Mindfulness, Compassion and Resilience, or making peace with why I didn't get a pony at age 12

I hadn’t realized how much I missed my yoga teacher training until I had a similar experience at Kripalu this weekend.  Kripalu is a “yoga center” in the Berkshires that used to be a monastery.  It consists of a huge brick building that looks like a college dorm and a modern annex on several hundred acres, including a large lakefront area.  The sleeping areas are Spartan, the food nutritious, organic, and delicious (yes, those three adjectives CAN go together), and the people mostly blissful.  No cell phones were allowed in public spaces, so instead of looking at hand-held screens, people conversed, read, or just gazed out the windows to see the changing leaves on the surrounding mountains.  As my friend Christine said the first time I went to Kripalu, it’s basically a weekend where you hang out in your pajamas (i.e., comfy yoga clothes) and don’t wear makeup.  In other words, paradise.    

Our session was led by Sharon Salzberg, one of the originators of bringing meditation and mindfulness to the United States in the 1970’s, and Stephen Cope, who directs a research institute that examines the benefits of yoga on the human brain.  We were in what must have been the main chapel at one time as it looked and felt like a church sanctuary with a soaring ceiling, altar area, and choir loft.  It was a sacred space, but not a solemn one, thanks to our leaders’ humor and authenticity. 

Here are two important things I learned this weekend:

1.      Mindfulness consists of two levels of awareness:

·         Seeing what is happening; and

·         Seeing my reaction to it. 

In other words, these are two separate and distinct actions.  The thing itself—an event, a person, a conversation—does not cause a specific reaction; my mind does.  Thus, I have the opportunity to respond skillfully; but that is predicated on being aware of what is happening in my mind before actually saying or doing something I might regret.  But, boy, the mind sure likes to create havoc in the meantime!

For example, earlier this week, I received a terse text from a friend. Apparently, I had awakened her by responding to a text she sent a few hours earlier.  In my mind, I was being polite by responding, albeit not immediately, because I had a meeting, then was driving, then had dinner, all of which I prioritize before non-emergency texting.  I read her response to my overture as irritable, and I reacted by getting defensive.  At first, my mind went something like this:  “Why would she keep her phone on when she’s asleep? Who does that?  She’s just asking for trouble.  I was just trying to be a little generous and humorous about a situation in which she was clearly pissed off, and now she’s even more upset about an opportunity I wanted to share with her, and this is how she reacts?  All I was trying to do was be a good friend.” 

That was my first reaction.  My second was to realize that, for her, having her phone on was necessary.  She was out of town.  Her parents are in ill health, and she is one of their caretakers. Of course her phone was on, and of course she was irritated that I woke her up to chat about something innocuous.  Then I felt guilty for my initial reaction, which continued the negative cycle.  “I suck.  I’m a bad friend.  I should have known better.” And so on. 

And this is what the mind (or my mind anyway—perhaps everyone else is enlightened) does.  It creates a story that makes me the victim so I can feel aggrieved and righteous, and thus justify my anger.  When that doesn’t work, it creates another story that makes me the jerk. In both cases, I am still the center of attention.  This self-centeredness is one of the inner “enemies” that Bob Thurman and Sharon Salzberg write about in their new book, Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit and Be a Whole Lot Happier.

In her talk on Sunday, Salzberg told us that the Tibetan Buddhists say we pick up anger when we feel powerless because it makes us feel strong.  Anger is not just one emotion—it’s a bundle of fear, grief, and helplessness.  In our American culture especially, we like to feel in control, when in fact, we really have very little power over events or people.  But we do have control—when we choose to use it—over our own emotions. 

2.       Compassion is the source of resilience.   

Specifically, compassion for the self leads to resilience.  This is because compassion recognizes the vulnerability that we all share: it is a moving toward others—emotionally or physically—to see if we can lend support, but it also means that we accept our lack of control over events and people (see above).  Sharon said, “Resilience is the ability to start over.”  She was specifically referring to meditation, when over and over a meditator loses herself in thought, taking away from her focus on the object of concentration, whether it be the breath, a mantra, or something else.  Meditation is bringing oneself back to the object with compassion instead of negative judgment.  In my story above, once I took another perspective on my friend’s response, I could feel compassion toward her.  After my bout of guilt, I was able to feel compassion toward myself, and see that it was a tiny incident that my mind exploded into something larger.  That discernment dissolved my guilt.    

