When we follow the basic instruction to place attention on the breath, might we be reinforcing habits of holding in other parts of the body?
When we sit on a cushion and ignore thoughts, might we be isolating ourselves from stimuli that trigger reactions, and thus failing to learn to experience those reactions mindfully?
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
A shift in balance
Writing poetically, as I did in my last post, allows me to record more of my experience. It's a more direct brain-to-language transfer that is faster and less fatiguing.
This morning on the bus I found my mind racing with typical concerns. I shifted attention to the sensations in my body. I felt a quantum increase in my gut-level confidence that the thoughts were not primary and not important -- that they were fueled by the sensations and that I could safely let them go. It seemed that the balance had shifted.
I enjoyed watching the sensations. They were pleasurable. And they bring up fear. It's becoming more and more clear to me that the fear is ancient and not connected to present reality, even though it triggers so many thoughts of unpleasant things that will or might happen in my actual future. It's great to just feel the fear, and not worry on top of that that I ought to be doing something. Still, to the extent that I still believe the fear (and I do still believe it to a significant extent), I do not rejoice in the pleasures of the sensations. I do not rejoice that I am finally becoming free. I rejoice in an abstract sense, but feelings of joy are still absent.
This morning on the bus I found my mind racing with typical concerns. I shifted attention to the sensations in my body. I felt a quantum increase in my gut-level confidence that the thoughts were not primary and not important -- that they were fueled by the sensations and that I could safely let them go. It seemed that the balance had shifted.
I enjoyed watching the sensations. They were pleasurable. And they bring up fear. It's becoming more and more clear to me that the fear is ancient and not connected to present reality, even though it triggers so many thoughts of unpleasant things that will or might happen in my actual future. It's great to just feel the fear, and not worry on top of that that I ought to be doing something. Still, to the extent that I still believe the fear (and I do still believe it to a significant extent), I do not rejoice in the pleasures of the sensations. I do not rejoice that I am finally becoming free. I rejoice in an abstract sense, but feelings of joy are still absent.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Opening
woke at midnight
don't recall which was first
irritation that Eric wasn't with me in bed
or big feeling rolling like the ocean
like the sound from our sound machine
bigger than I remember ever feeling before
in my right abdomen
the place that's been opening since my 50th birthday
either way, when I noticed the irritation
I tried to feel the feelings underneath
instead of holding and reacting
and those underneath feelings merged with the big rolling ocean feeling
and I felt more whole
and worthy
than before.
Got Staci Haines' book
The Survivor's Guide to Sex
from the library yet again (third time in ten years)
thinking it would have something new to say to me now that I can feel more
now that I am not so afraid of anger
It did have something new
The chapter on Dissociation, which I'd skimmed and skipped before, spoke to me yesterday.
Do I check out? YES!! during sex, during anger, and whenever anybody speaks to me
one-on-one
Do I tell myself that it's no big deal, that many are worse off than I
do I tell myself "whatever"?
YES
The advice seemed so impossible before
to see what is happening in my mind and
to feel what is happening in my body and
to notice the trigger
(why did that seem SO impossible?)
and also I used to tell myself that childhood sexual abuse was very unlikely
why very?
Because I don't remember it, and nobody told me about it?
Grandpa George: domineering. Grandma Julia: narcissistic.
Why would I hate my relatives so, from such an early age?
Haines says that one out of three girls is sexually abused
Can this be true?
I hold the idea that it was unlikely
because I also hold the idea that abuse survivors are whiners.
They make me uncomfortable. Why don't they just get over it?
Wasn't it their fault?
Was it as bad as they said?
What is wrong with them?
These days of the Cascadia Proteomics Symposium, noticing the feelings in my body
and making that my top priority
rather than trying to transfer as many droplets of information
as possible
from the speaker and her powerpoint slides
to my brain
so that I can say "I got something out of that!"
and sound like a scientist over wine and tapas later.
Another triumph from my reading of the book:
staying with my body
and asking for what I wanted
during sex
yesterday morning.
I enjoyed myself and
said no at least once
and then I enjoyed myself some more
And another,
after an hour of the big rolling ocean feeling in the middle of last night.
