by Bill Morgan
2. Close your eyes; take a few easy breaths.
3. Notice the subtle fluctuations within the sound.
4. Imagine that the sound is unique and has its own harmony and is worthy of your full attention.
I have often practiced transforming sound in meditation, to the point that hardly any sound in daily life is noxious to me. I now hear most sounds as unique and positive. Even a sudden loud sound or “nails on a chalkboard” now registers as neutral.
TRANSFORMING YOUR RESPONSE TO TASTE
1. Place in front of you a food item that you find mildly unsavory.
2. Look at it for a moment, and notice what goes on in your mind as you are about to put it in your mouth.
3. Put a small amount in your mouth, and close your eyes. Notice the various tastes that arise and your corresponding mental associations.
4. Imagine that this is a unique food and become curious about it, exploring the taste sensations with a sense of openness and interest.
These exercises, which transform a few aspects of our emotional experiences triggered by our senses, are not limited to meditation times. I encourage you to practice them throughout your daily life as well. Simply notice when something in your awareness is mildly unpleasant, and follow the simple steps above to perceive what is pleasant or interesting about it. As games go, this one is fun and yields great results. Through practice, you are transforming your habitual negative patterns of association. Do you remember Tinker Bell, the fairy in Peter Pan? When I practice these exercises, I sometimes imagine I am Tinker Bell, touching this and that with my wand, changing my perceptions and increasing my appreciation from moment to moment.
Contrary to popular opinion, our world of preferences, of likes and dislikes, is not set in stone. It is based on past experience and habitual conditioning and can be reshaped by your choice in the present moment. What has been constructed can be deconstructed. What has been conditioned can, slowly but surely, be reconditioned. This is one of the most powerful underlying principles of mindfulness, and it is good news if you take it to heart. It means that the qualities that are most fulfilling to you will grow stronger and more accessible if you practice arousing them and marinating in them. You can practice cultivating these qualities directly, without external supports. You are doing that here, as you shape the inner holding environment through practice.
Every man carries within himself a world made up of all that he has seen and loved; and it is to this world that he returns, incessantly.
—François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand
In our postmillennial world, it is much more common for us to be aware of our missteps and regrets and worry, and it is to these that we return incessantly. Chateaubriand offers a good prescription however: the practice of returning to positive memories, to experiences we have “seen and loved,” in this case as a way of cultivating a holding foundation for meditation practice.
Research has shown that our moods not only affect the kinds of thoughts we have, but the types of memories that get activated. Actually, thoughts, moods, and memories mutually condition one another. If I am sad, I am likely to not only have sad thoughts, but memories of past losses or disappointments, and soon my sadness deepens.
The good news, described by Chateaubriand, is that this works for positive states of mind as well. The Buddha said it this way:
If you speak or act
With a calm, bright mind,
Then happiness follows you,
Like a shadow that never leaves. 1
The Buddha taught that the practice of mindfulness leads us to experience a “calm, bright mind.” I propose and believe that we need remedial training—that we practice “calm” through relaxation and then “bright” through delight. These qualities, however, will not arise spontaneously; we have to be proactive in arousing them. That’s what we have been practicing in the previous two chapters and will continue to develop as we move forward.
Once we have invited relaxation and delight into our inner landscape, will happiness always follow us? No, but it’s a good start. The qualities of appreciation and wonder begin to add a depth dimension to your holding environment. When we think of an external holding environment, such as a beautiful place in nature or a sunset, aren’t appreciation and wonder part of the experience? The following practice exercises consciously bring these same qualities into our internal milieu, in the service of meditation practice.
Combining Thoughts, Feelings, and Memories
If thoughts, feelings, and memories co-condition and support one another, let’s try practicing this with the qualities of gratitude and wonder. You can begin with any of these three doorways; at some point, all three will comingle.
EXERCISE: AROUSING GRATITUDE
1. Settle back, consciously relaxing the body and breath. Allow at least three minutes for this.
2. Allow a memory to come forward, one in which gratitude is clearly predominant. It could be something far in the past or more recent. See what comes.
3. As the images of this scene unfold, encourage the feelings of appreciation and gratitude to bloom.
4. As the feeling of gratitude fluctuates, explore what helps sustain it and what contributes to its weakening. For example, see what happens when you are totally interested and absorbed in the memory versus when you start to think about the situation itself and what it means.
5. For a couple of minutes, let go of all thoughts and images and breathe as if you were grateful for the miracle of breathing itself.
It’s important to be creative here rather than formulaic. Your experience will be unique and different every time.
When doing a memory scan, thoughts and associated images often arise before feelings. In the previous exercise, I might have the thought of a lovely exchange with someone earlier in the day and then of other moments we have shared.
Within a minute or so, visual images and the sound of the person’s voice may come forward, followed by the feeling of gratitude that reflecting on a good friend can engender. Once thoughts, feelings, and memories have coalesced in this holographic display, I orient more toward the feeling because that is what I am aiming to arouse.
