The Problem with 'Positive Thinking'

We have been talking for a while about the freedoms that arise naturally out of the simple daily practice of meditation: Freedom from struggle, freedom from fear, freedom from the fortress of defensiveness. But it could sound as if we are actively trying to get away from struggling, fear or defensiveness, instead of just noticing them as they arise in our experience and fall away. So I want to be sure we are clear that when we try to escape, when we try to push away, when we try to achieve freedom, or try to hold onto fleeting glimpses of freedom we may experience, then the freedom is gone.

This is frustrating, I know. It's like some kind of fun house mirror set up, where when we go after what we see, it disappears! This is not how it should be, we say. Things should be clear cut and straight forward. And perhaps we know from personal experience that we can achieve things by setting goals, that that is in fact the way life is. I certainly have set goals and achieved them. The very house we are sitting in was imagined, found and purchased in just that way. And there’s nothing wrong with undertaking such a project, experiencing it fully. It can be exciting, invigorating and fun.

But where we get into trouble is when we expect achieving any goal to set us free, make us truly happy or change the way we experience life in any fundamental way. We are just pouring our way of being from one container into another. Maybe the new container is bigger, prettier, more comfortable, or better in some other way. And perhaps the ways in which it is better cause us conditional happiness, that may last a while or may not, depending on our basic temperament. But no house, job, geographical setting or personal relationship will alter to any degree our conditioned set of responses to whatever experience arises in our lives. Changing the conditions is like changing the wallpaper on our prison cell. It doesn’t really change anything! And when we achieve a goal and then discover that nothing has changed on the deep level that we crave, we can sink into despair. This despair is only amplified if we believe that plastering positive messages all over our cell will set us free, when really they just mask the truth of our situation.

We can pour ourselves from one container to another, but we need to notice if we are vesting the experience with powers it cannot deliver. Setting goals and achieving them can deliver some degree of physical comfort and material well being, and these are valid uses of it, but to rely on it habitually for all our needs, emotional and spiritual, is setting ourselves up for suffering. Once we have a modicum of material stability, what we really want beyond that is the kind of freedom or happiness that comes from a different source.

So yes, pour all you want from one container to the other. Pour yourself into that new dress or pair of shoes and dance around in front of the mirror. Enjoy your cute self! But understand that what we are talking about when we look at real freedom is dissolving the container itself. This a joy that can’t be purchased, that can’t be achieved through goal setting or positive thinking.

We are all aware that there is a whole huge industry of motivational speaking set up to promote these principles of positive thinking. It promotes dreaming big, getting what we want by setting our sights, taking aim and achieving our goals. Sometimes people assume that Buddhism is about positive thinking. It’s easy to make assumptions and lump all the various self-help streams of thought together. But Buddhism is most definitely not about positive thinking. Buddhism is quite specifically about facing the truth of things head on. Whatever it is. Not in a confrontational way, but in a way that never shies away from the tough stuff – the uncomfortable, scary thoughts and feelings that can leave gun-toting musclemen quaking in their boots.

When we face whatever arises in our experience head on, we are interested in the facts of the situation. We have no interest whatsoever in changing the facts. A ‘positive thinker’ may look at the situation and immediately spot the silver lining. That’s fine. It’s there too, but Buddhists don’t want to skip over anything in a rush to get to the happy bits. Neither do we want to dig around in the muck. And if we have a tendency to focus on the negative, we can benefit from challenging ourselves to 'incline our mind' (as the Buddha says) toward what is that in our current experience that is pleasant, since otherwise we might not notice it. We really are just opening to whatever is, noting pleasant and unpleasant alike, and staying curious.

Our method is not to rush to judgment, sum up the situation, say, ‘Well, that’s that,’ and move on. We stay present for the whole experience. We sit with it. We make room for all of it in our awareness. We notice the subtle complexities, the multiple layers, the threads that run through it, the light and the shadow, and the truth. And even when we perceive the truth of something, we don’t dismiss it, saying ‘case closed’ with a sense of satisfaction. Instead we continue to stay present with whatever is until it changes or leaves of its own volition. Then we stay present with whatever arises in that moment. In each moment we simply stay present with the rich unfolding of experience.

You may say that the positive thinker cuts to the chase, gets to the good stuff, catches the gold ring. No argument there. But it relies pretty heavily on the positive thinker’s ability to recognize ‘good stuff’, doesn’t it?

Positive thinking puts energy behind embracing an ideal vision of how we want to change ourselves and our world to conform to that vision. That’s not Buddhism. Buddhism sees ideal visions as too rigid, too narrow, too limited, even if that vision is world peace and harmony. Now if you know anything about Buddhism, you will say, but wait, what about all the metta - loving kindness you send out into the world, “May there be every good blessing,” “May all beings be well,” and all that?

Strange, isn’t it? It’s not necessarily that we don’t recognize that there is energy that can be directed. (Though Buddhists disagree among themselves about the existence of such energy, and belief in it doesn’t seem to be an absolute requirement. You can be ‘a secular Buddhist’ like teacher/author Stephen Batchelor.) The majority of Buddhists acknowledge the existence of a universal energy, but see the problem with directing the energy in a narrow selective way instead of generous universal well wishing for all life. It’s just way too limiting! It sets up a narrow trough of possibility. We do not send out phrases such as, “May my daughter do well on her test today, may the stock market rise, may I get that job.” We say “May the merits of our practice be for the benefit of all beings, may all beings be well, may all beings be happy.”
Buddhists value all of life, the great manifestation of life in all its myriad forms. Yet most Buddhists also sense that there is more than just this earthly human existence, that this existence is a gift in whatever form we receive it, that to be born into this life is a rare and wondrous experience to be savored, appreciated and then released when it is over. For this life that seems finite is just a phase we’re going through in the infinite dance of universal energy of which we are all an integral part. (And if you are aren't comfortable with the idea of universal energy, you can still recognize that in nature, death is not the end of any life form's existence as it cycles through and is transformed into more life.)

Because we value the experience of earthly life itself, we recognize that preconceived judgments about what makes a successful life are limited, erroneous. The positive thinking movement is often focused on becoming wealthy. Grasping at wealth is one of the habits of mind Buddhists notice when it arises in our experience, and we notice also how much suffering arises out of any assumption we may have that great wealth brings great happiness. (Did I just hear you say, Oh good, Buddhists like to be poor! More for us!?)

Stop and think about your own experience, whether the course of your pocketbook’s fullness or emptiness has matched your own sense of fullness or emptiness throughout your life. For most of us, the two have no correlation. Our happiness is not dependent on our bank account. Yet, even so, because it is so easy to go unconscious, we may still buy into the idea that adding extra zeros to our bottom line will make us happy. It’s an assumption that corporations enforce at every turn, because corporate workers are operating under the same delusion.

Positive thinking is considered a transformative power. No doubt it is. Yet focusing our energy on the power to change ourselves or our circumstances from what they are to what we believe to be better camouflages the truth. The truth is, as Jon Kabat-Zinn so aptly coined, ‘Wherever you go, there you are.’

All the positive thinking in the world may change things but when we get to that changed place, we will still be us, still interacting with the world in the same way, still finding it unsatisfactory and in need of changing, because that is our habit of mind.

Buddhists instead prefer to sit with what is, noticing our habit of mind. As compassionately as possible, sitting with the causes and conditions of our lives, the flow of emotions, thoughts and sensations, and from that deep place of sitting performing actions that are loving and compassionate: that’s the Buddhist way.

Positive thinking gets in the way of the great unfolding of life. That is mostly because none of us really have sufficient imagination to set a goal to positively think into being anything that would be near so wondrous at what actually happens in our lives. The narrow focus of the goal keeps all other wondrous avenues through which we might stroll out of our view. We’re on a specific track, a specific wave length, and nothing else appears within our scope. With our eye on the prize, we miss a world of wonder for the sake of the end destination that we may not be able to enjoy when we reach it because we are out of the habit of enjoying what is.

