curiosity

Overcoming resistance to meditation (a self-compassionate guide)

Bodhipaksa
on practice
7 Comments

There can be lots of reasons for why we avoid meditating. We might not want to experience particular feelings. We might have built up a sense of failure around our meditation practice. We might worry that doing something for ourselves is selfish. We might be concerned that if we meditate we won’t get things done. Or we might be afraid of change.

And so we find excuses not to meditate. We know it’s good for us. We’ve read news article about it. We know that we’re happier when we meditate. We intend to meditate. But we find that we avoid it. We get busy. We just can’t bring ourselves to go sit on that meditation cushion.

I used to think it would help to understand why I resisted meditation. But that rarely achieved anything.

Ultimately, I found that the most important thing was not to analyze my resistance or to get into a debate with it, but to turn toward and embrace it. This is an important practice in mindful self-compassion.

See also:

So when resistance to meditation arises, try becoming mindful of the feelings that accompany this experience. Where are they situated in the body? What shape do they form? What “texture” do they have? What kinds of thoughts do they give rise to? Notice those things, and just be with the resistance. Let the resistance be an object of mindfulness. Resistance is a state of conflict, and may also include fear. These are forms of pain. Notice this pain and regard it kindly. Offer it some reassuring words: “It’s OK. You’re going to be OK. I’ll take good care of you.”

Now here’s the thing: as soon as you become mindful of your resistance, you’re already meditating. Your resistance is no longer a hindrance to developing mindfulness but an opportunity to do so. And so, wherever you are, you can just let your eyes close. Breathing in, experience the resistance. Breathing out, experience the resistance. Now you’re doing mindful breathing meditation!

Continue to talk to the fearful part of you, perhaps saying things like: “Hi there. I accept you as part of my experience. I care about you and I want you to be at ease. You’re free to stay for as long as you like, and you’re welcome to meditate with me.” Do this for as long as necessary, until you feel settled in your practice.

In this approach the specific content of your resistance isn’t important, because you’re not meeting your rationalizations on their own level. And that’s a good thing, because your resistance is sly.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, your doubt can run circles around you, and arguing with it makes things worse. Your doubt knows exactly what you’re going to say and knows how to make you feel small and incapable. It’s had lots of practice doing this. The one thing your doubt doesn’t understand is how to resist being seen and accepted.

So instead of arguing with your resistance, outsmart it. Surround it with mindful awareness and with kindness.

If you find that the resistance goes on day after day, then set yourself a low bar for what counts as “a day in which you meditate.” Five minutes is fine. That may not sound like much, but regularity is ultimately far more important than the number of minutes you do each day. If you sit for just five minutes a day, you’re meditating regularly. You’ve outwitted your resistance.

One more tip: The only “bad meditation” is the one you don’t do. All the others are fine. So don’t worry about the quality. Just do the practice.

Wildmind is a community-supported meditation initiative. Hundreds of people chip in monthly to cover our running costs, and in return receive access to amazing resources. Click here to find out more.

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Why is it so hard to pay attention? Or is it? Curiosity may be key to concentrating

Wildmind Meditation News
news
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wildmind meditation newsDr. Judson Brewer, Huffington Post: There is a new medication in early clinical trials that will likely revolutionize our ability to pay attention. Interested in learning more? Yes, we all are. The paradox here is that right now, because of this interest, you’re paying attention. We naturally pay attention when we are interested.

Given what we now know about the science behind how our brains learn best, what if we could tap into our natural interest to train ourselves to pay attention? Do I still have your attention?

Over 100 years ago, Edward Thorndyke described a neural process now known as reward-based learning. Many …

Read the original article »

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Let it R.A.I.N.

Rick Hanson PhD
on practice
2 Comments

Rain on a window, with out-of-focus car lights behind.

When you’re young, the territory of the psyche is like a vast estate, with rolling hills, forests and plains, swamps and meadows. So many things can be experienced, expressed, wanted, and loved.

But as life goes along, most people pull back from major parts of their psyche. Perhaps a swamp of sadness was painful, or fumes of toxic wishes were alarming, or jumping exuberantly in a meadow of joy irritated a parent into a scolding. Or maybe you saw someone else get in trouble for feeling, saying, or doing something and you resolved, consciously or unconsciously, to Stay Away From That Place Forever.

In whatever way it happens, most of us end up by mid-adulthood living in the gate house, venturing out a bit, but lacking much sense of the whole estate, the great endowment of the whole psyche. Emotions are shut down, energetic and erotic wellsprings of vitality are capped, deep longings are set aside, sub-personalities are shackled and silenced, old pain and troubles are buried, the roots of reactions – hurt, anger, feelings of inadequacy – are veiled so we can’t get at them, and we live at odds with both Nature and our own nature.

Sure, the processes of the psyche need some regulation. Not all thoughts should be spoken, and not all desires should be acted upon! But if you suppress, disown, push away, recoil from, or deny major parts of yourself, then you feel cut off, alienated from yourself, lacking vital information about what is really going on inside, no longer at home in your own skin or your own mind – which feels bad, lowers effectiveness at home and work, fuels interpersonal issues, and contributes to health problems.

