Waiting to Inhale

Hola mi gente,
Some people got pissed about yesterday’s post and insisted I’m a cynic. That’s just bullshit. What I find insightful that some so-called progressives are now pathologizing dissent. SMDH

Waiting to Inhale

(or Drowning in Love)

A wise woman and her student were standing by a pool chatting about longing and ambition. “What do you want more than anything else?” the wise woman asked.

“To perfect my ability to love all of creation the way I love myself,” the young man replied.

At that very moment, the wise woman tackled the student and before he could react, shoved his head beneath the water. Accustomed to his teacher’s sometimes unorthodox manner of instruction, at first he didn’t resist.

One minute went by... then another. Finally, as his lungs screamed for air, the student began to struggle and kick, but his teacher was strong. Finally, she released her grip and the student surfaced, struggling for breath.

“What did you want more than anything else during these last few minutes?” the wise woman asked.

“Nothing else was in my mind except the desire for air,” the student managed to gasp.

“Excellent!” beamed the wise woman. “As soon as you are equally single-minded in your desire to perfect your ability to love all of creation in the very manner in which you love yourself, you will achieve your goal.”

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization... 

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, please consider helping me out by sharing it, liking me on Facebook, following me on Twitter, or even throwing me some money on GoFundMe HERE or via PayPal HERE so I can keep calling it like I see it.

The Beyond Help Series [Pain and Suffering]

Hola! Everybody,
I’ve been keeping away from posting on the current state of politics because a part of me doesn’t want to give terribly flawed POTUS candidates any attention. I am disgusted by the corporate media’s reality show treatment of this critical moment in our history. I guess that’s it: I’m disgusted.

However, I’m sure I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

Acceptance, Pain & Suffering

Pain is the breaking of the shell of your understanding.
-- Kahlil Gibran

Early on when I first began picking up the pieces of my life, I came upon the phrase suffering is optional. Like most new things, I didn’t understand it at first, but a friend instructed me just to keep at it with an open mind and I would eventually understand.

Today, I make a distinction between pain and suffering. Because of the way we use language, whenever we come face to face with a problem, our first impulse is to fix them. We try to get out of the quicksand. As an evolutionary adaptation and in our external world, this problem-solving approach is effective most of the time. Being able to figure out how to get out of undesirable events, such as being preyed upon, getting eaten, or natural catastrophes, is essential in securing our place as a species.

However, it is also unfortunate that we try to use the same “fix it” mentality when it comes to understanding or coming to terms with our inner world. When we encounter painful psychic content within ourselves, we often resort to what we always do: fix it up and sort it out so we can get rid of it. The truth of the matter is that our inner lives are not like our external world. For one thing, humans live in the context of a history, and time moves only in one direction, not two. Psychological pain has a history and, at least in some respects, the heart of the matter doesn’t entail getting rid of something. It is more a matter of how we deal with it and evolve.

Acceptance as I use it here is based on the perspective that, as a rule, trying to get rid of your pain only makes it worse, entangles you further in it, and eventually makes it more traumatic. This is best illustrated by what I call emotional quicksand: how meeting the suction force of quicksand with tension only makes you more. Our psychological lives are a lot like that. When you’re engaged in fighting for your life, living your life -- thriving -- is often pushed aside. 

The alternative -- a little dangerous to say because at this point it can be misunderstood -- is to accept pain. Acceptance, in the context that I use it here, is not the same as self-defeat; neither is it tolerating and putting up with your pain. It is very different from that. In fact, that type of negative acceptance is a far cry from the vibrant form of acceptance of the moment that can be liberating.

