Reflections on How Mindfulness Has Supported Us During Covid

The Buddha said that he is neither the first nor the last Buddha, and that the next Buddha will come when all memory of him has vanished. Thich Nhat Hanh often said that he believed that the next Buddha will be a sangha (community) rather than an individual person. Last week I felt that with so much wisdom in the room when we finally returned to in person meetings at our Center after 2 1/2 years of meeting on Zoom. Actually, half of the eight of us were online--a good friend used technology to enable those not able or willing to come in person to continue on Zoom.

After we had meditated I asked each person to think of how their practice had grown over the past 2 1/2 years. Our responses fell into the following five categories which are in the next eight paragraphs. I didn't take notes but here is what I remembered. I was humbled and in awe.

Gratitude
I feel more gratitude more often: gratitude for things that I have taken for granted for so much of my life, and gratitude for things I have that so many humans do not, for example hot water and ample food.

Compassion
I felt compassion for the people who were working so hard, for example, health care workers. I felt compassion for people who were sick and dying, and for people who have so much less than I do.

Acceptance
When unexpected, unpleasant things arise, I am less likely to get stuck and more likely to simply let it go. I can see it in perspective: in the larger view of life, this event that I find irritating now is actually a little blip.

For so much of the past two years, things that I had were no longer available and then gradually became available, and then sometimes not available again. The advice from the CDC and scientists was constantly changing. This could easily, and sometimes was, irritating. However, when I just accepted that this was the way it is, the fact of life that things are constantly changing, it was much easier to be with.

Slowing down
Because so many things I was doing were no longer available, I was given the opportunity to do what I do more slowly. This has enabled me to see everyday moments more clearly at the 'external' and 'internal' level. Externally, when I am walking in the forest on in the town, I "see" the trees, the birds, the plants, the animals and appreciate them more deeply. Internally, I can see the effects of my behaviors on myself and others more clearly, and the result is I am more often kinder to myself and to others.

Sangha (community)
Having this sangha and other sanghas available every week on Zoom has made a huge difference.

It has literally helped me to deal with the isolation that I was feeling especially in the early days.

Zoom has enabled me to broaden my horizons while staying at home, as we can look into each other’s eyes, even when at great distance.

Each of these--gratitude, compassion, acceptance, slowing down, community-- could be a long article or even a whole book. All of them worthy of continued attention by each of us.

Pay attention. Pay attention.

This post is about habituated ways of being that we can get into--all kinds. My awareness of how easy it is to fall into habits traces back to when I was exposed to Henry David Thoreau. He wrote that less than a week after he moved to Walden "my feet wore a path from my door to the pondside." More recently Jon Kabat-Zinn popularized the term "automatic pilot" and how much of our life is spent on automatic pilot.

There are many aspects of this phenomenon, from eating the same breakfast every single day, to greeting family and friends with the same, automatic greeting, to telling ourselves the same stories about ourselves, our friends and family, and the world.

I encountered the "same old story" aspect a month ago. The teacher, in a memoir class I was taking, had said that if a thought or an experience is not coming out in one form to try another form, for example, switching from prose to poetry. My first and second thought was "I don't write poetry."

Less than a week later, during the course of a morning I had several insights about my relationship to my life and I began writing about the morning. My writing felt fairly pedantic and I remembered what my teacher had said. So I paused for a few minutes, reflected on the experiences of the morning. Then I started writing--phrases, images, bits and pieces.

What came out captured my insights and what I had experienced far better than my prose had. The long title of the poem below is Why I practice mindfulness: A work in progress.

Waking up

Waking up this morning exhausted
Yesterday with my infant grandson all day and this heat is oppressive
Letting go of taking a short bike ride and finishing an essay for a workshop

Space now for meditating
Too tired to sit on my cushion
Sitting in the recliner
Mind racing with the never ending
To Do list before I leave tomorrow
Breathing in, breathing out, in, out...

Feeling a contractedness in my chest
Breathing into that tight energy and I feel it soften
Breathing in, breathing out, in, out...

Suddenly realize I forgot my morning meds
Damn, have to take them lest I forget
Slow down Tom

Decide to include taking my meds as part of the meditation
Getting up slowly, feeling my leg muscles engage as I start to stand up
Feeling my arm muscles engage as I push myself up
Walking slowly, feeling the bottoms of my feet with every step
Picking up the meds, counting them to make sure
Drinking the water slowly

Walking back to my chair
Feeling leg and arm muscles engage again as I sit down
Pausing now as I realize I am typing this fast; in, out, in, out...Back into a quieter, calmer mode. Ahhh.

Later, walking to the Ashuelot River path near my house
Noticing a quaking aspen
Looking closer
Not all the leaves are shaking
Some leaves are rustling with the very light wind,
Some whole sections of the tree are quaking
Standing back and seeing the whole aspen with a softer gaze
Amazing!
How have I not noticed this before?

One take away for me from this experience is the value of bringing mindful attention to behaviors that my heart is calling out to me about. If the attention is mindful, I don't have to deliberate whether I'm OK with this habit--my body and my heart tell me clearly!

A Lucid Dream and Frenzy Falling Away

I had a lucid dream this past April. In the dream, I'm late for my dissertation defense (which was in 1986). My whole family is with me, and I am getting more and more anxious and agitated, because I am increasingly concerned that we are going to be late to the meeting. We finally get out of the house and then I realize I don't know where the meeting is, which causes even more anxiety. Once we get to the meeting, I realize that I had brought the wrong papers. Suddenly I am aware in the dream and rather calm. I realize that I have all that I need in my memory.

At the meeting, one of the professors says "you were not able to prove your hypothesis and technically you should start over." I stood up to him and said that the goal of a dissertation project isn't to prove my hypothesis but to add to our understanding of the questions that are being studied. I even cited research from the future to make my point!

Then I woke up. As I lay there, I remembered that in the actual defense, the other members of the committee came to my aid when the professor said I might need to start over. In this dream, I had more agency and defended myself, which was very satisfying.

I realized that this was a dream about healing those parts of me who live in the past.  As I lay in bed, I felt in my being that the anxiety and frenzy that dominated the dream have been constant throughout  my life. So much of it was trying to please my dad (becoming successful) and my mom (making the world a better place). When hearing about this dynamic, one of my therapists said, “no wonder you never slow down--you got it from both parents!”

