Charlotte Joko Beck, Zen teacher and author shares that the "secret" of spiritual life is the capacity to:
""return to that which we've been hiding from, to rest in the bodily experience of the present moment - even if it is a feeling of being humiliated, of failing, of abandonment or unfairness."
Through the sacred art of pausing, we develop a capacity to stop hiding or running away from our experience.
It is in this way that we can begin to trust in our innate intelligence, our naturally wise heart, and our capacity to open ourselves to whatever arises.
First, we need to exert whatever energy is necessary required to be aware, to rest in the present moment. We will need to simultaneously be willing to make the effort to continually realign our awareness with the present moment - whenever it drifts into the past or is projected into the future. If we can maintain these two intentions, a meditative momentum begins. In time mindfulness and focus mature.
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When I was 21, I availed myself of the opportunity to experience a major pause. I had felt lost and directionless and elected to leave my job and attend a one-month meditation retreat held at a campground in the beautiful, fragrant California sequoia forest, which had a lodge and room to pitch tents. Because there were 50-100 meditators in attendance, four teachers led the retreat. I had met them the month before in Ram Dass's course, "The Yogas of the Bhavadgita" at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, where they taught the "meditation sections." Each had been trained by Theravadin meditation masters in southeast Asia. When Ram Dass' six-week course was over, I jumped at the chance to immerse myself in the meditation method I had first experienced at Naropa.
The purpose of the retreat was to practice the most basic teaching of the Buddha - sharpening and deepening awareness. Most of us sat on meditation cushions in a simple, but exquisitely designed meditation hall; others sat in chairs. For the first few days, we were guided to observe our breath at the tip of our nose or the diaphragm rising and falling, as we inhaled and exhaled.
We interspersed the sitting practice with a slow walking meditation - bringing our awareness to our feet and noticing the natural progression of ambulating: lifting the foot, moving the foot through the air, placing the foot on the ground, and shifting our weight. (Usually, we execute this process without much conscious awareness). If we lost our presence or our mind wandered (and we found ourselves mindlessly "schlepping") we would make the effort to return to the present moment. We might practice this exercise for 30-45 minutes before returning to our cushions for an hour of closed-eye sittings.
(One teacher jokingly said that it was good that we were in an isolated spot - as in normal life, practitioners were likely to resemble mental hospital inmates!)
It was clear that the goal of simply and naturally following the breath was to strengthen the mental factor of concentration (also known as "one-pointedness"). It worked exquisitely: the mind became silent, observant, keen, serene, and at times, blissful.
But we didn't stop there. Once we had developed sufficient concentration - which settled and focused the mind - we next expanded into developing a more encompassing mindfulness. Step by step, and day by day we included in our awareness - the coming and going of bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts and intentions.
Needless to say, over the month our consciousness deepened, our mind stilled, and our observing capacity became more sensitive and acute. Gurdjieff's statement began to become more obvious: that most people were operating via a form of automatic, "waking sleep." The Buddha had a similar response. Just after his enlightenment, when asked what he was, he simply said, "I am awake."
Each night a teacher would give a talk, which was followed by a question-and-answer period. This was very helpful in catalyzing insight and supporting the motivation we needed to intensify our practice.
To practice this art and science of the mind requires relaxed observation, as well as patience, persistence and endurance. The process was not easy. Practicing the transcendence of what Tibetan master Trungpa Rinpoche once called, "the traffic jam of the discursive mind," allowed many memories, past traumas and suppressed conflicts to surface; our effort was to simply witness these sometimes agonizing thought-forms from as calm and neutral stance as possible.
Fortunately, to support and right any imbalances in our practice, the retreat was structured so that each of the retreatants met with a teacher every other day at a picnic table outside. One of the most helpful phrases I recall was the exhortation not to "cling, condemn, or identify with any of the contents of consciousness; to sit back and watch the passing show." Equanimity arose with increasing frequency.
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