Tuesday, April 15, 2008, 01:32 PM
(Dedicated to all the suffering people, on each side in the Tibet and China conflict who are feeling the pain of confusion, desperation, hurt, shame and anger).
About six weeks ago, I had the extraordinary privilege of attending a series of talks given by the Dalai Lama in his adopted home of Dharamsala, India. How odd it was observing this man walking a few yards away, after so many years of seeing pictures and videos. Now, His Holiness was so close I could almost touch him. What an exemplary example for all of us of dedication to one’s path and one’s highest values amidst extraordinarily hard conditions over the past 60 years.
A particularly powerful talk was about a central teaching called Bodhichitta. Bodhi is translated as “awakened”, “awakening” or “enlightenment”; chitta as “heart/mind” (the usual translation of chitta as “mind” is often interpreted in the west too cerebrally as related only to thinking; rather mind includes feeling, thinking, perceiving, in fact all the ways that we ‘know’ things hence “heart/mind” conveys a more complete sense).
One could say that the whole path of Buddha’s teaching is toward this awakened and awakening heart/mind. It includes the vow to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings called the “Bodhisattva vow”. In taking up this vow, our intention is to approach life with an attitude of generosity, less focused on one’s self. Liberation from our ‘self-contraction’ i.e., our habitual self-obsession with “my” thoughts, “my” feelings, “my” life, “my” family, “my” country, “my” religion seems essential for both a happy life and perhaps even for our survival on this planet. With our current capacity for mass destruction, imagine what we might do to each other if our circle of caring is not widened to include all of life? From another point of view, attending to all the needs of the situation we are in as best we can, rather than just our own needs, is the arising of love within the human heart.
Does “self-obsession” seem too strong? Observe your thoughts for a few minutes and notice how much concern for the “I” and the “mine” appears. How embarrassing it can be to see who is the ‘star’ of our inner dramas. Said another way, as every kindergarten teacher will tell you, our problems arise from selfishness.
Importantly, there are two aspects to Bodhichitta- one is the awakened heart/mind and the second is the commitment to the path of the awakening heart/mind. We can say that our awakening is expressed through our caring actions in life. In other words, Bodhichitta is both the end point of the path- the awakened heart/mind- and the commitment to the path itself. In Zen, this is called “the Way-Seeking Mind”. As one great Zen master often said: “practice and realization are one”. To truly be on the path is simultaneously the fruition of the path.
How different this view is from our ordinary thinking in which the practices are seen as preparation for the realization that happens sometime in the future. Of course, this is the main point: there is no time in the future and we are never separate from our True Self. There is nothing more important than our commitment to this living moment, to show up for and to take care of the moment to the best of our ability. This “to the best of our ability” is very important because it means that we don’t need to be a different, more ideal self for this embracing of “what is”. In fact this embracing allows a real and profound unfolding to occur naturally.
Why is this so important? I used to think that after I became ‘awakened’ -envisioned as a static state of blissful clarity- then I could really contribute to the world. From this view, all my confusions, mistakes and foibles were the obstacles and my job was to become perfect. Naturally, this is a great set up for destructive self-judgment and shame. This expectation of perfection also becomes the basis for judgments of others. As soon as one sees that “our enlightenment requires our delusion”, that awakening is a flowering that arises from the darkness of our confusion, then EVERYTHING that comes to us in a given moment becomes the path. This is called being one with life. Note it is not a static state of bliss; sometimes it is very, very difficult, painful and impossible (in Zen we say “because it is impossible we do it”). This is where “vow” becomes so important. When lost in our personal ‘nigglies’, this vow can help to right the listing ship.
The Dalai Lama proceeded to offer us an initiation into Bodhichitta. What great good-fortune for all in attendance; this ceremony is still resonating in my heart. Describing it is difficult. Through chanting, repetitious tones and evocative words, something special was transmitted: mind to mind, heart to heart, body to body, spirit to spirit. I don’t understand it at all. Prior to this event I felt fully committed to the path of awakening. Yet, on this cold day in a temple in Dharamsala, surrounded by both western friends and maroon-robed Tibetan monks, I could feel a surprising, non-verbal deepening of my vow.
What is this vow? It is an intention toward welcoming all the beings, thoughts, sensations, feelings- the inner and outer circumstances that arise in any moment of experiencing. It is a willingness to work with these circumstances for the benefit of all life not just what “I” want (though that is not ignored either). This is the impossible path to which we dedicate ourselves “to the best of our ability”. And, surprisingly, this is how love manifests in our world. Ordinary Beings like you and me dedicating ourselves in imperfect ways to taking care of each other, the environment, “life” in its various forms. We can say that each moment itself is a living Being that is here for our care. Words like “benefiting all of life” seem daunting and rather far away. Let’s remember that it is in our little, everyday actions-allowing a pressured stranger to have our place in line, to pick up some misplaced litter- that we manifest this intention.
I am reminded of my wedding ceremony 24 years ago. My wife and I had been living together in a loving committed “marriage” for ten years when we had an official ceremony in which we formally exchanged vows. By all conventional standards- sexual monogamy, united finances, decisions made with mutual consultation- we were married. Yet, after we exchanged vows, how shocking it was to discover that there was another level of commitment deeper than my already “fully committed” stance. In consciously making this vow, surrounded by a loving community, something deeply resonated and I could say I was now more wholeheartedly committed. Something similar happened for me in Dharamsala, when the Dalai Lama offered us this Bodhichitta initiation. For this I am very grateful.