Even though the aortic dissection has slowed me down considerably, I am now generally frenzied at a slower pace! Whether I am writing checks, getting dressed, eating, preparing food, gardening, whatever, there is a frenzy, a wanting to get these things over with so I can get on to "the important things" i.e., making the world a better place! My next thought was "But I don't need that frenzy anymore!" I don't need to prove my worth by rushing all the time, to do more, more, more, more. Of course, it helps that my body won't let me do as much either!

I got up slowly and took a shower, savoring the hot water and rubbing the soap slowly over my hair, my face, and the rest of my body. After the shower, I remembered that my CPAP machine and hoses needed cleaning. I did so without rushing. While getting dressed, I pulled a shirt from its the hangar in the closet, and the bottom of the shirt got stuck on the hanger below because I was rushing. I remembered how often this happens! Breathe. Slow down. This is clearly a work in progress. The frenzied rushing is a 60+ year habit and "habit energy" doesn't change immediately. But it can start now.

I went downstairs and decided to make an omelet.
I cut the garlic and onions and mushrooms slowly, one stroke at a time with the knife.
I pushed them into the pan slowly and turned them slowly. Usually I go fast and pieces of the food fly out of the pan.
I grated the cheese slowly, laughing out loud when I realized how often in the past I have sliced a fingernail because I grated the cheese so fast.
I made the rest of the breakfast slowly.

I ate in silence. I felt the taste and texture of the food with almost every bite, and the meal was flavored with feelings of gratitude, appreciation, and compassion for people who don't have enough food.

I realized soberly that this is not the first time I have eaten a meal slowly. It has happened at each of the over 30 meditation retreats I have done for the past 45 years. I remember and then I forget and remember and forget...This is life...and habits can change.  

Mindfulness teachers talk about embodied awareness, where you are aware of your body and your emotional states like irritation, worry, and anxiety as you go through the day. That morning, I was aware of the tension in my body and my emotional states while I was doing my morning routines, making my coffee and breakfast, and eating.

This awareness has continued to grow and deepen since that dream four months ago. I still revert to frenzied hurriedness often. However, I also catch myself more and more often.

Mindful awareness has been characterized as "seeing more clearly" like a fog lifting. Often it feels like that. I am noticing consequences of this seeing more clearly in many every day, mundane parts of my life:

• I'm doing better on the daily crossword puzzles, on Wordle, and on Nerdle.

• My typing is more accurate because I'm typing more slowly.

• I notice myself going more slowly when getting ready to go somewhere, especially when I need to be on time, like to a medical appointment or to my daughter's house to watch my grandson for the day.

• When I have a day with too many things on the agenda, I either let go of some of them or do each of them more slowly. Just not feeling that frenzy nearly as much!

• I'm doing my daily regimen of shoulder and hip exercises without TV. I move more slowly, feeling the body as I move.

Since that dream in April, during stressful situations I notice, more often, a longer space between the urge to hurry and taking action. More often I am pausing and noticing the tightening of the body, taking a breath or two, seeing other options than the habituated, knee-jerk response of hurrying. On some days I remember this most of the time, on some days some of the time, but so much more often than before. 

So often we expect mindfulness to deliver immediate results. Some of the stories I've written, for example, letting go of anxiety at the Salt Lake City airport and letting go of resentment while lying in bed one night, illustrate that deep-seated patterns often do take a long time before one sees significant changes.

Striving and Trying Really Hard During Meditation

One of the more common tendencies among American meditators, as opposed to Asian meditators, is that we often try really hard. One of my early teachers, from India, commented on this at a retreat. He then related a metaphor the Buddha used: meditation is like a lute. If the strings are too tight or too loose, the lute is not in tune.

During meditation we can often feel ourselves trying to stay concentrated, trying to have a good meditation. At these times it can be useful to check in with the jaw and facial muscles and then relax during the next exhale. Often I can feel a significant difference when I do this, and then the striving in me lessens. Another place to check is your tongue. If it's at the roof of your mouth, which it often is with Americans, then you're tense. Relax and let the tongue rest on the bottom of the mouth, its preferred home!

One of the classic mindfulness meditations is the body scan, where you move your attention systematically through the body, bringing mindfulness to each part of the body. This meditation can also be done in a non-systematic way by focusing on whatever sensations are more prominent in that moment.

During this meditation I would often catch myself trying to notice as many sensations as possible in the area that I was focusing on, for example the hand. One teacher said that the goal is not to notice as many sensations as you can, which happens when you are in striving mode. Rather, in the meditative stance we simply notice what sensations are already there.

Several years ago I realized that one of my favorite teachers was using the words 'receive' and 'receiving' a lot, as in: "As you start to get comfortable, bring ease to the entire body by opening your awareness to receive what bodily sensations come in." I now find my body more relaxed when I practice the body scan meditation, not grasping and striving but simply noticing what is already present in my mind and noticing my relationship to what is present.

Reflecting on this notion of trying really hard and striving, I remember when I was first taking yoga classes many years ago. I found it challenging to hold the downward dog posture. My teacher gave me feedback but still I struggled. Then she said, “pay attention to your body and you’ll feel your way into the posture.” Really? It took a few classes, but when I relaxed and paid closer attention to my body, there was an ease in the posture.

A similar thing happened in a Pilates class several years ago. There is a floor exercise where we twist the body to one side while keeping the opposite shoulder on the floor. I was struggling with that posture, but one week I relaxed during the posture and was suddenly able to twist more while the shoulder stayed on the ground!

I still notice this tendency. After all, old habits die hard. I have found the term 'habit energy' from Thich Nhat Hanh to be very helpful in not being so hard on myself when a habit proves challenging to change or to let go of. That leads to patience which is another wonderful quality that can develop through mindfulness practice!

Learning to Live with Less Energy

During the past 18 months since my aortic dissection, I have been living with a small fraction of the energy that I had before. To use a metaphor, I have needed to pay much closer attention to how much gas is in the tank and how quickly it is being consumed. When I am running on fumes, I am more irritable and impatient, which is not fair especially to my wife. When I run out of gas, I crash, and sometimes can do almost nothing for the rest of the day or even longer.