Thinking, maybe the nothingness I feel during the "touch my genitals" exercise
is not really numbness
maybe there is feeling so big
that I habitually suppress
all in a fraction of a second
so I tried it again
and in my sleepiness and fear
I do think I felt something big and scary
and also vague memories of being physically close and cuddled
and the smell of another
and then feeling closer to Eric
(who was by then beside me)
and having a clue what closeness might mean
this last bit is painful to write and I feel myself close down.
and I also asked Eric
in the middle of the big rolling feeling
to come to bed and massage the tense spot in my right abdomen
Actually when he saw me in the living room at 1:00 a.m.
with my hand on my belly,
he asked me if I wanted him to massage it.
It took a lot for me to even hope that he might.
Why are two survivors so scared of each other
so separate
instead of allies and helpers?
don't recall which was first
irritation that Eric wasn't with me in bed
or big feeling rolling like the ocean
like the sound from our sound machine
bigger than I remember ever feeling before
in my right abdomen
the place that's been opening since my 50th birthday
either way, when I noticed the irritation
I tried to feel the feelings underneath
instead of holding and reacting
and those underneath feelings merged with the big rolling ocean feeling
and I felt more whole
and worthy
than before.
Got Staci Haines' book
The Survivor's Guide to Sex
from the library yet again (third time in ten years)
thinking it would have something new to say to me now that I can feel more
now that I am not so afraid of anger
It did have something new
The chapter on Dissociation, which I'd skimmed and skipped before, spoke to me yesterday.
Do I check out? YES!! during sex, during anger, and whenever anybody speaks to me
one-on-one
Do I tell myself that it's no big deal, that many are worse off than I
do I tell myself "whatever"?
YES
The advice seemed so impossible before
to see what is happening in my mind and
to feel what is happening in my body and
to notice the trigger
(why did that seem SO impossible?)
and also I used to tell myself that childhood sexual abuse was very unlikely
why very?
Because I don't remember it, and nobody told me about it?
Grandpa George: domineering. Grandma Julia: narcissistic.
Why would I hate my relatives so, from such an early age?
Haines says that one out of three girls is sexually abused
Can this be true?
I hold the idea that it was unlikely
because I also hold the idea that abuse survivors are whiners.
They make me uncomfortable. Why don't they just get over it?
Wasn't it their fault?
Was it as bad as they said?
What is wrong with them?
These days of the Cascadia Proteomics Symposium, noticing the feelings in my body
and making that my top priority
rather than trying to transfer as many droplets of information
as possible
from the speaker and her powerpoint slides
to my brain
so that I can say "I got something out of that!"
and sound like a scientist over wine and tapas later.
Another triumph from my reading of the book:
staying with my body
and asking for what I wanted
during sex
yesterday morning.
I enjoyed myself and
said no at least once
and then I enjoyed myself some more
And another,
after an hour of the big rolling ocean feeling in the middle of last night.
Thinking, maybe the nothingness I feel during the "touch my genitals" exercise
is not really numbness
maybe there is feeling so big
that I habitually suppress
all in a fraction of a second
so I tried it again
and in my sleepiness and fear
I do think I felt something big and scary
and also vague memories of being physically close and cuddled
and the smell of another
and then feeling closer to Eric
(who was by then beside me)
and having a clue what closeness might mean
this last bit is painful to write and I feel myself close down.
and I also asked Eric
in the middle of the big rolling feeling
to come to bed and massage the tense spot in my right abdomen
Actually when he saw me in the living room at 1:00 a.m.
with my hand on my belly,
he asked me if I wanted him to massage it.
It took a lot for me to even hope that he might.
Why are two survivors so scared of each other
so separate
instead of allies and helpers?
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
In my experience, self = tension
I've known for years that exploration of the question, "Who am I?", is an important component of the path to liberation. However, this question did not interest me until now. A few days ago, inspired by reading Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs, I began asking, "Where is my self?" It turned out it was very easy to answer that question. Each time I ask it, an answer comes to mind quite quickly. If I ask it now, the answer is, "My self is the tension I feel in the right side of my chest right now." More often than not, I consider my self to be located primarily in some sensation of tension. No wonder I am reluctant to let go of this tension! No wonder I re-create it unconsciously after letting go! And, no wonder my baseline mood is pessimistic and depressed: if I consider my self to be a sense of constriction, a suppression of vitality.
A fun exercise for me the past few days has been to repeatedly ask myself "Where is my self?", then, to place awareness on that thing, whatever it is, until it disappears.
A fun exercise for me the past few days has been to repeatedly ask myself "Where is my self?", then, to place awareness on that thing, whatever it is, until it disappears.
Re-discovering fear of taking action
Why do I end most work days feeling depleted? I am gaining some understanding of this.