For now, try to think of throwing away the impulse to meet power with power, tension with more tension. Pain is an inescapable fact of life. It happens. You get up early in the morning, and you bang your toe on something. Pain! However, I define suffering differently. I see suffering as pain mixed with tension. Pain can be accepted and even used to transform our suffering. However, if we’re adding tension to pain, then we’re suffering. We have what’s there (pain) and then we have what we bring to the table. Add tension to pain and you have deep suffering. Here it is as a formula:

pain +tension = suffering

Most of us haven’t had much training in the active form of acceptance that I attempting to illustrate here. I want to ask you to keep an open mind and thank your mind for whatever it says this term means, but don’t try to pigeonhole it right now. This form of acceptance is difficult to describe, and learning to be willing to have and live your own experience is something I will focus on a little in future posts. In the meantime, be patient and open -- as well as a little skeptical -- about what your mind might be guessing what I mean right now.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Behind the Curtain

Hola Everybody,
Please consider supporting my writing and advocacy work by donating HERE.

Today I’m rooting for Mets in the wildcard!

Behind the Curtain

Central Park's Merry-Go-Round

Information crashes against our eyes at the speed of light, slams onto our eardrums at the speed of sound, and courses through our mind/ body as fast as an electro-chemical signal can flash from one neuron to the next. How do we deal with this sensory onslaught without getting overwhelmed? By blocking out most of it, and putting the brakes on what little is left.

The brain freezes the world into separate mind moments, each containing a barely adequate amount of information, and then processes these one by one in a linear fashion. The result is a world compiled more or less by what’s “out there,” but mostly organized around the limitations of the machine constructing it. It’s as if the brain and its senses quickly take a series of snapshots, and then weave them together into a movie -- our stream of consciousness. The Buddhists have a pretty good way of describing this system: delusion.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, nor does it mean that we are stupid, it means that the mind/ body is designed (in a way) to distill or distort reality in a fundamental way. For one thing, this helped us survive as a species. If we were to constantly attempt to take in the totality of reality, we would’ve long ago joined the ranks of extinct life forms.

First, creating this “shorthand” of reality allowed us to make decisions quickly (Do we fight, or do we run? Do we fuck it, or eat it?). Secondly, each mind moment creates an artificial center of stability out of a reality that is in constant flux and almost impossible to capture. 

Like the rapid unfolding of the individual frames of a film, these mind moments give the illusion of movement. As the films plays, we create all kinds of stories about the way things are, filling in the blanks of discarded data with assumptions, projections, and aspirations. Taking this process as real, we go seek gratification and security to a level that the system cannot support. The inevitable disappointment is centered on the concept of a “me,” who is both the one who wishes things were different than they are and the one who suffers when they are not. In other words, we are hardwired to misperceive reality by ignoring the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and selflessness of it all.

There is another way we filter out information at any given moment. Most of what comes in touch with our neurology doesn’t even reach our consciousness but is relegated to our unconscious. This is because the precious resource of conscious awareness is used to carry on the important daily activities of living. Information, for our awareness, is on a need to know basis. Take the experience of learning a new task, such as learning to play a musical instrument. At first we have to “think” about it and consciously try to make our fingers go where they are supposed to go. Eventually, as the right connections are made between the brain and the muscles of the fingers and hand (“muscle memory”), the patterns disappear into our pre- and subconscious and, after a while, it feels as if we are playing automatically.

This is a very efficient process, and before long, most of what we do in our lives is accomplished without having to be very conscious about it. One would assume that this process would work to free our psychic energy to do some creative things, but this is not the case. More often, our awareness is spent looking for ways to find pleasurable experiences and getting more of them, or it is used to bitch and moan about unpleasant experiences and finding ways to avoid or destroy them. We use our creative energy -- our conscious mind -- to find new ways of wishing things were different from what they are, and our unconscious mind is relegated to maintaining the habits we have accumulated previously. The Buddhists have a good way of describing this state of mind: suffering.

The best definition of meditation I have encountered is “learning to stop arguing against reality.” We spend much of our lives and mental energy in conflict with reality. Our unconscious has been conditioned by all kinds of unhealthy patterns and these patterns help guide our behavior. We are not aware of most of these and, ironically, the only way we can become aware of what we don’t see is by changing something else first. We may not be able to see the unconscious conditioning, but we can become aware of the suffering it causes. By training our awareness in a methodical way, we strengthen its ability to open to more of the information available to the senses in the present moment. 

