100 Choices Every Second

In Western culture we have an incredible neurosis. We rarely feel worthy. We are never quite satisfied with who we are and where we are in life. This menace appears in our careers, where we never feel competent enough. It shows up at the gym, where we never feel fit enough. It shows up in school, where we never feel cool enough, popular enough, or smart enough. The shopping mall thrives on the fact that we are never satisfied, we can't just be happy.

There is probably someone in the world right now who is more satisfied than me, with less. I'm going to contemplate what makes that person tick.

I sometimes lose sight of what is in front of me at this moment and fantasize about where life might be taking me. I strategize about the future. Then I get frustrated because things aren't working out according to my 5 point program to become the super me.

The Way in is the Way out

An old friend told me he felt like something was missing in his life. He talked about filling a void. He took a new job thinking that would solve it. But the void was still there. He talked about his lack of mindfulness, his habit of over-eating and the way he always feels like having the TV on to fill the silence.

I can relate to feeling like there is something missing. This is what led me to meditation. But what I've come to realize through the practice of meditation, is that this feeling of emptiness, which we might refer to as a void, is not the problem.

Complaining Complainers Who Complain

Chogyam Trungpa said that irritation is the vanguard of basic goodness, or so I've heard from some of his students. In standard English, this means that when you find yourself irritable, you should stick with the feeling and not try to escape it by badmouthing your situation. If you you can be present with the raw feeling, without stories and justifications, you may be rewarded with an experience of the mind and the heart opening. You might see something beautiful... human... maybe even sacred.

I've had this experience a few times, where I'm walking down the street, trying to shake a negative emotion, hearing the story in my mind, and then something wakes me up. I see the bigger picture all of a sudden. Sometimes I have to laugh. Other times, I just shake my head in wonder. Unfortunately, there are many more times when I don't wake up and the negative emotion leads to complaints, stories, unnecessary conflicts.

We all get irritated and we all complain. We complain about traffic, about work, about our friends, about our lack of a friends... it seems like there is always something to complain about, even if it never solves anything.

Experiencing Ordinary Perfection

Every now and then I realize there is perfection all around me. This sometimes comes up during or at the end of a meditation sitting, but when it is most profound is when I'm just driving in the car or talking to my wife, or having a beer with a friend. This comes up more and more as my meditation practice gets stronger. 

I didn't often realize these moments of perfection before I started meditating, although once in a while I think I did. Before I started a serious meditation practice, these moments usually arose when I was in nature and when the light was unusually beautiful. I can recall a few sunsets at the beach that were sufficiently mind-blowing for me to experience this gap. These experiences almost always came with a sense of majesty, beauty and tender-heartedness.

Guest Post: 2 poems over tea

Yesterday I wound up sitting in a Georgetown tea house with a dead cell phone battery and no other forms of diversion. I hadn't yet meditated, and was feeling a bit scattered. So I decided to try to really be present for the experience of drinking the tea -- dong ding oolong -- which, by the way, is really tasty. Pouring the tea, smelling the aroma, sipping it, steeping again... this all became a kind of meditation.

I began to feel like writing down some of what I was experiencing. I wrote: