Driving to School

The other morning Jimmy (my son) followed me out to the car. I was loading the car so that I could take him to school. I had a podcast playing from the night before that began playing once I turned the car on. Jimmy got in the car and began listening. I forgot something in the house and had to go back in leaving Jimmy in the car. When I came back, Jimmy was sitting there listening to the podcast. I apologized for leaving the podcast on and asked him what he wanted to listen to. Jimmy replied that this was just fine. WOW! My 8-year-old son wants to listen to a dharma (truth) talk. As we drove to school I kept looking back at Jimmy and was amazed that he was attentively listening. The podcast ended with 10 minutes to go before arriving at his school. Our conversation went like this: 

Johnny: Did you like it? 

Jimmy: Yes.

Johnny: What was the biggest thing you learned?

Jimmy:  The importance of being present. 

Johnny: Why is it important to be present?

Jimmy: You will miss stuff if you don’t pay attention .

Johnny: Does your mind act crazy sometimes?

Jimmy: Laughing at the question, he said, “Yes it does”

Johnny: So can you understand that you can watch your thoughts and sometimes see that they are crazy, not you? 

Jimmy: Yes, I can see my thoughts.

Johnny: Ok Jimmy, this is the last thing I want to say. If you are able to watch your thoughts, then who are you?

Jimmy: I guess I am something more than what I think.

Johnny: Exactly Jimmy! Your potential in this life will come from developing a relationship with what can watch thought. Do you understand this Jimmy? 

Jimmy: I think so

I am very conscious with those in my life to not be a preacher, but to still share the truth with them in a way that helps them live a happier and healthy life. At 8 Jimmy is beginning to understand the power he possesses as a human being. I was extremely proud of Jimmy this morning for listening and applying contemplation. Thoughts can very much be a problem—our problem can be found in our relationship to thought. If we invest in negative thinking, it will expand and grow, and eventually we will become those thoughts. If we learn to dismiss negative thinking and focus more on positive thoughts, our life will be much less stressful and much more enjoyable

Letting Be

Cultivating this ability to “let go” is an important aspect of learning to live a happy life. I have a lot of students who have told me how hard they find it to let go. I think the problem lies within their response. It goes back to concretizing. 

Now I know I am focusing on linguistics but in 15 years of teaching, you begin to pick up on some commonalities when people experience a challenge. They say it is hard and they freeze up instead of rising to the challenge. The challenge lies in seeing a thought for what it is—just a thought. It weighs nothing, means nothing, and in an essence, has no power unless, and this is a big unless, we give our attention to it. 

This is what happens when we freeze up around the thought. We have given our attention and power to the thought. We begin to mentally invest in this thought, emotions begin to arise, and finally, the concretizing happens. Given enough attention the thought gives birth to a belief. We begin believing the thought is real—in many ways, we become the thought. This is how thoughts can begin to shape our lives. 

For these students facing particularly difficult challenges, I believe they are engaging the verb, letting go a little too strenuously. I encourage a shift to “letting be”. This is something that has worked greatly for me. It reduces pushing or being aggressive. It’s productive when we stop trying so hard to push away or rid ourselves of something and instead, apply a willingness to understand.  Understanding is not analyzing or judging, as much as it is seeing the thoughts for what they are – just thoughts.  As you apply awareness to your thoughts, your awareness shines light onto the very nature of thought which is empty space. This realization and understanding can bring a sense of peace and freedom into that moment. 

 

Before you know it, the thought will be back. This is why you practice this technique. The ability to “letting be” strengthens with increased frequency of application. Your awareness will grow as will your ability to see that you are more then just thoughts. 

 

You Are Not What You Think

In the practice of Calm Abiding (Samatha) Meditation, the instructions are very clear. You pick a focus point to settle the eyes on, focus your attention on the breathing and the body. As you begin to gain your internal awareness, you can begin to work with the mind and the body on a much deeper and more profound level. 

