Beyond Self-Protection

       Pema Chodron’s approach to spirituality inspires courage and self-compassion.  In a book of short meditations, The Pocket Pema Chodron, she invites us to move beyond self-protection.

       “We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering we are being kind to ourselves.  The truth is, we only become more fearful, more hardened, and more alienated.  We experience ourselves as being separate from the whole.  This separateness becomes like a prison for us, a prison that restricts us to our personal hopes and fears and to caring only for the people nearest us.  Curiously enough, if we primarily try to shield ourselves from discomfort, we suffer.  Yet when we don’t close off and we let our hearts break, we discover our kinship with all beings.”    (p. 123)

       Her words remind me of Michael Singer’s passionate encouragement in The Untethered Soul to keep the heart open, no matter what.

       “Remember, if you love life, nothing is worth closing over.  Nothing, ever, is worth closing your heart over.”   (p. 47)

       Spiritual courage and self-compassion meet in an open heart.

       Joanie and I just finished a four-day backpacking adventure, hiking through woodlands and along ridgelines roughly paralleling Lake Superior.  Carrying 45 pounds up and down steep inclines is a wonderful way to slow the pace of life and shift one’s experience of time.  A couple nights ago in the tent, camped next to rippling waters, during that inner twilight just before sleep, this came to me.

Always Now

Hurry Hurry

Eat Fast

Work Fast

Go Fast

You Say

You Have

Less Time

Life Says

You’re Timeless

Always Now

.

       P.S.  When the busy-ness gets overwhelming, we may be tempted to conclude there’s just no time.  What if, in some deeper way, we’re right about that?

Softening to Beauty

       Joanie and I and our dear friends Kirk and Dee recently returned from a two-week adventure in Alaska – an immersion in some of the most visually stunning scenery I’ve ever encountered:  majestic snow-streaked peaks, the azure blues of glacier ice, aqua-green glacial pools, vibrant hues of wildflowers everywhere, a circle of bubble-feeding humpback whales simultaneously breaching water’s surface with mouths agape, the impish smile of a harbor seal sunning on an iceberg, salmon struggling up a shallow sparkling stream to spawn, two weeks without darkness and countless shades of light.

       The sensory delights were not just visual.  We were treated to bracing breezes, the pure crisp taste of glacial ice and snowmelt stream water, birdsongs galore, trumpeting of whales, the roar of rushing waters, and the sharp, reverberating crack of glacier expansion.

       For the first few days, I was absorbed in the awe of this amazing beauty.  At some point, I noticed I wasn’t taking it in.  Awe was slipping away.  Even great beauty was becoming commonplace.  Apparently, it’s not just in the routine of daily life that beauty gets overlooked.  Even in Alaska, appreciation can dull.  Experiencing beauty, then, may have more to do with what’s in here than it does with what’s out there.

       I wondered if I had become saturated.  Had I reached some sort of limit on how much I could receive?   If so, how might I expand my capacity to receive, to stay engaged?

       Over the next days, I made regular efforts to be present and aware.  I noticed our traveling companion, Dee, finding delight everywhere she looked.   I marveled at her capacity to enjoy.

       Near the end of the trip, while in one of the more remote wilderness areas, we signed up for a 70-minute airplane ride which took us over mountains, alongside peaks and down through glacial valleys.  Breathtaking beauty was present in a highly concentrated form – coming at me faster than I could manage.  From my vantage point in the co-pilot’s seat, I looked intently - forward and down and right and left - trying to capture and hang onto as much as I could.  I wanted to grasp the beauty and hold it, memorize it, claim it in some permanent way.  And I couldn’t.

       Finally, all I could do was breathe and relax and allow it to flow through me. 

       I’m left with musings about how we relate to beauty – beauty in nature, beauty in the people around us, the beauty of life itself.   How do we stretch the capacity to connect with beauty, to more fully enter it and let it enter us, to more deeply feel it, to let it change us and, at the same time, to relax in its presence - releasing the desire to possess or control it and maybe even the need to name it or understand it or describe it or write about it.

       Softening to beauty.  Attending.  Noticing.  Making room.  Allowing a flow.  Trusting the flow.

       And, in this case, trusting Kirk and Joanie to take gorgeous photos we can enjoy for years to come.

Little Self, Large Self

Little self chatters – constantly

Large self observes - quietly

Little self looks for danger

Large self knows we’re safe

Little self stories dramatic

Large self gently smiles

Little self thinks s/he’s alone

Large self knows we’re all one

Little self agitates for attention

Large self patiently presides

Little self loves and loathes

Large self only loves.

Little self – young and growing

Large self – ancient and ageless

Both inner companions

Are real versions of us

Can’t rid either - ever

Can choose either – anytime

The more we choose one

The easier that choice becomes.

