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GRATITUDE is not only a nice thing to feel, it is a powerful spiritual practice. It is a way of opening to the world with positivity and love. Yet, gratitude is all too often lost in the pressures of our materialistic world. This kind thought doesn’t hold much value to the self-mesmerized ego-mind. Ego whispers that the world has taken so much from us we need to grab some back.  Its dangerous, these whispers opine, to acknowledge the kindness the world has offered us. Perhaps we might jinx it, or maybe we’ll weaken our position.

 

Frequently objects of gratitude lie hiding among the negative circumstances of our lives. We’d never want to acknowledge how much an adversary might have helped us. And while bias against seeing the value of painful places seems understandable, withholding our gratitude for the things we learned or the places we benefited, robs us of enacting its healing power. While being grateful to someone might help them, it always helps us. Gratitude is an opening of the heart that allows energy to flow from our spirit to the spirit of the universe within another. We are communicating on the heart level by feeling grateful to those who have cared for us. And while undoubtedly, many have cared with pure intention, gratitude also works for those who have helped imperfectly, or who have aided our journey in the course of causing us harm. The well-known Mahayana Buddhist slogan “Be Grateful To Everyone” suggests that even those who have harmed us have given us cause to develop compassion. And, while it may seem a tall order to feel grateful to those who have hurt us – and it may be impossible in some cases – when we are able to offer this kindness, it feels as if a great burden was lifted. We no longer have to be weighted down in the mire of our resentment. We can offer an adversary whatever kindness and forgiveness our heart can offer and release ourselves for the constant tit-for-tat legering of ego. Let it go.

 

Let it go if not for the other’s sake, then for our own.  When we are able to look through the eyes of gratitude, we notice more of the world, and we begin to see how much of that world has been part of a cradle of loving kindness that has sustained us. Many of us have built self-limiting stories about how we were short changed by our families, abandoned by friends, or hurt by society. And while there may be truth to all of this, where in those scenarios might we recognize kindnesses that were bestowed. These kindnesses do not negate cruelties or indifference, but they can certainly be added to the equation adding more light, hope and possibility to our self-story. 

 

When things go well, we feel blessed. But sometimes that creates an assumption of awesomeness on our part. It’s very healthy to feel awesome when things go well for us, but do we need to have each victory build our ego beyond reasonable dimensions?  LIke resentments, egoic awards are weighty and unwieldy to carry.  One way to cut the advance of ego appropriation is to acknowledge the goodness of those who contributed to our victory. One way to set ourselves up for failure and disappointment is to assume it was all our doing. In the 12-step traditions, they mention the power of self-will as being a self-centered way of making our relationship to the world all about ourselves. This might feel powerful to ego, but this impenetrable castle is a sad and lonely place to be.

 

The truth of karma is that nothing is ever only about us. Life is a confluence of causes and conditions that come together every present moment. Many of these moments may have been negative and due to our ingrained negativity bias we sometimes allow this to overshadow the preponderance of goodness that has sustained us. But there has ever been goodness that has sustained us. Tibetans refer to “Tashi Tendril”, which means interconnected good fortune, or auspicious coincidence. It is the idea that we are recipients of a network of goodness that has created and sustains us.  It is fundamentally good that we are here and very good that we are connected to the goodness of others.

 

The practice of meditation in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition is a process by which we are beginning to open our eyes to the goodness in the world, and the goodness in ourselves. When I acknowledge gratitude in a given instance, I am opening my heart to see more of the goodness in the world.

Today’s New Moon marks a new beginning to the Tibetan reading of the Lunar New Year.  And whether you celebrate only the Gregorian / Julian / solar new year, or count the lunar calendar from another date, any new moon is a time of reassessment and rebirth. In the darkest eve of the coming of the light, we connect to the womb, the mother the progenitor of our race and being.

 

Traditionally, the Tibetan people recognize a period of reckoning at the end of the lunar cycle. For the last 10 days many of us have done protetor practices to help guide the coming of the new year and an easing of the karma of the past.  Monasteries across the Himalayas, and their connected centers elsewhere in the world, do a strict cycle of ritual practice leading up to the arrival of the new year celebration called Yarne.  Often the new year is marked by the return of a high Lama from retreat,the unveiling of a statue, or the consecration of a new temple. On the new year – or LOSAR – the community will gather along with its children, chickens, dogs and relatives from afar in celebration. And there will be food. My goodness, there will be food.