So what can we do? How can we reclaim, use, enjoy, and be at peace with our whole estate – without being overwhelmed by its occasional swamps and fumes?

This is where R.A.I.N. comes in.

How?

R.A.I.N. is an acronym developed by Michelle McDonald, a senior mindfulness teacher, to summarize a powerful way to expand self-awareness. (I’ve adapted it a bit below, and any flaws in the adaptation are my own, not Michelle’s.)

R = Recognize: Notice that you are experiencing something, such as irritation at the tone of voice used by your partner, child, or co-worker. Step back into observation rather than reaction. Without getting into story, simply name what is present, such as “annoyance,” “thoughts of being mistreated,” “body firing up,” “hurt,” “wanting to cry.”

A = Accept (Allow): Acknowledge that your experience is what it is, even if it’s unpleasant. Be with it without attempting to change it. Try to have self-compassion instead of self-criticism. Don’t add to the difficulty by being hard on yourself.

I = Investigate (Inquire): Try to find an attitude of interest, curiosity, and openness. Not detached intellectual analysis but a gently engaged exploration, often with a sense of tenderness or friendliness toward what it finds. Open to other aspects of the experience, such as softer feelings of hurt under the brittle armor of anger. It’s OK for your inquiry to be guided by a bit of insight into your own history and personality, but try to stay close to the raw experience and out of psychoanalyzing yourself.

N = Not-identify (Not-self): Have a feeling/thought/etc., instead of being it. Disentangle yourself from the various parts of the experience, knowing that they are small, fleeting aspects of the totality you are. See the streaming nature of sights, sounds, thoughts, and other contents of mind, arising and passing away due mainly to causes that have nothing to do with you, that are impersonal. Feel the contraction, stress, and pain that comes from claiming any part of this stream as “I,” or “me,” or “mine” – and sense the spaciousness and peace that comes when experiences simply flow.

* * *

R.A.I.N. and related practices of spacious awareness are fundamental to mental health, and always worth doing in their own right. Additionally, sometimes they alone enable painful or challenging contents of mind to dissipate and pass away.

But often it is not enough to simply be with the mind, even in as profound a way as R.A.I.N. Then we need to work with the mind, by reducing what’s negative and increasing what’s positive. (It’s also necessary to work with the mind to build up the inner resources needed to be with it; being with and working with the mind are not at odds with each other as some say, but in fact support each other.)

And whatever ways we work with the garden of the mind – pulling weeds and planting flowers – will be more successful after it R.A.I.N.s.

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Asking questions in order to become a good listener

Rick Hanson PhD
on practice
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illuminated question mark on its side

My dad grew up on a ranch in North Dakota. He has a saying from his childhood – you may have heard it elsewhere – that’s: “You learn more by listening than by talking.”

Sure, we often gain by thinking out loud, including discovering our truth by speaking it. But on the whole, listening brings lots more valuable information than talking does.

Nonetheless, many people are not the greatest listeners. (You’ve probably noticed this already: at work, at home, when you’re trying to work something out with your partner . . .) What’s it feel like when they don’t listen to you? Or maybe listen, but don’t inquire further? It’s not good. Besides missing out on important information – including, often most importantly, your underlying feelings and wants – they’re sending the implicit message that they’re not that interested (even though, deep down, they might be).

Then turn it around: what do you think they feel like if you don’t listen that well to them? Not very good either.

Being a good listener brings many benefits: gathering useful information, making others feel like they matter to you, sustaining a sense of connection with people, and stepping out of your own familiar frame of reference.

One of the best ways to listen well is to ask questions. It makes you an active listener, it shows that you’ve been paying attention, it can get things out in the open (Mommy, is that emperor parading in his boxers?!), and it slows down emotional conversations so they don’t get out of hand.

So how can we learn to be more enquiring?

As a therapist, I ask questions for a living. Plus I’ve been married a long time through thick and thin, and raised two kids. As they say in medicine: good judgment comes from experience . . . and experience comes from bad judgment. So I offer some fruits of my bad judgments!

  • Questions can be nonverbal. A raised eyebrow, a nod to say more, or simply letting there be a bit of silence are all signals to the other person to keep going.
  • Have good intentions. Don’t ask questions like a prosecutor. It’s fine to try to get to the bottom of things – whether it’s what bothered your mate the most about her conversation with her friend, or what your son is actually doing this Saturday night, or what your role is supposed to be in an upcoming business meeting. But don’t use questions to make others look bad.
  • Keep the tone gentle. Remember that being asked a question – particularly, a series of questions – can feel invasive, critical, or controlling to the person on the receiving end; think of all the times that kids get asked questions as a prelude to a scolding or other punishment. You could check in with the other person to make sure your questions are welcome. Slow questions down so they don’t come rat-tat-tat. And intersperse them with self-disclosure that matches, more or less, the emotional depth of what the other person is saying; this way they’re not putting all their cards on the table while you keep yours close to the chest.
  • As appropriate, persist in getting a clear answer. If you sense there’s still some problematic fuzziness or wiggle room in the other person’s answers, or simply more to learn, you could ask the question again, maybe in a different way. Or explain – without accusation – why you’re still unclear about what the other person is saying. Or ask additional questions that could help surface the deeper layers of the other person’s thoughts, feelings, and intentions.

