Life is Funny.

So after everything I wrote yesterday, I went over to the meditation center for a beginner's drop-in class. If you're in the Cambridge area, and want to get into meditation, I highly recommend it--you can check it out at the center's website at www.cimc.info .

Anyway, the usual teacher wasn't there--but the one who was gave a dharma talk the spoke to everything that was roiling around inside me. And suddenly I was just like "Oh, right. That's just the way the mind is. OK. I can deal with that."

And all that stress, all that knotted up fear and anxiety...just poof.

So I'm sure you want to know what he said. It wasn't anything new. It wasn't anything I hadn't heard (or even written about here) many times before.

It was just this: dukkha --often translated as "suffering", although it can also mean "stress" or "unsatisfied" is part of the human condition. When we hold onto anything--or push anything away--we lose our ability to be fully present, to be fully here in the moment.

And that's our normal state. The mind creates worries, fears, attachments, aversions. It runs in circles, bouncing from state to state and from thought to thought and from feeling to feeling, creating a bubbling stew of fear, desire and delusion. And that's pretty much what we all live off of. Not always, but a lot of the time.

The only time we're free from the monkey-mind is when we are totally present in this moment.

But what does that mean? It doesn't sound that interesting, does it? Aren't we present just by being here?

Well, no. and yes. It's very hard to "be here now". We plan, we worry, we create stories about the past and what it means. We project into the future and create scenarios about how if we had that perfect relationship, that great job, that bit of extra money, that dream vacation...that we would be happy.

Or we worry about what may happen to us--that those happy scenarios will not work out, that we don't deserve that happiness, that we won't get the brass ring. That it will all fall apart. And what will we do then?

Well, sometimes that does happen. Sometimes things DO fall apart. In fact, one of the best dharma books I've ever read is Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart". If you're having a hard time, if things seem dark and hopeless, go buy this book and read it carefully.

It's not going to tell you to wish away your problems. Instead, Chodron takes a typicall Buddhist approach: witness your suffering, allow it to be as it is, and use it as part of your practice. Deny nothing, and accept everything. Even if it feels too big, too terrible, too scary to allow into your heart, into your awareness.

Narayan, one of the teachers at CIMC, answered a question of mine with a similar answer. She had mentioned that dealing with difficult and unpleasant emotions are part of the practice. I asked her HOW we do that.

Her answer was beautifully simple: "Just ask yourself if you can allow that feeling to be here, just in this moment. See if you can create enough space for it in the present. You don't have to do anything else."

It sounds so simple. And it is. But to open ourselves to the moment--really open ourselves--means we have to accept everything that arises as part of our experience.

Of course, day to day life is usually not so dramatic. And that's what I've been struggling with.

Last year--a year of death and loss and grief--taught me a lot about being present, about not running from my emotions. About accepting everything that I'm experiencing, and not judging any of it.

And I had some really dramatic meditation experiences. Deep states of awareness, physical releases, openings of both body and mind. Sometimes I lost all sense of myself as a seperate being--which is an incredibly blissful state. When I first read about rapture and bliss in meditation, I thought "oh, ok. I guess that's some Hindu/Buddhist theology thing, that probably doesn't really happen."

But it does. There were times when it was utterly terrifying--when waves of energy would make my body shake, causing totally involuntary vocalizations and deep releases of physical tension and emotional stress.

There is something to be said for those spiritual highs. And there is something to be said for the lows, too--the times when I touch some deep place of sadness and grief that shakes me to my core.

The truth is the neither of those states--the ultimate highs of spiritual bliss or the deepest lows of very, very human grief and pain--mean anything. They're just states. They're just passing through. Attachment or aversion from either is a sure recipe for suffering.

And yet, I find that many meditators only want the good stuff. Which is natural I guess. And that's what many "teachers" sell--promises of bliss, constant happiness, and endless sunny days.

But we all know that's not possible. Pain, as the Buddha pointed out, will always be part of our experience. Suffering, however, is optional. We can't run from our full experience. Doing so will ALWAYS bring suffering, sooner or later. Attachment or aversion--it doesn't matter. Either will tie us up in knots, and get us running in circles trying to fix whatever we think the problem is.

But in reality, the only thing that is required is to come into the present moment. To experience it fully, without judgement, clinging to anything, or pushing anything away. To see everything with fresh eyes, an open heart and open mind.

Acceptance vs. Fear

So it's been a long time since I posted anything here. For some reason, I've been having a lot of resistance to the practice-- to the entire idea of the Year to Live practice, to meditating, to really doing much of anything.

That's not say I've been moping around--actually I've really been enjoying the last few weeks. I feel engaged, aware...just...there.

And yet, there's something else, a sort of self-judgement about not "sitting enough". Somewhere in my head there's a voice telling me I should do it, and it's not a happy voice. It's harsh and judgemental. The voice of "not good enough".

