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Beyond Beliefs

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1. Do it Now

Procrastination is deadly. The odd part is that the most deadly variety tends to be being proactive in other areas. For example, I’ve worked with people who come in with a short list of issues – say, wanting things to be better with their career, and also wanting a better relationship with their partner. They throw themselves into the work issue, and may even create some success. But the relationship stuff seems to fall off the radar.

Then, of course, a relationship problem re-emerges.

Here’s the odd part. Rather than throw themselves into the relationship with abandon equal to what they created with their career, they make excuses. Or, rather, point to their success in other areas. "But… but… I’m doing so well with my career!"

Zen Living: everything is unique. In other words, we deal with everything one-at-a-time (like putting on your pants, one leg at a time…) Nothing applies to other things. You must work on each thing, and be vigilant all the time.

It’s quite easy to pick the "fun-est" thing first, and then get so transfixed by it that the other stuff falls to the wayside. Or, to work on something, get the results you want, and assume that "things" will just look after themselves. The truth is that this work requires both patience and diligence.

2. Practice

This flows out of the first point, and I suspect we might benefit from proactive practice. In other words, rather than hoping that things will go "OK," that we actively look for opportunities to challenge ourselves. And the "thing" we have to work with is our life. Or more specifically, the issues that arise. After all, any moron can be successful… when nothing is going wrong.

Most people get to a certain comfort level with this work, and then slow down or stop. Example: They have a dialogue with a friend or partner, amd discover much to talk about, and then find a topic or a direction that raises a few hackles (in them, or their partner reacts to the topic,) so that’s where they stop – they pull back one step from the "juice."

Zen living: perhaps, the place to be living is on the "shaky side" of every line. If certain topics are scary or chargy, talk about those things. I find it fun, when talking with friends, to notice their discomfort, and to say something like, "I can see that you don’t want to talk about this, so would you like to talk about talking about it?"

Running away, avoiding, dancing around – all are ways to stay stuck in the drama, while excusing yourself. No excuses! Just see each thing as one more thing – one more way to bring yourself into the Now.

3. "Free Your Mind, the Rest Will Follow" – The Band

Letting go of your mind’s dominance is the most difficult part of the Zen path, or any path of self awareness. The mind is sticky and slippery, and much of it is highly invested in maintaining the story you tell yourself.

Stories are the currency of the mind. We think we know who we are, and believe our own press releases about how the world is. Many are the clients who tell themselves all kinds of provocative tales – how hard done by they are, how their nearest and dearest are taking advantage of them, how they have no choice when they act like spoiled children. It’s as if, just because they’ve looked at things one way since they were 16, they MUST look at things that way until they die.

There is nothing "true" about any of the stories you tell yourself. Now, sure, you were born, had parents, and stuff happened and continues to happen. None of your stories about your life, (about the details – about "what happened") however,are anything other than what you’ve chosen to believe to support your preconceived notion.

Zen living: things are as they are, until they aren’t. Getting your shorts in a knot, or acting like a spoled brat, is just one more mind game.

Freeing your mind really means freeing yourself from your mind’s grip. Life is difficult, and telling yourself stories about how really, really bad it all is does nothing regarding dealing with the the actual living out of your days. If you choose to let go of the story-telling, you can simply make choices, act, and evaluate, then act again. Once you mind is freed to resolve what "is," "the rest just follows."

4. Happiness is not the point. Integrity, freedom, and presence is.

We are a "happiness rules" culture, and that’s odd, because virtually no one is actually happy. People seem hell-bent on being happy "some day, when all the ducks line up, if the creek don’t rise…" Chasing after some ephemeral goal called happiness keeps us buying more, judging everything as lacking, and blaming others for the dissatisfaction.

This relates to point # 3 – storytelling. If you see the moment for what it is, you also recognize that most of us live our lives just fine, moment to moment – the trouble comes with the stories we tell ourselves. Our judgements about self, others, and circumstances, all of which is neutral, add the dynamic for our unhappiness.

