Category: Performances

Posted on by joseph mauricio

DOUBT

DOUBT

At our core, we all have a strong innate life force energy. Although sometimes it doesn’t feel this way, we have everything we need. We just doubt that we can do it. It’s a cornerstone of materialist culture that we always think we need more. The implication here is we’re not enough as we are.  Yet, we fundamentally don’t need to increase our sense of wellness via artificial means such as caffeine, drugs, or other dopamine precursors. In fact, some of those might deplete us in the long term. Sometimes we confuse the things we take for energy for our life force.  Coffee is not windhorse. Neither are our attachments or addictions. Although any of these may provide a temporary uplift or distraction.

 

The point is, distractions are not the point. We are, at the core, enough.

 

OKay truth is, I love my coffee in the morning. While good coffee, rousing music, falling in love, or cranking ourselves up on Instagram can make us feel alive for a while, sometimes we’re masking deeper needs. This creates a drain on our spiritual being. And while there is nothing inherently wrong with any activity we enjoy, there seems to be a problem when we believe we need it to get out the door. When we become reliant on these attachments, they become obstacles that block the flow of our life force. While we don’t need to increase our life force by artificial means, we can block our life force and sense of wellbeing quite easily. We can behave in ways that erode wellness. From a meditation perspective, we look at clinging and grasping – our attachments – as blocking the flow of our life force. So, the question is, what are the blockages to the flow of our life force? And how can we work with them?

 

Many meditation traditions refer to blockages as obstacles or hindrances. They are usually places we are holding on out of anger, desire, or ignorance. We may be holding on in our belly, or our shoulders. We may be holding on to an idea or philosophy. We may be holding on to a resentment toward another. Regardless, we are grasping at straws as way to escape the torrents we experience in life. Whether or not we recognize or acknowledge these attachments, they are causing blockages to the flow of our life force, our joy, and our life.

 

Throughout history, the image of a flowing river has been used by meditation traditions as a practical analogy. The flow of our consciousness is akin to the flow of a river. Sometimes we let go into the process and other times we get distracted by something compelling on the shore. This impedes our flow as we hang on. If we are very triggered, we might grasp at straws we believe will save us. Sometimes we hold on white knuckled for dear life. All of us have places that we can’t let go. And this takes self-forgiveness. We don’t have to fix everything. But we can begin to see the places that we are holding on and refusing to evolve.  External circumstances may have caused our suffering, but we are nonetheless holding on.

 

Whether minor distractions of major post-traumatic reaction, we can feel these blockages in our bodies as we grip. Grrrrrrrrr.

 

From the Buddhist perspective, the eye-level process to recovery is to identify obstacles and then find communication with them.  We begin with recognition, and then acknowledging that this is not our fault, it’s a fear-based reaction to pain. Then the next level is to look into the experience and find whatever issue they are trying to communicate. In extreme cases, we may not be able to access the core of our trauma, but we usually can see what we are experiencing in the moment. This is what the Buddha referred to as “removing the arrow first.” WE might notice “I’m frightened” or “I’m worried”.  And that may be enough to begin the conversation.

 

As we develop awareness, we become familiar with these panicked voices. As we gain familiarity, they become less threatening. In time, we have the opportunity to become friendly toward them, and this is the real healing. This is developing and employing compassion. Once we become friendly with the problem we can begin to try and understand it. This 4-step method (RAIN) is a skillful means to develop compassion.

 

The Shambhala Teachings highlight a category of blockages known as the “Trap of Doubt”. Doubt belies confidence and creates an energetic depression that gives way to clinging to any number of self-limiting patterns that are further blockages, or obstacles in our life. When our life force (windhorse) is low, our emotional / psychological immune system becomes compromised and we become vulnerable to adventitious emotional ailments. When our windhorse is low we doubt ourselves and fall victim to our mind and our environment.  We become prone to indulge in the grasping actions that further block our windhorse. On the other hand, virtuous thoughts and actions remove obstacles and allows energy to flow naturally. When our lifeforce is high mental afflictions roll off our backs.

 

So, to reverse the pathological effects of doubt, we can look into our experience and avoid the things that rob our life of energetic meaning. Here is a list of actions that the Shambhala School has identified as obstacles to experiencing joy. We can look into these in order to help release our minds into the flow of life.

