Wise Heart Way

Shadowing the silence

The concept of "benign silence" rises in my life. In a recent chat with fellow Wise Heart Lez, she described this odd but challenging notion. She mentioned how awkward it feels, being a teacher whose job is to impart knowledge, to remain in a state of receptive silence when the first impulse is to explain. (I hope she'll share more on this on WHW.) A few nights ago, at a dinner party with another professor, I mentioned struggling to remain in "benign silence" in conversations. His eyes lit up. "I'm learning to rest in the words of others," he replied. He no longer does others' intellectual work. Beautifully said, I thought. Then my beloved mentioned living the contradiction of being silent while speaking. If we are silent while speaking, we're in the clearest space of awareness. And we are speaking from heart, not head. Note: I recall hearing a male editor say, thinking I was out of earshot: "I love Kären's aggressive mind." It bothered me; still does. My greatest growth is to comprehend that the mind is merely a tool, not a place to live. Particularly if its a restless, grasping, overactive, hypercharged swirl. Benign silence is the antidote. (This photo is of my Shadow Self with a nod to Mr. Jung).

here i am

I am behind in my reading and commenting and feel nagging guilt and  anxiety about it. A lot of nagging anxiety -- as if I had some Blog Boss to report to who is threatening to dock my pay, or as if I was being graded for  Frequency and Quality of Blogging.

Man. I find it sooo easy to beat up on myself!

Here's an opportunity to replace that unhealthy thought that concentrated on failure, with a healthy one: So far, as a group, we've created 82 thoughtful posts and 9 comments here. And I have participated in that. Pretty cool.

Pinciple #19: What we repeatedly think shapes our world. Out of compassion, substitute healthy thoughts for unhealthy ones.

Practice: The Compassionate Replacement of Painful Thoughts

understanding stuff

You think too much, Mary Ann.

I cling to that description of me. Others hung it on me, but I've bought into it big time. I've also bought into the notion that "thinking too much" is a bad thing and that it's of the many things about myself I must fix. Besides having a tendency to drive some people away, my seeking explanation can be awfully exhausting. Fruitlessly, I bang my head against the Wall of Knowledge, looking for The Answers. I've tried to stop thinking too much. I haven't been very successful.

I can't remember the chapter in which Kornfield quoted the Zen proverb: "If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are." But I got bugged by that proverb which at first I  read as if it told me to "just stop thinking about it" -- all the "its" I think about, just stop. You think "too" much, Mary Ann.

And that's why I'm intrigued by Lezlie's post. I can be relentlessly driven to understand, to find reasons and explanations, to know. I'm not sure that I can ever be still and satisfied with unexplained mysteries, either.  Like hey, here's something that requires explanation: what is the point of my intelligence if my ability to make sense of my experience doesn't matter? Why would our ability to sense patterns and relationships evolve into a skill well beyond what we need to (physically) survive if we weren't meant to use it?

But lately I believe I have started a  new relationship with this all thinking I do.

I realize it's not the quest for explanation that I must address.  It's not the " not knowing" that's actually causing me to suffer.  It's the driven and desperate quality of my quest that's the problem.

Why am I so frantic about it? Therapy has helped me to see it has something to do with a need to feel safe. Could be that the desperateness is not really propelling me toward  understanding. Perhaps I am using this desperate quest to run away from something that scares me and feels unsafe. Perhaps it's not that I really want knowledge at all, perhaps it's really that I am avoiding something -- like boatloads of grief and sadness, maybe? (I have seen the fleet and it is mine.)

I haven't figured it all out. But recently it has been more fruitful for me be curious about the driven and desperate quality of my quest rather than go on the quest itself. I'm examining it closely and peeking under it to see what it has been covering up. It's spidery and creepy under there, but I think it's really where I need to go.

Whether I understand or not: "things are just as they are." I can't change any circumstance present or past. But I can change my relationship to things "as they are."  Changing my relationship is an inward journey, not an outward one. It's a heart case, not a head one. I can see that now, even though I can't always act on it.  When I can relax into the not knowing, feelings of deep grief and sadness flow over me. Sometimes I think I will drown in them.  But when I can relax into those feelings,  welcome them, and not judge them or myself, I feel relief. This relaxing and doing nothing except to note what's bubbling up and feel it fully is counter to all my programming.  I am a very old dog learning new tricks, and these tricks don't come easily, not at all. But I  practice and I sense my heart growing lighter, a glimmer of peace. Pretty cool.

