Finding the Center Within: The Healing Way of Mindfulness Meditation. (4 page)

The point is not so much that desire is wrong per se. You are not a materialist for wanting abundance or a careerist for desiring success. The universe is generous and longs to bless you with your heart’s desire. But these things can become problematic when we put them at the center. Desire can lead to an endless cycle. While we imagine a particular level of wealth will suffice, once achieved, this level is no longer quite enough. We then need still a little more. The attempt to find peace by such means is an attempt to quench our thirst with saltwater: the very nature of our efforts only makes it worse. Escape from the Future

Another reason we lose our center is that we postpone life rather than live it. Planning is unavoidable to some degree, and planning is no more the enemy than desire is. But when planning for the future takes over the present to such an extent that the present becomes unreal, insubstantial, and ghostlike, we have lost our center. Planning mindfully means knowing we are just planning. We do not confuse it with the present reality. When done in the right spirit, there’s a lightness about planning. You know reality is endlessly complex and endlessly evolving beyond our capacity to foresee. And since our plans therefore need continual refining and adjustment—if not total revision—there is no sense to get too caught up in them.

Can you enjoy future food? Can you drink tomorrow’s water? Most of us try to do just that, yet you can only nurture yourself with the food and water that are here and now.

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Judy avoids living today by focusing on the next retreat or workshop. The student postpones life till he gets his degree, the businessperson till she achieves some imagined height of financial success. Is that person out running around the track truly happy? Perhaps not. His head may be filled with visions of what he will be like six months from now, when he can run farther and faster, when his body-fat percentage is even lower. And in the meanwhile, all of us are missing it. We are missing our lives. The irony is, a life full of so-called purpose and planning and goals is ultimately without point. For while we are preoccupied with our plans, life is happening. Life is not waiting until we are done planning. And while we are defining our goals, we are missing the whole thing. For life consists only of this present moment—the very one we are so busy running away from.

Where Are You?

Right now:
Where are you?
Come back from your worries and plans, to where you are now as you read. How are you breathing? How are you sitting? How does your body feel? What is the quality of your thinking, your self-talk? Don’t criticize or try to change any of this. Just spend a few minutes being quietly aware, as much as possible without judgment.

This is it. This is your life.

THE EXPERIENCE (TOM)

As I write this, my fingers feel cold. I feel the precise resistance of the computer keys, feel the pressure of my wrists where they rest on the edge of the desk. My stomach anticipates lunch. I hear birds outside my window trying to sing spring a little closer while the cold, March New Mexican winds try just as hard to keep it winter. There’s a slight tightness in my abdomen as I focus intently on writing. There is both a sense of curiosity about how this 01 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:44 AM Page 9

Become Aware of Fragmentation

A special problem of present-day life that detracts from our well-being is the fragmentation we experience as we are pressed between conflicting roles and tasks. The many masks we wear and the roles we play can lead us away from the center.

Our work can be fragmenting, and it doesn’t matter how complicated the job is. Sometimes other people’s work looks enviably easier than our own. But when you’re in that apparently simple job, it still has many aspects and demands. Being a homemaker, for example, is not the simple task others romantically imagine: “What is most important for me to do now? Should I do the grocery shopping or go to the cleaner’s?

Do the banking or vacuum the carpet? Have I done enough now to be able to take a break and do something I enjoy, like watching my favorite program, reading my book, listening to my favorite symphony, or just calling a friend and talking for a while? Or do I need to do more first?

And, oh, I forgot to defrost something for dinner tonight.” And just when you think you’ve got it figured out, the kids come home from school and demand your attention; the phone rings and that aggressive long distance carrier tries yet again to sell you its services (how did you ever get on its list, anyway?); the doorbell rings; you suddenly remember you need to pay the mortgage. There is nothing easy or simple about running a home. Even within this one role, there are many competing demands. And of course it is more complicated than this for many of us. Most of us must deal not only with the complexity of one role, but with balancing the complexity of many roles. Is it any wonder that we sometimes find ourselves yearning for some other, simpler time; some past or future Eden; some time when we know what is expected of us; some time when things are easier; some time when we can
just
earn a living, or
just
be a homemaker, or
just
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parent or a friend or a spouse; or some time when we do not have to do any of that at all and can just sit on the beach and sip margaritas? Beverly says, let’s move to the islands and sell T-shirts. Yet she knows
this
is the time we have, the life we have.

Acknowledge Your Many Roles

Get out pen and paper. Sit quietly for a few minutes, breathing gently. Start to think of the many roles and aspects of your life. List all the roles that you play.

Of course, you may think first of your role at work—the first thing we’re asked at parties and social gatherings. But that one role has many subroles. For example, if you’re an attorney, you may be part counselor, part litigator, part actor, part researcher, part businessperson, and so on. Also include the roles that you play as husband or wife, parent, son or daughter, and so forth. Make your list as long as possible, coming up with at least twenty-five roles or so, considering even aspects that are quite small such as salon customer or mail recipient. When you have listed as many roles as you can, read your list over meditatively. Now ask yourself gently and repeatedly:
Who am I?
without trying to answer the question, just holding it in your awareness for a few minutes.

