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

Somatic Meditation - Tension & Relaxation

      “The more we practice, the more sensitized we become and the more we notice. The process goes on without end and we always have more to discover, even if we are talking about a tiny area of our body.
     As we become more and more aware of the parts of our body, at a certain point we will notice something else: the tension in each part. The more we explore this, the more we begin to sense that our entire body is actually riddled with tension. We are talking here not about the natural, healthy tension that is part of our being human, but instead we are talking about neurotic tension, elective tension, superimposed tension – superimposed by our conscious orientation, our ego. Neurobiology tells us that this kind of pathological tension extends all the way down to the cellular level and is a contributing factor to ill health and disease.
     So why are we so tense? As we shall see later for ourselves, any naked, unfiltered experience is initially felt to be painful and problematic; without thinking, we try to withdraw from it, evade and get away from it. We do so by literally tensing up, and this tension is everywhere. Why is unfiltered experience painful? Because any new experience is perceived by the conscious ego as a threat. As William Blake observed, human experience in its primal, unprocessed form is infinite. This infinity runs against one of the ego’s primary functions, which is to meet the unexpected and, through subverting it into a convenient and safe interpretive framework, to limit and control it and finally, when carried to an extreme, to deny not only its significance but its very existence. When new meditators confess, ‘I feel like I am missing out on the experience of being alive,’ they speak the truth. 
     Tensing up is a way of avoiding the unadorned experience and the discomfort it brings ego, whether that discomfort is physical or psychological; tension is our way of closing down experience and shutting off awareness. It is the somatic expression of us holding on to our small ego concept, our restricted, left-brain identity. On the one hand, physically freezing and contracting in tension, and, on the other, psychologically shutting down and hanging on doggedly to our small sense of self are actually the same thing, just manifesting in these two different modes.” 

       Reginald A. Ray. "The Awakening Body. Somatic Meditation for Discovering Our Deepest Life." Shambhala, 2016.

Leaning Into Reality - All of It

     Fear of change is universal. At some level we all realize that everything is constantly changing, quickly, unpredictably and essentially uncontrollably. That is truly terrifying!
     Constant change (anicca), including aging, sickness & death, is so frightening that most of us simply can't face it, and thus suppress the whole idea, distracting ourselves with anything & everything: shopping, multitasking, compulsive texting, overeating, substance abuse, gambling, sex, workaholism, cults, ... 
     There are innumerable dysfunctional support groups for the many who cannot face existential realities. Why dysfunctional? Because trying to avoid reality doesn't work & only makes it harder when life hits you between the eyes to wake you up.

     “I’ve had to learn to lean into all I don’t understand, accepting that I am changed by what I hear. In all, it’s been an exciting journey, one that’s made me more alive.”
      Mark Nepo. “Seven Thousand Ways to Listen. Staying Close to What is Sacred.” Free Press, NY, 2012.

      Life "asks us to ('lean into') look at, listen to, develop curiosity towards, take responsibility for our own suffering. When we don’t, we blame others or external factors (project, externalize), and suffering becomes endless. Meditation is a way of really settling into the moment, and sustaining long, long stretches of awareness so we can know and understand ourselves, and see where delusions arise.”      Ajahn Viradhammo

Healing Even When - Especially When? - Meditation Practice Feels "Icky"

     An excerpt of Shinzen Young on processing psychological baggage during meditation:

      “'relaxation pain' (has) two strange characteristics: the more you relax, the worse it gets (at least for a while) and though it doesn't hurt much, it seems to cause a lot of suffering.
      The act of relaxing causes the mesh of ones consciousness to open. You become porous like diaphanous cloth. Psychological 'impurities' (samskaras), deep seated fixating, can now percolate up to the surface in tangible form. Resistance per se is coming up with nothing particular to resist! The actual discomfort (P) in your body may only be at level 2, but your perceived suffering may be at level 100. S = P x R implies that R = S / P. So you must be resisting at level 100/2 = 50. You are experiencing almost pure resistance, pure craving and aversion. In other words you are experiencing pure impurity!
      … try to the best of your ability to accept it. In this way, layer after layer of blockage from the deep unconscious, which would be very difficult to get to directly, percolates up to the surface and gets worked off. Admittedly this is challenging because those very sensations are the tangible manifestation of deep seeded tendencies of non-acceptance. Although it is challenging, it is also quite doable by anyone. Objectively, the suffering associated with this phenomenon is no greater than that associated with a rash or the flu. Anyone can learn to live with those kinds of sensations, but why would anyone want to? What is the payoff? The payoff is that consciousness is being cleansed at a radical level, a level that would perhaps be difficult to reach otherwise. 
      This is the reason that I said to be happy. Trying to contact ones innermost conflicting tendencies directly in the unconscious is very difficult. But when the phenomenon of the 'icky-sticky' sensations arises, the endeavor becomes very simple. All you have to do is pay attention to those sensations, try to accept them and let time pass. Nature will do the rest. 
      The mark of maturity in meditation is that everything becomes a positive feedback loop. The better it feels, the deeper you go! The worse it feels, the deeper you go!”

     Read the rest of "The Icky-Sticky Creepy-Crawly It-Doesn't-Really-Hurt-But-I-Can't-Stand-It Feeling" found under "Articles", then "Meditation Practice"

http://www.shinzen.org/index.htm

Mond   www.dpreview.com

 

Living Truth

     "Truth makes little sense and has no real impact if it is merely a collection of abstract ideas. Truth that is living experience, on the other hand, is challenging, threatening, and transforming. The first kind of truth consists of information collected and added, from a safe distance, to our mental inventory. The second kind involves risking our familiar and coherent interpretation of the world - it is an act of surrender, of complete and embodied cognition that is seeing, feeling, intuiting, and comprehending all at once. Living truth leads us ever more deeply into the unknown territory of what our life is. ...

