Mindfulness and Independence

On this weekend that celebrates U.S. independence, I’m thinking about the foundation for true independence, a condition of much deeper freedom.

Mindfulness, I believe, is that foundation. When we allow ourselves to be mindful, to observe what goes on both within and without, we declare independence from the ego, who wants to tell us what we should notice.

The ego has a declaration of dependence in that its survival depends on noticing only what threatens or enhances its survival. It filters its observations through a thick veil of fear: that it won’t win, won't come out at top. It fears that it will land at the bottom. It fears its extinction.

Some observe that the ego acts like a child, a child who has lost its innocence, who has learned the adults it counted on for survival are also vulnerable and fearful. This child has also learned that to relax, to be in the present, to see without survival filters, is dangerous.

As a result, early attempts at reaching a state of mindfulness may, instead, bring up resistance from the ego, who doesn’t want us to see beyond it to the childhood experiences and decisions that created it.

Thich Nhat Hanh often says to smile at negative emotions. “I smile to my anger. I embrace my anger as if it were a crying baby.”

The first step in a declaration of independence from the past is to smile to our resistance. When we do this, it softens, little by little, and when we are ready to know the answers about how we became who we are, our deepest truth will speak.

The practice of mindfulness is a journey, and each step gives us a greater level of independence. This is true cause for fireworks.

Adventures in Mindfulness

My friends think I’m very adventurous because in June 2015 I moved from upstate NY to western Massachusetts. Although I had two close friends here, I basically had to get out and meet people—and I am an introvert.

Now, a year later, I’ve met many people, got involved in some major group activities, and am becoming integrated into life here. In addition, I’ve explored the area and know my way around. I did, however, avoid one adventure: going to the BIG MALL, the kind that has hundreds of stores and miles of parking lots.

This week, that opportunity, out of necessity, came to me. My Apple desktop started to make unpleasant sounds. After a phone call to Applecare yielded no results, I had to take it to the Apple Store at the big mall 20 miles away. This involved highway driving, which I’ve largely not done, to an unknown and quite possibly confusing destination.

I planned for it with mindfulness, looking up the best route, locating the Apple Store on the map of the mall, and telling myself that thousands of people have found this mall. I have read no reports of someone becoming lost forever there. Secretly, though, I thought I might be the first.

Before I left, I took time to meditate and center. I realized that—maybe—I could shift the energy of anxiety into that of excitement. I would be doing something new. I would be expanding my boundaries. I would be having an adventure. By no means was I sure about this, but I at least managed to make some space for it amidst the worry.

I got lost on the way there, ending up at a reservoir. There, I flagged down some nice people who told me how to get to the mall, a mere half-mile away. Huge as I had imagined it to be, the mall had three levels of both stores and parking.

To my surprise and relief, shopping carts abounded in the lot. This made the job of hauling the desktop to the Apple Store a lot easier. I was about to take a cart when a young woman walked by and offered to lift the computer into it. I so appreciated this kind act. (When you become a senior citizen, you learn how nice people can be.)

The guy at the Genius Bar was knowledgeable and explained everything he was doing. Though I was sad to have to leave the computer there for diagnostic work and repair of a failed hard drive, I felt it was in good hands.

When I got home, I saw one of the repair people from the complex where I live. He said that if I ever needed help carrying anything heavy, I should call him. He’d be glad to help.

Instead of a disaster, I had an adventure. I learned that I could find and negotiate the big mall and met friendly and helpful people.

Most importantly, I expanded both my geographical and mental boundaries. Am I ready for more adventures? Well, next month I’m invited to two picnics in unknown areas, and at one of them I don’t expect to know too many people. I’ll be there.

Adventures in Mindfulness

My friends think I’m very adventurous because in June 2015 I moved from upstate NY to western Massachusetts. Although I had two close friends here, I basically had to get out and meet people—and I am an introvert.

Now, a year later, I’ve met many people, got involved in some major group activities, and am becoming integrated into life here. In addition, I’ve explored the area and know my way around. I did, however, avoid one adventure: going to the BIG MALL, the kind that has hundreds of stores and miles of parking lots.

This week, that opportunity, out of necessity, came to me. My Apple desktop started to make unpleasant sounds. After a phone call to Applecare yielded no results, I had to take it to the Apple Store at the big mall 20 miles away. This involved highway driving, which I’ve largely not done, to an unknown and quite possibly confusing destination.

I planned for it with mindfulness, looking up the best route, locating the Apple Store on the map of the mall, and telling myself that thousands of people have found this mall. I have read no reports of someone becoming lost forever there. Secretly, though, I thought I might be the first.

