Category: EVENTS

Posted on by joseph mauricio

MEDITATION AS AN ACT OF HEALING – Working with Fear and Anxiety

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

Join us for a half-day practical workshop of instruction, discussion, and inspiration where we will discuss the 4 R’s of mindful awareness: Recognition, Release, Return and Relax.

Find out more

 

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SHAMBHALA MEDITATION CENTER OF NEW YORK

Public Sitting, Tuesdays at noon, open to all

Learn to Mediate – 1st 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.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

WHEN ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

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.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

WAKING UP TO A NEW DAY

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

UNPACKING THE REACTION

UNPACKING THE REACTION: Deconstructing Shenpa

I am writing this on boxing day.  In some traditions, today is the day set aside to unpack the last of the holiday presents and remove the boxes, or perhaps repack the boxes and return the gifts.  In any event, I thought it an appropriate time to discuss opening the present of our life by unpacking our reactions to the triggers in our life.

Much of our life experience is hidden from us by a process Buddhists refer to as clinging. This clinging, along with family members attachment and addiction, get us stuck in the flow of life. We tend to grab on to the things we like. We also like hating the things we don’t like and so cling to liking not liking. Buddhists say desire precedes attachment. But desire is not a problem when it ripens into appreciation, which has the largess of opening into the event.  Desire becomes problematic when we shut down into an ownership, appropriation, or objectification of the object of desire – we are objectifying that to which we cling.

We cling to things that provoke us in ways that are positive, negative, or neutral.  It’s easy to see how we might cling to the things that attract us, but we also cling to not wanting things we don’t like. And some of us drama junkies will cling to not wanting the experience of nothing happening. “Argh! This is too peaceful.”  And we will pull some drama out of a hat instead of waiting for that shoe to drop. At least then we’re in control of our suffering.

Suffice to say, we will cling to anything – whatever is in reach – in order to maintain feeling in control. We will cling to pain because it’s familiar, and familiarity offers a sense of being in control. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Control rests on awareness. But the knee-jerk reaction of clinging is entirely blind. It feels like clinging happens to us. Pema Chodron popularized the term “shenpa”.  Shenpa classically refers to clinging and attachment. Pema interprets shenpa experientially as “hooked” because that is the feeling associated with it. We have lost control and are pulled away.

Attachment is when our clinging has added emotional, environmental, or psychological ties. 12-step communities refer to “people places and things” as providing support for addiction. Attachment can be seen as the maturation of clinging, which was the ripening of our initial desire. I’ve identified a spectrum of attachment in my personal experience: perception > objectification > desire (toward or away from the object) > attachment > addiction.

The objectification stage is important as it is the activation of the dualistic barrier of our ego system. We stop seeing the wholeness of the other – and our dynamic relation to it – turning it instead into a solid thing.

Like many of us attached to people, places, or things, our attachment feels compulsory. We rarely notice our becoming attached.  We don’t seem to be choosing anything at all.  Instead, it feels like we are snagged into a series of events. We don’t see this process because we are fixated on the object of our desire. Therefore, Pema refers to attachment as being “hooked” because that how it feels and how it feels gives us a way in to unpacking the process. We become hooked when we are triggered. If we look at it this way, we can see the mechanics of the compulsion. When hooked by shenpa, we become glued to the object and blinded by desire. We cling with our eyes shut as though grasping at straws to save ourselves. This is the moment we turn away from ourselves and lash out to find safety. Sometimes it is one and done, but sometimes it becomes a trope we return to whenever we are threatened. And if we return to the event enough, our bodies will begin to need the feelings we evoke in association – we become addicted to the feelings associated with our shenpa.

At the base of this system lies a desperate sense of panic born of need. One remedy for these moments of gripping obscuration is to preemptively shore up the feelings of need that allow us to be vulnerable to the triggering. Each time we return to the breath in our meditation we are returning to ourselves. If we do so lovingly, without judgment, we are building a healthy relationship with ourselves that supports our emotional immune system. We need not feel embarrassed to employ self-love or feel as though it is “not Buddhist” to love ourselves. It is not Buddhist to remain ignorant of ourselves and cling to everything that shines in the water around us. It is not Buddhist to ignore how we cause ourselves and each other pain.

