Getting up front and center

It makes no sense why I am angry. I am actually indignant. Honestly, even indignation doesn't make sense. Anger is such a limbic response that using the reasoning mind to understand it is of no use. So I watch it for what it is. That boiling heat in my chest, the throbbing pulse in my temple and that shallow breath, heavy and hot. I am grateful for the quiet around me. I am glad to be alone to just watch it instead of hurl it on someone else.

A waterfall or a meandering stream?

Streams that meander down the mountains turn into a waterfall or a slight sliver depending on the mountains that create it. They are made of the mountain, they come from the mountain and yet look different depending on the season. Thus is emotion. It is what the mind makes of it. As I watch my anger it finds a comfortable place within and sits there, floating about, while I move on to other things. I sit with my little one while she plays with her toys, placing one thing after another, in increasing size, into her mouth.

Today, my internal world seems calm, even with anger present somewhere within. That wave of loneliness that had come a few days ago has also found a still pool to sit in. I can't say the same for yesterday and the day before, when I tried to distract, occupy and push myself away from the spate of emotions that seem so natural today. The quality of emotions is such, when you get a little distance from yourself and your overwhelming emotion you realize its not permanent. It might leave behind sadness with its passing-another transitory yet available emotion, or joy depending on what the mind makes of it. But you know, this time around, its was not about getting a little distance from the emotion. It was not about letting it pass on by, not about letting go.

I was angry and I let myself be angry without lashing out on anyone. I was lonely and I didn't jump into conversations, books, or the television, or even my thoughts. Not for long but for long enough to let my monkey mind shift perspectives. It was enough to get my mind to befriend these uncomfortable emotions that I push away always. It is not about just happiness always is it? Nor is it about comfort. It is about being authentic in the experience of now, without suffering or at least by being aware of the suffering that comes from wanting only this and not that.

So this time around it was about getting up front and center with the overwhelming emotion. Yes, you are here. Yes, I feel you. Yes, I am grateful for your presence, you need a vehicle, a form and a guise, but I see you for who you are. Yes, you can stay. Yes, you can burn in my ear, heat up my chest and make me want to hurl you at another. Yes, you can stay while I keep on watching you for what you are. Just watching you, watching you.

Spiritual Diary # 6: Quietening the mind

If you have a minute to spare, just close your eyes and observe what happens in that head of yours. We are plagued by our thoughts. Thoughts about what, when, how and why of any and every thing. It is these thoughts that make us. Indeed, my thoughts create opinions about things and people, they help me understand the world, albeit through a narrow lens, they help me decide on my life's goals and they help me critically analyze what is good for me and the world at large. They prepare me for success and failure. They make us, really. I think, therefore I am.

If you give yourself a few minutes everyday to just watch your thoughts, you will be astound by how repetitive, mundane and tangential they can get. Of course, there are moments of creative thinking, sparks that define us too, but they are thoughts all the same. I think, therefore I am.

But isn't that limiting? 'I', my ego, keeps things in control by thinking-logically, practically, emotionally, but what about the moments when we let go, loose control, surrender and become one, moments when thoughts cease to exist, albeit momentarily?

Are you listening?

Quietening the mind is a process that entails making the ego permeable. Making the 'I' permeable. It entails letting others in, being vulnerable and dropping the controlling aspects of our selves. This, I am learning, happens when you balance the 'being' and 'doing' aspects of yourself.


For me, putting my little baby girl to sleep is one of those moments of letting go and making my ego permeable. If my mind is racing, and is full of thoughts about things to do, I fail to notice what Anika wants. She cries and screams, almost like telling me to focus on something besides myself. Only when I switch from the 'I' state can I really listen to her needs. Only when I cease to think and just be, can I deeply feel connected to my daughter.

I'll bet that most of us have experienced, in one way or another, this connection. When you find a deeper connection with yourself or someone else there is a sense of falling away of the ego. Words have a way of coming in between this understanding. Think about times when just looking at someone arose compassion, love and calmness.