The energy of social interactions
After we got vaccinated, we began to get together with people we hadn't seen in more than a year. I quickly realized that social interactions, while enjoyable, take much more energy than I had ever realized. The first few times we got together with friends, I was on fumes after an hour or so, and I crashed several times, literally crawling upstairs to bed.

There were several multiple day events during the summer and the fall: a week in Arkansas visiting my son and his family, three days visiting our daughter's husband's parents, our daughter's wedding, and my father's memorial service near Salt Lake City. On those big occasions, even with naps and multiple rest periods during the day, I was exhausted at the end, and I think this was unavoidable. Interestingly, my then four year old granddaughter who has seen me as a special playmate, was able to adapt remarkably well to grandpa needing naps and rest periods and having to do more quieter activities during our times together.

Over the year, I have learned better to modulate the outflow of energy and still have some gas in the tank during the more ordinary get togethers with friends. I even learned to say no to some invitations because I could sense that it was just too much. There wasn't a formula for monitoring my energy, but there were commonalities: needing to pay attention to the wanting to be normal again, needing to let go of other activities during the days I spend time with friends, and being more mindful of clues in my body while I was with friends.

The energy of afflictive emotions
I have become more sensitive to the energy consumed by what Tibetans call afflictive emotions, e.g., anger, resentment, or getting and staying irritated at someone or something. When I find myself mired in afflictive emptions, I am more and more able to feel, in my body, these emotions sucking energy out of me, and I suddenly find it much easier to let go than I had before. For example, when the newspaper delivery person forgets us and I start to get angry, I sense the energy this is consuming, take a few breaths and let it go. My computer or tv is often buggy. At those times, I realize I can go on a rant about how everything is made poorly these days. Or I can simply restart the computer or tv and breathe consciously and slowly while it reboots. When frustrated with a with family member, more often now I recognize I have a choice: either staying in the mental mud for the rest of the day or letting it go.

I once read about how hunters catch monkeys in Asia. The hunters carve a hole in a tree just big enough for the monkey to put its hand into. Then they put sweets in the hole. When the monkey slips its hand into the hole and grabs the sweets, the hunters jump out of their hiding places. All the monkey has to do is open it fist and let go, but more often it holds on and then gets caught. We are like the monkeys! When I realize that I am holding on, I often smile, physically open my fist, and then let go.

The energy of physical and mental activities
I am also learning to be more mindful of the cost of both physical and mental activities which happen daily. For example, if I take a break after mowing the first half of the lawn, I am not as wasted the rest of the day. I have also learned to do many activities--like riding my bicycle, mopping the floors, cooking, even writing this blog--more slowly. I take the time to be aware of my breath and aware of tightness in my body because of my decades long tendency to hurry almost all the time.

Coming to a deeper understanding
Sometimes I feel like I have this superpower ability to feel the energy usage in my body: to know when I need to slow down, when I need to rest, and when I need to make different choices. There is some grief for what I've lost: all the things I can't do now or have to do much more slowly.

I've realized that while I need to attend to my sadness and grief that the old Tom is gone, I also need to let go of some of the old Tom's habits that were not helpful even for the old Tom and which are dangerous for the new Tom, who is also 72 years old.

I have been forced during this illness to learn things that everyone has to learn anyway; it was just forced upon me. I hope that these insights might be useful to others as they grow older or if they develop a chronic disease.

What's in the Way Is the Way

This is the title of a book by Mary O'Malley. Though the book is not about mindfulness, her offerings in the book many points of connection to mindfulness.

I find that just the title of the book is a powerful phrase to remind us of mindfulness when we fall off the tracks. I have heard many people saying "this situation is getting in the way of my life" or "I can't get on with my life until this changes."

You might stop and ponder: what is "in your way" today:
a job you don't like and would like to leave?
a house or neighborhood you would like to move out of?
a relationship with a partner that is in crisis?
a parent or child whose needs are getting in the way of you being able to live your life?
a recent medical condition that doesn't allow you to do things you want to?

Several of my teachers have offered a similar sentiment when they said that every moment is an opportunity to grow. That also connects to a statement that has been around for a long time: When someone was encountering a major challenge, they would say "Another Frigging Growth Opportunity." Sometimes they would just say, "damn, an AFGO." I have found both of these phrasings to be helpful over the years.

However I love the simplicity of "What's in the way is the way." This leads to the question: what is the way if what's in the way is the way? For a Buddhist, the way is the path he laid out. However, for others the way is the teachings of Christ, Muhammed, Hinduism, and so on.

I find that when I remember "What's in the way is the way," I take a few breaths and I feel a real softening of the hardness that I am dealing with. Then some teachings, that are helpful to me, come to mind, for example, letting go, loving-kindness, the choice that comes when I feel that pause between stimulus and response.

Does the title of the book, or the phrasing from my teachers or AFGO appeal to you? Or do you have other helpful tools when life presents a "this is in my way" challenge?

Close encounters with a doe and fawns

I was having my morning coffee at our Airbnb in Fayetteville where we had come to see our son and his family. I looked up and saw a doe and a young fawn sitting inside the back yard by the chain link fence about 50 feet away. The fawn took a few steps and I knew immediately that the fawn had just been born. The owner had told us that deer were frequently seen in this neighborhood which is situated in a forest.

Yvette and I watched the doe lick her newborn. Then the doe stood up and we noticed maybe a second fawn lying on the ground. It was in a slight depression so we weren't sure. It was not moving and we feared that I had not survived. Then the doe started licking there fawn. After several minutes, we noticed the fawn moving and we exhaled. Then the fawn stood up on very wobbly legs. The mother laid down on her side and both fawns began to nurse.

For the next two hours I barely moved from my seat as I saw the fawns nurse and take their first steps and then walk around a bit along the fence. Several times they would lie down and simply rest. During this time, we could see them walk more steadily, even trying to run though unsuccessfully. Once they wandered a bit too far from their mother, and she walked over and persuaded them to walk back to the birthing place. Whenever she was close to the fawns and they were standing, she would lick the rest of the their bodies. By the time we left, we felt confident that she had licked every square inch of their bodies, some parts many times!

Sometime the mother would stand up turn around and then sit back down. While the fawns were nursing, she would lick their bottoms and their white tails would flicker furiously. I learned from the internet that mama did this to stimulate urinating and defecating. The internet said that the mother would then eat the feces and lick the site where the fawns had urinated to eliminate any smell that might attract predators.

