I guess when i started this blog i thought i would post a bit more regularly. It turns out that probably won't be the case. I like keeping my life both full and making time to slow down, so while i make mindfulness practice and Dharma talks a regular part of my routine, writing about my practices sometimes falls by the wayside.
Lately I've been trying to make sitting meditation more a part of my daily practice, by practicing sitting quietly for a short time (15 minutes) in the morning. I tend not to do anything on a regular scheduled basis (the time I show up for work varies, the times I eat, go to sleep, etc. all vary), and some days i wake up and have time to spare in the morning, other days i wake up and have just enough time to get ready at a relaxed pace, but no additional time to spare. So it takes effort for me to consistently get up early enough to have that extra time to sit. I'm keeping the sitting time short to make it easy to do regularly, and hope to lengthen the time as my practice strengthens.
In making time to sit quietly i find i have been practicing metta meditation less. I don't really have any good reason for this. Usually i practice metta using guided meditations, but i could practice metta just as well using my quiet sitting time. It's just that i like my guided metta meditations, and they're too long for my new morning routine. When i started practicing metta meditation it was sporadic, whenever i found a half hour to 45 minutes to sit. So I'm trying an experiment. I clipped a longer metta meditation to make two short 15 minute versions (one has more quiet time than the other). I'm going to try using the meditations some days, and just sitting quietly on others.
Metta meditation works well for me. I get sucked into thoughts easily, so having phrases to focus on focuses my mind a little better than breath meditation does. I can also be very judgmental, and metta seems to help counteract that. I also like guided meditations since i lack a live teacher or group. I've heard its easier to practice when around others who are also practicing, and the recordings seem to provide a similar experience.
At first the idea of the metta phrases (May all beings live in safety, May all beings be happy, May all beings be healthy, etc.) sounded really corny, but after listening to some teachers explain the concept i warmed up to the practice. Below are some talks and metta, and some guided meditations i use.
Ajahn Vayama
Guided Metta and Q & A This is the meditation i used to make the short versions. I've made 15, 20, 30, & 45 minute meditations based on this track.
Narayan Liebenson Grady
Guided Metta I This meditation focuses on metta for oneself. I like the explanation of how & why to practice metta.
Guided Metta II This meditation focuses on self and benefactor.
Guided Metta III This meditation brings in the friend and neutral person. I like the intro for the neutral person.
Guided Metta IV This meditation brings in the difficult person and metta for all beings.
Guided Metta V Expands on Guided Metta IV.
Guy Armstrong
Metta Near and Far Enemies
Metta and Concentration
These are two Dharma talks I like that discuss aspects of the practice of metta meditation.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Staying Grounded
Its been awhile since i have had much time to collect my thoughts. As the weather gets nice work picks up, and i have been traveling, first to North Dakota, and now to Montana. Work days have been long, 10 or 11 hours, and time for writing and meditation has been short. I have been away from home, living in motel rooms, for days or weeks at a time. When i get home i want to spend time with my husband and dogs, clean the house, do some laundry, eat food cooked on a real stove (not a microwave), and just relax. At times like these, when i feel my energy and/or desire to practice formal meditation wane, i rely on mindfulness practice and the Dharma talks to keep me going.
The first thing i do is not turn on the TV. TV drains my time and energy, and reinforces the three unwholesome roots of greed, aversion, and delusion. The next thing i do is set the alarm clock early. I want to be able to start the day mindfully, and that means i need to be able to take my time. Even if i don't make time to sit formally for meditation practice i like to be able to sit still and just follow my breath, sometimes only for one or two breaths at a time. I like to be able to make breakfast, even if its just microwaving a bowl of oatmeal, and eat mindfully (eating slowly is a challenge for me, it is something i have to concentrate on, and even then eating slowly for me is eating quickly for some). Sometimes i listen to a Dharma talk in the morning. The evening is similar. I like to have time to change out of my field cloths (I work outdoors), lean back quietly, listen to my breath, enjoy the boredom, feel the restlessness, make dinner (lately that means beans and rice), eat, listen to a dharma talk, and get to sleep early.
Feeling the restlessness and enjoying boredom are more important to me than they sound. Often i don't want to sit still, i want to get up, to do something, play a game, watch TV, make a plan, call someone. By not doing these things i have a chance to feel the deeper feelings that drive the restlessness. It gives me a chance to feel the unwholesome roots in myself. That sounds much more negative than it is. For me noticing greed, aversion, and delusion in myself is a gentle practice. I practice metta to accept the parts of myself i don't like, the grasping, pushing away, and tuning out, and in doing so i find myself becoming more tolerant of the parts of other people i don't like. That doesn't mean that i happily get along with everyone i meet (I still struggle with right speech and tend to nit-pick in ways that are not beneficial), but it does mean i don't take my feelings so seriously.
