Superhighway to Happiness

MEDITATION

Whatever you're focusing on, you're experiencing.  Simple.  What's not so simple, until you've got the inner musculature stronger, is moving your attention at will.  If you want to be able to do 100 pushups (yes there's an app for that too...), you've got to start with 1 pushup, well performed.  Then you can move to two and 20, and according to the app, within six weeks you'll be doing 100 pushups if you follow the program.  There's some work involved, and if you don't know why you're setting out to be someone who can effectively do 100 pushups (at one time), then when you hit challenges, it's easy to get distracted which leads to diminished results which leads to quitting.  If you're human like me, you've done this in your life, at least once, if not more.

So what are you focusing on?  What are you giving attention to?  Do you like it?  Does it make you feel all warm and fuzzy?  Or does it make you a bit prickly, a bit difficult to be around when you're obsessing internally about your insecurities? 

If you're suffering, you're focused on an illusion and relating to it like it's real, true, and likely permanent.  Nothing is permanent.  That's basic Tao 101, Change is constant.  Yet when that feeling comes up, yes, you know the one....the one that takes you out of commission when you believe it....the one that your mind starts gathering all variety of "evidence" to support....when that feeling comes up, and your ego is building the case, there's an addiction at play.  There is literally a secretion of hormones in the body, a particular order of neurons firing and the system gets habituated, or addicted to that feeling, however lousy it may feel. 

Then there's the accompanying feelings of powerlessness to change that can come along for the ride.  The next thing you know, the mind is chiming in with all the "to do" items that are more urgent and time-sensitive than actually stopping all action and getting back into your right mind, into the felt presence of contentment, or even authentic happiness.

At this point in my life it's clear, the only thing I have a say over consistently is my own inner state.  The stronger my inner state, the more leverage I have in the outer world.  The weaker my inner state, the more the prevailing challenges in the world have ongoing impact on every aspect of my life. 

You can either become an organizing principle, or be organized and shuffled around by the chaos of the world.  An organizing principle in the way I'm working with it here is a power point, deeply grounded into inner strength that is grown through attention and practice.  Like an electro-magnet that turns neighboring iron filings into mini-magnets, you become this force that life organizes itself around.

So to begin this reversal of the power back to you, back to your choice to be happy independent of circumstances, we start with what you're focusing on, what you're paying attention to, what you're animating and perpetuating with your own life force.

At some point, this kind of self-reflection becomes an ongoing habit.  Along the way, it's not only an enormous support, it's CRITICAL to set aside daily time for formal practice.  What do I mean by 'formal'?  Suit and tie?  Cocktail dress and Jimmy Choo's?  Not so much. 

I mean specific scheduled times each day with set beginning and ending times that you don't let get preempted by anything. 

What do I do during this time?  Since the focus of this note is meditation, I'm going to suggest actually meditating.  It can be easy, it can be enjoyable (which is a key to depth in meditation), and there's a tremendous amount of support for learning how.

I use the EOC Institute's "Balance" mp3 (http://EOCinstitute.org) nearly every time I meditate.  It uses tonal frequencies through your headphones, masked in the sound of gentle rainfall to literally train your brain and nervous system to live in meditative states.

Working with a seasoned teacher shortens the learning curve tremendously and helps troubleshoot places where your attention is getting caught or stuck, and restoring you into the awe-inspiring free-fall of deep meditation.

Just start. 

The Source of Happiness is Within (Short-Cuts part III)

Before my weekly trek out to teach at We Care Spa in Desert Hot Springs this morning, I was reading an article my friend and mentor David Elliott sent me from Buddhist Monk, Matthieu Ricard.  In it, he distinguishes a fundamental difference between pleasure and happiness.  He references pleasure as something that mostly comes from contact between the senses and objects and situations of desire.  Pleasures have to be repeated, he notes.  

Happiness, on the other hand, is an inside job.  It's a quality of our True Nature.  Not the nature of the ego, or the mind, or the emotions (which are all very related as one large mechanism known in Sanskrit as antahkarana).  

So as I'm getting closer to Desert Hot Springs, I'm thinking about short-cuts in reference to Ricard's article. It seems so obvious in the moment -- short-cuts are nearly always about seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, with some seen or unseen urgency around making it happen NOW.  

Without having cultivated habits around looking within for happiness, or even knowing it could be there, it's incredibly natural to look outside for something to do, a person to connect with, a object to buy, or something along those lines to experience the energy spike that comes with pleasure.  One of the challenges with this is that once is rarely ever enough.  If it feels good, the ego wants it again, and likely with stronger intensity to the experience.  If the experience costs money, and there isn't any, the ego feels justified in using credit to buy the experience.  

At some point the emotional, financial, and spiritual debt reaches a peak and starts moving in to collect on the debt.  

In my own case, as I've been paying off the financial part of accrued debt (just recently passed the half-way mark and can feel the light at the end of the tunnel), I've been amazed at the impact on my intuition, emotions, and physical stamina.  In my experience, the states of emotion and mind I were in at the time of delaying payment by using credit were also put on a delay.  In taking the short-cut through using credit, I wasn't aware of the ways I was suppressing my own confidence and happiness and cultivating a stronger habit of looking outside for happiness.  

I'm not suggesting that credit is bad.  It can be a very positive thing when used consciously and positively.  Good and bad are human ego judgments that don't have much relativity outside the human realm (ie; in nature -- find me a good tree and a bad tree...no such thing!).

