I had a little fun with my gift by sharing it on Facebook with the photo of it (on the right). Here’s what I wrote:

“Thank you Michelle for my new Buddha LED Light Key Fob! Apparently when you become enlightened then some of that light shines out of your butt. The problem is that as soon as you get up off the meditation cushion to see if it’s shining, you aren’t enlightened any more and the light is off. Kind of the reverse of the whole “does the light in the refrigerator really go off when you close the door?” dilemma. Ahh, enlightenment is soooo complicated and paradoxical.”

A friend responded with the inquiry “Does this mean you have to be on the cushion to be enlightened?” A reasonable question, but in general I find myself so unable to address any issues around enlightenment that my eyes glaze over and the best I can do is an enigmatic smile and a deep wish that the conversation would shift to subjects I can handle like “Will the Oakland Raiders EVER Return to Glory?” (Feel free to post a response to this blog on that question if the whole meditation thing doesn’t pique your interest. I could use a little hope in that regard!)

What I was referring to in my Facebook post was that inevitable pull we feel to check to see how we are doing, whether it is relative to how we USED to be doing, or how OTHER PEOPLE are doing, or (even more problematic) how WE THINK WE SHOULD be doing. But in the end we are just doing. Or more accurately, just being. No comparisons necessary. Contrary to almost everything else these days, meditation is not a competition, you can’t do it better, faster, bigger or more fuel-efficiently than anyone else. As Jon Kabat-Zinn says in a chapter called “This Is It” from Wherever You Go, There You Are:

People usually don’t get this right away. They want to meditate in order to relax, to experience a special state, to become a better person, to reduce some stress or pain, to break out of old habits and patterns, to become free or enlightened. All valid reasons to take up meditation practice, but all equally fraught with problems if you expect those things to happen just because now you are meditating. You’ll get caught up in wanting to have a “special experience” or in looking for signs of progress, and if you don’t feel something special pretty quickly, you may start to doubt the path you have chosen, or to wonder whether you are “doing it right.” 

Trust me on this one. I have the true test to see if you are doing it right. Ready?

Question #1: Are you meditating (aka “doing it?)  ____Yes    ____No

If your answer was yes, you are doing it right.

So consider this: “What would it be like to let go of needing to see any signs of progress and only practice for its own sake?” Would that be possible? I would invite you to see what that might be like.

And quit peeking to check to see if you’re enlightened yet. You’ll probably just tumble off the cushion and hit your head on the floor anyway. Hardly very enlightening, but then again, sometimes a good (figurative) whack upside the head is what we need to remember to just sit As Jon Kabat-Zinn says, “This is it.”

I have occasionally gotten a bit over-confident on a treadmill and cranked it up to about 4 notches faster than I could really maintain for any reasonable period of time, and then did the “dash of dread” in which you push yourself beyond your capabilities out of sheer terror that you will be literally flung across the gym in front of hysterically laughing hardbodies before you can crank it back down to a pace that doesn’t threaten to explode your heart.

So you know that feeling right? I thought so. I once had a patient who had been in the Navy and he referred to it as OBE: Overcome By Events.  An online definition reads: “a term of military origin used when a situation changes so rapidly that previously proposed courses of action are no longer relevant.” (The same online search yielded a few interesting alternative meanings for OBE, including “Out of Body Experience,” “Order of the British Empire,” and its pejorative step-cousin “Other Buggers Efforts” because the former is often awarded to small time politicians and councilors who only APPEAR to do a lot of work and hence are often said to have received it for “Other Buggers Efforts.” But I digress.)

So the question becomes: what, if anything, can one do when that familiar OBE feeling arises? Run faster? Freeze like the proverbial deer in the headlights? Take them all on with the grim vengeance of Chuck Norris or the magical wizardry of Harry Potter? Good luck with that. Take a look back on how you have coped with being OBE in the past and ask yourself, “How’s that workin’ out for me?”

Why not ask yourself a question at that quintessential overwhelmed moment? What if you contemplate the silly but simple question: “What am I afraid of?” Could you possibly just notice the fear arising and rather than give it legs, you just noticed it washing over you? Would it be possible to pause, breathe and look deeply and curiously at it?

