Live. In. It.

I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment.

And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.

Joan Didion

The IDPeeps Contemplate Happiness

The IDPeeps contemplate ... will the Cookies n Cream make me happy?





Maybe in the moment. But then the Cookies n Cream will be gone.




Perhaps leafy green vegetables, with their folates and fiber, will bring long-term happiness.













That too proves to be unsatisfactory.

Caught in the trap of doubt, self-confidence ebbing, IDPeep falls back on habit and into a glass of fine Kentucky bourbon, on the rocks.














Hung over and still unhappy, IDPeep realizes that habitual patterns don't bring happiness. IDPeep turns to meditation.







and comes to realize













that in between the thought and the action





there is a space



















and in that space





is the happiness that comes from knowing one's true nature as primordially, inherently good.

Petting your emotional dog

Do you feel at the mercy of your emotions or emotional reactions? Do you find that you respond the same way in many situations -- does everything irritate you?

In mindfulness, we note things arising -- and let them go.

The question that always come up for me is, then what? Where does it go, and why am I still irritated?

Jack Kornfield says the instruction is more like "let it be." Let the story go -- the thing that you tell yourself to explain your reaction -- and be with the energy.

If you're like me, you're now asking how to do that. Kornfield explains it in "The Eightfold Path for Householders:"

-- See it. Label it, acknowledge it, see that it's human. "Well, there it is, there's aversion, there's irritation, there's judgment, there's confusion." When you look directly at the emotion -- without anticipating reactions or consequences -- it's not that bad.

-- Let your heart connect with it as though it were a poor, down-trodden dog that you usually shoo away. It's a metaphorical dog, so just look at it without thinking that it will drool on you or give you fleas or shed hair or whatever the story is that makes you shoo it away. Just see an energy that wants your kind attention. Feel the awwww ....

-- As you open to it, notice its nature and study it as if you were a botanist examing a plant. Where does it begin? What's in the middle of it? How intense does it get? What is the end like? What is the most powerful point of it? What do you feel in your body when this emotion-dog is nudging your mind? What triggers it, and what's the thought or image that comes right before it? What's the story?

-- One last question: Who is making up the story? Kornfield calls that a "very useful question at that moment. It's beginning to observe the movement or the dance of the mind."

Instead of fighting with the energy you don't like, maybe you can learn to like dancing with it.

Blow out the candles -- and send out love

Saturday, July 14, is Pema Chodron's birthday. Ani Pema is one of the faces of western Buddhism, even though she wears the traditional monk's robes and a haircut that's just barely avoids having a shaved head. She's been interviewed by Oprah and Bill Moyers, and her books have sold millions of copies.

Before she was Pema Chödrön, she was Deirdre Blomfield-Brown. Born in New York City, she attended Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She taught as an elementary school teacher for many years in both New Mexico and California.

Part of her brilliance lies in her ability to translate ancient wisdom to modern life, to identify with the worldly world while living in a remote abbey. Her teachings are tonglen are one example of this. There was a time when tonglen was a secret practice, given to advanced students. Now it's widespread in meditation circles.

For a detailed description, go here.

Essentially, it's a compassion practice in which the meditator takes on the suffering of another person and gives something beneficial -- peace, health, ease, love. It's sometimes called taking and sending or exchanging self and other. It's a way of dissolving the boundaries we erect around the self we want to protect and the messy world outside.

I learned it as a four-step process:

Flash on openness -- get a sense of space, of the wide blue sky, an open plain, a place without walls.
Imagine that you are breathing in thick, smoky, oily, polluted air. Breath out clear air.
Call to mind someone you know -- personally or through the news -- who is suffering. Please in their pain; breathe out an antidote. (Breathe in sadness; breathe out joy.)
Expand that to all beings who are suffering in that way.

When you're finished, do shamata or some other practice for a while to settle back into your being.

I know from experience that this is a heart-opening practice for the person who performs it. I've been told that the recipients also feel the compassionate energy, even if they don't know the practice is being done for them.

Ani Pema's on retreat for all of 2012, but she's invited everyone to join her in meditation and practicing peace today. Details are on her website www.pemachodron.org

I think I will picture a birthday cake with 76 candles, breathing in the smoky air from all the burning colored wax.

Breathing out, I wish that all beings may know the joy of clear-seeing.

Here is a video of Pema teaching tonglen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwqlurCvXuM

Meditation reduces work stress: study

A new study finds that becoming more focused, productive and less stressed at work may involve nothing more than learning to meditate.

David Levy, a computer scientist and professor with the Information School at the University of Washington, found that those who had meditation training were able to stay on task longer and were less distracted. Levy and his co-authors discovered that meditation also improved test subjects' memory while easing their stress.