Different kinds of questions are appropriate for different situations. For example, trying to get clearer about a project your boss wants you to do is definitely not like a delicate inquiry into what might help things go better in a physically intimate relationship. Questions about facts or plans are usually pretty straightforward. For the murkier, more emotionally charged territory of friends and family, here are some possibilities:

  • How was _______ for you?
  • What do you appreciate about _______ ? What bothers (or worries) you about _______ ? Are there other things you’re feeling (or wanting) besides ______?
  • What did this remind you of?
  • What did you wish had happened, instead?
  • What’s the most important thing here, for you?
  • What would it look like if you got what you wanted here? (Or: “. . . what you wanted from me?”)
  • How would you like it to be from now on?
  • Could you say more about _______ ?

If your intentions are good, it’s really OK to ask questions. Usually, people welcome them. Take confidence in your good intentions and good heart.

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The breathing as an adventure of discovery

Bodhipaksa
on practice
6 Comments

Diver swimming down into the dark ocean

One of my Skype workshop participants recently wrote with a request for advice, which (slightly edited) was as follows:

I am aware during my meditations that sometimes my awareness of the breath is quite superficial, distant and coarse. And I suspect that part of the reason for this distance is that my brain filters out the finer physical details of the experience, and just works with the coarse-grained concept of the breath – which is basically a fixed construct in memory rather than a direct experience of change happening now. I’d appreciate any tips on how to deal with it.

Here’s my reply (also slightly edited to include one point I forgot to mention, and polished up a little).

I think what you’re describing is very common. In fact I think it’s what almost everyone does, and what I’ve done a lot of the time over the years. In certain sense it may not matter too much, as long as you’re still keeping up the good fight by letting go of hindrance-driven thinking and coming back to the breath, or at least a token representation of it. It quiets the mind, and brings happiness.

But in the long run I don’t think it’s very satisfying to meditate in this way, and I’ve found that it’s useful to develop a sense of curiosity about where the sensations of the breathing ends.

You can start from where you normally pay attention to the breathing in a token manner, and then ask, what’s just outside that experience?

You might start by noticing the movements of the muscles on the abdomen, but then you notice that there are sensations within the abdomen as well — the movement of the diaphragm, the changing sense of pressure in the internal organs. And then there are sensations on the skin, constantly changing as the contact with your clothing changes.

And then the abdomen isn’t just the front of your body! You start to notice what’s at the edge of what you’ve been focusing on, and you realize that you can feel the movements of the muscles and the sensations of the skin on the sides of the body. And on the lower back; the entire lower back is moving as you breathe in and out.

And to you can do the same with the chest. You can move from feeling the sensations of the ribs on the front of the body rising and falling, to sensing the entire ribcage expanding and contracting, not just on the front of the body but on the side and the back. And you can notice the skin on those areas, too. You can feel the chest move against the arms, which are often lying against the chest wall. And there’s all that skin, moving against your clothing – the temperature, the sense of touch…

Then as the chest is rising and falling, so are the shoulders. Can you notice them, internally and externally? Can you feel the sensations inside the shoulder-joint itself? Can you feel the arms move slightly as you breath in, as the shoulders rise and fall, and as the ribcage moves them? Can you feel anything in the hands? The fingers?

The whole spine is moving.

You can keep doing this through the whole body — the neck, the head, the hips, the legs, the feet.

And I haven’t mentioned the internal sensations of the air touching the inside of the passageways! Where do they end? There’s no sharp edge to those sensations, and you can notice them “blurring out” into your body.

So there’s a huge amount there to pay attention to. You can in fact end up experiencing the breathing everywhere. The whole body can feel like it’s involved in the breathing process, which on some level it is.

Of course noticing all this isn’t what we usually do. What we typically do is pick some token sensation and try to pay attention to that. It’s coarse and very, very selective. And it becomes a habit to notice just that sensation, and to ignore everything else. We convince ourselves we’re paying attention to “the breathing” when it’s more like “a bit of the breathing connected with the muscles on the front of the abdomen,” or “one small aspect of the breath moving through the pharynx.”

We notice so little of the breathing process that the mind’s actually bored, and we find that lots of thoughts are arising to fill the vacuum in our experience.

But if we start exploring what’s around those token sensations, with a sense of curiosity and openness, then we’re starting to pay attention to “the breathing” and not just a token representation of it. And as we notice more of the breathing, then the mind’s less bored. It’s actually quite interested! And often our attention is so full of the sensations of the breathing that there’s no room in there for thinking, and the mind becomes quiet.

It’s worth emphasizing as well that this exploration needs to be done in a spirit almost of playfulness and wonder. It’s not a checklist — yeah, been there, done that. It’s OK to take my suggestions as “things to look for” but I’d suggest you don’t take it as an exhaustive list, because it isn’t. If you for look just what I’ve suggested, then you’ll miss stuff that’s going on, I’m sure. I’m probably missing a lot. You’ll probably miss important stuff if you follow me too closely, and not have the thrill of discovery. But it’s handy to have some suggestions for where to start looking.

