Category: Coaching

Sunrise SunsetJoseph is a natural motivator and a highly intuitive guide. He has worked in a variety of coaching systems and has synthesized an organic and accessible combination of techniques to help people realize their authentic potential. Based in meditation training, Joseph endeavors to guide clients toward a deep inner understanding and actualization of their life path.

Joseph is committed to a practical, personal and intuitive approach toward developing authentic presence. His coaching is tailored specifically to the individual’s needs, past training and future aspirations.

He works via, phone, google+ and Skype with clients around the world. As well, he works directly with clients and businesses in New York City and the greater Baltimore area. Joseph offers email and phone support, for all clients.

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L I F E W O R K C O A C H I N G

Joseph developed L I F E W O R K in order to help people bring sanity and balance in their lives. Life is the expression of our actions. Actions are the result of our mindset. When life is confusing, it is generally because our mind is unclear. With a mindful approach to life, we can take command of those actions, and bring authority back to our life. I believe that with consistent, kind and manual application of mindfulness, our life can become our own.

In short: we are our life’s work.

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THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR

The unreliable narrator is a technique used by writers to tell their story from a point of view that is changing, altered, or diminished in some respect. This creates a sense of un-ease in the reader. However, despite its temporal unreliability, this technique often reads as organic as it feels closer to how our minds actually work. One mistake uncreative the writer makes is to try and force the organic flow of reality into a two-dimensional, linear narrative. There is a sense of comfort in aligning the forces of our life inside the lines, but it is simply not the way our mind naturally flows. Nor, is it how the reality around us actually works.

 

Meditation Master Chogyam Trungpa would sometimes tell his students, “You are not a reliable witness.” Simply said, life is organic. It flows, changes, and develops. Navigating life requires a great deal of letting go. Life also returns to themes. So, by watching our own mind at work, the meditator learns to recognize patterns rather than grab on to specifics. Specifics become real to us as we cling to them, but that interrupts the organic flow of our mind, and it decreases our ability to see the space around that to which we cling. We lose context. And the clinging builds a sense of expectation. We try to straighten the wavering lines of the narrative into a form we find comforting.  Then we make up our version of the details.

 

Our version of the details often coalesces around themes we find self-identifiable. “We are at fault and the world is punishing us”, “we are misunderstood and always alone”, “we are amazing, and life is great.” Perhaps each morning we shout in the mirror “I believe in myself, and life is what I make it”, but then end our day in despair because we’ve turned into the same dissatisfying game again. We all have central points around which we build the (false) narratives of our lives. As this is not how we really are, nor how reality works, our self-story creates a cognitive dissonance with life. It is as though we are always fighting upstream. Trying to fit square pegs into round holes, we end up pounding our way through life. But our meditation experience suggests our journey through life might be much more elegant. Through the self-awareness we develop in meditation practice, we see the stubborn attachment we have to make our story fit the circumstance.  It seems we have it turned around. Maybe we’re going about it backwards.

 

Letting go of our attachment to having life make sense, we find that life is about discovery. Any given moment is its own thing. Each moment is not obligated to our interpretation. Reality just is.  In the Vajrayana tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, they refer to “just so”, “life as it is” or “things as they are” as the highest understanding. The comedian Lenny Bruce startled his milieu by asking his audience to see ‘what is’ rather than ‘what should be.’ This shift in narrative requires us to look beyond the solid points in our story and see what is truly there. This means seeing beyond our looking. It means seeing beyond our expectations. Our meditation practice gives us the familiarity with our patterns, narratives, and stories to be able to recognize them and to let them go. So, it is our work to recognize the patterns, let go and see beyond. Perhaps what we see is less definable than we find comfortable. Maybe, ‘what is’ is unclear and yet to be revealed. But, if we smile at our story, and continue to let go and see beyond, this journey through life becomes a discovery rather than a rote striking out of the things we think we should be doing. Maybe today our world will be revealed as more alive than we think.