We are limited by our view of ourselves, who we are in the world. We want something: happiness, freedom, love, and we set our sights on it. A.H. Almaas, the (non-Buddhist, but respected by Buddhist teachers) Diamond Approach™ founder, gave a wonderful analogy. Think about the larva that transforms into a butterfly. How could such a creature ever conceive of becoming a butterfly? That would be absurd to imagine anything so completely different! Maybe if it were into imagining the future, into goal setting, it would imagine being a bigger larva, a happier larva. But a beautiful flying creature? How absurd!

Just like that larva, we are inherently limited in our ability to imagine the transformation possible within ourselves. And the striving, goal-setting mind set is really an encumbrance. If we don’t allow our lives to unfold naturally, giving whatever arises our full attention, then we are likely to be clinging to the chrysalis that held so much promise, not realizing that if we let go, we could fly.

Freed from the Fortress

We have been looking at the freedom that rises out of the regular practice of meditation. These are not things we have to strive for or changes that we need to make in ourselves. These are the naturally arising benefits of spending say, a half hour each day in meditation. I mention all these freedoms not as commodities to be acquired or goals to be reached, but as gifts that you might notice receiving as you continue to practice.

We each receive these gifts in different orders, in different ways, to varying degrees, and there are probably many gifts that I cannot tell you about, because they are not my experience. All Buddhist teachings come from the direct personal experience of its teachers. There is an established framework of concepts and terms to help interpret the experience, but there must be the experience. It is through this encouragement of direct experience that Buddhism has stayed a living teaching rather than desiccated dogma. It’s like sourdough bread making. Buddha provided the initial starter, but each of us adds our own flour, our own practice and intention, to make the dharma dough fresh each day.

The Buddha ended his dharma talks by saying, “Don’t believe me. Go find out for yourself if this is true.” And every Buddhist teacher’s greatest hope is that students will question the ideas proposed in dharma talks, take them out into the world for a test drive, take them into their own lives, their own experience, their own hearts, and ask “Is this true?”

Teachers speaking from direct experience end up sharing their lives in anecdotes as grist for the mill of sharing the dharma. And the freedom I share with you today is certainly the one that is most intimate to me and that has probably made the biggest difference in my relationships with others. It is the story of being freed from the fortress of my defensiveness.

When we were first married forty years ago this week, Will told me I was the most defensive person he had ever met. It seemed that he couldn’t say anything without me bristling with hurt feelings.

It is hard for me to imagine now, yet I know it was true. If you had asked me about my childhood memories back then, I would recount every experience where my feelings had been hurt, where I had been humiliated, slighted or made to feel stupid.

I remember being teased, and it is easy to see in retrospect how I used all these experiences as building blocks for the fortress. Every comment that anyone made, no matter how benign or light-hearted or even loving, I took in and interpreted through complex filters that turned everything into slights, criticisms, or name calling that somehow made me wrong, stupid, naïve or ugly. Then every time someone DIDN’T say something, I would interpret that negatively as well. For me at that time, silence was not golden, it was leaden and toxic.

Thus experienced, it’s not surprising that my relationships with others were difficult. To befriend me was to walk through a mine field and try not set off any of the millions of land mines I had planted as tests of your love for me. Agh! That anyone bothered is amazing to me now.

How fortunate that I came upon meditation when I was still relatively young, in my twenties. And how surprised I was to suddenly see that fortress for what it was, and to watch as it crumbled away with regular meditative practice. Over the course of years as I continue to meditate, I still on occasion find more leftover bits of the fortress, lone walls standing with no foundation or purpose, but still sending little messages into my system that might, if I’m not noticing, prompt a habitual reaction. My awareness of them lets them disintegrate, at least for now. These walls are leftover unquestioned assumptions that, under the light of insight, can’t justify their existence. As long as I keep the light of insight shining, this freedom from defensiveness is a gift to myself and all around me. (Trust me!)

So what is it that actually happened to me? What is it that happens to meditators in general? Why does a simple practice of meditation produce such radical changes in our psyches? Scientific studies show some of the physiological changes that happen with meditation, including the raised levels of gamma waves. Studies show that during meditation, a flux in blood flow and activity excites certain neurons. The act of maintaining attention sustains activity in designated regions. The brain’s grey matter begins to grow, actually changing its physiological shape.

Of course scientists can’t put a value on whether this change is for the better. But as meditators, we know the value from our own felt experience of living our lives with the benefits of meditation.

Now, I didn’t know about the physiological aspects of any of this, but I suspected there was a chemical component. When I lived in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury in 1966, not surprisingly I had a few chemically-induced psychedelic experiences. I called my experience ‘losing my ego.’ In sharp contrast to my normal life as a typical disgruntled, critical, judgmental adolescent, suddenly I was simply delighted to be alive and engaged in the senses. I recognized the gift of life, the humor, the beauty, the complexity and the simplicity. In that state, I seemed to have none of the bristly, defensive qualities that usually plagued me.

But even as great as it was, at some point I would turn to a friend and say, “Remind me not to do this again.” I could feel the extreme and unnatural strain on my body, suddenly flooded with an overload of mind-altering chemicals.

A pivotal point for me was one ‘trip’ when I had a vision of a mountain with many paths going up it. Some of the paths were vertical, some gently switch backing up the mountain. Some were rocky, some lush -- all different, but all eventually went to the top of the mountain. I observed people on these paths, earnestly plodding, one footstep after the other. It looked boring, and I noticed that I was already at the height of the top of the mountain, already experiencing what they were seeking. But then I noticed that they were on solid ground and I was in a balloon that was deflating and descending. I may have been experiencing the benefits of this heightened perspective where I could see the wholeness of life, the interconnection and rejoice in that awareness, but I was losing altitude rapidly. There was no way I could sustain my mountain top experience. I realized the only thing to do was to set the intention to climb the mountain myself.

So I have been climbing the mountain ever since, first on a path fueled by an eclectic variety of teachers and books, then for a while with Dances of Universal Peace, then a more intensive period of group and independent meditation that resulted in my book Tapping the Wisdom Within, and for the past couple of decades I have been plodding along on the Buddhist path. I have found it to be a path that is well-traveled over the past 2500 years, but always fresh, not worn out. I travel in silence but feel surrounded by a loving and supportive sangha (community) of practitioners, with teachers who, if I get lost, shine a light on the path so I can find my way again.

Do I feel the way I did when I was tripping? Sometimes. One time on a retreat I even had some of the visual effects I remember while walking in the woods, not the patterning but the luminosity of life shining so brilliantly, even in the shadows; that same day I remember hearing a symphony in the clattering sounds of utensils on dishes and chairs scraping in the dining hall. On my most recent retreat I became intensely aware of the mystery of all that is, how so much is hidden, and it’s absolutely okay. I relaxed into the delights of the don’t know mind.

But these experiences are so much better than those brief trips from back in the day, because these are naturally arising rather than ingested, and my body is comfortable, wholesome and cared for. Even when I don’t have that same intense experience, I feel the awareness, the clarity and the sense of connection. In my daily life this has become a constant presence, this feeling of being very present. I can trust in these gifts of joyous awareness as long as I continue to meditate on a daily basis. I am on the mountain path, and it hasn’t been boring at all!

Thanks to dedicated meditation practice, I no longer see myself as the object of others perceptions but as the universal life force expressing itself through this perspective from this particular point in space and time. When I do think of myself as a unique and separate being, I feel compassion for my humanness as I would for any other unique and separate being I know or see in the world. I am more in touch with my child self than before, and therefore more in touch with creativity, fresh eyes, carefree laughter and pure pleasure.

