Stepping Past Mental Confusion.
Walking through life one breath at a time sounds very beautiful and Buddhisty. Yet to our everyday brains, it feels pretty impractical.
In a world filled with endless information and impulses, the idea of simplifying life to a single breath may seem overly reductive, especially in contrast to the overwhelming chaos of our triggered states. And while chaos is part of life these days, perhaps there is a way to navigate this chaos. Instead of trying to control the flood of thoughts and data, we can shift our focus from the mind into action. And we can take that action one step at a time. The question becomes: What is the next right step?
It is often said that action leads to clarity of mind. Action is simple. It is the next step we take, or the next breath we notice. When we remain stuck in our minds, we overwhelm ourselves with outcomes, variables, and possibilities, all echoing endlessly. But reducing this confusion to one practical step can help us move forward. Once we identify that one step, the following steps often reveal themselves naturally.
“Move a muscle and change your mind,” it is said.
When we are stuck, movement leads to clarity. But it is crucial that this movement is an action taken in confidence, and not a reaction based in fear. The key is a mindful pause, that allows us to turn the lights on, before we step. Reactions born of fear such as defensiveness, anger, or frustration only add to confusion because they are blind. They are shaped by past pain that we unconsciously relive. In contrast, the next right step is free of this conditioning. It arises consciously, rooted in the present.
So how do we remain conscious and move beyond our mental entrapment? When the mind gets lost in itself, it can feel as though we are battling others. We fixate on them, or the weather, or the traffic, demonizing any available external. Yet in truth, we are not seeing anything but our projections. This does not help anyone, least of all ourselves. To counter this, we can follow a simple process of turning the mind from itself toward the breathing body and align with the breath. The breath is reliably in the present. By coming back to the present, we turn the mind from darkened reaction, to seeing more simply and the next action often reveals itself. This pause cuts through negative, programmed reactions and allows us to take an authentic step forward—one unclouded by past experiences or future expectations. Free of impulse, this step can follow our higher self or spiritual being.
While it is important to be in the moment, each moment is leading to the next. To make this next authentic action practical, it helps to determine where we are going. If we have a commitment to work for the benefit of all beings then it becomes clear. By “all,” beings we are including ourselves. Helping others at the cost of our own wellness is not truly helpful. So, what is the next step that leads toward helpful engagement with our world? Once we know this, the next step we take is a natural action. By natural we mean not rooted in confusion or external expectation, but what needs to be done for the benefit of everyone, including ourselves. Taking that step will clarify the next step and in so doing reveal the journey ahead. We move toward helpfulness and harmony, and away from reactive patterns that keep us entangled in life’s struggles.
But, a view of developing ourselves to be a benefit to others, also sounds Buddhisty and impractical. But, what is happening here is very practical. We are not reaching beyond ourselves, or trying to gain anything that is not already here. We are simply adjusting our view away from self-centered desires that actually are impractical. If our view is only our own happiness, than we have created a very narrow space. Happiness is dependent on other things, our livelihood, our relationships, the weather. It is actually, out of our control and largely theoretical. Real happiness comes to us. It is a product of living a life we believe in, and is connected to al beings. We are part of life on this planet, and part of the consciousness of the universe. But, this is only accessible in the present – right here, right now. And should we adopt the view that we are here to benefit our world, we are connected to a vastness that is inspiring.
Many traditions speak of karma, each with its own interpretation. In Buddhist teachings, karma reflects vast interactive forces that guide us into certain life situations, like currents in a river. When lost in the river, we cannot fully understand these currents. However, we still have choices: to fight, to succumb, or to guide ourselves through. By choosing to guide, we release ourselves from struggle, moving one stroke—or one breath—at a time, away from danger and toward safety.
If we panic, we create more waves and confusion, making progress even harder. But when we understand the right direction—away from the waterfall, for example, and toward a safe dock—we can calmly take one stroke at a time. It is not necessary to comprehend the full scope of karma to reduce its influence. Instead, by waking up and becoming aware of the present moment, we stop creating new karma through ignorance or momentum. Awareness allows us to choose the next right action, breaking free of preprogrammed reactions.
If our higher mind aligns with the benefit of ourselves and others, each step we take—each breath—becomes the next right action toward that view.
The Four R’s: A Tool for Moments of Confusion
When confusion arises, we often try to fight through it, only to find our destination slipping further away. Instead, we can use the Four R’s:
- Recognize the confusion. Acknowledge it without judgment.
- Release your grip on the struggle. Let go of what is causing or worsening the confusion.
- Return to the rhythm of your breathing. Anchor yourself in the present moment.
- Realign with the flow of life. Allow the next action to arise naturally.
By employing this process, we can release ourselves into the natural flow of life. One breath at a time. And by training in returning to the breath in meditation practice, we are training to return to life whenever we are caught in our mind.