 

The writer who follows the flow and patterns of their story as it reveals itself to them allows the story to tell itself.  A creative writer is, at their base, simply an observer.  They may be a chronicler or even a director of the narrative flow. But it is essential for the story to have integrity and for the story to reveal itself as it develops. It is said, believe half of what you see and less of what you hear. Mediators might add none of what you think. This is not to say, we go through life blind. Far from it. We are removing the blinders of ego-warped misperception and beginning to see what is there.

 

The great playwright Harold Pinter grew up in the rough east end of post-World War 2 London. He endured violence, antisemitism, and poverty. He said the most frightening experience was the blank page inserted in his typewriter each morning. While many of the dangerous elements in his life led to predictable outcomes, with the blank page anything might happen.  And so, Pinter might have shuttered his eyes and written formulaic drawing room comedies that reiterated familiar story lines. This would have made him financially comfortable, but would have robbed us of the perplexing, unsettling explorations of moment-to-moment existence that perplexed audiences and transformed modern theater. His plays eschewed stage description, backstory, and character explanation in favor of moments on stage that simply led to the next moment. And in this way, without over-explanation, the story was revealed as it happened in a way that made little sense, but felt absolutely real.

 

Maybe there is only one thing worth having on our bucket list. To allow life to reveal itself.

 

 

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SADNESS

SADNESS

 

The journey that unfolds through our meditation practice begins with acceptance. We accept where we are in the present and, returning to the breath, we are returning to the heart of our experience. In this way, we are accepting each moment. In time, with consistent practice, we train the mind to accept our life as it is. The heart of our present experience expands to all our experience. And in time, we see our life not in terms of the time we have, but how we can deepen the experience of that time.

 

Buddhist teachings regard time as elastic.  Our experience of time expands and deepens when we are growing and when we are aware. While our time is long or short chronologically, it can also be shallow or deep experimentally. We often cruise across the surface of our life, accomplishing, accumulating, and crossing off items on our ‘to do’ list.  But sometimes life stops us, and we experience the profundity of being alive. Sometimes this process is amazing as with the birth of a child, falling in love, or beginning a new life.  And sometimes being stopped in our life is simply painful, as with the death of a loved one, leaving a relationship or losing a job. But most of these profound experiences were accompanied by moments of fear and pain. If we fixated on the fear, we might never have contacted the depth of our life.

 

One of the ways we avoid fully experiencing our life is when are locked into the surface of our life. This materialistic approach is necessary but is not the entirety of our life. Yet, out of fear and anxiety we lock into the momentum of our ‘to do’ list trying to outrun the deeper feelings that threaten to block our momentum. But these very deep feelings grant access to the fullness of our experience. The fullness of experience is happening now and at no other time. It is only here and in no other place. Acceptance of the moment grants access to deeper understanding.

 

Therefore, we can see acceptance as an act of love.

 

It’s our work as mediators to deepen our experience and get more out of the time we’re gifted. This requires acceptance of the interruption. We learn to welcome the fear as a harbinger of a peak experience. In this way, we can develop the inner strength to see all experience as a possibility. Experience is a gateway to understanding.  One very potent gateway is the experience of sadness because if we allow ourselves to feel it, we can be subsumed into a very rich world. Of course, this is the very reason we will avoid sadness by picking up a drink, overeating, or trying to fill the resounding space sadness creates. “I don’t have time for this, I’ve got to get back to my list!” Perhaps we are afraid of a breakdown, or of falling apart. But if we develop the bravery of a compassionate heart, we can look into the chasm of sadness and touch something very real. Then the breakdown may become a breakthrough. And falling apart might lead us to a fresher more unencumbered relationship to ourselves.

 

Sadness is a potent gateway because it is very real. Trungpa, Rinpoche called it the most genuine emotion. Unlike anger, for instance, which often deflects outward into a defensive posture and fixation, sadness forces us to look inward and access our feelings.

 

Once we recognize sadness, we can look into the experience with acceptance, kindness, love, and patience. Pema Chodron always recommended we eschew intellectualizing and feel the feeling. This is hard with the reflective intensity of anger. But with sadness, all we need is   loving acceptance to get below the waterline of experience and investigate the experience of our feelings. This does not require narrative or explanation.  In fact, investigating our experience can lead to a wordless state of just feeling. Just sitting in the gentle embrace of our broken heart can be healing on a profound level.

