In Stormy Times, Remember ...

“When you become uncomfortable or frightened, remember that difficult emotions are your most profound teachers.” Ruth King

“Doing tasks fully and thoroughly can help ground us while also providing a sense of accomplishment and, by extension, an enhanced sense of agency.” Christopher Ives

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” Lao Tzu

"We lie in the lap of immense intelligence,
which makes us receivers of its truth
and organs of its activities." R.W. Emerson

“When water is still it is like a mirror…
And if water thus derives lucidity from stillness
how much more the faculties of mind?
The mind of the sage in repose
becomes the mirror
of the universe." Chuang Tzu

“Kindness and compassion is the fundamental truth.” The Dalai Lama

Light the World... by Mollycules www.BuddhaDoodles.com

Can We Change Now?

     "'Is the universe a friendly place or not?' ... If we believe that the universe is unfriendly ... peace will be elusive at best." Joan Borysenko. “Fire in the Soul. A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism.” Warner Books, 1993. 

     In the interim, ever more human beings keep ravaging our fellow humans, animals & Nature. We continue to prioritize short-term gain & profit over sustainable peace. We are not merely unfriendly, but openly hostile. Can we change sufficiently before we destroy our planet & ourselves along with it?

      "Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry asleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know, all mystics – Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion – are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.”
     Anthony de Mello. “Awareness. The Perils and Opportunities of Reality.” Doubleday, 1992.

     “If a man achieves or suffers change in premises which are deeply embedded in his mind, he will surely find that the results of that change will ramify throughout his whole universe.” Gregory Bateson

     "The non-dual understanding (direct path or Advaita Vedanta) addresses two essential questions: one, ‘How may we be free of suffering and find the lasting peace & happiness for which all people long above all else?’, and two, ‘What is the nature of reality?’
     In relation to the first question, the non-dual approach suggests that happiness is our essential nature, or simply that we are happiness itself. We might then ask, if happiness is our essential nature, why is it not experienced all the time? And the reason is simply this, that whilst all people have a sense of being or knowing their self, not all people know their self clearly. It is this absence of clear self-knowledge that is responsible for the feeling of lack that accompanies most people’s lives and drives them to seek fulfillment in objects, substances, activities, states of mind and relationships.
     ... chances are that the search for happiness in objective experience has failed you sufficiently often to make you doubt that it can ever be truly found there. The non-dual understanding suggests not. In fact, it suggests that in order to find lasting peace and happiness one must know the nature of oneself as one essentially is. As such, self-knowledge is considered to be not only the means by which peace and happiness may be found but the very experience of happiness itself. It is for this reason that the non-dual teaching starts with an investigation into the essential nature of our self, and you can find a video giving an ‘Introduction to Self-Inquiry’ in this section of the website.
     This clear knowledge of oneself is also the basis of the second aspect of the non-dual understanding, namely, the recognition that reality is an infinite, indivisible whole, made of pure consciousness, from which all separate objects and selves borrow their apparently independent existence. Everything we know or experience is mediated through the mind, and therefore, the mind’s knowledge of anything can only ever be as good as its knowledge of itself. In order to know what anything truly is – that is, what reality truly is – the mind must first know its own essential nature. Therefore, the investigation into the nature of the mind must be the highest endeavor upon which any mind can embark, and the knowledge of its essence or nature the highest knowledge.
     Thus, whether we approach non-duality as a means of finding lasting peace and happiness or, more philosophically, as an answer to the ultimate question about the nature of reality, we begin with an investigation into the nature of our self. This understanding is found at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions, and is expressed in the particular language of the time and place in which it arose. For instance, in Christianity it is said, ‘I and my Father are one’. That is, the essence of our self and the ultimate reality of the universe are the same. In the Sufi tradition, ‘Whosoever knows their self knows their Lord’. That is, whoever knows the essential nature of their self knows the ultimate reality of the universe. And in Buddhism, ‘Samsara & Nirvana are one’, meaning the nature of the world and the essence of the mind are identical.
     Indeed, the words ‘Know Thyself’, carved above the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, indicate that at the very foundation of Western civilization lies the non-dual understanding that our knowledge of our self is not only the means by which lasting peace & happiness may be found within an individual, but is also the basis for peace amongst individuals, communities & nations, and must, as such, be the foundation of any truly civilized society." Rupert Spira https://rupertspira.com/non-duality/introduction-to-non-duality

