Damn it, where IS my Mind?

I've been on a quest to find my mind this last weekend. I wish I'd known how hard it would be. I wish they'd named the Retreat a "highly concentrated and mentally demanding weekend", because then I'd have rested-up first and not chosen THIS weekend to finally give up coffee (again).

At the new and rather glitzy Buddhist Kadampa Center about two hours north-west of New York, deer roam free, frogs grunt happily and a proliferation of bugs of various types celebrate their unassailability. Our group of around 70 enlightenment-seekers drove up in our various 4x4s and Fords, and set up our beds in a 'barn', which was more like an upper-class hostel, or a low grade motel without the mini-bar. My new friend Enny, a psychologist, perceptively pointed out that there no Jackie Collins books on the bookshelves.

Briefly, and far too glibly, were we here to embark on the path to enlightenment through a practice known as Heart Jewel. In essence, we were looking to be on a more intimate basis with our mind, to understand the nature of reality, and begin Tantric study. (No, this isn't an orgy retreat; "tantric" is just one of those oft-maligned words) This practice builds a foundation on which to layer the Dharma - the "right way of living"- through kindness, generosity, confidence, wisdom and love - so as to benefit ourselves and others.

This is a tough course - some Buddhist groups never bring up the subject with all but the most experienced practitioners. It's relatively easy to 'watch the mind' during meditation. For instance, realize the breath, note the thoughts, experience feelings all as being from the mind - being mindful. Now, take a step back. Watch the watcher. Change perception from the perceiver to the perceived. Find the mind itself; a clarity in which perception drops like water into an ocean, or clouds dissipate into a clear sky.

While I brought my best mind to proceedings, my best mind was not in very good shape. It was tired. It was annoyed at itself for not being able to find itself. It was trying very hard to at once relax, and seek itself out. It was me, I am it, it was in there/me somewhere!

In between two-hour sessions we ate fresh vege stir-fries, curries and for breakfast, cereals with fresh fruit and yogurt. The food was good; cookbooks lined the shelves in the dining room. I played with the cat and listened to the frogs.

I brought my frustrations at my lack of Mind to the Minds of a lot of patient people. And it became very clear that my frustration was natural - for many people it takes years rather than days to achieve that peaceful, clear state. One new friend even said he found the process joyful (at which point I realized I was probably mucking the whole thing up right from the beginning!)
Phew...cool...and I still hadn't had a coffee.

So, the rest of the day I concentrated, and eased off on myself. It was a whole lot better. I brought in other aspects of the teachings to my meditation, visualizing my highest potential, even joining in some of the singing. Letting go the bag of up-tight-ness I didn't even realize I'd brought with me.

Additionally, I learned that our teacher, Kadam Morton, (a most eloquent, funny and humble teacher who mixes Dharma teaching with Beck lyrics) is a roller-blader! In fact, he roller-blades to each teaching in the city, cross-town in Manhattan. Now I'm even more impressed with his spiritual audacity!

Sunday rolls around and I'm starting to recover from the week... my concentration is improving as I let myself relax, my visualisations carry me through the next few hours. I'm more aware of how I respond to people, I'm more aware of my thoughts. But it feels like just the beginning. And I have to leave early.

I say good bye to the frogs and the cat and the monks and all my new friends who, if you put them together anywhere else you'd be mighty confused as to how they knew each other. Unless it was in an airport.

Ironically, I'm leaving early to attend the "glamoros" TONY Awards - and wishing I had more time..... YET absolutely certain that I should leave now, instead of staying for one last sessions and cutting it fine on the way back. That's one benefit of meditation for me - better, quickly and more concise decision-making.

I'm writing this with one mind and many memories. If I wrote it tomorrow it'd be different (and maybe better). If you're reading it, you're reading it with your mind of today, which is different from your mind of yesterday and yet is also the basis of your mind tomorrow. How well do you know your mind?

I'm definitely far from enlightened, except to the fact that hippie retreats are damn hard work.

Optimism helps prevent Alzheimer's

From an article in yesterday's USA Today:

"...A third study, also presented at the meeting,
suggests that optimism and the ability to establish and carry out goals might be traits that help keep the aging brain in shape. Simon Forstmeier and colleagues at the University of Zurich in Switzerland studied 120 people ages 60 to 95. He found that seniors with a can-do attitude did better on memory and thinking tests given at the time of the study.

Forstmeier says people can be trained to be more optimistic, to regulate emotion, and to formulate and achieve goals -- all traits that might help build a brain resistant to Alzheimer's.

"We don't know if we'll be able to fully prevent Alzheimer's," Brookmeyer says. But he and other experts are urging people to take steps now that might reduce their risk: "Even a small delay in the disease will have a big impact." "

Gad Damn Hippies!

When I attended my first meditation class six months ago I never envisaged myself going on a three day retreat with a bunch of tree-hugging hippies. But here I am, all packed with my mobile and camera and Ipod and sunscreen and cowboy hat, preparing to go upstate to the Kadampa Meditation Centre to attend meditation classes and talks on Buddhist philosophy.