False binaries dominate our consciousness, good versus evil, left versus right, wonderful versus horrible. We live squeezed between these exaggerations. The Buddha taught that the truth lies not in extremes but in the “middle way.” This teaching urges us to be present in our lives and act rightly in the moment. Similarly, the 12-step traditions speak of “doing the next right thing.” According to the Buddha, the next right step depends on the specific circumstances of the moment. Instead of fabricating extremes, the middle way turns our attention to what’s really happening.
suffered, and even lost their lives so that the rest of us may live relatively free and open lives. Veterans include not only those who served in the military, but also the families of those who died in service. However, there are many who have sacrificed for the cause of freedom and liberation within our own shores. The first black children integrated into schools, the first students who spoke out against an unjust Vietnam War, and those who currently challenge human participation in climate change, racial violence and societal hatred. With great respect for those who have served our military, I also want to recognize all who have suffered and been wounded in life, yet continue to face the world with courage.
I started my journey with meditation when I was most confused about how to move forward. Each step forward seemed to be met with a step back—sometimes a frozen moment, sometimes a lashing out, sometimes a dive into extreme tequila to numb the pain of indecision. These may sound like champagne problems—or in my case, a tequila-and-cocaine problem—but it still kept me from fully participating in life. I was always healing, always beginning again, but the object of healing was undefined, so this process only supporting my impairment. It wasn’t until I began looking at the things that were blocking me that I could begin to heal.
Facing the possibility of change with an open heart, a strong back and a clear mind is nonviolent warriorship which is the seat of the bodhisattva. Connecting to our inner life force, we find a strength that can lead us forward. Sit down, rise up and meet the change. There is great strength in this. Finding false strength in what everybody else is doing or in reacting to what everyone else is doing, which is the same, are just expressions of being controlled by fear. On the other hand, bravery is sitting in the maelstrom, open and aware, feeling our fear and remaining open and clear. Doing this as a training practice every morning is how we remain spiritually fit and connected to our life.
Peace is natural to the mind. As a natural state, the cessation of suffering is readily accessible. However, peace is not a fixed state. There is always suffering in our lives, and accepting our suffering is key to finding the peace that is already present. You might say peace is both intermittent and permanent. It is always there, but sometimes it becomes obscured by the tightness and difficulty that suffering induces.
Finally, the cessation of suffering is both the fruition of the path and a foundational state necessary for any creative endeavor. It is also an ongoing possibility. If we cling to the idea of cessation, we miss the point, turning something intermittent into something perceived as solid—another source of suffering. The possibility of peace is here now, even as we lose it by thinking about it. Peace is a felt sense. It is connecting to a part of our being that has always been there, and according to Buddhist thought, that peace is not diminished or changed by suffering.
Although masculine and feminine are inseparable, we can separate them to examine the distinct qualities each energy entails. The Tao Te Ching posits that the receptive complements and completes the creative. By considering this provisional binary, we can recognize that each of us has both assertive and receptive qualities. As we become more aware of these energies, we can learn to balance them.
Feminine energy cannot be owned; it is the very nature of the universe. Recent explorations of “dark matter” may be investigating this ancient energy, which existed before light. As all things—past, present, and future—exist in space and the universe, that ancient energy still holds and drives the expansion of the universe. The suggestion is that feminine energy is dark energy, predating creation and birth. Light, as a masculine energy, illuminates the dark, allowing us to perceive it, but the preceding, self-existing condition is feminine. Therefore, light is crucial to the creation of our universe and consciousness, but the darkness of the womb is the primordial state.
The mother cares for and protects the child on the most intimate level. We can extend this concept to include the creation of any kind—such as art, spirituality, or poetry. Personally, I write my creative work with a feminine voice, as it connects me to the sensitive, delicate part of myself essential for writing. The mother upholds our creative being, giving birth to the creator and nurturing the maturation of that creation. Regardless of societal or personal dynamics, every aspect of reality is connected to the feminine. The mother holds, nurtures, and creates us.
The maiden is symbolized by the dakini, often depicted in her late teens or early maturity. The dakini’s energy is linked to sexual awakening and discovery, which can sometimes lack compassion. While the dakini entices and softens the creative energy to approach her, she follows a deeper wisdom. Though often depicted as naked, in flames, and dancing in the sky, her connection is to the sacred feminine space of the universe, an energy predating all things. Her energy might seem capricious because she is linked to a higher order or her own feminine clan or community, making her actions incomprehensible to a more rigid, linear, masculine perspective. Thus, the maiden is always one step ahead of comprehension, dancing in flames in space. Though youthful and sexually appealing, the maiden exists within all of us. You can see her in the eyes of an older person in love or feel her in the embrace of someone who pushes you away for no discernible reason. In our male-dominated society, there has been an attempt to dominate and control this capricious energy, but the dakini cannot be controlled or possessed. She can be held, calmed, or tamed, but only provisionally. Like fire, with which she is associated, she warms, enlightens, reveals darker truths, but can also burn and move from one source of fuel to the next.
At that point, the dakini may leave us, her purpose fulfilled. Alternatively, this energy may transform into a more sustainable form, like the nurturing energy of the sister, akin to ducks that mate for life, swimming together in balanced harmony. Or it may evolve into the protective energy of the mother, who guides and shelters her brood.
