Perhaps you are in pain right now. Perhaps you are lost. I go in and out of that, too. Depression, the pain of it, can serve a purpose. We live in a world of contrasts, of duality. Darkness helps to define the light. Depression can help to give clarity to happiness, when happiness comes, and happiness does come back. The key to clarity can be found in cultivating awareness. The path to awareness is through receptivity to the present moment. That means you have to come to a stop. A lot of people seem to have trouble with this - stopping. I learned about this from Jon Kabat-Zinn. He wrote a book called Wherever You Go There You Are and I bought an audio recording of the book and listened to it many times the year before I became psychotic. It was a meditation tape and it helped me in my own meditation practice to learn the art of mindfulness.
It's been a long time since I meditated by stopping and doing nothing, letting the world around me go on its way without any effort on my part. I do meditate, but there are multiple ways to meditate. I am meditating right now while I write this. But sitting in my living room and doing nothing has in the past been a special form of meditation for me. My voices are uncomfortable with me even considering doing this again. I feel so different from myself back then when I only had voices now and then. Now they are always there moving from foreground to background and back again. I am never alone, nor do I want to be anymore now that these voices have become my friends. I do stop and listen for some kind of guidance throughout the day and night. That listening is subtle and intuitive. I remain receptive and I wait. And I have faith that not only my voices are listening and being receptive to me. Some greater intelligence is always there, listening, ever aware of my small life.
I want to improve my conscious contact with this intelligence. My understanding of God is still abstract. I don't know what it is or where it came from. I do not anthropomorphize my idea of God. I do believe intelligence is God given. Or in other words, no God, no intelligence. From intelligence comes understanding and I yearn to understand. There is so much harmony within understanding and that is really what I yearn for, harmony, which, to me, is the essence of God. This is not a random universe. We do not live in chaos. There is a sense and a logic to even the smallest things. The atom is the smallest miracle. And then there is the beauty in discovering the logic behind all life and its actions. There is a logic to all life. Discover the logic to make the sense to gain the understanding to find the truth. Seeking the truth is my motivation for engaging in my life. There is grace in understanding the truth in anything or any living being. All the interconnections express God, lead back to God as I understand God.
Nothing exists in isolation. Even black holes exist in relation to all that is not a black hole. I believe that there is intelligence in space. Intelligence is not biological; it has no heart, no brain. We are a materialistic species afraid of the unknown, of what lies after death. We are experts at distraction. And yet wherever we go, whatever we do we cannot escape our own intelligence. Our spirits are intertwined with our intelligence.
I'm going to try writing in this blog more often, just explore some of my daily thoughts, work with my intelligence. I took my nighttime anti-psychotic medication before I began writing this and I am feeling quite tired. It's time to get some rest. I just wanted to put some ideas out there, some food for thought for whoever reads this.
Showing posts with label Mindfulness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mindfulness. Show all posts
Friday, July 15, 2016
Sunday, January 13, 2013
The Benefits Of Buddhist Practice
I just wanted to thank Chris, Ashley, Karen and Pam for leaving some great comments to my last blog entry about Pema Chodron. These are all women who have experience with mental illness and yet each in different ways are deep into recovery. They are smart, creative, talented and perceptive people and they have come a long way and have a lot to offer the world. I respect and admire each and every one of them and am honored that they took the time to read my entry and comment.
I would like in this entry to address some of Chris' comment. She wrote that while she responds to several of Pema Chodron's books, she can't commit to being a Buddhist or following Buddhist principles mainly because she believes that Buddhism shares with other organized religions the imperative to follow without questioning. She also wonders whether it is appropriate to pick and choose what to believe while leaving the rest behind, which is an approach that I have supported in previous blog entries.
First of all, I have to say that while I am strongly influenced by Buddhist principles and have applied many to my life, I do not consider myself a Buddhist. I did not grown up living with any form of organized religion and was taught to be suspicious of religions in general. I turned towards Buddhism in my thirties, after having survived an abusive relationship but before I became actively ill with schizophrenia, because I had begun practicing yoga and meditation and I was curious. The Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, was my main teacher via audio programs. He introduced me to the practice of mindfulness.
There is no dogma in the practice of mindfulness. It's all about focusing your attention on what you are doing in the present moment and really staying aware. Thich Nhat Hanh gave examples of mindfully eating and mindfully washing the dishes and said that one could apply mindfulness to everything. And what was the point of doing this practice? For me, as I practiced, the point was to really appreciate my life. When I was mindful, and mindfulness lends itself to a kind of heightened perception, I was not lost thinking of the past or planning for and worrying about the future. There is a great freedom contained in the practice of mindfulness, freedom and common sense. I found it to be both enlightening and healing to my spirit and so I touched base with Buddhist practices just before my breakdown and then during it and beyond.
The Buddhist teachers that I went on to encounter in books and audiobooks over the years did not browbeat their readers and listeners into swallowing what they were teaching without questioning. Instead they offered up a variety of practices and invited their audience to test these practices out in their own lives. Pema Chodron has often said that she provides hints and clues about applying the practices, but that the ultimate test has to be done by each of us alone. It was the Buddha himself who said that people should not blindly follow what he was teaching, but should test it out.
One of the reasons why I'm so enthusiastic about writing about Buddhist practice is because I have tested some of it out and found it to be, without a doubt, beneficial to myself. The basic principles and practices encourage open mindedness, acceptance, tolerance, patience, generosity and love towards oneself and all others. Being a pacifist, this loving philosophy gives me a lot of support to continue being a pacifist. It also gives me hope that a lot of other people are turning towards the philosophy of peace in the world simply by applying these Buddhist practices to their lives. When you embrace mindfulness, you embrace self responsibility and responsibility towards others, be they friend, stranger or foe. Mindfulness is about gently becoming more and more aware, more awake. Too many of us are on automatic pilot, going through our busy lives without stopping to reflect and appreciate ourselves and life.
My purpose in writing about Buddhism is not to get readers to become Buddhists, but rather, to encourage them apply some of the Buddhist practices and attitudes to their lives. The practices of mindfulness and sending lovingkindness prayers out to self and others alone are enough to benefit individuals and ultimately communities as well, if enough people turn their wills towards being aware and non harming. What I'm proposing, along with most Buddhist teachers, is a gentle, gradual shift in awareness towards love, not just for self and loved ones, but as a basis for relating to people and life in general. But in order to shift into love as a basis for relating to all people, individuals must have at least one or two spiritual practices to follow and guide them. These do not have to be Buddhist practices, but I have discovered that Buddhism is rich in various practices and is quite accessible.
Chris questioned in her comment whether it was okay to pick and choose what to practice and what to ignore from either one religion or various religions. I still believe that it is perfectly okay. The point is to do what works for you and that could mean that you adhere to only one religion and follow it in an orthodox manner. Whether you are orthodox or not, you are nonetheless on your own path. You can choose no religion at all and be on a spiritual path. I think we are all on the path whether we can consciously acknowledge it or not. This is because we are beings that gravitate towards love, love of other people and love of all kinds of activities, with and without people. It's the ones who turn towards anger and criticism, perhaps because of having been abused earlier, who are hurting the most, along with the ones who have moved from having been abused into the role of the abuser.
Even people who have been severely abused as children have experienced times of love and acceptance, if not from within their families, then from outside of them. I think we are all born with the instinct to recognize the deep value of giving and receiving love. So many of us lose sight of this when we've been hurt by people and life circumstances. I know my heart went into a deep freeze and stayed frozen even after I left the abusive situation I had been living in. It took a severe form of mental illness to wake me up to the absolute necessity of valuing myself and others daily. The method of waking me up was harsh and painful, yet at the same time the lessons I was learning were branded in my heart and, over a decade later, I am still practicing what I learned then: to be of benefit to myself and others. The aim of Buddhist practice is the same, which is why I have been able to embrace it, apply it and share it.
I would like in this entry to address some of Chris' comment. She wrote that while she responds to several of Pema Chodron's books, she can't commit to being a Buddhist or following Buddhist principles mainly because she believes that Buddhism shares with other organized religions the imperative to follow without questioning. She also wonders whether it is appropriate to pick and choose what to believe while leaving the rest behind, which is an approach that I have supported in previous blog entries.
First of all, I have to say that while I am strongly influenced by Buddhist principles and have applied many to my life, I do not consider myself a Buddhist. I did not grown up living with any form of organized religion and was taught to be suspicious of religions in general. I turned towards Buddhism in my thirties, after having survived an abusive relationship but before I became actively ill with schizophrenia, because I had begun practicing yoga and meditation and I was curious. The Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, was my main teacher via audio programs. He introduced me to the practice of mindfulness.
There is no dogma in the practice of mindfulness. It's all about focusing your attention on what you are doing in the present moment and really staying aware. Thich Nhat Hanh gave examples of mindfully eating and mindfully washing the dishes and said that one could apply mindfulness to everything. And what was the point of doing this practice? For me, as I practiced, the point was to really appreciate my life. When I was mindful, and mindfulness lends itself to a kind of heightened perception, I was not lost thinking of the past or planning for and worrying about the future. There is a great freedom contained in the practice of mindfulness, freedom and common sense. I found it to be both enlightening and healing to my spirit and so I touched base with Buddhist practices just before my breakdown and then during it and beyond.
The Buddhist teachers that I went on to encounter in books and audiobooks over the years did not browbeat their readers and listeners into swallowing what they were teaching without questioning. Instead they offered up a variety of practices and invited their audience to test these practices out in their own lives. Pema Chodron has often said that she provides hints and clues about applying the practices, but that the ultimate test has to be done by each of us alone. It was the Buddha himself who said that people should not blindly follow what he was teaching, but should test it out.
One of the reasons why I'm so enthusiastic about writing about Buddhist practice is because I have tested some of it out and found it to be, without a doubt, beneficial to myself. The basic principles and practices encourage open mindedness, acceptance, tolerance, patience, generosity and love towards oneself and all others. Being a pacifist, this loving philosophy gives me a lot of support to continue being a pacifist. It also gives me hope that a lot of other people are turning towards the philosophy of peace in the world simply by applying these Buddhist practices to their lives. When you embrace mindfulness, you embrace self responsibility and responsibility towards others, be they friend, stranger or foe. Mindfulness is about gently becoming more and more aware, more awake. Too many of us are on automatic pilot, going through our busy lives without stopping to reflect and appreciate ourselves and life.
