"The Truth of This Moment"

 

Charlotte Beck in Everyday Zen says that we start out in life chasing the desire for things—car, house, spouse, job, degree, awards, money—in the hopes that getting these things will give us peace, contentment, and happiness.  At some point, after having gotten a number of such things, we discover that they don’t give us what we want.  We’re still without peace and not happy.  We realize that we’ve been selfish.

So after that, we then decide that we need to live consciously and unselfishly.  We now start chasing the desire for to be unselfish.  It can become our spiritual path in life.  But teachers like Charlotte Beck (Zen tradition) and Krishnamurti (Hindu tradition) teach us that this doesn’t give us peace and contentment either.  The new project fails because it is still based on the assumption that getting what we desire is the path to peace and happiness.  We are still chasing desire, try to make ourselves in the future into something different from what we are now.  But if this doesn’t work either, is there something better we can do?

Yes.  The third option is to stop saying “I should not be selfish (or impatient, or angry…)” and actually just observe what you are doing right now.  Observe your selfishness in this moment.  What am I doing, what am I saying, what are the thoughts passing through my mind?  Beck asks us:

“What is the truth of any moment of upset, when we are impatient, jealous, or depressed?  When we start working like this—which means to really observe our minds—we see that they are constantly spinning dreams of how we should or shouldn’t be or how someone else should or shouldn’t be; of how we’ve been in the past, and how we’re going to be in the future; of how we can arrange matters to get what we desire.”

But when we observe this, we recognize that these thoughts exist in our minds, but we also see that none of them actually exists in the real world of facts.  These thoughts, of course, can and do cause us lots of suffering.  But seeing this allows us to work with our minds and allows us to see what we are actually doing in each moment that is causing us suffering.  This is the beginning personal change, and sometimes the change occurs immediately.

Krishnamurti has a similar take on this, but offers a slightly different explanation.  In Think on These Things, he says that normally when we set out to make changes we start from something like “I want to be a more patient person,” which seems to be s very noble desire.  But, he says, look at it more closely.  I have some sort of idea in my head of “patient person” which I am hoping to arrive at in the future.  The problem here is that the idea “patient person” does not exist in reality--it’s only a thought in my head, a concept, a mental construct.  Likewise, the future does not exist either—it is also just an idea in my head.  I’m trying to get to an unreal concept that I am going to find in an unreal future.  Instead of this, we need to base our attempts at changing ourselves on something real, on facts. 

To do this I start from observation of what actually exists, what is present in this moment, here and now.   I need to hang out with the fact of my impatience when it is present in a particular moment.  When I see and understand the ways in which I am acting impatiently each time it comes up, then my approach is grounded in reality. I observe it very closely:  What triggered this episode of impatience?  How does it feel in my body?  What are the thoughts that are present in my mind?  How is my impatience in this moment causing suffering for myself and others?  When I begin to clearly see and understand my impatience as it is operating in each instance, in that very moment I start to become more patient.

After talking about this approach in classes, I used to say to students sitting in class, “Let’s try out this approach in class right now in this moment.   Would you like to be a better student?  Then drop the idea of becoming a better student in the future, and look for the ways you are being a bad student right now in this moment.  Are you secretly surfing the internet on your computer, day dreaming, not taking notes, not asking questions when you don’t understand, mentally complaining about the class instead of listening…?  When you understand deeply how you are being a bad student, in that very moment you become a better student.  This is an approach that is reality-based.  Trying to get to some idea of “good student” in the nonexistent future is not based on anything that actually exists.

The times in our lives when we have by far the greatest opportunity to change ourselves are when things are not going well and we are upset.  But until we get in the habit of doing so, most of us do not choose to make use of this opportunity.  And in fact it never even occurs to us to practice at these times.  Pema Chodron puts it this way:

“Ordinarily, we are swept away by habitual momentum and do not interrupt our patterns even slightly.  When we feel betrayed or disappointed, does it occur to us to practice?  Usually not.  But right there, in the midst of our confusion, is where [we need to practice]…”  (The Places that Scare You)

                  Pema teaches that we must first see what we are doing that is causing suffering, and then do something different to break the grip of our habitual and unwise ways of responding.  Even if we are at a loss for some skillful manner of responding, she says to do anything that is different from our usual unwise reaction as long as it does not make things worse or cause harm.  Take a walk, leave the room, sing a song in your head—anything to stop reinforcing our old and unwise manner of behaving.

This type of practice is very different from sitting meditation but it is grounded in mindfulness and it is extremely powerful for bringing about positive changes in ourselves.  Try it and see for yourself how beneficial it is!

 

 

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            If you have questions, comments, or ideas for new Blog topics please contact Dale at ahimsaacres@gmail.com.