Waking Up Now, Not Waiting for “It” to Be All Over

29 May 2015 Leave a comment

by zeuslyone in Buddhism, Morning Pages, Tao Te Ching, Taoism, Waking Up Tags: , , , , , , , ,

The following set of morning pages were written about hearing Avicii’s “Wake Me Up”. I’m taking out some of the more personal rigamarole to get straight to the point.

It was spun crap about living in the moment. How is that position always turned into a justification for hedonism? Compile a set of moments that you want. Continue to do so. That’s the path to happiness. Such is the implied conclusion of that point of view. In comparison, I’m drawn to a Taoist-Buddhist-Stoic idea of happiness. It’s easy to show up to the moments you like, but if that’s the case, happiness is and always will be externally dependent.

The Sage, the Buddha, the Wise: these individuals don’t require conditions to be just right to be happy. They have cultivated an internal wealth that is not dependent on the schemes of the ego to get everything just right. Rather, they realize, as Lao Tzu tells us in the Tao Te Ching that everything changes, so controlling conditions through force cannot last.

So “waiting to be woken up when it’s all over” is always going to be lost (during and after) and never will realize it. It’s lost in the ego’s search for deliverance–a way out. The “all over” is the escape of better, wanted conditions. The Sage smiles upon such inherent delusion. S/he just lives with joy, no matter what comes–a blooming lotus in the muddy waters.

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For comparison, read my posts on similar points including: Tao a Day: Verse 26 – Inner Virtues, Path of the Dharma: The Dhammapada – Chapter 1: “Twin Verses”, and Nothing to Do.

May this bring you the resolve to cultivate your own inner strength, your own wakefulness, and your own pure heart without relying on the world to give you the never existent stability of “just right”.

Gassho!

Open, Bare Gratitude

19 May 2015 Leave a comment

by zeuslyone in Big Picture, Meditation, Mindfulness, Morning Pages Tags: , , , , , ,

Gratitude for all–whatever arises. It’s beautiful yet nearly impossible to cultivate. It takes a radical acceptance, an embrace of the world as it is. We’re far more likely to get caught up in our minds–in our interpretations, in how we think things should be.

Near the end of my shift yesterday, I went for a walk during a break. The afternoon sunshine shone brilliantly as I did laps around the building. Cars whizzed past excitedly as people left to return home for the day. I went around one corner of the building and nearly gasped aloud as I looked up at the sky. The clouds were so crisp, their edges so intricate and nuanced with definition and color. I continued my walk in an ongoing meditation–open to each moment without grasping onto it. The birds chirping as they fly overhead… The bee buzzing by me to gather pollen… The wispy, white cotton from the trees in bloom floating on the wind… The people at the bus stop chatting as they wait for the bus… My feet thudding softly on the asphalt, feeling every shift of bone and muscle in the dynamic change that is a step forward…

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Being open and aware like this, even for a few minutes, is no small feat. Indeed, the discursive mind waits at the fringes, looking for a moment to jump in and comment–grasping at further analysis, and I have a particularly long-winded discursive mind! However, we mistake this analyzer for the depths of thought, for the mind itself, yet underneath its myriad words, there is the open, bare gratitude of being present. Before the reactions of dis/liking, commenting, and analyzing, there is just letting be. This ground is always open, waiting for us to slow down and embrace it with gratitude and wonder.

May this post help you find that open, bare gratitude.

Gassho!

Showing Up?

18 May 2015 6 Comments

by zeuslyone in Buddhism, Journalling, Mindfulness, Morning Pages, Practice, Warrior's Path Tags: , , , , ,

I wonder right now how much of our lives are lived waiting for the next moment–in anticipation of something else. I just sipped my coffee, and I realized as the taste hit my tongue along with the tender reaction against the hot fluid that for the most part, these sips are taken automatically–rushing to do the next thing. It’s hardly even noticed because your mind is focused on whatever you are very briefly interrupting by picking up the coffee cup or whatever you will be doing as soon as you set it down.

I just took another sip, and I intentionally slowed down, feeling the heat from the coffee rising up against my face, looking down and seeing my reflection in the coffee: my eyes and nose rippling in the dark. How little are we present to our lives?

You might say that you show up all the time, but most any examples you would give would be the handful of moments that you look forward to–your escape from all the things you don’t want to be present for. It’s easy to show up for things you like. In fact, most people try to handle their lives by trying to make it all something they like, but this doesn’t save them from illness, old age, loss, and death. You’re going to be in moments you don’t want to be in–traffic jams, public restrooms, cat barf, and flubbed orders at restaurants… heartbreak, false friends, body aches, and self-righteous dunces.

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It’s hard to show up for the moments you don’t like

The question: Can you show up to all these moments too? Can you be present to all the things you don’t like? Can you sit with the world as it is with equanimity? Can you let this grow into the tender openness of compassion for all? I dare you to try.

May this help you develop mindful presence in all of life’s situations.

Gassho!

Stopping to Look – The Invitation of Every Moment

01 May 2015 Leave a comment

by zeuslyone in Big Picture, Meditation, Mindfulness, Morning Pages Tags: ,

[After journaling at length about a frustrating morning.]

