Litmus test.

As our practice evolves we move through various periods of growth, learning and change. In the beginning, we don't notice much change. Our progress seems slow and inconsequential. We might feel that during our meditation we can maintain our focus and presence, but off the cushion we still feel swept away by circumstances.

In the middle of our practice, we see some change has occurred. We are more focused and less reactive. We are able to maintain a sense of openness and balance amidst difficult situations. We start to have more insights into our own situation and the world at large. We see and experience this change, but it also comes and goes. Some days we can maintain our equipoise and composure, some days we fall off the horse.

The end result of our practice is that we experience enduring and lasting changes to who we are and how we move through the world. We are able to navigate our daily lives with balance and openness. We enjoy lasting states of kindness, patience and ease. Our practice has fundamentally changed our life.

The litmus test of our practice is our daily life. The drama and tumult that we experience on a day to day basis is the very measure of our achievement.

Can we maintain our awareness and composure? Do we get swept away in our negative self-talk and emotions? Can we be present in the face of uncertainty? When presented with the opportunity to be generous and kind, do we share our gifts?

You are the practice. Every step is the way.

What are you looking for?

We are all constantly moving, shifting position, adrift in a sea of change. We find ourselves chasing, over reaching, holding back, leaning a bit too far.

Amidst that dynamic play, what are you looking for?

Are you looking for the right position? Are you only looking at what others are doing? Do you find yourself taking a particular stance, drawing lines in the sand of with me or against me? What if no one validates your position, are you okay with that?

Your view is important. Not your views, not your opinions or ideas.  Your view, what you are looking for, your outlook. 

Your view allows you to navigate change, or to constantly be fighting it. Your view allows you to reconnect with your center, or to be strung out and off balance. Your view can create harmony and balance, or it can create division and discord. 

Your practice should continually try to refine and clarify your view. Really dig in, what are you looking for?  Have you found it? 

When you think you have found it, be brave enough to ask the next question- does this view assist me in navigating change and adversity, or do I find myself caught up in the storm?

Not there yet.

Your practice will have certain goals and endpoints.  There are going to be practices that you accomplish.  You will finish some things.

But the defining characteristic of an authentic practice is that you are never done.

Never a time to hang up your shoes.
Never a time to retire for good.
Never a time to say that's it.
You will never arrive at the destination.  

Your practice will always require you to find a delicate balance between being overwhelmed by conditions or withdrawing your presence.  The more our minds grasp to situations the more we get sucked in and eventually overwhelmed.  On the other hand, without compassion and the intention to benefit others, we will often find ourselves being stagnant and withdrawn.

The balance is difficult to find. It is enjoying peace and fulfillment, but always standing up and moving forward.  It is being open and responsive, yet calm and stable.

Open and responsive.  Calm and stable.  Those you can identify in your meditation.  Those you can carry forward into the world.   

A natural process?

Inflammation occurs when the body suffers an insult or is damaged in some way.  The body unleashes a complex inflammatory cascade to fight off the invasive stimulus in an attempt to minimize damage and restore health.  Inflammation is a natural process and is designed to promote a self-sustaining organism, but it can also lead to chronic disease.

Chronic inflammation leads to conditions such as arthritis, Chrohn's disease, heart disease and recent research even includes depression as a result of inflammation of the brain. 

So when is inflammation good, and when is it bad?

The difference from a biological perspective is whether it promotes health and well being.  Inflammation that leads to conditions such as arthritis or heart disease is bad, in that they are indicators of decreased quality of life and higher mortality.  Inflammation that leads to the restoration of health and the neutralizing of infection or injury is determined to be good.

How about anger?

Anger often results when we suffer an insult or attack from another person or from a challenging situation.  Does anger arise as a defense mechanism?  If so, what are we defending?  Is it designed to restore health and balance?  Or does the inflammation of our anger engender unease and further conflict?

When is anger an appropriate response and what does it look like?  When is anger unjust and disruptive? 

It might be worth contemplating.  What do you think?

#DoNoHarm

Struggling.

We are all struggling.  Struggling to find our balance.  Struggling with our health and our work.  Struggling to discover our purpose or passion.

We try to resolve this struggle, to figure it out and to find the right answer.  We think that if we can fix this situation then everything will be fine.  We will be happy and feel content. 

So we fix our relationships.  Our work.  We try to find a new social circle, a new hobby and a different story.  We search and we find and we fix. 

Except with all the fixing we have been doing over the years we still find ourselves in the same situation.  Strange isn't it? 

Strange that we keep trying to fix the outer condition of things.  We keep trying to fix our situation and our surroundings.

What if we stopped investing all that time and energy in applying a fix?  What if instead of trying to blame the outer condition of things we look at our own minds?  What is it about our habits, our neurosis, our negative emotions that contributes to our struggles? 

The path ahead is not going to be easy, but if we are honest with ourselves we will realize that shifting the blame and never brought us any closer to the goal. 

Time to take responsibility for our struggles.  We don't need to fix the whole world in order to fulfill our aims, we simply need to train our mind.  The weight of the world rests on this task. 

Setting sun mentality.

As the sun sets we have a tendency to get our things in order, to settle in and make ourselves comfortable.  We might grab a drink, start a fire (or a movie), reach for our book or tuck in our loved ones.

