3 obstacles to meditation (with inspiration from Dr Seuss)

Meditation changes things. It changes the body, it changes the brain, it changes the heart. Most people relish the possibility of a change, but when that change occurs, it can be terrifying.

You see, there are no hiding places when we get silent and still. We must be willing to face everything when we meditate—relationships that aren’t healthy, habits that are keeping us sick and confused, attitudes deemed admirable at work yet obnoxious at home. It's brave to sit in silence all alone with the only expert in your life: you.

You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who’ll decide where to go. -Dr Seuss

Besides letting fear keep us off the cushion, I was taught of 3 other obstacles that we allow to sideline our practice. Here they are—

1. Forgetting the instruction
Basic meditation instruction is that when we realize we’ve been highjacked by runaway mind, we gently return awareness back to the present moment. I usually do this by coming back to sensations of breath or body first; you may have your own way to come back. But the instruction is always, When you’re lost, come back. When we’re lost in thoughts about a situation that seems very serious, puzzling, and complex, the answer is, Come back. When the mind is running after thoughts that are delicious and seductive, and we don't want to come back, the answer is Come back anyway. 

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple. -Dr. Seuss

2. Too much laxity or too much elation
Not only is the answer always Come back—it’s Come back without making a big deal out of thoughts, our practice, our life (too much elation). But make no mistake: the coming back is firm and definite; we do not wallow in runaway mind (too much laxity). Nor do we get too lax about what we consider a meditation practice—rationalize that the 30 minutes we were passively quiet while watching TV is equivalent to the 30 minutes we were actively silent while watching our mind. When we practice without making too big or too little a deal out of practicing, we cultivate the ability to see things as they actually are. And there’s so much to see.

You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut. -Dr. Seuss

What Deb saw after retreat, fall 2013

3. Laziness
Keeping our lives so jam packed and then convincing ourselves that we can't possibly let anything go is the 3rd obstacle to meditation. It's not a stretch to understand that if we keep our lives extremely busy that our minds will be that way too. While we certainly get applause for doing-doing-doing, it is through the discipline of simply beinging that we bring a different energy to our efforts. Maybe when we care enough to honor the space and time that it takes to practice stillness and peace within ourselves, we can create a world that is still and peaceful too.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not. -Dr Seuss

The flower Daniel sees on his way to/from work: Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan
Thank you for caring, Daniel

The Journey, by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do, 
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations, 
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen 
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do 
the only thing you could do—
determined to save 
the only life you could save.

When pain becomes suffering

We each have a go-to reaction when we don’t get our way. Maybe yours is to flash anger. Maybe it’s to shut down and harbor a grudge. Maybe you pout, feel shame, lay guilt trips. Whatever your version of emotional reactivity, when in these moments, you stand at the juncture where our highest work begins—the juncture between pain and suffering.

How many times have you heard of someone “coming out” of hardship with new understanding; appreciation for life; efforts that have a tremendous impact on those around them, their community, the world? How many times have you heard the opposite: of someone spiraling from hardship into destruction of self, others, the world? Different stories. Same juncture. One person’s pain leads to liberation. Another's to suffering and harm.

Path back to my cabin in NY at night. Scared.

It is up to each of us to work with our own reactive tendencies. To do this, of course we must see them. We must acknowledge that they exist and stop rationalizing. Nobody can hold your own pain but you, and nobody can alleviate your own suffering but you. (But oh boy, much gratitude to those of you willing to hold the space for others as they grow through these intense periods of pain and suffering. You are the ones changing the world.)

Same path in the light. No fear.

To work at this juncture requires an encounter with pain. This really stinks, and no sane person would intentionally invite pain into their life. But nobody has to; we live in a hurting world. On any given day we can have our feelings hurt, panic, get sick, and so on. But we don't have to confuse the situations or people who trigger pain in us as the reason for our suffering. (If only such-and-such would stop, go away, change, I could be happy!) Situations and people don’t cause us to suffer; we do a fine job of that on our own.

And here comes something very cliché: to work on alleviating suffering, we need only 1 thing: kindness. Call it love. Call it caring. Call it, at the least, civil respect. Call it whatever you like. But until we make friends with our reactive tendencies, we’re going to remain on some level an enemy with ourselves and the world. We will continue to suffer.

Kindness when we're hurting always leads us back home.

I remember as a child when my favorite blue dress with white daisies began to cut me under the arms. I wiggled and pulled at the sleeves, which made the cutting and chafing worse. I tugged at it from the bottom, which popped the hem. The more I pulled, the more I hurt. Finally I didn’t just stop pulling; I took off the dress and didn’t wear it again. 

