If you think you know what mindfulness is, or what meditation is, then be careful: Our early 21st century American culture thinks it knows, too. And our culture has the facts wrong. Meditation is so mixed up in wrongness (in the minds of most people) that I hesitate to even use the word. Words are like towels, and after too long one can get soiled. Most times its better to throw out the dirty towel and start with a new one, since some connotations can be extraordinarily powerful.
Better than a new word, though, I will try to wash out this old towel and bleach it. Maybe it can yet be salvaged.
Meditation is not passive for starters, not just sitting around and being silent. Cultivating mindfulness is an active, energetic problem; even if some of the solution does require inner silence.
Likewise meditation is not about detaching from the world, drawing away from the physical, or "becoming a nobody," as Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us in Wherever You Go, There You Are. When he talks about rejecting the "self," he is careful to point out this doesn't mean destroying who you are: Just the opposite! Even Albert Einstein wrote in The World as I See It that one must reject the artificial constructs "I," "me," and "mine." The world is holistic and so is nature, drawn together in a complex web, each bit changing another at a different time and place. Putting up a barrier between yourself and the rest of the world is no way to live in it. Jon Kabat-Zinn says,
We must recognize that what we do each moment comes to define who we are. If you lie each day, for example, about trivial matters (Did you clean your room today?) then little by little you become a liar. We need to turn off the autopilot. Sometimes, something may happen to us that turns the autopilot back on.
Lately, I have had this problem. With the turmoil of selling my house, the prospect of planning my wedding (making everyone, including me and Sarah, happy), and of course the ever-problematic How will I make enough money?, I have come to fly on autopilot again. I know that Sarah has, too. So much stress just overloads my system. Not to worry, never fear. The most important thing now is not to be judgmental. Being angry at the autopilot for switching on does no good. Probably it saved me from crashing and having a breakdown, protected me until I could think clearly again. I think that's how the dream works; it protects us. The danger comes when we don't learn to take back control and live our lives again.
Moment by moment, I have been coming awake. Now I feel as if I can write clearly.
The practice of mindfulness, and of meditation, is different for everyone. I am confident that meditation cannot be taught, only talked about in terms of theory, and that everyone, while meditating, comes to understand in a unique way who they truly are. You may not even need a teacher. You just need to be present. Some teacher may tell us practices or concepts, such as Breathing in, I recognize my emotion; Breathing out, I calm my emotion. But each man and woman in the world has a different breath. Breaths are like snowflakes. In everyday life, we do different things to meditate.
To meditate, I write. Sarah may do something different: Walking, I think, or reading. You may ride bikes, or run marathons, or paint, or compose music.However you choose to come awake, be comfortable with who you are, and take the time to engage with life, not passively but actively. I don't mean this last as an order, but as a plea, for your sake and for ours: Wake up and pay attention!
Better than a new word, though, I will try to wash out this old towel and bleach it. Maybe it can yet be salvaged.
Meditation is not passive for starters, not just sitting around and being silent. Cultivating mindfulness is an active, energetic problem; even if some of the solution does require inner silence.
Likewise meditation is not about detaching from the world, drawing away from the physical, or "becoming a nobody," as Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us in Wherever You Go, There You Are. When he talks about rejecting the "self," he is careful to point out this doesn't mean destroying who you are: Just the opposite! Even Albert Einstein wrote in The World as I See It that one must reject the artificial constructs "I," "me," and "mine." The world is holistic and so is nature, drawn together in a complex web, each bit changing another at a different time and place. Putting up a barrier between yourself and the rest of the world is no way to live in it. Jon Kabat-Zinn says,
Too often, Kabat-Zinn says, we live our lives in a dream, confident that the labels we give ourselves (names, ages, genders, race, sexual orientations, etc.) are really who we are instead of just labels. Labels are a part of who we are, but they are not everything. But, seeing these labels and confident they are sturdy, we say, "I know who I am and where I am going," and so don't bother to pay attention, moment by moment, to our lives.
When we speak of meditation, it is important for you to know that this is not some weird, cryptic activity, as our popular culture might have it. It does not involve becoming some kind of zombie, vegetable, self-absorbed narcissist, navel gazer, "space cadet," cultist, devotee, mystic, or Eastern philosopher. Meditation is simply about being yourself and knowing something about who that is. It is about coming to realize that you are on a path whether you like it or not, namely, the path that is your life. Meditation may help us see that this path we call our life has direction; that it is always unfolding, moment by moment; and that what happens now, in this moment, influences what happens next.
We must recognize that what we do each moment comes to define who we are. If you lie each day, for example, about trivial matters (Did you clean your room today?) then little by little you become a liar. We need to turn off the autopilot. Sometimes, something may happen to us that turns the autopilot back on.
Lately, I have had this problem. With the turmoil of selling my house, the prospect of planning my wedding (making everyone, including me and Sarah, happy), and of course the ever-problematic How will I make enough money?, I have come to fly on autopilot again. I know that Sarah has, too. So much stress just overloads my system. Not to worry, never fear. The most important thing now is not to be judgmental. Being angry at the autopilot for switching on does no good. Probably it saved me from crashing and having a breakdown, protected me until I could think clearly again. I think that's how the dream works; it protects us. The danger comes when we don't learn to take back control and live our lives again.
Moment by moment, I have been coming awake. Now I feel as if I can write clearly.
The practice of mindfulness, and of meditation, is different for everyone. I am confident that meditation cannot be taught, only talked about in terms of theory, and that everyone, while meditating, comes to understand in a unique way who they truly are. You may not even need a teacher. You just need to be present. Some teacher may tell us practices or concepts, such as Breathing in, I recognize my emotion; Breathing out, I calm my emotion. But each man and woman in the world has a different breath. Breaths are like snowflakes. In everyday life, we do different things to meditate.
To meditate, I write. Sarah may do something different: Walking, I think, or reading. You may ride bikes, or run marathons, or paint, or compose music.However you choose to come awake, be comfortable with who you are, and take the time to engage with life, not passively but actively. I don't mean this last as an order, but as a plea, for your sake and for ours: Wake up and pay attention!
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