negative mantra

I still have a very negative voice in my head. A voice rooted in longstanding depression and self-loathing. It tells me regularly throughout the day "I'm depressed." "I hate myself". And it asks regularly "what do you want?"

I'm experimenting this week with using these entrenched chronic thoughts as triggers to consciousness. When I hear "I'm depressed" I look up at the sky. I connect as much as possible with my natural openness and remember how vast and full of potential the word is. When I hear "I hate myself" I take a moment to feel some loving kindness towards myself, and anyone else who comes to mind. When I hear that question what do I want? I reply authentic happiness, for myself and for everyone.

Today I try to focus as much as possible on just what that means for me, authentic happiness. I'm trying to visualize a procession of dawns where the chi grows in my body, heart and mind. I'm trying to imagine a clean, tidy house that stays clean and tidy. I'm trying to imagine enough money in the bank to maintain a simple life with a few meaningful luxuries. I'm trying to imagine work that inspires other people towards happiness as well.

Above all I try to catch myself when I'm drifting off towards meaningless anger and negativity and I try and nip that in the bud.

going deeper

After the great circle the next posture in my cycle is "going deeper." I sink down lower, let the gravity loosen my hips and my spine. My hands rise and I begin to feel a magnetic energy create a pathway to my brain.

This increases the tension in my body, but like a good stretch it also releases it. I feel like I'm stretching my brain. But after it's stretched I feel a calm. Kind of the calm you feel after an orgasm. But this is more sustained. It feels like my hands are holding the calm in place with their magnetic energy. And all I have to do is surrender to this calm. The fact of this calm. Just surrender to it.

This is surprisingly difficult because we don't think of calm as a fact of life, or a sustained state of being. We think of life as sustained stress and suffering, relieved from time to time by moments of calm. But when I'm in this state I feel that it's really the suffering that is artificial. This calm is the state we are naturally programmed to feel. The stress is a result of cultural programming.

I'm not saying that's true. But that's what it feels like when I'm in that state of being, and I make a choice to step out of it and back into the culture of stress that I've been born into.

the great circle

I've been spending recent mornings trying to cultivate my vision. Trying to build my desire to be genuinely happy as an antidote to my self-hatred. Just now, however, I did something really simple. The Great Circle posture.

This posture is a little deeper and more intense than holding the balloon. I sink my lower body, I raise my arms above my head, still in a circular position. Soon I'm feeling a magnetic force between my hands and my brain, or at least my frontal lobe.
They say that if you use TMS wands over the frontal lobe you can improve mood and creativity.

I forget that if I simply stand in this position eventually my brain starts to slow down and become still. I don't have to make the conscious intention to focus on awareness, or to bring my mind back to my breathing or whatever. I simply allow this magnetic energy to build and eventually I hold my brain still with my hands.

I suspect that if I were to make a regular practice of this my mood and my creativity would improve in a permanent way. So why is it that I haven't simply done this?

Is it because I get distracted by all the other things I think will bring me happiness, all the practices and intentions. What if it is as simple as doing this everyday, whenever I feel the desire, until my brain simply shifts? All this reading, all this aspiring, all this thinking. What if it's sort of useful, but not ultimately as effective as assuming this posture?

awareness

The phantom anxieties that have been tormenting me for the last few weeks seem to be flying off somewhere. Things seem to be stable and friendly with Ben's teacher. His marks this term are excellent. All these things I've been anxiously obsessing over.

Starting to see the fruit of the heightened awareness. I catch myself when the irritation starts to bubble up and I stop myself there. Or at least try to stop myself there before letting it erupt into angry words. I'm starting to see the self hatred and anger as a deep addiction. Like smoking. I always thought my next biggest addiction was food. But the food is a way to numb the emotions. I'm addicted to the emotions. The self hatred, the loneliness, the emptiness, the boredom. These are the triggers and I need a different way to deal with them.

Last night for the first time in a while I didn't feel like overeating. I was hungry before bedtime, but I just had some cereal and was okay

Soon, I know, I'll get back to cultivating the chi. But until I have a deep desire for optimal happiness, it's unlikely I will stick with the chi. So I think I need to deal with this stuff first.

antidote

Still reading Mathieu Ricard's Happiness. This is a convincing book. A life changing book. One of the things he's made me conscious of is how I can work to defuse the deep, pervasive self hatred that keeps knocking me off track whenever I try to deeply commit to a meditation practice.

I won't go into great detail about where this self hatred comes from. There are any number of mundane, and perhaps interesting reasons. My Catholic origins, my overachieving parents, my possible learning disability. Who knows. But Ricard explains that hatred and love cannot co-exist. Not real love, the deep aspiration for happiness, safety, contentment, true abundance. So these days, during my meditation time, I'm working a little less on the chi, and working on holding this aspiration for my real happiness in my mind. Working on trying to root it firmly and deeply in the ground of my chi.

