Interdependence of Thought

This week in my meditation practice I've been exploring interdependence of thought. I'm still not entirely sure sometimes what is meant by the term "interdependence."  But this week I took it to mean the way my thoughts depend on different aspects of being, the way they depend on my body, on how strongly attached I am to concepts like the present, the past, the future, the self.
  I paid special attention to strong, recurring, persistent thoughts, what these were dependent upon, and how I might be able to loosen them.
  The first path that I started to explore is how dependent the quality and tone of my thought is on how embodied I am.  If I'm having an anxious or negative though, it's almost guaranteed that my limbs are stiff, my hands tense, my neck out of alignment, my breath shallow. If my thoughts are wandering it is absolutely guaranteed that my eyes are not focused on anything.  Formal meditation is a way of correcting this. Informal meditation is a way of re calibrating throughout the day. A way of stopping my thoughts from their habitual chaos.
  My thoughts by the way are quite dependent on my environment, and that seems to be changing. I'm a better housekeeper this month, in large part because I'm practising some habits of commitment. Making sure my life is driven by decisions, not impulses. I've been keeping with my housekeeping rituals and everyday I'm feeling a different energy in this home. It's still messy, but deep down it's cleaner, more organized, less overwhelming. As a result of sticking to these commitments, I'm cultivating self-trust.
  The two persistent thoughts I've been meditating, is this recurring mantra of "I hate myself" and "What do I want more than anything in the world."  The super ego and the id.  One way I've been dealing with the first is with tonglen, and a Pema Chodron trick I discovered.  I breathe in that hatred, feel a space for it in my body and in my belly.  Let it expand, let that blocked, stiff energy flow.  I need to be patient.  I was raised in an environment of chronic and constant hatred and hostility between my parents. These memories are deep in my body, in my nervous system.  They aren't about to evaporate in one breath or six.  But I can say at the end of this week that I do feel a little better. As though the space I'm creating in acknowledging and accepting this hatred, will one day be filled more easily with love.
  Which brings me to the second thought.  This week I sat silently with this question and waited patiently for an answer, instead of my usual tendency to want to rush in with a whole bunch of answers.  Finally it came to me, so obvious, so inevitable.  Love.  I want love. There is an answer to this question, and that is it.
  My body, my life, my son's life, so much dependent on that answer, that thought.
  What kind of persistent thoughts could arise if I knew better how to love.

The Trick

You can't feel self loathing and love together for very long. Eventually love wins. The trick to life is to take the accumulated stress, disappointment, fear, regret, whatever sad and painful feeling you hold in your body and brain and to make the very so slight adjustment that makes this food for consciousness, instead of food for more of the same.

I grew up in a household of hate, and I see how everyday is a choice for me between passing that hatred, and the habits of hatred--constant bickering, fighting, power struggles--and cultivating love, and the habits of love --acceptance, openness, peace building.

It starts in the morning, in the alchemy of my practice where I stand with these painful, tight, disabeling feelings, and I just allow presence to loosen them and start working with the warm energy of chi, bodhicitta, whatever one wants to call it. If I can do that consciously every day, in time my body will begin to do it without my need to sit there and give it instructions.

This is the process of enlightnment.

awareness

The phantom anxieties that have been tormenting me for the last few weeks seem to be flying off somewhere. Things seem to be stable and friendly with Ben's teacher. His marks this term are excellent. All these things I've been anxiously obsessing over.

Starting to see the fruit of the heightened awareness. I catch myself when the irritation starts to bubble up and I stop myself there. Or at least try to stop myself there before letting it erupt into angry words. I'm starting to see the self hatred and anger as a deep addiction. Like smoking. I always thought my next biggest addiction was food. But the food is a way to numb the emotions. I'm addicted to the emotions. The self hatred, the loneliness, the emptiness, the boredom. These are the triggers and I need a different way to deal with them.

Last night for the first time in a while I didn't feel like overeating. I was hungry before bedtime, but I just had some cereal and was okay

Soon, I know, I'll get back to cultivating the chi. But until I have a deep desire for optimal happiness, it's unlikely I will stick with the chi. So I think I need to deal with this stuff first.

antidote

Still reading Mathieu Ricard's Happiness. This is a convincing book. A life changing book. One of the things he's made me conscious of is how I can work to defuse the deep, pervasive self hatred that keeps knocking me off track whenever I try to deeply commit to a meditation practice.

I won't go into great detail about where this self hatred comes from. There are any number of mundane, and perhaps interesting reasons. My Catholic origins, my overachieving parents, my possible learning disability. Who knows. But Ricard explains that hatred and love cannot co-exist. Not real love, the deep aspiration for happiness, safety, contentment, true abundance. So these days, during my meditation time, I'm working a little less on the chi, and working on holding this aspiration for my real happiness in my mind. Working on trying to root it firmly and deeply in the ground of my chi.

This morning I thought of the balloon as all the positive feelings I have and want to have for myself. I thought of the tan tien as the place where I store these feeling and make them a permanent, strong, driving part of my inner self.

The vision I have of this six months is setting my circadian rythmms so that waking up at dawn and sleeping not too far after sunset become my normal way of being. And I root my desire for happiness in the rituals surrounding this change of light. Something about that feels permanent and possible.

Heart brain

Two things. Two things happening today. This morning a very strong feeling of groundedness. I felt as solid as a mountain in my lower body. Haven't felt that in a while. It's an extremely comforting feeling, the sense that strength is coming from something other than the outer circumstances of your life, or I guess I mean, the cultural or economic circumstances. It is coming from something external though. I'm pretty sure, even if it feels like my brain is creating it. It's coming from the "cosmos." I guess. As you can see I'm not quite comfortable with that term. I'm not a New Agey person and I'm self conscious about using that terminology. And yet even if I'm not comfortable saying it, I do believe in it. How can I not? There is a cosmos. There is space out there and it's pretty powerful. Okay scratch that. Very powerful. Powerful beyond our imagination. I feel myself in the magnetic force of that power. It grows every day and it will become more intense.

The second thing. I read in The Way of Power yesterday that the energy of the cosmos enters through the heart. So I made a conscious effort to feel it there. And it felt good. Really good. Like I had stable, constant access to a powerful source of love, and that I just had to develop the practice everyday and that gradually the self hatred that I know permeates my soul, will have a weaker and weaker grip on me.

It doesn't want to let go. I can hear it, I can feel it. It is still stronger than my practice or any lovely feeling of connection to the universe that I have developed today. Or at least it feels like it is stronger.

It's not. Of course my little self hatred synapses, or paths in my brain that I've cultivated, are puny tiny barely alive little things compared to the energy in the universe and that love. But because they run my brain they feel bigger for the time being. I wonder how often I have to choose the consciousness of the universe over the chatter of my self-contempt before it loses power permanently. I wonder if that's possible. I hope so.