Paradigm Shifted

Monday night, I went to meditation.  It was my desperate attempt to get a handle on the intensity of the past few days.  I’ve never actually formally taken a meditation class, but I’ve done my share of meditative work in yoga (including yoga nidra).  But that is guided.  This was only partly so.

This particular style of meditation is called vipassana – or insight meditation.  And for me, it is perfect.  Because you see, my life is about doing.  I do all the time, from the moment I get up to the moment I fall asleep.  I compose emails and blog posts in my head while I’m waiting for the metro writing my to-do list for the meeting the next day to decide on how we’re going to run the meeting next week.  I read background documents on the treadmill for the proposal I am writing while I catch up on old episodes of The Daily Show and contemplate the state of American politics.  I edit pictures from last week’s volunteer event while I plan my week’s meals after mentally scanning my pantry and wondering if I have time to go hiking next weekend before my shift at the yoga studio.

But there is no doing in meditation.  There is only being.  And in being, we are doing, but we have overcome the artificial distinction between the two. The Gita says, “Not even for a moment can anyone remain without performing actions. Everyone is unwittingly made to act by the primary qualities born of nature.”

In being, we are still, but we are not fixed.  Our body functions, our thoughts meander, time moves on.  The present is not a single instant, but a series of flowing instants, and we are present in not just one, but all.  Being is not stopping.  It is still moving, but it is not reliant on our doing, but on a deeper stillness.

But being is not confined to the meditation cushion.  Being pervades every aspect of our lives.  We get so caught up in doing that we forget that in reality, there is only being.  Doing is an artificial construct to which we tie ourselves.  It is comprised of the past and future, and never the present.  But the present is really all we have, and being is all we can ever actually do.

Apparently, the universe has decided that this is the week for me to learn some painful lessons.  In particular,  I’m apparently being taught about the unintended consequences of falling back into bad habits.  These aren’t bad lessons to learn, but they are frustrating when you realize that you haven’t yet learned them.

I had a particularly foul day at work yesterday.  Pitifully bad.  I left work early, even, so that I could grit my teeth in frustration and then throw things in the privacy of my own home.

Anger is a powerful force.  So powerful, in fact, that it masks other strong emotions and paralyzes action.  Anger makes us defensive, makes us lash out unnecessarily, makes us rage against a convenient enemy.  And it blinds us from recognizing one important truth – it is, at best, utterly useless, and at worst, harmful.

Some might argue that righteous anger serves a purpose – it reveals injustice.  But I disagree. I think it does something even more fundamental – it hides justice.  It swells the ego until we become obstacles to ourselves, never able to move past the righteousness and into a place in which we might address it. Instead of resolution, we seek revenge.

When something went bad at work, my first thought was not “how can I fix this?” It was “why are you doing this to me?”  Anger made me misplace my focus on myself instead of the situation at hand.   And in doing so, I found myself caught up a cycle of self-pity and blame.

The universe is not out to get you.  In fact, it is doing its darndest to bless you.  The next time something goes wrong, don’t think about how you have been wronged.  Think about how you can move past this moment and into another in which things are going right.

All this being said, anger is also a very human event.  We get angry.  It is a visceral responses coded in our evolution.  To never get angry is to achieve a herculean feat, on the same level as achieving flight without mechanical aids.   Even the Dalai Lama gets angry.

But, and here is the lesson, the Dalai Lama doesn’t try to find someone else to blame.  He doesn’t try to behave as though he is above being angry.  He takes ownership of every part of his psyche, the good and the bad.  But he doesn’t wallow in it.

True peace with ourselves comes not just from cultivating our admirable qualities.  It also comes from acknowledging our darker thoughts.   It comes from accepting the bad with the good and just letting them be.

I won’t lie.  It’s a scary thing to have to come to grips with the idea that, despite all our lofty goals, we will never be perfect.   But the sooner we come to that realization, the easier it is to just get on with it.