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.

 

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.

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.

 

A TALE OF TWO WORLDS

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, … it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope…”  

 

In perhaps the greatest run on sentence in literary history, Dickens painted the picture of the modern epoch. This is a precariously magnificent time, a time of unfiltered hatred and burgeoning compassion. Humanity is waking up slowly, but the raging hangover of past indulgences is nonetheless clashing awkwardly with the beauty of a bright new day.

 

But, are we awake or asleep?

 

Buddhist texts refer to these times as the dark age; a time when good and bad rise to a head. It is not dark as in ‘dark obscuring the light’, but, dark illuminated by light. If we are able to leap into believing in the inherent goodness of humankind we can see this as a time when our resistsnce and neurosis become more apparent.  And, hence a time when healing and resolution are most accessible. Rather than leaving darkness sequestered in the night, we have an opportunity to bring this to the light and work with the defensive urges that have been motivating human behavior for so long.

 

Unlike Christian stories of Armageddon where good and evil square off in a movie directed by Michael Bay, the Buddhist version has more to do with a knitting of fabrics, a coming together of elements into a new compound. Maybe more like a film by Daron Aaronovsky. Which means a psychic blending of tendencies that never resolve into easy answers – or a simple movie.  On one hand, we have good and evil becoming more opposed until one – presumably good – wins out. Perhaps the modern definition of good is that which wins out. On the other hand, we have good and evil – light and dark – entwined in a dance fantastique that will spin until the pieces blend, the bubble pops, and a new agency is formed.

 

Tantric master Trungpa Rinpoche likened these times to a cosmic pimple popping – a heightening of neurosis and wisdom that leads to an opening from which new possibilities are formed. One doesn’t defeat the other so much as their clashing brings about greater awareness of pain and the suffering caused by an inapropriate relationship to pain.

 

It is my belief that we can navigate this confluence and take agency in the coming singularity. By training the mind in mindful awareness we gain control of impulses, by slowing down the point of impact and creating a buffer that allows us the time to RESPOND consciously rather than REACT reflexively. By learning to learning to guide ourselves from one trigger to the next without fistraction or reaction we can possibly learn to help  humanity through the turmoil into its next phase. Whether that phase is a greater sense of space and understanding leading to a flowering or its much predicted demise, may be in our hands. And the time to gain MANUAL control of the micro steps of our destiny may be right now.

 

In order to navigate this grand confluence we might have to slow down and begin to unpack the presumptive reasoning of being right. How do we see beyond our framed thinking into an acceptance of all that is coming toward us without losing ourselves? Well, maybe we can stand to loose some of ourselves. Or even a lot of ourselves. Maybe we can begin by recognizing all that keeps us from assimilation, and simply relax into the convergence, turn off our aggression and float into change WITH OUR EYES OPEN.

 

Working with synchronicity is a process of letting go and yet navigating the flow. Unlike other traditions that imply we can either resist or comply with a script, the Buddhist point of view  is that once we awaken – that is when we become conscious – we can navigate rather than aquiece or resist and in effect co-create the script of exustence with the universe. The universe, in this case, is the karmic web created by past actions moving in various vectors into future space. It is like an ocean of currents, each with thier own momentum. Navigating these currents means accepting thier existence and sitting up above the water line, being able to see where we are heading, and having the resolve to move away from the momentum of self interest into the undefined waters of discovery.

 

Navigating the white water confluence of past actions into future possibility takes letting go of our aggression, self-interest and resistance and allowing the natural change of things to take place. By keeping our eyes open during the change we can move into the open space of possibility, discovery and communication. Looking into the fear, darkness and aggression of our ancient pain, we can see our suffering in others. Understanding how misunderstanding our pain has caused us to act blindly, hurting ourselves and others, we can see how others have done the same to us. We are all fighting ancient demons snd blaming each other for our pain. We are all human and we are all suffering by our own hand. If we see this, pethaps the possibility of repairing that cycle of aggression is possible.

 

With our eyes open into the turmoil we can keep our balance and begin to pull each other from the roil. Or, with eyes and fists clenched against the current we will drown ourselves and each other. Maybe the duality isnt between good and evil, left and right or right and wrong. Its about seeing or ignoring. Either we wake up communicate and learn to stabilize the world of compassion, or shut down and solidify a world of hate, pain and aggression.

 

So, is this the best of worlds ir the worst?

