Category: Teaching

Slowing Down to Move Quickly

We began our discussion of flow by establishing the practice of calm abiding (Shamatha) to settle into the present, so that we can let go into a natural organic flow in our practice and life. Last post we used an analogy of the flowing water to depict the movement of mind, from a raging waterfall to a slow rolling river. With practice, we might reach a calm described as a placid lake that represents the stillness inherent in movement of our mind. Developing awareness in meditation practice creates a template for awareness in our life. We use tools to help instruct the mind to find its flow, in order to relax into that flow of life.

This post will introduce the idea of slowing down in order to establish or reestablish a flow that allows us to move more efficiently. Here we will use the analogy of the cat, relaxing in repose, so that it has the energy and calm to spring into action. We are talking about how to maintain synchronicity so that our flow is strong and even.  This requires an aware meditation of our energy. If we move too quickly for our present circumstances, we lose connection to synchronicity. Such as when we’re moving so quickly, we fail to see where we are going. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition it is said that speeding through life is an essential disregard for our humanity. Our personal dignity becomes subsumed by anxiety as we scurry like a hamster. The goal becomes more important than the journey. But, it is said, the journey is the goal. How we approach life is as important as anything else in life. Meditating our speed allows us to move with grace and dignity. It also allows us to move more efficiently. Sometimes we need to slow down in order to get things done. On the other hand, sometimes we need to encourage ourselves to move more quickly in order to maintain our energy. Sometimes we need encouragement to move at all.

This becomes easier if we understand that “we” don’t have to do anything at all but simply join the flow. Our breath, our life, our beating heart are all in process. So, coming back to the body we can settle into now, and then step into the natural movement of life. If we jump out of bed lunging forward, we lose the mindfulness on which synchronicity is based. And synchronicity is our entrance into the flow. When we act in panic, we are not in flow. But the flow is always there. We just need to slow down a bit and reconnect to it. On the other hand, when we are dragging behind out of fear, or because our heart is not in it, we are blocking the flow and we might need a kick start.  But, that kick start requires mindfulness. In order to move forward we might need to calm our expectations and our judgement in order to be present. Maintaining our connection to flow requires a balance of mindfulness and movement.  In the Zen tradition, they say “Not too tight. Not too loose.”

Sometimes in my self-training, when I find myself speeding up out of anxiety or impatience, I make myself pause. It’s an odd experience because my deep mind is pushing me to move quickly, and I’ve trained myself to stop and pause. Sometimes this is because I’m actually exhausted and my reaction to that is to push through. This lack of self-respect, blocks our flow. I might counter this by actually sitting down until the moment shifts, reestablishing my dignity.

I worked with a Shaman named Whitewind Weaver in Washington. She would tell me, slow down enough to move quickly. She had gardeners construct a lovely and very organic labyrinth on her grounds. She would have me walk the labyrinth whenever I was getting speedy and stressed. I always hated that at first, but it always calmed me and recalibrated my approach. I hated it because I was addicted to my speed. Speed gives me a sense of self-importance which would lead to outright narcissism. “Get out of my way!” “I’m in a hurry so I’m important”. One time I was rushing up Broadway in Manhattan late for a meditation talk I was giving. The irony of rushing to meditation was not lost on me. And Manhattan offers a specific kind of torture, as cabs are often slower in traffic and, in this case, the subways was no faster, so I began doing a mantra, and remembered the points of flow, not too fast, head off all blockages. I started a mantra to keep my mind calm as I navigated the streets as quickly as I could. I am good at this because I remember I need to keep my mind balanced for the session. What I am not good at is when the end is in sight and I lose my awareness in a scramble to get there. I got to the elevator and immediately hit the button and closed the doors on a woman and her coffee. I yelled “sorry” as the elevator ascended without her. I got to the floor of the center, checked in and went to the bathroom to resynchronize. I was just a few minutes late and the coordinator assured me that the last members of the class had just arrived. I walked into the room, sat down, and breathed out.  In front of me was sitting a woman with a coffee stained dress.

I immediately told the story to the class which served as a humorous illustration to the class and an apology to her. The mistake I made was sacrificing my awareness for speed. But my self-effacing admission allowed me to resynchronize and reset my purpose. Establishing our view is essential to allowing flow. If we don’t know where we are going, our inner energy will be in discordance with our movement. Where are we going? I recommend we have a view rather than a goal. A goal is something we narrow down upon. Fixating on the goal is not a way to honor ourselves or our journey, which is a good way to frustrate our flow. A view, on the other hand, is something we open toward. It is a vision that leads us in a forward direction, but does not imply we must achieve anything. All we need to do is step into the flow in that direction. And when the time comes to change directions, we can do that effortlessly, flowing from one stream to the next. Slow enough to maintain mindfulness and quick enough to maintain energy.