My purpose in writing about Buddhism is not to get readers to become Buddhists, but rather, to encourage them apply some of the Buddhist practices and attitudes to their lives. The practices of mindfulness and sending lovingkindness prayers out to self and others alone are enough to benefit individuals and ultimately communities as well, if enough people turn their wills towards being aware and non harming. What I'm proposing, along with most Buddhist teachers, is a gentle, gradual shift in awareness towards love, not just for self and loved ones, but as a basis for relating to people and life in general. But in order to shift into love as a basis for relating to all people, individuals must have at least one or two spiritual practices to follow and guide them. These do not have to be Buddhist practices, but I have discovered that Buddhism is rich in various practices and is quite accessible.
Chris questioned in her comment whether it was okay to pick and choose what to practice and what to ignore from either one religion or various religions. I still believe that it is perfectly okay. The point is to do what works for you and that could mean that you adhere to only one religion and follow it in an orthodox manner. Whether you are orthodox or not, you are nonetheless on your own path. You can choose no religion at all and be on a spiritual path. I think we are all on the path whether we can consciously acknowledge it or not. This is because we are beings that gravitate towards love, love of other people and love of all kinds of activities, with and without people. It's the ones who turn towards anger and criticism, perhaps because of having been abused earlier, who are hurting the most, along with the ones who have moved from having been abused into the role of the abuser.
Even people who have been severely abused as children have experienced times of love and acceptance, if not from within their families, then from outside of them. I think we are all born with the instinct to recognize the deep value of giving and receiving love. So many of us lose sight of this when we've been hurt by people and life circumstances. I know my heart went into a deep freeze and stayed frozen even after I left the abusive situation I had been living in. It took a severe form of mental illness to wake me up to the absolute necessity of valuing myself and others daily. The method of waking me up was harsh and painful, yet at the same time the lessons I was learning were branded in my heart and, over a decade later, I am still practicing what I learned then: to be of benefit to myself and others. The aim of Buddhist practice is the same, which is why I have been able to embrace it, apply it and share it.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Our World Still Turns
The world did not end yesterday; we have been given a reprieve. How shall we spend it, in denial or in action? With global climate change, near economic ruin, continuing wars, people (children!) starving and persisting diseases, it is not too far fetched to consider that our world is dying and mainly because of us and our chosen lifestyles. In these challenging times, some claim that they have woken up into an enlightened consciousness and way of being. Eckhart Tolle, who wrote a very popular book called The Power Of Now, in 1999, is one of that group.
I have read over half of the book. I connect with some of it; that connection might be because a part of me really wishes that people as individuals are having a positive change of consciousness that will direct them away from business as usual on this planet. I believe our survival depends upon it. But at the same time that I welcome Mr. Tolle's assertions that enlightenment is accessible in every passing moment, I feel wary of anyone who achieves fame and monetary success through such assertions. I believe that such success can overemphasize the importance of one person over others and can lead to a kind of corruption of spirit and message.
And so, as they say in 12 step groups, I will take what I need and leave the rest, which is what I hope all of us do. It does no good to totally accept or reject one person's ideas. No one can live our lives for us, nor learn our lessons; we have to do this ourselves now and always. What I take from Mr. Tolle is what I have taken from other spiritual teachers and that is that it is not the past or the future that matters so much as being aware, and therefore awake, in the present. It sounds so simple and, if you are willing to stop and look about you, it really is simple, but so often we go about in a dream of non mindful doing caught in the trap of questionable thinking.
Mindful action and the ability to watch our thoughts, respect them, but not necessarily engage in them, I believe is what Eckhart Tolle would describe as a "portal" to a higher consciousness. This consciousness would be one that would be beneficial to ourselves, towards others and towards this planet. The more people that tap into practicing mindfulness, the greater our chances of making deeply beneficial changes in the short run and the long run. It takes courage to remain open enough to be mindful. Mindful people are not aggressive, greedy and because they let themselves be aware, they give themselves the chance to act responsibly, instead of reacting thoughtlessly and self-centeredly.
For everyone, self honesty needs to be the basis of the changes that must come. We don't have the time to remain in denial. If you can't sit with the truth at some point during your day, each day, you will remain unconscious and ineffective; perhaps you will contribute to the problems of the day rather than to the solutions. My feeling is we need to pull together and the courage it takes to be honest does create the strong bonds necessary for us to do this. Surely there are enough of us to change the world. In the 1950s there were 3 billion people on earth -- now there are over 7 billion people. We cannot go on indiscriminately procreating, acting as if we have the right to do as we please.
We have thoroughly tested out hatred through wars as a basis for supposedly civilized life, laying claim to imaginary, man made territories and rights. It is my very strong belief that now is the time to embrace peace on earth. What good can really be done without it? The only way I see this being possible is if more people than not stand up individually and refuse to service and sacrifice themselves to the war machine concocted by various "nations". It is simple: if we refuse to fight, there can be no war, even drones need to be made, serviced and sent out by people. The phrase "Just Say No" did not work on the "war on drugs" but it would work if people abandoned the military and put their energies towards saving this planet and the people and life on it.
Do you love this world with its oceans, mountains, plains, valleys, deserts, rivers, forests and streams? Do you love the life that grows and moves across this earth? Can you rise up to the challenge of loving those who it would be easier to hate? Can you cross cultural barriers and rejoice in the wonderful diversity of all of us human animals? Can you chip in and do your part for the love of it? I, for one, have a lot of faith that you can. Despite all the mistakes we've made, our essential spirits are solidly good. I believe in the power of love to conquer hate and the power of love to move mountains if need be. And I'm afraid it is needed, probably more now than at any time in our relatively brief history. We need a global change of consciousness. We need it now, in all of our present moments.
I have read over half of the book. I connect with some of it; that connection might be because a part of me really wishes that people as individuals are having a positive change of consciousness that will direct them away from business as usual on this planet. I believe our survival depends upon it. But at the same time that I welcome Mr. Tolle's assertions that enlightenment is accessible in every passing moment, I feel wary of anyone who achieves fame and monetary success through such assertions. I believe that such success can overemphasize the importance of one person over others and can lead to a kind of corruption of spirit and message.
And so, as they say in 12 step groups, I will take what I need and leave the rest, which is what I hope all of us do. It does no good to totally accept or reject one person's ideas. No one can live our lives for us, nor learn our lessons; we have to do this ourselves now and always. What I take from Mr. Tolle is what I have taken from other spiritual teachers and that is that it is not the past or the future that matters so much as being aware, and therefore awake, in the present. It sounds so simple and, if you are willing to stop and look about you, it really is simple, but so often we go about in a dream of non mindful doing caught in the trap of questionable thinking.
Mindful action and the ability to watch our thoughts, respect them, but not necessarily engage in them, I believe is what Eckhart Tolle would describe as a "portal" to a higher consciousness. This consciousness would be one that would be beneficial to ourselves, towards others and towards this planet. The more people that tap into practicing mindfulness, the greater our chances of making deeply beneficial changes in the short run and the long run. It takes courage to remain open enough to be mindful. Mindful people are not aggressive, greedy and because they let themselves be aware, they give themselves the chance to act responsibly, instead of reacting thoughtlessly and self-centeredly.
For everyone, self honesty needs to be the basis of the changes that must come. We don't have the time to remain in denial. If you can't sit with the truth at some point during your day, each day, you will remain unconscious and ineffective; perhaps you will contribute to the problems of the day rather than to the solutions. My feeling is we need to pull together and the courage it takes to be honest does create the strong bonds necessary for us to do this. Surely there are enough of us to change the world. In the 1950s there were 3 billion people on earth -- now there are over 7 billion people. We cannot go on indiscriminately procreating, acting as if we have the right to do as we please.
We have thoroughly tested out hatred through wars as a basis for supposedly civilized life, laying claim to imaginary, man made territories and rights. It is my very strong belief that now is the time to embrace peace on earth. What good can really be done without it? The only way I see this being possible is if more people than not stand up individually and refuse to service and sacrifice themselves to the war machine concocted by various "nations". It is simple: if we refuse to fight, there can be no war, even drones need to be made, serviced and sent out by people. The phrase "Just Say No" did not work on the "war on drugs" but it would work if people abandoned the military and put their energies towards saving this planet and the people and life on it.
Do you love this world with its oceans, mountains, plains, valleys, deserts, rivers, forests and streams? Do you love the life that grows and moves across this earth? Can you rise up to the challenge of loving those who it would be easier to hate? Can you cross cultural barriers and rejoice in the wonderful diversity of all of us human animals? Can you chip in and do your part for the love of it? I, for one, have a lot of faith that you can. Despite all the mistakes we've made, our essential spirits are solidly good. I believe in the power of love to conquer hate and the power of love to move mountains if need be. And I'm afraid it is needed, probably more now than at any time in our relatively brief history. We need a global change of consciousness. We need it now, in all of our present moments.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
This Sacred World
From when I was little up until my late teens, I knew the world was sacred. I think many of us do at that age. The power of youth lies in part in its intensity. It doesn't matter what your life circumstances are, everything is new, fresh and alive. Your mind and heart are awake and you are only tentatively conditioned by the society you live in. Later on you will armor your heart, thereby dulling your mind, and accept your place in society but without the intensity of the young, wise heart. As you grow into adulthood, you will take on more and more responsibilities. These widen your skills and allow you to live independently. They also numb your sensitivity to the fact that your present moment is sacred.
I grew up in New York City. During most of the year I lived in Brooklyn and went to school in Manhattan and during the summers I lived on Long Island on the beach. I got to experience city and country life, to taste the rhythms of both. In my neighborhood in Brooklyn, there were tree lined streets and a large park nearby. Nature seemed to survive fairly well in an environment of car exhaust, many houses, apartment buildings, stores, schools and a moderate number of people. I was lucky to have that park nearby. Any open spaces, including the sky and the sky line, in a city as large and complex as New York City, are truly valued and needed. It's a kind of balance to the stress of living amongst so many people. But that city environment and all its multi-cultural inhabitants are a large part of what makes city living as sacred as living close to nature.
