Sometimes we don’t know what we need to let go of in order to move forward. Lean into what you are feeling. Often there is comfort in knowing what is behind the feeling. If not, accept it and apply compassion and tenderness for yourself and others. Labeling the feeling is often enough to cause it to dissipate. When feeling returns, label it again with compassion and forgiveness. Repeat. Soon it will be just a part of who you are…. your friend, that you fully accept with love and understanding.
CONQUERING FEAR
Fear can be paralyzing. Or it can start you down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out “what will happen if….” But we can’t adequately know or predict the future. Mediation teaches us to accept the way things are, instead of fighting things. Being in the present instead of the future or past. Focus on what you can know now, such as your intentions and your attitude. Feelings can be mixed and multi layered making them harder to decipher. Often you can know your feelings by directly experiencing them in certain parts of your body. Checking your motivation can help. Fear is often accompanied by blaming others or blaming yourself. Part of resolving fear is knowing that fear is there to protect you. You will have won your battle with fear, when you can truly and deeply feel that whatever happens you can handle the outcome.
Why Do I Meditate?
I meditate because I want my brain to leave me alone. Meditation makes everything seems less important. I don’t mean everything is less important than meditation. I mean the barrage and complexity of everyday tasks lessen in importance. They can get overwhelming and it’s hard to sort out their hierarchy. Then the judging mind comes rushing in followed by paralyzing doubt. Meditating helps to let go of evaluating everything. One realizes that stress and anxiety don’t have to accompany every task. All we really have is the here and now, and the here and now experience is greatly affected by our own minds. There is immense relief when the thinking mind falls back from consciousness and the sensations of the moment become all there is. Everything can change and is changing every minute. It is within our power.
Intentions and Goals
Intentions are more forgiving than goals. Intentions are a process of working towards something. With a goal you can feel like you are failing. A goal is outcome orientated and specific and can be affected by unforeseen circumstances. Intentions are more flexible and based on what is within your control. An intention can be seen as a filter you put over your experience. A relative direction you are approaching. Whether you choose an intention or a goal, remember “the path is always the heart. Even though the method may change”
Practicing Non-Attachment
Try to feel non-attachment, not just think it, but really feel it. Letting go of attachments to outcomes can be a gateway to contentment. That doesn’t mean every outcome should be seen as positive of even or ok. Whatever outcome emerges, acknowledged it with all subsequent emotions identified, felt, accepted and let go. Removing a sense of a fixed self and the judging mind can open doors you didn’t imagine. Approach it with curiosity. Would you work as hard if you are not attached to outcomes? Experiment while watching your feelings and actions. Attachment to a goal can cause you to miss the joyful things that can show up serendipitously during the process. Stay aware in the moment with ease.
Go Lightly
“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days…Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me…to throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling…”
— Aldous Huxley, “Island”
Now is Always Available
Every time you sit and meditate it’s a different experience. This is not a problem and doesn’t mean you aren’t growing. It just is. Each time it is a new opportunity. Be present with your experience rather than doubting yourself. Come back to your breath with compassion, forgiveness and kindness. The situation is always changing. Meditation is not cognitive. It’s happening on a different level. Tapping into the level of the heart changes the way we see things and helps us let go of clinging to an outcome.
Letting Go
Often times we don’t know what we need to let go of in order to move forward. Things that that were useful when we were young and have become adaptive strategies, can stop working and hold you back. Sometimes we need to let go of our habit of trying to solidify the future and our expectations and just be open to the possibilities of life. Being fixed on one idea can close you off to all the other possibilities around you. Sometimes it’s a matter of letting go of the constant need for approval. Self-judgements, moralizing, harshness, shame and deception can surround the thing we need to let go of. Sometime we just need to acknowledge… “I’m not going to get that thing”… and ask ourselves “can I let it go of it with kindness, forgiveness and love?”
