Category Archives: mind

People problems popping up

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Had a difficult time sleeping last night because of problems at work. Wanted to go back to sleep this morning, but my feet got me out of bed and walked me to the zafu. I needed that.

In the middle of my third month of daily meditation, people problems are popping up.

The first was about working with a health care practitioner with whom I did not have rapport. After a couple of days and some wonderfully wise words from my friend Katie (“That’s not how I experience you, Mary Ann”), I decided not to work with that practitioner. She’s probably talented and certainly well-meaning. I know what it’s like to work with health care practitioners that I trust, and I’m glad I know the difference.

Now some problems with a colleague have come to a point where I feel like I need to speak to our boss. Depending on my boss’ handling of the situation, I could decide to leave my job.

Recently I ran across this quote from Chogyam Trungpa:

Without problems, we cannot tread on the path. We should feel grateful that we are in the samsaric world, the confused world, so that we can tread the path, that we are not sterile, completely cleaned out, that the world has not been taken over by some computerized system. There’s still room for rawness and ruggedness and roughness all over the place. Good luck!

So…I will remain centered, clear about my values, compassionate to others, and ready to rock and roll with whatever comes up.

The transformation of pain

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Sat zazen a couple of hours ago. Long body scan, lingering on back of pelvis.

Last night, pain told me its purpose was stability.

I understand this better. When I was in that car wreck, back in 1996, my lap belt held, but my shoulder belt didn’t. My upper body was thrown around, while my lower body was held in place. There were two impacts, one to the left and one to the right, but not even. I had head injuries on each side and a terrific burning shock where my spine meets my pelvis.  Nerves and muscles, tendons and ligaments and fascia, all stretched to the max from two shearing forces.

After, pain and feeling this is not my body.  I lived and moved through days in a body that didn’t feel like me.

After a time, the pain resided somewhat. I wore the soles of my shoes unevenly. My gait was off. Sometimes one foot would drag a little. I had lost my poise and grace completely. I gained 40 lbs. over the next few years.

The allopathic medical people said “it’s only soft tissue injuries”.  The ER doctor said I’d be good to go back to work in a couple of days.

I’m sorry, but I’m going to call them idiots. They did not have a clue.

I get it that I compensated. I learned ways to pull myself together, literally. Ways to provide enough stability to walk, sit, and move through my days. Ways that were in integrity with my body-mind system as it was at that time.

Fast forward to years later, discovering/re-membering that I had a slight scoliosis that was diagnosed years before the car wreck. Compounding the healing process of getting aligned and strong.

Fast forward even more. I have been doing yoga for years, and seeing chiropractors and many other body workers. My body is actually getting strong and aligned in all the right places! It can actually be better than before.

The task at hand, that keeps coming up in meditation, is pain. That pain is from structures that held my body together for years.

I can now communicate with these structures, recognize and appreciate them for all they’ve done for me, and ask them if they would like to do something else now.

Recently I posted something about becoming aware of an internal energetic column, running from my sit bones through the center of my torso up through my neck and head, out my crown chakra.

Today I began connecting the pain from the old structure to awareness of the new structure. The old pain now has another option.

Happy weekend, y’all!

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Meditated last thing last night and was too tired to blog, and again first thing this morning and was too busy to blog until now.

Had a great session with my cranio-sacral therapist this morning, appreciating even more how it is possible to be aware of nervous system processes in one’s own body — and in others’ bodies.

After errands, a great session with my chiropractor, my sixth visit. I feel stronger and more stable and pain-free than before. And…I love that he’s got a plan.

Then a visit to Diji, raw cracker maker extraordinaire, and home to prepare my food for a retreat. Since my body doesn’t handle wheat well at all (and a lot of foods aredifficult), this is how I cope — make/take my own.

So here I am at the keyboard at last, just to tell you that I’ll be away this weekend, attending a women’s retreat called “Undertaken With Love,” about conscious living and dying.  Will keep sitting daily (I’m taking my zafu and timer) and post again after I return.

Happy weekend, y’all!

Why not a Zen labyrinth?

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It’s past 8 pm and I’m just now posting about my zazen 12 hours ago.

I remember giving a lot of attention to my head and face during the body scan, feeling my energy body. Definitely life force that seems to vibrate so quickly it has a presence. My presence, the presence of me.

Whole body awareness, with emphasis on noticing sounds again. The sounds of traffic are different on Sunday morning than on Saturday. There seem to be fewer trucks.

I also noticed bird song coming from several directions and imagined birds in trees in my yard and my neighbors’s yards. There was one sweet bird song in particular that I associate with spring.

And sure enough, even though it is February, the mist this morning burned off, and it was sunny and near 70 degrees F this afternoon.

I walked barefoot on grass — walked a rope labyrinth during our extended lunch break that Katie had set up at NLP practitioner training — and it was a lovely experience. I walked it Zen-style — doing kinhin, hands at solar plexus, one hand held in a loose fist with the other palm wrapping it, eyes cast downward, taking small slow steps.

