The Naked Monk

Archive for the ‘Mindful Reflection’ Category

“We’re all in the same boat. Born as we are in this human body, we can’t escape the blessings and tortures of the human brain. From our first breath, we yearn for love and understanding in the most complicated ways imaginable. We find it most satisfyingly as we learn to give it. The ability to do this comes from acceptance of our frailties. By understanding the conditions of our own lives, we accept the conditions of others. Compassion is not condescension, but a leveling of the playing field, a recognition of yourself in others and an acceptance that their stress is your stress, that their happiness is your own. The gulf between us all is imaginary, born of insecurity and fear.”

—It Begins with Silence (Chapter 9)

It was warm today—a full, balmy six degrees Celsius—and the squirrels were out in the melting snow as I drove up Côte-Saint-Charles. In fact, one of them almost dashed under the wheels of my car—after which I was much more attentive. I like squirrels. More to the point, I hate running them over; but there’s no way around it—when it comes to crossing the road, they don’t come any dumber.

As my driving became more attentive, I got to thinking. Attention is the key to mindfulness; and ‘mindfulness,’ like ‘meditation,’ is becoming ridiculously misunderstood. As I watched out for squirrels I realized that it came at a cost—my attention to other things on the road, like fallen branches, pedestrians and other vehicles. I couldn’t be equally attentive to everything. The more I tried to look, the more I realized just how much I had to choose. This applies not just on Côte-Saint-Charles on a balmy winter’s day, but in all situations. I recalled the Buddha’s instruction on mindfulness—it’s very specific.

The popular take on mindfulness has become, “being in the moment,” which sounds really cool but doesn’t by itself mean a damn thing. The point is that ‘attentiveness’ is transitive—you’re attentive (or not) of something. The sort of practice that leads to awakening doesn’t just let go of annoying thoughts and groove on sensory perception, but actually attends to the three marks of existence: inconstancy, stress and emptiness. This is a lot more substantial, and a lot less airy-fairy. It’s not what people want to hear—which is perhaps why it disables wishful thinking so effectively.

For meditators who seek value for their investment of time and effort, mindfulness brings a) insight into the nature of existence, and b) a letting go of the illusions that keep us committed to cyclic existence. By seeing every breath, every thought, feeling and sense perception as inconstant, stressful and empty, we develop an intuitive sense of urgency, and are shifted from the theoretical realm of good ideas to the immanent one of good sense, here and now. It’s how we become happy.

If you read my last blog then you’ll know I believe in art. The one unbroken thread in my life has been the search for freedom, and for me there is no more creative pursuit. Whether I prefer this or that form is secondary; the process itself leads to freedom.

In the blog, I described the notion art is successful only if it sells as “not merely a mistaken belief that one can throw off with a shrug, but a relentless current of the society in which we live and against which we must persistently strive.” With sublime poetic justice I was viscerally reminded of this truth within hours of posting my clever words. Shortly after two in the morning, my eyes sprang open and I faced the dismal reality of my life gone awfully wrong. Like insomniac sheep, the endless string of failures, bad decisions and missed opportunities passed before my eyes; unable to avert the parade, I took the poison to heart. It was a negativity of extraordinary intimacy.

Meanwhile, my rational mind cogitated busily with counter-proposals. With fifty-seven odd years of hard-won wisdom and firm intentions under its belt, you’d think it could wipe away my baseless imaginings with a flick of the wrist—right? Wrong! The demon of self doubt wormed its way into my unresisting soul. It’s not that I didn’t try. I pulled fletch after fletch of crystal logic from my quiver and aimed it unerringly at the target. But the emotions were formless spectres; every projectile passed through harmlessly.

Sound familiar? Since, dear reader, you’re a fellow homo sapiens, then I’ll bet it does. This is the stuff of human spirit, the flip side to all hope and positivity, a reminder that life is not ours to manipulate but a bag of mixed and unruly blessings. In the unexamined life, stress and anxiety runs amok —but wait, am I not a teacher of self-examination, an exemplar  of how to not be victimized by one’s own subconscious? Well—am I not a fraud?

To fall for that, as I very nearly did, is to invest in the phantasms of the wakeful night; I refuse them even as they torture me. I choose freedom especially when I’m most obviously imprisoned; who doesn’t? There’s more to freedom than knowing better, and free will is an unpredictable gift, a volatile moment of opportunity that spins into existence and out again in the wink of an eye. To grasp it, you must be on guard. For so many since the times of Democritus, Parminides, Sextus Imperius, Gotama and Nagarjuna, free will lurks in the moment between stimulus and response. Stick your foot in that door and you can preempt karmic momentum—even stop manufacturing it, so they claim. Clearly, it’s not easy; equally clearly, only a fool wouldn’t try.