Zen living: as you bring yourself, again and again, into presence, you start to see that mostly there is not much going on, and precious little to do, other than to be there for your life. Getting bent out of shape – typically over the behaviour of others (code for "They are not doing it the right way!" – meaning, your way) is quite the waste of time. Your opinion is just that – yours – and no one cares.

Drop the need to judge your life as lacking, and immerse yourself fully into the Now.

5. Take time to experience

Stepping back from the mind’s chatter can be quite disconcerting. Without all of that distraction, what ends up being left is sensation. The flow of life-force. Breath. This can either be startling, scary, boring, or interesting.

The point to briskly stepping next to your mind is to open yourself to the endless flow of sensation. You suddenly can hear, and see, and feel, and in this process of being, you come into the actual experience of what’s up. Now, most of the time, your mind will pop in and start judging or complaining. "Here’s what you ought to be doing, feeling, thinking!" And away you go from the experience to the mental games.

Zen living: use your breath to bring yourself back into your body, and then simply feel and hear and see. Be at one with yourself. Have your feelings, experience your experiences, and then… wait for it… go with the flow to the next thing.

You’ll notice a reluctance to fully immerse yourself into the flow and feel of life, as if feeling is a "bad thing." Have another breath, and go with it. Soon, you tolerance for being fully alive and fully present will grow. You, in a sence, become immersed in living, as opposed to living your life one step removed.

And remember, everything new has the potential to be scary. Do it anyway!

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Make Contact!

So, how does this week’s article sit with you? What questions do you have? Click here to go to the online article, and leave a comment or question!

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Workshops, Retreats!

Darbella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and weekend events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Intensives
Weekend Residentials

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Beyond Beliefs

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After I wrote This Endless Moment, I sent copies out for review and comment. One of my friends e-mailed me with the idea of talking about what I am ‘in,’ as compared to what I have ‘learned’—in other words,

to talk about my process for dealing with my issues or problems.

OK. Here we go. I notice that my process, over the years, has not shifted much at all. I torture myself in one or two familiar ways—this is one of those slippery insights—we don’t have a lot of issues.

In general, there is:

The process—a single, overriding pattern or dysfunction—the ‘thing that doesn’t work,’

and

The content—the topic of the day—the details—how the current drama ‘presents itself.’

Because our minds are looking for complexity as opposed to Simple Presence, we resist the idea that the ‘many, many’ issues we think we have are the same issue, in different guises. My favourite way of saying this is, “Baskin Robbins has 31 flavours(content), and they are all Ice Cream (process).”

My ‘single’ issue is that I endlessly choose to create a sense of
dis-satisfaction, as in ‘never satisfied.’

The Buddha’s First Noble Truth is that “Life is suffering.” The word translated ‘suffering’ is dukkha, which is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘unsatisfactoriness.’ When you translate the statement as, “Life is unsatisfactoriness,” you see that the concept flows both ways.

On the one hand, we could say that life is unsatisfactory, in its intrinsic nature—that the nature of life is to suffer. On the other hand, we could look at the sentence and think, “Life itself is neutral, and I suffer because I choose to judge it unsatisfactory.”

Let me draw a word picture.

My internal, ‘how I am feeling’ thermostat setting—what I consider ‘normal’ for me—is what I describe as “Melancholy.” Now, I certainly have, for periods, felt differently. My deep nature, though, is to feel sad or melancholy—extremes in either direction are aberrations.

When I go off the rails, I first have a judgement that I shouldn’t feel how I feel, and then I look around to find something external to blame for how I feel. I thus move from melancholy (my nature) to unsatisfactory (my explanation and judgement.)

Here’s an example of me playing this game: one weekend, Darbella was wondering aloud about our upcoming retirement adventure in Costa Rica. She described really, really wanting to go, and how that was not yet happening. I listened to her talk about her imaginings about the future, and initially I maintained Simple Presence. I reminded myself that the future is never here, that worrying about it is actually worrying about figments of our imagination, and I suggested we discuss what, if anything, we could do ‘right now.’

So far, all well and good. Then, the ‘little voice’ of my ego kicked in.

