Joy of Living 2

Just finished a weekend retreat and the second part in Tergar's Joy of Living.  The course was led by Tim Olmsted, the director of the Pema Chodron Foundation. Tim is a dynamic, powerful teacher who reminds me a little (from the nose down) of the actor William Devane.

Structurally I find a lot of similiarities between the Tergar meditation program, and my Zhan Zhuang program, in that the first part is about cultivating a center of calm energy, while the second part is about cultivating power, the ability to do something with that energy.

The second part hinges on four "immeasurables": love (or loving kindness at it is usually used in westernized forms of buddhism), compassion, joy and equanimity. It also introduces certain intermediate meditation practices like tonglen, the practice of breathing in the suffering and stress of others and breathing back out the energy, love and power that we've cultivated so far.

After the first weekend, I remember vividly (or as vividly as I could), how sleepy I was at the end of the weekend.  How all that calm energy was sending me into unconsciousness during my meditation, and how hard it was.

At the end of this weekend, despite the fact that my downstairs neighbour had kept me up most of the night with a birthday party, I was energized.  I was ready to go out and take on the world, start meditation groups, build a whole new movement. Tonglen especially was a revelation, although I agree with Tim that this is not something you would want to teach to a beginner.  You need to have that base of calm energy before you know what it is you're sending out.  But once you've built that base of energy, tonglen is like a shot of espresso.  Rather than spend your day, as we usually do, ignoring stress and suffering, tonglen encourages you to suck it up, in a healthy, not repressive way.  Suck it up and send it back out into the world as a peaceful vitality.

An excellent metaphor for tonglen, is the powerful process by which trees take all the pollution and dirt and muck of the world, and send it back out as fresh air.  As Tim pointed out, it's also worth noting how the trees themselves are enriched by this process.

We think we are doing nothing in meditation, but if we are using it to open our hearts and transform misery into healthy energy then what we are doing is radical and essential. As radical and essential as anything on this earth.

Faith

It's still hard.  After all these years, after so much evidence for how much a deep and abiding connection with this energy improves the quality of my life, I still have a hard time with faith.

Having a hard time with faith, means quite simply, having a hard time; because faith is the foundational power of practice. If you don't believe you won't come back to it. If you don't believe, you get distracted by delusion and the constant dullness and emptiness of ordinary consciousness.

The other night I was watching Richard Dawkins on Jon Stewart.  To him, faith without evidence is dangerous.  And I can't say I disagree with him. I do believe in scientific method. And by and large in Zhan Zhuang, masters seem to stay away from visualization, and practices that might prime you to see of feel things that aren't there.

But I do have evidence. I have the evidence of how this vitality feels as it grows.  I have evidence of how it seems to unleash my creativity, my confidence, and shape my instincts.  I have evidence in the peaceful reprieve it offers every time I'm drawn back into the cycle of trauma in my painful, despairing childhood. I have evidence, in the power and strength it fills me with when I run. I have evidence in how it shapes my effortless movement.

I have evidence.  And I have little doubt that one day we will have the instruments to measure this energy. But right now the only and best evidence is our body.

My problem, perhaps, is that I want the evidence to be external.  I want to see money, and success, and the markers of happiness that society sees.

And maybe there's nothing wrong with that. Except that the search for  these markers of success can often distract us from the magnetic energy of the interior world.

Ideally, these normal markers of success would flow from a regular practice.

So, I offer now the rest of my life as an experiment.  I maintain a practice for at least an hour, ideally two hours a day, and then see how and if I can direct the energy I cultivate into the exterior world.

Not for six months for the next thirty years.

I do this for my happiness. For Ben's happiness. For my parents and my brother. And for the happiness of all.

Here's What's Happening

The suffering is dissolving.  As the energy in me rebuilds, the deep entrenched habits of stress and suffering in me begin to dissolve naturally.  I feel it happening, the pain arising, sometimes physical, sometimes emotional, sometimes sexual, sometimes just a deep dullness.  It comes up and I watch it and then gradually it gets washed away and dissolved by this liquid magnetic energy that is filling me up mostly from the top down.  But sometimes from the bottom up.

