Being Kind to Ourselves Is Not Selfish

"The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism but to study ourselves." - Shunryu Suzuki, author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

Meditation is the practice of creating time and space to quietly listen in. Sensing in to our breath and other sensations that arise and fall away, as do all phenomena, we open to the possibility of insight. If we pair our intention to be present with the intention to be compassionate with ourselves as we proceed, then we create a safe way to explore ourselves and the world.

We may feel some resistance to this idea of studying ourselves, just as we do to sending loving kindness to ourselves. It is likely we have been raised to focus on the outer world and to ignore and control emotions, thoughts and physical sensations. This is meant to counter self-indulgence and self-devotion. The practice of Buddhist meditation and psychology is not meant to create a narcissistic cult within us. We begin where we are with our practice, and where we are is entrenched in the seemingly permanent situation of being embodied in a particular form, having a particular series of patterns of thoughts and emotions that we believe define us. So this is what we notice. This is what we study. We develop the ability to hold our inner experience in loving awareness.

If we skip this step, whatever focus we have on the outer world will be tight, rooted in the complex patterns of fear and ignorance we harbor. We leap to the defense of this set of patterns because we believe it is who we are, and we desperately do not want to disappear!  In this fortified, calcified state we will offer up with the best intentions what we think the world wants and needs from us. We will not understand why when we are doing the best we can, these efforts are so misunderstood or poorly received. We will then blame ourselves or blame the world, causing the complex patterns to get tighter, denser and more toxic. We may seek oblivion to blind us to these patterns in the form of overindulgence in alcohol, drugs, shopping, gambling, overeating and other temporary distractions that do blind us, but also bind us even tighter to the patterns we are trying to escape. We’ve all tried at least some unskillful means of escape and have found them to be lacking. This is why so many people come to Buddhist practice after exhausting all other avenues. They come to the wisdom of ‘no escape.’

In our practice we begin where we are: Here, in this body, in this mind. We set our intention to be present and kind. That’s all. When we do this, there is a quite natural unraveling of the knot of patterns that have stymied us in our attempts to satisfy our idea of how we should be in the world. (Expectation stops the process, so notice and release impatience for a faster pace or greater rate of return on time invested. Let go of comparing mind. Just set the intentions again and again.)

Over time - days, weeks, months, lifetimes -- we may notice that we are increasingly able to be in the world with a sense of being fully present, feeling, at least at times, true and universal loving kindness, a connected sense of compassion and much more. As this happens, we see that our practice has not been selfish at all. We practice on ourselves first. We are clearing the way for full engagement in the world.

In recent weeks we have been focusing on metta (loving-kindness) practice. Buddhism provides phrases for sending loving-kindness, as we have discussed previously. We begin with sending metta to ourselves, for the reasons I’ve just given. For a helpful mental aid to remind ourselves why we do this, remember that the airlines direct us to put the oxygen mask on ourselves before we put it on our children. What use will we be to our children, or anyone, if we have passed out?

If sending metta to ourselves still feels too difficult, here is an additional instruction I just learned at Jack Kornfield’s daylong retreat on Buddhist Psychology:

Send metta to first one then another person in your life for whom you have unqualified affection, for whom you want all the best. Really spend some time with the feelings that sending this metta brings up for you. Notice the physical effects, the emotional tone, the way you hold these thoughts.
Then imagine these two people sending metta to you. You can draw on moments when they have exhibited loving kindness to you or have looked at you with heartfelt caring. Let yourself stay with this experience. Let yourself receive the metta.

You might try that practice and then notice how it feels in your body, how it feels in your emotions, and how it affects your thought processes. Perhaps it feels glorious. Perhaps it feels uncomfortable. Perhaps you can’t feel it or feel shut down by the process. Just notice what is present in your experience without trying to change anything.

Perhaps you can’t imagine two people who care about you. If so, then you might imagine being in the center of a circle of Buddhist monks with a lifetime of practice sending metta and seeing the Buddha nature in all beings. Imagine them all focused on sending metta to you.

Jack told us about his experience of meeting the Dalai Lama, how no matter how many people are waiting in line to meet him, he takes the time to look deeply in your eyes, holding your hand in both of his, until there is a deep connection, acknowledgement and understanding. So imagine the Dalai Lama sending you loving kindness! (He is doing so every day in any case, when he sends lovingkindness out to all beings!)

One of the students in my Thursday class said that ten years ago she was embraced by Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi is known throughout the world as Amma, or Mother, for her selfless love and compassion toward all beings.) and had that same sense of being held until some deep connection and release was felt. We discussed that feeling of total acceptance, so different from our usual sense of striving to be liked, loved, respected or admired. The nature of loving-kindness is universal, all-encompassing.

No matter what you have done, no matter what a mess you have made of your life, you can receive loving kindness. If you have done terrible things, allowing metta into your heart will give you the courage (from coeur, French for heart) to ask forgiveness and to make amends. If it’s useful, imagine metta as warm flowing liquid dissolving the granules of anger and resentment that have been keeping you from allowing yourself to forgive those you blame for past or current conditions, that keep you from forgiving yourself.

Our practice is to notice as much as we can about our present experience and to be as kind as we are able toward ourselves and others. That’s it. We don’t have to turn ourselves inside out. Whatever changes happen arise simply out of our practice. When a shift happens, it is from tight and fearful to open and loving. But we don’t force it. We don’t demand it. We don’t beat ourselves over the head until we are the ‘right’ way.

Our practice is to notice the arising and falling away of phenomena, including our thoughts, emotions and sensations. Our practice is to be kind to ourselves and others to whatever degree we are able. Sending metta activates our ability to feel deeply connected with all beings. From that sense of deep connection, we naturally become more compassionate.

Why do we procrastinate?

Noticing the word 'should' when it shows up in our thoughts gives us creative opportunity for exploration. We hear the ‘should’ when we say it and we can pause to play with it. Yes, play!

So, for example, we notice ourselves saying, “I should do (fill in the blank). Ah, ‘should!’” Here we can recognize an opportunity to discover some inner resistance or ambivalence around the thing we feel we ‘should’ do. Noticing the should gives us the chance to sense into that ambivalence and resistance to discover what other thoughts or emotions are present. We might say, ‘Hmm, for some reason I have ambivalence or resistance to doing this thing since I am using the word ‘should’ around it rather than just saying I’m going to do it. What is my ambivalence? What is my resistance?’ This can be a very rich inner dialog, as long as we remember to set the intention to be respectful, curious and compassionate in the process.

Using the ‘shoulds’ we discover as opportunities for self-exploration is more useful and creative than creating another self-scolding ‘should’ level by thinking we shouldn’t use the word ‘should!’

One friend said that she didn’t use the word ‘should’ much. But then, as the conversation continued, she noticed that she was using ‘need to’ and ‘have to’ and other substitute words for should. And then a few shoulds cropped up as well. So we laughed about that! We all use this word or some variation all the time. So it’s not about eradicating the word from our vocabulary, but about noticing it, and then using that noticing to creatively question where we are feeling resistance.