Some companies, such as Google, even teach their workers to meditate.

If yours doesn't, you can still sneak it in. Even if you're sitting a cubicle and you don't want to get a rep as the office meditator (not that there's anything wrong with that -- and maybe there would be things right with it if people notice your calm and focused demeanor and ask what your secret is) you can meditate at work.

Look at your computer screen or a document but soften your gaze so that you're not absorbing what's there. Focus instead on your breathing. Know that you're breathing in; know that you're breathing out. Focusing on your breath cuts off the fight-or-flight impulse and activates your parasympathetic nervous system.

Pick a number ahead of time or watch the clock on your computer. Consciously breath for 27 breaths or three minutes or whatever works for you. Go back to your task with a clearer mind.

You can do that many times a day.

A screensaver with drips of paint

And if you also practice at home, for 10 or 15 minutes or more, your body and mind learn to recognize that you're calming down, and you'll switch into it more quickly.

You Can Always Wake Up

My companion and I were walking back to our B&B in Galway through a pedestrian mall area lined with bars and restaurants. We'd spent the evening watching Eurocup football in a bar, being mistaken for French because we rooted for the team. That resulted in a man kissing my companion on the cheek at the bar, and she returned to our table with two Bulmers and a bemused expression. Later we were chatted up by two older gentlemen with incomprehensible accents. Excellent fun.

But the dark side of drink showed itself on our walk back. Two men came out of a bar arguing loudly. Then it became physical, with punches thrown. One man fell to the ground, and the other kicked him in the ribs.

We were on the other side of the street, fairly far away, but then stopped across the street. Several people were standing, watching, including the attacker's friends, who stood back.. No one cheered. No one egged things on. Everyone seemed to want it to stop, but no one knew how to make that happen without becoming the target of drunken aggression.

Then a taxi driver parked at the kerb honked his horn.

The man looked up, then stepped back onto the foot that was extended to deliver another kick. His friends immediately surrounded him, and they walked him away. The man on the ground lay still, and time stopped moving, until he raised his head. Three people who looked like they knew what they were doing rushed over, including a well-dressed woman in heels who'd been standing next to us. Within seconds the man was sitting up, his white T-shirt torn and ringed with blood, being talked to by those who'd gone over.

I looked for the Gardai as we walked on, a police officer, who could get help, if it was needed. Then I realized that the people on the scene probably had cellphones and could call for help.

I don't know if we could have done anything differently. Interfering would not have stopped the fight, only provided a new target.

But I do know this: We can always wake up. No matter how fast our train of thought is speeding down the track, something can stop us in our tracks, allow us to choose whether to continue or change directions. In this case, the taxi's honk interrupted the blind, drunken, aggression that had taken over that man's mind and body.


And if that can happen, I believe, our train of thought can always be brought to a screeching halt.

May we be open to those auspicious interruptions. 

How to meditate when you don't have time to sit

My friend, Ven. Lawrence Do An Grecco, recently wrote about how to meditate if you don't have time to sit. You do it by conducting your everyday activities with the mind of meditation.
You can read his whole post here

He writes: 

Good practice is not just about sitting for long periods of time or going away on extended retreats at exotic meditation halls or reading a densely written Dharma book that makes you want to yawn. It’s simply about being fully aware of what your mind is doing at any given moment, and this is something you can do at any given moment. 

Here are some of his seven suggestions:

Set your phone alarm to go off at several different times throughout the day. When you hear the tone, take a moment to pause and check in and see how you are doing, even if it’s just for a few seconds. Notice if you’re stuck in any thought loops or harboring any negative emotional or mind states. Don’t try to force anything away or muster up any kind of special feeling, just notice how you are doing in that moment and then continue on with your day.

Do several periods of mini-practice sessions spread throughout the day. Be still and follow your breath for just 60 seconds at five or ten different periods. Use a reminder alert on your phone if you must.

Stick some small post-it notes in various places around your home and office to remind you to pay attention to what your mind is doing whenever you catch sight of them.

Whenever you are walking and wherever you happen to be, just walk. Don’t try to figure out your life or solve the world’s problems in your brain as you’re moving about—instead just pay attention to the feeling of the ground under each foot as it touches the earth below. 

Whether you’re grabbing a quick cup of coffee at Starbucks or having an elaborately prepared gourmet meal, allow yourself some time to simply experience the act of consuming.

When you’re texting or typing at your computer or on your phone, pay close attention to the sensation of your fingertips as they tap against the keys on your phone or your keyboard. 

To keep it simple, whatever you're doing, just be present with what you're doing.