Category: Meditation

Being mindful of scrambled eggs

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The practice is quite simple really. It is to pay attention to each moment as it actually is, and be open to whatever is happening in that moment.  It is not about creating a sense of calm or fixing our personalities. It is not about changing things at all, in one sense, but rather being with them in the light of awareness.

Seems simple. However, I continually find that it is not so easy to keep the mind focused on just this moment or this act. It often prefers to race ahead, thinking about what needs to be said or scanning the horizon for the next task to be done. I got a simple example of that this week. I was standing in line to get breakfast and was putting some food on the plate. I came to the last of the hot items, scrambled eggs, and put them on my plate, looking ahead to see where to get coffee and where to sit. Jenn’s voice from behind came, saying, “Thanks Karl for taking all the eggs“, which indeed I had. Leaning into the next moment – where to sit – or being busy composing an answer in a conversation,  meant that I had filled my plate without noticing and consequently without considering others. Luckily,  Jenn was kind enough to allow me make amends and to accept some of the portion I had put on my plate ……even though she could not help reminding me of it for the next few days.

When we don’t pay attention to this moment we can notice our minds speeding up to already be in the next. We also fail to pay attention to the deeper possibilities of caring for or listening to others.  Mindfulness is sterile if it does not lead us to being more compassionate, more sensitive. A simple lesson, which we have to learn over and over again, hundreds of times each day.

The habit of ignoring our present moments in favor of others yet to come leads directly to a pervasive lack of awareness of the web of life in which we are embedded. This includes a lack of awareness and understanding of our own mind and how it influences our perceptions and our actions. It severely limits our perspective on what it means to be a person and how we are connected to each other and the world around us.

Jon Kabat Zinn

Meditation is pointless

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A friend of mine – who ironically is starting a meditation retreat this week in the US – expressed the opinion not so long ago that sitting meditation was just pointless. I knew what she meant at the time, but knew also that she had to discover its real value for herself.  In one sense she was right – sitting practice is waste of time because it is a dedicated period of non-doing. On an outward level it appears to achieve nothing. Another aspect which she drew attention to was the fact that nothing really changes day to day: you sit, you get distracted, you return to the breath, you get distracted, day after day.

One difficulty in meditation is the the results are not immediately tangible while the actual practice can be difficult. The point to meditation, however, is precisely by doing “nothing” and slowing down, gaps are created between activities and we work on our capacity to be aware of what is going on. And it seems that when one is aware, things tend to fall as they should.

However, we can probably find scientific backing for stating that this “pointless” activity is, in fact, achieving something simply while we are sitting. It has been shown that people who meditate activate a different part of their brain that is associated with less anxiety and a better outlook on life. By not activating the anxious parts of the for dedicated periods of each day, our bodies are less likely to be tense, less likely to trigger well-conditioned patterns when faced with difficulties.

Daniel Goleman & Tara Bennett-Goleman*, suggest that meditation works because of the relationship between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. Simply put, the amygdala is the part of the brain that decides, among other things, if we should get angry or anxious, and the pre-frontal cortex is the part that makes us stop and think about things. However, the amygdala is prone to error, such as seeing danger or exaggerating anxiety where there is none. Because there is roughly a quarter of a second gap between the time an event occurs and the time it takes the amygdala to react, the slowing down practicing in meditation may allow us be able to intervene before an automatic response takes over, and perhaps even redirect it into more constructive or positive feelings. In other words, meditation seems to develop emotional brain fitness and therefore this pointless activity may not be pointless after all.

Bennett-Goleman, Tara, 2001. Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind can Heal the Heart, Harmony, (2001).

Come down from the mountain

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Meditators face a very real danger of coming to prefer the view from the top of the pole to their real life on the ground. But such peak moments, no matter how profound, always end, leaving us with the problem of how to live in accord with the perspective they provide. Unless we learn to step off the pole, our practice will devolve into mere addiction to the highs of peak experience.

Barry Magid, Ordinary Mind

Deepening your Practice 2:Take the drama out of the show

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The practice of sitting quietly with your eyes closed in meditation is useful in that, with steady attention, you can realize that all of this mental stuff is something that can be watched, and that it is therefore a series of objects – not the subject, not self.

That understanding in itself takes some of the drama out of the show, and as the mind stops feeding on contact, it steps back into balance and quiets down.

Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth

Mini-Movies and other strategies

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We have a tendency to do anything to avoid our life as it actually is –  its unsatisfactory nature, its lack of clarity, the way it can give rise to anxiety. Our fear-driven instinct is to get away, to escape. One way we do this is by imagining a different future, a better place, a life with a better script. This is how Rich Hanson describes it , in his excellent book, Buddha’s Brain:

The brain produces simulations…even when they have nothing to do with staying alive. Watch yourself daydreaming  or go back over a relationship problem, and you’ll see the clips playing – little packets of simulated experiences, usually just seconds long. If you observe them closely, you’ll spot several troubling things:

  • By its very nature the simulation pulls you out of the present moment. There you are, following a presentation at work, running an errand or meditating, and suddenly your mind is a thousand miles away, caught up in a mini-movie. But its only in the present moment that we find real happiness, love or wisdom.
  • In the simulator,  pleasures seem pretty great, whether you are considering a second cupcake or imagining the response you will get to a report at work. But what do you actually feel when you enact the mini-movie in real life? Is it as pleasant as promised up there on screen? Usually not.
  • Clips in the simulator contain lots of beliefs…. In reality,  are the explicit and implicit beliefs in your simulations true? Sometimes yes, but often no. Mini-moives keep us stuck, by their simplistic view of the past and their defining out-of-existence possibilities for the future, such as new ways to reach out to others or dream big dreams.

In sum, the simulator takes you out of the present moment and sets you chasing after carrots that aren’t really so great.

Rich Handon, Ph.D, Buddha’s Brain: The practical neuroscience of happiness, love and wisdom, p., 44.

Sunday Quote: weakness

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We all are bruised reeds, whether our bruises are visible or not.  The compassionate life is the life in which we believe that strength is hidden in weakness and that true community is a fellowship of the weak

Henri Nouwen