The thoughts and memory images are secondary, in support of the feeling. When gratitude is strong, I let go of both the thoughts and images completely and sit quietly, breathing with the felt sense of appreciation. If I have practiced relaxation and delight prior to this, I will now be sitting and breathing quietly with all of these qualities present to some extent.
I often evoke the following memory of my grandmother to elicit gratitude:
My grandmother is sitting at the head of the dining room table at Thanksgiving. She looks at the children and grandchildren surrounding her. Her face conveys the deepest sense of appreciation. As I bring her countenance vividly to mind, I am flooded first with a series of images and associations about her importance in my life and then with a sense of deep gratitude. Once this feeling grows in intensity, I elicit additional grandmother memories in order to sustain the feeling of gratitude. After the feeling is somewhat stable, I let the image of her face recede, and I sit and breathe with a strong sense of appreciation.
By practicing these qualities individually, we gradually “internalize” them, learning to recognize when they are present in our internal landscape and when they are absent. As we practice, it becomes obvious to us, for example, when relaxation weakens, and we know how to invite it back in. Gradually we become more confident and skillful in managing the fluctuations in our internal world and making appropriate adjustments. At this point we are bringing three qualities—relaxation, delight, and gratitude—into the foundation of our meditation practice. You may begin to notice that in moments when all three of them are present, the overall feeling of contentment is richer than when only one or two are there.
It may seem that there is a lot going on, a lot to monitor. That’s because landscaping the internal environment is relatively foreign to us. Yet, all of these qualit
ies are present without even consciously realizing it when we are watching a sunset, for example. Eventually, this is what happens in our internal world as well.
Wonder Filled
Wonder is appreciation on a grand scale, the sense of awe that comes when we see our individual drama in a wider context, our lives against the backdrop of humanity, our planet as one of billions. For some it may arise in a stunning natural landscape. Whatever the vehicle, the sense of wonder takes us out of our neurotic preoccupations and connects us to the wider network of life. When wonder is present, we feel held in a deeper and more unconditional manner. This is why wonder is an essential part of the internal holding environment and why we want to learn how to consciously access it. Though wonder is universally appreciated when it occurs, most people don’t realize they can cultivate or elicit it by choice. Consider the following for a few minutes before practicing this exercise:
AROUSING WONDER
1. Take a few minutes to settle the body and soften the breath.
2. Bring to mind a time when you felt amazed, deeply moved by the magnitude or mystery of life. Stay with this memory in a relaxed manner for a few minutes.
3. Allow the feeling of wonder to grow stronger and spread through body and mind.
4. As the feeling of awe or wonder fluctuates, notice what images and associations help to keep the feeling strong.
5. In the last couple of minutes, allow the imagery to fade, and breathe with a sense of wonder, as if it were quite amazing to be sitting and breathing and simply aware.
AROUSING MULTIPLE QUALITIES
At times, a detailed memory can evoke several of the holding qualities we are trying to cultivate. This is one I personally hold dear to my heart.
I am six years old. We are on summer vacation at a lake in Connecticut. At five thirty in the morning, I hear the sounds of my father rustling about the cottage, which is comforting. I also hear the sound of a single-engine plane flying nearby, which is soothing in my half-awake state. Smells from the kitchen arrive now, and my father is gently waking me. Quietly, I get dressed and come to the kitchen, where he and I eat in silence. Taking a flashlight, we head down the path to where the rowboat is tied to the dock. My father takes the oars and softly dips them in the water. Mist sits on the water like a cloud; the sun will rise before long. Soon we are in the vicinity of “the hole.” My father fished here with his father when he was my age. He tells me that back then several boats would try to get into position in this spot because it was known as the best fishing area in the lake. This morning, we are the only boat. My father gauges our distance from shore; he calls on his own memory to locate the exact place and then lowers the anchor. We sit in bonded silence, connected with history and the mystery of the natural world, fishing for more than two hours.
This memory brings forth all of the qualities we have so far considered—relaxation, delight, gratitude, and wonder. While I recommend initially evoking one quality at a time, at some point several may come together like this in a more complex memory gestalt. It is no coincidence that the central characters in these two memories—my grandmother and my father—were my most nurturing caregivers.
You may want to explore this field of memory in your own experience. For me, it was my grandmother and father; for others, it might be a sibling, aunt, teacher, or mentor. Because wholesome caregivers may have been an essential part of our early holding environment, patiently unearthing the poignant memories involving them can support us in the development of our internal holding environment in the present.
QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION
I find myself getting attached to sweet feelings when they arise, but theoretically I’m not supposed to get attached to anything, right?