What does it mean to say we are committed to our path? When you and I, just regular people living our lives as well as we can, with all our confusions, hopes, hurts and mistakes make a vow to “Life”, “Love”, “God”, “Self-realization” etc., what is this? Where does this dedication come from? How do we keep returning to the path in times of sometimes desperate struggle, within ourselves, with other people and in a tumultuous world?
Suzuki Roshi said: “the most important thing is to find the most important thing”. In this very short life, full of difficulty, pain, disappointment, wonder, beauty, truth and love, is there anything more important than finding your direction, your calling, your path, your way of taking care of life and then with both integrity and humility simply doing your best?
Monday, February 11, 2008, 01:22 PM
Train-riding Vienna-Munich
Window gazing, inner sensing
Each moment new arising
White mountains, gray clouds, blue sky
Heart beating, weight shifting
Next moment completely free
Yet, constrained by the track
Completely free and constrained
Our unfolding life……………..
She was about 45 years old and claimed that she could not meditate. She had tried a few times in the past but meditation was impossible for her because her mind was just too busy. I asked her if she thought meditation was a form of mind control. She said “of course”….….
Many forms of meditation emphasize an attitude of controlling the mind and attempting to fixate attention. These concentration practices can be helpful and often lead to extremely pleasant inner experiences. For true freedom in our everyday life, however, I suggest that a wholly different inner atmosphere is more helpful. I call this practice “Open Moment Meditation”.
Most people, most of the time are identified with the stories arising in their minds. Often a sad memory, an anxious feeling or an ache in the back can seem overwhelming. How life changing it is when we learn “the backward step” of observing the arising phenomena. This observing is not a severing from life, it includes, when possible, a “taking care of the moment” with a non-judgmental, curious and warm attitude. What a key ‘move’ this non-identification coupled with deep acceptance is! Without such a shift of viewpoint we are bound to repeat the thought patterns and self-identifications of the past.
“Nasrudin was sitting eating one hot chili after another with tears dripping from his eyes. A good friend asked “Nasrudin, why to you keep eating those hot peppers? He replied, ‘I am waiting for a sweet one’ ”.
The good news, THE REALLY GOOD NEWS is that we have the capacity to shift the habits of thought and feeling that are at odds with our true sense of Self. We can even be grateful, perhaps begrudgingly, for the queasy stomach or pressured chest because these are signs from our inner life that something is askew. How good it is that we don’t feel at peace with our own falseness and inner contradictions. What important motivation this is for returning to the wholeness and authenticity which is our birthright (after all for much of our childhoods we did feel whole and often without artifice).
……..she continued, “if you can’t stop the thoughts you can’t meditate”. I suggested an experiment, “imagine that you are interested in the various appearances that life can take in a given moment. Kind of like watching a movie, imagine that the various sensations, thoughts and feelings are not so personal, not expressions of ‘you’, rather they are expressions of life. You are an anthropologist or biologist (I knew she was a professor of science) studying the appearances of life”. With a skeptical look and bemused smile, she agreed to try…………
So what is this “Open Moment Meditation”? Let’s start with an image. You are sitting on a train, gazing out into the sky. Sometimes clouds are moving through the open space followed by a large patch of blue, and then you are looking through the branches of trees that are close to the tracks. Each moment there is a change. Once a moment has arisen it is the only possible moment which could have arisen- it is absolutely ‘what is’. In the instant prior to the arising of a moment, that soon to be moment lives in a field of infinite possibility. We literally do not know what is coming. How pregnant with possibility our life is!
……”Well, I must say that is more interesting but still I find myself lost in thought a lot of the time”. “Now”, I suggested, “have a soft intention to guide yourself back to the present moment. You can, for brief periods, choose to follow five breaths from beginning to end or intentionally scan through your bodily sensations, this will give you some sense of groundedness. After 30 seconds or a minute, let go of that focus and sense what is alive in your experience. After some time, your mind might again seem quite busy or dreamy, no problem. Your gentle intention is to return to presence by first noticing where you are in the moment of waking up, sensing yourself and then letting go into the next breath. Do your best to be free from judging yet also sense and welcome the judgments if that is what appears”. “Okay”, she replied, actually appearing intrigued…………..
When we combine the vast blue sky- the spaciousness of our nature- with the bright, warm sun of complete acceptance we are practicing “open moment meditation”. Now it is very, very important that we drop any kind of idealization or perfectionism. Picture this: you are sitting with the intention to be awake to the moment. After some time you awaken to the fact that for the previous minute (5 minutes, 10 minutes?) you have been lost in an inner story or conversation. For many of us, faster than the speed of light, a self-judgment arises. This moment is often followed, just as fast, by a judgment of the judgment. How amazing! Just at the moment of awakening, at the time when we are actually realizing our intention to be awake here and now, rather than celebrating, we fall into our habits of judgment. Well, perfectionism is often the curse of the disconnected and needs to be abandoned by all who want to be intimate with life. Simply dropping the story of how we “should” be meditating and welcoming the arising phenomena is easily half the journey.
…….. “This is actually fascinating” was her first comment after our final experiment. “When I don’t fight the body sensations or thoughts yet also don’t just let my mind run me around there is a real settling down inside. There are still a lot of thoughts but more quiet moments also. When you said that I am not responsible for the random, weird, sometimes entertaining things that appear in my mind and that my job is just to return gently to the present moment, I did not actually believe you. After trying it, something really nice happened”.
