Month: April 2020
SEEKING REFUGE
These are frightening times.
It would be reasonable to want to run and hide. But, there is an alternative. That alternative is not our usual strategies. It’s not stand and fight. It’s not medicate our way past it. It’s not checking out till someone else handles it.
The way out is the way in. It is the completely outrageous alternative of facing the present with openness, dignity and grace.
Surrender to now.
It is an outrageous idea. Instead of taking refuge in our anger, addictions, or delusions, we can take refuge FROM checking out in ignorance by turning instead TO the present moment. Perhaps we cannot singularly change the dire circumstances of our world, but we can change ourselves into instruments of sanity. In this way, we help the world by being a moment of peace in all the crazy. There will be times when that will be enough.
Many wisdom traditions begin with the premise that we are powerless to control our lives. The immediacy of this condition begs the question why go forward at all? What is the point? With no payoff?, no reward, no purpose? What if there is no point, at all, but to simply be here in the thick?
Backed against this existential wall, with nowhere to turn, where do we go, but here?
Choice defines us. Perhaps whatever we choose, thus we create, and so we become. If we turn toward anger in an attempt to find strength, maybe we only create hatred. If we escape into the passions of our spirit and flesh, perhaps we create further addictions? If we fold ourselves in the fabric of time and space sucking the teats of our depression are we not just biding time until death? What kind of world are we creating when we are choosing to create ourselves by not choosing?
The outrageous alternative is the proposition that if we turn toward waking up, regardless of outcome, payoff or relief we are taking the first step of deciding to BE in our life, as it is. And, if nothing else, maybe this will help us to be a little more awake.
Faith in a non-theistic tradition is faith that present moment affords every opportunity to awaken. It is the faith that as long as we are awake then we are living OUR life. And living our life awake, is living the best life we can. Perhaps that makes it the best life possible for all concerned.
The Buddhist path begins with the assertion that, although powerless over the outcome of our life, we nonetheless have a choice as to how we live that life. When we are triggered by fear we can so easily succumb to the habit patterns of generations blinded by fear. Or, we can choose to wake up and re-establish agency in our life by accepting that fear. It is about abandoning all the escape hatches that lead only to death. It is about smiling in the face of fear, and cheering up in the face of unknowing. It is about bravery on an existential level.
The method for waking up in difficult times is to continually to take refuge in awakening and the avatars of wakefulness. For instance, Buddhists take refuge in the Buddha. While there are many interpretations of that, most traditions take the term “Buddha”, which means awake, to be quite literal. In the Vajrayana tradition we take refuge with our complete being (body, spirit and mind) in the full realization of the present moment (life). It is a kind of super-actualized version of the four foundations of mindfulness. So, rather than change the world, we first turn to training ourselves so we can contact that world more completely.
The first step is admitting powerlessness. Admitting that suffering is real and very much a part of our present experience. Once we accept that, we can look beyond and see what is actually there. Seeing things as they are, we can respond to our world, rather than react to shadowed projections. Then instead of dishing out aggression born of fear simply because it’s what we do out of reflex, we can pivot and turn directly into our fear and find an honest and true expression of ourselves in every moment. Fluid body, open heart and clear mind resting in the present moment.
The faith here is that if we can work on ourselves to the point that we can be a true help to those around us, then we are living our best life and sometimes that will be enough.
The practice of meditation is actually training in how to take refuge in the present. It’s not a belief in the spirit. It’s not an idea of the mind. It’s not a law set down by courts of man. It is a practical and tangible connection to our world in real time. Its being here now – not as a book title, or an idea to chew gum over. It’s about being here now, despite the danger, in spite of the fear, and because we care more for this world than we do for our own comfort.
And, really – how comfortable is it to simply mark time until we die?
The pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is simply the world as it is. And, the more bruised that world is, the more it needs us. We have simply got to train ourselves away from becoming discouraged because the world is not the one we intended and begin instead in to participate in the world there is. This is not easy. It takes a lot of encouragement and support. But, you might find as we offer that support to each other, we begin to feel that support for ourselves.
