Mindfulness As A Refuge In Times Of Uncertainty

So thank you for your practice.

I say this often but I'm always so grateful to be in the presence of others practicing.

It's such a reminder that there's a really positive force in this world and that there's a lot of us that are wanting a kinder,

More compassionate,

Present experience.

So thank you for your practice.

So I'm going to just say hopefully what's a short talk for me about taking refuge in mindfulness.

And a little bit about what am I really saying here.

But before I speak to mindfulness as a refuge,

I do think it's important to acknowledge that,

You know,

For many of us this has been a very challenging time and maybe it's been a challenging time for you.

This has been primarily a time of socio-cultural anxiety,

I would say,

Collectively,

Over the past three or four weeks at least and increasing week by week it seems.

So this has really been the water that we've been swimming in.

So it's likely that you have gotten caught up in the swirling waters of this cultural anxiety,

Cultural fear at some point.

And perhaps you've experienced agitation or restlessness in the body.

Other times you may have experienced a sense of numbness or sort of brain fog,

A feeling of being somewhat checked out.

Perhaps you've spent time irritated in judgment of yourself or if you live with other human beings,

Those human beings.

And if this speaks to you,

If you're like,

Check,

Check,

Check,

All of these experiences reassure us of one thing,

That we are one of the seven plus billion humans walking this earth.

To move in and out of these experiences is in part what it means to be human and to have this big brain capacity to experience so many different emotions,

So many varied mind states.

And we also know that as humans we have a frontal cortex and one of its main missions is to make meaning of this life,

This journey.

And we all know this because we've been practicing mindfulness.

And if you've been practicing mindfulness for any amount of time,

You've begun to watch your own mind.

You know the stories that the mind creates.

You know the difference between the stories and actual reality.

Sometimes we don't know when we don't have enough mindfulness to detect.

But we know this.

And in addition to this frontal cortex trying to make meaning and when there's not enough information it fills in the gaps and it creates stories about me,

About you,

About life,

That really doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

The other thing is we are really wired to pay much more attention to the negative than the positive.

So what unfortunately happens for us is these stories that we often tell have a particular negative valence to them.

You know,

So the stories become about what could go wrong in the future or what isn't okay right now as it is or what could have been better in the past than it was.

And so in these ways we're actually not poised to do so well in times of crisis.

And yet,

Actually most of us do quite well in times of crisis.

For whatever reasons we're able to touch into that resilience that is also part of us.

We lean into the tools that we've developed.

Whatever these tools are,

And each of us on this session,

We all have tools.

You know what your tools are that help you get through the tough times.

And I don't know what your tools are.

I'm actually looking forward to finding out.

But for me,

Hands down,

Mindfulness is the most powerful tool in my toolbox.

And mindfulness,

My dedication to the practice and its presence during tough times is what's also allowed me to utilize other tools in my toolbox like acceptance,

Compassion,

Kindness,

Patience,

Generosity,

And gratitude.

And however,

All of these very important tools are less likely to get utilized when mindfulness isn't present.

And that's why I say it's like my MacDaddy of tools.

Because without mindfulness,

I'm left on autopilot.

Not especially clued in to what's actually happening and what's actually needed in any given moment.

The moment that's right here in front of me,

The one that's never existed before,

The one that is truly impossible to be known without awareness,

Without mindfulness.

And this is beginner's mind,

Right?

Remembering that we have actually never been here before.

And I don't mean in this time of the coronavirus.

I mean this moment,

This very moment right here.

This is one of those experiences that we train our mind for through our meditation practice.

When we sit down and we get really curious,

Bringing curiosity to each moment of a meditation,

In each breath and in each out-breath,

We experience the freshness,

The novelty of even the breath.

And that translates into the power of our lives.

If you can be curious about the in-breath and about the out-breath,

Leaving the thinking mind behind and simply experiencing it as novel,

You've got great awareness in your everyday life,

Potentially.

So we take this ability to be present with curiosity and instead of judgment into the life that we're leading right now.

And that life in this time includes managing all of the new routines that we're trying to establish and all the challenges that go along with this coronavirus.

