Tag Archives: mindfulness

A Day in a Life: Dreaming of Pie Dough & Desert Wind

July 25, 2012 Jan Leave a comment

Photo by Chuck — I don't want to become flyer food...

It’s a bit early to go to bed, but I’m tired. Something’s bothering me and I don’t want to wake up in a few hours with it still on my mind. I don’t want to lie awake for hours, my mind crawling with thoughts, becoming what the shamans call flyer food. Shamans see flyers as entities that feed off human agitation, and thoughts generate agitated energy. As I drift off to sleep, I ask the universe and my dreaming self to take the “bothersome something” from my mind so I can sleep peacefully.

“Please give me something so I can get through the night without disturbance,” I ask.

Immediately, I am standing in a windy desert. I look down and see an aluminum pie plate in the sand at my feet. I put my thoughts into it, in little bits and pieces like rolled bits of pie dough until the pie plate is filled. The wind, already strong, grows stronger now. I watch, as first one and then another bit of pie dough blow away, then another and another, until all the bits of pie dough have blown away. Then the aluminum pie plate blows away too.

“Oh,” I say, “that’s how I’ll do it. I’ll just keep putting bothersome thoughts into the pie plate and let the desert wind blow them away.”

I go into the desert many times throughout the night and each time I do the pie plate is lying at my feet, once again returned for use. Dropping little thought-clumps onto the pie plate I watch them pile up and then watch as they and the pie plate blow away in the wind. Each time I do this, I am aware of the power of intent to create exactly what is needed. I remark to myself in my dream how well it works and how calm and peaceful I feel. In addition, I notice that the contents of the thought-clumps never materialize in my mind, not even for an instant. I am so intently involved in the process of rolling them up and watching them blow away that they never become real. Thus, my mind is totally empty and at peace.

I sleep deeply. When I wake up in the morning I am calm and well rested. I tell Chuck of my nighttime process.

“It really worked, I slept so soundly,” I say. “I was able to not only sleep deeply but my mind was perfectly empty and calm even when the “bothersome something” arose. I just went through the process as it came to me and let the wind take it. It’s really an excellent mindfulness practice.”

Chuck reminded me that I had mentioned to him the other day that Byron Katie spent a lot of time in the desert after her awakening in 1986, listening to her inner stories, letting the winds take her thoughts, thoughts that came out of her, both her own and those that did not really belong to her personally. Although I live far from the desert, the desert winds appeared just when I needed help too. Who knows what else lies waiting to help us, just for the asking.

To be clear, there’s a huge difference between ridding the mind of bothersome everyday thoughts and what goes on when one is engaged in deep recapitulation. As Byron Katie discovered, she had to encounter her own darkness; in order to heal she had to face everything that came up out of her. In contrast, I just didn’t want useless thoughts interfering with my sleep last night. I had no intention of inviting the flyers to a feeding frenzy.

In addition, I had no intention of going back to or revisiting any thoughts that might arise. I sensed them hovering about, waiting to see if they’d find an opening, and set my intent to do exactly the opposite, to not become available. Instead, I encased them in pie dough, letting them know that they were inconsequential thoughts of no significance and I would give them no energy whatsoever. In letting the wind take everything, including the pie plate, nothing was left behind for the flyers to feed off; no crumbs even to lick clean.

Photo by Jan — Peaceful healed mind enjoying life...

We have to accept that thoughts naturally arise, seeking a place to land. In meditation practice, it’s the eternal process of letting go of thoughts that eventually allows us the experience of peaceful mind, as they drift through our mind without attachment. I see the pie plate and wind of my desert dream as a natural meditation tool. Give it a try; it really does work!

It’s even often appropriate to send thoughts away during recapitulation, but we have to be aware that some of the issues we’re trying to push away will return, no matter how far the wind blows them, until we are done with them. This is because the intent of recapitulation is to heal, totally, and total healing takes many forms, painful and blissful alike. However, I could see using the same practice as a recapitulation tool to send interfering thoughts away that are blocking the truth, or for sending away self-defeating thoughts, old scenarios that are no longer true, as well as the voices of others. It may also help in dealing with the onslaughts of messages from the deeper self that we are just not ready to acknowledge yet.

Once we’ve healed, the flyers leave us alone for the most part, and we are free to dream new dreams.