     (Buddhism) is concerned not with truth that is fixed and dead, but with truth that is alive and constantly emerging. And it is only this kind of truth that is 'indestructible' because it is not a reified version of the past, but a reflection of what is ultimately so in the immediacy of the present." 

       Ray RA. Indestructible Truth. The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism. Shambhala, Boston, 2000.

Port Williams, Nova Scotia, Canada

Concentration, Loving-kindness and Peace

     It's fascinating how as we "act out" progressively less, we see more & more clearly how fear & anxiety used to (& still do at times) fuel our unskillful behaviors. Acting out (behaving inappropriately) seems to be a dysfunctional attempt at escaping from our own fear & anxiety. 
     Another common dysfunctional, pre-action escape route, is avoiding present reality via the mind. We play games with the past or future to disengage from the present, particularly from the physical discomfort of the complex, poorly controllable present situation. Only in our dreams is reality simple & controllable - so we spend a lot of time daydreaming.
     Yet it's complete, open mind-hearted engagement with our own depth and whatever's at hand in the present moment that constitutes being fully alive. Intentionally we notice & let go of all the obstacles to this state of vital presence. Dipa Ma said, "In my mind there are three things: concentration, loving-kindness, and peace." Everything else is dead weight.
     

Jet, surveying her domain

 

Discomfort with Closeness, Strong feelings, & Meditation

     Many people, particularly male physicians and dentists, have "marked discomfort with closeness and an even more marked reluctance to acknowledge this discomfort or deal openly with it. Such tendencies are particularly prominent among those who have compulsive personalities, in which difficulty with the management of strong feelings, both positive and negative, is a central feature."        Gabbard GO, Menninger RW. "The psychology of postponement in the medical marriage." JAMA 1989; 261(16): 2378-81.

      One of the determinants of the choice of the medical profession may be to defend against the horrible existential dread associated with feelings of impotence in the face of one's own ultimate death. ... another grand paradox on which to reflect is that those individuals who are so vulnerable to feelings of helplessness choose a profession where they are repeatedly reminded of their inherent impotence in the face of disease and death."
       Gabbard GO. "The role of compulsiveness in the normal physician." JAMA 1985; 254(20): 2926-9.

      “Life and death are not, as they say, rocket science. We can all understand them because we all can, and must, experience them. When we take up meditation or go into therapy, at the most basic level, we are looking for a way to cope with the fact of impermanence, which ultimately comes down to the fact of our mortality. At first, we inevitably try to deny it, control it, or avoid it. Eventually, if we stay with a real practice of emotional honesty and awareness … we may discover the joy that underlies life as it is – this fleeting, ungraspable, uncontrollable life-as-it-is.”
        Magid B. "Ending the pursuit of happiness – a Zen guide." Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2008.

Photo: Suhdeep Mehta   www.dpreview.com

 

Post-traumatic growth

     "Of course, not all people grow from crisis. Some refuse to accept the need for redefinition, and orchestrate their own intellectual and emotional shutdown. Those who do grow manage to stay awake to the anguish, confusion, and self-doubt. This requires a high degree of tolerance for discomfort, as well as the ability to see the world as it is, not as they wish it to be. Over time, the people who continue to struggle emerge wiser, kinder and more resilient. After they have broken and rebuilt themselves, they feel less breakable.

      Living is a complicated process, a journey of discovery that never ceases. As I grow older, the basic facts of life seem increasingly simple. The closer we live to our core, the more we realize that we are like other people. My fear and sorrow are yours, as is my harsh self-judgment. My desire to be good and to feel loved is your desire, too. We all seek peace."

       Pipher M. "Seeking peace. Chronicles of the worst Buddhist in the world." Riverhead Books, NY, 2009.

Joy Acharyya  http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

Undefinable

     “In silently wondering deeply without knowing, the conceptual world is left behind. Are we going into the question in this way?
      All too often our yearning for something to alleviate the inner suffering gets in the way of deep inquiry. Rather than asking, ‘What is enlightenment?’ can we question our inner feeling of insufficiency? We have tried to fill it with fantasies of all descriptions, with entertainment, acquisitions, achievements, relationships, spiritual searching, and solemn vows – anything to fill the aching void. But have we ever really explored it directly, unconditionally?
      Becoming conscious of it … can we be with the ache of emptiness, not calling it by any name? Let all labels fly into thin air and stay with what is here, discomfort without calling it discomfort. Staying here with what’s indefinable. Not resisting, not fighting, not looking for anything else. Just letting what is here be here in its entirely, physically, mentally, totally. Letting it be without knowing. Not becoming the doer for or against it. Just this quiet presence in the midst of the silence of chaos. In this there is an unfolding transparency. It happens when one sits patiently, silently, unconditionally. By ‘sitting’ I simply mean being totally with what is here. Not moving away or toward something else, just remaining with the whole thing – an intense presence that includes all the bodily sensations, breathing, wind-storming, raining, sunning, birding, coughing, fans humming – everything right here, all at once, without a seam. Observing thoughts coming up, emotions, feelings, sensations arising and more thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations unfolding and abating – being with it all. There isn’t any place to escape to. Everything is here without separation.”

       Packer T. “The Wonder of Presence and the Way of Meditative Inquiry.” Shambhala, Boston, 2002. 

TimR32225   www.dpreview.com