Episode 135: Peacefulness in the Midst

[This episode originally aired on June 21, 2022]  In the dharma a great deal of emphasis is placed on integrating meditation practice and study  •  interwoven throughout is the need for discipline, the need to apply our training to the real challenges of life  •  if you look at the role of discipline in terms of meditation practice and study, it’s very simple: you have to do it  •  it takes effort and commitment to stick with study, to stick with practice  •  even when we are not studying or practicing, discipline is the thread that ties it all together  •  it’s a long-term vision, not a short-term bandage or a magic pill  • discipline in the Buddhist understanding is not a heavy-handed thing—there isn’t a set of commandments or rules; there is no particular punishment and no particular reward  •  all we have is our actions, our ability to notice the results of our actions, and our ability to learn from them and make decisions based on what we observe. 

 [This episode originally aired on June 14, 2022]  Since we are the only ones who know what’s really going on during any session of meditation, or in life generally, we have a responsibility to be our own meditation instructors, working with the patterns that capture our particular mind from time to time  •  many years ago I was introduced to pairs of qualities that can help us in identifying different kind of traps, or extremes, we can fall into, as ways to bring ourselves back into balance  •  the first pair talks about the two poles of anxiety and tranquility  •  in this example, we are working to find a middle ground where we are not falling into anxiety, and we are not becoming overly tranquil to the point of being disengaged or blasé  •  the second pair is agility and heaviness  •  the third pair is inflexibility and pliancy  •  the fourth pair is too firm and too soft  •  the fifth pair is self-doubt/uncertainty and a rigid sense of proficiency  •  the final pair is insincerity and genuineness/uprightness.

[This episode originally aired on June 7, 2022]  I used to carry around a cartoon that depicted a beautifully robed monk with a Japanese shoji screen behind him, everything perfectly in its place—and behind the screen everything was complete chaos  •  it’s very tempting to create a façade of tranquility and peacefulness in our meditation practice and ignore what’s behind the screen: the roiling emotions and thoughts, the confusion and history and regrets  •  how do we unify our world so there’s not a front and a back, a side we present to ourselves and others, and a side where everything is hidden?  •  it’s tempting to think we can create some kind of pristine experience for ourselves, and just ditch the rest—the messiness, the embarrassment, the regrets—so we can hang out in a peaceful and serene place... but we still have this lingering, lurking collection behind the screen  •  but here’s the twist: to the extent that we begin to let go of clinging to our “front of the screen” experience of serenity or peace, to the extent that we loosen our attachment to a particular state of mind, we discover a deeper kind of peace and tranquility, one that comes from incorporating the whole thing  •  I call this “peacefulness in the midst.”

[This episode originally aired on May 31, 2022]  Emotions are a natural part of who we are  •  they can be powerful—even overpowering—or they can be subtle, almost an undercurrent  •  they can be very inspiring, or they can be very disruptive  •  if you trace negative emotions back to their source, you discover that they arise from an ongoing battle where everything is taken personally  •  if you trace that battle back to its source, you find a sense of duality  •  it’s almost like the emotions are the army of ego: the troops, the scouts, and the fortresses of defense and offense  •  because emotions are filled with energy, the ego can deploy them to further its aims  •  meditation practice is one way to  explore this emotional landscape; when we are meditating we can observe the emotional world in a more dispassionate way  •  in Buddhist practice the guideline is to honor and respect the power and energy of emotions, while neither suppressing them nor feeding them.

[This episode originally aired on August 8, 2023] I recently had a problem with my computer—whatever I put in my "trash" would just stay there; I couldn’t empty it  •  I started thinking about how that could describe our personal “trash”—our freak-outs and obsessions, our worries and regrets, as well as what we read in the news  •  we can shove that stuff deep within us, and sometimes it’s not so easy to know how to let it go  •  one approach is not to take anything in: closing our hearts, closing ourselves to the pain and confusion within us and around us  •  but the notion of letting go is based on actually opening our hearts and taking something in fully, but then not dwelling or holding onto it, but releasing it  •  as we let go, we bring ourselves more completely into the situation  •  when you can let go and open to a situation, you can connect with something that is sacred and holy, something beyond our small world of self-fixation and self-absorption.