Establishing a state of comfort and rest is important.  And necessary.

As the sun rises we might get up, meditate, get ready for the day, grab breakfast and our coffee and move with deliberate intention.  The day ahead is ours to make, we have much to do and today is the only day I have to do it.

Establishing a state of responsibility and enthusiasm is important.  And necessary.

When we approach our days in this way, we are balanced and in harmony with the world around us.  We run into conflict when we try to alter this balance.

How does your day go, when from the moment the sun rises you are looking for a state of comfort and rest?  What happens when conflict or problems arise in your morning and disturb your pleasure?

Too often we set out at the beginning of our day with the intention, "I hope today is an easy day".  This is a setting sun mentality and we will only encounter obstacles and problems on our path.  What we do not realize is that we are actually the creator of our problems, because our intention at the beginning of the day is to already start preparing for sunset. 

Start your day with the right intention.  That intention is to take responsibility, maintain your discipline and to benefit others. 

Very simple.  Hard to do, but I trust you. 

Inflammation.

Inflammation is a natural response to harmful stimuli.

What happens when the body is attacked?  You break your ankle, cut yourself, burn your hand; what happens?  The body releases inflammatory markers and initiates a whole cascade of events to try to heal and restore balance to the area.  Inflammation serves as a method for the body to see clearly what is going on, and to implement the right tools to correct the situation.

The intended effect of inflammation is to restore the body to its natural state.  To health and balance.

What happens when we are attacked?  By our clients, co-workers, unruly drivers and just plain old rude people- we get inflammed!  We get angry.  Anger is actually a natural response to things that are out of order, things that are unjust and out of harmony (for the moment we will assume that it is not our perceptions and biases that are out of order). 

But what is anger for?

Inflammation is for seeing clearly and allowing the body to dispatch the tools it needs to restore balance and health.  Anger is also for seeing clearly and allowing us to dispatch the tools and resources needed to restore balance and harmony.

But let's face it, that is not the way anger goes down.

Inflammation makes no value judgements about the source of the stimulus, how or why it happened.  Anger loves to say exactly whose fault it is, 'Yours'.  When we get angry, we really aren't concerned with dispatching tools and resources to restore the situation, we are looking for validation, for revenge and for retribution.  If anything, we don't want to heal the situation, we want to make it infected.  We tell others about our injustice, we tweet about it and file complaints and work ourselves up into a real tizzy.

All in the hopes of being right.

Isn't it strange the extremes to which we will go to prove we are right.  We will destroy ourselves, our relationships, our well being, our day.  How many hours, days, weeks and years have we held onto anger?  Are we healed yet?  Are we right?

You will get angry, but use anger skillfully.  Allow its intensity to let you see clearly, then dispatch tools to remedy the situation.  What tools?  Patience, kindness, compassion, generosity, honesty, vulnerability and patience.  Patience rules the day when dealing with anger and injury.

And sometimes there will be scars.

The body doesn't try to fix or hide scars, it doesn't keep mulling over them and they no longer are perceived as needing to be healed.  Once the healing process has occurred and a scar remains, it ornaments the body as a constant reminder of how much pain there is in the world.  This reminder should encourage us to practice, so that when the time comes we have the tools and resources available to approach anger effectively and reduce the chances of developing another scar in the near or distant future.    

Gravity.

Gravity is very interesting.  We are all familiar with it, we learned how to operate within its bounds and even to use it to our advantage to do amazing things.

But what about the gravity of our decisions, actions and responsibilities?  Those have a lot of gravity, gravity that gives a lot of weight to our lives.  Weight that we often don't know how to deal with.

The interesting thing about gravity is that it always starts off with a fight and a fall.  We have to fight to get up.  We need to push and finagle and adapt.  We need to be persistent.  And then we fall.  The falling is inevitable really.  We may have succeeded in getting up but we still need to learn how to maintain that posture and even more so how to maintain it amidst movement and change.

But we persist.  The falling provides us with the tools to learn and we continue to examine and analyze until we succeed.  But the success doesn't stop there, once standing we move forward, we take steps and learn to hop and skip and roller skate and even fly.  We have actually learned to fly, even with gravity, not despite it.

So let's go back to the gravity of our decisions, actions and responsibilities.

Our initial reaction is to feel the heaviness of our situation.  We are often overwhelmed by the weight of our life, wishing that somehow it would all change and we could soar through the sky carefree and without any problems or conflict.  But it is important to realize that we are the weight.  That heaviness, it is us.  So we need to fight to pick ourselves up.  Or push ourselves up I suppose.

We will fall.

But recognize the problems and conflicts for what they are- learning opportunities.  Opportunities to adjust our posture.  Opportunities to find our balance.  Opportunities to make the right correction at the right time.

As we learn to stand with dignity and confidence, we can then learn to step forward with kindness and generosity.  As those develop momentum we can run with insight and develop the endurance it takes to accomplish great feats, great feats for ourselves and great feats for others.

We may even learn to fly.  Fly even amidst problems and conflict, amidst doubt and the impossibility of doing so because of the heaviness of our situation.  We learn to fly on the wings of skillful means and wisdom.  We can build those.

But first we need to learn to stand.