It's not just that the environment we find ourselves in is sacred, but we ourselves are made up of subtle and obvious, intricate and plain sacred stuff. I got to experience people as sacred on New York City streets and subways. The obvious and plain sacredness of the people in this city is in their wonderful diversity. I realized later on that a lot of people just don't get to experience this and are possibly afraid of all the differences in humanity. But for me living in the city at the time it was the natural state of affairs. And amidst that throng of people, there were truly acts of random kindness that defied the stereotype of cities as large and hostile places. Yes the city was large and in certain places, at certain times hostile, but for the most part the life within the city kept moving. More people followed the rules of coexistence than didn't. Courtesy, tolerance, patience, generosity, humor and even joy circulated throughout city life.
The subtle and intricate side of the sacred in the city had to do with the darker side of it. The traffic, the car exhaust in the air, the dirt, the noise, the extreme poverty of homeless people, the threat of misunderstandings turning into altercations or even violence, the fast pace, all of this interwoven into the pulse of the city. How can dirt, noise, poverty, violence be sacred? Because it is part of the whole scene and it offsets the harmony and beauty which is also to be found there. This duality in us between the light and dark aspects of ourselves is the playing field for the sacred in our lives. Success and failure, beauty and ugliness, peace and violence, it's all very rich and messy stuff and it's all we have to work with as we each go through our particular journey.
I think more people associate the sacred with nature, rather than with city life, and I was privileged enough to experience that also in what started out as a very small beach house on Long Island during the summers. My upwardly mobile parents, who worked their way up from fairly poor beginnings, determined to get this house on the bay side of the beach for about $9,000 in 1958, the year my older brother was born. They never regretted it and my brother and I got to experience nature up close. Compared to the city, there wasn't the dirt, noise, poverty or potential violence at the beach. Instead there was the luxury of unpopulated open spaces where nature thrived. I remember the smell of the ocean, salty and mildly sulphuric, as my family got out of the car, and how quickly I took off my shoes and socks to feel the sand between my toes. Soon after that I would check on the bay behind our house and then walk across the road and up a dune to see the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. It was like greeting a long, lost friend. My family also brought our six cats with us and set them free during the summers; they were beautiful to watch and so happy in their freedom.
I moved away from both the city and the beach when I was twenty seven, moving far into the country of Western New York, which is closer to rural Pennsylvania than to the metropolis that I grew up in. Predominantly white, Christian, Republican, often poor amidst the open beauty of the countryside, a very different setting for me. Ironically, I had to come deep into the country to encounter prejudice, violence, addiction and abuse that I somehow mostly avoided in the city. But I also found the solace of living in the country in relative privacy in my own home for the first time in my adult life. Everything was new, the countryside, the roads, the towns, the stores and the people. I still had some of the flush of youth in me then and I was curious. I was also sick and quickly committed myself to someone who was also sick, a victim of prejudice, abuse and addiction. He tried to pass on the cycle of abuse that he had endured and rebelled against to me.
The cycles of abuse in our culture are also a part of how we learn about what's sacred in our lives. One of the drawbacks of living in the country is the isolation because isolation can breed abuse. A sick, tyrannical, addicted boyfriend or husband living in an isolated house with his girlfriend or wife and possibly children as well, can reek havoc in that little home virtually unchecked. Worse, the suffering abuser will go on to teach how to perpetuate the cycle of abuse especially to the children. People who become the victims of abuse have two choices, either to continue the cycle or to end it. It sounds like an easy choice, but it is not. The pull to feed into resentment, whether it's an abusive person blaming those around him for his troubles or an abused person blaming his or her abuser, is what keeps this virus alive. I guess this is why I tend to stress the fact that abusers are not bad, evil people, they are incredibly sick people who most likely have been abused themselves at a young age. And the abused, after years of it, are mentally ill as well. This is what cements the cycle in place -- when the people in the relationship are both sick, how can they possibly get well?
Too often they don't get well and spiral downwards. It takes at least one person in a deeply sick relationship to reach outside of the confines of that strange partnership towards help. I tried to do that by going to support groups and counseling, by studying literature on addiction, codependency and domestic violence, by secretly writing in a journal. My attempts to continue with support groups and counseling were blocked by my sick, abusive partner. But at least I gave him the opportunity to stop the abuse by setting a good example. I knew that I was very ill, so instead of blaming him, I was trying to take care of myself. I invited him to do the same. In his attitudes and actions, he refused and I began praying for the courage to leave him for good. And I did. One of the reasons why I could was because I didn't have a child with him. There are countless women out there who cannot leave their abusive partner so easily because of the children involved.
So the darkness of the city is also the same darkness of the country, the setting is different but the substance is the same. I consider the years that I spent living with my lover/abuser as sacred years. I feel the same way about the years I spent in acute psychosis. Just because it is dark, dirty, smelly and painful, doesn't take away from the fact that there were profound lessons being taught. You can be very sick and yet very alive at the same time. Again, the sickness highlights the way back to health through negative example. If you can acknowledge your sickness and study your habitual triggers and reactions, thereby increasing your awareness level or your mindfulness, you can heal. But you have to take responsibility for yourself and put not harming yourself and others at the top of your list.
Regardless of whether you live in the city or country, whether you are young or old, you always have access to what's sacred. It's in every moment; you carry it around with you and you move through its space. It's there every time you meet another human being and it's there when you are alone. It's particularly evident when you cultivate awareness of the moment you are in through self-reflection. Self-reflection is at the heart of the sacred. It is honest mindfulness of the heart, mind and spirit; you are the witness to your own life. This is why it is important to stop what you are doing each day and sit, either in formal meditation or in informal meditation. This stopping is just as important, probably more important, than somewhat blindly doing all the time. If you have a lot of responsibilities and are active most of the time, it is essential that you take time for yourself to value just being. Turn off the computer, your phone, the TV, the radio and go sit quietly for at least 20 minutes. Do it now.
I grew up in New York City. During most of the year I lived in Brooklyn and went to school in Manhattan and during the summers I lived on Long Island on the beach. I got to experience city and country life, to taste the rhythms of both. In my neighborhood in Brooklyn, there were tree lined streets and a large park nearby. Nature seemed to survive fairly well in an environment of car exhaust, many houses, apartment buildings, stores, schools and a moderate number of people. I was lucky to have that park nearby. Any open spaces, including the sky and the sky line, in a city as large and complex as New York City, are truly valued and needed. It's a kind of balance to the stress of living amongst so many people. But that city environment and all its multi-cultural inhabitants are a large part of what makes city living as sacred as living close to nature.
It's not just that the environment we find ourselves in is sacred, but we ourselves are made up of subtle and obvious, intricate and plain sacred stuff. I got to experience people as sacred on New York City streets and subways. The obvious and plain sacredness of the people in this city is in their wonderful diversity. I realized later on that a lot of people just don't get to experience this and are possibly afraid of all the differences in humanity. But for me living in the city at the time it was the natural state of affairs. And amidst that throng of people, there were truly acts of random kindness that defied the stereotype of cities as large and hostile places. Yes the city was large and in certain places, at certain times hostile, but for the most part the life within the city kept moving. More people followed the rules of coexistence than didn't. Courtesy, tolerance, patience, generosity, humor and even joy circulated throughout city life.
The subtle and intricate side of the sacred in the city had to do with the darker side of it. The traffic, the car exhaust in the air, the dirt, the noise, the extreme poverty of homeless people, the threat of misunderstandings turning into altercations or even violence, the fast pace, all of this interwoven into the pulse of the city. How can dirt, noise, poverty, violence be sacred? Because it is part of the whole scene and it offsets the harmony and beauty which is also to be found there. This duality in us between the light and dark aspects of ourselves is the playing field for the sacred in our lives. Success and failure, beauty and ugliness, peace and violence, it's all very rich and messy stuff and it's all we have to work with as we each go through our particular journey.
I think more people associate the sacred with nature, rather than with city life, and I was privileged enough to experience that also in what started out as a very small beach house on Long Island during the summers. My upwardly mobile parents, who worked their way up from fairly poor beginnings, determined to get this house on the bay side of the beach for about $9,000 in 1958, the year my older brother was born. They never regretted it and my brother and I got to experience nature up close. Compared to the city, there wasn't the dirt, noise, poverty or potential violence at the beach. Instead there was the luxury of unpopulated open spaces where nature thrived. I remember the smell of the ocean, salty and mildly sulphuric, as my family got out of the car, and how quickly I took off my shoes and socks to feel the sand between my toes. Soon after that I would check on the bay behind our house and then walk across the road and up a dune to see the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. It was like greeting a long, lost friend. My family also brought our six cats with us and set them free during the summers; they were beautiful to watch and so happy in their freedom.
I moved away from both the city and the beach when I was twenty seven, moving far into the country of Western New York, which is closer to rural Pennsylvania than to the metropolis that I grew up in. Predominantly white, Christian, Republican, often poor amidst the open beauty of the countryside, a very different setting for me. Ironically, I had to come deep into the country to encounter prejudice, violence, addiction and abuse that I somehow mostly avoided in the city. But I also found the solace of living in the country in relative privacy in my own home for the first time in my adult life. Everything was new, the countryside, the roads, the towns, the stores and the people. I still had some of the flush of youth in me then and I was curious. I was also sick and quickly committed myself to someone who was also sick, a victim of prejudice, abuse and addiction. He tried to pass on the cycle of abuse that he had endured and rebelled against to me.