So, let’s break down the components of this elephant. The elephant stands on the notion of a “self“. At some point in human evolution we became conscious. That localized sense of perceiving began to organize itself into an entity that is aware of itself. This allowed us a vantage from which to navigate an otherwise unmanageable sea of possibility. Yet, that navigation comes at the cost of limiting those possibilities. This notion of self is a necessary limitation in order for consciousness to have a reference point. Ego is a further limitation of those possibilities. Ego happens as self-awareness becomes a self-consciousness that assumes itself to be self-existing. This assumption of “me” can become a self-referential closed loop that reduces awareness to specifically localized points of view. The ego works as a set of patterned functions that reduce what we see of the world. We conflate reality down to serviceable quanta which, in turn, are seen as a means to serve our perceived compensatory needs. These perceived needs are generated to compensate for feelings of lack or vulnerability. In other words, we see what we are conditioned to see and generate feelings that prompt reactions. We generally do this all without much investigation.
The antidote is to stop. Allow a gap. Breathe out. Drop into ourselves and feel ourselves in our body. That is much closer to reality than circular, ego world building. Just drop it. Come home, and be here. This act of self love will allow the elephant to rest. When the elephant rests we can look around and see the world as it is.
I once wrote an unlove song that went “people suck, and you’re one of them.” Yet life with the irritations of other humans may be worthwhile simply because we have no choice. It is an existential situation that we can either choose to see or turn away from. Sartre’s play was an existential glimpse of a human condition that left us with no alternative, hence the idea of hell. The Buddhists say the cycle of suffering, referred to as l samsara, is endless. And, yet the Buddha predicted that suffering can nonetheless cease if we understand its cause. Our experience of that endless sea of suffering is enacted by the clinging attachment to the straws of life we feel will save us from drowning. Instead of flowing though life with an open sense of discovery, we grasp to the things we love and struggle to get away from things we hate. And in the turbulence of yes and no, wanting and not wanting, we become blind to the rest of our life.
So, why do we suffer? We become comfortable with the familiar. Seeing what we see, knowing what we know, doing what we do supports our sense of security. As we are social creatures, we search out our clan and dance with the partners we enjoy. However, we can unknowingly become attached to what we know, and experience antipathy toward that de don’t. We assume our point of view is self-existing and inviolable. Humans nestle into comfort without looking into that or beyond themselves. Chogyam Trungpa likened this process to creating a cocoon. Cocoon, in this case, is a womb of repetitive patterns, societal norms and bounded thinking in which we find protection but entirely take for granted. We separate ourselves from the dangers of disparity by surrounding ourselves with the familiar. Each of us has our specific style of protective cocoon that makes us feel safe. Ironically, those who flaunt danger sometimes find solace in the familiarity of repetition of their unsafe behavior. A daredevil approach feels brave, but once we’ve learned how to navigate the danger, it becomes a pattern.
It is essential for the butterfly to struggle through its cocoon in order to develop the strength to fly. Likewise, it is essential for those on a wisdom journey, to work with the discomfort of waking up. The Tibetans refer to “lakthong” or clear seeing. Lakthong is seeing beyond our reference points and likened to “waking up. When faced with the discomfort of seeing more clearly, a common tactic is to find fault and assign blame. We can deflect the pain of our burgeoning awareness onto a projection of another object. However, this freezes us in place. Once we pinpoint a problem, then it becomes a scapegoat. We are no longer looking, because we are seeing what we believe. Smart people are very susceptible to irritation and blame. People of high intellect can often become impatient with those moving on slower cycles. It’s natural to value our world from the vantage of our own values. Sometimes this conflates into a rigid false binary. Some people are good and some are evil. Assigning a value of evil may be more about pushing away something you find uncomfortable than an absolute value scale.
At this writing we are heading toward a pivotal, some say existential, national election. The two primary presidential candidates have come under fire. One fending attacks against their age and mental acuity. The other, quite literally, in a narrowly missed assassination attempt. Both of these situations have caused us to stop and reconsider solid paradigmatic points of view.
Binaries are fictions we create to better understand chaos. There is a good, and there is a bad. We have right and we have wrong. We feel comfort in fending off chaos with these solid beliefs. All of us have something we feel is real. But clinging to those beliefs create suffering as readily as clinging to material things or other people. This is called materialism of view. We believe our ideas are real. Well, good luck with that. I’ve actually come to see that binaries are by their nature never real. They are crude designations, the first step in the mental triage in trying to address the unsettling unknowing of chaos. The remedy? Hahaha. Relax. We are struggling through a natural process of rebirth. There is no reason to struggle. Our disquiet is urging us to discomfort. Our discomfort tells the part of ourselves charged with being in control that we are under siege. And so we prove our mettle by digging in. We turn false binaries in rhetoric and rhetoric into violence. At this point, the chaos in our mind becomes chaos in our life.