One of the first things you realize is that your mind is a mad, runaway train and in some ways you are crazy! This is a wonderful realization. Your mind is just like a gland; it is constantly secreting thoughts. Before I began practicing yoga and meditating, I thought that my thoughts defined who I was. Once I learned to recognize my thoughts and monitor them as they came and went, I began to realize I was something much vaster and greater then just my thoughts. 

At some point in practice you come to the painstaking realization that you are the culprit. You create the stress in your life. That’s right. You can no longer be a victim and you have to grow up and stop blaming other people for your present situation. This comes from the realization that for most of your life, you have been identified by your thoughts. You believed your thoughts are who you were. You were wrong.   

You become empowered when you realize you are not your thoughts, but are able to recognize and monitor your thoughts. This is the awakening to consciousness that can catapult you right out of clinging to your stress into a life of empowerment. 

 

Now this all sounds rather wonderful, but it requires diligent practice. Your mind has been driving that runaway train your whole life and loves to convince you that you are your thoughts, that you are your stress. Your mind will perform all kinds of tricks to get you to cling and hang onto to your stress. 

On a daily basis, I forget this and then I remember it again. I forget and then remember. This remembering is what allows me to let go, cultivating acceptance and happiness in my life. Every time you sit and meditate or practice at Empowered Yoga, you are constantly cultivating this ability to let go. In classes, teachers will instruct the students again and again to become ‘present’ through their breath and their body. Every time you become present and let go of thoughts, your ability to live from a more authentic and happy place becomes realized.

Suffering, an Inconvenient Truth

The classical description to the first noble truth deals with birth, sickness, old age and death. These are four things that will most certainly happen to each and every one of us. It is a truth of human life. 

If I were to ask people if they suffered on a daily basis, most of them would look at me funny. If I asked them instead if they experience stress, they would say “Of course I do". We will use the word stress instead of suffering. 

At Plexus, before beginning our personal training relationships, new clients go through a health and fitness assessment. One of the questions we ask is “How would you rate your level of stress on a daily basis?” This allows us to know something about the individual’s lifestyle and how their mental fitness is. 

Many people in 2008 live with a fair amount of stress. Where does stress come from? I like to break stress down into two categories: Physical Stress and Mental Stress. These two are interdependent and ultimately are affecting each other. Let’s take a closer look at some examples.

Physical Stress - We can inflict negative stress on our bodies by eating unhealthy foods, eating too much food at once, drinking too much caffeine and alcohol, sitting in the same position too long, not exercising, exercising too much (yes you can do this), poor posture, neglecting the feet, bathing in the sun too much, and the list goes on and on. 

Mental Stress - The mind can experience stress when it internalizes things, takes things too personal, overworks and over thinks, clings onto the past like a broken record, fantasizes about the future, or meets the moment with preconceived notions of what they want to happen. And again I am sure we could go on and on. 

Is there a way to learn to reduce stress? The cultivation of the present state of mind allows us to get in touch with the body and mind. I know when I get in touch with the present moment and I am experiencing stress, I typically discover that my mind is grasping or clinging onto something. This is the Second Truth of human life: We suffer because we grasp and cling to things trying to concretize them within our minds. 

Ice cream Sandwich

This morning my daughter Leia came into the living room with tears in her eyes holding an ice cream sandwich. Sara followed her in asking me to tell Leia that she could not have it. Sara asks me to do the dirty work because Leia will listen to me more than her. I told Leia now wasn’t the right time to be eating ice cream and redirected her attention to something else and in seconds Leia let go of the thoughts of eating the ice cream sandwich. A brilliant observation of the mind!

 

I paused for a moment and realized how cool that was. Leia was truly suffering when she realized that there was a possibility that her desire to eat the ice cream sandwich was not going to be fulfilled. When we look at Leia’s suffering it comes from grasping to a thought again and again eventually bringing tears. A simple parenting trick of redirecting your child’s attention helps teach them to “let go” of the thoughts and move on to the next thoughts or experience. This ability to let go of thought is an innate part of the human mind. Leia displayed it wonderfully this morning with the help of some trick parenting.