 

This year we celebrate the year of the WATER RABBIT.

 

The most important point of this newly turning energy is our personal emergence from the patterns that, like the cocoons they weave, have protected us and yet have kept us locked in place. The cocoon is an important aspect of our rebirth, but rebirth does imply emerging from the cocoon, at some point. We can offer gratitude for the cocoon, and the patterns that have protected and enslaved us.  But, when the time is right it may be the right time to step away from some old limiting beliefs. And while we step away from these limiting beliefs, what new vistas might we encounter.

 

This coming new year, or new lunar cycle, what are the things you wish to abandon, what do you need to accept and what would you care to cultivate. Tibetan Buddhist practice is referred to as VajraYana – or the indestructible way. It is reliant on a full commitment toward Buddhahood, and the Way of the Bodhisattva. This means our primary concern is to develop ourselves to be of service to our world and each other.  This begins with service to our own path of emergence from the vicious darkness of defensive self-obsession into the light of awareness. Stepping from the cocoon is a first step that reasserts our commitment to the path of the Buddha and service to humanity.

When the going gets tough, the tough take it easy. Not that we give up, or play dead, but that we relax into facing adversity with confidence and poise. This is what is meant by being a warrior.

 

Life has many challenges.  We would do well to recognize these and relax into them.  The I Ching says during times of difficulty, be like water. Wait and build up your strength. Then, when the time is right, you have the energy to flow around the obstacles.  In difficult times, rather than become overwhelmed by possibilities, we can relax our focus on the only time we can control: NOW. What is happening now? And what is the best next step?

 

Obviously, it helps to have a general sense of where we are heading. Sometime we have the luxury of looking out over the mountain ridge and see the expanse of our journey. But when the path becomes steep and arduous we turn our gaze now-ward and relax into the present, one step at a time. The steeper the climb, the more we look to the earth to keep our pace and balance. THe beautiful mountains, rivers, streams and valleys we long to experience are unattainable without taking the next right step before us. Sometimes we make great strides in life.  But sometimes all we can do is meet the moment as it appears right now.

 

The more difficult the journey becomes, the more we can relax into just being here.  Dangerous moments on our journey elicit anxiety and fear. This typically drives us away from the present sending us careening across the peaks and valleys in search of an imagined refuge from our panic. The more frightened we become, the more we feel we need to save us.  We are making more work for ourselves at a time when we should be conserving energy.  But while there is value to our imagination, when the going gets tough, the warrior does not react to their fear.  The warrior accepts their fear, and their present circumstances, with simple dignity.  When times get tough, the warrior becomes more present. The warrior takes their seat and builds their strength. There is great humility in this willingness to give up control, but to simply remain present and take the next right step. This is also a great relief. It’s so much easier to let go of all the ancillary worries and simply bring the mind back to a workable solution. When circumstance seem overwhelming, we can simplify our approach. Sometimes it’s as easy as remembering all we have to do is show up and to be kind. 

 

When the mountain path becomes arduous, turn your eyes to the rocky steps beneath you. Relax and remember to love yourself. Taking one step at a time, it will be clear where you need to go. Should the path becomes a tumultuous river, sink low like water who is never distressed but finds it own nature in its own way. Rest before the boulders blocking your journey until you have the strength to flow beyond your obstacles – and then simply pass by them without recrimination, comment or concern. Just let anxiety flow behind you as you gently glide past difficulties.

 

This is the way of a warrior. Brave enough to remain present, strong enough to remain true to your journey and kind enough to remain awake for the sake of all beings.

 

When the going gets tough, relax and remain present and find the easy way through. There is no fruit to meeting violence with aggression. Rise above that. Be a warrior and take it easy.

COMING BACK TO LIFE – ALREADY IN PROGRESS

 

I want to talk about a very practical application of our meditation practice.  Aside from spiritual development or enlightenment, meditation can be seen as a means to secure health and healing in our daily life. The view is not to fix anything but to support ourselves in a very physical way that creates the space for healing.