Since this is a blog about mindfulness, I suggest that if this fact repulses you, you might breathe and acknowledge that this is simply a manifestation of a natural process that has borne the test of time. Can you see the wonder in this feature of evolution that increases the chances that this species thrives.

The doe was constantly alert, her ears coming to abrupt attention with each noise or motion. At first, she would go on alert every time we moved or made noises. After a while she became accustomed to our occasional movement or noise-making.

On the other side of the fence was someone else’s back yard. Shortly after we noticed the deer, a man on a riding mower appeared and for the next half hour mowed back and forth. The doe was constantly alert but not spooked. Perhaps she realized that she had made her bed here and short of someone clearly approaching them, she was not going to leave because the fawns could barely walk much less run.

Other than share this wonderful experience, why would I write about this experience in a blog about mindfulness? I am currently reading Finding Our Way Home by Myke Johnson. I am also taking a year-long course on Zoom from Insight Meditation Society called Touching the Earth, with 5 day intensives during each of the four seasons. Both the book and the course emphasize how deepening our relationship with the natural world can also deepen our mindfulness practice. While I have always found refuge in the natural world, regularly walking the Ashuelot River path near my house was a huge part of my recovery from the aortic dissection.

Myke Johnson also writes about how deepening our connection to nature can help us to deal with grief many of us feel about the brokenness of our planet, something that many authors like Terry Tempest Williams and Robin Wall Kimmerer have also written about. Myke noted that the founders of a wilderness awareness school realized that many of the young people in the school hit the 'wall of grief' when they became overwhelmed with sorrow with the awareness of the degradation of the natural world around us. Myke writes of discovering her indigenous ancestry and how their descendants, including her, have become so far removed from the deep connection with nature that her ancestors lived with. She came to realize that "in order to be alive in this world, I need to grieve and...to accept that human beings do not live in harmony with the earth right now...In order to do the work of healing, of reconnection to the earth, I need to have compassion for myself and my people." She found herself wanting to fight against those people who are destroying the earth. She then had the awareness that this "would cut me off, into another brokenness of separation. Just as I must welcome all the parts of myself, I must welcome all the parts of the larger whole. If I am a part of the circle of life, so is everyone else."

At the beginning of the Touching the Earth course, we were encouraged to engage regularly with the natural world around us, to connect with our non-human relatives who share our world, and to cultivate our own personal spiritual home and refuge in the natural world.These are a few of the questions that the teachers suggested we explore:

• How do you understand refuge? [I wrote about refuge on October 20, 2020.]

• What is nature teaching you about refuge?

• How do you understand or experience a reciprocal relationship with nature?

• How can ritual support or deepen this exploration?

• As you explore nature, what are the qualities of that experience that are refuge for you? Is there quiet joy, relaxation, peace, ease?

Please feel free to share your own experiences of awe with nature and how connection with nature helps you to deal with the despair that comes from seeing the degradation of our environment.

Gardening as a metaphor for meditating

It's that time of year when many people are preparing or planting gardens or remembering when they did have gardens. So this felt like an appropriate time to talk about gardening as a metaphor for meditation practice because there are so many parallels.

Choosing the right place for the garden, for example, the kind of soil (too sandy or too much clay), different plants like different amounts of shade and sun.
Many people find it helpful to designate a regular place to meditate. It might be a room or even a corner of a room. This also involves preparing the meditation space, for example, sacred objects, pictures, flowers, candles, meditation bell, etc.

It also helps to find the right time of day that works best for you.

Preparing the soil, making sure it's the appropriate pH and has the appropriate amount of  necessary minerals
Each person needs to find the combination of determination, patience, and kindness toward yourself that works.

Choosing what you will plant and how much you will plant
This is an individual consideration. Tara Brach, a well-known teacher, said that she struggled at first to build a regular practice. What worked for her was a pledge to herself to sit at least 5 minutes every day. Over time she built up to a strong practice. Other people find it helpful to explore how frequently they meditate, and some people find it helpful to set a timer.

Using and finding the right tools before you plant
The parallel to meditation here is preparation time before meditating. Some people take a few minutes before sitting by moving mindfully (stretching, yoga, dancing, walking slowly), reading, journaling, reciting a short prayer, or reflecting on your intentions.

One of my teachers recalled first learning to meditate in Thailand. His teacher’s instructions were “go make yourself happy and then meditate.” Confused by this, he asked for clarification. The teacher’s response: meditation is not about getting happy or peaceful (thought that is a wonderful byproduct); rather meditation is about developing wisdom. Thus, we bring an uplifted heart to the meditation cushion.

Learning from others, for example, spacing the seeds, companion plants, right depth, etc.
There are many resources (books, talks, others, joining a group, online courses) to help you learn to meditated and to look up issues you might be having

Paying regular attention to your garden, for example, climate, temperature, water, sunlight, fertilizing/feeding.
There are many variations of meditation, different ways of paying attention to the breath, to the body, to thoughts and emotions, loving-kindness meditation, etc. Each person needs to find the practice that works best for him or her.

There are also many positions for doing meditation: sitting in a chair, on a cushion or bench, astronaut position, lying down, etc.

Attending to unwanted elements: weeds and unwanted animals in the garden
Thich Nhat Hanh used the metaphor of meditation as turning garbage into compost. Many teachers talk about dealing with unwanted thoughts and emotions and not fighting them but learning how to respond to them.

Rotating crops
Just as vegetable gardeners will rotate crops so that the soil does not get depleted, so too many meditators prefer to have variety in their meditations so that the practice does not become mechanical or routine.

Four (of many) lessons from successful happy gardeners
Take your time as opposed to rushing.
If you are weeding in a rush and not pulling the weeds by the roots, they just grow back.  Similarly with thoughts, if you don't understand and address what keeps the mind so busy, you'll have busy mind.

Patience
When the Buddha taught meditation, he often used the word bhavana which also means to cultivate, because most people in his time had gardens and/or farms.

Finding joy
If you remember your intentions, you may find great joy in meditating regularly just as many gardeners take great joy in gardening,

Seeing the whole
A gardener who sees the whole picture finds planning, buying the plants or seeds, preparing the soil, planting, weeding, pruning, harvesting all to be part of the process. Similarly, if one sees the whole picture with meditation, a meditation practice is not just the time actually meditating.