It's a Mystery

Last night, at a party at Phil Deaver’s house, Carol Frost said to me, “Some things are just a mystery.  You won’t be able to explain this.”   She was listening to me attempt to console a colleague who had just experienced the break-up of a year-long relationship.

     I kept thinking about those words late into the night, and hearing them helped me see a pattern—my enormous need for explanation. Yes, yes, there it is again.  Fairly relentless.  Maybe part of the reason I became a teacher.  Somewhere along the line I caught the assumption that things can be figured out, or at least grappled with in some coherent manner.  This assumption, taken to its worst conclusion, becomes a desire to fix things.  So like last night, as I was watching my colleague’s sadness rise and fall through the evening, big tears welling, I so wanted to help her, to say something that would make sense of her experience, or give her some kind of guidance, some understanding. There must be some way to frame this event that makes it acceptable.  It's a pattern of mine, of course, one that rises in me like a relentless wave. I'm learning how to ride that wave.  I try to practice benign silence.

     As I rode through the night, I assumed Carol was right.  Of course she’s right, I thought, impatient with myself.  Love is a mystery.  You can’t even get love issues straight for yourself, so why are you trying to figure it out for a thirty-year-old woman?   Some things are simply mysterious.  I wanted to rest into that conclusion.  In a way, it would be easier.  Just give up trying to understand. There is no figuring things out, Lezlie, just accept it.  Carol’s face was so serene when she spoke.  Her words must surely be true.  In the early morning hours, I could feel myself in calmer waters.

    But now, it’s Sunday, and sunny outside, and the day is urging me forward.  The old need is rising again.  The doubt returns as that wave begins to build.  “Is Carol right?” I wonder.  Must we resign ourselves to this dark room of mystery?  Or is that an easy way to avoid doing the work?  I have this fear of not making the appropriate effort to know what can be known, to live what can be lived.  When do I succumb to mystery and when do I push toward understanding?  Or. . . do I reside in the middle of those two positions?  A surfer riding the enormous, unfathomable force of a wave but bringing my own facility of balance and focus to the board. 

    

Visually Challenged?

I have to admit that the first time I read The Wise Heart I pretty much skimmed through Chapter Eighteen, called “Sacred Vision:  Imagination, Ritual, and Refuge.”  For some reason, I have never been very good at visualization, and though I’ve always been deeply attracted to ritual, I’ve not been very interested in sacred images. So the chapter just didn’t do much for me.  The second time through has been the same.  I have very few highlights in the chapter (a sure sign that not much is connecting), and I pretty much skimmed through the chapter with little engagement.

But something interesting has happened in the last day.  On Thursday, Mary Ann posted principle eighteen:  “What we repeatedly visualize changes our body and our consciousness.  Visualize freedom and compassion.”  And there was something about seeing the principle against the beautiful bright background of our Wise Heart Way site that allowed this principle to bore a bit deeper into my mind.  I’ve been thinking about it since then.  Not anything profound, for sure, just thinking about visualizing and wondering just how does one visualize freedom?  What does compassion look like, I thought.  I seem to be visually challenged cause I just can’t get there.  I put the book away, waiting for the beginning of next month to plunge into Chapter Nineteen, “Buddhist Cognitive Training,” something I can get my teeth into.

This morning, I woke up at my usual time, around 5:30 a.m.  I lay in bed saying my prayers and letting my mind catch up to my body.  As is my wont, I caught myself thinking about the day before—rehearsing conversations I’d had, seeing tiny moments from the day, scanning through previously experienced emotions or thoughts.  I try to catch myself in these early morning reveries (sometimes they are more like obsessions) and get back to the present, back to the breath, back to the prayers, but eventually the mind navigates its way back to rehearsal of the past.  An annoying pattern, for sure.

But then, for some reason, I thought of principle eighteen:  “What we repeatedly visualize changes our body and consciousness.”  And I realized that I’m not visually challenged; but I’m visualizing events that have already taken place.  How can I change if I’m constantly visualizing the past, I wondered?  What would happen if I started visualizing the day ahead of me instead of the day behind me?

So I started.  Right there in bed, I decided to see myself as I want to be in the next twenty-four hours.  I see myself moving through a yoga class with strength and agility, absolutely pain free.  I see myself with my doctor this afternoon, and he’s telling me to calm down about the knee; it’s healing nicely.  I see myself sitting in front of my computer, pounding out the revisions of Twelve Doors, feeling creative and pleased with my words.  I see myself being helpful and attentive to a student who is struggling with a writing project she’s doing for me.  I see myself calm and happy and deeply responsive to experiences that arise.

