Gassho,
How're you doing? How's it going?
Did you look to see? Did you stop to check in and then answer the questions? If not, will you do so now, please, and pay very close attention to what happens as you do. Ready? How're you doing? How's it going?
Actually to look, to see, and to come up with an answer requires a full stop, doesn't it? I find myself closing my eyes in order to eliminate the distraction of sight as I look. Because even though my eyes turn and focus, they are not what's looking. The eyes, having the habit of looking, scan around with the attention, searching out where the answer lies.
Did you see where your attention goes to find the answer? Did it check around in your body to see how you're feeling or did it shoot up to your head for an assessment? Or was it some sort of combination, a conclusion reached by checking in with the "felt sense" of emotional reaction to bodily sensations?
The real question is how do you know how you're doing? Where do you look, who/what does the looking, who does the deciding, who announces the results, and who gets the information?
Each time I met with my teacher he would ask with a certain intensity, "How are you?" It took me a shockingly long time to realize he wasn't looking for "Fine" as an answer. Once I caught on our whole time together grew from my response to that simple, profound question.
At Kripalu (Yoga Center in Lenox, Massachusetts), during the past weekend workshop on fear, I found myself talking with people about the role of fear in the cycles of expanding and contracting energy. On the radio show on Tuesday evening we were talking about the backlash that follows moments of conscious awareness or insight. When I heard myself say, "There's nothing that will bring on an attack of self-hatred faster than happiness," I knew this was the topic for this monthly email.
Conditioned human beings in the waking-up process are constantly checking (or being checked?) to see how they're doing. This checking can come in the form of a review (at the end of the day, following a meeting, or after a particular interaction). It can also take the form of second-guessing, or anxiety or insecurity over performance, or through a comparison to others or against standards such as "where you should be at this stage of life," or via that simple question: How are you? How you are in that moment is dependent on how you came out in the evaluation, yes? You may have been going along not particularly aware of standards or performance, and then a well-placed question produces a self-consciousness that determines your state of well-being or a lack thereof.
This process of "energy management" (high energy when you score well, low energy when you don't) is going on all the time in subtle, often unconscious ways, not just as a result of questioning that is fairly easy to catch on to. That scanning happens
"subliminally," causing a person to decide it's time for a cup of coffee or a "treat," or to feel bad, without ever being aware that that looking-concluding-deciding-acting sequence has happened.
One of the admittedly oddest aspects of Buddhism (to Westerners) is the construct of "hungry ghosts." In the East where Buddhism was spawned, people understand that there are many realms of consciousness, many planes of existence, and this human orientation is just one, not necessarily the most special or significant--except to us, of course!
What is a hungry ghost? It is a creature with a tiny mouth, a very long, thin neck, and a huge belly. It is constantly trying to get enough sustenance through the little mouth to fill that enormous belly. What it ingests is human emotion, in
particular human suffering. So, there are these creatures hanging around human beings waiting for emotional upset to happen so they can have a meal. And they don't always wait! You're going along and suddenly your attention is directed to something
upsetting--a judgment, a comparison, a criticism-and you can feel your energy deflate. If you think of energy being drawn out of your body and consumed, you will have a sense of what the notion of a hungry ghost is trying to convey.
Here's what I'm suggesting. The expansion and contraction of energy is a process. It's not accidental and it's not random. You are present, aware, expansive, life is good, you're feeling good about yourself and life. What happens next? What comes in to produce the contraction? Fear? Anxiety? Judgment? Feeling bad about something you said or did? Just notice. Watch the movement. You're feeling full, full of energy and then, whoosh! Something comes along to capture that energy and leave you feeling empty, deflated.
Once you catch on to how you go from expansive to contracted, you might choose to observe the movement from contracted to expansive. And it is a movement, a series of steps that takes you from the one to the other. Again, it's not random or haphazard--it is very specific and observable. Up and down. Up and down. We look for reasons. Why am I suddenly down? What happened? What did I do? The answer is you didn't do anything. You were distracted, your attention strayed from HERE for a moment, and you
slid into contraction. Your energy just got consumed.
What to do? Nothing. Just notice and enjoy how it feels not to have your life-force siphoned off. The noticing is all it takes. As soon as you get HERE, the energy is once again yours.
Gassho,
Cheri
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