

Advice from meditation teachers and a music teacher
I recall several of my meditation teachers talking about ‘resting in the breath.’ Another teacher advised me to "rest in the not knowing."

Work and rest are like notes and the silence between notes in music. The silence (rest) between the notes is essential for the song to form. Otherwise it’s just noise.

Several quotes about busyness and rest
"A successful life has become a violent enterprise.
We make war on our own bodies, pushing them beyond their limits;
war on our children, because we cannot find enough time to be with them when they are hurt and afraid, and need our company;
war on our spirit, because we are too preoccupied to listen to the quiet voices that seek to nourish and refresh us;
war on our communities, because we are fearfully protecting what we have, and do not feel safe enough to be kind and generous;
war on the earth, because we cannot take the time to place our feet on the ground and allow it to feed us, to taste its blessings and give us thanks." Wayne Muller, Sabbath

"To commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of modern time." Thomas Merton

"We have developed an inner psychology of speed, of saving time and maximizing efficiency, which is getting stronger by the day. " Guy Claxton, British psychologist, 2002

"We are called human beings, but we have become human doings." Anonymous

Some gems from Sabbath by Wayne Muller
Muller makes the point that we often don’t realize how tired we are. When you meditate, listen to your body, mind, and spirit. After the meditation, explore relevant thoughts that come up. For example, do you push away the signs of fatigue for fear that if you really pay attention, you will realize how tired you are?

Reflect on the word ‘rest.’
• What does that word mean to you, really?
• What rests (refreshes) you?
• What intentional activities or rituals do you have in your life that give you rest?
• What keeps you from resting more?

Make a choice to find rest and quiet each day, using the metaphor of putting a fence around the flowers to protect them.

For at least 5 minutes each day, focus on paying attention to the breath, including the rhythm of the breath. Ask these two questions and listen for what comes up:
What do you notice about the rhythm of rest in your breathing?
What do you notice about the rhythm of breath in your body?

Some other explorations to try on your own
• Try resting for moments during the day.
• Rest in an activity. For example, eat a snack mindfully.
• Give yourself rest from interruptions. For example, don’t answer the phone during dinner.
• Do something in a leisurely manner: make a meal slowly, take a walk with someone, eat an ice cream cone and savor each sensation!
• When you get to work, rest for a couple minutes before getting out of the car. Do the same when getting home from work.

Begin to habituate rest as your personal sanctuary. Enjoy each moment!

Lake and mountain as metaphors

Nature has been a common metaphor for many meditation teachers: mountains, lakes, rivers, clouds, sky, butterflies, trees, and monkeys, to name just a few. When Jon Kabat-Zinn developed the classic 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course, he included two meditations which make use of the metaphors of a lake and a mountain.

The lake metaphor
Much of the power of the lake metaphor comes from the many qualities of water.
• The quality of receptivity: it absorbs whatever enters; think of rocks and earth falling into streams and rivers.
• The quality of not forcing: when water flows down a hill and encounters resistance, it goes around.
• The quality of persistence: think of the Grand Canyon!

Imagine a lake when it is calm, its surface like a mirror, reflecting everything around. Imagine the lake when it is windy and sunny, the surface sparkling like shimmering diamonds! So many different moods.

As a meditation you might focus on the receptiveness of water, inviting your mind and heart to be open and receptive, to reflect whatever enters into your awareness. Include it all: the surface during the moments of complete stillness and during moments where it is choppy and agitated; and the bottom of the lake which is undisturbed by the winds and storms at the surface.

“[I]n your meditation practice and in your daily life, can you identify not only with the content of your thoughts and feelings but also with the vast unwavering resource of awareness itself residing below the surface of the mind? In the lake meditation, we sit with the intention to hold in awareness and acceptance all qualities of mind and body” just as the lake sits with whatever is happening.

Two additional meditations
Imagine sitting at the edge of a pond which is completely still, the surface a mirror. Now imagine throwing a large stone into the pond. Observe the effect of the stone, the ripples moving outward from the place where it entered and the ripples bouncing off the shore. Wait a few minutes. The pond become still again. When we bring a curious and non-contentious awareness to whatever is happening, we can notice those moments of stillness. We’re not doing as much as observing, witnessing the causes and effects.

Imagine being on a large boat in a large lake during a raging storm. The waves whipping across the lake, pounding against the boat. Now imagine dropping a rock from the boat. It settles at the bottom of the lake, hundreds of feet below the surface. The storm is still raging above, but here it is calm. So too it is possible to be aware of a part of us that is calm, even during a storm.

The mountain metaphor
In virtually all cultures, from time immemorial, mountains have been sacred places where people go for spiritual guidance and renewal. We can draw on the many qualities of mountains: strength, endurance, majesty, unwavering presence…

There are many ways to play with mountain as a meditation focus.

Imagine a mountain, a particular mountain that you are drawn to or an imaginary mountain. Take a few moments to become familiar with the mountain, to inhabit the mountain. Feel its massiveness, its beauty both far away and up close. Its peak, ridges, and slopes. The plants and animals that live there.

