Sunday, June 28, 2015

Choice

I have chosen refuge in my meditation practice.  And in doing so, I have chosen a different sense of "self."

Where my self was once the random generator of thoughts and beliefs that propelled me in ways of which I was only half conscious.  Now it's this quiet, powerful energy that is snaking itself throughout my whole body and brain.

Last night while I was meditating, I felt more profoundly safe than I've ever felt in my life. It didn't last, but it was a glimpse of the kind of safety I wish I'd felt more of as a child, and that I wish I could give to Ben.  It struck me this intense difference between refuge and escape.

Television, social media, dumb arguments in my mind, daydreams in which I am more important than I am in actual life, these are all escape. Refuge is a place to be safe and renew. It's a place that is genuinely empowering.

It also hit me last night, how desperate I am for approval. I pretend it's not important to me, but it haunts my ruminations constantly. Right now for instance I had a terror that I might not be able to write out of the new "self." Maybe my writing wouldn't be as good coming from this silent energy.  What I was really anxious about was whether or not my writing would be impressive. Elegant.  All the things that are about approval, and not really about love of language.

In fact the space that this other self creates between thoughts, between words, between insights, will inevitably make my writing better.

I know this. So I choose it.


Sunday, June 21, 2015

Liberation

This week I've been feeling a shift in my practice. An awareness of awareness at an almost machine like level. When the spine is straight, energy flows naturally, the belly fills with oxygen like a reservoir and vitality thaws and then runs hot. It is the technology of the soul. It is the mechanism of liberation.

I understand it. I see it. Why is it so hard to make it permanent? Why can't I just be free. Free of suffering financial anxiety, loneliness, self-hatred. Why is that part still so hard?

Because I don't believe in it.  I don't believe it's possible.  Or because I feel I would have to give up something for that belief. To be truly free, I would have to renounce things. I would have to renounce the belief that lasting happiness is found in money, success, fame.

Another reason that it's hard is because that level of pure awareness takes commitment. I feel it because I've been practising for an hour in the morning and evening. To keep it up, I would have to maintain that level of practice and commitment.

What I want is effortless liberation, but to get there I have to expend the effort of commitment. Endure productive discomfort, make commitment the driving force in my life, not desire.

Without that commitment, awareness has no foundation. Motivation is always going to be fluctuating, and so will happiness.

The foundation to happiness and liberation is awareness, the profound, pervasive presence of awareness. And awareness I can feel. An awareness that has an energy and force and power of it's own.  An awareness that is committed to me, and that I can only perceive when I am committed to it.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Beyond Concept

A straight spine tells the mind, and the world that we are alert. Relaxed muscles, focussed eyes, solid base, I sit and within minutes I feel pure awareness begin to uncurl in me.

The challenge now is to just let it be, let it change, let it change me. The challenge now is to stop throughout the day, check my spine, my focus, my muscles and remember to stay alert and relaxed. Like waking up in a dream.

Last year during my JOYL3 course, it was recommended that we find a default practice that we go to when we notice we're suffering. For some people it's the mirror practice, where we pretend to stare in the mirror. For others  I don't really have one.  Or if I do I'm not aware of it. But maybe it's this, straight spine, relaxed muscles, alert, but open.

Last week I dove deep into shame and the buried feedback loop.  I think I made some progress in forgiving myself and others.  But this week I keep it simple.  Just be alert and open. And see what happens.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Shame

Last weekend retreat on the subject of pain has given me the courage to explore all kinds of things I don't often have the courage to feel. When we let go of our aversion to pain in the body, it's easier to let go of aversion to emotional pain. On Friday I spent the day meditating on the most subtle, but painful emotion of them all: shame.

There is so much power in shame because it is the deepest most negative feedback loop in our mind, in our heart and in our body. I feel it buried deep in my gut, hating this constructed self that grows stronger and more constructed the more I hate it. It's a feeling I am averse to, so I avoid it, mostly by looking for opportunities to shame others. And the more I do that, the more deeply it's reinforced. It's a unconscious practice, but the one that has the most power to destroy us.

As such, it also has the most power to liberate us. But here's the rub: only if we're prepared to feel and familiarize ourselves with the shame.  Or prepare to feel the numbness that we create around our shame.

I grew up in a family steeped in shame. My Catholic baby boomer parents caught between the sexual liberation movement and their own strict upbringings married as a result of pregnancy. Shame was the foundation of their marriage and my life. I chose liberation over Catholicism in the end. And here I am now a single mother. At least not in a marriage of shame.  But still alone and struggling and feeling bad about myself and the life I am trying to build for my son.

How might a week of meditating on shame change that?

Well first shame is a very grounding emotion. I feel it most strongly in the root areas of my body. Second it's a blocking emotion.  By feeling it I may be able to unblock a lot of frozen, numb energy that is stopping me from thriving in life, creatively, financially, socially.

What's important to keep in mind is that I'm not trying to get rid of shame. That may be possible, but that's not my goal here. My goal is to harness the power of a so called negative feeling so that I can be happier and suffer less. My goal is to turn poison into medicine.

My goal is not so much liberation as the path of liberation.