What if you sit in this moment with nothing more than an inner sense of curiosity about the unfolding of life? You are sitting on the brink of the infinite potential of the next moment. Maybe Life, your life, does not need you to predict it, control it, improve it or change it, maybe just maybe, we can satisfy our relationship with life by being an open field in which the sun warmly shines.
Thursday, November 1, 2007, 02:38 PM
Lying on the floor in 1975, following Moshe’s directions, something indescribable began to unfold. It was a product of the movements and the way of attending to these movements yet it was infinitely more than that. What was happening? What was this openness, this presence, this effortless sense of knowing and being?
What is awareness?
How does one know it?
What does it feel like?
How do you know life right now? This is not meant as a theoretical question but one that is vividly alive in this particular moment distinct from any other moment. One could ask: “how does life know itself through your conscious experience right now”? This “right now” is very important because the living experience always occurs in the timeless nether world called “now” or “present moment”. How do we know this? Any moment that you are consciously alive simply ask yourself “what time is it”- the answer will always be “NOW”. Even this “now” is elusive: as a concept it seems like a point between past and future, as a living experience it leaves the realm of ordinary time altogether and enters into the eternal present. The living experience never occurs in these mental constructs called past and future or even the present (though that is the closest that thought and language can get to it). The first distinction we can make in investigating this quality of consciousness called awareness is that it exists outside of conventional ‘time’.
So again please take up the living question: “how do you know life right now?” Is it possible to ask this question with true innocence, not in thought exclusively but as a whole Being, a complete organism? As Moshe pointed out, each experience is an integration of various levels of phenomena: sensation, movement, feelings and thought or using more inner oriented, process language: sensing, moving, feeling and thinking. As nouns these exist as things- disconnected from living experience; as verbs these words point directly toward our living experience. Although every moment is unique, the elements that comprise each moment are quite few, just as a composer has a finite number of notes with which to create infinite song.
AWARENESS IS NOT ATTENTION
In my view, awareness, like love, is a spontaneous, effortless arising that can be encouraged but not created. This is the important distinction between awareness and attention: the former is spontaneous, effortless and free, the latter requires effort and habit. Of course we can make a distinction between the conscious intention to ‘pay attention’ and attention drawn by the world, say in the form of a loud noise. The former is connected to conditioned habits and the latter a reflexive reaction to stimulation. Neither is synonymous with awareness. Although the intentional movement of attention can be an important ground from which awareness blooms, awareness itself requires no directing and essentially can be invited but not controlled. Think of a flower growing. We can tend the soil, water it, protect it from predators, (these are acts of attention) yet the blossoming itself is beyond our control. Actively directed attention is the main modus operandi of “Awareness Through Movement”. More than any other movement, perhaps the dominant study in our work is this- the movement of attention,
Said another way, the subtext of every ATM lesson is the conscious movement of attention. Beyond the learning that occurs within any particular lesson we are guiding people toward greater mastery of their attention. Think of a scan or even better, scan yourself right now. Can you read, processing the words as you simultaneously notice your right foot in the background? What a sophisticated use of attention! In ATM’s, we are constantly taking verbally encoded messages and translating them into both movements of attention and, often, physical action. In the scans, we might be asked to linger on the contact of the right foot or heel with the ground. We then move into the sensations of the lower leg and thigh (practice expanding your attention to include these physical phenomena as you read and process the words right now). After sensing these distinct parts, we might be asked: how do you sense your whole right leg now? Note how different this question is: moving from a rather defined place like the foot or heel to the whole leg. Some of us are more adept at taking in ‘wholes’, some are more familiar with noticing ‘parts’-both are essential in the development of our capacity for attention. Mastery in the domain of attention includes the capacity to go from wholes to parts and parts to wholes with ease. Awareness, also called ‘the light of knowing’, often arises as a result of diversifying our ways of attending to a moment.
Now, sense the surface that supports you. If sitting, notice the density and texture of the chair, ground or sofa. How does the surface yield to your weight? How hard is it? Here, again, we are making a very sophisticated movement from focusing on the body to shifting attention into the external world. This movement of attention from “inner” (inside the bodily envelope) to the “outer” world is one of the most important capacities for conscious humans. The inability to create clear distinctions between inner and outer worlds is usually indicative of a severely dysfunctional condition in adults. While some of us are strongly biased toward either the external or internal world, it is the comfortable movement between these that is fundamental to maturation. We all know people who seem perpetually out of themselves and others who seem lost inside. How valuable it is to have specific means for expanding one’s repertoire in these domains to engender greater balance in our perceptual orientation and encourage awareness to blossom.
When Feldenkrais teachers assume the perspective that the movement of attention itself is the most basic movement that we are exploring then we will include more non-kinesthetic phenomena as part of our investigations. Connecting to the spatial, visual and auditory world and cultivating the capacity to move gracefully between the kinesthetic and these other domains of experience helps us to deepen in our awareness. To include one’s sense of position within a room, distance from the door, height of the ceiling, etc. helps us to form a more complete self-image. After years of focusing almost exclusively on kinesthetic questions with my students, I began to notice that I was teaching internally oriented people to move even more into their interiors when becoming more sensitively attuned to the external space might have been more helpful. How fundamental it is in developing awareness that this movement of attention between the inner and outer worlds be free and spontaneous.
