The Hooker

Do you ever feel like you are hooked by something? One of the things people notice when they start practicing mindfulness and meditation is the contrast between the glimpses of being or being present and the experience of a lot of mental activity or even inner turmoil. This is actually a really good sign of practice when we start to notice what is going on in our mind and our thoughts.

One of the key experiences here, and a sign of practice, is noticing when you are hooked. When you are caught in a thought process or emotional story in your mind and cannot seem to remain present to the situation around you, or to the person you are talking with, it is often because we are mentally hooked by something. If mindfulness is our intention yet we are struggling with what we often call "distraction" then observing that contrast and being able to see it should be regarded as a sign of practice. Not noticing when we are doing this is a form of ignorance.

I saw my yoga teacher Don Stapleton demonstrate his practice of this recently at Kripalu Centre. He was giving a talk on Self Awakening Yoga and started off by saying that he felt behind in the course curriculum and that he felt he needed to "unhook" from the expectation of getting everything done. He kindly asked us all if it was ok for him to do that so he could present from a place of experience. We all gladly accepted. What I observed there was very encouraging. We might think of our teachers as people who don't get hooked but that would an unrealistic and unfair expectation to make of any human being. What Don demonstrated, however, was mindfulness in action. He was able to identify what was grabbing him internally and see it, communicate it, and release it. That's a skilled way of dealing with being hooked by an expectation and very brave on his part to communicate that with the students. I learned a lot about practice in that moment.

So if we if we tend to get hooked, then what is causing this? What is "the hooker" that is preventing us from living in the now and acting from a place of authentic being? I would say that if you are seeing it and responding to it in the way that Don was then there is no hook preventing you from being present. I think it's an important point. How we deal with our minds and what we consider "distraction" will determine the results.

In the Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism, the master Tilopa said to his disciple Naropa “You are not bound by appearances, but by clinging; So cut your clinging, Naropa!” So what gets us hooked is not what we often blame it on. We often have all sorts of things to blame our discomfort on which appear to be outside of us or sometimes it's what we think of ourselves. Yet what is the real 'hooker" in this situation? Is it some kind of clinging in the mind? It helps us to see how we attach or grab on to thoughts and expectations around what we see and experience.

So when we can see our minds then we can see when we are being hooked. Once we see that we can relax. We can take a breath see the thoughts and emotions that are grabbing us, and let them go. Like Don demonstrated, what is grabbing us and preventing us from moving forward is also an important stepping stone. In this way, what is grabbing us is also our path to freedom from this. The ability to free ourselves in this way comes from a familiarity with what is going on in our minds. So mindfulness of mind can lead to a greater mindfulness of the our entire inner and outer world, right in this very moment.

Take A Leap

Take A Leap - Winter Solstice Poem 2010.

Caught between
the jaws
of past and future
clinging thoughts
a dream
stepping off
the round stone
of the last thought
a leap
into
awake.

http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=153368

Tis The Season to Panic

Is anyone anxious this time of year? You may blame it on Christmas or Holiday preparations or maybe you live with anxiety on a regular basis. If you are busy like me and have had some experience with trauma, anxiety is often all too familiar. If you practice mindfulness or if you are interested in mindfulness, yet struggle with anxiety then there is a model which actually makes use of anxiety. True, it is hard to remain mindful during a period or episode of anxiety, yet that does not mean that we are a failure at practicing mindfulness. What it does mean is that something needs to be tended to or changed so that we can return to a state of reasonable balance and regain our ability to appreciate the present. Some researchers in Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome define one's threshold for tolerance of stressors as the point where one is no longer able to remain mindful. I was speaking with a psychologist who described it as your "check engine light". In both descriptions it is a threshold where you reach a peak and your nervous system is sending you a strong signal.

Just being aware of that anxiety is mindfulness, yet we don't experience it as pleasant. In a way that visceral experience of anxiety is the best friend we have in that moment because it really is trying to tell us something. In general it means that the number of stressors or stressful stimuli, whatever they may be, has reached an unbearable point. This is not medical advice so this is my disclaimer. We all need to take responsibility for our health, yet it may be helpful to reflect on a few ideas here from both the mindfulness traditions as well as what is being uncovered by neuroscience. My teacher talks about strategic retreat. There are certain times in our journey when we need to retreat away temporarily to the safety of meditation practice which might mean just taking ten minutes to sit when things are getting out of control. Sometimes that is enough to lessen the anxiety and get a fresh perspective on these stressors, some of which are often our own creation. If neuroscience is correct then our primitive brain, which is not something that we can reason with, has taken over and we are in a state of sympathetic arousal, or the "fight or flight response". Nowadays we don't have many outlets for stress in the daily grind which would be appropriate. Running out of the Mall or punching the person in the line up in front of you are thankfully not the best option. So the check engine light comes on and we will often have to ignore it or procrastinate dealing with it. Another reaction we might have is to freeze. This is the less talked about part of the stress response. When we don't have the option to run or fight, then we can freeze. In this state the there is intense fear yet we become somewhat immobilized. You may still move about but there is an emotional and physical constriction in the breathing and mind going on. So I think its important to recognize that even though we may not be running or fighting that the freezing aspect of this response can be under-appreciated.

