Tibetan Buddhism believes that the main cause of suffering is "grasping." It's a word that brings up a lot of associations, desire, tension, desperation. As I become more senstive to the inner workings of my mind and my body, I notice more the subtle pervasive grasping in my body, and part of my brain that feel like white knuckle. This feeling of deep and ingrained tension has become over the course of my life a normal way of being.
Last week the solution to this problem seemed so simple. Lock in to those parts of my brain that bring relaxation, the pitutary gland that may be the "third eye," that place in my heart that wants freedom from suffering that may be the pump to a well of oxitocin, the place in my gut that keeps the serotonin dripping.
But this morning I began to feel in my meditation that this might just be another form of grasping. If I were going to put this in the language of programming, there needs to be a base case. We can't just live in an infinte loop of feel good. Can we? And would we want to, if we could. Isn't that just the other side of the suffering habit. It's just habit.
it's so important to develop the skill of unlocking. Of just being with whatever shows up, the joy, the peace, the suffering, the tension. The fear of the worst that may or may not happen.
So this week, as I continue to practice compassion for a loved one, I will also practice unlocking everything, along with my heart.
Showing posts with label brain lock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brain lock. Show all posts
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Saturday, September 26, 2015
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.
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.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Leaning in, Sinking down
Last night I had one of the best stands I've had in a long time. I'd just finished the first day of a two day conference (Montreal WordCamp) and I was feeling that emptiness I sometimes feel when I've been around a group of people. Maybe I'm an introvert who feels drained around other humans. I don't know. Though I want human company, I often feel this profound feeling of depletion and despair afterwards.
Too often in the past I've dealt with this problem with distraction. I come home feeling empty. Then I fill the emptiness with food and television,which just makes the emptiness worse. And then I go into these social situations, that I want, from a feeling of vulnerability.
Last night was different. I've been working with thoughts and feelings in my meditation practice, and last night I decided to divide and conquer. I did some standing with my loneliness (made a little sharper by the fact that my son left for two weeks with his father.) I alternated this with a feeling of open awareness. I did some standing and sitting with smaller feelings, my aversion to cleaning the kitchen that I left a mess this morning, my frustration that my son had pulled out all the cable, internet connectors in an attempt to take his Playstation, etc.
I stayed with this feelings and felt the thinking feeling in my forehead, as I do more and more. Later in the evening I found the motivation to really stand for well over an hour.
I felt the warmth of this universal energy that is always available to me. I felt a voice telling me that I didn't need to choose this energy anymore. The choice had been made. I am this energy and I have chosen myself. The feedback loop is now a core part of me. No decision. It's just maintenance.
As I stood, the warmth began to sink and grow. But towards the end of the stand I began to notice different kind of energy. There was, not so much a numbness in my forehead, but an energy close to a neutral sense of being. Not the usual tension I feel there. Or the sense of relief when i've stopped living in that part of my brain. Just an energy, a presence.
Later I wondered if maybe this was what it felt when thought was in the service of awareness/attention, and not the other way around.
This morning as I was standing, I found myself getting distracted and pulled into the stream of thought. I reminded myself, as I've been doing the last week or so, to lean into this energy and then alternate it with open awareness. But this time it occurred to me to lean in and then do what I'd always been doing in Tai Chi, sink down. Or rather position myself to allow the energy to sink of its own accord.
Lean in, sink down. I realized that this could be a very effective mantra for bringing my attention back to deeper core awareness.
When I sink, or position for sinking, I start to feel all the deeper parts of my brain, all the other lobes below and beyond this frontal cortex. I know my brain is getting deeper and stronger. And I know I'm becoming deeper and stronger as a result of this practice.
As I continue this, I will feel this strong desire to bring this connection to other people.
And then, as the end of a day or a conference, I'll feel less and less drained. More and more energized.
The loop, once blocked, is now open.
Too often in the past I've dealt with this problem with distraction. I come home feeling empty. Then I fill the emptiness with food and television,which just makes the emptiness worse. And then I go into these social situations, that I want, from a feeling of vulnerability.
Last night was different. I've been working with thoughts and feelings in my meditation practice, and last night I decided to divide and conquer. I did some standing with my loneliness (made a little sharper by the fact that my son left for two weeks with his father.) I alternated this with a feeling of open awareness. I did some standing and sitting with smaller feelings, my aversion to cleaning the kitchen that I left a mess this morning, my frustration that my son had pulled out all the cable, internet connectors in an attempt to take his Playstation, etc.
I stayed with this feelings and felt the thinking feeling in my forehead, as I do more and more. Later in the evening I found the motivation to really stand for well over an hour.
I felt the warmth of this universal energy that is always available to me. I felt a voice telling me that I didn't need to choose this energy anymore. The choice had been made. I am this energy and I have chosen myself. The feedback loop is now a core part of me. No decision. It's just maintenance.
As I stood, the warmth began to sink and grow. But towards the end of the stand I began to notice different kind of energy. There was, not so much a numbness in my forehead, but an energy close to a neutral sense of being. Not the usual tension I feel there. Or the sense of relief when i've stopped living in that part of my brain. Just an energy, a presence.
