Since we are the only ones who know what’s really going on during any session of meditation, or in life generally, we have a responsibility to be our own meditation instructors, working with the patterns that capture our particular mind from time to time  •  many years ago I was introduced to pairs of qualities that can help us in identifying different kind of traps, or extremes, we can fall into, as ways to bring ourselves back into balance  •  the first pair talks about the two poles of anxiety and tranquility  •  in this example, we are working to find a middle ground where we are not falling into anxiety, and we are not becoming overly tranquil to the point of being disengaged or blasé  •  the second pair is agility and heaviness  •  the third pair is inflexibility and pliancy  •  the fourth pair is too firm and too soft  •  the fifth pair is self-doubt/uncertainty and a rigid sense of proficiency  •  the final pair is insincerity and genuineness/uprightness.

I used to carry around a cartoon that depicted a beautifully robed monk with a Japanese shoji screen behind him, everything perfectly in its place—and behind the screen everything was complete chaos  •  it’s very tempting to create a façade of tranquility and peacefulness in our meditation practice and ignore what’s behind the screen: the roiling emotions and thoughts, the confusion and history and regrets  •  how do we unify our world so there’s not a front and a back, a side we present to ourselves and others, and a side where everything is hidden?  •  it’s tempting to think we can create some kind of pristine experience for ourselves, and just ditch the rest—the messiness, the embarrassment, the regrets—so we can hang out in a peaceful and serene place... but we still have this lingering, lurking collection behind the screen  •  but here’s the twist: to the extent that we begin to let go of clinging to our “front of the screen” experience of serenity or peace, to the extent that we loosen our attachment to a particular state of mind, we discover a deeper kind of peace and tranquility, one that comes from incorporating the whole thing  •  I call this “peacefulness in the midst.”

Emotions are a natural part of who we are  •  they can be powerful—even overpowering—or they can be subtle, almost an undercurrent  •  they can be very inspiring, or they can be very disruptive  •  if you trace negative emotions back to their source, you discover that they arise from an ongoing battle where everything is taken personally  •  if you trace that battle back to its source, you find a sense of duality  •  it’s almost like the emotions are the army of ego: the troops, the scouts, and the fortresses of defense and offense  •  because emotions are filled with energy, the ego can deploy them to further its aims  •  meditation practice is one way to  explore this emotional landscape; when we are meditating we can observe the emotional world in a more dispassionate way  •  in Buddhist practice the guideline is to honor and respect the power and energy of emotions, while neither suppressing them nor feeding them.

I recently had a problem with my computer—whatever I put in my "trash" would just stay there; I couldn’t empty it  •  I started thinking about how that could describe our personal “trash”—our freak-outs and obsessions, our worries and regrets, as well as what we read in the news  •  we can shove that stuff deep within us, and sometimes it’s not so easy to know how to let it go  •  one approach is not to take anything in: closing our hearts, closing ourselves to the pain and confusion within us and around us  •  but the notion of letting go is based on actually opening our hearts and taking something in fully, but then not dwelling or holding onto it, but releasing it  •  as we let go, we bring ourselves more completely into the situation  •  when you can let go and open to a situation, you can connect with something that is sacred and holy, something beyond our small world of self-fixation and self-absorption.

The eight everyday preoccupations are eight ways we occupy our minds in order to avoid experiencing things directly  •  they act as a kind of a central filtering mechanism, separating out the things that feed our ego from the things that challenge it  •  because of this filtering mechanism, we get jerked around into a very reactive way of living and thinking  •  all of our thoughts and actions curve inwardly to a kind of self-centered preoccupation: what’s in it for me? how does it affect me?  •  the eight preoccupations are divided into four pairs:  pleasure/pain; fame/insignificance; gain/loss; and praise/blame  •  for example, why do we feel so lifted up and inspired when we are praised, but we feel so insulted and deflated when we are blamed?  •  the ego is a bit of a paper tiger: it presents itself as very strong and fierce, but in reality it is very vulnerable and weak  •  without the constant reinforcement of pleasure, gain, fame, and recognition, the ego just deflates and collapses  •  when the experiences that come to us—good and bad, up and down—are not recruited as tools to cover our anxiety, we can deal with them straightforwardly, with no agenda.

