Month: November 2020

In 1994 Tony Hicks, a 14 year old gang member whose mother was living on the streets and addicted to crack cocaine, shot and killed Tariq Khamisa, a 20 year old college student working to deliver pizzas, in a botched holdup.  Though he was a juvenile, he was sentenced as an adult to 25 years in prison.  The father of Tariq Khamisa, Azim Khamisa, visited Tony in prison and found that there were victims “on both sides of the gun.”  Choosing the path of being a forgiving person liberated Azim from a lifetime of anger and grief.  You can find his story at this link:

Azim Khamisa and Ples Felix

In this brief video Azim explains how powerful it can be to be a forgiving person:

On Thursday of this week we celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the United States, a day to “count your blessings;” in a word, a day to feel gratitude. Yet I think it can be very difficult to experience the feeling of gratitude while carrying resentments toward people who have hurt us. Anger, hatred, even grief are strong impediments to feeling grateful. Our journey to gratitude may first require a journey to being forgiving. It’s a long journey, this being forgiving business, but just being on the journey may be a relief in and of itself.

If you have resentments and old angers that get in the way of your gratitude this week, consider forgiveness, keeping in mind that it’s a process, not a single-point decision. It takes time, and over the years old resentments you thought you had released will return, just less powerful, less of a preoccupation.

Today’s meditation is a stress reliever, focusing on simple massages of the facial sinuses and muscles. I find it helpful to have a relaxed body if I am to get to a more peaceful mind. Perhaps you will too. Here are the video and audio of today’s meeting.

And I decided to read a poem at the end of the meditation. Here is the text of that poem:

This is the time to be slow,

Lie low to the wall

Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let

The wire brush of doubt

Scrape from your heart

All sense of yourself

And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,

Time will come good;

And you will find your feet

Again on fresh pastures of promise,

Where the air will be kind

And blushed with beginning.

From “To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings” by John O’Donohue,

Peace!

Jim

When we think of emotions what words come to mind? Sadness, Joy, Fear, Excitement, Anger, Gratitude, Shame? There are a lot of emotion words, but one emotion we often overlook is Anticipation, an emotion we feel throughout the day as events, predictable and otherwise, ensue.

Let’s consider the power of Anticipation.  First, it’s a bodily phenomena; you feel it in your face, your neck & shoulders, your belly.  Your heart beats more powerfully, you breathe faster.  Your body recognizes that something is about to happen. But all emotions have two aspects: a bodily response unique to that emotion, and that emotion’s typical mindset. In the case of anticipation, there are two mindsets to consider.

Are you optimistic in the moment your body senses something is about to happen?  That is, do you have a positive cognitive spin in the moment of anticipation?  Then you will likely name what you are feeling as “hope.”  On the other hand, if you are pessimistic in that moment, if you are putting a negative spin about what is about to happen, then you are likely to name what you are feeling as “dread.”

Hope and dread are two sides of the anticipation coin. But there are two questions you might consider when you feel either hope or dread.  First, is this feeling useful for me in these circumstances?  Second, is there data that supports my cognitive spin?

Both hope and dread are legitimate feelings depending on the circumstances. But if we fall into dread too easily when we might be experiencing hope, then we run the risk of falling prey to unnecessary fear, which can be debilitating. It turns out that optimists are not as accurate in their assessments of their present reality as pessimists, but they also turn out to be overall happier people. Pessimists are more often better realists, but they pay a price in their well being.

How often is your dread the result of automatic ways of thinking about things that assume the worst will happen? Sometimes those automatic negative thoughts become self fulfilling prophecies, which not only become causal to a poorer outcome but then serve the purpose of reinforcing the automatic negative thought. Having a positive outlook, finding the possibility of goodness in each moment, disrupting negative assumptions from their capacity to take hold of your mind; all of these cognitive skills promote the experience of hope and enhance better well being.

One of my favorite books is a 17th century travelogue by the Japanese poet Basho titled “Narrow Road to the Interior.” I find his opening paragraph to be an exemplar of Anticipation transformed into hope. I hope you enjoy it. Today’s meditation is a short exploration of “chair yoga;” quick ways to relax and energize the body. The video and audio can be found below a few words from our friend Basho.

“The moon and sun are eternal travelers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat, or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. From the earliest times there have always been some who perished along the road. Still I have always been drawn by windblown clouds into dreams of a lifetime of wandering. Coming home from a year’s walking tour of the coast last autumn, I swept the cobwebs from my hut on the banks of the Sumida just in time for New Year, but by the time spring mists began to rise from the fields, I longed to cross the Shirakawa Barrier into the Northern Interior. Drawn by the wanderer-spirit Dosojin, I couldn’t concentrate on things. Mending my cotton pants, sewing a new strap on my bamboo hat, I daydreamed. Rubbing moxa into my legs to strengthen them, I dreamed a bright moon rising over Matsushima. So I placed my house in another’s hands and moved to my patron Mr. Sampu’s summer house in preparation for my journey. And I left a verse by my door:

Even this grass hut

May be transformed

Into a doll’s house.”

