My Three Priceless Reminders

Image from Lucy's album

Believe it or not, there was a time when I could quite easily and rapidly free fall into the bottomless pit of despair or disappointment or frustration or rage…

During those times, a relentless cycle of thoughts and feelings would keep me helplessly trapped within its paralyzing grip. 

So consumed was I with my thoughts and feelings, I was completely oblivious of the fact that I was trapped and that I was cycling through the same disempowering state interminably.

Oh my, what a state that was! 

And all through it, I would be consumed with the injustices, the unkindness, the insensitivities, the bloody-mindedness, the arrogance, the callousness, the dishonesty, the insincerity, the ill-intent of the other party. 

I would be thinking and rethinking AND JUDGING for the thousandth and tenth time, what had been said, done, projected, alleged, not said, not done, not defended, not justified by the other party. 

I would be raging or despairing with my response at the time and feverishly rehearsing my better, more bold, more ‘I’ll show them!’ future response. 

Dialogues fueled by outrage or self-pity or condemnation or righteousness or fear would play in my mind almost unceasingly, only briefly leaving me alone if and when my attention was forcefully drawn elsewhere.

Needless to say, my responses to these troubling situations and events were never fulfilling and the outcomes that they generated were never satisfying.  On the contrary, they kept the ground fertile for future and almost inevitable conflict. 

Not all of these conflicts were overt and dramatic, out there in the open.  No, most, I would say, were of the stealthy type – understated, expressed often in silence, withdrawal, ignoring, avoidance, sulking, and a kind of saintly accedence. 

As you can imagine, none of these responses resulted in lasting peace. 

True, they did provide temporary relief and given the degree of mental and emotional (and physical – my stomach used to churn, I’d feel nauseous, throw up, be more prone to illness and injuries etc) turmoil I was in, the relief was vital, life-saving almost!

But, worst of all, despite all the mental, emotional and physical effort I would have invested in these situations/events, I never felt good about myself no matter how hard or how eloquently I defended my response while condemning the actions of the other party. 

Most of this prosecution and defense happened in my head, of course, though I would share some of its story with sympathetic friends. 

I kept telling the story over and over again as if repetition would make it -BECOME and FEEL true according to how I had construed it, of course. 

The thing is, it never FELT true although it may have sounded reasoned and convincing intellectually.

It was only when I took the time to observe and study the nature of the mind that I began to realize that in all these conflicts, these undesirable situations, these *injustices*,

·       I was the common link.  In other words, I was always present.  Without me, there was no story, no event, no disturbance, no turmoil

·       My thoughts and feelings, my outrage, disappointment, sense of injustice etc were learned and habitual, resulting from associations that I’d made from a long time ago, perhaps even while in my mother’s womb!

·       I was trying to protect a *me* that didn’t really exist in the way I believed it to be i.e. separate, finite, unchanging, condemned forever to its beliefs, habits of thoughts, words and actions

Whoa!  What a realization that was!  What liberation it offered! 

I knew I was onto a good thing.  I was going to continue to observe and study.  I was after PEACE, JOY and FREEDOM and I was going to find them and I did!

But it’s not over.  It’s an ongoing thing, a never-ending journey.  I am still discovering more and more about the mind, and experiencing greater peace, joy and freedom along the way.

Each time I experience a situation in which the old, disempowering habits of the mind arise yet again, I am better able to bring my mind into the light of truth, into its clear water mind state where its thoughts and behaviors are seen for what they truly are – passing clouds, mud that has been disturbed,

These thoughts, feelings, words, actions are not *ME*.  They arise in the field of consciousness but they are not *ME*.  They arise and, if I let them be, they just fall away. 

I do not attach to them nor avoid them.  I am no longer under their disempowering grip.  I simply see them as passing events and I let them pass. 

When we think and say, “This too shall pass”, often we miss the deeper truth underlying these words. 

It’s not that some mysterious, more powerful force, causes them to pass.  Rather, it’s we, you and I, who can and must choose to let them pass, seeing them as events, no more and no less than any other and which, when there is neither attachment to or avoidance from, will dissipate like clouds.

In other words, we ALWAYS have control over our response. 

Now, so many of us pay lip service to this idea, this assertion.  We will often readily say, ‘Oh yes, we can choose our response’. 

But as long as that response comes from a place of powerlessness, anger, frustration, indignation, retribution etc, in other words, as long as we respond from FEAR, we have not chosen FREELY.  Instead, we have merely responded from habit, from disempowering beliefs and associations also known as conditioning.

It is an unnatural response.

You need to understand that the response from fear is a self-protecting and separating response, reinforcing the ILLUSION of a separate, incomplete and un-whole self.

The response from peace, joy, power, freedom and love, on the other hand, is a natural response.  It is free, open, expansive and aligned with the TRUTH of a unified, complete, unconditioned and whole SELF in which there is no separation and no need for self-protection.

So, all that said, what are my Three, Priceless Reminders that help me quickly illuminate the habituated/conditioned mind and its beliefs, thoughts and behaviors with the pure light of Truth/Love?

My Three Priceless Reminders:

1.   This is an event/situation that my unnatural, conditioned, muddy water mind has construed as a result of long established beliefs and associations

2.   I am by nature Peaceful, Joyous, Powerful and Free

3.   When I respond from my natural state, I remain in the natural flow of Peace, Joy, Power and Freedom

How did I come up with these reminders that, by the way, I can apply to ANY situation? 

Through familiarization.  

And how did I familiarize myself with them?

By observing and studying my mind which I sometimes describe as the practice of meditation J

That’s right.  Not affirmation, not indoctrination, not acceptance of someone else’s realization or familiarization but MY OWN real-time observation. 

Wouldn’t you like to do the same?  I hope so J

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