Tag: Mindfulness

Letting go of the ideal to work with the now

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Downpatrick sunset (01), September 2009.JPG

One thing that I am getting used to being back in Ireland is the changing nature of the weather, which varies from day-to-day and  even a number of times during the day. Yesterday was a lovely warm, sunny, day,  with a beautiful sky at sunset, while today the sky is hidden behind grey clouds with the prospect of rain later. I was talking with friends in Switzerland who are going through a period of very hot weather, and immediately my mind formed the idea of the “ideal” summer, with constancy and reliability in the weather. However, nice as that would be, one advantage of changing weather is that it allows us practice with letting go of ideals and “shoulds”,  and moving with how things actually are.  This is a good training in letting go of the “push-pull” dynamic of happiness which is ingrained in us.  We seem to alternate between “pulling” – wanting some things that are going on in our lives (or in others’ lives or in an idealized version of our life) or “pushing away” –  not wanting elements of what is happening to us at the moment. Real happiness comes from stepping out of that dynamic, from waking up to to the root cause.

Here are some thoughts from Ajahn Sucitto on how to work with the way the mind likes to form ideals – the weather, the ideal day, the ideal way our life should be –  which can become judgmental  and oppressive. He suggests the development of  a working philosophy of “good enough”, and argues that this cannot achieved through thinking alone, but in a balance between the head, the heart and being grounded in the body, here and now. There is a kindness in approaching life this way, which is often lacking in the thinking mind. 

Not feeling good enough is a true experience. Something’s wrong. But you don’t get good enough through following the idea or the ideal or those performance-driven drives that cause you to fragment. Good enough begins with being whole, with the heart, head and body senses all in the same place. So you enquire: is my body with me now? Is my heart unwilling? Resisting? Or settling into being here? How do I free myself from self-criticism and feeling inadequate? And to look at the topic in another light – where would that self-respect come from? That has to be a relational sense; which is a heart sense, not my thinking mind. The problem is that we mostly orient through the thinking faculty. And for this faculty absolutes and ideals are easy. You can think in terms of absolute right and wrong. You can conceive of the perfect person and the perfect society. What you can’t conceive of in any clear and definite way is what is good enough. The thinking mind can’t grasp that one.  It’s only realizable through the heart faculty.

Ajahn Sucitto, Good Enough

photo ardfern

Daring to live

Karl Duffy1 Comment

play_risk

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.

And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true

William James, Is Life Worth Living?

Grumbling and complaining

Karl Duffy5 Comments

Not far from where I live now is the Cistercian Abbey at Moone, where the monks keep an established routine of prayer and silence starting at 4.15 in the morning until Night Prayer at 20.15. On Monday  Fr Ambrose spoke about the human capacity for grumbling and complaining, as he reflected on a passage in the Old Testament where the people of Israel began to complain about their life in the desert, even though they had just been freed from a life of slavery in Egypt.  They contrasted their life now, even with freedom,  to their life in the past, and their thinking mind – which does not need much stimulus – sprang into action:  “Think of the fish we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic!”.  As Ambrose said, this reveals a persistent behaviour in our human nature, and one that does not always lead to greater happiness or inner peace.

It would seem that comparing ourselves with others evolved as a necessary survival skill. When there were scarce resources and ever-present dangers, it was necessary to see who was stronger, who were the potential allies and threats,  and who could ultimately kill you. This survival necessity became deeply embedded in our consciousness as an alertness, a certain vigilance. However, how that useful skill actually manifests itself is in the mind’s tendency to generate comparing thoughts with others or with other times in our life, just as the people of Israel did. We can find ourselves making comparison judgments about  who is smarter, prettier or richer; who has a fitter body or a better car. Or we compare ourselves to a better version of ourselves, one who is more disciplined, who does not procrastinate, who should be doing better, who is getting things done faster.  The world of advertising and the media likes to nurture this sense of dissatisfaction, and therefore our minds have been acclimatised to achieving the latest, the better-than, the newest model, ideals that have a sense of compulsion in them  For example, here in Ireland the car registration plates for the year 2013 have been split into two, 131 for the first six months and 132 for months starting with July. The desire to show others that you have a newer car, with a 132 registration plate, seems to have worked, as sales are up by 132% on last years July figures.

This grumbling normally starts as some sort of unease, which the mind interprets as something wrong and then gets to work. So the uncomfortable feelings gets interpreted in terms of things should be better. The mind likes to project how my self could be and moves away from working with how things actually are.  Immediately,  thoughts are generated, a range of possibilities and alternatives.  It would seem that we are always seeking new becomings rather than resting in the space where we actually  are. Through our thinking minds we create plenty of ways to  get away, to become some thing else.  This normally means that we become dissatisfied and need either to get something different, or to get away from something else.

This can be quite subtle and arise instinctively. Frequently it is dressed up as a laudable need to improve ourselves or get our lives or careers moving forward.  I notice this in myself at this time of change, when not everything goes according to the schedule in the mind and I find it hard to stick with how things actually are, not as I think they should be. So grumbling and doubt sets in.  However, all this does is take me away from how this moment or my  life is,  and thus causes suffering.  It does not allow us accept ourselves as we actually are.

It is good to shift from believing the content of these thoughts, to noticing the continual process of generating them. The mind will always compare.  The Buddha drew attention to this by stating that life has an ‘unsatisfied’ sense. Ambrose said that it seems to be in our nature. Noticing the comparing mind is therefore a good practice on the way towards reducing stress and being happy in our own skin. If we spot these thoughts for what they are – mere perceptions and judgments of the mind – then they have less capacity to pull us out of the moment. Outside of our mind, the relative concept of “better” has no sense.  So next time we notice ourselves grumbling, see if you can inquire into the process and stay with the original sense of unease, without making it into a story about how your life is going. 

Thought as judgments

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When resolutions cause dissatisfaction

When you say “I think,” it is often not you who think, but “they” –

it is the anonymous authority of the collectivity speaking through your mask.

Thomas Merton

Balance

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The wise man knows how to run his life so that contemplation is possible.

Gabriel Marcel

Shedding dead skin

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Just as a snake sheds its skin,so we should shed our past, over and over again.  The Buddha

For  many ancient people,   the snake was a symbol of life, shedding its skin again and again to be born anew.  This was frequently represented in the  image of the snake as a circle eating its own tail.  Jung  believed that this symbol had an archetypal meaning for humans, with snakes having the enviable quality of being able to let go of what was no longer needed for growth and start again, seeing the world from a fresh new perspective. For example, the Dunsun tribe in Northern Borneo have a myth about the origins of humankind, which really  reveals their way of grappling with some of the ongoing realities of human existence.  In their Creation Myth, humans are contrasted with snakes, who are seen to continually renew themselves by shedding their skin. In this way it was believed that they did not die.  Growth for us sometimes means letting go and moving on from the past, shedding dead skin in order to live fully.

…The way to stay closest to the pulse of life, the way to stay in the presence of that divine reality which informs everything is to be willing to change. Still, change what? To change whatever has ceased to function within us. To shed whatever we are carrying that is no longer alive. To cast off our dead skin because dead skin can’t feel. Dead eyes can’t see. Dead ears can’t hear. And without feeling, there is no chance of wholeness, and wholeness remains our best chance to survive the pain of breaking.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening