Thrilling Stilling

George Clark, 18 July 2008

I used to be a Scottish Presbyterian workaholic and busy-ness freak.  There was no time to lose as the devil finds work for idle hands to do.  These days I remain Scottish but I am more relaxed. I made time to stand and stare. I found ways to be still and know how my mind works and about who 'I' am. So how was this managed? In two words – just sit.

The process began by reading spiritual books and listening to dharma talks and this led to developing a meditation practice. This meant having regular 20 minute time slots to just sit. This quickly led to experiencing the major psychological revelations which are reported by the great spiritual traditions.

The first revelation was that the mind has a mind of its own. While I was sitting thoughts and emotions would arrive, hang around for a while and then disappear again. Some were pleasurable, some painful and many were neutral. And 'I' had virtually no control over the process. The causes and conditions of the various thought trains were a mystery. 'I' was not in control; it was not 'my' mind!

Quite soon there was a realisation that 'I' could 'witness' the thought stream. It was as if I was watching a television which had  been programmed to randomly channel hop. But the witness point of view opened up a mental space which created distance between me and the thought trains. I was no longer my thoughts. They no longer had the power to totally capture my attention. It was possible to be free of attachment to them. And, more significantly, it became obvious that the viewpoints in the thought trains had very little to do with real reality. It was therefore OK to let them go. I was freed from my obsessions and from a whole string of messy mental habits. Goodbye John Knox!

So the first step was to be free from the busy mental chatter but what was this freedom for? It took a while to figure this out. It was as if the chatter was stirring up mud in the mind. Once it was gone the mud settled and there was clarity. The chatter is like the tip of an iceberg and it was now possible to identify with the enormous underwater bit. This is where still waters run deep. This is where the link to the unconscious is evidenced.

Here we approach the second revelation and what seems amazingly like freedom, authenticity and the fearless peace that passes all understanding. Here we are in touch with our essential human nature and we know that it is good. While sitting there is an egoless state which is outside of space and time – the word bliss comes to mind.

And, back in the everyday world, when the unconscious is uninterruptedly in the driver's seat, three things are possible – (a) you can view things numinously, (b) you can work in flow and (c) you appreciate the interconnectedness of the Oneness.

The sitting meditation is necessary to retune your brain but you can carry the new atunement back into everyday life. The trick is to stay awake and aware and thus to avoid being driven by automatic causes and conditions. There can then be effortless action performed with grace rather than with a grudge. You are free and flexible – a raw force of nature. No longer culturally programmed.

SO – cancel the endless chatter and take effortless action. Shake free from workaholism and compulsive busy-ness. Why not pluck the inevitable fruits of thrilling stilling?

PS –

There is a BUT. The above story covers over some awkward bits.

There are times when the chatter will not stop and the mud will not settle.  It can be tough remembering to adopt the witness position and to be a neutral observer of the mind state. This can be depressing and cause panic.

I am not yet in a position to call up effortless action at will. I desire to avoid grudge work and to perform only with grace – this means the dishes can pile up for several days before being washed. This can be a source of guilt and shame unless awareness kicks in to put it in perspective.

But, in either case, the answer lies in thrilling stilling!

seclusion

Carol Wilson gives a dharma talk on seclusion

From www.dharmaseed.org

For mp3 file click HERE

nature v nurture - the options

A one-pager to help transform dualist debates into pluralist discussions

http://www.spanglefish.com/SRDS/documents/communication/nature-nurture-options.doc

George G Clark
9 Seafield Terrace
Portsoy Scotland
AB45 2QB
Tel: 01261 843950
Mobile: 07776 093201
 
Caledonia Centre for Social Development
www.caledonia.org.uk
Seafield Research and Development Services
www.srds.co.uk

don't panic

I am increasingly aware of what 'awareness' is about – at least from the Buddhist perspective. The key is to existentially inhabit the 'now' ie the present moment. Anything else (ie past and future) is daydream and nothing more than mind stuff. This is obviously true while sitting on the cushion but it can also apply to everyday existence – as when washing the dishes or converting documents to plain language. There is the possibility of dealing with the present situation rather than having the chatterbox mind run off at tangents and make up all manner of 'what if' stories.

And the 'what ifs' tend to become habits of mind which take on a life of their own: they feed on themselves such that they get stronger and can develop into panic attacks. It is then that awareness is most needed and is most difficult to evoke. The panic situation is mind made and its 'reality' can evaporate instantly given a change of mind. But it can be tough, especially for those with no cushion time behind them, to affect a change. So how is it to be done?

You need to be aware of two things (a) what is going on in your mind and (b)  that mind change is possible. (The wisdom literature can help to develop this awareness at an intellectual level.) That type of awareness makes it possible to remember and apply counter measures: these can be as simple as taking a deep breath and thus bringing the mind  back into the body. (Experienced meditators might take three deep breaths and thus evoke the equanimous state that they know from their cushion time.)

A degree of equanimity comes into being when mental space develops in association with the 'witness'. You are then able to entertain the concept of "Welcome my little friend panic attack. What are you going to teach me about myself today?"

This is an example of what might be called existential jujitsu. The harder and the more frequent the mental upsets, the stronger you become through overcoming them. If you are suffused by mundane pleasures or subject to only mild fits of ennui then you will not be jolted into existential action and your spiritual life will remain flabby.

Lotus eaters are existential losers. Get real. Join the neurotic nihilists in their existential vacuums. Blast through to the fearless peace that passes all (rational) understanding … and don't panic!

How Thinking Can Change the Brain

How Thinking Can Change the Brain

12 Essential Rules to Live More Like a Zen Monk | Zen Habits

12 Essential Rules to Live More Like a Zen Monk | Zen Habits

mental chatter

"Somewhere in this process, you will come face to face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill, utterly out of control and hopeless. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way, and you just never noticed. You also are no crazier than anybody else around you. The real difference is that you have confronted the situation; they have not. So they still feel relatively comfortable. That does not mean that they are better off. Ignorance may be bliss, but it does not lead to Liberation. So don't let this realization unsettle you. It is a milestone actually, a sign of real progress. The very fact that you have looked at the problem straight in the eye means that you are on your way up and out of it."
(Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English)

Shambhala Sun - Looking into Laziness

Shambhala Sun - Looking into Laziness with Pema Chodron

BrainTypes.com - The 16 Types

BrainTypes.com - The 16 Types: "16 personality types"

The urge to write

George Clark, 18 June 2008

Most days I write at least 400 words. On the shelf above me is almost 2 metres of A4 folders of notes  from 1965 through to 2000 when I went environmentally friendly and stopped printing them out.

No fiction or poetry or travelogues or journalistic essays. It is nearly all about facts and ideas with an early predisposition towards intellectual cleverness and a later one to intuitive wisdom: with some recent merging as post-modern modes of thought  link to traditional and mystical ones.

Subject matter ranges across 12 major disciplines in my personal quest for understanding and for better ways to be human. There are as yet no solid conclusions but the journey has spawned the occasional output that others might find helpful in their own questing. My vocation seems to be to facilitate learning – both of myself and others.

The urge to write might be an offshoot of the human urge to speak which involves communicating and being social. As it is I now live alone and work from home so I am something of a hermit. While this can lead to stewing unnecessarily in my own juices it has the advantage of not having to stew too much in the juices of other people. The jury is still out on whether I am pulled by the vision of mystical peace or pushed by the demons of burn out and world weariness. But either way there is ample solitude in which to practice mindfulness and renunciation.

I write both professionally and for pleasure. Professional work is both paid and voluntary. These days the paid writing is mainly to do with plain language – mostly rewrites of government policy documents but also some original stuff aimed at popularising key development concepts. Voluntary writing is wider in scope and includes basic copy writing for the local Boat Festival and Salmon Bothy and more original pieces related generally to social development and channelled through the CCSD, Hakikazi Catalyst and earlier for the BPL.

But the bulk of the writing is done for pleasure. This includes handwritten prose, lists, mindmaps and doodles: although there are not so many of those these days because my handwriting is getting very poor. So most input is through the keyboard where there is a mix of structured and spontaneous writing.

Most of the structured writing takes the form of one-pagers although there is the occasional essay and dialogue. These are often based on handwritten drafts. Some are reports of what other authors have said that is clever or wise, but increasingly they are home grown. Most of these end up on my various web sites and blogs.

But spontaneous writing makes up the bulk of what I produce these days. There are the 20 minute flows of consciousness which follow the instructions of Dorothea Brande and there are the less rushed daily diaries. I open one of these first thing every morning and add to it throughout the day with time stamps along with way. These are mainly prose although there are some lists, continua, matrixes and the occasional illustration. They are a mix of the banal and the brilliant. Some of the brilliant bits are extracted and built into one-pagers or essays.

It is said that if you want to be a writer then you must write. I took a couple of correspondence courses on writing a few years back – they were on creative writing and on journalism so they did not truly suit my needs but they offered a lot of good ideas. I have also (a) acquired a fair collection of 'how to write' books which have been useful and (b)  set up a blog where I put links to useful places on the internet.

In November of 2007 I systematically estimated how many 'spontaneous' words I had produced. It comes to slightly over 7 million[1]. That indicates a fairly strong (possibly abnormal) urge to write.

 

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[1] 400 words per day for 48 years