In order to maintain flow, it is not necessary to push. It’s best to employ as little effort as possible, just enough to keep flowing on course. The images used classically are the tiger, and the elephant. Tigers are relaxed and connected to the earth, but ready to move without hesitation. Tigers don’t lurch out of panic and they don’t waste energy with nervous movement. They rest until they don’t.  The elephant doesn’t speed or dawdle. The elephant moves carefully, but covers great distances.  The elephant has enough height to see clearly around them while walking with dignity and purpose.

SETTLING INTO LIFE’S GROOVE

There is an odd juxtaposition between settling and grooving. The seemingly disparate energies of connecting to the earth and letting go into the flow can be in opposition when we are not synchronized, when we cling to one over the other. On the other hand, they might combine into an elegant balance when we are able to relax and ground and let go. Settling in and letting go into the groove allows us to re-synchronize body, spirit and mind. Our parts are gathered into a whole that flows through life.

I think we understand that meditation practice is predicated on settling down into the present moment. But the present moment is already gone once we even have the thought of settling. Everything is in motion. When we appear to be still, we are still on a moving planet. Within us our blood is flowing, our lungs are breathing, our endocrine system is always changing the way we feel. And, our mind is thinking. Despite whatever we believe about meditation, we are always thinking. A still mind is just another thought. When the mind is still, as soon as it notices stillness, it is thinking. No matter how still we sit in meditation, there are atoms moving at tremendous speed within all of that. So, it may be effective to think of settling down into meditation as settling into the flow of life.

There is an analogy in science of a kid bouncing a ball on a moving train. The ball appears to be bouncing directly up and down from the perspective of those, no doubt, becoming progressively irritated inside the train. But to anyone watching from the fields as the train goes by, the ball is moving rapidly with each bounce. Now is a bit like that, always moving even as it appears to stand in place.

I had a friend who’s teacher told him “meditation is happening now.”  The teacher paused. Then he said, “I’m sorry, I meant now.”  He looked directly at my friend and again said, “Now”.

And again, “now”.  And again, faster and louder “NOW!” The teacher continued at varying intervals for the next few minutes until my friend gave up second guessing and came into sync with his teacher’s undivinable rhythm. He was forced to remain awake and listening. He couldn’t figure it out, but he could experience its flow. Now is just a point on the moving matrix of consciousness. And any point, when closely examined, does not exist. 2 is a point between 1 and 3. 1.5 is a point between 1 and 2. And 1.25 is a point between 1 and 1.5. And so on until we slice so finely we reveal the nothing that lies below everything. Points are designations that mean different things at different times. We are now in spring.  It is now the afternoon. I am now 66. In 4 days I will be 67. At what point will that happen? Midnight of the 17th? With all respect to Eckhart Tolle, the power of now may be knowing that now doesn’t exist. At least not in the solid independent way that we assume.

From a Buddhist point of view, turning theoretical points in life into solid immutable truths is a fallacy that creates great suffering. Meditation came about largely as a way of settling us into the profusion of information in life in order to see clearly and become able to navigate that life. A sailor heads toward a point on their map, but doesn’t expect to see an arrow there drawn by Susan Kare 😉 when they get there. When we reach the point, there is no exact point, and yet there seems to be another point to navigate toward. When we say the journey is the goal, we are saying the goal is an idea. But the journey is actually happening.

Throughout history, meditation instruction has used the analogy of a river to express the flow of our consciousness. Our river of consciousness cooresponds to the stata of brain waves delineated by neuroscience. From rapid-fire anxiety states, to the slow pulse of meditative states, into the depth of the dark stillness of dreamless sleep, our mind is always moving. But, even the depth of the ocean is only temporary, giving way to the flow of another river. The idea of the analogy is to have better awareness of our experience and to accept its transitory nature. The idea isn’t to make anything solid, but to experience the flow so that we learn to navigate life.

The most rapid measurable mental states, called Gamma states, are likened to a waterfall. From the point of view of maintaining awareness, we often experience this as chaos or the confusion which comes from a profusion of thoughts. While this indicator of manic inflation is a red flag in some cases, it is common to all of us sometime. If we understand this, we can avoid being thrown off balance and submerged by the darkness beneath the turmoil. But, if we are resolved to find balance and maintain wakefulness, we are able to stay the course and connect to the flow of our breathing, which is a stabilizing agent. Breathing happens in the body, and the body acts as ballast for us to navigate turmoil and regain balance. Synchronization is very hard in a waterfall. But, if we see it through enough times, we will know that all times ultimately give way to the next time and we can have faith that if we don]t overreact, we will regain balance.

