Meditation: Hold the Railing in the Bottomless Pool

Right in the middle of dinner, a mood settles in, changing the textures of experience, tamping down on interactions and forming strange silences. There's a deep pool of possible feelings upon which to draw, yet like sipping through a straw, only one small part is sucked up, feeding the whole.  It wasn't like this just moments before, or perhaps yesterday was different. It feels as though a shift, like a tectonic plate, happened, and without knowing how it happened, or making up reasons why it happened, we feel as though standing in a place from which life looks different.  Right in the middle of life, someone we love  leaves us and we are lost in the bottomless pool.

It doesn't seem like a choice, since it is something we feel. Feelings surround us, like an immersion, and we cannot feel the bottom of the pool with our toes any more. Seems like either we drift with it, paddle in it, or drown in it. Is feeling really a matter of mind? a reaction to a condition? Does it help to know that the condition is impermanent, or is this feeling of the impermanence of everything like being in a bottomless pool, hopeless of finding our feet? Forever without the comfort of grounding? This is the wash of grief, the depth of loss, the fear of looking forward or letting go of what is past, unable to see the continuum of events as a constantly shifting mirage without feeling despair and agonizing incompleteness.

How do we live with equanimity if there is no bottom to the pool? Think of the shallow end of a swimming pool. There are stairs to give a gradual way into the water, where one can stay until more at ease with the depth and the shift from dry to wet. Even in the deepest end of the pool there are ladders for one to climb out, or to hold onto for a moment of rest. Understanding that the pool is bottomless does not mean giving up these supports, in fact it helps to see them as exactly that. There is little hope of understanding the sea simply from standing on the shore, we begin by wading in. We cannot know the deepest parts on our own, nor traverse the breadth of the sea as a fish might. Yet we can hold the concept of the mountain ridges beneath the surface, the universe of life and energy cycles playing out throughout. These are like the steps into the pool that we can use in approaching the ocean of our feelings and reactions, the seemingly boundary-less and overwhelming reactions we can have in a moment of loss, disappointment or fear.

Setting aside time from the viewing platform of meditation or a yoga practice can allow us to visualize the stairs, and the vastness of the bottomless pool, without reactivity. We can watch the whole scene play out without immersing ourselves in it. Notice the fear or grief arising, the avoidance or the urge to plunge beyond our depth. This moment of observation can be seen and even felt without being lost in it. We can learn to train our attention to hold the railing of the ladder while we let the mind follow the waves outward into the deep end. Let the breath itself be your railing.

Finding Drishti - A Good Seat With Obstructed View

Lately at times it feels as though I'm in a theater but my view is obstructed and I just can't get or take in the whole scene from where I am. Meanings escape me, understanding comes haltingly and the scene shifts before I've been able to catch all the words. The direct antidote for this feeling is my practice. First, being open to what is there; second, acknowledging that what I perceive is subject to constantly changing conditions; third, not judging my responses and letting them come and go; and four, focusing my Drishti (gaze), my attention, whether it's an inner focus or an external one. The resulting clarity and calm helps maintain a willingness to stay in the theater, a good thing since, according to Shakespeare all the world is a stage, and we are merely players upon it.

I just returned from a visit with my elder family members during this period of particularly wild political, national and global news. This includes the on-going natural and human phenomenon in Haiti, the political story in Massachusetts, the rocking boat of national health insurance discussions, and the court's authorization for corporate money to jump with both feet on our political processes. Meanwhile I am absorbing the details of life among those living in the later part of life. The slower but in some ways radical events, feelings, meanings, and relationships are visible and invisible. Seeing through nonjudgmental eyes I feel a deepening in my ability to be connected and close to fundamental truths I share with them and all beings. This helps enormously in the wide world, and the very intimate one as well, where my reactivity can lead to sorrow, frustration and disquieting fears for the future.

There is no boundary that protects anything I know from what I might forget or re-imagine differently. There is no law that states this one set of positions or opinions is the only correct one. I can change my seat, but my view will remain obstructed as long as I am attached to the idea that "truth" is a particular story, or that "right" is a specific way of doing or being. This does not serve my being in the world. It seems obvious that memory issues change the way a conversation unfolds, the way a day winds through itself, the way feelings wrap and unwrap events, comments, relationships and decisions. In some very real ways all of history is subject to issues of memory, interpretation, point of view, and what a friend of mine calls "politics of location." I feel this quite personally, sitting at the table, or on the side of a bed, in front of a newscast, or on my yoga mat.

I find that focusing my drishti helps me recognize myself in each of my relatives no matter how different our situation or stage of life. I can find them in me. My openness to the whole stage allows me to see myself in shadows and in light. If I can know the shape of the obstruction, it helps improve my view. Meditation and yoga on a regular basis unfolds the eyelids and allows me to see the shapes more and more as I go along.

Wake It Up

The weather today is brisk, windy, shockingly cold in comparison with the springlike days just last weekend. I have re-evaluated what I will wear before heading out. I took out the serious gloves and scarf. I am looking forward to meeting the wind. The last time I walked 45 minutes in the bitter cold, I was well dressed and even so my hands found my pockets and my scarf tightened across my face while waiting at intersections. It was a beautiful morning. I was fascinated by the birds, by the children heading for school, by the dry leaves tumbling, the cyclists in their masks. Along with the urban landscape around me, there was a very interesting internal one, the adjustments to the cold, the measuring of how far or how long, and the awareness that I could choose to relax and not hunch up against the wind, but experience it without undue resistance.

I'm glad we don't have the same weather every day. The sky and wind, the shift in temperature and light, all this brings an alertness that I enjoy. I remember taking yoga classes that always began the same way and for a while this was comforting. My sense of familiarity was palpable, my body making the adjustments, my mind thinking it knew what was coming next. Yet even in that steady context, once my attention became alert I found that every moment was different. On a particular day my cross-legged seat would be comfortable or not, my breath would feel wide or not, my gaze steady or not. There are days when even a steadiness in trkonasana (triangle pose) escapes me on one side, while it is present on the other side.

Let the weather remind you to wake up, stay awake and turn your attention towards the outer and inner world. The beauty, the starkness, the warm heart, the essential inquiry into being and freedom are all there in today's wind. Smile as your eyes water in response, dig your hands in your pockets and let the winds blow!