Hey everyone,
It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 466.
Nice to see you all.
So last Wake Up Call,
I shared from some of my favorite teachers that three things that we can be doing right now in what feels like a difficult moment for some of us at least are to make love the source of our engagement.
One for the rhythm underneath the jagged melody,
And imagine going forward in pairs of red and blue,
Establishment and opposition.
And then also that we can just breathe,
Which was what I could manage last week.
Kind of breath as a refuge,
Right?
And so that's what it's been for me,
My practice,
For a long time.
And then this past week,
No exception,
Of course no exception,
To say the least it was a week when I've needed the refuge of the breath more than ever,
And still have had these moments,
And maybe you have too,
Of overwhelm,
Of activation,
Of reactivity.
And I have a sense of not wanting this precious refuge to fail me,
Of wanting my practice to sustain me through this next period of time,
Which might be really difficult.
And I also know that things get in the way,
And not only external things,
But internal hindrances that get in the way of my formal practice,
And that also show up in daily life,
Which is also practice,
And what I like to call portable practice.
So I want to unpack the hindrances,
Those hindrances,
But before unpacking them,
Just thinking about mindfulness practice,
In other words,
Looking at what gets hindered,
Right?
Our practice,
Our life as practice,
There are these two perspectives,
There's the formal and then the portable practice.
And so formal practice is the practice of looking in,
Right?
When I'm paying attention to my internal experience,
When I'm looking in,
I'm noticing that the body is experiencing sensations,
That the eyes are seeing,
That the ears are hearing,
That the tongue is tasting,
That the nose is smelling,
That the mind is thinking,
That the mind body is having an emotion,
Right?
And then if I'm practicing,
I'm turning towards these experiences of knowing rather than away,
Or rather than wishing them away,
Right?
And hopefully also remembering that they're transient,
That they're coming and going,
And that the whole process is happening without me having very much control,
You know,
That it's not a me or a mine kind of thing.
And then portable practice,
The practice of looking up,
You know,
Looking up meaning paying attention to what's happening in the moment externally.
So being mindful of others and their experience,
And of the world as it is,
And of what I can and can't do to help.
You know,
Tuning into others in a room,
In an organization,
In a community,
Seeing or asking how they are.
And then no matter how they are,
And assuming I'm feeling safe,
Being able to be with them and hopefully help in some way,
Which I can sometimes find hard when they're suffering for various reasons,
And which I can also find hard when they're celebrating,
And it's something I'm not celebrating.
Tuning into others in the room and also tuning into the world and the truth of how things are,
You know,
That the sun is up today here where I am,
Which is in Lake Tahoe,
And that it's hotter than ever on our beautiful planet.
That the news is what it is,
And that some portion of it may not be true.
And that there are multiple truths wherever I'm looking,
You know,
Tuning in,
Wanting to help,
Wanting to help,
And my voice catches right on,
Excuse me.
Wanting to help and also remembering that there's what I can do,
And what I can't.
And also remembering not to freeze anyone,
Not to freeze the world,
Not to freeze myself.
Because how things are and what I can do,
What we can do,
It's always changing.
Or as Norman Fisher keeps saying these days,
Empires come and go.
So we know that mindfulness practice with all of those elements offers us this incredible potential,
You know,
This potential for a kind of a durable happiness and freedom,
One that isn't dependent on how things are,
But on how we relate to them.
And I just,
I'm guessing everyone here has had moments of being fully present to whatever the moment holds in all of its multiple truths and in a non-reactive,
Really capacious way,
And has felt equanimous in that moment,
Has felt that equanimity,
Has tasted that happiness,
That freedom,
That ease.
And if you have,
You've probably also noticed that your own mind,
Our own minds can get in the way of that happiness,
You know,
That peace,
That freedom,
Can hinder our formal practice and can hinder our portable practice,
Or basically our way of being mindful humans in the world.
The five traditional hindrances,
And you might have noticed them as these names,
Or the names might be new to you,
Are,
I like to say the first two are greed and hate.
These are these big buckets that contain many of what I like to call subsets.
And they're also words,
Greed and hate,
That also make me sit up straight and pay attention.