I end with a quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer who talks about gardening in her wonderful book Braiding Sweetgrass: "People often ask me what one thing I would recommend to restore relationship between land and people. My answer is almost always, 'Plant a garden.' It’s good for the health of the earth and it’s good for the health of people. A garden is a nursery for nurturing connection, the soil for cultivation of practical reverence. And its power goes far beyond the garden gate — once you develop a relationship with a little patch of earth, it becomes a seed itself."

Happy gardening with whatever you are growing!

Unpacking Commonly Misunderstood Buddhist Concepts

Today I want to unpack five Buddhist concepts that are commonly misunderstood, much to the detriment especially of those practicing mindfulness and meditation. When I began this path 43 years ago, I had most of these misunderstandings myself. Over the years, each has become like a Zen koan as I have grown into the richness of each concept.

Life is suffering
One of many translations of The First Noble Truth of Budddhism is "Life is suffering." This is an unfortunate translation of the word dukkha which the Buddha used. Here is a brief etymology of the word dukkha, taken verbatim from Wikipedia:
“Dukkha is a term found in ancient Indian literature, meaning anything that is uneasy, uncomfortable, unpleasant, difficult, causing pain or sadness. It is also a concept in Indian religions about the nature of life that innately includes the unpleasant, suffering, pain, sorrow, distress, grief or misery. The term dukkha does not have a one-word English translation, and embodies diverse aspects of unpleasant human experiences...The word is commonly explained as a derivation from Aryan terminology for an axle hole, referring to an axle hole which is not in the center and leads to a bumpy, uncomfortable ride."

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepali about 40 years ago. I had a few rides on oxcarts where the axle fit poorly into the center hole. It was not a pleasant ride! The Nepali language is a derivative of Sanskrit and dukkha was a word I heard every day--from I have a headache or stomach ache to I'm having a bad day. Part of what the Buddha was conveying in his language is that dukkha is unavoidable and a part of everyone's life. I recall a phrase I have heard in many places about life: “nobody gets out alive!” From a Buddhist perspective, we would say that no one, not even the rich, gets to have a life without some pain. This leads to the concept of detachment.

Detachment
Detachment does not mean disconnect. Rather it means to stay connected but without attachment. Because of this misconception, many meditation teachers use the term non-attachment instead of detachment.

The Buddha said that desire is not the problem. Rather desire becomes a problem when we become attached to our desires. Life then becomes like walking around in clothing made from velcro! This desire for something or this desire get rid of something like anger sticks to us, and often becomes an obsession.

One teacher gave this example of non-attachment which I share, with apologies to vegetarians. Let's say that on successive nights you are invited to two friends' houses for dinner. The first night is with a friend who is poor and serves you a steak made from the cheapest cut. The second night is with a friend who is rich and serves you the finest cut of filet mignon, grilled by a master chef. If you can enjoy both meals, then you are practicing non-attachment!

Another teacher said, “to the extent you want this moment to be different than it is, to that extent you suffer.” I had the opposite of this last summer when I lay in a hospital bed in intensive care after my second surgery for my aortic dissection. To minimize the possibility of paraplegia from the surgery, a needle was inserted into my spine and some spinal fluid was drained before the surgery. I was bedridden for the next 48 hours until the spinal drain was removed. It was quite uncomfortable to be bedridden.

For some reason, on the second morning after the surgery, when I awoke at 4 am, I was feeling more grateful than miserable, possibly because I was still alive and not a paraplegic. Not being able to get back to sleep I practiced the meditation of loving-kindness and compassion for myself and for others. During the meditation, I spontaneously decided to practice metta on my damaged and painful body. By the end of the meditation, all pain and discomfort had gone, and I was in a state of bliss for some time. For that period of time, I had completely let go of wanting the present to be any different than what it was. That is, I was not attached to the desire to be pain free in that moment. I have since read of similar experiences of people, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, when they were very ill or hospitalized.

Accepting and letting go
Going back to cultivate, acceptance and letting go are not things that we force on ourselves, but rather attitudes that we cultivate. They grow over time. In exploring these ideas, Ajahn Sucitto noted that that letting go is the giving up (letting go) of trying to be something, the giving up of holding onto some psychological ground as one’s own. One of my students once said, in relation to intense anger at her husband's affair, “I can't let go of my anger, but I can let it be.” That is, she could allow it to exist instead of trying to get rid of it, because she realized that trying to get rid of it simply wasn’t helpful. It takes patience and cultivating various practices that ultimately result in our letting go of the anger, resentment, or whatever emotion was afflicting us.

Mindfulness
Jon Kabat-Zinn popularized the term mindfulness. However, most Americans (me included for years) think of the brain when they think of mindfulness. In the East, most people think of the brain and the heart when talking about mindfulness. A few years ago, Jon made the point that he could have used the word heartfulness for the translation of the Buddhist term sati. I try to remember to make this point when talking about mindfulness.

Meditation
The Buddha commonly used the word bhavana when talking about meditation because that word connotes cultivation, and most of the people he talked to were farmers, so they had a rich context for that word in their everyday life. When I learned this, my focus on developing my meditation practice changed:

• Cultivating a garden implies patience--it takes time to develop a rich garden.
• It implies paying attention to those factors that will yield a bountiful crop--to the soil, to sun, water, and good nutrients.
• It implies being aware of what can harm the plants and how to reduce that harm.

Another misconception about meditation is that it means stopping the mind. Actually, the practice of mindfulness meditation involves the intention to be fully aware of what is happening in each moment. This means cultivating attitudes of curiosity and non-judgment. Over time, this practice enables us to feel and see our lives more clearly, and that reduces our suffering!

Changing Commonly Used Language

The Buddha once said "What we think, we become."
A natural consequence of this is "What we say, we become."

I think most people realize that there is some truth in this statement. For example, many parents encourage their children not to limit themselves by saying "I can't." I also think of the story of The Little Engine That Could.

