Fuck Conscious Evolution

People seem to be talking a lot about 'conscious evolution' these days. This is the notion that we as conscious beings can cause our DNA to change in a direction we want it to, forcing our own 'evolution'. I can't really speak to the scientific validity of such and idea, but I assume it is pretty unsupportable.

What we can 'evolve' though, as individuals, is our own consciousness, and our own presence. So much of life we go through like robots. Consume this, consume that, see this image, feel this way, feel this way, act like that. Thinking about everything as it's happening requires concentration. Thinking about things as they are happening allows us to escape our programming.It allows us to chose a new course of action and to move in a new direction, away from karma.

As a society we don't seem to embrace the notion that concentration itself is a muscle of a sort, that will get fatigued if pressed beyond its normal operational parameters. Well, that part we get. After a day of intense concentration (taking a test, say) we all tend to feel exhausted. We then typically resort to one of our pre-established coping mechanisms - probably food or alcohol. These coping mechanisms allow us to disregard concentration, and just put the brain into a pleasurable auto-pilot. In a sense, we're relaxing the muscle of concentration, chemically.

But concentration can be trained. It doesn't have to be exhausting. And oh the rewards one can reap by living an active, present life. So many things could benefit from concentration. Almost every bad habit people can imagine can be fixed by learning to concentrate. So, how do we learn to concentrate? How does one exercise the muscle of an active mind? By sitting quietly, concentrating on the breath or some mantra, to the exclusion of everything else. When the mind wanders, we pull our concentration back to our breath or our mantra. Over time it gets easier, and we can then start to explore some of the other aspects of meditation if we so desire.

I think of it like this: one could do asana simply to expand the range of motion and ease of motion in ones body. This has enormous benefits in day to day life. Once you have a finely tuned body, you could use it as a means to achieve all kinds of other physical expressions that were previously impossible, and that may even be the point of becoming more flexible.

One should not lose sight of the benefits of practice that permeate every moment of mundane existence. Cultivating an understanding of the mind as a muscle that needs exercise may even help motivate us to exercise it.

Judgement day.

Yoga is great for a lot of things. One of my favorite parts about yoga is that it brings you into an environment where all your predilections for competitiveness and judgment come into play, but you can really engage with them, instead of being consumed by them.

This isn't to say that I don't frequently compare myself to other people, or try a little harder to make my shoulder-stand look better than everyone else's (it does). It is though, to say, that you are often aware of the fact that you want to look better than other people, or that the person over there is really trying too hard and hence, doing it wrong (whereas, I would never do it wrong).

My favorite thing to get annoyed with is people's apparent inability to discern that yes, this class sits in a circle, and yes, that's different from the other classes at the studio, but no, that's not a good reason to sit randomly. Perhaps, they should get a picture book, look at a circle, or an ellipse, and use their brain a bit, and sit down correctly.

One particularly enlightened morning in class I was noticing myself being almost absurdly harsh to people around me. More so than just about where they were sitting, but how people were doing yoga -mostly, how hard they were trying (the were trying way too hard). I kept doing it, and doing it. I would notice it, breath through it, and try to let it go, but it would come up again. At some point I started asking about the act of judging itself.

Specifically - why I am doing it? What on earth would possess me to think these things repeatedly, and why are the thoughts so compelling? There is an obvious, easy, Buddhist answer to 'why'. The delusion of a separate self - the ego.

We are all, in our minds, the most special creature that has ever existed. Some people are more in touch with this particular feeling than others. The funny thing about this feeling is that the world is always trying to show us that we are wrong. If I really paid attention in Yoga class, both to myself and others, I would see that when someone is trying too hard (in a probable effort to satisfy their ego), I see myself in them. Because I do the same thing all the time. I even used to judge people for not trying enough, which was also a reflection of my feelings about myself. But why, if I am more or less the same as the other person in this respect, should I react and judge them so harshly? My ego does not want to see that I am flawed and that I am truly no different from other people. In the moment of confronting the self in the other person, the mind is forced to choose between a fork in the road.

On one hand we can confront our own humanity, our own frailty, or, we can simply believe ourself to be better than the other. When we choose to judge, the doubt that our judgment is not fair and that in fact we are just as weak as we perceive the other to be lingers on, though. Soon the discomfort returns, and we are at the fork again. Choose. Death or immortality? Human or unique?