The cycles of abuse in our culture are also a part of how we learn about what's sacred in our lives. One of the drawbacks of living in the country is the isolation because isolation can breed abuse. A sick, tyrannical, addicted boyfriend or husband living in an isolated house with his girlfriend or wife and possibly children as well, can reek havoc in that little home virtually unchecked. Worse, the suffering abuser will go on to teach how to perpetuate the cycle of abuse especially to the children. People who become the victims of abuse have two choices, either to continue the cycle or to end it. It sounds like an easy choice, but it is not. The pull to feed into resentment, whether it's an abusive person blaming those around him for his troubles or an abused person blaming his or her abuser, is what keeps this virus alive. I guess this is why I tend to stress the fact that abusers are not bad, evil people, they are incredibly sick people who most likely have been abused themselves at a young age. And the abused, after years of it, are mentally ill as well. This is what cements the cycle in place -- when the people in the relationship are both sick, how can they possibly get well?
Too often they don't get well and spiral downwards. It takes at least one person in a deeply sick relationship to reach outside of the confines of that strange partnership towards help. I tried to do that by going to support groups and counseling, by studying literature on addiction, codependency and domestic violence, by secretly writing in a journal. My attempts to continue with support groups and counseling were blocked by my sick, abusive partner. But at least I gave him the opportunity to stop the abuse by setting a good example. I knew that I was very ill, so instead of blaming him, I was trying to take care of myself. I invited him to do the same. In his attitudes and actions, he refused and I began praying for the courage to leave him for good. And I did. One of the reasons why I could was because I didn't have a child with him. There are countless women out there who cannot leave their abusive partner so easily because of the children involved.
So the darkness of the city is also the same darkness of the country, the setting is different but the substance is the same. I consider the years that I spent living with my lover/abuser as sacred years. I feel the same way about the years I spent in acute psychosis. Just because it is dark, dirty, smelly and painful, doesn't take away from the fact that there were profound lessons being taught. You can be very sick and yet very alive at the same time. Again, the sickness highlights the way back to health through negative example. If you can acknowledge your sickness and study your habitual triggers and reactions, thereby increasing your awareness level or your mindfulness, you can heal. But you have to take responsibility for yourself and put not harming yourself and others at the top of your list.
Regardless of whether you live in the city or country, whether you are young or old, you always have access to what's sacred. It's in every moment; you carry it around with you and you move through its space. It's there every time you meet another human being and it's there when you are alone. It's particularly evident when you cultivate awareness of the moment you are in through self-reflection. Self-reflection is at the heart of the sacred. It is honest mindfulness of the heart, mind and spirit; you are the witness to your own life. This is why it is important to stop what you are doing each day and sit, either in formal meditation or in informal meditation. This stopping is just as important, probably more important, than somewhat blindly doing all the time. If you have a lot of responsibilities and are active most of the time, it is essential that you take time for yourself to value just being. Turn off the computer, your phone, the TV, the radio and go sit quietly for at least 20 minutes. Do it now.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Memory Is Not Truth
"You never have a truly complete memory of an experience because it would take as long as the experience itself. Most of our memories are like still photos or a series of photos highlighting something that was important or stood out about an experience. They are whittled-down, highly edited versions of what happened. Like an amateur movie they are jumbled and patched together, often without even a thread to the story line." Nirmala "Nothing Personal" p. 3
There are some truthful things in our memories, but memory is not the truth. At best it is a close approximation and at worst it is a fabrication. Despite this we organize our lives based on short and long term memories. Some of this is very necessary as in remembering where you put your keys and wallet or remembering to turn off the stove. We need our memories in order to function, but how much faith do we put in memories? After rereading the beginning of Nirmala's "Nothing Personal" I've been trying to look at my memories, but it is hard. I find that many of my memories are slight impressions instead of being a clear and detailed image or scene. Perhaps that why much of human culture attaches so strongly to photographs and videos -- they jog the memory and make it more vivid, more real. But though they are artifacts that reflect a past reality in the present, they are not in themselves present reality and are not real. They are fixed echoes.
We take our use of memory for granted and we assume that our memories are true. In the course of a day, we make so many assumptions. Memories and assumptions are like the glue that hold our fragile sense of self together. Buddhists assert that this sense of self that we hold onto so tightly is an illusion. And if the sense of self is an illusion, then much of memory is an illusion, too, which is why spiritual teachers regularly compare life to a dream. I don't really want to believe that and yet for most of the day I am caught up in thoughts which necessarily include memories. During those times I am not grounded and connected to the visceral present moment. I exist in space and time and yet I'm not quite here now. I'm very attached to my thoughts and feelings. I even think that I'm doing some good for myself in thinking things through and sometimes I am, but I'm also living in ignorance and denial mainly because I'm not awake enough to be aware.
Nirmala writes about how thoughts are not real. Because we over rely on our thoughts in the same way as we over rely on our sense of sight as opposed to the other senses, we miss out on training ourselves to be aware. We follow our habitual patterns; we react to life instead of respond to it. It's not fun for me to see how on automatic pilot I am. And I'm confused. I've convinced myself that I need my thoughts and that the key to happiness is inside of them. If thoughts and memories are not real then the happiness I am weaving out of them is not real either. And the self that I worry over is also insubstantial. And yet this is not an existential conflict because the moments I have without thoughts are not barren and empty, but full and rich. My awareness is much greater than my narrow thoughts. When there is a gap, some silence in my mind, I am still flooded with sensory input and in this way still connected intimately to my surroundings. Much of this input I ignore unless I'm being mindful. Mindfulness is particularly effective when I am doing a simple physical task like washing the dishes or cooking dinner or practicing yoga stretches. Mindfulness heightens the experience, makes the experience a felt experience instead of the disembodied experience of being lost in thought.
There are times when I really enjoy being lost in thought. It's like reading an excellent book and stopping every page or so to reflect. I think there is an illusory sense of safety in it. I believe I learn important lessons from ruminating. Getting into writing is similar. I'm using the thoughts and feelings in my mind to deepen my understanding and to come to a conclusion of one sort or another. For me, this is important work, but eventually I have to return to the simplicity of the present moment. That simplicity is the foundation for my life, despite how I often ignore it to attach to thoughts. What I'm waking up to is that in not taking time to just exist I have become unbalanced, a lopsided version of myself. I read somewhere that the difference between a delusion and an illusion is that a delusion is one person's misapprehension, whereas an illusion is something that groups of people can come to believe in like watching a movie. I know about delusions, but what I'm experiencing when I'm lost in thoughts and memories is a common illusion that we are what we think when we're not.
It's not that thoughts and memories are totally useless, no at points they are very necessary, but we over emphasize their importance and rely on them to make important decisions. I guess it's like this, reading the instructions on how to put something together cannot take the place of actually putting something together. The real importance and joy comes from the doing more than the thinking about doing. My father, who is someone who lives inside his thoughts a lot, loves to study maps, but is at a loss at finding landmarks to make his way around an unfamiliar place. As long as he has the map, he can manage, but without the map he is a babe in the woods. Our thoughts are like that map, a virtual reality, but not the thing itself. That goes for writing as well; it's something that points back to reality through the imagination, but it can't take the place of real time experience. Fantasies give temporary respite to painful existence, but ultimately they are empty. It's like eating a bunch of candy instead of having a good meal.
While I'm saying this with some conviction, I am resisting it as well. I was taught as a very young child that language is a way of expressing thoughts and getting needs met. I learned language through a great deal of repetition. I labelled objects and people with words. I let the word take the place of the thing. I became enamored of the power of words. The power lay in my ability to use my imagination and at times my imagination seemed able to move mountains. I spent many hours lost in dreaming, especially when I couldn't relate to my family members. Dreaming and playing are essential to learning a language and kids do it a lot of the time. Of course some of that is healthy and necessary, but it also teaches children to get caught up in their fantasies to the point where they are not engaged in the world itself, are not mindful. Children (and adults) hold onto memories especially of those wrongs done to them. In that way memory gets transformed into fact, when it is still just an approximation of the lived experience.
I resist writing that memory is not truth because I use memory as a major building block to decide what is and isn't true. If my memories are suspect, this illusory construction of my past leaves me open and vulnerable in my present moment. And yet really all there ever is is the present moment. That's where reality and truth reside, in the living, not in the imagining. This is why there's so much emphasis on the importance of meditation because it breaks through over and over the trance of thinking we get hooked into and it places value and importance on the gaps between thoughts. In those gaps is the heart of mindfulness which can be brought into daily activities once off the meditation cushion or chair. Instead of imagining what might be true and what might not be true, we can experience truth directly in the gaps and in our daily life's activities.
There are some truthful things in our memories, but memory is not the truth. At best it is a close approximation and at worst it is a fabrication. Despite this we organize our lives based on short and long term memories. Some of this is very necessary as in remembering where you put your keys and wallet or remembering to turn off the stove. We need our memories in order to function, but how much faith do we put in memories? After rereading the beginning of Nirmala's "Nothing Personal" I've been trying to look at my memories, but it is hard. I find that many of my memories are slight impressions instead of being a clear and detailed image or scene. Perhaps that why much of human culture attaches so strongly to photographs and videos -- they jog the memory and make it more vivid, more real. But though they are artifacts that reflect a past reality in the present, they are not in themselves present reality and are not real. They are fixed echoes.
We take our use of memory for granted and we assume that our memories are true. In the course of a day, we make so many assumptions. Memories and assumptions are like the glue that hold our fragile sense of self together. Buddhists assert that this sense of self that we hold onto so tightly is an illusion. And if the sense of self is an illusion, then much of memory is an illusion, too, which is why spiritual teachers regularly compare life to a dream. I don't really want to believe that and yet for most of the day I am caught up in thoughts which necessarily include memories. During those times I am not grounded and connected to the visceral present moment. I exist in space and time and yet I'm not quite here now. I'm very attached to my thoughts and feelings. I even think that I'm doing some good for myself in thinking things through and sometimes I am, but I'm also living in ignorance and denial mainly because I'm not awake enough to be aware.
