Tag: Present moment

A type of addiction

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The issue is not so much the presence or absence of thought activity during meditation. Rather, the issue is the degree to which ones thought activity is driven, unconscious and fixated.

The great majority of human beings are literally addicted to thinking. Even the most wretched substance abuser can go a few hours between “fixes,” but most human beings cannot abide even for a few seconds without some sort of “thought fix.” If there’s nothing significant to think about, we fill the void with fantasy and trivia. Simply stated, meditation breaks the addiction to thinking. One is then in a highly desirable situation. When you want to have a complete experience of hearing and feeling (for example as you listen to music), you can do so without being compulsively pulled into thoughts which are not relevant to the music. When you want to have a complete experience of tasting and feeling, as when enjoying a bite of food, you can likewise do so. On the other hand, when it is appropriate to think, you find that your thinking abilities are vastly improved.

Shinzen Young

….recognizing our stories

Karl Duffy1 Comment

 

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

We live entirely by the impression of a narrative line upon disparate images,

the shifting phantasmagoria, which is our actual experience

Joan Didion

….and see clearly…

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

When we condemn or justify we cannot see clearly, nor can we when our minds are endlessly chattering; then we do not observe what is; we look only at the projections we have made of ourselves. Each of us has an image of what we think we are or what we should be, and that image, that picture, entirely prevents us from seeing ourselves as we actually are.

It is one of the most difficult things in the world to look at anything simply. Because our minds are very complex we have lost the quality of simplicity.  I don’t mean simplicity in clothes or food……but the simplicity that can look directly at things without fear – that can look at ourselves as we actually are without any distortion – to say we lie when we lie, not cover it up or run away from it

Krisnamurti, Freedom from the Known.

Staying present with the physical experience

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If you remember nothing else, always remember this: we don’t have to feel any particular way. We don’t have to have special experiences, nor do we have to be any particular way. With whatever arises, whether it’s pleasing or not, try to remember that all we can do is experience and work with whatever our life is right now. No matter what life is and no matter how we feel about it, all that matters in practice is whether we can honestly acknowledge what is going on, and then stay present with the physical experience of that moment.

Ezra Bayda.

Accepting where you are

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In human life, if you feel that you have made a mistake, you don’t try to undo the past or the present, but you just accept where you are and work from there. Tremendous openness as to where you are is necessary. This also applies to the practice of meditation, for instance.  A person should learn to meditate on the spot, in the given moment, rather than thinking, “…When I reach pension age, I’m going to retire and receive a pension, and I’m going to build my house in Hawaii or the middle of India, or maybe the Gobi Desert, and THEN I’m going to enjoy myself.  I’ll live a life of solitude and then I’ll really meditate”.   Things never happen that way.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Trying to make things permanent

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

When we sit in meditation, we practice observing our thoughts, emotions, and sensations as they arise and fall away,  while we rest on the breath or on a wider calm. The key word here is practice. It is not always easy, but we work at paying attention to our mental events, not hooking into them, simply  allowing them and letting them be.  We quickly learn that emotions and their associated thoughts change as frequently as the weather in Ireland. We open the mind up to more possibilities than what can be easily predicted, or our fixed views of persons.  This helps us develop a real understanding of the changing ups and downs of life, leading to the development of  equanimity towards the times when things or people are not as reliable as we thought they were. The word equanimity comes from Latin aequus “even” and animus ”mind, soul”.  Enjoying life and reducing stress is related to a mind which is even,  not having a preference for one thing or another, not  holding on to something good or something bad.

Everything we gain is subject to loss. Although this is as true as the sky is blue, we keep trying to make gain permanent in order to try to bring about happiness for “me.” We think, “If only So-and-So would love me, I would be happy,“ “If only things would change, I would be happy,” “If only things would stay the way they are, I would always be happy,” and it only leads to heartache. This kind of wanting involves a lot of hope and fear, all based on denial of a simple truth: all the pleasure the world can offer eventually turns to pain. Trying to hold onto pleasure only causes more pain.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Easy Come Easy Go