NO BETTER TIME (TO BE HERE NOW)
The adage ‘be here now’ has currently taken on profound meaning.
Here in this viral age we are forced into a very practical interpretation of now. Remembering what was, even a month ago, can be unspeakably sad. Any realistic look at the future makes us anxious and depressed. ‘How long will this last? And what will our world be when it’s over?’
And, will it be over?
Sure, we can squint our eyes and imagine things in an idealized way as a means of escape. But, our fantasies are often quite selective. Compared with now, most of then seems idyllic. But, in truth, weren’t we complaining about it then? Weren’t we trying to escape to a past before the past? Weren’t we bartering that present for daydreams of an ideal future? How much of our life will we soon wish we could have back?
Running away, either into the past or toward the future, is a game we have trained our minds to play for so long it seems natural. Only, it’s not natural. Humans are the only form I know that spends a majority of its time not being there. But, that is just a form of torture. Now more than ever.
There is so little to value in this current age. But, it is not without possibilities. A feasible recourse might be to use this opportunity to do what the teachings have always suggested and begin to retrain the mind to be present. This is something we say so often its lost meaning. But, what would it be to actually be in the present? Well, since we are so trained to escape, maybe the first step is to begin to train ourselves to be present.
Understanding the problem. We are born to awaken, but nonetheless spend much of our lives in a misguided attempt to find safety in distraction. As humanity evolved, we lost our claws, fangs, scales and venom. In their stead, we grew (relatively) huge cerebral cortexes. This immense processing power allowed us to remember previous danger and out-maneuver predators. But, as we lost our fur, we also lost physical places to burrow in order to find restoration and replenishment.
In our current age, we have ended up burrowing through an analogue of our life. We imagine things that make us happy in order to experience a virtual sense of comfort. We imagine danger in order to sharpen fangs that have long since receded. This is why we think compulsively when we are triggered – our prehensile mind is grasping onto an imagined situation, burrowing into itself in order to out-strategize the danger. “I should have said this.” “If I had only told him that.”
In sum, we have a mental life that runs concurrently with reality. This makes us very vulnerable in the real world. However, there is a part of our psychology that knows subconsciously that we are unprotected. Hence, many of us live a life fueled by an anxiety we never acknowledge. That anxiety keeps driving us further into our mental burrow, grasping onto more and more perceived solutions. When we grasp, we lose sight of the object and hold on for dear life to the idea of the object. We are bilked again and again by this sleight of hand mental magic trick. “Now I got it. Doh!” This creates a lot of tension.
Body tension occurs when out of anxiety, we grab for something. We might grab for something to save us. We might grab for something to complete us. We might grab for something to carry us away to a stress-free future. But the clinging and attachment we talk about so much in Meditation theory is actually a physical event. With training, we can become more and more aware of our actual experience. In time, the trained mind has the stillness to actually feel the physical grasping of our thoughts. So, even as we are living a virtual game of life, our body is going through convulsions. Because of the discrepancies between the analogy and reality we ever know what we are grasping at directly or why. Oh, we might believe we are grasping at that slice of pizza. But inside we are driven by an anxiety for deeper needs such as feelings of inadequacy of loss.
A practical way of reducing this to a workable system is to simply recognize mental distraction of any kind – and for any reason, and then return to the present.
But if that is a solely mental effort, as it is in many meditation experiences, any benefit we experience from the release will be short lived. You see, the body moves more slowly than the mind. It takes a physical effort fo calm its panicked griping. As well, the heart, spirit or emotions create a distracted world that separates us from reality. Aside from physical gripping and mental fixation there is emotional attachment. So, when we release ourselves from clinging, we must release the physical grip and emotional attachment as well as the mental fixation.
A practical way of reducing clinging in body, spirit and mind, is to learn with patience, practice and effort to completely open back to our natural – pre-impacted state. This comprehensive opening of body spirit and mind can only happen in the present. So, when we bring body, spirit and mind into complete connection to the present we are fully open to our natural state: relaxed body, open heart, clear mind resting in the present.
