WHAT GOES BUMP IN THE NIGHT
“Lean to the left; lean to the right; stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!” (High school sports cheer)
This old sports cheer came to mind while trying to salvage a stand of flax grass that had been flattened by a carelessly disposed garden hose. As I attempted to get the perilously slanted spears to stand upright I thought of how hard it can be to shift far-leaning beliefs, and to what extremes people can go in defending these oft-arbitrary ideas. Not to mention at what great cost to our peace, harmony and ease of well-being. As the sports cheer would imply, there’s a desire in humans — indeed a survival instinct — to belong, to prevail, to fight, fight, fight for the winning side. The motivation most common behind these instincts is fear. Our old reptilian brain’s fear of rejection, abandonment, of being ostracized from the tribe. Fear of suffering in its many guises. Being able to confront our fears is a prerequisite to leading an examined life. As Ram Dass wrote:
“In the process of learning to be mindful, and to age in a conscious way, fearlessness is an essential ingredient.” He continues:
“This fearlessness involves the willingness to tell the truth, to ourselves and others, to confront the contents of our minds. We must be willing to look at everything — our own suffering as well as the suffering around us — without averting our gaze, and allow it to be in the present moment. Rather than closing ourselves to fear, we learn to open to it, to sit with it, allowing it to arise and pass in its own time.”
In this way, fear can be understood, for example, as what makes a chair piled with old clothes in daytime morph into a menacing monster in the dark of night. Whenever a figurative or literal light is turned on, one can better see things in their true proportions. Trust me, I know of what I speak. Lately I have been waking several times a night with an unruly host of potential problems running around in my head. Some of these problems arise from uncultivated imagination, not being willing or able to distinguish between my own and others’ opinions and beliefs, fearing what will happen if I risk implementing my own ideas. Thinking that in some way my safety and security depend on others accepting, agreeing with or approving of me. I witness the stand-up/sit-down of conflicting thoughts that make forward momentum almost impossible.
Of course, by way of problem-solving, you’ve never heard me suggest keeping a spiritual journal…
Anyway, I’ll say it again. Confronting the contents of one’s mind in a journal helps to dissipate the emotional reactions that can do so much collateral damage. The point being that one can work out such problems more easily by first writing them down, allowing oneself to see what’s happening with some degree of detachment. “Parking” such thoughts in my journal also allows me to shelve them for the time it takes (at least for the rest of the night) to get more information or clarification.
Another effective way of gaining perspective is through a spiritual practice that I learned at Yasodhara Ashram, called straight walk thinking.
A simplified version of this practice is to write what you know of the problem on a piece of paper, leaving space for further reflections once the exercise is done. Place these notes on a chair a few feel in front of you. Center yourself with some form of calming breathing, (I do the easy method: inhaling to four counts and exhaling to four counts) and then simply walk to the chair, pause, turn around and walk back to your starting position. While holding your questions or concerns lightly in mind, walk a quarter of the way around a circle with the chair as the center. Stop and look at the problem from this new angle. Walk to the chair, pause, turn and walk back to this second point. Repeat for a further quarter circle until you are behind the chair, still a few feet away. Pause briefly. Walk to the chair and pause again. Retrace your steps to the three-quarter point. Pause. Complete the circle by walking back to you starting point and once again turning to look at the chair. Walk back to the chair, retrieve and sit with your piece of paper, and jot down any further thoughts or feelings that arose during your walk. Images, associations and/or memories might come to mind while doing the walking and pausing. Record these.
Know that your right brain speaks in symbols and metaphors, and these are the intuitive gifts that you can unwrap by taking time, as the Buddhists would say, to accept, distill and rest. Invoke a feeling of gratitude for whatever gifts your subconscious, intuitive mind has given you. Perhaps summarize your reflections in an easy-to-remember-affirmation that you can call to mind throughout the day. Perform any actions your insights have prompted. The more you cultivate your intuitive mind and act on your insights, the greater power you have to transcend your inner saboteurs — those menacing monsters of uncultivated imagination and uncontrolled emotions that stunt your spiritual growth.
Remember, they’re nothing but a pile of old clothes.
Aum Namah Sivayah