#RealHappiness - Day 27 - Circle of LovingKindness

This one was the only meditation in the book that I found a little alien and uncomfortable. The only reason was this idea of imagining yourself at the enter of a circle of the most loving beings you can think of. I think the first clue that I need to practice in this manner was this uncomfortable feeling. The second was the very telling fact hat I had a hard time thinking of who would form this circle. The first couple were easy. Siddartha Gautama, Thich Nhat Hanh, The Dalai Lama and so on. I added a few other leaders of the world who were known for their compassion. They were easy because there aren't many. Then, I thought I would add some I knew personally. That's when the discomfort returned.

It's very easy to imagine the cheerful smile and goggly glasses of HHTD wishing me well, but when I thought of some of the people closest to me, I didn't think I could imagine them being purely loving toward me. This is disturbing because there are certain people you should be able to automatically count on for unconditional love. Right?!

The first sign of trouble was when my Dad popped to mind but my Mom didn't. I won't divulge the list, in it's final form, here but it was interesting enough that it bears my returning to it later to practice the LovingKindness meditations on the folks who didn't make the cut! ;-)

With my list complete, I settled in and began with breath meditation and some Metta phrases for myself. After a bit, I imagined the people of the circle giving me their full attention and loving regard. Some of those people are some of you reading this now. I envisioned the easiest one first. Sid. Can't imagine him having anything but loving regard for anyone, right?! Then Thich Nhat Hanh, HHTD and so forth.

You choose three or four phrases like the ones we've been using to have these beings offer to you. These should be big, broad phrases in their scope. Then imagine the beings in the circle offering you these phrases with all of their regard and love. I chose these:

May you be free of suffering.

May you be happy.

May you be at ease.

May you be at peace.

May you love and be loved.

The book warns that this may be uncomfortable, but I didn't find it so. Then it says to let whatever emotions arise pass through you without pursuing them. This is a little harder, but still was fairly comfortable for me, perhaps because of my daily practice. Perhaps it would be more difficult if I didn't already have a daily practice in place.

Simply practice this receiving of love from people wishing you love for as long as you like and when you are ready, you end the practice.

With this beautiful and simple practice, I brought the practices provided for the Real Happiness 28 Day Meditation Challenge to a close. Tomorrow I will practice a core sitting meditation while reflecting on the month.

_/\_

#RealHappiness - Day 6 - Hearing Meditation

So last night. on Day Six of the 2012 Real Happiness 28 Day Meditation Challenge, I decided to focus on the "Hearing Meditation" Sharon describes in "Real Happiness".  I actually do a similar practice quite often.  She invites us to "See if you can hear a sound without naming or interpreting it."  Simple right?

I actually utilize distracting sounds as the focal point of my meditation in order to prevent distraction quite often.  I started doing this early in my practice because I would wake early in the morning and meditate when the house was as quiet as it ever is.  With pets, a child, a spouse and living in the city it's unavoidable to experience sounds that can be distracting.

As an example, we have cats who would maybe start scratching on a post repeatedly or some such.  Another noise that was very minor, but which I found extremely distracting, was the hard drive in our DVR.  It would spin up now and then at odd times to record something and, me being a tech worker, catch my attention.  This points to the fact that these responses are learned responses and CAN be let go of, or at least handled differently. Only because I work with computers, where a hard drive sound could signal a problem, does this give that sound enough value in my brain to cause it to be a distraction.  Most people wouldn't even have heard it.   So, rather than getting annoyed by these distractions, I started turning my attention on them and just allowing them to happen, then observing my reactions to them.

This is been extremely helpful to me in building a practice in a distracting environment.  Now, almost two years later, I have been known to meditate quite happily in the middle of a parade crowd in DisneyWorld!

Well, last night, I followed Sharon's instructions around this practice and it worked well for the most part.  That is, it worked well in the way that it normally does for me, where I notice the sound and observe it.  Where this practice got tough for me was when I got to the part where Sharon says to "See if you can hear a sound without naming or interpreting it."  This is MUCH more challenging than it sounds.

This not "naming or interpreting" part is the key, I think, to the deeper levels of this practice.  It's simple enough to listen and observe sounds.  Getting to the point of hearing the sound, noting your response to it and then observing the space between those two is a great thing in itself.  To then not identify the sound is another level of practice altogether, though!  You've spent your entire lifetime learning that that sound outside is a bus, or a motorcycle or a dog barking.  To now try and hear the sound, observe your reaction to it and stop yourself from identifying it is truly challenging, at least for me! 