I've had a curiosity about Buddhism for a while, but never really explored in much depth. However, when I stumbled upon (or into) the Chakrasambara Meditation Center, a Buddhist center (located on the 5th floor of an office building), the warm, bright space, non-dogmatic approach and seemingly 'normal' people all appealed.

Since then, I've been testing out the philosophies in every day life and in particular, to how I approach challenges and mental buttresses. It works. There isn't any need to dress this up...for me, the tactics, the ways of understanding the world that come from the Buddhist viewpoint, make sense. I feel happier for having employed them...more 'myself' and noticeably calmer (according to relieved roommates, friends and family!)

(I am not without reservations on some aspects, but can come back to these later, with more knowledge).

Each session includes a guided meditation followed by a talk - ranging from the nature of reality and of self, to how to live, enjoy and use every moment wisely, to karma, death and enlightenment. Our main teacher is Kadam Morten, whose philosophical yet very down-to-earth, funny and accessible teachings pack in around 80 people per class. (He also happens to be quite a handsome man. sometimes I look around at the women in the class and wonder how many of them are using the class itself in a practice in non-attachment!!)

The classes never fail to stimulate my mind, and the meditation - which I now try to practice every morning - has been, for the most part, massively rewarding.

I'm not too sure what's going on this weekend....like seeing a movie with good reviews, I haven't tried to find out too much about the content itself. I don't really even know the people that well...but it's unlikely there'll be any squabbling over who gets the most dessert. :)

Peace out.

Private Promises

How important is it to keep the promises you make to yourself? If you make the rules, does it matter if you break them as well? Is there any pay-off from keeping private promises, when no one else cares?

As a patchwork coffee quitter, I quit for weeks, sometimes months, then go back 'on it'. Coffee affects me wickedly, gets the brain jumping, the body buzzing, it tastes so goooood...but then there is the after-ache in the muscles and the inability to sleep at night.

So, after a week 'on' I promised myself I'd stop today. At 11am the argument in my head starts up...I'm tired, didn't sleep too good, am definitely going off it this weekend as I'm on retreat, can start tomorrow, one little one won't hurt' etc etc. Then - no, I promised myself. I won't, I said I wouldn't, will feel better if I don't etc etc.

Then at 12pm I feel a little more tired and a little hungry - about the amount hungry that a delicious french-vanilla-iced-coffee-with-a-splash-of-soy-milk-and-one-Splenda would fill nicely before lunch.....and then..... ahh bugger it...

So, post coffee (and a bit jittery) I'm not feeling a lot better although it tasted great. Every sip the true definition of guilty pleasure.

But now I'm annoyed at me for not fulfilling my own promise to myself. I let myself down. I'm guilty. I'm a little bit bad.

At the same time, I justify it - this is silly, stop beating myself up. I made the rule, I can break it. Right? How important is a little coffee anyway?

In the context of learning about my mind and the things that create long term happiness, I'm beginning to think that little promises kept actually do have a long term effect. Every promise kept is like a little pat on the shoulder - it instills confidence in my own willpower, my own ability to control my mind. When I not do fulfil a promise, it endorses an inability, a loss of self-control. Also it gathers the dust which becomes a cloudy premonition of the next time I promise myself something.

So, the remedy? (besides not drinking coffee...). Well, I thought I could make another rule to NOT do something, or I could make a rule to DO something. Something positive, like concentrating on finishing a piece of work, connecting to a friend I haven't thought about for a while, achieving a sense of flow sometime today. Snuffing out the negative with a positive. A positive that can be enacted NOW rather than waiting for the next coffee-nag to come knocking.

So...baby steps, baby promises. If I can keep baby promises to myself, I anticipate a feeling of accomplishment rather than that niggling feeling of slight self-disappointment by the end of the day. And if I stuff up, I'll just make some more. Easier ones.

Inline skating - trying to flow and not fall over

As an added incentive to my desire to learn how to roller-blade, (inline skate, whatever) I'm looking at it in the context of Flow.

I heard that blading tutors gave free stopping lessons in Central Park, so after making a plan to go up there one hot Saturday, telling people at lunch that I was going, getting on the subway...walking over there....I was definitely hoping that it would rain. Really suddenly and really hard.

I did end up rumbling down a very slight hill with my instructor, Michael, guiding me...and me being VERY aware of actually listening to his instructions rather than drifting off. The below photo is not me, but I pretty much looked like this...(photo by Kim Moran)

Being in flow requires absolutely no emotion, and total concentration. So, I'm concentrating pretty hard and have graduated from the learner's area to a hill that leads down to the Park proper, and I'm supposed to be using my brake on and off, like in car...but I sort of veer off and start speeding up and can't brake or I'll fall over and start yelling obscenities in Michael's direction (not at him; wasn't so silly as to insult my potential savior...) and break out into a flash-flood all-body-sweat ....before he eventually does save me. Being petrified surely counts as an emotion? In which case this whole 'experiment' is likely to be irrelevant as well as traumatic.