Further, as awareness deepens this distinction between inner and outer eventually breaks down completely and one experiences that quality called ‘oneness’ (note that moving beyond inner/outer duality is not the same as never forming this distinction). Said another way, once our essential ego capacity to distinguish inner and outer world is fluidly developed, we can enter the consciousness where all experience can be viewed as either inner (where we recognize that the ‘outer’ world is always experienced within the closed system of our brain) and/or outer (where subject/object breaks down and the perceiver vanishes leaving only perception). These transcendent experiences can be encouraged and facilitated through our work when we are conscious of these distinctions. My friend Dennis Leri reminded me that Moshe comments during the Pelvic Clock lesson in “Awareness Through Movement” that synchronizing the clock on the pelvis and the clock on the floor let’s one join the awareness of inner and outer into “one essential movement”.’ It is this joining that I am pointing toward. It is part of the inherent ‘spiritual’ or transcendent aspect of our work.
One more example: focus your attention on an object in your visual field
- Take in the object in a way that is sharp, clear and distinct. Include the color, shape, boundary, as many details as you can so that you can reproduce it in memory. Also, notice how the rest of your body feels, the quality of tone, the breathing, etc.
- Close your eyes and imagine the object for 10 seconds.
- Now put your palms over your gently closed eyes and let them rest by gazing into the blackness for a few moments.
- This time gaze softly at the object attending as much to the background, the setting within which it is placed as you are to the foreground. Let your eyes assume a soft, diffuse focus rather than creating a sharp image. This might feel more or less familiar that the former practice. Again, include the sense of your whole body.
- Finally, close your eyes and recreate your image of the entire picture you have been perceiving,
- How do these ways of organizing your attention offer a different experience of both the world and yourself?
Some of us are more focused, precision types and some of us tend to be more diffuse in our perception. This is different from the former distinction about big picture/ detail orientations. Also, notice how the attention to the visual world influences kinesthetic experience. Often, people who are habitually visually focused have significant parasitic contractions in their back extensors and jaws. By attending to the process of seeing and working with the “grasping” of the visual world, we can often directly influence the entire organization of the person. Intentionally changing what the Gestalt perceptual psychologists identified as the “figure and ground” (foreground and setting) radically alters the experience of the perceiver. These are very significant distinctions for Feldenkrais teachers.
In ATM we are constantly asking people to make distinctions like these, usually in the kinesthetic domain. We intentionally cultivate our mastery of attention to create conditions for the spontaneous dawning of this quality of consciousness called awareness. Think of the emergence of excellence in other activities. Musicians and athletes repeatedly practice certain movements so that, when the capacity is truly ripe, it can emerge spontaneously and even effortlessly. This is mastery- Yehudi Menuhin when in his flow, Michael Jordan in the zone. People in this state often describe a sense of oneness, where the inner and outer world merge and effortless functioning unfolds. Even in ordinary activity, we experience this state when all the levels of the human being are functioning in harmony. This dawning of awareness is the result of deliberate, intentional work with our attention
“In those moments when awareness succeeds in being at one with feeling, senses, movement, and thought, the carriage will speed along on the right road. Then man can make discoveries, invent, create, innovate, and “know”. He grasps that his small world and the great world around are but one and in this unity he is no longer alone.” Moshe Feldenkrais, “Awareness Through Movement”, p.54.
THE FEELING OF THE LIVING MOMENT
We now can appreciate the colors comprising the palette of human experience. Each moment- in Moshe’s language each action- is a collage of sensing, thinking, feeling and moving. What is most important is the fact that we know ourselves through the enactment of certain actions which include these various elements. The combinations of these basic elements are infinite. When looked at with even more precision, we will see that what we call ‘feelings’, in the sense of the ‘felt sense’ of an emotion is actually a combination of bodily phenomena (the broad sense of kinesthetic including pulses, tingles, temperature, tightness, lightness, etc.) and thinking. We can also recognize that all movement is known through sensation. Is it possible then that each unique moment is a weaving of these two elements: sensing and thinking (including intentionality and imagery), everything else being derivative from these? Is the feeling of being alive an infinite combination of bodily sense and thought (in its largest sense)?
It is important to appreciate how feelings arise as a combination of emotion and thought. In this context, I am using Damasio’s distinction of basic emotions being biologically based responses designed to help the organism survive. In all animals with limbic systems one can see the rudiments for human emotional life. Basic fear patterns including Moshe’s “Body Pattern of Anxiety”, dominance behavior, withdrawal responses, attractions to others, humiliation, anger etc. all developed as organizers of behavior in the physical and social world. Just as reflexes organize a more basic level of behavior, our emotions are bodily responses to environmental situations and when functioning well, enhance survival of individuals and groups. Later we will see how this can go amiss. Damasio distinguishes feelings as the living experience of these emotions, how they ‘feel’ to the perceiver. In other words, a tight feeling in the belly, constriction in the throat, erratic breathing pattern, cool sensations in the fingers, sense of dis-ease and hyper alertness might be connected to the emotion called fear. Of course, along with these sensations, we have thoughts and images based on memory that generate the whole feeling of the situation.
