Hey SC!

I think you might be on the right track and you’re asking all the right questions. I read the “The Power of Now”. Never finished it, but I read the beginning. I found Tolle’s tone to be a bit heavy handed given where I was at the time.

Here’s another book that you might want to check-out: http://www.carlhonore.com/books/in-praise-of-slowness/

Have you tried incorporating a meditation practice into your daily life? If you can still your mind, you can still your life and enjoy it more.

Sc,

In addition to John’s words, a few things came to heart as I read your words. I’m sorry for the tastelessness you’ve been experiencing, I know how unsettling it can feel when our mind is unsettled… for me, it feels as though we are in front of a beautiful buffet of life but can’t figure out where nourishing food is. We skipped from happy moment to happy moment, but over time the momentum collapses and we are left feeling foolish and lost.

This a great time! It means that the old method or view of the world is outgrown, and your body and mind are pushing us into a new view. What I see in your words is a recognition that a new strategy might be in order. John was great in suggesting meditation as a good place to start. When you responded that your mind doesn’t like to settle, and you find meditation difficult… that is normal. Expected even! What that means is you don’t yet have the concentration to hold your mind open. Consider that it is difficult to even know what that means! So, perhaps don’t bother with that for now, and do a kind of meditation that increases concentration.

Ajahn Jayasaro has a counting breath meditation on YouTube that I feel would do nicely for you. Instead of emptying the mind, trying to suppress thoughts, or trying to think new thoughts, we simply return to the breath and the number we’re on. Sometimes it might feel like we’re pushing through a windstorm toward a signpost as we reach the next number, but we keep going, keep at it. What we’re doing is exercising a mental muscle, and it takes time. We all go through it, and it gets more stable over time.

Next, when you say the moments you have flash by, and you look back with regret, what I see is a lack of buoyancy. Its as though the past “used up” our energy, and when the music stops and we’re alone, we don’t have the energy we need and slip into our history to try to find it. To keep our energy levels high, so each moment is joyful, we act generously. In each moment, to the best of our ability, we give our attention and intention to the benefit of all sentient beings. This doesn’t exclude us, we are one of the sentient beings we try to be nourishing to. We do our best to breathe in the need present, whether its ours and we go self nurture, or someone else’s and we give them a subjectively relevant hug and/or wisdom (as seems appropriate.)

What this does is invest our love and attention into our garden, and so when the music stops (and we stop dancing at work, school, parties, family) we have an abundance of energy and can self-nurture with ease. We could sit on the cushion and count, go to sleep, take a bath, go on a nature walk, do a hobby… we have the momentum of giving so we simply give to ourselves. There is no need to go back for energy, and when memories surface they are only information.

What we find as we do this is that the paintbrush is in our hand. We can detach from a “results” based joy harvest, or a “craving” based joy seeking and simply rest with an intention of giving. The harvest of joy from this kind of intention doesn’t create confusion in the mind, because we can shrug off fruits that were different than our intentions, and look deeper or let go of them depending on whether the source of the stumble was intrinsic or extrinsic. They don’t force themselves into our mind and bring icky feelings with them.

What develops from the combination of meditative concentration and metta practice (the practice of giving above) is what my teacher referred to as skillful means. Its like reality kung-fu, or working with our view skillfully and intentionally away from the patterns that bring us suffering. It takes time to develop, and we stumble plenty along the path, but the stumbles become less painful as we gain skill.

Take heart, the painfulness is only there to make you alert, so you can yank your hand off the stove! Joy is available all around us, we just have to take the time to clear the cobwebs and explore, let go, dive in. Then time passing is of little consequence, because there is beauty in the beginning, middle and end!

With warmth,
Matt

SC,

I’m glad you found the Jayasaro counting breath meditation fun! So do I. 🙂

What I was saying about generosity is this: the plans being “a moment” and the past being “autopilot” is just a mental agitation right now. In your mind at this very moment! We think it has something to do with the past or the future, but it is actually a lack of buoyancy or lack of energy in the here and now.

For example… say you look at a menu and plan a 4 course meal. The dessert looks especially appealing, and so your attention stays on that during each course. While you are eating course one, you’re thinking about how you have to get through course two and three to get to dessert. While on course two, thinking OK, only one more course after this until dessert. Then during course three you build excitement because the dessert is next. Finally the dessert comes and it is as amazing as you thought it would be, but it is small and gone in an instant. Then he bill comes, and you see you just spent a bunch of money on a few bits of dessert. What were the three other courses again? Who knows. As you look back at the cost of the meal, there is regret… because the money spent for for a few tiny bites that went poof in an instant.

When we get into a practice of giving, specifically metta practice (Jayasaro gives a great example) then the mental agitation dissipates. We recognize the whole time that the meal isn’t about the sense pleasure, such as the dessert “high”. Instead we are generous with our attention during each course. These were beings and plants which lived. The chef spent time learning his art. The sous chef cut and chopped. In each moment we are eating, we have the spirit of giving, and so each bite is accepting the life and art in front of us. This makes the meal beautiful in the beginning, middle and end. When the bill comes, it is like “that’s it? For all that joy and art and effort of nature, it was only a little money?”.

Such is the role of generosity. It brings such joy and vibrancy to each moment that whenever we get the bill we are fulfilled and happy. Detaching from the past isn’t about forgetting, its about not having to grab onto them to feel the cost was necessary. Said differently, when we are fulfilled and buoyant in the present, the past and future don’t have that feeling of “fleeting” and “autopilot”… because as we move through each moment we have a spirit of giving that reveals the beauty while we are planning, while we are waiting for the plan, and after the plan.