Passing it on,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Full Attention

July 9, 2012 Jan Leave a comment

Dear Jeanne and all of our guides in Infinity: What message of guidance do you offer us today?

Stay connected to the bigger picture. Continually pull back out of the debris and details pointing to your inner work and your processes of growth and remind the self that there is a bigger story. You are on a journey, appointed a path of constant transition and transformation. Decide how you wish to traverse your path. It is appropriate to notice all that lies at your feet, but it is equally important to notice the sky above you and the horizon beyond you.

Take time each day to thank the self for taking the journey you are on. If you are lost in feelings so deep that you feel incapable of taking another step, you must quickly look up and regain your larger perspective.

It is only in constantly monitoring all aspects of life that one will gain the necessary tools to take the journey with full attention. Full attention means being aware of life’s journey as deeply meaningful, every part of it. Full attention means being aware that everything you have experienced in life so far and all that is to come is deeply meaningful. Full attention means shifting thoughts often, reminding the self that you are a transformational being on a transformational journey—at all times.

Full attention means accepting where you are right now as deeply meaningful and letting go of old ideas of the self so that you may discover the meaning for this moment in your life as a transformational being. Full attention means being aware that each moment is significant; each thought, feeling, emotion, regret and hope is significant in your transformational process. Full attention means never letting the true self be smothered by circumstances beyond your control. Instead, full attention requires mature presence of mind in constant balance with each moment and all that you must encounter in each moment.

A moment in time is infinite, containing infinite possibility. Full attention means grabbing onto that infinite possibility and allowing it to take you on your next step of your journey.

In full attention to all the details of life, as well as to the bigger picture, one has the opportunity to proceed along the path of transformation. Finally, while full attention asks for balance, it also asks you to accept the truths you now face. You must accept the truths of the self as they arise in order to move on into that horizon of infinite hope and possibility.

If you are stuck, caught somewhere along your path, you must come to your own rescue. Lift your head, look around you, accept your reality—the truths that batter you—and in so doing relieve yourself of the burden of them. With your eyes shifted in a new direction, take up your journey again and feel your way forward. Keep in mind that each step requires your full attention because each step you take is deeply meaningful and necessary.

Only you can discover just what meaning you are to discern from each step of your life’s journey. And only you, in full attention, have the power to transform your life as you proceed along the path that opens before you.

This is a week of commitment to the self, to life’s journey, and to taking it with your full attention and with awareness that you and every step, choice, thought, idea, truth and feeling you experience are deeply meaningful, revelatory, and absolutely necessary.

Begin today by lifting your head and looking around you, way beyond your normal circumstances and your normal point of view. Look far beyond your present life and your recent thoughts about the present self. Look at the sky above you and accept that you belong there in that life at this time. It’s up to you to take the journey to find out why.

Full attention means knowing that there is a reason for everything. Begin with knowing that you, a transformational being, are that reason. Accept your reality and then, in full attention, take the steps to change it. The power to change your life, to transform your reality, is in your hands.

Thank you Jeanne and our guides in Infinity! Channeled by Jan, most humbly and with love to you all as you journey onward.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Freedom From The Predator’s Grip

June 22, 2012 Chuck Leave a comment

If we face it squarely, the fate of the world today hinges on the balance of who can raise the most campaign finance funds to better entrance the electorate in its favor. It’s truly a sporting event; the competitive driver dominating America, and consequently the world. How dissociated could this daily dynamic be from the true needs and true reality of the precariousness of the world’s survival? What kind of mentality seeks the brink of destruction to gain the competitive advantage?

When the shamans say we are completely at the mercy of “the foreign installation,” this is what they are talking about. A world mentality in the grip of a predator. That predator cares only for its own gluttonous appetite. It cares nothing for the true needs of the human animal, the human race, the human planet. All it seeks is more gluttony, more to feed its own insatiable appetite, and we are all collectively and personally held in its grip.

We see this collective reality nanosecond by nanosecond in our rapidly communicating world wide web—a web expressing its own gluttonous desire for more; more speed, more rapid response—far outpacing the human nervous system, compromising our human biological balance. The hunger for more and for new is insatiable. But is it truly human? Where is the human in this? Answer: The human is held in the predator’s grip.