Effort plays a very important part on the Buddhist path; it’s one of the three main components of discipline, meditation, and knowledge  •  effort is where the rubber meets the road; it’s where things get tested and become real  •  Trungpa Rinpoche talked about effort in terms of combining discipline and delight  •  he used three analogies to describe three different approaches to effort  •  the first is a jack rabbit, racing along with a burst of enthusiasm and then collapsing in exhaustion  •  the second is a worm that’s eating its way through a tree, just plowing along with no vision, no sense of where it’s going  •  the third is an elephant walking through the jungle: steady and slow and dignified, with a sense of vision, mindful and aware of where it’s going  •  the walk of an elephant is an example of right effort  •  another aspect of effort is being genuine  •  someone who is genuine doesn’t say one thing and do another; their speech is true, and it manifests in how they act in the world. 

Someone recently asked me, “Am I spiritually bypassing?” •  I took that term to mean using one’s practice or spiritual path as an escape, or relief, from the responsibilities of regular life in this world  •  it is a relief in a way, to take a break from the relentless struggles of daily life  •  is it possible to practice meditation in a way that’s not bypassing all of that, while at the same time recognizing the need to have some relief from the relentlessness of life?  •  I think there is actually a parallel, or opposite, form of bypassing, something I would label “material bypassing” — avoiding our own spirituality our spiritual yearnings and insights by keeping busy and constantly occupying ourselves with an endless stream of worldly concerns  •  the challenge is to find some way of being skillfully and wholeheartedly engaged in both your life and your meditation practice — appreciating that we need to take a break from worldly concerns, but then we need to re-energize and engage fully in the world again.

Today I’d like to explore the problem of becoming an adult  •  the world of children is filled with magic and fantasy and stories, with vivid perceptions and playfulness  •  but as we grow up we’re supposed to get over all that, and develop adult-like qualities  •  gradually, year-by-year, the magical world of childhood fades away  •  yet many of the great spiritual masters say what we really need to do is to become more like children, and less like adults  •  when we take a lighthearted approach, a childlike approach, our spiritual practice becomes less of another project that we take on with earnest determination, and more of an exploration of curiosity and interest and delight  •  I thought of a new word: “curiodyssey” (“curious odyssey”) — if we soften our earnestness, something more childlike, playful, and delightful can emerge in our meditation practice.

The word “compassion” can seem so overwhelming in the face of all the suffering in the world that it can stop us in our tracks  •  while we’re imagining all the great gestures of compassion that we might do, we can miss the small, ordinary, daily acts of compassion that really do affect our world  •  some of the hardest compassion to feel is just being present with suffering that isn't fixable  •  this is what people in the hospice setting often do: they simply sit with someone who is passing from this life  •  that simple act of being present with someone can bring about a quality of deep acceptance  •  compassion can also be a momentary thing that completely shifts the energy—a smile or a glance, a simple recognition of a human being who, like you, is suffering  •  such little moments  of connection are so subtle, but they ripple forward and can change our feeling for the whole day  •  at its core, that simple connection is really the seat of compassion; it may be even more important than the grand compassionate heal-the-world projects that we may imagine  •  it’s on the spot, it’s immediate, it’s not a big deal—but it can change everything for ourselves and for those we encounter. 

The attitude that’s encouraged whenever we embark on a spiritual journey is not to approach it simply as a means of self improvement, but to switch our normal way of operating so that we are thinking about others  •  traditionally this is talked about as beginning by raising bodhichitta and ending by dedicating the merit  •  when we sit down to practice meditation, or to begin any project, we start by connecting with tenderness of heart and the desire to use our actions in order to benefit others  •  arousing kindness and compassion is the beginning point, and it’s also the ending point  •  when we dedicate the merit, rather than regarding what we have just completed as our own private accomplishment, we take it as a further statement of commitment to all other beings  •  piece by piece, action by action, we are gathering a certain kind of power and energy that we can then turn outward  •  many of our actions, good or bad, start with little flickers of thought  •  we can work with the thinking process, deliberately shaping our thoughts in the direction of greater openness, kindness, and awareness.