Each meditation session is a journey of discovery to understand the basic truth of who we are. In the beginning the most important lesson of meditation is seeing the speed of the mind.
But the meditation tradition says that mind doesn’t have to be this way: it just hasn’t been worked with.
Sakyong Mipham
The more Jung worked with people, the more he came to believe that the key problems facing most who came to him for therapy were not psychological illnesses but whether they were in touch with the deepest parts of their being. This is probably even more true today, as more and more of peoples’ material needs are fulfilled and yet more and more people express unhappiness with their lives. In Jung’s view, most suffering today stems from the fact that we have lost a connection with the mythic dimension of life. Our capacity to be in a relationship with something more profound than what is seen is what makes for real, ongoing growth. We have a depth dimension and to become fully human requires that we keep an openness to this in our work and in our relationships. When we find ourselves in situations where this aspect is not reflected we feel impoverished and unfulfilled, often without knowing why. Life can seem too short to be spending our time on activities that are too narrow, or too trivial to nurture our roots. This is true for relationships also; they are most alive when they include space for something beyond the self. Relationships which are truly fulfilling have a luminous quality and as such they make us feel fully alive.
The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life…. Only if we knew that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance. The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life. He feels limited because he has limited aims, and the result is envy and jealousy. If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change. In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted. In our relationships to other men, too, the crucial question is whether an element of boundlessness is expressed in the relationship.
Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
One of the best ways to learn to be mindful is to take the dog for a walk. Dogs are always in the moment. They can take the same walk for 10 years and still experience grass in an entirely new way each day. They’re not worried about the past (“Why didn’t my people give me some of that chicken they had for dinner?”) or the future (” I wonder if my people will give me any chicken when we get home?”). All they think about is what is right in front of them: the smell of the grass, the basset hound in the yard next door, the squirrel in the tree across the street.
Alice Domar & Alice Lesch Kelly: Be Happy without being Perfect: How to break free from the Perfection Domination
Many of us don’t allow ourselves to be relaxed.
Why do we always try to run and run, even while having our breakfast, while having our lunch, while walking, while sitting? There’s something pushing and pulling us all the time. We make ourselves busy in the hopes of having happiness in the future. In the sutra “Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone,” the Buddha said clearly, “Don’t get caught in the past, because the past is gone. Don’t get upset about the future, because the future is not yet here. There is only one moment for you to be alive, and that is the present moment. Go back to the present moment and live this moment deeply, and you’ll be free.”
How do we liberate ourselves in order to really be in the here and the now? Meditation offers the practice of stopping. Let’s try not to run. We run because we’re too afraid.
Thich Nhat Hahn
Last weekend, I attended a very interesting seminar run by Dr Rich Hanson, author of Buddha’s Brain, The Practical Science of happiness, love and wisdom. So I will post one or two reflections on the brain, its relationship to happiness, and ongoing research on it.
Over millions of years the brain evolved to be sensitive to threats and opportunities. Threats provoke a more immediate response but opportunities and new information also produce an excited reaction in the brain. One thing which happens is that the neurotransmitter dopamine is released, which is connected to the pleasure system in the brain. Dopamine gives rise to feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement which motivates us to do or to continue to do certain activities. As such dopamine can be addictive, and when people get used to its activity, its absence can be felt as boredom or restlessness.
Recent developments in technology have hugely changed the environment in which the brain has to work, and it was not necessarily designed to cope rapidly with all the challenges it is facing. In particular, media use seems to be triggering this dopamine reaction, creating a type of addictive effect. It is not unusual now for a person to have open at the same time a document they are writing, a computer page they are reading, an instant messaging or social networking site, while texting or listening to music at the same time. A recent Stanford study* seems to suggest that the more we use these different sources of content at the same time – such as e-mail, SMS, Instant Messaging and Social networking sites – the more we are stimulating this neural activity and this is changing how we think and behave.
The researchers looked at the effects of heavy media multitasking on an individual’s ability to perform cognitive tasks. Maybe not surprisingly, they found that people who used less media performed better on these tasks than self-confessed technology junkies. Worryingly, the study seems to suggest that our ability to focus is being undermined by the constant bursts of information favoured by the push technology seen in most recent forms of communication. Push technology allows information and emails to be updated immediately on a system, giving an almost constant stream of information to the user. Based on their research, the scientists surmised that multitaskers are more responsive to new incoming information; but their ability to focus attention is diminished. Increased distractions may be weakening the brains ability to focus on what is in front of it, and provoke a withdrawal-like longing for more information, even when the computer is turned off. Thus some users have difficulty switching off, even when on vacation or at an important family event, and their capacity to pay attention to real people is fragmented.
As a New York Times article based on the study observed, this can have huge consequences on relationships and family life, as a person finds “ordinary” life less exciting than the buzz created by media multitasking. The article goes on to note that heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, and they experience more stress.
The article goes on to quote Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, who goes as far as to say that the technology is rewiring our brains. She and other researchers look at the lure of digital stimulation as less like that of drugs and alcohol and more like the need for food and sex, which are essential but counterproductive in excess.
Photo taken from the New York Times.
The biggest obstacle to establishing a meditation practice is the erroneous idea that meditation should calm and focus the mind. Better to assume the attitude that meditation is what you do when you meditate.
There is no doing it right or wrong.
Norman Fischer
Mindfulbalance 