If we are outside our threshold of tolerance and cannot seem to get grounded in mindfulness or the present moment seems unbearable and out of reach then that is really important information. When the check engine light is on we had better do something about it. Mindfulness practice like sitting can help but we also need to take a look at the cause and effect relationships that are going on and look at why stressors have reached such a point. This kind of looking is also mindfulness but it may not get as good press because we have to look into areas that are causing us suffering. Looking at cause and effect is also mindfulness. Taking steps to bring life back into balance is compassionate action for oneself and others. That is the real potential of mindfulness practice.

So this feels like a big can of worms I have opened here but I am going to leave it at that for now and leave you with two articles, one on mindfulness and anxiety and one on mindfulness and depression.
Dealing with Anxiety:
http://www.kprschools.ca/Staff/HealthWellbeing-DealingwithAnxiety.html
Mindfulness and Depression:
http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/06/mindfulness-as-good-as-antidepressant-drugs-study-says/

Seasons Greetings,

Mike

Capital "I" or Humble Pie

I liken how we think about the "self" to a Sesame Street skit called "Capital I". It's a cartoon where there is a big shiny I in the sky and the song goes something like this ..."Capital I, Capital I, in the middle of the desert in the centre of the sky" and so on. There are all these little men working on the I polishing it and shining it. It's quite cute really. It is kind of like what we do with our thoughts. When we are feeling good about ourselves, or in general, we spend a lot of time thinking  .... I I I I me me me me ..... and put a lot of work into polishing it, making up stories and justifications for why our I is so special, solid, singular and real. The problem with this is that it gets in the way of seeing the mountains on the other side of the desert, or appreciating the wildlife all around.

Another approach could be to try eating humble pie. What if we instead visualized ourselves as a grain of sand in the desert? Along side millions and millions of other grains of sand the same size. What would we see then? Would it take as much work? Would we be so disappointed and angry the next time a bird poops on the big I in the sky? Who is more able to appreciate the infinite space of the present moment, a grain of sand or a Capital I?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=losBZCpzbi8&feature=related

Peanut Butter, Rainbow, Wine, Triangle Pose, Blah Blah Blah and Rock and Roll

So if practice is important when it comes to appreciating life or living with its challenges, then how exactly do we practice? In sitting meditation we relate with the sensation of the breath and work skillfully with thoughts, so that is one way to develop or nurture our capacity for mindfulness. Yet we have six sense gates, if not more depending on how you count them, that we can use. In meditation it is often the feeling of the breath at the tip of the nose, depending on the technique, that helps us find a sensation that is grounded in the present. That sensation is a sensation like many others. In yoga, sensation shows up in my trikonasana pose as feet on the floor, muscles stretching, breath and so many other things. Some of the sensations feel pleasurable, some are not, yet they are all now if I can just breath them in and feel them with out too many labels or judgements. So there are a lot of things available to us through the sense gates. We can listen to music such as the Tragically Hip, or Mozart if you like. The sound is experienced in its freshness when we really enjoy music. When we taste food we can also slow down and really taste it. Peanut butter is really inexpressible if you sink into the experience. The aroma of wine or any other scent is a direct experience before we think of it with descriptions and try to impress others with our analysis. When we see a rainbow we can just see it. Any form that appears to our eyes can be appreciated nakedly and directly. And then there is thought. We can also look directly at the thinking mind, see the thought that is happening right now and by seeing it as thought we are freed from the illusion that our thoughts represent a solid reality. Our mind may be going "blah blah blah" yet just look at the present thought, that "blah" and see it. This way there in nothing within our experience that need escape mindfulness.

Now in a Can

Now In a Can

After having a fresh experience of the present moment I sometimes find myself feeling more free and relaxed. However, even as I try to write about it, sometimes the label gets used so much that we forget how fresh it can be. We can go from experiencing the world and our lives in a fresh open way with a mind that is attuned to the present moment, to a mind that labels our experience as "now" and leaves it at that. That is kind of like putting it in a can. Canned now is not really fresh. It's packaged in a label or concept. How do we go about avoiding putting our experience into a can? Well I think it has to do with having some kind of contemplative practice. Meditation practice is the most immediate way to keep the experience of nowness fresh. We need some time and space to see through the speed of concepts and labels and just be with what is. So if your now feels like it's a packaged product with a brand name label on it, then that might be a sign that a little bit of practice would help.