Its not about logic. I don't try to figure out why people do what they do. People do what they do because they want to be happy, yet are often mistaken about what brings happiness and so do the very things that make them suffer. The Buddha taught us that. But knowing that on an intellectual basis brings little comfort. Instead i need to feel that difficulty myself, feel the feelings i don't want to feel, and realize on a deep level that not only do i not want to feel these feelings, but that nobody wants to feel these feelings, and i don't want anybody to feel these feelings. Yet people do experience difficult conditions. Pleasure and pain, praise and blame, gain and loss, and fame and disrepute are a part of life, and we can't limit ourselves to just having the good parts. When i can feel these things on a deep level the compassion grows in a way that is very hard for me to put into words.
Sitting quietly, listening to my breath, practicing metta, letting myself feel both the good and the difficult are important, but the Dharma talks are equally important for me. Life as a lay person means i am subject to worldly conditions and obligations that keep me from having the time to sit until i achieve a breakthrough. Instead i rely on the insight of others and the power of faith. Faith, as i understand it, is a starting point, something that grows as we test it. Much of my previous paragraph comes from what i have heard listening to talks by Guy Armstrong, Jack Kornfield, Narayan Liebenson Grady, Sally Clough Armstrong, and other Dharma teachers. These talks both inspire me to keep going (or begin again, as the case may be) and give me ideas, such as the idea that people want to be happy, to test against my own experience.
By listening to the Dharma talks, and by pausing to listen to my breath and body throughout the day, i can compare what i hear about how things are with what my experience of how things are is. This is key to staying grounded, and helps me to use the busyness of daily life as an opportunity to practice, not an obstacle to practice.
The first thing i do is not turn on the TV. TV drains my time and energy, and reinforces the three unwholesome roots of greed, aversion, and delusion. The next thing i do is set the alarm clock early. I want to be able to start the day mindfully, and that means i need to be able to take my time. Even if i don't make time to sit formally for meditation practice i like to be able to sit still and just follow my breath, sometimes only for one or two breaths at a time. I like to be able to make breakfast, even if its just microwaving a bowl of oatmeal, and eat mindfully (eating slowly is a challenge for me, it is something i have to concentrate on, and even then eating slowly for me is eating quickly for some). Sometimes i listen to a Dharma talk in the morning. The evening is similar. I like to have time to change out of my field cloths (I work outdoors), lean back quietly, listen to my breath, enjoy the boredom, feel the restlessness, make dinner (lately that means beans and rice), eat, listen to a dharma talk, and get to sleep early.
Feeling the restlessness and enjoying boredom are more important to me than they sound. Often i don't want to sit still, i want to get up, to do something, play a game, watch TV, make a plan, call someone. By not doing these things i have a chance to feel the deeper feelings that drive the restlessness. It gives me a chance to feel the unwholesome roots in myself. That sounds much more negative than it is. For me noticing greed, aversion, and delusion in myself is a gentle practice. I practice metta to accept the parts of myself i don't like, the grasping, pushing away, and tuning out, and in doing so i find myself becoming more tolerant of the parts of other people i don't like. That doesn't mean that i happily get along with everyone i meet (I still struggle with right speech and tend to nit-pick in ways that are not beneficial), but it does mean i don't take my feelings so seriously.
Its not about logic. I don't try to figure out why people do what they do. People do what they do because they want to be happy, yet are often mistaken about what brings happiness and so do the very things that make them suffer. The Buddha taught us that. But knowing that on an intellectual basis brings little comfort. Instead i need to feel that difficulty myself, feel the feelings i don't want to feel, and realize on a deep level that not only do i not want to feel these feelings, but that nobody wants to feel these feelings, and i don't want anybody to feel these feelings. Yet people do experience difficult conditions. Pleasure and pain, praise and blame, gain and loss, and fame and disrepute are a part of life, and we can't limit ourselves to just having the good parts. When i can feel these things on a deep level the compassion grows in a way that is very hard for me to put into words.
Sitting quietly, listening to my breath, practicing metta, letting myself feel both the good and the difficult are important, but the Dharma talks are equally important for me. Life as a lay person means i am subject to worldly conditions and obligations that keep me from having the time to sit until i achieve a breakthrough. Instead i rely on the insight of others and the power of faith. Faith, as i understand it, is a starting point, something that grows as we test it. Much of my previous paragraph comes from what i have heard listening to talks by Guy Armstrong, Jack Kornfield, Narayan Liebenson Grady, Sally Clough Armstrong, and other Dharma teachers. These talks both inspire me to keep going (or begin again, as the case may be) and give me ideas, such as the idea that people want to be happy, to test against my own experience.
By listening to the Dharma talks, and by pausing to listen to my breath and body throughout the day, i can compare what i hear about how things are with what my experience of how things are is. This is key to staying grounded, and helps me to use the busyness of daily life as an opportunity to practice, not an obstacle to practice.
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