So strong is our conditioning and our desire to be actually independent, actually unique, that no amount of rational understanding will do any good. Yes, I know from experience that confronting our temporary nature brings peace and communion with other people. Yes, I know that judgment drives people apart and creates misery in my life. But, in the moment, the visceral response is to judge, and to keep on judging until we can find solace from reality and temporary comfort in some other fantasy (probably about a cute girl in class).

I would like to never judge, and always allow people to be who they are. It gets sticky when you start thinking about it that way though - we have to make judgments in order to survive. We can call it something else in order to make 'judgment' simply pejorative, but that is merely a semantic exercise. A common theme comes up in all matters of this kind, and perhaps I'll explore that later. But for now, I will just say that judging someone unfairly, inaccurately, and simply for ego gratification and continuing delusion - feels wrong. So you just have to keep looking, learn to see and feel things for what they are, and hopefully start taking the other fork in the road.

Blogging Fail.

Well, I failed to write an article today. I have a draft. It's mostly done. But it sucks. I thought if I just wrote about the thing that came to my mind that I would emotionally connect with it and that something of value my spew out. Or, in the case of my last blog post, something so ridiculous that it could be both funny in its absurdity and kind of valuable in its bits of truth.

But. It just sucked. So I won't post it now. I'll rewrite it later, because I really think there is something I need to say about the event I was writing about, even though it happened more than 10 years ago.

I could learn a lot in life by applying this principle to everything. Now is not always the time. The way I am thinking is not always right. In fact, it probably sucks. To put something away for a while, regardless of the energy around it. To let it gestate, until one day, maybe, it's ready to be said. I think that's wisdom, but I don't know. Because, really, I suck at doing it.

The Weight of a Million Tiny Lies

Reflections on turning 28.

I do not always end up thinking the way I 'should' on my birthday. It's supposed to be a joyous day, a day of celebration for your life lived and your life to come. For most people I think the celebration is tempered with awareness and contemplation. Certainly this was true for me as I was walking to the grocery store this morning (to buy toaster waffles).

At some point I realized that we all lie constantly. I mean, I knew this, but the degree to which lies infuse almost every thought and action we take is astounding. Buddhists might call this delusion - not lying - but I want to frame it as lying.

Frequently we lie to ourselves and to others without full knowledge of the lie. Some might argue that lying requires intent, and I agree; sometimes the intent is so subtle we don't notice it. Not-lying is so rare in most speech that I think it's worth talking about what not-lying feels like. Anyone who has ever played golf well, or hit a perfect note while singing at the top of their lungs, or truly sat for a period of time in peace, knows what this feels like. It is pure and effortless flow. There is a resonance in correctly doing something, and in finding that resonance all resistance drops away.

Just the same, there is a resonance in speaking truly, and it is the resonance of your outward form lining up in perfect harmony with your soul. In this notion of 'speaking', I'm including the words we speak to ourselves in the form of our thoughts. A true thought, one involving no deception or delusion, echoes through our soul without any discordance.

All thoughts have a certain energy about them - they can inspiring, depressing, or joyful, among other things. Thoughts vary in their intensity as well. Some thoughts can bring us instantly to our knees, others (most) simply pass by after taking our mind around in a few turns. If one watches one's thoughts for long enough it is possible to notice, in any untrue thought, its untruth. The untruth feels like the sound of a guitar string out of tune, a note missed, a symphony gone awry. Sometimes it is easy to notice, sometimes it isn't. The more ridiculous the lie, the easier it is to notice.

Hopefully, noticing the lie is cause for laughter. In the case of most our daydreams, when we notice them, and when we notice how ridiculous our view of ourselves is, this is certainly the case. In those instances the laughter defuses the lie and brings you back to the present moment, out of the delusion of your daydream. Other times noticing the lie can cause severe discomfort and spawn new dilemmas we must deal with.

Noticing silly lies about oneself, the root cause of the lie is often easy to determine. The desire to see oneself as attractive, powerful, or wise. Ego - simple, funny. When it comes to the subtle lies we tell to other people, or to the lies that underly the foundational notion of our life, the lie is much harder to spot, and the cause almost indeterminate.