I don't assume postures anymore.  I stand in wu wei, first position.  Usually after about five minutes my right arm begins to rise on its own.  Sometimes I feel my arm start to dissolve.  Sometimes I feel my head get looser on my neck.  My lower spine begins to stretch as I relax my knees and sit into the gravity.  Then at some point I start to feel a natural warmth in my gut, or at the back of my neck.

When I start to feel the warmth I remind myself to feel gratitude.  Of all the techniques there are to iterate the energy, the one I believe works the best is to get it spinning emotionally, because we do this to be happy. And happiness is both the goal and the fuel of unleashing this energy.  The gratitude keeps me focussed and lightly harnessed to the energy, especially when I feel my mind drifting off to ordinary awareness.  Love keeps me coming back far more naturally and effortlessly than will.

Today I had three experiences of suffering  that convinced me I'm on the right track.  And ickyness that I know is usually a resistance to pleasure.  Pure aversion, that once dissolved is usually a gateway to healthy joy.  A deep sadness that came out of nowhere that felt as though the energy had simply hit a part of my brain, in the same way a neurosurgeon might probe it during open heart surgery.  And then this deep pain in my neck and shoulders that made me realize that my alignment was being corrected by the more natural flow of energy down my spine.

I had two brand new experiences of pleasure.  For most of the stand I let my left arm hang limp.  But towards the end I felt a bracelet of energy, as though a hand was taking my arm around the wrist.  Gradually this bracelet pulled my arm up in a floating motion.  I felt such fluidity in my body that when the energy began to move my upper torso towards my right I felt like I might actually be able to twist all the way around.  In fact I almost did.  I stood there for I'm not sure how long, feeling the energy work its way around my spine. And then gradually I turned back.  After that I was able to just stand in pure quiet, pond like energy, as though most my body had dissolved.  There were still some remnants of suffering, and I was almost happy to have them there as markers.

This is always such a challenging place to be in, this peace.  Because there's no direction.

But there will be.  A different energy will eventually fill me.  It will fill the best parts of me, the parts of me that lead me to happiness, not to more pain.  And my good habits will have double the energy they had before. My talents will be more focussed and effective.  And the people around me happier.

To be filled and guided by this energy and power.  This is joy.

The immutable calm and power of the tan tien

There are so many experiences I am grateful for this morning it`s hard to know where to start.

I`ll start with the most recent and perhaps from that I`ll find the energy to move back.  I`m sitting here this morning with a full belly of calm and vitality.  About ten minutes ago I felt the right side of my tan tien open up and the warm vitality begin to flow like water.  Earlier in my practice I felt the urge to concentrate my energy there, like a ball of sun.  Like the shining pink sun of dawn over the pond at Fortunes Rocks.

I felt solid.  Like there was this solid core of stored energy that would last all my life.

No let`s switch that. I knew I was solid. I knew there was a solid core of energy that would last me all my life. I knew this. I was grateful for it.

I knew that this was happiness. That it was mine to have and to give, and that I would have access to this for every day of the rest of my life. I might lose my way, but I would inevitably find my way back.

With this knowledge of happiness, it is inevitable that I will find the outside circumstances to support it.   The community of people who know this happiness to be true. The resources to live in a decent home, eat good healthy food and have leisure activities that energize me instead of drain me.

With this knowledge of happiness, I have an entirely different sense of self. The self that I felt at the end of the 10K I ran yesterday. With little training, I was able to hook into a web of energy in the last 3K. I felt people pulling me towards the end. I was running fast and effortlessly harnessed to this communal energy.  I was a node in the universal energy that propels us all towards joy, and healthy and wisdom.

I am privileged and deeply grateful for these experiences and this life.

Now I let this calm flow into the more conditioned channels of happiness, the urge to keep a clean house, the vision and confidence to keep the flow of money happening. To clear up my debt and see this power and energy expressed as the usual markers of happiness. To express and use my creativity towards the books that will help people unleash their own power.

May all of our wisdom shine together like the morning sun.

Happiness Unleashed

Time passed quickly during this morning's meditation.  I set my timer for 80 minutes and the first time I felt the urge to look, there was only ten minutes left.

