Of the Breath

Spirit can be found everywhere. As William Blake wrote in "Auguries of Innocence":

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

Or this from Rilke (translated by James Hollis):

I find you in all these things,
to which I am a brother in all,
in which minuscule seed you minutely hide yourself
and in the Great, you greatly reveal yourself.

Spirit even resides in the breath you are taking right now.

Many thousands of years ago, wise women and men - the sages, priestesses, gurus, and imams of their day - observed that living things tended to breathe, and non-living things did not. They surmised, quite correctly, that breath was very important to life. In addition, they saw beyond the physical and connected breath with Spirit (the word "spirit" comes from the Latin root, spiritus, which literally means "of the breath").

The Upanishads, the oldest Hindu scriptures, some of which were composed perhaps as far back as the 5th century BCE, contain a vision of the Divine as an all-pervading breath known as Brahma: "All this is Brahma. Meditate on the visible world as beginning, ending, and breathing in Brahma" (Khândogya-Upanishad, 8.7.1).

The book of Genesis in the Old Testament directly connects the breath with the Divine: "Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being" (New American Standard Bible, 2:7).

Each day, according to Dr. Richard C. Miller in The Breath of Life, we breathe approximately 24,000 times and exchange over 10,000 gallons of oxygen. Thankfully, we have an autonomic nervous system that regulates this breath for us unconsciously or we would never get anything done! Many of these breaths go by unnoticed by the conscious mind. Unless, of course, something happens that causes us not to be able to breathe.

There is a Zen teaching story about a student who comes to the Master and tells him, "I'm getting really bored with just feeling my breath coming in and going out all the time. Don't you have a meditation that is more exciting?" The Zen Master replied, "Yes. You are now ready for a greater teaching. Follow me." With that, the Master led the student into a courtyard where there was a large barrel of water. "Gaze into the barrel," said the Master. As the student leaned over and looked in, the Zen Master suddenly pushed the student's head into the water. The Master was quite strong, and he was able to hold the student under the water for quite a while, even though the student struggled desperately. Finally, the Master let the student come up for air, and as the student gasped the Master asked, "So... is that breath boring?"

The breath is one of those things in life that we can call "nothing special." However, when we pay attention to the breath on purpose, it becomes something very special. When we devote attention to the breath, we are engaged in a "devotional" practice. Devoting attention to even just a few breaths can help us connect consciously to this moment as it is, and to the Divine within.

It is almost as if Spirit has hidden Itself in the most obvious place.

As the poet Kabir wrote:

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.

Our shoulders are touching.

You will not find me in the stupas,

not in Indian shrine rooms,

nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:

not in masses, nor kirtans,

not in legs winding around your own neck,

nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me, you will see me instantly --

you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?

He is the breath inside the breath.

Blessings,
Roger

The Action of Non-Action, Part 2

In the last blog posting, I posed a question that is often asked by mindfulness practitioners:

If we are "supposed" to simply acknowledge a situation, register our habitual reaction toward that situation, and then simply allow it all and let it be, doesn't that mean we will never take action when action is called for?

I then presented a Tantric meditation that helps us perceive that non-action, in the form of stillness, is an ever-present phenomenon. This leads me today to a brief investigation of how non-action can actually be a very powerful form of action in daily life situations.

First of all, I need to emphasize that when I refer to "non-action," I do not mean a passive reaction toward a situation or event (in other words, simply "doing nothing"). Nor am I suggesting that by practicing non-action we are somehow "detaching" ourselves from an unpleasant situation or event so it won't bother us anymore. What I am attempting to describe is the active choice of deploying awareness and attention toward a situation or event, and the awareness of the subsequent reactions of the mind and body in response to the situation or event. 

Once an event is registered in our consciousness, we have choices as to how we will respond to that event. One choice would be to allow the reactive mind to take over, resulting in whatever action the reactive mind deems appropriate under those circumstances. Usually, this reaction would be automatic or habitual - one that we have repeated over and over during our lifetime. Through this mindless repetition, it becomes more or less the default reaction for that particular experience. (This choice is actually quite passive because we are running on autopilot rather than making a conscious choice as to what to do with the situation.)

The more skillful choice that I am suggesting would be to actively witness and participate in the experience as it is happening by bringing mindful awareness to bear upon the situation before we take any outward action. By making this choice, we are actually taking action simply by becoming mindful instead of reacting automatically.  Remember, too, that we always have a choice as to how respond to things, unless, of course, the situation calls for a reflex reaction, such as being in an car accident.