So we see that for human beings, these biological responses usually become connected with mental stories, thoughts, images, anticipations, which together comprise what we can call having a feeling. Ask yourself right now, “What am I feeling”. Take a moment to sense your feeling life. It is possible that more than one feeling is alive in the moment but it is not possible that you are feeling ‘nothing’, though it is possible that the feelings are vague and/or difficult to sense with any clarity). For example, are you interested, bored, curious, upset, energetic, sad, or…..? Now ask yourself, how do I experience this feeling in my body, how is this feeling alive as embodied phenomena? At this moment, as I sort for words to express my ideas I feel excitement (increase in vitality, hands move faster, clearer vision, overall positive sense) along with interest (tingles in my forehead) and also frustrated (tightness in my mouth, subtle contractions in my gut, an undesirable sense of threat) as the words become elusive. Although there is a definite ‘overall’ feeling it is difficult to summarize this ‘felt-sense’ in a word right now. The feeling state is an appraisal of the desirability of the moment (positive, negative, neutral), though it is infinitely more than this. While its true basis is somatic, there is usually a detectable storyline or series of stories that relate to those sensations, e.g. “I want this article to be of interest”, “maybe these thoughts are too esoteric”. I suggest that Feldenkrais teachers have much to offer the world in relation to the feeling life of people. By helping people connect more deeply to the kinesthetic roots of their experience the possibility arises to enter the direct bodily experience rather than focusing on the story. In my experience, this allows the troubling emotions to serve their function and move quickly through the organism as they do in infants, rather than being reinforced through unconscious internal dialogue colloquially called ‘thinking’. This is where the awakening of awareness is essential for freeing ourselves from the behavioral and thought patterns that sustain habitual, unfulfilling feeling states.
Often people who find their emotions overwhelming- who feel like they are always going from one emotion to another- find great solace in learning to ‘ground’ themselves in more neutral kinesthetic phenomena. Just feeling their feet on the floor, the weight in their bottom when sitting, seems to allow the emotion to pass through the body rather than take up residence. Attending to the breathing and the parasitic contractions can also help this kind of balancing.
There is another way in which kinesthetic awareness can serve as a ‘missing link’ in helping our students (and ourselves) uncover greater balance and wholeness in the experience of life. Many people report being disconnected from their feelings or, as likely, their loved one’s report this gap. Often those who live lives where feeling states predominate have intimate partners who are ‘heady’ and seem to be out of touch with their feelings. I have noticed that waking up to kinesthetic phenomena is often a doorway into the feeling life. These people are often disconnected from the somatic base of feelings and the constant intellectualization doesn’t help them to feel what is going on at a deeper level (deeper refers to depth in the brain where thinking is higher and emotion deeper). Learning to pay attention to these sensations, usually with guidance, can help the dawning of awareness of this other level of experience. People often feel more whole when both the thinking and feeling life are more easily accessible. As Feldenkrais teachers we can function as guides for this awakening, including, though not focusing on, the emotional aspect. In addition to our usual questions (weight, breath, which leg is longer etc.), it is helpful if we include other distinctions like: pulses, tingles, temperature, sense of emptiness or fullness, constriction in throat, tightness in the belly, empty feeling in the chest, etc. To use of language and imagery that connects the kinesthetic sensations to feelings can be very helpful for some of our students.
This integration of feeling, thought, intention and action is the hallmark of aware functioning. As Moshe points out, “ Without awakened awareness we perform what the older brain systems do in there own way, even though the intention to act came from the higher third system (i.e. cortical). Moreover, the action often enough proves to be the exact opposite of the original intention”. (ATM, p.46-47). Said another way, older, emotionally based habits that developed while we were in a period of absolute dependence will dominate our behavior unless we develop the requisite awareness to cultivate alternative possibilities.
One of the key and essential distinctions between our work and that of many other awareness based approaches is that we include a functional exploration of action, not simply learning to sense, feel or think differently. This functional aspect seems to influence the capacity of human beings to integrate the learning at a deeper level. I suspect that “just” sensing, “just” feeling, or “just thinking”, while helpful, usually fall short in creating lasting transformation.
AWARENESS AND THE MOVEMENT FROM FEAR TO LOVE
Moshe saw the dawning of awareness as a new stage in the development of consciousness on this planet. It does not mean that awareness did not exist in earlier times, it means that for the first time humanity has the capacity to generalize this capacity, radically changing how we live. Although we don’t use the word love so often in our method, I call this change: the movement from fear to love as the basic operating principle of humanity.
As we said before, fear arises in evolutionary history with the development of limbic (mid-brain) animals (reptiles have protective, mating, fight/flight behaviors but no evidence of emotional life). The capacity for fear is essential for survival as are the basic ‘flight or flight’ responses. Many of our movements toward and away from things/beings in our environment are linked to basic fear responses initiated by the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. This system, which developed in a radically different environment than we live in today, often responds in ways that are ill suited to the current world. Alarm responses to loud noises are effective in the jungle and often, though not always, unhelpful in New York City.
A hyper-vigilance of an overactive sympathetic nervous system with the corresponding profusion of adrenaline, though helpful when dealing with reality based dangers, is often counterproductive for modern humans. To walk around with a more or less chronic startle reflex, complete with contracted flexors, tight sphincters, raised shoulders, contracted neck, inhibited breathing, fixated or darting eyes is not conducive to effective survival responses in the world. As one learns to gain confidence in both their equilibrium and capacity to recover gracefully when knocked down, the ‘set point’ of the autonomic nervous system can change. Fullness in the lower abdomen, vitality without tension in the pelvic floor, freedom of the diaphragm, smooth movement of the head and eyes are all reflections of this change. With neutrality defined both in terms of Moshe’s “acture” (the ability to move in any direction without a prior reorganization) and autonomic balance, we can get a picture of a functional, responsive, capable human being.