The ego’s job is to maintain the status quo, to point out ‘our failures,’ and to assign external blame. Egos love misery. This time, my ego used lines like,

“This is your fault. You should work harder. You should make this happen. Get a job. No one likes you anyway, and you’re not helping anyone.”

I felt my ‘self’ slide down an old and familiar ‘slide.’ I made myself quite miserable. Rather than sit at home and stew, I decided to get out of the house, and be miserable elsewhere. So we went for a drive to check out a restaurant we had been meaning to try. The town is a lovely place, right on Ontario’s Grand River, and is near where my first training placement was in 1981-82, as I studied to be a therapist.

We sat in a coffee shop, on a beautiful spring day, overlooking the mighty Grand, sipping lattes. Darbella talked some more about Costa Rica. Then, she asked me how my mood was.

I told her, and I really milked it. Since the town was a familiar place for me, I told Dar I’d been beating myself up about how little I’d accomplished since I was a student there in 1981. I told Dar that I was a failure—that, in ’81, I never imagined that I would be where I was today, woe is me. I whined about the miserable and broken state of everything and everyone in the Universe—and how all of it was entirely my fault. I won’t bore you with all the details, but as usual I concluded by stating that I was going to stop writing, stop counselling, close shop, and go live under a bridge.

Dar sat and listened. And gave me a hug.

This is my pattern—this is how I make myself miserable.

This time, the ostensible topic (the content) was money, bills, timing and Costa Rica, but it could have just as easily been about client numbers, publishing, or whatever. I took this ‘seed content,’ and escalated it—this is how I create the very familiar feeling of ‘unsatisfactoriness’ for myself—I take a neutral bit of content and awfulize it, add to it, and create more and more sadness.

Here’s the interesting part. I go off the rails by thinking that any of the things I am making myself miserable over are either ‘real’ or ‘true.’ Simple Presence is knowing that the game I play in my head is a part of my present reality. My reality is not found in the content—the details—the story I tell myself.

My reality is nothing more than the game itself, for as long as I chose to play it.

Back to the coffee shop. Rather than get into the ‘rightness or wrong­ness’ of the stories I was inventing, I needed to first notice, and then report the game itself. It was essential, then, that I shared what I was doing with someone—and that someone, for me, is Darbella. I do not do this to get her to ‘fix me’ (she can’t) or to make it all go away (she can’t, and there was nothing happening ‘right now’ that needed to go away—it was all a figment of my imagination.)

My job, using total honesty, was to share with Dar the story I was telling myself.

I admit freely that I am quite good at torturing myself. I am also quite good at letting go, exiting my stories, and getting back to ‘reality.’ And reality, for me, is often melancholy.

I have learned to communicate in the ‘here-and-now,’ even when my ‘here-and-now’ focus is on the stories in my head, which, by definition, are always about past and future. As I share my crazy-making internal theatre in the ‘here-and-now,’ as opposed to clamming up or placing blame, the edge comes off of the stuff I am telling myself.

Darbella and I listen to each other with little judgement and no need to rush in and fix.

Do I want to rescue? Of course! I love Dar, and do not like seeing her hurting. I recognize, however, that there is nothing I can do, inside of her head. That’s hers—I am curious, and not responsible for what’s happening inside of her.

I do not scare myself over Dar’s stuff, and so far, she hasn’t scared herself over mine. This is a skill that requires practice—sitting with another without judgement or the need to rescue. We prac­tice this all the time.

I am aware of what I do inside of me, and I stop ‘unsatisfactoriness-making’ when I choose to stop. And then, because I am me, I do the whole thing again. Do I want rescue? Of course! And I know that rescue is impossible.

The practice part is, ‘practice until you die.’ There is no cure for how we abuse ourselves—other than death, which finally shuts our ego up. There is only noticing our drama-making, and then shifting how we act.

Have a look at ‘all’ of your issues, and see if there is not an underlying theme of ‘unsatisfactoriness-making’ going on (hint: there is!) Notice all of your self-justifications, the blaming, and the finger pointing. Then, have a breath, and remind yourself that all of this is nothing more than a game you are playing in your head.