Anyhow, I sat listening to the television show my wife was listening to, the cars, the animals, the planes and so forth.  As I did, I realized I was paying so much attention to the effort to not identify these sounds that I was preventing myself from the rest of it.  The mindfulness of it.  So I relaxed, I allowed and observed.  I noted the space between the sound and the reaction.  And slowly, I started to glimpse the possibility of not identifying the sounds.  I very much enjoyed this expansion on a practice I already use regularly.  I expect I'll be spending more time on Hearing Meditation soon!

I hope your practice is expanding as well!

Be at ease!
_/\_

#RealHappiness - Day 5 - Gratitude!

Sunday afternoon is when the Two Hands Sangha meets for it's weekly meditation group. Day 5 of the challenge happened to be our Sangha meet day, so I rolled them all in to one.

In the week leading up to our gathering, I had picked up on a few loose ends of conversation and such. The theme that seemed to rise out of it all was Gratitude. I had heard each of our members expressing gratitude in various ways and for various things as well as missing opportunities to be grateful, including myself.

So, on Sunday morning, I found myself with a little free time and used it to try to sew those loose threads together for a talk on Gratitude. I was looking for some poetry about Gratitude and I stumbled across a fantastic article that not only included various quotes and poems on the subject, but a TON of other great insight on incorporating Gratitude in to our daily lives.

The article, by a gentleman I was not familiar with (Phillip Moffitt), was PERFECT for my needs. I ended up highlighting sections of it to discuss and had so much material that I really had to prune it down to fit it in the time frame we had.

Anyhow, once I found that incredible selection from DharmaWisdom, all I needed to round out the group meet was a nice guided meditation on Gratitude. I reached out to my #Twangha (all my Twitter Sangha from all over the world, including the #OMCru - Online Meditation Crew) and asked if anyone had a suggestion. Kayla Hewitt, a great young aspiring Dharma teacher, immediately reminded me of Gary Sanders recorded meditation on the topic. It was PERFECT!

So, we had our 20 minute guided meditation, followed by a beautiful 10 minute walking meditation in the gardens (Which was so lovely one member didn't even hear the bell and ran a little long enjoying the trees) and finally another 15 minute silent sit. We wrapped up with the reading from the article, and some discussion. It was truly a beautiful way to wrap up the weekend and I was FULL of gratitude for our wonderful little Sangha and my amazing #Twangha. 

If you don't belong to a Sangha yet - and perhaps if you're participating in the RealHappiness challenge, you might not - I would definitely encourage you to seek out one in your area. If you have good ones, that's a great thing to be grateful for! If you don't, start one and be grateful for that! ;) Best of luck with this practice, and may we all be at ease!

#RealHappiness - Day 4 - It was a good day!

In the words of the infamous sage Ice Cube, "I got to say it was a good day."

Yesterday my little Sangha had a field trip to a local spiritual book store, followed by a wonderful lunch at the World Peace Cafe run by a local Kadampa Buddhist Sangha.  My little girl got to know my Sangha mates and really connected with one of them deeply.  Following that, my wife took her to a hockey game giving me some free time which I used wisely.

A part of that wise use of time was to meditate for my fourth day of the 2012 Real Happiness 28 Day Meditation Challenge.  With the house, uncharacteristically, all to myself I prepped for my meditation (having added my new candle holder to my alter) and got started.  Or got stopped, I suppose, depending on how you look at it. ;)

Anyhow, it was very interesting.  First off the house was so unnaturally quiet that I could hear my body (sorry if this sounds gross) digesting my dinner.  So I sat with that.  For some indeterminate amount of time, I followed the sounds and sensations of my body turning my dinner in to fuel, and I observed the feelings and thoughts that came with it.  I offered gratitude for the process.  I've never done anything like this before and it was very interesting.

Eventually, I sort of fell away from that and stopped meditating long enough to launch a recent guided meditation and talk by Gary Sanders on Karuna.  Thus, I ended my fourth day of the challenge, having gained insights on compassion from Gary.  If you're not familiar with Gary, check out his blog, or follow him on twitter.  He's recently started recording his talks and meditations and has a handful of very nice ones to listen to.

See you tomorrow!
_/\_

Right now, #RealHappiness is like this.

My daughter has recently started meditating with me for 5 minutes at a time. It makes me unimaginably proud to see her sitting by me in perfect, simple meditation. So funny that kids take so very easily to it. Obviously, for them, the hardest part is sitting still but the posture and instruction comes very easily. Anyhow she's started sitting with me for five minutes, now and then, before bed. Once she goes to bed, I usually do my full 30 minute sit.

Last night, on day two of the Real Happiness 28 Day Meditation Challenge, she was up far too late. She insisted that she wanted to meditate with me, which I thought was just a stall tactic for bedtime. She had already gone to bed and just wasn't asleep yet. I told her that I would meditate first and she could come in afterward if she was still awake. I expected she would fall instantly and deeply asleep as usual.