 

Fresh New Openings Await

     “To change is one of the great dreams of every heart – to change the limitations, the sameness, the banality, or the pain. So often we look back on patterns of behavior, the kind of decisions we make repeatedly and that have failed to serve us well, and we aim for a new and more successful path or way of living. But change is difficult for us. So often we opt to continue the old pattern, rather than risking the danger of difference. We are also often surprised by change that seems to arrive out of nowhere.
     We find ourselves crossing some new threshold we had never anticipated. Like spring secretly at work within the heart of winter, below the surface of our lives huge changes are in fermentation. We never suspect a thing.
     Then when the grip of some long-enduring winter mentality beings to loosen, we find ourselves vulnerable to a flourish of possibility and we are suddenly negotiating the challenge of a threshold.”
     John O’Donohue. “To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings.” Random House Canada, 2008.

For a New Beginning
by John O'Donohue

"In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you." 

In the Newness of Each Moment ...

     A chronic sense of discontent haunts most of us. "I can't get no satisfaction" as the song goes. We assume that 'if only this' or 'if only that' THEN I'd be happy. If not happiness, then at least a temporary dulling of this insatiable hunger in our belly should be attainable 'if only' I work hard enough, long enough, smart enough, etc, etc. Being trapped in & being driven by discontent leads to endless negative consequences: workaholism, other addictions & compulsive behaviors, burnout, nihilism etc.
     Meditation practice can bring much-needed clarity to our lives.

     “At the base of the conditioned mind is a wanting. This wanting takes many forms. It wants to be secure. It wants to be happy. It wants to survive. It wants to be loved. It also has specific wants: objects of desire, friendships, food, this color or that color, this kind of surrounding or some other kind. There’s wanting not to have pain. There’s wanting to be enlightened. There’s wanting to be as we wish they were.
     Our daydreams are imaginings of getting what we want; nightmares of being blocked from what we want. The planning mind tries to assure satisfaction. Most thought is based on the satisfaction of desires. Therefore, much thought has at its root a dissatisfaction with what is. Wanting is seeking elsewhere. Completeness is being right here.
     When we see the depth of wanting in the mind, we see the depth of dissatisfaction because wanting can’t be satisfied: when we get finished with one desire there’s always another. As long as we’re trying to satisfy desire, we’re increasing wanting.
     Ironically, when we experience the depth of dissatisfaction in the wanting mind there follows a great joy. Because when we see that no object of mind can in itself satisfy, then nothing that arises can draw us out and we begin to let go because there is nothing worth holding onto. The more we see how the mind wants, the more we see how wanting obscures the present. To realize that there is nothing to hold onto that can offer lasting satisfaction shows us there is nowhere to go and nothing to have and nothing to be – and that’s freedom.
     When I first heard the Buddhist ideas about suffering, I strongly resented and resisted them. I thought it was a pessimistic trip. I thought, ‘Oh this is Buddhist stuff from the East, where half of the children die before they’re five years old. Of course they think the world’s full of suffering, people are starving all around them and lying dead in the streets. But we’re not suffering here! I’m not suffering, damn it!” But seeing the scope of my wanting showed me how deeply and subtly dissatisfaction created my personal world, and that seeing freed me from much grasping, from thinking that all my wants had to be satisfied, that I had to compulsively respond to everything that arose in my mind. I saw that things can be a certain way without needing to be acted on or judged or even pushed aside. They can simply be observed.
     When I saw how vast, how potent desire is in the mind, I became frightened. I thought there was no way out, not realizing that the power by which I had recognized this condition of suffering was itself the way out. Gradually, seeing the dissatisfactory nature of much of the content of mind was opening a path to freedom. When we see that what we’re grasping is on fire, we stop reaching for it. Slowly, the mind is reconditioned to see what it’s doing.
     And we discover there are many ways that desires cause this dissatisfaction. There are, for instance, things we want that may never come our way, or things we only get once in a while, or which don’t stay for long. There are also things we get, and, after we get them, we don’t want – which is really disconcerting. Sometimes I see this with my children. They will want something so badly that we’ll go from store to store until we find it. Then, we get it and an hour later they’re saying, ‘I wish I hadn’t gotten this … I wanted the blue one.’ That’s really the heartbreaker. And, that’s in all of us. We want and we want and we want … and nothing can permanently satisfy us because not only does the thing we want change, but our wants change too. Everything is changing all the time.
     Can we think of any pain in our life that was not caused by change? But when we deeply experience this flux we don’t recoil in fear of what might be coming but rather begin to open to how things are. We don’t get lost in fatalistic imaginings or ‘noting matters’ nihilism, but instead recognize that everything matters equally.
     When the wanting becomes the object of observation, we watch with a clear attention that isn’t colored by judgment or choice; it is simply bare attention with nothing added: an openness to receive things as they are. We see that wanting is an automatic, conditioned urge in the mind. And we watch without judging ourselves for wanting. We don’t impatiently want to be rid of wanting. We simply observe it.
     Only that bare attention, that non-wantingness that can just be in the moment, has the power to decondition our compulsive reaction to wanting. It disconnects the intense pull of conditioning toward satisfying its wants. Each moment of non-wanting is a moment of freedom. Mindfulness allows that non-wanting. When there is just clear attention, when there is just watching, there’s not wanting. If you’re watching desire, wanting doesn’t continue to seek the object of satisfaction, wanting itself becomes the object of attention and the momentum that leads to action is absorbed.
     When we come to see what is freeing and what is not, we come to appreciate what will create more grasping, more painful wanting, and what will take us to wisdom and set us free.
     As this practice matures, we come to trust ourselves more. Buddha spoke about these teachings as being ‘open-handed.’ The nature of these teachings is ‘come taste for yourself; it’s for all to see.’ Experience it for yourself. We practice not because we like the teacher or the appealing way the teachings are offered or the people who are practicing the teachings, or even because we admire someone who seems to be working with the method. When we taste if for ourselves, that taste of freedom convinces us.” 
       Stephen Levine. “A Gradual Awakening.” Anchor Books, 1989.

