Simple stuff.
Slow down. Practicing noticing. Practice adding compassion to what we're noticing. Let go of the stuff that's harmful. Make more room for the stuff that's helpful. Don't force any of it--be patient in the process so that 'change' comes naturally.
This bit below from Jack Kornfield's The Wise Heart is another example of what this process looks like and how it works.
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To work with
our mental states, we have to acknowledge how rapidly these states can change,
often disappearing without our noticing. Because we are not aware of our inner
states, we feel controlled by outside influences. The world will alternately
please us or be at fault, and we will be caught in habitual grasping or
frustration. There was an article in a San Francisco paper about angry drivers
in the nearby town of Pleasanton. It seems the police had trouble with habitual
speeders on the main highway. They asked their traffic engineers to create
signals that can sense the speed of a car 350 feet before the intersections.
Drivers who habitually speed find all the lights turning red in their path.
There were a lot of mad drivers. “Instant karma,” it was called in the press. A
better way to travel is to look at our states of mind.
Training in
mindfulness, we learn to be aware of our own mental states without being caught
in them. This capacity for self-reflection is the key to Buddhist psychology.
The Buddha asks, “How does a practitioner remain established in observation of
states of mind in the mind?” He instructs, “The practitioner becomes aware when
the mind is tense and when the mind is relaxed…the practitioner becomes aware
when the mind contains hatred and when the mind contains love…the practitioner
becomes aware when the mind contains worry and when the mind is composed.”
When we look
at our own mind, we can notice the mental states that predominate, as if we
were noticing the weather. Just as a storm can bring rain, wind, and cold, we
can observe the clusters of unhealthy states that appear on our bad days. We
may find resentment, fear, anger, worry, doubt, envy, or agitation. We can
notice how often they arise and how attached we are to their point of view.
We can also
notice the healthy states in our most free and openhearted periods. We can
notice how love, generosity, flexibility, ease, and simplicity are natural to
us. These states are important to notice. They give us trust in our original
goodness, our own Buddha nature.
June came to
see me in the middle of a messy divorce. She was especially worried about her
eleven-year-old daughter. We began by sitting together, not trying to fix
anything, but holding the grief and hurt of the whole situation in compassion.
Instead of treating her experience as an emergency and trying to change it, we
took some deep breaths and settled into the experience of just being present in
the moment. With this new spaciousness, I asked June to be mindful of her inner
states, what she was feeling and thinking. Immediately she began to weep. She
said her inner life ranged from extreme worry and agitation to
self-recrimination, guilt, and anger. She couldn’t sleep; she obsessed over an
imagined future that had not yet happened. June’s doctor had given her
tranquilizers, which calmed her somewhat. But still her mind was easily
overwhelmed.
I invited
June to gently acknowledge out loud the states that became present. She began
to identify the clusters of angry and fearful mind states as they arose. She
could feel how sticky they were, how easy it was to believe the spell they
cast. And yet, as we sat and her mindfulness grew stronger, she began to notice
that they were not all there was to her life. She laughed a little and realized
how long it had been since she’d felt any relief.
To support
this newfound openness, I suggested to June a whole program including daily
sitting meditations using both mindfulness and compassion practices. She also
undertook a commitment to practice non-harming, even toward her
soon-to-be-ex-husband. Each morning she recited a daily intention of compassion
and peace for herself and all she encountered. She simplified her living
situation and with some friends began to exercise again. She spent a lot of
time with her daughter. I met with June periodically to support the changes
that would foster her healthy mind states and help her trust her inner strength
and goodness.
June went
through a long legal process and eventually ended up with enough money and
shared custody. Even with the meditations, she said, she suffered and agonized
during the whole period. However, because she was suffering so much, she was
also motivated to work with her mind. Through her dedication to mindfulness,
June began to recognize more and more clearly the fearful and jealous patterns
as unhealthy mind states. She noticed how much pain they brought to her body
and mind. Because they were toxic and destructive, and because she wanted to
live in a more loving way, she slowly began to let them go.