Anyway, that’s my suggestion for breaking out of having a token representation of the breathing, so that there’s more of an open sense of mindfulness and even of adventure. You’re leaving the familiar and rather dull territory of the known, and pushing out into the wide ocean of experience.

I’ve been finding this a rewarding thing to do. It might be what you need as well.

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Meditation on money, mindfulness and motorcycles

Saddhamala
on practice
1 Comment

Piggy bank looking like it's about to eat some coins

As a proponent of living mindfully and with a desire to bring mindfulness into my daily life in terms of: communication, work, family life, friendship, abundance, skillfulness and simplicity I have been thinking about mindfulness and money. I’ll write about the motorcycle in a bit.

I grew up with parents who wanted me to “understand the value of a dollar” and to “work for what I got”. These messages have been deeply ingrained. As a result, I have worked hard and believed what I have should be a result of the work I performed, so I had difficulty accepting gifts, especially gifts of money.

That being said, I do desire material things. I like to live in a place that is visually pleasing, preferably near a pond and surrounded by hemlock trees. I like to dress in clothing that is made well and is flattering.

I like to drive my Subaru because I live where winter is long and snowy and driving a Subaru helps me to feel safe. But yesterday, while driving my Subaru, I saw what seemed to be so many Lexuses (Lexi?) and I had a deep desire to have one because as well as being safe when I drive, I like to drive a fast and powerful automobile.

Perhaps for you, it is a house by the ocean, a red Porsche convertible, traveling to exotic places, or a motorcycle you desire.

I love gourmet food and fine dining at restaurants with ambiance. I desire beauty in the form of art, crafts, music, film and dance so I indulge in going to museums, crafts fairs, concerts, movies and dance performances.

I enjoy being generous with my sons, my friends and family members. I am also aware that when I am with people who have more money than I do, I enjoy being treated to meals. I find I am more generous to some people than others. I wish I had more money to be more generous, especially with my sons.

I find, when it comes to being mindful about money I have more questions than answers. I have many questions:

  • What does my upbringing have to do with the way I think about money?
  • What does my upbringing have to do with the way I spend money?
  • What does my upbringing have to do with the level of my generosity?
  • Why do I give to some people and causes more easily and liberally than others?
  • Why am I comfortable accepting gifts in certain situations and from certain people, and uncomfortable in other situations?
  • How do I assign value to what I purchase?
  • How does money fit in with living a life of simplicity?
  • Why is it so difficult to talk about money?
  • How does money fit with the way I feel about myself and others?
  • How do I feel about family members who withhold money?
  • What do I want to teach my children about money?
  • Why do I feel that when people have “a lot of money” their lives are “easier”?
  • Would I be happier if I had more money?

What I do not question, is the importance of being mindful when it comes to money. I do not question the importance I place on living simply even with my desire for material things. And I do not question the value I place on being generous no matter how much money I have.

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Being mindful of pain, and the paradox of mindfulness

Bodhipaksa
on practice
1 Comment

Candle flame

Meditation offers us a powerful paradox: that becoming more mindful of our pain reduces the amount of pain we experience.

The use of meditation techniques to treat chronic pain is becoming increasingly common, largely as a result of the pioneering work in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction started by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Kabat-Zinn’s scientifically validated work has touched the lives of tens of thousands of people and helped to establish meditation as a highly respected tool in the treatment of chronic pain, stress, and depression.

Some people initially find the idea of using meditation to deal with pain incongruous. After all, isn’t meditation about developing greater awareness? And wouldn’t that mean becoming more aware of the pain itself in an almost masochistic kind of way and therefore experiencing greater suffering? For others, who think about meditation as a technique for “tuning out” and turning attention away from the body, meditative techniques can be seen as a welcome, if almost unattainable, form of escapism.

See also

In fact, meditation is neither masochistic nor escapist. In meditation we do in fact become more aware of ourselves, but what is most important is that we become aware of and change the way that we relate to our pain. It is that change in relationship that makes meditation a potent tool in pain management.

So what is this change in the way that we relate to pain, and how does it have the effect of helping us to deal more effectively with it, or even to reduce the level of pain we experience? The quality we cultivate through meditation practice is mindfulness. Mindfulness is much more than simply being aware. We can be aware of pain without being at all mindful of it. Mindfulness is a particular kind of awareness, which is purposeful, focused, curious, and rooted in our moment-by-moment experience.

With mindfulness we purposefully observe our experience as it takes place, including any pain that may be present. The mind naturally tends to see pain as being a “thing,” and to give it a degree of solidity, permanence, and coherence that it doesn’t in fact have. In mindfulness meditation we train ourselves to see the many different sensations that we collectively label as “pain.” We may even gently make mental notes of the most prominent sensations that we notice. For example we may note the presence of “tingling,” “pulsing,” “throbbing,” “heat,” “cold,” “aching,” “tightness,” etc. When we let go of the rather crude label “pain” in this way and instead note what is actually present, we can find that each individual sensation is easier to bear. Sometimes we notice that there is no pain present, or that the sensations that we’re experiencing are neutral or even pleasurable.

