Bringing "sitting meditation" into the rest of your life. Posted by John on May 10, 1999 at 17:40:35:
In Reply to: Re: Welcome back Pauline! ;-) posted by Pauline on May 10, 1999 at 01:34:11:
(5 pages)
Gee, I could plunge in *anywhere* in this group of postings you Students
have made in the last ten days and have a good class going here now!
Pauline feels "disappointed in myself that I haven't been able to sit
for long and meditate since my return to Sydney, after my week long
Silent Retreat."
Well, here you have come right to the central theme of this second year
of our on-line classes here, Pauline, which is to learn to go around
meditating at any time of the day. "Mindfulness" is taking this silent
awareness of sitting meditation, and bringing it out into the world with
you . . . with your eyes wide open, and while you are doing things, and
things are going on around you. That's what we are aiming for here, in
learning how to play the awareness game.
The new workbook that is going to be posted this month in Kindergarten
in the reconstruction that is going on, will provide many experiential
exercises (for our "Summer School") that will help you become strong in
doing this, if you'd like to.
Being disappointed with yourself is an old habit with you, my friend.
It is an unnecessary habit. Yet it is a part of your habitual
personality, and so you go on doing it, so far. When you catch on to
how it is with these personalities that we humans all have, you will be
able to let go of that. You'll be able to wake up and say, "Hello.
Here I am being disappointed with myself again, that old bugaboo. Well,
I'm awake now, and since I've come to recognize that that's just my
automatic personality stuff, I won't take that so seriously any more
now, will I?"
I know. I know. It takes awhile to really catch on to this, and *know
it*. :-)
>There is some mysterious 'change your patterns factor' that I haven't learnt yet. I want to quieten down and meditate . . . but the time doesn't present itself. I have bungy-jumped right back into housekeeping and entertaining myself.
"I want to" is the music of the ego here, which brings the question of
"time" into the picture, exactly as you say. The ego wants to have
change *without changing within*. And, yes, this also illustrates that
any of us can be egoistic about spiritual things, such as meditation, as
well as about other more obvious things to be egoistic about.
If you'd like to start changing your patterns, how about starting
practicing awareness *while* you're housekeeping and entertaining
yourself? :-) That'd be a terrific change of your conditioned
patterns! And it would be switching from "never having the time" . . .
. . to not even needing time in the here and now, because it's always
available in the present.
Look, here's the ***key*** to practicing mindfulness! It doesn't matter
what you are doing! Go ahead and practice being in there behind those
eyes, feeling being alive there inside your body when "housekeeping" and
"entertainment" are going on. If you're a house-painter, do it while
you're painting houses. If you're a bus-driver, do it while you're
driving your bus. If you're a golfer, do it while playing golf—ski
mindfully, as Jeff has described! If you're a lover, practice it while
making love. If you're a healer, do it while you're healing. If you're
a parent, do it while you're parenting. Etc., etc.
Take that centered awareness on out of the meditation hall, with your
eyes open and bring it into the ordinary things that you do, whatever
they are. In order to get good at this, it takes practice in the
beginning. *You have to deliberately pick out certain activities to
practice with*, or this practice doesn't get done! Any of us can
practice mindfulness while we are doing the dishes. Why not? It
doesn't take any extra time. It might be interesting. And any practice
of mindfulness at your young ages, kiddees, is a better investment in
your future years than gold in the bank.
Now, what is the reason you can't be practicing mindfulness while you
are scrubbing the bathroom floor? The only reason for that is that
you've got lots of things to be thinking about, lots of regrets and
problems, like thinking about how disappointed you are with your self,
and all of the rest of the things that all of our different types do
think about, as well. We've all got our respective personalities, and
we've all got plenty to think about. As Jeff points out so eloquently,
what we do think about is a key to understanding our selves, and
discovering the natural essential being that lies underneath our ego-
driven selves.
In another post to Betsy, Jeff said:
>I still react from a sleeping state more often than I care too. But even though I may allow people to get under my skin, the 2 things I need to remember, this takes time & practice, and I am doing this for me.
Yes. This kind of work, when it is practiced, is an investment in the
fulfillment of your own essential being. (Yet this, as you may find, is
also an investment in the whole of humanity at large and in the long run
— a *gift*.)
At the ranch where I work, I regularly find myself cleaning up greater
or lesser amounts of animal shit. Now you might think there are other
things that your ol' coach would rather do than that. For instance, I
might want to be sitting in the stable meditating. But that's no
problem. I just practice being mindful when I'm cleaning up the shit.