Resistance and ambivalence leads to procrastination. You can look at the areas where you most often procrastinate and find a hornet’s nest of shoulds! Is it a pile of papers on your desk? A phone call you’ve been meaning to make? A party or trip you’ve been meaning to plan? A pile of clutter you've been meaning to sort? Whatever it is, it's clearly a 'should' that makes you shudder. Why?

EXERCISE
After meditation, give yourself at least an extra ten minutes to perform this exercise if it is of interest to you. Have a journal or piece of paper handy to jot down anything that comes up that you might want to review later.
Pick an area of procrastination that feels pertinent right now, something you’ve been meaning to do but haven’t.
Just think about it in your usual way. You will have a recurring pattern of words that you use around this thing that you've been meaning to do. Simply allow it to play out.
Now notice the language you use as you think about it, just being curious and kind. (It's like trying to get a little closer to observe some very skittish little animals that will run at the first provocation. So notice but don't engage. Let them just exhibit their natural behavior.)
When you come upon a ‘should’ or similar word, pause to notice how it feels in the body.
Does anything tighten up, get closed off, get shut down?
How does this affect the inner conversation?
Does the conversation shifts energy on the pivot point of these should words?
If so, does it wind down so you just don’t want to think about it anymore? Or does it heat up in the form of anger, frustration, shame or blame?
Notice the emotions that arise.
This is an exploration. We are not trying to control it. There is no ideal outcome. There is just this noticing the habituated patterns in our thinking.
Notice hopefulness or expectation that this exercise will ‘solve the problem.’
Remind yourself to simply be present with the experience of noticing this pattern of inner conversation in order to learn more about it. This is not about trying to change it. When we are too eager to see results, our expectations sabotage the process.
Remind yourself to bring as much compassionate curiosity as possible to this exploration.
When you find yourself judging, be compassionate about that. This is also part of the pattern that you can explore.

We all have habituated inner conversations like this. I have several of them. I lurch a few steps forward on the project, then some chain reaction of inner events causes me to set it aside, sometimes for years. But even when I’ve set it aside, the 'should' is still there, running around in my head. When I pause and see what’s happening, I can choose to explore it, if it’s an appropriate time, or I can simply be present, noticing the thread of thought as it passes through and return to whatever activity I am doing with my whole attention. 


One reason we are reluctant to explore why we procrastinate is the physical discomfort we feel when the subject comes up. Noticing the physical sensations is very helpful. Notice the sensations. Notice the desire to run away from these sensations. Set the intention to simply be present with them. 


These sensations, when noticed, provide a lot of insight. The tension that arises in our body is the way we hold the past and the future. In meditation, in order to maintain a sense of being fully present, we can breathe into the area to release the tension. This also works well when we are feeling stressed in life. BUT when we are doing an inner exploration, these physical sensations of tension are valuable messengers, because they do hold information in the form of memories, hopes and fears.


We may be afraid to open this 'can of worms' or 'Pandora's Box' of memories and imaginings. In a post-meditative state we can be present with the fear as well as the images that arise. We are less threatened by them because we have developed the ability to observe threads of thoughts and emotions traveling through our open field of spacious awareness. There may be images of something painful, but if they arise they are here to answer a question only, not to cause more pain. After meditation we are better able to look at them with this fresh viewpoint rather than avert our attention in fear as we might usually do. 


How is this image answering the question posed? How does it tie in to the excuses we make about why we procrastinate in this area? Staying curious, kind, non-judgmental if at all possible, we have access to the answers within us. Through meditation, we are able to see more clearly the tight fear-bound patterns of our thoughts and emotions. After meditation we can take the time to pose a question, then be quiet enough to allow what arises within to inform us.

So, what sits on your to do list year after year because it has a lot of unexcavated ‘should’ qualities in it? Is it something you could simply remove from the list, some leftover or borrowed 'should' that has no meaning for you? Or is it something that you want to do, but simply have not explored the resistance and ambivalence you feel around it enough to have clear intention? Perhaps like me you have a voice in there that demands 'Who are you to..' do whatever it is you dare to even think about the possibility of doing. 


It really helps to get to know our inner cast of characters so that we can come into a healthier relationship with them instead of letting them shut us down so that we procrastinate endlessly, putting off activities we truly want to do, or loading us down with a sense we should do something that has no meaning for us. Life does not have to be this heavy! Some pain in life is unavoidable, but procrastination is one of the ways we cause ourselves and others additional unnecessary suffering.


So ask some questions, make a list, journal about why you want to do it and why you don’t. Notice if anything on your list come from somewhere else -- a leftover desire to fulfill a parent’s goal for you; a fear of being judged, etc. When we can see the source of our inner conversations, we can more easily let them go. If they hang around, at least we recognize them and can compassionately acknowledge them and even negotiate with them. But as long as we recognize them for what they are, they can never have the same power over us they did when we believed our thoughts defined us.

This exercise is something you can do whenever you notice your life getting full of ‘shoulds’ and feel anxiety about not doing enough. It is not meant to solve anything, but it will loosen the stranglehold of tight patterns and bring things to light of awareness. By actively exploring we create an energetic spin that gets things moving. We fully inhabit our one and only personal point of power -- this moment, when we wake to it.


[Read more about procrastination.]
[Read more about inner dialoguing.]

A meditation on the uselessness of ‘should’

I once said to my mother ‘I feel sad.’ She said, ‘Well, you shouldn’t.’

‘Should.’ It’s a real buzz-kill. It lops off any bud of potential exploration with an instant censor. Where did that ‘should’ leave me? Feeling not only sad but chastised, guilty for feeling the way I did, angry that she shut me down, and lost.

My mother was a wonderful, joyous woman. I adored her and have missed her every day of the decades since her death. She was a great mother in so many respects, but the term ‘emotional intelligence’ was not in common usage back then. She was operating from a level of discomfort around difficult emotions that was typical of the times. Had she been of this generation it seems unlikely she would have reacted that way. But she did, and that brief exchange has stayed with me. Perhaps it’s the pivotal ‘should’ of my life, the one that was so glaringly wrong that it stood out. So in that way she did me a great service! Thanks Mom!

Noticing the ‘shoulds’ is a challenge. Most are woven deeply into the fabric of our lives. But as we practice meditation the words we use to talk to ourselves and to others become more noticeable. When we notice a ‘should’ (or ‘must,’ ‘ought’ or similar words) this is a great clue, a key to unlock the tightly guarded doors of our habituated patterns of thought and emotion. Watch for them, welcome them, question them! Use this opportunity to consciously follow the thread of ‘should’ thinking that unravels before your awareness. See what you find. If you feel you shouldn’t, then explore that. If you judge your experience, then explore that judgment. Anchor yourself in the intention to be present with physical sensation and the intention to be compassionate with whatever you find. Then get curious!

We have relied on ‘shoulds’ all our lives to tell us how to be. If we behave according to our shoulds we often feel disconnected, inauthentic and invisible. If we don’t follow our shoulds we feel guilty, unacceptable and cast out of the tribe.

