The Authentic Life (4 page)

Keep in mind that it's a given that practice is hard and that efforts are required for a long time. But if you're sincere and persevere, you'll gradually experience your life in a new way—with more presence, more openness, less reactivity. This will no doubt entail working with periods of confusion and discouragement, and occasionally being confronted with making a choice of how you want to live your life. Then you can ask the question of the eternal recurrence, which is another way of asking, “Do I want to stay stuck in complacency and fear, or do I want to follow the path of living from a more open heart?”

Remember, we get stuck because we've lost touch with a bigger sense of things. We forget that our stuck place is not an obstacle but rather our exact path to freedom. Yet this is only true if we're willing to bring awareness to it. We also need to remember that awareness heals. This, however, requires that we make the choice, the effort, to actually be aware. We may know this intellectually, but when the small mind takes over, we can quickly forget.

When we ask the question of the eternal recurrence, and can listen to the Big Mind as it guides us past our small-minded patterns and fears, it allows us to say yes to our life—even our difficulties and pain—because we understand that the joy would
not have been possible without the pain. All of the pains, as well as our mistakes, our weaknesses, our attachments, are a necessary part of our development. All of those things we have so disliked have nonetheless pushed us in our growth, and are a necessary part of the whole interweaving tapestry of where we stand in the present moment. In answering the call of the eternal recurrence we are, in effect, saying yes to all of it, willingly affirming our commitment and direction. This is the direct path to becoming who we truly are. As the artist Odilon Redon said, “With my eyes more widely opened upon things, I learned that the life that we have can also reveal joy.”

4

Doorways into Reality

A
s we glide along on the thin ice of life, just going from one thing to another, pretending that we have endless time, sooner or later we are bound to fall through one of the cracks in the thin ice. When we do, we usually quickly scramble to find some strategy to help regain the illusion of control. Here's an example: On a recent trip to the former prison on Alcatraz Island I had the fascinating experience of walking through its halls, standing in the cells, and imagining what it would have been like to be confined there. Before Alcatraz was closed as a functioning prison, it was unique in that it kept all of its prisoners isolated in solitary cells. I heard the story of one prisoner who was put into a pitch-black solitary cell as punishment. He ripped a button off his shirt and threw it in the air, then got on his knees to look for it. Then he'd throw it again. Falling through the thin ice—in this case into the terror of a dark cell—he would throw the button again and again just to avoid going crazy in the dark.

This example may sound like it has nothing to do with us,
but the fact is we all have our own ways of avoiding the dark and our own strategies for throwing buttons. Ours may look more sane and more productive, but they're still attempts to avoid facing our own difficulties. Trying to avoid what's unpleasant seems to be deeply ingrained in the human psyche. After all, when life feels out of sync, we naturally seek comfort and relief. But the feeling that life is out of sync is hardly new; as Buddha pointed out more than 2,500 years ago, we'll always have to deal with the fact that life entails discomfort and disappointment. We will always have our many problems—concerns about financial security, relationship difficulties, fears about our health, anxious striving toward success and acceptance, and so on. Yet perhaps the most basic problem is that
we don't really want to have any problems
; perhaps that's a large part of what makes our current time seem so distressing to us.

Many people come to meditation-based practices with the expectation that these practices will calm them down and relieve the feelings of distress. Certainly meditation can do this to some extent; however, when we're knee-deep in emotional distress, it's not always likely that we'll remember to use these tools. Even if we could remember to meditate, simply sitting down to follow the breath without directly addressing our difficulties is unlikely to bring a deep or lasting peace to the mind. The difficulties remain.

Sometimes, when emotions are particularly intense and we feel the very uncomfortable feelings of groundlessness and helplessness, it is especially difficult to remember what we know. There's a good reason for this; when we're distressed, the “new,” or conceptual, brain tends to stop working. This is called “cognitive shock,” and it turns off the cognitive mind's basic ability to function. When the thinking brain is on sabbatical, we simply can't think clearly. During cognitive shock, the “old” brain,
which is based on survival and defense, takes over. At this point we're likely to attack, withdraw, or go numb, none of which are conducive to awareness. To be honest, when caught in cognitive shock, we're fortunate if we can even remember that we want to be awake.

When clarity becomes obscured by the dark and swirling energy of emotional distress, it is sometimes necessary to do something as basic as taking several deep relaxing breaths, which help put us back in contact with the cognitive part of the brain. We do this by breathing in through the nose, then exhaling with long, slow breaths through the mouth. These relaxing breaths tend to subdue the old-brain response of panic and anxiety and allow us to reengage the mind of clarity. However, we may still be a little confused about what to do next, so it's very useful to have some concise reminders to bring us back to reality. The real question is, what helps us awaken? The answer to this overarching question can be broken down into five very straightforward and specific smaller questions, each of which is a doorway into reality.

1. “W
HAT
I
S
G
OING
O
N
R
IGHT
N
OW
?”

This simply requires honestly acknowledging the objective situation. But to do this, we have to be able to see the difference between our reaction to what is happening and the actual facts of the situation. For instance, when we experience the panic of losing our job or seeing our investments disappear overnight, it is easy to get so caught up in our fears that we lose all sense of perspective. But what is actually happening in the present moment? Aren't we usually hijacked by the thoughts we've added, of the impending doom of homelessness or hunger, rather than actually experiencing homelessness or hunger? Clearly seeing
our believed thoughts—which are often based in negative imaginings about the future—allows us to come back to the objective reality of what is happening.