 

Yes. It is both and because of that it is a magnificant time to be awake.

 

 

PAYING ATTENTION TO TENSION

Stress is considered a detriment to health. Lowering stress is a commonly stated  motivator bringing people to meditation. There we escape into interior landscapes of calm. We have apps that guide us into internal relaxation free of stress. This is all well and good until we get out in the street and someone buried in their smart phone slams into us, spilling our chill all over our shirt.

 

While these various  forms of escapist meditation bring relief from stress, they dont address the actual problem: tension caused by stress.  We can go to a yoga retreat in Kuai, a medicinal a salt bath in Utah or a deep chakra cleansing in Oregon. Still, three days later that tenacious stress is there. Maybe we should move, get a new job or softer shoes. But, all of that is so stressful. So there’s Xanax. Xanax works, but pills are cheating. And we know they’re cheating so they’re not really working. There’s Zen. And thats better than pills, but soon that all that Zen makes us so bored we start getting stressed thinking of how to bring more stress into our life.

 

So, maybe stress gets a bad rap.  Its clear that some stress is important for us to learn and grow. And each of us respond differently to different stress points. One person is paralyzed at the thought of public speaking, while another may thrive on the opportunity. Some may love physical thrills and extreme sports while others freeze on the way up a diving board. So, maybe stress gets a harsh rap. I mean, if you didn’t value stress, even a little bit, what are you doing in New York City? Or, Baltimore? Or, anyplace in the current United States, for that matter?

 

I believe its not stress that does the harm, as much as the tension we create in relation to it. Tension is a refexive / reactive physical gripping within the body. Its like putting on imaginary breaks while sitting in the passenger seat. Things are not going as we want them to, and mistaking this as a threat, we clamp down and avoid the opportunity to work WITH the situation. Its this gripping in the body that creates discomfort and injury.

 

On the other hand when we thrive on stress its because we have learned not to fear the opportunity and we meet stress with relaxation instead of tension. Serena Williams or Aaron Rodgers navigate stress for a living. They do it through relaxation born of mind and body training. Its about training. Training the mind to see how the body feels and training the body to open to the experience. In this way, we navigate past stress by turning tension into attention by actually leaning in to the stress points.

 

This is so counter to our conditioning, which has programmed us to avoid suffering by a process of aquisitional bandaidery. We apply one “healing” modality atop the other until we are fitter, happier and healthier, pigs in a cage on antidepressants. (Appologies Mr. Yorke.) Societally, We are driven to buy, buy, buy until we are spinning so quickly, we no longer see how our life is robbed. This is stressful. So we clamp down on ourselves, stomping in a frenzied river dance trying to stop that wheel so we can breath.

 

But breath happens as we relax. And relaxation happns as we become aware. Awareness happens as we alliw ourselves the space and time to relax and tension, and pay attention to the life unfolding before us. Our life. What kind of blessing is that? Not only is stress instructional, it is elemental in creating enough tension in the body for us to wake up, release the tension, and relax into attention.

 

So, not only is stress not the problem, but even tension is not a problem if we use it as a reminder to release ourselves from its psycho/somatic imprisonment and open back into our life. It may not be as selfie-potent as that chakra cleansing in Kauai, but mindfulness training is a sustainable way to teach the body to bring itself back to balance in pressured times.

 

Waking in Depression: The Way In

Our beautiful minds are imbued with great power and vast potential. This is an exciting thought when we’re up for it.  But, it is also a thought that could enable self-judgement on days when getting out of bed is challenging and vastness seems a out of reach. We all have those days.  Energetic low pressure systems are quite natural. Perhaps they serve as a renewal and as such are a necessary part of our human rhythm.

 

However, many of us suffer from wounds, chemical imbalances or other trauma that force us to return to this renewal all too often. And this powerful state becomes a source of sad solace from a fearful world. Hence, some of us get caught there. It seems each time we pull ourselves up, we fall back again. This heartbreaking cycle keeps us locked in fear and discouragement.

 

In some ways, depression is the logical outcome of shutting ourselves down again and again. We can only close ourselves off so often that we begin to take the hint, and shut down altogether. Its a slow near death, like psychological anesthesia. A part of us must feel abandoned. And this has to make us very disappointed in our selves, our life and our circumstance. This unhappy circumstance becomes compounded when we see everyone else living a life we imagine to be more full, more vital and more important than our own. Comparative mind is a killer. Everyone seems to be living a better life than we are because we only see their facebook game face.  Our self-embarrassment causes that dissonance to widen. The fantasies we have had about who we should become have become fantasies of the great life others are leading.