Additionally, there is already a biological model for more parasympathetic, cooperative responses to difficulties. Recent brain research has been placing more emphasis on the positive emotional circuitry in our brains. For years the emphasis has been on fear and pain with little interest in the neurology of love, peace and happiness. Also, after a history of extreme imbalance, recent neurological research is including more women in many experiments and making some surprising discoveries. When combined with data accumulating on long-term meditators, new models are developing for the neurology of caring, positive emotion and various states of consciousness. For example, there is a molecule called oxytocin, which seems to facilitate caring behaviors and attachments between people (let alone penguins!). It is very prevalent in lactating mothers (all species with oxytocin show care for offspring and usually life-long monogamy) as well as in men and women during orgasm and deep bonding experiences. While more powerful in females because it is facilitated by estrogen, it is also has an influence on male behavior. The theory of a “tending instinct” to go along with the “fight or flight” model grew from this research. Nurturing each other is also a significant part of our survival strategies and history. In fact, for numerous sociological, economic, and gender based reasons the “struggle for survival” is the dominant story we hear about in popular descriptions of evolution. Newer models now include “the cooperation for survival” as at least as strong an influence on the unfolding of life. Imagine the cultural paradigm shift if this attitude acquires the same traction as the competitive side!
Of course the sympathetic nervous system is essential for survival and I am not suggesting that its protective, defensive and aggressive responses should be eliminated. The issue is one of balance. Many people in the modern world feel overwhelmed by constant, high level sensory inputs, As we get addicted to louder, brighter, faster stimulation, our threshold increases requiring even stronger exciters to make an impression. I wonder if we are conditioning ADD in our children with the drive toward bigger, faster and louder sensations. Even in the last twenty years, I have noticed a huge increase in the number of children who complain of boredom when electronic stimulation is absent. Further, the mass media, knowing that the brain is wired to pay attention to danger, uses fear induction techniques to call our attention. When added to the fact that we are wired to orient toward the ‘new’ (in evolutionary history ‘new’ meant important and potentially life threatening) our obsession with ‘news’ becomes understandable. Combined with large doses of caffeine and sugar, we glimpse a culture that is hooked on adrenaline and sympathetic autonomic stimulation. Many dysfunctional and most disease states are caused, reinforced or exacerbated by this imbalance.
As Feldenkrais teachers one of the main influences we can have on the culture is through our effective means for helping to balance these autonomic responses. Ultimately, this might be our greatest potential contribution to the world today. Now, it is not easy to move from fear to love (think of love as a condition of openness to life, an attitude of nurturance) as the dominant way of meeting life. Why is it so hard for people to change? Why is awareness such a key component in such behavioral change? With any change of behavior two very strong biological forces encounter each other: the conservative impulse to keep things as they are and the impulse toward growth.
As soon as water is poured down a slope the tendency for future water to follow the same path is already embedded into the hillside. Something similar happens in the brain and in behavior. Any action that has not resulted in great threat or pain has a greater chance of being enacted then a behavior that has never occurred. There is already a series of neural nets that embody that behavior. Organisms are conservative in the sense that they repeat behaviors that have not compromised survival and/or has had any life giving benefit, no matter how situation specific and, perhaps, ultimately compromising for one’s health and happiness. This is why habits can be so hard to change. Secondly, there is a natural selectivity for cautious, but not too cautious behavior. Most of our ancestors who were immune to fear did not survive.
On the other hand, healthy life seeks to grow (think of a dandelion growing out of a sidewalk in a polluted city) and healthy human life seeks, new experiences, new learning, and new possibilities. Most infants enjoy exploring their world and most healthy adults keep exploring life in one form or another. Even in minor ways, people want to know what is new, what is changing, what is different. This is curiosity in action. Those of our ancestors, who were unwilling to change and, for example, move to places with more abundant food sources and protection, also did not survive.
These two forces: the conservative- i.e. life’s tendency to repeat itself and the growth oriented, i.e. the urge for change are in a dynamic struggle much of the time- the classic immovable object (conservation) meeting the unstoppable force (growth). This dynamic tension arises in healthy systems. Historically, the tendency toward the conservative has dominated, with change arising only under great pressure. Most evolutionary development arose out of environmental pressures. Can we continue to depend on catastrophe to create change? Can we survive this proclivity given our current technological capacity? Protection patterns and the tribal consciousness that historically resulted in only local destruction can now destroy the whole world.
Awareness is the capacity that can help the human being uncover new behaviors without the threat of imminent danger. It can help us overcome the fear-based orientation of our lower brain when such fear is not congruent with reality. Through this ‘waking up’ which literally means sensing the fear based patterns in our bodies, noticing the stories that arise in our thinking, developing the capacity to remain conscious prior to mobilizing action, as well as learning alternative organizations, we can encourage our impulse to sustain and nurture life to become dominant. As Moshe revealed so clearly, when we have the capacity to stand on our own feet, to move comfortably and powerfully from center and to breathe freely, we can have the confidence to approach life with curiosity, openness and love. Awareness is the inner condition that allows this movement from fear to love.
