Author: joseph mauricio

(Who Else?)…

We want to get it done. We want to feel competent. We want to be functional. We think its time we finally became an adult. But, the child inside thinks otherwise. We keep the doubt hidden behind a veneer of competency, despite a nagging sense that we are not really up to the task. The bills, chores and to-do lists loom as our life takes a distant back seat. Fixated on the problems, we have forgotten the point. Yet, there seem to be obstacles to sitting down at the computer, getting to the gym, steaming broccoli or unrolling the yoga mat. The more we push, the more it all seems to pile in front of us.

Even as we charge to work with a smile, there might be a sense that we are damaged beyond repair and that no one else would want us. Or, that we don’t deserve to have what we want we want. Or, that we would certainly fail if we got it.

We search for someone or something to help us. Someone on TV with a new diet, or a new plan. As our problems grow, we feel the solution must be proportionate.  We assume the fix-it answer would have to be very large. We try any manner of self-helping, even as most of it seems to only help the self at the other end of the pay pal account.  It always seems effortful. And inside, we know its not really us. We feel we’re a fraud, that we’re fooling us into becoming an us we don’t really believe.

No wonder we sabotage our plans. They’re not really our plans at all.

Cultivating Peaceful Awareness

The more we try and fix things, the more things keep breaking. We work frantically to hold it together, but secretly tear it apart. We are working very hard here, just to stand still.

But, perhaps stillness is precisely the way out. The more we struggle the tighter it gets. Its like an emotional chinese finger trap. Only, I recommend sitting still. Just as the Buddha did when he became discouraged with all the forms of meditation and self-help he pursued. At some point, in complete hopelessness, he gave up on finding anything, and just sat. Once he stopped looking, he was able to see. What he saw were the basic constituents of existence. How we are and what we do. He saw what was there, simply and without apology. The Buddha saw how we create our own suffering by trying to run from what is actually happening. We do this by trying to script a different scenario. We run from ourselves. We turn our backs on ourselves, and abandon ourselves. And, frequently, we do this at the very times we need to sit down and stand up for ourselves.

Meditation affords an opportunity to see into situations. We’re not getting anywhere anyway, so we might as well just sit and take a gander at the cause of the condition of unhappiness. We might see how demanding we are. And how demand, expectation and pressure are not helping. If we could stop and be with ourselves, we might find out what we need. What if we could learn to simply be ourselves and learn to work with what is there?  And, what if learning to get done what we need to get done was not a matter of great effort, but simply learning to work more effectively with what we have? That would certainly be easier. And, my guess is, it would also be more effective.

Getting more life for less effort.

Learning to work with ourselves is key to our path. In fact, it is our path. Working with ourselves effectively might mean simply learning to treat ourselves as carefully as we treat others. Most of us are kind to those in need. Most of us try to be diplomatic and deferential to other people in our world. This is because we are generally aware of those situations, we pay attention because we have to. Unfortunately, our self awareness remains largely obscured. We just take this “me” thing for granted. We push ourselves at will and without thinking, simply demand compliance. If we could turn up the volume on our self-talk (as seems to happen with regular meditation practice) we might be shocked to hear how crass, dismissive, and even cruel, we are to ourselves. We would never speak that way to even the most annoying co-worker. Why do we do this to ourselves?

We are most cruel to ourselves when we are the most pressured. Ironically, this is precisely when we most need support. When we are pressured by the demands of our world, we often deny our feelings and push forward with little encouragement and care. This may be because the pressure, demand and societal compression inherent in our daily life frighten us on a deep psychological level. We are afraid to fail, to be rejected, ostracized or criticized. Our life is moving too quickly to process these feelings with any accuracy, so we push even harder. And, as we push forward our deeper psychology only gets more frightened. As we get mad at ourselves for not accomplishing what we set out to accomplish, we are actually hurting ourselves because we are frightened. The pain that we have suffered, and the fear of pain we will suffer, lay like land mines in our deep psychology waiting to explode when triggered. That blind fear threatens to move from the shadows and overwhelm at times of stress, including times of proposed ascension. Just when we try to fly, something inside blinds us and binds us to the wheel of punishment we’ve constructed.

No wonder we give ourselves the middle finger.

Its as though the child inside us was scared of the monsters under the bed, and we just yelled from our room for the child to shut up. We’d never do that to anyone else who was frightened. But, because we are not trained to take the time to listen, we do that to ourselves. I suppose I’m positing the opposite of the Golden Rule. Treat yourself as you would like to treat others. Its like the oxygen mask, right? Caring for yourself allows you to care for others more effectively. We can do this because we are more whole, but also because in the process of becoming whole we have learned to listen. We have learned to hear the wounded and weak places inside us that can relate directly to the wounded places in others.