There is likely suffering that it’s time for each of us to stop wearing. If it helps to try it on to convince yourself that it no longer fits, do that for as long as it's necessary. Pull and wiggle all you want. When it's obvious that you've outgrown it, may you put it aside and see once again how lovely you are without it. May you live at ease. 

Saint Francis and the Sow, by Galway Kinnell

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don't flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead 

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch

blessing of earth on the sow, and the sow

began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart

to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Be brave: Try

Some of the smallest acts require the biggest efforts: writing the first words on a blank page, stepping up to a microphone, walking onto a dance floor. We could live our whole lives without doing most things that both intrigue and terrify us, and nobody would ever be the wiser. But we’d know. And that’s the kicker.

Longing to try something, while avoiding it like hell, keeps us emotionally stuck: we can’t hold back in one area of our life and not be holding back in others. So today, what would you like to try? If thinking of a sentence helps, try this one:

I would like to ________, but ________.

I met a champion extreme snow skier one winter in Vermont. The mountains were covered with snow and ice, and I asked him to be my walk buddy whenever we went outside. He explained how while he's skiing at breakneck speed, he looks only at the open space on a path, not at objects that might cause him to crash, and that as long as he moves toward space, he doesn’t crash. I spent every walk we took stepping exactly wherever he stepped.

A similar shift in focus might work when we lose sight of space and, instead, can see only what might, maybe, could (but probably won’t) block the path. It doesn’t matter if we’re scared. It doesn’t matter if we’re not a champion at what we’re trying to do. It matters only that we try. One little step. Then another. 

First time clipped into the pedals.

It’s strange to think that taking even a little step toward having a new experience can make us healthier in all areas of our life, but it can. We get braver with each step that we take. And when we’re braver, we’re better able to see the open space that is always so much bigger than what scares us. 

I can't stop staring at what scares me!

This past winter while a group of us were giving timed presentations at a retreat, one presenter froze. He was going along fine, when he suddenly stopped mid-sentence. He turned to the teacher, Pema Chödrön, and said, “I need to stop. I can’t go on.” Her response was soft and her voice was low: She said, “Try.” He took a big breath and spoke a sentence, then another, until he finished his talk. It's a lovely thing to be in the presence of someone willing to try.

Is there something that you want to try, but you can't see beyond what seems to be blocking the way? May you step out into space anyway. May you take a big breath and do something extremely brave: just try.

On Commitment

Until one is committed, there is always hesitancy,

the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),

there is one elementary truth,

the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:

that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision,

raising to one's favor all manner of unforeseen accidents and meetings

and material assistance which no man could have dreamed

would come his way.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

                                                            -Goethe

2 responses to impermanence

An elderly woman kept repeating Things change as she told me about things that used to be true for her: I used to like french fries, but now I don't have a taste for them...Things change. I used to have coffee every morning, but after my husband died, I stopped that...Things change. I used to be able to drink water whenever I wanted—now I have to wait for someone to come by and fill my cup. Things change.

Her words convey more than an intellectual knowing of impermanence; she now lives this knowing in a way that makes even a drink of water something to be savored.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. -W Somerset Maugham

We know that impermanence is the nature of life: things arise, they remain for a time, they dissolve. There is never a moment when anything stops. We can have one of two responses to this ongoing cycle: we can 1) appreciate and maybe even find preciousness in the temporary nature of all things, or we can 2) fear change and struggle against it. 

There is a question that I ask myself when I'm fearful and struggling: What most wants to be lived through me in this moment? By asking this question instead of asking "What do I want to happen right now," I can sometimes realign my mind with the dynamic nature of things. Of course this doesn't always work, and even when it does, it doesn't ensure that I won't feel fear. But if I can lean into the fear even a little, I often see that fear too is impermanent—that it also remains only for a time before dissolving.

We all have to decide if we would rather live closely aligned with impermanence, which means experiencing both the sadness and the joy inherent in change, or whether we would rather live in a more controlled, measured way. Perhaps today you can try to notice the three qualities of impermanence—arising, remaining for a time, dissolving—in the spaces of your own life, body, emotions, and so on. 

A precious sad-joy moment for Pat and her father

There is a koan that points to impermanence: What was your face before your parents were born? Contemplating koans can open the mind in ways that conventional thinking usually doesn't. So, what was your face before your parents' birth? What will your face be 300 years from now? What is it right now? And what most wants to be lived through you in this very moment?

Between Going and Staying, by Octavio Paz

Between going and staying the day wavers,

in love with its own transparency.

The circular afternoon is now a bay

where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,

all is near and can't be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,

rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats

the same unchanging syllable of blood.

The light turns the indifferent wall

into a ghostly theater of reflections.

I find myself in the middle of an eye,

watching myself in its blank stare.

The moment scatters. Motionless,

I stay and go: I am a pause.