11-22-18

MEDITATION NOTES 4

COLLOQUY FOR CLASS 4

Class 3 introduced the idea of resourcing as the next step in meditation after grounding or centering. Sources of meaning, peace, joy, and calm can change, just as the circumstances of life and the meditative space change. All of the notions of CONTEXT, RELATIONSHIPS, and INTERACTION are organic and personal, depending on the conscious choices we make. They are “bottom-up” and emerge from our daily lives. The resource selected on any given day may be a source of stability and strength but it may also change from day to day. You get to choose which one works and how it works for you.

One of my biggest challenges as a beginning meditator was what to do after sitting on my cushion or chair, positioning my crossed legs, and focusing on my breath for grounding. What was supposed to happen next? We have already explored some of the ways in which meditation can support self care, how it can be structured with attention to CONTEXT, RELATIONSHIPS, and INTERACTIONS. When it comes to describing the meditative space and how we gain access to it, we are confronted with the challenges posed by the limited language we have to say what it is. I like to think of this space we are creating every time we sit to meditate as a place where we experience what is now called “flow.” It is a nod to limited language choices that we use in references to “stream of consciousness,” “flow of a river,” and where the idea of water becomes a way of accessing the meditative space. Flow is a concept developed extensively by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1990s and expanded since then to include what we now call mindfulness. Flow is a state of mind that includes the following components: (1) Intense and focused concentration on the present moment, (2) Merging of action and awareness, (3) A loss of reflective self-consciousness, (4) A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity, (5) A distortion of temporal experience (one's subjective experience is altered), and (6) Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding. When one is in a state of flow, one is said to be “in the zone,” and I interpret this to be the resilient zone we defined in Class 1.

Because the meditative space can be inhabited by an infinite number of objects, subjects, and relationships (including memories), the state of flow can represent our absorption with joy and peace in one moment and with trauma and sorrow in another. The flow state is not a state of bliss or “zoning out.” It is a state that begins with intention and leads to attention and the expenditure of energy. It is the space we move into with grounding, a sense of stability and relaxation, and with a meaningful personal resource at our core. It is a state in which we can define the CONTEXT of our thoughts in the moment, the emotional RELATIONSHIPS we identify as meaningful, and we can decide how our INTERACTIVE energy will be spent. In a sense, we can create the meditative space in which we wish to settle.

It is important to point out that accessing this space depends on showing up, being present to one's own mind and autobiographical self. That is not to say that what enters the space will be predictable and orderly. In fact, almost every session of meditation I have gets crowded with the harpies and demons and aggressively insistent lists that are present in my mundane life day-to-day. It isn't until I ground and name my resource that I can begin to clear enough space for the conscious choices that lead to focus and calming. We will look at some of those uninvited guests in future classes. At this stage, it is important to have intention and some amount of discipline to show up and sit down, if sitting is how you meditate. When one accesses the meditative space during the course of a busy work day, when mental pausing is the entry point to meditation, then this may occur while walking or driving or sitting at a computer terminal. The important point is that one makes the choice to take the pause. Once again, it takes only milliseconds to move from grounding to resourcing and then into the space where calming can occur.

The quiet space we value and can create in our homes is not always available to us in mundane life. While it is a wonderful place to tend and while I would like to think it is possible to attain this space in the midst of noise and activity, it is not always possible. The process of meditation, however, is always available and can become a part of a busy outer life, if only for brief periods of a few breaths. Conscious breathing opens up the wholeness axis to physiologic calming and support of the parasympathetic nervous system. We escape the pressure of circumstances in which we find ourselves and enter a space where we know our own bodies and their capacities to support us in the resilient zone. It is back to the basics with us in control. We transition from our hard-wired reactivity to responsivity.

I think clearing space for the meditative mind is one of the more difficult aspects of the process. Getting started on any given day at any given time depends on meeting so many demands in mundane life, but noticing that makes the need for meditation even clearer. How can we cope with the demands without grounding and resourcing and finding the space in which we can regulate our emotions and restore our courage and strength? Perhaps, what begins as a hobby will become a habit and then something you can inhabit as a refuge or a sanctuary for restoration. This may become for you an immersion, a cleansing, a clarification, a diving, a submergence, a flooding, a baptism of sorts, an ablution, a purification—all experiences referring to water and the power of “flow.”

When all is said and done using the limited words and concepts that are familiar to us, we are left with mystery at the heart of meditation. There are frontiers yet undiscovered in neuroscience and, thus, in meditation. It is possible that scientific experimentation will uncover those frontiers but it is also possible that they will remain always out of science's reach. In any case, mystery will surround our efforts to describe what happens in the human brain that opens up mental space for what we call meditation or reflection. If we are comfortable with the idea and reality that our lives change all the time, then there is a new opportunity for exploration of mind every day. The open-ended aspect of this experience lends an element of freedom to our daily lives.

Creating the environment for meditation is about suspending time and concepts of space and opening to the creative potential of the human brain where anything is possible and everything is useful. This is a place where we can experience peace in seconds or minutes (our mundane lives) or over the course of months or years (the life of a hermit or monk). We get to make choices. We get to ask questions and experiment to find what works for us. We act as participant/observers of our own lives and honor the relationship we have with ourselves. Are you comfortable with mystery and unpredictability?

Class 5 will look at what happens when we enter a meditative space and work with our inner lives.