The Meditative Mind

Here is a poem by Basho, the great 17th century Japanese haiku poet:

An ancient pond
A frog jumps in –
Splash!

“An ancient pond” creates the setting. You might imagine tall grasses adorning the water’s edge and old-growth oak surrounding a fairly large body of water.

Maybe this pond is your mind when you sit in meditation – calm and keen at the same time.

“A frog jumps in” is a flash across the screen of your eyes. And your meditative mind is open to receive it – no memories, no planning, no fantasies or judgments get in the way.

“Splash” comes quickly, rippling through your meditative mind. You are one with the sound of water.

Then, perhaps, you move on to meet whatever comes next – calmly, keenly and insightfully.

Coming Home

Sometimes it happens that we stumble upon this home -- perhaps while listening to music, sitting still in a garden, of simply looking into a blue sky -- we call it a miracle, a once-in-a- lifetime experience. But then we don't know how to find it again. And we don't know that home is right where you are, in your ordinary life.

A meditation practice teaches how to come home any time you want to.

Coming Home

Meditation gives you a taste of who you really are, your essential nature. I like to call it home. It feels like home. You know you're getting there when the muscles in your body relax, the breath is slow and steady, emotions are in neutral and your internal talk isn't pressured -- it simply comes and goes.

Many of us walk around feeling homeless because we have not found that home. Sadly we're not
taught how to look for it.

No Self and Shame

I like the way you, Charlie, connect "no self" with the capacity to release yourself from shame. And the experience of no self arises as the meditative observer becomes steadier, more able to stake a claim, to mental space. We observe our internal thought, feel the body sensations that accompany it and simply be with it until they fade or change or show signs of instability.

Barbara

Acting From Shame

That you said you would do it and you did it, is great! And you felt competence pleasure, which is an important awareness.

Recall, however, that everything is interconnected. An action arising from shame will affect the action itself; for instance, you might put yourself down as you act from shame. And that’s not positive.

What is truly positive is that you weren’t totally caught up in shame.

If an emotion is too powerful it overrides other emotions. When that happens, it’s important to look for the presence of other feeling states (body sensations indicative of an emotion.) Might your procrastination also include anger? Might you also feel love or compassion for the person who will be affected by your action? Get clear. The result will be that shame will have less prime time. And that’s positive

Can shame serve a positive purpose?

Shame is one of the destructive emotions. When it arises inside you (all of us experience it from time to time) look closely and see how your very body shrinks in size. A serious bout of shame makes you shut down, close up shop, and try to disappear. Self-hate is also likely to arise. Then you can’t adequately deal with what is occurring – or even learn from it.

No, I don’t believe that shame can serve a positive purpose. Dependent on its severity, however, it can be more or less destructive.

I do believe that healthy pride – the polar opposite of shame – is a good antidote for shame. The challenge is to enter into a meditative state when you feel shame so that you can be aware of the internal talk and any body sensations that arise. Doing this you don’t hide, instead you are keenly present. You are bigger than your shame.

In another step, while you’re meditating, you can look for the seeds of healthy pride inside you by calling forth the memory of an incident in which you showed a particularly good skill – and allow yourself to know what can be called competency pleasure. Hear the positive internal talk and the good body sensations that come with that pleasure and let a slight smile spread across your lips.

What a remarkable learning to realize the polarity exists and you can choose which side you’re on – even if only for a few brief moments.

Homesickness means that we have left our home and long for the caring that came with it – or we have left our mother’s womb and long for unconditional caring.

Freud recognized that somewhere very deep inside we all have that longing. And he wrote about an “oceanic” feeling that many adults have – like being held and rocked in a universal womb. As meditators, we say this oceanic feeling happens when we are held in the Oneness that is our spiritual home.

The womb and the ocean and the Oneness in which we are all held are reflections of each other.

Feeling homesick

I believe that many of us actually walk around feeling homesick because we have never has even a quick glimpse of the home that is the larger whole. If it happens sometime that we do get that quick glimpse, whether in meditation, prayer, or by simply looking up into the blue sky, we call it a miracle. Then we might realize that something important is missing from our everyday lives, and we begin the search for the larger whole, spirit, or for simple awareness. Still, we have no real idea of what they’re looking for. The experience is actually beyond words.

It feels like home

Meditation gives us a glimpse of the larger whole. Most of you have had that glimpse – even for a brief moment. It’s a place of great concentration and great clarity. I like to call it home. It feels like home. You know you’re there when your shoulders drop, the muscles in your body relax, the muscles in your face relax, the breath is slow and steady, internal talk isn’t important and you are deeply at peace.