Thoughts separate us from what is.They take us away from connections we can possibly make with others in the present moment. They separate us from deeper connections we can make with ourselves and the world. But how does one not think? In our day-to-day lives there are many moments when we let go and just be. Like when I put my baby to sleep, when I relinquish my stubborn "must have's" to some one else's requests or when I meditate.

Here is a wonderful quote from Mark Epstein's book that is apt in the context of quieting the mind:

"Be Patient, do nothing, cease striving. We find this advice disheartening and therefore unfeasible because we forget it is our own inflexible activity that is structuring the reality. We think that if we do not hustle, nothing will happen and we will pine away. But the reality is probably in motion and after a while we might take part in that motion. But one can't know" -Paul Goodman.

Spiritual Diary # 4:Humility

I bow to the darkness within. 
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It feels like a cloud of negativity has been floating around in my head.  I am confronted with a darkness that I could conveniently ignore before. But not now. As I go deeper into my spiritual diet I feel darkness than light. Old wounds or rather unresolved conflicts seem to open up inside me and every time I sit I gape into the wound that has opened up. It's sore, it's burning and it's uneasy.

The broken relationships, the angry words, worry about the future, the flitting hopelessness, they are all sitting on my chest and the back of my head. I recite "breathing in I calm my thoughts, breathing out I am serene" I am momentarily calmed but the thought comes back like a big black cloud. What do I do with you thoughts? How do  resolve you? How do I make peace with you? These questions keep gnawing at me. Restlessness gets the better of me. I feel the need to resolve now. 

I feel restlessness during my meditation practice, I seem to nod off more during the day, am I avoiding my big bad cloud? And yet I sit, I sit with the deep belief that seems to pervade within: this moment is exactly as it should be. Pushing away my darkness has never helped me resolve it, in fact putting it away for later has only eaten me up even more and yet a part of me seems to be doing that. I don't want to face regrets, or anger or worry.

Amazingly enough, as I sit everyday with my feelings, I become one with them. It's as if that part of me which was pushing away regret, anger and worry( for a more sublime state of being) was finally seeing that carrying emotions from the past and for the future was only human, it was in fact a part of being whole. There wasn't a thing I needed to do about it other than watch it and embrace it, as I would an innocent child. I smile at the dawning of some light within me as I continue to sit.

As I learn to bow to the darkness within I seek to understand what I push away so I can embrace every part of me, every part of the universe.

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To read more go to: Spiritual Diet  Spiritual Diary # 1  Spiritual Diary # 2
Spiritual Diary # 3  Spiritual Diary # 4 Spiritual Diary # 5

Spiritual Diary #3: Understanding

"The giver is our parents; we are the continuation of our parents and our ancestors. The gift is our body itself. The one who receives the gift is us. As we continue to meditate on this, we see clearly that the giver, the gift, and the receiver are one. All three present in our body. When we are deeply in touch with the present moment, we can see that our ancestors and all future generations are present in us. Seeing this, we will know what to do and what not to do-for ourselves, our ancestors, our children and their children" -Nhat Hahn in Peace is Every Step.
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Anger. Jealously. Hatred. Contempt. Greed. I have it all in my heart and as I move through my 21 day spiritual diet I seem to become more and more aware of it.  I have had days when I wake up irate. Possessed by anger I express it when my husband doesn't fold the sheets, leaves a wet towel on the bed, or rushes me on his way to work. On irate days I am unpleasant with my parents who call me in the morning to wish me a good day. I am upset by the traffic, by the maid, by work and finally by myself for being irate. As the day gradually moves by I can 'suck it up' but I am never fully recovered from mornings like these. I find myself on a loop of regret and guilt for having been rude to myself and people around me.

Shining the light of mindfulness on my everyday life has led me to become aware of the seed of my anger, when it begins to form. While I sit with my destructive emotions and look at them, a new understanding dawns on me.Nhat Hahn in his book asks us not to push our emotions away but sit with them and breathe "Breathing in, I know that anger is in me, Breathing out, I know that I am my anger" breathe instead of being consumed by thoughts about what another person did to anger us. 