These shoulds were instilled in us by parents and other relatives, teachers and other authority figures, our peer group and the fear-based advertising and cultural messages of our social environment. Looking at the fear our parents had for us, we can see that probably not all of it was based in a desire to keep us alive and healthy. Parents may push conformity as a way of protecting us from emotional experiences. Often they pass on their own fears of being unacceptable in some way. Most of us grew up in a world of competing shoulds that had us in a quandary. Should we be ‘good’ for our parents and teachers or ‘cool’ for our friends and generation?

The answer is ‘Neither!’ A ‘should’ is an ineffective means to find our way in our lives.  Caught up in the tight web of ‘should’ we struggle with angst and ambivalence.

“Should’ isn’t even effective in bringing out behavior that benefits others in our community. As we wander around trying to figure out what we should do, or railing against what it is we’ve been told we shouldn’t do, we are so externally oriented, so lost to ourselves, that no one can find us. We are too busy trying to please others, or too busy trying to prove others wrong, that we are simply not present in our own bodies, our own lives. This makes people uncomfortable around us.

Through meditation we quiet down, let the world go, and we come home to a sense of self that is in need of nothing more than this. We begin to recognize the intrinsic interconnection of being, and feel more able to let go of the fear of disappearing. All we ever wanted was to be seen, to be known, to be accepted as we are. Through meditation we come to know our fundamental okay-ness. Even with all our foibles, we are, have always been and will always be just fine -- more than fine: Loved, celebrated, recognized as the brief spark of life loving itself that each of us is. We don’t have to work so hard at it! All that striving for recognition and love is counterproductive.

When we are able to see this, then the ‘shoulds’ start standing out more starkly against the backdrop of self-acceptance. That makes it easier to explore the threads of thought or emotion to which the shoulds are attached.

This internal deeply connected compassionate exploration is skillful. As we become more aware of the externally-driven habituated patterns of our lives, we become less reactive and more responsive. The freaked-out internal voices that are yelling ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ quiet down so that the wise inner voice, the one that is operating out of an infinite fearless joy of being, grounds our behavior. Without the rattle of the shoulds and shouldn’ts we are able to simply operate from a deeply loving ethical base. We are conscious, loving, listening, caring beings.

Even when we are unskillful, we can hold that unskillfulness in a way that is still respectful and loving. We can do this as well with the unskillfulness exhibited by others. So much more effective than rage!

This practice is not about wiping out the shoulds, saying, in effect, ‘There shouldn’t be shoulds.’ That kind of thinking is still operating on the surface, in the ever-dueling duality. Instead we sink deeper into an awareness of the oneness of being. We come to understand that although we are transforming always, that transformation is more about expanding our sense of spaciousness, our sense of the infinite web of being, so that whatever arises, even the shoulds and shouldn’ts, can be held -- not evicted or expunged.


Historically, we have always struggled with the shoulds and shouldn’ts, and the resulting struggle and discomfort has been dealt with in a variety of ways. In Catholicism this is addressed with the confession booth. After confession, there is a sense of a fresh slate, the opportunity to adhere more carefully to the shoulds, and the humility to know that there will be more to confess the following Saturday.

Without a confession booth, some may try to cleanse their violation of all the ‘shoulds’ they carry within them through rituals such as excessive bathing or showering. I had a friend in high school who took seven showers a day. He later committed suicide. There was clearly some powerful inner struggle going on, some sense of violation that even seven showers a day could not cleanse. May he rest in peace.

More often we try to forget our violations by indulging in addictive behavior that numbs our minds. But, depending on the severity of the consequences of our addiction, being numb leaves us lost and feeling worse about ourselves than ever. It muffles the 'shoulds' but they are still there, still powerful.

Even when we are able to acknowledge that this life is a precious finite gift we are meant to treasure, we can turn this message into another should. We SHOULD feel grateful. We shouldn’t waste a minute of this gift. Maybe we are walking on the beach, enjoying the waves, the shore birds and the warmth of the sun. Then we say to ourselves, "I should do this more often," and we are back in the ‘should’ mind, back in the turmoil. This is the human condition. We are not likely to escape it completely in this lifetime, and thinking that we should is just another mental struggle.

But it is possible and skillful to notice, to be curious, to access loving-kindness and to allow it to rise up as our way of being in the world, in our interior world as well as in our interactions. 

We set the intention to be conscious, present and grounded in our body. We set the intention to be compassionate, sensing in to our connection to all that is, however we name it.

These paired intentions, if maintained, effectively inspire the kind of behavior that all the ‘shoulds’ in the world could not. The regular practice of meditation, based in these intentions, unravel the tight knots of negative emotions that we have been trying ineffectively to escape. We find our hearts open and our fears are calmed. We see the truth of life’s impermanence as well as the infinite quality of being. We see that we do not need to defend this separate self but can celebrate this gift of being through joyful interaction with others. Generosity and gratitude arise naturally as the tight tangle of should-based thoughts and emotions softens and becomes more spacious.

Okay, now you’re thinking ‘I really should meditate more.’ If that’s what comes up, notice it, explore it. Should you meditate more or do you want to meditate more? Does shifting the wording change the resistance that’s kept you from meditating more? This should you’ve uncovered is the key, the door, the way in. Take it!

Let your ‘shoulds’ show. We don’t need to evict them. Doing so just sets up the battle of the shoulds. Instead we want to be aware of them and know them for the ineffective internalized voices of unskillful others that they are. Let them talk, listen respectfully, and ask questions, follow the long threads to reveal whose voice they speak with. It could even be a reunion, a treasure hunt through the old family photo album or our mother’s button box, with all those memories. We can explore through art, through writing, through dance. We are not banishing anything, just becoming aware of everything. We are healing ‘should’ blindness!

Through meditation we create the spaciousness to hold all of our experience in an open loving embrace. In this way we can savor this fleeting gift of life.

What keeps us from knowing our Buddha Nature?

Central to Buddhism is the understanding that there is no place to get to, that enlightenment is not some distant place, but lives ever present within us. This sense of presence is called our Buddha Nature. It is our inherent loving-kindness, our spacious mind that knows we are each expressions of a whole rather than the separate individuals we habitually believe ourselves to be.

This Buddha Nature may be a treasure we have yet to recognize, hidden in plain sight but camouflaged by our habitual patterns of seeing. But have no doubt! It is there, shining within us, a light of incredible brilliance that, when discovered, illuminates our experience, clarifying our understanding and dissolving the tangle of fear-based roots that has kept us feeling tethered, weighed down and out of kilter.

We have been studying the Third Noble Truth that promises that we can know and even live fully from this Buddha Nature. Our practice is to make ourselves available to this Buddha Nature by being as present in this moment as we can. We relax into the moment, for it is in this ‘here, now and fully-relaxed’ state that the inherent Buddha Nature makes itself known.

It seems simple enough to do this. The instructions are clear. Yet often, sitting after sitting we come away feeling as if we have waded through a bog of mental mud! We begin to doubt if we are capable of finding clear spacious open-heartedness or even a little precious peacefulness where we can momentarily rest our weary minds. We begin to worry that we are the only person in the world who doesn’t actually have Buddha Nature.