Nirmala writes about how thoughts are not real. Because we over rely on our thoughts in the same way as we over rely on our sense of sight as opposed to the other senses, we miss out on training ourselves to be aware. We follow our habitual patterns; we react to life instead of respond to it. It's not fun for me to see how on automatic pilot I am. And I'm confused. I've convinced myself that I need my thoughts and that the key to happiness is inside of them. If thoughts and memories are not real then the happiness I am weaving out of them is not real either. And the self that I worry over is also insubstantial. And yet this is not an existential conflict because the moments I have without thoughts are not barren and empty, but full and rich. My awareness is much greater than my narrow thoughts. When there is a gap, some silence in my mind, I am still flooded with sensory input and in this way still connected intimately to my surroundings. Much of this input I ignore unless I'm being mindful. Mindfulness is particularly effective when I am doing a simple physical task like washing the dishes or cooking dinner or practicing yoga stretches. Mindfulness heightens the experience, makes the experience a felt experience instead of the disembodied experience of being lost in thought.
There are times when I really enjoy being lost in thought. It's like reading an excellent book and stopping every page or so to reflect. I think there is an illusory sense of safety in it. I believe I learn important lessons from ruminating. Getting into writing is similar. I'm using the thoughts and feelings in my mind to deepen my understanding and to come to a conclusion of one sort or another. For me, this is important work, but eventually I have to return to the simplicity of the present moment. That simplicity is the foundation for my life, despite how I often ignore it to attach to thoughts. What I'm waking up to is that in not taking time to just exist I have become unbalanced, a lopsided version of myself. I read somewhere that the difference between a delusion and an illusion is that a delusion is one person's misapprehension, whereas an illusion is something that groups of people can come to believe in like watching a movie. I know about delusions, but what I'm experiencing when I'm lost in thoughts and memories is a common illusion that we are what we think when we're not.
It's not that thoughts and memories are totally useless, no at points they are very necessary, but we over emphasize their importance and rely on them to make important decisions. I guess it's like this, reading the instructions on how to put something together cannot take the place of actually putting something together. The real importance and joy comes from the doing more than the thinking about doing. My father, who is someone who lives inside his thoughts a lot, loves to study maps, but is at a loss at finding landmarks to make his way around an unfamiliar place. As long as he has the map, he can manage, but without the map he is a babe in the woods. Our thoughts are like that map, a virtual reality, but not the thing itself. That goes for writing as well; it's something that points back to reality through the imagination, but it can't take the place of real time experience. Fantasies give temporary respite to painful existence, but ultimately they are empty. It's like eating a bunch of candy instead of having a good meal.
While I'm saying this with some conviction, I am resisting it as well. I was taught as a very young child that language is a way of expressing thoughts and getting needs met. I learned language through a great deal of repetition. I labelled objects and people with words. I let the word take the place of the thing. I became enamored of the power of words. The power lay in my ability to use my imagination and at times my imagination seemed able to move mountains. I spent many hours lost in dreaming, especially when I couldn't relate to my family members. Dreaming and playing are essential to learning a language and kids do it a lot of the time. Of course some of that is healthy and necessary, but it also teaches children to get caught up in their fantasies to the point where they are not engaged in the world itself, are not mindful. Children (and adults) hold onto memories especially of those wrongs done to them. In that way memory gets transformed into fact, when it is still just an approximation of the lived experience.
I resist writing that memory is not truth because I use memory as a major building block to decide what is and isn't true. If my memories are suspect, this illusory construction of my past leaves me open and vulnerable in my present moment. And yet really all there ever is is the present moment. That's where reality and truth reside, in the living, not in the imagining. This is why there's so much emphasis on the importance of meditation because it breaks through over and over the trance of thinking we get hooked into and it places value and importance on the gaps between thoughts. In those gaps is the heart of mindfulness which can be brought into daily activities once off the meditation cushion or chair. Instead of imagining what might be true and what might not be true, we can experience truth directly in the gaps and in our daily life's activities.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Parallels With My Anti-Psychiatry Peers
I have come upon the anti-psychiatry movement late. I've only just started reading some blogs about it. There's a lot of outcry about the perils of being medicated, some of which I certainly sympathize with, but what I was really looking for was a list of alternatives to taking the medications. I just found one large site with lots and lots of information on it, it's called Beyond Meds: Alternatives to Psychiatry. I've only read a bit of it, but plan to return and continue my research. I was fascinated to find that I have been going on a parallel course because some of the alternatives that are suggested are Mindfulness, Meditation, Yoga and viewing one's illness as actually a psycho-spiritual journey. On one of the sites that I stopped at they even were pushing books by Adyashanti! I also read an article by a woman who suffered from Bi-Polar disorder who came to embrace Tibetan Buddhism and mind training, while working in a peer-run support group and not taking the medications.
In terms of spiritual orientation these anti-psychiatry people appear to by "my" people. I certainly do accept them as such because we have been to the same hard places. And I am all for exploring alternatives to the medications. If people don't explore, they will never find ways to develop better treatments to complex psychotic illnesses. And without exploration, there's not even the possibility of discovering a cure. It seems more and more likely that community outreach programs and peer run support groups will be the wave of the future. God, I hope so. I know I was meant to be a part of a mental health support group. The great thing about support groups is that everyone is welcome from the acutely ill to those in partial recovery to those in full recovery. There's so much we can learn from one another, but we have to get into each other's hearts and minds and learn how to be there for each other.
I want to believe that following a spiritual path of being Mindful and training the mind to study itself without judgment could help to treat acute psychosis. I want to believe the same for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and peer run support groups and diet, nutrition and exercise programs, but I honestly don't know yet. Maybe individualized combinations of treatments could really address the core symptoms enough to treat acute psychosis without medication or with medication at a very small dosage. All I know is that people need to get organized and that's what the anti-psychiatry movement appears to be doing, working both in communities and online. I know I need the help in my community; medication and individual therapy have not been enough for me -- I need to meet peers face to face. I've felt frustration about this for so long and disappointment in myself for not having the courage and stamina to start up a support group in my town. I'm hoping this will change this year. I talk a good game about peer support because I got so much out of going to the Al-Anon group, but the group is just not appropriate from people with psychotic disorders.
And I do use the word "psychotic" and "disorders" as well as the word "schizophrenia" because I do see the phenomenon of psychosis as an expression of imbalance and illness, though I know it can be a means to personal growth; it can also lead to suicide. As I wrote in my last post, it is the people in the thrall of acute psychosis who most concern me and that is why I still believe that medication should be an option at least for a period of time. At the same time, I'm all for engaging individuals in various forms of treatment in addition to the medications. Build a support network, and work on your own, too, while taking advantage of what the medications can do for you and then decide whether to continue with the medications or not. The medications are imperfect; there's no doubt about that, but it's important to use as many options as you can, especially when you are suffering so much.
If I find that there are viable alternatives to medications, ones that really work to treat psychosis, I think I might consider reducing my medications, mainly because I'm on high doses and have been for 10 years and I don't know if that's good for me or not. I'm still afraid of falling back into acute illness. Most of my days have challenges in them. I am not recovered, but I will continue to wave the flag of RECOVERY for any newcomers. Recovery, in all its forms and gradations, is possible. That's very important to realize. No matter how bad it gets, and it can get pretty bad, you will not be stuck in a hellish place indefinitely, but you do need to motivate yourself to reach out to others, to share your story and to do what you need to do in order to take care of yourself.
The most important point I can make here is that we, who have suffered from psychotic disorders, are all peers regardless of whether we take the medications or try an alternative route. We need to stand united or at least make bridges to meet each other across the sometimes great divide. I deeply appreciate people on both sides, but really, we are the same with similar stuggles and successes. Today I read a blog entry by Charles on his blog Mental Health Recovery and in it he writes about how you have to let go of blaming in order to recover and to "be positive in the face of negativity". I think we've got to work to understand each other better and learn to be extremely tolerant of just those people who cause us to feel self-protective and defensive. Check yourself out and see what you find. I find the problem is usually within my own self and that I have a lot to learn from different people and points of view.
In terms of spiritual orientation these anti-psychiatry people appear to by "my" people. I certainly do accept them as such because we have been to the same hard places. And I am all for exploring alternatives to the medications. If people don't explore, they will never find ways to develop better treatments to complex psychotic illnesses. And without exploration, there's not even the possibility of discovering a cure. It seems more and more likely that community outreach programs and peer run support groups will be the wave of the future. God, I hope so. I know I was meant to be a part of a mental health support group. The great thing about support groups is that everyone is welcome from the acutely ill to those in partial recovery to those in full recovery. There's so much we can learn from one another, but we have to get into each other's hearts and minds and learn how to be there for each other.
I want to believe that following a spiritual path of being Mindful and training the mind to study itself without judgment could help to treat acute psychosis. I want to believe the same for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and peer run support groups and diet, nutrition and exercise programs, but I honestly don't know yet. Maybe individualized combinations of treatments could really address the core symptoms enough to treat acute psychosis without medication or with medication at a very small dosage. All I know is that people need to get organized and that's what the anti-psychiatry movement appears to be doing, working both in communities and online. I know I need the help in my community; medication and individual therapy have not been enough for me -- I need to meet peers face to face. I've felt frustration about this for so long and disappointment in myself for not having the courage and stamina to start up a support group in my town. I'm hoping this will change this year. I talk a good game about peer support because I got so much out of going to the Al-Anon group, but the group is just not appropriate from people with psychotic disorders.
And I do use the word "psychotic" and "disorders" as well as the word "schizophrenia" because I do see the phenomenon of psychosis as an expression of imbalance and illness, though I know it can be a means to personal growth; it can also lead to suicide. As I wrote in my last post, it is the people in the thrall of acute psychosis who most concern me and that is why I still believe that medication should be an option at least for a period of time. At the same time, I'm all for engaging individuals in various forms of treatment in addition to the medications. Build a support network, and work on your own, too, while taking advantage of what the medications can do for you and then decide whether to continue with the medications or not. The medications are imperfect; there's no doubt about that, but it's important to use as many options as you can, especially when you are suffering so much.
If I find that there are viable alternatives to medications, ones that really work to treat psychosis, I think I might consider reducing my medications, mainly because I'm on high doses and have been for 10 years and I don't know if that's good for me or not. I'm still afraid of falling back into acute illness. Most of my days have challenges in them. I am not recovered, but I will continue to wave the flag of RECOVERY for any newcomers. Recovery, in all its forms and gradations, is possible. That's very important to realize. No matter how bad it gets, and it can get pretty bad, you will not be stuck in a hellish place indefinitely, but you do need to motivate yourself to reach out to others, to share your story and to do what you need to do in order to take care of yourself.