Fear of taking action -- touched on in my previous post -- is one. When I do something that wasn't ordered by another person, I seem to expect grave consequences. When I am in a very mindful state, meaning that I've done a fair amount of meditation that day to subdue the habit of constant thought, I notice sensations in the right side of my head, neck, and torso that suggest I'm expecting a giant to rain me with blows from above when I'm doing something I haven't been told to do. I'm more comfortable taking actions that are ordered by others: my boss, my co-workers, my partner, my parents, a teacher. Even my to-do list can suffice as a giver-of-orders: I feel a similar comfort if I put a task on a to-do list, then do it, rather than just do it.
Phenomena such as this are not discovered once, then assimilated. These are things that I re-discover over and over and over again. They need to be rediscovered because noticing these phenomena runs against some very deeply engrained habits of thought. Also, often when I rediscover such phenomena, I see them in a slightly deeper, richer way. My knowledge slowly builds upon itself. It's maybe how each time one looks at a work of art, one sees something new about it, or understands it in a deeper way.
Today the weather in Seattle is perhaps more summery than any previous day this season. After a morning meeting, I stood at my computer station and began to look at my work. I tried to first center myself by placing my awareness on bodily sensations. I noticed that, although I was quite adept and doing this, and was able to notice an unusually rich and even pleasurable set of sensations, I was also experiencing a very strong restlessness which felt like fear that I would be severely punished. Smashed. And then I thought, this is so strong, I ought to put my attention on the fear. But I didn't feel comfortable doing this at my desk, where there was some actual danger of being interrupted. So I walked to South Lake Union Park and continued this practice in the sunshine, on the lawn.
There, I spent about 15 minutes looking carefully at the sensations of fear. They are so strong and seemingly monolithic that my conscious mind is strongly pulled to believing their message: I will indeed be punished severely! There is real danger here! However, noticing the fear did lessen its hold on me somewhat. I walked back to work and felt calm and centered upon returning to my desk. Now, nearly 2 hours later, I still feel calm and centered. When my meditation timer goes off every 20 minutes, it is relatively easy to yield to the call, drop what I am doing, and direct my attention to the present. It is lovely to feel calm and centered and able to be in the present. My delight in this prompted me to write this post.
Fear of taking action -- touched on in my previous post -- is one. When I do something that wasn't ordered by another person, I seem to expect grave consequences. When I am in a very mindful state, meaning that I've done a fair amount of meditation that day to subdue the habit of constant thought, I notice sensations in the right side of my head, neck, and torso that suggest I'm expecting a giant to rain me with blows from above when I'm doing something I haven't been told to do. I'm more comfortable taking actions that are ordered by others: my boss, my co-workers, my partner, my parents, a teacher. Even my to-do list can suffice as a giver-of-orders: I feel a similar comfort if I put a task on a to-do list, then do it, rather than just do it.
Phenomena such as this are not discovered once, then assimilated. These are things that I re-discover over and over and over again. They need to be rediscovered because noticing these phenomena runs against some very deeply engrained habits of thought. Also, often when I rediscover such phenomena, I see them in a slightly deeper, richer way. My knowledge slowly builds upon itself. It's maybe how each time one looks at a work of art, one sees something new about it, or understands it in a deeper way.
Today the weather in Seattle is perhaps more summery than any previous day this season. After a morning meeting, I stood at my computer station and began to look at my work. I tried to first center myself by placing my awareness on bodily sensations. I noticed that, although I was quite adept and doing this, and was able to notice an unusually rich and even pleasurable set of sensations, I was also experiencing a very strong restlessness which felt like fear that I would be severely punished. Smashed. And then I thought, this is so strong, I ought to put my attention on the fear. But I didn't feel comfortable doing this at my desk, where there was some actual danger of being interrupted. So I walked to South Lake Union Park and continued this practice in the sunshine, on the lawn.
There, I spent about 15 minutes looking carefully at the sensations of fear. They are so strong and seemingly monolithic that my conscious mind is strongly pulled to believing their message: I will indeed be punished severely! There is real danger here! However, noticing the fear did lessen its hold on me somewhat. I walked back to work and felt calm and centered upon returning to my desk. Now, nearly 2 hours later, I still feel calm and centered. When my meditation timer goes off every 20 minutes, it is relatively easy to yield to the call, drop what I am doing, and direct my attention to the present. It is lovely to feel calm and centered and able to be in the present. My delight in this prompted me to write this post.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Things I've learned by observing my mind
While standing, each movement of my body forward is accompanied by a feeling of fear. I feel this as a tightening in the front of my throat and upper chest. I first observed this while doing a slow walking meditation in the basement at the IMS retreat center at a New Year retreat 2007/08. I've become more and more attuned to this, and now, if I pay attention, I can notice it at any time.