And as we tune into the present moment with mindfulness,

We also gain the capability of seeing more of the totality of each moment.

Not only that we can show up with presence,

But we gain the ability to see more of the breadth and depth of the moment.

Now I'm not sure we ever obtain being able to see actually how much is happening in one moment.

But I think with mindfulness we certainly get closer.

And why is this important?

Because as we see each moment in more of its complexity,

We cease to be the center of that moment actually.

We recognize that if other people,

For example,

Are part of the moment,

That they have their own needs,

They have their own desires,

They have their own thoughts,

They have their own stories.

And we're more aware of the context in which the moment is taking place also.

And we're much more aware of the impermanence of each moment.

On autopilot we're rarely aware of any of this,

I would contend.

You check out your own autopilot.

But I know for me,

Not so aware.

And whatever is in existence,

Whatever moment we're in,

It has a beginning,

A middle,

And an end.

But when we're stressed,

And that's a particular type of autopilot,

That's one of the first things we forget.

What's here feels like it's going to last forever,

Or it's not going to last long enough.

So with mindfulness,

Each moment becomes expansive and fluid.

And I think that we are more likely to be both grateful and generous instead of more self-absorbed,

Center of the universe,

And judgmental when we show up with mindfulness.

But now,

With that said,

There are obviously a number of moments in life that aren't particularly pleasant.

Like even those when we are mindful enough to recognize that the moment's complex,

It's full of many different needs,

Many viewpoints,

Many opinions,

It still may be unpleasant.

Or when we're not feeling well.

Or maybe when a loved one isn't feeling well.

Or when you've been told to stay in your house and all you want to do is go outside and hang out with your friends.

Whatever the circumstance,

Inevitably there are all kinds of moments in our lives that are experienced as unpleasant or even painful.

And again,

Mindfulness is a tool that can be very powerful here as well.

Being aware that the unpleasantness or the pain is arising allows for a choice to be made.

And on autopilot,

We don't have that choice.

We're just in the zone.

When we're in autopilot,

We tend to contract and we begin to push away from the moment.

That's the natural,

Most primitive reflex we have in our whole body.

We're just trying to push away from what's painful and try to grab towards what's pleasurable.

So with mindfulness,

Especially as the mind starts to slow down over months and years of practice,

We see that unpleasantness arising before it's the train that's left the station.

And so when we see it,

We have an option.

We can sit back,

We can relax the body,

We can recognize what is,

That is,

This moment's already here,

It's happening.

And we can in some ways say yes to it.

Not yes we like it,

But yes,

We accept that's what's happening right now.

And we get out of that equation that many of us are familiar with,

Which is pain plus resistance equals suffering.

When we stay mindful to what's happening,

We remember,

Oh yeah,

Everything's impermanent.

This isn't going to last.

So mindfulness is really the tool that allows us to spend more time in the flow of the river,

Instead of constantly trying to paddle upstream against the current,

If you'll allow my river analogy.

And it's also important to remember that mindfulness is not neutral.

That's so important to me because one of the things that's happened in our culture is,

As mindfulness has had a real conceptual drift,

It's kind of become this thing you use for anything,

Right?

Like teaching sharp shooting or,

And mindfulness is never an intentional,

The intention of mindfulness is never to harm.

Mindfulness is the cultivation of nonjudgmental awareness,

Which means it's always in the service of non-harming.

We can actually think of this as the ethic of mindfulness,

If you will.

And this is why as we practice mindfulness in the true sense of the word,

Nonjudgmental awareness,

We naturally begin to also cultivate greater compassion for ourselves and for others.

And compassion,

I'm guessing we can all agree is something that's really needed right now,

Really needed right now,

Is a real important antidote to a lot of the difficult emotional and mind states that are happening right now.

And this compassion,

Of course,

Is not limited to just ourselves or just other people.

Now,

I want to share a story with you today.

And maybe it seems a little light compared to the time we're in,

But hopefully it will make a point and maybe put a smile on your face.

So I have a dog.

Her name is Willa Dean Opal Swan.

And she's young.