I felt the pulse, though not as strong as yesterday. Maybe it's the waning moon. Maybe it was a different room.  Don't know.  But the pulse is not the thing I take from this morning's meditation.

I had a realization that my biggest challenge in meditation is maintaining it when things are good.  When things are stressful.  When I'm worried about money, or there are toothaches on the horizon, I become an expert meditator. Suddenly, I'm able to see with such clarity where happiness really lies.  But when things are good, it's like all my conditioned beliefs take over, and meditation is secondary.

This hasn't been as true this year, in large part because of Joy Of Living.  My meditation hasn't been based on the fluctuations of fortune, but has followed a steady path.  So I'm grateful for that.  Still, to be as happy as I want to be I need to maintain at least an hour a day.  Twenty minutes is not enough to connect me to the deep sense of peace and power that makes me as useful and creative as I want to be.

Last night was a harvest moon.

During my practice today, I had a strong sense that I was receiving a tremendous amount of energy and power, from the universe, from Mingyur Rinpoche meditating right now wherever he is meditating. I think I'm starting to feel the bounty of a good strong regular practice.

May I be strong enough to receive it and use it well.

The Pulse

This morning of a full moon I had an interesting stand.  For the last couple of days I've been feeling a fluttering just outside my gut.  Almost as though a bird where trapped in porous concrete and I was feeling the brush of wings. Then this morning that fluttering turned into a pulsing energy to the right of my gut that felt like a separate entity.  I can still feel it if I stay still.  It's as though I can now feel the pulse of my gut in the same way I would feel the pulse in my wrist or my neck.  That feeling that assures you that your heart is beating without your conscious effort like a separate entity from your brain.

Now what?

I dunno.  I'll keep you posted.

Joy

This morning during my stand I felt joy.

There was peace, there was vitality, there was all the quiet energy I always feel when my standing practice is at the one to two hour commitment.  And then underneath it I started to feel some of the numbness I've been feeling over the last couple of years begin to dissolve.  And there it was.  Natural joy.

In the past when I've reached this place I usually have some kind of neurotic reaction that goes something like this.  Oh man.  All that time wasted doing whatever it was I was doing when I could have been cultivating this happiness.  What's wrong with me?  Why can't I do the right thing all the time?  Why do I let myself get sidetracked.  Why do I undermine myself?

But recently I've understood something.  It doesn't really matter what I did, or didn't do last year, or the year before.  All that really matters is how I'm feeling right now, and what I'm doing right now.  And when I'm in the place, really in that place, and truly committed to that place, I don't look back over my life anymore as a series of failures.  My biography is simply the record of how I got to this good place.  And how I got to this place is a steadfast habit of returning to it.

This place is my true north.  I will always return to it inevitably, so I really need to let go of the remorse and the regret.

You can't hold on to natural joy.  But you can return to it.

Again.

And again.

This is it

A few years back I started an experiment. I would stand an hour a day for six months and see it this would improve my life any significant way.  Mostly, I was hoping, I think, it would yield some magic insight that would solve all my financial problems.

My life did improve. I wrote a lot. Made friends.  Had fun.  Had some success. My money situation didn't change. But I look back on it as a happy time.

I'm setting out on a new challenge now.  Two hours a day, for as long as I can keep up a commitment to two hours a day.  But I'm setting out with different expectations.

I just want to be happy now.  And tomorrow.

I don't think Zhan Zhuang will solve my money problems because Zhan Zhuang is not a money making thing. At best Zhan Zhuang will allow me to be happy enough making whatever sacrifices I'm going to have to make to improve my financial situation.

If it comes to that. There's always a possibility that an increase in creativity and right brain activity will make me rich. Or at least solvent. But that's not my motivation for this two hours.

My motivation is to develop the ability to rest happily in happiness.

This is remarkably difficult for me to do. About as hard as sitting quietly on a tightrope.

At one point during my mediation today, I could feel the energy in my right brain begin to grow. I could feel it. I knew that it was going to lead to well being. And yet I struggled like a cat in water. At though, somehow, this happiness could only mean bad things on the way. Disappointment, disillusionment, failure. All the price of happiness. Something in me is rock hard solid sure about this.