Matsuo Basho; 17th Century Japanese poet; from “Narrow Road to the Interior”

Peace!

Jim

Pandemic. Election and divisive politics. Red States v. Blue States; Us v. Them. This is not healthy. We have forgotten that we have so many more reasons to come alongside one another than we do for pushing apart.

On Saturday night (Nov 7 2020) in the United States the NBC television network broadcast Saturday Night Live, with the comedian Dave Chappelle as the guest host. His opening monologue was brilliant, and captured many of the thoughts and feelings pervading the American public. You can find it easily on YouTube if you’d like to watch; it’s worth taking the 16 minutes to do so.

Today’s NYTimes published an excerpt of his monologue, which I’ve reproduced below. You can read the entire article at this link:

(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/08/arts/television/saturday-night-live-dave-chappelle.html):

— Nearing the end of his monologue, Chappelle struck a more sympathetic tone. “For the first time in the history of America, the life expectancy of white people is dropping — because of heroin, because of suicide,” he said. “All these white people out there that feel that anguish, that pain, they’re mad because they think nobody cares — maybe they don’t.”

Chappelle continued:

But let me tell you something, I know how that feels. I promise you, I know how that feels. If you’re a police officer and every time you put your uniform on, you feel like you’ve got a target on your back. You’re appalled by the ingratitude that people have when you would risk your life to save them — ooh man, believe me, believe me, I know how that feels. Everyone knows how that feels. But here’s the difference between me and you: You guys hate each other for that, and I don’t hate anybody. I just hate that feeling. That’s what I fight through. That’s what I suggest you fight through. You’ve got a find a way to live your life. You’ve got to find a way to forgive each other. You’ve got to find a way to find joy in your existence in spite of that feeling.”

People are not the enemy; hatred is the enemy.  The people I fear are not the enemy; fear is the enemy.  Anger is the enemy.  Can I live with these feelings, but not be owned by these feelings?  It is natural to feel these ways; what can I learn from each feeling?  That I am afraid? That I have been violated?  If so, then how can I make my space safer; more just?

Wisdom is found when people are willing to notice without judging. Observe deeply, and then intervene. Accept that each of us feels strongly, and still treat each other with respect and dignity.

If you find yourself in a situation in which another person is driven by fear and anger, find that place inside yourself where there is stillness. It never goes away; it just becomes more difficult to find in agitated moments. But if you are willing to find that still point within, over and over again in your daily meditations, then the pathway will be well worn and easy to follow. Agitation met with agitation becomes a catastrophe. Agitation met with stillness and equanimity can become a dialog, maybe even a conversation. And from these conversations may come wisdom, but that will only happen when at least one person in the room is willing to do the work of locating that still point and inhabiting it.

Here is today’s meditation video, with the audio only found below.

Peace!

Jim

The difference between feeling “hope” and “dread” depends upon how you choose to think about today, tomorrow, and all the days that follow.  Marcus Aurelius, 2nd century ruler of the Roman empire and Stoic philosopher, wrote that “the happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”  We should heed this wisdom in this time of chaos.

The American election is fraught with hope and dread. With our mindfulness practice we do not seek to diminish either experience. Rather, we notice and accept this activity of the mind/body, and in so doing come to “own it” rather than “it owning us.” In today’s meditation I chose to bring to mind a few words of wisdom to remind us of the relationship we have with our thoughts and feelings:

“We don’t meditate to improve ourselves; we meditate to end our compulsive striving to do everything better.”

Chris Germer, in The Mindful Path to Self Acceptance

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable is manageable.  When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.  The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”

Fred Rogers, aka Mr. Rogers

During the meditation I chose to read a reminder from Hafiz, 14th Century Persian poet, that there is only one moment to live: now.

Now is the time

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider

A lasting truce with yourself and God?

Now is the time to understand

That all your ideas of right and wrong

Were just a child’s training wheels

To be laid aside

When you can finally live

with veracity and love.

Now is the time for the world to know

That every thought and action is sacred.

That this is the time

For you to compute the impossibility

That there is anything

But Grace.

Now is the season to know

That everything you do

Is Sacred

—  Hafiz

Here is the video from today’s meditation:

And here is the audio:

Peace!

Jim