Similarly, while standing, each movement of my body backward is accompanied by another unpleasant feeling. I'm not sure what it is in this moment, but it could be the sadness of loss -- I imagine that by going away, I am saying good-bye forever and lose all chance of reunion.
I block out knowledge of achievement (detailed in an earlier blog post)
When I'm not busy doing anything, and there is no unpleasantness, I habitually scan my environment and my mental landscape for possible problems or threats. If I can catch this immediately (usually during meditation) and let go of the habitual scanning, I experience discomfort and disorientation with the resulting emptiness.
Aversion is a sensation distinct from the sensation I am averse to. For example, I dislike tension in my abdomen. The abdominal tension has a certain feeling, located in the abdomen. The aversion, the "dislike", has a distinct feeling, located in my upper right skull. By placing gentle attention on the sensation of aversion, the entire experience becomes less unpleasant.
A component of aversion is a wordless thought to the effect of, "if I am experiencing this, something is wrong with me, I have failed."
When I focus relaxed attention on a sensation of physical pain, the sensation dissolves into a shimmering field that changes constantly, and becomes less unpleasant, soemtimes even pleasant.
Habitual thought is not generated by my conscious will. I do not choose these thoughts, and they are often neither correct nor useful.
When walking, the approach of another person triggers anxiety.
When doing concentration meditation, casting aside distractions (the Buddhist "hindrances" of desire, aversion, restlessness, and doubt) is like walking steadily forward through turbulent surf in order to get to the calm waters beyond. [I did not list the hindrance of sleepiness because I am not able to cast that aside.] It can be entertaining to cast aside, cast aside, cast aside over and over again, almost like playing a video game.
Walking can be perceived as a series of about 20-30 motions per pace.
Telling myself an untrue story, and believing it, is harmful (insight at Spirit Rock about 5 years ago)
Similarly, while standing, each movement of my body backward is accompanied by another unpleasant feeling. I'm not sure what it is in this moment, but it could be the sadness of loss -- I imagine that by going away, I am saying good-bye forever and lose all chance of reunion.
I block out knowledge of achievement (detailed in an earlier blog post)
When I'm not busy doing anything, and there is no unpleasantness, I habitually scan my environment and my mental landscape for possible problems or threats. If I can catch this immediately (usually during meditation) and let go of the habitual scanning, I experience discomfort and disorientation with the resulting emptiness.
Aversion is a sensation distinct from the sensation I am averse to. For example, I dislike tension in my abdomen. The abdominal tension has a certain feeling, located in the abdomen. The aversion, the "dislike", has a distinct feeling, located in my upper right skull. By placing gentle attention on the sensation of aversion, the entire experience becomes less unpleasant.
A component of aversion is a wordless thought to the effect of, "if I am experiencing this, something is wrong with me, I have failed."
When I focus relaxed attention on a sensation of physical pain, the sensation dissolves into a shimmering field that changes constantly, and becomes less unpleasant, soemtimes even pleasant.
Habitual thought is not generated by my conscious will. I do not choose these thoughts, and they are often neither correct nor useful.
When walking, the approach of another person triggers anxiety.
When doing concentration meditation, casting aside distractions (the Buddhist "hindrances" of desire, aversion, restlessness, and doubt) is like walking steadily forward through turbulent surf in order to get to the calm waters beyond. [I did not list the hindrance of sleepiness because I am not able to cast that aside.] It can be entertaining to cast aside, cast aside, cast aside over and over again, almost like playing a video game.
Walking can be perceived as a series of about 20-30 motions per pace.
Telling myself an untrue story, and believing it, is harmful (insight at Spirit Rock about 5 years ago)
Friday, April 22, 2011
Anxiety about mundane things
Yesterday evening during a session of walking meditation, I noticed anxiety about looking at the clock, putting away my clothes, and changing my clothes. I'd vaguely noticed these anxieties before but had never looked closely at them. In fact, I'd been subtly chiding myself each time I felt them. The anxieties regarding the clock and the putting away of clothes seemed to be about noticing the passage of time, my progress towards death. The anxiety about changing clothes, perhaps about exposure, vulnerability.
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