The secret of meditation

My brother put me onto an interesting new teacher this week, Mingyu Rinpoche.  He has some charming introduction to meditation videos over at Tergar.org, the online community that has built around his teachings.

To teach what he calls "the secret of meditation" he leads students through a simple experiment.  First he asks them to spend a minute or so just listening to the sounds around them.  Next he asks them to spend a minute or so "meditating on the sounds around them."  The secret to meditation is that true meditation is really the listening.

One of the biggest blocks to meditation, and I'm still guilty of this, is the belief that meditation is an act of concentration.  We think that we're supposed to be concentrating on the breath.  And so we get frustrated with ourselves when we do it "wrong."

But meditation is really just awareness, and being conscious of the barest level of awareness.  Concentration is not only unecessary, it's not even the goal.  Concentration arises out of mediation. But the goal is really to engage in the simple act of being. In fact, in a certain sense it is to be without goal.

When we bring this way of awareness to the simple acts of life, then suddenly the act of living becomes much simpler.

Life becomes simpler, but it's a remarkably deep simplicity.

Wisdom

I remember back in CEGEP taking an ethics class and being asked to prioritize my values.  Most people chose happiness. I chose wisdom.  My reasoning was that wisdom was all inclusive, that if you were wise in all likelyhood you would be happy, and you would have all that you really needed.

My path towards wisdom has been a meandering one. And wisdom, of course, is not a value that you achieve and then sit smuggly wise for the rest of your life.  It's a value that needs constant replenishment and there is no wisdom without experience and knowledge of what is happening in the here and now.

One of the ways that I replenish it is through standing.  It's like a checkpoint for me.  If I find myself going off in a direction that's likely to bring me a whole lot of unhealthy stress, then I stand, and I remember.  Oh yes, the wise advocate, the Adam Smith self who balances The Wealth of Nations.  The ability I've cultivated to keep my mind wandering around the world like a stray puppy.  I need to get back in touch with that.

And I will get back in touch with that.  In fact I'm back in touch with that right now.

Choosing

How do we balance standing still with the will to change? This is the paradox at the root of Zhan Zhuang.

Probably the greatest stumbling block in Zhan Zhuang is the belief that being still can't bring about change, betterment. It's counterintuitive.

In fact I associate the most profound changes in my life, my character, my ability with this practice.

The next stumbling block is my expectation that somehow it's going to get easier.  In some ways it does. In other ways every level simply bring on new challenges.

How I'm getting through things these days is with the act of choosing. To get through the middle of life, of projects, of challenges, thing need to be re-chosen. We need sometimes to choose the path we've been on again, just to re-assure ourselves that this is indeed a choice, not something that's been inflicted on us.

An Intense Feeling of Relaxation and Comfort

The thing, of course, that has made me come back to this practice again and again and again, is my memory of the profound feeling of relaxation and comfort I have felt whenever I've maintained the practice over an extended period.

I'm still not sure why I can't seem to maintain a permanent commitment to the practice.

Maybe because I still haven't made a primary choice yet.

Primary choices, according to one of my favourite self-help books, The Path of Least Resistance, are choices that are complete once you've attained them.  A book, a runner's body, a clean house.  These are all things that I can say "done" about.  I'll know them when I achieve them.

I spent some time this morning trying to figure out what the primary choice in Zhang Zhuan was, and it was this.  This feeling of comfort and relation that happens when I've maintained my commitment for an extended time.

And not even for an extended time anymore, because I've felt this feeling so many times before that I can re-call at will.

If I choose that.

If I let life choose me.  Too often, I'm drawn off the path into anxious obsessing, worrying, debating.

My Greatest Accomplishment

The last few days I've been trying to build confidence by reviewing my small accomplishments throughout the day.
  One of the challenges of getting through mid life is that much of what I accomplish is routinized.  Because it's daily one has the illusion that nothing is being accomplished.  In fact it's the small actions taken consistently over time that are the accomplishments.  These are the things that are going to tide us through.  My morning routines. My flylady routines. Whether I do them or not, they are there, and that in itself is an accomplishment.  My habit of making bread, rice, beans, yogourt.  These keep my overhead low, keep me healthy, keep us eating wholesome food.
  I don't need new things all the time.  Because if I maintain these energy and vitality building routines, new things will happen.  Change is inevitable.  The expectation that life will be dull, and uneventful if we keep to routines is almost always a false one.  Things always happen.  New things will always be learnt.
  My challenge now is not to find new things, but to see the old things in a new way.
  For example, this morning I was standing, thinking oh yes, another standing routine, not much here.  But there was so much.  There was the energy that was building, there was a memory that snaked up that made me angry, and that I tamed easily, because my habit when I stand is to maintain not just physical, but emotional balance.
  Standing is one of my greatest accomplishments, as is writing, and my guess is that coding will be too.  Running, wholesome frugal cooking, maybe teaching.  All these things together are the little accomplishments that will lead to other accomplishments.  Maybe great ones.  Maybe small ones.  Who knows.  And for the moment, I'm not sure I really care.
 

Decisions, Decisions

Yesterday I read an article, Obama's Way.  Something that the president said has been stuck in my mind ever since.  Research shows that the simple action of making decisions degrades the ability to make further decisions.  "You need to focus your decision-making energy.  You need to routinize yourself.  You can't be going through the day distracted by trivia."
  I'm distracted, but I'm not sure it's about trivia.  Everyday I make about a hundred different decisions about what I'm going to do or be in my life.  I keep forgetting that the decision has been made.  I'm a writer. That's what I decided to become.
  I'm a stander.  I'm a cooker of non-packaged products. I'm a minimalist housekeeper.  I clean best  by throwing out.
  In the mornings I stand. I write. I tidy the kitchen, make beds, swipe bathrooms.  In the afternoons I read, I run, I get stuff ready for dinner.
  In the evenings I watch TV, socialize, and maybe soon I'll be teaching. Maybe soon I'll be speaking.
  That's my life.
  That's it, that's all.
  The decisions have been made.  My job is now just to carry them out.

Equanimity

Part of the challenge of my new practice is that at a certain point I stopped aiming for the peak experiences that lured me into this.

I am content with equanimity.  More than that, I believe equanimity is the secret door to all kinds of amazing experiences.  But this can make it challenging to stay motivated.

Maybe the trick is to develop the habit of staying motivated by keeping what I have.  And keeping the memory of what I've accomplished with Zhang Zhuan fresh in my mind.

Not losing is a more powerful driving force than gaining. Conserving is a more powerful force than gaining.  The will to keep things as they are will always be more powerful in us than the will to change things.

But we can change things by keeping them as they are. Sometimes things can change back, to a better way, to a more interesting way.  We can move into the future by looking into the past.  By keeping the things to us that are truly valuable.

And anyways change is inevitable.