 

We could sit in meditation without understanding what it is we’re doing. We could be vague about our process, not actually paying attention, and still gain the benefit of pausing a bit and making a daily connection ourselves.  This might unknowingly create space in the torrent of our lives. It’s important not to let perfectionism impede the flow. However, when we are able to make a deeper connection to the experience, we can deepen the benefits of the process. The more we are able to connect to the breath the deeper our meditation will be, and the more benefit we will receive. Commitment = result.

 

Yet, we need not be focused entirely on the breath the entire time, as that wouldn’t speak to a practical connection to our life. We simply don’t operate that way. We move forward by guiding ourselves back. The point is commitment, not perfection. The point of breath-based meditation is to use the breath as a reference to train the mind to be comfortable resting in the present. Instead of locking ourselves in place, we return again and again to that reference point.  We would be accepting the fact that our mind drifts, wanders and fixates. But we would be developing an awareness that allows us to guide back to the center lane. Who knows why, in the midst of delusion, we wake up and see that we are not present? That is the point our life changes. We wake up and simply bring ourselves back to the center of our practice, the breathing body. This is how we navigate naturally in our life.  When we find ourselves drifting to the shoulder, we bring ourselves back to the road without recrimination or discussion. Our mind has a natural process of returning to the middle way in life that we can develop in our meditation practice.  Naturally returning to the present is an inherent process of the mind that we can further develop with meditation.

 

While practicing, we RECOGNIZE when we are not present and then build the strength to RETURN to the present. This simple 2-step process is transferable to all aspects of our lives. We begin to notice when we’re off or moving away from our stated intention. Then we can simply return without internal discussion as simply as if we were walking in the streets on a nice day.  If you’re like me, you get excited and a beautiful day in the city and you might hit one or two of your errands and that gets the juices flowing and the dopamine rising.  If I’m not careful, I could end up at the end of the day exhausted, having eaten more calories and spent more dollars than I should have. Somewhere along the line, I got completely eclipsed and went off course.  But thanks to meditation training my mind knows it can return from compulsion. Being able to notice the moment, bite the bullet, and return to the present is an incredibly important process in terms of building our strength of mind and actualizing our intention.

 

And we can return wherever on the wheel we wake up. Maybe it’s walking faster than we need, and so we recognize we can slow down to incorporate mindfulness in the process. Or maybe it’s after we’ve spent dollars we don’t have or had that slice we don’t need.  No matter how far we’ve gone off the path of stated intention, we can simply return. I know we want to chastise ourselves. We love that kind of self-abuse, don’t we. But there are folks we can pay to beat us up. When it comes to waking up in life, the less drama we create for ourselves the better. ENCOURAGING is key. SUPPORT RATHER THAN RECRIMINATION. Whenever we wake-up, we return. It’s that simple and in time as we create the neural pathways to wake up, it gets easier.  Far from being a problem, each time we RECOGNIZE we are off that mark, we have an opportunity to RETURN to our life.

 

The interesting thing about life is that it is happening, despite what we think should be happening. There are all the things our mind tells us, and then there is what is actually going on. The point of our practice is not to become scholars of the breath, but to use the breath as a way of bringing our awareness back to what is happening. Each time we return to the breathy, we are returning to a life already in progress.

 

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Welcome to a new year. The passing year has been a challenging time. Many have struggled with anxiety, depression and isolation. Challenging times remind me how important meditation is to our self-care.  And how essential self-care is to building health and resilience to meet the world. When the going gets tough, the tough sit down … and collect themselves.

Meditation has many applications. But as a healing modality, meditation can be seen as a fundamental reconnection to ourselves. Each time we return to the breath we are returning to ourselves. And when we have the presence of mind to actually feel the breath, we are reconnecting on a very intimate level. Each breath can be like a gently healing hand on our heart. Far from making us soft and unprotected, I have found this loving connection to help build confidence, resilience, and strength.

When the going gets tough, the tough get soft. Soft enough to meet the hard stuff.