Hold yourself and your internal processes gently. Find someone with whom to share your games and dramas. Let him or her know that you do not expect them to ‘fix’ you, as you are not broken. Be honest. Be brave. Let go.

And be gentle when you do it to yourself, all over again.

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Make Contact!

So, how does this week’s article sit with you? What questions do you have? Click here to go to the online article, and leave a comment or question!

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Workshops, Retreats!

Darbella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and weekend events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Intensives
Weekend Residentials

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Beyond Beliefs

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Today, I want to offer you another section of my great new book, Half Asleep in the Buddha Hall:

Zen Living: The Principal Paradox

I  received this question: “When you write, you say that personal self-responsibility is key. Then you say, ‘Drop your ego,’ or personal identity. Aren’t these contradictory?”

Yes. No. Both. Neither.

Ponder: Wuzu Fayan said, “For example, it’s [enlightened living] just like a great cow passing through a latticed window.
Her head, horns, and four legs have passed through.
Why is it that her tail can’t pass through?”

Think about that one, for a moment, before reading on.

Personal self responsibility is often confused with egotism

When I say, “I am completely responsible for my experience,” I do not mean, “It’s all about me.”

“It’s all about me” is actually a form of ‘dis-ease.’

Many people think that the world isn’t treating them right. I hear this one especially as I counsel couples. There they sit, balefully glaring at each other, vainly hoping I’ll declare a winner. Each rattles off a litany of what the other is doing wrong. Sometimes, one or the other will tell me, with great righteousness, “Everyone knows that relationships should be easy. When you find the right person, (s)he will meet all your needs, without asking, and everything will be perfect.”

This is egotism. Egotism is not the same as self-responsibility.

Egotism: You expect or demand that others put you first. This happens because you think you are so, so special. This, however, is silly in the extreme. It doesn’t matter that your parents doted on you as an infant (hint: they had to or you’d have died…) or that they told you that you could be or do anything, and that you were special and important. Growing up and waking up requires that we understand the following—

Always remember that you’re unique.
Just like everyone else.

See the Zen there? It’s a paradox. Every person who ever lived is unique —even to the level of fingerprints. Where we go off the rails is in thinking that I alone am unique. This emphatically levels the playing field.

Self-responsibility is the ceaseless action of walking a path. The wise path, the one path, in all cases, is dropping the ego.

What does this mean?

Dropping the ego is the foursquare recognition that, despite being unique, I also am no one and nothing (no thing) special. I therefore guide myself along a path that brings moment-by-moment self awareness, by ‘simply being.’

A Helpful Haiku

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)—was a Zen monk who travelled across Japan, teaching and writing more than a thousand haiku.

This road –
No one is on it.
The autumn evening.

Another translation-

No one
walks along this path
this autumn evening.

The dumb path is this: someone (me! me! me) walks along the path, and everyone is envious of my every step!

The wise path: no one walks this path, as the path is walked. There is no walker. There is walking.

Get it?

So, what’s up with the cow and the lattice?

I read this Zen story and I liked it. A cow has climbed through a window. Almost the entire cow has passed through to the other side, yet the tail remains lodged firmly in the window.

Why? Because it’s the part of himself that he’s caught on! Get it?

The goal of Zen living, through meditation and contemplation, is to discover what you are catching yourself on. The tail that catches you is personal and unique, and arises as a result of your ‘embodied-ness.’ Perhaps it is the desire for status and recognition. Perhaps it is possessions or wealth. It might be anything you distract yourself with—food, sex, roles. It may be your belief in the reality of your ego-identity. It could be anything at all.

Recognizing your ‘stuck tail’ is walking the road of enlightenment. It reminds us to examine our motivations and actions. If we act without attachment and without ego, without yielding to the temptation to bend to the will of the world outside of us, we are awake.

What is my ‘tail’ caught on—what am I distracting myself with?

Personal self-responsibility is continuing to walk, no matter what seems to be happening around you or to you. The discipline is to ask, “What of this is mine, and what of this is out of my control?” (Hint: anything outside of ‘you,’ is, by definition, out of your control.)