Note that the definition points to “previously proposed courses of action.” In other words, we had other plans for how things would go, and when they didn’t go that way, we are flummoxed, fearful and flailing because we don’t know how to make them go that way. When we don’t float through the holidays, relaxed and oozing good cheer, issuing forth handwritten Christmas cards and homemade gifts while sipping mulled wine and tucking in the happy children, we panic. We start to try to exert a certain degree of control that we don’t actually have in order to make things “right with the world”, or at least our idea of how the world should be. Anne Lamott, in her recent book “Help, Thanks, Wow” references an old joke that is relevant here. She poses the riddle: “What’s the difference between you and God?” The answer: “God never thinks he’s you.”

Perhaps one possibility when feeling OBE, is to let go of trying to prevent being overcome. What if you just watched it all unfold, from the safety of your own two feet in the present moment and waited to see what happens? You might be surprised. Try it when that feeling arises in meditation, as if you will literally be swallowed up by all that has to be done, and here you are messing about, frittering your life away on a meditation cushion while important things are not being done. Watch it. Breathe. Watch some more. Feel what happens. Breathe again. Notice what arises with curiosity. Notice dread. Notice fear. Notice the faint but unmistakeable sound of holiday joy happening. Breathe in. Breathe out. Notice what it feels like to stop running from or to anything at all. Choose a path for yourself and re-engage when you are ready, secure in the knowing that events cannot actually overcome you, but you can definitely overcome the feeling of OBE by simply BE-ing instead.

My mom remembers this better than I, but he would have innumerable students come to him proudly with their latest works of inspiration and creativity, literally bursting with pride and hungry for positive feedback in lives that were often lacking in much of that. They would thrust a painting or piece of jewelry into his line of sight and say “Well? What do you think?”

I can picture my dad, stroking his multi-colored scruffy beard and contemplating carefully and thoughtfully. The moment lingered and the tension grew. One can almost picture the excited student nearly levitating off the floor in anticipation of something encouraging from is or her beloved art teacher.

“Hmmm,” he would utter enigmatically. “Ahhhhh,” he would say confidently.

And the student would bounce off to gush to her friends about Mr. Hickman’s encouraging feedback. Often he would become verbose in these situations and utter an “interesting” every now and then to make sure that people knew he was cogitating and considering what was put before him.

These moments of observing things as they were and expressing keen interest without judgment are moments of inspiration to me in my meditation practice. I find that when I am seeking my own validation or evaluation of my performance, I am just on a slippery slope to ruminative and unproductive commentary and ridiculous supposition about random topics.

But I find that if I can observe the arising of activity in the mind and simply say “Hmmmmm” or even “Yes!”, I can simply continue to observe and find myself less entangled in the discursive process of what is referred to by neuroscientists as the “default mode network” of the wandering mind.

The so-called Horse Whisperer or Dog Whisperer have gained fame from their ability to approach a willful beast and cooperatively coax a behavior that the animal really wants to engage in anyway. The task in meditation may be to see this pesky brain as a willful beast, and work with it like this. Observe it. Show your genuine interest in what it is doing. And whisper in its ear “mmmm hmmm” while staying present. No disengagement or dismissive attitude here. Just pure allowing and accepting of whatever it is dishing up in the moment.

Try this and let me know what happens for you. For me, I feel encouraged and supported in my practice. And I still haven’t gotten any feedback on whether I’m doing it well!

“I was really having a rough day yesterday, what with the company stock price doing what it did and I was so stressed out I just had to do something. I decided to meditate to get my head straight and it was a fiasco! Over and over, I found myself caught up in one nightmare scenario after another. Then I would notice I was caught up in it all and I’d bring myself back to my breath. No sooner than I had returned and it seemed like I was back into the muck again. I was really frustrated and I could feel a knot in the pit of my stomach.”

“Excellent!” I reply enthusiastically.

“No, you don’t get it. I was tense and riled up and my mind was so stuck on what might happen if this keeps up and my retirement fund shrinks more. It was like my brain was a broken record, playing out the worst case over and over. I couldn’t stop it no matter what I tried. It just kept up.”

