Tag Archives: mindfulness

Haiku as spiritual practice

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Writing haiku, the traditional short Japanese poems that have gained worldwide popularity, is something that can prove helpful in opening our eyes to what is, and the wonder of being alive. We are all guilty of spending large portions of our waking hours lost in thought. We swing back and forth between past and future, and only rarely stay right where we are, in the here and now. Typically, we go through life with a “been there and done that” attitude, and in our busy, fast-forward life styles, put the flesh and blood of living on hold to do something “more important.”

When we are born, our vision is fresh. Our first experience is undifferentiated and timeless, and we have no real perception of self or other. As young children, we live in Eden but don’t know it. We unconsciously play in the garden of life, fascinated with the wonder of what is. Writing haiku is an activity that can train our eye to see some of those wonders again, but with the added appreciation gained from age and experience. While obviously a conceptual activity, it is nevertheless one that redirects our attention towards the unconditioned “suchness” of what is. Haiku can give us a hint of the meaning of the Buddhist phrase, Samsara is Nirvana. Writing these short poems, devoid of judgment, prejudice and expectation, can nuture the gift of observation and mindful attention, and help us to find the magic in the ordinary. Just this! It is a practice of being wherever you are, of living in the present instead of in the past or future. This very moment – a fleeting immediacy of what is – is all that is real, and to that we must attend if we are to see the truth of what is.

Allow yourself the priviledge to being stunned by the extraordinary detail of life. Forget all you know. See with fresh eyes, unclouded by conditioning. Take time to sink into the moment, and perhaps taste life when the conceptual veil between self and other falls away. It is here that you can find an abundance of miracles to herald in the few words of a haiku. The form of haiku that is used or the effectiveness of the wording is not what is most important here. Rather, it is that they may unveil for us the obvious, the home we never left but only forgot. Here are a couple of mine:

high grass / peeking at mower / from under the parked car

startled prankster / under the bed / . . . tail showing

offered on its own / the violet’s / flower sermon

same barber / same conversation / thirty years

Take a moment to just be

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The functioning of modern society is predicated on an obsessive relationship with time. Driven by our desires for a better life and the promise of fulfillment on the temporal horizon, we are stuck on fast-forward, in an unending rush hour that creates havoc in our lives. Losing touch with the natural rhythms of life, we race through our lives with an ever-diminishing chance of experiencing what is real. Below, you will find two exercises that I have suggested to my meditation classes for years. They are designed to help you at least occasionally slow down, catch your breath, and turn your attention to the only thing that is real: the present moment.

Exercise One: We have all heard the expression of “doing time.” It usually relates to the experience of being in prison, and the slow, painful passage of time. The fact is we all “do time” almost every day. We are forced to wait in line at the grocery, wait on hold on the phone, wait in traffic on the way to or from work, wait for a train, etc.  I encourage you to use this time to be right where you are. This is an opportunity to create a rich and sacred moment of mindful living. When you find yourself waiting, tune in to your environment. First, listen attentively to hear how many different sounds you can hear. Then, look carefully around you to find things you have never noticed before. Feel your breath enter your body, blink your eyes, feel the pressure of your feet on the floor or the seat against your legs and back. The point is to come back to the moment. Be alive, and not in lost in thought. Feel the moment. Don’t think it.

Exercise Two: If you don’t have time to meditate each day, choose a repetitive chore and do it mindfully. Don’t multi-task; only do that one particular task. For example, putting the dishes away: pay attention to the details, the textures, the precision of life. Pick up each dish out of the dishwasher delicately. Avoid knocking into other dishes. Gently lay it in the cabinet where it is kept. Don’t think about what you are doing. Feel the temperature and texture of each item. Feel the water left on some of the dishes. Listen to the sounds of each piece as you pick it up and put it away. Feel yourself breath. Return to the moment. This is meditation.