An essential component of this process of "active non-action" is to bring awareness to feelings in the body during the situation or event. For example, there may be a sense of tightness or tensing up in the shoulders or throat, we might notice the heart is racing or the body is pulsating, the face may get hot and flushed, or there may be tingling sensations. Becoming mindful of our physical experiences gets us firmly rooted in the reality of the present moment, and also disengages us from the reactive thoughts the mind might be creating. 

In addition, noting the sensations in the body creates a "reflective space" between the stimulus and the response. In this space, we might be able to formulate a more skillful response to the situation (if a response is actually needed). This process serves the same function as counting to ten when we are angry. In this case, however, the entire process takes only a few seconds. It takes approximately 200 milliseconds for the brain to register the initial experience (roughly the amount of time it takes to recognize emotion in facial expressions), then a second or two to note the arising sensations.

Once we have established ourselves back in the sensory reality of the present moment, we can then turn our attention toward how the mind is reacting. These reactions might include cognitive distortions like jumping to conclusions (making interpretations before you know all the facts), catastrophizing (exaggerating gloom-and-doom), generalizing ("This always happens to me!"), or taking things personally that have nothing to do with us. In the few seconds of space that non-action provides, we can then note that the thoughts we are having are only thoughts, not facts.

So the simple process of directing mindful awareness toward a situation or event is the action, and what we often find is that no more action needs to be taken. 

We can learn this process very easily during our meditation practice. Perhaps, during a sitting, our neighbors make noise that the mind labels as "annoying." After the sense of hearing initially registers the sound, we can then notice the reaction of the mind and body. Maybe the mind personalizes and generalizes the experience. We "hear" the mind saying, "Why do those people always make noise when I'm meditating?" Then we can feel the tension in the body, or notice the hot movement of anger in the chest. Yet, as we continue to allow these mental and physical experiences to simply be, we notice that they change very quickly. We realize the noise has nothing to do with us. We acknowledge that we would rather it were quiet, but we also note that this is merely a preference created by the mind. When we return our attention back to the breath, we experience how quickly the anger subsides and fades away because we have disengaged from the the thoughts that gave the anger its energy.

By repeating this process, both during our mindfulness practice, and in our daily life, we develop a way of being that allows us to respond to things more skillfully and in a way that does less harm, while decreasing our stress and suffering.

Blessings,
Roger

The Action of Non-Action, Part 1

Greetings!

After much too long an absence, I have decided to begin posting again. Many thanks to those of you who followed my Dharma 365 project in which I published a blog a day for a year, and to those of you who are new to this blog, welcome. 

I'd like to inaugurate this new phase with a teaching that I have found extremely useful, both for myself, as well as for my Dharma students and therapy patients. It stems from one of the most paradoxical aspects of the practice, and one that can potentially cause a lot of confusion and raise a lot of questions among mindfulness practitioners:

If we are "supposed" to simply acknowledge a situation, register our habitual reaction toward that situation, and then simply allow it all and let it be, doesn't that mean we will never take action when action is called for?

This is an excellent and important question that has been debated for many centuries. One important perspective on this problem can be found in the Bhagavad Gita, composed perhaps as long ago as the 5th century BCE (from my own translation, 2012):

In action, there is non-action;

In non-action, there is action.

Those who perceive this are wise;

Joining the two, one can perform all actions.  

 (IV, 18)

These slokas would indicate that both action and inaction (and in Sanskrit the word for "action" is karma) are contained within one another. When we sit in our meditation practice, we can perceive that the body is still, but that there is movement within that stillness: constant pulsations of energy (prana) can be felt moving through us; the breath flows in and out; the mind continues to be active, churning out thoughts seemingly without end. 

Likewise, when we place our attention on the movement taking place within the stillness (the place of non-action), we can witness that all of these things arise out of stillness, and then return back to stillness. The stillness, however, continues as "an ever-present background," as my teacher Richard C. Miller has said. All of these other movements - the pulsating prana, the breath, the activities of the mind, and everything else in our phenomenological experience - can be seen as a simply a movement in the foreground of our awareness, against a constant background of stillness.

This phenomenon can be directly experienced through a simple, yet powerful practice taken from the Vijnanabhairava, a Tantric text from the 7th century CE, that offers 112 meditations on "divine consciousness." The following passage is from a translation and commentary called The Book of Secrets by Osho, formerly known as Bhagwan Shree Rashneesh (1974):

This experience [of perceiving the background stillness] may dawn between two breaths. After the breath comes in (down), and just before turning up (out). (p. 30)

To experience this, just follow the feeling of the inhalation as it arises out of stillness. Feel it as it turns into exhalation at the "top" of the inhale, then follow the exhalation "downward" and notice how it "ends" in a pool of stillness. Then the inhale will arise again out of the stillness, turn to exhale at the top, draw us inward and downward to the pool of stillness, and repeats over and over again. Pretty soon, you can begin to tune in exclusively to the stillness, sensing its presence even as the breath is moving "in front" of it (adapted from an unpublished lecture by Richard C. Miller at the Mt. Madonna Retreat Center, Watsonville, CA, August, 1997).