This morning I thought of the balloon as all the positive feelings I have and want to have for myself. I thought of the tan tien as the place where I store these feeling and make them a permanent, strong, driving part of my inner self.

The vision I have of this six months is setting my circadian rythmms so that waking up at dawn and sleeping not too far after sunset become my normal way of being. And I root my desire for happiness in the rituals surrounding this change of light. Something about that feels permanent and possible.

thoughts

This morning I'm starting to feel some of the chi return. I've been in the grip of a lot of anxiety. Some of it no doubt useless. But I am clearly in the grip of thought. Not in the grip of chi.

For a small moment while I was holding the balloon I remembered the importance of surrender. I remembered to stop trying to hold the balloon up, to just relax and rest in the magnetic energy that will do a far better job of holding this balloon up than I will. I forget that again and again and again.

Much of this has to do with the continuing dominance of the ego in my life. My ego is still convinced that only it can, should, will drive my life. And for the most part I still seem to be in its spell. I don't want to be there anymore. I want to be allied with nature and with consciousness, not careerism, ego building and status obsession.

I've been writing recently about The Muse. To work with a muse you have to be willing to surrender your creative ego. I'm not there yet. I'm trying, but it's still hard.

Fog

This morning there was no warm window filled with dawn. Just a grey fog, which turned out actually to be an early morning frost. It's gone now. But I did take it as a sign.

I am in a fog these days. I get up like I've planned, but it is no longer a really energizing meditation. It's all I can do to just stand in one place for an hour. Which as I write that is still probably more than most people would be willing to do.

Willingness. That word pops out at me. I have a willingness right now to get up early. But not as much of a willingness to do the other things I could be doing. Standing in a challenging posture. Even putting in the time I need to put in to clean the house.

I need a guide, so for the time being I'm working on my muse. On what I believe the muse is, and in actually cultivating a relationship with this muse. Maybe I need to research that a bit. Maybe I need to really commit to that subject for some substantial time. Because without some kind of guide, inner or outer, I feel a little lost.

Dawn

Woke up late this morning. Somehow my alarm had been turned off. But my eyes opened and I could see the golden light and lavender sky of dawn from my window. Got out of bed just in time to see the golden window. A few minutes into my meditation the sun was up and the window had turned silver.

Yesterday in the afternoon I felt overwhelmed, tired, lost faith in myself. I lay down and simply imagined myself cradled in this golden light. Later in the day I read Ricard's book and he suggested an exercise. Imagine that you are taking in somebody's suffering, sucking it into your heart and then re-transmitting it as a healing energy.

Dawn is becoming that for me. A light that transforms me in the morning and a light that I want to pass on to others.

golden window

The view from my kitchen is not a beautiful one. It stares out into an alley that is pleasant enough, but in mid November Montreal, not particularly pretty. At dawn, the only evidence of the magnificent rising sun is the golden light that hits the upper story windows of an industrial building on St. Laurent.

This is the view from the picture window on the left side of the room. Not much to see out of the door window on the right side of my room. It hit me this morning, however, what a lovely subtle metaphor this is for what is happening in my brain. I've been reading Mathieu Ricard's book, Happiness, this week. His theory, which I wrote about in an earlier post, is that happiness can be measured on an fMRI. Happier people, like long time meditators, tend to have more activity happening in the left side of their brain. Depressed people, the right side.

The last few weeks for me have felt like a huge neurological detox. My right brain is regressing, picking fights, wandering all over the place, obsessing, trying desperately to regain control. And often it is winning. But I am waking up every morning and standing in the place and watching those small golden windows in my left brain start to take their place, permanently. Someday, maybe in the summer I will go out and do this in a place where I can watch the sun rise every morning. But for now this golden window is all I need. It's there. And when I come back to meditation during the day I look at that window. If the weather is nice it is bright with the sun. That is my brain, now, more often than not. That is a good enough vision for me.

Shenpa smack-down

Still wrestling with the shenpa. I'm pretty good at the first two steps, recognizing I'm hooked and feeling the negative energy. Don't seem to be as good at the third step, moving on.

But isn't this the story of my life. I'm good with beginnings not so good with endings.

I realized something this morning while standing. My original vision when I started this standing was to stand and see how much it affected the rest of my life. More and more all I want is just a better, deeper, more satisfying standing practice. The rest of my life is just the rest of my life. This is and should pretty much just be about standing, cultivating that energy that allows me to stand for an hour in the morning, and allows me to continue with the habit of standing first thing in the morning. I do that because I believe that this energy is an endless supply of peace and happiness for me.

