In short, mindful acceptance gives us choices.
Perhaps Rumi, the thirteenth-century Sufi poet, summed it up best of all when he wrote “The Guest House”:
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Jalaluddin Rumi, in The Essential Rumi,
translated by Coleman Barks, 1999
Of course, such acceptance can be very difficult. Some people who have embarked on mindfulness courses stumble at this point. Many people who read this book may stumble too. Some will continue repeating the meditations detailed in the previous chapters and will, no doubt, receive considerable solace from them. Others may abandon mindfulness altogether. We hope that you will continue with Week Five because it’s no exaggeration to say that all of the previous chapters have been leading up to this point. The meditations so far have acted as the practices necessary to build the “muscles” of attention. They have enhanced concentration and awareness to such a degree that you are now able to embark on the Exploring Difficulty meditation.
Whatever happens over the coming week or so, always treat yourself with compassion. Repeat the meditations as many times as you choose (but at least see if you can do the recommended minimum). No one is keeping score of your “progress” and you needn’t do so either.
The king who found it easier to live with his difficulties3
* * *
There is a story told of a king who had three sons. The first was handsome and very popular. When he was twenty-one, his father built him a palace in the city in which to live. The second son was intelligent and also very popular. When he became twenty-one, his father built a second palace in the city for him. The third son was neither handsome nor intelligent, and was unfriendly and unpopular. When he was twenty-one, the king’s counselors said: “There is no further room in the city. Have a palace built outside the city for your son. You can have it built so it will be strong. You can send some of your guards to prevent it from being attacked by the ruffians who live outside the city walls.” So the king built such a palace, and sent some of his soldiers to protect it.
A year later, the son sent a message to his father: “I cannot live here. The ruffians are too strong.” So the counselors said: “Build another palace, bigger and stronger and twenty miles away from the city and the ruffians. With more soldiers, it will easily withstand attacks from the nomadic tribes that pass that way.” So the king built such a palace, and sent one hundred of his soldiers to protect it.
A year later, a message came from the son: “I cannot live here. The tribes are too strong.” So the counselors said: “Build a castle, a large castle, one hundred miles away. It will be big enough to house five hundred soldiers, and strong enough to withstand attacks from the peoples that live over the border.” So the king built such a castle, and sent five hundred of his soldiers to protect it.
But a year later, the son sent another message to the king: “Father, the attacks of the neighboring peoples are too strong. They have attacked twice, and if they attack a third time I fear for my life and those of your soldiers.”
And the king said to his counselors: “Let him come home and he can live in the palace with me. For it is better that I learn to love my son than that I should spend all the energy and resources of my kingdom keeping him at a distance.”
The story of the king holds an important lesson: it’s often far easier and more effective in the long run to live with our difficulties than to pour resources into battling and suppressing them.
* * *
Tiptoeing toward acceptance
Acceptance comes in two steps. The first involves gently noticing the temptation to drive away or suppress any unsettling thoughts, feelings, emotions and physical sensations. The second step involves actively meeting them “at the door laughing” and greeting them “honourably,” as Rumi suggests. This can be a hard and, occasionally, a painful experience, but it’s not half as difficult as resigning yourself to a life blighted by unsettling thoughts, feelings and emotions. The secret is to take tiny steps in the direction of acceptance.
The initial sequence for this week of two eight-minute meditations prepares the mind and body for the third Exploring Difficulty meditation: see the first two meditations as ways of grounding yourself, so that you can gain a clearer perspective of yourself and the world.
Practices for Week Five
* * *
These are carried out on six days out of the next seven. This week, three meditations are practiced in sequence, effectively rolled into one, and practiced once each day in the following order:
The eight-minute Breath and Body meditation detailed on p. 127 (track 4 at http://bit.ly/rodalemindfulness).
The eight-minute Sounds and thoughts meditation detailed on pp. 146–7 (track 5 online).
The ten-minute exploring Difficulty meditation detailed on pp. 172–4 (track 6 online).
Breathing Space meditation on pp. 132–3 (track 8 online); do this as you’ve done previously with the added instructions at the end of this chapter.
Habit Releaser—as detailed at the end of this chapter.
* * *
The Exploring Difficulty meditation very gently invites you to bring unsettling situations to mind and then observe how your body reacts. It’s more skillful to work with the body because the mind can become too goal-oriented when directly facing a difficulty. It will want to help by suppressing negativity or by trying desperately to analyze and solve whatever is troubling you. Working with the mind in this context is just too difficult. Focusing on the body, by contrast, puts a tiny sliver of space between you and the problem, so that you don’t immediately become entangled within it. In a sense, you are using the body to turn toward negativity rather than using the analyzing mind. You are processing the same raw material, but it is held within a different mode of mind, letting the deepest, wisest part of the mind-body do its own work. This approach has two other benefits as well. First, the body’s reactions to negativity often provide a clearer, more coherent “signal,” on which it’s easier to stay focused. And second, you’ll come to realize that physical sensations tend to flux, and this can help to lead toward a deep-seated realization that states of mind also tend to wax and wane from moment to moment.
