As a Reminder:

Cling­ing, and the end of clinging…

Last week, I con­tin­ued our series on the 4 Descrip­tors of How Life Is by dis­cussing Sound Con­duct.

I wrote:

Today’s cat­e­gory helps us with the “nitty gritty†of the other descriptors

You might think of what you’ve read in the other 2 cat­e­gory arti­cles as lead­ing to or find­ing their ful­fill­ment in Atten­tive­ness. Its’ sort of like once you begin to under­stand how the world truly works (Under­stand­ing), AND once you begin to refine your Con­duct in terms of this Under­stand­ing, you reach a level of matu­rity that cul­mi­nates in a “sim­ple†way of being (Attentiveness.)

As you might sus­pect, this requires a whole hearted (and whole headed) focus on see­ing what is, as opposed to what we wish was going on.

This does not hap­pen a lot, for most.

Sound Aware­ness

I’m writ­ing this on June 10, some hours before the 2^nd of our series of free webi­nars. I’m going to be dis­cussing “notic­ing and accept­ingâ€, the first 2 con­cepts in the acronym NAIL (Notice, Accept, Inves­ti­gate, and Let Go) Seems appro­pri­ate, as “notic­ing and accept­ing†is what Sound Aware­ness is all about.

Sound Aware­ness requires a single-minded focus on “just this.â€

Prior to imple­ment­ing Sound Under­stand­ing and Sound Con­duct, our men­tal lives are non-present and non-responsible. We only begin to dis­cover this if we bring our atten­tion directly to our mind games, despite the “slip­pery wishes†of the mind. (slip­pery mind)

I’m so together, so clever, and such a Saint. Now do it my way!

For exam­ple, many of my clients have worked on over­com­ing their blam­ing behav­iours. They do this by first begin­ning to notice that they are angry or sad, and how they imme­di­ately and auto­mat­i­cally blame the near­est per­son. So, they let go of the lan­guage. They may even say, “I am anger­ing myself.â€

But then, they’ll come up with, “If only I had mar­ried some­one who was more cen­tred and Zen-like. Then, my tran­quil­ity wouldn’t be dis­turbed.†Same thing (blam­ing) but stated in an arti­fi­cially more self respon­si­ble way.

Approach # 1: It’s always, always about you

There is no escap­ing this real­ity. In the 4 Areas where we can bring atten­tion, (mind, feel­ing, body, and phe­nom­ena) the work­ings of all are deter­mined by how we choose to see them. It is my respon­si­bil­ity to bring bare atten­tion or bare notic­ing to each of the 4.

Slip­pery mind will get more and more clever, but all it ever says is, “Well, it may just be me mess­ing with myself, but THIS time…â€

Aware­ness requires that we look, with clear eyes, at our per­cep­tion of the 4 areas.

What’s going on for you is what is going on for you. Watch. Notice.

Approach # 2: You know noth­ing about any­thing out­side of you

This is the realm of phe­nom­ena from the 4 Areas. This is rejected strongly by our slip­pery mind. We cling to the belief that we know what’s up for oth­ers, and under­stand the work­ings of the world. I find this quite odd, as most peo­ple I meet are woe­fully igno­rant of their own inter­nal the­atre, and strug­gle might­ily against shift­ing much at all of their view. But boy, do they know what’s up for others!

Here’s a hint: you know noth­ing about anything!

Sound Aware­ness teaches us the art of sim­ply notic­ing what’s going on. I call this bare aware­ness, or aware­ness stripped of judge­ment and inter­pre­ta­tion.

I was asked the fol­low­ing ques­tion dur­ing the first webi­nar call:

I would ask, “What good does adding an addi­tional layer do?

If I observe myself gen­tly, I seen see that I “know†how I wish to deal with any phe­nom­e­non. Adding a layer of judge­ment just delays things.