Well, it’s not quite what Kornfield was talking about in this chapter.  If you read the practice exercise he gives on page 292, you’ll see that he’s going for a much deeper sort of visualization, working with a sacred image.  His practice directs us toward compassion, courage, purity, and luminous radiance.  But for right now, I’m going to start with a baby step and strive for visualizing my future self instead of re-watching my past self.   In fact, I think I’m going to try an experiment, and for the next 15 days visualize the specific ways I see myself in the future.  Want to join me?  It might be fun to see how such a practice would change our daily experiences.   If nothing else, it will make my morning wake-up more interesting since I won’t be watching a movie I’ve already seen!

Principle #18: What we repeatedly visualize changes our body and consciousness. Visualize freedom and compassion.

Practice: Visualization

Writing and Karma

     Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist Peter Carlson takes exception to the notion of the universe “conspiring” to bring lessons to individuals.  This is a notion that is firmly set in New Age thinking—that there is some force “out there” pulling together exactly the circumstances needed to push us to new understandings of ourselves.  People say, “Isn’t it amazing how the universe brings us exactly what we need in order to grow or change?”   I say this all the time as a way of recognizing some mysterious connections that seem to form out of my experience, and push me where I might otherwise not go.  The perfect book will come along to clarify an idea I’m grappling with.  A lover will challenge me to face the shadow side of my personality, the one I was barely aware of.  A comment from a friend will reveal an insensitivity I practice.  Lessons abound, it seems.  Eckhart Tolle says, “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.” 

     But Carlson says it isn’t so much that there’s a “force” out there arranging things for my benefit as much as my own brain constructing meaning around the experiences that are before me.  Our consciousness selects events, dynamics, gestures that accumulate around issues we need to address. 

     Whether this mysterious serendipity works from the outside or the inside, I’m grateful for it, because it seems to happen a lot to me.  And once again, I find myself beginning my response our reading this month with:  The universe has brought me the very essay I needed to read today.   My last writing about The Wise Heart was a long letter to two close friends, and I have not posted it out of respect for the privacy of the two recipients of the writing.  Suffice it to say that Chapter 16, “Suffering and Letting Go,” was a profound chapter to me, and came to me at precisely the moment I was attempting to organize the ideas of a long and intense conversation that the three of us had had. 

     This week, with Chapter 17, I once again find clarity in the words of Kornfield, and solace in the face of a slightly challenging turn of events with regard to a writing that “went awry.”  The substance of my writing, and the particular circumstance out of which it emerged, are not really pertinent here; rather, what interests me is the ways in which our words can miss the mark—no matter how carefully we try to compose them.  It’s an old tale, of course, and anyone who takes words seriously has grappled with the challenge of expressing exactly what you think you’re trying to say.  Notice all the qualifications there.  It’s so damn hard to write exactly what you think you’re thinking.  The avenues of error are multitudinous!

      On the other hand, we also know that writing is a generative act.  Most of the time, I figure out what I’m trying to say in the act of writing.  So given the slipperiness of my own understanding of my words, it’s no surprise that those words would engender a number of interpretations by other readers.  Books and books have been written on this topic, and I’m not really interested in exploring the communication triangle here.  But when you actually experience the surprise of having your words grievously miss their mark, the communicative act becomes intensely personal.

     And then comes Kornfield and his chapter on karma, “The Compassion of the Heart:  Intention and Karma.”  Karma, he says, is the result of our intention.  And further, he says, “The most effective way to direct our karma is to clarify our motivation and set an intention.”  Intention and motivation are the roots of karma.

      I read this chapter just as I was feeling anxious that my words had caused someone else pain or discomfort.   This was not my intention at all!  So what is a writer to do?  Practice, Kornfield would say.  “We must practice wise speech, non-contentiousness, generosity, and compassion over and over again, in trivial and important situations alike.”  The Buddha said that practicing right speech means asking ourselves three questions:  1)  Is it true?   2)  Is it kind?  3) Is it necessary or useful?  If you can’t say yes to all three, it might be best to refrain from speaking lest you demonstrate a lack of compassion.

    When I speak to a friend, I want to speak with generosity and compassion.  Knowing how to speak the truth and simultaneously encompass those qualities is a challenge to all who take up the Buddhist path.  The practice that Kornfield offers at the end of this chapter is indeed a case of the universe conspiring to bring me exactly what I need at this very moment (sorry Peter Carlson!):  “. . .bring the highest possible intentions to each act.  Notice if they contain the elements of compassion for others and for yourself.  Notice if they are wise and courageous.”  Such a practice creates the karmic path upon which I walk.