I've decided to stop.
In his introductory video to meditation, Mingyur Rinpoche tells the story of being thirteen years old and still gripped by the panic disorder that had been haunting him since childhood. After years of half-committed meditation, one day he asked himself a question. Do I want to stay this way?
The answer was obviously no. So he decided to take the disorder and use it as fuel for practice. He committed to three days of solitary meditation in his room, away from his practice community. After the three days the panic disorder was gone.
I overcame a panic disorder in my twenties. I worked through a nervous breakdown in my thirties. In my forties I turned the crisis of single motherhood into an opportunity for more self awareness. Now starting my fifties, I have a new challenge. I want to liberate myself from this chronic misery, and financial stress. I want to use my writing to bring something valuable to the world.
Because of the responsibilities of parenthood, I can't do a three day solitary retreat. But yesterday I made decision to turn away from the tv, the internet and other distractions and sit as much as I possibly can with this fear.
Re-reading the JOL I came across something that for some reason had never made an impression on me before. It is a description of how we develop "the emotional body." When our thalamus perceives an object that causes us fear, a tiger, or even just a mental image of something that frightens us, it sends a red alert messages to the amygdala and the neo-cortex. The amygdala is closer, so it gets the message first. It tells our body to run or fight. And our body immediately responds with heightened heartbeat, and adrenalyzed muscles. The neo-cortex however, only receives the alert after out body has started responding.
If we don't run or fight, the neo-cortex assesses the situation, and sends the message back to all the body parts, that all is well.
This is what meditation, fundamentally is. The decision not to run or fight. The decision to retrain our responses, so that only the real threats, not the feedback delusions that we've been conditioned with, get through. The decision to tell our analytical brain that we are fine.
We are making the conscious decision, for ourselves, and for all that we are capable of influencing that the recursive cycle of fight and flight is over. That we want peace. For ourselves and for everyone in the world.
Running and fighting, however, are no longer really fleeing from tigers, or entering armed battle. For the contemporary urban dweller it's more usually running towards a source of distraction, or bickering with family and people on facebook.
If I make the decision to stop for a day or two. If I make the decision to sit with whatever is gnawing at me, I send an important message to myself.
I am well.
No matter what happens in the next six months. I am well.
This wellness, I hope, will allow me to open my mind and see the way out of my problems.
This wellness, I hope, becomes the ice that I skate on, on a frozen pond. From there I have that hockey stick, exponential graph, progress.
And then I'm out of this cycle.
