My joy is like spring so warm, it makes flowers bloom all over the earth,
My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans,
Please call me by my true names, so that I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
So I can see, that my joy and pain are one.
-Thich Nhat Hanh

During my junior year of college I was introduced to Led Zeppelin. I had listened to music before, but this band transformed my experience of merely listening with the ears to actually hearing with my whole body. I had their Greatest Hits CD (this was before Spotify, and even iTunes didn’t yet carry Zeppelin), and for my birthday my girlfriend at the time bought me the entire Led Zeppelin collection. Whoa; celebration day! With so much music at my fingertips, a question arose: how can I maximize my experience of listening to all this music?

I imagined being alive when Led Zeppelin I was released, racing to bring it on home from the record store to put on the CD (…err LP), playing it endlessly, and then counting the days with my friends until the next one came out. But in these advanced times I had the entire collection at my fingertips, able to conjure up any song at will. Yet something about witnessing the evolution of this rock & roll legend seemed appealing, and so I decided to re-create the experience, as best I could, of what it would be like to watch it all unfold out on the tiles. I embarked on the following journey:

First I read about how the band was formed, how Jimmy Page wanted to form a supergroup but that someone commented that it would probably be a disaster, like a ‘Lead Zeppelin.’ They dropped the ‘a’ and the name was chosen. Then I researched each member’s music influences, learning more about blues and some of the context behind the music of the mid-sixties.

When I felt it was time, I placed Led Zeppelin I in my stereo system, closed my eyes, and just breathed in the music: ‘Good Times Bad Times’ exploded out of the gate with a roar; guitar, drums, bass and vocals densely packing 2 minutes and 46 seconds of auditory bliss. Then the mood changes dramatically with a cover of Joan Bayez’ ‘Babe I’m gonna leave you’, conjuring up the restlessness of a man caught in stagnation who needs to make a move. After the delightfully blues-drunk ‘You Shook Me’, comes the iconic ‘Dazed and Confused’: John Paul Jones sets the stage with an infamously haunting descending bassline, Robert Plant wails, John Bonham releases an avalanche of drum-bombs, and they all clear the way for Jimmy Page to shine in the light and rip us to shreds in a monster guitar solo.

This journey continued through the rest of the album’s songs, and what was only 45 minutes in clock-time stretched into a seemingly infinite stream of musical ecstasy.

For the next few weeks I would continue listening to the entire album from beginning to end, giving it my full attention. I was careful to not listen when I was studying, or watching TV, but only when I could truly devote my undivided self. I also resisted the temptation to flip to my ‘favorite’ tracks, allowing for an understanding and savoring of the album as if I was slowly peeling a tangerine. Each listen would reveal nuances that I didn’t hear before: Bonham’s inconceivably fast drum pedal at 2:13-2:21 of GTBT, the graceful cross-fade transition from ‘Your Time is Gonna Come’ to ‘Black Mountain Side’, a surprise instrument faintly heard at 4:28 of ‘How Many More Times’.

After dozens of complete listens I felt ready to ramble on to the next album, and would read a bit about what the band did between studio recordings before mentally committing to begin the next chapter.

And so it continued, with Led Zeppelin II, III, IV and beyond, each album revealing an endless galaxy to explore with layer upon layer of enjoyment. I found in each album a distinct flavor to be savored and appreciated.

It was sacred to me. Sounds great, right?

A few years later I was on a consulting project in Qatar and would spend 30 minutes each day in a car with my fellow consultants driving to and from the hotel we were staying (/living) at.

It wasn’t a particularly scenic drive; plenty of roundabouts, half-completed buildings and a whole lotta sand. The rental car we drove contained a CD player, and one day I had the notion that it would be fun to listen to music together on the ride home (Doha isn’t exactly famous for its radio stations). My co-workers thought it was a great idea, and that night I meticulously went through my music collection and chose a selection of songs which I envisioned would make for an ideal in the evening chill out. From the Zeppelin library I chose “The Lemon Song” from Led Zeppelin II for its groovy bass. The next day after work we put on the CD and cruised through the Middle East in style. The songs were a huge success, and I was feeling great.

Then the next morning we shuffled into the car at our usual 7am, and from the backseat I could hear the driver mutter a groggy “hey, put on that Lemonade song again”. To my horror the passenger pressed play and “I should have quit you a long time ago!!” came blasting through the side-speakers, while they began discussing the day’s agenda. Listening to this care-free tune while my mind was filling with to-dos for the day was auditory sacrilege in the house of the holy. I was miserable, and actually debated plugging my ears so that I couldn’t hear the music. Imagining my co-workers would think me insane if they saw me, I just closed my eyes wishing for it to end. The driver and passenger seemed unaffected by the music, just chatting away.

That afternoon I pleaded to them to not listen to the CD in the mornings. My co-workers were baffled, wasn’t I the one who offered the music? It was nobody’s fault but mine. I wasn’t exactly sure why I had such a strong reaction either, I just knew that the morning was painful. I requested morning silence (and this was before I knew about Plum Village!) but they found that odd and a bit uncomfortable. We settled on mornings to be mostly talk-radio / classical music with the CD reserved for after work, which seemed to meet everyone’s needs.

In the days that followed I tried to explain to them about what Zeppelin meant to me, offering more context on my relationship to music. A co-worker then opened up and began sharing about some of his favorite music, and the accompanying stories of what the tunes meant to him. As we continued to share more we discovered many overlaps in the music we liked, and began selecting songs to share with the other.

Our remaining months together in Qatar turned into a delightfully continuous exchange: lounging in the W Doha after a long day, gazing out over the Persian Gulf and rocking out an ocean away from home. Years later I credit this friend for opening new musical doors for me, and can see that what was initially an alarming event ended up offering an opportunity to connect meaningfully with another human being, and to learn more about myself.

Recently it occurred to me that perhaps the esoteric joy I received from carefully manipulating each detail of my Zeppelin experience in college was somehow intimately related to the pain I encountered in the back seat of the car years later. Even though the song remained the same, my experience of listening was over the hills and far away.

In college I developed a pretty strong view on the “right time” to listen to Zeppelin, which of course, comes with an equally strong view that there is such a thing as a “wrong time”. My view on “right time” was incredibly specific, and this narrow definition limited the circumstances unto which listening to Zeppelin manifested happiness for me. I witness this tendency playing out in various arenas of my life, whereby I can drastically limit my own happiness due to an inflexible view on the “right way” or “right time” to engage in an activity.

This view becomes compromised when I am the back seat, so to say, at whim to the innumerable external forces at work in my life, which so often seem to have little regard for me and my plans. Sure there are times when I can make a request, but when I bind my happiness to the expectation that all my requests will be fulfilled, or even that upon fulfillment of those requests I will most definitely be happy…well that clinging has created problems for me.

But if I can stay steady by observing my rigidity and opening to the possibility of more than one satisfying outcome…then some space naturally arises. Once there is space it becomes clearer for me to see the way forward in any given moment, and oftentimes the answer that comes back is somewhat paradoxical: nothing. I see that often nothing needs to be done in a conventional sense; everything is actually unfolding just fine. The only question is, am I awake enough to realize the precious opportunity that this moment is offering, or am I trapped in a story of how something has gone wrong?

Zeppelin put it thus in Ten Years Gone:

Then as it was, then again it will be
An’ though the course may change sometimes
Rivers always reach the sea

Was it you?

She asked politely.

That expression of beauty, serenading, masquerading in the form of sound?

Looking deeply, I search for an answer…

There is a piano before me.
But this piano is born of plastic, metal and wire constructed by people I’ve never heard of.

There is a sheet of music facing me.
But this music is born of genius, effort and persistence by people I’ve heard of but will likely never meet.

There is technique within me.
But this technique is born of lessons, guidance and feedback by people I’ve met but which are not me.

How can I say it’s me?
It’s more like the piano, the music and the technique played itself.

—

A lot can happen in a year if you pay attention.

I intend to continue the cycle I began last year of setting yearly aspirations and then reviewing them at year-end.