Later I wondered if maybe this was what it felt when thought was in the service of awareness/attention, and not the other way around.
This morning as I was standing, I found myself getting distracted and pulled into the stream of thought. I reminded myself, as I've been doing the last week or so, to lean into this energy and then alternate it with open awareness. But this time it occurred to me to lean in and then do what I'd always been doing in Tai Chi, sink down. Or rather position myself to allow the energy to sink of its own accord.
Lean in, sink down. I realized that this could be a very effective mantra for bringing my attention back to deeper core awareness.
When I sink, or position for sinking, I start to feel all the deeper parts of my brain, all the other lobes below and beyond this frontal cortex. I know my brain is getting deeper and stronger. And I know I'm becoming deeper and stronger as a result of this practice.
As I continue this, I will feel this strong desire to bring this connection to other people.
And then, as the end of a day or a conference, I'll feel less and less drained. More and more energized.
The loop, once blocked, is now open.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Cognitive Overload
I learned a life changing concept in my design course last week.
The human brain is not very good with working memory. Or, for whatever reason, it has lost this skill. So it is important for designs to minimize the cognitive demands on the user. In web design you make problems easier by making the learning environment support the learning of the problem.
In meditation this is what we are doing. Minimizing the cognitive demands for a certain period, so that insight is more possible.
I tried this in running yesterday, and it was miraculous. Because my mind was only focussed on the task of keeping to the correct technique, my run was easier. My body immediately solved whatever misalignment, or tension in my body that was sapping my energy.
Something happened over the last year that has burdened my mind with obsessions and anxieties. It's been hard to meditate. But I'm wondering if the challenge of meditation has been that I've never quite understood the need for meditation. I understand the benefits, but I've never really understood the essential problem it resolves.
But mindfulness is exactly that, creating an efficent uncluttered interface for the working memory to be well supported.
The human brain is not very good with working memory. Or, for whatever reason, it has lost this skill. So it is important for designs to minimize the cognitive demands on the user. In web design you make problems easier by making the learning environment support the learning of the problem.
In meditation this is what we are doing. Minimizing the cognitive demands for a certain period, so that insight is more possible.
I tried this in running yesterday, and it was miraculous. Because my mind was only focussed on the task of keeping to the correct technique, my run was easier. My body immediately solved whatever misalignment, or tension in my body that was sapping my energy.
Something happened over the last year that has burdened my mind with obsessions and anxieties. It's been hard to meditate. But I'm wondering if the challenge of meditation has been that I've never quite understood the need for meditation. I understand the benefits, but I've never really understood the essential problem it resolves.
But mindfulness is exactly that, creating an efficent uncluttered interface for the working memory to be well supported.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Day 5
Zhan Zhuang is very much about surrendering the magnificent energy that drives nature, the cosmos, growth and, yes, disintegration. Unlike most exercises, which are primarily about using effort to get energy, Zhuan Zhuang teaches you to tap into the energy that is already there, and is far more powerful than anything you can achieve on your own.
This week I'm going outside, even through the weather is almostly defiantly crappy. Today in Montreal an icy rain has covered all the sidewalks in a layer of danger. But it did mean that the park was empty. I stood in the cold rain, next to a tree and felt this huge, quiet, deeply cleansing energy that I can never really experience in my apartment.
I don't go outside enough. So my challenge this year is to cultivate an outdoors standing habit. Apparently if you stand near trees it's as good, better even, than any anti-depressant, and I'm feeling the need to do some serious brain cleaning.
Position three really helps with this. If position two is about the energy that enters the body through the heart, position four is about the brain. When I do this I actually feel my brain relaxing, almost cracking like a knucke. I feel sense of surrender and the universe just slowly flowing in and removing all the stress. Developing the desire for this relief is a large part of changing your psyche for the better and in a permanent way. And it's a wonderful remedy for brain lock.
This week I'm going outside, even through the weather is almostly defiantly crappy. Today in Montreal an icy rain has covered all the sidewalks in a layer of danger. But it did mean that the park was empty. I stood in the cold rain, next to a tree and felt this huge, quiet, deeply cleansing energy that I can never really experience in my apartment.
I don't go outside enough. So my challenge this year is to cultivate an outdoors standing habit. Apparently if you stand near trees it's as good, better even, than any anti-depressant, and I'm feeling the need to do some serious brain cleaning.
Position three really helps with this. If position two is about the energy that enters the body through the heart, position four is about the brain. When I do this I actually feel my brain relaxing, almost cracking like a knucke. I feel sense of surrender and the universe just slowly flowing in and removing all the stress. Developing the desire for this relief is a large part of changing your psyche for the better and in a permanent way. And it's a wonderful remedy for brain lock.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
caged in chaos
So I got through the day. Did more housework that I've ever done in my life. Just kept going broken only with small meditations. From 9 in the morning to 4 a.m. Threw out more stuff than I ever have in my life.
But now I'm exhausted, stressed out over at situation at Ben's school. A recurring situation that's resolved itself before, but I'm tired and it's eating at me.
How do I get my brain back?
But now I'm exhausted, stressed out over at situation at Ben's school. A recurring situation that's resolved itself before, but I'm tired and it's eating at me.
How do I get my brain back?
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