Nhat Hanh ask us if we would scream at the lettuce for not growing well? No! If you have planted the lettuce and it doesn't seem to grow well you will look into the reasons for why it isn't growing well rather than yell at the lettuce or blame yourself or someone else for it. Once you understand the reason you will nourish it in a way that will make it grow well. Thus are humans. If you find that you are angry at someone, sit, breathe and ask yourself why that is so. When you shine this kind of mindfulness on yourself and others, real understanding takes place.

In an emphatic statement Nhat Hanh says "no blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding, if you understand, and show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change". While it feels like a tall order, I start with myself. All of psychology tells you that when you are angry you should breathe, count from 10 to 1 but I have found that this does very little. What has helped instead is this practice of everyday mindfulness even when you are not overwhelmed by negative emotions. Breathing in I calm my body, breathing out I smile. Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is a wonderful moment!" . Practicing mindfulness through yoga, meditation and pranayam helps me catch my negative emotions the moment it shows up . Practicing mindfulness will place positive seeds on an everyday basis which will then act as antibodies, taking care of negative emotions when they seize us. 

Nhat Hahn says, if we can see the entire humanity in a grain of rice, if we can see our mother in the palm of our hand, when we are one with our parents, our ancestors and our children in a way that is expressed in the first quote, we are open to knowing that there is a reason behind every destructive emotion and when we can sit with this insight utmost compassion is what flows forth. 

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To read more go to: Spiritual Diet  Spiritual Diary # 1  Spiritual Diary # 2
Spiritual Diary # 3  Spiritual Diary # 4 Spiritual Diary # 5

Spiritual Diary # 2: Experience

Take a moment as you read this to close your eyes and take a deep breath saying 'in' to yourself as you breathe in and saying 'out' as you breathe out. Do this again. And as you finish your second breath let your body relax while you keep your eyes closed for a few moments. Slowly open your eyes after those few moments and go back to reading or doing whatever you were doing before. 

In those calm moments, you just experienced the 'experiencing self'. The self that allows you to stay engaged and absorbed in things you love most. The self that allows you to be mindful and aware of each moment. My lesson for the last two days has been to stay aware of every moment or in my case as many moments as possible.

In a conversation with my sister today she reminded me about a talk we heard on TED.com on happiness. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman  talks about how there are two types of selves that inhabit within us-the remembering self and the experiencing self. Kahneman talks about how both the selves experience happiness differently. He says that the experiencing self is the moment to moment interpreter of our lives. The way I understand this is that, this is the self that sustains mindfulness. It is what you just saw for yourself with that short meditation.

In the same link you will see that Martin Seligman talks about what he calls engagement. He says that an engaged life is a life that allows you to become absorbed in love, friendship, work and leisure. It is what keeps your experiencing self at its peak of 'happiness' so to speak. When you enhance the experience of engagement you enhance your well being.

Photo:Plumvillage

Going back to that conversation with my sister, she was telling me how rushed her life feels, how her PhD is pushing her to the brink of insanity almost. She was talking about how her expectations about herself was the main thing to blame. Haven't we all been there? I for one know exactly what she means. I am sure some of you know what it is to work and work till you drop down dead every night only to start over again the next day. Like me, my sister also decided she needed to reorganize her schedule and allow some moments where she can actually experience. That's it. Experience.

On a day-to-day basis I find that, I eat in a mighty hurry, I think about what the next best thing to do is, while already doing something else, I think about how I want to finish something soon enough to do to the next thing. But taking a break, stopping, and taking a deep breath lets me just be.

My book for this first cycle of the spiritual diet asks me to do whatever I do just for its sake. Eating for the sake of eating, washing dishes just for the sake of washing dishes, walking for the sake of walking, etc.Of course there are tons of reasons for doing those things but while you are doing it, just do it as if that is the only thing to do in this moment.

Breathe in-and-out as if that is all there is to do in this moment. Experience. that is all.

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To read more go to: Spiritual Diet  Spiritual Diary # 1  Spiritual Diary # 2
Spiritual Diary # 3  Spiritual Diary # 4 Spiritual Diary # 5