Neuroscience
From neuroscience research we read that every time a particular neural circuit (emotion, thought or action) happens in the brain, the more likely it is to occur again, for example, I can't vs I can. There is a connected term called neural cowpaths. Think of cow paths in the pasture which, once made, are where the cows walk. I recall Henry David Thoreau lamenting how quickly his feet made a path from his cabin to the pond. One writer encourages us not to pave our neural cow paths! This point is also implicit in the Buddha's articulation of the Five Aggregates.

Below are several examples of changes in thoughts or speech that we might consider reflecting on. Virtually all of these words and phrases have come to me through discussions with other people or I have read somewhere.

Should
Many years ago I began to eliminate the word should from my thinking and speaking vocabulary. If you pay close attention to your body, you can often feel a tightening when you say for example, "I should go to the gym today" or "I shouldn't be so judgmental." It's not that these are not wholesome thoughts; it's that should introduces a sense of forcing and striving. I've noticed a difference when I ask myself "do I want to go the gym today?" If I feel that my body would benefit from the exercise even though I don't want to go, I might stop and reflect on the benefits of going or consider what I need to change (in my mind or my schedule) so that I might go to the gym.

Expectations are related to shoulds because we often expect something to happen that we feel should happen or expect something not to happen that we feel shouldn't happen. While we are aware of some expectations, e.g., I expect that I will get a raise at work, there are many more expectations that we aren't generally conscious of, e.g., I expect that dinner will be ready when I get home, I expect my child to behave when company comes, etc. etc. Many family arguments happen when an unstated expectation is not met.

Words that have a transactional or a military tone
I no longer pay attention. I give or devote attention.
I no longer talk about how I spent the day, but rather how I honored the day or what choices I made that day.
I no longer take a walk. I go for a walk.
I no longer pay it forward. I plant it forward.
I no longer work on my relationship with my wife. I explore and reflect on and devote more attention to my relationship with my wife.
I no longer talk about fighting for change. I talk about committing myself toward various causes. I recall so many people saying they were fighting for peace back in the 60s!

A simple change of preposition
Over 40 years ago I was on a month-long retreat at a Catholic monastery. During my stay I made good friends with a priest. He could see that I was so dedicated to my teaching that I was a good candidate for burning out. He himself had burned out at one point and was now doing well. He offered me a prepositional change when thinking about my work with my students: I am responsible to them, not responsible for them. That simple change made a big difference. I continued to work very hard in my teaching, but being responsible to my students was a totally different ball game than being responsible for them.

From either-or to both-and
Another important change is not to get stuck in an either-or mentality. For example, many parts of my life including my meditation practice are hard and easy, complex and simple, heavy and light. Many of us tend to focus on hardness, complexity, and heaviness at the expense of also recognizing the ease, simplicity, and lightness.

I have realized that I can have several emotions flowing through me at once. In fact, I believe this to be true most of the time. Right now I am tired and I am hopeful and I feel a certain sense of lightness in my being.

There is a powerful story about an artist who had lost a leg at some point. He constructed a perfectly spherical sculpture out of stone, then shattered it with a sledgehammer, then put it back together. He titled the exhibit: Shattered But Still Whole.

Qualifying our statements
Another significant change in language is to qualify some of our statements. I find a huge difference between saying this is who I am vs. this is who I am now. Similarly, saying “I have a low tolerance for frustration” limits you. This pronouncement feels different than "At this point in my life, I have a low tolerance for frustration."

So these are some simple but not necessarily easy changes in our language that can have a big impact on how we are in the world. I suggest giving any of these that spark you a trial run and see if you find it makes a difference.

Two addenda from a new friend:

When comforting a person who is suffering from a serious medical or personal situation, moving from saying “I am here for you” to saying “I am here with you.”

Moving from saying “with gratitude” to “in gratitude.”

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

Reflections on Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh, an amazing and inspiring Vietnamese monk, died last weekend at the age of 95. In this blog post I reflect on my experiences with him.

His talk at Smith College
I was a member of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship when I lived in the Amherst area from 1982-1986. The Fellowship invited him to give a talk at Smith College in 1984. After the talk, members of the committee had dinner with him at the home of a couple who were on the committee.

After dinner we were talking about our anger toward President Reagan and his policies that were increasing the threat of nuclear war. Thay, as he was also called, let us go on for a while, and then he quietly asked: "Does not anyone here have anger with people they live with?" We stopped short-he brought us back home! He added, "The only way to stop those wars (pointing outward) is to stop these wars (pointing inside to his heart). We first have to stop the wars inside ourselves, then the wars in our family, then the wars in our community. Only then can we hope to stop the wars between nations." I was so moved by listening to him and being in his presence that I don't think my feet touched down for several days!

Retreats at Omega
I attended two of his retreats at Omega Institute in 1993 and 1994. At both there was a Veterans "retreat within the retreat" where they worked with a teacher on healing their wounds through writing. At the end of the first retreat, they asked to share their experiences. One by one, the veterans basically vomited out their pain--failed marriages and jobs, addiction, and more. One of the veterans said, "isn't it ironic that I went to Vietnam to kill the g--ks (a derogatory term for the Vietnamese) and now over 20 years later one of them is helping to heal me?"

Many of the veterans came back the next year, and this time there was an invitation to dialogue on one of the porches on the last day. I had heartfelt conversations with several men, sharing my father's trauma from WW2 and the effects of his anger on our family and listening to more of their stories. I also apologized on behalf of many protestors who were abusive to veterans when they came back to the States.

Learning to let go of my anger
Over the years I did several more retreats with Thay and I took to heart what he had said that night in Northampton, especially with respect to my bad temper which came from my father. While my resolve to let go of anger has never wavered, progress has been slow but the frequency and intensity of my outbursts have decreased substantially.

Ajahn Chah, a wonderful Thai monk, said that "being a monk is knowing about letting go, but being unable to do so for ninety percent of the time." This helped me not to beat myself up so much. I also worked on forgiving myself, realizing that letting go and forgiving are related to each other and are not simple or easy processes to develop.

My biggest progress on the anger is a direct result of my aortic dissection 15 months ago, as I have had to go very slowly both for the healing of my aorta and because I had so little energy. My anger, and related emotions like resentment and irritation, still get triggered easily, so it is a daily practice to sense when anger arises. However, going more slowly enables me to notice the anger earlier which makes it easier to make better choices about how to respond to my anger. I think of Thay daily when I am more aware of moving more slowly.