     “Letting go of our suffering is the hardest work we will ever do. It is also the most fruitful. To heal means to meet ourselves in a new way – in the newness of each moment where all is possible and nothing is limited to the old.” Stephen Levine

Rebecca Burke - Deer - oil on canvas 2019 fogforestgallery.ca

Three Stages of the Meditative Journey

#1     

     “Most beginners start with the idea that meditation is supposed to be peaceful. If they feel peaceful, they conclude that they are doing things right. Soon enough a disturbing thought or emotion erupts, and this is identified as a problem. We do not like disturbances. We start off with this dualistic preference. We want smooth ocean waters with no waves. When the waves come, we say we cannot meditate; or we assume that the presence of the waves means we are not meditating correctly. But the waves keep coming anyway, always. It is how we perceive them that changes. We can relate to these waves as threatening monsters and try to push them away. We can apply certain mental techniques to subdue them; or we can pretend not to notice them or try to deny their presence. But there is no liberation in trying to get rid of the waves; and actually, if you examine the mind that is trying to get rid of the waves, you will discover that it’s stuck on the problem. It is making a mountain out of a molehill. We can also tell ourselves intellectually, These waves are essentially empty. We can play with the ideas and concepts of emptiness and use intellectual logic to convince ourselves that the wave is not really a monster. But our hearts still feel the threat, and react to protect ourselves from it. This describes the first stage of working with the mind.

#2

     In the next stage, we are introduced to resting the mind in the spacious, nonconceptual aspect of mind that transcends the limited self. The waves might still be terrifying, but we begin to glimpse the boundless expanse of water beneath the surface, and this gives us more confidence to let them be. We do not yet see them as just waves, but our perspective has become so much bigger than the waves. Our personal stories of fear and loss, of rejection and self-recrimination are there – but they do not pervade every bit of space in our heads. Our fixed minds have loosened up a little; and once we recognize that our own version of reality exists within a vast impersonal experience of reality, these same stories do not disturb us as much. We might begin to think, Oh there’s a wave forming on the surface of my mind. Or, There’s a monster in my head. Okay, no problem. We can acknowledge the problem without reacting to it. We see it, but we do not feel it as much as we did earlier. The understanding of emptiness is dropping from the intellectual head to the experiential, feeling heart. The ratio is shifting: The more we rest in recognition of the spacious empty mind, and the more we embody the wisdom of emptiness, the less impact the disturbances have. The wave is there, but now it is just a tiny movement in the vastness of the ocean. But at this point, we still get stuck on the surface with the waves, and lose touch with the ocean beneath.

