[Image: “Gas Apparatus,” by someone on Flickr who identifies there as “Reva G.” (Using it here under a Creative Commons license — thank you very much!) The photographer says: “I found this complex array of gas piping nicely sunlit behind a local industrial building. It looks just like the flowchart my brain uses for trying to make mundane everyday decisions!”]
There is so much to see in the world — to know, to experience. How do we decide what to attend to in the first place? And once we’ve attended to something, how best to understand it, to know it as fully as it can be known — to “get” it? Herewith, some thoughts on the subject… courtesy of whiskey river’s commonplace book:
Groundedness comes in many forms: resolute common sense, daily prayer or meditation, a regular job that keeps us engaged with material realities, physical exercise, or something as simple as family life. One needs a sufficient engagement with the requirements of the so-called “real world” so that one is less likely to fall prey to flights of fancy or become engulfed by archetypes, repressed complexes, or manias that will make one lose one’s wits. The specter of madness haunts the spiritual search…
A recurring motif of the esoteric traditions is the realm of the unseen — other dimensions, invisible entities, inner planes, etheric bodies, energy centers, planetary forces, hidden masters, the list goes on and on. Some people with a tendency toward paranoia are strongly attracted to the esoteric precisely because it mirrors their secret fears: unseen forces affect our lives, consensus reality is a sham, the universe is somehow converging on our personal slice of life. The spiritual landscape is littered with addled mystics who jumped into esoteric belief systems that were more than their sanity could bear…
Which leads us to a skill that it would be wise to cultivate: the ability to maintain a simultaneous belief and disbelief in all matters esoteric until you have undeniably experienced them for yourself. Let us call this “faithful skepticism”…
The kind of “knowing” that one finds in gnosis is personally verified. It isn’t based on the hearsay of another’s experience. And even when you have experienced something that seems real, it is well to keep room in your worldview for the possibility that it is all in your imagination. Keep things in perspective.
(Richard Smoley and Jay Kinney [source])
Well, I started thinking about this (as one does). The passage highlights multiple dichotomies or divergences in types of experience: different forms or sources of “groundedness”; the divide between the sensed outer world and the unsensed but known inner; what distinguishes paranoia from a world simply imagined…
And all the this-vs.-that, in turn, got me thinking about the restless mind which besets me during some nights. What if… On the other hand… How about if…? I think I could… No way could I… They (the people who name such things) often refer to this as “monkey mind,” and offer various prescriptions for, well, tranquilizing the monkey.
Here’s one of those prescriptions — not from whiskey river — on letting silence simply settle in and take up residence in our heads:
When you are practicing zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything. It appears as if something comes from outside your mind, but actually it is only the waves of your mind, and if you are not bothered by the waves, gradually they will become calmer and calmer. In five or at most ten minutes, your mind will be completely serene and calm. At that time your breathing will become quite slow, while your pulse will become a little faster.
It will take quite a long time before you find your calm, serene mind in your practice. Many sensations come, many thoughts or images arise, but they are just waves of your own mind. Nothing comes from outside your mind. Usually we think of our mind as receiving impressions and experiences from outside, but that is not a true understanding of our mind. The true understanding is that the mind includes everything; when you think something comes from outside it means only that something appears in your mind. Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm.
(Shunryu Suzuki [source])
Most of us have not trained — have not even contemplated training — in the formal practice of zazen. So for most of us, simply shutting off the monkey is, well, easier said than done: something to aspire to, I guess, without necessarily being able to pull it off on the spur of the moment. I just came across the following this morning, in fact, after a very restless night of my own; the author had found himself “wide awake” at four o’clock in the morning:
I fell back asleep at some point, but it wasn’t the kind of sleep that felt restful. I thought I was reading the paper that entire time. Then I realized that there was no Times article about puppets filling my suitcase with grapes.
(David Sedaris [source])