 

This dissonance causes many of us to turn the anger many of us hold inside toward whatever circumstances led us to despair into ourselves. We become a tightly wound ball of anxious tension that becomes so dense, we can only sink.

 

Depression is a common and even reasonable reaction to living a life on  everyone elses terms. The root of depression may not actually be fear, but the anger we feel from shortchanging our lives because of that fear. Trying to get away from pain, we actually cause more pain. By trying so hard to be good, we end up living a false life. We have been duped by a cosmic shell game bartering reality for an anxiety dream. We cling to external things to help us fix the mess and in so doing forget the one person who can actually help us. The only person who can help.  The one who has been there all along.  We forget ourselves. When we shunt part of us away out of embarrassment, we become cut off from our inherent power. We begin to believe there is something wrong with us, and that we should be disappointed with ourselves and embarrassed about our depression.

 

In this way, our depression becomes solid. Our confidence erodes as we feel we are losing a battle.  We fall inward and becoming so small the day itself  feels too big. From this point of view, the potential of the mind must appear dark and forboding. In reaction to this fear, we shrink our awareness in an ostrich like effort to avoid pain. But, as we are occluding awareness, our fearfulness actually begets more fear. This denial of life not only robs us of joy, it also leaves us very vulnerable to manipulation.

 

Ancient humans fought for survival, hunted and gathered food. They died easily and lived short lives. Yet those lives may have had more contentment, community and connection than ours. Perhaps being disconnected from pain we are disconnected from an essential part of ourselves. We relagate pain into the darkness and take refuge in the light. We take solace in being right, even as a part of us suspects the opposite.

 

Our lives move more and more quickly these days. However, the nature we come from, is very slow.  The earth moves at its own pace, in its own way. The same with the heart. The faster we move the less we are able to feel the earth beneath us. And this has to threaten a more ancient part of ourselves, a deeper and intuitive part of ourselves. Whether we are aware or not, this spiritual dissonance causes an internal friction. On one hand, we feel we should be doing so much more. On the other, we’re already working too hard. Caught in this zero-sum vice, our heart, art, compassion and the life part of living have become lost. Placing our hearts on hold, we barter creativity for security causing ourseves and others great pain.

 

This reduction of our life dampens something inside. We can choose to be mute only so long before we forget how to sing. We can stay hobbled only so long before we forget how to dance. We can shut down life only so often, before we lose our will to live. We have told ourselves no so often, we simply shut down in response. So we retreat in fear, collapse inward and, wrapped in the fabric of time and space, hide ourselves from ourselves by becoming consumed in ourselves.

 

Man, it’s actually quite brilliant.

 

Crushed beneath the weight of “me” our mind begins to compile a ledger of all the things left wanting, undone and unfulfilled in our life. Our life force turns inward and the mind turns vicious. The power and potential of our mind is turned against the only foe it feels it can defeat: itself.

 

But, there is a way out. And the way out begins with the way in. By sitting IN our pain, we can become comfortable enough with suffering to find the space within. There is always space. But, in our fear we cling to the familiar and play the same song with such volume we drown all alternatives. However, by training the mind to stay, simply stay, and hold space for our experience, we find we can sit with greater and greater challenges. Eventually, we find a profound stillness. It is within that stillness that we begin to see in the dark. In fact, we become so familiar with the terrain of turmoil, that we learn to walk in the dark. At some point, we may even learn to dance in the darkness finding grace in our simple tenacity.

 

You see, it will eventually occur to our wounded mind, that we are sill here. One we’ve abandoned hope and surrendered to the great despair, we see that being with ourselves is all we have. Ground zero. Right here, right now, just so.

 

Meditation practice will not cure depression. Nor should it. But, a consistent daily practice will strengthen the mind, giving us the bravery to enter the dark, the resilience to remain with ourselves and the wisdom to find the love we need.

 

The love we need.

 

The love we have been looking for all along. The love that no one else can give. The love we learn to give ourselves by simply being here. There is something supremely powerful about beginning to feel lovingkindness for our incomplete life, bruised heart and tattered mind.  We can do this without turning the lights on, forcing a smile or turning the volume down. We can do this simply by being here, and not changing a thing. We can forgo trying to be good and simply be human. And humans suffer. When we connect to our suffering, we are connected to all of life, for all of life experiences suffering.