 

Categories of Doubt

  1. Anxiety
  2. Jealousy
  3. Forgetfulness
  4. Arrogance
  5. Slandering / gossip
  6. Body and Mind are not Synchronized.

 

So, how do you experience self-doubt? How does this doubt lead to unhealthy attachments that further block our lifeforce? As we recognize doubt, we can begin to relax our attachments and let the flow of life – already in progress – resume.

 

Our picture today was photo I took from FIT’s graffiti board on 7th ave. 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

PROCRASTINATION

UNDERSTANDING PROCRASTINATION

I’ve been planning on writing this post for years. Recently, my notes have been buried somewhere in a pile of papers on my desk. I’ve been planning on going through that pile for a while. 

Why is it we find doing the things we want to do, so hard to do?

Many of us will do what we have to do. We’ll show up for work when we’re sick so as not to waste a sick day when we’re not able to enjoy it. I’ll push myself to complete tasks when there are pressured demands, but find it hard to exercise, walk, meditate, write, or do any of the things that would enrich my life. It’s as though I’m not worth the effort. Of course, I am worth it. But what’s blocking me?

Some of us go in the other direction, spending too much time on things we think we want at the expense of the things we need. These excursions seem justified “I need to care for myself.”  But are distractions actually enriching us?  Caring for ourselves is important but when do we know when we are just being avoidant? We deserve to feel joyful about our lives. One of the things blocking our joy is all the things we have to do first – before we can relax.  I can’t go for a walk until I’ve finished my taxes. And I can’t get to my taxes until I’ve cleaned off the desk. And I can’t bear to look at the desk because I’m cooped up and claustrophobic. But looking at that pile on my desk just deflates me, so even tho I haven’t done anything, I’m too tired to go for a walk. I’ll just sit here chained to this stew and marinate.

It’s hard to get started when we feel defeated by the little things everybody else seems to accomplish so easily. It feels like we’re the only ones who put off till tomorrow what we maybe should do today. But this phenomenon is more common than we realize. Most of us have a pile of something somewhere that needs attention. The problem becomes compounded when we hold those things over our head and fail to do the things we need for our spirit, because of the material things we feel have have to take care of first. I can go for a walk. Who has the time? So we fail to address the piles on the desk, in our closet, down basement or clogging our inbox.  And that keeps us from doing the things we want to do for our heart. Our life becomes a ledger of things we need to do and what we haven’t done. That is a sad way to view our life.

So why don’t we do what we need to do? It may be that we are lazy, indulgent or undisciplined. That’s the way we’re programed to look at it.  Self-condemnation is a convenient default. But does berating ourselves do anything but  support the behavior?  Maybe what is actually happening at the core of our dysfunction is fear. Maybe we are scared of change and so lock away from our own life. In this sense, we are isolating from ourselves, cut off from our spiritual being. As the shaman asked the depressed person “When did you stop dancing?” “Why are you no longer singing in the morning?” “When do you last connect to your natural being in nature?”

But what about my pile?!

Maybe the pile, or the to-do list, the closet, is how our fearful mind is holding on.  As long as we have these undone things, we remain stuck. And when we’re stuck, we’re protected from change.  We hold ourselves in place with white knuckles and grit teeth. In the meantime, we are not only avoiding the thing we’re procrastinating, we are also not doing the things that encourage wellness and joy. We are bound up tightly in a ball of stuck.  This makes sense as the underlying energy is fear. We are protecting ourselves from change. Unfortunately, this also “protects” us from growth. We are stuck. That’s really all it is. Fear and stuck.

This is especially true when through guilt we begin to feel inadequate and incapable. It’s like a clamp locking down the weight. We are not lazy. We are fearful, and all the undone things in life are simply weights holding us down. We might be more fearful of our self-anger than whatever it is we’re avoiding. Usually, we do this to avoid stepping out of the cocoon. Getting anything done implies forward movement. And moving forward is moving out of the protective cocoon.

Okay then, if it’s about fear, maybe I should relate to myself as I would to someone fearful.  Are self-admonishment or recrimination appropriate responses to someone who already feels beaten down and overwhelmed?

Acknowledgement, acceptance, loving kindness and forgiveness are useful tools.  Acceptance of what needs to be done, acceptance of our fear of completion, taking the time to engender loving kindness and compassion for the unfinished work, and then removing our burden through forgiveness and letting go.

