Locked In

Today meditation seemed to pass so quickly.

And yet it was momentous. I've been listening at night to Myoshin Kelly's lectures on Bodhicitta and joy. They seem to be seeping into the skeleton of my practice. I am more conscious everyday of the presence slightly behind me to the left. The more I settle into a relatiionship with it, the more the thinking energy in my head seems to move to the left. The more conscious I become of the painful loop of energy that is usually iterating on the right.  If I watch the suffering I can see how my brain has simply developed the mechanical habit of rewarding it.  But if I sit with it, I can see how I can move that reward glue to the left.

This feels like it's going to take a lot of time. I'm still stuck in a mindset that wants to improve myself by moving the energy from the right to the left. Instead of simply feeling the permanence of this left side awareness and letting the rebalancing happen on its own. To just sit and feel grateful.

When I do that, the lovingkindness begins to build, to activate. I remember that there are people right now sitting in caves loving me because they love everything, wanting to reach out to me. I remember that I want to reach out to them.

It's here.  All the love that I need and will ever need it here.  It doesn't matter if I feel it or not. It's still here.

It's easier, perhaps, for me to see this when I'm feeling compassion towards Ben, wishing he could feel the love that's always here for him.

Either way though. In today's meditation I felt locked in.  I felt that feeling of just sitting in love and letting it do what it's going to do.

May I truly be locked in. And may we all.

vulnerability

I used to think that the goal of meditation was to control this mind that monkeys around chasing story lines like butterflies. But these days my practice is more like the interplay between pure awareness and monkey. The trick as always is to differentiate between natural suffering and the suffering that is created by attachment to suffering.

Today I started my meditation with a back to basics plan. First twenty minutes watching the breath, second twenty minutes delighting in basic goodness. Towards the half hour point a story line took root, some righteous anger I felt yesterday at a security guard at the metro who wouldn't let Ben and I pass after we lost our return tickets for the Montreal Marathon.  All runners are given free tickets on race day.  I discovered just as we were starting the 10K that we didn't have our tickets, but I figured they'd let us through with the other runners taking the metro home from the finish point.  They didn't. The security guard suggested we beg other runners for tickets or money.

I guess I didn't have the moral energy to face begging. In the end we ran home another 10k and turned it into a story about how we unofficially ran a half marathon.  But I felt compelled last night to write a letter of complaint.

At the root of this story is probably my financial concerns.  I'm going to have to beg my parents for money to make ends meet while I finish yet one more revision of my proposal. This situation with the security guard touches that part of me that know I don't have any emergency money for us in times of crisis.  I don't even have enough money for us for basic living.

At the same time I can't help noticing that my anxiety just doesn't seem to have the roots it used to.  I'd like to think it's because I'm healthier and not because I've become better at denial.   I certainly feel healthier.

Still, I'm conscious of how important it is to sit every evening with that vulnerability and shame, and detach from the temptation to numb it with television, avoid it with bickering, and distract it with pleasures.  These difficult emotions are the energy that creativity runs on.  Without their companionship, I'm unlikely to ever have a real habit of peace and joy.

Daemon Again

It's to the left, above my shoulder, this presence I feel after I've maintained an hour long practice for a significant chunk of time. It's to the soul, what the ego is to the self, or so I've read. This energy that feels like a self, but also something much stronger and purer.

It's the reason I do this, to have a sense of direction, power and connection. And now it's the reason I maintain this practice.

This morning I had such a strong sense of how regular, long meditation practice, at least an hour a day every morning makes of my body a kind of antenna.  I feel connected to this kind of frequency and it keeps me on the right path. All I have to do is rest in it and it penetrates my mind.

But then what?, says the inchworm when it reaches the top of the blade of grass.

To just be. To be the wisdom that shines from within. To help other recognize that wisdom in themselves. To allow ordinary bad habits dry up, and ordinary good habits to glow the extraordinary..

To be rich in this energy and power.

It's Over

This labour day weekend my mother invited Ben and I to Underhill House, a cottage owned by a wealthy friend. So called because it's a house built into a hill. The roof is grass, and light comes in through a series of skylight. Downhill from the house was a lovely man made pond. By far the most tranquil, private spot I've ever meditated in. No witnesses other than the occasional dragonfly.

I had a religious moment, sitting by the glass surface, pines reflecting the emptiness that I aspire to in meditation. I felt the larger witness to it all, that vast presence that is always there no matter how alone we are.

Alongside the feeling of vast presence, was the habit of returning to my petty squabbles with my mother, my anxieties, my feeling of helplessness over the distractions that continue to buzz through my mind.

When will it ever end?

And then in the next moment I recognized this as grasping.  It ended there in that moment.  Of course I want that "ending" to last. But all that has ended really is my awareness of it.  Presence never ends.

Looking for happiness in anything else is like trying to harness a dragonfly for thrills when really the most exciting experience is the pond.

This presence it seems, has followed me home, although the truth is it's always been here in my home, however small and however squalid.

I don't need to harness it's power.  I just need to keep remembering that it's here.

I need to let it harness me.