When we slow down enough to maintain awareness, we enter the hyper alert Beta state of white water rapids. This state requires a certain rigor of awareness. We often go off course when we are swept away in exhilaration of mind. Then we run the risk of having our awareness submerged. Joy is wonderful. But joy can be a red flag for maintaining balance. The work at this stage is to let go into the flow of movement and to try our best not to hold on to anything. Just keep moving through.  In this stage meditation is most clearly a body practice. The way to fully experience the rapid fire of an excited mind is through the resonance of the body. We don’t have to ground ourselves completely. We don’t have to try and coral the mind. We endeavor to let the breathing synchronize mind and body, let go of the scenery, and just flow. Returning, as we can to the breath. This is challenging, but we should remember that there is no problem here. It’s just fast. We’re not having a bad meditation just because our mind is feisty. We’re also not having an amazing meditation as we navigate the white water. It just is. And that, like all else, will change.

As we keep returning to the breath the process becomes easier. We are entering a swiftly moving stream of the Alpha state. The breath becomes like an oar keeping us on track. The point here is that life is moving along and we don’t have to do anything, but be awake and maintain our consciousness.  Images of life appear on either shore. But if we get fixated on them, we become stuck amongst the reeds and weeds in the shallows. All the while, the river is continuing on behind us as it always does and always will. The river is the continuity of our consciousness which has always been there. We can be part of it when we remember to return to the flow.

Each time we come back, the river widens and deepens. Which is to say, that each time we come back our mental waves slow until our mind becomes the deeply rolling river of the theta level meditation or light sleep state. In this stage we don’t have to paddle, steer, or even return. Our aware consciousness has enough momentum to just flow. Thoughts are more like clouds in the sky above us, that appear and change and drift, configuring and reconfiguring in their spatial dance. Occasionally, we may want to stop the process and decide if a particular cloud is a giraffe,  a snake or a dragon. But, we’ve been here before, and we know fixation will lead to imbalance, possibly turbulence and lack of awareness.  Awareness is our protection. It is our purpose. Consciousness is always there, before us, through us and after. But instances of awareness are the golden moments of an awake connection to our consciousness. These are the moments that, although ordinary and fleeting, connect us to the magic of life. Each time we are present in our meditation and our life, we give sight to the universe.

In the deepest theta state is as if our rolling river had widened and widened still, until it emptied into a large mountain lake. That lake is serene and peaceful. At alpine altitude, it is free of algae and flora, and so reflects a turquoise clarity. In this image, we are seated in the middle of the lake on a multi-colored lotus, which represents our enlightened natural state. The sun and clouds above are reflected on the surface of the lake, as though the sky had melted around us. We are fully steeled, seated and connected to the flow of stillness.

The deepest states of our available consciousness are called Delta and they relate to non-REM sleep, or the very deepest states of retreat level meditation. While it is rare to be conscious of Delta states they are always with us. They rest at the core of things, as though we’ve sunk to the bottom of the lake into absolute silence and dark. That deep sleep we actually pass through each night. That state of unconscious, dark, meditation that a few will experience consciously. Yet, this non-being is always here. It is a dark reminder that we come from the inconceivable and will end in the inconceivable. But it is from this darkness that we are able to open our eyes. And when we do, we are cleansed and life is awakened and alive.

As we go, we have the sight to open and relax into the flow of life. We are able to meet it without contention. As we continue, we grow less reliant on believing the world is for or against us. We change our allegiance from being ‘right’ to simply being. And we start to have respect for life by relaxing into our experience of it. And we develop enough respect for ourselves to trust letting go into the flow, and allow ourselves the gift of conscious awareness in life.

“Stop trying to steer”, a teacher told me. “And learn to dance.”

HEY, SOMETIMES WE JUST DON’T WANNA

Anyone engaged in the progressive paths of life, such as meditation, recovery, learning new disciplines, or developing a skill, knows the dread experience of the don’t wannas! I don’t wanna avoid pizza. I don’t wanna work out, I don’t wanna meditate. Sometimes, I don’t even wanna get out of bed. Despite a part of our higher mind believing we really should wanna – or maybe actually because of that – seeds of doubt grew into trees we couldn’t look past.

In conventional life, we assume we should push harder. And when that doesn’t work, we assign blame, usually to ourselves. I’m lazy. I’m useless. What’s wrong with me? We might take on the role of a frustrated parent yelling outside the door, “GET UP!” or a sports coach urging,. “Get past this and move it, you baby.” But if we actually were a baby, no one would speak to us that way. In fact, we might find it cute when a toddler in their terrible twos holds their breath. And while some foxhole instances require tough love or aggression to provide the motivation we lack in most cases this is an overplayed lazy option. It is not a recommended approach to guiding a child toward self-sufficiency, nor developing a meditation practice that includes our full being. You see, we so-called adults have grown beyond the children we once were, but the children have nonetheless remained. We can take the approach of ignoring our child, as many of our parents did.  And as we grew, some of us learned to ignore the pleading of what the Indigo Girls referred to as our “Kid Fears”. Unfortunately, this approach met with enough success that “grin and bear it” became the order of the day and some pushed through until the seed of doubt grew into a boulder we could not lift.