In some ways that awareness--of not living up to my ideals or my potential--is a very good thing. It keeps me honest. It keeps me moving forward. But for some reason it's taken on a very sharp edge in the last few weeks.

And I DO resist it. I don't want to do something out of a sense of obligation or guilt. I don't want to do anything because I "should" do it, but because I want to. I don't want to do something because of a fear of being judged.

Hmmm. There I go again. All about the "I". What "I" want. The very thing I'm trying to lose is what's keeping me tied up in the frantic motion of the monkey-mind.

And it's soooo easy to just stop, to not sit, to not eat mindfully, to not be aware. To let it all go and let awareness fall away. And sometimes it's necessary--after all, there are times we should be fully present, with no "witness".

But stopping (and now starting again) has created some interesting conditions. The fear that was so pervasive is back, in stereo. Louder than ever--or maybe it just seems that way because I'm more aware of it. And he's brought his friends; anger, depression, and judgement.

On the upside I'm a little more aware, so I can sometimes step back and watch those feelings arise; I can see the conditioning they arise from; and I can watch them dissolve. Intellectually I know none of them are real, or have any external validity--they're just processes of the mind, the products of conditioning and experience combined with an external stimulus. The thoughts, the emotions, the feelings those processes generate aren't reality.

But unless we stop, unless we learn how to focus the mind and develop the Witness, that's all we know. That's what I knew, anyway. That's all I know when I get caught up in it--when fear drives me, fools me into going into autopilot mode, when I sleepwalk through my day blind to the life--real and vibrant and whole--that's pulsing right below the surface.

So that's fear. And I am trying to accept it, to sit with it, to see it for what it is. But it's very hard.

Especially now; as the Year to Live practice has progressed, I've started the Life Review meditations. Just like it sounds, this is a process of meditating on my life. Remembering what I can, watching it with awareness, and then working with what arises. It's especially difficult for me because of my childhood...which, without going into great detail, was not great. Violent, filled with fear (and often terror) and sadness...and to be honest there are few, very very few happy memories from that time. Even writing about it makes me stomach knot up and my throat tight.

But I breathe, and soften my belly. I accept what comes up and I don't try to change it, or make it go away. Nor do I cling to it. I just watch, and see it for what it is: a physical reaction to a reimagined experience from the past. Not real--and with no real meaning except for whatever I assign to it.

Hmm. Acceptance. Such a simple word for a totally ego-shattering, life-changing process. So little of what acceptance "is" gets conveyed by the word itself. The letting go. The loss of ego's control of the mental process. The loss of self-righteousness. The relaxing and letting go of old conditioning, the witholding of judgement.

Heady, and heavy, stuff.

Time to go to a meditation class.

Metta Vs. Fear

Recently I've been working with fear a lot. Thankfully, I have some great resources, and one of them--a teacher at the meditation center I go to--gave me some simple and very helpful advice regarding the fear I've been experiencing.

Like most of what I've experienced so far in my vipassana practice, it wasn't quite what I expected. And of course, true to form, it was to the point, simple, and not exactly what I wanted to hear.

But before I get into that, I want to talk a bit about the internal struggle that I've come to believe defines much of the human experience. Well, mine at least.

I've become intimately aware over the last month of the the pervasive nature of fear, in all it's myriad forms:

1.) Fear --what we recognize as fear. The big one. Heart racing, tightness in the chest, tunnel vision, fight or flight hardwired reactivity. fear.

2.) Aversion-- not in the Buddhist sense so much as the "I don't wanna" feeling I get. I don't want to do that right now...maybe later. Or another time. Which brings me to...

3.) Procrastination. What is procrastination but the fear of a potentially unpleasant outcome? I see this all the time with my meditation practice. My mind comes up with all sorts of reasons why I can't sit RIGHT NOW. I've got stuff to do. I need to go to the grocery store. I need to walk the dog. Walking the dog, that can be mindful, can't it? And let's be serious, I can't be sitting around when there's work to be done.

Of course this line of thought quickly leads to...

4.) Anxiety. About everything. The future. The past (and what I and people think about it, and how it will affect the future). This is the one that gets me over and over. I get wound up...and up...and up...until...

5.) Judgement. I shouldn't be this way. I'm a dude. I don't feel anxiety. Guys don't feel worried. We just get hungry and drink and punch people in the face. Or... I meditate. I shouldn't feel this way. That's not what we meditators do.

Which leads to judging others, to seperation, to the ego-self. Which in my view is pretty much the root of most interpersonal and societal problems. And what is judgement but the ego's desperate attempt to retain some sense of "I", of seperateness? Without that, the ego dies, and one of it's last ditch efforts this fear of extinction create is the seperation of me/you, us/them, etc.

Leading to...

