Tag Archives: Mindfulness

Embedded in our Own Thoughts, Part 2

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Embedded thinking, part 2

We are naturally embedded in our own thinking because thinking…at least in the West…is inherently linear.  But it is possible for those steeped in this “linear-thinking” to find the courage to “step back” a bit from that comfortable cognitive grasp of his world and in so doing find that his world view is finite but nevertheless valid.  This “stepping back” is the exercise of a meta-cognitive muscle that we have the capacity for but is frightening to use for one who has made an inordinate emotional/spiritual investment in the world view that circumstances has given him.  This is precisely what Jesus had in mind when he chided those who have “Ears to hear but hear not, eyes to see but see not.”  Jesus recognized that being conscious, that is being spiritually alive, involves more than simple regurgitation of a mind-set and view of the world that one acquired by accident of birth.  And, if I might speak for Him now, he is telling people like me who were “Christianized” by accident of birth that mindless regurgitation of Christian dogma and teachings…and doing so with like-minded souls…can easily find us amusing ourselves in an echo chamber, which, borrowing a line from Goethe, is  “like kittens given their own tails to tease.”

Thinking is linear because of our “fall” into the time-space continuum, or that which is known as “reality.”  In fact, in the Genesis Creation story, eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is an illustration of falling into “thought” which always bifurcates our world even as it “bifurcates” our selves.   At that point we have been “categorized” and begin to exercise a “categorical imperative” to carve-up into dualities what had been a unified field, creating “good and evil,” male and female, right and wrong, and…yes…even Democrats and Republicans!  Linear thinking has created this world we live in and perpetuates it….and may it ever be!  For without linear thinking, our world would crash and burn immediately.  But when linear thinking runs amok without the God-given gift of “the pauser Reason” the world will still face calamity; for, any phenomena carried to an extreme becomes problematic and even dangerous.  Ideological extremism illustrates for us daily what can happen when someone or some groups gets too carried away with their “noble” and “enlightened” ideas.

Meditation has helped me immensely on this issue.  And though my “monkey mind,” incessantly running to and fro and chattering without cease, it has been given pause and this “pause” has been pregnant, allowing me to open my heart to hidden dimensions of life.  With even my lame success at meditation I have learned more intimately that “embeddedness” in my own thought has been a cognitive prison and this insight…cognitive and emotional…has been redemptive.  And that “redemption” has allowed me to experience being “out of control” which has come to me as simple anxiety.  Of course, this “simple” anxiety is not “simple” at all as it brings me face to face with my own human-ness which is always experienced as vulnerability; Norman Brown noted, “To be, is to be vulnerable.”  And it has been fear of this vulnerability that has kept me locked in this cerebral prison, the escape from which is still in progress and will be in process for the rest of my life until at last I cast off this “mortal coil” and return to my Source.

I’m planning on this “transition” not taking place for decades!  For, “fallen” though this world may be, it is a beautiful world and I am increasingly delighted with the simple but profound beauty which surrounds me every day.  The only issue is, and always has been, “Will I pay attention?”  And, paying attention is relative to the meditative lesson of looking beyond the end of my nose, peering outside of that “small bright circle of my consciousness beyond which lies the dark.”  It is in that “darkness” that I see glimmers of light and these “glimmers” are the best that we can hope for. For these “glimmers” are the brilliant flash of light that we are blessed with when we find the humility to simply “see through a glass darkly.”

“Mind Your Words”

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Freedom from the past, or anything else for that matter always comes in the very instant you stop thinking about it. (Mike Dooley)

That notion will give you pause. It does me. This is basic, garden-variety Norman Vincent Peale who I used to disparage so readily. But, I now see so clearly how the trajectory of my life has been guided by self-talk, that subtle pattern of speech that we don’t really pay much attention to and do not think as being important. But it is. I think it was Jesus who said, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” Another thoughtful person whose name escapes me said, “Our thoughts become us.”

Technically, this means that if I wake up in the morning and think like Donald Trump, I will become a very wealthy man. Well, I don’t take it that literally but I do believe that if I suddenly had the focus that he does on the financial world, and had his keen insight into its machinations, my financial circumstances would probably improve. But, “Oh me of little faith.” I think it is a little late for that kind of transformation and that is not really where my values lie. But, I do think it is important to pay attention to the thought patterns that we allow to predominate and work on changing those that might be counter-productive.

Two other thoughts on the power of words merit attention. Shakespeare noted, “Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so” and Henry Ford, of all people, said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, either way you are right.”

 

Neurophysiology and The Question of Meaning

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Politico has an interesting article today about the role that neurophysiology plays in shaping our political viewpoint. (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/left-right-the-brain-science-of-politics-88653.html?hp=l11)

I have been curious about this research for the past year and recently ran across another blogger (Neuroresearchproject.com) with a similar curiosity. I also strongly recommend that you google the name “Jonathan Haidt” to listen to a psychologist discourse re a similar vein of thought.