 

When we find love in the depths of despair, we find an Unconditional Love that compares nothing and accepts everything. Then we have a gift forged in the flames that no one can take from us. Our gift of unconditional love.

 

In the Shambhala teachings we say that practicing lovingkindness is to “place the mind of fearfullness in the cradle of loving kindness.” Learning to open the heart to the sadness of our spirit and finding the strength to hold space for our pain is a profound statement. And that profound statement is an acknowledgement of life itself.

 

Learning to hold ourselves with open arms, reduce the harm and find a connection to all beings is the way of the Bodhisattva.  In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition a Bodhisattva is one who has vowed to forstall their own salvation until all beings are free of suffering. They have vowed to venture into hell to liberate all beings.  We can find strength in this. There have been such people. And there are such people. Those willing to face the darkness and stay there until they get it. And then, be willing to look outward and bring that strength to the world. That is the way out. Benefit for the world. And, if not the whole world, then our world, 0r community. Someone else. Benefit to others is the best way to value yourself.

 

And, it is the way out that comes from finding the way in.

 

 

——————

It is a common for us to reduce our options down to a manageable snippet of the possible. A favorite hidey hole for many is to ignore life’s potential in lieu of problems we feel need to be fixed. The problem is problems tend to birth problems until our identity is fixed on fixing things. Our attention becomes focused in tighter and tighter loops and our life reduces into simple iterations of routine.

 

In this spiral life we have locked our great human potential away in a junk drawer of to do lists and mundane messiness. This sad existential sleepwalk holds us in lock step. Imagine the power of the universe locked in our laundry closet. At some point something either breaks out or breaks down. But who has time to break down these days?  So we soldier on, ignoring the gnawing until we collapse.

 

 

America Awake

2015-08-27 17.42.31There was another mass killing. Which one was that? The terrorist? The Muslim who sympathized? The Syrian who was left out? The Kid in the night club? The white kid in the theater, or the best friends at school?  Its getting so hard to keep count. Kids killing kids, cops killing kids, cops being killed, improvised explosives and suicide vests changing the face of public gathering. The world is erupting.  And with it, the cry to have more guns, and more war and more punishment. As though adding to the problem will somehow solve the problem.

 

But with all the pain, there feels like hope in the cracks of our chaos. With more pain there is, perhaps, more awareness.  There is more here, in front of us, to see and to understand.

 

This is a great time to be alive. Yes.  Not instead of the pain or despite the pain, but entirely because of the pain. Its a blessing that we are here to help and to repair and to work to bring this world back into harmony with the earth that has nurtured us. Its a blessing here in New York City to be among the fortunate, the privileged, the few who have the honor to make a difference. It is our great honor to serve. And it is great to give back. You see, we become weakened as we grab for more. We falter as we turn away.  We fail as we try to win, and win at all cost. There is no wining that does not win for all of us. There is no sanctity except in the grace of living in a world that we support, and are supported by.  And because of this, it is a great time to be awake.

 

The destination is now, and the time is here. We can make a difference, slowly and surely in our lives and now – more than ever in history – even small differences will be heard around the world.

 

America Awake is a call to (open) arms. Awake is a revolution whose symbol is not a raised fist, but an open hand. It is a philosophy of understanding. And, rather than re-knowing what we already know, reiterating what we’ve been told, retelling the obvious and restating that which was written in stone, in an age of stone, we can emerge into a new dawn, and simply have the courage to say . . .  heck if I know. Lets start fresh.

 

How can I help?

 

What is happening now? And, how can I better understand the needs of my sisters, and the truth of my brothers, and the pain of a rainbow of every shade in between?

 

I pledge allegiance to the moment. And equipped with the immense power of wakefulness, vow to listen to the differences and to heal all damage. I pledge to cause harm to no one and bring the world together in a time of darkness.  I pledge to never outrun my fear, but to open my heart to the transformative possibility of my pain.

 

Is that utterly ridiculous?  I suppose so. Its certainly naive and simplistic. And, how cool is that?

 

 

 

 

The Right 2 Bare Arms

– More bombing. More killing. More terror.

