The theme of "emergence": What a perfect opportunity to give birth to this new column on "mindfulness"! Emerge: to come forth from obscurity, into existence, into view. "Mindfulness": to pay attention, to see clearly.
Mindfulness (vipassana or insight meditation) invites us to come into the here and now; into "this" moment, into this breath. We have all heard the assertion "you have to be present to win." Mindfulness teaches us that we have to be present to see. To see the moment arising and passing; to see and feel the breath expanding and falling, the thoughts coming and going; the ego-self grasping, clinging, judging, repressing, reacting; the body softening or tightening; sensations manifesting and diminishing.
Only in this "being" state is there the stillness and the awareness to open to the emergence of the moment, the manifestation of "what is." Without this awareness, we eat without tasting, look without seeing, listen without hearing, and generally live our lives quite unconsciously. We are not present to the perfect truth, beauty and wisdom that each unfolding moment has to teach us. It is in this present awareness that the truth of our lives can emerge.
When we engage in the formal sitting practice of mindfulness meditation, we are given the opportunity to observe. We can observe our wild-mind states, our impatience, our struggling, holding, fear, anger, anxiety, compulsive tendencies, physical senstions, our locked way of thinking, our reactivity.
We can note the content of our thoughts, the feelings associated with them, and our reactions to them. We might become aware of agendas, attachments, likes and dislikes, and inaccuracies in our ideas. We can gain insight into what drives us, how we see the world, who we think we are-Insight into our fears and aspirations. As mindfulness instructor and author Jon Kabat-Zinn says, we become present to the "full catastrophe."
When we spend this kind of time in our body, places and sensations have the opportunity to open to our awareness, to "emerge." These places are points of tension, tightness or restriction that we may have been spending our entire lives trying to hold on to or avoid being present with, places that we have closed down around and places which we've refused to even look at or acknowlege. Thus, we have cut ourselves off from our feelings, our own deep knowing, our healing and our lives.
These unexplored places become our conditioning, our "mode of operation," our habits; the source of our reacting to life and all that it presents. Consciousness awareness work, or mindfulness, provides the opportuntiy to open up to "what is," thus affording us the oppprtunity to make more conscious choices; to respond rather than react to our experience and our lives.
There is no goal to this work or way of being but simply to become more aware of and in tourch with life and with whatever is happening in our own body and mind as it is happenineg. If we are experiencing distressing thoughts, feelings or pain, we learn to acknowledge and, perhaps, accept them for what they are, simply because they are present in this moment. We resist the immediate impulse to escape the unpleasantness. Instead, we attempt to see them clearly as they as (just thoughts, sensations, feelings), making space for them to quietly emerge and be present.
It takes a warrior's heart to venture into our ego and our preconceptions, to see what actually emerges, to see what is actually there. Teacher and author Pema Chodron speaks of this willingness to take off our gloves, mittens and boots, and truly feel our fear, tenderness, vulnerability and numbness. To live in this basic rawness, for even five minutes, is warriorship.
The Guest-House
by Runi
This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival
A joy, a depresion, a meanness, some momentray awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing,
And invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent.
As a guide from beyond.