Acknowledgment means we are not running from the unfinished work. We are facing it. Acceptance means we are touching in with our fear and eschewing all self-judgement, then we can triage and isolate ONE THING that we can do to begin. We can then apply loving kindness meditation to this. Feeling ourselves generate love for the work we are about to do. Then we can forgive ourselves and turn back to love whether or not we have completed the task.

As we develop a loving acceptance for ourselves and our piles, we are better positioned to let go into the work of completion – one step at a time. Here are some pointers: 1) Do less than your ego demands, Just do what you have to do today. 2) avoid all negative self talk. It is not helping. 3) apply loving kindness practice and 4) let go into forgiveness. Care for your heart and spirit. These are the most important things we need to stay resilient and present.

Then, forget the pile, get out of the house and take a walk.

 

 

 

 

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Posted on by joseph mauricio

GRATITUDE

GRATITUDE is not only a nice thing to feel, it is a powerful spiritual practice. It is a way of opening to the world with positivity and love. Yet, gratitude is all too often lost in the pressures of our materialistic world. This kind thought doesn’t hold much value to the self-mesmerized ego-mind. Ego whispers that the world has taken so much from us we need to grab some back.  Its dangerous, these whispers opine, to acknowledge the kindness the world has offered us. Perhaps we might jinx it, or maybe we’ll weaken our position.

 

Frequently objects of gratitude lie hiding among the negative circumstances of our lives. We’d never want to acknowledge how much an adversary might have helped us. And while bias against seeing the value of painful places seems understandable, withholding our gratitude for the things we learned or the places we benefited, robs us of enacting its healing power. While being grateful to someone might help them, it always helps us. Gratitude is an opening of the heart that allows energy to flow from our spirit to the spirit of the universe within another. We are communicating on the heart level by feeling grateful to those who have cared for us. And while undoubtedly, many have cared with pure intention, gratitude also works for those who have helped imperfectly, or who have aided our journey in the course of causing us harm. The well-known Mahayana Buddhist slogan “Be Grateful To Everyone” suggests that even those who have harmed us have given us cause to develop compassion. And, while it may seem a tall order to feel grateful to those who have hurt us – and it may be impossible in some cases – when we are able to offer this kindness, it feels as if a great burden was lifted. We no longer have to be weighted down in the mire of our resentment. We can offer an adversary whatever kindness and forgiveness our heart can offer and release ourselves for the constant tit-for-tat legering of ego. Let it go.

 

Let it go if not for the other’s sake, then for our own.  When we are able to look through the eyes of gratitude, we notice more of the world, and we begin to see how much of that world has been part of a cradle of loving kindness that has sustained us. Many of us have built self-limiting stories about how we were short changed by our families, abandoned by friends, or hurt by society. And while there may be truth to all of this, where in those scenarios might we recognize kindnesses that were bestowed. These kindnesses do not negate cruelties or indifference, but they can certainly be added to the equation adding more light, hope and possibility to our self-story. 

 

When things go well, we feel blessed. But sometimes that creates an assumption of awesomeness on our part. It’s very healthy to feel awesome when things go well for us, but do we need to have each victory build our ego beyond reasonable dimensions?  LIke resentments, egoic awards are weighty and unwieldy to carry.  One way to cut the advance of ego appropriation is to acknowledge the goodness of those who contributed to our victory. One way to set ourselves up for failure and disappointment is to assume it was all our doing. In the 12-step traditions, they mention the power of self-will as being a self-centered way of making our relationship to the world all about ourselves. This might feel powerful to ego, but this impenetrable castle is a sad and lonely place to be.

 

The truth of karma is that nothing is ever only about us. Life is a confluence of causes and conditions that come together every present moment. Many of these moments may have been negative and due to our ingrained negativity bias we sometimes allow this to overshadow the preponderance of goodness that has sustained us. But there has ever been goodness that has sustained us. Tibetans refer to “Tashi Tendril”, which means interconnected good fortune, or auspicious coincidence. It is the idea that we are recipients of a network of goodness that has created and sustains us.  It is fundamentally good that we are here and very good that we are connected to the goodness of others.