The most important point I can make here is that we, who have suffered from psychotic disorders, are all peers regardless of whether we take the medications or try an alternative route. We need to stand united or at least make bridges to meet each other across the sometimes great divide. I deeply appreciate people on both sides, but really, we are the same with similar stuggles and successes. Today I read a blog entry by Charles on his blog Mental Health Recovery and in it he writes about how you have to let go of blaming in order to recover and to "be positive in the face of negativity". I think we've got to work to understand each other better and learn to be extremely tolerant of just those people who cause us to feel self-protective and defensive. Check yourself out and see what you find. I find the problem is usually within my own self and that I have a lot to learn from different people and points of view.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Reconsidering Adyashanti
At the suggestion of the Anonymous commentator on my last blog post, I downloaded Adyashanti's book "Falling Into Grace" and have been reading it; I'm almost halfway through it. Adyashanti is a good, clear writer and I found myself drawn into considering his ideas about the nature of suffering and how to alleviate it. One of the Tibetan mind training slogans is - "Regard all dharmas as dreams." This essentially translates into regarding life as a dream. Adyashanti writes about this as well. Basically he is saying that because we attach so strongly to our thoughts, seeing them as solidly real and rather blindly following them, we misguide ourselves and often we suffer. He asserts that thoughts are neither real nor the truth about our essential selves.
By holding firm to our thoughts and fueling those thoughts with feelings, we go through life ignoring that we are much more than our thoughts. How can you sense that you are more than your thinking mind? You sense it by sitting with your present moment experience and studying what happens when there are gaps in your thinking. When I did this, I quickly discovered that without any words in my mind, while sitting still and looking and listening, I was still fully alive, actually more alive than when I was struggling with my thoughts. I realized that this is the essence of mindfulness.
This silent, spacious place you find yourself in without thoughts is receptive yet energized and keenly, delicately aware. It's a beautiful, peaceful, kind hearted place and though thoughts return to take us away from it, it is always present. It doesn't ebb and flow, it just is, very present, very steady, very available. For the most part I am caught in the common, human delusion that we are what we think, but even I know I can just exist in a peaceful way when I stop thinking and doing and rest in being whoever or whatever I am. It's so simple: just stop. Look around. Breath. This is Awareness with a capital A. This is much larger than the small, tight circle of the thinking mind. If we have the ability to see at all it's due to this spacious awareness and not due to thinking thoughts. Thoughts are contained inside Awareness, and not the other way around.
It comes down to asking yourself who or what you are. I've been asking myself this question. When I ask myself what is really real my attention immediately turns to what is right in front of me, the space I'm in, what I can see and hear and feel and smell. When I stop to think if my thoughts are real, I hesitate. My thoughts are all over the place and because of this lack of steadiness they feel unreal. But somehow, through all their shifting movements, I feel tied to them. On a closer look, perhaps even chained to them like an active addict. Adyashanti says they are not real and therefore not the truth about us. I'm hoping that he's right; I know I suffer because of the things I think about and if they are not real then I can keep returning my focus to the larger Awareness and learn to re-train myself to experience life on a more elemental level. We are, after all, animals and the animals we interact with can teach us a lot about living in the moment, fully aware. I'm in love with my cats, even when they are hunting mice in the house. If a cat can be wondrous to me, how much more myself and other humans?
So are thoughts bad? They can be, especially when we continually over emphasize them and reinforce them with repetition. Then they mislead us, cause us to stay stuck in the dream of life. But once we realize that we're imbalanced, we can learn to step back and see the broader picture. In stepping back, we detach and take away some of the emphasis on the thoughts that continue to arise, while returning some attention to the space and silence in the present moment. What we consider our natural state is most likely an unnatural state and our natural state is one we tend to ignore. We're too busy in what Adyashanti calls an egoic trance. Too much of the time we have blinders on, like the kind you see on city horses to keep them focused ahead and not distracted, but our blinders keep us focused on distraction after distraction and not on what is really going on in and around us.
It's strange to me that I could listen to over 7 hours of Adyashanti talking on the audiobook called "Spontaneous Awakening" and not get a feel for his message, but after reading 90 pages of his book "Falling Into Grace", where his emphasis is on suffering and alleviating suffering, his message is starting to get to me and with no psychotic overtones. Little by little I'm going to apply his ideas to my approach towards myself and my life just to see where it takes me. First I'm going to finish reading the book and then I'm going to read it again and take notes. And I'll listen again to Adyashanti's audiobook to see if I can hear him more truly. His book is providing a foundation for me to do that. If I can hear, I can learn. As for Nirmala, I will learn from him too.
Just to let you know, I will be away visiting my parents in Florida for a week and won't be online very much, but I'm taking my Kindle with me and am excited about opening to what could almost be seen as an adventure.
By holding firm to our thoughts and fueling those thoughts with feelings, we go through life ignoring that we are much more than our thoughts. How can you sense that you are more than your thinking mind? You sense it by sitting with your present moment experience and studying what happens when there are gaps in your thinking. When I did this, I quickly discovered that without any words in my mind, while sitting still and looking and listening, I was still fully alive, actually more alive than when I was struggling with my thoughts. I realized that this is the essence of mindfulness.
This silent, spacious place you find yourself in without thoughts is receptive yet energized and keenly, delicately aware. It's a beautiful, peaceful, kind hearted place and though thoughts return to take us away from it, it is always present. It doesn't ebb and flow, it just is, very present, very steady, very available. For the most part I am caught in the common, human delusion that we are what we think, but even I know I can just exist in a peaceful way when I stop thinking and doing and rest in being whoever or whatever I am. It's so simple: just stop. Look around. Breath. This is Awareness with a capital A. This is much larger than the small, tight circle of the thinking mind. If we have the ability to see at all it's due to this spacious awareness and not due to thinking thoughts. Thoughts are contained inside Awareness, and not the other way around.
It comes down to asking yourself who or what you are. I've been asking myself this question. When I ask myself what is really real my attention immediately turns to what is right in front of me, the space I'm in, what I can see and hear and feel and smell. When I stop to think if my thoughts are real, I hesitate. My thoughts are all over the place and because of this lack of steadiness they feel unreal. But somehow, through all their shifting movements, I feel tied to them. On a closer look, perhaps even chained to them like an active addict. Adyashanti says they are not real and therefore not the truth about us. I'm hoping that he's right; I know I suffer because of the things I think about and if they are not real then I can keep returning my focus to the larger Awareness and learn to re-train myself to experience life on a more elemental level. We are, after all, animals and the animals we interact with can teach us a lot about living in the moment, fully aware. I'm in love with my cats, even when they are hunting mice in the house. If a cat can be wondrous to me, how much more myself and other humans?
So are thoughts bad? They can be, especially when we continually over emphasize them and reinforce them with repetition. Then they mislead us, cause us to stay stuck in the dream of life. But once we realize that we're imbalanced, we can learn to step back and see the broader picture. In stepping back, we detach and take away some of the emphasis on the thoughts that continue to arise, while returning some attention to the space and silence in the present moment. What we consider our natural state is most likely an unnatural state and our natural state is one we tend to ignore. We're too busy in what Adyashanti calls an egoic trance. Too much of the time we have blinders on, like the kind you see on city horses to keep them focused ahead and not distracted, but our blinders keep us focused on distraction after distraction and not on what is really going on in and around us.
It's strange to me that I could listen to over 7 hours of Adyashanti talking on the audiobook called "Spontaneous Awakening" and not get a feel for his message, but after reading 90 pages of his book "Falling Into Grace", where his emphasis is on suffering and alleviating suffering, his message is starting to get to me and with no psychotic overtones. Little by little I'm going to apply his ideas to my approach towards myself and my life just to see where it takes me. First I'm going to finish reading the book and then I'm going to read it again and take notes. And I'll listen again to Adyashanti's audiobook to see if I can hear him more truly. His book is providing a foundation for me to do that. If I can hear, I can learn. As for Nirmala, I will learn from him too.
Just to let you know, I will be away visiting my parents in Florida for a week and won't be online very much, but I'm taking my Kindle with me and am excited about opening to what could almost be seen as an adventure.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Learning From Nirmala
I first encountered a spiritual teacher named Nirmala (born Daniel Erway) on my Kindle. (You can find his site here.) I had been downloading books by Buddhist teachers and one day as I was checking out the Kindle storefront, I happened to look at their lists of suggestions. There were several inexpensive books by Nirmala. Most of the reviews were very positive and so I decided to buy one of his books. The book I bought was called "Nothing Personal: Seeing Beyond the Illusion of a Separate Self". I found myself responding to some of what Nirmala was teaching. I responded strongly enough that I downloaded the other three books, one of which is a book of his poetry. I haven't read much of his poetry yet, but I have read his latest book called "That is That: Essays About True Nature" and am in the process of reading the book that came out before this one called "Living from the Heart".
So I read "Nothing Personal" several months ago and wrote a blog entry called "Something Rich and True" on September 14th. Nirmala, who may or may not be a Buddhist teacher, was asserting that Awareness is God. This idea touched me on several levels. It made me curious enough to begin to study my then present moments. In his book, Nirmala kept inviting the reader to tap into present moment awareness, to test what he was saying out. So from time to time I would put my Kindle down and just look around the open space of my living room and dining room. I've lived in this house now for approximately 23 years and I continue to find the space interesting. But perhaps it's not the space that is so interesting, but my awareness of the space. Awareness is interesting.
On some level we are always aware, even when we're asleep some part of us is experiencing the dream state as if it were real, when it is not. The idea that life is a dream is not a new one; it's deeply entwined in Buddhist concepts. And yet, awareness of what is not real can be as interesting as an awareness of what is real. Obviously this is so because so many of us are more aware of our thoughts, which are actually not real, and not aware of our surroundings, which are real. Living on automatic, going from thing to thing while worrying, doubting, anticipating, is not being aware of the larger picture. Our focus narrows, Nirmala would say it contracts. We only see what is directly in front of us, often some worrisome thought, and fail to experience a greater mindfulness, a greater awareness of the moments that are always passing away from us.