It’s tempting to waste your life trying to make others responsible—for your happiness, for your wealth, for what you know, for your feelings. It’s tempting to demand that others and ‘the world’ treat you as you want to be treated. What you might be noticing is that this is not working, never works, and (you’ll have to trust me on this part) never will work.

The easiest way to begin this practice is to monitor your body for tightness. Notice when you are upsetting yourself (over your caught tail…) by seeing where, in your body, you feel the tightness of “upset.” Make a pact with yourself to monitor that part of your body for the next 30 days. When you notice yourself tightening, say (to yourself, so they don’t drop a net on you…) “Caught tail!” Then, have several breaths, centre yourself, and come up with a strategy that will produce the sensation of “unstuck.” Repeat. Endlessly.

Walking the Wisdom path.

Commit to walking a path that leads nowhere, walked by no one. One step and one step, this path is always walked in the now-here, (because there can be no destination, only the walk, until, paradoxically, you reach the end for all of us—death.)

This wisdom path is lived with attention to every detail, every interpretation—yet with the recognition that ‘no one’ is walking, ‘no one’ is interpreting. Thinking that there is a ‘you’ in all of this is your ‘stuck tail’—your ego identifying with the role of interpreter, walker.

I know. What the heck is he talking about?

My intent is to suggest letting go of your present way of seeing and being, so that you might self-less-ly walk the ‘wisdom path.’ Yet, nothing changes in the ‘real’ world. You still have to make a living and have a life.

So what does change? Your focus, attitude, and your commitment. Instead of mindlessness, or griping, or complaining, you do what you do— you attend to right now—here, and here alone. You chop wood, carry water, with total, mindful attention.

And then, as your ego pops up, smile and think, ‘caught tail.’ Let go, give yourself a shake, and go back to playing—being.

Or, you can choose to keep pretending that anyone cares, and that rescue is at hand. 95% of the population buys into that delusion. Drop me a line if this delusion works out for you, eh?

I suspect that ‘no-one’ will reply…

Want more? Buy the book already!

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Secondly, I received the following question on last week’s blog post:

This article was great and I am really enjoying this Zen experience and look forward to your articles however there is one thing that I just can’t seem to grasp and need some help in clarifying it and just putting into perspective. Basically I’m wondering about emotions or preferences. Is it ok to not care for a particular individual or want to be around people that you find unpleasant? Or are we supposed to like everyone and be happy go lucky? And is it a judgement to not want to be around people who are always getting into trouble? 

The thing is, the issue is always about the judgement I am having about what I imagine is going on. This is different from a preference.

One of my favourite Zen writers, Brad Warner, mentioned somewhere that he was quite insistent on a particular zazen (seated meditation) style. From other stuff, I assume that Brad sits in Half or Full Lotus. He mentioned some guy wanting to do it some other way, and Brad insisted on his style.

Now, Darbella and I both sit Seiza posture, which is kneeling while sitting on a cushion. This is our preference. Now, if I were to sit with Brad, at his zendo, I would do my best to sit his way. I would still have my preference, but not have and rigidity about it.

A judgement would be: “Brad doesn’t know what he’s talking about! Kneeling is the best way, and I’m really smart, and besides, who is he to make me sit his way? He must be a really weird guy." (This may actually be so, which is why I like reading his stuff…)

Emotions are bodily reactions to what arises from thought. As such, they are neither right nor wrong, good nor bad. What arises, arises. My job is to notice and to express, safely and quickly, and then get back to “simply noticing.” This includes all emotions.

It is not my opinion that we are “supposed to” be anything, other than present. Certainly not “happy go lucky,” or dancing about pretending all is well, all the time. The problem? Things are as they are, and sometimes, things are decidedly odd.

So, I do not want to pretend, ever, that anything is other than it is. For me.

How I see things is all about me. So, as we’ve been saying these last few articles (forever, actually,) everything is about how I choose to see it, describe it to myself, and how I then choose to act.

So, to answer your question: Move toward those things that you are attracted to, and away from those things that you find yourself repelled by. Do not cling to things you like, nor cling to your aversions and judgements.

