the habit of solitude

Most of my practice today I spent trying to quell my obsession with change. I want to change. I am doing this to change, all I can think of is change. I am so focused on change and what I hope from that change that I lose touch with the moment. With the quiet, with the quality of quiet.

So I put down my arms and just tried instead to cultivate the habit of being in this moment. It occured to me near the end of my hour, as the light started to rise, that all the great writers that I know cultivate the habit of finding this hour at the edge of the day. Either morning, or late night. But you need this hour, to write, to contemplate to be. But it is your hour with the universe. It is your hour with timelessness.

I tried today to kill the writer in me, but she keeps coming back wondering how this timelessness can sink into your writing, so that you make some classic and useful for a long time. Something that could be read at any time.

primary

I read something yesterday about Freud's theory of primary and secondary process in creativity. Primary is the raw images, material. Secondary is the abstract thinking, editing. I think that what meditation is doing for me is training my primary process, not just in creativity, but in life. We all get so caught up in secondary living, thinking.

Early in the morning like this, I am far more aware of how my mind drifts off to plans and dreams and conversations. Of course this happens whenever i'm meditating. But when I meditate at other times of the day, I'm going against the grain. I should kind of be planning and talking, so it's harder to have any real authority over my mind.

In the stillness of the morning, quiet is right. I have the authority of dawn working for me.

early morning stillness

Everytime I come back to this I remember that I've done it before. I remember because I remember the stillness. And I remember what it feels like the rest of the day to have that stillness to go back to.
It's hard for me to maintain this stillness right now. My mind drifts off constantly to my financial anxieties, my future plans, my desires, whatever i happen to be writing on. I'm afraid and in the stillness there isn't much of an escape. But I hope that means that when it's time for me to sit down and make plans I will sit down and make a plan.
But at the very least the stillness I am with in the morning changes my day. Makes me a little more focused, makes me a little more aware of when my thoughts or actions are drifting off beyond the control of that part of my mind that would be better off in control.
That part of my mind, I guess is my primary process. I was reading about this yesterday. My primary process is the Freudian process of concrete thinking. Abstract is secondary. I know that I spend most of my time in abstract. I want to find a balance between the two.

the question

So here's the question I want to answer by the end of six months.

Is E.T. right? Will making consciousness the primary purpose of your life bring more power to the secondary purpose of your life?

Let's see.

I'm going to change

I've decided to take Ringo up on this challenge. With one small amendment. I'm not going outside everyday at dawn. But I will be getting up every morning at least an hour before dawn (right now 6:15) to do some standing meditation.

And I will write a little bit everyday about the changes, positive, and perhaps negative.

But first I need a reasonably good description of where I think I am in my life:

I'm scared. I've been downsized in my work as a freelancer/book critic to a commitment that is below what I need to make to pay my rent and bills. So unless I find work outside of that I'm going into worse debt than I already am.

But I am also scared that this anxiety will force me into work that I'm not really suited for. For the first time in my life I have the luxury of time. I have a couple of book ideas. If I rush into training for a new skill, let's say teaching. Am I giving up this chance to start the kettle boiling on these projects.

I'm lost. So the plan for the moment is to focus on my inner purpose, as E.T. calls it. Awareness. Awakening. Letting consciousness flow through me so that I can make the best decisions towards my secondary purpose as writer and, perhaps, teacher.

For now my goal is simple. Get up early every day for six months. Stand, and see where this takes me.

Simple, but of course difficult.

Right now, just the beginning of an adventure.

This is My Purpose

I agree with Eckhart Tolle that allowing consciousness to flow into us is our inner purpose.

So why is it so hard to maintain the practice that allows this?

Why is it so hard for me to get up early in the morning? Why is it so hard for me to stick to my hour? Why so impossible to do a bit in the afternoon when I need that energy boost? Why can't a I do a little before I go to bed?

Why would I rather do all the distracting things I end up doing? If I know, If I believe that this is my liberation?

What do I need to do to commit to my inner purpose?

Well it's easy to commit. But what do I need to do to maintain this commitment? How do I marry my Zhan Zhuang? Because I do believe this is the primary purpose of my life.

I'm going to brainstorm 10 ways.

1. I think the first thing is to do as much of it as I want and can. The more I do it. The more I want to do it.

2. Do it at dawn. Be prepared to hear a voice saying it's too hard, saying I don't feel like it. Be prepared to override that voice at all costs. This is the purpose of my life. My life's mission. No more sleeping in. Believe Ringo. Every day at dawn for six months and "you will change."

3. Make this commitment to the universe. Not to me, but to all sentient beings. Ask the question, repeatedly: Would I be walking away from this commitment if I made it to someone else? Know that I am doing this for the world.

4. Do it like my life depends on it. Because it does.

5. Let Ben know that I'm going to be meditating in the morning from now, and that he has to accept that.

6. When I hear that voice that tells me I can do it later, answer "should I do it later?"

7. Do it as though an audience were waiting for me.

8. Cheer myself as though I were an audience

9. When I'm tempted to go back to sleep, watch the news, avoid my meditation time, advise myself as though I were advising someone else.

10. Know my mission: Who I want to be, What I want to do, What I want to have.

the chocolat cake that has changed my life

Years and years dedicated to standing in one place. So little thought going into my nutrition. I've never thought I needed a lot of thought. I'm healthy. I don't eat TOO bad I say to myself. But the truth is I rarely eat THAT well.

This has changed recently. A little over a month ago, mid July I guess, I came across a recipe for raw chocolate cake. So simple. Just some dates, some walnuts, some cocoa and salt, mixed up in a food processor. I loved it. But more importantly my son loved it.

I started googling raw foodist, and came across the Green Smoothie Challenge. This is essentially developing the practice of blending greens and fruit together every day into about a litre of liquid and drinking that daily. I did it. It felt good. Now I'm experimenting with eating as much raw food as I can reasonably tolerate.

I feel good. Better. Way better than I have in a long time.

In one raw foodist blog, the blogger sheepishly commented that eating raw food creating this pervasive psychological feeling of being connected to nature. It's true. I was walking in the park the other day and suddenly all the greens felt greener and I didn't have to struggle so much to be "mindful" of nature. I felt like I was part of nature.

So standing like a tree has now morphed into eating trees, or their smaller cousins. I'm very curious to see how this impacts my practice.

Which by the way has diminished considerably in the last month, as it always does when I go on vacation.

But glad to be back.