This is absolutely normal. There are so many ways our habitual mind sabotages our intention to access our Buddha Nature. We know that habits die hard. I remember when my mother finally quit smoking after her doctor told her she had emphysema. She told me that it wasn’t the addiction that was so difficult; it was her inability to imagine who she would be without a cigarette in her hand. In her mind, smoking made her more sophisticated, intelligent and glamorous. Without that little burning stick in hand, who would she be? After she quit, she was still just as vital, beautiful and exciting as she had ever been. And once the smoke cleared, she could see that that cigarette did not define her and had instead been hindering her from full enjoyment of life. But for so many years she had been too afraid to let go, to find that out; and that fear fostered the self-destructive behavior that killed her.

My mother’s experience illustrates how we cling more tightly than ever to our habits if they are entwined with our self-image. So if, for example, we like to think we are practical and not susceptible to any woo-woo nonsense, then we create a strong resistance even to something that offers us the possibility of a happier life.

This is not to say we should abandon good judgment and fall for every feel-good scheme that gets marketed to us! Quite the opposite! Instead, we need to become aware of our OWN inner wisdom. When we are disconnected from it, if we are honest we can feel that disconnect. During a period many years ago when I was ‘too busy’ to meditate or even to give myself much-needed alone time, I remember saying to a co-worker, “I feel totally separate from myself.”

This was a potentially pivotal moments in my life. Had I heeded the words coming out of my mouth instead of just finding them amusing, I might have saved myself and those I love a lot of subsequent suffering. (Often the wisest words are words we say ourselves, and just as often we don’t listen to them. It really pays to notice what advice we are giving others. It’s often for us as well.)

But I didn’t pay attention to my words of caution. Instead I continued my grueling schedule and ended up getting a serious chronic illness that incapacitated me, forcing me to leave my career, cutting our family income in half. Had I heeded my own words, I might have been able to make a milder and less painful course correction.

I began to meditate again, and since there was little else I could do, I meditated as if I were on what turned out to be a nine month retreat. I had been so out of balance and then so ill that that level of intensity felt necessary. In this way, I came home to my own inner wisdom, my own Buddha Nature, not just in rare moments, but as a steady guiding light in my life. Eventually that inner wisdom diffused in such a way that I understood it was not some separate inner guru replete with personality, but simply a shift of perception, from a sense of separation to a sense of connection.

These habits of mind we all have are deeply rooted in this disorienting belief that we are separate and isolated beings encased in envelopes of skin. I say ‘disorienting’ because at some level we know it is not true, so we have angst and restlessness, as we look all over for the things in the world that will make us feel connected. When everything fails to satisfy this deep longing, we feel steeped in fear that expresses itself in all manner of negative emotions and results in suffering, for ourselves and those around us.

As we meditate, we practice developing the mental muscles of setting clear intention to be present with whatever arises in our experience. We practice relaxing our muscles and letting our bones support our bodies. And we develop a sense of compassion so that we can meet our distracted minds with kindness rather than our habitual harangue. With steady practice we begin to find more spaciousness, and more clarity to notice habitual mental and emotional patterns. With compassionate curious attention, these patterns soften and may even dissolve.

The briefest glimpse into this spaciousness can be sufficient to begin the unraveling of these old fear-based habits. Buddha Nature is timeless, and therefore, once known, once perceived, is always available. Years ago there was a popular activity of staring at a visual puzzle, where an image was hidden within a complex pattern. People would stare and stare at this puzzle. Some would become frustrated and give up. Some would see it quickly. With others it took time, but by relaxing and keeping their vision refreshed, they finally saw it. But everyone who saw it couldn’t later un-see it. The image would always be there. This is also true of Buddha Nature. Once you know it, you can never un-know it. You may ignore it, but you will never again be unable to sense it if you open to it.

Since we are creatures of habit, we can set the intention to develop new healthy mental habits – habits of noticing, habits of being aware of sensation, habits of compassionately observing our mind at work. This is a very effective way to prepare ourselves for whatever shift in consciousness that might arise out of repeatedly making ourselves available.

Allowing for the possibility, making ourselves available – these are good ways of thinking about how this shift of awareness happens. They remind us that this is an opening to what already is, rather than a search for something hidden elsewhere. It’s more like tuning our instrument to play harmoniously. Perhaps we are currently strung too tight and so are playing a sharp instead of a natural. Or perhaps we’re strung too loose, sluggish in our energy, foggy in our thinking, sleepy in our meditation, so we need to focus on refining, clarifying and brightening our concentration. This is not done by hunkering down, gritting our teeth or bracing ourselves, but through opening to the energy that is ever-present. We can draw it into our being, feel its strength and healing power, and let it rise up to express itself through us.

As we open, allowing for the natural shift to a more fluid connected state that is always available, we can see that in this state the old habits of fear that we thought were serving to protect us serve no purpose. Their efforts only exacerbated negative situations, escalated arguments and confrontations, and cut us off from healthy interaction.

The idea of retiring our emotional weaponry sounds nice, but what if we are feeling stuck in fear? What if we are fearful of the ideas presented here? First, let’s remember that none of this is new news but draws from the well of universal wisdom that is at the core of all world religions and spiritual traditions. And, if religion scares us, we can find the same wisdom in the latest scientific findings.

Secondly, it’s valuable to recognize that all of these habits of mind are striving for our survival as best they can. They are trying to protect us from a perceived harm. So it is just another fear-based habit of mind to feel threatened by the habits themselves. It is more useful to see them as misguided allies.

I have occasionally referred to working with the various aspects or voices we discover as we really listen to our thinking mind. I have found in my own experience the value of inquiring into the specific desires and concerns of these aspects, and then compassionately negotiating a way for the aspects needs to be met without undermining my well being.

You may recall the story of my inner aspect ‘Slug’ and his resistance to exercise. He loved bed. Bed was for him a big mommy hug, and he missed his mommy. Well, of course, I missed my mommy too as she had died a few years before this encounter. But I knew my mother wouldn’t want me lollygagging in bed anymore than my own inner wisdom did, so I found a yoga class with a teacher about my mother’s age and who, at the end of class, as we students were lying on the floor in shivasana pose, would come to each of us with a blanket and tuck us in. Well, of course Slug LOVED this yoga class. And that’s how I was able to negotiate getting some much-needed exercise.

But as useful as it can be to work with aspects of self in this inter-personal way, giving them cute nicknames and personalities to encourage compassion in our dealings, there are many other ways to view these complex inter-workings of our mind.

These habits of mind are caught up in a view that is totally relative. Through the lens of these habits steeped in fear, we see things from an embedded perspective, like a journalist embedded in a military operation. We see a very intense, very personal, but very one-sided view of things. And it is so intense -- this living a life -- that we completely buy into it being the whole truth. But all the while we are stuck in this perspective that is vested in maintaining this singular point of view, as if we have pledged allegiance to it and must defend it, or are employed as its public relations representative.

We are not! We are free agents! We are free to walk about and observe with fresh eyes and see for ourselves what is true and what is not. How much of what we hold to be true have we really questioned or examined?

