Category: Mindset

One of the most useful ideas I ever heard was Ken Wilber’s distinction between absolute and relative truth.   It’s this seemingly paradoxical idea that the world  we are accustomed to  characterised  by polarity (no one thing can exist without its opposite)  also contains a non-polarised dimension – an absolute truth or Big mind as Wilber likes to say that has not been split. It’s the spacious, open awareness that we relax back into in meditation or what Sam Harris calls the “prior condition”.

Hurts more bother you less

Ken Wilber

Why this distinction is so useful to me is because it explains what our evolution can look like. Instead of thinking we need to be untouchable or if we are walking a spiritual path,  that we need to look like a more together kind of person less effected by worldly concerns we can hold a different point of view.  Evolving as these human creatures involves feeling more. That means it hurts even more but at the same time bother us less precisely because of the absolute realm.

When we are walking in both we know both realities as true. In absolute terms, there really is no problem to solve and we can relax in that. In relative terms, there is much work to do. Over leaning in either direction results in imbalance. On the one side it looks like spiritual bypassing and on the other crushed by the pain of humanity. The middle ground is this profound line  by Wilbur – Hurts more but bothers less. That we can feel the full spectrum of humanity and be grounded in what can never be touched. 

Sitting quietly gives me the opportunity to see the content that is likely to show up outside of meditation. It’s the same mind I take with me so perhaps the most important moment in meditation is the last one, getting up. It can be a moment to continue to receive things  as they are. That way I don’t  leave my sit with a story about how it should be any different. I can continue to relax with this magnificent freedom that lets me move with life as it is.

As I go about my day I can choose to place less importance on the little voice in my head and rather take in the beauty and wonder of life around me (all happening outside my control).  As I pay attention to the landscape  of my inner life, so too can I bring equanimity of mind to the circumstances that arise. Where I find myself in a reaction, I can take note and recognise that I lost my orientation and in a gentle way, return to this safe haven of awareness.

Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is coloured by such impressions

Marcus Aurelius, meditations

I love this quote because it reminds me to question my thinking. Controlling the content of the mind is an incredibly stressful idea.  Seeing the thoughts for what they are – patterns of energy, is a much more effective way of neutralizing charged up thinking. We don’t need to buy into our patterns, often the trouble starts the moment we take our thoughts to be reality. Rather we can bring our attention back to the awareness in which they appear and discover a natural curiosity there. A whole world lives and breathes outside our conceptions.

Guiding principle: Notice the patterns of thinking that shape you but also see that no pattern has control over you when you are awake to it. With awareness, the thought has no inherent power. It is no different to an itch on your skin, a simple sensation, energy in the body.

Energy naturally settles when we allow it.  

I think a sense of space and capacity are our some most valuable resources Before you turn on the world, make sure  you are ready. I had this thought after an hour or so of ‘readying’ myself this morning. I started the day with a little movement, writing and sitting and noticed even then, an apprehension to turn my phone on. I knew that in doing so the world would come flooding in. 

Turns out  I was ready enough because I was able to maintain the state I cultivated in my quiet time. When I noticed myself becoming tight and tense, it was easy enough to take a short time out and remember the reference I created at the beginning of the day.

Ready to me means uncluttered, open and receptive to life as it is.

Guiding principle: In order to maintain a ready state I need to notice how my system responds to the world coming in as I move through my day. Could it be more exciting that we get to choose a response to life that is new and unconditioned by paying attention in a certain way ?

It takes a lot because there is a momentum behind us. When I stop, I sometimes feel I am too far gone so why on earth would I stop if it means facing up to the direction I am headed. Continuing on whatever track I am on feels easier.

Stopping means I would need to do something different, dopamine is hitting from all sides. Stopping means I’ll lose the buzz of those neuro-chemicals. From this this point of view there simply very little that makes sense about stopping.

Rather go and get to some other point where all this matters less, maybe at the end of the day when I am reminiscing about what a busy day I had.

But what if stopping didn’t  mean change.  That I could  stop  anywhere and say to myself, whatever interesting behaviour I am in the midst of, that  somehow it’s all ok.  Slow down a little,  invite curiosity and pay attention without the weight of needing  or wanting to find a more perfect person at the other end of it.

Instead, oh here I am. Isn’t that interesting. Gravitating in this or that direction, being distracted, emotional or frustrated  in some way,  pleasure seeking or avoiding, doesn’t matter. It’s all food for consciousness.  And to me more interesting that anything, as I am less afraid of the content so it goes  that I am less afraid of the stop because I know  I am  bound to face the momentum of the past and there is space inside  to hold it all. But and this is a big but, a little bit at a time. When I push myself to look too hard at the content of my thoughts, feelings and sensations it’s easy to become overwhelmed, despondent and uninterested. Gentle awareness works best.

Sometimes it really is ok to leave the world exactly as it is and rest in the awareness that never changes. There is too much too enjoy!

It feels like an especially important week to keep up my practice. I’ve been seeing how inexplicably we are connected to the greater whole. I’ve had a lot going on in my body, much of it because of what we are going through as a (South Africa) nation. It sometimes feels almost impossible to stay in the body. But I keep seeing that every time I do there is chance for more peace because all these currents are temporary and in continual change. Energy rises and falls. My clinging to anything in this rise and fall becomes my suffering. Let go the little voice in my heart tells me.

And stay with it for any length of time and there will be a relaxation, even if very small. But that’s all it takes sometimes, just giving ourselves a little relief tipping the scales in the direction of regulation and balance. A moment of being still and just being with the body exactly as it is. what now ? and now ? what next ? experiencing the sensation directly. Allowing, accepting, breathing, resourcing. It all passes. As Loch Kelly likes to say, Unhook from the mind and let your attention drop into the body. We must unhook because the mind gets in the way. It is storied by its very nature. We need to relax the story we have about the world and our life in it so we can allow the energies in the body some breathing space. Given time, the body comes to rest.

Key: Receive the condition of the body, the heart and the mind just as it is. Although it can feel very personal, is it really ? how much did you choose to think, feel or act in that way ? are you in control of the next thought you have or the next emotion you experience ? what does it feel like if very little of this is personal ? An important choice I see is our ability to bring our awareness to our condition with kindness. From there change is natural, we are in the currents of effortless evolution both collectively and individually. Effort of course is needed but absent of force. Flow.