Wisdom, according to what I'm learning in Tergar's Joy of Living 3, is our awareness of reality. That includes our awareness of how reality can be distorted and shaped by our perceptions. In JOL 1 the meditative practice focussed on thoughts and using our awareness to calm the mind. JOL 2 focussed on compassion and lovingkindness and increasing the power of the heart. JOL 3 is about bringing awareness fo our perceptual level.
Perceptions are different from thoughts in that they are beliefs about the world that we see, rather than just mental vocalizations, pictures and feeling.
I discovered a good example of the difference after doing a simple wisdom meditation that started first with a meditation on basic goodness. There might be many thought that could arise on a meditation of basic goodness, but the perceptions are somewhat different. For instance I might become aware of a perception that basic goodness doesn't feel good enough.
Yesterday after this meditation, I did the dishes and noticed that in relaxing and resting in my basic goodness, my perception of the mundane task transformed form something I resisted to something I could deeply enjoy and appreciate.
Last night I had a powerful meditative experience. I woke up in the middle of the night gripped with my all too familiar financial anxiety. It seemed so solid, disaster seemed so inevitable. Slowly after about twenty minutes these anxieties began to dissolve and I began to feel my chi ebbing its way into my being slowly dissolving all the suffering. At that point I began to feel that my natural intelligence was far stronger than any of the misperceptions that had led me into these financial challenges. I could go to sleep feeling comforted and assured in my ability to find a way out of that particular prison.
One of the central themes of this course is that whatever prison of suffering we have created, we have created it and thus we can un-create it.
The first step is understanding that this perceptual level exists.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Wisdom
This week I start Joy of Living 3, which is about cultivating wisdom. I've been re-reading this year's old posts and notice a mistake that I made in writing that wisdom was having a conceptual awareness of how things work. In fact it's the opposite. Wisdom is going beyond a conceptual awareness of how things work. Wisdom is having an experiential awareness of power and powerlessness and knowing how to choose power.
Many years ago, in my late twenties I had a series of disturbing dreams that led me into psychotherapy. I'd been experimenting with lucid dreaming, waking up in my dreams, cultivating the ability to fly. But somehow this power started to grow out of control. I started to feel it in my daily reality and it terrified me, this magnetic energy. My psychotherapist asked me why I was giving so much power to a force outside of myself. Gradually I stopped being aware of it, my neurotic symptoms abated, and discovered a gentler form of this magnetic feeling energy in tai chi.
But it hit me yesterday that this power was never outside of me. This power was in me. This was a concrete experience of how powerful my mind was. For some reason I wasn't ready to own that power.
I am now. But when I say that there is a danger of it sounding narcissistic. I don't mean by this that I alone have this tremendous power. I believe this power is a sort of commons. A shared power that is accessible to all and that anyone can harness as long as the rules are respected. This power is both a place and a self that we all share, only too few people know of its existence.
Every day now I spend more and more of my time in this place, resting, drawing from the source and giving back by sharing this knowledge and bringing this energy into all I do, whether it's writing my book or keeping my home tidy and liveable.
In cultivating this power for myself I cultivate it for everyone. And in cultivating it for everyone, I cultivate it for myself.
And it is an actual, real power, not a concept. I can feel it, I can breathe it, I can taste it.
And I can make it last.
Many years ago, in my late twenties I had a series of disturbing dreams that led me into psychotherapy. I'd been experimenting with lucid dreaming, waking up in my dreams, cultivating the ability to fly. But somehow this power started to grow out of control. I started to feel it in my daily reality and it terrified me, this magnetic energy. My psychotherapist asked me why I was giving so much power to a force outside of myself. Gradually I stopped being aware of it, my neurotic symptoms abated, and discovered a gentler form of this magnetic feeling energy in tai chi.
But it hit me yesterday that this power was never outside of me. This power was in me. This was a concrete experience of how powerful my mind was. For some reason I wasn't ready to own that power.
I am now. But when I say that there is a danger of it sounding narcissistic. I don't mean by this that I alone have this tremendous power. I believe this power is a sort of commons. A shared power that is accessible to all and that anyone can harness as long as the rules are respected. This power is both a place and a self that we all share, only too few people know of its existence.
Every day now I spend more and more of my time in this place, resting, drawing from the source and giving back by sharing this knowledge and bringing this energy into all I do, whether it's writing my book or keeping my home tidy and liveable.
In cultivating this power for myself I cultivate it for everyone. And in cultivating it for everyone, I cultivate it for myself.
And it is an actual, real power, not a concept. I can feel it, I can breathe it, I can taste it.
And I can make it last.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
New Post
This morning was a watershed moment in my meditation practice.
It started with what are now the basics. A dedication and focusing of my intentions to meditate for the well being of everyone. A moment of open awareness where I rest my mind with the barest possible effort on the sounds that surround me.
