Sunday, November 30, 2014

Interdependence of Body

This week I've been investigating the various ways that my happiness, productivity, sense of self and sense of time is dependent on my body.
  The insight I come to again and again is how when my attention is brought down to my gut brain I immediately feel more present. In general being conscious of the body brings us immediately into the present moment. To be caught up in the tangled relationship between the present and future inevitably means a disconnect from the mind and the body.  And a disconnect from the mind and the body sends us evermore spinning into the invented world.
  As a result of this investigation I've been paying more attention to the seven points of meditation posture: The anchor, my hands, my spine, my shoulders, my neck, my mouth, and my eyes. Attention to all of these points grounds me and grounds my mind. Paying attention to the eyes has been an especially important investigation this week. I have developed the tendency of closing my eyes in meditation, which is pleasant, but it does allow me more room to get lost.  I'f I'm really committed to the present, I need to keep my eyes open.
  It all comes down to that, doesn't it? Commitment. Developing habits not because you feel like it, but because you've made a decision to become stronger, wiser, happier and you do what has to be done to re-direct your energy. The challenge lies in redirecting the energy incrementally so that you don't throw the whole system off balance.
  That means working as much on accepting your body and mind as you do trying to change it.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Deconstructing Stillness

What do I want more than anything else in the world?

Here's a persistent thought that keeps running through my brain like a kind of thought worm. For this thought to have meaning a few things have to be true.  That there's this stable "I" that is wanting something.  That there is this stable thing that is and always will be more desirable than anything else. That there is this knowable world that I have a complete enough knowledge of to be able to choose this stable thing.  When I look at this thought from this angle, it seems pernicious.  How can this though result in anything that a desperate wandering through the world trying to find this perfect thing for this stable I that will always be.

Or I can look at it from another angle.  Yes whatever "I" created as the stable "I" is a construct, but it can be a useful construct.  And I can't know everything in the world, but I can decide from what I do know the thing, the quality, the state of being that is the most important thing.  The thing that holds all other things together.  I can use this question to tease out my deepest and more abiding values.

This morning in meditation as I was deconstructing this thought, I settled into my Tan Tien, felt as I do more and more frequently these days, a kind of stillness.  A fluid, but stable energy that could be a source of thriving peace and joy.  A place that could be an engine/a feedback loop, a self propelling mechanism.

As I settled into the warmth I could feel it feed itself, it rose quietly and pleasantly up my body.  I could see the kind of life that I could have so clearly.  It would be a life where I chose this vitality, this joy, this peace as what I wanted more than anything, and the more I chose it, the more it would choose and nourish me.

We are not our abilities.  We are our choices. I believe that's a direct quote from Harry Potter.  But the magic is in the choices.

What this thought is telling me is that I need to choose.  If I'm going to have a path through the wilderness, for me and for Ben, I need to choose and I need to commit to that choice.  And I need to do that with peace and with joy.


Monday, November 10, 2014

Deconstructing Emotions

This week I start to deconstruct all the things that emotions are dependent upon.

Of course the tendency is to start with the unpleasant emtions, shame, anger, self-hatred, boredom, anxiety.

One of the things that has struck me so far is how much emotions are dependent on the interplay of stillness and motion. Shame and self hatred feel as still and solid of rocks in my body.  But they are of course dependent on the movement of unhappy memories and judgemental thoughts.  Whereas happiness feel fleeting, but it's dependent on cultivating that deep feeling of stillness and stability in the gut.

Or what I've come to start calling the nucleus.  I've been getting this feeling lately of expansion, with the growing energy in my tan tien as centre to all the power and energy in my body.

Tolle calls stillness a more advanced intelligence.  And that's certainly what it feel like.  As though if I could be dependent on this, instead of thoughts and emotions to drive me, I would be operating from a more sophisticated level.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Deconstructing The Senses

This week in my JOL3 practice, I'm deconstructing the senses.

Yesterday when I started this I wasn't quite sure what that meant.  I thought perhaps I was supposed to be deconstructing the sensations in my body.  So in my early morning meditation today, I did just that largely in my Tan Tien.  I felt this big block of numbness that I often felt and start to feel the different layers of anxiety keeping that numbness intact.

But later, when I did 30 minutes of standing meditation, I actually started deconstructing sound, hearing, and began to realize what an important practice this is.

Hearing is such a complex sense for me because I spend so much time listening to the sound of my own voice. I forget to listen to the sounds outside me,  I forget to listen to the sound of my breathing.  I forget to pay attention to the data that tells me that I'm alive.

And then there's the inner ear, the most important component of balance.  If I'm not listening then I'm not exercising the inner ear, and before I know it my life is off balance, everything goes off track.

Deconstructing the senses means looking at how there are so many levels to hearing, what I hear, how I hear, that there is no such thing really as a unified hearing or purpose to hearing. Yes i need to hear my inner voice, but I also need to hear the pauses between words, the length of my breath, the world outside.

"Are you listening to me."  This is an instruction I hear from myself again and again and again.

This week I use it as support for my practice.