The uncomfortable gap.

Back in the 1960s someone published a series of amusing sayings on postcards called ‘Potshots’. One read, ‘If things don’t improve soon I shall have to ask you to stop helping me.’ It occurs to me that the media are trying to help by giving us an unrelenting diet of bad news. They are saying, “This is not how things should be and if we keep on reminding you how bad they are someone, somewhere will do something to make them better.”
The fact is that lots of people, including politicians, are doing things to try and make life better but generally speaking they don’t get reported by news media. Or if they are reported it’s usually because someone thinks that it’s not enough or that the wrong tactics are being used. In some respects, of course, for many millions of people, life does get better. Even in my lifetime it has got infinitely better for me and for many people like me. But there’s always a gap between the way things are and the way we would like them to be.

We are dominated by the ‘doing mind’, left hemispherical thinking. Therefore we rarely begin by accepting what is the case about our present situation (either internal or external). We perpetually begin with the famous response, ‘If I were you I wouldn’t start from here.’ The gap between here where we are and there where we want to be is intolerable. We assume that rational thought will get us there and fast. But sometimes it’s a question of ‘don’t just do something, stand there!’ In fact it’s nearly always the right way to start tackling a problem. And it’s certainly the right way to start if the problem cannot be solved immediately or by me personally. The rush to judgement, condemnation, recrimination has become a pandemic more serious than swine flu. A little more stillness, being instead of doing, acceptance of what is now the case, of where we are, of where I am in this present moment would produce dramatic results for all the suffering about which we are constantly reminded.

Mindfulness

I'm re-reading “The Mindful Way Through Depression” by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn. I come across the following succinct and exact definition of ‘mindfulness’, “Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgementally to things as they are.” Every element of that definition is essential. As the authors point out, mindfulness involves, necessarily, intention (I am reminded of Martin Buber’s dictum, “Will and grace are two sides of the same coin.”); it focuses on the present moment; and it, again necessarily, requires a non-judgemental attitude. It's a pity about the book's title because it is a wonderful resource for anyone, depressed or not, who wants to know how to live 'wisely, agreeably and well'. (I can't remember the origin of that quote)

In a nice piece of synchronicity, Yvonne tells me later of a quote from Saul Bellows’s The Rain King: “The forgiveness of sins is perpetual and righteousness is not required.” One might begin such a wonderful sentence with, “Confession is essential ....” One would then have a more ‘spiritual’ approach to mindfulness in which becoming aware of ‘things-as-they-are’ is ‘confession’; and ‘righteousness is not required’ is the non-judgemental bit.

When things go wrong.

Surfing, I stumble upon Fr. Thomas Keating on youtube He's a Roman Catholic monk from the USA. I have heard of his method of 'centering prayer'from Cynthia Bourgeault. These are people who practice what, in Christian terms, is called contemplative prayer. When I was a young man contemplative prayer was seen as an esoteric, other-worldly discipline practised by people shut away from the 'real' world in monasteries. It turns out, of course, that contemplative prayer is simply the Now Show in Christian tradition and it is, in fact, the most practical of human disciplines, instantly transferable to everyday life. For people who like to use the word 'God', Fr. Keating explains it in simple accessible language.
For centuries the Christian tradition suffered from the idea that God is not here. He's somewhere else and getting in touch with him involves an arduous journey away from everyday life into special places, using special language and religious ritual. So, when things went wrong on this journey, we blamed ourselves. We were sinners who needed to repent. Someone has said, 'most of our anxiety comes from our search for tranquility'. We get upset when things 'go wrong'. Then we add a distressing story about what has happened so we have two layers of 'upset' and then the mind can really have a field day making us feel bad. There's a telling line from a sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins, written when things were really going wrong for him. He begins,

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring."

It's a vivid evocation of the kind of mental distress we can get into if we start blaming ourselves when things go wrong.

Thomas Keating is one of those people who, in rediscovering the Christian tradition of contemplative prayer, is helping us to connect with folk in many religious traditions (and non-religious too)who understand that we have all the resources we need to cope with life already deep within us. Now, when things 'go wrong' there's no need to beat myself up. I just notice without judgement what is happening, let it be and let it go. It's a simple discipline. Sometimes when things really go wrong is not an easy one to practice but in essence it is simple.

The Good and the Bad (but not the Ugly)

Today my morning session of yoga/meditation went well. I wasn't thinking about the next posture while in the one I was in. I was centred on my body and aware of the difference between imagining this limb, this organ and actually experiencing it in the here and now. 'This is good' said my mind, until I remembered that, to the witnessing presence in me, 'good' thoughts, like 'bad' thoughts, are just ... thoughts. They are not who I really am, this wordless, silent consciousness/Being which I share with the rest of the universe. I am offered a glimpse of the radical trust in this witnessing presence in my depths which Jesus called for when he said, "Consider the lilies of the field. They toil not neither spin. Yet I tell you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." But in his parable of the sower Jesus talks about the seed which falls where weeds grow up and choke it, with the cares and worries of the world. So it is as I move into my daily life after meditation. Decisions, decisions! Planning, ethical choices, chores, things I 'ought' to do, the kind of person I 'ought' to be; they can all crowd in demanding attention, distracting me from the present moment which is the only one I have to be alive in, the only one in which I can stay trustingly centred. If I am centred then most of the decisions and 'issues' seem to fall into place.

Cynthia Bourgeault points out that when I am present as the witness of my thoughts and emotions it is as if I 'back into' the still, silent centre which is within me and everywhere. I don't have to fight the thoughts and distractions. Centredness is there as I witness them - the good and the bad - without judgement.