All right,
So I like to use them.
And then sloth and torpor,
And then restlessness and worry,
And then doubt.
And I know that sounds like seven,
But sloth and torpor are considered a pair,
And restlessness and worry are considered a pair,
And I'll talk about that on the coming wake-up calls.
So the hindrances are states of mind,
Right,
They're transitory,
Like all states.
And like all states,
They don't always feel transitory.
You know,
They arise as a result of conditions in the moment,
Or because of long-term or past conditions,
Or because of habitual response,
Or sometimes because the mind sees them as a logical response,
Right?
Especially this legal mind sees them as a logical response.
On a very personal level,
I was in the habit of meeting my mom with impatience,
Just as an example.
And it took a long time to see that,
To realize it was unwise,
And to see that it could be changed,
And then to change what I could.
Because the hindrances arise from these conditions,
From all the different conditions of our lives,
They're not our fault.
And this is the most important thing for me to always try and remember.
It's not that I'm a bad person for having had that impatience for so long,
Or that I could have done something about it before I did,
Right?
We're always doing the best we can in any given moment.
You know,
Anger,
Impatience,
Their fear,
They're not our fault,
Any more than love is our fault.
And remembering that,
I don't know,
Somehow it makes it easier,
Or maybe the right word is possible,
To see,
To work with them,
And eventually to let go of them.
The reason that greed,
Hate,
Sloth,
Torpor,
Restlessness,
Worry,
Doubt are hindrances,
They're called hindrances,
Is because they hinder our ability to see clearly.
So my impatience with my mom hindered my ability to see how much she loved me.
Torpor hinders my ability to be energetic about my practice and anything else.
And it's,
What,
BFF,
Anxiety hinders my ability to sit still and to steady my mind when I'm in the world.
Worry keeps me outside the present moment and also keeps me up at night,
Right?
And doubt tricks me into believing that if I don't practice,
It's fine,
Because how does mindfulness matter anyway when the world is on fire,
Right?
The teachings,
As usual,
Offer these very colorful ways of helping us to remember the five hindrances and how they feel.
And so over the next several weeks,
I'm going to go into each of these,
But I'll just give you these beautiful similes.
One is to see greed as like having a mind full of colorful dyes,
Beautiful but impossible to see through.
Hate as a mind of violently boiling hot water.
Wrath and torpor as a mind full of moss and slime,
Stagnant,
Restlessness and worry as a mind like water whipped up by the wind,
Waves crashing,
Agitated and unclear.
And doubt as a mind of murky water,
Also impossible to see through clearly.
Okay,
So the hindrances,
Not permanent,
Not our fault,
And they get in the way.
And so that's what we'll be exploring and how once we see them,
They begin to lose their power and eventually dissipate.
And we can get back to being present with ease and with all of the multiple truths swirling around us right now.
Okay,
So let's sit.
So finding a comfortable posture,
One that is upright and is bringing dignity to this moment for you,
Is supporting you in this moment.
Letting your body,
Yeah,
Be that support.
Closing the eyes or lowering the gaze to the heart.
And since this is formal practice,
Just looking in and taking a moment to see,
Okay,
How am I doing right in this moment?
And then bringing the attention to the breath.
And with whatever focus and stability is available to you right now,
Just beginning to rest the attention on the breath as it flows in and out.
And when the mind wanders or there's restlessness in the body or when anything at all is happening,
Just notice what's happening in the body or in the mind.
And then gently,
Lovingly,
Bring the attention back to the breath.
And again,
If the mind wanders,
Just coming back to this present moment,
This breath,
Whatever the experience is right in this moment.
Seeing what's here and also seeing if it's possible to befriend whatever is here.
Might be helpful for the last minute or so of our sit to recheck your posture and maybe include in that posture check,
Just turning the corners of the mouth up ever so slightly.
And letting the eyes drop back in the socket so they're not straining forward to see anything.
And then,
Yeah,
Just taking with you into your day with some intention,
Any thread of ease and well-being that you're feeling right now.
Thanks everyone for being on the wake-up call today.
Take good care.
Be safe out there.
Be well.
See you next Thursday.
