Doing same, expecting different

I want to be liberated from my ego but on its terms and conditions…

When we enter into the practice of meditation, we want to experience the many and profound benefits of our practice.  But we won’t be able to do this if we remain bound to our pet likes and dislikes, our typical attachments and aversions, our old habits of mind i.e. our thoughts, beliefs and attitudes.

It’s a simple logic: 

Do things the same way, expect the same results.  Do things differently and you will get different results.

So how do we abandon or at least suspend our likes, our attachments, our preferences, our habits?  And if this is the prerequisite for our meditation practice, are we all doomed to failure because we have held these thoughts and beliefs for most of our lives and believe (J) that they will be hard to break?!

Interestingly, one of the outcomes of meditation practice is to help us become more aware of our habits, our attachments, our aversions, our preferences and our claims about who and how and why we are and who and how and why we are not.

Hang on… 

How the heck do I abandon what I am not aware of???

If the outcome of our practice is to make us aware of our thoughts, beliefs, attachments, aversions etc, how can we be expected to abandon them if we’re not aware of them? 

Huh???

Ok, ok, ok already!  Let’s go back to what I said earlier and what I think you will agree with:

Do the same thing, expect the same outcomes.  Do something different, expect different outcomes.

Now if we agree with this, then we must be prepared to do something different when we sit down to practice. 

If we enter our practice determined that we’ll do only what we are used to doing, then nothing changes.  We might as well not practice.

  

Change is but one delightful, exciting, scrumdelicious thought away!

However, if we enter with a different attitude, then we are certainly going to benefit from our practice.

Now here is where it might get a bit confusing.  You might be thinking:

Well, I’ve come to practice meditation.  It’s something I would not normally do.  Isn’t that a demonstration of a different attitude?

No, not necessarily. 

It’s a demonstration of a different course of action but that in itself does not reflect a different attitude. 

Or, take this as another example:

I might be coming to practice because I want to challenge myself to do something I haven’t done before. 

Do I typically set myself challenges?  If I do, then this is but one more challenge I’ve set myself, nothing more.  And nothing different, really.

Or again, I might be coming because there were some things I liked about my first experience with meditation, or with the particular facilitator. 

Do I usually repeat something hoping/expecting to get the same result?  If I do, then am I not doing the same thing here?  So what has changed? 

  

You’re telling me that I shouldn’t repeat what works???

Now you may think that there’s nothing wrong with repeating something because it has produced favorable outcomes in the past.  After all, isn’t this a sensible thing to do?

Sure it is. 

If we went to our favorite supermarket to buy our favorite brand of coffee because it is reasonably priced, wouldn’t it be silly to stop going there for those reasons??!

Of course it would be.

But here’s something to consider: 

What if they no longer sold your favorite coffee?  Or what if the price went up?  How would you feel about that? 

More than likely, you’d be disappointed.  Out of desperation or with a sense of resignation, you might scan the shelf for an alternative.  But you’d likely do so half-heartedly, not really expecting to find an alternative brand that you think you’d like.

Ah, perhaps we can begin to see the drawbacks in this way of thinkingJ.  And perhaps we can also see the similarities in our thinking/beliefs i.e. the habits of mind that we have outside our practice and that we bring into our practice J

These are just a few examples of how, although it may appear we are doing something different i.e practicing meditation or keeping an open mind when we start our practice, we are inadvertently in fact repeating and reinforcing our old habits of mind.

What then are we to do?

Stop practicing altogether?

Well, that is certainly one option though I hope you choose a different one J.

Perhaps it might be useful to revisit our initial reason/motivation for wanting to practice, the reason that first got us excited about the practice.

In all likelihood, it had nothing to do with meeting a new challenge or wanting to have a particular kind of experience.  On the contrary, it probably had to do with the excitement of having a good experience or the desire to stop having bad experiences eg stress, anxiety, depression, illness etc.

At this stage, while these feelings contain seeds of attachment (wanting something) and aversion (avoiding something), they have not yet sprouted.  Whether these seeds sprout or not will depend on our attitude.

Notice that when we sit down to practice, I invite you to recall and consider what your motivation has been for coming to practice.  Then I invite you to set aside these motivations as they have already served their purpose i.e. they have brought you to the practice.  They have done their job J. 

Now, with a fresh mind and heart, meaning one that is open to fresh possibilities, fresh experiences and fresh outcomes, you are more ready to enter into your practice and more likely to benefit greatly from it J.

