Category Archives: Balanced Living

Five Energizers, The Meme

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EnergizersI was tagged a few weeks ago by Isabella Mori, and I’m finally getting around to writing the post. The originator of the meme is OptimistLab, where you can get the directions if you are tagged by me, or if you just want to join in.

My energizers include eating lightly, exercising, taking a nap, letting go of whatever is on my mind, and having sex.

Eating Lightly. I’m thin, so I eat a fair amount of meat. But when I focus on salads, raw veggies and veggie protein, my system is clarified, and I feel more facile, lighter.

Exercising is the universal energizer. It seems counter intuitive so it’s often the last thing we “want” to do to energize. At those times I take a slow walk, preferable through nature, a park or a garden. Often my pace will pick up and I’ll get a decent “energizing” work out.

When in doubt, nap. Sometimes the body, spirit and mind are just overwhelmed with life and need a total break. Go for it. No guilt. And I don’t worry about power napping, unless I have to get back to work. I nap and let my body tell me when the nap is over. Sometimes I actually sleep better at night if I take an afternoon nap. Perhaps because a better adjusted body/mind/soul is more able to sleep in general.

Letting go. For me the greatest energy drainer is stress. When something is pressing on me from the inside, I tend to shut down. Every cell screams for escape and release. If I just let go of all expectation and goals, I clear the slate and feel refreshed.

Sex. You’ve got to admit it. Sex releases pent up energy like nothing else. Darn society and puritanical culture for creating all kinds of taboos around sex! Self-sex is great. And sex with someone else can be the best ever soul cleanser.

The posts and their bloggers which I’d like to submit (and tag) for this meme are as follows. None are about energizing techniques. Instead each relates to the wide topic of humanist spiritual thinking, one of my favorite subjects these days.

ZenChill for his post The Power of Letting Go. As I stated above, this is a valuable tool for growing as a person.

I found this wonderful article on experiential spirituality (also in an easier to read format here). Though the blog is written by a Franciscan monk, this post shows progressive thinking. I love his article and it’s message. It’s a beautifully written progressive humanist interpretation of the message of Christ.

The Maha Blog posted a detailed criticism of the atheist writer Christopher Hitchens, the fourth in a series called The Wisdom of Doubt. Undoubtedly, doubt is the ultimate tool for questioning authority. To Barbara O’Brien, the author of this edgy populist liberal blog, fanaticism of any kind, even liberal, is dangerous.

Thoughts in a Haystack posted excerpts of Mark Twain’s “Passage from Satan’s Diary to outline the dangers of American theocracy in Sympathy from Satan.

The DT Strain scribed a thoughtful question What is a Contemplative?, in which he outlines contemplative living.

And finally, I love this post called Music Is… by Orain Hard. I told him I’m printing it and showing it to all my students. As a classical musician, I appreciated his beautiful summary of the depths of the musical art.

The Paradox of Detachment

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DetachmentDetachment, often used in Buddhist teachings, implies being outside life, watching, disembodied. I believe this is a misunderstanding of the word’s deeper meaning.

From the teachings of the Alexander Technique, I’ve learned how to be in my body and mind and yet not let them run my life. In other words, I direct from the inside without being subject to mind/body habits. When emotions arise, I feel them without letting them turn into a soap opera. When confusion occurs, I allow its drama without getting lost in it. I am the conductor in tune with the instruments which are me! I believe this balance of control and freedom is the thin line Buddhism implies when suggesting detachment as a tool for awareness.

The “primary control” in Alexander’s teachings points to the same thing. Primary control allows the body’s natural awareness to help us stay in the present. Thus, when the hind brain (cerebellum*) which controls body awareness, is allowed a more leading position, the body is not befuddled by the activity of the thinking mind. This helps dissolve the mind/body illusion. Then, consciousness holds a central place within this physical/mental system, not counter to it or abusing of it.

This sense of detachment allows for the discovery of the higher self. Again, it is not a separate being or other self, but a description of where the true self seems to come from when it is balanced within the body.

Poise in the body and mind allows for better awareness of this seemingly “higher” self. In this sense, spirit is not a separate entity from mind and body, but a result of balance between them, a sympathetic vibration, if you will. When mind and body are present and poised, certain truths can then become self evident, such as the wisdom of being unattached to results and the finite nature of the body and mind. As these levels of understanding deepen, a feeling of spirit may arise, a sense of infinite freedom within a closed system.

* (from Brain Basics)The hind-brain includes the upper part of the spinal cord, the brain stem, and a wrinkled ball of tissue called the cerebellum (1). The hind-brain controls the body’s vital functions such as respiration and heart rate. The cerebellum coordinates movement and is involved in learned rote movements. When you play the piano or hit a tennis ball you are activating the cerebellum. The uppermost part of the brainstorm is the mid-brain, which controls some reflex actions and is part of the circuit involved in the control of eye movements and other voluntary movements.