 

Letting go is the hinge within the Four Noble Truths of the Buddhist Philosophy. The four truths are: Suffering, Causes of Suffering, release from suffering and cultivation of non-suffering state.  I will focus on this for the next few blogs

Concretize

I had to look this one up. It is to make something hard like concrete. I was listening to a Dharma (truth) podcast the other day and the lecturer used this word. I really like it because it gives such a strong visualization of what happens within us when we hold on too tightly to something. I was a construction worker during high school and I was responsible for mixing concrete and pouring it. You add water to the concrete solution and then it hardens and becomes solid and non-porous.

The human body is roughly 75% water depending on your age and the amount of water you drink. It is common for people to become more and more dehydrated as they age. Did you know our brains are 75% water? Most headaches can be attributed to dehydration. Lean muscle tissue contains about 75% water. Blood contains 83% water, body fat contains 25% water, and bone has 22% water. When the body is dehydrated it dries up and begins to concretize like concrete. Research has proven that severe dehydration creates havoc for our bodies in the long run.

Our minds work a lot like this: Just take a moment to sit back and watch your mind. A thought will come in and then it will turn into another thought and another, and so on, just like a story. You can think of the mind as flowing as water, moving from one thought to another. The mind can also latch onto a thought and concretize it. This means that this particular thought will come up again and again. It has hardened and becomes a repeat thought or part of your memory. This feature of the mind is what allows us to accomplish tasks and empower ourselves. Unfortunately, it can also keep us stuck in unhealthy and habitual patterns.  

Here is a little exercise in awareness. The next time someone says to you “This is really hard,” look up and observe their facial expression. You will be surprised to see that their face is a face of anguish or stress. It is as if they are those negative thoughts and feelings and concretizing them. As they are pulled from their comfort zone, they freeze, like concrete. The mind tends to concretize around fear and the thought that produced that emotion. The more often we concretize around things we would categorize as difficult—the harder it is to deal with life’s ups and downs.  

When you experience a task that requires you to sweat, think outside the box, or get your hands a little dirty, I refer to it as a challenge.  Accepting a challenge requires courage. The word courage comes from the Latin root “cor” which means heart. It is within the moments that we are challenged that we need to stop and recognize the thoughts and emotions for what they are. It is a shift from identification to observation; the concretizing can subside with observation within minutes. Using identification however, we can many times become paralyzed like concrete for hours, days or even a lifetime.

This is something I am continually working on. I’m trying to recognize where I am hardening when I need to soften— lifetime contemplation for all those on the path to empowerment!

Seasonal Runner

I am a seasonal runner. I start running in the spring and put the shoes away once fall arrives. I began running a month ago and it just seems to become more challenging each year to get going. I am starting to feel the rhythm with my breath and my stride and already thinking that maybe I just have to keep going throughout the winter. Aging often brings greater challenges!

For the last few weeks, I have been running first thing in the morning. The alarm goes off anywhere between 4:30 and 5:30, depending on my day. I don’t mind getting up early and it has been interesting to recognize my mind waking up. There are thoughts that pop up and say, “No! Stay in bed—run later,” or “Go check your e-mails first,” or “You have a long day today. Maybe running is not the thing to do right now”. It is pretty interesting to see the thoughts for what they are, just thoughts. There really is nothing to a thought until we invest our attention into it and start believing that it is real or solid. 

The last few weeks those thoughts have not been real. I just see them for what they are. I notice them and even give the thoughts names like lazy thought, excuse thought, or complaining thought. I shift my awareness to my body, sit up in bed and place my feet on the ground. I pause for a moment and take a deep breath in and then begin moving. As I am getting dressed, I just pay attention to putting my pants on, lacing up my shoes, etc. I step outside and begin running. Once I finish my run, I acknowledge the fact that a simple thought almost held me back. Fortunately, I saw it for what it was: just a thought.

You can apply this exercise to any thought that might be holding you back. See it for what it is and shift your awareness to your body and/or your breath. The thought loses its power if it doesn’t produce action! This process takes practice, but once applied, it really works!