She's just a little bit over a puppy.

And I happen to be talking to you from North Georgia,

About a little place up here that I've been staying.

And so I was inside today,

Actually thinking about our time together tonight and doing some touching up of this.

And all of a sudden I look outside,

And I was trying to think of something at that moment.

And I look outside and all I can see is Willa Dean's butt in the air,

Sorry,

And her tail's wagon,

Wagon,

Wagon,

Wagon.

And then I'm like,

I can't see what she's doing.

So I get up out of my chair and I look,

And she's got half her body under the fire pit.

And she has dug everything out from under it.

And there is mud everywhere.

It rained here this morning.

And I call her name,

Willa Dean,

And she looks up at me,

And her whole face is covered in mud.

So why do I tell you this story?

Because there would have been a time,

And there may be a time again,

Where I would have gotten so irritated.

And then like Willa Dean,

Opal swan,

And I would have thought I was the center of the moment.

She was doing something that was not meeting my needs.

I was irritated and etc.

,

Etc.

And the train's gone.

She's a bad dog.

Why did I ever get this dog?

I should have known I shouldn't have gotten this dog.

You know,

I mean,

Fill in the blank,

Right?

Change the story.

But today I was able to pause,

Look at her,

Get the complexity of the moment.

Her need is not to be clean or to have the house clean or to leave the fire pit alone.

Her need is to get that lizard she really wanted to play with.

And so mindfulness,

Because it happened to be strong and present at that point,

Allowed me to get it.

She has different needs than I have.

She has a different viewpoint than I have.

She has a different opinion about the moment that I have.

And we're sharing this moment together.

And I've got a lot of different possibilities of the way that I can respond in this moment.

And the way I respond in any given moment leads to the next moment.

And that moment leads to the next moment.

There are no moments that are disjointed from each other or disconnected.

That's karma,

Cause and effect.

What we do in this moment leads to the next moment.

Every moment has consequences.

So it actually was a beautiful moment.

You know,

The reality was I had plenty of time.

I put my stuff down.

I went outside and watched her and had a huge smile on my face because it's just dirt.

So what?

And that was it.

So these tools really have some utility in our everyday,

Ordinary,

Mundane lives that most of us leave.

So mindfulness really,

I think what I'm hopefully conveying to you is that it can be understood as a gateway to,

It's powerful in its own right,

But it can also be a gateway to these other powerful and useful qualities like acceptance,

Like compassion or kindness,

Like generosity or gratitude.

And that these qualities are all part of what leads to resilience that allows us to weather these challenging times that are inevitable part of this human journey.

This is a sidebar.

I don't know how many people read the New York Times,

But there was a lovely article today in there about two women.

One was 101 and one was 95.

And they had not only been through the 1918 flu,

But they've been through the Holocaust.

They had also been through polio.

They had been through the Great Depression.

You know,

It went on and on.

And they interviewed them and they reminded us that we've been here before many times in history where things have gone really,

Really bad momentarily.

And that there is a way to cultivate resilience and to still have a joyful life.

And that's not by way of pretending the pain isn't here.

It's through acceptance.

It's through compassion.

It's through patience.

It's through generosity and getting out of oneself.

It's through gratitude.

And mindfulness,

I think,

Is the harness for all of these.

So I'll end here,

But I'd like to end with a contemplation,

Actually,

And ask you guys to think about these two questions in your own life.

And perhaps this will can be a bit of a framework for our discussion.

Of course,

If there's other things people want to talk about,

That's absolutely fine,

Too.

So if you will,

I find it useful to close my eyes when I'm trying to access my own inner experience.

So if you'd like to close your eyes for just a moment,

You can.

And just allowing the words that have been spoken just to sort of fade into the backdrop,

If that's possible.

Maybe even take a couple of conscious breaths,

Really noticing the in-breath and the out-breath,

Sensing into that field.

So the first question is,

How has mindfulness shown up for you during this time?

How has mindfulness shown up for you during this time?

Where have you noticed mindfulness being present?

And then the second question is,

How have you shown up for your mindfulness practice?

How have you noticed mindfulness being present?