In life outside of meditation, resilience is the ability to accept change with equanimity and compassion even when things don’t happen the way we think they should.  Resilience offers us the energy to make a change, instead of stewing over what we can’t change.  For example, how we were brought up (why didn’t I get a pony?), how our colleagues act (how dare she talk to me that way!), and how people blame us for things that are not our fault (you didn’t get into that class because you didn’t make an advising appointment when I offered it).  Resilience is the opposite of apathy, because it allows us to know that what we see right in front of us is not the whole story; instead it’s the planting of a seed.  We may not know what the seed may grow into, but that’s okay.  It’s about giving up control of outcomes, and also taking responsibility for our actions and reactions.

That’s all fine and good you (I) say.  But what about the real world, when things happen and we instantly have shaming, blaming, angry thoughts?  What was so great about Sharon Salzberg is that she revealed that even though she has been meditating for over 40 years, her mind still offers those same negative stories.  This made her accessible and real, and also opened up the possibility for growing my own compassion and resilience.  Despite flunking compassion in yoga teacher training, it feels like there is hope for me now.

The Lazy Yogi

I have been thinking a lot about dharma lately, in the way that Stephen Cope defines it as a vocation or sacred path.  In The Great Work of Your Life, he writes, “Yogis believe that our greatest responsibility in life is to this inner possibility—this dharma—and they believe every human being’s duty is to utterly, fully, and completely embody his [her] idiosyncratic dharma” (p. xxi). 

In the book, he gives examples of famous people (including Gandhi, Harriet Tubman, Robert Frost, Susan B. Anthony among others) and non-famous contemporaries who have, in his descriptions, initially struggled with and then came to embrace their dharma.  Finding and walking one’s true path is not easy, he concludes.  There is still plenty of struggle along the way.  Many of these folks went against the expectations of society to serve a specific, higher purpose; often for art, often for social justice.  There is a resolve, an obsessiveness, to each of the men and women he cites. 

People who live their dharma stand out.  This week, Mat Johnson (no relation—that we know of anyway), author of Pym and other novels, graphic novels, and nonfiction, visited our campus.  Pym was the campus-wide book selection.  Full disclosure:  I did not read the novel since I wasn’t going to be teaching it this fall and had heard some negative reviews from colleagues.  By a quirk of fate, I was invited to dinner with Johnson and so attended his talk beforehand. 

He read the first chapter and it was electrifying, funny, satirical, and smart all at the same time.  I found out later that we were the last stop on a two-year campus tour, which could have meant that he phoned in his performance. However, it was clear he meant every word and his answers to questions were generous and sincere, even though he had no doubt heard them hundreds of times before.  At dinner, he answered questions from faculty with the same authenticity and engaged in conversations about the differences between literary fiction (creates new structures) and genre fiction (performs the genre as well as possible).  It was clear to me that this dude found his dharma.  His study of 19^th century fiction in particular (he has a thing for Poe) and deep knowledge of contemporary authors meant that he didn’t have much time for much else in his life beyond his family and his work.  And that’s just fine for him, as it was for Gandhi, Tubman, Frost, etc., whom Stephen Cope writes about.

So I wonder about the rest of us. For the folks listed above, finding her/his dharma meant a combination of tenacity, creativity, and perhaps luck, being born at the right place, at the right time, with the right skills.  When I asked Johnson about the ratio of creativity versus stamina in his writing process (I was really asking whether it was more about talent or hard work), he said it was more about obsessiveness.  When he’s working on a particular project, which can be for months at a time, that’s all he thinks about.  This matches what Cope says about his case studies.  Each one of them had a singularity of purpose that translated into copious hours of work.