To my surprise, she did not. She called my wife while I was about half way through my meditation, and asked her if she could come sit with me. My wife quietly brought her in, and they sat together behind me, while I finished up.

So, Day Two of the Real Happiness Meditation Challenge was not as smooth as I would like for it to have been. But that's the practice. It simply IS whatever it IS. As my awesomely inked buddy Gary Sanders' tattoos (and blog) say..."Right now, it's like this."

Right Now, It's Like This

Sharon says, in Real Happiness, that whatever comes up you just sit with it.  Her guided meditations for the first week of the four week challenge are packed with extremely great, and simple, advice.  Very important things, such as a visualization that has helped me tremendously over the last couple of years where you imagine your thoughts as clouds and you as the sky.  The clouds come and go, but the sky remains still.  As she says in the book:

"If you get tangled up in thoughts, release them and start over. If you feel bored, or panicked, start over. If you can’t sit still, start over. If one day this week you just can’t find the time or the will to meditate, start over the next day." ~ Sharon Salzberg 'Real Happiness'

I would add that "If your wife brings your daughter in during your meditation, give a prayer of gratitude for how fortunate you are and start over." :)

So don't worry so much about your posture being perfect, or the noises, or the interruptions. Just sit. Daily.  And start over.

Sharon Salzberg's Real Happiness 28 Day Meditation Challenge 2012

"I am spiraling backward through space, and my "self" is not coming along for the ride!" was the first thing I *thought* during last nights meditation.  Of course, as soon as I *thought* it, I snapped back to *normal*.

I read Sharon Salzbergs "Real Happiness" several months ago, and liked it a lot.  I found it to be down to earth, simple and very useful for anyone new to meditation or looking to refresh on the basics.  I had already been meditating for almost two years, so I can't say the book was new information for me.  I already have a daily practice, and I think the book is primarily aimed at someone looking to get started and build the habit of a daily meditation practice.

That said, I really liked the format of the book, and I immediately bought a copy for a friend who had just started thinking of meditating.  I had it drop-shipped to her and she LOVED it!  She really found it to be a very easy to read and accessible book.  She's not a Buddhist, and is completely new to meditation, so this was a great review coming from her!

I've since recommended it to all of my fledgling Sangha members who are trying to get a regular (regular being the key word) practice going.

Two Hands Sangh

Anyhow, last night was the first meditation I had in February and I decided to take part in the challenge.  It was interesting and boring as usual.  I sat down at 9pm, checked in with the #OMCru (Online Meditation Crew) on Twitter, then launched my Insight Timer app on my iPhone and began my sit.

Almost immediately I had one of those interesting little events that one can experience.  As mentioned at the opening of this post, I felt as though I was spiraling backward through blackness, or space, in a slow lazy spiral.  In my mind, I could sort of *see* my thoughts - or at least what I perceived as my thoughts - staying where *I* was.  It was a very strange thing that I have not experienced before.  But the moment I noticed that this was happening, and thought "COOL!" the whole thing slowly evaporated leaving me just sitting there with my eyes closed watching my thoughts come and go as usual.  Oh well.  One of the things I have read in nearly every book on the subject is not to get attached to these odd little things.  They are just part of the mind and ego doing it's thing.  Or, as Jack Kornfield's teacher Ajahn Chah told him (from a story in "Bringing Home The Dharma") "Good.  Something else to let go of!"

The last half of my sit went by with the usual monkey mind and mindfulness and when it was done, I decided to post a quote from the book "Real Happiness" on my Tumblr site and I also decided that I would blog daily here during February about my daily practice.  I imagine most of the posts will be a lot shorter, as my sits are usually more mundane. 

Mostly, I hope that anyone reading this might have some curiosity about meditation and choose to join the Meditation challenge.  Just because you're late, doesn't mean you can't start!  Much more important than the challenge, however, I would highly suggest the book, and I would also HIGHLY suggest finding support wherever you can and getting a daily practice going.  The Online Meditation Crew is a PHENOMENAL resource for support, especially if you don't have anyone to practice with in the real world.  The folks in the OMCru are more than willing to welcome you and support you with tweets or Facebook or G+ posts.  I've made some great friends, even *IRL* friends through it, and it's an invaluable resource you can tap in to for support.  If you do take the challenge, and you do use Twitter - perhaps in conjunction with the OMCru - be sure to use the hashtags #RealHappiness and #OMCru to find all the folks doing the same!