Far from building egotism, awareness based selfcare gives us the strength to look past our self-obsession in order to connect sanely with our world.

I’m excited to invite you to some upcoming online classes and offerings. Please consider joining online.

 

… events that may interest you: 

                                            – upcoming!

NEW YORK INSIGHT MEDITATION CENTER

Meditation as an Act of Healing – Working with Fear and Anxiety 

Thursday, January 19th, 2023, | 7:00pm – 9:00pm ET

 

   to register:

https://www.nyimc.org/event/meditation-as-an-act-of-healing-working-with-fear-and-anxiety/

 

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Online: Meditation as an Act of Healing – Working with Fear and Anxiety Practicum

Saturday, February 4th, 2023 from 10:00am – 1:00pm ET

 

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SHAMBHALA MEDITATION CENTER OF NEW YORK

Public Sitting, Tuesdays at noon, open to all

Learn to Mediate – 1^st Tuesday at 6

guided introduction to meditation, open to all of any level of experience

To register: https://ny.shambhala.org/

 

 

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DHARMAJUNKIES MONDAY ZOOM ROOM

Mondays 7pm

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3282366303

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MEDITATION BASED LIFE COACHING

Let me help support your sanity and self-care. In the spirit of the new year, I am offering complimentary convos to help you craft a daily meditation practice, offer inspiration, or just listen.

For those interested in ongoing practice and support, for the next month, I will be offering Personalized Life Coaching, Meditation Instruction & Public Speaking Coaching at on a pay what you can donation basis.

A BUDDHIST CONTEMPLATION ON THE MIDDLE WAY

 

When I was a child, it was common for fathers to keep long hours at work or travel away from home. The dad’s were swimming upstream to compete in a society making its long slide away from the warmth of the family to the insatiable urges of the marketplace. We had come through the war, and before that the great depression. After that societal trauma we ended up on the winning side and didn’t look back. There seemed no limit to prosperity, as long as we were willing to work hard enough.

 

As the oldest child, I spent a lot of time in the company of the women in my life. My mother and grandmothers were great nurturers who ran from the anxiety of past scarcity to fill our home with pasta and meatballs. We didn’t have much, but what we did have, we ate.  The mammal in my midbrain came to love the women who fed me.

 

My Italian grandmother would prepare an after service feast every Sunday. It would include her slow cooked ragu – which was a tomato sauce stew of pork, meatballs, and sausage – lasagna, spaghetti, garlic bread, and overcooked grey broccoli saturated in garlic. My grandfather’s contribution was to sit at the head of the table and say grace which, as he was our pastor, always went on far too long. We would sit staring at the food we had been smelling all morning as he intoned about Matthew and Mark. When he finally came to his dramatic climax, we would devour the meal while retelling routines from “Get Smart” and “The Jackie Gleason Show.” Afterwards, the women would clean up and the men would repair to the living room and snore through some sport or another.

 

They say that the trauma can continue through generations. The fruits of the scarcity of an immigrant journey, the great depression, and the feeling that we had to scramble madly to compete with the world we saw on TV, lodged in our bellies and arteries. The more we had, the more we seemed to need. Food was a panacea. It brought family together, it was what we did when we celebrated, and it was how we grieved. As an adult, I was conditioned to believe that more was the answer to everything. There is so much love in this picture. But, as there was an underlying fear, there was a lack of awareness. I became addicted to anything that would give me energy, calm me down, or quiet the screaming inside. I never learned to see myself as enough. And the trumpeting of more, more, more helped to drown out my feelings. This over consumption is naturally not sustainable.

 

In the Buddhist tradition, the idea of renunciation is not seen as a punishment, but an acknowledgement of the richness we possess. In the Mahayana tradition, we are asked to look at our motivation. Are our actions a close-eyed attempt to make up for the pain? Or are we enriching ourselves in order to be present for ourselves and our loved ones? Are we willing to become awake and see when enough is enough.