Stillness in movement; movement in stillness. Action in non-action; non-action in action.

Of course, not just the breath is moving in the foreground of our awareness. Anything that we can perceive with the senses comprises this experience of foreground movement against an ever-present background of stillness. After practicing this meditation for a while with eyes closed, the world can look very different when we open them again. We can really sense that everything we see, hear, smell, taste, or touch is constantly arising out of the stillness, and returning back to stillness. The world begins to lose its "solidity," and we can perceive everything, from the atomic to the cosmic; from the ant to the elephant; from the single-cell organism to us, as arising phenomena in a constant state of process - a process that includes action and non-action as essential elements of existence.

In the next posting, I will examine a little more closely how action and non-action play out in mindfulness practice, and how to then apply the insights gained from this awareness in daily life.

Blessings,

Roger

The "How" of Now

There's a saying in German that goes, "It's all in the how." 

What I take this to mean is that we often do not have any control of the "what" of our lives. We don't have any say about the weather, or the economy, or how other people behave. What we do have dominion over is how we choose greet these experiences.

As Deepak Chopra wrote, "you and I are essentially infinite choice-makers" (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, p. 40), and while we may not be aware of it, we are making choices in every moment of our lives. The choices we make in each moment affect our quality of life as we move forward from one moment to the next. Greeting an apparently negative or unpleasant event with sturm und drang will only create more stress and turbulence.  However, making the choice to greet that same experience with conscious awareness can lead to much happier outcomes. This practice is especially useful when dealing with those things that repeatedly upset us.

If you can factor into your daily life that eventually (and probably very soon) some event will take place that will fall into the "habitually upsetting" category, you can consciously plan ahead as to how you greet that eventual experience.

For example, if you know that being late to appointments causes you a lot of anxiety, you can factor in the possibility of heavy traffic preventing you from getting to where you want to go smoothly. In anticipating this triggering experience that will probably activate stress and anxiety, you are preparing yourself to respond consciously, instead of reacting automatically. You can even discuss this with yourself beforehand like this:

"Okay, so I'm getting a bit of a late start to work this morning. I hope the freeway is clear, but it might not be. I don't have any control over that. But if there's bad traffic, I'll just remember to breathe and enjoy my drive. I'll try to live in the present moment, rather than predicting a doom-and-gloom outcome. Besides, I haven't been late, yet!"

If it turns out that there has been an accident, and traffic is really slow, then you have the opportunity to be consciously aware of any automatic thoughts that might be triggered, such as, "This always happens to me! I'm gonna be fired! What a loser!" When these thoughts become known, we can see them for what they are: thoughts and not facts. They are just another event that we can become aware of, but we don't have to give into them or even believe them. (And besides, they're not true most of the time, anyway.)

And of course, if traffic does go smoothly and you get there easily and in plenty of time, all the better because you haven't stressed yourself needlessly.

By practicing this kind of preparation, you can be ready for the emotionally activating triggers that will inevitably come your way. With diligent practice, new habit patterns are formed, and we move through life less re-actively, and more gracefully, with much more happiness and ease.

So while we can't change or fix the "what" of things, we can certainly have some say in the "how" of our response to it.

Blessings,
Roger

The Experience

Kabir (1440 - 1518)

When "I" was, the Divine was not, 

now the Divine is and I am no more: 

All darkness vanished, 

when I saw the Lamp within my heart.

The effulgence of the Supreme Being 

is beyond the imagination: 

Ineffable is its beauty, 

to see it is the only "proof."

It was a good thing the hail fell on the ground,
for it lost its own selfhood:
Melting, it turned into water
and rolled down to the pond.

 

That which I went out to seek, 

I found just where I was: 

It now has become myself, 

whom before I called ‘Another.’

When love renounces all limits, 

it reaches truth.

With the load of desires 

which you hold on your head, 

how can you be light?

 

Wherever you are is the entry point.

 

Just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,

and stand firm in that which you are.

 

Three Hard Teachings

Teaching 3: Liberation Through Equanimity

(This is the final posting based on a public talk given by Joseph Goldstein on January 4, 2011.)

On any spiritual journey, there are countless pitfalls and booby traps lying in wait for the unsuspecting traveler. Some of these hazards can be big and overwhelming, but most are tiny and easy to miss. Until you get ensnared. 

One such tiny trap on the path of mindfulness meditation is using the practice in order to make something unpleasant go away. This is what I have come to call the "Self-Soothing Trap" (see my blog of 1/18/10). If we use our meditation practice as a method for self-soothing, there is always the danger that we will become attached to this outcome and become trapped in it. If we have this expectation of relief, and the feeling we don't like does not go away, we will suffer.