When we contract, shut down, become myopic, we suffer. Our awareness becomes limited, imagined problems grow large. When we expand (again this is a Nirmala word), we open up and begin to see that there's a lot of space around everything and we relax. Some Buddhists talk a lot about space, what they call Shunyata, also called emptiness. One of the first things I noticed when I began to sit with my pain and look at it was that the pain was concentrated in one place, but became less intense as the space expanded around it. I realized that the space around the pain was crucial; it gave me a choice. I could focus on the center of the pain, weaving stories about the pain and feeling miserable or I could identify with the space around the pain and feel a release from some of the suffering. So pain occurs within a large space. Put in that context, our personal pain may be rather small, but only if we make that shift in our perspective. That's hard to do because from childhood we have been taught to remain self-centered about our pain and the pain of those we care for. We have been taught that pain is a Big Deal. In making it a Big Deal, we magnify it and in magnifying it, we distort it and forget that the truth is much vaster.
I said that Awareness was interesting. In the instance of me looking closely and impartially at my pain, awareness allowed me to consciously shift my attention away from my pain. This shift left an impression on me. I began to doubt that the pain I continued to feel off and on with my bouts of depression and anxiety was a solid and semi-permanent thing without much space within it or around it. The space concept began to form an open foundation for further study. I am also comforted by it. The value of space shows me that there is always room to grow and that pain is just a smaller part of the landscape, not the whole picture. Buddhists also say that there is no intrinsic self because what we are is spacious awareness rather than a body with thoughts. This idea is a new one for me. I still attach to myself as a body with thoughts, but not totally. There's still room for the concept of spacious awareness as self to sprout and grow.
Mindfulness is Awareness practice whether you are meditating or going about your day and night. You've heard something about mindfulness. Really I think we go in and out of mindfulness all the time. But what is it? Awareness that is heightened. Simple activities such as cooking, eating, cleaning, bathing, driving as well as just being, stopping and looking around are infused with something special when you pay attention to either the details of the activity or the details of your surroundings if you're looking around. And then there's sitting meditation practice where you identify thoughts as thoughts, return to the breath and let them go over and over. The mindfulness lesson in that is that awareness gives you the power of having a choice, either to remain lost in the dream of thoughts or awake to the space of the present moment once the thought bubble has been popped. Awareness of space is also awareness of self in space, hence the term spacious awareness.
From what I can see, Buddha Nature is what is intrinsic to spacious awareness, to Self. Before the thoughts come and the judgments, there is unadulterated you, the essence of which is all good. If space is the basis of everything and space is by its nature all embracing, accepting, non judgmental, peaceful, adaptable, essentially loving, even joyful, then we can heave a sigh of relief and train to shift our attention away from our preoccupation with the thoughts in our minds. This is a radically different approach to understanding ourselves than the Judeo-Christian model which believes that our natures are fallen and essentially sinful. Instead there is this idea that we never left the garden of eden, that we are still there in all our wonderful innocence, only we have fallen for the illusion that we are essentially bad and unworthy.
Living with acute psychosis telling me over and over again that I was evil, but never really believing it in my heart of hearts, led me to a compassion practice for myself and the voices. Compassion practice led me to the idea of Buddha Nature. Yes, people can and do do hateful, horrible things but the essence of the doer is not in the action, though many people appear to think so. An "evil" action can brand the doer of that action "evil" as well. I believe an evil action can produce some harsh karma; I think that what goes around comes around, but I don't believe in inherently evil people. I believe in deeply ill people. The harsher the crime, the greater the compassion. Unfortunately, we are a bloodthirsty lot and behave towards offenders with as much illness as it took him or her to commit the act in the first place. But our need for vengeful "justice" is mostly conditioning and still beneath that grisly veneer there is our essentially good nature and a way to get beyond our own brands of negativity.
I think it is fair to say that you can't recover from severe mental illness for very long if you continue to view yourself as essentially sinful and potentially evil. The concept of Buddha Nature or the essential goodness in everything is a treatment for such a sick orientation. It gives you permission to love yourself, love others, the whole world and beyond.
So I read "Nothing Personal" several months ago and wrote a blog entry called "Something Rich and True" on September 14th. Nirmala, who may or may not be a Buddhist teacher, was asserting that Awareness is God. This idea touched me on several levels. It made me curious enough to begin to study my then present moments. In his book, Nirmala kept inviting the reader to tap into present moment awareness, to test what he was saying out. So from time to time I would put my Kindle down and just look around the open space of my living room and dining room. I've lived in this house now for approximately 23 years and I continue to find the space interesting. But perhaps it's not the space that is so interesting, but my awareness of the space. Awareness is interesting.
On some level we are always aware, even when we're asleep some part of us is experiencing the dream state as if it were real, when it is not. The idea that life is a dream is not a new one; it's deeply entwined in Buddhist concepts. And yet, awareness of what is not real can be as interesting as an awareness of what is real. Obviously this is so because so many of us are more aware of our thoughts, which are actually not real, and not aware of our surroundings, which are real. Living on automatic, going from thing to thing while worrying, doubting, anticipating, is not being aware of the larger picture. Our focus narrows, Nirmala would say it contracts. We only see what is directly in front of us, often some worrisome thought, and fail to experience a greater mindfulness, a greater awareness of the moments that are always passing away from us.
When we contract, shut down, become myopic, we suffer. Our awareness becomes limited, imagined problems grow large. When we expand (again this is a Nirmala word), we open up and begin to see that there's a lot of space around everything and we relax. Some Buddhists talk a lot about space, what they call Shunyata, also called emptiness. One of the first things I noticed when I began to sit with my pain and look at it was that the pain was concentrated in one place, but became less intense as the space expanded around it. I realized that the space around the pain was crucial; it gave me a choice. I could focus on the center of the pain, weaving stories about the pain and feeling miserable or I could identify with the space around the pain and feel a release from some of the suffering. So pain occurs within a large space. Put in that context, our personal pain may be rather small, but only if we make that shift in our perspective. That's hard to do because from childhood we have been taught to remain self-centered about our pain and the pain of those we care for. We have been taught that pain is a Big Deal. In making it a Big Deal, we magnify it and in magnifying it, we distort it and forget that the truth is much vaster.
I said that Awareness was interesting. In the instance of me looking closely and impartially at my pain, awareness allowed me to consciously shift my attention away from my pain. This shift left an impression on me. I began to doubt that the pain I continued to feel off and on with my bouts of depression and anxiety was a solid and semi-permanent thing without much space within it or around it. The space concept began to form an open foundation for further study. I am also comforted by it. The value of space shows me that there is always room to grow and that pain is just a smaller part of the landscape, not the whole picture. Buddhists also say that there is no intrinsic self because what we are is spacious awareness rather than a body with thoughts. This idea is a new one for me. I still attach to myself as a body with thoughts, but not totally. There's still room for the concept of spacious awareness as self to sprout and grow.
Mindfulness is Awareness practice whether you are meditating or going about your day and night. You've heard something about mindfulness. Really I think we go in and out of mindfulness all the time. But what is it? Awareness that is heightened. Simple activities such as cooking, eating, cleaning, bathing, driving as well as just being, stopping and looking around are infused with something special when you pay attention to either the details of the activity or the details of your surroundings if you're looking around. And then there's sitting meditation practice where you identify thoughts as thoughts, return to the breath and let them go over and over. The mindfulness lesson in that is that awareness gives you the power of having a choice, either to remain lost in the dream of thoughts or awake to the space of the present moment once the thought bubble has been popped. Awareness of space is also awareness of self in space, hence the term spacious awareness.
From what I can see, Buddha Nature is what is intrinsic to spacious awareness, to Self. Before the thoughts come and the judgments, there is unadulterated you, the essence of which is all good. If space is the basis of everything and space is by its nature all embracing, accepting, non judgmental, peaceful, adaptable, essentially loving, even joyful, then we can heave a sigh of relief and train to shift our attention away from our preoccupation with the thoughts in our minds. This is a radically different approach to understanding ourselves than the Judeo-Christian model which believes that our natures are fallen and essentially sinful. Instead there is this idea that we never left the garden of eden, that we are still there in all our wonderful innocence, only we have fallen for the illusion that we are essentially bad and unworthy.
Living with acute psychosis telling me over and over again that I was evil, but never really believing it in my heart of hearts, led me to a compassion practice for myself and the voices. Compassion practice led me to the idea of Buddha Nature. Yes, people can and do do hateful, horrible things but the essence of the doer is not in the action, though many people appear to think so. An "evil" action can brand the doer of that action "evil" as well. I believe an evil action can produce some harsh karma; I think that what goes around comes around, but I don't believe in inherently evil people. I believe in deeply ill people. The harsher the crime, the greater the compassion. Unfortunately, we are a bloodthirsty lot and behave towards offenders with as much illness as it took him or her to commit the act in the first place. But our need for vengeful "justice" is mostly conditioning and still beneath that grisly veneer there is our essentially good nature and a way to get beyond our own brands of negativity.
I think it is fair to say that you can't recover from severe mental illness for very long if you continue to view yourself as essentially sinful and potentially evil. The concept of Buddha Nature or the essential goodness in everything is a treatment for such a sick orientation. It gives you permission to love yourself, love others, the whole world and beyond.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Fight or Flight Versus Mindfulness
Most of the people I know are affected by depression on some level. This past week I've been struggling with it too. For some people it is a chronic low grade depression called Dysthymia, for others it is a cycling between mania and depression also called Bipolar Disorder. There are many types of depression to fit many types of people and situations. Unlike my schizophrenia, my depression is not chronic; instead, it comes and goes. This Sunday I was depressed, Monday I wasn't, but Tuesday I was again. When I get depressed I sleep during the day and into the evening and don't get anything accomplished. And when I am awake and depressed I feel guilt over not wanting to get anything accomplished. It's a negative cycle between sleep and aversion to activity.