I also say a simple grace before eating many of my meals, which is my adaptation of Thay's longer blessing:
This food is a gift of the universe.
I am grateful for having an abundance of such nutritious food.
I give thanks toward all beings that made this food possible.
I vow to work toward a world where there is no hunger.

Thay's stroke
Thay had a severe stroke in 2014. He was no longer able to speak, though he came to group sittings when he felt well enough. In 2015 I ran into a friend who, with his wife, co-founded Morning Sun Mindfulness Center, inspired by the years that they lived at Thay's Center in France. Several months earlier they had flown to France to visit Thay. I asked how Thay was doing even though he was no longer able to speak. Michael smiled deeply and said "he's doing some of his best teaching!" Like me, many people who have been with him speak of how simply being in his presence was a teaching, and that when meditating at a retreat you knew when he entered the room, not because you heard him enter, but because you felt him enter.

He is the most amazing human being I have ever been in the presence of.

“She Taught Me a Different Way to Love”

These words, spoken at a Zoom celebration of life for the sister of a friend of mine, burned into my soul and have coursed through my heart, my mind, and my body for the last several months since I heard them.

Carol, the older sister of my friend Jerry recently died in Montana. She grew up in a loving family but struggled in her childhood with severe learning disabilities, social anxieties, and making and keeping friendships. Her high school guidance counselor told her that she was not college material. However, she persisted and earned a B.S. in Medical Sciences and worked in a hospital lab for many years.

Sometime in her 30's the struggles of life became too much and she quit her job and returned to her parents' home where she lived for many years. Soon after her parents died, she decided to move to Montana, a place she had fallen in love with and had visited numerous times.

Life in Montana was hard, but she found a simple place to live and did odd jobs. It was here that she met Susie who was drawn to Carol. At the Zoom ceremony Susie said that developing a friendship with Carol was challenging at first because of Carol's tough outward demeanor. Over time a close friendship developed but Susie lost her job and moved back home to the Houston area. However, they spoke on the phone pretty much on a daily basis.  Susie returned to Montana to visit after Carol was in the hospital because of a serious fall, and she returned again to help Jerry spread Carol's ashes in a remote area where she and Carol had fished and camped. Susie spoke about how much she treasured her friendship with Carol and then said those words: "she taught me a different way to love."

Reflecting on Susie’s words, I realized that I have had many friendships that have taught me a different way to love. Here are just a couple.

Charlie was a long-term hospice patient with some memory issues. He loved to talk and could not remember what stories he had told me. Over the six months that I visited him weekly, I heard some stories almost every week. He would ask, "Did I ever tell you about the time that..." and I would smile and say "No, Charlie, what happened?"

I have another long-time friend who has a diagnosis of schizophrenia, though he believes that his brain has been invaded by aliens. At this point, I cannot say that's impossible. I have been with him through thick and thin and several hospitalizations, once where he was catatonic for more than a day. In the early days of our friendship, I was sometimes patronizing, and he never called me on it, though I think he felt it. I have also learned to be comfortable with long silences when I am with him. These days he is one of my closest friends. He is a long-time meditator and one of the most gentle, kind, and considerate people I have ever met. I have told him more than once that he is my hero for how he has handled his life.

Maria Popova wrote something that I have read in similar form from both Buddhist authors and neuroscientists:  "What we see is never raw reality, pure as spacetime — what we see is our interpretation of reality, filtered through the lens of our experience and our conditioned worldview. Always, the way we look at things shapes what we see; often, the lens we mistake for a magnifying glass turns out to be a warped mirror — we see others not as they are but as we are." In this context, to truly love someone is to see and hear them with as few filters as possible.

Susie has helped me to realize that everyone I have come to love has quirks, just as I do, that can be difficult. For example, one person says “no hugs,” another can talk at length about matters that to me are trivial, another frequently interrupts me, another is chronically pessimistic, another gives advice all the time, another is occasionally unintentionally mean, another wants to keep things light, another whines a lot, and on and on.  With Susie's statement and advice from many teachers to love the whole person, I am finding that her statement is an invitation to learn a different way to love each person.

It goes even further! This learning to love a different way can also be not just with humans, but also with animals and plants. Near the end of his life, Barry Lopez, a well-known environmental advocate, agreed to an interview. When the writer came to his house, Barry pointed to a fresh Douglas fir stump and said, “We had to put down that tree” just as many people talk about having to put down a beloved pet. Thich Nhat Hanh has spoken for many years about reverence for all beings.

Becoming aware of consequences of shoulding

One of the Buddha's more famous sayings is "You are what you think." Another translation is "What you think you become.” Thus, we might want to pay more attention to the words we use. Today I want to focus on should.

I hear many people using should and shouldn't quite often: "I shouldn't have done that," "I should exercise more," "I should be nicer to myself," etc. We often use the word should when we are beating ourselves up because of our imperfections. But have you ever seen a perfect tree? Every tree has many so-called imperfections. However, the imperfections of trees and most natural objects contributes to their beauty. Imagine a forest where all the trees looked almost identical. The impulse in the natural world is not perfection but rather health and adaptation.  

An important part of changing our language comes through reflection and meditation. One of my meditation teachers named this when she said "I used to think I needed to clean up my act. Now I realize I need to get to know my act." In other words, we need to understand our act, to pay attention to our act.

We know that physical pain is a signal to pay attention whether it's a headache, a stomachache, a sprained muscle, a toothache, etc. Your body is saying that something is happening that you need to pay attention to. I have known many cases where a person ignored pain signals and it then became something serious. So too emotional pain, for example, remorse, regret, shame, anger, etc. You mind is telling you that you need to pay attention to what you did or how you responded in that situation.

Below are four practices that people have found useful with shoulding.

A simple practice that uses gentle persistence vs. force.
When you realize that you are beating yourself up and using language like 'should,' first pause, and try these steps:

• Letting the breath and sensations come to you vs. trying to feel them: bringing a gentle attention to what is happening;
• Checking in with body: softening and relaxing on each exhale.
• Holding with kindness and compassion whatever has arisen;
• Befriending those parts of yourself that are beating you up; Rumi's poem The Guest House is a wonderful reminder: "the dark thought, the shame, the malice...treat each guest honorably."