In failing to notice these lies, we continuously harm ourselves and the people around us - most often the people we love most. In answering a question with a lie to spare someones feelings, we harm everyone involved. In lying to ourselves about our own needs and failing to communicate them we do harm.

Understanding this, it is incumbent upon us to train our minds to notice the discordances of the soul, just as one can train the ear to notice an out of tune instrument. Hearing the cacophony in our heart, it is incumbent upon us to understand the cause of the disharmony, and to tune it with love and attention, as a musician tunes her instrument. Failing to do this for too long, the small aberrations in our heart start to build up, until our perfect instrument of love is no longer noticeable as such, and is instead left a sad wreck of a forgotten masterpiece, suitable perhaps, only for burning.

Attempts to play such an instrument will inevitably result in disaster. In this the 29th year of my life, I want to stop trying to play my broken instrument and let it burn. I want to start building a new, beautiful instrument, from which God can play only beautiful harmonies of wisdom and of light.

Food Daze

While I was sitting tonight I found myself overcome by a desire to be at Sesshin. Days with nothing to do. Nowhere to go. Nowhere but here. No escape, no burning desire to get off the cushion and go do - what? But then, I remembered. It wasn't true. The mind will grasp at whatever it can. It doesn't matter that breakfast is 2 hours of sitting from now. Or that it won't come again until tomorrow. You can be hungry now. All of my normal anxiety was poured into food at my last Sesshin. My world revolved around it - I can remember the times, sitting at the benches, waiting for the other students to get their food so I could eat mine. And then the release. I didn't think it was possible to pig out on oatmeal, or go back for thirds of carrot soup. But it is.

I guess I don't know what I'm trying to say, except, maybe, that when that urge to be elsewhere comes up, on the cushion, or off, just realize - you can't run from yourself. You may as well sit down, relax, and get to work just being you.

Some things are hard.

It's late, and blogging every day is hard. Today was a pretty so-so day. No wise thoughts or experiences to relate, really. In the car driving to West Seattle today I became fairly upset with myself for an event that happened over the weekend. I criticized the teacher at the Zen group I sit with. I tried to make my criticism constructive and not overly accusatory or judgmental, but I think I failed pretty spectacularly.

In failing, I failed to convey what it was that I really needed to convey. That is to say, I hadn't thought enough about what, if anything I could or needed to convey. Instead I allowed myself to be pulled around by my gut reaction to the talk. The worst (or best, depending on your perspective) part of the whole experience is that I was painfully aware of all of this as it was happening, but I couldn't quite make the jump outside of my conditioning to react in a different way. Maybe next time.

Captivity Will Set You Free

I was eating a dinner with a friend tonight and I was reminded of a talk by Norman Fischer that I attended a couple of months ago. There was a lot of meditation, and talk about creativity, but at the end it boiled down to one salient point:

Choice is crippling and leads to paralysis. Freedom is found in accepting or creating limitations.

One only need to shop for toothpaste to appreciate this. Any of the choices in the aisle will almost certainly have the same effect on your life, yet we spend time and become anxious deciding what kind of toothpaste to buy.

My friend at dinner was talking about how she felt like she definitely couldn't settle in Seattle. She had too many friends all over globe, too many communities, too many different versions of herself. The thought of picking the one here and now and sticking with it was deeply unsatisfactory.

I can relate to the feeling. For the longest time any kind of travel would make me wistful and desirous of living a life I never had, of meeting people I would never know. Relative to the wide open possibilities presented by the fictitious other life I had created in my mind, my life felt trapped, confined and ultimately worthless.

Writing about this brings me back to a quote from Pascal that I read in Living with the Devil:

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone..."

To sit with yourself, alone, in a quiet room is to confront your life as it is. There is no room for imagined worlds where you are someone else who's problems are all gone. If you sit for long enough, you'll realize that no matter where you go, you'll always end up exactly where you left - in your body, in your mind.

To limit your life to its present scope and to accept this frame, these limitations, frees you from the tyranny of the unknown and the unknowable. The delusions and daydreams of your un-lived lives lose their power. You're sitting here, where are you, being who you will always be, and accepting it.