Spirituality without Religion

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Many Mushrooms make a great stewIs it possible to follow a spiritual path without the guidance of any organized religion? I certainly think so. But I’ve learned the hard way that there is no easy way. I’ve been wandering around for years looking for clues to guide me. I’ve tried easy fixes, pat little formulas like “Be here now” or “This is It” or “God is Love” or “The Path of Least Resistance”. Nothing makes living with quality and integrity easy. The only real choice you have is how you learn and grow from your experiences.

Organized religion offers a tested path. Sometimes it’s better to seek a known path rather than potentially getting lost finding your own. On the other hand, getting a little lost is a sure way to learn the territory well. As with any solution, one size doesn’t fit all. Perhaps a hybrid mish-mash of the best of all paths would be more adaptable to different needs. My exploration has certainly exposed me to wisdom I would not have “invented” on my own.

What I’ve found in my search for spiritual growth are a few simple rules (patterns*) which have no particular religious affiliation, but which can be found in almost any religious prescription. I like to think they are deeply thought common sense. (*since writing this, I have decided that the word “rules” has too strict a connotation- please allow me to call them “patterns“)

Pattern 1: The existence of a “soul” which lasts after this life is impossible to prove. Yet, though there may be no “spirit” after life, the fact is, our energy is never born and never dies. A cloud is water vapor, which may become rain, then a river, then steam or ice. So there is in fact a continuation of “me”, albeit in a different form. One could even deem this “continuation” of energy a spiritual axiom, though few would find it comforting. Consider this. No matter how important or “everlasting” you wish your personal self to be, your life will inevitably pass into some other form which can never really be known. So the bottom line is that we need to make the best, best, best possible life we can with the one we have.

Pattern 2: The fact is, we are not separate from the rest of the world. Our bodies are only minimally separated by porous skin from the air around us and from the rest of the physical world. Because of this illusion, it is incredibly easy to believe that we are alone and separate from the world. If we believe this long enough, we make it true. Our minds will make it true. Many of us live in this lonely hell. But if we can stay open to the idea that we are part of something greater than our individual self, we can, with lots of patience and persistence, thrive on our intrinsic connection to the world. Everything we do affects more than just ourselves. Caring for our bodies is caring for the world. Caring for a family member is helping all humanity. Caring for a plant or animal is embracing compassion. Helping planet Earth helps yourself. A smile felt from your heart goes to someone else’s heart. On the other hand, anger at one’s self is harmful to the world, and on and on through all the emotions of the lonely, false self. (this rule is the hardest for me to realize, by far, yet it is perhaps the most important)

Pattern 3: Accept your uniqueness and begin by loving yourself. You are the beginning of the rest of the world. Embrace this fact. You cannot love anyone if you can’t love yourself. I do not mean smug self-adoration over all others. This kind of false self love is toxic. It indicates that pattern two, our universal connectedness, has not been noticed. One must be responsible for one’s actions and even one’s thoughts. Only we can monitor our own psychological reality as it occurs to us. Hateful thoughts and words are only a breath away from similar actions.

Pattern 4: Learn from mistakes, yours and others. Life is like music. Becoming spiritual means playing that music more beautifully, with more meaning. Pay attention. No matter how much we read or listen to the teachings of others, we tend to have to “reinvent the wheel” to some degree. Ideas for improving your ability to give meaning to life’s music come from multiple sources: from friends, from books, TV shows, blogs, from a pet’s gentle eyes, a sweet smelling flower, the sound of water, and especially from your own inner voice. Listen to your conscience. A junior High School math teacher once said to our class, “Your conscience is like a pin prick which reminds you of what your gut is telling you. Ignore it long enough and you wear the pins down. Sooner or later you don’t feel the prick.” Don’t ignore your conscience. Don’t ignore your heart.

Pattern 5: Forgive as you go. There is a letting go in this feeling, letting go of impermanence, clarifying your spiritual permanence in a flawed world. Forgive yourself and forgive others, over and over, second to second, day after day. Forgive with each breath. Forgiveness is letting go. Cleanse yourself with forgiveness. If you remain in a constant state of forgiveness, you are much more able to learn from mistakes and to love through suffering. This is a paradox. But the fact is, a clean slate is easier to write on.

As forgiveness soaks through every cell of my existence, an airiness fills me, a porous lightness which allows pain, suffering, fear, anger and resentment to pass through me, leaving more room for growth and love.