 

So many of us want to do something / anything in reaction to the horror of the Orlando killings. Some are calling to institute a ban on “Muslim” immigration. Others for outright attack upon other nations, their people or spiritual beliefs. There are 2 ministers quoted as saying the LGBT community got what it deserved. That’s the one that got me. So, yeah, now I’m blaming as well. Anyway you turn there is another convenient object of aggression. Its an age-worn ruse to blame an “other” in order to rouse our own confidence. But that confidence is no confidence at all. It is cheap and lazy ego pacification. We feel uncomfortable, because we are frightened. But, its easier to rush to anger than feel fear. Its a way of not staying with the discomfort long enough to learn what should be done.

 

People are concerned about their safety. And, while there are certainly threats abroad, we are vulnerable at home due to the proliferation of weaponry in our own closets. Most domestic acts of terror in our schools, homes, churches and clinics have been committed by American citizens, each fighting their own subjective wars. The LGBT community has been the target of much domestic aggression. In this most recent instance, by a troubled young man, born and living in America, who had frequented the club as a customer. He was described as suffering from mental illness, but somehow was able to buy 2 assault rifles as well as hand guns.  He was influenced and inspired by radical Islamic Jihadism, yes. But, he lived here. He armed himself – legally – here.  So, why not look to ourselves here? What culture has the kind of SELF-INFLICTED rampant violence now common to the home of the brave? If we are so brave why do we cow to the Gun lobby, the NRA and other agents of self interest? Why not be brave enough to clean our own home first? BAN ASSAULT RIFLES. Loosen the gun lobby’s political hegemony. Reassess the 2nd amendment in order to reaffirm its original intent: to protect – not destroy – the populace.

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It was well into the 19th century, when the USA became one of the last countries of the first world to abolish slavery.  While this was partly due to ingrained racism against these newly forced migrants, it had more to do with economic – and hence political – necessity. It took censure and sanctions from world leaders, and finally military strength from its own government, to pry America lose from reliance on slavery.

 

And, Americans killed Americans then. And, when the dust settled, the world had not conquered us. We had not succumbed to adventitious aggression from abroad. We  actually became stronger, as we loosened our reliance on unfair, unethical and vicious economic practices and moved into accordance with civilized views.

 

Presently, we are held hostage by the economic strength and powerful political lobbies of the gun industry and its political allies. We are afraid to rock a boat that is nonetheless  becoming  obsolete.  From the inception of our nation, elected officials have inspired the populace with great vision, while having to navigate power brokers that influenced currents below. This is no conspiracy theory. Its part of the power dynamic that has made this country very strong. But, it is the nature of power to protect itself.  At some point, people being protected are in danger of that which protects them. The entrenched influence of the nation’s pillar institutions, while not generally the theme of political speeches, cannot be discounted. We can ignore this power, as we debate “issues”, we can work around the power, or we can try and expose the power, and weaken it. But in the end, we will always render unto Caesar, what is Caesar’s. We will pay for allegiances to past beliefs with our own health and our children’s future.

 

Until things change.  As they always do.

 

As in the time of slavery, the sadly drudging movement of change has pitted us against the moral development of the modern world. Few, if any, of the 1st -or even 2nd – world nations live in the amount of fear from their own citizens as we do, in the land of the free. As a populace, we are so strangely ensconced within ourselves, that we do not see the incredulity with which most of the world has to the murders, violence and self-destruction within our society.

 

Practitioners of Buddhism, meditation or pacifism are accused of taking an unrealistically “peaceful” approach. But, peace is not unrealistic. Violence is unrealistic and unsustainable. Violence keeps things locked in tight circles of self-affliction. Love and release bring us closer to the truth. So, I don’t want to demonize the gun lobby, or create another enemy. There are many fine people who oppose gun restrictions for various reasons. What is essential, is that Americans begin to see the world as other’s see it. I hope for my clan is that we don’t buy in to the easy answers and find strength in hatred but, that we open our minds to working with what is.

 

But, to be honest, we cannot expect the nation to follow dictates which we ourselves ignore. Where are we creating wars simply because we don’t see a way to peace? Where have we become hostages to our own defenses? Where have we silently acquiesced to the succession of aggression handed down from mother to son to father to daughter? Where are afraid to stand up and actually see the situations that bind us, and in an inviolable act of love, release ourselves from that suffering? We do this by seeing. By standing up and seeing that perhaps we have become our own enemy.

