Friday, February 2, 2007, 12:13 PM
Q: How can I control my thoughts? My mind seems to be always busy and when I try to meditate it doesn't get much better. How can the “Embodied Meditation” that you teach help me?
A: First, it is important to know that your experience is not unusual, as most people, upon beginning a practice of sitting meditation are surprised by the wildness of their minds. As Zen teacher Uchiyama Roshi would say,” just as your stomach secretes acid to digest food, your mind secretes thoughts. That is its function”. Our practice is not to get rid of thinking but to see “who is thinking”? and “What lies beyond thought”?
True meditation is not about 'mind control'. While there are techniques that work from this goal, in my view they are shortsighted and often destructive because they assume a divided self: a controller and the controlled. This is not a prescription for deep peace, harmony or wisdom.
Embodied Meditation is based in the Zen practice of 'just sitting' where we cultivate an atmosphere of friendliness toward all that arises. You can imagine that you are in a rowboat floating down a wide, safe river with a gentle current. You don't need to control the boat from moment to moment, you will be carried by the river itself. Your 'job' is to enjoy the scenery and occasionally to steer the boat so that you don't get too close to shore.
Your life will unfold from moment to moment without 'your' control. As soon as you assume an attitude of control there is a basic separation from the flow of your life. How sad it is for me when I see people treating their life as a dangerous enemy that must be tamed!
Q: But what of all the wild thoughts and emotions that pull me around, making me feel crazy, anxious and unhappy? Are you saying that I should just passively let them happen and that by some miracle I will find peace?
A: In “Embodied Meditation” our emphasis is to gently orient the mind toward the basic reality of the moment which is the fact that we are sitting and breathing. There are numerous, ever changing sensations that can ground us in the living truth. Without fighting the thoughts and feelings, we gently and consistently return to the most basic, fundamental reality of life: our bodily sensations.
While you are meditating (and throughout your day) you will often come awake to the fact that you are lost in thought. This 'coming awake' is the spontaneous functioning of our wisdom or “True Self- we want to encourage, welcome and invite this natural occurrence. In the moment of coming awake, you can sense the residue from the previous mind state that has hijacked you. This moment is critical. Without judgment or analysis, sense what is alive in your body as you come back home to yourself. After a moment or two, gently guide your attention back to something that is alive, the sensations of your bottom on the seat, the breathing, the sounds-something that an expression of the living moment. Don't try to hold onto the living moment just gently steer your boat in that direction and let go into the flow of the river. If, in the moment of returning to presence, a judgment immediately forms (“”why are you thinking so much”, “what's wrong with you”, “”my mind is crazy”), sense this in your body, briefly say hello to this thought even if you really dislike it and let go.
Alternatively, when your thinking is very strong, at the moment of awakening to yourself, you can intentionally sense the next three breaths from beginning to end. After focusing the attention in this way, once again let go and enjoy the scenery of your life.
Amazingly, you do not need to meditate 'well' for there to be great benefits. Simply sitting each day for at least twenty minutes with the attitude presented here will transform your life. Practice daily for 3-4 weeks and I am sure the change will be very apparent to you.
For more information check out the meditation instructions below and check out the calendar for a retreat.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007, 01:16 PM
Cynthia Allen interviewed Russell on various topics such as his background, his thoughts on higher purpose and giving back to humanity, and his thoughts on the evolution of consciousness.
Click the link below and scroll down to have a listen.
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Tuesday, December 19, 2006, 01:10 PM
The following is a dialogue between Suzuki Roshi, author of “Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind” and a student:
Student: “What is most important for Zen students?”
Suzuki Roshi: “The most important thing is to find the most important thing”.
How do we find the most important thing? For many of us the sense of 'the most important thing' is an intuition that we are here for more than making our daily bread, finding security or even our own enjoyment. No one else can really answer this question for us; it requires digging deeply into our own soul/spirit life.
The challenge of our everyday life is that so many urgent yet not fundamentally important items vie for our attention. Our daily 'to do list' always seems to make things other than 'the most important thing,' most important! How often do we create an extreme inner pressure- physically and mentally- as if we might die if that e-mail, phone call or other task were not handled immediately? How often is this really true?