Comparative Suffering and the Second Arrow
Can you be ok with your pain or are you dismissing it because others suffer more than you? Suppressing or denying your feelings because they are not painful enough can lead to shame. This is known as the second arrow. First you have the pain, then you pile a layer of guilt and shame on top. Ranking your pain and suffering against other’s pain is known as comparative suffering. Thinking “My pain is worse than others” is another form of comparative suffering. Thinking this way also piles on the second arrow of shame. In reality you can hold two thoughts simultaneously, “I recognize the validity of my own suffering as well as the suffering of others.” Empathy is not finite. There is enough to give yourself empathy and to give it to others. Visualize a softening around the edges of your heart, developing loving kindness with yourself so that you can extend compassion outward. Expressing your pain to others is part of the natural and necessary co-regulation of emotions. Most importantly, it opens up a space for others to come to you when they need empathy.
Noting Emotions and Communication Choices
Mike lead Dharma Punx last Sunday with a long meditation and a short reading from “Being Dharma” by Ajahn Chah which sparked a discussion about acknowledging feelings in the moment. We do this during meditation with the practice of ‘noting” or “labeling,” the thought or emotion and then without judgment letting it go and returning to the breath. When we are in conversation with others, this process becomes much more complicated. Members of our group shared their experiences.
Mike talked about being like a dog, intuitively shaking off the emotion, or learning to process the emotion by using “Right Speech”. Asking yourself: Is this comment helpful? Is it skillful? Is it wholesome? And most importantly being gentle with yourself. Having awareness of awareness, or Metacognition. Thinking about one's thinking. More precisely, Metacognition refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one's understanding and performance. It includes a critical awareness of a.) one's thinking and b.) learning and oneself as a thinker and learner.
During our group discussion one person talked about how learning noting has helped him to take a pause before reacting impulsively. Another person talked about noting, giving way to a pause, which is followed by an understanding the consequences of his actions, but how he is still struggling with being powerless over his conditioned behavior and impulse to do the unskillful thing. The discussion changed to other people’s communication skills, and a reflection on what to do when someone tells you that “you are being unskillful,” in a totally unskillful way. One solution might be, rather than reacting, let silence be your ally. Still another member of our group talked about being able to feel anger in her body arising while talking to someone, noting it, practicing patience, but only later realizing her anger was in response to the person mansplaining to her. Recognizing that mansplaining is caused by societal conditioning and the female’s perception can also be due to past conditioning. Asking “What is my part in this? and Why is my reaction so severe?” can lead to a different response. Helpful comments were, “Having compassion for the person speaking unskillfully to you can be a way out.” Or if that fails, commenting with humor often works. Such as “You have a brilliant command of the obvious.” One member of our group offered “Why cut the tree down in the first place? The wiser course of action is to observe before you cut it down and try to build a piece of furniture. The work is in observing and understanding, not making the furniture.”
Our group moved to a discussion about political differences between people. “You can fall into the trap of saying something, hoping for change. But if it’s not going to change the person, don’t waste the energy.” This can be tricky, you might want to engage for a chance at civil disagreement, or a positive outcome of swaying a vote or belief system. It can result in a dynamic relationship to have political conversations with someone who holds opposing beliefs. But finally, you may have to disengage, remembering the quote, “Never wrestle with a pig, you get dirty and the pig enjoys it.”
The Illusion of Time
Thanks to Brendan for leading Dharma Punx last Sunday. He led with a 30 minute silent meditation and a reading titled the “Three Categories of Illusion” by T’ien-t’ai from the Zen tradition.
Our following discussion centered around the nature of time and space and whether time exists or if it is just something we experience, an illusion. Brendan shared his thoughts “Once you start taking time out of the equation the results look different. Most important are the “now” moments, what we do in this life time. But at the same time, it doesn’t matter. Time goes on forever but we are just this lifetime.” Marco commented “In physics one can know where a particle is OR where it is going, but you can’t know both at the same time.” And Rob replied “I love the fact that there is so much we’ll never understand.” Marco stated that religions historically have supplied basic answers and definitions to simplify life for people.
