Got Suffering?

Got suffering?

Want to feed it? 

First question, yes. Second question, probably not.

Time is to suffering what oxygen is to fire. It takes ‘time’ to suffer. Not 'real' time, but 'borrowed' time. Time imported by remembering the past or anticipating the future.  

Other than the real pain we feel from injury or disease, brooding about the past or worrying about the future is what causes pain. As somebody said…"Pain is unavoidable. Suffering is optional."

In the extended quote below, Eckhart Tolle gives a really clear account of ‘optional’ pain—the pain that is nurtured by ‘psychological time’—not real time, not now time, but time remembered or anticipated.

There’s a world of wisdom in his description (particularly about borrowing trouble from the future). If, when we’re caught in suffering, we can remember what suffering is and how suffering works AND remember how it ends, then we begin to understand and experience a kind of freedom that is almost imaginable.

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All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.

When you create a problem, you create pain. All it takes is a simple choice, a simple decision: no matter what happens, I will create no more pain for myself. I will create no more problems. Although it is a simple choice, it is also very radical. You won’t make that choice unless you are truly fed up with suffering, unless you have truly had enough.

To alert you that you have allowed yourself to be taken over by psychological time, you can use a simple criterion. Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? If there isn’t, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle. 

To alert you that you have allowed yourself to be taken over by psychological time, you can use a simple criterion. Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? If there isn’t, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle.

If there is no joy, ease, or lightness in what you are doing, it does not necessarily mean that you need to change what you are doing. It may be sufficient to change the how. “How” is always more important than “what.” See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it. Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents. This implies that you also completely accept what is, because you cannot give your full attention to something and at the same time resist it.

As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out of present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love — even the most simple action.

So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action — just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most beautiful spiritual teachings in existence, nonattachment to the fruit of your action is called Karma Yoga. It is described as the path of “consecrated action.”

When the compulsive striving away from the Now ceases, the joy of Being flows into everything you do. The moment your attention turns to the Now, you feel a presence, a stillness, a peace. You no longer depend on the future for fulfillment and satisfaction — you don’t look to it for salvation. Therefore, you are not attached to the results. Neither failure nor success has the power to change your inner state of Being. You have found the life underneath your life situation.

In the absence of psychological time, your sense of self is derived from Being, not from your personal past. Therefore, the psychological need to become anything other than who you are already is no longer there.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal

A friend sent me a quote yesterday from Jeanette Winterson’s New Memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal. It’s the kind of thing (like her title) that gets a lot of juice out of a few words,

            “What we notice in stories, is the nearness of the wound to the gift.”

In her memoir Ms. Winterson lets us know right off that she knows about wounds:

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"I'm locked out and sitting on the doorstep again. It's really cold and I've got a newspaper under my bum and I'm huddled in my duffel coat. A woman comes by and I know her. She gives me a bag of chips. She knows what my mother is like. Inside our house the light is on. Dad's on the night shift, so she can go to bed, but she won't sleep. She'll read the Bible all night, and when Dad comes home, he'll let me in, and he'll say nothing, and she'll say nothing, and we'll act like it's normal to leave your kid outside all night, and normal never to sleep with your husband. And normal to have two sets of false teeth, and a revolver in the duster drawer . . ."

"Growing up is difficult. Strangely, even when we have stopped growing physically, we seem to have to keep on growing emotionally, which involves both expansion and shrinkage, as some parts of us develop and others must be allowed to disappear. ...Rigidity never works; we end up being the wrong size for our world."

“What we notice in stories, is the nearness of the wound to the gift.”

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I’m always so grateful to writers and storytellers who give us an honest glimpse into a life that, though desperately challenging, is still a life worth living.

All of us have wounds. Some more than others. Some are wounded so deeply that it’s hard for many of us to fathom. 

Thank God that many people who recognize their woundedness and seek healing…find it. 

How? When? 

The answers to these questions unfold over a lifetime.

But as to the question of Where, Ms. Winterston gives us an answer Now. Almost always, maybe even always, we find healing in “the nearness of the wound to the gift.”

And so we come to trust, over time, though we are never healed always and forever, that every time we are in the grip of our wounds we are also near the source of our healing.

The Silent Watcher

I often wish that mindfulness would just get installed in my brain. I understood the basic premise years ago. I've had a bunch of 'enlightening' experiences where I saw things with startling clarity.

But we don't seem to get mindfulness 'once and for all.' It only seems to come 'now and on purpose.'

I've quoted my young friend Jason before. I love what he said. We'd been on a long hike and when we got back his mother asked him if he'd had a good time. He said, "Hiking's okay. Except you have to walk."