The method for unpacking shenpa is to build our connection to our basic goodness prophylactically on the cushion. But then, on the spot, recognizing as we become hooked during our day. Then with acceptance that we are human and addicted to the drama, we can unpack the event by coming back to what is actually happening in our body. Investigating when we are hooked and how it feels. Is my body changing, gripping, tightening? Is my posture changing, becoming defensive or avoidant? Is my mind racing away in an evasive maelstrom? But then to relax past the gripping affliction and open into nurturing ourselves with love and forgiveness.

Opening the present, is letting go of the cycle of shenpa wherever, whenever we can and unpacking the conflict and experiencing what is actually happening. In a treatise on romantic love Trungpa, Rinpoche explained that when a couple are fighting, reality is not the logic they are throwing back at each other. Reality is that they are not noticing the color of their eyes. So fixated on being right, they are not remembering they love each other.

It is my wish that we learn to unpack the aggression of our drama and remember to let go and open to love.

 

Here is a practical contemplation for the remedy:

Open the tense blockages in the body, by coming back to the breath ad releasing the places we are wounding ourselves with tension. Let go of the residual emotional feelings. We are not right. We are in defensive reactivity. Just let go and let be.

Stop the narrative, which is comprised of rational lies that support our blind reaction. Stop the fixation on the object, or event. Put down the hook, the drink, the rage, the avoidant reaction just for a moment. Just step back. You are frightened. Just stop the fantasy and feel into the gripping body beneath. Pema says we are “learning to stay.”  

Drop down into our physical experience and feel our body’s actual reaction.  This is happening in the present and coming into the present, we turn away from our reactions to the past. How am I feeling as I bite the hook? And even if you cannot stop, you will dampen the experience for yourself. And the work is to come back. You are frightened. Come back until you can stay with the feeling without the endotrophic medicating of our clinging. Again, Pema says, we are “learning to stay.”  

Then return to the flow of our breathing, walking or working. Return to now and resume life already in progress. I like to think of this as coming back to the rhythm. Back to the flow, like a river rushing past the dam, or the Beatles resting on Ringo’s perfect timing or you returning to your basic goodness.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

GRATITUDE – The Path to Spiritual Wellness

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

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

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

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

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

And who is actually making me feel less-than?

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

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

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

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

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

 

Practice suggestion: 

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

BECOMING YOUR BEST NON-SELF

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

For me, this process has begun to feel light and free. As there is less to defend, there is so much more to enjoy. The less “Me” there is in my life, the more life there is for me to live.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

Developing A Healthy Self-Regard

Developing A Healthy Self-Regard is not Egotism.

Self-love and self-encouragement are so important to our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Yet, the question of what it is to love oneself is not always clear. Is it giving in to the ½ gallon of ice cream, or making it to the gym?  And I think many of us struggle toggling between the poles of indulgence and abstinence.

The question may have to do with the “self” part of the equation.  We unconsciously accept ourselves as a consistent, self-existing “Me-thing”. But, in truth, we have many selves. These partial-selves can be seen as defensive systems that enact programs of habitual thought and action. Some of these aspects of the self are benign and the attendant programming helpful or innocuous. But some of these defensive selves are rather destructive and self-defeating. The problem is, they all appear as Me, so we assume they are right. For instance, when something happens that we find challenging, we will sometimes feel attacked and evoke the victim-self that has a series of strategies it employs for our survival. There are a host of partial selves that invoke habitual responses that are frequently at odds with our best interests. We hurt those we want to be loved by, or love those that can’t return our love. We employ a host of strategies to try and get what we want. And while some strategies seem to work in the short term, few of these serve our inner growth. We are employing a shifting whack-a-mole defense when life feels threatening. We get lost trying to fix everything.

My meditation teacher would say we are pointing at the world, holding the wrong end of the stick.

In Meditation theory we refer to this complicated process as ego. This is not strictly ego in the Freudian sense, but in meditation theory, ego is self-will run rampant. It is “Me” trying to make “Me” happy. But there is a higher state of being, which is common to all life. Spiritual traditions talk of God, or Goodness, but the feeling of well-being need not be tied to any spiritual tradition. It is simply a feeling of wellness that we feel effortlessly within ourselves. So, rather than tackle the slippery slope of self “love” perhaps we might say that our mental health is predicated upon a sense of self-regard.