While resistance is annoying to the part of us with grand plans for ourselves, it is a voice with wisdom. When a frightened child comes crying into their parents room at night, they don’t need a motivational speech. Fear and resistance need to be held by loving strength, not pushed by it. And whether we find this flattering or not, the shadow of our kid fears remain in the irrational – sometimes self defeating – behaviour we carry through our adult lives. But, looking at the world they will inherit, is there not some wisdom in the child’s resistance?  The great “NO” of the toddler is a way of their learning assertion and self respect. And accepting fear is instrumental to developing fearlessness. Fearless does not mean without fear.  It means having acknowledged and made friends with our fears, we can hold them and when ready move past them as our higher mind decides. We don’t have to push the child out of the room, but we can lead the child back to its bed. We can accept our fears and learn their wisdom, but the fearful child should not lead us. Despite its protestations, the child likely wants to be led. But connecting and synchronizing are essential before we can lead. And kindness is the best tool to use in deconstructing the illogic of fear and finding the truth of wisdom. 

Developing a strong meditation practice is one of the cases for which kindness is an essential method. Some of us learn this in meditation and the approach begins to bleed into other aspects of our life. In my opinion, this is the most important result of a consistent and authentic meditation practice. But, as wonderful as this sounds, some days we just can’t make that long journey from bed to the cushion. Yet, pushing ourselves in the way we do everything else, sets us off on the wrong tact. We are at the mercy of ego or self-will. It is the wrong view, because we are somehow believing there is something we can get from the meditation that requires struggle.  The adage “nothing good comes without struggle” is not apt in developing an authentic practice free of aggression. So, when experience resistance to our practice it makes a certain sense. We are deconstructing the fortress of ego. We feel exposed and fearful.  Sometimes we may need to halt the process and allow the fear to catch up with us. And kindness and patience are the remedies. When we have the patience to meet resistance with kindness in meditation practice, we have an opportunity to see its effectiveness. As we develop faith in love as a remedy we become kinder and more patient with ourselves. As we become kinder and more patient with ourselves, we naturally become more caring of others.

And as we develop the path of meditation, we will encounter the “I-DON-WANNAS”. The path will lead us to places that are not always easy to enter.  But when we are angry or embarrassed about the fear, we create an agitation within our being. Our mind splits into different facets each shouting at the other. While something inside might urge us to push harder that increases the struggle. The only thing struggle builds are the tools of ego. Reacting out of anger is not effective. But we can accept our anger, hear its complaint, and wait till it settles and clarity returns. Only a mind of serenity can lead to responses that release the struggle. The mind is more creative and effective when it operates from a calm center.

We need not feel afraid of fear. The best way of developing fearlessness is to look into the eyes of fear and hold them until things calm. Hold the fear until the struggling stops. You see in this approach, breaking out of our struggle is counter productive. We can honor and hold the mind that is fearful until it stops struggling and is ready to step forward. In this way, we our full mind can develop natural assertion and confidence just like a child learning to walk back to their room. Just like flowers blooming in spring. The seed has no idea of the flower it will become as it is too busy pushing up through the darkness. This is not easy, but the plant does this without struggle. It rises because it is its nature. No one needs to stand above it yelling for it to grow. Along the way, if the ground freezes, the growing stops until the stalk gathers the energy to move again. We can see progress in nature that, while not without challenge, is in synchronicity with nature. The ancient book of wisdom, referred to as the IChing, states that obstacles can be overcome by emulating water. Warrior has the patience to pause until their strength rebuilds and allows them to flow over or around the obstacle. The river never feels insecure or berates itself for this.

And just to continue with run-on metaphors, the stubbornness with which a part of us slows down the whole is, aside from being a voice crying to be heard, also may the very strength we use to travel forward our own way. In early Buddhism they used an image of the rhinoceros to depict the kind of solitary practitioner who had to travel the path in their own way, at their own pace. Aside from being solitary beings, Rhinos are highly intelligent and have excellent survival skills. They are excellent others that fiercely protect their young. No matter how cute these ungainly beings may appear you don’t want to invade their space. Space assures safety and dignity for all parties concerned. So, along with patience and kindness, the willingness to allow our “don’t wanna be’s” to just be, would be a wonderful step. I don’t think we should always give in to our doubt, but we might have a conversation with it first. “What are you afraid of?” “What do you need?” And we might remind the little rhino that we’re here and we love them.

In this way, our resistance is our path. And if all we took from our meditation journey was to be kind enough to ourselves to treat ourselves with care and respect, that would be life changing.