I've been doing The Mirror meditation, which has resulted in a sense of being alone in a room, just me, the furniture, my bare awareness, of the furniture, and of my baseline discomfort--or as Mingyur Rinpoche calls it, "neuronal gossip."
After a minute or two, my awareness of sound began to sink into my throat, into an awareness of my vocal chords and how they have been shaped by the routine verbal abuse that surrounded me when I was young. How my voice in my head has so often mimicked and iterated that abuse, mostly towards myself, too often towards others. As the suffering of those body memories began to dissolve, I started to feel the natural compassion in my heart, the desire to be free of this conditioning and habits that have arisen as a result of that conditioning.
Suddenly I was angry. But it was a good anger, a healthy anger, a self protective anger that did not have to be abuse, but could be a healthy assertion of my right to experience sustained love and joy. I could feel this strong, communicative anger rising into my throat. I could feel the promise and potential of this new confidence.
I could also feel myself shifting in my mediation practice from a desire to experience a state of being, a place of calm, an altered state of consciousness, to a desire to experience a process, a purification, or alchemization of my ordinary experience. Not every moment had to be peace. There could be authentic peace, even in anger.
And then it started. The noise. My landladies had picked this week to replace the fire escape. They are responsible, wonderful landladies, so the spiral staircase to be replaced was far from dangerous. It was, merely old and rusty, and noisy. My neighbours who are young use it often, especially in the middle of the night when they are coming home from parties, or bars. I can hear the vibrations of their half drunken ascents. It is a good thing that it is being replaced.
The workers had arrived with high power drills to bust up the cement to sink the posts of the new, shiny, solid black fire escape. Damn, I thought, for a moment, because my first instinct was to move, or end my mediation. I was having such a good meditation, really making progress. And then I didn't move.
I sat and listened to their Quebecois banter about the technical aspect of the project ahead. And sat some more, as the drilling started, and sat even longer as the drilling got louder and my entire apartment building shook from the vibrations.
I sat because it was so crystal clear to me what an amazing allegory this was for what was happening to me in this moment. There was the old cement like foundation of my mind, this way of seeing things that kept me in this endless recurring spiral going from one state to another, making progress, but never really getting anywhere, or so it felt. I was tired of this climb.
And now there was this new more solid spiral staircase. On this new staircase I would be thinking less about where I was, what I was seeing, or what I was hearing, and be happier to simply experience where I was, what I was seeing, and what I was hearing.
Suddenly this sound and the feel of this drilling changed from a disruptive force that I would have once fled from without giving it a second thought, to a deeply therapeutic process. By the end of the day there would be a new foundation, and a shiny new escape route, or entry point. And it was all because of these wonderful workers with their loud, awesome drills. I could feel this process at the deepest levels of my soul.
A good meditation became a great mediation, maybe one of the most memorable meditations of my meditation journey, because of noise. Because of how I was perceiving this sound, it was like the best sound in the world. In fact so good that by the end of the meditation I found myself enthusiastically looking forward to a week of hammering and drilling and metal work. (They have to replace the balconies too!)
I'm often hesitant to declare a meditation experience foundational. So many times I've written breathless accounts of states of being that I was sure meant that everything in my life would be better from now on in. And then I make another turn on the staircase and it feels like all I'm doing is looking back and not going anywhere.
But I'm yelling it from my balcony today. I've changed, and I will continue changing for the better, no matter how much every moment of the rest of my life may appear, on the surface, to be exactly the same.
It started with what are now the basics. A dedication and focusing of my intentions to meditate for the well being of everyone. A moment of open awareness where I rest my mind with the barest possible effort on the sounds that surround me.
I've been doing The Mirror meditation, which has resulted in a sense of being alone in a room, just me, the furniture, my bare awareness, of the furniture, and of my baseline discomfort--or as Mingyur Rinpoche calls it, "neuronal gossip."
After a minute or two, my awareness of sound began to sink into my throat, into an awareness of my vocal chords and how they have been shaped by the routine verbal abuse that surrounded me when I was young. How my voice in my head has so often mimicked and iterated that abuse, mostly towards myself, too often towards others. As the suffering of those body memories began to dissolve, I started to feel the natural compassion in my heart, the desire to be free of this conditioning and habits that have arisen as a result of that conditioning.
Suddenly I was angry. But it was a good anger, a healthy anger, a self protective anger that did not have to be abuse, but could be a healthy assertion of my right to experience sustained love and joy. I could feel this strong, communicative anger rising into my throat. I could feel the promise and potential of this new confidence.
I could also feel myself shifting in my mediation practice from a desire to experience a state of being, a place of calm, an altered state of consciousness, to a desire to experience a process, a purification, or alchemization of my ordinary experience. Not every moment had to be peace. There could be authentic peace, even in anger.