Suffering

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As much as we all strive to avoid it, the simple truth is that humanity needs suffering. Throughout the ages, mystics have taught a consistent lesson: it is through hardship and reversals of fortune that we are roused from our complacency and the unconscious patterns we are prone to settle into. It is suffering that shakes us up and clears our vision.
When everything in our lives is going well, we can become so engrossed in trivial preoccupations that we lose touch with what is important. Success strengthens our identification with the self and keeps us from transcendence. We have no motivation to find something better. But if we are suddenly and unexpectedly confronted with our mortality and the transience of all we cherish, we are forced to recognize life’s preciousness and seek its meaning. As it is said, we are jolted awake by nightmares, not by pleasant dreams.

When someone close to us dies or we are given a terminal prognosis of our own, the priorities of our lives abruptly shift. The need to redecorate the house, so pressing yesterday, fades quickly into the background. Friction with friends over petty irritations is forgotten. Bank accounts and promotions at work lose their relevance in contrast to our new life-and-death challenges. The explanations we were given by our parents to make sense out of things, though they satisfied our previously superficial inquiries, often come up short in life’s most difficult times. We seek answers to what seems so wrong about life. Why is there suffering? How can a loving God allow this to happen, especially when the victims are innocent children or people who are kind, gentle, and good?

Three years ago I was diagnosed with colon cancer, hospitalized immediately for a colon resection, and subsequently scheduled for blood work or CAT scans at a nearby clinic to be sure it has not returned. I have come to think of my visits as a kind of snooze alarm. As with the alarm clocks so many of us use, we may push the snooze button for a little additional sleep, only to have it go off again in a few minutes. The clinic visits functioned in a very similar way. Every time I sat there waiting for my tests, surrounded by fellow cancer patients – some emaciated, some without hair – my priorities in life were refocused again on what was most important. Suffering is life’s wake up call, and often a blessing in disguise.

May you live every day of your life

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Jonathan Swift, the 18th century author who wrote Gulliver’s Travels, said this and it pertains directly to a central objective of esoteric spirituality. While my book is filled with discussions of abstract ideas that seem far away from the practical, down to earth issues we all face every day, the insights it has drawn from the great wisdom traditions of the world pertain directly to where you are and what you are doing right now. If you have ever tried to meditate, even for a short time, one of the first things you realize is that your mind is chaotic, filled with a jumble of ceaseless thoughts. Until this initial attempt to sit silently and concentrate on a single object, you may not have realized just how out-of-control your mind was. To truly be present, to discover what is real in our daily lives, we cannot be thinking about something else. Nevertheless, that is the case almost all the time.

Why don’t you give this a try? The next time you are talking to someone else, see if you listening? The chances are good that, while you may be hearing their spoken words, your mind is busy formulating what you will say in response! We are all guilty of doing this and that is the reason we seldom are blessed with someone who really listens to us. And even if you decide to be attentive to the next person you have a conversation with, it will become quickly apparent that the thinking we do while they are talking is a very hard habit to break. It is reasonable to assume that if our listening is not diluted by a mind busy with thought, the responses we give to others will be more effective and helpful. They would be based on what the person actually said, rather than on our preconceptions of what they need to hear. When you see how true this is while you are listening, you will begin to understand how it characterizes just about everything else you do as well. If you want to really live your life, you must find a better way, and the great wisdom traditions of the world are a great place to look.

Stop living in your head; embrace the wonder of now

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Do you feel like you’re living in the fast lane? You’re not alone. Many of us live in an unending rush hour. In a world of smart phones and email, texting and twitter, the very devices that are supposed to save us time can have the opposite effect as we hurry to respond to everyone and everything. This manic pace is causing a host of “hurry sicknesses” too, from insomnia and heart attacks to ulcers and migraines. Most importantly, by being out of sync with the natural rhythms of life, we lose touch with the only thing that is real—the present moment.

One remedy to our hurried lifestyles that has been growing in popularity in the West is the practice of mindfulness. In stark contrast to our frantic daily routines, mindfulness helps us slow down and be with what is. To be mindful is to be in touch with the present rather than constantly worrying about the future, dwelling on the past, or being obsessed with the commentary in our heads. Practicing mindfulness—simply being in the now—can quiet the mental chatter and open the senses to the extraordinary miracle of being alive.