I couldn’t help but lift my eyes to take it all in several times. Spiraling in toward the center, pausing for a moment, then spiraling back out. I felt more open and loving for having walked it.

I bowed before entering the labyrinth, and when I finished, I turned to face the center and bowed again.

I miss practice with my sangha! Different place, different people today — but me the common denominator, bringing Zen kinhin to a labyrinth.

Body scanning practices

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Twofer today. I was tired yesterday morning and didn’t meditate until about 8 pm. My granddaughter was there, and when she left, I felt tired and didn’t post.

Hannah spoke to me several times while I was sitting yesterday. None of what she said seemed to require a response, so I didn’t respond. She’s not used to spending time with me when I am meditating and thus not available for interaction.

She had earlier expressed an interest in meditation. I offered to sit with her for a few minutes. She decided computer games had more appeal and mostly played while I sat.

I got to notice how sitting was different for me, having her there, hearing her speak to me, and not responding. She was okay with it.

This morning I did my sitting before work. Took my time today scanning my body.

Sometimes I do it very quickly, from head to toe, all in the length of one breath. I’ve had practice moving awareness and energy from crown to toe and back up my body, coordinating with my breath.

(Through my NLP work I learned some shamanic practices. The Q’ero Indians believe that light energy entering the crown comes from the center of the cosmos, and as it proceeds down the body and out the feet into the earth, it carries with it hucha, heavy energy that only humans produce. (The Q’ero say humans accumulate it from not living in reciprocity with the earth.)

The earth receives and detoxifies the hucha moving out of the body through the feet. You exhale when moving energy down.  You can also do this seated, with the hucha flowing out of the body at the base of the spine.

And then, breathing in through the feet and bringing clean earth energy up the body and out through the crown connects your little spot on this planet with the center of the cosmos, in the process clarifying you.)

At other times when I scan my body, I linger on areas that feel tense or uncomfortable.

However, sometimes it feels good to do a slow, detailed body scan. Today I did that, starting with feeling all the areas of my forehead. Then eyebrows…eyelids…eyes…lower lids…temples, and so on.

It felt just right to do that.

Inner dialogue about pleasure and pain

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Today is the first time that I sat after cooking but before eating. Just wasn’t that hungry, or rather, was hungrier for sitting than for eating.

A few moments from today’s session really stand out. I was sitting in half-lotus, ardha padmasana. My attention was on my energy body, being with the delicious vibrant hum of prana emanating.

Then my attention switched to feeling aches in my neck, hip joints, sacroiliac joints, and knees from tight muscles and residual tension from the work day.

It occurred to me that I could shift my position to relieve the pain.

An internal  voice said, “Oh, please, not yet. We’re feeling so pleasant and peaceful, sitting in this silent stillness. Moving will be a disruption. Let’s find out if we can extend these good feelings and ease the pain and sit in stillness a bit longer.”

I found I could intensify the pleasant sensations in my energy body a bit by giving them more attention to the point that the sensations of pain in my physical body were quite mild. There, but contained.

I wondered if I could overwhelm the sensations of pain with sensations of pleasure. It certainly seemed possible.

And then the sensations of pain became intense enough that another voice said, “Enough. Shift.” Guess it can work both ways.

So I shifted my position. My left leg was especially happy to stretch out straight and rotate the ankle before coming back into sukhasana.

And that was what was most remarkable about sitting today.

I want to add that when I sit, I experience much more than I can write about. A lot of it is nonverbal. It may be that the real benefit of meditation is this nonverbal “something else” that seems to be running in the background.

I also want to clarify something. These blog posts go to my Twitter and Facebook accounts. I got a comment on Facebook about a previous post about awareness that I have been pondering on.

The awareness I’m talking about isn’t necessarily being aware of anything in particular. It’s more that the act of being aware, regardless of object, is a huge surprising miracle in and of itself. It is unifying and endless and profound, and tuning into it is perhaps the most expansive experience I’ve ever had.

The elephant is in my living room, but I can’t see all of it yet

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Meditated this evening, after work, errands, dinner. Feeling a little achy during session and now. Hip joints, left SI joint, adhesions in left thigh, left trapezius.

Chandler Collins, DC, says we’re moving towards him adjusting my left ilium, and that 95% of the time, it’s a permanent adjustment. It’s almost unbelievable that this end is in sight. My body has been twisted up for decades, and it’s taken over a decade to get to this point of untwisting.

I expect to feel less pain on the zafu and off.

Today’s body scan again was about releasing muscle tension, and it took some time.

During sitting, I felt drawn to my second chakra/dan tien/hara, noticing the rise and fall of my lower belly with each breath. I have an OM tattooed there. Long story, and now’s not the time to tell it.

Whole body awareness. Awareness through the whole body. Awareness with the whole body. Awareness is the whole body is awareness. Awareness is existence, is being, is experience.

Awareness seems both personal and impersonal. Personal in that it’s my body/mind, this body/mind experiencing the wonder of itself–these eyes, ears, this skin, this nervous system at work, this vastness of all that is. Impersonal in that it’s so vast, and so much is beyond my control.