We are aware of our being and accept ourselves right now.

In meditation, we are training to be in acceptance of ourselves in the present moment. I say the present moment as opposed to the theoretical moments of our past or projected futures which may or may not meet our approval. The past or the future are fraught with speculation and complication. But how you feel right now – in the present – is the self that meditation practice seeks to contact and develop.  By contacting that essential self we build an unconditional confidence. This is a long process that requires patience, and care. But the process is nonetheless quite simple. We return to ourselves in the present by simply being here. This is not the partialized tectonics of our shifting guises, but our true complete being. The way to contact this essential self is to simply return to the present.

Again, and again.

We return to the present with no judgement or elaboration. Just gentle loving acceptance applied as needed.  Then questions of “ice cream” or “the gym” are seen as strategies to make “Me” feel better. This implies there is something wrong with me right now, or wrong with the way I feel so I have to change it. This seems to be missing the point. We are pointing the stick in the wrong direction. Rather than fixing ourselves, perhaps we can learn to be with ourselves. In this way, we diminish our partialized defensive postures and begin to make a connection to our full self. Not fixing anything, just getting to know ourselves. The very simple process of coming back to our being in the present moment, again and again, is an act of loving acceptance of ourselves that, in time, breeds confidence.

And confidence that is built upon self-knowing is unconditional confidence. It is not the ephemeral confidence built on material things that come and go. Yes, nice clothing feels good and there is no shame in that. But those clothes will go out of style, our bodies will develop and our minds will change. We can scramble to keep up with trends that we mistakenly feel define us, or we can find something lasting and constant in a feeling of unconditional self-regard. We come to know ourselves just as we are and, in time, well being seems natural.

As consistent daily Meditation practice in time, transforms our partial selves into a comprehensive experience of well-being, we may continue to toggle between our partialized defenses and a grander sense of wholeness. We will be momentarily lost in regret of the past, or delusions of the future, but if we train the mind to recognize this and develop the power of recollection,  we return to ourselves in the present.

Recognize, Remember and Return. Then we are holding the stick upright in a statement of our wellbeing. In this way, ice cream and the gym become expressions of our self-regard.

Not fixing but being.

Like dating. If you begin with manipulation, or a defensive posture, you may thwart connection. But if you begin with listening, and being present, the you and they have the time needed to know each other and feel comfortable.

And, who knows, maybe then you might fall in love.

 

_______________________

 

       This week’s practice suggestion:

 

Sit in a comfortable posture, which is both connected to the earth in an expression of acceptance while rising upright in an expression of confidence.

 

Before you start your meditation just be there for a moment. Try to avoid “doing”. Each time you feel you are wasting time or “should” be doing something differently, just notice that and relax back into the moment. Just tell yourself it’s okay to be here with you right now.

 

Just come back to now without doing or changing.

 

See what it’s like to just be.

 

Feel your whole being, and when you’re ready,

      step back in your mind and feel yourself in the space around you

 

If you are anxious, love that. Hold your heart and accept the feeling.

 

Don’t change anything.

 

Just come to know you.

 

You might think – or even say – to yourself “I’m here with you. Thank you for being here with me.”

Posted on by joseph mauricio

MINDFUL AWARENESS

The balance of mindful awareness allows us to navigate life and practice.

 

Mindfulness is an overused term these days. It might refer to anything from a meditation practice, to a lifestyle choice, to a fragrance. I wanted to narrow the focus down to a practical application of the term. Mindfulness refers to the natural function of the mind to contact an object in the present moment. MIndfulness allows us a  tactile connection to our world that is psychologically grounding.  

 

In meditation practice, we generally choose an object to be our contact point. Intermittent connection to an object of meditation is a reference that allows our practice to stabilize.  Once we are grounded in the present moment, we are naturally able to relax into the meditation. This relaxation leads to an expansive and open awareness. That open awareness is the source of insight. Yet, that openness is dependent upon the grounding we develop by contacting the present with our mindfulness. The ideal practice situation can be seen as a balance point between mindful contact to the present and a larger sense of awareness around that contact. We are mindful of the breath, but also aware of our body and the space around us.