In Carlos Castaneda’s journey in infinity, he encountered a young girl caught in the predator’s grip. His heart went out to her and he gave all of his energy trying to free her. The predator had wisely tricked him, found his weak spot, drained him of his energy, and now held Carlos Castaneda in his grip as well.

Who is that young girl that so captivated Castaneda? She is us, all of us, our human self held in bondage by the predators’ mind, that foreign installation that the shamans speak of. Last week I illustrated this dynamic in Barking Meditation. The predator’s mind is the mind that spins the drama, spins our emotions, and drains our vital energy. We are all prey to the machinations of what the Buddhists call the monkey mind, another name for the foreign installation, that doesn’t give a hoot about our true needs or the true reality of our human animal. It’s no different than the daily world spin we are fed to agitate us, hypnotize us, and funnel our energy and funds in this or that direction.

How do we defeat this predator? How do we free ourselves? Here are some hints:

1. Mindfulness Meditation. Learn to take awareness away from the predatory mind, refuse its tales of worry and woe. Keep awareness present on now, on the body, on the truth of the heart, on what is truly real.

2. Suspend Judgment. The predatory mind’s greatest hook is judgment: Good or Bad. It structures our lives, our feelings, and our actions around judging ourselves as good, bad, worthy, unworthy, lovable, unlovable, lucky, unlucky, etc., etc. Once the judgments set in, they generate the feelings that stir up our energy, which gets sucked from us throughout the day and throughout our lives.

No judgment! No blame! Only facts and truth matter! Facts and truth generate right action and freedom. Judgment binds us in its sticky web, a web from which we may never escape.

3. We Are All Victims. Accept that we are all, in our true humanness, victims of the predator’s grip. We are all the innocent young girl of Carlos Castaneda’s journey. But let’s learn from Castaneda’s mistake. If we allow ourselves to be consumed by the sadness, despondency, and hopelessness of the little girl in her captive state, we, like Castaneda, will lose all our energy and be rendered helpless victims, caught eternally in the predator’s grip.

4. Use Our Awareness. We must acknowledge the truth of our bondage, but guard our energy to free ourselves. We do have awareness, an awareness that the predator goes after but can’t fully consume. However weakened, however impoverished we become, we must garner our awareness to not attach to the machinations of the mind and all its false apocalypses. Instead, we must use our awareness to calm ourselves in mindfulness and instead engage in Awe: awe of the majesty of pure being. This is a path to freedom.

We must use our awareness to free ourselves from judgment to arrive at truth and right action. We must avoid identifying with the desperation of our captivated selves. We, as beings of awareness, are the beacons of hope, our one advantage over the predator. Let us not squander our energy on self-pity. Identifying with the true pain of the victim is not freeing, it’s draining. Acting on behalf of the truth of our victim state, through a process like recapitulation, is the road to freedom.

In conclusion, mindfulness and suspending judgment are the weapons to truly freeing our innocence. Facing the truth of our bondage, with awareness, and taking action on our own behalf allows us to finally take back our true humanness from the gluttonous grip of the predator.

To free our innocence and reach a state of awe, to finally experience the majesty of pure being, takes practice. Practice often, now and every day. Forgive the self of everything.

Rescue is imminent!

Stalking beyond the predator’s grip,
Chuck

* See also Jan’s recent blog re: poison ivy as mindfulness practice!

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Barking Meditation

June 15, 2012 Chuck Leave a comment

It’s 10:30 p.m. A dog barks incessantly. “What dog is it?” I wonder. “Whose dog is it? Who would allow their dog to carry on for so long?” I return my awareness to my tiredness and the dog’s barking fades into the sounds of the night.

It’s 1:00 a.m. The dog is still barking. Someone must have gone away, left their dog outside. The dog is frightened, helpless, terrified of the night, terrified in abandonment. Perhaps I should go and find the dog, find out its situation, reassure it. Perhaps I need to rescue this poor dog in need. I’m sad. The image of the shivering victim dog is haunting.

I breathe. Thoughts tell me I have an obligation to care for, to take responsibility for, this trapped, scared, frightened animal. I notice my thoughts and my feelings. I return my awareness to my tiredness. The barking is absorbed into the sounds of the night.