 

But then it is important to honor the experience by letting go and allowing it to shift, change and perhaps become something else. The discipline here is that once we’ve contacted the gateway of sadness, we allow ourselves to pass through. This requires letting go. Letting g is not pushing away. Letting go is loosening our grip. It means the experience of sadness is as it is and that is more than enough. It is not about the ‘me’ I so stoutly defend. Sadness is.

 

With the power of love, we can open to sadness.  And with the power of acceptance, we can allow ourselves to be led. With the power of our wisdom, we can feel something new about ourselves in this very old human feeling. Then with the power of discipline, we can let go and step less encumbered into the next moment.

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WORKING WITH ANGER

WORKING WITH ANGER

 

Today we will discuss “anger” and their drama queen sibling “rage.” In the Buddhist tradition, we speak of the wisdom of anger because although anger elicits many unpleasant experiences, there is a clarity and precision at its core. In Buddhism, we see Anger as a manifestation of one of the “Five Wisdom Energies.” Despite how we may feel about anger, it is a powerful energy unto itself, and is neither good nor bad. Difficulties arise when we are uncomfortable with the intensity and so amplify its negative aspects by struggling with the feelings.

 

When working with any emotion we can follow some primary guidelines. The first is to open to the experience by remaining in the middle way between acting out and repressing. If we don’t act out or shut the anger inward, then we are left with feeling. That kind of sucks, usually. But it’s a great opportunity to learn. When we can feel what we are feeling regardless of how uncomfortable it is, we gain mastery over our emotions. This doesn’t require a lot of thought, or any narrative at all. This stage is about redirecting the attention from the grip of blame or judgment toward the actual raw experience.  In this way, we are fully honoring the emotion by allowing it to be as it is. In fact, we can bow to the energy for being such a potent teacher.

 

But how can anger be a teacher?  When we train the mind to step back and let the emotion be as it is, we see that it is just energy, and not about me. There is anger, yes.  But there is also wisdom, clarity and intelligence. Rather than take sides, we can hold our seat and see the emotion as a natural occurrence, just like the weather. We may not like the weather, but we generally don’t take it personally, nor struggle with acceptance of it. Simply speaking, it’s not about us.

 

When we are able to sit with the feeling without provoking or dampening it, we are allowing it to be in its own state. And once we accept it, like the weather, it will change. By training the mind in meditation we learn to hold our seat and rather than engaging the emotion we begin to feel it’s essential energy. In the case of anger, once the storm subsides, we might feel the natural intelligence and clarity at its core. The raging aspect of anger is like a stormburst. But a stormburst is a purifying energy that cleanses and clarifies – if we let it. If we run inside and cover ourselves up, we diminish the purifying effects.  On the other hand, as soon as we grab the energy, we are tossed around by its intensity. When we are overtaken by the energy, screaming, yelling and raging at the injustice, we are not riding the energy, the energy is riding us. Caught in the maelstrom, we lose awareness. This puts us in a dangerous situation, as lashing out blindly we can easily cause ourselves and others a great deal of pain.

 

But holding our seat through the turmoil of anger takes practice, patience and perseverance. We are training in our meditation practice to allow a buffering space to manifest between our triggers and our reaction.   We are not trying to live without anger. Heaven forbid. We need the energy of anger. We need our anger to wake us out of indolence and inertia. We need anger to wake us up when we are lost in the fog of unknowing. As Anger is an essential human emotion, we need it to be fully human.  But our meditation training offers us a way to train ourselves to sit in the storm until anger becomes our teacher.

 

Like the weather, our emotions come and go. They are a natural part of our human experience. The problem with the emotions happens when we judge ourselves for having the experience.   This creates an internal struggle that actually turns the energy painful. When we are holding our seat anger is like striking with a sharp blade that causes little harm and gets right to the bone. When we are not mindful, and are overtaken by its energy, anger is like hacking with a dull blade. It makes a mess.