“Wow! You were quite aware of the ‘full catastrophe’ weren’t you?” I exclaim.

“Well, yes, yes I was, but I really had the idea that the meditation would help me get centered and out of the mental rat race I was in. I had the thought that ‘this just isn’t working for me today’ and I felt really disappointed in myself for not being able to calm myself down. It was like this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.”

“Ahhh,” I exclaimed. “Interesting. Anything else?”

“Ummm, well I guess I noticed that the sinking feeling was really uncomfortable and I had the thought that ‘maybe I’m not cut out for this meditation stuff. I ought to have managed this much better than I did.’ And I guess I got a little sad too. And this reminded me of how badly I’m managing my money and then I was back on the hamster wheel of my thoughts about the market. It all felt so fruitless!”

“Hmm. Fruitless huh? Were you hoping for apples or bananas?”

“What? I don’t get it. I didn’t actually want fruit! I just meant that all that time on the cushion seems completely wasted because I couldn’t change the anxious and sad feelings that came up. No matter how much I tuned into my breath, I didn’t get anywhere!”

“Where did you think you were going to go, sitting cross-legged on a lifeless meditation cushion? Paris?” I say with a smile.

“You know what I mean. I couldn’t change how I felt and all I could do was to watch it all unfold, including my frustration over wanting it to be different, the sinking feeling, the frustration, the sadness. Coming back to my breath, over and over again, getting lost, getting tangled up, coming back. And through it all, wanting it to change and get better, wanting to feel better, differently.”

“Oh, I see. You wanted things to change because now you’re meditating?”

“Absolutely!”

“What would it be like to let go of wanting anything to be any different in the moment?

“I don’t know. It wouldn’t be my usual mode of doing things, that’s for sure!”

“How’s that mode working out for you?”

“Hmmm. Not so well lately.

“Now we’re getting nowhere!”

So I’m not used to the humidity and heat that Florida offers up in June, so I was actually pleasantly surprised when I learned that I could get a tee time at noon on a desirable Disney course. My pleasure turned to dismay when I realized I had a tee time at noon on a course that felt remarkably like a greener, moister version of hell itself.

But I was determined and set off down the fairway to get the most out of my experience (and money). I was doing well until I, as I am wont to do on many a golfing occasion, hit my ball off into the surrounding woods. After hiking a fair, sweaty distance, I found my ball in a clearing and turned to make my way back into the open. It was then that I first heard it.

A rustling in the bushes that I could only imagine was an alligator (the only Florida animal that immediately slithered to mind). I quickened my pace to match my escalating heartbeat and began to allow my mind to run with me. A puma perhaps? A ravenous javelina? A man-eating manatee? Who knew? Not me! And I was quite certain that the mysterious beast was continuing to pursue me.

I finally burst through the last of the underbrush and the relative safety (?) of open fairway, a sweaty, out of breath and terrified mess. It was only at that moment that I actually took the opportunity to swivel and confront the predator I was sure had nearly nipped at the heels of my golf shoes, while it crashed through the shrubbery. The greenery rustled a bit and then the beast made itself visible to me.

Never had one small fuzzy bunny rabbit made such a violent impression on a human being (except perhaps the one that appears in Monty Python and the Holy Grail). Yes, it was indeed the most harmless little fuzzball you could imagine that inspired a racing heart, wheezing breath and quick mental episode of “Steve Hickman, This Is Your Life!”

So when your scary thought arises, it may not be a loveable bunny rabbit, but you’ll never know what it is unless you look, and even if it purports to be scary, important, true, or imperative, remember that it’s still just a thought or feeling. A mere brain secretion, as I like to refer to them. Don’t believe what your brain tells you about its contents. As the comedian Emo Phillips once said, “I used to think that the brain was the most important organ in the body, until I realized which organ was telling me that.”

It often takes a great deal of courage to choose to stay present with a difficult feeling or troubling thought, but that courage is rewarded mightily in the form of ease and equanimity over time. It just takes intention, practice and a little playful curiosity.