The spirit of most aspirations will be to shine the light of awareness on a topic of interest by making a concentrated and structured effort to explore it throughout the entire year. At times it may also be appropriate to make a highly specific and measurable goal.

Ready? Let’s dive into 2013.

1. Integrity
Integrity stems from the Latin integer, meaning whole/complete. I have found in my own life that when I am able to integrate various threads of my life the result is a synergistic burst of well-being.

To understand the essence of integrity I will reference Gandhi, who once claimed: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

I find this quote to be helpful in breaking integrity down into the components of thoughts, words and actions. I’ll approach this aspiration from the integration of these components.

Integration of thoughts & speech: Communicating what I am thinking and feeling as honestly & clearly as possible.
To do this I will continue to practice Non-Violent Communication as well as experiment with E-prime.

Integration of speech & actions: When I say I will do something, I do it. If I’m not able to do it, I will explain why and suggest an alternative.

In high school I was “that guy” who was always late. My friends figured out a mathematical formula for when I would show up: Time Brandon says he will arrive + 30minutes. Most of the time being a half an hour late was harmless. Sometimes it wasn’t. This habit energy of not following through stuck with me well past high school…to the detriment of some relationships.

Over time I came to realize I make all kinds of verbal commitments in every-day communication with others (e.g. I’ll reach out next week/month, I’ll send you that document soon, let’s get together when I’m back in town, etc.) and I also make many silent commitments to myself. While I’ve transformed much of this habit, I would like to explore the possibility of following-through (with either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no with explanation’) on each and every commitment that I make.

2. Remembering Names
Simple and concrete. At the moment, nearly every time someone tells me their name, despite my most earnest attempts to remember, my brain immediately dumps the information into an unretrievable folder next to where it stored the location of the cereal isle in my hometown supermarket.

This is related to integrity in a way, in that I would like to make the commitment to myself to remember names of everyone I interact with. It feels pleasant when someone remembers my name after just one encounter, and I’d like to start making it a habit. I think with practice I can.

3. Humor
Laughing feels good. That I think we can all agree on. Even though I enjoy laughing, for most of my life I have perceived humor as secondary to the more important matters of life; it was an optional cherry on top.

That changed last year I watched a TED talk on Comedy as Translation which helped transform the way that I view humor. The speaker presented humor as way to radically alter our perception of a situation, especially one in which there is emotional charge. He stated that our habitual response to stress is to release adrenalin, but through the act of laughter we can release endorphins, turning walls to windows, allowing us to oftentimes view the same situation in a new light.

As I reflect on my personal experience I realize I’ve had a couple break-through moments of seeing the absurdity of a situation with the light of humor (i.e. “This is ridiculous; everything that could have possibly went wrong did!”) which has had the effect of immediately relieving tension and adding some space between me and this seemingly insurmountable situation.

I also find it much easier to connect emotionally with others who use humor in their communication; a laugh can open my heart to another’s world.

My aspiration here is to investigate humor. Listening more to people I find funny (Stephen Colbert I’m looking at you), reflecting on what I find funny, and gradually upping the dosage of humor in my own life.

I think my mom will be happy with this one, as she often exclaims: “I think you need to lighten up son!”

4. Personal Sustainability
Being back in Plum Village for the winter, I am consistently awed at how an 86-year old Thich Nhat Hanh is able to deliver 2 hour talks to an audience of hundreds on a weekly basis…without the slightest hint of fatigue. I’ve come to realize that the energy motivating his actions is sourced from a pretty deep well.

Sustainability has been a hot topic as of late, but it is usually presented within the context of our external world. What about our internal one?

There are many ways to conceptualize sustainability, and I’ll consider approaching it from a four-fold structure inspired by Tony Schwartz: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Some components of each area:

-Physical (Quantity of energy): Sleep, nutrition, fitness
-Emotional (Quality of energy): How I feel in relation to others and myself
-Mental (Focus of energy): My ability to focus
-Spiritual (Purpose of energy): Reflecting on the purpose of my activities

My aspiration here is to closely examine the fluctuations in my energy throughout an hour/day/week/month, identifying ways to consistently maintain energy that is high, positive, focused, and purposeful.

-
That’s it. May the force be with me!

At the beginning of this year I established a set of 4 aspirations to examine in the months that followed. Soon after, I discovered that the act of (publicly) setting this intention provided additional energy for me to look deeply into each of these areas and learn from them. It also provided a reference point to return to during the inevitable frustrations of daily life. The reminder that these were practice areas aided my acceptance of those qualities of myself I’m not so open to at the moment.

In this month’s entry I’d like to reflect on what I’ve learned about these aspirations over the past year.

This entry is a tad longer than most, so I suggest digesting in stages and/or starting with the section which speaks to you most (click to go directly to section). The 4 aspirations are as follows:

1. Mindful Habits
2. Voluntary Simplicity
3. Acceptance of Suffering
4. Facing Conflict

—

1. Mindful Habits

The concept of a mindful habit seems a bit of a paradox: mindfulness is anchored in awareness whereas habits are often carried out in unawareness. In some sense, mindfulness actually works to transform certain habits (automatic reactions) into conscious responses.

So a general distinction could be made here between two types of activities I’ll call habits:

a.) “Habit Energies” are emotional tendencies based on past conditioning. Some of my past/present Habit Energies are:
-When a result doesn’t meet my expectations I tend to become highly self-critical, concluding with disappointment that “I am to blame”
-When faced with deciding between two good options I tend to place more emphasis on what I will lose rather than what I will gain
-When receiving a compliment I can feel prideful, taking credit for the act without acknowledge the various support I had along the way
-When taking on a large project, I tend to think I need “just a little more time” to get things sorted out before I can feel good about the present state of affairs

Over the past year I have been working to first recognize and then begin to transform these Habit Energies through understanding. A couple insights:
-While awareness can shed light in an instant, transforming takes oceans of practice and patience. The fact that I can list the above Habit Energies is a good start, but the work of transforming them is done over time. I find I need to be constantly reminded of this to minimize the frustration that arises from understanding why I am triggered yet still becoming triggered.
-Most Habit Energies are inherited. Inheritance can come from ancestors (e.g. rushing while eating, an aversion to waking up early) from friends (e.g. putting people down as a way to connect, tendency to talk over someone when debating) and from society (e.g. desire to ‘be the best’, making value judgments based on physical appearance). Understanding inheritance aids me in non-judgment and self-acceptance. It’s not “bad” to have Habit Energies, and it’s also not my fault. But as a practitioner it is my responsibility to recognize when they are causing suffering for myself and others, and to do the work of transformation.

b.) “Mindful Habits” are behavioral tendencies consciously implemented for a specific purpose. Some of my recent Mindful Habits are:

-After waking up I recite a poem to myself to set an intention for the day
-While eating breakfast I put my utensil down in between bites to focus on the sensation of taste
-While on the computer I take a break after 90 minutes to ensure adequate down time while working
-While brushing my teeth I try and focus on brushing one tooth at a time

My intention in this area has been to implement and follow through with habits that promote mindful behavior. A couple insights:
-Habits involving memorized recitation (e.g. morning poem, words before meal) are prime candidates for devolving into auto-pilot due to their repetition, and thus require modification over time to stay fresh.
-The truth of the proverb “When you don’t want to do something, one excuse is as good as another” I am amazed at how many excuses my mind comes up with to not do something. This was most evident for me with physical activities such as getting up early when I didn’t have a morning activity planned, and taking a cold shower when I was already feeling cold.

I’d like to conclude here with critical point about Mindful Habits: in a state of complete awareness these habits are unnecessary. That is, if in every moment you are choosing to act based on the full integrity of your being, then you don’t need to be informed by behavioral  patterns of the past. However, the reality is that for most of us implementing healthy habits are a useful way to guide decision making, as at any given time we may have conflicting internal priorities.

I’ll continue to investigate Habit Energies and cultivate Mindful Habits, as they significantly affect my day-to-day life as a practitioner and as a human being.
–

2. Voluntary Simplicity

With a finite number of hours in a day, and an exponentially increasing quantity of options for what to do with that time, cramming has become quite an issue for me.