 

So, to illustrate this, we can use the R.A.I.N. template. When you feel anger – look at that. RECOGNIZE that it is just energy. ACCEPT that and don’t push it away by acting out or repressing inward. Just let the energy be. Then look INWARD, INVESTIGATING how it feels. And once the energy shifts, let it go and NURTURE the part of ourselves that has been bruised in the process. Remember we are not suppressing the feeling. In fact, we are liberating anger by allowing it to be as it is. Finally, NON-IDENTIFY or NO BLAME means to remember that it’s not about us. And it’s okay to let go.

 

What we’re angry about is not the point. Nor are any of the stories we regale ourselves with. Acting out on Anger prevents us from feeling what we’re afraid to feel. It is much easier to act up than give in. But if we can hold to the middle way, anger keeps us going, doesn’t it? It helps us feel safe. It helps us feel as though we are doing something. It makes us feel strong to fight something even when the fighting is eroding us. But while we are busy fighting, we are losing sight of what it is we really need.

 

The practice is to pause – drop down into our felt sense – and realign with a deeper purpose. “I am here to awaken, and this energy is waking me up.” Are we just protecting ourselves by lashing out blindly trying to get away from the feeling? Are we just trying to make ourselves feel safe at someone else’s expense? Are we trying to become powerful in our own mind?  Are we trying to prove we are right?

 

Or are we working to wake up?

 

The Investigation step in RAIN is to realign with our purpose. If our aim is to wake up then we will want to minimize the harm and the drama so we can access the wisdom.

 

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THE POWER OF HUMILITY

THE POWER OF HUMILITY

 

The word humility conjures the idea of humiliation. This judgement stems from a defensive ego-mind that sees any diminishment to its powers as a threat. If we quiet the shouting and listen, are we giving up ground that can allow the enemy to advance? But what enemy is that, exactly?

 

The psychological defenses we employ become an end in themselves. At some point, we don’t even remember what it is we are fearful of, yet we nonetheless identify with compensating for our perceived weakness. To ego mind, we are what we struggle against.  These constant complaints about life are comforting to a wounded part of us,but they are stifling to our spirit.  In my experience, these defenses only support belief in our weakness. The compensations, and overcompensating of ego become so reflexive, and so pervasive, we feel the need to engage everything. We do this in combative ways such as judgements, arguments, or outright quarrels. We do this in seemingly positive ways such as clinging, coercion or manipulation. But, even when our intentions are neutral and largely unnoticed, many of us have a constant narrative about experience. Good, bad, or neutral, seen or unseen, it seems we are always commenting on – and frequently arguing with – our life.  This “subconscious gossip” prattles on unabated to the detriment of our wellbeing.

 

When we are triggered emotionally, our body experiences a neurological spasming and our mind becomes hijacked. Sometimes this is obvious. But frequently, this hijacking happens unconsciously as we unwittingly indulge internal dialog. This “gossip” running on autopilot, surreptitiously drains our energy and ability to pay attention as it clouds our experience.   It’s like Pig-Pen, the Charles Schultz character from Peanuts, who was depicted walking around with a swarm of messy static around him. We are ensconced in a cocoon of complaint. How much attention to our life is impeded by this internal static? And how draining is that on our life force and confidence?

 

Unconditional confidence comes from a direct and practical connection to our life. When we are mindful of our experience, we begin to develop a sense that we can live life as it is instead of shutting our eyes and bitching about what it isn’t. Our meditation practice is the means in which we slowly emerge from the protective fantasy worlds in which we isolate. There is a beautiful quote from the renowned Tibetan teacher, poet, and scholar Dilgo Khyentse, Rinpoche that I find inspiring:

 

“The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions, and to all people, experiencing everything totally without mental reservations and blockages, so that one never withdraws or centralizes into oneself.

This produces a tremendous energy which usually is locked up in the process of mental evasion and a general running away from life experiences.”

                                                                         –  H.H. Dilgo Khyentse

 

Rather than live in the protective fantasy world of our judgement and diminishing self-narration, we can stop the chatter, and turn our attention to the world around us. This takes humility. The world around us is not there to support our way of believing. It is not here to debate our judgments. The world around us is not for us to conquer or manipulate to our own ends. The world is there for us to join. It is our journey and our path. Sitting back in the smug superiority of judgment, we are isolating inside ourselves and so support the addiction to our habits. Habits that keep us enslaved in the repetition of what we already know. Iterating and reiterating what we already know is stultifying and many of us begin to feel stifled by our own lives.

