Catchy: Bringing Composure into Chaos

My practice has been really difficult lately, and I have felt very frustrated about it, alternating between wanting to do it and thinking of it as a total waste of time. Then during brunch today, I suddenly found myself in a calm aware state that is difficult for me to describe, because it seemed to me that it was neither mindfulness nor not mindfulness. I wondered if perhaps mindfulness is kind of like artificial flavour or colour; it’s close to or analogous to but not quite our natural state of mind. Either way, I decided that what I needed to do was bring this state of calm awareness, whatever it is, to my practice and to my life, though I wasn’t really sure how to do so.

I considered whether this too was just a matter of practice, that perhaps if I just noticed when this state arose, and stayed with it for as long as I could, without trying to, but only stopped wherever I was at the time, this might eventually work or lead into an answer to how to bring this to every aspect and moment of my life. So, for example, if it happens when I am sitting, keep sitting, or if when walking, keep walking.

Meanwhile, I had got fed up with struggling to sit with pain, and since it is said that the Buddha recommended meditation in all postures, namely, sitting, standing, walking, and sitting; and, lying down felt best, I decided to lie down. The result was that I felt relaxed, calm, aware, and well settled in the present moment, throughout this 20-minute session. In short, I felt the same kind of state of calm awareness I had experienced earlier in the day, and there was no suffering that I could detect. Then when my bell rang, I began to think about what I had to do next, and suffering returned.

What was this suffering? When I examined it, I saw that it was being caught on my desire to remain lying down and my resistance to getting up and doing something. Then, I remembered from the teachings that desire and aversion and being caught on them are the result of temporary causes and conditions, which have nothing to do with me or with ‘I,’ for that matter, who did not exist at the time this pattern was created. This pattern of causes and conditions is not me, not mine, and therefore has nothing to do with me.

At once, I was able to disregard the pattern, which dissolved, and suddenly it became easy to get up and make tea, as I normally do prior to doing my regular work out. And then it occurred to me, once again (as on February 16), I had answered my own question. Last time a chaotic state of mind was pulled into calmness; this time a calm state of mind was brought to the chaos.

Catching: Turning Towards My Aversions

Cautiously I sat to meditate.
Indecision arose:
How should I approach
This session?

Examine this confusion
I concluded,
And upon so doing,
Found interest in the breathing.

Return to sanity:
Breathing in
Breathing out,
Noticing what’s present.

Awareness of pain
And restlessness;
Investigation of this agitation
Revealed interesting results:

Fluttering in the chest
Producing contraction,
Tension causing more pain,
Further hurt triggering added discomfort.

Drowsiness set in:
An attempt to get away
From this endless cycle
Of cause and effect.

Caught in a round of
Causes, conditions,
And consequences,
What is the strategy?

Sitting with this process,
Turning towards the experience,
Being aware but not in it;
Kindly acknowledging and accepting,
Exploring, but not identifying with.

Catch: Reset, Restart

What’s up
With these black moods?
Causes and conditions
My friend.

Whatever this is,
Whatever the cause,
One day it will disappear,
Meanwhile my job is clear:

To keep on keeping on,
Without panic or concern;
‘Tis a call to equanimity,
A quest to be well here.

What gets in the way,
Is doubts about it;
The solution is
More questions and answers.

So I searched my mind,
Mused over what I’ve learned,
And took action at once,
To take charge of my attitude.

That’s all that needed changing,
No need for mood rearranging,
But only re-hinging the door,
And remounting it on the frame.

No shame, no blame,
It’s only the pattern again
That will continue
Until it’s done.

It’s certainly no fun
But no battle to be won,
Nay, only a course to be followed
For as long as there is one.