Musings on the world, without and within (written in November, posted here 12/10/11)

I participate in this physical reality through my senses -- touch, sight, smell, taste, hearing -- a way of peeking out of myself and encountering the world around me. Some of the senses are for a close range only (touch and taste), and others can let me know about things at a distance. My imagination and my spirit have their own ways of reaching out and understanding, in different ways from my physical senses.

My brain creates a seamless representation of reality -- putting together small glimpses into an apparently fully experienced surrounding. Testing has shown this really is a "virtual" semblance; that we actually can be unaware of something that's there, depending on where our attention goes. In fact, there have been tests that show that our eye movements on looking at a picture can totally avoid an area that we would be uncomfortable with, and that we don't therefore consciously see it, though we must have done so unconsciously or else we wouldn't have avoided it. We all have true physical blind spots, an area we can't physically see because the optic nerve (which doesn't have light receptors) is in the middle of the field of receptors at the back of our eyes. We "extend" what we see in our brain to fill in the blind spot, so we're unaware of the gap. In someone with bad glaucoma, there is a bigger and bigger blind spot, but a person doesn't realize it until it is truly huge, because we're so good at filling it in plausibly, as an extension of what we do see.

We tend to psychologically and intellectually see the things in the world that reinforce our prior beliefs and attitudes and conceptions, going places and talking with people in ways support what we already think. How many people have a true, open, interested, learning type of conversation with someone of a different political leaning, rather than avoiding or debating? How many people actually go to learn from a person in a totally different way of life, rather than judging from afar (whether that person is poor or rich, or homeless, or mentally ill, or in or from another country, or a different race or culture). We tend to listen to news and read magazines or books or newspapers that resonate with what we already believe. If we think we're "bad" at sports or math or art or music, we don't tend to participate in them. We go ahead satisfied with our current vision, seeing nothing to contradict it.

On the other hand, our understanding and learning are also based on using our imagination and empathy, and simulating or emulating some part of the outside universe in our brain. (It could be a person, or a concept, or an animal, or a thing.) New neuroscience research talks about "mirror neurons" that activate when we see someone else doing something or feeling something, that lets us feel/do the same thing in our own brain. People learn this way, as a child mimicking what an adult does, or someone of any age using another person as a model. Likewise when in meditation (or aikido) I imagine being like a mountain, or a deep still pool, or putting roots into the ground like a tree, I'm understanding and emulating something in the world around me, and my "self" enlarges and can take on new attributes. In my family we've had cats and rabbits as pets, and sometimes my children and I would play like we were bunnies or kittens.

Play and awareness and open curiosity make it the most likely we'll actually learn, rather than creep carefully (or move forcefully) through the world peering out blindly from our encrusted shells seeing only what we expect to see. Love and compassion and awareness make it most likely that we'll understand those around us (and ourselves), and work together to make things better for all. Awareness and openness make it most likely we will see both opportunities and dangers around us. Fear and anger and judgment will tend to close us off, make us less likely to be able to learn, and more likely to be hurt by something we don't see.

9/25/11 Be Here Now

I thought about what I might want to write tonight. The main thing that came through was, "Be here now." I think I first read the phrase in a book about a utopia, and they had taught the mynah birds to fly around and say that. Really, we can't be any where else than here and now, but our minds dwell elsewhere enough that we aren't always aware and appreciative of here and now. Often we get caught up in dwelling on what happened and what we wished had happened instead (unhappy with either someone else or ourselves), or what we wish for or are afraid of in the future (which most likely will never happen). I can't remember in which book, but I read something about suffering which said usually we can deal with whatever pain that is happening right now, but as we project forward with the fear that it might go on forever, or be worse, that is what causes the severe suffering that feels unbearable. Someone else said that a coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero only one. (In anxiety we imagine many more negative things than ever happen.) Someone else said that if we're still alive, there's more right with us than wrong.

Our minds are very powerful, and can be used to great good, but untamed they can take us on very scary and depressing and unnecessary trips. We can learn to stop this by thinking about good things, by focusing on blessings (things we're grateful for; a gratitude journal can be very powerful), by meditating/praying/relaxing, by moving/exercising/dancing. Jon Kabat-Zinn in "Full Catastrophe Living" describes some mindfulness meditations focusing on the breath, the feelings in your body, your emotions and thoughts, and that in allowing yourself to feel the feelings (they're there anyway), you often find they start to change.

Tom Brown, Jr., from whom I took wilderness survival classes, tells a story about a man who finds a demon (this is in the far East, and the demon is not an evil being) who will do anything he asks. He is overjoyed, and asks it to cook him dinner, and clean the house ... and it does very quickly, but each time comes back saying, "Master, it is done," and looks a little bigger and more powerful, and wants something more to do. So he asks it to find him a wife, then to build a palace, then to ready a feast, then to invite all the neighboring rulers... and when it's doing that he runs out into the forest to try to escape it. He finds an old wise man, and tells him his trouble, and the wise man gives him one of the curly hairs of his head and tells him to tell the demon to straighten it. He doesn't see how that will do anything, but when the now very large demon finds him, and roars, "Master, it is done!", he tremblingly holds out the hair and tells it to straighten the hair. It straightens it, smiles at him, and then as it starts to hand the hair back, the hair curls again. It gets slightly smaller, tries it again, and the same thing happens. Finally it is back to normal size, and the man takes away the hair, says, "Take me home", which it does, then gives it the hair to straighten once more until he needs something else. The demon is our mind, and the hair can be anything a culture uses to calm the mind, a ritual, meditation, yoga, candles, prayer, and so on. The mind can be tremendously useful and helpful, but a tyrant if we let it hijack us with worries, fears, doubt, bitterness, despair, and so forth.

"Being here now" can be as simple as noticing our breath moving in and out, really tasting the food we're eating, noticing the feel of our body against the ground (or chair or bed), feeling the warmth of the dishwater and looking at the little bubbles of soap, watching and listening to the trees move in the wind... There's peace and beauty and acceptance. Even for someone with chronic pain (physical or emotional) this can be powerful. I remember one person who used to attend my weekly chronic pain class/support group, and he would say that he did this and could put his pain in one box, and it was always there, and he could come back to it anytime, but he could go experience other boxes when he did the relaxation meditations. Jon Kabat-Zinn has a chapter where he describes the experiences of people with chronic pain who attended his stress reduction clinic, and most of the time the intensity of the pain and suffering improved.  Eckhart Tolle wrote a whole book on "The Power of Now".  Brother Lawrence, in "The Practice of the Presence of God" said, "The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were on my knees." Tom Brown taught some visualization/ spiritual meditations where you imagine healing loving relaxing white light slowly filling up your whole body, and then imagine a shape and color and texture and size for any discomfort, then change it into a round black stone, and let it fall through the light into the earth. Many people had a brief change or stopping of their pain, and he said having it stop briefly or forever is only a matter of degree -- if it can stop briefly, it can stop for much longer. John Sarno, a physician, has written books about back pain (and other problems), and has taught people about coping with stress and relieving tension in their bodies, and found that many people have the pain go away when they do so. For those who believe in God, the "I AM" was, is now, and ever shall be, and the divine love in the eternal now has complete power.

So -- become aware (body, mind, heart, and spirit). Wake up. Really feel what you're experiencing, with an open, curious, appreciative attention. Give your mind positive things to focus on, appreciate and use its power when you need it, and keep it tamed. There's joy, peace, beauty, amazement,freedom, and a powerful energy in being here now, even in difficult circumstances. The only place we can act is now. It's the only place change can happen.