 

The Buddha spoke of the middle way. Like renunciation, this is not penance. The middle way is a place of optimum awareness. The extremes of scarcity and indulgence, binging and purging, being overfed and undernourished, are all paces we hide from ourselves and our feelings. The middle way can be seen as a feast of all the things we are not overdoing. Once we say a gentle “enough” to one thing, we can immediately raise our gaze and see all the things we were missing in our fear driven obsession.  Once that drink becomes enough, those carbs are enough, or our love is enough, then we can open our mind to everything else. And we will find that much of what we are missing, we actually already have. Renunciation of the extremes opens us to the middle way. And the middle way allows the vantage to see the richness of the life we have.

 

This said, pulling away from extremes is not easy. Especially at first. The reasons we indulge our fixations are often attempts to heal ourselves or comfort the frightened places within. That pasta had become a dear old friend. The idea of turning away in order to find new friends seems harsh. But, with the cultivation of mindfulness, we develop the awareness to see the richness around us. That’s where gratitude comes in. By turning our mind to the richness we already possess, we can feel more comforted, complete, and confident.  Then we are less reliant on the crutches we employ to navigate our feelings and our fear. Fear is part of living. With confidence born of awareness, we can smile at our fear and find healthy ways to build our resilience. We have less need to fill ourselves up when we feel we are enough.

 

Therefore, the practice of meditation is not shutting down, it’s opening up to the beauty of what we already have. Renunciation is not restricting ourselves, it’s simply turning away from that which we no longer need in order to see all the things we have.

 

The process suggested by our meditation practice is to renounce that which we know is taking us out of balance by gently coming back to the middle path. From there we can develop the awareness of the richness all around us.

 

WELCOMING YOUR BRAIN TO THE NEW YEAR!

I am offering free new year’s meditation and life coaching sessions to those who need support for sanity and a gentle voice defining and orienting toward your vision. 

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WAKING UP TO A NEW DAY

Back in the 70′, meditation master Chogyam Trungpa would begin his talks with a rousing “Good Morning!” – although his talks usually started later than scheduled. Sometimes much later. With the 70’s being the 70’s, and considering his commitment to meet his western students as they were, some talks began so late students had to be roused from sleep to attend. In those wee hours, his usual greeting of “good morning” was not entirely ironic.

 

“Good Morning” seemed an appropriate greeting for a talk on meditation, any time of day. In particular, Trungpa felt that meditation represented a new beginning and a fresh start everytime we come back to the present. Rather than admonish his students when their minds wandered, he encouraged them to see coming back to the breath as an opportunity to wake up. Trungpa famously said that the only problem we have is believing we have a problem. When our mind is distracted and we notice that distraction, it is not a problem. In fact, it’s an opportunity to wake up.

 

But how did we know we were distracted?

 

That moment of remembering comes so quickly we hardly regard it – except to berate ourselves for being distracted. The moment of complaint appears to be our first thought, as though the Buddha’s were saying, “wake up you asshole!”  And instead of waking up, we’ll further occlude ourselves with obsessive recrimination. For some of us, this happens first thing every morning.  But, this first complaint we acknowledge is not our first thought. Our first thought is simply a message from the universe reminding us to come back. It’s a sharp razor cut to our web of distraction.  Only that.  There is no need for discussion or elaboration. And why do we assume we’ve done something wrong, anyway? In fact, that moment of noticing our distraction IS waking up.  Each time we notice we’re not awake is an opportunity to wake up.  And each time we notice, and have the courage to come back to the present, we are doing good work. Very good work. We are training our mind to be awake.

 

Trungpa pointed to this moment of noticing we are lost in thought as a profound moment of awakening. He called it the “jerk of awareness.”  And then he told his students to consider him their jerk of awareness.  Helping students learn to awaken was his primary role. From the moment he came to the west, Trungpa understood that it was his mission to be of service to this new world. He understood that being an exalted Lama made him a commodity in this materialistic culture.  In western society we are trained toward materialism and tend toward theism in relation to spiritual teachers. We believe they are above us and should perhaps save us from ourselves. In this way, by deifying the teacher, and elevating our perception of meditation practice, we were safely separated from the process. We could collect teachers and teachings as though they were artifacts.  The more we collect, the greater our material  sense of self worth. We post pretty slogans to our wall, but do any of the teachings actually change us?   Trungpa felt he needed to de-elevate himself in order to be of the people. He wanted to express the teachings so they might actually penetrate our conditioned materialistic superficial layer. He wanted to speak directly to a basic goodness that lies below materialism so the teachings might actually have an effect.