The fortress of my defensiveness has crumbled, for there is nothing left to defend. Instead there are all these universally shared experiences and traits to be curious about, and the shared joys and challenges of this human experience. The fear of being judged seems to have fallen away. I admit I have not been put to any real test. I am surrounded by the kindest of family members, friends and colleagues who have no intention to harm me. But I subject my creative work to critique, my speeches to evaluation, and my commercial writing and design work to committee, so I have many opportunities to get my feelings hurt or receive confirmation of any negative belief I might hold about my lack of ability. Now if people love something I do, I thank them but don’t feel the same kind of relief I used to feel. When people have negative comments, I appreciate their interest, their creative assessment, and consider their comments seriously, but don’t feel they have attacked me in any way. What a difference! Now I have a sense of collaborating to increase clarity and connection through these various forms of expression. Much more fun!

Being freed from the fortress of my defensiveness is a sweet surrendering of all that had seemed so vitally important for my own survival. I thought I had to be smart, pretty, clever, talented, skillful, savvy, knowledgeable, etc. in order to be acceptable. In order to be loved. What a set up for misery that was! I didn’t stop to notice that what I loved about people, the traits I found most endearing, were often the least ‘perfect’ aspects, and certainly the least striving.

Freed from the fortress of my defensiveness, I am happier, safer, more supported and enriched. I am acceptable in my imperfection. I am fine with saying “I don’t have a clue!” I am fine with being totally uncool. Because cool or uncool, in this moment I am free.

Freedom to See Fear & Its Manifestations Clearly

Recently we discussed how fear is believed to be useful, but in every case we could come up with it was either useless or harmful. We talked about how it is contagious and is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I shared a little bit of how through the regular practice of meditation we eventually relax into a spacious fearlessness that is not acting out as a daredevil, seeking danger, but is opening to a deeper truth about the nature of the world and life itself.

In my book, Tapping the Wisdom Within, A Guide to Joyous Living, I talk a lot about fear, saying that all negative emotions arise out of fear, as all positive emotions arise out of love. This book was written in deep meditation, and people reading it resonate with it because it rises up from the same source of universal wisdom that they themselves have access to when they are able to quiet down and listen in.

This book was written in the early 1990’s, before I began to study Buddhism, so do not take it as a transmission of Buddhist philosophy, which in general I try to share here with my own take on it. But Sylvia Boorstein, Buddhist teacher and co-founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, many years ago called this book ‘jargon-free dharma,’ so apparently it isn’t un-Buddhist! Which makes sense, since when I came to Spirit Rock and the Buddhist teachings, it was like coming home.

I haven’t read or heard anything in Buddhism to suggest that fear is the root of all negative emotion, but there is a valuable Buddhist-style question contained in the concept. Whenever a negative emotion arises, we can ask, “What am I afraid of?” and find a very useful answer.

Last week when discussing the self-fulfilling nature of fear, one student mentioned a jealous boy friend from her distant past. His jealousy was rooted in his fear of losing her, his fear that he was not enough in some way to keep her. So it’s easy to see that jealousy is rooted in fear.

It’s not surprising that so many of us feel we are not enough somehow, given how saturated our lives are with messages that tell us we could be so much more if only we would use this or that product. We remind ourselves that these messages are not about us but simply corporate efforts to reap profits, but it is very challenging to let go of the belief that has been so long instilled. When this message comes from an individual, if we pause to think about it, we realize this individual has been duped into believing that they are not enough, and are trying to make themselves enough by the unskillful means of making us feel unworthy in comparison.

As we come into more steady consciousness, these kind of messages are seen for what they are and begin to fall away, or at least loosen and clarify. When we see clearly, we see that we at our core are fully acceptable, worthy of being loved, and if we open to it, we can sense that there is a universal loving-kindness that loves us, with a love that does not have to be earned. When we can fully relax into that understanding, quite quickly we can see our patterns of behavior and belief that have been disrupting our lives and probably the lives of those around us. We are able to see these patterns of behavior as misguided attempts to gain what we believed we were lacking. We can see they arose out of a fear that we were not enough.

Once we access that spaciousness, that Right View (see post of 1/14/09), then when these left-over beliefs and behaviors show up again, we can acknowledge them, as Buddha acknowledged Mara the tempter again and again under the Bodhi tree the night of his great awakening. “Oh Mara, I know you.”

“Oh pattern, I know you,” we can say to an addiction, a reaction, an erosive belief. “I know you, and in knowing you I am not afraid of you. I know you, and in knowing you, I know you are not me. I know you, and in knowing you, I can be curious about you. I can sit with the experience of you and learn all your ways, so that I will recognize you as Mara even sooner next time we meet. Not so that I can run the other way, but so that I can greet you by your true name.”

Whatever we encounter, we can remind ourselves that this is not the only ‘voice’ present for us. When I fall into an old habitual pattern of circling around to graze in the kitchen, I can open to the inner spaciousness of my mind and recognize that there is more than one ‘voice’ present, more than just the “ooh, ooh, yummy, yummy, gimme gimme” chant. I can take a relaxing breath, slow my pace, and open to an inner wisdom that questions whether I am really all that hungry for food right now, whether I wouldn’t find a walk in the garden or a phone call to a loved one even more satisfying. The first time I recognized that there was not a monologue but a dialog inside me, I was amazed. It opened such possibilities for breaking the chain of my habitual behavior. But that wise voice is so quiet and calm, I really do have to slow down and listen in.

When we feel a negative emotion arising and we think to ask, ‘What am I afraid of?” we have a tool for coming in to the present moment. We can sense into the body to see how this fear is manifesting itself. When we find a particular sensation – a tight chest, jaw or a pain somewhere, for example – we can let that sensation tell us how it feels. It may speak of sadness, loss, anger, depression, confusion, impatience, judgment, envy, jealousy, etc. Whatever emotion it tells is fear mixed in with story. As we sit with the sensation and the emotion, keeping our attention as much as possible in the present moment, the emotion gets clear of the story and appears as the pure fear it is.

Once we have touched pure fear we can hold it in an open loving embrace, just as we would hold a terrified child, with great kindness and compassion. If we try to nurture ourselves when we have only touched the sadness or the anger, we will most likely get involved in the story they embrace. Instead of simple kindness and compassion, we will probably use excuses, explanations, accusations, justifications and dramatic plots. None of this is useful. It just entangles our thinking mind in a tighter knot. When we relax, breathe, and sense in to the physical sensation of the fear, we can give it our full loving attention and acceptance in a quiet spacious deeply loving way that is transformative, without judgment or expectation.

Given the unconditional love of metta, fear may soften its grip on us and pass away. For now. We accept that this is a life long condition, awakening to what is true in this moment frees us enough to see clearly. But if we believe, ‘ah ha, now I’ve conquered fear,’ we get sucked into yet another delusion, believing ourselves to be immune to fear in all its forms. Instead it is more useful to be open and curious to whatever arises, to develop meditative techniques that enable us to more easily access the present moment, where we see clearly. We remember that Mara visited the Buddha all through his life, even though he was awakened. His awakening was not being free of Mara, but being free to see Mara in all its many aspects, and to hold it in an open embrace of curiosity and compassion.

Freedom from Fear

Is fear useful? Most would say yes. They say, “Fear keeps us from doing dangerous things and therefore is a valuable survival tool.” Is this really true? Everyone in the Tuesday meditation class nodded their heads in agreement.

What is your experience? Can you name a situation when fear was useful for you? As you think back, try to focus on a scene in which you were afraid. Hold that scene in your mind, and then ask yourself: What role did fear play? Did it help or hinder?

In class we shared our biggest scares, and in each situation that students could remember, it wasn’t the fear that saved them, but their own training, intuition or common sense. This has certainly been my experience as well. Yet fear has this reputation of being so useful!

