Dealing Wisely & Effectively with Anxiety, Upset, Tension

     After being racially-profiled, Sebene Selassie “went to the airport restroom alone. Hot tears streamed down my face while I sat in the stall waiting for the sensations to dissipate. They did not. The tension and upset only perpetuated the feeling of not belonging. Anxiety and tension persisted in me for another five minutes. But I meditated with it, meaning I simply observed and allowed all my feelings and sensations. Eventually, I was able to reconnect to the felt sense that I do belong. Everywhere. Even to the agent (who 'randomly' chose her for a pat down). I returned to belonging. … We, each of us, need our own ways back to our belonging.”
     Sebene Selassie. “You Belong: A Call for Connection.” HarperOne, 2020. - a wonderfully wise book

     Meditation during emotional crises is infinitely more effective when it is based on a deep meditation practice established under relatively peaceful conditions! As our meditation practice deepens, we tend to delve deeper into its roots.
     While meditation or contemplation can be found in all wisdom traditions, it is the core & central practice of Buddhism. The Buddha never claimed to be a god, never told people to abandon their current religion, and repeatedly advised people to be skeptical, & only follow teachings & practices, including his own, when these actually helped them ie decreased suffering & increased joy. Buddhism, at least for people in the West, is 'a science of the mind,' deeply practiced by a wide variety of people, from skeptical atheists to devout Roman Catholic nuns, monks, & Jewish rabbis.
     Many of us have powerful love-hate relationships with specific religions, religion in general, specific races, all those we judge to be "different," etc. Xenophobia, beside causing senseless suffering to those around us, powerfully blocks our own healing, maturation & wholeness, and cries out to be addressed & healed.

      “While religion at its best calls us to a community of the curious and a unity beyond dogma & tribalism; religion at its worst calls us to worship the very things that divide us and to pit people against one another in the name of one fantasy or other.”
       Rami Shapiro. “Holy Rascals. Advice for Spiritual Revolutionaries.” Sounds True, 2017.

      “Spiritual practices are methods that can begin to soften our stance toward our self, toward life in general, and to open us to what transcends the habitual. They are invitations to become intimate with the wisdom of silence and stillness.”
      Dorothy Hunt. “Ending the Search. From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness.” Sounds True, 2018. 

     “The most profound practice in Buddhism (and MBSR) is ‘resting in awareness’ — simply being here without thinking or doing anything. All of the Buddha’s teachings emerge from this. ‘That you are here right now is the ultimate fact,’ said Suzuki Roshi. This truth can sustain us even in the midst of great suffering. Even in great pain, even at the moment of death, simply resting here is liberation.”
     Lewis Richmond https://learn.tricycle.org/courses/aging-as-a-spiritual-practice

     “The term 'perennial philosophy' was coined by Agostino Steuco (1497-1548) and refers to a fourfold realization: 
          (1) there is only one Reality (call it, among other names, God, Mother, Tao, Allah, Dharmakaya, Brahman, or Great Spirit) that is the source and substance of all creation; 
          (2) that while each of us is a manifestation of this Reality, most of us identify with something much smaller, that is, our culturally conditioned individual ego; 
          (3) that this identification with the smaller self gives rise to needless anxiety, unnecessary suffering, and cross-cultural competition and violence; and 
          (4) that peace, compassion, and justice naturally replace anxiety, needless suffering, competition, and violence when we realize our true nature as a manifestation of this singular Reality. 
     The great sages and mystics of every civilization throughout human history have taught these truths in the language of their time and culture. It is the universality and timelessness of this wisdom that makes it the perfect focus for the spiritually independent seeker."
       Rami Shapiro. “Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent.” SkyLight Paths, 2013.  

 

Metabolizing Difficult Emotions in Real Time

     In mindfulness meditation, we practice physical processing: 'leaning into' challenging emotions - WHILE these show up as unpleasant physical sensations. We approach these opportunities with curiosity, interest & equanimity knowing that, what we used to mistakenly consider frightening solid objects, DO with this approach disintegrate into harmless bits of energy.