Mindfulness is okay too--except we have to pay attention.

Here's a very helpful mindful 'to do' list from Eckhart Tolle. I've made a couple of small changes and formatted his one paragraph into a poem so that it scans more slowly--inviting our brains to take it in point by point, step by step.

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The Silent Watcher

Be present as the watcher.

Be at least as interested

in your reactions

as in the situation

or person

that causes you

to react.

Notice how often

your attention

is in the past

or future.

Don’t judge

or analyze

what you observe.

Watch the thought,

feel the emotion,

observe the reaction.

Don’t make a personal problem

out of any of them.

You will then

feel something

more powerful

than any of those things

you observe:

   the still,

   observing

   presence itself

   behind the content…

the Silent Watcher.

The Power of Now

At 7:30 Monday mornings, a group of us gather to 'do' lectio and mindfulness meditation. The Lectio reading for today is below--it's a short bit from Eckhart Tolle's, The Power Of Now. 

Join us. 

To do the lectio, read the passage twice--slowly and reflectively. First time, just note a couple of words or at most a phrase that somehow speak to you. Write them down.

Pause a minute. Breathe. 

Then read it again, slowly, being as present as you can to every sentence. Note again what your 'attention' has highlighted. 

Then take another few minutes to reflect on what you highlighted. 

What may Wisdom be saying to you? If you have a minute, right a couple of sentences that sum this up.

Then meditate--for as short or as long as time allows.

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Since ancient times, spiritual masters of all traditions have pointed to the Now as the key to the spiritual dimension. Despite this, it seems to have remained a secret.

.

With the timeless dimension comes a different kind of knowing, one that does not “kill” the spirit that lives within every creature and every thing. A knowing that does not destroy the sacredness and mystery of life but contains a deep love and reverence for all that is. A knowing of which the mind knows nothing.

There is a place for (the merely ‘thinking’) mind and mind knowledge. It is in the practical realm of day-to-day living. However, when it takes over all aspects of your life, including your relationships with other human beings and with nature, it becomes a monstrous parasite that, unchecked, may well end up killing all life on the planet and finally itself by killing its host.

So break the old pattern of present-moment denial and present-moment resistance. Make it your practice to withdraw attention from past and future whenever they are not needed. Step out of the time dimension as much as possible in everyday life.

If you find it hard to enter the Now directly, start by observing the habitual tendency of your mind to want to escape from the Now. You will observe that the future is usually imagined as either better or worse than the present. If the imagined future is better, it gives you hope or pleasurable anticipation. If it is worse, it creates anxiety. Both are illusory. Through self-observation, more presence comes into your life automatically. The moment you realize you are not present, you are present. Whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it. Another factor has come in, something that is not of the mind: the witnessing presence.

Be present as the watcher of your mind — of your thoughts and emotions as well as your reactions in various situations. Be at least as interested in your reactions as in the situation or person that causes you to react. Notice also how often your attention is in the past or future. Don’t judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction. Don’t make a personal problem out of them. You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher.

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Unnecessary Pain

I haven’t been posting much lately. I’m seeing a chiropractor some mornings at the time I usually write. More important--trees are blooming. I don’t mean apple and pear and plum, but maple and oak and alder, etc. The kind of pollinators that many of us are allergic to. In the mountains of western North Carolina, trees outnumber people by a thousand to one (I made that number up; it may be three thousand to one).

But that’s fine, there’s a pill for allergies. Only the pill makes a lot of us drowsy. When I’m taking allergy meds, I don’t have the usual access to my brain. I can stare at a computer screen for quite awhile and have no clue how to express anything that seems worthwhile to say about mindfulness.

I’m grateful, however, that as I study in the mornings, I find others who have profound things to say:

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Nobody’s life is entirely free of pain and sorrow. Isn’t it a question of learning to live with them rather than trying to avoid them?

The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering — and free of the egoic mind.

Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.

Yes, we need the mind as well as time to function in this world, but there comes a point where they take over our lives, and this is where dysfunction, pain, and sorrow set in.

An increasingly heavy burden of time has been accumulating in the human mind. All individuals are suffering under this burden, but they also keep adding to it every moment whenever they ignore or deny that precious moment or reduce it to a means of getting to some future moment, which only exists in the mind, never in actuality. The accumulation of time in the collective and individual human mind also holds a vast amount of residual pain from the past.

you no longer want to create pain for yourself and others, if you no longer want to add to the residue of past pain that still lives on in you, then don’t create any more time, or at least no more than is necessary to deal with the practical aspects of your life. How to stop creating time? Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is?

The present moment is sometimes unacceptable, unpleasant, or awful.