Embody the mountain. Your head becomes the peak, your shoulders and arms become the sides and ridges of the mountain, your torso and legs become the base of the mountain, rooted to the earth. Become the mountain. Feel this energy in and on your body.

You might like to imagine your mountain through the four seasons:
spring: the returning sun, pastel colors, new life bursting…
summer: full sun, deeper colors, longer days, abundant life…
fall: the slowing down, shorter, cooler days, trees shedding their leaves to prepare for winter…
winter: colder, when most life slows down, yet still vibrantly alive…

You might like to imagine spending a whole day at your mountain:
dawn: soft light, the sunrise, so many bird songs...
morning: life becomes busier…
mid afternoon; full sun…
late afternoon: the light changing again, slowing down..
night: the quietness only occasionally disturbed…

During all of these daily and seasonal changes the mountain abides it all. Storms are natural, but the mountain doesn’t take them personally.

The mountain is constantly changing through the seasons and through the years: rainfall carving new paths down the mountain, trees falling, new life emerging, plants and animals decaying, making conditions for new life to emerge.

The mountain endures all kinds of weather: storms, drought, lightning and thunder, hail, snow, blizzards, and more.

As we continually change--every day and through the seasons of our own lives--we can link with the qualities of mountains: strength, stability, and endurance… Our own moods like the weather: sometimes subtle, sometimes violent.

You might choose to play with any of these possibilities during a meditation period or to recall qualities of water, lakes, and mountains during the day.

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!

Useful metaphors for mindfulness

The basic attitudes that guide mindfulness are to cultivate a curious and non-judgmental awareness toward what we are noticing. In doing this, we see more clearly, and this results in wiser actions.

There are many metaphors to assist us in this endeavor, which is both simple and complex. I share a few that I have collected or developed over the years.

Curious mind
In The Meditative Mind, Daniel Goleman quotes Indian philosopher Krishnamurti's advice to children: “You have to watch, as you watch a lizard going by, walking across the wall, seeing all its four feet, how it sticks to the wall…As you watch, you see all the movements, the delicacy of its movements. So in the same way, watch your thinking, do not correct it, do not suppress it—do not say it is too hard—just watch it, now, this morning.”

Accepting what is happening
Many teachers use the terms non-judgment and accepting when characterizing mindful attention. And many people have struggled with these two terms. I could write an entire blog post on the unpacking of these terms by various teachers. Here are two alternative terms I have found helpful:
• non-attacking attention
• non-contentious attention
Both of these terms remind us to notice when our attention feels like attacking or has a contentiousness relationship to those thoughts.

Seeing clearly
As I was on a morning walk in a forest I noticed birds disturbed by my presence often flying away. I stopped for a few minutes and many birds returned. I watched two downy woodpeckers walking up two adjacent trees as they ate their breakfast of insects. I listened to a bird singing on a branch just above my head.

This reminds me of a cartoon of two dogs sitting on meditation mats and one dog saying: “the key to meditation is learning to stay.”

Walking Down the Street
Imagine taking a walk with a friend in town where you know many people. As you are walking, someone shouts hello to you from across the street. Rather than ignoring them, you wave back and then continue your conversation. Now imagine someone interrupting you, for example, “I’ve been meaning to call you about…” You listen for a few seconds and then politely tell them that you will call them back later. And you return to your conversation.

So too with meditation. We can meet each interruption—a thought, a noise—with hospitality. If some persist, we can acknowledge being pulled away from the meditation, maintain an attitude of hospitality and then go back to the meditation. In this way, our meditation time need not be a stressful experience with expectations and shoulds, but a rather a time to simply pay attention to what is happening moment to moment.

We are not in control of our minds
Many terms have been used to describe the restless of our minds, monkey mind and puppy mind being just two.
• From Huston Smith in The World’s Religions: “I tell my hand to rise and it obeys. I tell my mind to be still and it mocks my command.”
• Another teacher likened meditation to thinking we are flying the plane and suddenly realizing that plane often does not go where we direct it to go. So who is flying the plane?
• A friend in talking about thoughts that can arise during meditation: “Hey, I didn’t order that thought!”

Mindfulness of thoughts during meditation
Many metaphors have been suggested for the attitude when we are observing thoughts. These all have the sense of witnessing.
• Imagine thoughts as clouds floating by, and noticing how they dissolve.
• Imagine thoughts as autumn leaves floating through the air, carried by the wind, but eventually landing.
• Likening the process to sitting on a train looking out the window, and not jumping out every time you see something interesting.

Molehills to mountains to molehills
When we are facing something unpleasant—a physical pain, an emotional pain, a task that we really don’t want to do—we watch the molehill start to grow and grow, and we realize that we are the ones that are making the mountain. The miracle of mindfulness is that when we stay with mindful attention, we watch the mountain begin to shrink back to a molehill and sometimes even disappear altogether.

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.