#3

     In the third stage, the wave no longer appears as a problem. It’s still a wave – big or small – but we don’t get stuck in it. We have become comfortable resting within the ocean itself.
     The ocean does not become calm and still. That is not the nature of the ocean. But now we have become so familiar with the full expanse of the ocean that even the biggest waves no longer bother us. This is how we can now experience our thoughts and emotions – even those we have spent our lives trying to be free of. Every movement of the mind, and every emotional reaction, is still just a small wave on the vast surface of the awakened mind.
     Although the mind is always free, it remains imprisoned in constraints of its own making. Concentrating on a sense object can protect the mind from feeling overpowered by the waves. For example, focusing the mind on a flower, or on watching the smoke from a stick of incense, can protect the mind from obsessing on marital discord, or on a business scheme. This type of focus may provide temporary relief. Still, it does not allow us to experience freedom. When we connect to our own awareness, then we can accommodate whatever arises: the big waves of loved ones dying and relationships ending, and the ripples of crashed computers and delayed flights. No wave stays the same shape: all crests fall. Let it be. Let it pass. Become bigger than the thought, bigger than the emotion. Everything is always in flux; by letting it be we simply allow for inherent movement. We can notice preference and desire, but chasing after them blocks the flow of change. Awareness contains impermanence, not the other way around. But they have this in common: Our liberation comes from recognition.
     Let it be makes it possible to see that our true nature is free from problems, distress, and suffering – and that it always has been. When we stop trying to make the surface calm – and accept that the very nature of ocean is change – we begin to experience this inner freedom.
     But this is not freedom from distress and anxiety. It is freedom that can be experienced with stress and anxiety. We are liberated from suffering by correctly perceiving reality; this means that we have the insight and experience to know that our minds are so much vaster than we generally think they are. We are not the size and shape of our worries. To recognize reality as-it-is makes recognition and liberation simultaneous." 
       Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Helen Tworkov. “In Love with the World. A Monk’s Journey through the Bardos of Living and Dying.” Spiegel & Grau, 2019. A well-written, practical book for serious meditators.

Nurturing Nonpartisan Human Maturation

     Rigidity, expressed through blind partisanship, is seriously damaging the United States. However, every conscious individual, organization, and country is fully capable of psychological flexibility & therefore maturation. A few reasons for hope:

     “for real change to happen, a more humanistic & socially driven logic that embraces deeply rooted universal human capacities & needs for attention, awareness, relationality, & caring has to be legitimated in society at large.”
       Mette Lund Kristensen. “Mindfulness and Resonance in an Era of Acceleration: a Critical Inquiry.” Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion. 2018; 15 (2): 178–195.

     “Life (can be seen) as a journey towards wisdom & maturity, where both good or pleasurable and bad or painful experiences can help people learn & develop through six recognizable stages:
     1. Egocentric (immature, self-referenced existence)
     2. Conditioning (learning through insistent and persistent family & social traditions)
     3. Conformist (seeking to belong by following social conventions)
     4. Individual (starting to think, speak & act independently)
     5. Integration (shifting values & behavior towards altruism, through recognizing one’s deep kinship with the entirety of humanity)
     6. Universal (achieving maturity & wisdom, becoming a natural teacher & healer).”

     Research has shown that in western society, the majority of people past their teen years are at or between stages three or four i.e. are still culturally adolescent.
     Larry Culliford. “Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Manifesto.” Univ of Buckingham Pr, 2018. 

     “A healthy organization … is one that enables mature human functioning … being able to care compassionately for oneself and for others without losing sight of either, while moving comfortably between supporting organizational goals and taking initiative to create what is missing.”
       Kathryn Goldman Schuyler, Michelle Olsen Taylor, Orit M. Wolberger. “Bringing Mindfulness and Joy to Work: Action Research on Organizational Change.” Handbook of Personal and Organizational Transformation, 2018, pp1193-1217. 

