When our intention is sincere but the going gets rough, most of us could use some help. We could use some fundamental instruction on how to lighten up and turn around our well-established habits of striking out and blaming.
The four methods for holding our seat provide just such support for developing the patience to stay open to what's happening instead of acting on automatic pilot. These four methods are:
1.Not setting up the target for the arrow. The choice is yours: you can strengthen old habits by reacting to irritation with anger, or weaken them by holding your seat.
2.Connecting with the heart. Sit with the intensity of the anger and let its energy humble you and make you more compassionate.
3.Seeing obstacles as teachers. Right at the point when you're about to blow your top, remember that you're being challenged to stay with edginess and discomfort and to relax where you are.
4.Regarding all that occurs as a dream. Contemplate that these outer circumstances, as well as these emotions, as well as this huge sense of ME, are passing and essenceless like a memory, like a movie, like a dream. That realization cuts through panic and fear.
When we find ourselves captured by aggression, we can remember this: we don't have to strike out, nor do we have to repress what we're feeling. We don't have to feel hatred or shame. We can at least begin to question our assumptions. Could it be that whether we are awake or asleep, we are simply moving from one dreamlike state to another?
9 comments:
There is a basic idea here which is revolutionary. The idea is to accept yourself as you are. If you start to have thoughts or feelings you are ashamed of, don't repress them. Accept them. Don't dam the river, let it flow.
This helps me maintain my serenity and equanimity. I was just walking down the hall today, and I had a certain thought. And then I immediately started repressing it, saying, in effect "Don't think that! For shame!" And then I caught myself doing that, and just rested with the original thought, and it eventually left without my mental policeman needing to kick it out.
What do you think holding your seat means?
That's a good question. One possibility is that it means "stay put." Don't get up and react.
It may mean something else in meditation, but in horseback riding it means not being thrown off a horse even when it's bucking or galloping out of control. That's a useful metaphor too in a way -- the emotions are often like a frantic horse.
Do you think sadness is an emotion that can be "stayed with," the same as anger? I was thinking it has a different nature -- it suffuses you till you feel you're drowning. I guess you should stay with that drowning feeling till you emerge. But the instinct says, stop this horrible feeling. Put on music, think about something else.
Ah. That makes perfect sense.
I think turning on music to try and improve your mood is of a different character than automatically walling off emotions when they occur. To me it's a matter of attitude. When I immediately repress sadness, it sits inside me and does damage. If I experience it and let it go, then it doesn't linger to do that damage. I don't think that turning on music is a serious act of repression, myself. Also, as far I see, it's okay to think about something else as long as I am not desperately trying to avoid my sadness. That desperate avoidance causes damage, at least in me.
Often, the music I choose when I feel sad reflects my mood. I think music can actually be a great way to stay with a feeling: by hearing someone else's similar experience, you feel not so alone or frightened by it.
That's funny, I was going to say exactly the same thing. While I was at the gym I realized music helps you -- both to stay in the moment and to be comforted by aesthetic beauty.
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