Of course I’m familiar with the concept of oneness. At various times, I’ve experienced various degrees of merging. But it never occurred to me until these last several days that awareness unifies existence.

It’s still too big for me to really grok. I’m still looking at it sideways. I don’t think I’ve really seen the whole elephant yet. But I know it’s in my living room!

The power of thought

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I sat this morning, then went to my monthly cranio-sacral therapy session, then to work. After work, came home, fed cats, changed clothes, and went for a walk at dusk. Sat in car for 10 minutes before going to the first night of a weekend Contact Improvisation and Vipassana workshop.

So it has been hours, or a lifetime, since I sat this morning.

The main thing I remember is that I attended to my back some more. I realized what a marvel the lumbar vertebrae in particular are. They are big and strong, like a tree trunk. They support the weight of the upper body, with a bit of help from the abdominal muscles in front.

Nina was working with S2, a sacral nerve, again. The sacrum has embryological sutures, where plates of hard bone connect. Nerves come through it. My S2 has been recalcitrant, difficult.

She was curious–what did I know about my birth? First child, born 7 weeks early, weighed 4 lbs. 1 oz., amidst fear I wouldn’t survive. Doctor wanted to keep me in the hospital, but a nurse gave me to my mother to breast-feed, and once the milk started, they couldn’t stop it, so I went home with my mother a week later.

Nina thought the nurse probably knew what I needed.

My mother said when I was about 7 weeks old, one day my energy was different, like I was ready to be born, only I had already been born.

Nina asked me what conclusions I could draw. In hindsight, I must have been pretty tough for such a tiny little baby. I experienced 7 weeks of life outside the womb when most babies are still inside. I don’t know if it was overwhelming to me.

I was an adventurer perhaps, and clearly a survivor.

The power of thought: May whatever is holding S2 back be reassured that it’s okay to come out now and experience its full glorious expression. I made it. I am HERE.

Sometimes I feel like such a stoner

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The good news: I wasn’t coming down with anything. That thought crossed my mind when I went to bed last night achy with a sore throat. Today I woke with no aches and pains and no sore throat.

I sat this morning before going to assist at NLP training. No guitar sounds, no sound machine. Just me and the white noise of the heater fan, which I turned off part way through my session when I felt too warm.

Awareness is the backdrop to everything. Thoughts may take up all my awareness. Then my awareness shrinks, becomes small, is limited to the thought.

Sometimes thoughts are barely discernible against the vast backdrop of awareness. Like, yeah, monkey mind is doing its thing, thinking thoughts, but these thoughts are happening to someone else far away, in slow motion in a foreign language.

Expansion, contraction, association, dissociation, attention, awareness, me, not me, being, doing, not doing… this is some vocabulary of meditation. Some may seem like opposites. They’re not. Only a continuum of experiences exists.

Maybe awareness is not just the backdrop to everything. Maybe it is everything.

Everything I know and experience, everything I have ever known or experienced, and everything I can ever know or experience, comes through awareness.

If awareness consists of the conscious and nonconscious minds, then my awareness is simply whatever I’m consciously aware of in any given moment, plus everything I’m not consciously aware of (i.e., everything else). Conscious mind is the island of the tonal, the nonconscious mind is the sea of the nagual, in Carlos Casteneda’s terminology.

The word awareness is a nominalization, a way to make a thing out of a process. The process is being aware.

Right now I feel like a stoner. Today a stoner, Friday a drunk. All welcome in this guesthouse. What’s in the fridge?

Headache, sore throat

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This morning I was busy preparing food for the day. I assisted at NLP practitioner training all day. I didn’t sit until about 6:30 pm.

Today meditation was difficult.

The guy next door was rehearsing with his band. (You know, Austin, Texas, live music capital of the world, where everybody’s neighbor is in a band.) Electric guitar sounds were coming in through the window panes next to my sitting corner. Turned on the sound machine hoping ocean waves would mask or soften the guitar sound, but couldn’t find a comfortable volume. Both waves and guitar were jarring.

I did not make it past the body scan. My attention kept coming back to pain–right above my left eye, left brow bone, left temple, left cheekbone. Not excruciating but definitely demanding.

Ignoring the pain brought only momentary relief. I went into the pain and invited it to show itself to me. Counterintuitive, you know. That disrupted the pattern better than ignoring it did.

Still, it slowly came back.

Noticed other areas–neck, hip, knee–that were sore. All on the left side.

I breathed into the hurting places, finally just breathing space into the pain. Noticing that when I’m in pain, my resources are diminished. ‘Spect that holds true in general. I feel great respect for people who manage living with chronic pain.

Then time was up. Took my granddaughter ice-skating at the temporary rink at Whole Foods. She’s fearless–knees, elbows, lots of risk and fast reflexes. Me–too many years of pain and chiropractic to feel brave enough to even put skates on.

Now back home, with a sore throat. Took acetaminophen. It’s been probably a year or two since I’ve used it. Made tea for comforting throat.

Feeling glad I made an appointment yesterday to see a chiropractor on Tuesday. Wondering if meanwhile I’m coming down with something.

Will know in the morning. Sweet dreams.