Are We There Yet?

My daughter just graduated from Hampshire College (squee! so proud!), and as always I was struck by the word "commencement." As Barbra Streisand says in The Way We Were, "that's a funny word for the end." Of course, commencement ceremonies are called that because the graduates are about to begin the next chapter of their lives. So although it marks the end of an era, it is also just the beginning.

Another word for this is transition. I love transitions because within them we can see our habits of mind and body so clearly. I often encourage my Alexander students to bring full attention to transitional activities, such as walking through a doorway, up or down stairs, moving from car to walking or the other way around. It can be a challenge to practice body-mind unity during an activity, especially at first, but it's pretty easy to shine the light of awareness between actions.

Doing this brings about radical change. Why radical? Because it's the last place we show up. We are always thinking ahead, moving toward something, or away from something. Who brings intention to reaching for the door handle and opening the door? The point (we think) is to get on the other side of the door. So when we intend to be present during transitional moments, we transform habitual "endgaining," as F.M. Alexander termed it, and are awake for the means by which we are acting.

Mindfulness, whether in formal meditation practice or otherwise, shows us how addicted we are to the future. Anyone who meditates sees right away that the mind likes to plan, organize, and control what it anticipates will be coming. This tendency has a helpful adaptive quality, and our ability to scan the horizon for future encounters is part of our evolutionary heritage. But when this is the only way we operate, we suffer.  It is deeply unsatisfying to be constantly looking ahead for happiness, hoping that what we really want can be obtained "someday." This hamster wheel of desire (samsara in Buddhist parlance) keeps us chasing dreams and fantasies, all while missing what is happening in the here and now.

You already know this. You can think of an example from your life right now, can't you?  It's like the little kids in the back seat of a family car trip, asking "are we there yet?" It's like me, obsessively checking my peony plants to see if the blooms are out yet. I caught myself doing this yesterday, staring at them, being kind of critical about how long it was going to take until they opened up. As if their only value is the flowers they produce, and can't they hurry it up a bit? Seriously, how nutty is that?

Yet this is how we are, how we so often relate to our experience of life. And this is why mindful guidance repeatedly reminds us, "there is nothing to do, nowhere to get to, nothing to become." That is absolutely true, if you are in the moment. Yes, the peonies will bloom, but what is even more true is that, in this moment, they are blooming. They are as perfect now as they will be when the blooms are fuller and more fragrant. When I notice how I want them to be in a different state than they are, I can learn everything I need to know about the ways I create and increase my own suffering. Is "suffering" too strong a word for such a small dissatisfaction? Maybe, but multiply that by the hundreds of times a day when I want things to be other than they are, and that adds up to an unhappy state.

Being there during transitions helps with this. Try choosing to bring present moment awareness to something you do every day, like the transition from finishing a meal and getting on with the next thing, or the moments between reading an email and replying to it. Keep it simple, without analysis or expectation. Can you be there, not chasing the next thing but really in transition?  If you can, you will discover the truth that everything is flowing, changing, and dynamically balancing.

Are we there yet? Nope, and we never will be. We are here, now. That's all, and that is enough.

Three Words for 2018

It's that time again, a new year. A new opportunity to take stock, review what has come to pass, and set some intentions for living into 2018. I've been choosing three words to guide me for the past several years, words which point to concepts that support my curious inquiry as I make my way, as I keep learning how to allow Way to open as it will.

My words for 2017 were Simplicity, Power, and Forgiveness. As always, I had endless opportunities to explore each one, when I remembered to. I went long stretches without including these three in my awareness or in direct experience. When I recalled my intentions, however, examples of each were everywhere around me, either by their application or by their absence.

As I knew it would be, Power was absolutely the issue of the day.

Whether in the #MeToo movement, or the dangerous egocentric posturing of the President toward foreign nation-states (toward nearly everybody), or taking a knee on the football field, or even in my own spiritual community, people have been pretty confused about power: what it is, how we wield it, how to get it, and how to hold on to it. On the flip side, there is Powerlessness, the sense that one has no choice, no agency over their experience. I continued to face my own powerlessness over the things I'm addicted to (Step 1 in the 12-Step tradition), and I noticed an uptick in students telling me "I can't" or "it won't work" or other types of resignation. This helped me move closer to the idea that Power is mostly an agreement between one or more people; like everything, it's relational. I cede my power to you, or we share power with each other, "empowering" us. Perhaps that's the social contract we need to maintain, I don't know. What I do know, after a year of considering it, is that true power comes from within.

Sorry if you were expecting some new insight. I can only confirm that what wise teachers have said for millennia is true: there is no real power except what we each possess innately, and there is a power that exists among and between us too, which I call interdependence (a word from 2016). How we use that power is up to us, and even under duress we have the option of exercising our unique agency. This doesn't have to be reserved for big conflicts among groups, like what happened in Charlottesville last summer. It can also be accessed under boringly mundane situations, like when I was sick last winter and could only function in the most basic, simple ways.

It was in that brief illness that I saw the power of Simplicity, and throughout the year I witnessed many instances of how I often needlessly complicate things, which reduces my power. Feeling overwhelmed by too much to do, too many ideas, hopelessly juggling everything in the hope that somehow everything will work perfectly -- this is neither reasonable nor effective. It weakens my actions and renders my good intentions moot. It makes me feel like giving up. The simplest remedy I know, one I keep rediscovering, is The Pause. Pausing adds a little gap wherein I can drop the extra effort or the added plans and concepts and sense what's immediate and essential. On a larger scale, of course we all need to "live simply so that others may simply live." Yet untangling from the many ways I participate in unjust economies and human interchange systems is not easy. When I can pause, I find freedom in the gap, and can make better decisions about what to participate in, and how.

When I don't remember to pause and give space to present moment reality, I mess up or I miss the mark because my aim is off (a classic definition of "sin"), or I'm just not there as my life unfolds. That's where Forgiveness begins. In researching forgiveness and what it means, I was reminded of the wonderful work of the Greater Good Science Center in Berkeley. Their website is an incredible resource, where I found several helpful articles about forgiveness, like Eight Essentials When Forgiving. GGSC not only provides instructions about mindful practices on myriad topics and issues, but also includes the reasoning behind the practice, the evidence for why it works, and the sources of that evidence. The forgiveness practices are long-term and intensive, because forgiveness isn't easy, and it's a process, not a destination. It's important to remember that forgiveness is for the one extending mercy, not for the one who is being forgiven. Jack Kornfield explains this with a powerfully moving story in this short video, also from the GGSC website.

I was able to forgive a lot this year, and I feel pretty good about that. The good feeling isn't pride or satisfaction with "self-improvement." It just feels good to forgive someone, even myself. Letting myself off the hook, lowering the bar, radically accepting my many flaws and screw-ups allows me to also do this with others. Forgiveness doesn't eliminate the need for accountability or consequence, it just dissolves the weight of whatever burden one has been carrying, and the sticky ties one has to the person one is forgiving. Forgiveness is liberation.

Thus it was a big year full of big changes, consistent practice, and continuous learning. 2018 is shaping up to be even more so, and to navigate whatever it will bring I have again chosen three guiding words:

• Renunciation
• Appreciation
• Faith

What arises for you as you read these words? My next blog post will be an examination of each one, and why I chose them. 

In the meantime, I'll be busy spreading the word about Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction class (starts on January 28!), Alexander Technique lessons, and Qigong practice. I'll use the simple power of forgiveness as I share.

The Light in me honors the Light in you.