Know Your Demons

We all have our demons. Let's imagine yours takes the form of an unhappy marriage. Buddhist psychology teaches that this demon lives inside you even though it appears to exist outside - in your partner.

To meet your unhappy-marriage demon sit in meditation and place your awareness on the part of the body where you have sensations that come with emotions. If you're not sure where that is, focus on the face, the neck, and the front of the torso. That's where these body sensations tend to arise, although not always.

Now bring an unhappy marital moment to mind. Perhaps you sense tightness in the neck and shoulders, and for you that indicates anger. Focus in again and you discover a feeling of heaviness in the whole body and a teary feeling around your eyes. It's clear that your demon is both angry and sad. Listen to your internal talk to hear what your demon is saying that is angry or sad.

One day you decide to offer the demon a cup of sweet tea and it works! Now the demon is less absorbing and you have the oomph to find other ways to live in your marriage.

An Ocean of Awareness

Most of us live in a very small pond of awareness because we're trapped in our internal talk - mostly in the stories we tell ourselves. These stories function like filters that limit what we see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and think. Often we're not even aware that the filters exist.

To expand into an ocean of awareness, we use one-pointed awareness. It actually dissolves the filters and exposes our six senses to life as it truly is. Aiming one-pointed awareness toward a black bird's whistle we hear a subtle inflection or the sound of silence.
I do not know which to prefer
The beauty of inflection
Or the beauty of innuendo

The black bird whistling
Or just after.
Wallace Stevens

Want to Study the Ego?

When all is quiet try setting aside 20 minutes to meditate on your internal talk. You can do this by placing your awareness somewhere between your two ears and the back of your head. Don’t make the talk happen, just listen. This puts you in the present, which is where you need to be to explore the ego.

Do you hear talk about the past? Is it a happy memory? Or are you caught in a re-run of an unhappy time. Try not to get lost in either. In this listening mode you are simply observing how the ego arises in internal talk.

You might, instead, be someone who enjoys fantasies. Maybe you’re imagining islands in the sun, or a lover who offers just what you need. This is another ploy to keep you so riveted that there’s no room for life outside the ego.

Perhaps you’re addicted to planning for the future. Do you make lots of lists? Do you rehearse the exact words of a future conversation? This is the ego’s craving for certainty. It denies you the openness of mind that is ready to receive the new.
Lastly, you might hear yourself repeatedly making judgments such as: “How could I have been so stupid,” or “He’s a fool”. Please know that the ego’s judgments can’t survive if you stop believing in them.

Looking In

There’s a belief in our culture that looking in makes people self-centered, disengaged and separate. Looking out is often considered more engaged and even healthier. The reality is almost a complete reversal.

Looking in, we observe how ideas – our story lines and judgments – actually do keep us self-absorbed. For instance, you might hear yourself frequently judging others, which separates you from them. Or you might hear yourself interpret a new experience so that it fits into an old story line. That separates you from what is.

However, with time, meditation, and great patience, you can experience moments when all ideas and judgments fade. In the silence that arises, you might realize that behind all your opinions and story lines is fear – and behind the fear are some very tender feelings. These are very big tender feelings since everyone has them.

Looking in deeply is to know that we are One

Who Am I?

If I ask who you are, you might say; “I’m a lawyer,” “I’m an extrovert,” or “I’m depressed.” But certainly you are more than any of these labels.

So you try again. “Well, I’m also simply me, a human being, a self.”

And so I ask you to show me where your self is. Can we find it in your brain? If you look inside you will see neurons that fire across synapses in a very complicated neurological system. Surely, that’s not you. Nor can you find it in your heart, your liver or spleen. These organs are all very important; they work together to make you happen. But none of them is you.

“Hmmm,” you say: “Perhaps I can find myself in my personality – in my own thoughts and feelings. That’s certainly me. I can’t imagine that anyone else has my particular thoughts and feelings.”

That’s true, I add, but if you watch closely, particularly in meditation, you will realize that your thoughts and feelings are ever changing. They are not any kind of solid or permanent thing. Anger, fear, gratitude, love, sadness, come in waves of experience. Tell me, where are you in all this?

“Ah,” you say, “I get it! I am not any one of these things. Instead I’m the activity! “I’m not a noun, I’m a verb.”

The Fourth Noble Truth

The Fourth Noble Truth, also called the Eight Fold Path, teaches how to use the Dharma in everyday life. More subtly, it teaches that each of us is a Buddha waiting to emerge.The path unfolds in three sections: Wisdom, Morality and Concentration.This month we focus on Wisdom and a teaching called Right Understanding. In this context Right doesn't mean being correct, instead it suggests experiencing the world through the eyes of the Dharma. And understanding doesn't mean rational thinking; instead it's the intuitive knowing that comes from the gut - in a flash and often in meditation. In our culture, however, gut knowing isn't trusted, often goes unrecognized, and certainly isn't cultivated. On the meditative path it emerges as a precious gift.With Right Understanding we intuit that everyone and everything in our impermanent world arises, manifests and fades. Self-preoccupation starts dissolving, and one day we realize we suffer less and are more content. Then comes the moment when we intuit that everyone and everything in this world are One. Thich Nhat Hanh used the word inter-are to describe the same intuition. This has profound implications for how we live everyday life.This series on the Four Noble Truths relies on teachings by the Venerable Ajahn Sumedho. www.amaravati.org/

The Third Noble Truth

In previous newsletters we discussed the First Noble Truth, which states that suffering is part of life. In our culture we call it discontent or stress. We also discussed the Second Noble Truth, which says that the cause of this stress is attachment to desire whether it is continuously wanting or not wanting, grasping or loathing.

Now we move on to The Third Noble Truth. It teaches that it is possible to put an end to such stress. The first step is to contemplate or investigate attachment to desire as it plays itself out in our culture, in individuals, and in your particular mind. Ask: Does attachment to desire create happiness? No judgment, just investigation.

The second step is to meditate. Here’s one way to do it: Bring your awareness to internal talk and listen for the stress or discontent it sometimes causes. Then bring your awareness to body sensations such as anger, jealousy or the shame. Often they accompany internal talk. Then pinpoint one such body sensation, and soak into it for about twenty or thirty seconds.

This procedure may have to happen once, a dozen times, or several hundred times before you deeply realize the nature of stress; namely, that it repeatedly arises, manifests, and fades. Stress is impermanent, you are impermanent, and the world around us is impermanent. As this truth seeps deeply into your psyche, suffering itself diminishes.