You will come to learn that everything changes: even the worst-case scenarios imagined in your darkest moments.
And you will see this process unfolding as you use the Exploring Difficulty meditation detailed in the box on page 172 (track 6 online).
Exploring acceptance day by day
When, each day, you are asked to see if you can deliberately bring to mind a difficulty, remember that it doesn’t have to be a huge issue—just something that you can readily bring to mind that will not overwhelm you. You might consider bringing to the fore a minor disagreement with a friend or colleague, feelings of trepidation over travel plans, or perhaps a decision you’ve been mulling over without success. You might be surprised by the power of the reaction, but remember to see the tendency to want to engage with the issue, analyzing, problem-solving, brooding. Instead, remind yourself to shift your attention back to the body so you can attend, moment by moment, to its physical reactions to your thoughts. As with previous meditations, see if it is possible to maintain a gentle, compassionate awareness that’s imbued
with warmth and curiosity.
* * *
Exploring Difficulty meditation
Sit for a few minutes. Focus first on the sensations of breathing, then widen your awareness to take in the body as a whole (see Breath and Body, p. 127). Next move your focus to Sounds and Thoughts (see p. 146).
If while you are sitting, you notice that your attention is continually pulled away to painful thoughts or emotions, you can explore something different from what we have been practicing until now.
Up until now, whenever the mind has been distracted by thoughts or feelings, the instruction has been to acknowledge where the mind had been drawn, then gently but firmly to bring the mind back to the breath or the body or whatever you intended to focus on.
Now there’s a new possibility. Instead of bringing the mind back from a thought or feeling, now you can allow the thought or feeling to remain in the mind. Then, shifting the attention into the body, become aware of any region of the body where there is tension or contraction, aches or pain—physical sensations that come along with the thought or emotion. These sensations may be very obvious, or they may be quite subtle. But see if you can discern whatever sensations arise when a difficulty is in your mind.
Then when you have identified such sensations, deliberately move the focus of attention to the part of the body where these sensations are strongest. Perhaps imagine you can’t “breath into” this region on the in-breath, and “breath out” from it on the out-breath—just as you practiced in the Body Scan. The purpose is not to change the sensations, but to explore them; to see them clearly.
If there are no difficulties or concerns coming up for you now and you want to explore this new approach, then, if you choose, you might deliberately bring to mind a difficulty that is going on in your life at the moment—something you don’t mind staying with for a short while. It doesn’t have to be very important, but might be something that you are aware of as unpleasant or unresolved. Maybe you had a misunderstanding or an argument. Or perhaps there was a situation where you felt angry, or regretful about something that happened. Or maybe you’re worried about something that might happen. If nothing comes to mind, you could choose something from the past, either recent or a long time ago, that once caused unpleasantness for you. So, if you choose to do this, bring such a difficulty to mind now.
Allow it to rest on the workbench of the mind, seeing it vividly, and then let your attention drop into the body, tuning in to any physical sensations that the difficulty is bringing with it.
See if you are able to move close to whatever feelings arise in your body. Tune in to these physical sensations, intentionally directing the focus of your attention to the region of the body where the sensations are strongest, breathing into that part of the body on the in-breath and breathing out from it on the out-breath. Explore the sensations, cradling them in awareness as you watch their intensity change from moment to moment.
Notice how you react to whatever comes up. Hold these reactions in a spacious and compassionate awareness.
Remind yourself that you’re not trying to change the sensations, but to explore with friendly curiosity the physical sensations coming and going in the body. It may be helpful to say to yourself silently: It’s OK to feel this. Whatever it is, it’s OK to allow myself to be open to it.
Give the sensations your full attention, breathing with them, letting them be. Remember that you don’t have to like such feelings in the body—it’s OK and natural not to want them around. It may be helpful to repeat phrases such as: It’s OK not to want this. Whatever it is, let’s see if I can be open to it, just as it is. Then, on each out-breath, soften and open to the sensations, wherever they are in the body, letting go of the tendency to tense and brace against them. Say to yourself on each out-breath: softening, opening.
See if it is possible to stay with the awareness of these bodily sensations and your relationship to them. Breathe with them, letting them be just as they are.
If you notice that the sensations fade, choose whether to come back to the breath, or to bring the same difficulty, or a new one, to mind. When it has arrived in the mind, allow it to remain, shifting attention to see where it is affecting the body.
