Mindfulness is not just smelling the roses

October 28, 2011

Mindful Reflection Tip #4

Being attentive to the present moment has its own rewards, but it’s also part of a long-term strategy.

Mindfulness is being aware of everything as it happens, but that’s not as complicated as it sounds. Everything means what you see, hear, feel, taste, smell or think — no more, no less. The Buddha suggested that as you pay attention to any of these things you consider the following Three Marks of Existence:

1) They all pass because they’re composed of things that eventually fall apart. Watch them pass. Example: someone (perhaps you) did something wrong; be aware of guilt, blame, frustration, etc; see how the feeling arises from conditions that trigger your habitual reaction (stimulus-response).

2) Nothing that’s composed of parts can deliver permanent satisfaction. See its unreliability. Example: the next time you feel the same way, see how even though your habitual response doesn’t actually help, you keep trying; see the vicious circle of stimulus and response.

3) None of this experience is you; it’s just something that happens. Experience it and let it go. Example: when you choose to see your feelings as passing events that won’t last, and that you can’t rely on, it’s easier to let them go; keep practicing this new skill.

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Reflecting Reality

October 6, 2011

Mindful Reflection Tip #3

The meditative lifestyle isn’t just about the inner life; it’s also about reconnecting to the outer world: not just mindfulness but also reflection.

A few days ago Caroline and I were enjoying the warm sun of a late summer afternoon when she closed her eyes for a few moments to settle her mind. As they opened again she gasped quietly and whispered to me to turn my head. There in our backyard stood a magnificent heron — ramrod-straight and oozing untamed dignity.

Speaking of untamed, our garden is quite unlike our neighbors’ manicured patches. By late summer it teems with overgrown life; perhaps the heron deemed it some wild oasis in the monotonous suburbanscape.

Whatever its motives, it graced our afternoon. Its head turned to one side with an indifferent eye on us, the bird shocked the familiar from our eyes, returning us to the reality of where and how we lived: in a world that is not ours. For all our mastery of nature, our technological progress and environmental destruction, we’re just visitors with a brief lease on life, of no particular significance. Even our environmentalist instincts set us apart from nature for, let’s be honest, deep down we’re designed to care more about humanity than the planet.

Since childhood I’ve been urged to consider my mortality daily, the better to keep life and perspectives in order. With aging it grows easier to do, and harder to ignore. This brief meeting had a similar effect, bringing the ticking of life’s unstoppable clock to the fore and pushing my daily worries back to the farthest reaches of triviality.

Perhaps this is why we seek out intimate contact with nature. To feel once more naked, free and unbearably vulnerable — eventually to be recycled, though not just yet.

 

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Motivation

September 14, 2011

Mindful Reflection Tip #2

As you settle into your meditation seat, ask yourself why you’re there. It may seem obvious but, like everything else about the mind, motivation shifts constantly and subtly, so check it out. Depending on how you’re feeling right now, you may be trying to prove one thing, escape another or to just drift into a familiar pattern and zone out.

The point of meditation is to understand the mind and how it works, and the point of Mindful Reflection is to bring that understanding to all of life, not just cushion time.

Mahayana Buddhists make much of dedications (left): declaring that the merit of their actions will contribute to the awakening of all beings. Trouble is, dedications tend to take on a prayer-like flavor that quickly turns into rote. You can be mouthing the most wonderful expressions of love and universal compassion, but if your mind’s not there … well, it’s just not there, is it?

So instead of trying to turn your meditation into what you think it should be, ask yourself with all the naked honesty you can muster why you’re there at that particular moment in your life. What do you want? If you find your motivation’s flimsy or lacking in any way, you’ll see it right away and pull yourself together.

In what way? You don’t need me to tell you that. Just pay attention; you’ll know what to do.

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Preparation

September 12, 2011

Mindful Reflection Tip #1

The state of mind you’re in when you begin meditating — whether it’s for two minutes or an hour – establishes the quality of that time spent. My teachers emphasized the importance of preparation so much that they often spent more time on that than on the ‘actual’ meditation. This entailed sweeping the room, dusting and arranging the seat, setting up props (candle, incense, statues, chime) and settling themselves down comfortably.

We usually disdain household tasks like this. When you consider them a waste of time and hurry you end up with a huffy and dissatisfied state of mind. “I should be meditating, dammit!”

The point of meditation is to understand the mind and how it works. It doesn’t matter whether you’re sitting like a perfect Buddha or down on your hands and knees reaching for a cobweb; what matters is clarity and focus. Take the time to wash and brush your teeth as well as to prepare the room. Anticipating what you’re preparing for turns those activities into meditations in their own right.

Cultivating this attitude also has profound long-term benefits: when you’re scattered, angry or anxious, meditation is a very distant option; you can’t just turn on sustained mindfulness. Being able to deal with strong emotions in a real-life situation depends on the way you’ve prepared your mind in advance. Watching your breath doesn’t directly help calm emotions, but it does strengthen your meditative core, enabling you to withstand the onslaught of unexpected feelings when they actually arise.

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The Root of Stress

July 16, 2011

Weighed DownWe talk about stress as if it’s something “out there,” that hits us against our will. Science tells us, quite to the contrary, that it’s our reaction, a particular way we respond to certain people or events.

These people and events are things we judge negatively, so the step that leads to stress is judgment. That too isn’t objectively “out there.” A person you judge to be stressful, for example, may well be a source of comfort to his or her family.

Judgment is part of our natural defense systems. Our ancient ancestors scanned the savannahs on the lookout for danger, ready to trigger the stress response and the exceptional power of fight or flight.

Today, judgment in the safety of our secure lifestyles is often overused. We make judgments — now called “opinions” — about all sorts of things that aren’t the least bit threatening, and about things of which we know little. We judge certain politicians or celebrities to be good or bad without really knowing them or their true motivations. These are snap judgments.

The collection of snap judgments grows over the years. In our discussions with others of similar or different opinions, we form the alliances and animosities that characterize us. It becomes difficult to change opinion without good reason, else we confuse ourselves and others. Holding to these opinions becomes a matter of integrity and self-identification. It becomes who we are.

It makes no difference whether those opinions are good or bad, right or wrong, trivial or monumental, necessary or not; holding on to each one of them is holding on to a bit of stress. The point of the reflective lifestyle — what Socrates suggested to “know yourself” — is to see these opinions for what they are, with the practice of Mindful Reflection™.

What you see is invariably a good deal of baggage and dead weight. Those opinions are not who you are; just something you hold on to. This realization prompts you to want to let go, but that’s not so easy. It emerges that all that baggage is now an integral part of your stress response system. A family member has to say just the right word, or raise just an eyebrow to set in motion a chain of events that lands you with your foot in your mouth before you’ve even noticed your judgment and reaction.

Getting to the root of stress, then, is not just an intellectual exercise. Nor is it just a matter of honest reflection, although that’s certainly where it begins. You must go deeper to uproot the habits of a lifetime. Letting go is a matter of practice, trial and error, and patience. It all begins with turning your attention inwards and watching your mind at work. Once you’ve identified your own personal patterns of stress, then you can start building counter habits and dismantling costly stress patterns.

The alternative? Letting these stress patterns grow ever more deeply ingrained, leading to less and less self-restraint and a cranky old-age.

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