 

Maybe its not what our country is doing to us, but what we have done to our country. And, without shame, or further aggression, maybe we can ask what can we change in ourselves to create peace in our world.  Maybe our rights are less important than our safety, and the respect of our society.  Maybe rather than bear arms we can promote our right to bare arms. To live freely in a feee society without guns, weaponry or defensive posture. Perhaps our bare arms can hold each other in the strength of love. Standing naked in truth, rather than draped in an ideology that lies on the surface of, and ultimately in the service of, big  money and political influence.

Wake Up and Relax


Meditation is a practice that allows us gain agency in our lives. We are training to settle our mind in order to wake up into our life. As the mind is more attentive when relaxed, training to cultivate a relaxed attention allows us to more fully contact our life. We sit in a singular connection to the moment, grounded in the security of earth. From that base, the spine can rise to heaven, allowing the mind to open into the vast sky of awake.

 

We rise up to settle down. We wake up in order to rest in the moment. These seeming polarities describe what are actually complementary components of the practice. The Taoist Tradition refers to the “Yin” of relaxing into the receptive earth and the “Yang” of rising to heaven in attention.  It is stated in the iChing that the alignment of the spine to the center of the earth allows us to reconnect to a universal sense of humanity. The Tao Te Ching posits that disconnection from the earth leaves us wandering as ghosts, blown by the vicissitudes of desire and past actions.  At the center of the earth, humanity is connected, clear and complete. On the surface, we perceive difference, distance and disparity.

 

In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition meditation is considered a yogic practice. The posture is an asana with the main stretch being the upright spine. Imagine the tailbone as an ancient arrowhead pointed directly down, weighted deep into the earth. Its alignment is plum, neither sticking back nor curling forward. Then feel the spine resting on that base and reaching straight through the body, through the top of the head, describing a line infinitely into the heavens above.  Relax upward into that stretch, as though a string was pulling you up, stretching the spine. This is the “Yang” alignment, a vertical stretch joining heaven with earth. It is awake, and tells the lower mind it may relax now, because someone is in charge. Our higher power is engaged and we are awake at the wheel of life. In just two minutes, it is said, our brain chemistry begins to change. We are, in effect, exchanging cortisol for confidence.

 

With that vertical stretch, the body’s organs and systems gently fall to the pull of gravity and relax into their anonymous work. Contrary to our conditioned thinking, it is actually more restful for the body to to sit upright allowing interior room, than to slump downward, constricting space and creating stress on the internal organs.

 

Now, without compromising the vertical stretch, allow the body to relax down and open. The “Ying” alignment is a continued opening and relaxing of the body. While the upright Yang posture aids wakeful attention, its attendant downward relaxation allows the mind to fall into the body and synchronize with the moment to moment beating of life. This horizontal opening awakens the mind’s receptive potential, as it opens out into a community of awareness.

 

In the practice of mindfulness awareness – or, as I call it, Mindful Awareness we develop a synchronicity to the parts. We combine the solar and lunar experience into a fluid synchronized dance of resting in the moment as we open to the experience. The Yang alignment develops mindfulness by rising to a specific detail of our living experience. It’s counterpoint, the Ying alignment, relaxes into acceptance and expands into an awareness of the environment. Yang establishes form and definition, while Yin accesses space and context.

 

The breathing binds these two components. With the breath we rise up and relax down. We gather in, and expand out. We take in nutrients and release toxins. We gather in the world, and then let go back into it. We bring the mind back to the breath again and again until the mind settles into a peaceful and stable connection to the present, joining heaven and earth.

 

As with any meditation practice the primary point is the effect on our life. With the posture alone, we are learning to wake up into relaxation, and to relax down into attention. We reduce stress and gain greater ability to rest in the present. SO, counter to our conditioning, we actually gain more focus in life not by focusing, or learning to tighten the mind in concentration, but by opening to our experience we can relax into resting in that experience for longer and longer periods of time. And, we always have the body, and its proper alignments – up and down – to bring us back to wholeness and balance.

 

And, as a tool the breath is perfect for balancing the yang and yin. For one thing, it is always there. It is reliably in the present. For another, it is lifting us up and relaxing us down into synchronicity with the moments of life. So, we can use this tool, anywhere as long as we remain alive. We can simply breath and with Mindful Awareness training, come to bring the mind and body back into balance by breathing into the tension, relaxing the breath into the body. The alignments will occur naturally releasing tension, and the stress of the stored tension, and breathe in nutrients to lift our mood and relax our mind.

 

In this way, we bring meditation to life. Training in body and mind awareness, so that we remain in balance with life.