I notice this tendency acutely when I’m working on a task and it’s taking longer than I had anticipated. Under these conditions I often find myself striving to make up the time somehow, and not wanting to take a break for fear that if I stop somehow I won’t be able to pick up where I left off. In the grip of this striving it is difficult for me to not be constantly “doing” something. If there is food by me, I will invariably go reaching for it whenever there is a spare moment (e.g. a page is loading, a file is downloading, a phone call finishes).

I think my cramming is often driven by a sense that the current moment is not enough as it is. If only I could get one more thing done then I would be happy. There is a need to fill the moment with something other than what is currently in it.

I’ve been practicing to counteract this cramming tendency by cultivating the insight that nothing else needs to happen for this moment to be complete. By letting go of wanting something else to happen I can realize that something special is already occurring. Namely, this present moment.

A related behavior modification I’ve been practicing with is stopping work 5 minutes before I normally would plan to stop. If lunch is at 12:30pm and normally I would try and finish my work by 12:15, I’ll try stopping at 12:10. In the moment I can often feel resistance to stopping early, but whenever I am successfully able to do so the transition to lunch is much more spacious. And if for some reason I feel compelled to go over time, instead of finishing at 12:25 and rushing to lunch, I finish at 12:20 and have a little more space.

Lastly, I’ll relay a piece of advice I’ve recently been woking with: when engaging in pre-planned tasks (i.e. anything you have planned to do in advance) give 80% 80%? Yea. It may seem preposterous to only give 80%, especially for those of us who are accustomed to giving 100% (or more). But what I’ve found is, when I give 80% for pre-planned tasks I allow for the spaciousness of being able to welcome the unexpected 20% of non-planned tasks which often come my way. When I give 100% to the current workload and an unexpected 20% comes, I am unable to be fully meet it as my plate is already full; my energy is spent trying to weigh pros and cons of what to keep and what to drop, and I usually leave feeling dissatisfied and burnt out.

By planning for 80% I am embracing impermanence while also being a little more gentle with myself. As a result, in the long run I sense my ‘output’ is actually higher than if I were to constantly give 100%…not to mention my well-being.
–

3. Acceptance of suffering

As I shared in my story about riding a bus in Nepal, acceptance as I refer to it is not how we conventionally consider the word. It is not resignation. It is a full embrace of “This is happening right now.”

When I pay attention, I realize I am rejecting many parts of my moment-to-moment experience, wishing they would (in some way) be different from how they currently are. The room isn’t warm enough; if only I had more sleep last night; I wish so-and-so was here; I didn’t pack the right clothes; I wish so-and-so wasn’t here; the internet connection isn’t stable enough; etc; etc; etc.

In investigating why it is sometimes so difficult to fully accept and embrace the present moment, I realized my mind often says “If I allow this moment to be as it is, nothing is going to change.” But the deeper truth is “If I am antagonistic to what is currently occurring, nothing ever will change.”

Why?

Because you can’t examine something fully if you are busy rejecting its existence.

This was a profound insight for me. By not accepting my experience I was preventing myself from understanding what was occurring, why it was occurring, and what I could potentially do about it.

So what to do? Practice, of course.

There is a simple technique taught by Thich Nhat Hanh to acknowledge and embrace one’s current experience: “Breathing in I know that I am ____ (frustrated, angry, sad, etc). Breathing out I smile at my ____ (frustration, anger, sadness, etc).” Once I take care of how I feel, I can then engage with the world in a constructive way.

A recent story to illustrate: This past September I was in New Zealand, and spent a few days trekking one of the famous “Great Walks.” One evening I reached a deserted beachfront campsite, and found a stack of firewood alongside a big axe. I felt a sense of relief knowing I had discovered a solitary refuge where I could indulge in a warm fire. I chopped the logs, carried them over to the fire pit, and set up what promised to be a most enjoyable experience. The sun was setting over the horizon, so before lighting the logs I decided to do some sitting meditation on the beach, allowing myself to be soothed by sound of the waves. That day I was meditating on Equanimity, one of the 4 Immeasurables.

Halfway through my meditation I heard some voices, then laughter, and then what smelled like wood burning. My fire had been lit! The flames were raging internally at the thought that someone had taken over my fire-pit, and I also felt some annoyance that there was anyone there in the first place. Being in the sitting meditation posture, I then felt a bit awkward with this anger arising, so I used the concentration that had built up to look more deeply into the situation. I realized I was suffering simply because I wanted my experience to be different from what it currently was. The mind was thinking “Why did they have to come here, of all places? I shouldn’t have set up that fire. Oh if only I hadn’t taken that wrong turn I would have went to a different campsite earlier and everything would have been fine!”

As the thoughts started to rain down I stopped. And then I laughed. The absurdity of my situation struck me: I was supposed to be doing an equanimity meditation! I breathed in and acknowledged this frustration, and then I smiled at it as if it belonged to a dear friend. After a few minutes it released its grip and I was feeling calm once again. I steadily walked over to the campfire: “Thanks for getting it started guys.” I said with a genuine smile. “Oh! Sorry about that…” they quickly exclaimed, “…we saw you were meditating and didn’t want to disturb you. Hey are you hungry? We have some extra food we’d be happy to share. And hey, what was that meditation all about any way, I’ve been trying to meditate myself but never seem to find the time.” 2 hours later and I had made three new friends and we were all quite warm.

In addition to acknowledging and embracing my experience, sometimes it is appropriate to communicate to other people, in detail, about my difficulties. This leads me to the final section…
–

4. Facing conflict

When I first started to try and face conflict, my approach was simply to confront those who I was upset by and give them a piece of my mind. This didn’t work very well.

I had a couple interactions where I approached a person out of a place of anger, and I learned that regardless of what I said, what the person heard was “I’m angry. You’re to blame. You need to fix it.” This had the effect of them closing up and usually responding back with some anger of their own. My practice of accepting difficult situations needed a complement. It was not enough just to face conflict with others, I needed a way to try and resolve it.

I learned that if I was going to resolve conflict with another person, after first taking responsibility for my own feelings and needs it’s important to communicate myself in a way that doesn’t put another person on the defensive. But how?

Non-Violent Communication (NVC) to the rescue. A few different trusted friends had recommended it, which is my algorithm for deciding what to read next. It arrived just in time.

Over the past few months I’ve been practicing with NVC as a way to first observe what is happening in and around me, then identify feelings that arise on account of those observations, and then see the needs that are/are not being met which manifest those feelings, and finally to form concrete requests for others to meet those needs.

A recent example to illustrate:

Last month I started my new job in Plum Village, and one of the first orders of business was to create a weekly working schedule while at the monastery. I proposed a schedule and it was agreed upon to try out for a couple weeks.

After just a few days I was feeling completely exhausted. Working a full day while attending sitting meditation at 5:45am and 8:00pm was leaving me physically depleted. I was also feeling worried that my exhaustion would be visible to others and I would be perceived negatively because of it. My worry extended to thinking that if I skipped activities like sitting/walking to rest, then that too would be viewed negatively, and as I personally valued those activities didn’t want to miss them in the first place.

These feelings then began to manifest some resentment, thinking other people had put me in some impossible situation. As I had just begun to practice NVC I took a step back to examine the underlying needs that may be driving these feelings.

One obvious need was to ensure I was physically resting enough. But there was another need of importance to me…that of ensuring I was fulfilling others’ expectations. With the current state of affairs these two needs were in conflict. After some reflection I recognized that I had found myself in this situation many times before: As a student in high-school & college, and then in the working world, I often sacrificed my physical well-being in order to seek approval from others. For many years I had repressed physical and mental fatigue for the sake of “getting things done”, or more precisely “doing what I think will make other people happy”. One of the pillars of NVC is the recognition that all needs require consideration, and that if you don’t address a need it will surely cause future suffering.

With this in mind I formed a simple two-part request to meet both needs:
a.) Permission to take a nap during the day when I am feeling tired
b.) Opening space for communication if others become concerned with my level of work

When I communicated this to those I was working with they expressed complete support, going a level higher and saying that the primary importance of me even being there was to take care of myself! By taking care of myself I am taking care of those around me.

