When We Are Sitting

When We Are Sitting

I've been delving deeply of late into what seems like a bottomless well of Buddhist insight on the nature of our mind. Much of this I give full credit to a wonderful clinical psychologist, which happens to be a former Buddhist monk, by the name of Jack Kornfield. Google his name. You'll find plenty there to fill in any biographical itch you may have. You can find plenty of his books online and one in particular that I would highly recommend is his "Meditation for Beginners." It comes with a CD that has six or so guided meditations. I think the beautiful thing about Buddhism is that it lays no claim to any particular creed and you can still be an atheist, agnostic, Christian, etc. and access the wisdom of this philosophy without the pressures of converting to Buddhism. The more I think about the incessant cacophany of our society and its multicolored marketers the more I am convinced that the bravest souls on our planet are those who have the courage to sit quietly and address the impact of our distorted perspectives as they dance their way across our minds while we try to breath and pause to address the many visitors we have while meditating. It will bring you to tears. It will surprise you. It will convince you how active your mind is. It will unveil all your story lines and what is behind each of them. Recently while meditating I envisioned myself on the shore of a beach, just sitting on the sand and watching the waves come in. The tide slowly increased in my unfolding thoughts and the waves graduated to crashed of water. At one point I was submerged in water and as I recall I threw my hands up into the air, stood up, walked to another part of the shore, smiled, sat back down and continued to sit. In a lot of ways what I just described encapsulates the essence of sitting meditation. We are not there to fight with our thoughts but to simply acknowledge them, label them as such "fear" or "bitterness" or "desire", etc. and to simply move on. In time we begin to see that our experiences are very similar to what others suffer from and we see how interrelated we are to one another on this place we call earth.

My Thoughts on the Monster

I could not sleep last night and I decided to get up, grab my my electronic reader and hit the couch for an adventure into the world of fiction. It seems that it was time to give Mary Shelley a chance and so Frankenstein is now at the center of my thoughts as I work my way through this interesting novel that I confess I have never before read. Natural philosophy, alchemy, metaphysics, and the like are all at the forefront of my thoughts as I continue to work my way through the story. Frankenstein, the monster's creator, and not at all the name of the monster itself, is striving to tap into the meaning of nature and of life itself and becomes maniacal in his pursuit to bring to life that which death's bitter sting has tainted. How interesting that once he meets with success that he runs in fear from the very thing that promised him so much hope for the future of humanity. More to come!

Grist for the Mill

Well, it's Monday morning and in less than an hour I'll be at my desk pecking away at my computer and making sure The Man's stock is increasing in value through my little part in the system. I wonder today why we do the things that we do and on occasion entertain ourselves by watching people that do what it is that they want to do. It's a mystery really why we live our lives the way we do. We slave away like the Jews under Egyptian taskmasters only to be rolled over by the very stones we are erecting for the sake of another. This is not cynical blabber mind you. I find people all the time who love their jobs and are good at them and have zero visions of wanting to do something bigger, closer to the ground, and filled with a sense of awe and love. In my insomniatic state of wide eyed awareness last night I got to thinking about this. I reflected on a concert I attended on Friday night of last week and of how the performers loved, or at least seemed to, the craft that they were entertaining us with. Now I suppose one could argue for the fact that it's all show business and that the post concert saga of concertizing could very well be a misery for many of these wonderfully talented singer songwriters. In fact, it may very well be that when all the hoopla has settled and all the cable connections have been disconnected and stored away that the scene could be quiet different. It's the side you never see. The call to load up the bus and move on to the next destination of flashing lights and applause finally arrives and these very people I look upon with such envy ride quietly on into their next locale as they muse about how nice it would be to sit at desk somewhere and have a quiet job to report to each morning with the hopeful expectation of an "end of the day" and plans of maybe meeting close friends afterward for a beer or maybe hitting the gym and then the bookstore on the way home. It's all a matter of perspective I suppose. Sometimes on Monday morning I have thoughts like this. Usually on Friday ... I feel a bit differently! Cheers!