 

The practice of meditation in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition is a process by which we are beginning to open our eyes to the goodness in the world, and the goodness in ourselves. When I acknowledge gratitude in a given instance, I am opening my heart to see more of the goodness in the world.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

EMERGING FROM THE COCOON

Today’s New Moon marks a new beginning to the Tibetan reading of the Lunar New Year.  And whether you celebrate only the Gregorian / Julian / solar new year, or count the lunar calendar from another date, any new moon is a time of reassessment and rebirth. In the darkest eve of the coming of the light, we connect to the womb, the mother the progenitor of our race and being.

 

Traditionally, the Tibetan people recognize a period of reckoning at the end of the lunar cycle. For the last 10 days many of us have done protetor practices to help guide the coming of the new year and an easing of the karma of the past.  Monasteries across the Himalayas, and their connected centers elsewhere in the world, do a strict cycle of ritual practice leading up to the arrival of the new year celebration called Yarne.  Often the new year is marked by the return of a high Lama from retreat,the unveiling of a statue, or the consecration of a new temple. On the new year – or LOSAR – the community will gather along with its children, chickens, dogs and relatives from afar in celebration. And there will be food. My goodness, there will be food.

 

This year we celebrate the year of the WATER RABBIT.

 

The most important point of this newly turning energy is our personal emergence from the patterns that, like the cocoons they weave, have protected us and yet have kept us locked in place. The cocoon is an important aspect of our rebirth, but rebirth does imply emerging from the cocoon, at some point. We can offer gratitude for the cocoon, and the patterns that have protected and enslaved us.  But, when the time is right it may be the right time to step away from some old limiting beliefs. And while we step away from these limiting beliefs, what new vistas might we encounter.

 

This coming new year, or new lunar cycle, what are the things you wish to abandon, what do you need to accept and what would you care to cultivate. Tibetan Buddhist practice is referred to as VajraYana – or the indestructible way. It is reliant on a full commitment toward Buddhahood, and the Way of the Bodhisattva. This means our primary concern is to develop ourselves to be of service to our world and each other.  This begins with service to our own path of emergence from the vicious darkness of defensive self-obsession into the light of awareness. Stepping from the cocoon is a first step that reasserts our commitment to the path of the Buddha and service to humanity.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH

When the going gets tough, the tough take it easy. Not that we give up, or play dead, but that we relax into facing adversity with confidence and poise. This is what is meant by being a warrior.

 

Life has many challenges.  We would do well to recognize these and relax into them.  The I Ching says during times of difficulty, be like water. Wait and build up your strength. Then, when the time is right, you have the energy to flow around the obstacles.  In difficult times, rather than become overwhelmed by possibilities, we can relax our focus on the only time we can control: NOW. What is happening now? And what is the best next step?

 

Obviously, it helps to have a general sense of where we are heading. Sometime we have the luxury of looking out over the mountain ridge and see the expanse of our journey. But when the path becomes steep and arduous we turn our gaze now-ward and relax into the present, one step at a time. The steeper the climb, the more we look to the earth to keep our pace and balance. THe beautiful mountains, rivers, streams and valleys we long to experience are unattainable without taking the next right step before us. Sometimes we make great strides in life.  But sometimes all we can do is meet the moment as it appears right now.

 

The more difficult the journey becomes, the more we can relax into just being here.  Dangerous moments on our journey elicit anxiety and fear. This typically drives us away from the present sending us careening across the peaks and valleys in search of an imagined refuge from our panic. The more frightened we become, the more we feel we need to save us.  We are making more work for ourselves at a time when we should be conserving energy.  But while there is value to our imagination, when the going gets tough, the warrior does not react to their fear.  The warrior accepts their fear, and their present circumstances, with simple dignity.  When times get tough, the warrior becomes more present. The warrior takes their seat and builds their strength. There is great humility in this willingness to give up control, but to simply remain present and take the next right step. This is also a great relief. It’s so much easier to let go of all the ancillary worries and simply bring the mind back to a workable solution. When circumstance seem overwhelming, we can simplify our approach. Sometimes it’s as easy as remembering all we have to do is show up and to be kind. 

 

When the mountain path becomes arduous, turn your eyes to the rocky steps beneath you. Relax and remember to love yourself. Taking one step at a time, it will be clear where you need to go. Should the path becomes a tumultuous river, sink low like water who is never distressed but finds it own nature in its own way. Rest before the boulders blocking your journey until you have the strength to flow beyond your obstacles – and then simply pass by them without recrimination, comment or concern. Just let anxiety flow behind you as you gently glide past difficulties.