     The goal of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is to help a wide range of participants discover, befriend, and gradually inhabit, embody & express the deepest domain of their being. Given a lifetime of very different conditioning, the task is not easy, but possible and highly desirable.

     "The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions. Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinions? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up — ever — trusting our fellow citizens to join with us in our determined pursuit of a living democracy?" Terry Tempest Williams 

     “Throughout history, the really fundamental changes in societies have come about not from the dictates of governments and the results of battles, but through vast numbers of people changing their minds, sometimes only a little bit.” Willis Harman

Momentary? Timeless?

     We think BOTH as if we had all the time in the world AND as if our hair were on fire! 
     A bit of self-reflection reveals how obsessed we are about the relentless, irreversible passage of time. 

     and every flower a tiny tributary 
     that from the ground flows green and momentary              Alice Oswald

     Yet, on deeper reflection, when the anxious "me" has settled down, isn't the one who looks through these eyes outside of time entirely? Isn't this "one who knows" entirely free of personal concerns, abiding in deep silence, stillness & equanimity?

Is Deep Change Optional?

      “How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.
      I have watched people choose growth over fear as they navigated some of life’s most difficult transitions. I have seen how it is possible to approach the challenges of real life with openness and optimism – even with wisdom and joy.”  
        Elizabeth Lesser. “Broken open. How difficult times can help us grow.” Villard, 2005.

     “Trust Emergence. With this instruction we are invited into the numinous but observable impermanence of all experience.
      To trust is to make the leap of faith required to enter this seething sea of change. Emergence refers to the process by which the complex things we experience arise spontaneously from underlying contributing factors.”
        Gregory Kramer. “Insight dialogue. The interpersonal path to freedom.” Shambhala, 2007.

     These concepts may be useful when considering making, or being forced to, undergo important changes:

change readiness: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/07/369-ready-for-change.html
rigidity: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/01/261-psychological-rigidity-i-will.html
psychological flexibility: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/04/92-psychological-flexibility.html
liminality: http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/03/liminality.html
transformative learning: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/search?q=Transformational+Learning
successful aging: http://www.johnlovas.com/2011/12/successful-aging.html

     "There is an important link between deep change at the personal level and deep change at the organizational level. To make deep personal change is to develop a new paradigm, a new self, one that is more effectively aligned with today's realities. This can occur only if we are willing to journey into unknown territory and confront the wicked problems we encounter. This journey does not follow the assumptions of rational planning. The objective may not be clear and the path is not paved with familiar procedures. This tortuous journey requires that we leave our comfort zone and step outside our normal roles. In doing so, we learn the paradoxical lesson that we can change the world only by changing ourselves. This is not just a cute abstraction; it is an elusive key to effective performance in all aspects of life." 
       Robert E. Quinn. "Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within." Jossey-Bass, 1996.

Core Insights of Buddhism

     “The three core insights of the Buddhist tradition are the facts of impermanence, of suffering, and of non-self. 
     The first of these refers to the truth that all phenomena, without exception, change; 
     the second recognizes that all experience is structurally incapable of yielding lasting satisfaction; 
     and the third points out the awkward truth that we are not quite what we take ourselves to be. 

     To these we might usefully add the associated ideas of the interdependent arising of all phenomena, and the notion of awakening as a radical psychological transformation.”


       Olendzki A. "Unlimiting Mind. The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism." Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2010. 


     Useful introduction to the above: http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/08/exploring-mysteries-of-human-condition.html