All’s Well

Beleaguered?

Caught up

In hurricane’s

Howl?

Remember

Calm center

Where you

Are enough.

All’s well

In All’s well.

Flawed Abundance

       The universe is messy.  Galaxies, stars, planets and life on earth came about through chaotic processes with an underlying order we are still trying to comprehend.  That messiness permeates our love lives, our friendships and our relationship to self.  Life unfolds in mysterious ways, often departing from the pretty picture we envision.

       Mark Nepo speaks of flawed abundance.  His words resonate with my experience – and maybe yours.

       “ … everything we need or want is waiting inside each day … right before us in flawed abundance …

       “ … nothing is clean or perfect, and nothing unfolds as planned.  For the Universe is vital, not perfect.  Full of endless seeds attempting to be one thing, colliding with another, and becoming a third.  Loves, dreams, difficulties, peace of mind – all of who we are unfolds this way beyond our willful wanting. 

       “ … the King James phrase ‘be you perfect’ really means ‘be you all-embracing …

       “Much of our unhappiness comes from insisting on what we want as the only path to contentment.  Often, beyond what we want is what we need, waiting in the abundance of a reality that has more than enough to keep us vital and alive. …

       “One of the more difficult paradoxes to accept is that this abundance of gifts is always quietly present and it is we who drift in and out of seeing it.  The one recurring doorway to this vitality is our simple participation in life.  When we slip into heartless watching, the abundance seems to vanish.  When we dare to show up and be fully present, grace and wonder and mystery start to appear, even in the midst of pain.  Not as planned dreams, or as images of lovers, or as scripts of success designed by our fantasies of ourselves.  But as oddly shaped pods of vitality bursting to multiply and bring us further into the mystery of living.”

Mark Nepo, The Exquisite Risk, pp. 237-8.

Quiet Vastness

Sacred silence

Holds us all -

Tender, gentle,

Quiet vastness.

Extravagant emptiness

Mystery wise

Origins everything -

Quiet vastness.

Inner infinity

Unbounded love

Spacious Self

Quiet vastness

Roomy roommate

Friend, companion

Always here

Quiet vastness.

Release, relax

Rest, return.

Remember home -

Quiet vastness.

Inner Companionship

       We are companioned beings – never really alone.  There are “people” inside us.

       Within us, there is a wise, loving presence, whose stance toward us is compassionate and spacious.  This aspect of our consciousness makes room for everything we feel and everything we experience.  It accepts us and values us.  It invites friendship and connection.  And, because its voice is quiet, we need to listen carefully and remind ourselves often of its love.

       Most of us also experience a judging presence, an internal critic whose job is to find fault with us and to invite us to feel small, unworthy, inadequate and disconnected.  The critic’s message is often blunt and bludgeoning, like a sledgehammer.  And, sometimes, it’s sneaky and subtle, like a stiletto.  

       From the standpoint of brain functioning, inner conversations can be understood as neural pathways – habits that grow stronger with repetition.  For example, most of us have had years of practicing self-judgment.  And, while that pathway is well established and easy to follow, we can consciously tune into and nurture a more life-affirming inner conversation. 

       We pick our friends.  Why not also choose whom we’d like for inner companionship?

Mantra Re-Visited

       It’s not unusual for me to have a second thought about something I send out.  Often it’s a clarification or an additional point I wish I’d made – or an aesthetic turn of phrase I wish I’d used.  Typically, after some regret, I let go.

       This morning I awoke with three substantive points I’d like to add about mantra practice.  And I decided, in this case, to act.

       Mantra as first aid:  When I notice that I’m caught up in swirl of suffering stories that evoke fear, shame or resentment, I congratulate the awareness, breathe compassion to my suffering, and use a mantra to re-orient the mind.  I stay with the mantra as long as needed; then move on with my day. 

       Note: the mantra helps us disengage from negative thinking.  Generally, this is not the time to debate with our negative patterns.

       Mantra as formal practice:  When I use a mantra as an aid in formal meditation, I may begin by saying (or singing) it aloud or at a moderate-to-high internal volume, to match or slightly exceed the level of chatter in the mind.  I give myself a clear invitation to attend to the mantra. 

       As the practice unfolds, I allow the mantra to grow gradually quieter.  This helps me move toward the deeper quiet of inner spaciousness.  There are times when the mantra goes silent, mirroring a silence inside.  Inevitably, I pick up a distraction, and, when I notice the distraction, I begin with the mantra again at a level that slightly exceeds the level of the distraction.  Then, I move again toward the quiet.