Now it’s 3:00 a.m. The dog barks on, without pause, an incessant, monotonous bark. Someone must be hurt. Its owners. Perhaps they’ve died. This is a loyal dog. This is Lassie calling for, demanding, help. Those barks may be a deep cry for needed attention, for someone in need. How can I possibly not respond?

I’m anxious, worried, sad. What kind of person would close their eyes to such need, such tragedy? What kind of person puts their own needs and comforts above the suffering around them? Shouldn’t I do something?

I breathe, releasing the mobilizing energy that accompanies my thoughts. The sounds of the night, deafening, once again absorb the barking.

It’s 4:00 a.m. Same rhythm, same intensity of barking. I isolate the barking cry of what must be a dog being punished by being left outside. It must be an owner that has an idea about training his dog. It’s necessary to give a dog firm consequences. Perhaps it soiled in the house or chewed the couch. A righteous owner is teaching the dog a lesson, I surmise. It will never forget this lesson for disobedience. This owner has cut off any feeling for this frightened dog in pain. This owner is proud of its ability to be firm and consistent. I’m angry at this owner. But then I find compassion, reminded of my own ignorance, once having humiliated a dog, feeling it necessary in training. I remember my father training a dog of my youth in the same manner. It’s what men do, cut off feeling, do the necessary deed.

My body is tense. I breathe. I release the tension. My awareness melts once again into the sounds of the night.

It’s 5:00 a.m. We sit and drink our coffee. We ponder the barking dog, still active as we sip. Jan suggests that it’s the sheep dog at the sheep farm down the road, protecting its flock from the coyotes that roam at night. I hadn’t considered that possibility.

I ponder my journey through the night, the sleep I lost and found. I notice my heart. Calm, unstirred. I turn to my spirit. No impetus to act. It’s my mind that has conjured the horrors of the night. The mind, with its thoughts, seeking to stir agitated feelings, draining my energy, commanding my awareness.

The shamans call the mind the foreign installation, an entity that feeds on worry and agitation, an entity that conjures and projects without substance. In the night, I noticed its wonderings, but never fully took the bait. The feelings stirred were never true messages from the heart. They were feelings triggered by projections of the mind, not feelings triggered by my real perceiving self.

The shamans teach that we are perceivers, that is our true nature. We perceive—we know—with our whole being. Then we know what’s truly there and we can act with certainty. The mind, on the other hand, has become a symbiotic appendage that has gained ascendancy over our perceiving being, draining us of our energy, of our perceptual certainty.

Last night, as I drove up the hill to my home, I encountered the young female fox that roams the neighborhood. I stopped. She stopped. Head moving side to side, sniffing, perceiving, she showed no interest in spending energy on connecting with me. She knew immediately that I wasn’t a threat. She perceived rightly, her energy being spent only on what was real and necessary. My own perceiving self, I’ve learned—like the fox—will alert me when it’s truly time to act, when there is a real danger at hand, a real concern.

After the night of the barking dog, I left for work early. I drove slowly past the homes of the suspects of the night. I doubted that I’d see anything, but asked the universe to please reveal the source of the mystery. My last pause was in front of the farmhouse of the sheep farm. I sat. Nothing. Then suddenly, the large white sheep dog appeared by the side of the house. Staring at me, it barked the now familiar bark. I continued to sit and stare. It started to advance toward me, ready to chase me off, perceiving me as a threat. It was time to leave.

Jan was right. It was a guardian dog, with unrelenting persistence, protecting its flock from predators. As I drove off, I thanked it for my nightlong training in mindful meditation.

Perceiving more, thinking less,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Experiencing Contentment

June 13, 2012 Jan Leave a comment

Wandering through the backyard early in the morning, I pick a handful of blackcaps. Their sweetness on my tongue brings me back to warm spring days gone by, and yet, I do not reminisce with longing, for I am in the moment. I savor this spring day, these luscious berries, this moment. Indeed, I am thankful for all the other times I have tasted these wild fruits from the earth, and it is enough to be here now, today, having this experience. I am content.

Perhaps moments of contentment are fleeting, as thoughts and worries soon intrude, as the world and all that is so wrong returns to awareness, as inner issues arise and grip. And yet, as I walk in the morning dew, I pull myself back to the experience of now. I discipline myself to stay in the moment. What am I experiencing?