 

This is the way of a warrior. Brave enough to remain present, strong enough to remain true to your journey and kind enough to remain awake for the sake of all beings.

 

When the going gets tough, relax and remain present and find the easy way through. There is no fruit to meeting violence with aggression. Rise above that. Be a warrior and take it easy.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

COMING BACK TO LIFE, ALREADY IN PROGRESS

COMING BACK TO LIFE – ALREADY IN PROGRESS

 

I want to talk about a very practical application of our meditation practice.  Aside from spiritual development or enlightenment, meditation can be seen as a means to secure health and healing in our daily life. The view is not to fix anything but to support ourselves in a very physical way that creates the space for healing.

 

We could sit in meditation without understanding what it is we’re doing. We could be vague about our process, not actually paying attention, and still gain the benefit of pausing a bit and making a daily connection ourselves.  This might unknowingly create space in the torrent of our lives. It’s important not to let perfectionism impede the flow. However, when we are able to make a deeper connection to the experience, we can deepen the benefits of the process. The more we are able to connect to the breath the deeper our meditation will be, and the more benefit we will receive. Commitment = result.

 

Yet, we need not be focused entirely on the breath the entire time, as that wouldn’t speak to a practical connection to our life. We simply don’t operate that way. We move forward by guiding ourselves back. The point is commitment, not perfection. The point of breath-based meditation is to use the breath as a reference to train the mind to be comfortable resting in the present. Instead of locking ourselves in place, we return again and again to that reference point.  We would be accepting the fact that our mind drifts, wanders and fixates. But we would be developing an awareness that allows us to guide back to the center lane. Who knows why, in the midst of delusion, we wake up and see that we are not present? That is the point our life changes. We wake up and simply bring ourselves back to the center of our practice, the breathing body. This is how we navigate naturally in our life.  When we find ourselves drifting to the shoulder, we bring ourselves back to the road without recrimination or discussion. Our mind has a natural process of returning to the middle way in life that we can develop in our meditation practice.  Naturally returning to the present is an inherent process of the mind that we can further develop with meditation.

 

While practicing, we RECOGNIZE when we are not present and then build the strength to RETURN to the present. This simple 2-step process is transferable to all aspects of our lives. We begin to notice when we’re off or moving away from our stated intention. Then we can simply return without internal discussion as simply as if we were walking in the streets on a nice day.  If you’re like me, you get excited and a beautiful day in the city and you might hit one or two of your errands and that gets the juices flowing and the dopamine rising.  If I’m not careful, I could end up at the end of the day exhausted, having eaten more calories and spent more dollars than I should have. Somewhere along the line, I got completely eclipsed and went off course.  But thanks to meditation training my mind knows it can return from compulsion. Being able to notice the moment, bite the bullet, and return to the present is an incredibly important process in terms of building our strength of mind and actualizing our intention.

 

And we can return wherever on the wheel we wake up. Maybe it’s walking faster than we need, and so we recognize we can slow down to incorporate mindfulness in the process. Or maybe it’s after we’ve spent dollars we don’t have or had that slice we don’t need.  No matter how far we’ve gone off the path of stated intention, we can simply return. I know we want to chastise ourselves. We love that kind of self-abuse, don’t we. But there are folks we can pay to beat us up. When it comes to waking up in life, the less drama we create for ourselves the better. ENCOURAGING is key. SUPPORT RATHER THAN RECRIMINATION. Whenever we wake-up, we return. It’s that simple and in time as we create the neural pathways to wake up, it gets easier.  Far from being a problem, each time we RECOGNIZE we are off that mark, we have an opportunity to RETURN to our life.

 

The interesting thing about life is that it is happening, despite what we think should be happening. There are all the things our mind tells us, and then there is what is actually going on. The point of our practice is not to become scholars of the breath, but to use the breath as a way of bringing our awareness back to what is happening. Each time we return to the breathy, we are returning to a life already in progress.