Reblogged from Every Now and Zen:

How many times have you been discouraged when you see how far you have to go in order to be where you want to be? Whether it’s getting out of debt, losing that last 15 pounds, or finding your soul mate, the end can seem painfully distant. We create anxiety and despair when we focus on the gap between where we are and where we want to be.

Read more… 395 more words

The view on my morning run.

This week I am vacationing with my family on the Central California coast and I have taken the opportunity to run each morning up and down the beach. Perhaps “run” is too strong a word. If the image of a gazelle comes to mind when you think of running, aim lower. Perhaps the shambling gait of a water buffalo better captures my stride.

But be that as it may, as I labored north toward a distant pier, it occurred to me that running along the hard sand near the waterline is a lot like meditation. The rhythmic waves of the Pacific are like my breath when I sit, coming and going of their own accord, sometimes more, sometimes less prominent in my awareness. My northward direction is like my intention to sit, gently guiding me, keeping me on track amidst the arising stimuli of the landscape.

The fog-shrouded surf offers occasional glimpses of craggy rocks, the lines of dutiful seabirds shuttling along, or the seen-but-not-seen illusion of mythical creatures in the mist. It all resembles the flights of fancy I periodically find myself in while meditating, the seductive, the scary, the lure of the unknown.

And land to my right feels much like what we tend to refer to as “real life.” The mussel shell splayed open in the sand, the luxurious home on the bluff, even the malodorous rotting fish head represent certain aspects of what life offers from time to time. I noted a jab of nostalgia when a certain shell reminded me of a distant memory. I smiled inwardly at a particularly rambunctious puppy chasing his tennis ball in the surf. I even speeded up a bit when I noticed I was approaching another runner from behind who looked even more winded than me, breezing past as if the Olympic marathon was in my future (and simultaneously hoping I didn’t stumble or pass out in full view of my fellow athlete seconds later).

But I realized that none of this (mermaid or sand dollar or imagined competition) was actually what my run was about. My run was my run, and all that arose while I was running was just what it was. Existing in a moment of my time, fleeting and insubstantial, like the thoughts that arise while sitting.

My wife asked me upon my return if I had a good run. I have thought in the past that a run is a run and there is no good or bad to it, but realized that it was actually a “good run” BECAUSE I ran! A meditation is good if you formulate the intention to meditate and then sit down. I like to quote Yoda from Star Wars when someone says that they “tried” to meditate. “Do or do not,” says the small, wise green creature, “there is no try.”

I run, therefore it is a good run. I have a good meditation if I stop, pay attention and notice what happens. We sometimes confuse what we notice with the fact that we are noticing, and it is the latter that matters. 3+ miles covered, sweaty running gear that is now spring-fresh tumbling in the dryer and a few thousand footprints in the sand, all fleeting evidence of a good run. A butt-shaped dent in the meditation cushion, a couple of stiff knees and a ton of random thoughts that seemed important . . . until they didn’t, all signs of a good meditation. There isn’t any other kind!

And it struck me that we are often like this, clutching the levers and pressing the buttons of our own lives with all our might, carefully trying to coax a desired course out of the chaos of unrushing life, but who are we really kidding? How much control do we really have, and how much energy do we invest in trying to control and contrive outcomes that we are convinced are right, or good or imperative? And while we certainly can chart our course and connect with an intention to move in certain desired directions, there are often circumstances (more often than not) that are beyond our control and all we can do is navigate them like Class One rapids, clinging tenuously to our intentions and keeping our eyes on the prize.

Have you ever awoken in the morning with the firm intention to “have a good day no matter what” and found that along with your intended purpose you have had to contend with a stopped-up sink, burning toast or traffic on the freeway? I know I have, and the options are few: you can give up and resolve to try again tomorrow; you can get angry and label it a bad day; or you can see these arising phenomena as part of life that are admittedly unpleasant but don’t determine whether a day can be good or bad (tell yourself “into each life some burned toast must fall”). All are possible, but the former two options arise from clinging too tightly (like that young driver above) to needing things to be a certain way. To be specific, “My Way.”

