Thursday, November 1, 2007, 12:38 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, 01:53 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, 03:02 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.
Monday, August 13, 2007, 01:52 PM
In this interview, Russell talks about freedom from the points of view of Moshe Feldenkrais and Buddha.
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Tuesday, June 26, 2007, 05:21 PM
My first profound meditation experience occurred on a beach in San Francisco after some years of practice. Sitting on a cushion made of sand, I was overwhelmed with the essential beauty, bliss and goodness of Life. All reservations, doubts, objections and arguments about ‘this and that’ were completely irrelevant- clarity, brightness and ‘all is just as it is, just as it must be’ rang true without thought, without hesitation. The first conscious impulse that arose from this experience was an immense longing, a hunger, to give something back. A resounding sound arose from the open space, “APPRECIATE” was the one word that echoed forth.
This story is not intended to convey any sense of personal attainment- the path is endless and our addiction to this separate self runs almost as deep as our oneness with Life. Everyday attachment to certain desires greets me like my face in the mirror. My purpose is to express my essential understanding about the importance and basic joy of GRATITUDE.
Most of us know this sentiment when something unexpectedly positive happens. When the rain predicted on your wedding day yields to a bright, blue sky, a spontaneous “thank you” arises. When someone sees you hurrying and offers their place in line, this feeling comes naturally. Many of us also know the glow of being in love or simply “in the flow” where our basic joy includes a constant sense of being graced by life. Often this experiencing is accompanied by the inner feeling that says: “I am so blessed”.
Can deep appreciation occur without unexpected, special or ‘big’ events?
Can one practice appreciation and have it feel natural?
Is there significant value in such a practice?
Is Gratitude one of the most important and underappreciated of human/spiritual experiences?
Early in my meditation history a very simple, ordinary experience began to occur. After sitting for 30 minutes, a time filled mostly with a ‘monkey mind’ full of thoughts, plans, conversations, etc., I would arise with an altered sense of time and perception. Little things, the light in the room, the shape of a lamp, the feeling of the air on my skin would, for a short while, seemed strangely satisfying. It was as if I did not need anything else beyond what was happening in the moment to be content. This sense of satisfaction became conscious after a meditation in which ‘just’ feeling my breathing was ‘enough’. After this I remember the thought, “if I can be happy/peaceful/satisfied ‘just breathing’ than I can have these experiences at almost any moment. Implicit with this satisfaction was a sense of appreciation, of simple gratitude for living. In experiences of dissatisfaction I noticed that appreciation was completely absent, as if my agenda/desire/goals were too thick to be penetrated by the simple gifts of that moment. The question arose as to whether attentiveness to gratitude could be a doorway to contentment. Could appreciation (and hence satisfaction) be intentionally cultivated through a practice of attention?
My next observation came within the context of my Feldenkrais work. It was 1978, in the early days of my practice, when I began seeing a twenty-nine year old psychologist who had recently become quadriplegic from a freak car accident. Bound to a wheelchair without sensation below his chest and with minimal arm movement, he was my first student dealing with such a challenging situation who was also a peer. He taught me lessons in appreciation in at least three different ways.
First, after he would leave each session, I would consciously experience deep appreciation for simple capacities: standing was a pleasure, bringing a glass of cool water to my lips a joy, etc. Without any intention, it was as if I could appreciate these things for the two of us. After some months of working together, I realized that my initial sense of gratitude for the ordinary had faded. There was a painful sense of loss. After recognizing the sorrow of this forgetting, I discovered that it was possible to recover the sense of appreciation. Now that it was not spontaneous, three things were required: 1) a pause in my ‘doing’, 2) a conscious entering into the present moment and 3) a subtle invitation toward “thanks”. This invitation often feels like opening to something that is already there below the surface. How wonderful to learn that authentic gratitude can grow with intention and to realize that gratitude was almost always just a moment away!
The second way that my student and friend taught me was in his deep gratitude (after months of anger, depression, denial etc.) for small improvements that he was attaining. I remember so well his glowing face after the first time he could hold his baby in his arms. We cried together. One time, he actually was almost ecstatic to discover that he could scratch a place on his neck for the first time. “What freedom” he said and meant it.
The third avenue of appreciation that was revealed to me came through his authentic sharing of his journey: his pain, loss, fear, anger and, eventually, acceptance. On one level, I was spending time with my worst fear, as an athlete and a ‘mover’, to lose physical function terrified me. His willingness to be real and to allow me to be part of the recalibration of his life taught me insights of immense value. Theoretically, I suspected that one could live a satisfying life within almost any condition. Here I was observing someone walking that path. My intention here is not to paint a rosy story; this was and is an intensely challenging journey. Yet, like Viktor Frankl’s observations in the prison camps of Germany, the deep meaning and fulfillment of life is not pre-determined by our conditions. What a liberating realization!
As a Feldenkrais teacher for more than 30 years, I have met so many people dealing with potentially devastating losses. My gratitude to these people for the gift of sharing their journey is immense. Among many other things, I learned that one does not need to lose their eyes to deeply value seeing, nor their legs to appreciate walking. Also, I learned that when loss occurs there is always a potential gift that accompanies it. As Ram Das said to me as he was adjusting to life after his stroke, “when I remember to surrender, it is really delightful to be cared for and carried by others, I feel graced”. Grace, both as a gift (to be graced by) and as a quality (to move with grace) is intimately tied to gratitude.
To what do we offer this gratitude? Think of the wonderful ritual of saying grace before meals. To what do we direct our gratitude. Some give thanks to God, others to Life, Nature, the Nameless or the All. Though each has a distinct flavor, the fact that one does not take the gift for granted but completes the exchange with a heartfelt ‘thanks’ seems most important. The specific direction of the gratitude is much less significant than the sentiment.
Gratitude requires a pause, a moment of ‘stepping off the train’ of thought, to stand back. This can happen at any time. For example, right now, if you pause in your reading, sense yourself sitting, breathing, hearing, seeing, is there anything that you feel grateful for right at this moment? {Perhaps pause in your reading}
Now, think of all the beings who are supporting you in known and unknown ways. For example, imagine all the people who helped to bring your last meal. The farmers, storekeepers, truck drivers. Think of the interplay of sun, rain, earth, human labor, your bodily capacities for digestion, etc. that allow you to stay nourished. If any of these were missing you would be hungry, perhaps desperate for food.
Why is gratitude so important? Perhaps more than anything, inherent in gratitude is the sense of connectedness to other(s). We are lifted out of our delusion of separation. All of our unnecessary suffering is based in the mistaken identification with an isolated self. From a spiritual or transcendent perspective this is the most important question for humanity. Can our sense of self grow to include the other(s) and eventually to include all apparent other(s)? For me, a most accessible road to the heart of the matter is to remember the gifts that are constantly being showered upon us. This remembering, this valuing of the ordinary is always just one thought away.
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