We also discussed the self-fulfilling prophecy nature of fear, how a jealous boyfriend loses the girl he is afraid of losing out of fear-based jealous behavior. One student said that Philip Roth’s book, Indignation, is based on this whole idea of fear being self-fulfilling. So this is not new news here! But why does it persist?

Fear also has another reputation, counter to the first. It is known to be highly contagious. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s most famous quote is, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” These words are famous because their perennial truth resonates within us. Fear begets fear. When we feel fearful, we contract and express ourselves in the world in a way that puts fear in others. This can create dangerous situations.

When we see someone that makes the hairs on our neck stand up, someone who looks like they are violent, out of control or up to something dangerous, it is our intuition that aids us in understanding the situation. Chances are the person we encounter is operating on pure fear, charged with adrenaline. If we add more fear to the mix, more adrenaline coming from our side, the volatile situation is much more likely to ignite into something truly disastrous. The other person senses our fear and is drawn to it because it resonates. A synergistic fear event is not the kind of thing we really want to promote in our lives.

That doesn’t sound very useful. Let’s inquire further. We might say, “Fear is useful in keeping us from jaywalking across the street against busy traffic.” But couldn’t we manage that without fear? Could we do it from a love of life, a gratitude for the gift of life? That doesn’t have to be fear, just intelligence, just understanding the nature of our environment and moving with it as a flowing dance rather than a violent video game.

A typical fear response is fight or flight. Fear ignites anger and violence ensues. That’s the fight. How often does that turn out well? Running in many situations is known to be the worst thing we could do. Running from the police or from a wild animal might be deadly. The fear kicks in a response, locking out our ability to think clearly. Thus fear can itself be quite dangerous. It is so undependable. It might just as easily paralyze us when we should be running, like from a tsunami.

These are unusual moments of fear, but what about the fear that we live with day in and day out. Perhaps we have an underlying fear of loss, failure, illness and death. If our thoughts dwell a lot in the future, these fears keep us operating at half-mast as we mourn in advance of these eventualities. This constant fear causes our bodies great stress and could fuel disease and early death. What is the value of fear here?

What is the value of fear when we are too afraid to discuss important matters with our loved ones, or are too afraid to speak in public, fearful of what people will think of us? How does this fear protect us from anything at all? In fact, it keeps us from living in a rich connected way. It keeps us from being fully available for others, because we’re caught up in worrying what they will think of us. It keeps us from being able to experience and share the sweet fleeting gift of life on earth. Fear really traps us in misery. How is that useful?

Maybe we believe that fear is what keeps us lawful. “How could a society operate without people having a healthy fear of the consequences of unlawful behavior?” Keep people scared and they’ll stay in line. Is this the foundation of our society?

Ideally societies are formed to support all the members of the community for the mutual benefit of all. When you read the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, you can’t help but be inspired by the desire of “We the people” to form a “more perfect union” for the “general welfare.”

Fear sabotages all efforts to form a meaningful healthy community. When fear comes into play, people contract and become paranoid and suspicious. They feel separate and now they want only what they think will benefit them, not the rest of the community. They are blinded by their fear into thinking they can be happy at the expense of others.

In fear, they feel the need to make some members of their community be ‘other,’ calling any differences wrong, maybe even denying them basic rights within the society. Since fear is contagious, soon fear-based hate groups band together, seeing themselves as special, more entitled. Seeing this group makes excluded individuals fearful. Maybe they buy into the belief that they are wrong or unworthy, and the fear turns to self-hatred, or they recognize the injustice of the situation and they feel they must fight to protect themselves. Either way fear becomes the accepted culture, and generations later we can’t imagine anything different, can’t imagine that people are capable of living in a friendly supportive trusting way, in which the good of all is considered tantamount, because the happiness of the individual is so deeply rooted in peaceful coexistence and loving connection.

That fear on both sides and the resulting disconnection from any sense of responsibility to the community as a whole, becomes the basis of rude, aggressive and dangerous behavior. Thus laws are enacted that weren’t needed before. Trust is broken, doors are locked, weapons are amassed, and a ever-growing percentage of the population ends up imprisoned. The whole community suffers from this sense of separation and anxiety, this need to be on guard at all times from the dangers 'out there.' This culture of distrust extends out to how nations perceive each other as well. Global politics becomes as unskillful as the behavior of schoolyard bullies and their victims, and all from the same root. Fear sets us up for a failed society, the loss of real community that all of us crave.

Perhaps you think this view is naive. You say fear is a valuable tool because it works. Yes, if you believe it’s ‘us against them,’ and you want to keep ‘them’ in line, then fear is valuable. If you think you can make happiness for yourself based on the misery of others, then fear is a valuable tool. But let’s assume that you would not be interested in meditation, in developing your deep-rooted sense of connectedness, if you were suffering from that delusion. So for you, for us, fear has no value. The value in the situations we discussed earlier really lies in our native intelligence, in our caring about life itself, in our intuition.

But people in power use fear all the time. They themselves are rooted in fear, and thus feel it is quite acceptable to promote it in others in order to protect themselves. I spent a number of years in advertising and the better I became at it, the more insidious the industry seemed to me. Advertising is based completely on fear: You are not enough. You need this product to make you more beautiful, healthy, happy, successful, safe, etc. Psychological fear creation is the corner stone of capitalism! Corporate profits depend on it!

So much of our culture is rooted in a fear-based belief system. In fear, we despair, but it’s time to wake up! When you recognize that fear is being used to rush a vote in Congress, or to get you to buy something you’re not sure you need, wake up! It is only when we are fearful that these needy people, trying so hard to fill themselves, notice us and are attracted to us. If we dwell in fear, we offer ourselves up as victims, because we resonate with their fear. We don’t intend to, but our fear sends out the message that we are there for the taking.

I am not suggesting that when you notice fear that you push it away or try to talk yourself out of it or try to replace it with happy thoughts. Not at all. That wouldn’t be helpful, skillful or get the desired result. It is important to notice the fear when it arises. Maybe you don’t want to notice it. Maybe you think it reflects badly on you and you push it away or stuff it down. Fear is just fear. It’s not you. You didn’t create it. It arises within all of us.

Instead of trying to change it or ignore it, we get curious about it. We notice where we feel it in our bodies. We ask what thoughts are co-arising with this sense of fear? This is the practice. We neither grasp or push away the fear, but if we do grasp or push it away, we notice that too. We just keep noticing, sitting with what is.

The more we sit, chances are in time we will find less to be fearful about. We discover something in the depths of our being that is unafraid. Who can say what this is? When I talked about ‘metta beyond measure’ in a previous dharma talk, I talked about how it was possible for there to be a loving synergistic energy in which the whole world is vibrant with optimal well being, all within the natural circular life process of birth, death and decay. And, yes, I know that sounds totally wacko! But when we talk about fear and the products of fear, the ways in which fear is attracted to fear, we begin to see that most of the really painful encounters in life come from feeding the fear and turning it into a raging fire of fear that destroys everything in its path.

So what if we were free of fear? What would that be like? Is that even possible?

On an individual basis it is absolutely possible to be free of fear. And if more and more individuals were living fearless lives – not as dare-devils, but as balanced, loving, giving, harmonious people – then those who live in fear would at least not find so many opportunities to fuel their fear. And they might discover that this kind of deep rooted loving-kindness is even more contagious than fear.

Accessing spaciousness through meditation paves the way to this kind of fearlessness. Also developing a metta practice, where we send loving-kindness to all beings, that all beings may be well, happy and free, is key to beginning to feel the loving kindness that is ever present in the universe.

Accessing that loving-kindness, allows us to ‘lay down our swords and shields down by the riverside’ and become conduits for that loving energy in the world.

Here is a poem I wrote fifteen years ago when I was recovering from a long illness:

POEM: Dirt Bag Dharma

I don’t know how long I had been ill…
Long enough to see myself as
fragile, wan, weak, in need of protection
from violent images and emotion
that could suck the life right out of me.

