heart – Page 201 – Mindfulbalance

Like a snowball gathering speed

January 2, 2012January 1, 2012 Karl Duffy2 Comments

To start the new year, back to basics….A lovely text on how the mind proliferates on the basis of a simple feeling and makes a whole story out of it. We will probably get a lot of opportunity to practice with this as we return to work this week and the holiday excitement fades. So this Monday, like every day, we start over again….. becoming more and more aware of this process, and creating a gap.

The outflowing of the mind is what one is witnessing in meditation when the mind surges off into sights and sounds, opinions, thoughts or feelings. It is most important to get acquainted with what that is like for the mind: the attention pouring out into different things. One can see how, first of all, there is just a vague thought of a memory, or a shape that you notice, and it is quite ephemeral; there is nothing very much there, you just remember some event. Then it catches our attention and, as the mind goes into it, suddenly what was just a vague and insubstantial thing comes to life – and our attention has brought it to life. We have breathed life into that thought with the act of attention.

As we give attention to it and it comes to life, then the whole flow of feeling along with that increases and develops – whether the feeling is pleasant or painful or whatever. If there is no mindfulness, then that feeling conditions self-centered desire; if it is a pleasant feeling, a desire for more of it; if it is a painful feeling, a desire to get away from it. Then that desire turns into attachment and the attachment turns into what is called ‘becoming’ – like a wave gathering strength. Then, as the attachment and the becoming increase, we find ourselves thoroughly caught up with some melodrama and carried away on the whole cycle of birth and death. We are born into a memory, a hope or a worry, born into a piece of music or a feeling; and if we are born into it then we die with it when it comes to an end. Suddenly we find ourselves stranded and lost in another world.

If there is wisdom then we realise – “This is a feeling” – and we follow it as it goes through its cycle of life. Then, as the feeling fades, there is nothing there creating more momentum around it. The feeling fades like a sound and then there is silence.

Ajahn Amaro, Silent Rain.

On not setting targets

December 31, 2011December 30, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Again and again I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America: Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run … success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Replacing our myths

December 30, 2011December 29, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Society today prides itself at times at having thrown out some of the outdated myths that guided our forefathers and grandparents. We have progressed and base ourselves on more rational forces now. However, we are always guided by some myths, whether we are aware of it or not. We simply replace one philosophy by another, and worship in a different type of temple.

The collective fantasies of the modern world are that the old myths can be revived by acts of will, or that by acts of will new myths will be generated. While we have suffered the loss of the old, tribal myths, by and large, we cannot generate new ones – though for sure many have tried. We transfer the need for the experience of the transcendent onto persons, objects, and causes and wonder why they disappoint.

Another way of putting this is that when the gods are not experienced inwardly, they will be projected outwardly. The energy we project onto the things of our world – objects, causes, ideologies, relationships – possess a kind of autonomy, for they momentarily carry spirituality for us. As Jung warns “Our consciousness only imagines that it has lost the gods; in reality they are still there and it only needs general conditions to bring them back in full force”. Whenever the level of personal attention is lowered…the tendency of the ego to project what is not addressed in the inner life increases its fascination with the outer.

James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life

An escape hatch from our fears

December 30, 2011December 29, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

This word ‘meditation’ can mean all kinds of things. It’s a word that includes any kind of mental practices, good or bad. But when I use this word, what I’m mainly using it for is that sense of centring, that sense of establishing, resting in the centre. The only way that one can really do that is not to try and think about it and analyse it; you have to trust in just a simple act of attention, of awareness. It’s so simple and so direct that our complicated minds get very confused. “What’s he talking about? I’ve never seen any still point. I’ve never found a still point in me. When I sit and meditate, there’s nothing still about it.” But there’s an awareness of that. Even if you think you’ve never had a still point or you’re a confused, messed-up character that really can’t meditate, trust in the awareness of that very perception. This is something you can really trust. So in pointing to this centre point, to this still point, to the here-and-now, I’m pointing to the way of transcendence or the escape from it. Not escape by running away out of fear, but the escape hatch that allows us to get perspective on the mess, on the confusion, on the complicated self that we have created and identify with.

Ajahn Sumedho, Identity

No longer living on the surface

December 29, 2011December 28, 2011 Karl Duffy1 Comment

In personal practice we have a precise and potent way to understand the most important thing in our life, which is our mind and heart. We sit there day by day and watch something very private and intimate take place — the unfolding of our wisdom and compassion. Nobody else is watching. We know there’s nothing more important we could do, and yet we don’t write home about it. We don’t need to boast. We can simply enjoy a quiet sense of contentment, knowing that we have set aside the time to do something incredibly kind for ourselves. Without meditation as the bedrock of our sanity, how do we avoid being overreactive, coerced by quick solutions to our problems? These quick solutions come in the form of anger and frustration that the world doesn’t act the way we want, simply because we ourselves lack patience. Our mind becomes irritated, consumed with trying to align the outside world with our desires. If we could simply develop a level of peace in ourselves, our relationship to the world would be that much more harmonious.

As we deepen our mind through personal practice, we are able to dissolve our boundaries and rest in … the nature of how things actually abide. This personal time in which we experience the mind as fluid, unstuck, and without boundaries begins to affect our view of the world as a fixed and immovable place. We are no longer skimming life or our perceptions. We have broken through.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Letting go of our story lines

December 28, 2011December 26, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Meditation practice provides a powerful antidote to the story lines of ego. We become expert in recognizing when we are holding on to both overt and subtle versions of ourselves. In addition we also come to see how we re-create story lines as a way of pulling back from the very experiences we long for: spaciousness, clarity and compassion.…We may prefer to have a softer edge on reality when experiences arise that disconfirm our favourite story lines. We may subtly rework memories rather than see ourselves in an embarrassing or shameful light. We may also shrink away from our naturally tender and compassionate nature when to stay present means feeling our own pain or recognizing the pain of others……As we come to see our internal narratives for what they are – stories that distance us from our direct experience – they begin to lose their power.