Month: January 2023

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.