The Authentic Life (19 page)

It's good to consider how often we're in touch with a sense of this bigger view of life—a view that at least has waking up as the central orientation. It's particularly worth asking, “How do we understand the bigger view in terms of what we're actually doing in practice?” When I started practicing, I was heavily influenced by the book
The Three Pillars of Zen,
in which the idea of enlightenment was one of the main themes. Many of us who read this were left with the idea that we had to
try
to become enlightened—meaning that through our hard efforts we would have a miraculous breakthrough out of our normal way of perceiving reality, and achieve a permanent change in our state of being. This was the bigger view for me and many others at that time: enlightenment was seen as a state that would relieve us of all anxiety and distress, and moreover, that it would be a
permanent state of wisdom and freedom. Thus the emphasis in practice was to achieve a special state of mind—in other words, to feel and to be different in a significant way. It's worth asking ourselves whether the hope of enlightenment motivates us, even in subtle ways, such as expecting a breakthrough experience to relieve us of our difficulties.

One of the things that many of us
did
learn was that it was certainly possible to have opening or so-called enlightenment experiences, where it was clear that all is one, or that all is love. But it was equally clear that these moments of insight rarely lasted very long, nor did they have a significant residual effect. In other words, the experiences were not permanent, nor did we change very much as a result of having them.

Some people found this very discouraging, and once the magical promise was gone, they left practice altogether. Some of us were fortunate enough to see through the illusion that we brought with us: namely, that if we practiced long and hard enough, we would be permanently free from difficulties. This illusion, which is so typical of our tendency toward black-or-white thinking, has to be seen through before real practice can take hold, since genuine practice is never black or white. The truths in practice are almost always based on paradox, such as the fact that while everything is a mess, all is still well. Practice is also lived in a world of continuums and change, where nothing is permanent—including enlightenment. In fact, rethinking the idea of enlightenment makes much more sense in terms of a continuum—or perhaps we could say “gradual enlightening.” This highlights the gradual nature of awakening, rather than reifying it as a permanent state.

What does gradual enlightening actually mean? First, it means becoming increasingly free from the attachment to the prison of our persona, with its deeply ingrained conditioned
patterns. This is why practice has to focus, in part, on awareness of our own individual psychology. This means bringing mindfulness to our thoughts in order to see where we're stuck in rigid beliefs about ourselves and about life. For example, everyone has some version of the belief that they're fundamentally not enough in some way. For some, this may take the form of “I'm unworthy.” For others the belief may be “I'm flawed.” These beliefs are like a lens filter on a camera; they color how we interpret and relate to reality, and consequently dictate how we feel and act. Until we see such beliefs clearly, they will guarantee our unhappiness. Becoming free of such deeply believed thoughts is one of the key steps in the process of gradual enlightening.

Likewise, we need to see through our deeply conditioned emotional reactions, and the behavior patterns that come out of them. Again, this is sometimes viewed as the realm of psychology, but working with our anger and anxiety, or working with our addictions and escapes, is not just a psychological process. It requires meticulous mindfulness and unrelenting honesty with ourselves. And the fruit of this work—as we become increasingly less dominated by our anger, anxiety, and the many related unskillful behavior patterns—is freedom from the burden of our conditioning. This is sometimes called “working with our Me-stuff,” and it's certainly part of what it means to become more awake.

Apart from freedom from being caught in our personal psychological conditioning, gradual enlightening has a second key component. This is where we gradually become free from our very limited bubble of perception. Normally we think we see reality, but what we see is our own subjective perceptions, filtered through all of our associations and desires, as well as through language and conditioning. We create this bounded world in order to survive and make sense of things, yet when we
live only in our bubble of perception, only in the solid world of fixed boundaries, we are cut off from the totality, the mystery of our being. This is why we cultivate awareness of physical reality—to gradually open into a wider and more spacious awareness. Starting with mindfulness of the breath, and then increasingly opening out of our limited bubble into what is sometimes called “Being Awareness,” we can perhaps have occasional tastes of the vastness. As the curtain of separation lifts, we begin to understand that we are more than just our thoughts or just our body. As this understanding gradually develops, we begin to experience, within ourselves, the connectedness that life truly is. The lifetime process of deepening this understanding is an essential aspect of gradual enlightening.