I felt heard, and soon after was much more at ease around my schedule. I also trusted that I would be informed if others felt their needs around work were not being met.
-

As I’ve become more capable of expressing myself in times of difficulty, I realized my actual capacity to handle stressful situations has increased. Somewhat paradoxically, I’ve also felt my capacity to handle positive situations increase as well.

There is a phrase which Thich Nhat Hanh repeats frequently: “No mud no lotus.” It simply means that if there is no mud (suffering) there can be no lotus (happiness). I’ve come to understand that by not facing conflict I am actually limiting my growth to positive experiences. Up until this point I had only been using a portion of my mud, the dry, worm-free, fresh-earth mud. It’s time I faced what Jon Kabat-Zinn calls the “Full Catastrophe” by using all the mud that is available for me.

There’s a lot of mud out there, so it shouldn’t be that hard to find.

Continue from Part 3

4:45pm After walking meditation we enter the big hall for a 30 minute afternoon sit. The flavor of the afternoon sitting is different from the morning; for me it feels lighter…like a cool breeze circulating through the various recesses of my mind.

A friend once told me it took him many years before his daily sitting meditation transformed into just sitting to sit. If I examine my own experience of meditation (sitting, eating, walking), it has followed a non-linear progression that I’d guess some others have gone through as well.

a.) First, not meditating, because why in the world would you do that? You’re already busy enough as is.
b.) Then, meditating for the first time, maybe because you knew others who were doing it or you read about some scientific benefits around stress reduction, increase in brain functions, immune system improvement…or you were just totally strung out and looking for an escape.

c.) Then, having tasted some tangible benefit (calm mind, alert attention, etc.) becoming really jazzed about this whole meditation thing, and vowing to do it consistently because of how great it is.
d.) Then, inevitably falling off that wagon, because life seems to get in the way and you become too busy, and your meditations aren’t providing the calm/insight they once did, and that extra sleep is really important, and, well, you’re probably good as is.
e.) Then, over time, feeling that something fundamental is off, and perhaps that meditating may shed light on what that is.

C-D-E cycle through for a while.

f.) Then, one day, you decide that you’re done with excuses and you’re going to make a serious commitment, rain or shine, home or away, to practice meditation every single day. And you actually stick to it. Not because you feel like it every day and not because every time is amazing, good, or even pleasant, but because the intention to understand your experience of life is stronger than the many excuses the mind creates to avoid it.

Everyone takes a different path and I’d imagine there are plenty of stages beyond f, but that’s for another day.

5:30pm The meditation hall has cleared out, and there is a half an hour before lunch. I have grown to enjoy these little pockets of time in between activities. This evening, the piano beckons. It’s a basic upright piano, slightly out of tune, but more than enough to stir the pleasantries within.

Today I practice Chopin’s haunting Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor. It’s a piece right at the edge of my current skill level and it moves me deeply. There a couple parts in particular that I especially enjoy about this piece: at 1:17 the whole piece lightens up with a series of playful major chords and at 1:29 it parallels this same series with minor chords, pairing lightness with darkness. Then at 3:09 & 3:14 there’s a concentrated flurry up and down the keyboard and at 3:20 you think it’s going to happen a third time but it stops short, tempting, before slowly delivering it’s final release…a quiet triumph of C#.

Sometimes I have guests listening, but most of the time it’s just me. The sounds float through the hall, and as I conclude the days practice I take a moment to revel in the silent afterglow of artistic pursuit.

6:00pm The dinner bell is invited and I make my way up a set of stairs for the third and final meal of the day. While eating this evening I spot a new arrival who is eating rather quickly, slurping his pumpkin soup one hasty spoonful after another. I smile. I am reminded of a guy in Plum Village who I connected with who would blitz through his meals, finishing in under five minutes and then impatiently wait (my perception from his body language) for the finishing bell to be invited.

I approached him about it once and he said that he would really like to slow down but he just keeps forgetting. One bite in mindfulness and then he blinks and the meal is gone. He knew he should slow down but it was a habit he just couldn’t shake, try as he might. I asked him if he wanted to play a game with me. Bite-for-bite. He couldn’t move his hand until I did, and in between bites the hand rested gently on the table. He was game.

Sitting across the table from one another as if we were in some bizarre wild-west-slow-eating-match, we gave each other a solemn nod and began eating. Whenever he started to take a bite without me I would signal by clearing my throat or pointing to his hand. We did this for weeks. There were times when I didn’t feel up to it, but I had made a commitment to help and drew on that to follow through when motivation was low and I wanted to just sit by myself. At first we would sit right across from each other. A week later and we experimented sitting at different tables, but always within eye-sight. Then after some time, we were eating dinner together one evening and the guy next to him looked at him and said “Man, your eating is much more peaceful now, I’m impressed.” We smiled.

Sometimes it takes a teacher to help guide. I’ve been fortunate to have many throughout my life, and in this case I was able to pay it forward; all I had to do was eat slow!

6:45pm As I’m nearing the end of my meal I see a thin strand of ants coming and going out of a small hole where an electrical socket used to be. There is a potted plant in the corner of the room, and the ants are traveling through the hole to the plant, and then back out again. I notice that the ants traveling in opposite directions often bump into each other on their way.

Eyeing my curiosity with this mini-world, the couple next to me mentions that this ‘bump’ is actually the ants exchanging bio-feedback signals with each other on where to go and what to do. The signal usually comes from the queen and is what enables them to build. Whoa. I look at this same trail of ants, but now with fresh eyes and a new appreciation for what they are doing. I’ve likely seen tens of thousands of ants over my life but never stopped to appreciate how complex they actually are. I’m riveted watching them build a nest and imaging what their bio-feedback signals are like:

“Whoa dude, you’re going the wrong way!” I imagine one says to the other.
“No man, didn’t you hear? Queen moved the party to the trash can out back.”
Again?! Why can’t she make up her mind?
Quit yer complainin’! Hey, pick up that slightly decomposed bee wing for me will ya?”

We (humans) continue a conversation about the environment and our interaction with the earth. Environmental sustainability is something I know so little about, but which resonates deeply as I learn more. I gradually feel my eyes opening to our intimate and infinite connectedness with other beings, both big and small.

7:15pm After dinner I begin to wash my dishes, sinking my hands into warm soapy water. My first real connection with Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings was through a passage in Peace if Every Step which talked about washing the dishes. It stated simply that if one rushes through washing dishes in order to eat dessert, then that same habit of rushing is likely to interfere with the enjoyment of dessert…the mind rushing to think of what to do next.

I smile wondering if me 5 years ago could have imagined what an effect that passage would have on the direction of my life. A pebble’s ripple can reach the size of the ocean.

7:30pm I make my way back to D4, where the day began may hours ago. There is a white chair outside the room, facing the sunset over the mountains beyond. It is beckoning me to sit; I answer the call.

It is “photographer’s light”, that special time in the evening where nature is illuminated by a soft golden hue. I bask in this light, admiring the way it outlines the leaves; so graceful and yet so precise. I feel that I’m looking at a great work of art…a painting that has meticulously blended light and shadow, detail and depth. What have I done to deserve such beauty? I ask myself this question often. I remember those who came before, and paved the path for me to be here in this moment. My ancestors, both blood and spiritual, are to thank. Gratitude swells.

Time to head inside.

7:45pm Entering the room I plop down into a floor chair I brought from home.

There is a piece of paper taped to the side of the bed which reads “Darling, I am here for you.” These words are known as the First Mantra. Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of this as an understanding that the most precious gift we can give to another is our full presence. Oftentimes we may think that what another person needs is inspiring speech or material gifts, but perhaps they just need you to really be there for them. When I look at this it is a reminder to be there for others, and also to be there for myself.

During a recent Q&A session (which one of the monastics said may be more accurately termed ‘Question & Response’), one of the respondents told a story about how it’s important to physically move around pieces of paper like that, otherwise over time they can become unnoticed as the recede into the landscape of our day-to-day. I find truth in this and think it applies to many things in life. We have to keep coming up with ways to surprise ourselves and stay fresh.