All the fancy tantric systems of meditation, visualization and recitation are all pointing to the simplicity of breath based meditation. BUt, I refer to this as comprehensive breath-based awareness in that in includes the physical being, our emotive experience, our mental concepts all in real time in the present.
The breath is an excellent tool as it is reliably in the present, it is a natural relaxant to the nervous system, it is a tangible tool for the mind to hold to, and it happens in the heart center, opening emotionally triggered defenses.
Here are the 4-R’s (x2) for training the mind to be present:
1. RECOGNIZE when we are distracted. There is no blame. There is only re-training the mind. It is essential now in this world right now, that we recognize when we are fooling ourselves.
REMEMBER our mind creates its version of reality. Begin to learn the difference between distraction and being present. Remember that distraction leads you into a vulnerable not-so-hidey hole. Remember that momentary distraction ultimately creates further anxiety. When we are distracted we are training the mind to abdicate its agency. When we return to the natural state, we are training to participate in our life.
2. RELEASE the grip. Open the body and feel the breath moving through you.
RETURN the natural state. The natural state is not distraction. It is a body free of tension, a heart open to its feelings and a mind that is simple and clear resting in the connection to life as it is. This is the ground for training to rest the mind in the present.
3.REDIRECT the attention. Bring your attention directly, back to the breath in the present.
REST in the integrated present. – Being here now is not just the mind thinking about the present – it is fully manifesting the present in your body, spirit and mind without aggression, clinging or avoiding.
4. RELAX into the flow. The point of being here now is not just slipping into some narrow space between past an future. It is the entire spectrum of life that is living that is available even in the quietest moments, even at the most impacted times, and even if there is little reprieve from the anxiety of life. Even more so, difficult times call for a RELAXING into the present, a resting in the present that is easy, stress-free and workable.
RINSE and REPEAT. Forgive yourself for your distraction, and repeat again and again until enlightenment.
WAKING UP
It’s like the song says, “waking up is hard to do.” Or maybe that was breaking up. In either case, the process is as painful as it is necessary. It’s about change. And who doesn’t love to hate change?
Growing hurts. This is why the teachings of the Buddha begin with the Truth of Suffering. Because until we see how prevalent pain is in our lives, we keep our eyes closed to life otherwise. If we avoid hurt, we avoid love. If we attach to comfort too much, we avoid growth. Waking up implies the possibility of change. And change is painful. But it is also necessary for our mental, physical and spiritual health. When we are willing to change, we are willing to grow, to learn and to listen. And, if we are unwilling to change? Well, ask a dinosaur. Or, an Edsel.
The idea of waking up is that having committed to listening, learning and changing, we can look beyond our limited parochial viewpoint, and begin to see a greater expanse to life. It hurts to let go of the ties that bind us, and blind us, but if we begin to open to our experience we might begin to see vistas that had heretofore been secondhand. The more we awaken, the more we see feel taste touch and hurt. The more we awaken, the greater our capacity for love.
Meditation Master Chogyam Trungpa was asked by a student if the Buddha felt pain. His answer was “Oh, yes. Much more than we do.” You see, the more we awaken, the more we see. The more we see the greater we feel. The deeper we feel the more we know pain. When the Buddha left his life and began his journey to awakenment, he gave up all attachment to the comfort of his well appointed life. He had been a prince who grew up in his father’s estate. The king had kept him captive in golden chains, so to speak. The young prince wanted for nothing in that rarified life. He had all the things many of us are living our lives to have. One might say, giving our lives to have. We throw ourselves away in pursuit of the very trappings he felt imprisoned by. The Buddha had what many of us long for. And yet he still suffered. He looked beyond the walls of his life at people freer and more spiritually realized than he, and yet they suffered as well. There was more he yearned to understand about his life. When the teenage prince snuck out his window and escaped the castle walls, he began to see life as it really was. He saw suffering, fear, poverty, sickness and death. What the Buddha saw was life on life’s terms.