Before I left, I took time to meditate and center. I realized that—maybe—I could shift the energy of anxiety into that of excitement. I would be doing something new. I would be expanding my boundaries. I would be having an adventure. By no means was I sure about this, but I at least managed to make some space for it amidst the worry.

I got lost on the way there, ending up at a reservoir. There, I flagged down some nice people who told me how to get to the mall, a mere half-mile away. Huge as I had imagined it to be, the mall had three levels of both stores and parking.

To my surprise and relief, shopping carts abounded in the lot. This made the job of hauling the desktop to the Apple Store a lot easier. I was about to take a cart when a young woman walked by and offered to lift the computer into it. I so appreciated this kind act. (When you become a senior citizen, you learn how nice people can be.)

The guy at the Genius Bar was knowledgeable and explained everything he was doing. Though I was sad to have to leave the computer there for diagnostic work and repair of a failed hard drive, I felt it was in good hands.

When I got home, I saw one of the repair people from the complex where I live. He said that if I ever needed help carrying anything heavy, I should call him. He’d be glad to help.

Instead of a disaster, I had an adventure. I learned that I could find and negotiate the big mall and met friendly and helpful people.

Most importantly, I expanded both my geographical and mental boundaries. Am I ready for more adventures? Well, next month I’m invited to two picnics in unknown areas, and at one of them I don’t expect to know too many people. I’ll be there.

Orlando, Mindfulness, and Love

Since Sunday, June 12, a day that will be remembered and memorialized for a very long time, I’ve followed links to remarks by famous people, videos of vigils, and countless other sources. Although I began in a state of despair, my intention was to find hope. Before long, I recognized a personal and collective shift to understanding and the determination that those who were murdered shall not have died in vain.

I saw signs of hope in the global LGBTQ refusal to allow the tragedy and the community to become pawns in right-wing anti-Muslim hate campaigns. I saw that community shelter and defend its Muslim members. In these acts, I saw deep mindfulness of what’s really important. And I saw leaders in the Muslim community express their solidarity with the gay community.

The Greatest of These is Love

Constantly, whether the speaker was Staceyann Chin, a black Jamaican lesbian, or Stephen Colbert, TV superstar, this message was raised: the murders were directed against a community that claims the right to love. When you are attacked for expressing that right, the only response is to love more.

Stephen Colbert said, “Love is a verb. To love is to act.”

Staceyann Chin said, “I DARE you to love.”

Love is Remembering

My first awareness of the tragedy came after I’d spent a weekend at a Quaker retreat. During that retreat, I heard this statement:

“When we’re afraid, we’ve forgotten who we are, and we’ve forgotten who God is.”

The Opposite of Love Isn’t Hatred; It’s Fear

Without this awareness, this mindfulness, we are in danger of hating the haters. Fear that the unknown is life-threatening transforms into hatred, which in turn gives rise to the urge to fight back in what is perceived as self defense.

When we realize that we harbor our own fears, we open the door to compassion. We recognize that it takes courage to expand our boundaries and become open to people who seem not like ourselves, whose ways of living seem to threaten our fragile security about how we live.

Until we can make the brave decision to no longer allow fear to dominate us, we can neither love or truly live.

Those who will not learn will go the way of the dinosaurs. Deep down inside, they know this, but fear turns their vision outward and convinces them that if they could only eradicate what threatens them, they’d feel safe. If we reach instead, for love, it will tell us that we’re already safe.

And so, much as I love the statement I heard at the retreat, I feel the need to add to it.

“When we’re afraid, we’ve forgotten who we are, and we’ve forgotten who God is. And we’ve forgotten to let the power of love direct and move us.”

We must remember—in the names of the dead and of the living.

Sources

Staceyann Chin’s speech

Stephen Colbert’s remarks

Mental Carpentry and Mindfulness

I want to nail those doors shut against the temptation to re-open them. I am learning that the most effective carpentry technique is to get to the source of why, despite all my best resolutions, I want to go back.

An example: I am currently addressing a temptation to blame others for what goes wrong (and “wrong” is my interpretation) in my life. I have made many vows. I have made conscious decisions that I no longer wanted to participate in the negative thinking lurking behind that door.

It was like a New Year’s resolution. You probably know how well these go. That virtuous conviction that feels so good when you first commit to whatever major change you’re absolutely going to make deflates like a New Year’s Eve party balloon no later than January 2.

