We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don’t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.
Sogyal Rinpoche
It continually strikes me how difficult it is just to allow things be, and not add on a layer of commentary or anticipation about them. Maybe it is because our brains are disposed toward negative experiences and are always vigilant for possible threats, as Rick Hanson’s excellent book, The Buddha’s Brain tells us. So we are disposed to have a background hum of anxiety, and find it hard to just relax. This means we create scenarios about potential futures, some of which never actually happen. Whatever the reason, I was made aware of it this morning in a phonecall which left me troubled.
Afterwards I went for a walk in the beautiful woods near the source of the Allondon river. As I sat and listened to the sound of the water I was struck by how nature just does not worry about the meaning of life or the implications of its actions. It is not continually analyzing or counting. It is just faithful to its being. The river flows, the leaves fall, the seasons pass without the need to stand outside and observe their action. It is harder for us. Our minds are continually seeking active involvement with something. One instant, they run outward toward something, the next moment, they turn inward and away. Our practice is to try and develop stability and constancy in the mind, our capacity to simply be with life, and not always to think about it. As Pema Chodron reminds us, we cannot be in the present moment and run our storylines at the same time.
We tend to run our whole life trying to avoid all that hurts or displeases us, noticing the objects, people, or situations that we think will give us pain or pleasure, avoiding one and pursuing the other. Without exception, we all do this. We remain separate from our life, looking at it, analyzing it, judging it, seeking to answer the questions, ‘What am I going to get out of it? Is it going to give me pleasure or comfort or should I run away from it?” We do this from morning until night.
Charlotte Joko Beck
A similar quote on meditation to yesterday morning’s one, noticing the tendency of the mind to use different strategies for avoiding simple, direct contact with life as it actually is. We prefer exaggerating our stories about life, often, to how things actually are. The mind likes to produce simulations of future or current events in our life, often making the anticipated difficulty seem bigger than it actually is:
Meditation practice provides provides the perfect context for observing our beliefs and recognizing the tug-of-war we have with our experience. Just sit quietly for five minutes and watch what happens. Unless we have some accomplishment in meditation, we won’t know what to do with all the activity. We become overwhelmed by the energetic play of the mind, pummeled by our own thoughts and emotions, bewildered by our inability to sit in peace. We will want to do something. And we really only have two means of escape from all this mayhem: we can either spin out into thought, which is an exaggeration of reality, or we can suppress or deny it.
Exaggeration and denial describe the dilemma we have with mind, and not just in meditation. Exaggeration and denial operate in conjunction with all our fantasies, hopes, and fears. When we exaggerate experience, we see what isn’t there. And when we deny it, we don’t see what is. Both exaggeration and denial are extraneous to the true nature of things, the nature we experience when we can just stay present.
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, The Power of an Open Question
Like Saint Francis yesterday, Mary Oliver finds comfort in the singing of a bird. For us too, nature is a great place to find comfort in our moments of difficulty. Sometimes we get glimpses of a deeper reality, when our heart opens wide and time seems to stand still:
….. finally I heard him among the first leaves—
then I saw him clutching the limb
in an island of shade, with his red-brown feathers, all trim and neat for the new year.
First, I stood still
and thought of nothing.
Then I began to listen.
Then I was filled with gladness—
and that’s when it happened,
when I seemed to float, to be, myself, a wing or a tree—
and I began to understand what the bird was saying,
and the sands in the glass
stopped
for a pure white moment
while gravity sprinkled upward
like rain, rising, and in fact
it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing—
it was the thrush for sure, but it seemed
not a single thrush, but himself, and all his brothers,
and also the trees around them,
as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds
in the perfectly blue sky— all, all of them
were singing.
And, of course, yes, so it seemed,
so was I.
Such soft and solemn and perfect music doesn’t last
for more than a few moments.
It’s one of those magical places wise people
like to talk about.
One of the things they say about it, that is true,
is that, once you’ve been there,
you’re there forever.
Listen, everyone has a chance.
Is it spring, is it morning?
Are there trees near you,
and does your own soul need comforting?
Quick, then— open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song
may already be drifting away.
Mary Oliver, Such Singing in the Wild Branches (2003)
Things that are real pose no danger to the mind. The real dangers in the mind are our delusions, the things we make up, the things we use to cover up reality, the stories, the preconceived notions we impose on things. When we’re trying to live in those stories and notions, reality is threatening. It’s always exposing the cracks in our ideas, the cracks in our ignorance, the cracks in our desires. As long as we identify with those make-believe desires, we find that threatening. But if we learn to become real people ourselves, then reality poses no dangers.
This is what the meditation is for, teaching yourself how to be real, to get in touch with what’s really going on, to look at your sense of who you are and take it apart in terms of what it really is, to look at the things that you find threatening in your life and see what they really are. When you really look, you see the truth. If you’re true in your looking, the truth appears.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Today is the feastday of St Francis of Assisi (1182 – 1226), perhaps the most popular and likeable Christian saint. The example of his extraordinary heart reminds us of the joy that can be found in a life of meaning and service. Unlike some other saints he seems approachable. In his connection to nature he opens us out to all of creation. I am reminded of two stories from his life, both, not surprisingly, involving animals.
The first is the famous story about the wolf which was terrorizing the people of the town of Gubbio. It had killed several people, and they were now afraid to leave their homes. Francis heard about this and decided to go approach the wolf . When he came upon the wolf, it lunged at him, mouth open wide, about to bite. Francis simply, gently, greeted the wolf as “Brother Wolf” and spoke to it, telling it not to harm him. It stopped and lay down at his feet. Francis and the wolf made a deal: the town would provide food for the wolf for the rest of its life, in exchange for the wolf’s ceasing to harm them. We are told the wolf placed its right paw into Francis’ hand, and so the wolf lived in peace with the people of Gubbio for the rest of its life.
It is clear Francis was a peacemaker and reconciler – in this case helping the people in a society deal with what pushed them in fear to close their doors and withdraw. But I like to think of this story as a way that we can deal with our fears, the emotions that arise within us and scare us, like anger, jealousy and dislike of others. The stuff that relationships bring up in our lives. Our normal first response is to be disturbed or frightened by these strong emotions and we move to push them away. However, in themselves, these are not the problem, but it is our mind’s relationship to them that is. So what learn from Francis is to approach the things that frighten us – not to be afraid of the frightening wolves within us – but to begin by simply, gently looking at them directly. What would it be like to experiment with seeing them just as part of who we are at that moment and instead of pushing them away, to invite them to come close and to stay. As if they are part of the family – “brother wolf”, “brother anger” “brother fear” – and welcome them to the table? This is the practice: to first experience the anxiety you are going through – if it is not too overwhelming – as an embodied feeling, with no shoulds or shouldn’t about it. Our wounds – even the most frightening, shameful, or self-inflicted ones – do not need to become a moment for showing ourselves further violence. They are, like all our practice, to be occasions of self-compassion and a letting go of judgment.
A second story tells us that Francis and Brother Leo were about to eat when he heard a nightingale singing. Francis seemed to have a special fondness for birds. So he suggested to Leo that they should also sing out their love along with the bird. Leo made the excuse that he was no singer, but Francis lifted up his voice and, line after line, sang a duet with the nightingale, until, late into the night, he tired and had to admit that the bird sang out his joy better than he could. I love the way that Francis opened his heart with all of creation and did not let the self- conscious, doubting “I am not a singer” story – which we all tell ourselves – get in the way. His heart naturally wanted to share and he did not let his fears get in the way.