Take breathing as a great example. It is wonderfully analogous to life. Sometimes people in our mindfulness classes will say something like “What’s the big deal about the breath, anyway?” The smart aleck in me can’t resist saying something like “Well, aside from the fact that it’s a worthwhile endeavor to engage in on a regular basis, not much!” But think about it for a moment. Breathing is a singular activity to which we can tune in whenever we wish, and the opportunity exists to actually control it for awhile. We can very dutifully make our bodies breathe out of our own intentions for a stretch of time. But by the same token, if we were left to be totally, consciously responsible for breathing for the balance of our lives, my sense is that we would frequently botch it up and end up gasping for breath and keeling over blue-faced on a regular basis. We just can’t keep up that kind of control while going about our lives, and fortunately we don’t need to! Life is like that too. We can exert control over certain aspects of our life, but things tend to turn out best when we don’t cling too tightly to that control. We can hold life lightly, remain clear on our intention and then see what unfolds. Or we can cling with a death-grip to our idea of what needs to happen and see how well THAT works out!

When it comes to meditation, we can try to breathe in certain ways, but that just gets us tangled up in trying to control a wonderful, amazing and life-giving process that actually works best when we get out of our own way. See if you can simply observe the breath moving in and out of the body without having to breathe in any particular way. Simply let the breath breathe itself and see what can come of that soft attitude and gentle kindness of attention. If you find yourself wondering what’s so special about the breath, do your own scientific experiment and just pay careful attention to its flow in and out, the inspiration and the expiration, without any preconceived notions or theoretical framework. Just ride the tide of the breath in and out of the body and see what you notice.

Oh, and that experiment you just tried? It was meditation. Pure and simple. No bells, no whistles, no steering wheels or shift levers. Pretty cool, huh? I highly recommend it.

“Get up and meditate, it’s 5:30!”

“I don’t want too, I’m too tired today.”

“You committed to this practice. Get up!”

“I’ll meditate tonight after work.”

“You always say that and you never do it. Get up and get your butt on the zafu!”

“Five more minutes . . . “

“Seriously? You don’t expect me to fall for that one again, do you?”

If (or when) you DO get up and practice, you are glad you did and might even feel a bit smug about having overcome the inner dialogue to do what you knew was best for you.

If (or when) you DON’T get up and practice, you know that guilt-soaked aftermath of self-recriminations and self-loathing that suffuses your day and activates those old habits of mind and judgmental thoughts about your worth as a human and your ability as a meditator. Suffice it to say it ain’t pretty.

So what to do when something else beckons, more tempting than formal practice?

While I’m tempted to say “notice the temptation as one of the hindrances of meditation practice (desire, anger, sloth/torpor, restlessness and doubt) and simply allow it to be another arising in your field of awareness and see it as such,” assuming that that will lead you, ultimately to practice. But sometimes (nearly always) that isn’t so easy. But then again, who said this was going to be easy?

I’d like to suggest that if simply noticing the arising of these hindrances doesn’t lead to change in your practice, you might consider noticing that the inner ping-pong match that goes on in our heads is between a desire to practice from deep within us and our brain and intellect, which quite often does not have our own best interests at heart. Think about it: can you really trust your brain to take good care of you? As the comedian Emo Phillips once said, “I used to think my brain was the most important organ in the body. And then I realized which organ was telling me that.”

“I used to think my brain was the most important organ in the body. And then I realized which organ was telling me that.”

I recommend noticing not that loudmouthed brain of ours, but that deep yearning inside that got you up at 5:30 in the first place, that has touched the depths of mindfulness practice now and then in the past, and fuels a desire for change and ease in your life. See if you can sit with that inner wellspring of equanimity and health that sustains you much of the time, even when you aren’t aware of it fully.

And, call me crazy, consider practicing right where you are for a bit! I know it’s unconventional but if you’re going to be busy watching your mental activity unfold moment by moment about whether or not you should get up and meditate, why don’t you meditate right there and see what happens? Nobody said the cushion was magic, and what is a bed but a really big cushion anyway? Drop into your breath, let your thoughts unfold as they will anyway, and log some meditation time to boot! It’s not a compromise or an alternative to formal seated meditation, but why waste valuable moments you will never get back debating whether or not to meditate when you can meditate WHILE you debate?