 

To this end, Rinpoche began to open the doors to his home and met with students as friends. He removed the robes that he felt served to elevate him. He wore cowboy shirts and jeans, smoked cigarettes and drank Colt 45.  He wasn’t there to save anyone or change anything. He was there to learn from this new world and to become the jerk of awareness in his students’ lives.  Each time we were brave enough to come back to the present, he was there reminding us that we can do it. We can live full and complete lives. Good Morning. The choice is ours in every moment. We can separate ourselves from our lives by making ourselves a big deal, or we can keep coming back to simply waking up. Good Morning.

 

And each moment we are awake, we can begin to see more clearly. And as we see more clearly, we learn to drop the robes of our habit mindedness and see past superficial materialism into the truth of each moment. I am here. I am awake. How can I reduce the pretensions in my life and learn to be here honestly, simply and directly?  Just me without the robes. Just me as I am.

 

Good Morning. How can help?

 

A contemporary of Trungpa’s was the Soto Zen Master Suzuki, Roshi. His book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind is a classic manual of meditation in which he teaches that we can adopt the mind of a beginner, which is already there.  This means remembering our awakened state, which has been there all along. Enlightenment is not an achievable state. Rather it is a place of no achievement. It is a place of allowing ourselves to be just so without artifice. This is sometimes called “Naked Mind.”  Naken Mind cannot be achieved, it has to be remembered.  Enter the “jerk of awareness.”

 

But how do we achieve the unachievable?  We can train our minds to see beyond the “thingness” into the wholeness of experience, by recognizing when we are distracted and then building the neural networking to return to the present without clinging to a mask or a concept. In time, we see past the seemingly solid facades of our mental constructs and begin to see the vibrancy of life around us.  We train ourselves to be wide eyed, like an awakening child.  That moment we realize we are distracted is a sacred moment. It is a crack in the armour of solid mind. These cracks, or gaps in our reasoning, allow the sunlight of a new day to shine into our shadowed life. Each moment we notice we are off course, instead of berating ourselves, or creating a complicated story, we can come back to the naked present, just now and just so.  Each time we return is an opportunity to experience the joy of waking up.

 

In time, we learn to see life with new eyes as a perpetual discovery of the present. Instead of hiding behind all we’ve done and become, we can see through the eyes of a child and just be. Like a child, discovering its own toes, we can be amazed at everything we see. When was the last time we laughed for no reason? Smiled at the barista? Noticed birds outside our window?  Or just felt the tenderness of our own heart for no reason at all. When was the last morning we awoke with a smile, instead of the well cultivated cynicism we hide behind. And if we do dae to wake up smiling, how soon is is before we douse ourselves in anxious misery to meet the day?

 

This year can be a time of change, if we want it. We can turn our mind away from the usual guilt, compulsion and complaint, toward the possibility of openness. Instead of living the same old shit, we can look out the window and see what’s out there.  Good morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Path to Spiritual Wellness is paved in gratitude. ‘Tis the season. Fa-la-la…

But why does the joy I am encouraged to feel during the holidays make me lonely, tired, and stressed out?  The warmth of Christmas often competes for my brain space with sadness and worry.  Appreciation for what I actually do have becomes upstaged by things I imagine I don’t have.

There are people I’ve lost, places I will never see, and many, many things I cannot afford. In the waning light of the season, it’s easy to take false refuge in shadows that erode my wellbeing. When that begins to happen – just as the shadows begin to creep in, is a very good time to remember my actual vow of refuge, which is to turn my mind from self-centered thinking toward gratitude and compassion. I try to remind myself that with all I’ve lost, never had, or will not attain, what I do possess right now is the power to change my mind.  I can turn my mind to see beyond the traps of doubt and resentment to the goodness of the world I have. Gratitude practice is not just a nice thing to do, it actually changes the way the mind works. This season is a challenging time, and so I am committing to gratitude practice every morning to bolster my spiritual health.

