Using the Computer for Mindfulness

A couple of weeks ago I bought Shambhala Deck with cards containing slogans relating to Chogyam Trungpa’s teachings on Shambhala Warriorship.  Each card has one slogan that is to be contemplated and includes a short commentary on the back.

I am fortunate to work at home so my office is in the same room as my personal computer.  I downloaded a small (free) program that basically plays a recording of a meditation gong every hour (it can be set for other time intervals).  Each time I hear this gong, I be sure to stop what I am doing and recite the day’s slogan out loud pausing for a moment afterwards to think about the slogan.  It’s a wonderful way to make sure that even if I am caught up in the business of my day, I am guaranteed to be called to the present at least 8 times a day (once for each hour I’m working).  On many days I can hear the bell throughout the house which has me stop other activities outside of work as well.

I have only been doing this for about 10 days, but it has been wonderful so I thought I would share in case anyone is interested.  You can use any pithy phrase, chant, prayer, etc. you wish.  You can also use a regular clock chime, set your watch alarm, or a telephone ring as your signal (or ‘Dot’, if you will) instead of a computer program.  I do not have any ‘chiming’ clocks and my phone doesn’t ring that much so my computer works just fine for me.

BTW – my wife gives me funny looks sometimes when we are in the living room when the gong goes off because I will all of a sudden recite the slogan out loud regardless of who is in the room with me. :-)

Mind the Gap

A lot of meditation techiniques and teachings speak about noticing the gap between the outbreath and the inbreath. This space is a natural gap that can be very short or a second or two depending on your rate of breathing.

While meditating on this over the weekend, I was reminded of the famous ‘Mind the Gap’ messages in London. The British have a way of reminding folks to watch their step or watch their heads by saying ‘Mind your step’ or ‘Mind your head’. In The Tube stations in London, a passenger is treated to a repeated message of ‘Mind the Gap’ played in a very Orwellian, 1984-ish tone over the PA. The recording is meant to remind passengers to be aware of the space between the stopped train and the platform as they step on or off the train.

How wonderful that folks in London can be called to mindfulness while waiting for a train! Imagine sitting/standing on the platform and having a disembodied voice repeatedly call you out of your mental musings and back to the present moment by telling you to literally ‘Mind the Gap’.

I will no longer be able to see one of those ‘Mind the Gap’ T-shirts again without thinking of mindfulness.

Dignity

I was just thinking about warriorship. I was considering how the Shambhala warrior’s dignity comes from trusting basic goodness.  Tender and exposed and not looking back.

guilt?

I’ve thinking a lot about my Bodhisattva vows lately.  It really makes me question whether or not I could be doing more to help others.  The intention to help others is the backbone of my practice. It keeps me motivated and energized to practice as deeply as I can.  Yet, I still feel like I could give more.  I wonder is this guilt or is this an example of the paramita of energy/motivation?

There are so many  stories of sages chopping their arms off and licking maggot infested dogs.  And yet I am killing of the ants in my kitchen and scheming to depopulate the mosquitoes in my backyard.

Birth of Discursive Thought

When a thought comes up during practice, what inspires it?

I know that passion and agression seem to be two causes.  “This meditation is so peaceful” and “that lwanmower is so loud, I can’t practice with this going on”.  I also notice my mind wandering into the future and into the past.  These thoughts may be linked to hope and regret, but I’m not sure that is always the case.  I was hoping we could have a discussion.

Experiences we could live without

I experienced a great tragedy in my family this week.  My seventeen year old cousin, Marinda,  was killed in a car accident on the 25th.  It makes you think of all kinds of stuff to put it off on, Karma, God, destiny whatever you can blame it on to make it easier to deal with all the pain that is tearing at your tender spot.  I was just thinking about precious human birth last week.  This week the second reminder came crashing in, death.  I think the contemplation goes:

But death is real,
Comes without warning.
This body
Will be a corpse.