Buddhist Meditation: To See Things As They Are

     “… Buddhism has literally dozens of meditation practices, and each meditation may develop through several distinct states and stages. A Buddhist practitioner may therefore cultivate scores of ASCs (Altered States of Consciousness) during training. 
     … the classical contemplation of Buddhism, which is called Vipassana or insight meditation, is an awareness practice. … Vipassana meditation cultivates fluid attention to all objects. All stimuli, both inner and outer, are examined precisely and minutely. The aim is to investigate the workings of the mind and thereby cut through the distortions and misunderstandings that usually cloud awareness. ‘To see things as they are’ is the motto of this practice, and the seeing can become very sensitive indeed. 
     … According to both classical and recent research, Buddhist insight meditators can cultivate perceptual sensitivity to remarkable levels. 
     … attention moves fluidly between objects. … insight meditators gradually develop greater calm. 
     … the Buddhist meditator’s microscopic awareness becomes so sensitive that it dissects the sense of self into its components. Thus the meditator perceives not a solid unchanging ego but rather a flux of thoughts and images that compose that ego (transcending ‘personal symbolic consciousness’). This is the classic Buddhist insight of ‘no self,’ which sees through the illusion of egoity and thereby frees the meditator from egocentricity. 
     … awareness becomes so sensitive that all experiences are eventually broken down into their components, and the meditator perceives a ceaseless flux of microscopic images that arise and pass away with extreme rapidity. 

     ... contrary to many claims, shamanic, schizophrenic, Buddhist, and yogic states are clearly distinguishable.”

       Roger Walsh. “The World of Shamanism. New Views of an Ancient Tradition.” Llewellyn Publications, Woodbury, Minnesota, 2007. 
 

Human Flourishing via Meditation: More True Happiness, Less Suffering

     "What is wisdom? Aristotle wrote about wisdom … as practical decision making that leads to human flourishing. And human flourishing comes from practicing the virtues, so making decisions that are virtuous is wiser than not. Decisions that involve generosity, honesty, humility, and courage are more virtuous and thus wiser than decisions that are self-interested, stingy, duplicitous, or cowardly. We can practice making our decisions based on virtues. We can practice making better decisions by learning from experience, but to do so we need to change the way we pay attention to our decisions. How do we change the way we pay attention? It is important to develop the skill of attention.
     A gunshot will grab your attention without any effort on your part. And you can pay attention to a task you have to do and you can try harder to focus on it when it gets tedious, but we all know the limits on our ability to do that. These experiences suggest that attention is just a part of us like any other part of us (number of eyes or fingers) and there is not much we can do to change the way we use attention.

     But there is good evidence to suggest that attention and our use of attention can change and improve with practice. To develop the skills of attention means to increase the capacity for holding things in mind while thinking (working memory), to improve noticing, and to increase our control of attention. For example, some research has demonstrated that practice in playing certain video games can increase your ability to use attention practice in meditation can as well. While the effects of video game playing on increasing attention may be controversial, there is good reason to think of attention as a skill of selecting information, shifting your mind among relevant information, holding information in mind while thinking, and avoiding distraction.

     How does attention help make decisions wiser? We make a lot of our decisions without a lot of thought. Deciding what to have for lunch does not involve the same kind of thinking as deciding to change jobs. But even when we think we are thinking hard about a decision, we can be limited by habits of previous decisions. We often skim the mental surface of a problem, not stopping to be curious about what lies beneath. Some research has suggested that this might be good -- fast and unreflective decisions seem to lead to better decisions sometimes. Looking at problems and decisions through a narrow and shallow focus of past habits may work for some things, but it will not develop the skill of wisdom. If you do not see the virtuous options because you have not thought about them in the past, you may miss them. If you cannot think about a problem from someone else’s perspective, you may not consider everything necessary for a wiser decision. When we are distracted, we miss bits of information we should use in helping us decide, and improving the skill of attention, reduces such distraction. Increased attention allows us to consider more aspects of a complex problem leading to a wiser decision. Practicing the skills of attention over time, resisting distraction, holding goals in mind, and controlling what we attend to, can help all of us make wiser decisions."

       Howard C. Nusbaum "Thinking About Wisdom as a Skill" wisdomresearch.org/forums/t/1559.aspx#

 

Howard C. Nusbaum

Shutterstock / Dirk Ercken

Things are not always as they seem, nor are they otherwise ...

     "... the six types of phenomena - sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and mental events ... the six knowables - arise and pass away, a constantly appearing and disappearing display, like a movie or like images passing through a mirror. These 'things' do not endure even for an instant in the present moment; as we turn our head, as our attention shifts, as the light changes and things move, the display is constantly in motion, transforming so completely and continuously that we cannot even point to something that has changed. It is a continual 'presencing,' - a presencing of what we call phenomena."