I was so taken years ago when I heard about a listening project in the Southern US, where trained volunteers visited homes and simply listened to the inhabitants express their views of the world. They were trained to notice when they made statements that seemed rote, as if accepted long ago and not examined since. And they knew how to probe, encouraging deeper self-reflection, so that on their own the interviewees began to see the flaws in their own arguments, and through further exploration, using their own good sense, they found they didn’t buy into the pre-packaged hateful things they had so readily spouted just an hour before. In this way the listening project did not promote another view; it just provided the space for exploration.

And this is what we do. We provide space and a willingness to notice and question our standing operating procedures, our pre-packaged beliefs, our previously unquestioned inheritance of values and ideas. We see where we may be holding two opposing beliefs at the same time and have never stopped to question them. No one else can do this inner work for us. We may be inspired by what others say, but the experience of questioning is an ongoing inside job.

For some this idea might at first feel very threatening. Our inherited beliefs may seem comforting, something to hang onto in a dangerous world. They may seem like the one way we do feel connected to something. And it may be true that at core they do offer that entrance to a sense of connection, but unexamined, accepted as truth without exploration, they are about as powerful as a baby’s security blanket.

Opening to the possibility that these habits of mind -- these negative emotions, judgments and discomforting thoughts -- are not personal but universal, helps us to feel safe in our exploration. Understanding that most of us look at the world from a particular mindset -- not from our deepest and truest nature -- helps us to let go of the need to defend our position.

How refreshing and relaxing it is to realize that these habits of mind are not traits that define us, but common patterns that course through us, shaping our thoughts and our behavior. These patterns are like the readily visible patterns in that visual puzzle mentioned earlier, before we see the image that is hidden in plain sight.

Insight meditation is the practice of noticing these patterns of mind, actively observing in a spacious way. If we notice when we are getting caught up in them and pause to breathe more spaciousness into our noticing, and then look with fresh eyes in a more relaxed way, we can begin to see something else emerging.

These relative mindsets we have believed to be our true selves all these many years, do not define us any more than my mother’s cigarette defined her. As we make that distinction and begin to see that we are not these habits of mind, then we can open ourselves more easily to the possibility of allowing them to pass through our current experience without feeling we have to rise up and do battle with them. In time we see that bringing spaciousness into our relationship with them gives us the ability to see them more clearly, to see all the thoughts, emotions and image associations that give us deeper understanding. Eventually, with that shift into seeing from our inherent Buddha Nature perspective, these habits lose their sense of purpose. With their need to protect us gone, they can dissolve quite naturally.

So what keeps us from knowing our Buddha Nature? Believing that our habits of mind --our endless thought stream, and our ocean of emotion -- define us. As we let go of our clinging to this sense of separate self we become available for the revelation of the absolute reality of oneness with all that is that patiently waits within us. This is our Buddha Nature.

Creativity & Meditation: Dragons at the Gate

Last week I wrote about an experiential exercise to help us discover our passions, and in this post we will focus on one of our passions: the one that is juiciest, most up for us right now, and/or the one that feels like the biggest challenge, that we are having the most difficulty finding time to do or joy in doing.

We can apply what we have learned from the dharma, and most specifically from the Eightfold Path, to the challenge we face in accessing and expressing this passion.

The Eightfold Path offers guideposts, and in this exercise we will practice going through each of the aspects of the Eightfold Path and shedding some light on our feelings and thoughts around the particular passion or project we have chosen to explore.

With each question, close your eyes and sense in to your body, noticing any sensation that comes up. Then notice the emotional tone of that sensation, if any. Then answer the question. Try not to edit what arises. There is no wrong answer. We are looking for the honest words of our inner aspects. We want to express as accurately as possible the words that keep us from pursuing our passion, so by their very nature they will probably be negative, even hateful. Let them speak! Write them down! Use quotation marks to get the exact wording. No one will read this but you. Let yourself relax and feel expansive enough to be open to whatever arises in this exploration.

We will go through the Eightfold Path in the reverse order of how we learned it. So we will start with Concentration. Since everyone will be more drawn to answer different aspects at different rates, I’m going to let you each work from the sheet of questions at your own pace. Then you can take it home to complete it if there isn’t enough time to do so here.

I recommend meditating before proceeding with this inquiry.

---------------------------
Eightfold Path to Creativity

Concentration
What distracts me from my focus on my project?
What story do I tell myself about why I should be doing something else? Invite comment from within and as accurately as possible, in quotes, record the voice of this aspect or aspects that keep us from doing what we want to do.

Effort
Am I striving to make this happen, focusing on the goal, the end product, and losing the joy of the process? If so, put in quotes the voice that says why this is necessary, why I have to work so hard at it.

Is my energy low or scattered around this project? Am I daydreaming about it but can’t muster up the energy to do it? Put in quotes the story I tell myself about why this would be better to do another day, week or month. Or any other story of tiredness or depression.

Mindfulness
When I approach this project, is my mind present or is it filled with all the other things I should be doing? Put in quotes the story about why I don’t deserve to be fully present with this experience that is so important to me.

Livelihood
Is there anything about this project that is harmful to others or the environment? Is there some way to make it safe or even beneficial?
Is this a costly project? Are there budget constraints that hamper its pursuit? Quote the voice that says I can’t afford to do this.

Speech
How do I talk to myself around this project? Do I put myself down? Say I’m not qualified? Say I will make a fool of myself? Put in quotes the cruelest words I use on myself around this project.

Action
Do I have doubts as to my ability to do this project? What would I need in order to do so? Is there a way to learn it? Am I willing to learn it? Am I willing to fail in the process of becoming more skilled? Put in quotes the fears of failure.

Intention
What is my intention in this project? Is it clear? Is it compatible with my Wise Intention to be kind to myself and others and to be fully present in the moment? After stating my intention in quotes, put in quotes whatever arises in reaction to the stated intention that perhaps doubts it. Does my ego have an intention here? Let the ego speak as well.

View
How do I see this project in the context of the world? Does it lean toward connection? Does it express loving kindness? Does it expand and/or deepen my awareness and compassion? Does it have the capacity to do the same for others?
Is there any constriction in my view of this project? Any part that feels tight and fearful? Perhaps a fear of success? A fear of how others will see me? Let this aspect speak and be known.

The things that we come up with, these fear-based thoughts and feelings, will now be our primary focus. They are what we call the dragons at the gate that we need to befriend before we can enter the temple.

Befriending dragons? This is not part of our western culture. We slay dragons!

From a Buddhist perspective, slaying dragons is a highly unskillful reaction to fear. Killing them only multiplies them. Violence begets more fear and anger which spawns more violence.

The dragon is not enemy, but is both illusion and teacher. The dragon is Mara, the tempter who taunted Siddhartha Gautama as he sat under the Bodhi tree 2500 years ago. Mara offered up every wondrous lure, every horrendous threat, every rude comment about his unworthiness to be enlightened. Sitting there he always had the option to rise up out of anger and slay Mara. But he knew well that such an action would only fuel Mara’s power to seduce and threaten.

