It’s been a while since I posted, though I’ve thought of posting. Kind of like I think about sitting more than I actually sit.
Today I was walking to buy some deodorant and thought, “I should sit for a while when I get back” and then felt this aversion come up, wanting to do something else, something more exciting. Usually at this point I turn the whole thing into a conflict. Sit (“like I reallyshould“)? Or do something exciting (“like I really want to“)?
Today, for whatever reason, instead of immediately going to the struggling, I thought, “Am I willing to stay with my desire not to sit?” I felt a sense of relief and the struggling abated. Aware that I was, essentially, tricking myself into sitting, I nonetheless started being mindful and paying attention as I walked to the store and back, connecting to the ways I didn’t want to sit. It was interesting to see the way I make sitting a big deal, like it’s going to take a lot of time, like it’s going to be awful, or at least just boring, but especially how it is other than living, like it’s an either-or kind of thing. When I asked simply whether I was willing to look at my aversion to sitting, it melted that otherness, which is an illusion anyway. Living and meditating aren’t two different things. They’re one and the same.
My meditation has been shifting a lot lately. Sometimes my practice feels like very gradual change, imperceptibly slow, and sometimes it’s like a rush of change all at once. Lately it’s been more the latter. Maybe a month ago, I don’t even remember exactly how it first happened, I had the experience of a dam breaking, some wall coming down, and when I tried to be mindful, slow down, and be present, I felt a deep, intense energy, hard to name and even harder to experience. When I tried to sit with it I’d relax my stomach and chest and it would rush out. It felt like being thrust into icy-cold water and trying not to tense up, or like being electrocuted and trying to stay open to the experience. It was very physical. Every nerve in my body felt like it was firing, an electrical tingling rushing through me so intense I’d start spasming within a few seconds, my stomach starting to tense, my arms subtly twitching, my neck twitching. Finally, a few seconds in, I’d have to suppress it. I always could, though, just shut it down, push it back in, resume a state of calm. Problem was, once I could do that, I was always aware of it. Suppressing it and maintaining that state of calm involved resistance, of which I was previously unaware. Now that I could feel it, sitting became more challenging. Whether I was opening myself to that terrifying intensity or suppressing it, it felt like a struggle.
Lately that rush of energy has taught me a lot. I sit and I watch it and try to name things as they whoosh by. Profound restlessness. Anger. Terror. Joy. Still, a lot of it is just “intensity.” I also, the more I work with it, see how I subconsciously, habitually try to interfere with those experiences’ abilities to experience themselves. Sitting today, I understood the notion of “making room” for the experiences, backing away.
The metaphor that popped into my head is of the host of a party, self-conscious and concerned with making sure every guest enjoys himself. The host wanders the party compulsively meddling, interjecting, intruding. He notices the guests seem uptight and anxious and so he tries harder. He organizes games. He proposes toasts. Things only get more uncomfortable.
Then, at some point, he realizes that his guests would all be having a fine time, if only he’d stop trying so hard to control them. Backing away, he takes a glass of wine, sits down at a table in the corner of the room, and breathes a sigh of relief as he watches everyone visibly relax, mingle, and the party proceeds smoothly thereafter.
It’s hard for me to get out of my own way like this. In many cases, like this one with the feeling like I’m being electrocuted, it’s because I’m simply not consciously aware I’m doing it. When I am consciously aware of it, it’s challenging still. Like the party host, I’m afraid that if I don’t try to control things, they might go poorly, and the fear keeps me latched on and resisting. But also like the party host, I’m just as afraid that if I don’t try to control things, they might go well. And what would that say about me? Maybe nobody at the party would talk to me. Maybe I’d be unnecessary. Maybe I’d end up alone.
This fear-based assertion of the ego is a lot of what I feel I work with in meditation. And the more I am able to sit with it, the more I realize that I don’t need to control everything, that in fact things are smoother when I give them space to be, and that it’s quite alright to let my self-centered ego-cramp relax, and in fact I experience more joy and more peace when I let things experience themselves, and let things not be about me.
This leads to the abatement of self-judgment. I find that I am increasingly able to let my experiences be without taking them so personally. I can make space for intense anger, sadness, all manner of so-called “negative” emotion without thinking how awful it is, how bad a person I am that I am these things: angry, sad, petty, hateful, jealous. The more I sit, the more I just let myself be them and think: Oh, this is what it is to feel jealous, or hateful. How interesting.