I spend some time with Omnifocus, surveying what I have committed myself to for this week. It feels good to review my work, but I have to be careful not to spend too much time planning; lest I forget the law of impermanence.

8:30pm I head into the bathroom to brush my teeth. The last time I visited a dentist she commented that my gumline was receding, probably due to the way I was brushing. After explaining my brushing to her she offered a couple correctional instructions: brush softer and focus on one tooth at a time. For the former, I was holding the brush too firmly, thinking that I really had to apply force to clean them. She demonstrated the level of pressure required and I was astonished at how light a touch was needed. For the latter, I realized that out of habit I just brushed back and forth a bunch of times until I felt finished, but in that process I was crossing over some areas multiple times and missing other areas altogether. Her suggestion: “This may sound odd…but try focusing on one tooth at a time.” When I heard this I laughed. I recalled a couple years ago reading a definition of mindfulness by a Stanford Psychologist. I sent it to some friends as I thought it offered a decent and brief explanation. One part that I was unsure about, though, was a sentence on how life may become burdensome if we had to give our full attention to everything, and the example was used of brushing our teeth. Far from being burdensome, I came to realize that not only have I been able to enjoy the process more, but focusing intently was actually healthier for my gums!

8:45pm My nighttime rituals contain much more variance than their morning counterparts. After months of trail and error I realized that attempting to set a specific nighttime regimen was more effort than it was worth in this setting. Sometimes I feel like reading, other times like writing, other times listening to music, others doing sitting meditation, others just lying in bed. The internal resistance to a certain activity was my minds way of telling me to balance structure and flexibility, and that morning may be more suited for the former and evening suited for the latter.

This evening I feel like listening to music. I put on my night-time playlist, starting with “Passenger Seat” by Death Cab for Cutie. It is one of the very few songs I can repeat without losing effect; over the years I have listened to it hundreds of times. The simplicity of gentle piano paired with soothing vocals and poignant lyrics transport me to a place of deep relaxation.

9:30pm Lights out – Feel tired. It’s a god feeling. It was a full day, and I did my best.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness,

discipline and effort,

and being able to truly care about other people,

and to sacrifice for them,

over and over,

in myriad,

petty,

unsexy ways,

every

day.

-David Foster Wallace This Is Water

Continued from Part 2

12:00pm Everyone begins lunch together and eats for 20 minutes in silence, after which the bell is invited to wash your dishes, get seconds and/or converse with those around you.

When I first arrived, the fact that we were socially obligated to sit for 20 minutes before getting up felt like a chore. What if I was done earlier? After a few weeks, I began to realize the wisdom inherent in such an arrangement.

I recalled a year ago, when I attempted to adopt a consistent mindful eating practice. I was in my apartment in Chicago, and I’d make myself a nice lunch and resolve to eat it undisturbed, savoring every bite. More often than not, however, there was something else that desperately yearned for my attention. I could return that phone call to Kevin I’d been meaning to get to…A trailer for that movie Peter told me about…That promising article Brad sent which I had skimmed. If I didn’t crack and indulge in the second activity, then I oftentimes thought about it repeatedly. The meal had finished and I felt like I only really enjoyed a few bites of it.

While eating at the monastery, all of those distractions are gone. No one has a cell phone, laptop or newspaper out. All you do there is eat. Revolutionary, I know!

What seemed at fist like an obligation now made a lot more sense…regardless of my intentions, left to my own devices I will (at this stage in my practice) inevitably be distracted while eating. A period of twenty minutes eating together is a way to ease me of the burden of having to decide whether or not to read that unread email. As demonstrated by a flurry of recent studies, willpower is a finite resource; I’ll save it where I can.

12:45pm One of my favorite post-lunch activities is swingin’ in a hammock. Crawling into a net of goodness on a breezy summer afternoon does the mind and body well. Today I turn on a tune by singer/songwriter Joe Reilly (a fellow Michigan native) called “Present Moment Wonderful Moment.”

The opening chords trigger a dopamine release as I feel the breeze circulate the scent of pine from the trees around me. With the sun shining through the leaves it’s a perfect temperature; as the song progresses I think to myself “I love this song! Man, this moment here in the hammock is such a solid embodiment of the song’s message. I should tell Joe about being here in Deer Park listening to the song, I think he’d appreciate it.

Speaking of Joe, I’m headed back to Ann Arbor soon for a weekend wedding, I wonder if I’ll have time to meet up with him? I’d like to attend the Huron River Sangha meeting on Sunday evening, oh, if I did that perhaps I could grab lunch with Dustin earlier that day. I’ve been meaning to see him for a while. And then I could get my haircut at that place I found downtown; triple play! Hm, wait a minute, the wedding is on Saturday and I’d like to get my haircut before then. So should I make two trips to Ann Arbor? Maybe I can see Joe or Dustin on Friday? May be rushed through, my flight gets in during the afternoon and I’d like to spend that evening with mom and dad. Oh I almost forgot Brad is going to be in town as well, definitely want to catch up with…Wait a minute…My mind has been hijacked by planning!”

And just like that the song is over. I smile to myself and restart the song. Weekend planning can wait.

1:15pm I head back to room D4 for a visit to the restroom. During our California Wake Up tour, one of the sisters said that for many of us the restroom is more accurately described as the ‘rush-room’. It is seen for many as an inconvenience from Point A to B, am unwelcome break in the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

Reflecting on my own habits in the restroom, it is the prime space for cramming “just one more” thing into my day. The temptation to check my phone for new emails often arises while sitting on the toilet. Unlike the dining hall, there’s no Sangha here! There’s nothing wrong with checking email in the bathroom, but I’ve come to ask myself “is this really necessary in this moment?” Oftentimes the answer is no. Today I take a few extra moments to breathe.

1:30pm After doing my duties I pull out my Mac for another working session. It’s nice spending time with the computer offline, as it limits the number of choices I have for what to spend time on. I glide through a few emails and tick off a few to-dos, sitting comfortably cross-legged on a floor chair I brought from home. A woman walks by outside and can see through the window that I’m working; she gives me a look of sympathy. Perhaps it appears to her that I’m cooped up inside during a bright afternoon…but in actuality I am quite enjoying this nook.

I once did an exercise with a couple friends where each one of us went through our “perfect day”, from sunrise to sunset, in as much detail as we could muster. The detail may be a topic for a later post, but one of the primary differences between all of our days was that mine included a period of working on the computer. To many people I think work seems like a burden; and for many people it probably is. But there is a joy to doing work that you find meaningful. I personally feel fortunate to have found work that has contributed to a slow dissolution between the distinction of “work” and “life” in my own experience. Of course these are arbitrary distinctions in the first place, and they vary by day and week, but never have they felt as integrated as they do now. A year ago, connecting and learning from other mindfulness practitioners was what I did in my free time, now it’s part of my job!

3:15pm I look at the clock and it tells me there’s 45 minutes before walking meditation. I do some stretches and lay down on the floor for an Alexander Technique (AT) exercise. My dad took lessons from an AT teacher, and I’ve found it to be quite complementary to mindfulness practice. It is essentially a method of bringing awareness to your body and posture in order to improve your everyday functioning. It’s a rather vast topic once you get into it but the exercises are deceptively simple. I do a 20 minute exercise following the simple instructions in this old school video, which has the effect of lengthening my spine and relaxing my neck muscles. I virtually always combine an AT exercise with a body scan as they make an ideal combination: one instructs how you lay down and the other instructs what you do as you are lying there. Today I play the Planting Seeds body scan.

Resting in peace I hear a bell, signaling it’s time for walking meditation.

3:55pm The sun is high and hot; I put on my go-to safari hat & orange shades to bask in its warmth without sizzling.

My relationship with walking meditation has transformed over the last year. When I arrived in Plum Village last November I didn’t enjoy the exercise very much. I was used to very-slow-walking meditation, where you spend 20 seconds with one foot movement and methodically and systematically notice every sensation that arises.

Community walking meditation is much faster (although still likely considered slow by most people’s standards) and it is too quick for me to concentrate on specific detailed movements; I found my mind wandering often and this was frustrating.

One day I shared these frustrations with a friend, who paused for a few moments and replied: “I think it’s more about going as a river, you know, being with the community.”

Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that. I had evaluated the exercise by how much it fit my arbitrary conception of what I thought walking mediation should be like. This fixed view was preventing me from appreciating the exercises for the other things it offered, namely, a chance to walk together in nature.

4:00pm Today we walk through an Oak grove and pause to marvel at these fine specimens of nature. I feel a close affinity to trees, and there are plenty around to enjoy. As we are soaking in the scenery and I place my hand on an outstanding branch, breathing in the oxygen the tree provides and breathing out carbon dioxide to complete the cycle. We continue walking and I turn my attention to the ground, noticing the satisfying crunch that Oak leaves provide as they are stepped on.

As the walk finishes everyone seems to vanish except for two other lay friends who are left standing near me. There’s a clean-cut actor from LA and a guy with dreads who lived on Pacific Beach in San Diego. We briefly share a few words of our background and realize, in turn, that we all are at similar transition points where most of the people around us look at us and say “You’ve got the life! Why would you want to change anything?” It’s easy to look with grass-is-greener glasses from beyond the fence, but few can understand the intricacies of experiences without having done it themselves.

We all have a good laugh about how we represent different stereotypes of 20-somethings (i.e. businessman, hollywood actor, beach partier) and I realize that if I would have grown up with their parents, in their city, with their friends…I would probably be just like them.

–

Continued in Part 4

Continued from Part 1

7:30am While in the breakfast line I see a blueberry scone at the end of the table – my eyes light up! I ate scones as a child, and am rediscovering how the potent combination of a dry scone and heaps of strawberry jelly can result in deep satisfaction.

After finding a seat at a large round table I take time to reflect on this meal. Breakfast is held in silence, building upon the energy of concentration cultivated in the meditation hall and providing an opportunity to focus attention on one thing: eating.

Over the last six months I have continuously refined my meal gatha and have now settled on a series of lines which, at present, captures the essence of what I want to remember before, during, and after, eating:

This food is a gift of the whole universe; the sun, the sky, the earth, numerous living beings, and much energy.
-A declaration of the interconnectedness of life, and of the many conditions required in order to manifest this food on my plate. I look at a banana slice situated atop the oatmeal as I recite this line, marveling at how a combination of sunlight and water can transform a tiny seed into this edible, soft-textured and tasty thing we have agreed in the English language to call “a banana.” I imagine how it felt to be the truck driver waking up at 4:30am to drive cartons of bananas from the farm where it was grown to some distribution center I’ve never heard of. I thank him for his service.

Each time I recite this line I practice focusing on a concrete specificity of my current experience…this morning it is a banana slice. Bringing new items into awareness helps ensure the recitation does not turn into auto-pilot.

May we eat in mindfulness, and gratitude, so as to be worthy to receive this food.
-Reminding myself that the availability of food is not to be taken for granted, on the word ‘gratitude’ I close my eyes and conjure up a rather haunting image of a starving child in Africa crawling to a food bank while a vulture waits nearby. There is a great deal of suffering present in the world, and reminding myself of this each time I eat assists in my capacity to be aware of this noble truth.

May we transform our unskillful mental states, especially our greed, and learn to eat in moderation.
-Eating is a targeted opportunity to focus on transforming greed. It is a laboratory by which I can gauge whether I am wanting more than I need, and then to observe the effects of this discrepancy. As the breakfast food is relatively consistent (oatmeal, cereal, soy milk, bread) discerning the right amount of food isn’t too difficult. Once I’ve become more in tune with wants vs. needs at breakfast, then the practice expands to observing greed during lunch & dinner, where options are more diverse. It then expands to non-meal settings: a chocolate bar in my room, do I keep it hidden to myself or share it with friends? Then of course it expands well beyond food altogether: am I greedy for attention? For praise? For recognition? Why?

I smile to those seated around me and begin eating.

8:15am After breakfast I head into the office to do some work. This summer I have been dedicating a healthy portion of my time to supporting the Wake Up movement in its many manifestations.

Today I am compiling a master list of Wake Up Ambassadors, instrumental individuals who have supported local mindfulness communities. There are people from all over the world who are finding ways to practice together. Right now the list is in the form of an online text document, and as multiple people sent in a list of names there are varying formats for how each Ambassador’s information is entered (i.e. ‘name, country, email’ vs. ‘name, email, country’). I’ll clean up the list to make all entries consistent, and then enter the information into a mailing program. There are also some website update requests that I will synthesize and send to the programmer and developer working on our website. Lastly, there is a recent talk from Thich Nhat Hanh that has been transcribed; after reading through it I’ll upload it onto our online community platform, ensuring it is correctly categorized and shared with the appropriate people.

I chuckle recalling a conversation with a friend from home who asked “So what is it that you actually do?” I remember when I was first interviewing for consulting and I asked a senior partner how he would describe his job, and he said something to the effect of “depends on the project, depends on the day, depends on the person asking.”

Before a working session begins I like to place my hands on top of my closed laptop and just breathe. So much time in modern society is spent in front of a screen; without a strong intention (and regular breaks) it is easy to get lost. I recite a self-composed handwritten gatha taped to the top of my computer to ready myself for the tasks at hand:

Opening my computer I open my heart,
A wondrous machine, may I use it skillfully,
Breathing in, I recall my purpose,
Breathing out, I focus my attention.

10:00am A mindfulness bell goes off as my 90-minute Yo-Yo Ma playlist ends. I breathe. I stand up from the desk and stretch, noticing through the window that the morning fog has lifted and the sky shines a brilliant blue. I feel good. There are a couple monks in the office, and I take a moment to check-in with them. There is an upcoming Wake Up retreat at Deer Park, where we’ll have around 50 young adults come to the monastery to practice for a week. We are discussing the schedule and they inquire if I’d like to moderate a panel of lay practitioners near the end of the retreat. I am honored to have been asked and happily agree. I look at the list of attendees and familiar names bring me a smile.

I choose another 90-minute playlist, this time a combination of two CDs, one called Affairs of the Heart which was given to me by my eldest sister, and the other a set of Chopin songs from the brilliant movie The Pianist. One of the songs on the playlist is Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor which I was recently inspired to learn on the piano. The opening chords get me every time.

11:30am I find the time I finish working in the morning to be a relatively reliable metric of how I’m feeling. My target on most days is 11:30am. If I finish then I usually am feeling good, if it’s 11:45am I feel okay, and 11:55am I feel stretched. Lunch starts at 12:00pm

When I first arrived, the desire to finish near 11:30 was predicated solely on my perception of the impression that I was making for others. I didn’t want to be “that guy” who always came into the dining hall late. The few busy days that I finished even a minute past 12pm I would feel slightly ashamed walking into the hall. Over time though, I noticed that other people who occasionally came in past 12 didn’t seem too bothered. Why was I so overly concerned?

As a youth I didn’t always get along with my siblings, and I think there were some seeds watered at a young age that made me yearn for acceptance. This continued into elementary school when all the cool kids wanted to sit by Bobby G. I was puzzled as to why, when entering the lunchroom, Bobby was beckoned while I received the Forrest Gump treatment of lowered heads, wide shoulders, and shifty glances. I actually asked my 3rd grade teacher once why he was popular and it appeared I wasn’t.

This desire to be viewed positively by others is part of being human, but if uncared for it can distort behavior in unhealthy ways.

As I got older this desire manifested in many of my relationships, particularly romantic ones. Attempting to get others to like me by showcasing all my strengths, and not taking the time to ask if this is something I really want to get into. It has resulted in some unnecessary suffering, and over time I’m learning to care for these insecurities.

11:40am Walking outside of the office I see the sun is beaming; I smile.

There is a sparkling pond in front of me, full of Koi and turtles of various shapes and personalities. As I walk by I am greeted to a series of plops as sunbathing turtles rush to submerge themselves at the sound of footsteps. There is one brave reptile remaining on the edge of the rocks, unsure if my approach signals threat. His scaly neck is stretched at an angle as beady eyes look as if they’re trying to get a closer look. Except he’s looking the wrong way. His cousins are swimming, making their way towards lilly pads while the nearby Koi nibble on grass at the bank of the pond.