Now, it is of course helpful to be responsive to the needs of others and take care of 'what is on our plate'. The questions are: what do you devote yourself to and what is the center of gravity of your life?
For those of us who have the luxury of being relatively free from concerns for food, shelter and warmth, a profoundly spiritual/human question is toward what will I dedicate myself to today? Amazingly, the busiest of people can almost always find time for that which is truly important.
If we look at the great traditions, from west to east, we will see different words for the same qualities. In the west, Truth, Beauty and Love are often used to express the highest and deepest transcendent qualities. In the east, these same values are often called Wisdom and Compassion. In essence, all paths point toward something larger than the self. They ask us for dedication to a practice as well as to a devotional attitude that becomes foremost in our life. This is called being on a path.
Those most moved by truth might become monks, scientists or philosophers either professionally or in another way. Their passion will be toward true understanding and meaning, not merely ego gratification.
Those most moved by beauty will thrill in the dance- i.e. the various manifestations of life through form, color, sound, pattern etc. Artists, naturalists and mathematicians are often taken by this quality.
The lovers amongst us seek the deep connection that only happens when the veil of our separateness lifts. Sometimes this is expressed as dedication to others in the form of service, care-giving, parenting, etc. Sometimes this appears as devotion to God, Life, the planet or something else that is 'larger than self.'
At a deep level, though we can relate to all these doorways and they are not at all separate, some are more resonant than others for each person. Whichever quality most ignites your soul, it is essential that your life have ample opportunity to express, practice and dwell in this arena. Without this expression, there will always be a lingering sense of dissatisfaction, the feeling- “is that all there is?”
Whether one resonates with spiritual or secular language the question is the same: am I remembering the most important thing? Deeply investigating this question might be a doorway to the most important thing!
Wishing you many blessings in this New Year.
With much love and peace……………Russell
Thursday, November 16, 2006, 01:13 PM
A very spiritually oriented acquaintance said to me, “Russell, why all this emphasis on the body, it is so obviously temporary, why don’t you focus on that which is eternal”. I thought this was a good question because it reveals many levels of potential misunderstanding about the whole concept and experience of embodiment.
First, realize that in “The Embodied Life™”, we work through the body not on the body or for the body. The infinite, the eternal, the formless, the divine- manifests itself through form, it literally materializes or incarnates as matter. We access the highest and deepest through this very life as breathing human beings. Second, it is essential that we free ourselves from the habit of thinking of the body as object and realize that body is most accurately perceived as process, a living process.
Of course it is very possible and even dangerous to believe that embodiment is about the body. To glorify the body, to get lost in the vehicle, is a tragic error. Perhaps it is out of this fear that many of the great traditions have been either skeptical or hostile toward the physical.
Our body is a vehicle in numerous ways. First, it is not trivial that all our experiences are manifested through this form. It is unimaginable that our experience of love or peace or relationship would remain the same if we were unembodied. Second, our embodiment is the most tangible doorway we have to the present moment. Feel your right hand at this moment (pause for a moment to do this, feel the location, temperature etc.). To really do that you must stop the stream of thought and enter into present moment reality. The density of physical matter makes it easier to locate the living moment. Third, our embodied reality is the ground for the most basic sense of self- the feeling of being alive. Fourth, it is through the actions of our body that we can most tangibly take care of each other and the world.
As we enter the present moment, we become connected to the pulsing reality of life. Letting go more and more deeply into life, there is, paradoxically, a dropping off of the body. Through embodiment, we directly contact our interconnectedness with life, resulting in a feeling that can only be described as love.
Thursday, October 26, 2006, 10:48 AM
How can we understand the consistent pressure that so many people feel? How is it that as the basic needs for more and more people are being satisfied that this inner pressure is increasing? What is the antidote to the negative ‘stress’ that so many feel as a more or less constant condition?