I have come to the conclusion that I am too lazy to reach my dharma, if that’s what it takes. I lack singularity of purpose.  I like to do a lot of different things, some of which are contradictory:  Write.  Run.  Yoga.  Teach. Create new ways to work within and against systems. Collaborate. Work by myself.  Read books, sometimes magazines. Take naps.  Drink coffee.  Drink beer.  Watch narrative television.  Study educational research. Meditate. Make popcorn on the stove.  Eat dark chocolate.  Daydream.

Obviously, I don’t have the time or inclination to achieve my dharma, whatever it might be. Luckily, according to the yogis, I have a few other lifetimes to figure it out. 

      

Racing to the Red Light

 Two fifty worth of gas on pump number five

A lottery ticket and a Colt 45

Scratch it right off, cash it back in

Just give me five more somebody gotta win

Somebody gotta win, it happens all the time

Ending up spending your every last dime

Racing to the red light

                        James McMurtry, “Racing to the Red Light”

Normally, riding my bike on the East Bay Bike Path on a weekday morning is relaxing and refreshing.  The Sheriff (see http://laughteranddoubt.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-east-bay-bike-path-sheriff.html) in me isn’t on high alert because there are fewer people out, and those who are know the courtesies of sharing that ten foot wide ribbon of pavement.  And last Wednesday didn’t start out any different.  It was cool, crisp, sunny, with little wind. 

Part of what makes riding a bike better than running is that sense of rhythm with a minimum of effort, especially since the EBBP is flat and fairly straight.  You can see far ahead, all the while enjoying the scenery on the left and right.  But that, of course, was before fall began. 

I didn’t used to have anything against nuts.  I happen to like peanuts, walnuts, almonds, cashews, pine nuts, and even those weird ones in the mixed batches.  The problem is that squirrels like nuts as much as I do, and they appear to be anticipating an apocalyptic winter as free of nuts as an elementary school classroom.  “Gather ye nuts while ye may!” must have been the Squirrel Laureate’s battle cry.  As a result, whenever I started sailing  along in 21^st gear, wind-created tears dripping down my face, I would have to brake for a little brown furry body, jaw bulging, frantically trying to decide whether to cross the path or not.  Unlike rabbits, who break for cover when disturbed, squirrels can’t seem to make up their minds.  My momentum was lost, and so was my good mood.

Momentum is an unsustainable energy because it relies on the force of the movement itself.  When I depend on momentum, I’m not really in control of my body.  In the case of running or biking, I gain momentum by going down a hill, but especially in biking, I may not be able to stop when I need to.  When we were skiing in Colorado, the instructors cautioned us always to be in control of the skis.  Nels marveled that I could go faster than him down the mountain, but it was mostly because I was barely one tick ahead on the right side of the control dial. 

For a long time, I violated my yoga teachers’ instructions by swinging my legs up into Shoulderstand (head and shoulders are on the floor, legs pointed up toward the ceiling), putting undue pressure on my neck. It took a long time to strengthen my core just bring my legs up.  I still haven’t learned how not to rely on momentum in Headstand, though, which means I have to be next to a wall so I don’t flip over.  I used to think that staying up in Headstand was the hard part, but it’s not.  Getting there is.

Momentum, ironically, makes us lazy.  When we rely on the force of movement, then we are not using, and therefore not strengthening, physical muscle. 

Momentum has non-physical dangers as well.  In my work life, it can be addictive, as if I can get a million things done fueled by excitement and/or caffeine.   However, like the Dexatrim of my youth, the letdown is powerful.  There will never be enough time to do all that I want to do, or feel that I must do.  There will always be people and tasks that call to my ego: “Come, do this!  You will be good at it/It will be fun/People will like you/If you don’t, your next job will be wearing the Lady Liberty costume waving to cars next tax season.”  If I rely on excitement or adrenalin to carry me through my day, then I am not using my other, deeper, muscles of the heart and mind.   

Living by momentum is nothing new.  Back in the 1840’s, Thoreau wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”  And as James McMurtry put it, we are all racing to the red light:  the inevitable stop of death.  It makes me wonder why I’m in such a hurry, and what I lose when I don’t move, work, eat, and live mindfully and deliberately.  It’s a lesson I need to learn over and over again.  Thankfully, the squirrels are there to teach me.