       John J. Baker. "The Dharma in a Single Drawing" Tricycle, Spring 2015          www.tricycle.com

a riverboat - close-up

What Love is About, What Life is About

     "Spend time with someone, with a certain type of attention, a certain openness of heart, and a certain deep caring, and they will change. And guess what? You will change in the process."

     Peter Sellars, American theatre director, interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel on CBC Radio:
     http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Ideas/ID/2442656684/

Venice, Italy

Establishing a New Way of Being

     "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust

     Many of us, even if we like & admire this quote, basically don't trust or believe in its value - "it's not practical!" We're not motivated to put it into practice. We assume that looking at "bad" situations "from a different perspective" is a useless game of pretending - that it doesn't actually change anything, we'd be simply fooling ourselves to try to feel a bit better.
     That certain practices fundamentally change who we are & our relationship to life is a foreign concept to most of us. 
     But the real problem is that our automatic default response to any adversity - & many arise daily - is adversarial - "me, myself & I" against the hostile world. This IS "natural" & appropriate for animals & cave-dwellers - BUT NOT for civilized humans today!
     Now we must PRACTICE to establish a new default way of being: open-hearted, nurturing presence. This is critically practical - because our old default reptilian ways are literally killing everything.

     "Practice refers to the discipline of cultivating a crucial capacity of mind, such as wisdom or concentration. Practices are rehearsals of desired qualities, which eventually become spontaneous, natural ways of being."
       Walsh R. “Essential spirituality. The 7 central practices to awaken heart and mind.” John Wiley & Sons Inc, NY, 1999.

Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, May 4, 2014

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marcelprou107111.html#ZuwzHpI8UKHfwDdc.99

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marcelprou107111.html#ZuwzHpI8UKHfwDdc.99

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marcelprou107111.html#ZuwzHpI8UKHfwDdc.99

Letting Go of Business As Usual

     We're used to using different programs for different tasks on our computer - web browsers like Firefox to browse the web, word processing programs like Word to write letters, database programs like FileMaker Pro to build databases, etc.
     Likewise, we're used to "wearing different hats" for different roles in our life - we're children to our parents, employees to our boss, parents to our children, bosses to our employees, etc. Each of these roles has a different function or product. We fluidly use different software and fluidly put on different hats (express different subpersonalities) for our different roles in life. These are lateral moves, on the common, horizontal plane.
     As time goes by, new tasks come along, so our programs must to be upgraded. Likewise, our parents suddenly require elder-care, our kids become teenagers, the scope of work our company does expands and with all of these changes come new tasks, for which we need to upgrade our skills. One or a few of these challenges can be met with additional lateral moves, on the horizontal plane.
     However, when our environment changes greatly & abruptly, then we must respond with a much deeper, more profound, qualitatively different change - on the vertical plane. Sadly, many of us, including those who care for our mind-body-spirit, are only able to recognize & navigate the common horizontal plane - completely inadequate for "shipwrecks".

      “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.” Albert Einstein

 

     "We need to change the mindsets not just the problem sets”. Jean-Lou Chameau, Dean of Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology

Stone Walls Invariably Crumble

     The transtheoretical model of change (http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/11/436-readiness-for-change-is-pivotal.html) reflects our natural evolutionary, personal & species-wide, transition from rigidity towards ever-increasing psychological flexibility.
     Rigidity is an understandable, yet primitive, fearful avoidance of change. Change that we feel is beyond our current ability to handle & survive. See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/search?q=rigidity
     Psychological flexibility, on the other hand, is about bravely opening up to clearly examine & skillfully engage with what's facing us, right now. See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/search?q=Psychological+flexibility
     Need for change may be obvious to everyone except the person who is rigidly avoiding change. The rigid individual is unable to fundamentally (qualitatively) transform to a new self-concept / worldview. At best, this individual may think in terms of minor (quantitative) adjustments to reduce stress.

     Difficulties, friction, noise, liminality are various ways of experiencing a boundary - a "line in the sand" between our current self-concept / worldview and the one for which we're ready, or almost ready.  
     Boundaries are imaginary - not solid walls, nor necessarily sources of suffering. A great deal of energy is trapped by trying to maintain old boundaries, which when released, makes this energy available for loving & living.

The Danforth by P. Michael Lovas