 

The way out is to have the humility to just stop. Pause. STFU as is said. Pay attention to life. What is happening out there is more important to our spiritual growth than reiterating what is in here. Our judgements keep us from growing. And the alternative is not to reframe the judgement or admonish ourselves for doing that which most of us do much of the time. The alternative to living in the Pigpen static of self-narrative is to just stop. STOP.

 

Pema Chodron likened the idea of space as when a refrigerator, or air-conditioner which had been running in the background turns off. Though we did not notice its running, we immediately notice the silence. There is a gap. That openness is a very profound experience. However, it is often overlooked in our materialistic society that is geared more to recognize “things”. We think the space that is the genesis of al things is inconsequential because it does not affirm our ego interpretations of life. Meditation practitioners begin to learn to value that space, for it is within its silence that we hear the world speak. Our life is not dependent on our interpretation. Nor is it subject to our needs and approval. Our life is an ongoing process, happening right now. And we can join that life, already in progress, whenever we have the confidence to step out of our protective fantasy.

 

This is the power of humility. Not humiliation, which is another egoic fantasy play space.  But power. Spiritual humility is empowering. It is having the humbleness to set aside judgments long enough to see what is actually here.  This is how we develop confidence. And this is how humility is the gateway to great power. No longer fighting within ourselves, we can actually become functional and productive in our world.

 

So, the main practice that Dilgo Khyentze mentions is to OPEN the mind, QUIET the heart and RELEASE the body. The practice is to come back to complete comprehensive openness of body, spirit, and mind. Like placing our hand over our heart and saying “it’s okay” or “come back” or maybe “shut up! If we need.” But this process can be very quick. It is not the psychological alchemy a cognitive behavioral approach, as much as the loving thwack of a Zen master’s stick.

 

Humility means you can just come back to the open silence without the protective patina of an air-conditioned mind. Humility is the power to say, “it’s not about me”. And just stop and pay attention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picture for today’s post is of a water tiger. In the Shambhala teachings the tiger is used an image of a being that has the power of humility, that is referred to as “MEEK.”  The meek tiger is at ease with itself and sees what is happening as it rests in the present unclouded by judgment and expectation.  

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THE NEXT STEP

THE NEXT STEP

I was waiting at the top of the steps leading down to the front door at Gampo Abbey Monastery. It was a typically cold wet March Nova Scotia morning. A number of us had been lined up waiting in the rain for some time. Finally, we got the call that Sakyong Mipham was about to arrive for a retreat.  As a new student, I was chosen to open the door to his car as it pulled to a stop. I’m not sure if I was shaking more from the cold and or my nerves, but I managed to get the door open and stepped back bowing.  Sakyong walked to the head of the stairs and stopped.  He turned and looked back at me.  I came beside him.  “Sir?” I asked. But he just stood there. Then clearing his throat, I saw he was looking toward his outstretched hand. I looked to him and he took my hand and wrapped it around his arm for me to steady him as we walked down the slick stairs. 

 

At that moment, I became his attendant. And each careful step led to a new world for me.

 

On our journey through life, we sometimes falter, looking for the next right step. With a profusion of information in our lives today, there are so many choices. It’s good, then, to have a sense of where we are heading.

 

In order to lead a full and joyous life, humans need to feel connected. Yet, we often pursue the wrong avenues to that end. We frequently mistake material gain as a means of spiritual fulfillment. While material gain is fine for what it is, it will never lead to lasting fulfillment, and it often throws us off track. We often mistake trying to connect to the world by competing with others. The things we do to impress others often pushes them away. When we are bigger, faster, louder, and better than everyone, it’s hard for them to connect. In this way, we end up feeling unaccepted and not good enough.  And so, we try harder.

 

Naturally, this makes the problem worse because as long as we feel “less than” we find ourselves wanting. As long as we’re wanting, we have greater compulsion to fill ourselves up.  The more we want, it seems, the less we have.