Pretty heavy, especially in a society that tries really hard to hide sickness and dying.  Interestingly enough the heart sutra came to the rescue, sorta.  The commentary that I was reading placed particular emphasis on interbeing.  Interbeing principle says that this body is full of water which was once a cloud which was once a river and so on.  The body was sustained by vegatables that were furtilized by clouds, dead plants, and even dead people.  According to the Heart Sutra, in this way all things are sustained by every other thing even the death of someone so young and beautiful.  Was Marinda lost then?  It really feels like it, but maybe she was a cloud once, a girl once, and will be a flower soon.  The wheel continues to turn, let us be mindful.

Precious Human Birth

This week I have been using the first reminder,  precious human birth, in contemplative practice.  I was thinking about the sanity that has emerged in my life since I came in contact with the dharma.  A Bodhisattva makes a vow to be reborn until all sentient beings attain liberation, until the dharma reaches me and you and we choose to start the path.  These teachings have come to me on a great wave of love and compassion through the lineage.  The people of Tibet have been scattered across the globe and look at how openly they give us the heritage that they love so.  In light of this precious situation it is my aspiration to let go of my agression and let the dharma find a deeper place in my body, speech, and mind.

Space

Yesterday I was reading a transcribed talk by Dzigar Kongtrul and it hit me pretty hard so I thought I would share.  He says that we should meet our reactions and their fruition with awareness.  Seeing the way we behave with humor and gentleness creates space between us and our habitual patterns.  He emphasizes that we shouldn’t take a puritanical approach and say that samsara is bad.  Giving samsara a name like “bad” or “unpleasant” or even “joyful” is conceptual, thus we make some personal investment in samsara and use samsara’s suffering to confirm our own existence.  I think my fundamentalist upbringing makes this approach a deeply ingraned pattern of self-aggression that I constantly have to work with. There are many times that I start evaluating myself and putting all kinds of labels on parts of my experience, but the label actually denies the basic goodness that lies beneath that particular experience.  Lonliness is a common label that I use. Being alone is a universal aspect of the human dynamic and an expression of basic goodness.  Using the label ”lonliness” implies that there is something wrong that requires fixing. Being alone isn’t a problem, in fact, it seems to be an amazing oppourtunity to take some time to create space in our lives.  So let us all dance in expanse of spacious mind and breathe the fresh air of the feminine principle.

The Reflection is Empty…isn’t it?

Similar experience to Gregor’s a couple of days ago.

I’m sitting this morning in my hotel room in TN trying to meditate.  Sometimes it’s difficult to sit in a hotel, but other times it’s easy.  This morning was difficult.  I was getting pretty frustrated until I looked up and noticed the reflection of my head in the mirror behind the dresser I was facing.  I hadn’t even noticed the mirror, let alone my reflection.

I began contemplating how that reflection was not really me.  Even though when I moved, twitched, and contorted my face  it followed.  I still KNEW that it wasn’t really me.  I then moved my attention to: “Is what is being reflected really ME, either?”.  Is my concept of myself any more real than the reflection I was seeing?  I contemplated this for a few more minutes until I had to get ready for a meeting.

I guess it was a good sit after all….

Discontent

Discontent is often on my mind, or often is my mind.  This story  of “should be” never seems to stop.  One day during walking meditation I started talking to myself about feeling the carpet, right foot left foot, whatever, and contentment jumped in there somewhere.  Contentment asked “Do you ever just walk?” I realized that if I could let go of the voice of the teqnique coach that I would still be walking, simply walking.  I realized that the coaches voice was an expression of my own dicontent.  So I walked. My heart broke as gentleness let my mind rest on the walking.  My heart broke as the one thing that I was using to make myself good enough was released.  Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says in the Sacred Path of the Warrior that the present is experienced through a tender heart.  Now, returning to work from vacation discontent rears its head all around.  So I’m challenged to let go of my discontent and rest like a tiger sitting in the warmth of the Great Eastern Sun.