If the only thing that changes after six months is that I've cultivated an early morning practice that I will return to again and again. Then that is all the change I need.

Shenpa

A couple of days ago I received a great book by Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun from Nova Scotia.

Now I'm working on the concept of Shenpa, the magnetic pull of bad habits and afflictive emotional patterns. This came in incredibly handy yesterday at my son's "intervention" meeting at school. I seem to have expressed myself poorly in French and said something that really offended Ben's teacher. Normally I think I would have given into old patterns of defensiveness, and believe me I'm still feeling them. But I'm also able to stand and just feel them and not let myself get badly sucked in.

It's a huge relief even to know that I'm capable of resisting these obsessive, defensive patterns.

natural intelligence

I find when I wake up in the mornings, now, I'm a little less focused on achieving energy highs, and more focused on just absorbing the peace and quiet and subtle energy of the morning as it become light.

I think true happiness is a process of aligning oneself with the natural intelligence and happiness of the universe at it is. Sometimes this process brings tremendous gifts, tremendous alterations of consciousness. Sometimes it bring only a deeper appreciation for a more subtle stillness.

What I'm becoming more aware of today is the subtle tightening and stress that grips my body when my mind drifts off to other processes. The processes that have been promised to me by the civilization I live in, education (Ben's), career (mine, my parents), all my anxieties surrounding these things. My lack of mate, and to some extent community. I'm not saying these anxieties are not legitimate. But I no longer desire to be driven by them. I would prefer to be aware of them and to make my decisions from a place that is driven by authentic peace.

That I think is what I call natural intelligence. A place of natural intelligence where my choices and decisions are directed from the place of peace and strength we have when we are committed to this alliance with nature, with light, with the sky and the sun and the planets. This is a good place to come from. This is the only place I want to come from.

Growing desire

Woke up an hour earlier than usual, so I ended up standing for almost two hours. I'm starting to feel the energy really grow again. And with that I'm starting to feel a deeper desire for the energy.

My desire for this renewal of chi has been mostly intellectual up until now. But today I felt a real craving in my heart for it. For the wonderful feeling I have known. A kind of nostalgia, a kind of desire for what you've always had. It's such a great feeling because it feels like such a real, solid desire than can always stay with you, not the ephemeral feeling of a fleeting desire. Or the pain of a bad habit.

This is true healthy desire, and it gives me faith that I'm on the right track.

my life has changed

It hit me this morning that early morning rising will always be a habit for me now. Even when it's not. This is really what my mind needs and even if I fall off the path, I know I'm going to wind up here again. This early morning time, watching the sun rise, feeling the energy grow in my body and in my brain. Cultivating a center of my identity in my gut. All that is my true home. And because I know that I will always be secure.

taking a stand

I've unblocked my hangover, though still feeling a little lethargic. Reading Jon Kabat-Zinn and he has a little chapter on "taking your seat" and the importance of having a sense of purpose when you meditate.

I realized that when I stand I am in fact taking a stand. I am prioritizing consciousness over all other things, civilization, culture, the market economy, etc. I am aligning myself with nature, not political parties, or my nation, or whatever most people ally themselves with to gain power in their life. I am taking a stand and aligning myself with the planet. With energy and with a source of power that is not visible to most people.

And I am taking a stand to receive this power through my heart, and make others aware of it.

blocked

So, a break from my commitment.

Cousin's elopement celebration last night. I drank, I ate a midnight souvlaki, I didn't bother to set the alarm. I feel pretty crappy. At least I don't have to spend the day preparing for the exterminator.

I guess I still have some bad habits.

Yesterday evening before I set out I was feeling a massive level of lethargy. I didn't want to go. The voice in my head kept telling me how depressed I was. And then I decided to change things. I'm not depressed I said. I'm blocked. I did some standing meditation and felt immediately better.

I'm going to try this for a while. Instead of identifying with the bad feeling that seems to be permanent. I'm going to see it as a mere blockage that in time I can dislodge.

Right now for instance I feel terrible. But I'm going to just stand for 20 minutes and see where that takes me.

the growth forest

It's been about a month since I started this commitment to early morning zz and regular writing about it.

I expected change. I expected a steady a progress of building of chi. But, of course, that's not exactly what happened.

I've made some progress, but I've also experience what I supposed would call setbacks, but are merely the psychic knots of energy that always arise to undermine my practice if I choose to allow them to drive me.

Simply making the tension go away is not really the strategy that feels right. Just being with it, just knowing the familiar pattersn and getting up and standing anyways, even when I can barely focus on the changing light, let alone my tan tien.

