Notice your words, everyday, every moment - what do you choose to speak about? What words do you use? Are you speaking about your troubles? Are you speaking of your fears, inadequacies or your lack? Are you telling others what is wrong with them? Are you jabbing at the, cutting and criticizing them? Right now, you can turn that around. Don't feed your investments in unhappiness any longer. Simply notice that its there and don't give it any more of your awareness or attention. And certainly don't feed it by dwelling there. Notice it and then look around and notice everything else as well.
Actually, notice as many different things as you can. Let your field of vision and awareness expand. For example, if you are angry about something that just happened, notice what your mind makes it mean, or how the event is interpreted. Then notice how your body responds, and notice your breath. Then notice the sounds in and around the room you are in. Feel the energy of the area you are in, the village, state, country, planet, cosmos... and so on.
The field of vision tends to narrow around the things we give the most attention to. If you insist on obsessing over a wrong done to you or something you said that you now regret you only serve to bind yourself tighter with the ropes of unhappiness. I call that a contraction. When you release your desire to dwell there and willingly open to awareness, I call that expansion of consciousness. The more you do it, the easier it gets and the freer and lighter and more joyful you become.
When I look around myself and realize that all I see are all the things that are wrong with others and situations, and I feel grumbly and judgmental and critical about the world or about myself, I know I am in a contracted state and before I make any quick decisions, I need to get quiet and free myself up from all the thinking that holds me hostage. I sit still and quiet. Anyone can benefit from time outs, in the same way a child does when sent to his room after a temper tantrum. You don't have to wait until you feel contracted to benefit. Actually a regular dose is the best medicine for the world.
4 comments:
Wonderfully put! I am just practicing that lately: more awareness and less focus on a single thing. It is as valuable as a good stretch!
I enjoyed this essay. I don't know if meditation has caused a change in my thoughts, but it has given me the opportunity to look at my thoughts more objectively. I think that it is interesting to look at this technique of opening to "the BIG" as a way to step out of the contraction of a thought. Is this inspired by Francis? Another approach might be to bring the focus to something very specific like the breath or mantram. Almost an opposite approach, but just a different means to the same ends. At least that's my take on it this evening.
Speech, even our interior speech, is like a mantra and as such can be quite potent (good or bad) medicine. Rather than projecting your irritation outward, (blaming others, complaining etc.) recognize that you are feeling irritated and begin to see it for what it is. I don't think anything has to change really. Once you SEE what you are doing with your thoughts, or rather, what they are doing to you, the shift will happen spontaneously and effortlessly. Mantra and breath awareness are especially helpful methods of calming the mind but they work like a raft and eventually, and I'm sure you've heard the teaching, when you reach the other shore, you leave the raft behind. So they can be great tools to get quiet. But don't stop there. Keep letting your awareness expand to include more and more, not only in sitting meditation but spontaneously throughout your day.
What I'm particularly interested in at this moment in life is the process or technique which will help me to "free myself up from all the thinking that holds me hostage". It seems like there have been so many different ways I've learned to approach this over the years. First, it was just simply the process of sitting still and quiet, then it was learning to relax in that posture, then developing the ability to focus the mind on something like the breath or mantra. Other times it's been a practice of opening my awareness to include sensations and sounds around me. Then, Byron Katie influenced me to question my thoughts and that was so useful. But lately, it's changed again. These days when "I feel grumbly and judgmental and critical about the world or about myself" I find it effective to engage in a bit of self talk "that is a thought, I'm not sure where it came from, but it is creating a sense of negativity and pain for me right now and so I am ready to release it back to where it came from". That's helped me to untangle from the allure of a good gripe. However, like Rumi's "Guesthouse" I'd love to take it a step further and meet those dark thoughts "at the door laughing, and invite them in...welcome difficulty as a familiar comrade - joke with torment brought by the Friend." But, honestly, right now I prefer to just show them the quickest way out the back door.
Thanks for this opportunity to practice together.
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