And awarely, I just be there with the critters. I be one with them, and
a servant in their lovely daily life. I hear the music of the scraper,
or the shovel, and the water from the hose, and feel the spray of it
when the wind blows it back upon me. I smell. I feel. I see. Then I
practice mindfulness as I'm walking back to the stable, feeling inside
my body as I'm walking and the touch of my footfalls, and seeing things
in high-relief (deliberately letting my thinking mind be passive as I go
along, which takes ongoing practice). Then, if I feel like meditating
in the stable, I keep right on being mindful when I sit and do it.
I don't say many, or any of you ought to be ready to be able to keep the
continuity of mindfulness going in your lives this much at this point in
your training (nor do I always!)--especially when you are in the busy
and distracting world of other people. But I honestly see so much rapid
progress in so many aspects of this training in so many of you Students—
obviously, thanks to your sharings in Classroom Talk—that I sense that *
any* of you may have what it takes to learn to develop a mindful way of
life like this. And I say this to you, Pauline.
And . . . for goodness sake, woman! It's obvious and apparent what a
great writer you are—just to pick out one little thing to call attention
to in the spectrum of your greatness. The strengths and qualities of
your essence are "busting to come out," and will do so, quite naturally,
the more you learn to step aside from that ego and personality stuff
that's been holding you back. And all the rest of us here, *wherever we
are in life*, whatever the surrounding circumstances, are learning to
deal with this same set-up, too.
All situations are the same to a mindfulness practitioner. Mindfulness
is *just being* with inner awareness turned on. You can do this
anywhere, anytime, whatever is going on, whenever you remember to, if
you'd like to.
>I found it very emotional, although I don't usually cry at movies. The scene where the mentally challenged daughter yells at her mother telling her I can't be, do, what you want me to be, do, but what I can do is Love, is very powerful.
Yes, we all may cry over the lost love in our own lives. And we can cry
when we see love, too, in the lives of others (like at weddings and
movies, and hearing certain songs). Perhaps these remind us of the love
that we have had and lost. It's good to cry at movies, by the way, and
in any such times. If movies provide the poignancy by which this
natural emotion of sadness comes up into high relief for us, and we can
be awake and feel our body crying it out, this is very therapeutic. And
this frees up relaxed space in our hearts for more love to come in. As
long as we are caught up remaining sad, our heart muscles are occupied
with this tension, physically! And no love can come in. When we cry
the tensions of sadness out, and leave our heart muscles loose and free
again like this, what comes in *is* love.
You, and all of us, Pauline, have had much lost love in our lives. This
is a reality that is a part of every life. Emotional tensions come up
over this, and sometimes get stored up in the heart inside. It's good
to let these tensions out. The truth is that in that movie theater with
you were dozens or hundreds of others who were all choked up with
sadness during that same movie scene. They were struggling within
themselves as hard as they could to hold all that emotion inside and not
let any of that crying tumble out and be set free. What a healing that
would have been if all of you there could have just let loose and let it
all out together. That's what happens sometimes in encounter groups,
and in families. That happened sometimes in Mits's classes, where the
whole class cried together. What a healing experience this is!
The Wailing Wall in Israel is the only place on earth that I know of
where the people are actually encouraged to let it all out in public—
obviously a shrine where *much healing* has happened over the centuries.
There oughta be a place like this on every block, kiddees, maybe where
they put the fire hydrants. :-) In a pinch, a movie theatre will have
to do. We mindfulness practitioners carry this place around with us
wherever we go, however. It is the space where we find this large fist-
sized muscle here inside our chests—our heart. This is the organ of
human sadness when it is tight and clenched up . . . and tenderness
love, when it's relaxed.
The EQ (emotional intelligence) approach that Sally brought up awhile
back, is an approach to recognizing the value of being in touch with our
natural human emotions in this same way. Here, in Kindergarten, the
Kinderfeelings class and sub-classes show how a mindfulness practitioner
can use his or her awareness to shepherd these negative emotions on
through in a healthy way (called "processing feelings"), and reach the
positive emotions that await inside. The next intended sub-class there,
after Fear/Courage, and Anger/Humor, will be Sadness/Tenderness.
Nice to have you back, Pauline.
Hmmmm. I'm looking for a way to weave all these recent comments of you
Students into one broader discussion, going back to that Mistress of the
Manor story. I guess I'll break this class off here, and start over
again. — What an adventure! Have I finally gotten in over my head,
and left too many unresponded-to-topics on the board? Stay tuned. :-)
Toodle pip.
Coach
Archived 15 Jun 99