Additionally, in exercising curiosity about our pain we are also gaining another important benefit in the form of the quality of acceptance. The mind, quite understandably, tends to see pain as something that is undesirable and therefore to be pushed away. This pushing away shows in the body as physical tension in and around the area of pain, causing additional discomfort and even intensifying the original pain. It’s as if, having accidentally touched a hot stove, we were to react by trying to push the stove away. In doing so we would of course simply intensify our pain. So, in mindfulness meditation an attitude of curiosity allows us to let go of our resistance and to see the pain for what it is: an ever-changing variety of interwoven sensations. Much of our resistance to pain is mental rather than physical. When we experience pain the mind can, like the body, try to push it away. We experience desire for the pain just to go away. We crave its absence. Unfortunately, as we all know, wishing that something were so does not make it so, and our frustrated desires do nothing but add mental suffering to our physical distress.

In mindfulness meditation we observe more than just any pain that may happen to be present. We become aware of the whole physical body, emotions, and thoughts, and of how each of these interacts with the others. One thing we can then begin to see is that although pain is present in our experience it isn’t the whole of our experience. Mindfulness gives us a sense of the physical and mental “landscape” within which our pain is experienced, and which helps to give a sense of perspective to our experience of it. At times of stress it may seem as if pain is the only thing that we experience, but this comes about because we have a kind of mental “zoom lens” that is closely focused on the pain. Change that zoom lens for a wide-angle lens and the pain seems much smaller and therefore more manageable.

Without mindfulness, our experiences tend to proliferate in an unhelpful way. We may experience physical pain, and this leads to thoughts such as “This is never going to end,” “This is just going to get worse,” “I can’t bear this,” or “I must be a bad person to deserve all this pain.” In turn, these thoughts lead to anxiety, despondency or anger, because we tend to believe the stories we think when we are unmindful, and this adds further to our suffering. The practice of mindfulness includes becoming aware of our thoughts and seeing that our thoughts are indeed just thoughts and are not facts.

Thoughts are not facts. This can be a revolutionary discovery, and also a liberating one. When we learn to see thoughts as just another experience coming and going against the background of our overall physical and mental experience, we free ourselves from the kind of runaway thinking that is so characteristic of stress. We can see thoughts like “I can’t stand this” coming into being, realize that they are thoughts rather than facts, and instead of indulging in them and encouraging them we simply note them and let go of them.

Finally, mindfulness can help by reminding us that pain is not “the enemy.” Pain is the body’s naturally evolved way of letting us know that something needs attention, and can play a vital role in maintaining physical well-being. It’s easy to see how important pain is when we consider what life would be without it. There are medical conditions in which people can’t experience pain, and those people find that life is very hard indeed. Imagine, for example, trying to warm yourself at a fire without being able to tell when your skin was overheating: serious burns would be a distinct possibility. So we can see that pain is an essential part of being human. Of course when pain goes on for a long time, or when it’s particularly intense, it can be hard to remember that it evolved as a helpful function, and it’s easy to see it as an enemy. The meditative approaches outlined above help us to develop acceptance of our pain, but an even more powerful aspect of mindfulness that allows us to accept our pain is the quality of lovingkindness.

Mindfulness has a quality of appreciation and welcoming that can radically transform our relationship to difficult experiences. Buddhist meditation techniques can be used, for example, to cultivate an attitude of lovingkindness towards those people that we find difficult and towards whom we experience aversion, anger, and even hatred. Millions of practitioners over thousands of years have found that the cultivation of lovingkindness leads to the lessening of conflicts and the growth of love and appreciation for those who were previously enemies. Lovingkindness transforms our relationships.

The development of lovingkindness can also be used internally, by cultivating lovingkindness for painful experiences (or self-compassion) so that we can accept them as a part of life. Wishing our pain well can be a powerfully healing experience in which we let go of inner tensions and barriers on a deep level and come to see that our pain is a part of us, and a part of us moreover that is greatly in need of cherishing and love.

But do these approaches actually have medical benefits? Do they reduce pain, or do they simply allow us to handle our pain better? Clinical studies are unequivocal in demonstrating that the practice of mindfulness meditation both increases the ability to deal with the effects of pain and reduces pain overall. A study published in General Hospital Psychiatry followed 51 chronic pain patients who had not improved with traditional medical care. The dominant pain categories were low back, neck and shoulder, headache, facial pain, angina pectoris, noncoronary chest pain, and GI pain. After a 10-week program of meditation, 65% of the patients showed a reduction in pain of greater than 33%, and half of the patients showed a reduction in pain levels of more than 50%. It should be remembered that these were patients whose pain had shown no improvement with traditional medical care. In other words people with the most difficult cases of chronic pain still showed dramatic improvements in their condition.

A more recent study, at the University of Montreal, shows that Zen meditators were better able to detect painful stimuli than non-meditators, but that the sensations weren’t processed by the brain as “pain.”