Once bitten by the bug of truth, it wasn’t long before he left altogether and set out on a journey to find truth and an honest relationship to life. His story, was one of walking through veils, of meeting and parting until he finally abandoned every crutch, and in exhaustion, simply sat. He just sat. His exhaustion stemmed perhaps from a series of disappointments that finally led to this state of noble hopelessness. Chogyam TRungpa suggested that we are very fortunate that the Buddha turned out to be a bad yogi. He tried everything, but nothing worked. Finally, he surrendered.
For many of us, this journey to now will not be about discarding our lives, w0rk or families. Romantic gestures reap further attachments. It’s easy to let go of a job we don’t want anyway. But, more to the point is letting go of systems of belief that keep us lulled into delusional states we feel we can control. The difference between the delusional states we normally inhabit and the awakened state is that the delusional life is a dream. The experiences we have are analogous to life, but they are not life, directly. They are archetypes, metaphors and symbols, a translation informed by mind’s prejudice. But they are not the direct contact to reality as it is. When the 12-step traditions refer to “life on life’s terms” they mean that becoming truly sober is letting go of all the ways we manipulate what we see feel taste and touch in order to distance ourselves from the sharp edges and possible disappointments in life. So often we squint and begin to see a version of the world that suits our own point of view and supports ego comfort. Yet, what is comfortable to the ego is sadly inadequate to our spiritual growth and survival.
Ego is ignorance. It is a version – or a series of versions – of reality that support our points of view, by limiting our access to what is actually there. It is like marshal law. Often enacted when we are triggered (and ironically in need an honest assessment), the ego takes over and monitors the system by limiting access to information, replacing news with propaganda. It also imprisons the creative force within us, shutting down arts, magic and poetry because we need to hunker down and protect ourselves. Nose to the grindstone. I never got how that protects anyone.
We live in a police state of mind and our only recourse is to do the same set of things again and again in a misguided attempt at finding freedom through limiting ourselves to these sets of circumstances we think we can control. The fact that it ends badly again and again doesn’t seem to dissuade us. We are so change-averse, we choose the devil we know again and again. That is why it is said that “disappointment is the chariot of the path.” Once we are forced to face life not going our way, we eventually have little recourse but to let go. And letting go, as painful as it is, is key to waking up.
The young prince sat beneath the tree. He was exhausted from his journey, but also from intense fasting. It was the latest in a series of spiritual things he had tried to find enlightenment. But, even spiritual things, though well intended, are just “things”. So even our methods of attainment, must be let go. Maybe especially our spiritual ambitions. Ego absolutely loves using its own destruction as the purpose of its aggrandizement.
Finally, he accepted a small bit of gruel and milk. AAS the story goes, that that was when, seated beneath the Bodhi tree, he attained the awakened state.
It is possible that it was not a glorious event. It is very possible that his enlightenment occurred when he simply stopped looking for answers and simply saw what was there. It must have been quite sad, heart broken and lonely. There was this amazing moment of grand synchronicity, but, who could he tell? Who would understand? Nonetheless, people began to notice. A woman passing by stopped and asked who he was. He looked to her, but had no need for his name, his title, his position. He said simply “I am awake.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
He touched the ground. “The earth is my witness,” he said.
All he had at that moment was his connection to now. Right now. He touched the earth, his home and destiny, but all importantly his present moment. Now.
We will NOT wake up someday. We can only wake up now. And it might not be an awesome event. It might be lonely and empty. But in that emptiness lies the greatest richness of all. Once we give up everything, we gain a great synchronicity with all of life. We own what the trees and rocks and flowers own. We are life itself. Once we own nothing, we owe nothing. And we are free. Awakened and free.
I’m making this sound quite regal and dramatic, which would have been a cool way to end a post. But, maybe that misses the point. Waking up, like breaking up, is very hard and painful. And the journey is so exhausting, there will likely be no one there at the end to applaud. There may be no one there at all. Only the earth. And the singular moment we call now.