       Please check out the Richard Moss videos, referenced yesterday, for an excellent tutorial on using mantra in formal practice.  www.richardmoss.com

       Mantra and engagement with life:  Mantras are tools – used as needed – to help us disengage from negative narratives that create suffering, so that we can re-engage with life with an open heart and a spacious, creative mind.  Mantras are not meant for permanent refuge or escape from life.  The goal, always, is to be fully present – right here, right now, embodied.

May we be happy.

May we be well.

May we be at peace.

May we be fully alive.

Mantra Re-Wiring

       Every now and then, I experience a professional workshop that’s actually a healing experience.  A recent two-day training – integrating radical self-acceptance, mindfulness and yoga, led by author/teacher/therapist Mary NurrieStearns – was just such an experience.  I’d like to pass on some ideas and practices stimulated by the workshop. If you’d like to learn more about her work, please visit her website: www.personaltransformation.com

       Our brains are wired with a negative bias – a propensity to focus on what’s potentially dangerous and threatening.  We learn danger quickly and forget it slowly.  We learn shame quickly – and hang on to it.  We find it easy to orientate our inner narratives around negative judgments of ourselves and others or around regretful and fearful stories about the past and future.  After years of practice, these negative narratives become the “default setting” – internal habits of thought we automatically and routinely revisit – habits that harm us more than we realize.

       Fortunately, mindfulness practices provide opportunities to notice what’s automatic and to make conscious choices about what thoughts to encourage.  We can actually re-wire our brains.  Doing so, however, takes much repetition and practice, practice, practice.

       In the teachings of Richard Moss and Mary NurrieStearns, there is an emphasis on embodying deep truth, not just encoding it intellectually or conceptually, but integrating it into the body.  So, with the mantras (healing phrases) I will be sharing, it’s helpful to sing them, move or dance with them, and use touch, tapping or holding as you repeat them to yourself.

       Here is a menu of mantra meditations I’ve been practicing.  Perhaps, one or more of them will be meaningful for you.  Please feel free to experiment with your own healing affirmations and approaches.

       On my morning run, I’ve been singing in time with my footfalls:  

       I’m connected.  I am loved.  I am one.  I’m free.

       With this or any of the four-phrase mantra affirmations, you can touch thumb to index finger with the first phrase, thumb to middle finger with the second, thumb to ring finger with the third and thumb to little finger with the fourth.  I’ve been doing this thumb-to-finger touching practice in seated meditation, as I repeat four affirmations from the Buddhist practice of Metta (loving-kindness meditation):

       May I be happy.  May I be healthy.  May I be peaceful.  May I be love.

       The other pronouns – you, we, he, she, and they – are also used in Metta to send loving-kindness blessings.  Feel free to create other affirmations to bless yourself and other folks.

       Here’s another self-healing practice I find especially powerful as an antidote to shame narratives.  With eyes closed, I lay my crossed hands on my chest over my heart – perhaps patting or tapping or gently rubbing or just holding – and say or sing, usually not out loud:

       I accept you.  I forgive you.  I trust you.  I love you.

       For me, this practice embodies a commitment to stay in compassion with myself – no matter what.  It weakens old habits of self-abandonment, self-rejection, and self-judgment.  It promotes what Mary NurrieStearns calls “profound self-acceptance.”

       Richard Moss teaches mantra practice as a wonderful way to reclaim ownership of our minds from the old conditioning that so often dominates our inner landscape.  His recent teaching videos on this subject, excellent resources, are accessible for viewing, at no cost, through his website:  www.richardmoss.com  From his home page click on Resources, then on Free Videos and Audios, and then on YouTube in the line “For more videos take a look at Richard’s YouTube channel.”  The videos are titled:  Introduction to Mantra Practice for Calming the Mind – Parts 1 & 2.

       I like the mantra he recommends.  It’s great to sing to, run to, hike to, dance to or sit with:

       Thank you. Thank you.  I’m so grateful.

       Lately, when I run or tap fingers with it, I’ve been breaking the mantra into four, two-syllable phrases:

       Thank you.  Thank you.  I’m so.  Grateful.

       The brain likes habits.  It likes to conserve energy by following old, familiar paths of least resistance.  Conscious effort and practice is required to re-wire these pathways.  With mantra work, we make conscious choices to interrupt habitual negative narratives that capture us in fear, shame and outrage.  We make conscious efforts to create a compassionate inner space – a nice place to live.

       We move toward friendship with ourselves and comfort inside our own skin.  We shift the emphasis from looking out there for healing and nurture to finding more of what we need in here. 

       We exercise our love-ability.  We partner with a wise and loving presence inside.  We meet ourselves, and discover ourselves, in an inner I-Thou connection.   We remember that we’re never alone.

       Note:  I am taking a break from this space for a few weeks to complete the mentorship program with Richard Moss.  Will return in May.

      Thank you.  Thank you.  I’m so grateful.