I think that’s because the temptation has such a powerful pull. In my case, blaming people is easy. It absolves me of taking responsibility for my feelings, thoughts, and actions. As surely as someone who self-medicates with alcohol or drugs, I surrender personal responsibility.

In other words, escape lies behind that door, and sometimes escape seems irresistible.

Understanding Why

We forget that the behaviors we’ve shoved behind that door once served a purpose. We evolved them to solve a problem. In my case, I experienced some major upsets in a short period of time.

Like all (or most) people, when something goes wrong, I want to know why so that I can keep it from happening again. This is very necessary survival behavior for all species. The deer learns that a human carrying a long piece of metal represents great danger and may develop the ability to sense the threat before its life is endangered.

Humans are hampered by tangled emotions and thoughts directed by an ego with an agenda. This agenda often involves deciding who’s to blame. Survival behavior can be either to avoid this person forever or to fight back.

I was doing the latter—but only in my mind. The low-key chorus in the background sang, “He’s ruined my life, which is hopeless because of him. I want revenge.” And on and on. And I thought I was actually hurting someone other than myself.

Listening at Low Volume

I’m learning to let the chorus sing without getting caught up in its dramatic arias. That means being mindful. It’s owning a feeling without shame. In its ultimate form, it’s unconditional self-love.

And that, I believe, is where we want to be. In that state (I think; I’ll let you know when I’m there), all the doors to past emotions and behaviors can be swinging wide open, but they offer no temptation. We have experienced and accepted their existence. We have faced their darkness, and that allows in the light.

Mindfulness and Harambe the Gorilla

A western lowland gorilla—not Harambe

As you most likely know, over Memorial Day weekend (2016), a four-year-old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. The incident resulted in the killing of Harambe, a 17-year-old male western lowland gorilla—and in worldwide outrage.

Among those blamed are the parents, the zookeepers for misinterpreting the gorilla’s motives (with sharp disagreement among experts), and all the people whose screaming probably upset Harambe.

Other voices, however, make a different claim: that the ultimate crime is the existence of zoos. To me, this is the most mindful—and compassionate—point of view.

A few decades ago I went to San Diego for a New Age trade show. I had one free day, which I decided to spend at the San Diego Zoo, reputedly the best in the country. Perhaps it was, but the experience convinced me that best isn’t nearly good enough and that the captivity of wild animals is a crime. I resolved never to go to a zoo again.

The Life Imprisonment of Harambe

Many humans would be outraged if a child born in jail were kept there for his or her entire life, but this is exactly what happened to Harambe. Born in captivity, he never experienced the freedom of the wild, the life a gorilla is meant to live. Instead, he lived in a cell under the constant scrutiny of humans.

Certainly, gorillas aren’t the only victims. Imagine a cheetah, the fastest animal in the world, confined to a tiny space, or a bird designed to soar in the sky stuck in a cage. How can this be justified?

Do Zoos Educate?

People who admit to uneasiness about zoos sometimes offer this justification. You can read sharply contrasting viewpoints, but even a study of 6,000 zoo visitors by the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums only showed a 5% increase in understanding the importance of biodiversity—and no corresponding intention to take action.

Many experts believe that movies, videos, and books that depict animals’ lives in the wild can do a far better job of promoting appreciation, understanding, and involvement. Far more important, the animals have their freedom, and humans are not endangered.

Conservationists have pointed out that for a fraction of the cost of keeping an animal such as a gorilla in captivity, the fight against the poaching of these animals could be made far more effective.

What Zoos DO Teach

They teach us, especially impressionable children, that the differences between “animals” and humans is so great that it’s ok to imprison the “animals” in small enclosures for the entertainment of humans. They teach us to shut off natural compassion and a sense of oneness and open the way for separation and cruelty. Their existence diminishes the human spirit.

Mindfulness, in contrast, opens us to the realization that we must extend our notion of brotherhood and sisterhood to include all species of life. It teaches us to experience and appreciate the oneness of all life, not in an academic or intellectual way but in a tangible, heart-felt sense.

Our brother, Harambe, has fallen. May his death give us the inspiration to call for the end of the prisons called zoos. In that act, may our spirits know greater freedom.

Image courtesy of M - Pics at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Mindfulness and the 12 Laws of Karma

I write a lot of words here. Since U.S. residents are currently recovering from a long holiday weekend, I'm replacing text with an on-target video. Here’s one I enjoyed about the 12 laws of karma. (For your reference, I don't know if there are 3, 6, 12, or 24 laws of karma.) For the time-pressed, this video is 1:28 minutes long. Watch it here.