The Shape of the Blanks, II

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Leave the Blanks EmptyLeave the blanks empty and watch their shape evolve. Emptiness has shape. The space of emptiness has definition in relation to its surroundings.

There are numerous times each day when we compulsively fill in the blanks. When a stranger looks as us oddly, we search for the reason. “Is there a smudge on my face? Is my zipper undone? Am I ugly?” When a friend looks at us oddly, we become frantic, especially if the reason is unapparent. “Did I offend her? Did I forget something? Is something wrong?” Even asking for the reason often doesn’t satisfy our doubt. “Perhaps this person is hiding something to avoid hurting me.”

Years ago I read Roland Barthes’ “A Lover’s Discourse”. Barthes’ lighthearted observations of the bewildered lover’s frantic interior dialog offers an entertaining read, but also strikes close to many of our real experiences. When the beloved is late for a date, the lover’s thoughts ping-pong at hyper speed to gain some sense of the situation, running various vignettes across his vision: the beloved making love to someone else; the beloved, dead in the middle of the road; and so on.

In relationships, every look, word, tone of voice, silence, pattern of presence or absence is charted, dissected, rinsed, scrubbed and rehashed to squeeze out any and every drop of meaning. Ultimately, the meaning is contextual; the answers change like quantum particles, leaving more questions. The end result is little or no gain and lots of strain.

When I see someone going through this kind of self torture, it’s as if they are tumbling rocks. As I kid I used to have a rock tumbling kit. My friends and I would gather a dozen interesting small rocks and place them in the rock tumbler with gritty minerals to polish them over many hours. The results was shiny rocks. And that’s about what you get when you try to answer unanswerable questions. The answers may become shiny, but they’re still rocks.

When alone, we tend to fill every thought space with something. We judge, name, analyze, decide and dismiss. Most of these verbs are considered desirable activities when we are at work solving specific problems. But the rest of the day we need to balance ourselves with open awareness and open ended creativity, not answers. Even after we tire of filling in the blanks ourselves, we then turn on the TV to fill them for us.

Over years and decades of filling in the blanks, our persistent attempts to fill the void becomes a compulsive background noise like static. The photo at the beginning of this post depicts this constant state quite graphically. There is no possibility of white, peaceful space with this kind of static going on all the time.

The desire to know all the answers is a natural and comforting habit. We want to have everything tidy and finished. We cling to this habit tenaciously. But that’s not the way reality unfolds. It’s difficult to let go of this feeling of control. Allowing the answers to remain blank can feel like jumping into a void. But as we grow accustomed to the idea, we realize the blanks are not empty at all, but full of a wondrous, infinite possibilities.

The Shape of the Blanks

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The Shape of the BlanksCan we ask oursevles questions without trying to answer with too much finality? In our busy, goal oriented society, it’s considered unproductive. We believe we need to fill in all the blanks.

There are questions which don’t necessarily have clear answers, at least right now. Who am I? What will become of me? Who is the perfect mate for me? What do I really want from life? Why am I like I am? Even questions like, What should I do today? can cause a compulsive filling in of the blank. Most of us would immediately jump to answer these, thinking we know exactly what the answers are or should be. Or perhaps it’s what we want them to be.

The process of being alive, of being human, rarely has a “fill in the blank” simplicity. The answers change. They evolve. Sometimes they are better left blank. Filling in the blanks may actually hurt us. It can create labels which limit us, box us in. If I answer the question Who am I? with “I am a selfish person, because I’ve been told that, and because I tend to take care of myself before others”, I inflict more damage than good. But if I say “I will acknowledge what others think of me, and I will take care of myself, but I know I am aware of others well being. I just don’t wrap my life around it. My way of showing that I care it different.” Then I leave open the possibility of change. The answer is more positive.

Even better is to simply leave the blank empty and watch its shape as we allow our thoughts to filter in and out of the space created by the question. Then more possibilities are allowed into the equation. The blanks can blossom with a creative opening of new answers we had never considered before.

When we face stress, we tend to label the stress as bad, something to be avoided as much as possible, something to minimize. This kind of filling in the blanks creates a gap in our motivation. It prevents us from flowing with the moment and the freedom to process the stressful situation with alacrity. By simply leaving those blanks empty we prevent blocking our own progress with negative thoughts. The shape of the blanks may loom and threaten us, but we can smile and watch as the clouds pass leaving our minds clear to tackle the issues at hand.

Krishnamurti was famous for answering his followers questions with questions. Tonally a question has a lift at the end, allowing it to remain unfinished, open. Rhetorically a question leaves the answer soft and malleable, ready for adjustments, or more questions. Few philosophical questions in life have definitive answers. Why not allow the answers to ebb and flow like the tide, which brings in new answers and uncovers others when leaving?