The third aspect of gradual enlightening is the long process of becoming free from living with a closed and disconnected heart. When we begin practice, we are normally so caught up in our separate self—with all of our stories, complaints, entitlements, and desires—that we can rarely get in touch with the love or appreciation that reflect our true nature. This is why we cultivate awareness of the heart, including emphasizing the importance of living from gratitude, loving-kindness, and compassion. The cultivation of these qualities takes time, and it requires that we work with all the internal barriers that get in the way. Yet there is nothing more satisfying in practice than dropping our self-centeredness and learning to live from kindness and an open heart. As much as anything, this awakening of the heart is part of the process of gradual enlightening.

An essential aspect of living more awake is to leave the myths and oversimplifications about enlightenment behind. As Thich Nhat Hanh said, “The real miracle is not to fly or walk on fire. The real miracle is to walk on the Earth, and you could perform that miracle any time.” When we understand this, the threefold
path of gradual enlightening can begin: first, becoming free of identification with our persona; second, expanding out from our limited bubble of perception; and third, no longer living from a closed and disconnected heart. Understanding this process is part of having a bigger view of what we're doing. Yet the question remains as to why it's so difficult to make a consistent effort to get in touch with a bigger view of practice. The answer, in part, is that sleep and resistance are an integral part of being human—it's our unfortunate mis-wiring. In other words, conditioning cannot be taken lightly. Nor can we ignore that humans will by nature move toward what is comfortable and safe. So it makes sense that we will naturally want to stay in our familiar but very small view of life.

Given this difficulty, what can be done to transform our myopic view to a bigger one? Sometimes, when I walk along the ocean, the Bigger Picture is perfectly apparent. I don't have to think about it, nor is there a need to put it into words. Looking at the ocean and the sky, feeling the magnitude and wonder, there is a clear sense of the connectedness of all and everything. The emotional component can only be described as Love. But it's not personal love—it's the Love that is the nature of our being. Unfortunately, most of the time things are not this clear. This is why we need to find ways to help cultivate the more inclusive view. For some, reading may provide inspiration. This includes books on spiritual practice as well as certain novels that can touch us in unique ways and feed the part of us that aspires to awaken. Regularly going to meditation retreats, where we have the opportunity to go deeper into our practice, also sets up the context for us to occasionally tap into a bigger view.

I've also found that traveling, when done in a particular way, can be very effective in getting us out of our small view of
things. Traveling takes us out of the familiar, and if we can consciously be open to a new environment and circumstances, we can sometimes break out of our narrow protections and experience life in a bigger context. For example, Elizabeth and I go overseas once a year for a combination retreat/vacation. We usually stay away from the tourist attractions and instead spend our time visiting churches, parks, and on occasion old cemeteries. We go to at least one church each day, just to take in the wordless reverence of the mystery. Simply sitting in the old cathedrals quietly meditating can be food for our Being. Likewise, visiting parks is also good “food”—the sanity and simplicity of being surrounded by natural beauty can generate a deepened gratitude for life. The gratitude and appreciation for life is deepened even further in some of the old cemeteries. Many of the gravestones go back hundreds of years, and are visceral reminders that time swiftly passes by. It doesn't feel at all morose, especially since the old cemeteries are often an aesthetic delight—the stones are all different sizes and shapes, and many are almost falling over. We find it a nice visual reminder that we don't have endless time.