Does this sound like an advertisement? Now in a can, it's not so fresh.

Where Did My Temple Go?

When practicing being aware and developing a sense of continuous awareness, your temple becomes wherever you are in the moment. Right now my temple is my office at work. It's the end of the workday and I am about to meet up with my kids and their mom for supper before their Christmas concert as school. If I needed a temple to meditate or pray in to be mindful right now as I type then I would be in trouble. If a temple is required then there would be no way to feel the keyboard, to notice these thoughts that I type, or my breath as I sit here. 

It's not that I have anything against temples. Sometimes our introduction to mindfulness is through so called "sacred environments" when we witness a monk lighting incense or a priest performing a ritual. We may have visited Thailand and seen meditators in a state of peace and acting with grace and mindfulness. These environments and experiences can be important inspiration and learning experiences for us. The problems arises when we feel that we are at a disadvantage because we are not in that environment now, or that it was such a long time ago since we had such a "special" place to pray or meditate in. Our experience of mindfulness could become a memory like "oh yeah, I did that in Thailand, I got that going on." when all that is really going on is an internal discouragement. If I ever find myself thinking that I am at a disadvantage for mindfulness practice because of my environment I try to remember that the temple for this practice is everywhere. It is wherever you are right now.

Glass House in an Intersection

One of my teachers, Acharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen, once described the attitude we take to mindfulness with the analogy of a glass house. He said sometimes it is as if we think of mindfulness like a glass house in the intersection of a busy street. Can you imagine if your house were made of glass and it were in a busy intersection? Well we wouldn't feel safe in our abode and certainly with everything coming at us, our glass house would be destroyed. So I find that an interesting analogy. I do think that when we first try to practice being aware and mindful in ordinary daily life experience we feel so easily distracted the it seems impossible to maintain our mindfulness. We could be mindful of driving the car one moment, taking in the environment, and in the next moment our cell phone buzzes and our mind jumps to what could be happening next. Our mindfulness is lost and we are no longer in the present. Luckily, however, the present moment is not that fragile. We can easily get lost in frantic thought in what seems like the fraction of a second, yet what we could remember is that the present moment is never lost. Even when we get distracted, our mindfulness is not destroyed. In reality the present moment is more like a diamond. It is harder than diamond. So we could take more of an attitude of confidence towards mindfulness and the present moment. Appreciate and enjoy whatever arises moment by moment and if you get distracted, or thrown into a state of anxiety by a call you might be getting on the phone, then don't worry. These experiences do not need to harm our mindfulness. There present moment is still there waiting for you and awareness is also always available. We could remind ourselves that mindfulness is actually resilient and something innate to use as human beings. It takes some effort to come back to now, yes, but it is not like a glass house that is so easily damaged. No-one and no-thing can destroy the present moment!

Welcome to Wake Up Now! - A Mindfulness Blog

Hi,

Welcome to Wake Up Now! I would like to start this blog with a couple of pithy definitions of mindfulness so that we have some idea of what the general subject is.

Mindfulness has been defined a number of ways. The most direct way to start practicing mindfulness is through sitting meditation, where you become more aware and of or familiar with your experience of the breath or any other sensory object. Once you are familiar with the simple and direct experience of one thing, like the breath, then you can nurture that awareness and familiarity with other daily life experiences. My teacher, The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, defines mindfulness as "the continuity of awareness". First we have glimpses of awareness of something, and then that can become more continuous, which is called mindfulness.

Mindfulness is also referred to as not forgetting in that we “do not forget what we have heard and contemplated.”* So there is a bit of effort involved sometimes. The opposite of experiencing things directly is to be somewhere else in our minds, such as dwelling in thoughts of the past and future. So mindfulness can also be thought of as the "remembering" to be present. Once we remember we can relax and continue in that state of awareness, which would be further mindfulness.

So I think that is enough theory. I hope not to get bogged down by too many definitions and so on, so the next few posts will be more experiential. For example, this morning I was mindful of how crabby I was. I was driving the kids to school and I was just crabby. I practiced mindfulness by just being aware and letting myself be crabby. I tried not to be too hard on myself by trying to change it or label it and by relaxing into it, I was OK. It was Monday morning after all.

Mike

*Thrangu, Khenchen. Essentials of Mahamudra: Looking Directly at the Mind. Wisdom Publications: Boston, 2004.