And then it started. The noise. My landladies had picked this week to replace the fire escape. They are responsible, wonderful landladies, so the spiral staircase to be replaced was far from dangerous. It was, merely old and rusty, and noisy. My neighbours who are young use it often, especially in the middle of the night when they are coming home from parties, or bars. I can hear the vibrations of their half drunken ascents. It is a good thing that it is being replaced.
The workers had arrived with high power drills to bust up the cement to sink the posts of the new, shiny, solid black fire escape. Damn, I thought, for a moment, because my first instinct was to move, or end my mediation. I was having such a good meditation, really making progress. And then I didn't move.
I sat and listened to their Quebecois banter about the technical aspect of the project ahead. And sat some more, as the drilling started, and sat even longer as the drilling got louder and my entire apartment building shook from the vibrations.
I sat because it was so crystal clear to me what an amazing allegory this was for what was happening to me in this moment. There was the old cement like foundation of my mind, this way of seeing things that kept me in this endless recurring spiral going from one state to another, making progress, but never really getting anywhere, or so it felt. I was tired of this climb.
And now there was this new more solid spiral staircase. On this new staircase I would be thinking less about where I was, what I was seeing, or what I was hearing, and be happier to simply experience where I was, what I was seeing, and what I was hearing.
Suddenly this sound and the feel of this drilling changed from a disruptive force that I would have once fled from without giving it a second thought, to a deeply therapeutic process. By the end of the day there would be a new foundation, and a shiny new escape route, or entry point. And it was all because of these wonderful workers with their loud, awesome drills. I could feel this process at the deepest levels of my soul.
A good meditation became a great mediation, maybe one of the most memorable meditations of my meditation journey, because of noise. Because of how I was perceiving this sound, it was like the best sound in the world. In fact so good that by the end of the meditation I found myself enthusiastically looking forward to a week of hammering and drilling and metal work. (They have to replace the balconies too!)
I'm often hesitant to declare a meditation experience foundational. So many times I've written breathless accounts of states of being that I was sure meant that everything in my life would be better from now on in. And then I make another turn on the staircase and it feels like all I'm doing is looking back and not going anywhere.
But I'm yelling it from my balcony today. I've changed, and I will continue changing for the better, no matter how much every moment of the rest of my life may appear, on the surface, to be exactly the same.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Power
This week has been big week in my spiritual journey. I'm feeling a tremendous wakening of chi, kundalini, bochicitta, whatever it is. It's more powerful in me than it's ever been.
It started about a week ago with a fluttering in my throat. I'd been working on resting in the energy of my Tan Tien and then suddenly I started feeling this energy in my throat, like a trapped butterfly. I started to do a little research into throat chakras, and decided that this must be energy that is moving up, unblocking my very tense vocal chords. Resting in my vocal chords brings back a lot of childhood memories, not all good. So much fighting in my family, harsh words, abuse. This was a good opportunity to work that through.
Once the energy in my throat was worked through, I discovered an effervescence, that I suspect is the "taste of purification" that Shinzen Young talks about.
This is apparently a watershed moment in meditation, when you shift from meditating to have states of being, towards meditating as part of a process of purification. In this state you are content to face your pain, your suffering, your circumstances because you realize that the way you are experiencing this pain will make every future moment of your life better.
There are blocks, I know, to my power an energy. But I'm feeling more and more everyday that I'm working my way through them. I'm running, I'm eating better, I'm feeling better. I'm still feeling blocked in my writing, but I'm feeling confident that this can change.
There are perceptions and misconceptions that keep all this stagnation in place, and I know I probably don't see them yet. But I will.
It's going to be an exciting six months. Looking forward to finding out what's on the other side.
It started about a week ago with a fluttering in my throat. I'd been working on resting in the energy of my Tan Tien and then suddenly I started feeling this energy in my throat, like a trapped butterfly. I started to do a little research into throat chakras, and decided that this must be energy that is moving up, unblocking my very tense vocal chords. Resting in my vocal chords brings back a lot of childhood memories, not all good. So much fighting in my family, harsh words, abuse. This was a good opportunity to work that through.
Once the energy in my throat was worked through, I discovered an effervescence, that I suspect is the "taste of purification" that Shinzen Young talks about.
This is apparently a watershed moment in meditation, when you shift from meditating to have states of being, towards meditating as part of a process of purification. In this state you are content to face your pain, your suffering, your circumstances because you realize that the way you are experiencing this pain will make every future moment of your life better.
There are blocks, I know, to my power an energy. But I'm feeling more and more everyday that I'm working my way through them. I'm running, I'm eating better, I'm feeling better. I'm still feeling blocked in my writing, but I'm feeling confident that this can change.
There are perceptions and misconceptions that keep all this stagnation in place, and I know I probably don't see them yet. But I will.
It's going to be an exciting six months. Looking forward to finding out what's on the other side.
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