No, it is not a judgement to not want to be around people who are always getting into trouble. It is a judgement to think there is “something wrong with, or something to be done by” these people. In other words, don’t spend time with them, but also let them go. It’s not your job to fix anyone. It’s your job to be present, moment by moment, with yourself.

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Make Contact!

So, how does this week’s article sit with you? What questions do you have? Click here to go to the online article, and leave a comment or question!

---

Workshops, Retreats!

Darbella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and weekend events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Intensives
Weekend Residentials

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As a Reminder:

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Last week, I continued our series on the 4 Descriptors of How Life Is by discussing Sound Conduct.

I wrote:

Under the Sound Conduct category are 4 areas of concern.

This list became the basis for multitudes of rules and regulations for the discipline of monastic life. One of the nice things about Zen, and probably why I like it so much, is that the trappings and long lists are eliminated, and our preset topic could be reduced to one rule: "act consciously."

Today’s category helps us with the "nitty gritty" of the other descriptors

You might think of what you’ve read in the other 2 category articles as leading to or finding their fulfillment in Attentiveness. Its’ sort of like once you begin to understand how the world truly works (Understanding), AND once you begin to refine your Conduct in terms of this Understanding, you reach a level of maturity that culminates in a "simple" way of being (Attentiveness.)

As you might suspect, this requires a whole hearted (and whole headed) focus on seeing what is, as opposed to what we wish was going on.

This does not happen a lot, for most.

Sound Awareness

I’m writing this on June 10, some hours before the 2nd of our series of free webinars. I’m going to be discussing "noticing and accepting", the first 2 concepts in the acronym NAIL (Notice, Accept, Investigate, and Let Go) Seems appropriate, as "noticing and accepting" is what Sound Awareness is all about.

Sound Awareness requires a single-minded focus on "just this."

Prior to implementing Sound Understanding and Sound Conduct, our mental lives are non-present and non-responsible. We only begin to discover this if we bring our attention directly to our mind games, despite the "slippery wishes" of the mind. (slippery mind)

For example, many of my clients have worked on overcoming their blaming behaviours. They do this by first beginning to notice that they are angry or sad, and how they immediately and automatically blame the nearest person. So, they let go of the language. They may even say, "I am angering myself."

But then, they’ll come up with, "If only I had married someone who was more centred and Zen-like. Then, my tranquility wouldn’t be disturbed." Same thing (blaming) but stated in an artificially more self responsible way.

Approach # 1: It’s always, always about you

There is no escaping this reality. In the 4 Areas where we can bring attention, (mind, feeling, body, and phenomena) the workings of all are determined by how we choose to see them. It is my responsibility to bring bare attention or bare noticing to each of the 4.

Slippery mind will get more and more clever, but all it ever says is, "Well, it may just be me messing with myself, but THIS time…"

Awareness requires that we look, with clear eyes, at our perception of the 4 areas.

• Immaturity is this: "This is happening (say, to my body) and it is bad, painful, wrong."
• Maturity is this: "This is what is happening to my body." One client nailed it this week. I asked her how she was, and she replied, "Things in general are what they are. How was that for a reply?" She then indicated some stuff that was going on in her relationships, body, and with her communication. All data, no "this is bad," or "I’m disturbing myself over…"

What’s going on for you is what is going on for you. Watch. Notice.

Approach # 2: You know nothing about anything outside of you

This is the realm of phenomena from the 4 Areas. This is rejected strongly by our slippery mind. We cling to the belief that we know what’s up for others, and understand the workings of the world. I find this quite odd, as most people I meet are woefully ignorant of their own internal theatre, and struggle mightily against shifting much at all of their view. But boy, do they know what’s up for others!

Here’s a hint: you know nothing about anything!

Sound Awareness teaches us the art of simply noticing what’s going on. I call this bare awareness, or awareness stripped of judgement and interpretation.

I was asked the following question during the first webinar call:

"In respect to good and bad, or the fact that it doesn’t exist, that all is neutral, it is a challenge. If I do not use judgement for things, would there not be chaos? I do not leave a 5 year old to look after themselves all day because my judgement tells me that would not be wise. If there is no good and bad, what about teaching our children values?"