[This episode originally aired on August 1, 2023] The eight everyday preoccupations are eight ways we occupy our minds in order to avoid experiencing things directly  •  they act as a kind of a central filtering mechanism, separating out the things that feed our ego from the things that challenge it  •  because of this filtering mechanism, we get jerked around into a very reactive way of living and thinking  •  all of our thoughts and actions curve inwardly to a kind of self-centered preoccupation: what’s in it for me? how does it affect me?  •  the eight preoccupations are divided into four pairs:  pleasure/pain; fame/insignificance; gain/loss; and praise/blame  •  for example, why do we feel so lifted up and inspired when we are praised, but we feel so insulted and deflated when we are blamed?  •  the ego is a bit of a paper tiger: it presents itself as very strong and fierce, but in reality it is very vulnerable and weak  •  without the constant reinforcement of pleasure, gain, fame, and recognition, the ego just deflates and collapses  •  when the experiences that come to us—good and bad, up and down—are not recruited as tools to cover our anxiety, we can deal with them straightforwardly, with no agenda.

[This episode originally aired on July 25, 2023] Effort plays a very important part on the Buddhist path; it’s one of the three main components of discipline, meditation, and knowledge  •  effort is where the rubber meets the road; it’s where things get tested and become real  •  Trungpa Rinpoche talked about effort in terms of combining discipline and delight  •  he used three analogies to describe three different approaches to effort  •  the first is a jack rabbit, racing along with a burst of enthusiasm and then collapsing in exhaustion  •  the second is a worm that’s eating its way through a tree, just plowing along with no vision, no sense of where it’s going  •  the third is an elephant walking through the jungle: steady and slow and dignified, with a sense of vision, mindful and aware of where it’s going  •  the walk of an elephant is an example of right effort  •  another aspect of effort is being genuine  •  someone who is genuine doesn’t say one thing and do another; their speech is true, and it manifests in how they act in the world. 

[This episode originally aired on July 18, 2023]  Someone recently asked me, “Am I spiritually bypassing?” •  I took that term to mean using one’s practice or spiritual path as an escape, or relief, from the responsibilities of regular life in this world  •  it is a relief in a way, to take a break from the relentless struggles of daily life  •  is it possible to practice meditation in a way that’s not bypassing all of that, while at the same time recognizing the need to have some relief from the relentlessness of life?  •  I think there is actually a parallel, or opposite, form of bypassing, something I would label “material bypassing”—avoiding our own spirituality our spiritual yearnings and insights by keeping busy and constantly occupying ourselves with an endless stream of worldly concerns  •  the challenge is to find some way of being skillfully and wholeheartedly engaged in both your life and your meditation practice—appreciating that we need to take a break from worldly concerns, but then we need to re-energize and engage fully in the world again.

[This episode originally aired on July 11, 2023]  Today I’d like to explore the problem of becoming an adult  •  the world of children is filled with magic and fantasy and stories, with vivid perceptions and playfulness  •  but as we grow up we’re supposed to get over all that, and develop adult-like qualities  •  gradually, year-by-year, the magical world of childhood fades away  •  yet many of the great spiritual masters say what we really need to do is to become more like children, and less like adults  •  when we take a lighthearted approach, a childlike approach, our spiritual practice becomes less of another project that we take on with earnest determination, and more of an exploration of curiosity and interest and delight  •  I thought of a new word: “curiodyssey” (“curious odyssey”) — if we soften our earnestness, something more childlike, playful, and delightful can emerge in our meditation practice.

[This episode originally aired on July 4, 2023] The word “compassion” can seem so overwhelming in the face of all the suffering in the world that it can stop us in our tracks  •  while we’re imagining all the great gestures of compassion that we might do, we can miss the small, ordinary, daily acts of compassion that really do affect our world  •  some of the hardest compassion to feel is just being present with suffering that isn't fixable  •  this is what people in the hospice setting often do: they simply sit with someone who is passing from this life  •  that simple act of being present with someone can bring about a quality of deep acceptance  •  compassion can also be a momentary thing that completely shifts the energy—a smile or a glance, a simple recognition of a human being who, like you, is suffering  •  such little moments  of connection are so subtle, but they ripple forward and can change our feeling for the whole day  •  at its core, that simple connection is really the seat of compassion; it may be even more important than the grand compassionate heal-the-world projects that we may imagine  •  it’s on the spot, it’s immediate, it’s not a big deal—but it can change everything for ourselves and for those we encounter.