More about meditation

The real glory of meditation lies not in any method but in
its continual living experience of presence, in its bliss,
clarity, peace, and most important of all, complete absence
of grasping. The diminishing of grasping in yourself is a sign
that you are becoming freer of yourself. And the more you
experience this freedom, the clearer the sign that the ego
and the hopes and fears that keep it alive are dissolving, and
the closer you will come to the infinitely generous "wisdom
of egolessness." When you live in the wisdom home, you'll no
longer find a barrier between "I" and "you," "this" and "that,"
"inside" and "outside;" you'll have come, finally, to your true
home, the state of non-duality. 

        Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Heart-mind

I find heart-mind a useful image for a part of myself. From various spiritual sources we can take it that we have a physical heart, an emotional heart, which is the source of our loving, and a a spiritual heart (referred to as heart-mind by Ram Dass) the place from which our soul connects. Some sources would have it that the second and the third are the same. The Hindus  refer to the seat of consciousness for heart-mind, which is has a parallel with what Quakers describe as "that of God within us" - the place from which we can experience the still, small voice of God.


Ram Dass describes the heart-mind as awareness turned inward or " the spiritual awareness within." In spite of what our ego tells us, it has an important function in our sense of self. If I asked who you are, you might point to yourself as you answer. And you would almost certainly point to your chest. Maybe that's because this is where our awareness really is - not in our minds. My heart-mind is where "I" am, not my mind.


It follows then that awareness is a heart-mind process, not a thought process. The start of my growth in awareness came when my identification started to shift to me heart-mind. 


Through paying attention to myself, and looking hard at my mind and body, I became aware that my mind is in some way controlling the various organs in my body, causing my heart to beat, my lungs to contract and expand, and my liver and kidneys to function.


As I watched this, noticing that the processes were beyond "me" (in that I couldn't observe the processes or the mechanisms) I became aware of the fact that if "I" tried to control any of these different functions I would be likely to expire in minutes. I have no power, or ability, to consciously control my body. It reminds me of early efforts to use a short mantra as an aid to meditation; as I became more conscious of my breathing, the timing started to go awry and I got to the point where it felt as though I was struggling for breath. I do not understand how my body parts work in order to keep me alive - yet somehow I cause them to function.


It seems to me now that the same is true of the workings of my heart-mind. It functions and seems to work at a place beyond the reach of my conscious mind. Of course, there is something I can do to interfere with its working - I can exercise my will, going along with my ego. But, without doubt my heart-mind functions best when left alone, without me trying to run any aspect of myself though conscious thought or rationalisation.

Rilke's insight into fear

Drawn by sympathetic notes in one of his poems, young people often wrote to Rilke with their problems and hopes. From 1903 to 1908 Rilke wrote a series of remarkable responses to a young would-be poet, on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. This is one quote:

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting for us to act just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence something helpless that needs our love.

 Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

Experience

If all we have is now, this moment. And all we have to experience this here and now are our senses. As we experience our lives in the present we often encounter things which don't please us. Then we start letting it bother us and we worry and start thinking about how we can change or improve - solve, maybe - this situation. And we are back to "suffering" which in time becomes unbearable.


The way out of this trap is acceptance - to grow to accept the world being exactly as it is at this moment. Now acceptance doesn't mean we have to agree with something in order to accept it; acceptance means that we face up to and acknowledge something - in a way, the opposite of denial where we try to banish something from our awareness. Nor does it imply a fatalistic endurance of the causes of what's causing us discomfort or pain.


As soon as we start to think about the situation we are in, we have made it worse. We're certain to face anxiety and dissatisfaction when we think what we see as difficulties. The epigram "Pain is unavoidable; misery is optional" talks directly to this - the more we think about our difficulties the sooner we become miserable. The thoughts distract us from actually experiencing our life, from being what we truly are.


If we are frightened, we have to experience the fear. If we're upset we have to experience being unhappy. When we think, we try to avoid the feelings which are bothering us and avoid the pain. By observing ourselves we increase our awareness of how we behave when we are discontented.


The more I am present in the now the more quickly I see my mistake. Uncomfortable feelings had the power to make me upset for weeks, if not months. As I practised living in the now, that time reduced. Sometimes - but only very occasionally - I can experience my upset as it happens without being distracted from the here and now. So that now it seems my difficulties are "carved" in the air rather than indelibly into rock.