Instead he maintained his sense of staying present for whatever arises, no matter how horrific, and each time Mara came up with yet another taunt, he would simply say, “Ah Mara, I know you.” And this was said with such loving compassion that Mara had no fear fuel to work with, and at the end of that long night Siddhartha found enlightenment.

So we can spend our time at the gate of our passion, sharpening the blade of our sword, strategizing approaches to outwit the dragon, or hiding behind bushes and quaking in our boots. But all of this behavior just fuels the dragon’s ferocity, so that we feel we have even more to fear.

So what is more skillful? Well, let’s take a cue from Buddha, why don’t we? Let’s sit with this dragon and become familiar with its ways. Let’s have a compassionate dialog with it and discover not what it wants but what it needs in order to feel safe in the world. The dragon is exhausted from all this fire-breathing and needs to rest! We have the capacity to offer that rest, that sense of ease and safety.

Before studying Buddhism, in my own meditations I had developed a practice of noticing, identifying and then dialoging with inner aspects that were sabotaging me and causing misery in my life. I brought my most compassionate self to the dialog and always remembered that each aspect was operating out of love and a desire to protect me, but that their means were often very unskillful. I never tried to get rid of an aspect, to beat it down or change it in any way. What I did was discover what it really needed to feel safe, and then I would negotiate a way to provide that without sacrificing my well being, my sense of joy.

Part of the process was to name the aspect when I noticed it forcing its skewed opinion into my life, trying to change my behavior, making me feel insecure, afraid or angry, luring me to eat when not hungry or avoid challenges. I give them affectionate names that make it easier to stay compassionate in the dialog, and compassionate when they rise up in my life. Little Sweetie is the sweet tooth. Slug is the one that hates exercise. Bumpy (for bump on a log) is the one that wants to avoid all excitement. It’s been a while since I’ve had conversations with them, because we negotiated a reasonable settlement, but they are still there, and if I were to do things that made them feel unsafe again, I’m sure they would speak up as if they’d never been gone.

What is a settlement? Well, it turns out Little Sweetie was more interested in savoring the sweetness of every moment than in sugar itself, so I negotiated that when I am drawn to sugar, I will bring myself more fully into the present moment and notice sensation.

Slug didn’t want to get out of bed because bed was like a big mommy hug, and he missed his mommy. This was just a year or two after my mother’s death. Well, I found a yoga teacher about my mother’s age who at the end of class lovingly tucked each of her students in under a blanket for Shavasana. Slug loved going to yoga with dear Mac! And after a couple of years was willing to branch out into more active exercise adventures as well.

So this is the way I found that was very effective in dealing with inner aspects of myself that used unskillful means to meet their needs. When I started out at Spirit Rock and the study of Buddhism, I recognized immediately what they were talking about when they would refer to dragons at the gate. These dragons aren’t always inner aspects, they can be problems in our lives that arise. Instead of being cowed by these problems, it helps to see them as dragons at the gate, something to work with, to find out what needs to happen to befriend them or at least render them benign.

In the course of this exercise, perhaps you have brought forth a voice or two from aspects that stand like dragons at the gate between you and your highest intentions. This may be in the area of creativity, but something else may have come up as well. Now that you have met them you might want to name them and do some loving inner dialog to see what they need. Please remember that their intentions are always for your well being and protection. Treat them with compassion and gratitude for their intentions, but recognize the unskillfulness of their means. Together find what it is they really need and find a creative solution to give it to them.

Next week in the Tuesday class we will be doing a powerful Tibetan Buddhist exercise that goes beyond conversation and negotiation into deeper realms of dealing with our dragons at the gate. Although I will not be able to recreate that here, I will offer a link to a source that does. So stay tuned!

Meditation & Creativity

When I started meditating 30 years ago, the first thing I noticed was a great opening of a creative channel, as if suddenly it had cleared and I was able to just write. I had been working on a project, writing three pages, tossing two – and that was much harder going back in the day when I was typing on my beloved IBM Selectric, a miraculous machine, but – let’s face it – unable to delete, cut or paste my writing.

Reams of paper had been deep-sixed and I still had written less than twenty pages of a novel that lived in my head. Frustration Central! But then I took a meditation class at College of Marin from Bliss Bellinger. (Yes, his mother actually gave him that name! What choice did he have but to be a meditation teacher?)

Bliss taught us a variety of meditation techniques, and I feel quite blessed that my introduction was so eclectic. I learned early on that there is no one right way to meditate for everyone.

Finding time to meditate was a little challenging with small children at home, but I did the best I could and noticed the benefits right away. Because I was working on a creative project, that’s where I noticed the benefits first. I felt this creative surge run through me that was completely different from the creative torment I had been experiencing. I sat down and completed a rough draft of the novel in six weeks, and went ahead to fine tune it, completing it to my satisfaction within nine months.

So I am a believer in the creative benefits of meditation. Since then I have attended creativity retreats with Spirit Rock co-founder Anna Douglas, my primary Buddhist teacher and a painter herself. After my first day-long creativity retreat, I came home and started a series of paintings that were light years different from anything I had ever done, and I sustained my focus and worked on them every afternoon, no matter what.

On the retreat we meditated, but we also did several experiential exercises, mostly focused on dealing with our inner critic. We all know that aspect of ourselves! It sits on our shoulder as we pursue our passion and says, “Who are you to (do whatever you are doing)?” “Look at so and so (some wondrous talent)! There’s no way you’ll ever be able to do that!” “Give up! This will never win an award or be seen beyond these walls. Why bother!” etc. You know the drill.

So I will be sharing some experiential exercises in my class, and to the degree I'm able on this post, though sometimes that will not be possible.

In exploring our own creative passions, first we need to name them. For some that may be easy, for others difficult, maybe even scary. Perhaps there is something you have always wanted to do that you’ve been pooh-poohing for your whole life. Or maybe you think “I’m not creative! This is the wrong place for me.” But the creativity I’m talking about is more than just the ability to write or paint. It’s more of a life force coursing through us, playing us like a violin. What song naturally arises from that interaction? That’s what we are going to find out. Perhaps it’s a deep desire to pursue a particular cause. That’s a creative challenge too. How to share the passion you have with others and build caring connection – that’s what we want to explore here.

Even in this naming process, we need to remind ourselves that there is no qualification required to develop a long held passion or a new interest. We only need to bring our meditative don’t-know mind and our compassionate curiosity to our exploration, and a willingness to fail over and over again. Though we won’t call it that!

Finding our passion sometimes is about noticing when we are extra alert, extra joyful, extra sensory. When do our senses perk up, as if we were sleeping dogs who hear the distant voice of our beloved human, and our tails start wagging? That’s what we are looking for: that area of interest that gets our tail wagging, that seems to be calling to us.

We are not likely to discover this in a vacuum. We need to get out and experience life, go to museums, galleries, concerts, plays, take walks in nature, take a class that jumps off the page of the local community education catalog. Letting ourselves follow the lightness of being that arises out of the thought of doing any of those things, or countless others.