For some reason, the words of Mary Oliver come to mind, from her poem Wild Geese from her book Dream Work. The whole poem is absolutely profound and beautiful, so I will include it here, but will highlight the pieces I see as relevant to this “tush on the cush” issue:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Perhaps, letting “the soft animal of your body love what it loves” means the space in your warm bed for a few moments, and know that mindfulness practice happens everywhere when we open up to it, and bring a little kindness to the self-judgment that beats us up and seems to hold us back from finding our way to our formal seat in meditation. Self-compassion in those moments of self-doubt and debate can go a long way toward making the decision to sit an easier one. What do you think? Is this a slippery slope toward no formal practice?

]]> http://stuckinmeditation.com/2012/07/15/a-zafu-too-far-when-it-just-seems-impossible-to-get-our-tush-on-the-cush/feed/ 3 Steve Hickman http://stuckinmeditation.com/2012/07/08/meditate-like-you-walk-the-dog-with-intention-flexibility-and-a-retractable-leash/ http://stuckinmeditation.com/2012/07/08/meditate-like-you-walk-the-dog-with-intention-flexibility-and-a-retractable-leash/#comments Mon, 09 Jul 2012 00:48:47 +0000 stevepsyd http://stuckinmeditation.com/?p=46 ]]> Here’s a picture of Cody, my oversized Golden Retriever. He’s not the brightest flame in the canine candelabra, but he’s got charm, personality and a goofy disposition that suits his goofy human quite well. He discovered cottage cheese this weekend and appears to have a certain fondness for it.

Am I just trying to get your attention by the tried and true social media marketing way: using cute photos of animals? Well, that might be part of it, but it’s largely because walking Cody has taught me a lesson that has ultimately benefited several people in my mindfulness meditation classes.

Have you ever noticed that, when in meditation, you seem to be at the mercy of your mind? You know the feeling, you’re sitting there minding your own breath when the mind serves up a juicy thought. Perhaps you find yourself contemplating Tom Cruise’s marital woes and your odds for stepping in as his next love. Maybe it’s just the enticing smell of dinner simmering in the other room. Did you ever see the Disney Pixar Movie Up? There’s a dog in that movie (named Doug) who wears a device that allows him to talk. Bright and cheerful, Doug can carry on quite a conversation, but let him catch sight of a bushy-tailed rodent and he immediately exclaims “Squirrel!!!!” and he’s off on the chase. That is how our minds tend to be, doglike and distractible.

So what to do? We can’t change the nature of our dogs, and the same is true of our minds. They are of the nature to follow thoughts, especially if they are compelling, seductive and promise an adventure of one sort or another! However illusory or ultimately preposterous (Cody wouldn’t know what to do if he actually caught the bunnies he spots every now and then. He’d probably just lick it till it drowned in dog slobber! Or ran away.)

So how about if you cultivate the neural equivalent of a retractable leash? You know those handy devices that are spring-loaded and allow your dog to go off on little mini-adventures here and there, investigating fascinating smells, scurrying creatures and the occasional impassive feline, while you blithely continue down the path you have already chosen. You stay on track and your dog has his or her own adventure.

How do you do this with your mind? Meditate. Notice your mind doing what it does with playful curiosity, tolerance of it’s tendencies and still with a sense of intention to stay where you are. Little by little, when we let go of needing our mind/dog to go exactly where we intend to go, we find that we stay on our path and the mind follows dutifully (or at least it hovers somewhere in the vicinity). So mindfulness cultivates an allowing of the peccadilloes and idiosyncrasies of our mental activity, all the while staying on task, which is to notice. Just notice!

Next time you are sitting and your mind finds its latest squirrel, watch the chase with calm abiding amusement. Trust that if you stay here, it will return eventually, and sooner than if you had chased after it and tried to subdue it.

Give yourself a new leash on life/meditation, and make sure it’s retractable!