What does awareness feel like? When sitting on a cushion practicing Zen meditation, one begins noticing thoughts and sensations coming and going. At first the meditator feels like the ‘subject’ perceiving these ‘objects’. The sense of observing from within oneself, (often from within one’s head) dominates. Sometimes, this sense of perceiving from a particular location gives way to the deep sense that the experience and the experiencer melt into each other. This is not a thought, it is the perceived reality. There is an indescribable sense of wholeness, of knowing and knowing that one know. I think something similar can happen in ATM.
I often ask my students and myself, “What are the signs of life you notice right now”? What are your most basic sensations, as much as possible, free from acculturated story, evaluation and judgment? This question is always fresh, new and innocent. Think of a preverbal infant sensing the coolness of the sheets underneath, the tingling skin, moving gasses, blinking eyes, shining colors, vibrating sounds to appreciate this freshness. Yet does the infant really ‘know’ in the way that adult consciousness can ‘know’? As one drops deeper into these living experiences as an adult, the capacity to simultaneously experience and know that one is experiencing emerges. The knower, the known and the capacity for knowing all arise together. In this moment one can say awareness has dawned. The light is on. One knows that one knows without thinking. Afterwards, one can use thought and memory to report on the experience (though experience might be the wrong word because in the actual moment of experiencing there is no experiencer just as there is no moment). Though this sounds somewhat esoteric, it really is known to all of us. The difficulty is that the report that ‘we’ make to ‘ourselves’ on the experience happens so quickly that unless we attend quite intimately we have the sense that ‘I’ am doing it.
Once again we can look to modern neurology for a model to guide us through this confusion. The concepts of brain modules (somewhat autonomous regions with specific functions) plus the fascinating, almost spiritual question of whether there is a central “I” which functions as the chief executive of these modules, are helpful. Is it possible, as many neurologists propose, that the entity that we call “I” is actually a reporter who signals, after the fact, that something has happened- that a decision has been made or behavior initiated? While we have the conscious image that the “I” which feels like ‘me’ is the chooser, the leader, the one who wills these events, might this be the ultimate self delusion? If so, then might it be more accurate to imagine the “True I” as the light, the awareness, which makes these inner workings known? The analogy of a film projector is illustrative. While watching a movie, most people identify the ‘self’ with the characters in the film and/or the storyline. Perhaps it is more accurate to think of the ‘self’ as the “light” which allows the character and the story to be known.
Really, in the living moment, awareness just dawns, it is quite impersonal until owned by a particular mind as ‘their’ experience. The deepest moments that I know in ATM have this quality. It feels like knowing without a knower and expresses an intimacy that feels very ancient yet utterly new. Although I couldn’t have described this then, this was the first deeply moving experience I had with Moshe back then in San Francisco. The lessons were not so interesting to me and I did not appreciate the subtleties until later. I do remember lying there in the third or fourth week of my first year of training in June of 1975, effortlessly inhabiting vast inner/outer space, the light on internally and the sense of returning to my true home.
Sunday, October 28, 2007, 03:53 PM
You may have heard me describe our human nature with the image of the vast blue sky and the warm sun. The vast blue sky implies a sense of open space that includes our infinite potential. The sun implies qualities of warmth, clarity and the capacity for seeing what is there. The clouds of everyday life pass in and out of existence. Imperturbable, the sky is never fundamentally affected by these temporary phenomena. Together the sky and the sun form a picture of our True Nature or True Self: warm, open and clear. Our challenge is to welcome the clouds without forgetting who we are.
By welcome I don’t mean liking the situation, ignoring our pain or denying our disappointments- I mean ‘bowing’ to the reality of the moment ‘as-it-is’. Let’s say you have a headache or heartache. Skillfully opening to the reality of the moment includes not liking it, perhaps wishing life were different AND, in the end, placing greater weight on the reality than on your preference. This is the fundamental skill to living an awakening life.
Recently, I had two students come to me with radically different approaches to their life situation. Maria (names are changed) was experiencing severe pain in her back that was preventing her from doing most of the activities that she really enjoyed. In addition to stopping her beloved running/ biking program most disturbing was the fact that she could not pick up her child. Perhaps more painful than her back were the incessant thoughts like: “how long would it last?”, “what if this never changed?”, “what if I get fat?”, “this is not fair, “I hate this”. I suggested to Maria that she pause for a moment, turn her attention inward and feel her next breath, the sensations of support from her chair and then stand back from the pain observing the sensations from a bit of distance. She found this very relieving, as if discovering that there was more to her than just the pain. When I asked her to do the same thing with her thoughts, she found it much more challenging. Eventually, with guidance, she was able to say: “Oh, yes, there is the thought ‘what if this never changes?’ and there is my body’s reaction to that thought. This capacity to see the “clouds”, to accept them WITHOUT IDENTIFYING herself with the sensation or thought was very liberating.
While William also had debilitating back pain, his strategy for dealing with it was in many ways opposite to Maria’s. He came into my office and talked about his back as if it was an object in the world completely separate from himself. He wanted ‘it’ it to get better and for me to fix ‘it’. When I asked him to describe where he felt the pain, his response was in very general terms like someone pointing into a black hole and saying ‘in there some where’. When I asked about the quality of the sensation, he could only use words like “pain” and “bad”. As I inquired into whether the sensation was on the surface or deep, hot or cold, sharp or dull, etc., he began for the first time to turn inward toward the actual experiencing of the these sensations. Amazingly, he began to feel a sense of relief as he became intimate with the living reality rather than the general concept called ‘pain’. This capacity to sense into the reality of the moment without disassociating himself from it was very liberating.