The practice of mindfulness is particularly effective because it “decouples” the physical sensations of pain from mental and emotional processes that heighten suffering. Pain comes to be seen as “just another sensation” and the fear of pain is significantly reduced. The development of mindfulness, as Buddhists have known for 2,500 years, brings about mental and emotional freedom and a decrease in suffering.

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Playing our way through life

Sunada Takagi
on practice
7 Comments

Girl playing, blowing bubbles

Many people think of play as a fringe benefit of life. Work comes first. Play is an “extra” that we reward ourselves with only after finishing our work. But Sunada sees it differently. On the one hand, play has a generative quality that can help us navigate successfully through life. But even more so, she sees it as an essential way of expressing life itself.

I recently listened to a fascinating podcast on National Public Radio’s show called Speaking of Faith. It REALLY made me rethink all my ideas about play! It was an interview with Dr. Stuart Brown, the founder and president of the National Institute for Play — a non-profit that sponsors research on the role of play in the development of human potential.

Play may be purposeless, but that doesn’t make it pointless.

According to Brown, “When one really doesn’t play at all or very little in adulthood, there are consequences: rigidities, depression, no irony — things that are pretty important, that enable us to cope in a world of many demands.” He suggests that play helps us learn empathy, trust, and problem solving, and also enables us to develop our talents and character over our entire lifespan.

Play as a positive approach to life issues

Play may be purposeless, but that doesn’t make it pointless. Play has a generative quality to it. It brings out our sense of curiosity and imagination, and allows us to explore unfamiliar territory in an open-minded, open-hearted way. It’s free of judgment, or the need to perform or be perfect. “Mistakes” and “wrong turns” are a natural part of the process. It also reframes notions of work and effort, and allows us to explore and learn in a joyful way.

These ideas can have some big implications for how we go about navigating and creating in our own lives. Think about it. When we’re faced with something new and unfamiliar – fearful even – which approach seems more likely to elicit a helpful and creative response: one filled with methodical problem-solving, fretful worrying, and willful effort, or one filled with a more open sense of imaginative curiosity? A friend of mine recently told me of a quote (unfortunately she couldn’t remember the author) that goes: “Adults typically only use their imaginations to worry.” What a waste is that?

What I’m talking about here is a state of mind – more about HOW we do things than WHAT we do.

Some people might at this point object by saying that their problems are very complicated and risky, and couldn’t possibly be resolved just by playing through them. But what I’m talking about here is a state of mind – more about HOW we do things than WHAT we do. From a Buddhist perspective, it’s our mental state as we go about doing things that determines the nature of what happens in our future. We certainly do need to analyze and plan our way through things. But rather than seeing them as problems, how can we view them with an attitude of openness and curiosity rather than constriction and timidity?

As a life coach, I often hear clients tell me they feel stuck with their problems because they don’t know what to do next. The way they say “I don’t know” has a tone of resignation and shutting down. Rather than throwing up the proverbial stop sign, what if we looked at the situation more like being on vacation in a new, exotic place? We might have no idea what to do or where to go, but there’s a sense of wanting to find out, and being willing to try things. Wouldn’t we do things very differently if we approached the “I don’t know” situations of life in that sort of way?

The spiritual dimension of play

In his interview, Dr. Brown also talked about a more profound, spiritual side of play. In one segment of the show he says:

“I was watching a pride of lions and two sub-adult female lionesses got up, looked at each other — and there’s a picture of this in the National Geographic magazine, what looked from a distance kind of like a fight, but it was a ballet. And while I was watching this, I was overwhelmed by the feeling that this is — I’m almost brought to tears talking about it now — that this is divine.”

It turns out that this idea of a spiritual dimension in play is part of the Buddhist world as well. In the Mahayana tradition there is the figure of the bodhisattva – an enlightened being who takes on a human birth for the sole purpose of benefiting others. An essential quality of a bodhisattva is lila – Sanskrit for “play.” Far from being serious-minded martyrs, bodhisattvas joyfully play at everything they do. My own teacher, Sangharakshita, says, “One can regard this as a spontaneous overflowing of [their] inner realization, which transcends the immediate situation.1”

My interpretation is that the play of the lionesses and bodhisattvas are essential expressions of life itself. There’s nothing frivolous about it. It’s not some nice “extra”. When they play, they are in effect saying “I am alive. I am here. In this moment, I am expressing my innermost nature.” It’s like saying “yes” to life, opening up to it in a full-bodied, wholehearted way.

When seen in this light, play isn’t something we relegate to our spare time, if and when we happen to have some. It’s an entire attitude toward life that ideally permeates everything we do. Life isn’t about problems to be solved, or to-do lists to be slogged through. It’s is something to be met full-on – lived and played in with 100% of our being.

1. From The Bodhisattva Ideal by Sangharakshita. Birmingham, UK: 1999, Windhorse Publications, p 139.

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Henri Matisse: “When we speak of nature it is wrong to forget that we are ourselves a part of nature.”

Bodhipaksa
quote of the month
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Matisse, La dance, 1909

If science is about the study of cause and effect in the physical world, meditation is, Bodhipaksa argues, a form of inner science that helps us to understand how to avoid creating pain for ourselves and others.