I haven't been practicing Buddhism lately and I think that contributes to my dip into depressions. Buddhism is about being awake in the present moment in either a non doing state or in some activity, especially basic activities like cooking, cleaning, bathing. When I'm depressed, I'm not so much awake as caught in a negative dreaming state and in that state I label myself as bad and show to myself the ways that I am bad or at least lacking in the good stuff. It's a self centered state. I then review the past, noting my mistakes or worry about the future, but I avoid being in the present; I avoid cultivating a non judgmental state to be in. Buddhism is about the nonjudgmental cultivation of the present moment.
I've wondered many times, why do I run from the present moment? It's as if it is hardwired into me to run away and maybe it is. Our instincts are to fight or flee when danger arises. That's the way it was for us when we were more primitive animals and it is still true. All of us can be on extra alert when we smell smoke in our houses or hear an unusual sound outside at night or when we drive or take a walk. The potential for accident or violence can seem close at hand. In many places in the world torn by war, starvation, disease or natural catastrophe, living with threats is common place. I'm blessed to live in a peaceful, relatively safe place, but I act as if I need to worry and run. Apart from sleeping to rest the body and spirit, sleeping is another form of running away.
Meditation is about redirecting our instinctual response to imagined threat; it's about a retraining of ourselves to keep letting go the worrisome thoughts or desire filled thoughts in a non judgmental manner. Being non judgmental is the key point. It's what allows you to let go. And once you give yourself permission to be that way, it is such a relief. Remaining in that non judgmental state is spiritual practice. It doesn't usually come easily and that's why it's called practice. Letting go is not rejecting. Letting go in its earliest stage is sitting with and accepting first. You won't be able to let go unless you sit and accept first. So meditation is not about eliminating thoughts. Meditation is not about war, violence, territory, conflict or subduing. Meditation is about peace, but that doesn't mean that it is peaceful. A roomful of people meditating can look very peaceful, but what is going on in each individual's mind and spirit can be both active and complex.
To be in a peaceful state is wonderful, but that is not the real point of meditation. The point is to accept what is, whatever that happens to be, without reacting in the typical, habitual pattern. When I was very psychotic the voices instructed me to sit with the question, instead of jumping to find an answer. Just sit with your discomfort. The habitual response is to run from discomfort. Addiction is about running from discomfort. Using the drug or doing the activity masks the discomfort temporarily, but it always comes back and the negative cycle continues just the way the negative cycle of depression continues. Every time you engage in addiction or a negative thought pattern, you reinforce the behavior and thoughts, making it stronger, harder to resist. Meditation is a gentle way of saying NO to addiction and negativity, to this deep pattern we've been taught and have taught ourselves.
Artists and other very creative individuals know about meditation intimately, though many don't call it that. Artists sit with the present moment and make something while they sit. They are in love with the moment. They suspend self-hatred and worry because if they don't it will rob them of their ability to create. They get down to the business at hand--the words, the paper, the colors, the sounds, the shapes, the hidden and obvious meanings. Being and doing melt into each other. Meditation as non doing is very important. It's important to stop for artists and for all of us, to regroup, to absorb, to intuit. But when we go, meditation is also important. It is doing meditation or mindfulness. Mindfulness means putting your heart into your practice, be it sitting practice or doing practice. When you sit, you sit and when you act, you act. You need some discipline and dedication in order to be mindful.
When it comes to being honest with myself, I have some discipline and dedication. I am mindful of the words that come out of me. I don't write my blog entries casually and quickly. I go slowly and it can take hours. Generally, I'm not depressed when I write my blog entries. I'm too busy paying attention to what I want to write. It's that way when I draw or paint too. Or lately, when I cook. Or when I spend time with Sam, Rob or Richard. Songwriting and singing are more problematical because I have to face my limitations in my ability to sing and play. Sometimes I play and/or sing badly and I get discouraged and give up. I've found that when I push past my discouragement and commit to the song I'm singing and experiment that I not only enjoy myself more, but I sound better. It's common sense that insecurity leads to poor performance and confidence often to good or better performance. And practice leads to mastery over time.
When I get hung up on my insecurity and my lack of mastery, I get depressed. I've wanted to be an artist since I was young, but artists are artists because they practice their art. Writers write, painters paint, musicians play, dancers dance, etcetera. I am multi-talented, but not committed to one practice on a daily basis. I keep switching activities, so I master none of them. I am artistic, but not an artist. I deeply value my creativity, it might have saved my life. I strongly urge everyone to stay in touch with their creativity on a daily basis, especially when dealing with mental illness. Generally, I do something creative every day. I would say that I am in touch with the artist within me. That's a good place to begin. I believe if I were to cultivate the discipline and dedication to mindfulness, I would develop the confidence and mastery that I yearn for. I would re-train myself away from the negative attitudes of depression and towards the positive and accepting attitudes of mindfulness. Art is a good tool for practicing mindfulness, but the real gem is mindfulness itself. Mindfulness is a way of being in harmony with self and others. If everyone practiced mindfulness I truly believe there would be no war and not much depression. Actions would not be done reactively and mindlessly, but slowly and consciously with discipline and care and love.
I haven't been practicing Buddhism lately and I think that contributes to my dip into depressions. Buddhism is about being awake in the present moment in either a non doing state or in some activity, especially basic activities like cooking, cleaning, bathing. When I'm depressed, I'm not so much awake as caught in a negative dreaming state and in that state I label myself as bad and show to myself the ways that I am bad or at least lacking in the good stuff. It's a self centered state. I then review the past, noting my mistakes or worry about the future, but I avoid being in the present; I avoid cultivating a non judgmental state to be in. Buddhism is about the nonjudgmental cultivation of the present moment.
I've wondered many times, why do I run from the present moment? It's as if it is hardwired into me to run away and maybe it is. Our instincts are to fight or flee when danger arises. That's the way it was for us when we were more primitive animals and it is still true. All of us can be on extra alert when we smell smoke in our houses or hear an unusual sound outside at night or when we drive or take a walk. The potential for accident or violence can seem close at hand. In many places in the world torn by war, starvation, disease or natural catastrophe, living with threats is common place. I'm blessed to live in a peaceful, relatively safe place, but I act as if I need to worry and run. Apart from sleeping to rest the body and spirit, sleeping is another form of running away.
Meditation is about redirecting our instinctual response to imagined threat; it's about a retraining of ourselves to keep letting go the worrisome thoughts or desire filled thoughts in a non judgmental manner. Being non judgmental is the key point. It's what allows you to let go. And once you give yourself permission to be that way, it is such a relief. Remaining in that non judgmental state is spiritual practice. It doesn't usually come easily and that's why it's called practice. Letting go is not rejecting. Letting go in its earliest stage is sitting with and accepting first. You won't be able to let go unless you sit and accept first. So meditation is not about eliminating thoughts. Meditation is not about war, violence, territory, conflict or subduing. Meditation is about peace, but that doesn't mean that it is peaceful. A roomful of people meditating can look very peaceful, but what is going on in each individual's mind and spirit can be both active and complex.
To be in a peaceful state is wonderful, but that is not the real point of meditation. The point is to accept what is, whatever that happens to be, without reacting in the typical, habitual pattern. When I was very psychotic the voices instructed me to sit with the question, instead of jumping to find an answer. Just sit with your discomfort. The habitual response is to run from discomfort. Addiction is about running from discomfort. Using the drug or doing the activity masks the discomfort temporarily, but it always comes back and the negative cycle continues just the way the negative cycle of depression continues. Every time you engage in addiction or a negative thought pattern, you reinforce the behavior and thoughts, making it stronger, harder to resist. Meditation is a gentle way of saying NO to addiction and negativity, to this deep pattern we've been taught and have taught ourselves.
Artists and other very creative individuals know about meditation intimately, though many don't call it that. Artists sit with the present moment and make something while they sit. They are in love with the moment. They suspend self-hatred and worry because if they don't it will rob them of their ability to create. They get down to the business at hand--the words, the paper, the colors, the sounds, the shapes, the hidden and obvious meanings. Being and doing melt into each other. Meditation as non doing is very important. It's important to stop for artists and for all of us, to regroup, to absorb, to intuit. But when we go, meditation is also important. It is doing meditation or mindfulness. Mindfulness means putting your heart into your practice, be it sitting practice or doing practice. When you sit, you sit and when you act, you act. You need some discipline and dedication in order to be mindful.
When it comes to being honest with myself, I have some discipline and dedication. I am mindful of the words that come out of me. I don't write my blog entries casually and quickly. I go slowly and it can take hours. Generally, I'm not depressed when I write my blog entries. I'm too busy paying attention to what I want to write. It's that way when I draw or paint too. Or lately, when I cook. Or when I spend time with Sam, Rob or Richard. Songwriting and singing are more problematical because I have to face my limitations in my ability to sing and play. Sometimes I play and/or sing badly and I get discouraged and give up. I've found that when I push past my discouragement and commit to the song I'm singing and experiment that I not only enjoy myself more, but I sound better. It's common sense that insecurity leads to poor performance and confidence often to good or better performance. And practice leads to mastery over time.
When I get hung up on my insecurity and my lack of mastery, I get depressed. I've wanted to be an artist since I was young, but artists are artists because they practice their art. Writers write, painters paint, musicians play, dancers dance, etcetera. I am multi-talented, but not committed to one practice on a daily basis. I keep switching activities, so I master none of them. I am artistic, but not an artist. I deeply value my creativity, it might have saved my life. I strongly urge everyone to stay in touch with their creativity on a daily basis, especially when dealing with mental illness. Generally, I do something creative every day. I would say that I am in touch with the artist within me. That's a good place to begin. I believe if I were to cultivate the discipline and dedication to mindfulness, I would develop the confidence and mastery that I yearn for. I would re-train myself away from the negative attitudes of depression and towards the positive and accepting attitudes of mindfulness. Art is a good tool for practicing mindfulness, but the real gem is mindfulness itself. Mindfulness is a way of being in harmony with self and others. If everyone practiced mindfulness I truly believe there would be no war and not much depression. Actions would not be done reactively and mindlessly, but slowly and consciously with discipline and care and love.
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