Paying attention to the consequences of your behavior
Another practice this which was very helpful when I was struggling with my explosive anger came from a teacher who suggested that instead of beating myself up, I might look right at the person I had gotten angry at and see the hurt in their face. That was really 'getting to know my act,' understanding more deeply the consequences of my act!

This can work both ways, for example, feeling your body after you have binged on too many snacks, paying attention to the physical discomfort. On the opposite end, feeling your body after you have been exercising regularly: how does your body feel at this time?

Asking questions to your deeper self
Another teacher added this step in getting to know your act: ask a seeding question, for example, "are shoulds working for me?" We find that should and shouldn't can be useful short-term, for example, "I shouldn't punch that person in the face."  However, I’ve found over time that nothing good long-term comes from shoulds. It's like the Whack-a-mole game: those impulses that we try to suppress keep coming back. 

Self-compassion
I devoted a whole blog post to self-compassion on February 4, 2020. One relevant self-compassion practice is to pause and breathe and then ask yourself: Can I learn to be the kind of friend to myself that I am to my friends? Can I extend kindness, care, warmth, and understanding (vs. self-criticism) toward myself when faced with my shortcomings, inadequacies, or failures?

These are not simple fixes, but part of a long-term process. Most of my negative behaviors are ones learned in childhood, for example, getting angry when things don't go my way, saying "I'm not good enough" when I don't excel, avoiding conflict at all cost, etc. These behaviors don't change overnight, but through gentle and persistent attention.

One person who was finding this new meditation process very helpful was very busy and often struggled about whether to come to the Monday night meditation or stay home and do other things. I suggested this process of not forcing and less shoulding. Over time she became a regular participant. Reflecting on the process, she said, "when I gave myself permission not to come every Monday, I found it shifted from 'I should come' to 'I want to come.'"

So try any or all of the practices mentioned above. What do you notice? If you find other practices useful, please respond in the Comments section below.

Mindfulness toward emotional and physical pain

This summer Emily, who had taken my 8-week course which focused on developing mindfulness toward physical and emotional pain, posted this message on her Facebook page. I am reprinting it with her permission. 

"Waking up terrified something awful is going to happen to one or more my children has been a chronic fear and cause of deep physical anxiety since the night before Nathan went to Kindergarten for the first time. (Silly right? Why the night before the first day of Kindergarten?) I mean, that night I felt like I would have a heart attack I had so much pain in my chest.  I woke up this morning startled at 3:45 am with the same vivid fears and between that first night and now so many other countless times.

I asked Tom Bassarear  at a mindfulness class about this fear after class one night because it plagues me whenever I try to meditate as well.  I’ll never forget how he so calmly and kindly reminded me that the level of anxiety and fear I was experiencing first can comfort me to know the depth of the level of my intense love for my children.

Of course I still was desperate for something to help manage the intensity of the imaginations and fears and he specifically told me to befriend all of those feelings. Rather than try and make them go away, resisting, visualize them like a visitor, there to remind me of my love, invite that visitor to even sit with me for a while and put my arm around them….allowing them space to be there.

Even while I type this I choke up. I practice this each time, sometimes it is more challenging than others, but every time it calms my heart. And the visitor leaves. If it comes back to linger I just hold it again, allowing it to feel even welcomed, and it goes away again.  Tom gave me an incredible gift that night when he said those words to me and handed me those tools. This is the first time I’ve written it down. I hope it helps anyone else who wakes with or can’t sleep because of intense pain, sorrow, or fear.

What you resist, WILL persist. Allow it space to be, embrace it as a friend and feel your heart settle as you thank your “unwanted” visitors for showing up to remind you that you are a living, feeling, loving, sensitive soul."

The “invite that visitor to even sit with me for a while and put my arm around them” is a practice I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh at a retreat. He encouraged us relate to unpleasant thoughts and emotions as we would toward a child who has come to us crying about something. To open our arms and hold and comfort the child, saying “you poor thing. I am here for you” and feeling your heart open to their pain.

The Guest House by Rumi
Most people have been conditioned to suppress and fight unpleasant thoughts, emotions and pain. The Buddha and others have taught a very different approach. During the fourth week of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course that Jon Kabat-Zinn developed, The Guest House by Rumi is read.

"This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
[S]he may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond."

By this point in the course, participants have the tools and we can begin to focus more deliberately on this radical notion of accepting what is happening, moment to moment. Acceptance here is not resignation, but rather no longer suppressing and fighting, and instead allowing ourselves to be with what feels so unpleasant. Emily voiced this: what you resist, will persist.

I have written in this blog about my experiences with this notion of radical acceptance: my intense anxiety while traveling and severe back pain.

A monk with typhus
I was recently reading a book by Ajahn Brahm who wrote about living in a remote monastery in Thailand and getting typhus. He was in a small hospital and very, very sick and miserable. The abbot came for a visit and Ajahn Brahm was hoping for some wise words of support. But the abbot simply said, "You'll either die or recover" and then left. At first Ajahn Brahm was devastated, but then "it dawned on me that I had been wanting to get well. I had been fighting the sickness. When I realized that, I decided to stop fighting and let go...In a few minutes I couldn't feel my body anymore...I felt at peace...My mind was still and my body relaxed. I was happy."

My experience in ICU
I had a similar experience after my second surgery this summer to place more stents in my aorta when I was in the intensive care unit at the hospital. I was awakened at 4 am by the nurse who had to check my spinal fluid and my toes and legs. The surgeon had been concerned about the possibility of a surge of spinal fluid during or after the surgery which would leave me paralyzed, so they placed a needle into my spine and drained some of the spinal fluid. For the next two days I was bedridden because of the needle in my spine. After the nurse left, I was wide awake.

I decided to practice the loving-kindness meditation. I first focused this energy on all the sensations in my body for about 45 minutes. Then I focused the loving-kindness energy on my surgeon and his team, on the nurses, and on the other 21 patients in the ICU unit. At one point, I realized that—in that moment—I was very peaceful and happy. That state lasted for some time.

Simple but not easy
This attitude toward the unpleasant is not unique to Buddhism, as Rumi's poem attests. And it is not terribly complicated. Some people get it very quickly. Others, like me, get it over time, and then forget it and then remember it. But all who experience those magic moments of finally letting go can attest to the power of such a radically different way of approaching suffering.