Monday, September 29, 2014

Nurturing Power

Yesterday I completed my second 10K race.  Big difference between this year and last year.  I felt good, I felt strong, mentally and physically.  I ran that race with ease and joy.  I ran that race with power.

Last year, I just ran/walked the race.  I had a good time.  I had a great moment.  But this year was a good moment from beginning to end. So, I've decided to sign up for the half marathon.  I think I'll sign Ben up too. A real adventure for both of us.

What can I do to maintain this power and nurture it so that we can share this great moment next year? Well first I can realize how much I want power.  What do I want more than anything else in the world?  I ask myself this question constantly throughout the day, and I feel like I will never stop asking it until I have the right answer.

The answer is power.  But not in the way that it is usually defined in my society.  When I mean power, I mean this moving energy that keeps me running with ease.  This mixture of body memory and thriving energy. The ability to make myself and help others to be really, truly happy.

This is what I want more than anything in the world.  Real power.  And this is what I want to nurture in myself and in Ben.

After the race I downloaded an app to help me with my training.  It suggested I choose an activity to cross train with.  I decided to make this an opportunity to renew my Zhan Zhuang practice.  I still meditate, but it's been a while since I stood. Really stood.  I'd like to bring standing back into my life and into my running practice.  So at least twice a week I'm going to stand for 40 minutes.  I may stand for shorter times on a daily basis.  Maybe get back to standing as part of my meditation practice.  But it's all about nurturing power.

I forget this again and again and again.  But there's only one way to remember it.  By being powerful. And then power becomes its own habit.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Strange Loop

Douglas Hofstadter has a theory that consciousness of "I" is a strange loop. What he means by this is that consciousness is a recursive process.  At a certain point the mind gets enough data and experience to create a story of "I" and maintain it as an ongoing narrative.  But if we actually break this loop down I is really a logically recursive loop, It's like the "I" has folded in on itself and now creates its own energy and momentum.
  But also its own suffering because there is something, after all, artificial about it.
  I have a theory now that meditation shifts us back into the strange loop of natural intelligence. In fact, more and more I can actually feel this loop as a physical energy.  In time we become adept at switching out the "I" loop and into a place of peace, beyond concepts, and those of us who become really adept at it eventually see that natural loop fold back in on itself. From there we can switch in and out of "I" and natural intelligence depending on what our life demands.
  When that happens we can re-take control of the now.  If the now of our life is constantly defined by technology, then yes it will become more and more difficult to imagine a future, and not being able to imagine a future is profoundly demotivating.  Imagining a future, though, that's just like the past merely repeats the problems of the past.
  That's why it's useful to have an idea of god, or a spirit, or a sense of a future that is bright, but fuzzy and not entirely under our control.  A good future, a future we can be grateful for, a future filled with compassion and joy.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

I Will Be An Agent of Change

This week in my Tergar practice I am meditating of work, on its problems and its joys.

On Tuesday I sent a proposal to an agent, and all week I feel like I'm waiting in line at a rollercoaster. Will she take me on, will she pass, and will I have to keep waiting in line forever.  If she takes it, I go on a huge up and down experience of finishing and marketing a book.  I she passes, like the other agents have, I need to decide whether I keep waiting, or give up and try another ride.

The evening I sent in the proposal I went to the book launch of an acquaintance younger and now more successful than I.  She signed the book "to the first bookish person I ever knew."  I should be happy for her, and happy for whatever influence I've had on her.  But I'm envious.

So while I was meditating on work this week I sat plunk in the middle of that billious feeling.  It was a very instructive pond of toxic suffering.  It taught me that the miscerceptions that were holding me back in my work was and continues to be the idea that work is about me, this self that I've created.  And so because of this misperception I think that publication or success will add something to me, and that failure will take away something from me.

But those are just the highs of work.  The joys of work are found in being part of something, and believing your part of something that will liberate people from their suffering and help them find more happiness. Without that work is just an empty rollercoaster of thrills and long, punishing waits.

I need to wake up every morning and feel that I'm an agent of change.  An author, but an author that is part of something bigger and more important.

Shifting out of the self-driven path, I feel the joy. I feel the flow of energy that I want my work to be a part of.  I feel the hope.

I feel the possibility that I can be an agent of change.


Sunday, September 7, 2014

Relationships

This week as part of my Tergar practice I meditated on problematic relationships in my life and on the misperceptions that are holding these problems in place.

The misperception that comes up again and again and again, is the tendency to see other people's identities as fixed. They do something, or have done something that upsets me, and then that's it, I have this expectation of the worst, from them, and from myself in the way that I relate to them.  I feel like I have to protect my vulnerable self from their worst qualities.

The Tergar meditation on this follows a process that is really helpful in releasing these misperceptions.  After relaxing my mind into open awareness, I focus for a while on my basic goodness, on my desire for happiness and for the best for myself and for others, on my steadily growing vital energy, on my ongoing motivation to stay reasonably organized and healthy.  Once I've done this I am ready to allow a problematic relationship to come up in my mind. As I begin to contemplate this relationship, I inevitably remember that this person has basic goodness as well, that this person wants to be happy, and believes what they are doing is towards this, even in those moments when they lapse. Even if they are someone who has lots of moments of lapsing.

The other misperception that has come up frequently in the last week is the difficulty that I have in letting go of relationships.  Especially bad relationships.  I ruminate them, I remember them, I hold on to them, even when those relationships need space, or maybe even termination.

I feel like I need to learn and re-learn the difference between giving up on a relationship and letting go of a relationship.  For instance, giving Ben room to make mistakes and live the consequences of unwise decisions is not "giving up" it's letting go, for his own growth.  Not letting go has ruinous consequences for both of us. Every time I try to take control, I cement the idea that I expect failure from him.  But mistakes are not failure. And failure can be rich ground for learning.  He has many more strengths than weaknesses and I need to start focussing on that and helping him to focus on that.

He's had enough success under his belt.  My job is to remind him that he's capable of maintaining that success. I've made the invisible stumbling blocks visible to him.  It's up to him now to surmount them.

And I need to start letting go of these relationships so that I can focus on my own growth. My own strengths. My own success. Nothing gives a child expectations of success like seeing a parent succeed. Nothing saddles a child with failure than a parent who sees themselves as a failure.