Does that make more sense?

With warmth,
Matt

I think Im so smart…I’m so smart I don’t utilize correct punctuation anymore… no commas or semi-colons..i just use these dots… they seem to be my only way of writing and helping others to breathe correctly while reading. I have this theory about passing with time…and the theory is human beings are cursed. And as you pass through time it becomes tougher and tougher to experience what you felt during your young years. I am so open to ideas of thought and spirituality (not religion), but when it comes to us actually having the right to live a fulfilled life? I automatically say we do not deserve it. I mean really, the only things in the vast galaxy that care whether we have a pension or not..are humans. So my whole existence is to impress humans. I must impress them with my skills so they give me more of their hard earned money which will in turn allow me to afford more things that humans buy. I honestly feel we are mice in a wheel sometimes…and I believe it is the universes way of holding our soul.. Sure we can mine for diamonds so woman all over can have a piece of the planet welded to precious metals so their friends can hopefully find a man who gets her the same thing. Or even men wishing they could have enough money to propose with a ring in a box like that. The truth is..40 carats or no carats.. one day the shine will fade..the toys will go back in the box..and the food will rot. The hardest thing about passing or passage of time for me is what we USED to live like. And almost being a self-loathing american..I actually want to go back and help defend what this country used to be with the native americans. For reasons of greed and ruling we decided to ruin the most peaceful attempt of society the world has ever seen..and we have without a doubt spread the cancer. There is so much anger everywhere, it’s safe so say we all have eyes in the back of our head now.. and really..can you blame us? Well If i had it my way, we would all meet..everyone..in the center of a vast hillside..and just talk to each other. Some would bring food and drink..others would bring peaceful passages for us to re=think our impact on our world and each other. I hope one day we all feel so connected that none of us our afraid anymore.. EVEN in prisons and jails..i wish we could find a way to break the mentality of control and fear and turn it into something which will make the passing of our time..TRULY fulfilling.. I love you all..and please dedicate your life to your own heart.. dedication brings realization..and i realize i need others to feel alive.

SC,

Yes, I understand how wonderful moments fade and produce sadness in their passing. What you seem to be seeing are one of the three marks of existence as taught by the Buddha. All conditional happiness (and really all things) contain these marks. In the instance you described with the friends at dinner on Friday, you describe the impermanence or annica in pali.

Impermanence, one of the marks, is that all things change. Each Friday is different, each meal is different. You order the same thing, but it is not the same thing. The friends seem the same, but they have changed, grown, morphed into different people. When we use the “reliability” or the illusion of consistency as a source of our happiness, we produce a dissatisfying aftertaste… because we know deep down that we are grasping at air.

Buddha said that this is the source of all dissatisfaction in our lives. It runs pretty deep in us, and by looking at how deep it runs, we can let go of the material happiness and move into unconditioned happiness. Said differently, when we attach our happiness to the first course, as soon as it is set down we start trying to protect it from leaving… which we can’t. The waiter comes back and trades one dish for another, a Friday night for a Saturday morning, one breath for another, youth for old age.

This is why we let go of materialism as a source of pleasure, and invest our attention on bringing our attention to the moment, where we can connect to unconditioned happiness. We feel the loss of the plate of food, and notice the feeling of loss. Then we breathe in and recenter into metta. Then the next plate isn’t grasped at as much, and we feel a little less of a loss when it goes. Then we breathe in and recenter in metta. Then the next plate comes and we don’t grasp at it at all, because we are happy independent of external conditions (favorable material conditions), and so feel no loss when it goes. A meal comes, we chew, we digest, we poop, and we flush. Where’s the struggle? Where’s the suffering? Its what comes from trying to eat the poop, or resist the flushing, or ignore our chewing, or wanting the meal to make us happy.

I this OK for this not to be an “A Ha” where everything is now fine with you. It doesn’t work that way. This is only to see it enough that you get to work on the actual cure, which is the sitting meditation and the metta practice.

With warmth,
Matt

SC,

Its not a big deal, you do not come across as argumentative.

The contradiction you are seeing is why it is dissatisfying. The wrong view is that any thing can bring enjoyment. Consider your statement “I would have to become numb to things I enjoy not to grasp at them.” This not the case. When you “grasp” at “things”, you are making your enjoyment conditional on those things, which causes their passing to be painful. You can’t stop their passing, so you are playing a losing game already.

Instead, we have enjoyment independent of things. There is inner joy and peace, and there are the appearance of things. We don’t become numb zombies without preference, sugar is still sweet and roses are still pretty. However, when the rose is a bud, we are peaceful and happy. When the rose is in bloom we are peaceful and happy. When the rose has wilted, we are peaceful and happy. When its in bloom, we still see all of the vibrancy and color, and feel a deep joy. Its even more potent than conditional happiness, as we don’t feel the need to grasp at the rose, to keep it in bloom to fuel our happiness.

With warmth,
Matt

SC,

Consider that meditation is not about “finding a fix” but a practice. As such it takes time. When we first start meditating, we are peaceful only on the cushion. Then after some practice we are peaceful for a few breaths after we get up. Then after some practice we are peaceful for a few hours. It takes time, breathing, letting go, and sitting. That you notice it is better while meditating is a good start. It is not temporary, that is just the mind coming back in wanting its next “fix” of happiness… the cushion is a path, a place of practice.

Much like when we start playing an instrument we can only hear the sounds while we are playing the scales, it takes time before we can hear music away from the piano. It does happen… patience!

With warmth,
Matt