Short-Cuts.  The seduction to take short-cuts is everywhere.  Whole industries are predicated on making life experiences faster, cheaper, and more readily available.  Again, that's not good or bad.  However, there are costs to it all (see http://thestoryofstuff.com).

This afternoon, I felt some pretty strong pulls on my energy and they're connected to some unpleasant feelings.  My knee-jerk impulse was to want to call someone who I could talk about it all with and be done with the feelings.  If I feel better after the call, but haven't myself digested the emotions, what happened?  The other person psychically begins carrying them through empathy if he or she doesn't have the priceless discipline to remain neutral.  It's a short-cut.  But at some point, someone somewhere down the line has to do the spade work of sitting down and fully digesting the emotions (and/or sending them back to their source if picked up empathically).  

Yep, I did try to reach a couple of friends.  And I'm happy to say I didn't reach either of them.  I sensed what was happening with me, and chose to slow my attention down, slow my breathing, and tune into what I was feeling.  In the slowing down, it's easier for me to recognize self-love within.  As soon as I can detect the feeling of self-love, I can focus on it.  At that point, I have to stay focused.  My thoughts seductively attempt to draw me back into the sped-up familiarity of the negative emotions.  As I bring my attention to feeling my feet and deepening my breath, a smile cuts loose across my face.  

How strange, I think, to be feeling happiness and discomfort at the same time.  And yet here it is.  I don't need to get anyone to carry my discomfort in order to find freedom.  All I need to do is slow down enough to be present with myself and just observe what I'm feeling as pure sensations.  When I look at them in this way, they disperse fairly quickly.  My next task is to continue staying present, rather than get involved in thoughts about the past.  My thoughts about the past only have an impact on the present when I'm entertaining them in the present.  And I've noticed that when any negative emotion is up, it seems to color the memories of the past in such a way as to convince me to feel worse. 

Happiness, while already existing within, is a discipline for me.  It takes conscious, continuous discipline to choose happiness and stay present (which I'm experiencing more an more as being intimately related; presence and happiness).  

In chatting to one friend who's a gifted professional dancer on the way back from the desert this morning about some of these themes, I mentioned my hesitation about having a conversation like this with some folks as some would say I'm over-thinking things, over-analyzing.  Yet, we discussed, there's often a profound difference between the skill and awareness level of Michael Jackson's dancing and someone in a video dance jam class at their local gym.  There's a difference at the level of interest in and passion for precision that comes from countless hours of cultivated discipline.  

When it comes to the journey of Awakening and all the indwelling happiness, joy, and love to be recognized in the process, it seems to me that cultivating interest and skill in precise Awareness is my part in what allows for these highly sought-after qualities to be recognized and consistently experienced.

(HuffPost) Learning To Let Life Lead

Today I write about suffering.  Not because I want to, but because I must.  I am compelled. It’s not because suffering has some form gritty promise of being somehow more interesting.

Most days, the zone between the stored, unprocessed grief, anger, fear, and sadness the largest percentage of the world relates to as somehow normal and me, that space is vast enough to keep me sane.  However, there unmistakable days when that gap is no longer cozy, when the air seems to get vacuumed out of my lungs all in a moment, my eyes are burning and wet, and I’m nauseous. 

Sitting in an air-conditioned state-of-the-art movie theatre with all-reserved seating, I have just been punched in the stomach.  I am unexpectedly brought face-to-face with the emotions of September 11, 2001 in the middle of what seemed like another sculpted and coiffed romantic drama that I am very willing to dance with.  With one simple reference, my body is doing everything it can to hold back a torrent of sound and tears.  I am reminded in every viscera of my body and mind that suffering is. 

As I write just now, I am not looking to be a popular voice.  I am willing to say what will not leave me alone.  You see this hurricane of sensation I’m feeling isn’t personal.  I did not lose anyone personally close in the events of 9/11.  I taste it’s flavors because I am human and I feel.  I feel deeply. 

There are times like this night when I’m faced with some flash, usually through music, art, or storytelling of any sort, in which I feel my nerves and my heart on the outside, and am overwhelmed with emotion.  Secretly I sometimes want to run far away from these moments out of some misplaced fear that what I know myself to be will be totally annihilated by what I’m feeling.

And yet, when I reach through the outer layers of these sensations into a deeper core, I realize it is love I am feeling.  It’s love that overwhelms me, not the grief, anger, fear, or sadness.  It’s the intensity of love moving through my heart in response to the suffering I’m witnessing. 

If I only engage with the outer layers, I’m liable to get triggered into acting out the emotions myself; drawing in a struggle with someone convenient to give permission to a projected outburst of energy and emotion. 

When I’m willing to lean back into the quiet presence of love that cares for people, that wants for their happiness, that aches to spread a touch that would be a final relief to all forms of pain.  When I’m willing to lean into this love, I am free. 

If only I would remember this more often. 

You and I are the same really.  It’s just a matter of how big a comfort zone you’ve built around your heart.  That’s the only difference between you and I.  The love I’m pointing at, and doing my best to hand the steering wheel over to fully, that love is what binds us.  Regardless of our aplomb at living it, tasting it, and knowing it, it’s the substance that runs between us.  Some people call it God.  Some scientists call it dark space between the cells.  I call it life.

Apparently, today I’m writing about life, because I must.