A story I recently heard:
In the Himalayan country of Ladakh, the values of the western world have recently had a radical influence on the lives of many of the inhabitants. It seems that a well-intentioned aid organization recognized that most of the farmers could produce only enough milk, cheese and vegetables to satisfy their local communities. Realizing that cows could produce a lot more milk than the indigenous yaks and that a rototiller could plough more fields than the simple animal drawn plows, these ‘improvements’ were introduced. Now, the farmers could make surplus cheese and also have other crops to bring to the big market each week. Of course now that they had these businesses and bank accounts, they didn’t have as much time with each other. For example, until 10 years ago, weddings lasted 15 days. Now they last one day. People are spending more time alone and in small partnerships and no longer functioning as whole villages helping each other. Encouraging this growth of wealth has turned time into a commodity that is in short supply. Now they are much busier as they are saving time. (As I like to say, the number of labor saving devices a person has is always inversely correlated with their amount of free time).
Now, we can imagine certain benefits from these economic changes and my point is not about capitalism, wealth or modern machinery. My main point is as follows: this sense of time pressure is one of the main challenges for modern humans. Time pressure is part of the general internal pressure that most people experience on a regular basis. While simplifying our lives can be part of the solution, I believe that for most of us the evolutionary imperative is asking for something more.
In my seminars and private practice, I see a tremendous variety of people with many different diagnoses and complaints. Unbelievable as it may seem almost all of these problems are connected to, exacerbated by or caused by incessant inner pressure. By pressure I don’t just mean the psychological feeling of being pressed; I am referring also to physiological pressures expressed as constriction in the tissues, blood vessels, organs, joints, etc.
Let’s examine this briefly from a somatic point of view. Our nervous system is designed to function rhythmically with a time of activity followed by a time of rest. When the system is in rhythm its natural healing capacities can handle all but the most extreme conditions. For so many of us rather than: work …….rest, demand……….rest, effort………rest, there is something like: on, on, on, on, on, on, crash………on, on, on, on, on, crash……….
Some people think that relaxing from work with a television show, a movie, checking emails, listening to recorded music or creating something on the computer will give them the rest that is needed. While these activities might be enjoyable and even nourishing, from the point of view of the nervous system you are still in ‘on’ mode. The electronic stimulation requires a kind of brain state that does not allow for deep rest. I am not casting judgment on any of these activities, some I can enjoy wholeheartedly. I am suggesting that we need to use our ATTENTIONAL skills to intentionally find the ZERO POINT. For some this is done through hobbies such as gardening, running or walking. For many, even when engaged in these activities the same kind of internal state of attention is maintained, decreasing the health benefits. (You know the old story of the ‘efficiency expert’, spending the day timing everybody at their various functions coming home to make love with his wife……….).
In “The Embodied Life”, we work with cultivating the conscious shifts of attention that allow the nervous system to find balance. Amazingly, the system does not need significant time to make these changes; it needs regularity, frequency and the knowledge of some particularly effective entry points.
Examples of these include:
- Shifting the use of the eyes through certain kinds of smooth eye movements,
- Changing the breathing pattern and rhythm,
- Consciously shifting one’s interest through different domains of experience such as attending to visual, auditory, kinesthetic phenomena in conscious ways (the brain loves change);
- Changing back and forth between focused to diffuse attention,
- Getting on the ground (horizontal in the gravitational field) and moving slowly and with attention. When this is done without ambition or effort it is most effective for these purposes.
There are many ways to create a ‘pattern interruption’ from our locked in, compulsive neurological state. This shifting is central to de-pressurizing the system and is one of the prime health benefits of meditation. Of course meditation is much more than this. When one experiences significant interruption in the constant, unconscious ‘thinking’ and self-perpetuating inner dialogue, the organism can really enter a restorative, open place I call ‘the zero point’ or ‘entering the vastness’. The state of ‘being’ requires a de-emphasis on ‘doing’.
Those of you who have done these seminars know some of the skills that you can call upon. Please remember how essential it is to develop practices that support and sustain your inner harmony. Given the rhythms of our culture and the collective trance state that is dominant, it is a revolutionary act to take responsibility for your own inner life. While withdrawing from the dominant society is one potential option, we can also learn to mobilize the tremendous recuperative capacity inherent within us. Ultimately it means remembering who you are and not who your think you are. I encourage you in doing this NOW.
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