So…go to the site, sign up for the challenge, and don't just do something…SIT THERE! ;-)

Everything Is As It Should Be

I recently enjoyed a reunion, of sorts, with a group of guys I started working with over 20 years ago.  Going in to this experience there were numerous opportunities for trouble.  There was a guy who battled addiction and has been clean for over a decade walking back in to the lion's den.  There was a guy who had been fired for being a jerk, and left numerous ruined and ravaged relationships with friends and family in his wake.  There were ex girlfriends attending this event alongside current wives.  There were guys who went on to have successful alternative careers, while others toiled away in the same career.  There were all sorts of things that made it challenging.  Two of the guys had spent those years on a spiritual quest.  They used to be united by this, but one found Christianity and the other Buddhism (that's me, of course) and are now, seemingly, divided by ones inability to accept the others ways.

In spite of all of these things, the weekend was stupendously amazing.  The bad blood washed away with hugs and handshakes.  The career choices mattered not at all in the face of a bond between this band of brothers that is still stronger than jobs and talent and charisma and which transcends time and practice.  Old flames were warm and friendly but cold by comparison to the heat of familial love.  Old demons cringed in the awesome power of life lived with love and presence.  It was simply, astoundingly, amazing.

It was rewarding for me to see in many ways, but watching all of this I couldn't help but be amazed by the dharma of interbeing everywhere I looked.  I looked around at these people who are really like a family to me, and I realized to my astonishment that any one of these great families, partnerships, friendships...any one of them...might not exist today if not for the choices we made back then.  Good choices, bad choices...they all led here.  And "here" was a beautiful thing.  It was just humbling and beautiful to see.

At the height of the celebration, in the middle of beautiful chaotic creativity, I stood - took a few deep breaths - looked around and smiled.  It was truly one of the greatest moments of my life.  I'm grateful, on this Thanksgiving Day, for all that has led me to where I am today and made me capable of seeing that moment for what it was.  I'm being intentionally vague here, in the interest of others' anonymity, but I hope you've followed the point.  The point is that everything is as it should be.  Enjoy it.

Lose 100 Pounds In One Year - CHECK!

I'll write at length about this, very shortly, but wanted to announce it right away.  About a week ago I saw the numbers "249" on my scale for the first time in many years.  This is different from 349 when I started!  Anyhow, I gave it a week to make sure and I'm happy to say I haven't gone up and I'm not dreaming.  I really have lost ONE HUNDRED POUNDS!

Again, I'll write about my thoughts and experiences with this, but just wanted to say it here!

Have a GREAT day!

MS

"I Love You, I Love You!"

My first morning in Bermuda, last week, I woke up and set off for my three miles of mindful walking in paradise.  I fully expected to have one of the best mindful walks a person could possibly hope for, and I got just that.

I walked along famous Front Street, breathing in and breathing out paradise. 

Breathing in, I am grateful to be on this island paradise.
Breathing out, I am awake and aware in this beautiful place.

I took in the incredible views of the harbor, the sun rising over the east side of it.  The beautiful Front Street stores.  The people all saying "Good Morning" as is their custom for all.  It was exactly what I expected and it was wonderful.

Just as I neared the 1.5 mile point, where I would turn around and head back, at Crows Lane Roundabout I saw a statue of a bearded man stepping forward and waving with both hands.  I snapped a picture and figured I would check it out later. 

A little further along, right where I turned around to head back, I saw a man who looked exactly like the statue leaned forward in the roundabout waving with both hands to all the people coming in to Hamilton for work. This spot is where all the traffic pours in to the city in the morning. 

The man, whom I later learned was Johnny Barnes, was waving at all the drivers and saying "I Love you, We Love you!".  He spotted me, and shouted across to me "Hey buddy, don't forget we Love you, we Love you!  Have a great day!"

I was so stunned, taken aback and positively filled with happiness from this guy who simply radiated happiness and joy, I waved back and told him I loved him too.  I walked back to my hotel and went about my day and I'm telling you that my day was ten times brighter because of this stranger who so sincerely told me he loved me.  Not because he loved me, although that was sweet, but that this guy was such a shining example of happiness. 

I did a little research, and it seems Johnny Barnes is a local legend.  He's Bermuda's very own Good-Will Ambassador and he's darned good at it!  Seems that he was an electrician until about 1948, then a bus driver.  Then, according to legend, on his way to work one day he just stopped and "took up waving at people". 

He can now be found pretty much every morning, there, from 5am to 10am making people smile.  Some people assume he's a crazy man, but he's not.  He's a happily married man, allegedly, who by all accounts is just HAPPY! 

How cool is that?

The world needs more Johnny Barnes.  Every City and town could benefit from a good will ambassador like Mr. Barnes.  I hope he lives many years to come and keeps doing what he's doing.  He certainly warmed my heart on a day I didn't think it could be any happier than it already was!

MS