In this practice, we are taught to turn toward pleasant or unpleasant experiences with equal attention. This is one definition of "equanimity": the ability to move into the unpleasant experiences just as deeply as we move into the pleasant ones. In his public talk, Joseph Goldstein said that "being with something in order for it to go away" is a strong indication that we are clinging to an outcome, or resisting something unpleasant through aversion. He suggested that we adopt an attitude that tells us, "If it stays for the rest of my life, it will be okay." So if you are looking to this practice to help you get rid of fear, for example, you are already caught up in clinging to an outcome. 

As mentioned above, "turning toward" the experience is the skillful and appropriate response toward pleasant or unpleasant events. Turning toward them in order to make them stop, however, would be an example of being stuck in expectations. If this is the case, then we will never become truly liberated from the fear.

Furthermore, we need to examine any tendency that might be present to resist the experience. The smallest resistance to something can, once again, lead us into a mind trap of clinging, aversion, and resultant suffering.

So what's the point of having a practice that doesn't help us feel better? Isn't the point of all of this to relieve suffering? The point, as Joseph wisely noted in a Dharma talk some years ago, is that "anything can happen, any time." When we are able to consciously witness the changing nature of things, without interfering or imposing our desires upon them, we develop a new kind of relationship with the unpleasant as well as the pleasant. This allows us to see these experiences from different perspectives, and in doing so, the situations themselves actually change on their own. It may not mean that an unpleasant thing will go away, but it will mean that there can be less suffering around it.

Naturally, of course, our preference would be to not have pain, fear, sadness, loss, and so forth, but this is not possible to control, since anything can happen at any time. That is why I consider this to be a "hard teaching." I believe we would do better to cultivate an attitude of gently cradling our experiences, and our life, in a soft, open hand, rather than constricting it within a closed fist. When the tight, grasping hand is opened, we and our suffering are set free. So in reality, liberation is as easy as remembering to unfold the fist.

Blessings,
Roger 

Three Hard Teachings

Teaching 2: Don't Give the Arrows a Place To Land

(This is the second of three blogs inspired by a public talk given by Joseph Goldstein on January 4, 2011.)

In the previous blog, I mentioned the Parable of the Second arrow from the Samyutta Nikaya. Here is an excerpt of the first part of that parable:

When touched by a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, and laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical and mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pains of two arrows.

So it really comes down to this: For the arrow to hurt, it has to have a place to land. In other words, if we understand that all of our suffering is created by the mind, we must also understand that there is no "self" other than what the mind creates.

In his program, Joseph called this process of creating a self where none exists "selfing." I had never heard that word used as a verb before, and it turns out to be quite apropos. According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (1973), when "self" is used as a transitive verb it means "to pollinate with pollen from the same flower or plant" (p. 1048). So when we "self" we are engaged in a sort of inbreeding feedback loop. First the mind receives a sensory stimulus, then it creates information (accurate or not) about that stimulus. When we come to believe that information, we create "I, me, and mine." A self is born.

(Perhaps not incidentally, the online Urban Dictionary defines selfing as "the act of saying something ridiculous, with absolute self-righteousness behind it, only proving how much of an idiot the person actually is." And apparently - according to their website, at least - it has become slang for describing masturbation. Who knew?)

Meanwhile, we still have that pesky first arrow to contend with. In the Samyutta Nikaya, the Buddha concluded that a person who does not create a self based on the sensory stimulus of the first arrow:

...feels one pain: physical, but not mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, did not shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pain of only one arrow. (From "Sallatha Sutta: The Second Arrow" SN 36.6, translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, June 7, 2009.)

The cultivation of "no self," or anatta as it referred to in Pali, the language of the Buddha, is perhaps the hardest teaching in all of the Dharma. Because of this, however, it is the most valuable. Anatta offers us a way out of suffering while still allowing us to be fully engaged in life. It is not the same as denying the existence of the "sense of self" created by the mind, Nor is it a trick of somehow detaching mentally from an unpleasant predicament.  It is, however, about knowing every experience that arises for what it is, and being able to live skillfully in the midst of it, without creating more suffering.

Again, as I said in the previous blog, and as the Buddha says above, there really is legitimate pain in life. And good luck trying to avoid it. What we may be left with are horrible memories that can torment us for the rest of our life. The cultivating of anatta is a process of knowing those memories for what they are - objects of mind - and not as facts that are happening in the present moment. In this way, even the most painful images from the past can be allowed to simply move through us, just as the second arrow does when it has no place to land.

Blessings,
Roger