 

This mindful awareness practice easily translates to life. MIndfulness of the steps we take going down the street, allows us to relax and open to the flow of the traffic around us. In Meditation as in life, this is a balancing act. If we are too nervously connected to our mindful contact, we lose the fun and inspiration of the space around us. The point of a walk is more than our feet on the ground, just as the point of our meditation is more than our breathing. The point of a walk is to get to where you’re going,but also to enjoy the process along the way. The point of our meditation is liberation from the dull authority of our egoic limitations, which is to say, waking up.  But, if we get too fixated on our insights, or become lost in the space around us, we might lose contact with reality and begin to live in our head. Living in our head often translates to falling on our head.

 

So, in meditation, as in life, we are balancing the practical humility of present contact, with a letting go into the space and movement of our process.  It is very much a dance. Like a dancer who trains long hours to gain the muscle memory of the choreographed steps of their piece, the point of the training is to let go into the flow of the music and the performance. Just as the dancer has trained themselves to be mindful of the steps, just so we can train ourselves to be mindful of the moments of our life. While, mindfulness implies the humbleness to be simple and connect to the moment, we need not feel restricted or leaden. That would be like a dancer who just looks down at their feet, never smiling. We have the humbleness to contact the present and the confidence to let go and relax into the space. 

 

The balance point is in the body. I use the heart or the gut as the energetic centers of my meditation. Breathing into the gut is extra grounding. It calms the nervous system which, in turn, allows us to relax into the movement of our practice. The conjoining of Mindfulness and Awareness is an experience of flow;. We are always moving forward in time. It’s a misunderstanding to believe that the present moment is sedentary.  Contacting the present is grounding, yes. But the point of that grounding is to let go into the flow of the practice, just as we let go into the flow of our life.

 

Awareness of life is the point of our practice in the first place. But we can become lost in that space without the grounding contact of our mindfulness. In this way, mindfulness offers the ground that allows the confidence to let go into the enjoyment of the process. In my day, I am aware of balancing between getting lost in the flow, and hence submerged into non-awareness. The remedy is to reconnect to the earth, feel the breathing in the body, and then relax and let go into life.  Mindfulness is not an imprisonment. It’s the intermittent contact to the present that keeps us on course.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

INTUITIVE INSPIRATION

INTUITIVE INSPIRATION

Intuitive inspiration refers to bringing our feelings and wisdom into parity. It’s a process of feeling ourselves into wakefulness which is a full application of our mind – or Mindfulness.

 

Being culturally binary, we tend to separate instincts from our higher sensibilities. The gut seems personal and the higher mind universal. But universal wisdom is not always accessible, especially when it’s most needed. Sometimes we need to rely on the guy instinct. When we feel attacked our impulse is to tighten the gut and react. This is not gut knowing, it is defensive reaction. We might punch back, run away, or freeze in place. But reactions happen with our eyes closed. We think we are defending ourselves, but we are usually lashing out blindly in the dark. And blind reactions are rarely an effective defense. Blind reactions are hijacking the mind, not employing its full potential.

 

Meditation training works to create space between impulse and reaction. By recognizing our thinking and returning to the breath, we create space in the mind. This space acts as a buffer that keeps us from blind reactions that intentionally, or unintentionally, cause harm. Instead of blind reaction, we have a gap in which we can open our eyes and be present. This is what is meant by mindfulness. Our mind has enough space to use a fuller capacity to understand what is happening. With mindfulness we are able to respond rather than react. Reactions are often reliving past injuries that have little relevance in the present.

 

But while an honest response happens in the present, we may still feel the residual pain of past experience. If we commit to mindfulness, we can allow gaps created by our meditation experience into our present experience. This gap creates the buffer so we can allow the panic from the gut to inform our present understanding without hijacking our awareness. We can feel our pain without reacting to it.  In this way, we are keeping our eyes open to both our visceral and our higher mind.

 

A word of caution here is that Mindfulness is balancing our lower instinctive mind with our higher wisdom. Should we bypass the lower instincts and grasp on to the higher mind, we are just running away. We are closing our eyes and hoping the universe, god or some powerful entity will save us. This is not accessing our higher mind and is still a reaction that will likely lead to painful situations. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is the practice of combining the wisdom of our higher perceptions with the experience of our past so we can have an intelligent and fully felt experience.