Another example: When we're caught in the swirl of emotional distress, we almost always add the thought “Something is wrong”—either wrong in general or, more likely, wrong with another person or with ourselves. In addition, we will almost always think about how to escape from the distress—through trying to fix the situation or through blaming or analyzing. In short, working effectively with our emotional difficulties requires that we first see clearly not only what is actually happening but also what we're adding to the situation through our emotional reactions and escapes.

How much of our distress is rooted in the stories we weave around our experiences? Dropping our story line is critical to being aware of what is actually happening in the present moment. We need to see the story line for what it is and stop rehashing it over and over with our believed thoughts, since all they do is sustain and solidify our painful experiences. This is especially true when we are self-justifying and blaming. Asking the first practice question—“What is going on right now?”—can help us get out of the toxic loop of our stories.

2. “C
AN
I S
EE
T
HIS
AS
M
Y
P
ATH
?”

If we don't ask this crucial question, we're unlikely even to remember that this is our opportunity to awaken. Yet it is essential that we understand that our distressful situation is exactly what we need to work with in order to be free. For example, the person we find most irritating becomes a mirror, reflecting back to us exactly where we're stuck. After all, the irritation is what we add.

It is absolutely fundamental that we learn that when difficult situations and feelings arise, they are not obstacles to be avoided; instead these very difficulties are, in fact, the path itself. They're our opportunity to wake up out of our little protected world; they're our opportunity to awaken into a more authentic way of living. This point can't be overemphasized.

Of course, you may have heard this idea before—that our difficulties are our path. But it's a lot easier to understand this intellectually than it is to remember it when we're in the middle of the muddiness of life. Why? Because, again, we instinctively want a life that is problem-free. So we usually continue seeking comfort and safety until at some point, if we're fortunate, we get disappointed enough by life's blows to realize that our strategies—controlling, trying harder, withdrawing, blaming, whatever they are—will never give us the quality of life that all of us want. At that point—with life's disappointments as our teacher—we can start to use our difficulties as part of our path to awakening. Remembering the importance of this allows us to make the critical practice step of welcoming our distress, because we understand that as long as we continue resisting our experience, we will stay stuck.

3. “W
HAT
I
S
M
Y
M
OST
B
ELIEVED
T
HOUGHT
?”

Answering this is like taking a snapshot of the mind. It's tempting to skip over this question, especially since we often take our opinions as truth, even though our opinions in any given moment can be dependent on factors such as what we ate, what the weather is, or how we feel physically. This is what it means to live out of the subjective experience of “Me.”

Even though observation of the mind allows us to see our superficial or surface thoughts with clarity, the deepest beliefs
often stay below the surface, making it difficult to see what we're really believing. Thus, these deep-seated beliefs often dictate how we feel and act, and they continue to run almost unconsciously.

For example, deeply believed thoughts about our personal insecurity may not be evident on the surface in a given situation; truthfully, we're often unaware of their presence. But their toxic footprint often manifests itself in our anger, blame, depression, and shame. These deeply believed yet well-hidden thoughts of insecurity thus act like radar, and we often seek out experiences that confirm that our beliefs are true—the classic self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, if you believe that life is not safe, all you have to do is get a bill that's a little bit bigger than you expected, and your mind will start weaving scenarios of doom. Yet living with this radar constantly engaged means living in the past, not in the present.

We have to know where we get stuck in our particular radar-like beliefs. We also have to know how to work with them. The process begins with asking yourself, “What is my most believed thought?” However, if the answer doesn't come, you drop it and return to your physical experience rather than trying to figure it out with the mind. Then, a little while later, you ask the question again. Sooner or later, with perseverance, an answer will present itself, sometimes with an “aha!” quality.

For instance, your surface thought may be, “No one should have to put up with this.” This thought expresses the protective voice of anger and frustration. But when we go deeper, we may discover a more strongly held thought, such as “I can't do this.” It may even be revealed with the “aha!” of discovery. Then, as we get to know ourselves, we are no longer so surprised. Haven't we seen this belief many times before? It's at this point that our investment in our deeply seated negative beliefs about ourselves
begins to diminish. But to get to this place, first we must inquire into what our most believed thoughts are.

4. “W
HAT
I
S
T
HIS
?”

This question, perhaps the most important one, can't be answered by the thinking mind. The actual answer comes from entering directly into the immediate, physical experience of the present moment. Right now, ask yourself, “What is this?” This question can apply to whatever the present moment holds, whether or not you feel any distress. Become aware of your physical posture. Feel the overall quality of the physical sensations in the body. Feel the tension in the face, chest, and stomach. Include awareness of the environment—the temperature, the quality of light, the surrounding sounds.

Ask the question again, “What is this?” Feel the body breathing in and out as you experience this felt sense of the moment. Beyond thoughts, what is it that experiences? Feel the energy in the body as you focus on the “whatness” (rather than the “whyness”) of your experience. Only by doing this will you be able to answer the question, “What is this?”

Admittedly, it is difficult to maintain awareness in the present moment when distress is present, because truly experiencing the present as it is means we have to refrain from our most habitual defenses, such as justifying, trying to get control, going numb, seeking diversions, and so on. The sole purpose of these strategies is to protect us from feeling the discomfort that we don't want to feel. But until we can refrain from these defenses and feel the physical experience directly, we will stay stuck in the story line of “Me,” and remain unaware of what life really is in the moment.