Matisse said: “When we speak of nature it is wrong to forget that we are ourselves a part of nature. We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.”

Although Matisse was an artist rather than a scientist, he has a lot to say to those of us who are interested in the inner science of meditation and of living mindfully.

I can’t hear the suggestion to “view ourselves with … curiosity and openness” without thinking of mindfulness, in fact. Mindfulness involves not just seeing our experience, but activity investigating it. When we’re not open to our experience — where we assume for example that we already know what’s going on — we’re unable to learn much about ourselves. Openness implies suspending judgment. Openness implies that we don’t accept or reject our experience prematurely, that we’re prepared to look below the surface. Curiosity is where we actually dive in to our experience, trying without fixed preconceptions to see how our experience actually ticks.

Hana, woman I don’t really know except online, recently wrote to me to say that she been helped by my response to a critical comment that someone had left on Wildmind.

Openness implies that we don’t accept or reject our experience prematurely, that we’re prepared to look below the surface.

Here’s the story. A man, “Matt,” whose grandfather had been murdered took great exception to some of the work I do teaching meditation and Buddhism to inmates in the New Hampshire State Prison. As it happened, his grandfather’s murderer was incarcerated in the same prison I visit each week. Matt accused me of “bullshit,” of not being a real Buddhist, said that the only people who would put up with my company are prisoners, and accused me of a lack of empathy of the victims of crime. Hana had recently been on the receiving end of some hate mail as well, and she said that the way I’d responded to Matt’s criticisms had helped her to see a way out of the pain and anger she was experiencing. She now had an idea how to respond to her own attacker.

I was pleased to hear that. In case it was helpful I wrote to Hana and explained the process I’d gone through to arrive and what I hoped was a compassionate response to Matt.

First, I was hurt and angry. I wanted revenge. I don’t like being accused of BS-ing, not being a real Buddhist, of lacking empathy, etc. Lots of defenses and counter-attacks readily leaped to mind — I’m actually quite good at being defensive! I’ve had a lot of practice at it, in fact. My mental picture of Matt was of someone who was out to be hurtful, who was emotionally volatile, and who may even have been drunk.

But rather than blasting off a withering response I decided to try practicing openness and curiosity. The kind of over-the-top attack that Matt had made was either the result of someone “trolling” for a response (some people online get their kicks from trying to find people’s emotional weak-spots), or it came out of a great deal of pain. Ah, now pain! There’s something I’ve experienced, and in my past I’ve sometimes made outrageous attacks on other people because I’ve felt hurt. So I now felt a bit more curious and open to Matt’s experience, although the anger and defensiveness were still there.

I say to my pain, I know you’re there. I know you’re hurting. I’m here and I understand.

So what next? It wasn’t enough to try to be empathetic with Matt’s pain, I had to be empathetic towards my own pain. That’s not always easy to do. I’ve noticed that sometimes I move so quickly from feeling hurt to feeling angry that I don’t even really take on board that I’ve felt hurt. And not having taken that on board I’m not able to empathize with myself.

Also I’ve noticed that I can sometimes see feelings of hurt as being a sign of “weakness” (Real Buddhists are above feeling hurt) and therefore don’t want to acknowledge them. But an attitude of curiosity and openness revealed that my hurt was in fact fully present and functional.

So I embraced my feelings of hurt in an attitude of compassion, using techniques I’ve learned in the development of lovingkindness meditation. This is quite different from wallowing in pain: this is simply saying to my pain, I know you’re there. I know you’re hurting. I’m here and I understand. And what happens then is quite amazing: the pain doesn’t go away, but it ceases to give rise to anger, resentment, and defensiveness. Wallowing in pain involves being immersed in it, giving ourselves up to it, and feeling self-pity. And that doesn’t help anyone.

Suddenly, I no longer needed to defend myself. I could now sense Matt’s pain and respond to it without needing to feel that I had to justify myself, or to make him feel bad, or to punish him. I could simple acknowledge the pain he was experience, know that it was natural for such pain to lead to anger (well, hadn’t I just seen that for myself?) and respond in what I hoped was a kindly and factually-based way to Matt’s pain and anger.

I’m not boasting about being terribly compassionate or having been helpful. In fact I don’t have a great deal of confidence in my ability to be able to handle my hurt and anger, which are things that have troubled me a great deal in my life. But I do know that I’ve made progress over the years in my ability to empathize with myself and others, and so I was pleased that Hana (and a few others) wrote to say they appreciated my response.

The point I’m making is quite simple: without mindfulness and its attendant qualities of openness and curiosity, I wouldn’t have been able to respond positively to Matt’s comment. I might have just deleted the comment. Or I might have responded by attacking. Or by defending myself. And I wouldn’t have learned anything about the dynamics of hurt and anger, and how we can avoid causing ourselves unnecessary pain. And maybe (I hope) help others in the process.

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D.H. Lawrence: “Thought is a man in his wholeness, wholly attending.”