Yes--It is as it is.

Observe how the mind labels it and how this labeling process, this continuous sitting in judgment, creates pain and unhappiness.

By watching the mechanics of the mind, you step out of its resistance patterns, and you can then allow the present moment to be. This will give you a taste of the state of inner freedom from external conditions, the state of true inner peace. Then see what happens, and take action if necessary or possible.

-from Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now

Soul, Role and Letting Go

Not long after being ordained, I was browsing in a bookstore in Norfolk run by two wise and wonderful nuns. I was wearing my new priestly garb, feeling a bit special.

One of the nuns walked over to me and asked quietly if I'd be willing to 'bless' a cross that a customer had just bought.

My first thought was, Wow, sure. I'm pleased to be asked.

But right on top of that first thought came a jumble of responses with a very different tone. This is a Roman Catholic bookstore-the customer  'looks like' a Catholic-so does the cross-I don't have a clue what blessing an RC priest might give.

I say 'Yes.' But while I'm being introduced to the lady who bought the cross, and she's saying something to me, I'm busy trying to remember if my Liturgics professor (a former Catholic) had told us anything about moments like this, and failing to remember, trying to compose a blessing in my head.

The only part of the blessing I can remember now is 'Amen.' I'm sure it was adequate. But...

It could have been more than that. I could have slowed down, relaxed, taken a few minutes to get to know the woman who bought the cross.

Why didn't I?

Anything like this ever happen to you?

Well, my response in the bookstore is what IDENTIFICATION looks like. In this case with a role--a new role, an imagined role: "What's a good priest supposed to do, exactly?" No doubt also in the mix was my family dynamic of GETTING THINGS RIGHT.

Non-Identification could have given me more space. I might have felt the same pressure, but then, noticing how strong it was...taken a moment. Realized I didn't have to get it Right. Understood there wasn't a right way and a wrong way. Just a Way.

If I could get a do-over, here's what I'd do. Notice that first shot of adrenaline. Notice what "I" was telling "Me" to do. Take a moment. In that moment I'd have probably realized with real relief, Ah, this involves me but it's not about me.

Then I could have engaged this woman with her new cross in a conversation that would have gone...somewhere...who knows where...listening...curious...caring...God knows where...I don't know because it was too much about small me then.

The voices and pressures and identifications that make up our non-examined selves are self-limiting. As we give them more of our 'kind attention,' we hear what they say, learn what they advise, feel how they urge--and realize how very much the voices and pressures of our small selves limit our responses to Life.

You shall know the truth.

Jesus said that.

And truth sets us free. Free to do lots of meaningful little things without the habitual limitations of little selves.

Souls and Roles

A very natural way to get a good idea of how to take our ‘selves’ more lightly is to think about the roles we all play in life. We’re always learning the balance between our work-selves and home-selves. We move in and out of other roles—child, parent, grandchild, niece, nephew, uncle, aunt, grandparent. Student, teacher, employee, boss, etc., etc.  

Moving in and out of these roles is part of the ‘Non-Identification’ step in RAIN practice (see yesterday’s post).

Over time we begin to recognize how life-giving and life-saving it is for us not to confuse our souls with our roles.

Jack Kornfield—in all that follows—fleshes this out more fully:

All are roles. Each arises due to circumstances and conditions. When we are young we feel the role of son or daughter most strongly when we are with our parents. We try to fulfill it and behave accordingly. Yet when our parents are absent and we are playing with our friends, our role as son or daughter drops away—unless, of course, we have a mother who, because of her own shaky identity, insists that we think about her all the time. For forty hours a week, many of us enact our role as worker or provider. Yet to the extent that we cling to any of these identities, we suffer.

If I try to keep my role as Buddhist teacher when I come home, it is a disaster.

If I offer my frazzled wife Buddhist teachings on patience or generosity, she will feel patronized and simply remind me that it’s my turn to water the garden and do the dishes. My daughter does not want a teacher of meditation or a psychologist; she wants an ordinary father who will listen, understand her experiences, and be playful, supportive, and sympathetic. When I am a partner, husband, and father, the three of us learn from each other.

If a policewoman can’t relax and be just a human being when she’s out with her friends, she is imprisoned by her identity. If a CEO can’t let go of his work when it’s time to care for his son, they both suffer.

To be wise we need to be able to enter each role fully, with awareness and compassion, and to let it go when our part is done.

When we marry we have to let go of being single. When our children become adults, we have to let go of our old role of helping manage their life. When we take a new job or leave one, retire, or change from employee to manager, we need to let one role go and take up another.

We can be free only if underneath all these temporary roles we do not forget that they are not who we really are.