When I was young and searching for a teacher, I dreamed of someone with all the answers; I now know that’s not the point, but I acknowledge that hope—perhaps in my students—and ask, would you be taught by someone who lives without stress and anxiety, or by one who struggles with it daily, who reaches stubbornly for integrity each time his bearings are scattered, who turns what was once defeat into a mere miss, and draws from it a lesson? I’m not as perfect as I once thought I’d be by this time, but I examine my responses with more verve than ever, and have learned a few small tricks. I hope to inspire—if necessary, by falling flat on my face and picking myself up again. After the gifts of my teachers, and from a lifetime of inseparable hope and disappointment, I’d be a fool not to.

Finally, I had the sort of relaxing Sunday morning I’ve been craving for months. I spent it doing laundry and ironing.

You think I’ve lost my marbles—right? Wrong. Actually, I was finding them.

I really feel these days that things aren’t the way they used to be. Our grandparents used to sit out on the back porch at night and chat with passing neighbours, but today we’re all rushing around multi-tasking. Those who lived before power saws, washing machines, dishwashers and electric irons had plenty to keep them busy, but their tasks also kept them focussed—they pondered while they worked. By default, that pondering might be no more than daydreaming or spacing out, but it can also be put to good use by bringing a mindful focus into the equation.

As I iron, I watch the flow of the iron over the shirt, slow down to adjust for every seam and avoid unnecessary creasing. I’m attentive to every detail, and aware of my attentiveness too. This sort of multi-layered attention is the essence of mindfulness. It sharpens your wits, improves concentration and keeps you in the present moment. It’s one of the most effortless forms of meditation, not just calming but also clarifying.

I learned years ago that the most mundane physical tasks are ideal ways to preoccupy the body and free up the mind in a healthy way. It’s a terrible waste to despise washing dishes, sweeping the floor and folding towels. It’s got to be done anyway. With mindfulness, putting your life in order puts your mind in order too. This is just practice; later on when I’m in a tough situation, that little bit of extra mental space makes all the difference between letting go of the stress and identifying with it.

If I were stranded on a desert island with one book, I’d want it to be Lao Tzu’s Tao te Ching. This poetic exploration of not-doing is a sure remedy for the busy mind. Look:

The great scholar hearing the Tao tries to practice it
The middling scholar hearing the Tao sometimes has it, sometimes not
The lesser scholar hearing the Tao has a good laugh
Without that laughter, it wouldn’t be Tao
—trans. Stephen Addiss & Stanley Lombardo  (Hackett 1993); Section 41

I was reminded of this yesterday when my daughter Melanie came home for the weekend with an assignment on it. “But what’s this not-doing?” she asked. “I’ve read the whole book twice and I still don’t understand; at least, not in any way I can explain.”

What a wonderful summary of not-doing! It reminded me once again why I left academic study behind years ago, and am still impatient of scholasticism. Reading through the Tao-te-Ching twice seems to me a torture beyond compare. If you’re looking for lucid explanations, Lao Tzu is as stubbornly silent as a rock. Instead, he delivers paradoxes that don’t just defy logic, they deride it:

Tao called Tao is not Tao
Names can name no lasting name
—ibid. Section 1

Nonsense? Perhaps, but it’s endured for well over two thousand years, while other fine compositions have fallen by the wayside. What’s its secret? The only way to know is to sit with it. You get Lao Tzu not by reading him cover to cover but but by pondering his words a few at a time. That means suspending disbelief and assuming he was on to something. Read one section each morning. Pause after each line. Let it sink in. Take a single stanza or couplet to carry through your day. You might spend a week on one section; or a year. Try it—it’s worth the time and effort.

I’m glad Melanie’s being exposed to this wonderful text, but saddened by how the academic agenda discourages reflective reading. But then, that’s the nature of everything intellectual, and school these days—not to mention the society it serves—is blinded by intellect; insight and intuition have to put on a shirt and tie and sneak in the back door. By contrast, Greece’s Akademia (sanctuary of Athena, goddess of wisdom)—to which today’s institutions are supposedly heir—were more like monasteries or art schools than today’s goal-oriented, job-training universities.

We’re human beings, and we’ll always depend on abstract thought, but too much cleverness is unwise. We need to settle the mind and let it absorb the reality that life is an inconceivable mystery. To survive and prosper requires that we also stop and be still.