We can work with this in psychotherapy, perhaps uncovering the narratives to these toxic psychologies. But, in meditation we learn to accept the pain points, and open up space around them. As we create room around our emotional pressure points we can actually get to see the triggers. Eventually, with the gentle application of awareness, we can turn trigger points into choice points. We regain control. And, as much as we can, retake our life.

This is why we refer to meditation as ‘shamatha” or the cultivation of peace. In time, with consistent practice, we deactivate the mines, by creating the space to acknowledge them and the courage to accept them, as we would accept anyone else’s. Why should we be without pain? Are we superhuman? Is that what we want? To be above the humble acceptance of pain and suffering and the willingness to work with ourselves? That would only separate us from the world. Is that what we want?

The Practical Application of Loving Kindness

I think we are really yearning for connection.  If that is so, then our pain is key to understanding our world. And, understanding our world is key to understanding our path to awakenment. As meditation practice cultivates a peaceful awareness that allows us to uncover our pain points and disarm our defenses, the practice of Loving Kindness allows us to enter in and heal by touching the wounds and offering acceptance and love. Not just in our minds with pretty images of hearts, and bears and angels and fairies, but by practical application of feeling the warmth of love in our bodies.  We use the power of a mind stabilized through meditation to hold the wounded places and offer love. We can learn to open past the clenching fear response and touching the child we have abandoned to the shadows.

With practice, the open space of meditation practice becomes the warm and healing embrace of loving kindness. We replace the clenching of the muscles in tension with the openness of awareness with basic meditation practice. Then, in time, we learn to infuse that with the warmth of compassion. Each time we open the body we accept the feelings and let the wounded child breathe and be. Each time we rise up in good posture, we tell the child there is now an awake adult here to care for them. And, in time we become the parent we should have had, but couldn’t have had, as our real parents were caught in the clenching panic of their own fear. It wasn’t their fault. They were young and unlearned. They lived locked in fear and blocked by guilt.

So, I recommend beginning at the beginning in order to give ourselves the care we need.

Beginning at the beginning is sitting in stillness and calm. Then when our mind is pacified, we can invite the child in and gently touch its pain. We can do this with no hope of change. Just listening. Accepting. Welcoming the wounded child.  Holding her with open arms, rather than abandoning her in clenching panic.  Opening to the pain, the fear, the doubt, the lack of clarity. Sitting up straight and being there for her in the storm. Sitting with her, up awake and open.

And meditation is a perfect tool for this reunion.

Learning To Work with Ourselves

With care, patience and love we can touch inside without detonating the emotional landmine. Its like a game of  concentration. We reach in through the hole for the affected bone without touching the sides and setting off the alarm.  We care for ourselves, as we would for anyone, learning to work with kindness and concentration. We learn to pay attention to the sore spots and frightened places so we can be aware of their triggers, tendencies and potential for disruption.

Working effectively with ourselves would be moving more slowly than our mind demands. So, its trading off some of the speed of aggression for a more integrated, and more sustainable, approach.  Its moving slow enough to move quickly. When we synchronize with our full self, everything we do has the authority of the present moment and our present sense.  By slowing down and working with ALL of ourselves, we not only have more chance of completing tasks that have held us back, but we also will have a deeper understanding of ourselves and a richer connection to our lives.

And isn’t that what we wanted in the first place?

… and Receiving The Gift Of Your Life.

Welcome to spring! There’s people to meet, markets on the street, clothes to peel, and air to breath, again. Ahhhh…

Kind of scary, isn’t it?  Maybe we should wait till next week. Or, till we lose some weight, get some new clothes, or shake off the cottage cheese on our thighs.  Sometimes its easier to stay in bed on days the rest of the world seems to be living a Nike ad.

Sluggish patterns, in dissonant contrast to the burgeoning spring, seem hungover from winter. We heard a lot about seasonal affective disorder, or “sad” last winter. Yet, any change can trigger depression, including the longer days of spring. Its ironic to make it through winter just to find that we can be just as depressed in the spring.

At least we can still employ the acronym, as Spring is Also Depressing.