But I needed soil for my garden
and the worker assigned to shovel
ten bags of dirt for me was apparently
way overdue for a break, and no doubt
had other grievances fueling his anger.

I backed off -- to give him space, I thought,
but really more to give me space,
as I retreated to the cocoon of my car to wait.

Feeling guilty, I began to send him metta:
May you be well, may you feel ease.
At first the words had a begging quality
like the prayers of a small child, cowering
in a corner, terrified of the bogey man.

But then I began to feel the power
of my words flush through me, transforming me
into a strong conduit of loving-kindness.
So I returned to his side and soon
we were chatting -- who knows about what,
it didn’t matter, because -- all the while
I radiated that peaceful energy.

Soon his shoulders and jaw softened, his voice lost
its edge, he chuckled at something I said,
and when his boss yelled another order,
he didn’t bark or bristle as he’d done before.
Instead he smiled at me, rolled his eyes as if to say,
‘Ain’t this shitty life grand?’

In that moment,
standing amidst my dirt bags,
I realized I was well.

- Stephanie Noble

Freedom from Struggle

We have been framing the conversation over the past weeks in terms of freedom. A sense of freedom is one of the many benefits of a regular practice of meditation. But I am aware that talking about these freedoms could easily set up expectation about what we should be feeling when we meditate or how our lives should be because we meditate. It is not my intention to ‘sell’ anyone on meditation by promising a multitude of benefits. Instead I want to keep reminding my students, my blog followers and myself to simply stay present with our own experience as it arises with an open embrace.

Have you noticed how when you try to be a ‘really good’ meditator, you end up miserable and disappointed? We create terrible stories about ourselves and our situation that make a simple practice of sitting and being aware that we are sitting into a Herculean struggle. The struggle locks the door on accessing the spaciousness of mind that can arise from being here and now. It is like those Chinese woven straw finger puzzles that the harder you try to pull your fingers out, the more stuck you become. With the puzzle, as with meditation, calming down and relaxing releases us from the struggle.

These terrible stories we tell ourselves have many variation. One is that we have hopeless ‘monkey mind,’ as a friend of mine recently told me she had.

This idea that the mind should be thought-free sets us up for struggle. We tell our minds to be quiet and we get frustrated because the thoughts continue. It is not the thoughts that are causing the problem. It is the belief that the thoughts are unacceptable. It is believing that we, of all mediators, are the only ones whose mind wants to think.

I remember attending a daylong retreat at Spirit Rock years ago, and at one point at the end of the day the meditators were invited to comment and question the teachers. One meditator said that she was a psychic and she noted that there certainly was a lot of chatter going on in the gathered meditating minds. She said it as an accusation, like the iconic old schoolmarm scolding us bad children with our naughty thinking. I don’t remember the teachers particularly responding to her other than to nod sagely as teachers do. Yes, the thinking mind. Quite a lot of chatter, it’s true.

Does it help to know that a whole roomful of practiced meditators had chattering minds, according to our resident psychic? Yes, I think it does. We like to be normal. Thinking is normal. How could thinking not be normal? It’s what our brains were created to do!

But most of us see thinking during meditation as naughty, just as that woman did who sat in judgment of the rest of us. She might have held us all in tenderness and compassion, but instead she felt that we were the obstacle that kept her from being able to meditate, with our chattering minds. It was all our fault. How would her experience have been different if she had taken the opportunity to send metta (loving kindness) out to her fellow meditators. How would our experience of meditation be different if we sent a little compassion to that part of ourselves that sits in judgment? (Sending metta is a wonderful way to deal with any source of irritation or anything we deem as ‘other.’ It is usually our judgments that are our problem, not the ones being judged, so shifting into metta mode changes the whole experience. Try it and see if it doesn’t help the next time you find yourself impatient or irritated by someone’s behavior.)

Insight meditation is not about shutting down the mind, but opening as much as possible to whatever is arising in the moment. We open our field of awareness to be spacious enough for thoughts to come through without our attention getting carried away by them, getting lost in them. We are ever expanding the field of our awareness so even with thoughts floating through we are still fully present, fully aware of all the sensations in our body, our breath, the temperature on our skin, the sounds we hear – everything! – including these threads of thought and emotion that pass through the field. If we discover we have been caught up in a thought, that we have lost awareness of this moment, it’s not time to attack but to celebrate our sudden awareness of the moment. After all, not everyone has access to even this much awareness in their lives. So even this little bit of awareness is a rich gift to feel thankful for. And then, before we get caught up in self-congratulatory thinking or remembering, we simply check in with our bodies, releasing any tension, softening and expand our awareness so that we can make room for the thoughts that arise.

You know how when you see a cyclist straining excessively up a hill, you want to call out ‘Change gears! You don’t need to work that hard!’ Well, it’s the same with meditation and anything else in life really. If we notice we are struggling, striving, exerting painful amounts of energy to do whatever we are doing, we might consider whether there is another gear that might be more efficient and effective.

In meditation ‘switching gears’ is sensing in to the body, noticing that tense jaw, for example, and then breathing into it and letting go. The gears will shift. It is that simple.

The Buddha called this kind of noticing Wise Effort, which we discussed back when we studied the Noble Eightfold Path.

Ultimately, in the deepest awareness of this present moment, we come to know that there is nothing to struggle against, that just as with the finger puzzle, instead of struggling, relaxing into the truth of whatever is happening in this moment is what frees us. We let go of this idea of perfection and achievement, and dance with the one that brought us: This life, this body, this mind, this moment.

Meditation brings freedom beyond measure

We have been discussing various aspects of freedom. (See previous posts.) We may believe ourselves to be free because no one is constraining us from doing anything we might want to do, as long as it is legal. That is an important and valued freedom. But most of us are imprisoned and don’t even know it. Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet and mystic, wrote, “Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.”

Regular meditation practice brings a sense of freedom that is rare in our lives. We begin to release some of the habitual thinking that has held us imprisoned. In this series of talks we have been exploring some of the ways we imprison ourselves. Today I want to talk about how we imprison ourselves with numbers. Most of us can rattle off a whole set of numbers that describe us, age, weight, height, etc. To the degree we believe these numbers to be ourselves, we are anything but free.

Of course, measurement can be useful. When you are building a house for example, it’s important, as any contractor will tell you, to measure and then measure again, or you are going to be walking around on uneven floors, wind will be howling through the walls and rain will be pouring through the roof.

But we are human, not construction projects. We are organic beings deeply interconnected with the organic universe. We are spiritual beings deeply interconnected with each other and all that is, even though we forget that, imprisoned as we are in our retracted state of separation. When we get caught up in measuring and comparing our measurements, it pops us out of our awareness of our true nature.

Though there are uses for the measurements available to us, most of us make the mistake of absorbing the numbers into our sense of who we are. We become our height, our weight, our IQ. We create a numerical prison, a misery index, dependent on what the scale told us this morning about ourselves and our ability to manage our weight to conform with what we have learned is acceptable in our culture. We allow these numbers to define us and to rule our emotions.

You may be surprised that one of the magazines I read regularly is Wired which focuses on cutting edge technology as it finds its way into our culture. Recently I was reading an article about living by the numbers. Today we know not just our height, weight and circumference, but our heart rate, our blood pressure, our metabolic rate, our blood glucose level, our cholesterol, all the various levels of elements in our blood, our body mass index, and that’s just a start. This is useful for working with our doctor to pinpoint a possible health issue, but if we focus too heavily on these kinds of measurements, we will find ourselves figuring out some formula by which all these figures add up to us.