With Maria and William we can recognize the two great tendencies of the human mind: to identify the Self with the current condition and/or to lose contact with the living reality of the moment and get lost in thought. The first strategy leaves us with the feeling of dependence upon the quality of the external situation for our happiness. We can often feel victimized by others, by life, by G-d or simply by circumstances. The second leaves us feeling removed from life, somehow unable to sense closeness and intimacy; true meaning and depth are impossible. Both of these strategies create confusion, separate us from our true nature and hence result in suffering.
Now it would be erroneous and naïve to think that returning to connection with our Self is always enjoyable. As long as we have bodies, minds and intimate relationships pain will arise at times. Our great existential power is that we are not required to have the ‘pain of pain’ which is a good definition of suffering. We really can end this war with life. The blue sky and the warm sun do not come and go, they are always here, even when the clouds of pain, disappointment, depression, etc. block our view. As soon as there is even a small gap in the clouds, the blue sky is right there! What good news this is, just as even the darkest clouds never leave a trace on the sky so too, our True Self is never hurt or damaged by our life struggles. When we can remember who we truly are AND be a good host for our current situation then we are well on the way to awakening into “The Embodied Life”.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007, 05:02 PM
One of my earliest insights in this life of awakening revolves around the fundamental importance of ‘now-ness’- the living moment- as the most basic access point to intimacy with life. Without this immediacy, our experience becomes filtered, one step removed from its inherent vibrancy. Through sitting meditation, one learns to fall back into the ‘as-it-is’ of the moment. Amidst all the thoughts, plans, regrets, hopes, disappointments and expectations that the mind is constantly producing, basic sanity requires falling back into and befriending what the Zen world likes to call ‘as-it-is’.
It is the nature of a certain aspect of mind to keep this churning going, it is not actually a problem in itself. As Uchiyama Roshi would say, “just as the stomach secretes acid, the brain secretes thoughts”. No problem. When we learn to differentiate the helpful thoughts from the irrelevant ones and we no longer take the unhelpful thoughts seriously, we are well on our way toward a harmonious relationship with mind.
One image I often use is that of ‘stepping off the train of thought’. It’s as if the constant inner dialogue has its own momentum that is carrying us through life in a kind of separated or insular way. In the practice of stepping off the train, we interrupt the flow of inner verbalization and focus directly on some aspect of the present moment. For example, we can focus on three breaths from beginning to end. I recommend that my students pause five times a day and follow three breaths without interruption (maybe try it right now). If you take up this practice, don’t be surprised if the mind rebels vigorously against this interruption. Even thirty seconds can seem like too much to the ‘executive self’- that organizing aspect of our consciousness, sometimes called the ‘planner’ or the ‘doer’. The effect of this simple practice is often startling; the quality of the entire day is influenced.
The good news is that there is always the second train, the train of Being or True Self. It does not matter how deeply immersed we are in the story line of the moment, the second train is always right there. Stepping off one train IS stepping onto the other. On this we can rely! What truly good news this is. We don’t have to be good, smart, wise, enlightened or have twenty years of meditation experience- RIGHT NOW, stepping off the train of habitual thinking, we can return to presence.
From this picture it seems as if coming into the present moment requires stepping out of time. In one sense this is absolutely true, we must step into the eternal moment. Yet, it seems to me that this understanding is incomplete and can create great confusion. It is helpful if we explore ‘the all of it’.
The ‘all of it’ is an expression I use to convey the sense that the living moment includes the past, the present and the future. In fact, it includes all thoughts, feelings, images that live in the background of one’s moment. Nothing is left out and all is welcome. There is a rich complexity surrounding even the simplest of events. For example, my present moment includes the fact that I had tea and toast twenty minutes ago and that I need to be at an appointment in about an hour. It includes the fact that my daughter is away starting college, that I am wondering how she is and that my wife is also away and there is a longing to speak with her. These past, future and background events feed into the living experience of Now. To separate this moment in time from the gestalt of ‘the all of it’ in which it is embedded distorts it and creates an inherent conflict between: 1) the aspect of mind that is constantly creating a description/plan/judgment/narrative, 2) the reality of bodily life that is always influenced by past and future and 3) Being or True Self. The ‘all of it’ literally includes all of it. So this moment includes digesting that delicious toast, sensing a mild caffeine high from the tea, feeling a pull to dress for the appointment, the tingling expectation of talking with my loved one’s and being right here with fingers typing as I seek words to convey what I mean and why I think it is important.
I used to imagine that ‘being present’ involved a certain separation from all that was not physically contactable in the moment. There is something very incomplete and unreal in this picture. Without diminishing the vital significance of ‘as-it-is’, which emphasizes dedication to the “present moment”, we want to include ‘the all of it’- this rich embracing of our ever-changing living reality.
How wonderful it is that even with our addiction to certain mental/emotional/physical patterns, right now we can open to ‘as it is’ within the ‘all of it’ and through this openness uncover true freedom, joy and peace in this very moment. So again I invite you to a living experiment- 3 breaths 5 times today.
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