 

And the less we feel we have, the more we cling. This creates a lot of sidetracks to our path, especially as we will cling to some dangerous and unsatisfying things, just to feel connected to something. We will jealously hold on to suffering because we are strangely comforted by the familiar. This fear-based clinging is self-referential and emotionally self-defeating. It makes us feel valueless and inadequate. The more we cling, the more we wrap ourselves in fantasy and the less we are part of our actual life. We end up in cul de sacs of confusing confluences. It’s hard to flow down the river of life when we’re holding on to every branch.

 

This is all very entertaining. But it is also very lonely. We’re cut off from the sustenance we receive with an accurate and honest connection to the world.

 

On the other hand, when we are authentically connected to our life, we are naturally a benefit to others. Although frequently overlooked, feeling helpful to others is a great value in life. This simple feeling of being useful is simple and direct. It is an authentic connection that is not about being better than anyone, nor lowering ourselves to anything.  An authentic connection to the world is about being equal to everyone and hence, a part of the world. I have a teacher that refers to this as being “right sized”. We are not trying to manipulate the world into loving us, fearing us, or being impressed by our pretensions. This humble and very ordinary connection to reality brings a natural feeling of enrichment that panic inspired clinging will never afford.

 

Mahayana Buddhists hold the idea of the Bodhisattva as one who places the needs of humanity above all. This inspiration is a wonderful guide star for a spiritual path. And although being a benefit to others is inspiring and rewarding, we are nonetheless instructed to work with ourselves first. Instead of clinging to others as a way of filling ourselves up, we turn the attention to ourselves in order to understand what we are up to. In time, we come to know ourselves enough to be able to authentically connect to others. We see that we are all very much the same. It’s about meeting our world in a way that is appropriate and direct. We are not smaller than anyone, nor grander than anything. We are face to face with the world and can organically take the next right step.

 

This honest and accurate connection to our world is easier than we think. Without the bells and whistles we use to manipulate our world we can relax and be ourselves. Then when we are accepted, it is more rewarding. And it is accessible through very humble means.  We learn to be ourselves, even if we’re still discovering what that means.  It is said that we are “the working basis” for the Bodhisattva path.  By refining our understanding of ourselves, and how we behave, we are able to help others naturally and effectively. Some of us will do this through kindness to friends and family. Others through our art, poetry, or music. Some by caring for the earth, and others through leadership and service.  Once each of us finds our truth we will discover how that truth might inspire others.

 

Therefore, the path of the Bodhisattva begins with the humble step of knowing ourselves.

 

Yet as we work to know ourselves, we will naturally become aware of the places that bind us. And the places that bind us, often serve to blind us. These obscurations usually stem from fear-based clinging. We are gripping too tightly to aspects of our world that we feel define us, protect us, or even save us. These attachments skew our perception of the world and our relationships. Gripping in our body creates shadows in the mind that manifest as blockages in our perception. In order to be of service to the world, the journey of a Bodhisattva consists of the hard work of parceling through the places that obscure our perception, so that we can develop healthy interactions with the world.

 

 

Uncovering obscurations can be galling and embarrassing.  We might fight against them and hold more tightly to our clinging until we have become embarrassed enough and developed enough confidence to let go. It’s important to understand that these obscurations were devised to protect us. They were a way for our child mind to try and arrange the world in order for us to feel accepted. And while crying for our bottle worked when we were babies, it is not so effective as adults. Yet, I have spent unretrievable hours in dark bars still yelling for my bottle. Frequently, we are seeing from the eyes of hurt children. Growing up means becoming self-aware. Self-awareness brings self-compassion. And self-compassion brings the self-confidence we need to let go of our fearful clutching at the things we think will save us.

 

On the path of a Bodhisattva, we learn to heal ourselves in order to heal our world. But it begins with that next right step. And that next step is not someplace else. The next right step happens right here.  It is humble as it is not about self-proclamation. But it is definite, as it is a statement of our innate human goodness.