Bodhipaksa
quote of the month
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D.H. Lawrence

Thought, I love thought.
But not the juggling and twisting of already existent ideas.
I despise that self-important game.
Thought is the welling up of unknown life into consciousness,
Thought is the testing of statements on the touchstone of consciousness,
Thought is gazing onto the face of life, and reading what can be read,
Thought is pondering over experience, and coming to conclusion.
Thought is not a trick, or an exercise, or a set of dodges,
Thought is a man in his wholeness, wholly attending.
D.H. Lawrence

Often beginners to meditation think of thought as “the enemy.” They want to stop thinking altogether, to “have their minds go blank” (as if the mind would be blank without words running through it). This is a misunderstanding, but it’s a reasonable one, which is no doubt why it’s so common. After all, who isn’t oppressed by the sheer quantity and the nature of their thoughts?

Thought runs wild. It’s relentless, seemingly tireless. Trying to suppress thought is like a crazy game of whack-a-mole. If you try to force a thought out of your mind it pops up behind you.

Thought is obsessive. It grabs hold of a topic and gnaws away at it like a dog worrying a bone. You can take the bone away from the dog a hundred times, but the next time you look the dog’s in action again.

Thought is like water. Try to hold it back and it’ll find a way through. If you try really hard to dam thought back it simply increases in pressure until it bursts through your barriers.

Thought is like lightning over a dry forest. Thought ignites our emotions, sparking envy, doubt, ill will, longing, and fear. And as we try to beat out the flames of one unwanted and destructive emotion sparks fly up to start new fires.

Thought does, undoubtedly, cause us problems.

Also see:

But thought can also play a useful role in meditation. Thought can be channeled and can become a tool to help our meditation practice go deeper. To take the most obvious examples, in the Metta Bhavana (development of lovingkindness) practice we use thoughts like “May all beings be well, happy, and free from suffering” in order to awaken an attitude of care, kindness, and concern from ourselves and others. In mantra meditation we repeat a phrase that evokes the qualities of the enlightened mind. And it can also be useful to do what the Insight Meditation tradition calls “noting” where we label the sensation, emotion, or process that’s most prominent in our experience. For example we can say “anger, anger” when that emotion is present. Or we can say “pulsing” or “burning” when pain is present. In all these examples thought is consciously used as a way to help the mind develop positive qualities such as lovingkindness, compassion, and mindfulness.

But Lawrence’s quote suggests that thought itself can be a form of meditation. What he’s talking about of course is not the random stream of images and words that so often wells up in the mind. And as he points out he’s not even talking about “the juggling and twisting of already existent ideas” — as usually happens when we’re thinking about work, or our schedule, or about politics. Lawrence is talking about something much more profound, which is reaching into the depths of our being and tapping into an inner source of wisdom. He’s talking about learning from life and from self-observation. He’s talking about reflection and contemplation.

So how do we do this? How do we learn to reflect and to contemplate? How do we learn to use the very act of thinking as a form of meditation?

There isn’t room in this short article to fully explore this, but here are a few suggestions.

1. We need to set aside time for reflection and contemplation. Genuine thought, of the kind D. H. Lawrence is praising in his poem, requires a combination of mental stillness and time, and this can’t be achieved in the odd moment of repose in a busy schedule. We need to set aside time for just sitting, or perhaps even better, for walking.

2. We need to cultivate the habit of silence. If we’re always living on the surface of our minds, as we do when we’re engaged non-stop in chatter, we’ll find it hard to go deeper. Real reflection emerges from inner silence. So we need, at least sometimes, to “unplug” ourselves from stimulation — from the TV, the iPod, the newspaper, the radio. And we can look for opportunities to experience silence more profoundly by spending time alone. We need to learn to be comfortable with silence, which is another way of saying that we need to learn to be comfortable with ourselves.

3. We need to adopt an attitude of wonder, which in turn involves letting go of the assumption that we already have the answers. Much of the time we see not-knowing as a sign of failure, as something to be avoided. In fact, admitting that we don’t know, and being comfortable with the discomfort of not-knowing, is the start of wisdom. It’s only when we let go of the assumption that we have all the answers that we’ll look more deeply.

4. We need to be self-critical and “test of statements on the touchstone of consciousness.” Much of the time we’re happy with the first answer that pops into our head when we ask ourselves a question. But “first thought” is not always “best thought.” Our first thoughts are often conventional thoughts, or “the juggling and twisting of already existent ideas.” They’re still valuable however, because they can act as a springboard to more authentic reflection if we are prepared to question them and to look for their flaws (as well as whatever truths they may contain).

5. Genuine reflection involves “man [i.e. a person of whatever gender] in his wholeness.” Contemplation involves not just discursive thinking (in the head, as it were) but the testing of our thoughts in the heart. The litmus test of genuine reflection is whether it leads ultimately not only to greater understanding, but also to greater happiness and compassion. Now reflection may make us uncomfortable. For example we may come to realize that there’s something profoundly wrong with the way we’re living our lives, and this is something that is bound to promote a sense of unease at the very least. But even with discomfort such as that there is also a sense that we are on the right track. We can feel in our heart that there is something real and true about the conclusions that are welling up into consciousness. And this is the fruit of the genuinely reflective live — the sense of a life well-lived.

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