I would ask, "What good does adding an additional layer do?

If I observe myself gently, I seen see that I "know" how I wish to deal with any phenomenon. Adding a layer of judgement just delays things.

We do not teach children values.
Wise people live their values, and children notice.

I saw this last weekend. A friend’s son (9 years old or so) had cut a baseball apart (boy, did that bring back memories) and had wrapped the considerable internal yarn around his hand. The yarn was attached still to the rubber core. He asked his mom for a scissors.

She immediately leapt to the assumption that his hand was trapped in the yarn, and that he wanted out. She got right into, "We gotta get you out of there!" mode. I took out my knife, and opened it. He walked over to me, and sliced the yarn, freeing the rubber ball. The mom was like, "Oh!…"

Approach # 3: Be curious

This would be the elegant approach to the last story. When in doubt, (which, really, is all the time) ask. When you want something, ask.

Sound Awareness is a dialogue between you and you, and you and the universe. As you begin to drop the "know-it-all" stance, it becomes clear that it’s all pretty vague and unclear out there. And inside, too.

One of my clients tells me that she really wants to shift her life. Yet, in three years, all I hear from her is what she knows, which is that everyone is terrible, and her life is over at 31. Never once has she approached our work as a puzzle to play with.

I recognize that every learning in my life has come right after admitting I had no clue. My therapist used to say, "Practice not knowing," and curiosity as opposed to stubbornness was the key to the door.

Curiosity, in a sense, is a bit like childlike wonder. I loved the look on the kid’s face as he wrapped yarn around his hand and bounced the inside of the baseball around. This was his very first experience with the guts of a ball, and I twigged back to when I’d done the same thing. I told him about some of my experiences, and wished him well with the exploration.

Curiosity allows me to deeply engage with the phenomena I am viewing. The Buddha used the term samadhi to describe this laser-like focus on what is "right there." He indicted that such attention leads to delight and ease born of detached curiosity.

Approach # 4: detach

Detachment is not the same as not caring. Detachment is about dropping clinging. To what, you ask?

See above! It’s dropping our attachment to our stories, our judgements, our blaming, and to our mind games. Once I have detached myself from them, and also from attaching to a particular outcome, I can be fully and completely present with this moment.

This is not the same as not caring. It’s not walking around in a calm, preternatural fog. It’s paired with "delight," remember. It’s all about complete, vital presence as one enacts and interacts with life.

Sound Awareness requires laser-like presence, without clinging to anything. This is difficult, as most people are deeply attached to their pain and drama, and also deeply attached to the idea that the cosmos should cooperate in a "make me happy project."

Silly people want the world and others to give a shit,
and are deeply annoyed that it and others don’t.

So, detach. Let It Be, to quote a Beatles album. It is as it is, until it isn’t.

This is also not to say that goals, projects, desires have no place. Remember, the real cause of suffering is clinging, not desire per se. The way this plays out is to do whatever you do with full attention and full involvement, while detaching from a specific outcome (the clinging part.)

Sound Concentration

Approach #5: Sound Concentration

The word the Buddha used is dhyana, which is the precursor to the word Zen. And the essence of Zen is shikantaza, a term coined by Dogen, the founder of the Soto school of Zen.

The word shikantaza translates, ""nothing but (shikan) precisely (ta) sitting (za)."

Sound Concentration is what happens when we are able to simply be present, moment-by-moment, with what is, and what arises. It happens as we learn to sit with ourselves and let go of the clinging and the games.

As I’ve said before, the way to strengthen presence is to practice shikantaza. Resources are here, including a video.

 

 

 

For the next few weeks, I’ll be introducing my new book, which just arrived from the printer’s. I’m holding off on linking to it until the Amazon links are ready and working. Stay tuned!

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Make Contact!

So, how does this week’s article sit with you? What questions do you have? Click here to go to the online article, and leave a comment or question!

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Workshops, Retreats!

Darbella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and weekend events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Intensives
Weekend Residentials

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