But, depression feels extra bad on beautiful days.  The rest of the world is flying and we’re chained to something that sinks us back into our room, and into our mind. The sadness is extra deep here.  Not only are we missing out on the life others are having, we have plenty of time to beat ourselves up over missing the life we should have had. As if it were over. But, in truth, its not. Its not over. If you’re reading this, I have news for you. IT’S NOT OVER. In fact, if you’re reading this, your life has just begun. Despite the stories we create to substantiate not showing up to the ball, we have so much to offer.  Our life is much richer and more rewarding than we have learned to see. Learned. That’s right. Learned. Avoidance, resistance, depression do not occur as a punishment, it as proof that we are bad, or unworthy. They are learned behavior that becomes seated in repetitive patterning.  Once we have a pattern, its very hard not to follow it, even if the outcome is the same dead end again and again. And few things create patterns as readily as negative input, as the mind is programmed to imprint negatives as a way of safeguarding the reproductive momentum of our species.  We are, therefore, much more receptive to creating patterns around negative, rather than positive, stimuli. We do this instinctively and our society conspires. Our parents, in all love and best intentions, act on their fear to guide us away from danger by supporting our minds of fearfulness.  We end up locked in our room, like bad children, comparing ourselves to mythical beings outside our window, who seem to have it all. We look at them with longing. Their lives seem so balanced, while ours fail on the balance sheet. We fixate on the things we need to change in order to find health, happiness and a life we deserve.

Only, we’re already living the life we deserve. Or, better said, we deserve the life we’re living.

You see, once we begin to see ourselves as worthy of the life we want, we might find that that is exactly the life we have. Because in order to believe we deserve goodness in our life, we have to find strength in ourselves. Inner strength comes from believing in ourselves and gaining a natural confidence that is not subject to other’s approval. Its belief in ourselves, that comes from ourselves and answers to nothing.  Once we have that, then anything in our life is workable because we don’t need any of it to complete us. In fact, because we are complete within ourselves, we can offer to our world, rather than continue to deplete it. In return, we gain sustenance from the exchange, rather than depletion.

In order to do this, we have to retrain the mind to learn to care for itself. Instead of habitually beating ourselves up, and waiting for someone else to save us, we can learn to stand up for ourselves.  If we stop the self-flagellation over a perceived lack of success in an imaginary world, we might have the energy to actually enjoy the life we have. We can begin by appreciating the fact that we are here at all.  We can commit to giving ourselves the gift of life, the life we deserve, the life we have, by simply going beyond our fear and opening to the present.

In order to do this, we don’t need to buy anything special, own anything special or be with that special someone.  We simply learn to be alone, with ourselves, mindful of the details of our life. Through manual application of mindfulness and self compassion, we learn to develop natural confidence.  In time, we allow our fear based mind to relax and lower the walls so we can come out and play.  By waking up to the present, we take hold of our life.  In order to do this, we need to work with the fear that triggers us into patterns that keeps us imprisoned in our own minds.

I’ve been thinking about Sakyong Mipham’s teachings on fear. How, in order to be fearless, we actually need fear. How we get into trouble, again and again, by trying to run from fear. I’ve been re-committing to the purpose of NOT abandoning myself simply because I get anxious. I’ve been thinking that every time I want to check out, I can retrain myself to instead check back in. Simply that. To stay with myself. My best friend. So, with the spring comes a new resolution: to stay and regain authority in my life. I want to lean in to how life feels and to learn to deepen the connection to myself.

And no, I’m not talking about building the ego. I’m suggesting that when we choose to remain in our own space, grounded in the actuality of our present experience, we are actually boycotting ego states. Ego states are predicated on denying our present experience in favor of a patterned scenario. Ego states are exit strategies for when the edges become too sharp and we feel threatened. The irony is, by retreating into these defensive states, we are not defending ourselves at all. In fact, as we lack awareness, we are far more vulnerable. We are cut off from what is going on and what is going in. And, like a country under martial law, our access to reality is seriously compromised; we hear only what we’ve been told many times before. This process actually erodes confidence.

And, by abandoning ourselves – our body and our present moment – we abandon the very link that connects us to our life.

Conversely, by staying present, we become more confident in our experience and actually reduce the need to retreat. We can actually lean in to the sense of being threatened. We can learn to train ourselves to look into the fear, as a way of working with our fear. So, rather than run from fear, I want to look into the mind of fearfulness with loving kindness. I want to become my own best friend and throw my arms around myself in encouragement. And, instead of abandoning my fearful mind, I want to take it with me into the present so it can enjoy this life.

So, I’ve decided to remind myself daily to come back to my body, and my present experience. Every time we want to run and retreat into some story, lock ourselves back in our room, or not show up for life, we can redirect the impulse and come back to the present. In this way, we are with actual feelings happening now.  In other words, we have opened to the present. Once we connect to the body and what it is presently feeling and sensing, we open to life simply and without expectation. Then we see life as it is, exhilarating, boring, challenging and scary as heck, but so worth the effort. And each time when we fail to check out, but instead, resolve to check in with ourselves, we can open to the world with natural confidence.

Then we may discover ourselves blooming in the light of another spring.