If no powerful bodily sensations arise, then you could experiment with “breathing into and out from” any sensations you notice in your body, even if they do not seem to be linked to any particular emotional charge.
And when you are ready, return your focus to the breath, to the sensations of the breath moving in and out of your body, whenever you feel it most vividly—breath by breath.
* * *
As you allow this compassionate awareness to enfold the body, see if you can become mindfully aware of the physical location of any discomfort. Tensions will often appear in the shoulders and neck. Fears may start the heart racing. Anticipations may set the stomach churning and make you feel as if you’ve got butterflies in your stomach. Often, unexpected pains or subtle aches might appear and disappear. Joints may begin to ache or muscles turn to jelly. You might become short of breath or feel light-headed. The body has a million different ways of reacting to unsettling situations, and this meditation gives you the chance to discover where your body might be localizing its suffering on each occasion, making a space for its reactions as they unfold.
Sometimes the body’s reactions will be barely noticeable, while on other occasions they might arrive with great swiftness from different places simultaneously. They might behave like a temperamental shower. First, there is nothing, then there’s an icy blast, followed by a torrent of scalding hot water. Whatever is the case, allow yourself to focus your awareness on wherever the sensations are strongest. Take a gentle and friendly awareness to this part of the body by “breathing into it” on the in-breath, and “breathing out of it” on the out-breath. After a few moments, when the sensations are in full awareness, silently say to yourself, “It’s OK to feel this. It’s OK to be open to this.” Stay with these bodily sensations, accepting them, letting them be, exploring them without judgment as best you can. You may find yourself taking the same approach to bodily or mental discomfort as you look towards intense sensations in the yoga practice; as an opportunity to move in close to the edge without forcing anything. Just as you moved up to and explored the “edges” of a stretch in yoga, you could try and do the same with the difficulty you’ve brought to mind.
If you feel that the mental or physical reaction is becoming too traumatic—if you feel aversion kicking in—remember that you do not have to plunge in all at once. Feel free to take a step back by mentally shifting your attention away from the difficulty, maintaining a flavor of awareness that’s infused with warmth, compassion and curiosity. If, after a few moments, you feel sufficiently confident again, take a mental step forward by bringing the difficulty to mind once more, focusing again on your body’s accompanying reactions. It’s the sensing of your body’s reaction that’s of importance. You are learning how to dissolve the first step in the chain that drives negative spirals. Your body is processing your troubles in a radically different way. By letting go of the need to “fix” things, a more profound healing has the chance to begin.
As you explore the reactions in your body, see if you can gain—without consciously asking any questions—a detailed sense of how these physical sensations change from moment to moment. What’s their character? Are they feelings of “contracting” or “tensing up”? What happens to them when you invite the breath to move into the region of sensations and allow yourself to be open to whatever is here? Is there any sense of expectation, struggle or frustration around this practice, and, if so, are there any sensations associated with this?
Throughout the meditation, hold yourself open in an enquiring way. Be like the explorer: the person who wants to map a new and hitherto undiscovered terrain; someone who is interested in the lie of the land in general, as well as its particular crags and valleys, wanting to know its patterns, the places of barrenness and of fertility, the sm
ooth ground and the jagged rocks. The explorer is mapping the terrain as accurately as possible, for to be inaccurate would be to dishonor what is found there. In the same way, as you approach the last few weeks of the program, your task is to remain curious and interested about whatever comes up in your mind and body from moment to moment, maintaining awareness, so you do not miss seeing the profound beauty that lies at the heart of your life.
Throughout the Exploring Difficulty meditation, as best you can, beware of the temptation to “solve” or “fix” any difficulties that come to mind. Acceptance is linked to positive changes, so it’s only natural to use it to fix your difficulties as part of the Doing mode of mind. This may, once again, seem to be a distinction without a difference, but there is a very subtle difference between the two. Remember the mouse in the maze experiment (see pp. 112–13)? This showed that very subtle variations in states of mind lead to vastly different outcomes. It’s the same with this week’s meditation. If you approach it with the desire to solve a specific problem, then you may simply fire up the mind’s auto pilot and aversion pathways. You may not even be aware of them kicking into gear, but they may well do so below the level of awareness. Eventually, you may know them by a feeling of sadness or disappointment that “nothing seems to have changed.” Of course, it’s often extremely difficult—if not impossible—to eliminate such a desire completely, but remember that you are cultivating compassion for yourself. You will not “fail.” Every time you realize that you’re judging yourself, that realization in itself is an indicator that you’ve come back to a fuller awareness—central to becoming more mindful day by day. If you find the Exploring Difficulty meditation just too hard, please feel free to leave it for now, simply doing the other meditations each day. You can always return to it at a later date if you wish to explore it further.
Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World Page 16