WAKING UP TO POSSIBILITY.
Meditation Master Ch
ogyam Trungpa would frequently begin talks by saying “Good Morning,” regardless of the time of day, or night. It was not about time. It was about the idea of a fresh start, or clean slate. It was about saying YES to our morning in any state of mind. In the Buddhist Lineage of Shambhala, “the rising sun of the great east” is a central metaphor for waking up. Its not necessarily directionally east, but the idea of contacting the sun in all the freshness of its new ascent.
We can do this at any juncture of our lives, in the gaps and breaks and places that open to empty space. For in the empty spaces we find platforms for a new beginning. Empty space sets the sacred stage of creative impulse.
The midday sun is grand, and the setting sun sad and beautiful, but the waking sun has yet to determine itself. Open to possibility, it is the fresh start on a spontaneous journey into our day. When we practice allegiance to waking, we are employing Warrior Principle. The pledge of the warrior is to open to life, seeing each moment as another opportunity to rise to its challenges and rewards. The warrior has the bravery to sit up, wake up and choose to open up to life in each moment.
Conversely, we can choose to abdicate our seat of warriorship, closing our hearts to the pain that accompanies growth. In so doing, we fall into somnambulent patterns of indolence, slinking from our bed each morning already ensconced in stories of defeat.
Think about it.
What you think determines your day. And, each day determines your life. At the least, thinking ourselves into tragic patterns and toxic psychologies is clouding the possibilities. We’re protecting ourselves from our life by using stories we don’t even like. Its similar to when we can’t sleep and click mindlessly on bait at the bottom of the computer screen. We actually have no interest in any of this, yet there is a compulsion to not sleep, not work, not live, and not choose to rest in ourselves as we surf this strange hypnogogic wave of a half-life. We drift over Brad and Angie, find out who’s gaining weight, who looked better then, who’s mad at whom now, eight steps to looking younger, why dermatologists hate her and one weird trick that is driving doctor’s crazy. All the while we’re adding more junk to our mind and more clouds to the inherently clear skies of our base operating system.
But like the first dawn, our base system IS inherently pure. There is a space in the mind free of doubt, confusion and turmoil. We can access that space in every moment. But, in order to do so, we can train the mind to rest in the present with meditation practice. That open space is accessed through the application of mindfulness. GENTLE mindfulness.
THE GENTLE PRECISION OF MINDFULNESS
Mindfulness has many applications. Generally, speaking it is the part of the mind that holds to an object. For instance, when we look at something of interest, mindfulness holds it in our short term memory long enough to know what is. If we hold the mind a bit longer we’ll begin to know what it means. If we instigate an inquisitiveness to the process, the mind can open to it and even rest there in order to synchronize with the object. In mindfulness meditation we endeavor to rest the mind on an object suitable to quieting and opening the mind. We rest the mind on the object, and beginning to glean information, we rest further, until we achieve a temporary union with the object. So, while we may begin by holding the object, in meditation we gradually let go into the experience until we become one with the object.
Interestingly, this is the same process as grasping or clinging that seem to have negative effects on overall understanding. You see, if we grasp the object, we only see what it means to ‘me’. Meditation assumes a certain quietude of mind. If we are triggered emotionally and unaware of the feelings inside, we can have a physical reaction to the object of our inquiry. We actually grasp the object – or more accurately, grasp the IDEA of the object – and either thrust it away, cling to it, or struggle against it. In any case, we become desynchronized from the flow of the moment and less inclined to see the object accurately, or understand the moment. When we grasp and cling, we throw the mind off its natural flow and this creates an inner tension. When we grasp further, we actually fixate and lose any objectivity. The tension is no longer just psychological at this point, but unleashed into the environment, creates friction in our life. Fixation does no service to either you or the object of inquiry. In order to correct that, we often eschew the object. We leave the investigation because it has created a compulsion and fixation and drift away in distraction.
Thus, we play the game of fix and drift. We fix to things too tightly and as the tension in our body, mind and life reaches a critical pressure we repel from them into distraction. In this way, we work too hard to not work hard enough. Influenced by this strategy, our life supports these vicious mental cul de sacs.
The practice of meditation allows us to relax the process and unwind the ever tightening reasonings of the mind. The work of a meditator is to simply hold the mind on an object without the extremes of fixation, or distraction. But, should we employ gentleness and receptivity to the process, we are opening to the object, rather than holding to it. We drift off, but there is no where to go. So the mind comes back, again and again until it settles into its body, sense and feelings. When we are relaxed in body, mind and spirit, we can actually rest the mind in place. This is so much more effective than an assertive application of mindfulness, which militaristically holds the mind in place and lies dangerously close to the aggression of clinging and fixation.
In most traditions, a neutral object is selected specifically to diminish potential psychological investment and its attendant grasping and fixation. Like many, I use the breath as the object of meditation, as it is reliably neutral, boring and mundane. Ironically, our breath is one of the most intimate, amazing and important functions in our life. While simple breathing may seem boring to a mind conditioned to keep us off balance by searching for and acquisitioning objects it finds provoking, deep attention to the breath ultimately frees the natural flow of the mind.