This research would have given me pause at one point in my life, causing me to doubt myself, my faith, and basically everything. This research suggests that our life is largely determined by circumstances far beyond the grasp of our mind. But, now my response is, “So…..????” For, I have now feel that my grasp of reality is so very finite and is so shaped by circumstances that I can never wrap my brain around. And at times I ask, “How could I have ever thought otherwise?”

I used to be a lot more arrogant than I am now. (And, yes, I still have the taint of arrogance in my heart!) Life is just an incredible mystery and I’ve learned to find glory in that experience.

Sure, we need to study and study and study. We need to speculate as we have always been wont to do. And we will learn more and more as we go. But ultimately we will always come down to….nothing…or, as I like to put it, “No-Thing.” It is when we allow that primordial Emptiness to give us pause that we can be disrupted from the humdrum routine of the dog-and-pony show that we call our life and allow a Mystery to visit us and experience somewhat the Mystery that we are. It is there that we find our Source and then that we experience the temptation of turning that new Friend of ours into still another contrivance for our ego.

I’d like to share a poem by Edgar Simmons about detachment and its role in helping us to discover the Glory in this mystery of No-thingness.

THE MAGNETIC FIELD

Distance…which by definition
Indicates a separation from self
Is the healing poultice of metaphor,
Is the night-lighting of poetry.
As we allot to elements their weights
So to metaphor we need assign the
Weight of the ghost of distance.
Stars are stars to us
Because of distance: it is in the
Nothingness which clings us them
That we glory, tremble, and bow.
O what weight and glory lie abalance
In the stretch of vacant fields:
Metaphor: the hymn and hum of separation.

Robert Frost and Mindfulness

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I love the many friends I’ve met in the blog-o-sphere. You “kindred spirits” are cut from the same bolt of cloth as myself. It is exciting to meet men and women from various corners of the world, with different belief systems, who demonstrate what the Buddhists call “mindfulness.” Here is a lovely poem by Robert Frost about the beauty of discovering  presence of mind:

A Considerable Speck
By Robert Frost

A speck that would have been beneath my sight
On any but a paper sheet so white
Set off across what I had written there.
And I had idly poised my pen in air
To stop it with a period of ink,
When something strange about it made me think.
This was no dust spike by my breathing blown,
But unmistakenly a living mite
With inclinations it could call its own.
It paused as with suspicion of my pen,
And then came racing wildly on again
To where my manuscript was not yet dry;
Then paused again and either drank or smelt—
With loathing, for again it turned to fly.
Plainly with an intelligence I dealt.
It seemed too tiny to have room for feet,
Yet must have had a set of them complete
To express how much it didn’t want to die.
It ran with terror and with cunning crept.
It faltered: I could see it hesitate;
Then in the middle of the open sheet
Cower down in desperation to accept
Whatever I accorded it of fate.
I have none of the tenderer-than-thou
Collectivistic, regimenting love
With which the modern world is being swept.
But this poor microscopic item now!
Since it was nothing I knew evil of
I let it lie there till I hope it slept.

I have a mind myself and recognize
Mind when I meet with it in any guise.
No one can know how glad I am to find
On any sheet the least display of mind.

Give Thanks in All Things

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I lead a pretty boring life. My idea of a good time is sitting in the garage, sipping a beer, and watching a rain storm approach. This is because we are in a drought and rainfall is such a blessing. In fact, the old hymn “Showers of Blessings” often comes to mind as I sit there watching the leaves of the trees dance about, smell the rainfall moving in, and then watch the droplets splatter on the pavement.

And I do thank the good Lord for rain…and for many other simple things in life which so often I’ve taken for granted. I try to be more attentive, i.e. “mindful” of my world and often offer casual prayers of gratitude for things as simple as the mere breath of life.

Early this morning as I watched rainfall move in…this time with coffee in hand…I imagined how it might have been in eons past when our predecessors first began to attribute “blessings” such as rainfall to what would come to be known as “the gods” and eventually…in our culture…”God.” The notion must have percolated for hundreds of years, at least, in our dawning consciousness before it crystallized into a concept.

I guess that in spite of being a bona fide intellectual (pseudo perhaps!) and often looking askance at religious dogma, I am now following the biblical admonishment to “In all things give thanks.” Now why do I do this? I no longer believe that I am picking up any brownie points with God for “praising Him” or “thanking Him.” I mean, He is a really big God and does not have such a frail ego that he needs me to fawn over him. He is not keeping a ledger and dutifully noting each time that “Lewie praised me” again!

So, why bother to “give thanks in all things”? Well, it just kind of flows out of my heart. It is kind of natural. And it is therapeutic. Rumi once noted that praise is the best antidote to despair. And I’ve learned that when despair does beckon, it does help to just turn my attention to some of the many things in life for which I am thankful.