The trees surrounding the pond provide a stage for the soundtrack of the scene, as hummingbirds hum, acorn woodpeckers peck, crows crow, and goldfinches…well they chirp.

11:50am Across the pond are a couple lay friends sitting together chatting before lunch. I mosey on towards them. There’s Oklahoma, a 20-year-old who was raised in the south and who is on a west coast road-trip. He decided to stop by Deer Park for a week after reading a couple of Thich Nhat Hanh’s books. He is wide-eyed and enthusiastic, a good reflection of beginner’s mind. And there’s the Doc, a 30-something ER surgeon from Connecticut who had his entire life flipped upside down when he suffered a stroke. What was once a solid identity as “I’m a doctor…and a damn good one at that” has disintegrated with the inability to hold a scalpel in his left hand. Out of this emptiness is emerging a more stable and refined sense of self. It takes time to ripen, all good things do, and it’s been a joy to be there for a slice of it.

As they are both new to the monastery they ask me questions about the work I’m doing, how long I’ve been here, what I’ve learned. I share a bit about Wake Up and they are both enthralled, immediately sensing how powerful (and timely) such a community could be in transforming modern society. I share some of the initiatives we are building and their excitement translates into personal praise: “Wow, you’re doing such amazing work! You must be doing something right.”

While I do appreciate their sentiments, I am careful around taking credit. While it feels great to have a sense of doing something meaningful, this is also the most fertile ground for superiority to slip in unnoticed, potentially eroding the quality of my action.

I notice it now, the sun shining and pride slowly swelling. I spot a couple people walk by who are on the cooking rotation, and a whispering judgment stirs that somehow what I’m doing is more important than what they are doing.

I laugh at this momentary feeling of inflated self-importance. There were a couple days in June where I was on my own at the monastery, almost all the monastics and lay friends had gone to Yosemite and I was heading to a wedding that weekend. Those two days I spent more time in the kitchen than I had the entire previous month, and let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty! I scrounged up every piece of ready-to-eat food that I could, and survived off of cereal and old bread for pretty much every meal. Because of this not only did I have much less time to do work but when I did sit down in the office I felt less energized because my nutrition wasn’t up to standard. This experience helped put things in perspective.

It’s not just me that is helping the Wake Up movement (or anything else for that matter) grow…it’s the cooks that provide food, the carpenters that provide a building, a desk, a chair, the electricians that provide a power outlet and supply, and the list goes on and on and on. There are countless conditions that allow me the time and energy to be able to do “my work.” For that I am grateful.

As Albert Einstein put it in his essay “The World as I See it”: A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving…

Next up, lunch!

—

I was provided the good fortune of spending the majority of this past summer at Deer Park Monastery in southern California. It was an opportunity for immersion; for building bridges and releasing my shells.

I learned much during this time, and in the next four posts I will aspire to communicate the essence of my experience by sharing a “Day in the life” from my time there. I find this style of writing to settle nicely between telling a story and sharing takeaways. The Plum Village day in the life has been the most viewed post on this blog, so either people are accidentally finding their way here by searching for Plum Village, or it’s a writing style people appreciate. Or maybe it’s both!

-
5:25am Alarm. A soft harp, indicating I have 5 more minutes to rest. I turn over onto my stomach and stretch my arms. As my head sinks back into the pillow I succumb to a wave of relaxation.

5:30am Another alarm; this time a revving motorcycle engine, indicating it’s time to physically get up. As I begin to stir a persuasion arises in the form of a whispered thought: you could sleep in just this once… I recognize this voice. It’s my morning coach, she’s been absent as of late but this morning chose to grace me with her presence. I entertain her for about 3 seconds, and then sit up; decision made.

Sitting upright I recite a morning gatha (short themed poem/meditation):
Waking up, I smile
A brand new day is before me
I vow to live fully in each moment
And to look at all beings with eyes of compassion

Over the past year this poem has become a mindful habit, recited silently each morning this year without exception. I slip into a pair of grey sweatpants and a hoodie, take a quick look in the mirror to make sure it’s still me, and swing open the door. A dance between wood, metal, plastic and space creates the first sound of the day. It is a sound I can’t describe in words and couldn’t replicate with voice, yet an unmistakably unique creek and swoosh that I could recognize with a blindfold on as the door of room D4.

5:35am Walking towards the meditation hall I notice a freshness permeating the air around me. The monastery is situated in the mountains of Escondido, CA and many mornings begin with a slowly rolling fog. The fog somehow lifts fragrances from the surrounding flowers and trees, offering a medley of scents that enhance the sensual experience of breathing.

I walk steadily towards the hall, not too fast, and not too slow. There is a lone star over the mountains to my left; I wonder if it’s planet? It is acknowledged with a nod.

5:40am Entering the main hall there are a couple dozen people already seated. The entire four-fold Sangha (monks, nuns, lay men, law women) sits together in the morning, as the separate residences for the Monks (Solidity Hamlet) and Nuns (Clarity Hamlet) are close-by. It’s a pleasant feeling all being together in the morning.

I slide by a couple brothers who are seated and they appear to be in deep concentration. Most people at the monastery don’t talk much about their sitting practice, so I find myself curious as to how (and what) they’re doing. I find a cushion, bow, and take my seat.

While sitting I attempt to strike a balance between structure (focusing on specific objects such as breath & body) and flexibility (allowing anything to arise in the field of awareness):
-With too much structure sitting meditation can become a ‘technique’, which can ironically snowball into an auto-pilot mode of going through the motions; a mode that is precisely what the process of mindfulness is designed to chip away at.
-With too much flexibility, at this stage of my practice I find it quite difficult to focus. Especially in morning meditations, without an object to focus on I find myself becoming quite mentally dull, a state sometimes referred to as “sinking mind.”

I begin this particular sitting by counting ten full breaths from one to ten, helping to establish concentration. Then I scan my body, starting with the toes on each foot, just feeling the sensations that are present. Not trying to feel anything in particular, just tuning into what is present. There is a tingling sensation in both feet. I note it and continue scanning up the ankle, calf, kneecap, and eventually reach the crown of my head. At this point my body is feeling quite relaxed. I have my eyes open with a soft downward gaze as a protection against falling asleep. Closing them would be hazardous. I then re-direct my attention on the rise and fall of the belly.

6:30am A bell is invited (preferred terminology over “rung”), signaling the end of sitting practice this morning. As I move my body I am aware of the enhanced physical sensitivity and how something about my perception seems intangibly shifted.

There is a habit of wanting to assess my sitting and compare it to other experiences of sitting. This desire to judge comes from strong habit energies. Sometimes I emerge from sitting with supreme clarity: a razor sharp mind paired with an unshakable calm. Other times I am just biding my time until the bell is invited; the end can’t come soon enough as my mind is like a shrieking monkey wanting to be anywhere but here.

My relationship to the habit of assessment is worth investigating:
-On one hand, in reality, there is really no such thing as a “good” or “bad” sitting. The same as there is no such thing as good or bad weather. The words good and bad are relative labels that we plaster on top of our experiences in order to make sense of them in a relative way.
-On the other hand, we want to cultivate experiences that make us happy, and most of those come from what we label as “good” experiences, however we define that word. If every time I sat down to meditate my mind was a shrieking monkey…to be honest, I’d probably stop doing sitting meditation. The same as if every time I walked outside it was cold, dark, and rainy, I would probably relocate to a different place.

So, again, there is a balance to be struck here. Of not reading too much into one sitting or one day’s weather, and at the same time, recognizing when something needs to change.

6:35am I exit the hall and turn to continue my morning loop. A friend from college once told me that whenever possible he leaves a different way than he came in. In the spirit of exploring new territory I’ve adopted this behavior, and have found the circularity to be soothing and to create a sense of completion.

The sun is rising and a paradise of forms & colors is presented before me, all I need is to open my mind to see it. Lilac, sage and iris combine to create a bouquet of purple, pink, blues and various hybrids existing between these colors. It’s a feast for the eyes. A few steps off the walking path and I spot a Kumquat tree. The fruit makes for a tasty and resourceful snack: it’s bite-size, there’s no peeling and no mess, and it’s an intensely flavorful blend of orange and lemon.