If you watch toddlers at play, you will see the kind of thing I am talking about. I get a healthy reminder of living in the now when I spend time with my 2-year-old grandson, Jack. He is totally immersed in what he is doing. No thoughts of yesterday or what must be done tomorrow—only what he is attending to at that moment. And his days are filled with wonder. America poet Walt Whitman pointed to this liberating way of living when he said, “To me, every moment of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.”

Tragically, many of us don’t awaken to the wonder of life until we are threatened with its loss. A terminal diagnosis makes us appreciate what we have so long taken for granted—a bird singing, the laughter of children, the curl of steam rising from morning coffee, holding the hand of a loved one, the sun shining through the trees. When time is short, petty disagreements and concerns are forgotten and we devote our attention to what’s most real and precious.

When I find myself moving into the fast lane or getting caught up in obsessive thinking, what helps bring me back to the now (besides playing with Jack) is feeling and listening. I try to feel what is happening in my body or I tune in to the sounds around me. Simply stopping to notice the ambient sounds that you don’t typically hear when you are living in your head can immediately help you shift from thinking to feeling, from identifying with the whirl of your thoughts to what the present has to offer.

The truth is, when our minds are filled with competing thoughts and tensions or we’re frantically multitasking, we are less effective in everything we do. We are distracted drivers, mindless snackers, poor listeners, even poor parents, partners, or managers. We do a lot of thinking but little living. Once you’re in the moment, you can pay full attention to the task at hand, appreciate the people you are with, or tap into the creative solution that was staring you in the face all along. In truth, the only thing any of us really have for sure is this very moment. Why not start living in it now?

I was invited to write this guest commentary for the Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee, and it was published on March 3, 2012.

Are you present for your life?

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Are you living your life consciously? Are you present for the extraordinary wonder of being alive? Are you awake or are you sleep-walking? Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh says you don’t have to walk on water to have a miracle. All you need to do is walk on this very earth. But you must do it consciously. Now you may be saying to yourself, this is ridiculous. How could I lead the complicated, fast-pace life I lead without being conscious? How do I get so much done? Who just got the promotion or the nice raise? But let me ask you this. Have you ever driven to work, and when you pulled into the parking lot, realized you weren’t consciously present for the drive? Scary isn’t it? We all do this, and we do it a lot. We pride ourselves in our ability to multitask. We are so busy, our minds are so full of things that need to be done yesterday, that we forget to be present for what is most important. Do you ever really look deeply into the eyes of your friend, spouse or partner, and ponder the preciousness of the moment? Is the piano concerto that you have playing only background music, or do you allow yourself to be drawn into its beauty? Do you ever just sit on the porch and listen to it rain? It is the everyday things like this that make our lives so incredible.

Zen teachers tell a timeless story about a fish in search of the great ocean of life. Oblivious to the water all around it, the fish swims great distances in its quest, with no results; it cannot find the ocean anywhere it looks. The fish is living in the ocean, but doesn’t realize it. If the fish were rudely yanked out of the water on a fisherman’s hook, however, the elusive goal would suddenly become obvious: water is its very life. Our experience is quite similar. We are immersed in life, in the flesh and blood of our existence, but blindly seek fulfillment elsewhere. We spend most of our lives in mental games and abstractions, puzzling over what life means, while the truth is all around us. We simply need to wake up and smell the proverbial roses. This is it! Just this. Yet we often don’t realize it until, like the hapless fish, we find ourselves out of our element, gasping for air. When suffering abruptly interrupts the normal flow of things and shakes us out of our routines, it is an opportunity to see life from a deeper, more substantive perspective—but one we often miss. How many of us fail to see the truth of life until we are close to death? Then the simple sound of a bird’s song or the smell of baking bread can bring us to tears. Some fish are thrown back and get a second chance, but it is very risky for us to count on such a reprieve.