July 10, 2023
The Fickle Horse of the Mind
“From the echo of meditative awareness, you develop a sense of balance, which is a step toward taking command of your world. You feel that you are riding in the saddle, riding the fickle horse of the mind. Even though the horse underneath you may move, you can still maintain your seat. As long as you have good posture in the saddle, you can overcome any startling or unexpected moves. And whenever you slip because you have a bad seat, you simply regain your posture; you don’t fall off the horse. In the process of losing your awareness, you regain it because of the process of losing it. Slipping, in itself, corrects itself. It happens automatically. You begin to feel highly skilled, highly trained.” (Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche 1984)Last week I attended a horse show at Thunderbird Arena in Ft. Langley. There is so much to take in at such an event, with the main attraction being the power, speed, beauty and agility of these magnificent steeds, and the poise, strength, stamina, and technical ability of their riders. The higher the jumps, the more challenging the course, the more distracting the hardscaping (one arena had a statue of a grizzly bear holding a fish in its mouth — which certainly unnerved me) the more synchronized must the horse and rider be. A graphic illustration of this necessity came when a young rider set the wrong pace, causing the horse to crash into the jump and dump the rider over the bars to land in a heap on the soft ground beneath. The horse then went on a rampage, running and kicking wildly to free it’s leg from the now-dangerously dangling reins. Horse and rider escaped unharmed, but it was frightening to witness.
My mind gets like that some days. Maybe not to such an extreme, but I do note times when I can’t seem to control my racing thoughts or knee-jerk reactions. I see this as a struggle between my conditioned, unconscious mind — my lizard brain — and the part of me that knows how misleading and counterproductive this frantic mental activity can be. My first line of defense is to scribble down my reaction in my journal in order to prevent taking hostages of the people around me. This gives me the “count-to-ten” detachment from which to observe what’s actually happening. Then, from a calmer, more centered place, I am able to make changes to my thoughts and behavior.
I think this is what Trungpa is saying with his horseback riding metaphor. After a lifetime of living more or less mechanically via old coping mechanisms or via unhelpful examples, we need tools and training to synchronize horse and rider, body and mind. I use my journal, and/or mantra, meditative breathing or a centering method like ‘functioning from my heart center’ to restore the equanimity I need to speak and act calmly and constructively, compassionately and empathically.
As psychologist Eric Maisel offers: “…there are many strategies and techniques available to you that can help you achieve and maintain a reasonable level of calmness. There are breathing techniques; relaxation techniques; cognitive techniques; detachment techniques; reorienting techniques (turning away from the stimulus that is agitating you); mindfulness techniques; discharge techniques (like “silently screaming” to release anxiety); and many more. There are also excellent books that can help you deal with the lifelong consequences of adverse childhood experiences.”
The point is, we do not have to stay caught in a vortex of emotional upheavals and anxious or avoidant behaviors. We can take the reins of our minds and stay centered and upright in our responses to the hurdles in our lives. You no doubt have books or websites that have offered insights or strategies that served you in days gone by. Or you know of books or courses that have come to your attention at one time or another. Maybe you’re saving them for a rainy day. Now is the time to revisit these books and strategies. To take your inner growth and development seriously so you have the tools ready and waiting when needed.
My challenge to you this week is to take from your own resources, or investigate new ones, and experiment with one or two practices that you can perform consistently, and track in your journal to see how well or how differently you handle any new or ongoing difficulties. Being a spiritual or Shambhala warrior simply means making a commitment to become and excellent mind-rider.
Heigh-ho Silver, away…