Michael told me not to panic. THEN he said - how about doing a loop of the park? Nutter! - There's a hill right there, and another further on!

After much persuasion (and me debating my own dedication to this flow rubbish) off we go.... The loop was a short one - about 25 minutes - but with plenty of sloping hills. Plenty to scare the crap out of me, leave me crimson-faced and dripping and shaking, legs going even more spastic than usual.

A couple of times Michael saved me but all along he chatted to me and asked if I was glad I agreed to this. And after I again went too fast and couldn't brake but 'hunkered down' (with Michael yelling 'hunker DOWN! hunker DOWN!') and not crashing into those people or that stroller and not falling over..... I was glad I was at least trying.

The other pay-off was me doing something that I had said to myself (and others) that I would do. I knew that at the sniff of any little excuse I would have high-tailed it home and 'made up' for it by cleaning my room or doing the dishes.

Going round Central Park was a grade beyond my presumed capabilities, something I had thought impossible to do NOW. The pay-off was correspondingly large. Whether or not I was in Flow some or all of the time is debatable; I was certainly too busy trying to stay upright to notice anyone else. And, now, a week later, I'm actually looking forward to trying again. Well, maybe THAT is extrapolating, but I'm not dreading it.

Michael wouldn't take the money I tried to push on him, but offered to come blading with me again. So I guess there's some positive pay off in teaching something new to a sh*t-scared, potty-mouthed, sweaty and spastic-legged foreigner ...

Flow

Bit of background on the concept of flow...

Here are the key components of flow by Martin Seligman:

• The task is challenging and requires skill


• We concentrate


• There are clear goals


• We get immediate feedback


• We have deep, effortless involvement


• There is a sense of control


• Our sense of self vanishes


• Time stops

Flow is the difference between a philosophical conversation or gossipping about celebrities; between background Muzak or picking apart the different elements and melodies produced by a jazz ensemble, or creating the music yourself. Flow is cooking a full meal rather than ordering take-out. Flow is utterly absorbing, yet contains no inherent emotion in itself.

Flow was proposed first by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi ("cheeks sent me high"). It is the state entered into where no emotion exists, yet our mental (and sometimes physical) faculties are absorbed into an immense concentration. It delivers measurable results, and involves risk of failure. Engaging in flow frequently has been shown to improve long term happiness.

For me, writing this post is an example of flow.

Here's a thought (well, new for me)... considering the above, it strikes me that there must be levels of flow. That it is possible to engage in pursuits that have meaningful results without COMPLETE concentration or loss of the sense of self. I'm sure for instance, that a cabaret singer is at once involved in flow, yet utterly in sync with her own reactions to the audience, and their reactions back towards her.

Listening intently to music versus creating music itself.... surely the latter involves a far greater depth of flow (and therefore greater mental rewards). It would follow that the more intense or difficult the activity, the greater the concentration, and the greater the reward.

Someone old (I know, I never said this blog was about total accuracy!) once was asked how she lived to such a great age and kept her mind agile, to which she replied - "Every day I pray to God to send me something difficult to do, and every day he provides".

As part of my self experiment, I'm going to try and choose flow whenever the option presents itself. Then I'll describe how the activity influenced my mind, my body, and my mood. My aim will be to measure both the short and longer term benefits (over say, months rather than hours) of the activities, and further define the 'best' sort of flow for me.

Another article from the American Psychological Association here

Introduction to Positive Psychology

This blog used to be about my perceptions of New York, but I've decided to wander off in a different direction...

About two years ago I became interested positive psychology, which sounds like a flash name for wishful-thinking! Luckily (ha ha) it is actually grounded in science, not astronomy!

Positive psychology is easiest to define by what it is not.: a focus on the traditional pathology, victimology and mental illness - the usual subjects of traditional psychology.

Positive psychology concentrates on positive emotion and mental health. (This definition from the back cover of Authentic Happiness by the Guru of positive psychology, Martin P Seligman). It proposes that happiness can be cultivated, mindfully. It uses data from studies done in countries all over the world, over time and more recently, which analyze the things, the ways of living, that result in greater life satisfaction. It's about being deeply in touch with our pure, Good, inherent nature.

I'm taking the tools presented and applying them to my own life; a very wayward, unauthorized and mostly unaudited study in determining whether applying positive psychology ideas will result in greater life satisfaction.

I'm not sure how interesting it's going to be yet. Even so, whatever I learn will hopefully be useful for other people too (even if it's only to dissuade from attempting silly things!).

I haven't decided how to write it yet either. I haven't figured out how to fix the fonts and the spacing on this blog yet! It won't be in third person (although a friend of mine's husband has started referring to himself as "The Michael". It's tempting to start calling myself "The Catherine". "The Cat" sounds too much like a pre-schooler's book.)

There is much more to it, but that'll do for starters. Let's see where this goes...happy days :)