I allow my sensations to be fully present. I listen. I hear the calls and songs of many birds. I hear a truck passing on the road below. I hear the rustling of leaves in the trees. I even hear a heavy drop of fruit from the ornamental cherry tree nearby. I am in the moment. I let everything else go, all the busy thoughts and stresses, knowing they won’t change, they will still be there, but fully aware that these moments of sensation, of being alive now, are changing rapidly.

I look around me. I see clouds moving in. I see a blue jay swoop into the catalpa tree. I see a mosquito. I peer into the prickly blackcap bushes, notice the spiky thorns as I pick around them, careful to not get scratched. I notice just how full the bushes are, how many berries ripening on the branches this year. I let my eyes gaze into the yard, taking in what is in sight, the play of shadows and light, letting my eyes and my awareness be in the moment.

I smell the sweetness in the air. The scent of floral and fruit that only comes on days like this, before the field across the road is cut. I smell the new mown grass in the yard, the dew dampened stones beneath my feet, the scent of earth. In this moment I am still. I am fully present, breathing, alive in the moment.

I feel the air against my skin. I feel the quiet of my heart, the stillness of the moment inside and outside as I stand in my environment, aware that I am nothing, just a small part of all of this. Some other creature is watching me, smelling me, hearing me, feeling me. I am content being part of this world at this moment.

“Experiencing the present purely is being emptied and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall,” writes Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. “Consciousness itself does not hinder living in the present. In fact, it is only to a heightened awareness that the great door to the present opens at all.”

Contentment is being aware. Contentment is being okay with everything the way it is. Contentment is letting go to the energy of the moment, staying in balance, no matter what is going on outside of us or inside. Even while standing in the midst of storm and trial, moments of contentment may be reached. This contentment comes in knowing that this moment too is important, that this moment in life, no matter how difficult, untenable, or frightening, offers something meaningful.

Contentment is staying mindfully present, breathing deeply, aware that this is the moment I am in right now. Can I bear the tension of it? Can I let myself just be in it? Can I let myself discover what it is I must learn right now? Perhaps I learn that I am getting good at remaining calm through a storm, whether an inner or an outer storm. Perhaps I discover that I am not really as attached to things that once held me in their grip, that I am evolving into a different person, contented to be moving on now. Can I let myself move on? Can I be content in knowing that I am changing? Can I let myself change and be okay with it? This too is experiencing contentment.

No matter who I am, where I am, or what I am facing, there are moments of contentment. I must stop, breathe, and accept this moment in my life and be content in what it offers me. I must be truthful with myself, totally honest and open to change. For it is only in accepting change, in myself and others, that I will grow with contentment.

In this moment, as I lift my hand to my mouth and taste the sweetness of the berries in my hand, I experience peaceful contentment. However, brief, I taste it. Mindful contentment is quiet, calm, connected to the energy of the earth, of the sun, stars, and the moon, because it is the energy of being alive in the moment. In this moment of contentment everything is perfect. And when I experience such perfection, I experience nothingness and then the great doorway to infinity opens and countless moments of calm explode.

I let myself experience infinity by constantly bringing myself back to the moment of now, over and over again throughout the day. Building on my experiences, small stepping-stones at first, I am eventually leaping onto boulders of contentment, calmly accepting everything that comes my way. I stay in balance, knowing that this too is right, this is the moment I am in, and I choose to remain aware of its significance. I am mindful of everything, meditating my way through my daily life, constantly bringing myself back to awareness of the moment.

I am not placid and inactive, but fully engaged. I am proactively present, knowing that what I choose to do or express next is important, aware that what I choose to focus on, think, allow, is important—extremely important. My choices affect everything in my environment. If I stand in my yard and make noise, if I intrude on nature, nature will react to my intrusion. If I elect to be in alignment, in balance with my environment, it will react by being in balance with me. If I base my awareness on being present in this moment, appropriately present, I move through life in mindful contentment.

I decide to let life unfold, accepting it, making my choices based on what comes to me, because I know that I cannot stop life. It intends to live. I make the choice to live as well, to go into the next moment fully present and aware.

Life is always changing. Can I? This is where I experience contentment, in knowing that, yes, I am finally ready to keep changing too, making choices that allow me to grow and change. Life is contentment in action. Live it.

Sending love and contentment,
Jan

Riverwalker Press