When the well being came, I felt a distinct sense of  "huh? Is this all there is to happiness?  Could it really be this ordinary."

Then I became conscious that I was standing in a room, staring into a ball of solid magnetic energy, having just half an hour before, felt the disappearance of my ego, and the presence of some kind of spiritual being.
And remembered, "oh yeah.  This isn't really very ordinary." In fact it's so lacking in ordinariness, that I am afraid to share it as something ordinary.

But it is ordinary, this amazing, unlimited, sustainable, gorgeous, vital energy. It is so ordinary. And such a tragedy that so few people in the world seem able, or willing, to feel it.

I am deeply blessed to have it, even for one day.

So I will not set a goal to grasp it, or make it permanent. Just take this day by day.

And continue to be grateful.

And continue to be amazed that this is it.

Two Hour Stand

This afternoon I did a two hour stand.

I'm not sure if I've ever done this before.  But I hope I'll have the stamina to do it again.  And to do it regularly.

The goal of this stand was not to experience any altered state of conscious, although I knew that would be inevitable.  It was really to be able to stand with this energy in an open and warm way and explore the fears and blocks that would arise as I did this.

I left with one profound insight.  That the erratic love I received from my mother, sometimes warm and deep and generous, sometimes cold and cruel and manipulative, is tightly wound and tangled and that many of the problems I'm having in my life have to do with my difficulty maintaining any natural, and consistent warmth and affection towards myself.

My father I remember as a mostly distant figure, sometimes gentle, often angry and hungover, and sometimes violently angry.  Later in life he underwent a period of remorse that led to him reducing his drinking, cutting off ties with his old drinking buddies. He became warmer and more loving towards me, but also isolated and dependent.

Nevertheless my parent stayed together, and my relationship with them is an exhausting and ongoing project. And probably won't be getting easier as they age.

Where does standing fit into this.

Standing gives me that stable nurturing that I have such hard time softening to. That's the stable nurturing I'm going to need if I'm going to be able to take care of myself and my son.

If I'm ever going to get rid of this fear of being loved, it's going to happen through this.

Today I could feel it happening. I could feel this gentle energy slowly softening my deepest pain. At one point, I cried like a baby, remembering the deepest, worst moments of loneliness when I was pregnant. Recognizing how alone and afraid I still feel sometimes. At other moments I could feel it playfully loosening me up and getting me ready, physically and emotionally for happiness.

Sometimes it felt sexual.  Sometimes it felt like a really nice, long lunch date.  I tried as much as possible to keep in simple and gentle.  That's what I need right now.

But two hours is the kind of deep, transformative commitment that I need right now.

May I care about myself enough to make that happen.

Wholeness

I had terrible, weird, vivid dreams last night. Dreams about the most disturbed people I've ever known. Violent dreams about sexual torture. Strange dreams about art shows with wooden pterodactyls flying across a room.

My fear is working its way out of my body and mind. But first I need to become more aware of it. That's hard to do with all the clutter I'm putting into it with the internet, and t.v. etc. I need to break the loop. This week I started a habit of fasting two days a week to get rid of some excess weight I've been carrying.  I wonder if I spend two days off the internet and TV what would happen. Two information fasts a week. Sunday, lets say and Wednesday.

Sundays are hard because its all my favourite shows. But I can catch up at another point. I don't need to see these shows at the same time as everyone else. And it's important to me to wake up feeling clear and calm on Mondays. Not tripped out by whatever hyper dramatic show had captured my mind. Also having a clear calm mind will help me better weather the discomforts of the food fast.

I need to do this because I know my writing is suffering and this book has to be good and near completion by the end of the year. I'm way behind what I wanted to be. But I can't get impatient with myself, because impatience is the root of writer's block. I need to keep that fine balance.

So what will I do on this day of digital fast? I'll meditate often. I'll centre my mind at that spot where I know that I am whole, that I am connected to a power far greater than this feeble sense of "self." I'll give my mind space to store up on confidence and calm.  I'll think about my book, so that on my food fast day I'll be primed for a busy work day. I'll read a lot. And I'll continue to weaken this cycle of fear. I will tap into my stores of insight.