In order to find this deep synchronicity, the mind must settle. The body is a perfect tool for this. The FELT connection to the body connects us to the earth. As we FEEL our way in to a somatic experience of the breathing, we calm the frightened animal mind and are able to rest into our body, and through the breath, into a direct experience of the present.
AWAKENING NATURAL MIND
Meditation with the breath simultaneously bores the clinging mind into letting go as it simultaneously awakens the natural mind simply resting in its present experience. But, as our conditioned mind is prone to grasping and distraction, awakening runs counter to our conditioning. Each time we forget, become startled or otherwise interrupt the practice there is a subtle panic that urges us back into thinking, and desynchronization. To many, meditation practice is the arduous retraining of the mind to pay attention without distraction or its needy twin, fixation. Its like going to school. This is why many of us have resistance to the practice and yearn to skip out for a cigarette, imagine our lunch tray, or fantasize about of the cute person at the next desk.
But, when we relax the process entirely and simply learn to gently rest the mind on the object. But, to rest AND wake up which is to say rest and open. We rest the mind in order to open the mind and see. At this stage, we stop looking and begin to see, we hear rather than listen and feel more than touch. We are training the mind toward a passive RECEPTIVENESS. We are not invading space, occupying space or containing space, but rather allowing ourselves to open into space.
In this way, we are learning to contact possibility devoid of preconceptions. Rather than map out the possible, and follow maps we’ve repeatedly followed into the same cul de sacs in the past, we can simply rest, open and see. Or, you might say, rest, open and receive. And, then instead of clinging to the information, we can train the mind learn to release into the experience.
Rest. Open. Receive. Release.
THE EMPTY SPACE OF CREATION
So, if we turn our mind to its inherent purity and, looking too hard, try and grasp at it, we lose the point entirely. Instead, we might open gently to the space in our mind and simply see without expectation, words, judgements or concerns. We are training the mind away from its addiction to form and beginning to become comfortable in open space.
This takes some effort, as the traverse through open space is a bit unsettling to the more defensive parts of our mind. The defensive nature will clamp the process closed halt the process. Therefore it is important not to trigger ourselves as we enter into the sacred space of nowness. Thus we move gently without expectation, out of our mind and into our experience. Its like a game of operation. remember that one?
The idea is to move slowly – receptively – without triggering our reptilian defenses. Paying attention. So, rather than investigation, we are more inquisitive and open. There is some inherent risk here, however, as we are opening to possibility and not prejudicing that experience with what is familiar or safe.
In order for the mind to fashion a new pattern, or just create a new synaptic connection, it has to move through the open space of the mind. In this open space of creativity, there are no reference points. Nothing that leads back to YOU or ME. There is no you or me. It seems, well, empty. Openness IS emptiness. It is experience devoid of reference point, framework, or content – at least until that content happens. It takes a great deal of the aforementioned stability to enter this space undisturbed. But, if we can do this, we open into a pure space of potential, where we can spontaneously respond to our world without conditioned programing. Rather than scripting our experience, we are co-creating.
YES AND… AWAKE!
Among other things, I am trained as an improvisational actor. One of my current aspirations is to work with actors and creative artists who yearn to experience the taffy pull of pristine awakening into the creative moment. I am particularly interested in the confluence of improvisation and meditation, where the conjoining experience is the spontaneous expression of the present. This is the essence of creativity. Like the birth of the universe. Pure creative improvisation. First there is nothing and from that, everything possible occurs.
In improv, if you fail to pay attention the scene breaks down. Conversely, if you try and script the experience the scene can become lifeless. So there is an implicit connection to heaven and earth. We have enough structure to stabilize our experience, and enough possibility to allow it to go anywhere. The key lies in the oft quoted maxim “YES, AND….” We clear the space of the detritus of past experience. Then we release the narrowed vision of expectation and open into the moment, as it is. We wipe the sacrificial ground clean, sacrifice intention and then open into the natural flow of the moment. We learn to partner with whatever circumstances are naturally taking place. If someone says, “Good morning, Doctor”, as you enter the stage, the scene will fail as soon as you say “I’m not the doctor.” However, if you say “Yes! Good morning, nurse” then you’ve fully accepted the offering AND created a step towards the next sequence. An audience feels this is natural and flows according to some “plan”. But that plan is no plan, but simply employing the idea that if we open to our moment without trying to control it, we can step through the curtains and come into deep synchronicity with the present.
In his Dharma Art lectures, Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche called the empty space which precedes a creative impulse, square one. It was a space of purity devoid of preconception, akin to the Peter Brook’s evocation of the “Empty Space” on the black box stage. Both are akin to the original space of theater as a primordial human sacrificial art. Sacrificing the ego, and its ambitions, in order to gently rest in the present and be of service to the moment. The idea is that when we clear out all preconceptions, we create a space of potential and possibility that allows an open and spontaneous interplay with reality.
Yes, and …
In this way, each moment can be an opportunity to tune into the receptive nature of the mind, and open in to our experience, authentically. We can simply BE and just ALLOW reality to partner with us, to co-create our experience.
Morning is a metaphor we use in meditation training to conjure the purity of our essential natural mind. But we can wake up to a new morning at any point in our day. And we can wake up to a new day, at any point in our lives. In fact, we can do so in EVERY point in our lives.