And that is not the case. At all. We are not the sum of these measurements nor are we the size of the clothes we buy. Our ancestors didn’t know their size because clothes were custom made. They may have still dealt with fear-based numbers of security and status in the quantity or quality of possessions they claimed as their own. But these numbers we are dealing with that measure our physical size and all the intimate details of our body seem much more personal somehow. There’s no possibility of winning the lottery tomorrow and coming up with a whole new set of these personal numbers. There is just this struggle with the hand we have been dealt compounded by the challenge of our beliefs, desires and emotions around food, exercise and physical well being. These measurements are so intimate, measuring the inner workings of the very organism we inhabit.

Still, it’s all the same deluded process. Measuring and comparing. keeps us from simply living in this moment fully, sensing our aliveness, feeling gratitude for the gift of life in whatever form we experience it.

At earlier and earlier ages, girls compare their bodies to those of their classmates and as they develop into women, they compare them to the models and celebrities that fill magazines, television and movie screens, without understanding the misery and artifice involved in creating these unreal figures. It is a rare woman who feels comfortable with all her physical and mental attributes. Even the ones who look ‘perfect’ to others carry fears of being failures in some arena.

But it isn’t just girls, of course. I just heard a story about one little boy teasing another that his male member was too small. Of course, the one being taunted was devastated and depending on his personality and how the event was handled by his parents and school staff, it is perfectly possible that he could be deeply affected by the event, especially if he has been told that the ‘manly’ thing to do is to suck it up and forget about it. Without the opportunity to process it, question its veracity, the event sinks deeper and deeper, so that the boy, then the man doesn’t recognize the source of his resulting unskillful behavior for the rest of his life. This kind of thing happens all the time and parents often don’t know about it to address it, so there it lays: this little time bomb of pain and self-doubt that sets off perhaps a defensive aggressive need-to-prove-oneself kind of behavior that could bring more pain to that person and those around him. And we wonder why there are so many difficult people around? We need to see them as the walking wounded, and have compassion for them. They are us. We are all wounded in some way, we are all reacting to long-buried but still toxic stimuli.

In meditation we quiet our minds down enough to see our thoughts more clearly as they stream through, and eventually we have enough clarity to see that our thoughts are not who we are. (See previous posts.) If they are not us, we cease feeling the need to defend our thoughts. We only need to be curious about them. So let’s say this little boy didn’t have the kind of counseling that could have neutralized the schoolyard taunt he received. Let’s say he grew up and has a history of aggression issues, bullying other children, then in adolescence needing to prove himself over and over again in sexual situations. Probably this behavior followed him into his adult life, adversely affecting his relationships. And now here he is meditating, hoping to find peace in his heart and mind.

With regular meditation he finds himself becoming less defensive, less aggressive, less angry. And one day in meditation he has a thought, perhaps a thought he has had many times in his life, about proving his sexual prowess. But this time his mind is very quiet and he is unattached to the thought, neither ashamed nor proud. It is just a thought passing through. So this time he can look at the thought more clearly instead of building on it or pushing it away. He can sit with it in spaciousness. He can ask questions of the thought: Is it true? Where did this come from? And perhaps this long buried scene from his childhood will rise up in answer to his question. He will see the playground bully and remember his cruel words. He may be surprised how clear the memory is when he had forgotten it all these years. He can sense into his body and feel the pain of the attack and the emotions that arise around it. He can bring compassion to these emotions. He can also, from his adult perspective, recognize the wounded nature of the bully acting out. He can see that those words were spoken in pain and with no bearing to any truth, no bearing to him at all, that he just happened to be there, an innocent bystander of an inner violence blurting out. He can see how throughout his whole life he has let those words live and breed within him, stirring up so much pain that he lashed out again and again in pure reaction to that one long-forgotten moment.

If this sounds overblown, then you are forgetting how it is to be a child, sensitive and vulnerable and searching for identity. And if you doubt that we can draw forth long forgotten memories, don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself. Quiet down and ask a question, and see if the answer doesn’t arise in the form of memories. The thoughtless cutting thing some parent, teacher or friend said to you that has become a ‘truth’ that you live by, without questioning its source. Question it now! It will set you free.

I am talking about a meditative stillness of mind. Without that we rarely quiet down enough to see the ramshackle construction of our beliefs about ourselves and the world, made up of things people said that resonated with us in one way or another, sometimes confirming our worst fears. The sources may be long forgotten and the beliefs calcified within us unexamined, yet we rely on them for every decision we make, every word we say throughout our lives. How can this be true? Don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.

The power of meditation is this clarity of mind, this release of identifying with our thoughts so that we can really see them and question their veracity. This is why trying to change our thinking, replacing corrosive thoughts with bright cheery ones and trying to convince ourselves they are true, is unsuccessful. We are trying to replace one habit of mind with another, but both are mindless habits, numbing us down to get through life untouched.

We can’t force inner transformation, we can only set the stage for it by quieting our minds as much as possible and listening in. The regular practice of meditation itself will set into motion all the changes that are needed, unfolding at the pace that is best suited for us to process them. This may be a long slow process, this unfolding. Certainly I don’t claim to be free in regard to this concept of measurement! But I trust in the process, the slow revelation, layer by layer.
Ultimately we come to realize that we are not our bodies, just as we are not our thoughts. And if we are not our bodies, then all the measures lose their power over us. But even though we are not our bodies, we are responsible for their care, and filled with gratitude for the gift of life in whatever form we inhabit. In Buddhist teachings it is said that the opportunity to inhabit the human form is as rare a gift as a sea turtle in a vast ocean surfacing in the circle of the only life preserver floating on the whole ocean. That has to be pretty rare indeed! And the human realm is considered the only one in which true liberation is possible, because the higher realms are too content to bother looking and the lower realms are too miserable to have time for such exploration. I’m no expert on Buddhist cosmology, and don’t have much interest in it as it seems for me superfluous to the Buddha’s core teachings which are timeless and culture-free truths that need no cast of characters, human, godly or angelic. But I appreciate any reminder of how fortunate I am to be here in this present moment in the form I am in. From that perspective being grumpy that my ‘big girl’ pants are tight seems pretty ungrateful.

It is useful to notice when we are finding fault with ourselves and comparing our bodies to others, and then to bring spacious awareness to the pain, the sensations around the pain, and the attachment we have to these harsh judgments. It is interesting to notice the emotions that arise, whether we feel guilty, ashamed, angry or victimized. These are all valuable opportunities to begin an inner exploration, questioning: ‘Why do I feel guilty?’ If victimized: ‘Who do I hold responsible for this unacceptable state?’

As with any inner dialog, don’t shut down the process by judging the answers unacceptable. ‘But that’s just stupid!’ is really not a very useful reaction. If it is the one that arises, then question it and let the process continue. What has come to be called Emotional Intelligence is something that has been developed over the past few decades. For most of us it is relatively new territory, especially our interior dialogs which may still be very rude and thoughtless. Noticing how we talk to ourselves is an important part of developing compassionate tools for self discovery.

Through meditation practice we develop a sense of caring – for the world, other people and ourselves. Bit by bit we tune in to our bodies and find that when we are really paying attention, instead of acting on automatic pilot, we crave healthy nutritious food instead of processed refined empty calories, which when our taste buds are fully engaged taste like cardboard and chemicals. When we really tune into our bodies, we take pleasure in exercising regularly to the degree that feels right for our body right now, neither too much nor too little. And we are grateful for the wondrous specificity of measures that modern science has at its disposal to help us when we are facing serious health challenges, but don’t mistake the numbers for ourselves.

If you are a regular meditator and the area of food and exercise is still shut down or numb for you, so that you behave unskillfully, it simply means that this is a very deep issue for you. Keep exploring. Really practice being present while eating – no reading or other activity to get in the way of the experience of all the sensations involved in the process. Really listen to what you are telling yourself when you don’t get the exercise your body needs. Use the scale to keep you honest. (Mine recently caught me in a bit of delusion. You really cannot trust stretchy clothes! They lie all the time.) But balance all of that with as much loving-kindness as you can muster for yourself exactly as you are.

