Another useful method of developing silent awareness is to recognize the space between thoughts, between periods of inner chatter. If you closely attend with sharp mindfulness, when one thought ends and before another thought begins—THERE! That is silent awareness! It may be only momentary at first, but as you recognize that fleeting silence you become accustomed to it, and as you become accustomed to it, the silence lasts longer. Once you have found it at last, you begin to enjoy the silence, and that is why it grows. But remember, silence is shy. If silence hears you talking about her, she vanishes immediately!
– from Cultivate Tranquility, Harvest Insight by Ajahn Brahmavamso (Lion’s Roar, 10 June 2016)
Sitting idly is still doing something
I’ve written from time to time about the benefits of meditation, and also contrarily about the uselessness of meditation. Against the view that ‘meditation delivers benefits X and Y’ is the view that ‘meditation is simply the experience of life, being in the moment’. The latter does not mean stopping to think, “this meditation will put me in the moment,” but just sitting and being open to whatever the moment (life) happens to be. The latter is true zen.
Here is a beautiful zen story that illustrates the mysterious adventure of ‘just sitting’ without any ideas of gaining or losing.
Finding Time
If today’s meditation session is like most, a small group, less than a handful really, will join me in the chapel to sit quietly for part of the noon hour. The Reed chapel is a chapel in name only, but the soaring ceilings, the tall windows on both sides of the room, provide an atmosphere that is light, spacious, airy, and contemplative. I’m sure more people would come, enjoy a few moments of beauty and quiet, if only they could find the time.
Thoughts like these remind me of a joyous, deceptively simple poem by Nanao Sakaki called Happy Lucky Idiot (Tricycle, Summer 2013). It leads the reader through a series of reflections, “If you have time to X, Do Y, If you have time to Y, Do Z”. It concludes:
If you have time to dance
Sit quietly, you Happy Lucky Idiot
Bend to my will
I can never help laughing, shaking my head in disbelief, at Danae (Non Sequitur, 16 May 2016). Her rage at the unbending world is so pure. Her commitment to 24/7 warfare is so unquenchable. What a child.
Of course, I have more than a little Danae in me – that’s what makes her so familiar and so funny. I want the world to go my way. And, like Danae, rather than accept things as they are, I’ll retreat into a fantasy land where I can try to hide from the world’s problems.
It isn’t unusual for meditators to seek out silence as a hiding place. How many times have I evaluated a meditation session and said, ‘it didn’t work for me’? But how could it ever be broken? Does reality ever fail to happen? Like it or not, this is my life.
Path of Enlightment
Douglas Penick writes, “the path of enlightenment is not the path to enlightenment” (“What Are You Meditating For?” Tricycle, Fall 2013). There are many ways one might critique a meditation period (“I was hot, noisy, distracted, sleepy, …”), but “it brought me closer to being enlightened” isn’t one of them.
Meditation and academic success
Meditation traditions (zen, for example) often encourage meditation without any thought of personal gain. However, this has not prevented researchers from looking for possible benefits (and harms) that meditation might bring about. Stress, focus, attention management have all been investigated, and now researchers are looking into academic performance.
The Contemplative (Chemistry) Classroom
con·tem·plate – verb, “look thoughtfully for a long time at”
It might seem like contemplation has a natural role to play in education. Learning anything new would seem to involve looking, being thoughtful, investing time. But nothing can raise student (and faculty and administrator) highbrows faster, or higher, than suggesting that classroom time be given over to silent contemplation. So a recent Washington Post story (To get students to focus, some professors are asking them to close their eyes, Washington Post, A. Reiner, 7 Apr 2016) about Bryn Mawr physical chemistry professor, Michelle Francl, and her use of silent contemplation to lead students through some of the mathematical mysteries of quantum mechanics got me thinking … so much of organic chemistry is visual. What might my students gain if I paused over a complicated structural formula and said a la Francl, “We’re going to take a minute and a half and just look at it”?
Upcoming changes in meditation calendar
We will continue meeting on Thursdays in April, but May will be a month of transition with a mix of Thursday meetings early in the month giving way to Tuesday meetings later in the month. The last Thursday meeting will be May 12, and the first Tuesday meeting will be May 10 (note: this is Finals week so it seemed like two meetings might be a good idea!).
June, July, and August meetings will all fall on Tuesdays except when I’m traveling (a common summer occurrence). A complete list of meeting dates can be found on Our Schedule. If you use Google calendar, ask me to share the Reed Meditation calendar with you.
Runner’s High
A friend once told me, “Kayaking is my meditation. That’s where I go all zen.” Well, why not? I’m not going to debate what zen is (I still don’t know), but is exercise the same thing as meditation? Here is what a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, has to say about that:
Avoiding Burnout on the Picket Line
My picture of a social education activist is someone with high ideals, a person who lives their life according to principles that can serve as an example to us. This rosy picture, however, hides the high costs that can accompany a life of commitment. P. Gorski has this to say, “Activist burnout, which causes activists to disengage from their activism, is a formidable barrier to the sustainability of social justice movements, including those focused on social justice in educational contexts. However, the cultures of these movements often disregard the importance of self-care, seeing it as self-indulgence, putting activists at even higher risks of burnout.” Read the rest of Gorski’s article, “Relieving Burnout and the ‘‘Martyr Syndrome’’ Among Social Justice Education Activists: The Implications and Effects of Mindfulness” in the Urban Rev (2015) 47:696–716 DOI 10.1007/s11256-015-0330-0