I saw this last week­end. A friend’s son (9 years old or so) had cut a base­ball apart (boy, did that bring back mem­o­ries) and had wrapped the con­sid­er­able inter­nal yarn around his hand. The yarn was attached still to the rub­ber core. He asked his mom for a scissors.

She imme­di­ately leapt to the assump­tion that his hand was trapped in the yarn, and that he wanted out. She got right into, “We gotta get you out of there!†mode. I took out my knife, and opened it. He walked over to me, and sliced the yarn, free­ing the rub­ber ball. The mom was like, “Oh!…â€

Approach # 3: Be curious

This would be the ele­gant approach to the last story. When in doubt, (which, really, is all the time) ask. When you want some­thing, ask.

Sound Aware­ness is a dia­logue between you and you, and you and the uni­verse. As you begin to drop the “know-it-all†stance, it becomes clear that it’s all pretty vague and unclear out there. And inside, too.

One of my clients tells me that she really wants to shift her life. Yet, in three years, all I hear from her is what she knows, which is that every­one is ter­ri­ble, and her life is over at 31. Never once has she approached our work as a puz­zle to play with.

I rec­og­nize that every learn­ing in my life has come right after admit­ting I had no clue. My ther­a­pist used to say, “Prac­tice not know­ing,†and curios­ity as opposed to stub­born­ness was the key to the door.

Curios­ity, in a sense, is a bit like child­like won­der. I loved the look on the kid’s face as he wrapped yarn around his hand and bounced the inside of the base­ball around. This was his very first expe­ri­ence with the guts of a ball, and I twigged back to when I’d done the same thing. I told him about some of my expe­ri­ences, and wished him well with the exploration.

Curios­ity allows me to deeply engage with the phe­nom­ena I am view­ing. The Bud­dha used the term samadhi to describe this laser-like focus on what is “right there.†He indicted that such atten­tion leads to delight and ease born of detached curiosity.

Approach # 4: detach

Detach­ment is not the same as not car­ing. Detach­ment is about drop­ping cling­ing. To what, you ask?

See above! It’s drop­ping our attach­ment to our sto­ries, our judge­ments, our blam­ing, and to our mind games. Once I have detached myself from them, and also from attach­ing to a par­tic­u­lar out­come, I can be fully and com­pletely present with this moment.

This is not the same as not car­ing. It’s not walk­ing around in a calm, preter­nat­ural fog. It’s paired with “delight,†remem­ber. It’s all about com­plete, vital pres­ence as one enacts and inter­acts with life.

Sound Aware­ness requires laser-like pres­ence, with­out cling­ing to any­thing. This is dif­fi­cult, as most peo­ple are deeply attached to their pain and drama, and also deeply attached to the idea that the cos­mos should coöper­ate in a “make me happy project.â€

So, detach. Let It Be, to quote a Bea­t­les album. It is as it is, until it isn’t.

This is also not to say that goals, projects, desires have no place. Remem­ber, the real cause of suf­fer­ing is cling­ing, not desire per se. The way this plays out is to do what­ever you do with full atten­tion and full involve­ment, while detach­ing from a spe­cific out­come (the cling­ing part.)

Sound Con­cen­tra­tion

Approach #5: Sound Con­cen­tra­tion

The word the Bud­dha used is dhyana, which is the pre­cur­sor to the word Zen. And the essence of Zen is shikan­taza, a term coined by Dogen, the founder of the Soto school of Zen.

Sound Con­cen­tra­tion is what hap­pens when we are able to sim­ply be present, moment-by-moment, with what is, and what arises. It hap­pens as we learn to sit with our­selves and let go of the cling­ing and the games.

As I’ve said before, the way to strengthen pres­ence is to prac­tice shikan­taza. Resources are here, includ­ing a video.

For the next few weeks, I’ll be intro­duc­ing my new book, which just arrived from the printer’s. I’m hold­ing off on link­ing to it until the Ama­zon links are ready and work­ing. Stay tuned!