I stopped just now and focused on my coffee cup. The swirls of oil film across the surface, moving slowly, dreamily. The steam wafts off the top, lazily unfurling into swirling waves, loops, and whorls. I touch the handle, looking at my single finger lining up with the edges of the curve. I focus on the sense of touch–the smoothness of the glaze, the comfort of the solid pottery bearing the weight of my finger. I feel my touch extend to the table bearing the weight of the cup, the table’s rest on the floor, and the floor extending to the entire room of people around me and the whole world outside the window just beyond them.

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It’s so easy to get involved in our own pain to the point of overlooking the entire universe outside our heads, but it’s all there–just a breath away. All it takes is only a second to stop and look. The best part? Every moment is an invitation to do just that.

Slowing Down to See Our Place–Beyond Solipsism

23 Apr 2015 2 Comments

by zeuslyone in Journalling, Mindfulness, Morning Pages, Philosophy Tags: , , , , ,

Here’s another musing from my morning pages that I thought worth sharing.

It’s interesting how some mornings just feel awkward and clumsy. It’s almost like the entire world is out to get you. I just had a pile of clumsiness a moment ago. What to do? I noticed that the first instinct is to blame things–as though my phone could be actively choosing to defy me–or in a more general way, we can say that today is a “bad day”–as though the stars were aligned in the sky in such a way as to make everything bad for us today. However, how often are such things a sign that we are not paying full attention to what we are doing or that we are doing things poorly–half-assed?

I just slowed down and tried to be mindful, and guess what? The world wasn’t out to get me. Stuff remained stuff, lifeless, obeying the laws of physics, but my interpretation changed from making the world about “me” into looking at my action in the world. Suddenly, it was easier rather than harder. The separation of victimhood disappeared, and I flowed with it all again.

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How often do we interpret the world and our lives like this? It seems a more or less constant thing, and I don’t say any of this in judgment, merely in measurement of the banality of all this. We see the world through our own two eyes, always within our own perspective. Is it really any wonder then that we so readily see it in terms of me?

Even Western metaphysics struggles with this solipsism. The one thing that Descartes could not doubt was the existence of his thinking self. Thus, the I that thinks, that feels, that experiences is the ground for all truth. Yet, is this even sensible? This has not answered what “I” is as thinking thing and assumes that the grammatical description of subject doing activity to object (in this case: “I doubt everything”) is an accurate description. In this sense, I mean that it is accurate that there is a separate “I” from the doubts. What if the doubts are the “I”? What if the thinker is not separate from the thinking–unfolding together?

What I would add to this fragment is that we take our position as solid, enduring identity which the world revolves around far too seriously. Then, everything becomes our own personal world, and we see ourselves both as separate from our actions and as the center of a drama/tragedy/set of happenings. In truth, you stubbed your toe, dropped your phone, and spilled your coffee. None of these were out to get you. You weren’t mindful. Your mindfulness slips even more when you get angry at these things and say that life is too hard, that it all sucks, etc. You could instead choose to laugh at yourself for your various slips and goofs, taking ownership of them as your own missteps, and if the world is responding to you, it’s reminding you to wake up to yourself and what you are doing.

May this help you look at even the smallest of your interactions and engagements differently. May such new insight bring you the ability to laugh instead of being angry and be attentive and purposeful instead of continuing to be clumsy.

Gassho!

The Patterns that Bind

18 Apr 2015 7 Comments

by zeuslyone in Journalling, Morning Pages Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The following is a piece from a new journalling practice: Morning Pages. I approach these without any real agenda beyond writing three pages every morning. This entry began with questioning what to write and not wanting to stick in going on and on about negative feelings. I didn’t want to share that intro here and the personal details of what I “could” talk about, as the shift at the end is the point.

…Why grab onto negativity like that if not expressing to someone else, getting it out, or resolving? I’ve talked about it at length with others.

No, we all too readily fall into the patterns that bind, defining ourselves–struggle by struggle, habit by habit. We’d rather invest our time and energy in these than step out into uncharted waters or develop more positive habits that open our hearts and our vision–like meditation.

Is uncertainty–facing the fact that our selves hold a blank canvas of possibility–really so terrifying? Would we really rather pin ourselves down in our identity: I’m defined as such and such, and it explains everything about me?

There’s a lot of wonder in us. We’d prefer to dilute it with something safe–something known. The known here, however, is but a mask, a creation, not the discovery from investigation.

One of the beauties of meditation is the opportunity to face ourselves in an open space of self-reflection. Seeing the flowing nature of our thoughts, experiences, feelings, and ourselves, all these things we hold dear as definite. They emerge, shift, shine, and pass moment by moment: a dance of unfolding wonder, no matter how much we might try to staticize them.

I’d like to use this journal for that open exploration, allowing the words to flow through me, offering my mind in its open potential as creative unfolding.

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What I’ve written here fits well with the title of this song (at least I think so):

May you find your own creative unfoldings and steps beyond the patterns that bind.
Gassho!

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