This is a concept that gets many meditators in trouble. We can’t stop being drawn to pleasant feelings. The Buddha struggled with this issue also, imagining that to deepen his understanding he needed to rid himself of all attachments. Finally he discovered that healthy attachment, chanda, is necessary, as opposed to unhealthy attachment, tanha. In this case we are creating the holding environment, essential for deepening meditation. It is important to welcome and encourage and appreciate positive feeling in this context. If we start to hold on too tightly, however, this leads to craving, tanha, which creates tension in the mind and body and thereby disrupts the holding environment. Think of appreciation versus desperate grasping.
I was taught to just be with things as they are and that insight would arise from observing experience from that vantage point. You are recommending actively changing our view of phenomena. Can you explain further the function of this?
We need to develop confidence in working with the internal landscape, seeing that we can change our perspective at will, which in turn will shift our mood. In this way we begin to understand the degree to which our reality is not found, but cocreated moment to moment. Even moods and assessments are not as fixed or solid as we may have imagined. This is both a useful training and an important, encouraging insight in mindfulness practice.
It feels like these exercises of cultivating the holding environment for my practice can be useful in daily life. I have found myself playing with them in daily life. Is this a good idea?
Definitely! I have found this to be one of the most relevant applications of mindfulness in daily activity.
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WARMTH AND TENDERNESS
THE FINAL HEART QUALITIES to be invited into the holding environment are warmth and tenderness. We could see this as the organic unfolding of appreciation and wonder. Once these qualities have been awakened, we will naturally want to bring care and sensitivity to more of our experience.
Thanks to Tara Brach, Sharon Salzberg, Chris Germer, and others, compassion and self-compassion are increasingly important in the teaching of mindfulness to Westerners. It took a while for teachers to see how students here judged themselves consistently and harshly. Slowly this is being recognized and addressed, with more emphasis on acceptance, and specific compassion practices, from traditional Buddhist teachings, are more regularly offered.
Though I see this as a very positive development as mindfulness becomes mainstream in the West, my personal and clinical experience has been mixed in working with compassion. The usual suggestions for arousing compassion involve the mental repetition of traditional phrases, such as
May I be happy.
May I be peaceful.
May I be free from danger.
Some practitioners have had success in working with these phrases. If this is so for you, wonderful! They represent a struggle for me personally, however. Even when I have worked with them over extended periods of time, they have not been effective in moving me from the mind to the heart. Worse, because no warmth has been forthcoming, additional self-judgment has arisen in this form:
This is not surprising. Maybe you are not very compassionate anyway. The disappointing memories you have are easily accessible. Maybe that is the “bedrock” of who you are. Maybe you are avoiding this painful truth, and this is what you should be focusing on.
A traditional alternative is to first bring to mind someone who has been a beneficial presence in your life, imagining that person is sending you love in an unconditional manner. After eliciting some feeling of warmth in this way, shift the attention to yourself, and begin sending compassion within. Many of my students, as well as yours truly, get caught in an unworthiness undertow when engaging in this practice. We don’t believe we are deserving recipients of the love that the beneficial other is sending. In short, we get hung up in defeating thoughts and judgments when we try to arouse self-compassion in the standard ways.
I have found it helpful to get the heart involved through a series of baby steps. There is no way I can go directly from a restless or a scattered mind to self-compassion. It just doesn’t work. It’s too big a leap. I get cranky and resistant. That is why I first encourage the cultivation of more accessible heart qualities in creating the inner holding environment.
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br /> In addition, the word self-compassion is loaded for many of us. Since a thread of unworthiness runs through most of us, this practice immediately bumps up against resistance. So even when it is time to address the territory of self-compassion, warmth or kindness or friendliness is easier to digest initially—after that, tenderness, if it’s available.
Imagery and Tenderness
It is important at each step of this practice to understand the aim, the feeling you are trying to arouse, and then find language and imagery suitable to you in support of moving in this direction. Finding your own gateway into these practices keeps meditation alive.
For example, bringing to mind an image of my cat, curled up in the sunlight, awakens a warmhearted sensibility in me. You may or may not be a cat person, but we all have images in our memory catalogue that will serve the same purpose. It might be a memory or series of images of a special person in your life or the felt sense that this person is near, watching over you. At times I will imagine that a warm light is entering my body at the top of my head and slowly moving down all the way to my toes. As the light slowly moves down, my mind and body become soft and spacious.
Take it easy. Be mindful of the tendency to strive, which is the fast track toward tension, claustrophobia, and failed expectations. The heart doesn’t respond well to commands or formulas. Simply wondering how to invite warmth or kindness into the atmosphere, inclining the attention in that direction, is one place to start. This moves the practice away from orchestration and willpower, and invites trust into the deeper currents of our being. We want to make an opening for creative imagination to surface.
Tenderness becomes a natural extension of warmth. Our individual experience of what tenderness feels like, of how it manifests in our life, is unique and sacred to our emotional landscape. Thinking about being more compassionate to myself is a desert, but inviting an image of myself at age six will open a stream of tenderness. A pet, a young child, a dear one who is struggling, a baby bird, a personally moving interaction—what evokes this sweetness for you?