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CHARIOTS OF DISAPPOINTMENT

CHARIOTS OF DISAPPOINTMENT

 

Pema Chodron tells the story of a wedding that was officiated by Chogyam Trungpa. Trungpa often used a Japanese hand fan during his talks. And in this instance, as the couple were kneeled before him he hit the would be groom on the head with the fan and said, “pain is not a punishment”.  The startled couple sat there. Then he tapped to the bride-to-be on the forehead saying, “pleasure is not a reward.” There was a pause and then Rinpoche tapped them on the heads again. “Pain is not a punishment.” “Pleasure is not a reward.” Then again. He continued alternating and, as Pema told it, the intensity of the tapping increased each time.

 

Pain is not a punishment. Pleasure is not a reward.

 

And in fact, either can be an opportunity.

 

When things go wrong in. our life we tend to believe it’s a reprisal for some mistake we’ve made, or some lack of character we have. When things go right, we feel rewarded as though the universe was confirming our innate awesomeness. In this way, we develop a bipolar codependency with life. When we allow feelings to become dependent upon external circumstance, we lose our agency and let things beyond our control dictate how we feel. Rather than pausing to check in with ourselves in order to see how we can address our feelings, we often try and manipulate the environment to get what we want. Sometimes we don’t even know what we want, but that doesn’t stop us fixing, fixing, fixing. This is ultimately fruitless. We employ so much effort to address childhood fears that we not only exhaust our spirit but lose the confidence to stand in our own truth. Over time, this confidence atrophies and we become more and more dependent on what everyone else wants.

 

But how do we actually feel?

 

And how do others feel?  Or are we just pawns in each other’s game?

 

Mindfulness practice allows us to stop the momentum of our racing minds so we can include ourselves in the process of our life. Therefore gaps in our mental momentum afford the possibility of synchronizing with ourselves and our life.  Synchronization is not manipulation. It is cooperative, rather than coercive. In order to gain a symbiotic relationship with our lives, we have to interrupt the momentum of the manipulation dance. In order to do that, our mindfulness practice allows us to see gaps and honor them. We come to see the value of having our momentum interrupted long enough for us to become present. And while these gaps are always present, we generally buy into the momentum of habit patterns so fiercely we fail to see opportunities to include ourselves in our life.

 

Since we live in a material world, our minds are programmed to cling from thing to thing. The momentum of moving from thing to thing keeps us from ever feeling how we feel, and this keeps us from developing confidence in who we are. Everything in material life becomes dependent upon what we get. And this addictive cycle keeps us from ever seeing what is actually there. The more we cling to what we want, the less we see what is there, and so the less we have and then more we cling. Buddhists call this addictive process samsara. The good news is that this addictive momentum is not solid. In fact, there are natural gaps that interrupt this process of occlusion all the time.  Mindfulness happens in the gaps. So, from the point of view of developing awareness, anything that interrupts samsara can be seen as a blessing.

 

Then why is it so hard to let go?

 

We become so addicted to the blind momentum of samsara that interruptions actually hurt. Out of fear, we cling so tightly to our projections, we lose any awareness of who we are as we become engulfed in what we think we want.  In this way, we begin to forge a false identity for ourselves based on that clinging.  Therefore, gaps in our clinging feel like little deaths. But, as you know, little deaths can be a beautiful thing. Those little deaths may be the gateways to our life. And so, anything that interrupts the momentum of our mental constructs offers an opportunity to connect to our life.  This is why Buddhists say, “disappointment is the chariot of liberation”. Whenever we are disabused of the me-fusing, ignorance-producing, based momentum, we have an opportunity to step back and see ourselves. Once released from the bi-polar codependency of samsara we can make a genuine relationship to our world.

 

In this way, we may find that interruptions – while they are anathematic to the aforementioned self-identity – give us a way out of ourselves and into our world. So not only do disappointments to our ego-plans open up the space for new opportunities, but it is in the very discouragements and disappointments that we find common ground with others. Samsara wants us to believe that we can find perfection. This just develops isolation, as no one is perfect. On the other hand, we all make mistakes, so connecting to imperfections is a more efficient way to connect to others. And connection is the remedy to addiction. And samsara is based on addiction. Every time we allow the gap of disappointment to interrupt samsara, we have a way back to our life.

 

Rather than changing the environment, mindfulness practice encourages us to see what is actually here and to honor how we feel so we can actually become part of our life.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

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.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

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.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

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.