Mindfulness meditation is the art and practice of being present with whatever is happening here and now: when our attention/ awareness is strong, we are not stuck arguing with reality. With less liking and disliking, there is less stress coming from the narrowly defined sense of you that keeps you separate from the rest of the world. As the influence of your terminal uniqueness decreases, suffering deceases also.

We are always working with an imperfect model of reality. What makes the difference, however, is to understand the limitations of our constructed world. What helps us to awaken is learning to see more clearly how our perception is being used in skillful and unskillful ways, and to use that awareness in the service of creating well-being for ourselves and the well-being of those around us. The Buddhists have a word for that too: they call it wisdom.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Monday Madness [Nintendo Dharma]

Hola mi gente,
Many people become curious when I tell them that I meditate on a daily basis. There are many forms of meditation and the one I practice is from the Buddhist tradition known as vipassana or insight meditation. Vipassana can be translated as a clear awareness of exactly what is happening as it happens. I’ve run into so many people who say, “I tried it, but I can’t do it.” But this is like saying you tried seeing... if your vision works, then it follows that you should be able to see, no?

It’s the same with meditation: if you’re not in a vegetative state, then you have the tools with which to meditate. A part of human evolution is the emergence of what some scientists now call the “opposable thumb of consciousness” -- mindfulness. It’s hard to describe, but it’s the part of your consciousness that watches the watcher. The simplest way I can put it is that mindfulness is the ability to be aware that you’re aware. In any case, the only way you can access this function is by doing it.

Below, you’ll find a short article by a former teacher who explains in clear and elegant language, the notion of concentration and the development of mindfulness.

Enjoy.

Nintendo Dharma

Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night Over the Rhone, 1888, oil on canvas

Goldstein, J. (1993). Insight meditation: The practice of freedom. Boston: Shambhala.

You may have noticed how easy it is to stay present when you engage in an activity you enjoy, like playing some sport, watching a movie, reading a book, or even playing Nintendo. Why can we be so concentrated in these activities, and yet find ourselves distracted and restless when we meditate? Surprisingly, this simple question can lead us to a profound understanding of suffering and freedom.

What we call mind is the naturally pure knowing faculty‑invisible, clear, and lucid. In some Tibetan texts it is called "the cognizing power of emptiness." But mind includes more than just knowing, because in each moment of experience different qualities, or mental factors, arise with it and color the knowing in various ways. For example, greed, hatred, love, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom, among many others, are all mental factors arising and passing in different moments, each functioning in its own way.

When we engage in various activities, different mental factors are at work. In Nintendo, we need to be right there with the game or we lose. The mind needs to be steady and one-pointed, with the factor of concentration quite strong. In addition to concentration, another quality of mind plays a critical role -- the mental factor of perception. Perception recognizes, names, and remembers appearances by picking out their distinguishing marks. Through the power of perception we recognize each appearing object of experience: woman, man, pine tree, Abraham Lincoln, computer, car, and innumerable others. Concentration and perception keep us present and absorbed in whatever life-game is happening.

Meditation practice is different. In order to develop insight and wisdom, we need to add the factor of mindfulness to the mental equation of concentration and perception. Mindfulness goes beyond the simple recognition of what is happening. It goes beyond keeping the mind steady. Through its strong power of observation, mindfulness uncovers the characteristic nature of experience itself.

Absorption in a movie or in Nintendo does not reveal the momentariness of phenomena. We do not see the impermanence and insubstantiality of all things and events, nor do we notice the empty nature of awareness itself. Perception and concentration arise in every moment; even when the mind gets lost in thought, we still recognize what it is we are thinking. But only mindfulness reveals that we are thinking. This is a critical difference. Perception by itself does not lead to insight into impermanence and selflessness, because it engages us in the content and story of what appears. Mindfulness emerges from the story and notices the moment-to-moment arising and passing of sense impressions, thoughts, and consciousness itself.

If we understand these three important factors of mind clearly -- concentration, perception, and mindfulness -- then their coming into balance becomes the field of freedom.

* * *

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…