6:45am Upon returning to room D4 I engage in my post-sitting pre-breakfast routine: I drop down for 30 pushups (20 in a row, pause, 5 more, pause, then one at a time) and 200 sit-ups (50 left side, 50 right side, 100 combo). As a habit it now requires very little effort, and ensures that regardless of what the day holds in terms of physical activity, at a minimum I’ve endured some physical tension.

I spring up, stretch, and head to the shower.

I turn only the cold knob to begin. While the cold water here doesn’t reach ice-cold, it can still be a shock to the system. I pump myself up for the task by taking a few rapid breaths as I leap in shouting “Ain’t nothin’ but a peanut!” (A refrain from a rather ridiculous YouTube video featuring 8-time Mr. Olympian Ronnie Coleman referring to a 200lb dumbbells as peanuts.)

Exposing myself to physically uncomfortable situations in a relatively controlled environment has allowed me to practice embracing tension and watching the mind try and squirm its way out of the situation. Over time this practice strengthens one’s ability to face the inevitable suffering that occurs in the course of one’s life. Of course this can be practiced in ways beyond taking a cold shower (e.g. yoga) but it’s a convenient way to explore this territory and there are suggested health benefits to cold showers which seem reasonable.

After 45 seconds under the shower-head (which feels like 5 minutes due to heightened awareness) I stand still and take 5 full breaths, on each exhale saying aloud softly “let go.” After practicing embracing the experience it is now time to practice letting go. Letting go of tension in the body, thoughts of to-do’s for the day, rehashing past conversations, and whatever else the mind has thought up this morning to distract me from fully experiencing this waterfall of sensation.

After getting dressed I make the bed, stretching sheets and tucking corners so that it is fresh for the day. Someone once told me that how you keep your room is a good indication of how you keep your mind. I recall that for most of my life I felt too busy to make the bed in the morning. Even though it takes a mere 20 seconds, it felt like a chore that was taking time away from more important things. Now, instead of returning each evening to disheveled sheets, I spend 20 seconds breathing and enjoying the process of contributing to the aesthetic of a well-made bed.

Before leaving for breakfast I read a short passage from “Arriving at your own door”:
“The astonishing thing, so counterintuitive, is that nothing else needs to happen. We can give up trying to make something special occur. In letting go of wanting something special to occur, maybe we can realize that something very special is already occurring, and is always occurring – namely, your life unfolding in each moment in awareness.”

7:25am Entering the breakfast hall I glance at the schedule written on the board. The schedule varies slightly by day, with most days including a period of sitting meditation in the morning and walking meditation in the afternoon. I’ve never been too fond of other people creating a schedule for me, so at first I felt slightly reluctant to be in a place with such a regimented schedule. But it didn’t take me long for me to realize the wisdom inherent within:

Nearly everyone in a monastery wants to practice sitting & walking meditation to some degree, as they are fundamental cornerstones of mindfulness practice. Left to our own devices though, this formal practice can be quite difficult to make time for. Getting up at 5:30am to sit sounds nice, but how many of us have the discipline to do it on our own day-in-day-out, especially in absence of any pressing need other than to sit and be present? That’s what a schedule is for. In essence, we are choosing to be in a place where there is a specific time for sitting to ensure that regardless of what else we have going on that day we are given the opportunity to sit, an opportunity no one can take away from us.

In this way, paradoxically, structure creates freedom. Freedom to practice without distraction, be it internal or external.

Next up, breakfast!
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Google has a nifty program called the Google Books Ngram Viewer which tracks word usage over time via all the books in Google’s dataset. Pretty cool idea. What I would really like to have is a ‘Personal Ngram’ tracking my own word usage over time.

When considering personal transformation, there’s perhaps no place more concrete to examine than the shifts over time of one’s choice of words. Our word choices are a concrete manifestation of our internal world. Surely much is lost in translation but we do the best we can.

In absence of such a tool (would be a tad tricky to implement with current technology…) I’ll rely on my memory. I’ve noticed that in the past year there are specific words I’ve started utilizing more and others I rely on less frequently. I believe these represent a fairly objective indicator of how some of my views have shifted recently, and thus I’d like to share them:

Manifest vs Hope
Let’s say I’m visiting New York next weekend for a conference. I reach out to a friend living in the city to see if he’s around to meet up. He thinks he’ll be free Friday afternoon but isn’t sure; he’s had some late nights at work recently and his parents may come in that weekend. Friday may work for me but the conference starts that evening and I’ve heard there may be a gathering beforehand. Also there’s been some severe weather storms recently resulting in flight delays and heavy traffic. While I would surely enjoy seeing him Friday, a meet-up may not occur for a variety of totally reasonable factors. Therefore, it’s not quite accurate to say that I hope to see him, in the sense that I have an expectation to see him Friday and I would be disappointed if that wasn’t fulfilled. It’s more accurate to simply say it’d be great to see him…if conditions manifest.

The intention is the same, but the main distinction between these two is in releasing an unnecessary judgment, allowing for things to unfold as they will, and not to limit happiness based on that unfolding.

Transform vs Change
Change is an inevitable, and integral, component of life. Some change occurs beneath our awareness and much occurs without our will. Embracing change can make life more pleasant. Consciously working with it can be liberating. Transformation refers to a more active, participatory, relationship with change whereby it is used as a catalyst for growth.
‘What I heard’ vs ‘What you said’
I’m becoming increasingly fascinated by how difficult it is to communicate our needs to others. A common example is two people in conflict where one side exclaims “I mean, it’s FINE that you did X, but I would have thought that at least…” What I hear from that is that doing X probably wasn’t fine.

Sharing what I heard goes beyond just the words spoken, into communicating what I think you actually intended to get across.

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There are also a few words that I’ve gradually been weeding out from my vocabulary altogether:

Mistake
Labeling an action in the past as a mistake is based upon the premise that some decision I made was wrong. I think that premise is outright impossible to determine. There are an unfathomable amount of causes & conditions that led me to make the decisions I did, and those decisions in turn created many more conditions. At the time, given the information that I had, I made the best decision I could. All there is to do is to learn from what happened and use that knowledge to inform future decisions.

Sorry
It’s useful to describe a couple situations where this is commonly used:

Sorry to hear about [difficult situation] -This is a clear expression of sympathy, indicating I share in another’s sadness. But if I’m not careful, this phrase can become an automatic and insincere knee-jerk to hearing ‘bad news’. For this reason I’ve chosen to forgo those words in an effort to force myself to be more articulate in expressing how I feel. If I myself am going through a difficult time, more than just another person ‘feeling sorry’, what really helps is when he or she is there to listen deeply to what happened, and be there for me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Sorry for the delay – I’ve begun to reduce the amount of times this is necessary to say, for two reasons:
1. I’ve stopped promising deliverables in a timeframe I know I can’t meet. A habit energy of mine is to feel pressured to over-promise, perhaps out of fear that my current offering isn’t good enough. I’ve been slowly freeing myself of this burden, and being much more honest about my capacity.
2. In absence of a specific deadline, I’ve stopped rushing to respond instantly. There are times when a sense of urgency is necessary, and there are many more times when it isn’t. I’ve found it takes continuous practice to know when, and how, to turn urgency on and off. In most circumstances I wouldn’t want other people feeling this pressure when I reach out to them, why was I placing it on myself?

Better than
A few months ago I was driving through northern Arizona and stopped at Oak Creek Canyon in Sedona. I was basking in the beauty around me when a father and daughter walked up to catch a glimpse of the canyon below. After just a couple seconds the young girl blurted out “This is kind of a let down after the Grand Canyon, huh?” A few moments of silence and her father responded “Nope…Just different.”

As I’m continuing to look more deeply into judgment I’m recognizing how ridiculously arbitrary so many of my judgments are, and how pleasant life could be if I was able to suspend judgment in more circumstances and just experience things for what they were, instead of my being bombarded by my thoughts and opinions about the experience.

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If you had a personal Ngram, what would it show?