Before I finish this post, there are a few other points that I would like to address here.  They are related to questions that have been asked following practice.

The breath – a point of Focus, an Anchor, a Now

The breath is a point of focus.  It is always present, always available and a source of great information.  (More about that last one another time)

For now, let’s look at the more immediate functions of focusing on the breath for our practice.

When we focus on the breath, we are focusing on the present.  The breath is a very ‘present’ phenomenon.  It is happening all the time, it is very ‘now’ J.

If we understand that our job in meditation practice is to focus on the breath, than we will see that, in fact, we are practicing being in the now, being present.

Right, so tell me again, what is the point of being ‘present’?

Well, for one thing, it is a break from our typical habits of mind which are to obsess with the past or the future.  And since for most of us, the future we obsess about is a direct and uncreative product of our past, we are effectively doing and creating more of the past.  Nothing much has changed nor is going to.

Also, when we keep in mind that our job during our practice is to bring the mind’s attention to the breath, to notice when our mind has wandered, and to return it again and again and again to the breath, then we can see that this too is another way of breaking out typical habits of mind.

Typically, the mind flits from one thought to the next becoming embroiled in its dramas which are almost always inaccurate accounts of the past and uncreative projections into the future. 

The mind pretty much does its own thing and we suffer the effects of its uncreative ways mentally, emotionally and physically. 

But when we can redirect our mind again and again and again to our breath every time we notice that it has wandered away to a thought and become mired it its associated dramas, we are once again breaking that habit of the conditioned mind!

What is more, when we can do this without self-judgment, without self-chastisement, without taking ourselves too seriously, and instead do this with a big smile on our faces while gently, humorously and compassionately thinking, Ah mind, you have wandered.  Come back to the breath, we will be breaking several deeply entrenched and disempowering habits of mind!

How freeing and liberating is that! 

It is like being allowed to breathe after being held under water for a painfully long period of time, except that generally, the experience during meditation practice is not as harsh or intense J.  Instead, for most people, most of the time, it is more like a slow opening of a window or door in a very congested roomJ

I say most people and most of the time because there are certainly occasions when some people may have some rather sudden and intense experiences. This is not necessarily better or worse, it is just one type of experience.

So, breaking habits by being present, by noticing when the mind has wandered and by returning it again and again to the breath is a great start to our conscious movement into the infinite ground of our being!

Finally, I’d like to invite you to reflect on the

Habits of Mind that are being reinforced during your practice

Are any of the following true for you regarding your practice? 

·       You get sleepy and/or bored

·       You get physically/mentally/emotionally uncomfortable, strained

·       You fall into dream states

·       You feel anxious, impatient or overwhelmed

·       You feel underwhelmed, a sudden or slow loss of purpose, interest

·       You feel frustrated with yourself eg your ability to watch your breath or sit still

·       You judge yourself unfavorably

·       You chastise yourself

·       You compare your experiences with past experiences and make judgments and form conclusions accordingly

·       You conclude that your current experience/reaction is a recurring one, an old ‘problem’

·       You look for quick answers/immediate solutions and feel disappointed/frustrated/irritated when you don’t get them

·       You think that your practice is a waste of time because it is not getting you the results you want/expect

Do you experience these behaviors/responses in other events/situations in your life? 

What are the similarities/differences between the events/situations?  Between your behavior/response?

Can you see that it is the same kind of thinking/reasoning/habits of thought and belief that govern and limit your experience and thus your behavior/response?

Do take the time to reflect on these questions sincerely, patiently and with an open heart and mind!

Am I really, truly, sincerely, truly, truly ready to change my thinking, beliefs and attitudes?  (But... but...but...do I have to????)

Are you ready to choose a different behavior/response?

You know, all you really need to get the most out of your meditation practice, is

1.   A desire to benefit from your practice without specifying exactly how this must happen and in what shape and form that benefit must be

2.   Permission from yourself to allow this to happen.  In other words staying open and receptive to all possibilities  rather than dictating what and how things must happen (which draws on a very narrow set of possibilities)

You will find the same applies for anything else in lifeJ 

So, what do you say?  Shall we start again? 

That’s right – Again!

Let each practice be a brand new practice, arising out of a brand new attitude (because it is one that you are choosing to have in every new moment, every new breathJ), and consequently, a brand new experience created out of brand new possibilities!

Now seriously, can life get any more exciting than that???!!!! J