 

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UPCOMING EVENTS

DHARMAJUNKIES tonight! 7pm (et)
meditation . discussion . support . aspiration contemplations
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3282366303
a link to today’s post:
http://www.josephmauricio.com/meditation-and-coming-back-to-life/
and a link to my class this Thursday
Meditation as Healing – Working with Fear & Anxiety
NEW YORK INSIGHT MEDITATION CENTER
Thursday, January 19th, 2023, | 7:00pm – 9:00pm ET
https://www.nyimc.org/event/meditation-as-an-act-of-healing-working-with-fear-and-anxiety/
Posted on by joseph mauricio

MEDITATION AS AN ACT OF HEALING – Working with Fear and Anxiety

Welcome to a new year. The passing year has been a challenging time. Many have struggled with anxiety, depression and isolation. Challenging times remind me how important meditation is to our self-care.  And how essential self-care is to building health and resilience to meet the world. When the going gets tough, the tough sit down … and collect themselves.

Meditation has many applications. But as a healing modality, meditation can be seen as a fundamental reconnection to ourselves. Each time we return to the breath we are returning to ourselves. And when we have the presence of mind to actually feel the breath, we are reconnecting on a very intimate level. Each breath can be like a gently healing hand on our heart. Far from making us soft and unprotected, I have found this loving connection to help build confidence, resilience, and strength.

When the going gets tough, the tough get soft. Soft enough to meet the hard stuff.

Far from building egotism, awareness based selfcare gives us the strength to look past our self-obsession in order to connect sanely with our world.

I’m excited to invite you to some upcoming online classes and offerings. Please consider joining online.

 

… events that may interest you: 

                                            – upcoming!

NEW YORK INSIGHT MEDITATION CENTER

Meditation as an Act of Healing – Working with Fear and Anxiety 

Thursday, January 19th, 2023, | 7:00pm – 9:00pm ET

 

   to register:

https://www.nyimc.org/event/meditation-as-an-act-of-healing-working-with-fear-and-anxiety/

 

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Online: Meditation as an Act of Healing – Working with Fear and Anxiety Practicum

Saturday, February 4th, 2023 from 10:00am – 1:00pm ET

Join us for a half-day practical workshop of instruction, discussion, and inspiration where we will discuss the 4 R’s of mindful awareness: Recognition, Release, Return and Relax.

Find out more

 

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SHAMBHALA MEDITATION CENTER OF NEW YORK

Public Sitting, Tuesdays at noon, open to all

Learn to Mediate – 1st Tuesday at 6

guided introduction to meditation, open to all of any level of experience

To register: https://ny.shambhala.org/

 

 

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DHARMAJUNKIES MONDAY ZOOM ROOM

Mondays 7pm

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3282366303

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MEDITATION BASED LIFE COACHING

Let me help support your sanity and self-care. In the spirit of the new year, I am offering complimentary convos to help you craft a daily meditation practice, offer inspiration, or just listen.

For those interested in ongoing practice and support, for the next month, I will be offering Personalized Life Coaching, Meditation Instruction & Public Speaking Coaching at on a pay what you can donation basis.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

WHEN ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

A BUDDHIST CONTEMPLATION ON THE MIDDLE WAY

 

When I was a child, it was common for fathers to keep long hours at work or travel away from home. The dad’s were swimming upstream to compete in a society making its long slide away from the warmth of the family to the insatiable urges of the marketplace. We had come through the war, and before that the great depression. After that societal trauma we ended up on the winning side and didn’t look back. There seemed no limit to prosperity, as long as we were willing to work hard enough.

 

As the oldest child, I spent a lot of time in the company of the women in my life. My mother and grandmothers were great nurturers who ran from the anxiety of past scarcity to fill our home with pasta and meatballs. We didn’t have much, but what we did have, we ate.  The mammal in my midbrain came to love the women who fed me.

 

My Italian grandmother would prepare an after service feast every Sunday. It would include her slow cooked ragu – which was a tomato sauce stew of pork, meatballs, and sausage – lasagna, spaghetti, garlic bread, and overcooked grey broccoli saturated in garlic. My grandfather’s contribution was to sit at the head of the table and say grace which, as he was our pastor, always went on far too long. We would sit staring at the food we had been smelling all morning as he intoned about Matthew and Mark. When he finally came to his dramatic climax, we would devour the meal while retelling routines from “Get Smart” and “The Jackie Gleason Show.” Afterwards, the women would clean up and the men would repair to the living room and snore through some sport or another.