It is interesting to see how gratitude actually changes the functioning of the brain. The power of gratitude to alter mood is similar to exercise. It’s so simple and has such a demonstrative effect, but like working out or taking a brisk walk, I sometimes fall out of shape and have resistance to the effort. On those days, I find it helpful to gently push myself toward a practical expression of mental health. In this way, I find gratitude sometimes takes a bit of effort. It’s so much easier to remain in the shadows of my habitual thinking when I am feeling low. So, making a gentle commitment to daily gratitude practice makes it easier to access the tools that make my mind an easier place to be.

But why is it so easy to fall into the dark? The dark shapes in my shadowed thinking keep me locked away from my life. Some of my favorite go-tos are judgement and envy. It’s easy for me to feel envious of the fact that others seem to have more than I do, more love, more family, more joy. I compare myself and feel less than less-than. On the other hand, to protect against that, I’ll judge everyone and everything. I adopt a cynical posture toward the season. Feeling superior to a those I desperately want connection to give me a false sense of protection. This ‘false refuge’ seems to protect me from being let down or hurt. But why am I assuming I will be rejected?

And who is actually making me feel less-than?

Am I the one letting myself down? Am I shutting out my life by refusing to join the party as I find fault in everything? When I look past my protective shadows, I see that false superiority and envious resentment are two sides of the coin of feeling “less than.”  And indulging these defenses – such as creating a list of “harms against me” – only encourages that feeling. In order to hide from feeling badly, I make myself feel worse. This woe-is-me syndrome might work for Wednesday Addams (as it seemed to for me at her age) but this game is just cringe at this point. It’s time to turn my mind away from obsession with its shadows, doubt and lack. It’s time to join my own party, already in progress.

When I feel into my defensive posturing, I see that underneath I am fearful and insecure. Instead of loving myself, I spend the mental energy building a case to support this feeling of being not enough. Isn’t creating a list of harms I perceive to have received only creating a world of contention and dis-ease in my life? And what does this do to my sense of wellness?  But, if creating mental lists of what don’t have supports my sense of lack, then maybe the opposite would hold in terms of building spiritual fitness. Maybe remembering the riches, I ignore while complaining would help to build a sense of confidence. Maybe this would support spiritual wellness.

Spiritual wellness is a sense of wellbeing based on our connection to our basic goodness. It is not based on the material things that feel good for a time. It is a connection to our heart that allows us to uplift our spirits in a natural way. But what happens when our mood is low and we fall into anhedonia, which is the inability to feel joy? Material things are fine in the moment, but they can sometimes make things worse. Spiritual health is based on behavior. What am I doing to enhance my sense of wellbeing? Working out a bit, helps to move the mind out of the funk of its shadowed thinking. And doing this in spite of feeling unhappy actually works better than thinking through it. Just taking a walk or stretching a bit change how the mind works. This may not affect my finances or social status, it may not make me less lonely, but it always changes how my mind processes these things.

Like working out, small increments of gratitude practice on a daily basis help to keep up spiritual fitness. This is true any day, but especially on the days I “don’t wanna”. That gentle push to remember the things I have that mean so much keeps me from falling into the shadows of “woe me” thinking. It’s like spiritual aerobics. And no matter how I felt before, I always feel uplifted afterward.

Taking the time to remember the things we have in our life that we value is healing emotionally, but it also creates a physical experience of wellness in our nervous system. And it reminds us of all the things we are missing by locking ourselves into the negative. Life is short. It’s time for me to remember the goodness of this life whether I want to or not.

 

Practice suggestion: 

While making a list of the things we value in our life is a helpful step in turning the mind, it is only our first step.

1. Make a brief list of a few people, places, feelings or things in life for which you are grateful
2. Take one and remember it for a moment or two.
3. Then place your hand over your heart and feel the feelings associated with these thoughts.
4. Then drop your hand, and your thoughts, and sit for a moment.
5. Do this for the next item on your list.

Remember to make this easy and light. Be careful not to overtrain. We don’t need to regard everything good in our life today only to exhaust the process tomorrow. Remember this is about training the mind.