Being with them, familiarizing myself with them is the first step, I hope, to loosening their hold. Yesterday for instance I sat with all the anxiety I've been feeling about this decision to send my son to a more challenging school against the advice of a young neuropsychologist. I still don't know if it's the right decision. He had a rough first year, but he seems to be doing better, making friends and enjoying the school. But we need to ask for services and its possible the school board will find out about the recommendation I ignored.

So there's the whole mix of anxiety, and guilt and possible shame, that is really as much about my own bad school experiences as my son's. I don't know what to do anymore except sit with it. Acknowledge that there is this whole nest of anxieties and I don't know where they started, where or if they will ever end. But they're there and they will probably return. And the best I think I can hope for in my project to "change" is to be more aware of them. To be able to continue working on my well being and be able to say, yes those are my school neurosis returning. Oh well. I'm going to stand and hope for the best, and do what I can.

It's not this steady progression of energy and power. It's more like being confronted by the fact that before you can renovate, first you need to toss all the junk in the basement.

metal brain

Things are progressing. I'm feeling more focused. I'm feeling more grounded. But I know that I'm still more anxiety driven than I want to be.

When I practiced today I began to imagine that the metal energy that I was cultivating was forming this deep permanent structure in my body and in my brain. Almost as though my body was becoming a very high quality, enduring machine that consciousness was going to flow freely through for the rest of my life.

I finished my practice by visualizing a wrecking ball destroying all the old structures used by the anxiety and sadness to dominate my life. My body and brain is now this funky new machine. It's going to last a long, long time.

There's still some clean up to do to move on from the old structures. But I feel quite firmly entrenched in my consciousness practice. And as a result I believe that consciousness is now firmly entrenched in my being.

more metal

Still having some focus problems. But the metal training is taking root.

One of the things I realized is that metal is a symbol of endurance, permanence and commitment (although, sadly, if we really wanted a symbol of endurance we might want to consider plastic training. From what I've read McDonald's happy toys have as great a chance of being around hundreds of years from now as wedding rings. But I digress because my mind is digressive.)

Anyways. Maybe if I work on my metal training I'll be a little less at the mercy of my anxiety drives.

What I'm doing right now is imagining my tan tien as a magnet that sucks in all the little distracted thoughts that keep buzzing around in my brain. Another thing I imagine is having a couple of big axes that cut through the scattered thoughts. Or little blades that quickly slice them into mulch.

Mostly I just try to imagine my inner strength as something extremely permanent. A permanent grounded force that will be there no matter what.

heavy metal

Of course it's not my brain I want back. It's my core. My consciousness.

I'm distracted, at the mercy of an anxious drive in my brain that drifts off to reparative fantasies to sooth whatever it is that's bothering me. But whatever it is seems lost in the chaotic underbrush of my mind.

So today I'm trying to cultivate some metal power. There are specific exercises in chi kung where you cultivate a feeling with the sharpness and weight of metal instruments. In martial arts you can use this power to use a sword, or to use your limbs like swords.

But you can also use it to develop mental clarity, to develop the ability to get right to the point.

These energies are supposed to develop protective strength. Right now I'm feeling tossed around by inner forces, bad habits, unchecked drives. I don't really want to live this way. So I'm setting out today with my mental machete.

I'm also trying to gather my power by focusing on my tan tien as though it were a magnet drawing more and more energy into it all the time. So that it can't suck my scattered thoughts into my gut and fuel my instincts.

Let's see how that works.

caged in chaos

So I got through the day. Did more housework that I've ever done in my life. Just kept going broken only with small meditations. From 9 in the morning to 4 a.m. Threw out more stuff than I ever have in my life.

But now I'm exhausted, stressed out over at situation at Ben's school. A recurring situation that's resolved itself before, but I'm tired and it's eating at me.


How do I get my brain back?

dawn

The clocks fall back today so when I woke up, quite hungover from Halloween celebrations, it was light during my practice.

So for the next while I do get to be standing at dawn.

Eventually I may train Ben to expect me to be in the park at dawn, but not while the weather is getting colder.

Practice was a challenge, but it certainly helped me with my hangover. And I need the help. My landlady suspects she has bed bugs so today I have to clean my house from top to bottom, bag everything, throw out every ounce of clutter and deep clean.

Knowing my housework challenges this is going to be an incredibly challenging day.

At the same time I almost wonder if it isn't something sent by the dawn.

I'm going to work on being able to do these tasks with an attitude of acceptance all day. Look at it like an intensive retreat. It's going to be difficult, but I wonder if I won't feel energized tomorrow being in a house I've managed to clean from top to bottom.

As I put everything back in the cupboard next week maybe I can just dump anything I really don't love. Get my possessions down to the bare minimum? Do a massive throwing out of stuff. And with it a massive clearing out of my psyche.

First, however, the accepting attitude.