 

They say that the trauma can continue through generations. The fruits of the scarcity of an immigrant journey, the great depression, and the feeling that we had to scramble madly to compete with the world we saw on TV, lodged in our bellies and arteries. The more we had, the more we seemed to need. Food was a panacea. It brought family together, it was what we did when we celebrated, and it was how we grieved. As an adult, I was conditioned to believe that more was the answer to everything. There is so much love in this picture. But, as there was an underlying fear, there was a lack of awareness. I became addicted to anything that would give me energy, calm me down, or quiet the screaming inside. I never learned to see myself as enough. And the trumpeting of more, more, more helped to drown out my feelings. This over consumption is naturally not sustainable.

 

In the Buddhist tradition, the idea of renunciation is not seen as a punishment, but an acknowledgement of the richness we possess. In the Mahayana tradition, we are asked to look at our motivation. Are our actions a close-eyed attempt to make up for the pain? Or are we enriching ourselves in order to be present for ourselves and our loved ones? Are we willing to become awake and see when enough is enough.

 

The Buddha spoke of the middle way. Like renunciation, this is not penance. The middle way is a place of optimum awareness. The extremes of scarcity and indulgence, binging and purging, being overfed and undernourished, are all paces we hide from ourselves and our feelings. The middle way can be seen as a feast of all the things we are not overdoing. Once we say a gentle “enough” to one thing, we can immediately raise our gaze and see all the things we were missing in our fear driven obsession.  Once that drink becomes enough, those carbs are enough, or our love is enough, then we can open our mind to everything else. And we will find that much of what we are missing, we actually already have. Renunciation of the extremes opens us to the middle way. And the middle way allows the vantage to see the richness of the life we have.

 

This said, pulling away from extremes is not easy. Especially at first. The reasons we indulge our fixations are often attempts to heal ourselves or comfort the frightened places within. That pasta had become a dear old friend. The idea of turning away in order to find new friends seems harsh. But, with the cultivation of mindfulness, we develop the awareness to see the richness around us. That’s where gratitude comes in. By turning our mind to the richness we already possess, we can feel more comforted, complete, and confident.  Then we are less reliant on the crutches we employ to navigate our feelings and our fear. Fear is part of living. With confidence born of awareness, we can smile at our fear and find healthy ways to build our resilience. We have less need to fill ourselves up when we feel we are enough.

 

Therefore, the practice of meditation is not shutting down, it’s opening up to the beauty of what we already have. Renunciation is not restricting ourselves, it’s simply turning away from that which we no longer need in order to see all the things we have.

 

The process suggested by our meditation practice is to renounce that which we know is taking us out of balance by gently coming back to the middle path. From there we can develop the awareness of the richness all around us.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

WAKING UP TO A NEW DAY

WELCOMING YOUR BRAIN TO THE NEW YEAR!

I am offering free new year’s meditation and life coaching sessions to those who need support for sanity and a gentle voice defining and orienting toward your vision. 

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WAKING UP TO A NEW DAY

Back in the 70′, meditation master Chogyam Trungpa would begin his talks with a rousing “Good Morning!” – although his talks usually started later than scheduled. Sometimes much later. With the 70’s being the 70’s, and considering his commitment to meet his western students as they were, some talks began so late students had to be roused from sleep to attend. In those wee hours, his usual greeting of “good morning” was not entirely ironic.

 

“Good Morning” seemed an appropriate greeting for a talk on meditation, any time of day. In particular, Trungpa felt that meditation represented a new beginning and a fresh start everytime we come back to the present. Rather than admonish his students when their minds wandered, he encouraged them to see coming back to the breath as an opportunity to wake up. Trungpa famously said that the only problem we have is believing we have a problem. When our mind is distracted and we notice that distraction, it is not a problem. In fact, it’s an opportunity to wake up.

 

But how did we know we were distracted?

 

That moment of remembering comes so quickly we hardly regard it – except to berate ourselves for being distracted. The moment of complaint appears to be our first thought, as though the Buddha’s were saying, “wake up you asshole!”  And instead of waking up, we’ll further occlude ourselves with obsessive recrimination. For some of us, this happens first thing every morning.  But, this first complaint we acknowledge is not our first thought. Our first thought is simply a message from the universe reminding us to come back. It’s a sharp razor cut to our web of distraction.  Only that.  There is no need for discussion or elaboration. And why do we assume we’ve done something wrong, anyway? In fact, that moment of noticing our distraction IS waking up.  Each time we notice we’re not awake is an opportunity to wake up.  And each time we notice, and have the courage to come back to the present, we are doing good work. Very good work. We are training our mind to be awake.