THE EXPERIENCE (TOM)

As I wake up this morning, I am grateful that I didn’t schedule appointments today. There’s a feeling of freedom in this, and I’m glad to be able to start my day without having to be at a certain place at a certain time. But this feeling is short-lived. I start running through the list of things I need to do. I try to remind myself that my plan is to write, but just as I do, I remember that I also have to go to the bank. I should get some laundry done, too. Outside, the fruit trees demand pruning and fertilizing. I tell myself: First, I will read for a little while over coffee. But as I’m reading, the ideas in the book spark associations, and I think: I’ve got to re-01 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:44 AM Page 11

And I could add more, just describing the demands experienced within the space of an hour or so on one particular morning, balancing responsibilities for domestic tasks, teaching and speaking, running a psychotherapy practice, and writing. The catalog of activities does not include some major pieces of my life that did not happen to figure prominently that morning, such as being a parent and being a spouse. And I’m not complaining. I’m pretty lucky. Many people are juggling more and enjoying it less. Breathing in and out, in and out, feeling each breath all the way in, feeling each breath all the way out, not only breathing, but knowing that I am breathing, deeply aware, I let each demand come and go. No resistance. No struggle. This is my life. Just as it is. Its many pulls and demands. Breathing in and out, I know I am worrying about what to do. Gradually, without trying to do so, I grow calmer. I trust my sense of what is important to do now, what is important to do next. I am aware again of the coldness in my fingers, the wind, and the birds. I know that I am alive, as fully as I can be at this time.

Recognize Disconnection

Though my father’s father came from Europe, the next generation lacked all wanderlust. Most remained in the same city. When my father moved an hour south to the suburbs, it was as if we had moved to the moon. If we were to see his family, we were the ones who traveled. They could scarcely imagine leaving the city and going so far. Later some cousins moved all the way from New Jersey to Florida, venturing far beyond my father’s journey. But for the most part, that generation 01 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:44 AM Page 12

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stayed put, as if honoring some cross-generational need for balance and stability after the emigration of their parents.

Disconnection and separation from our families of origin and friends, coupled with periodic change in geographic locations, all add up to a loss of center. There are many side effects to disconnection from family and friends. And sometimes these side effects distract us from our sense of balance and peace and cause us to lose our way. For most of human history, people didn’t venture beyond a radius of a few miles. Our bodies and nervous systems are no different from our ancestors who lived their quiet, local lives. Most human beings intimately knew the place where they were born, and knew the same set of family members and neighbors their whole lives. For us, it is unimaginably different. We scarcely know the place where we live. Our cars whisk us past them too quickly. We don’t have a village, not even a neighborhood. And then every few years or so, we move and start again. Lifelong friends are rare. What we have are friends from different chapters in our lives. And the majority of these fade into the past as we move to new places and occupations. Whether we like living this way or not, our Stone Age bodies and brains are ill equipped for it. There is a constant background stress to lives so disconnected from the roots of place and community. Then when life throws us a major curveball, it is no wonder we lack the resources to cope with it.

But this is only the familiar piece. This is the piece we all talk about. There is much more. Disconnection runs deeper.

Recognize Disconnection in Time

In contrast with our own culture, consider the importance of ancestors in Confucianist Asia. Traditional Vietnamese homes, for example, usually contain an ancestral altar. Every important event in the family’s history—every death, every birth, every marriage—involves ritual offerings and pronouncements before this altar, keeping the ancestors informed of all these events, and seeking their guidance and support. This is not a practice most Western people could imagine undertaking. Here, parents and adult children often have troubled relationships. Sometimes they have no relationship at all. Some ancient argument 01 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:44 AM Page 13

Ancestor worship may not fit our Western context. But it does demonstrate another dimension of our disconnection. We are disconnected not only in space, but in time as well. We lack continuity with the past. Nor do we feel connected with our offspring and with the future. In the past, people were like oak trees, changing slowly, having the strength of deep roots—roots that sank not only into a particular place, but also into the stream of life flowing back into the past and forward into the future. Now we are like the tumbleweeds that roll incongruously across our southwestern interstates, rootless and blown by every wind.

It is impossible for most Western people to think like Confucians. But we do need to find our own ways of maintaining a sense of connection with the past and the future, with the people we came from, the traditions we were born into, and with future generations. Maintaining connection does not mean whole and uncritical acceptance of all people and traditions. Perhaps some of the actions of our parents and ancestors were misguided; perhaps some of the traditions no longer compel in our fast-paced, pluralistic society. We do not need to ignore shortcomings and errors. But if we are radically disconnected, we pay a tremendous price.

Sometimes We Need Separation: Jerry’s Story

Jerry had not talked to his parents in ten years. He could no longer even say exactly what that last argument had been about. But he vowed at that time never to talk to them again. He kept his word and took pride in it.

Jerry had his reasons. His parents were alcoholics. Their disciplining would be considered abusive by today’s standards. They terrorized him as a child. Coming home from school, he never knew whether his mother would be passed out on the couch or greet him with an angry tirade. Passed out was often preferable. At least then she would leave him alone. And likewise, when his father came home from work, Jerry never knew what mood he would be in. Jerry tried to be outside when 01 BIEN.qxd 7/16/03 9:44 AM Page 14

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