If you, like me, are not quite there yet with this letting go of your comparing mind, at least let us bring as much awareness and compassion as we can to the experience. We see a photograph of a body and we see the vast disparity between it and our body, and we notice the various bad feelings that ensue. We don’t need to fight our habituated comparing mind so much as be aware of it when comparing thoughts arise. We can be curious about them. We can notice what sensations arise in our bodies when we start comparing and measuring. We can begin to see how we make ourselves miserable by measuring ourselves against others. Being compassionate with ourselves, we can gently free ourselves from the tangle of it, and return to the present moment.

We can also really look at the person in the photograph. We can go beyond the cookie cutter figure they have molded themselves into and send metta (loving-kindness) to the person feeling the need to be perfect in order not just to feel good about themselves but to make a living. What a burden that must be! We can let go of envy and let ourselves feel compassion.

With regular meditative practice we can relax into fuller acceptance of ourselves as unique but integral aspects of all that is, just as lovely as anything else in nature, just as perfect, just as flawed, and it’s all okay. We can rejoice in the variety of beauty possible in all forms of life, and accept who we are in the scheme of things. And that is freedom!

Freedom from ‘Our Story’ through Meditation

We talk about the lure of thoughts during meditation, but what about when we are not meditating: Don’t we have to go back to thinking? If we didn’t, how could we live in the world?

Vipassana or insight meditation is about staying present with what is in our current experience so that we develop the skill of being present in our daily lives as well. When we live our lives fully present, we discover how rich and satisfying it can be, so we are less likely to want to get lost in what we call ‘our story.’ Practicing this form of meditation where we simply ‘sit and know that we are sitting,’ as many Spirit Rock teachers say, we learn to differentiate between the thinking that is useful and necessary for living and the thinking that is keeping us from living fully.

‘Our story’ is all the thoughts we have about our lives, about the people in our lives, usually flavored with all our wants, fears and judgments. Since we were children this is the kind of thoughts we have had, just like everyone else in our culture. But these thoughts are neither nurturing nor fulfilling. We may get very emotionally stimulated as we have them, but ultimately they leave us feeling confused and somehow wounded. They do not bring about a joyful sense of ease. They only stir up our anxieties and our dissatisfaction with things as they are. Our story is very good at creating suffering.

You may well wonder how we could possibly be freed from our story when it is so very much a part of the fabric of who we perceive ourselves to be. And anyway we like our story. Even if it does make us miserable, it’s our story, thank you very much. We don’t want it taken away….Okay, we allow that thought to be present as we explore a little further. We can hold both because we have spacious minds!

Allow me to suggest that our attachment to ‘our story’ is as if we have been brought up exclusively on a diet of pre-packaged chemically-enhanced ultra-sweet sponge cake and we can’t figure out why we don’t feel well. We go about in a fog and we look for a way out, but it would never cross our minds to stop eating this food that is our cultural heritage, that is celebrated and venerated, that everyone we know eats as well. It would be outrageous to even consider. And yet, here we are in a fog, in misery at least part of the time. We never feel absolutely well, absolutely comfortable in our skins, absolutely at home in the world. We can’t even imagine what that would be like.

Our story is junk food for the mind. Meditation offers a wholesome diet comparable to organic vegetables and whole grains. Peace, quiet, tranquility, authenticity, groundedness, spaciousness, and awareness: These are the wholesome foods for our minds.

Just as if we had spent our lives eating only junk food, if we have spent out lives caught up fully in our story, and if our culture has fed our story with non-stop distractions in the form of news, gossip and advertisements, just for starters, then how could we imagine this presence of mind that meditation teachers talk about? It’s a dilemma that leaves the majority of the population stuck in their stories. They hear about meditation, about long retreats in silence, and they run screaming from the room. “I’d be bored out of my gourd! I need my radio, iPod, computer, television, phone, etc.”

But not you! You sensed something was missing on your plate. You felt that the junk-thought life style was not satisfying you. Even though maybe you weren’t sure what it was you were hungering for, you braved giving meditation a try to see if it had some nourishment for you. You turned off the technological distractions and sat for a while in silence.

Good choice! Of course, just like tasting broccoli for the first time, or switching from processed white bread to whole grain, it can take a while to develop a taste for it. Perhaps at first sitting practice feels weird. Perhaps we can’t concentrate. Perhaps we are uncomfortable. Perhaps we spend our whole sit convincing ourselves this is stupid.

But if we stay with it, the benefits will start making themselves known. As we notice that we feel more relaxed, more spacious, more generous, less angry, less anxious, and generally happier, we develop a taste for this more wholesome diet of mind.

Our story is still there but it is not our whole meal. And as we practice bringing our attention to the present moment and discover the riches available to us in that simple act of paying attention to what is, we find we are less and less dependent on our story.

So, what is our story and why is it junk food? Our story is first and foremost the things we believe to be true about ourselves, others and the world around us. Before we begin to meditate, often our story is pretty solid. We don’t just believe, we know what is true, what is right. We know it all.

But as we meditate, we begin to recognize that this hard fast knowing is something we have been clinging to, something that we felt made us safe. As we develop spaciousness of mind, we begin to feel a deeper sense of safety, not dependent on causes and conditions. We feel safe enough to begin to question some of our long held assumptions. We soften some of the hard knots of the tangle of story we have been caught up in for so long. The more spacious our minds become, the less tangled the story threads become. They don’t disappear, but we can see them for what they are. And we no longer cling to them. Eventually we recognize that the story is not a safety net but a heavy weight that has been keeping us from really living.

When in our daily lives we get caught up in story, when we gossip about others, when we are blindly bent on satisfying some craving, eventually we come back to the present moment. And we recognize the unpleasant residual sensations of having been entangled with story. As we get more practiced, we can notice sooner when we are caught up in story, perhaps at the moment we are beginning to act out our urge to binge or gossip or rage about the injustice of it all. We can see it, we can really hear what we are saying to ourselves (or others), we can question whether it is really true, we can notice the emotional tone and where we feel it in our body, we can see where it might have come from, we can see the fear that prompted it, and we can compassionately bring our new-found awareness to bear on the situation.

Now believing we can live a life free of story is, of course, just another story to get caught up in, one that makes us dissatisfied with the truth of our experience. So we develop a relationship with our story that is as compassionate as we can manage in this moment. We recognize story for what it is. We understand that we can still be attracted to the empty calorie promises it offers. We set our intention to be as skillful as we are able so that we are not forcing our story on others.

Many aha moments arise out of this noticing when we are caught up in our story. Perhaps we can soften our judgment enough to smile at the way we are so easily drawn in yet again. And we can rejoice in awareness that offers us the freedom to let go of our story. Again and again.

As I mentioned in the last post about the lure of thoughts, it is that moment of release from delusion, from being so caught up in our story, that is really pivotal. Suddenly we have freedom and choice. At this point it is good to remember to focus on one of the many sense anchors to the present moment we have available to us: rubbing the texture of cloth on our clothes, sensing our breath, really looking at the light and shadow, shapes, colors and textures of the world around us, hearing whatever ambient sound there is – whatever works, to bring us as fully as possible into the present moment. I am at this very moment feeling the smooth texture of the computer keys under my fingers.

Why is this present moment freedom and our story is not?
Our story is based on the belief that we are separate. Our story runs on the finite, depletable, polluting energy of fear. Check out for yourself if this is true. Notice your stories. Question what is driving them.

Many of our stories begin with the words “If only…”: “If only I had more time,” “If only I wasn’t so….,” “If only he wasn’t so…,” “If only the world wasn’t so…,” “If only I were – fill in the blank: richer, thinner, smarter, more compassionate, etc.” This ‘if only’ is a stick to beat ourselves up. It is a violence we do to ourselves and others, and is based purely on fear.