But perhaps we already know what it is, have imagined pursuing it but are afraid to name it. We will be doing experiential work to help us embrace and claim that which we have barely dared to imagine. For now, just to recognize it wanting to be named is enough.

We want the dream of this moment. It may be long held, but we can’t just assume that an old dream is still our dream. One way to discover if it is: Notice the tone of the desire. Is it a love of the process or the desire for recognition that is promoting this particular interest. A willingness to do whatever it is ‘badly’ is a first clue to it being a real deep desire, beyond any fear-based goal. If it’s a vision of accolades that sets your heart to trembling, then it’s a waste of time.

Over the next few weeks we will be exploring how to spark our creativity, how to keep the juices flowing, and how to cope with self sabotage in its many aspects.

For now I would like to begin with a self-exploration exercise. This is best done after meditating so your answers will come from the quietest space within you.

If you are interested in doing this exercise, get a notebook or journal, or open a new Word.doc and let’s begin.

Answer the following question as many times as you have answers. When we ask and re-ask we get answers that are not so habitual or ready made. We may even get answers that surprise us.

Question:
If I had all the time in the world and all the resources to do absolutely anything I wanted to do, what would I do? How would I spend my time? More specifically, if I knew that I would live to be 200 in perfect health and without any financial concerns, what interests and activities would I want to pursue? (This might be a long list. Mention everything. Don’t hold back! If the idea of living to 200 exhausts or horrifies you, make note of that as well and then go back to the original question. Really let whatever arises to flow onto the page.)

An alternative question that may bring additional answers: Given the above conditions, how would my perfect average day be? What would I spend my time doing?

Follow Up:
Now look at the list, then re-read each statement, close your eyes and sense into the body. Say the interest or activity to yourself again and see if you can notice any subtle or not so subtle sensations or emotions that arise. Make a note of whatever arises, either briefly by the statement, or on a separate page, rewriting the initial statement. Then say it to yourself again, and make any further notes. Do this until you feel you have expressed all that needs to be expressed. Then go to the next statement and do the same process.

This can be an intense self-exploration, so feel free to take your time and do it over a period of days, but don’t forget about it! The information you find here can be rich and pivotal.

Eightfold Path: Right Speech, Part Two

Since every situation is different, we may feel that coming up with Right Speech is near impossible. We need to think on our feet. We don’t have time to ponder what would be the most perfect skillful words to say.

If we are rooted in Right View and Right Intention, then pausing briefly to take a breath and bring our awareness fully in the present moment, is sufficient to assure us that the words we speak will be as skillful, heartfelt and timely as possible.

But we are human and we misspeak at times. Right Speech will not spout forth from our mouths just because we’ve heard a dharma talk and agree with the concepts in principal. Buddhist practice is an ongoing experiential exercise in learning how to access our deepest understanding.

All of the aspects of the Eightfold Path are life-long practices of awareness. Expecting that suddenly, having heard about Right Speech, we will know the perfect words for every situation is just one more way to cause ourselves suffering. But as we develop greater awareness through our practice, we may begin to notice our words. And this noticing is a great leap toward Right Speech.

We may also notice the variety of causes and conditions that can affect our speech. If we find ourselves babbling, we can notice if we are nervous, excited or if we are experiencing any biological fluctuations, energetic or hormonal, that may be influencing our speech patterns. As we notice, we can focus on our body sensations including the breath. This focus on sensation will help us to be fully present in the moment. Skillful speech might be giving ourselves a rest from speaking all together by asking the other person(s) a question, and then practicing being present as we really listen to their answer.

For most of us this is a new and challenging activity. No one has yet invented a mechanical filter to attach to our throats to assure Right Speech. Fortunately we do have some tools to work with: We have our intention to meditate regularly. We have our intention to bring our attention to the present moment every time we notice that our minds are stuck in the past or the future. And we have our intention to be as kind as we are able to be to ourselves and others.

If we practice honoring our intention, we can trust that our minds will become more spacious and peaceful over time. Then our speech will attune to this state, and be more rooted in the truth of our experience, more anchored in the present moment, and more filled with our growing sense of caring and compassion.

Of course, we are so used to instant gratification of our desires – if only we could charge enlightenment on a credit card! – that we may become frustrated when our minds keep falling into old habits of seeing and thinking. At the moment that we notice we have the opportunity to bring ourselves back to the present moment where expectation and disappointment find it difficult to take root, for they thrive on leaning toward the future and dwelling in the past. We’ve all had the painful experience of saying or hearing words dredged up from disappointment or aligned with expectation. So just this intention to return to the present moment will make us more skillful speakers.

More tools at our disposal are skillful questions with which we can explore our words. Choose any of the following questions that are resonant for you, or create your own:

Are my words reactive or responsive?
(Reactive words often feels defensive, self-protective, justifying our position. Responsive words are spoken from a deeper place and let the person know we have heard them.)

Do my words lean toward connection or separation? Do my words lean toward inclusion or exclusion?

Do I feel tension in my body when I say these words? (If so, what is causing this tension? What am I afraid of?)

Am I speaking from the present moment? (Or am I speaking from past disappointment or future expectation?)

Do I have lingering misgivings about my words? (If so, explore to see if the words you are concerned about were true, useful and timely. Accept this valuable lesson, bring this new awareness to any future conversations, and let this memory go.)

Is what I am saying in harmony with my core values?

Are my words sabotaging me into inaction? Am I saying I can't do something, I'd like to do something, I want to do something, or I'm trying to do something, instead accessing our awareness of ourselves as connected, expansive, expressions of all that is, and going forth and doing it?

What do I hope to achieve by saying this?

When I’m telling my story, am I using my words to show off or to share?

Do I see the person I am addressing as ‘other’ or even as ‘enemy’? (From this dualistic view, real deep sharing is impossible.)

Questions help to create spaciousness because by questioning our assumptions about the way things are, we free our minds to look at things anew. Answers are all around us, if only we have the right questions with which to explore ourselves and the world.

Meditation, Spaciousness & Letting Go

The tight tangle of our lives becomes more spacious through the regular practice of meditation. We find that increasingly we can see our thoughts and emotions as they arise. Instead of succumbing to their seduction or going into battle with them, we can more often simply notice them. It may seem as if there is more time and space around them to evaluate the most skillful response to any given situation.

In this increasing spaciousness, we are able to be more gracious hosts to our thoughts and emotions. We are not at their mercy or here to do their bidding. We begin to learn more about them, their histories and motivations. Why does a particular thought keep recurring? Why does dealing this person always bring up this negative emotion? With a greater sense of ease than we ever thought possible, we can focus on these thoughts and emotions and begin to see patterns. We see the loving intention of all these various aspects of our personality. We see the fear behind their misguided strategies. And by giving them our attention we begin to see how some of our beliefs are at odds with each other, causing an inner sense of imbalance and strife.