 

Trungpa pointed to this moment of noticing we are lost in thought as a profound moment of awakening. He called it the “jerk of awareness.”  And then he told his students to consider him their jerk of awareness.  Helping students learn to awaken was his primary role. From the moment he came to the west, Trungpa understood that it was his mission to be of service to this new world. He understood that being an exalted Lama made him a commodity in this materialistic culture.  In western society we are trained toward materialism and tend toward theism in relation to spiritual teachers. We believe they are above us and should perhaps save us from ourselves. In this way, by deifying the teacher, and elevating our perception of meditation practice, we were safely separated from the process. We could collect teachers and teachings as though they were artifacts.  The more we collect, the greater our material  sense of self worth. We post pretty slogans to our wall, but do any of the teachings actually change us?   Trungpa felt he needed to de-elevate himself in order to be of the people. He wanted to express the teachings so they might actually penetrate our conditioned materialistic superficial layer. He wanted to speak directly to a basic goodness that lies below materialism so the teachings might actually have an effect.

 

To this end, Rinpoche began to open the doors to his home and met with students as friends. He removed the robes that he felt served to elevate him. He wore cowboy shirts and jeans, smoked cigarettes and drank Colt 45.  He wasn’t there to save anyone or change anything. He was there to learn from this new world and to become the jerk of awareness in his students’ lives.  Each time we were brave enough to come back to the present, he was there reminding us that we can do it. We can live full and complete lives. Good Morning. The choice is ours in every moment. We can separate ourselves from our lives by making ourselves a big deal, or we can keep coming back to simply waking up. Good Morning.

 

And each moment we are awake, we can begin to see more clearly. And as we see more clearly, we learn to drop the robes of our habit mindedness and see past superficial materialism into the truth of each moment. I am here. I am awake. How can I reduce the pretensions in my life and learn to be here honestly, simply and directly?  Just me without the robes. Just me as I am.

 

Good Morning. How can help?

 

A contemporary of Trungpa’s was the Soto Zen Master Suzuki, Roshi. His book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind is a classic manual of meditation in which he teaches that we can adopt the mind of a beginner, which is already there.  This means remembering our awakened state, which has been there all along. Enlightenment is not an achievable state. Rather it is a place of no achievement. It is a place of allowing ourselves to be just so without artifice. This is sometimes called “Naked Mind.”  Naken Mind cannot be achieved, it has to be remembered.  Enter the “jerk of awareness.”

 

But how do we achieve the unachievable?  We can train our minds to see beyond the “thingness” into the wholeness of experience, by recognizing when we are distracted and then building the neural networking to return to the present without clinging to a mask or a concept. In time, we see past the seemingly solid facades of our mental constructs and begin to see the vibrancy of life around us.  We train ourselves to be wide eyed, like an awakening child.  That moment we realize we are distracted is a sacred moment. It is a crack in the armour of solid mind. These cracks, or gaps in our reasoning, allow the sunlight of a new day to shine into our shadowed life. Each moment we notice we are off course, instead of berating ourselves, or creating a complicated story, we can come back to the naked present, just now and just so.  Each time we return is an opportunity to experience the joy of waking up.

 

In time, we learn to see life with new eyes as a perpetual discovery of the present. Instead of hiding behind all we’ve done and become, we can see through the eyes of a child and just be. Like a child, discovering its own toes, we can be amazed at everything we see. When was the last time we laughed for no reason? Smiled at the barista? Noticed birds outside our window?  Or just felt the tenderness of our own heart for no reason at all. When was the last morning we awoke with a smile, instead of the well cultivated cynicism we hide behind. And if we do dae to wake up smiling, how soon is is before we douse ourselves in anxious misery to meet the day?

 

This year can be a time of change, if we want it. We can turn our mind away from the usual guilt, compulsion and complaint, toward the possibility of openness. Instead of living the same old shit, we can look out the window and see what’s out there.  Good morning.