When The Rug Gets Pulled Out

Disruption, upheaval, and uncertainty lead to feelings of instability. We question everything we thought we knew. This short talk and meditation is your first step in building a real, solid foundation that no external force can take away.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Ron from Mindfulness in Blue Jeans and this talk and guided meditation is called When the Rug Gets Pulled Out.

Many of us right now are feeling like the rug has been pulled out from under us.

One of my very favorite quotes is,

Whatever you think of something,

It's not that and more.

One of the things that we often find as part of a mindfulness and insight meditation practice is that things are very rarely actually the way that they seem.

There are a number of reasons for this that all play off of each other to create what we think of as reality.

To begin with,

There's what's often referred to in Buddhism as conditioned existence.

Nothing happens in a vacuum.

Anything that arises does so based upon causes that set the conditions for it to arise.

And that thing that has arisen in itself becomes a cause that sets the conditions for other things to arise.

This is the Buddhist concept that is referred to as dependent causality or interdependent origination and it's been going back to the beginning of time.

It is both overly dramatic and entirely accurate to say that every single moment in history has set the conditions for this one to be exactly as it is now.

It simply can't be otherwise.

Some Buddhist teachers refer to this conditioned cause-and-effect based reality as a fabricated existence and I love this term for two reasons.

The first is that it literally brings to mind a piece of fabric which drives home the interwoven nature of all of these causes and effects.

These aren't linear relationships.

The causes and effects grow and multiply together by playing off of each other and creating endless combinations of additional causes and effects.

What starts off as a small piece of fabric with a couple of strands soon becomes a huge colorful tapestry of conditioned interdependent reality.

But before we get too swept away by that,

Let's look at the other reason I love the word fabricated.

Fabricated in Western society has a very specific connotation.

We often think of it in a legal or a courtroom sense.

That's a fabricated story.

False.

Not true.

And that perfectly describes the way that we perceive this rich tapestry of reality.

Why is this?

Well,

There's a whole chain of reasons for this.

For starters,

We have imperfect sense organs.

A quick look at something under a microscope will show you that your eyes do not see everything.

A dog's reaction to a dog whistle will quickly tell you that your ears do not hear everything.

Our sense organs themselves only take in a very limited amount of information.

And then that gets filtered through our perception,

Which very quickly engages our thought process.

A thought process that includes memories from our previous experiences,

And leads to assumptions about what our current experience actually is.

And those thoughts very quickly lead to feelings.

Feelings of,

This is pleasant,

This is unpleasant.

I want this,

I don't want that.

So we have taken in a limited,

Distorted sense of reality,

And both consciously and subconsciously filtered it through a number of internal processes.

And then we point at the result and say,

That's reality.

And countless wars have been fought over that concept of,

This is reality.

Because no two of us have the same concept of reality.

We can't.

But where we get into trouble is when we don't recognize,

We don't have awareness around the fact that our view of reality is as limited as it is.

And when we're suddenly confronted with evidence of that fact,

We experience suffering.

This is exactly what the Buddha taught when he said that the causes of human suffering are greed,

Hatred,

And delusion.

With greed and hatred themselves arising out of delusion.

Unclear seeing.

And what many of us are experiencing right now is quite literally disillusionment.

We are discovering in real time that what we thought was reality is not that and more.

This is a painful and profoundly uncomfortable experience.

But there is tremendous opportunity within it.

The opportunity to start fresh,

To build a solid foundation of skills based on developing clear seeing that can't be taken away or pulled out from under us.

Let's practice with that for a few minutes.

If you're in a seated position,

Imagine that you are suspended from the ceiling by a string attached to the top of your head.

It's a nice cue to sit up straight without adding any extra tension.

If you feel tension,

That's fine.

There's no need to try to stop it.

That's just adding tension to tension.

Just allow whatever part of your body is not holding you up to ease and relax in its own time.

At the other end,

Notice whatever part of your body is in contact with the chair or the cushion or the ground.

Notice these two pulls,

A grounding at one end and a gentle lift at the other.

If you haven't already,

You can begin to bring your attention to your breathing.

There's no need to try to change or control the breathing.

We're not trying to achieve anything here.

We're just looking and seeing and observing.

We're not making assumptions about what our reality should be.

There's no meditative breath we're trying to achieve.

No one breath is better than another.

No one style of breathing better than another.

We're just noticing.

This is how the breathing is right now.

This is what it feels like to notice what the breathing is like right now.

If you feel yourself trying to control your breathing,

Notice this is what it feels like to try to control my breathing right now.

Notice the sensation of breathing,

The perception of that sensation,

The thoughts that arise from that perception,

Memories,

Assumptions,

And then feelings that arise from those thoughts.

I like this.

I don't like this.

I feel like it should be this way or it should not be this way.

And then it can go even further.

I shouldn't feel like I should feel like it should be this way.

And it just becomes this endless ripple effect of thoughts and feelings.

And that ends up becoming our conditioned reality.

Causes and effects which become causes for more effects.

And it doesn't really end.

Because even trying to make it stop in itself is just another effect which becomes a cause for more effects.

But if we turn the light back in on itself,

Watch the process of that happening rather than getting caught up in the content of it.

That's where we begin to learn.

What is actually real?

What happens when we're not trying to make what we think should happen,

Happen?

There's a well-known saying that we don't seek happiness,

We seek comfort.

And we do find comfort in our illusions.

But as many of us are discovering right now,

We don't find happiness in them.

In the short term,

Maybe.

But like everything else,

They're dependent upon causes,

Making them impermanent,

Which always ultimately dooms that kind of happiness.

This is our opportunity to find something better.

Genuine.

Totally lasting.

Open up to what is.

Not what you think is.

And if you feel like you don't even know how to do that,

That's your current reality.

That's a great place to start.

And yes,

It's very often uncomfortable.

But we also built our illusions out of discomfort.

And that's not sustainable.

But this is.

This can be a lot to take in at once.

You may want to try using this practice for short periods,

Several times a day.

Noticing when things arise,

The causes and conditions that led up to them.

And the causes and conditions that ultimately lead to their passing.

What is making up your tapestry of reality and your interpretation of it?

Can you notice the chain of sensation to perception to thought to feeling?

Can you see all the opportunities for disconnect between what is and what you think is?

In my experience,

Once we get over the initial shock of disillusionment,

It actually gives way to a profound kind of joy.

We may still experience pain,

But suddenly the suffering that we end up causing ourselves through the effort to maintain that illusion can finally drop away.

I invite you to continue this practice.

And in time,

You may find that as well.

This is Ron from mindfulness in blue jeans.

And thank you for sitting with me.

Reviews

Will revisit as this is deep and warrants practice!

Absolutely blessed to have found this for me and my daughter both. Thank you SO MUCH for the lesson ❤️

Literally eye-opening. Thank you Ron. 😎☕️🙏

Very well done, you have a gift of explaining & breaking things down nicely. Thank you! ❤⚡☀️🕊🙏🏼

Thank you for such an interesting and informative meditation practice on mindfulness

Hi Ron,

Thank you for this wonderful talk and practice. It was spot on with the times in which we are living. I needed this today.

Thanks again,
Ken