 

Instinct is wisdom that comes from is our personal experience as well as the collective experience of humanity. There is a lot of helpful information here which is nonetheless mixed in with personal trauma and confusion. This is why we need the higher perceptions of wisdom mind to help clarify the experience. In a state of non-reactivity, we can “feel” our intellect and “see” our feelings.  With Mindfulness our gut and our mind combine for a fuller interpretation of an experience. Accessing intuition requires feeling in to our experience, and accessing wisdom is an act of letting go. Touching in and letting go.

 

In the Shambhala Tradition we call this “Joining Heaven and Earth.”  We are grounded in past experience and inspired by the possible. You might say, Mindfulness is awareness of present moment that is informed by the past, but also open to the future. We feel the gut, and we let go into the possibilities beyond. In this way, our experience is quite regal. We are grounded and aware. A good ruler is one who is in touch with the present needs of the people, but also has awareness to move them forward. In traditional Indian Buddhism, meditation was likened to the gait of an elephant. Strong, definite, and grounded, but with a panoramic awareness of life around it. A Wisdom Monarch is strong and grounded and both nurturing and protective to their tribe.

 

When we are joining heaven and earth, we have natural leadership. And while this can mean leadership of our world or society, it most importantly means leadership of our personal mind in every moment. When we feel in and open out, we join heaven and earth, and access the kindness to nurture ourselves and the wisdom to see beyond to liberation.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

IT’S MONDAY

It’s Monday!

Ugh.

Another week.  And whether it’s pushing through the same old grind, or a critical mass coming to a head on our head, we frequently look at our week as if it requires heroic doses of caffeine just to face the face in the mirror.  Along with stimulants, we kick ourselves into gear with any manner of sloganning. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life!” “It all starts now!” “I gotta do it!” “Just do it!” “I can do i!” Sure,. I just need more discipline.

No wonder a part of us wants to stay in bed.

 

This conventional way of looking a discipline would be fine if we were living in a TV commercial. But we are more than 2-dimensional caricatures of ourselves. We are full beings with a full scope of feelings ideas and needs. We have many important voices within us.  A part of us wants to move forward, while another part is eyeing the cozy unmade bed.

But Monday is and a perfect time to look at life and how a meditator can look at their discipline and work ethic – from the point of view of the Dharma. Taking a Dharmic approach begins with acceptance and self-connection. Before we rush out the door and push ourselves into a life some parts of ourselves are still resisting, we can pause and be with ourselves for a moment. Whether that is meditation, prayer or contemplation a moment of acceptance allows us to synchronize with our whole being. It’s possible that all the opinions will not reach agreement, but our meditation is a way of engaging an executive voice that can organically lead the process. With kindness, evenness and non-judgement we can encourage ourselves forward. Instead of dragging ourselves kicking and resisting, or conflating our experience into platitudes, we can synchronize with ourselves with a kindness and care that addresses our full being.

In Meditation theory we call this addressing our body, spirit and mind. And that connection to our whole being leads us to the practice of the Paramitas. Paramita refers to an action that “goes beyond” the 2-dimensional conflated sloganning we conventionally employ.  A paramita is said to be a “transcendent” activity that goes beyond ego. Generosity, Patience, Discipline, Effort, Meditation and Wisdom are six categories of practice that are foundational to the Mahayana Buddhist path. These differ from the standard readings of these words, as Paramita is a transcendent activity.  The paramita of discipline, or Sila in Sanskrit, is transcendent discipline. It goes beyond self-defeating puynishment or expectation which is in service to our overbearing egos. Transcendent discipline begins with the heart, continues with encouragement and ends with a connection to our world that is helpful and kind.

So, instead of beating ourselves up and then taking it out on everyone else we are employing mindfulness and awareness which leads to an action that benefits our world. But right action in the world begins with connecting to ourselves. They say that the Mahayana Dharma is vast and profound. Profound in that we connect deeply within ourselves and vast in the expansive ways we can reach out to others. In a very basic binary, when we are kind to ourselves we can be naturally generous to others. When we are understanding of ourselves, we can be patient with others.  When we are clear with ourselves, we can be helpful to others. When we have discipline without aggression, we can be effective in our world.

Today, Dharmajunkies moves back to Mondays, and tomorrow we have an election. It’s a perfect time to engage our life and synchronize with our higher purpose. Sarah C. Whitehead will lead us in a deep dive discussion of Sila: The Practice of Transcendent Discipline.