If we truly felt ourselves to be deeply connected to all that is, then the stories would fall away. What on earth would we wish for that we don’t already have in some part of our vastly extended self, the self not defined by I, me, mine? When we have this sense of joy for the fullness of life through our connection, we experience mudita, happiness for the happiness of others, because there is no ‘other’. All joy is all of our joy.

It’s easy for us to hear this kind of talk and immediately start another story. “If only I could sense my connection to all that is, if only I could feel happiness for the happiness of others because there is no other! Then I’d be happy!”

Yes, we continually deal with our stories. But as we become aware of them, we come out of the fog of them, out of that tight tangle woven by the thought threads that make up these seemingly ironclad tales that we have held to be truth for so long. Then we can see them simply as story, and allow ourselves to be curious, to explore the nature of the tales we tell ourselves. We can question the validity of our stories in a way that we couldn’t when we believed we were our stories. It was too threatening to our existence to question them then. But as we begin to get an inkling of an understanding of the vast expansiveness of our being, we may be willing to let go of our dependence on our stories. And that is freedom.

So then what are necessary thoughts?
In our daily lives we have the thoughts that are necessary in that moment in order to take care of any responsibilities we may have. If we are on retreat and we have only the responsibility to get to the zafu when the bell rings, to set our intention to be mindful, to do our daily yogi job with full mindfulness, to eat mindfully, etc., then there are very few thoughts that are necessary. This gives us a great opportunity to see our story more clearly. Because we cannot pretend it is necessary in this moment to solve past, future or distant problems.

In our daily lives obviously we have more responsibilities. We have the care of our bodies, our home, our relationships and our financial stability to think about. But how many of our thoughts directed to these responsibilities are useful? How many are like wholesome fresh vegetable thoughts that nourish and how many are an old smelly stew we keep churning and churning? If we are paying attention we can tell the difference.

It is helpful to identify when you want to think actively about something. Set aside a period of time to plan a trip, solve a problem, or find a job, for example, and really focus on doing all that is required. Do the research, make lists. Have a thinking period that actually moves your plan forward. Otherwise it’s just a daydream story. Much of our story is really just procrastination thoughts, giving ourselves excuses about why we aren’t making that dentist appointment, fixing that broken toilet, writing that report, etc. We go around and around in our heads about it so many times, over and over, you’d think we’d get dizzy! Actual doing something about it takes up much less thinking space! As one of my students aptly put it, “You know you’re going to have to do it at some point, so just get on with it.”

With relationships you may find that thinking about them is not nearly so useful as you might have believed. In fact, most relationships would be much improved with less thinking and more being fully present, really listening, really appreciating each other, and responding from a deep heartfelt sensing in to the truth for us in this moment. Not dragging in all that old story!

This discerning between what is story and what is necessary thought arises out of the regular practice of meditation. It is not something you have to add to your to do list. It is just something you might notice in your own practice. If you don’t notice it, don’t worry. Just know that your practice itself is the door to freedom.

Freedom from believing we are our thoughts

We have finished our exploration of creativity, having explored it from many different angles. Now I’d like to begin to explore another concept in the same way: the idea of freedom.

The first exploration is freedom from believing we are our thoughts. We looked into this last July, and I would like to revisit it here with a new analogy that might further help to clarify our relationship with thoughts.

Think of it this way: A thought is a thread attached to the past or the future that dangles a hook in front of us flashing a very attractive lure. As meditators, we train ourselves to notice the lure but stay present in the vast ocean of our awareness. We have no need to be plucked out of this present moment. There is nothing in it for us that could be more deeply satisfying and nurturing than this.

However it is, as I said, a very attractive lure. So of course at times we grab it. And off we go, drawn into a wild ride in the emotionally turbulent waters of remembering or planning, worrying or regretting, daydreaming or judging.

Fortunately, the universe participates in a catch and release program, and eventually we are unhooked from our thread of thought and we can return to the vast ocean of awareness. This release moment is a crucial one. Suddenly freed, we have the capacity to be aware. Because we are free and aware, we have a choice. It’s very important to recognize that we did not have a choice while we were being reeled in. We made the choice to take the lure, but once taken we were in a state of helplessness. Therefore, it makes no sense to give ourselves a hard time about how long we were caught up in that thread of thought, how long it took us to be released from that hook. In fact, the impulse to beat ourselves up is simply another lure very attractively placed at every release point. At every point where we have a choice, there is yet another lure dangling before us that will take us on a wild ride of recrimination, judgment and frustration with our seeming inability to meditate.

Eventually we learn to recognize the dangling lure for what it is: a distraction from really experiencing life first hand. We can appreciate its beauty and let it pass. We can notice all sorts of threads of thoughts in our sea of awareness and we can let them pass as if they are schools of fish passing through. Instead of being like fish constantly searching for the next tasty morsel and discovering that it’s attached to a hook, we can be like the swaying kelp or coral settled in to the ocean floor that senses all fully, appreciates it, engages with it, but doesn’t get taken for a ride. Instead it nurtures all life.

In this state we can experience the emotions as the water itself. (In dream analysis, water represents emotion so this works out well!) Sitting quietly, receptively on the ocean floor we experience the emotions fully but we are anchored, so we sway with the currents of emotions as they pass through our awareness, but we are not tossed about by them.

In meditation we have access to the finest gift of life: Presence of mind, the ability to be fully present with our experience in each moment. This is the best gift possible for it turns every experience, even the most ordinary, even the most painful, into something rich, multi-layered, extraordinary. We develop through regular meditation the ability to pierce the veils, the filters that for so long obscured our view of the world around us and our own experience.

So why, when we are sitting in meditation, blessed by the greatest gift ever, are we still so attracted to the lures that dangle before us? Because we are human and these lures were designed with us in mind. So we will grab them, we will feel helpless, and we may struggle to be released, our efforts only entangling us more. But it is okay. Because when we relax our bodies, when we breathe and become aware of our breath, or of a sound or another sensation, then we will be released.

And at that moment we have the opportunity and freedom to choose.

We can flap around scolding ourselves, making waves, creating tension, getting caught up in the tangle of dangling thought threads, and convince ourselves that the flash of a lure is our ticket out of this mess. Only to find ourselves once again helplessly caught.

Or we can choose to feel gratitude for being returned to awareness. We can relax our muscles and our minds. We can restate our intention to be fully present and to be kind to ourselves in the process.

With practice we learn to recognize the lures, we learn to rest in awareness, we learn to be the coral or the kelp nurturing life at the bottom of the vast sea of awareness.

Now I would not use this analogy while leading meditation because some meditators may feel uncomfortable imagining themselves underwater. They would feel the lack of air. For some reason this doesn’t bother me. Perhaps I had gills in a past life!

But it does make a good analogy to consider and be aware of. In this analogy it is clear that we are not our thoughts. They arrive as lures cast out by some unknown and even unseen source. This is the true nature of thoughts and it is a hard one to grasp. Until we understand that we are not our thoughts, we feel responsible for them. We are responsible for our words and our actions, the way we interact in the world, but our thoughts are just floating threads that we observe with passing interest.

Our actions will affect the nature of our thoughts. If we constantly expose ourselves to fear-based entertainment or hang out with people whose view of life is very negative, who out of fear feel the need to put others down, to gossip about people, to judge them, or who feel so separate from the world that they believe the community’s rules are not for them, then our thoughts, just like our dreams, will be affected.

As we bring more awareness into our lives, we recognize how our actions and choices can foster thoughts that stir up the waters, muddying our view. We can change our actions, make healthier choices and the thoughts will begin to change as well.

But still, they are only thoughts. They do not rule us or define us. They are just passing threads through our sea of awareness.