     “Most people don’t maintain a continuous mindful relationship with their subjective thoughts & feelings, so most people do not have the ability to experience anger, fear, sadness, shame, & confusion without suffering. When an objective problem presents itself, it produces uncomfortable subjective mental & emotional states, and you suffer. A salient feature of suffering is that it distorts behavior. You cannot perform the delicate act of threading a needle while somebody is holding a flame to your body. Your whole body shakes; the objective functioning is distorted because of the internal suffering. In the same way, the delicate act of human interaction is frequently subjected to the distorting influences of (perhaps subliminal) suffering. Because of this subjective suffering, our objective responses to objective situations are often less than optimal, and sometimes horribly distorted.
     When objective responses are nonoptimal, they sow the seeds for new problems – new objective situations that cause distress. Then we respond suboptimally to that new situation. This can create a feedback loop that has the potential to spin out of control at any time.
     Even in situations where the suffering appears to be quite small, the distorting influences can add up. For example, a current cultural norm in the United States is to go from passionate love to acrimonious divorce in just five or ten short years. How does this happen? It happens in dozens and dozens of small daily interactions, some of them a little bit emotionally charged and a few of them charged in big ways. When interactions that are unpleasantly charged are not experienced completely in the moment, they are not metabolized. They leave a ghost, a remnant suffering that haunts the cellar of our own mind. That remnant suffering sinks into the subconscious and distorts our subsequent responses. We make cutting remarks when we merely need to reply. We yell when we merely need to be emphatic. We bite when we merely need to bark.
     The same cycle destroys a relationship here, a career there; leads to a war here, a rampage there; a repressive dictatorship here; an ethnic cleansing there. That is the basic pattern on this planet: People do not understand how to experience pain fully, that is, without suffering. Suffering distorts their response to the source of the pain, and this distorted response can easily lead to more pain and, hence, more suffering.
     Here’s a diagram that sums up the problem.  

     So where does meditation come in? Meditation allows us to experience pain without suffering and pleasure without neediness. The difference between pain and suffering may seem subtle, but it is highly significant. When physical or emotional pain is experienced in a state of concentration, clarity & equanimity, it still hurts but in a way that bothers you less. You actually feel it more deeply. It’s more poignant but, at the same time, less problematic. More poignant means it motivates and directs action. Less problematic means it stops driving & distorting actions. I appreciate that merely hearing these words may not be enough to clarify the concept. But look back; perhaps you’ve experienced something like this in the past. If not, having read these words here will help you know what to look for in the future.”

       Shinzen Young. “The Science of Enlightenment. How Meditation Works.” Sounds True, 2016.
       *** HIGHLY recommended ***

Balanced Spaciousness

     The word "spacious" or "spaciousness" might be off-putting to some, if associated with being spaced-out or lost in space - loosing touch with reason or the solidity of the earth. 
     However the term, as used in Buddhist and Buddhist-derived secular meditation eg MBSR, refers to the opposite of, or corrective for the cramped, claustrophobic feeling of being trapped inside a repetitive, negative-thought world in our head.  

     “The basic meaning of emptiness, in the Buddhist context, is that the world, which includes us, is not as solid or as substantial as we normally take it to be. And the understanding of that, properly integrated into our life, into our hearts, into our minds, leads to a lot of spaciousness & freedom. There’s a way in which we haven’t quite understood the world or ourselves.
     First, this pointing to emptiness, even with this jarring & provocative title, is meant to be a wakeup call. It’s meant to provoke us to wonder ‘What’s going on here? What is it we’re not quite seeing? And what is it that we could understand differently about ourselves and the world?’
     The second thing is that (in mindfulness meditation, our primary objective is) ‘to see things as they are.’ The idea (behind emptiness) is that we haven’t quite fully seen the way they are, and because of that, we’re caught up in unhappiness & suffering. So this is not just a philosophical or intellectual exercise. The purpose of looking into emptiness, the purpose of talking & reading about it, is to free our hearts and minds so that we are on a path moving away from suffering and into greater happiness.” Guy Armstrong 2017-05-01 Emptiness: A Practical Introduction for Meditators (Drop-in at Spirit Rock) 62:55 https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/79/?page=4

     (As our mindfulness meditation practice matures), “there is less and less to do in meditation. Due to the strength of the concentrated mind, the afflictive emotions are largely held in abeyance and don’t require much attention. Thought activity slows down. Even when thoughts arise, they are felt to come and go within a spacious field that is undisturbed by their appearance. One still knows what is present at the sense doors, which continue to function capably and efficiently, but there is no avoiding, grasping, lingering, or seeking to perpetuate what has arisen. Things come and go on their own and are seen with equanimity. There is a pervasive sense of stillness and peace.
     If asked to describe the overall flavor of such an experience, the meditator might say that she is resting, but the attention is alert, neither dull nor sleepy. The peace of meditation is hard to find through other means. As Suzuki Roshi said to his Western students, ‘You know how to rest physically. You do not know how to rest mentally.’ Meditation provides a reliable avenue to rest mentally.” 
       Guy Armstrong. “Emptiness. A Practical Guide for Meditators.” Wisdom Publications, 2017.

     “My clouds, sorrowing in the dark,
forget that they themselves have hidden the sun.” Rabindranath Tagore 

     “We are here to find that dimension within ourselves that is deeper than thought.” Eckhart Tolle 

     “You are the sky. Everything else — it’s just the weather.” Pema Chödrön