Deep Listening

It has been my pleasure to sit with Thich Nhat Hanh on several occasions. Often when he rings the bell at the beginning of a practice, he will say something like, "Let the sound of the bell invite you into stillness and deep listening."

For a long time, I did not know what he meant by "deep listening." I thought perhaps I was supposed to be on the alert for subtle sounds within my body. Or perhaps he was referring to the "still small voice" within. Over years of practice, however, I have decided that what Thay is talking about is synonymous with "mindfulness." It means having a thought, and actually knowing that we are having that particular thought. Then it means knowing how that particular thought leads to, perhaps, an emotional sensation in the body.

During our daily life, we have a lot of external distractions. When we sit in mindfulness practice, we are shutting down these externals and turning within. We may still be aware of the external things, such as sounds or temperature, yet we now experience them in a new way, knowing that we are experiencing these events as they occur. Furthermore, this experience takes place from a place very deep within us. These experiences are always available to us, if we listen deeply enough.

Blessings,
Roger

Kitchen Wisdom

From a wall-hanging in our kitchen (a gift from Xia):

"If there is light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person. If there is beauty in the person, there will be harmony in the house. If there is harmony in the house, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world." ~ Chinese Proverb

Blessings,
Roger

The Sun Never Says

by Hafiz

Even

After

All this time

The sun never says to the earth,

"You owe 

Me."

Look

What happens

With a love like that,

It lights the 

Whole

Sky.

Blessings,
Roger 
 

Lessons From A Snail

I heard a lovely story on NPR's Morning Edition today. It was an interview with essayist and short-story writer Elizabeth Tova Bailey, who has just released a new book from Algonquin Publishing entitled, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating. It recounts her experience with a mysterious illness that struck her in her mid-thirties and made her so weak that she could not even sit up. 

While confined to her bed, a friend brought her some violets in a glass bowl to brighten up her bedside. At the base of the flowers, Ms. Bailey discovered a snail. Since she was unable read or watch television, the snail became her constant bedside companion and entertainment. She began to figure out its patterns of movement, and the more she became involved in this tiny creature's life, the more connected they became. 

Because she could not move at all, watching the snail go about its laborious and painstakingly slow travels around the plant took on special significance. "It moved at a speed that was actually faster than my own speed," she told NPR's Scott Simon, "And so it really was peaceful to watch it. It moved so smoothly and gently and gracefully, it was like a tai chi master."

Ms. Bailey remarked that her experience with the snail reminded her of this poem:

I Heard A Fly Buzz (465)
by Emily Dickinson

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room 
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For the last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portions of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly -

With Blue - uncertain stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see -

To read and hear more about this interview, go to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129475625

Blessings,
Roger

E-Mail Apnea

My e-mail is running slow, today. It's annoying, inconvenient, and makes me realize just how addicted I am to this means of communication. Ironically, one of the e-mails I've been able to open is from my niece, Karen, who sent me a link to a Huffington Post blog by Linda Stone. She raises the possibility that we may be unconsciously holding our breath when we read e-mail or texting on our i-Phones and Blackberries.

Check in right now and see how (or even if) you are breathing. Take a moment and allow the abdomen to soften, letting it gently expand with inhale and contract with exhale. This kind of breathing automatically engages the Relaxation Response, sending important signals to the nervous system that everything is okay right now. Holding the breath, or breathing shallowly into the chest, helps engage the Fight, Flight, or Freeze response. This is the kind of breathing we do when we are under stress or in emergency situations.

Abdominal, or diaphragmatic breathing, can not only reduce blood pressure and heart rate, it can also keep you healthy. Chronic states of Fight, Flight, or Freeze can lead to, among other things, a decrease in immune system activity. If you counteract this situation by conscious abdominal breathing, the long-term systems of the body, such as the immune system, can function more efficiently. When the body constantly perceives threat through holding the breath or breathing into the chest, it is only concerned with the immediate needs for survival, and the immune system is not one of these needs.

For more information about the psycho-physiology of diaphragmatic breathing, see my post on June 8, 2010: http://rogernolan.blogspot.com/2010/06/diaphragmatic-breathinig.html

Here's a link to the Linda Stone's blog: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-stone/just-breathe-building-the_b_85651.html 

Blessings,
Roger 

Codependency

From Codependent No More:How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring For Yourself, by Melody Beattie.

A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior.

The other person might be a child, an adult, a lover, a spouse, a brother, a sister, a grandparent, a parent, a client, or a best friend...

But, the heart of the definition and recovery lies not in the other person - no matter how much we believe it does. It lies in ourselves, in the ways we have let other people's behavior affect us and in the ways we try to affect them: the obsessing, the controlling, the obsessive "helping," caretaking, low self-worth bordering on self-hatred, self-repression, abundance of anger and guilt, peculiar dependency on peculiar people, attraction to and tolerance for the bizarre, other-centeredness that results in abandonment of self, communication problems, intimacy problems, and an ongoing whirlwind trip through the five-stage grief process.

More About Digital Distraction

Following on from yesterday's blog about how digital input keeps us unfocused and might actually fatigue the brain, even while the body is resting, here is another New York Times article. It discusses a study that shows a direct relationship between auditory input and exercise. Volunteers on stationary bikes listened to music of their own choosing with headphones. During some rides, researchers played the songs at normal tempo. On other rides, they increased or decreased the tempos by 10 percent. Here's what they found:

When the tempo slowed, so did their pedaling and their entire affect. Their heart rates fell. Their mileage dropped. They reported that they didn’t like the music much. On the other hand, when the tempo of the songs was upped 10 percent, the men covered more miles in the same period of time, produced more power with each pedal stroke and increased their pedal cadences. Their heart rates rose. They reported enjoying the music — the same music — about 36 percent more than when it was slowed. But, paradoxically, they did not find the workout easier. Their sense of how hard they were working rose 2.4 percent. The up-tempo music didn’t mask the discomfort of the exercise. But it seemed to motivate them to push themselves. As the researchers wrote, when “the music was played faster, the participants chose to accept, and even prefer, a greater degree of effort.”

Again the take-home message from this little experiment? Do one thing at a time. That's all your brain can reasonably handle with any consistency.

Here's a link to the NYT article: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/phys-ed-does-music-make-you-exercise-harder/

Blessings,

Roger