The point is that to live truly authentically requires opening out of our small, myopic view of life. Cultivating a Bigger Picture can involve many levels, starting with learning to see every experience in our life as an opportunity to live more awake. From there, as we become increasingly free of identification with our small self, we can begin to expand beyond our limited bubble of perception into a more openhearted relation to life. Ultimately, cultivating a bigger view leads to a comprehension of who we truly are—that the nature of our being is connectedness and love. Living from this understanding is the essence of living authentically.

17

The Song of Meditation

A
famous Zen master sat in meditation every morning listening to two birds jabbering back and forth. As he listened more closely, he would hear the first bird sing, “Tweedley-doo,” and the second bird would reply, “Tweedley-dee.” A few seconds would pass and they would repeat the same little song, again and again. After a while, as he was sitting more deeply in meditation, he began to hear the first bird sing, “Be here,” and the second bird reply, “Just be.” Over and over he would hear the Song of Meditation: “Be here. Just be.”

This is the essence of sitting meditation, whether it's done sitting cross-legged on a cushion, sitting on a chair, or even lying down. This is the Song of Meditation: “Be here. Just be.” The way we learn to sing this song is actually quite simple. We pause. We breathe. We just be. Yet just because this is a simple practice doesn't mean it's easy. In fact, as anyone who has tried meditation has found out, letting ourselves just be is one of the hardest things we will ever do.

The most basic instruction is to sit still and try to be present.
We watch all of the mind's activity as it arises, including the mindless daydreams, the compulsion to plan, the conversations, even the moments of spacing out. We just watch all of it. The idea is to allow whatever arises in awareness to arise unopposed. In fact, if possible, we invite it in—we welcome it. We even welcome our resistance to being present. We let all of it come up and then just watch it.

Often things will come up that we don't like. When this happens, it's particularly helpful to remember that these thoughts and feelings can be our teacher, in that we can learn from them. We don't have to fight them or treat them like an enemy. In other words, we don't try to change our experience or get rid of it—we just try to be aware. Observing ourselves in this way only requires observing, not judging and analyzing, which actually impede the process. When we inevitably begin to judge or analyze, the observing mind takes a step back and just watches those tendencies. This is the mind of curiosity, which can watch our experience unfold without trying to make ourselves or our experience different.

It's interesting to watch what usually happens when we sit down to meditate. The mind will often be busy, jumping from one thing to another. We may react to this busy mind with self-judgment, such as believing that we're not a very good meditator. This is often followed by the thought that we need to do something to fix the situation. This is a very common process; we perceive a problem, the judging mind deems it as bad, and the fixing mind tries to do something about it.

But there's an alternative way to approach our so-called problems. Regardless of what arises during meditation and regardless of how we may be feeling about it, the practice remains the same: we
recognize
what's going on, we
refrain
from getting pulled into it, and then we
return
to being present—letting our
experience just be. This requires the basic understanding that our states of mind are not problems to be solved or obstacles to be overcome. Just because something may seem to be wrong, it doesn't mean that it is wrong; it only means that we're adding a judgment to our experience—we're acting out of our expectations of how things
should
be. This inability to let our experience just be causes us endless difficulties.

For example, if we're emotionally upset during a meditation, we will often think that we have to settle down. The truth is, regardless of what we're experiencing, all we need do is be aware of our spinning thoughts and our emotional agitation, do our best to refrain from feeding them, and feel them as the physical experience of the present moment. Again, the basic principle is to simply be aware, and let our experience just be. However, this is not a passive approach; we still need the discipline to stay attentive, and be precise in our observations. This requires an objective curiosity that's willing to look at and be open to whatever arises. It also requires ceasing our resistance to what is, because eventually
everything
will come up, including the things we haven't wanted to see. Yet as we learn to observe our various neuroses and idiosyncrasies without judging them, we begin to view them with benign tolerance. Perhaps we can even laugh at the absurdity of our all-too-human behavior. Learning to be able to laugh at ourselves is one of the many benefits of a meditation practice, and it is also part of the path of living genuinely. We can be serious on the path without being grim.