Do this every day for a committed period of time as a daily morning practice. Try it for a week or 10 days and see if you get any insight into how to keep spiritually fit.

 

 

 

Ego is a term used to indicate an aspect of our psychology that we identify as “me”.  However, on closer inspection, there seem to be a number of “me’s” that we employ – and believe – depending on our circumstance. There is the me that I find at work, the me that I feel when relaxing, the me that meditates and the me that can’t sit still.

 

These self-identities are important to our emotional and social wellbeing. They offer a reference point from which we can communicate to our milieu.  Psychologists label a “strong sense of self” as being important to create healthy relationships in life.  As ego states are defined partially by the specific situations to which they are linked, a healthy sense of ego, it would seem, is one in which we do not cling too tightly or believe too literally.  Looking closely to their make up we see that these ego states are comprised of habitual patterns or behaviors. Each particular ego state is like a program that employs a series of functions.  Frequently these disparate selves lie in dissonance to one another.  For instance, the child self may behave differently than the adult self. This dissonance becomes conflict when we cling to the identity. We cling so tightly that we don’t see around ourselves. We are like fish who don’t recognize that water we live in. It becomes an ocean of “Me”.  We sometimes believe there is only Me and whatever we are going through. In this way, inflamed ego states are essentially narcissistic.

 

The tighter we cling to these ego states the more inflamed they become and the more real  they feel. This self-clinging causes obscurations in our ability to see, and understand, others.  The more pressure we feel in life, the tighter we cling to our identities, the less we understand what is going on around us. As we do this, the habit patterns associated with those identities become ingrained in us. The fact that these identities are not consistent, doesn’t seem to sway us.  Lost in the moment “who I am” becomes all important.

 

As we develop mindful awareness in meditation practice, we begin to see the space around “Me”. In time, we awaken into the water of context – we become aware. This awareness allows us to understand that these identification states are fictitious. As compelling as they feel, ego states are merely comprised of patterns.  And as we develop awareness, we develop the ability to choose which of these patterns we find helpful and when to employ them. In this way, we become freed of the grip of self-identification. Or, as is said, we become free of the bondage of self.

 

From a Buddhist perspective, the problem is not ego – or the sense of self, itself.  The issue is our clinging to the sense of self. This clinging is what creates our imprisonment. The tighter we cling to this provisional identity, the stronger the patterns are, and the more limiting those patterns become.  As these patterns happen unconsciously, we don’t see our self-clinging, but believe we NEED whatever it is we think will protect “ME.”  We compulsively cling to objects in our environment that we feel will enhance or protect our sense of self. BUt, of course we don’t see this. We only see the things we think we want. That hamburger, that lovely piece of jewelry, that person who looked our way.  We mistakenly believe that the things to which we cling will protect us. We miss the fact that at the core of this process we are clinging to our ego. As our ego state isn’t actually there, we ultimately feel bereft and this drives our compulsion further.

 

The more empty we feel, the more we cling to things we believe will fill us. And the tighter we cling, the less we see. The less we see, the more imprisoned we are in the limiting patterns of “Me”.  Our ego is no longer a device to secure us socially, but has become a series of patterns that we employ without conscious consent.

 

Meditation practice is the practice of training the mind to see the space around itself. And, it allows us to connect to an essential sense of wellbeing. As we return to the breath, we are returning to our heart. As we return to the heart, we are building a connection to ourselves that strengthens us. This unconditioned confidence is a sense of wellbeing that is not dependent on clinging. In fact, it is radiant. Rather than continually taking from life, we are able to give back.

 

When we develop the confidence of self-awareness, we are free of the bondage of self. We have less need to cling to ourselves and everything around us, as if we are drowning. Liberation in meditation means freedom from the compulsive attachment to the limiting patterns of “Me”. In truth, we are much more than our fear based beliefs. We are capable of great love.  Feeling love for ourselves is not egotistical. It is an appropriate non-codependent action that reinforces our essential sense of wellbeing and diminishes the need for clinging.  Rather than blindly gripping to self, offering ourselves  self-love and radiating that love to others, gives us the confidence to see past our defensive and limiting patterns.