The persona is only a constructed reality. All we really have is the self which is impermanent and in transition. The persona works in tandem with the self. Neither is true, but they are both true. It is a duality, and we learn to hold the two opposing thoughts in your mind at the same time. (In the Tibetan Buddhist lineage, it is known as the Conventional Self and the Ultimate Self, or the Two Truths.) Reality is perceived in layers. How you are perceiving it changes the outcome of how it unfolds. Questions arose in our group such as, when we die, how will we be perceived? They may be many things about us that no one knows, things we haven’t shared with anyone, that we carry with us, to our graves. What persona will we be remembered for? It may just be the little things like, being kind to one person, or helping another along the way. Or the things we made by hand, that may be found by another in a thrift store. Our gifts left behind.
Brendan commented “Think of consciousness as just a field. It’s possible that we all experience the same field. But we channel it through our own mind. This is how we separate ourselves from others. Because we experience it directly, we feel that our experience is more important than others.”
Melissa talked about ego stories being illusions we tell ourselves to try to make sense of things. Asking herself “What are the stories I tell myself that I would like to change?” and “what is the new story that I can replace it with?”. The story, “I am a busy person” is countered with “Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. No one to be”. And the story “I’m not good enough” is countered with dropping out of my identity. Letting go of thinking things are always related to me. Melissa concluded “I find that there is much more space when I am not guided by the constricted view of who I am.”
If Your Life Were A Book?
Thanks to Paul for leading DPX at our first Covid outdoor meet-up location. We did a silent meditation, followed by a reading that Paul presented by Jon Kabat-Zinn from “Wherever You Go There You Are.” It was an excerpt explaining meditation being a path, a way of living in harmony with not knowing where you are going. Kabat-Zinn talks about learning to see clearly where you are on the path right now and not believing to strongly that you know where you are going, because that is grasping which causes suffering. We need to admit that we don’t know they way and be open to help along our path.
For discussion Paul asked us to consider, “If your life were a book, what chapter would you be on and what would the title of the book be?" He stated that he is working on not being driven by narrow visions of personal growth and instead learning to be fully open to all the energies at his disposal. He is trying to step up as skillfully and mindfully as he can, approaching an unknown path.
One member of our group commented that his book title would be “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, because of the conflict between what he presents externally verses the reality of what he is feeling inside. Or “Don Quixote”, referring to the illusion he lives with.
Another member said her book title would be “Learning to Let Go.” Because she is trying to not force an outcome, being open to possibilities, accepting being in a space where something might come to fruition…. and it may not be what she had planned.
Another member talked about “A Random Walk Through Life” learning to take things as they come. Or “Death in the Afternoon” because of all the high-risk activities he used to engage in, but not doesn’t feel the need to do anymore.
Another member said her book would be called “It doesn’t Get Better That This”, referring to her personal challenge not to grasp or aspire at all, but to completely accept.
Still another member said her book would be called “Healed !?” Stating that years of hard work, is beginning to pay off. Developing a daily meditation practice, meeting with regular Buddhist meditation groups, stopping drinking, attending recovery meetings, building communities, finally having full access to appropriate mental health care services, with her struggles to get adequate insurance, years of physical therapy finally healing chronic pain, and amazingly having some financial security due to pandemic unemployment insurance, as well as finding meaning through a new career path. Everything is coming together to create a state of mind free from C-PSTD symptoms and unresolved grief that has been a black cloud over her for 18 years.
Another member titled his book “If It’s Not One Thing…..It’s Another….It’s Always Something. Don’t Wait For It To Be Right.”
What would your book title be? What chapter are you on currently?
That about did it for our meeting. We so enjoyed having Paul visit us again in Boston after his move to Texas. He will always be in our hearts even if he lives in Texas now!