6.) Anger. Both self-directed and outwardly directed. Stress, anxiety, fear, worry, aversion all pile up until there's too much pressure...and...POW. Out it comes. Maybe not like it used to. But it's there, burning up awareness and compassion and then turning on everything else, ready to consume it all.

Judgement allows anger to exist. How can you be angry with someone without judging them?

"You asshole! How dare you do ______ to me! You always do shit like that!"

So now I've defined them as "other", and not in a positive way--they're an asshole, and that's all they are. They did something to ME, personally. And they always do that sort of thing. That's who they are. Man, they suck.

Or do they?

Are they really that way? Or are they suffering in the confusion of their reactive minds, thrown back and forth from emotion to thought to reaction to emotion? Aren't they just trapped in their conditioning, blind and searching for a way to feel better?



And anger leads to...

7.) Depression. The ultimate end result of fear, judgement, and anger. Fear of life. Fear of living. Fear of not being "good enough". Anger turned inwards. Fear as the primary emotion. The conscious mind feeding on it's own conditioned suffering, in a potentially endless loop.

Of course none of these states, including depression, are endless or permanent. They're just conditioned reactions to our experiences. By digging out the root of our conditioning, our reactivity, and breaking free of them...we can just let go of all that suffering.

That's not to say there isn't sadness, or pain, or grief in life. Even enlightened beings feel those things--but they don't attach false meanings to them or invent stories about "how it ought to be".

When one of the Buddha's longtime disciples died, he said "it is as if the sun itself has been extinguished". For a fully aware person to say that...wow. We can see from that simple statement how intense the Buddha's grief must have been, and how honest he was about it.

But he didn't create undue suffering over it. He didn't say how unfair it was that we die, and that those we love die. In fact, death is probably the most fair thing there is--unlike the other unavoidable thing in life, we all pay the same price.

In our society we run away from death, deny it, hide from it, wish it away, and pray that it never happens to us or to anyone we love.

That's the big fear, the one I'm creeping up on.

But that wasn't always that case. 100 years ago, death was much more frequent, and people often died at home, with family. Most died long "before their time"--from illness, injury, infection, and so on.

Medicine has made it possible for us to live for decades longer than we used to (on average at least--and assuming you have access to medical care). It's pushed death away into hospitals, hiding it from our sight. We've become obsessed with youth and beauty. We inject, we nip, we tuck, with lift and stretch our bodies to make them look "young"--and for what?

Fear. Fear of seeing ourselves age, and what that means: death is coming. And before that, infirmity. Weakness. Dependence.

And for acceptance. Acceptance by others, to fit a cultural norm that is so distorted that it would be funny if it weren't so tragic. And what is acceptance but love?

Love and Fear. The two forces driving us.

Love is a loaded word in our culture. It brings to mind ideas of chivalric love, romantic love, familial love, etc. All of which are well and good, but most of them (if not all of them) are conditional.

I'm not talking about that kind of love; I'm talking about metta, loving-kindness, the sincere wish for all beings to be happy, to be free from suffering, and so on. It's the first of the bhramaviharas--literally "the divine emotions" or "divine abodes" in Theravadan Buddhism. That requires total acceptance of people and things as they really are, not as we wish them to be.

The fact that it's the first is important, I think. The rest--compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity--all have their roots in that attitude of loving acceptance the metta practice creates.

True metta has no conditions. No "I'll love you if you do X" or "I love you because of _______." It's simply the deep, selfless desire for oneself and others to be happy. Not happy in the sense of "I got a new XBox!" happy, or even " I found the love of my life" happy, but happy in the sense of contented joy. True happiness--which is also unconditional. And it can't be taken away.

When you met someone who has done serious metta practice for many years, it's an amazing experience. They radiate compassion and acceptance. They don't want anything from you, other than for you to be happy. The first time I met someone like that it was almost too much--too intense, too real. My analytical mind immediately rebelled and started critizing--"You're looking too deeply, what do you want--a guru or something? Get a grip!"

See? there's the fear again. The judgement, doubt, etc.

So I've come to see my practice, right now, as being aware of the constant struggle of the mind to hold onto fear. To use it as a way to define the self in opposition to the world.

And the other side of that--and the only thing that can overcome that tendency--is acceptance; metta (loving-kindness) and panna (wisdom) combined.

Hmmm...

This has gotten a bit longer than I thought it would be...so I'm going to continue this next time.

PS--the instructions I got on how handle fear? Focus on the touch points--the feet, sit bones, and so on--rather than the breath. So simple and so powerful...and you can do it anywhere. Walking, sitting, standing, lying down...anywhere.

And of course, when I told my teacher about my struggles with fear, how it came up so strongly, how it was dominating my mind...

he said "Yeah, well...that happens." and added "It's a good sign. It means you're becoming more aware."

lol. I was hoping for something to make it go away...I should know better by now. :)