I am still touched by a conversation I had many weeks ago with a young woman in Colorado whom I called as part of my volunteering for Obama. She was holding down two jobs and had two small children, so she just hadn’t had time to really look at the candidates and make up her mind. So I asked her what her issues were. “Well, I’m against abortion and gay marriage. What does Obama believe?”
“Senator Obama believes in equality for all people,” I told her.
“Oh! I believe in that!”
“Then Obama’s your man.” I went on to tell her that perhaps if she was working two jobs and had small children, she should vote for whoever was going to give her the best tax break and the best health care for her kids. But I was then and still am struck by her very human capacity to hold two opposite ideas in the same brain. That she could support equality for all people but feel okay denying gays the right to marry did not seem like a contradiction in her mind. Probably because she hadn’t had the time to really look at her various beliefs for the same reason she hadn’t had time to choose her candidate.

But for those of us who are meditating regularly over long periods of time, somehow we do have time to notice conflicting beliefs and to see which ones are aligned with the core values that arise out of being in touch with our deep sense of connection. This level of observation and awareness enables us to more easily release old beliefs that don’t serve us, that just got a free ride all these years because we never bothered to examine them.

Often these beliefs were never ours to begin with but were hand-me-downs or borrowed briefly just to try on and we kept them around, and after awhile we forgot where we got them and assumed ownership. But now they are just piles of clutter that get in the way of living fully.

If there are beliefs that we are ready to release, where do we begin to look for them? We don’t need to search them out. They are ever present. We just have to pay attention to those moments when they crop up as statements or judgments that we think or say. Chances are these will be strained moments. Since these beliefs are at odds with our core values, when we hear ourselves voicing them, they sound discordant to our ears. We may feel a sense of discomfort: guilt, embarrassment, confusion, astonishment, or maybe amusement, depending on how vested we are in believing that we are our thoughts.

A wonderful way to deal with whatever comes up is to ask a question. The teacher and author Byron Katie suggests asking, “How do I know this is true?” The inner dialog that follows begins the process of self discovery and potentially to letting go of whatever doesn’t serve us well.

The inner dialog needs to be compassionate, patient and truly curious in order to be useful. Judgment, criticism and ridicule shut the process down, but if they arise, simply switch the dialog’s focus to them. Ask “What am I afraid of in this exploration?” Because all three are rooted in fear.

This kind of inner work can be rich and satisfying. Journaling inner dialogs can be very useful as we are more likely to stay focused on writing than just thinking, and we can read the conversation later from a different vantage point and see things we might not have seen at the time.

In my book, Tapping the Wisdom Within, A Guide to Joyous Living, I suggest the possibility of giving personality to these beliefs, desires and fears in order to engage in dialog exploration. I find this a very useful and enjoyable way to really notice patterns of thoughts that arise -- thoughts of self-doubt, thoughts that undermine my intentions, thoughts that keep me from living the fully engaged and grounded life I want to live. I give them names so that when I meet them again – as I certainly will – I can recognize them.

This recognition is something like the Buddha’s experience of being tempted by Mara as he sat under the bodhi tree. By recognizing Mara as the tempter in various forms, trying to seduce him away from his intention, the Buddha was able to reach enlightenment. The key part of his relationship with this tempter was that he always welcomed Mara, saying “I know you.” And in knowing Mara, in all its forms, he was able to be patient, compassionate but unseduced.

In inner dialog exploration, we can come to know these various seductive voices by name, and we can extend them the courtesy of compassion and respect. Inner civility is key! We can ask these tempters questions about what they want and what they fear. What we discover is that they always want the best for us, that their purpose is always loving. But their strategies are misguided because they are operating out of fear.
------------------
EXAMPLE: Many of us have a voice we could call “Little Sweetie” – that sweet tooth that draws us continually to the ice cream, pastry and candy shops. Or maybe you have a “Little Salty” – so hard for me to understand since Little Sweetie rules in my panoply of characters. So what would a conversation with Little Sweetie be like? We could say, “What do you want, Little Sweetie?”
And maybe Little Sweetie would say, “I want sugar!” as if that was obvious.
“Why do you want sugar?” we might continue.
“To sweeten up this life. Everything about sugar is pretty, festive and fun. Every time we eat it we are having a party.”
“And you want to party?” we might ask.
“Yes, I love to party!”
“Could we party without the sugar?”
“What kind of party would that be?”
“It could be a party with music and dancing.”
“I’d like that. But what about a cake?”
“It could be a party with lots of interesting conversation.”
“Yes, I’d like that. I like people and connection.”
“If you were sitting in deep conversation with someone and a cake suddenly appeared on the table across the room, would you stop mid-sentence and run across the room?”
“Hmmm, well not mid-sentence. A really good conversation? Like really interesting and rich?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then no. I wouldn’t even notice the cake.”
“So when there isn’t a party or deep conversation, you are bored?”
“Kind of.”
“And sweets are interesting?”
“Very.”
“But you can’t talk to them. You can’t dance with them. You can’t interact with them.”
“No, but they are so easy to find and so forbidden!”
“Yes, they are everywhere. But what’s so good about them being forbidden?”
“It adds spice to life! Sugar and spice! ha ha!”
“So our life needs spicing up? Is it boring, plain, uninteresting?”
“Well, in a word, YES!”
“Okay, what, besides sweets, would make it more interesting for you?”
“More sweet moments!”
“Sweet moments like when?”
“Sweet moments like last night standing on Ring Mountain in the moonlight looking at the twinkling lights of San Francisco across the Bay. That was a very sweet moment.”
“Indeed it was. This is a sweet moment too.”
“This one?”
“Yes, here we are having a dialog, sitting in a comfortable spot with a beautiful view of the mountain lightening in the morning sun.”
“Yes, this is sweet.”
“Any moment can be sweet, don’t you agree? If we are really paying attention?”
“I suppose.”
“Shall we try it? Shall every time you ask for sweets, I take it as a request for noticing the sweetness of this moment?”
“No harm in trying, but if it doesn’t work, I vote for chocolate.”
----------------------

So there’s a sample inner dialog. Let’s review what just happened:
- I recognized a chronic tempter in my life: the urge to eat sweets.
- I recognized it as a problem, something that thwarts me in maintaining my health and weight.
- I gave it a name. This name captures something about the tempter’s character and has an endearing quality so that I am more likely to speak to it with love and affection.
- The conversation begins with a simple question: “What do you want?”
- The conversation follows, speaking as honestly and openly as possible from the point of view of this aspect of our personality.
- The questions are created from open curiosity and deep compassion.
At first the questions are more open ended, just trying to discover the root fear, concern, lack, etc. of the aspect.
- When that is discerned – in the example, the aspect Little Sweetie was bored – then the questions can switch to ‘what if’ scenarios in a ‘negotiation’ stage.
- Whatever is negotiated must be something that addresses the deep need, that is in line with core values, not the surface desires of the tempter aspect, whether the ones originally stated or replacement ones.
- In this sample conversation, I didn’t offer to provide a continuous set of exotic locales, more parties or any other surface distraction. What I offered was to be more fully present in every moment so that Little Sweetie could find the sweetness in life, just as it is.

This kind of exercise may or may not appeal to you, but inner dialoging in whatever form suits you can be very valuable in identifying and examining beliefs that cause suffering in your life.