Meditation, Week 1

Last Saturday, I attended an introductory meditation course. This was something I'd been wanting to do for a while, and circumstances just came together and I finally committed to it and went. I'm so glad I did.

Since then, I've added 15 minutes of meditation to my morning routine, and managed to fit it in every day this week except Friday.  I've also been reading Real Happiness, by Sharon Salzberg, before I sit, which I highly recommend.  It's difficult to try to articulate (much less understand) everything that has already begun to blossom from this apparently simple practice, but here are my initial observations.

Through meditation, I've started to realize how many of my thoughts are repetitive and unproductive - they don't serve to further anything except my anxiety and tendency toward escapism. That leaves me unfocused and feeling less alive, as if I move through my days with half my mind absorbed in thoughts that don't ultimately serve me or anyone else. For example, if I've done the best I can at work, endless thoughts about what awaits me tomorrow or a week or a month from now do absolutely nothing except increase my level of stress and distract me from the present. Of course, we all know this intellectually, but I'm finding that meditation somehow attunes me to this more viscerally, in a way that allows me to start to truly become less attached to those unproductive thoughts, rather than just acknowledging that they aren't productive but not knowing what to do about it.

At first, I was resistant to the idea that when meditating, we should try to recognize and move away from long strings of discursive thought. As I rode my bike home from the introductory class, I thought, isn't discursive thought where ideas and insights come from? And I think that's true when we are focused and creative. But what I've started to notice through meditation is that my automatic thought patterns are extremely predictable. They consistently turn to the latest anxiety about the future or obsession about the past, rehashing the same thought pattern again and again. Just recognizing this, observing it, and then breaking the pattern by re-focusing on the breath has been tremendously empowering.

But here's the thing: I'm also realizing that I'm incredibly attached to those thought patterns. The idea that someday we will "escape" to a little mountain town where we'll be immersed in nature and I'll write brilliantly every day is one of the abiding fantasies to which I turn during the challenging parts of my day, especially during a sleepless night when I feel insecure and inadequate to the tasks at hand. And there is a part of me that thinks if I let go of that fantasy, I'll lose it forever - I'll forget that I'm supposed to escape to a small mountain town and write brilliantly, maybe because I'll be so fully absorbed and engaged in life as it is instead of life as it should be. The part of that fantasy I need to let go of is the idea that I'll somehow be a different person in that world than I am in the here and now. Which of course isn't true - and if I don't wake up and recognize, and then work to break, this particular thought pattern, then a new fantasy world will just replace that one once it has been achieved.

Finally, what I've found is that meditation is really hard. Sometimes it takes every ounce of discipline and concentration I have just to sit and focus on breathing for fifteen minutes, reigning in my thoughts as I go. But given everything I've only begun to learn in the past week, I sense that this practice will stay with me for a long time to come.

Out of the Store and Into the Woods

Williams Lake, San Juan Mountains, CO

There's something so liberating, and shocking, really, about carrying everything you need on your back. As I backpacked through the San Juan Mountains of Colorado for five days recently, I couldn't help but think, "What's all that stuff back in my house? I have everything I need right here!" Of course, we ate Ramen and wore basically the same clothes for the entire trip, but still, it's an excellent reminder of how little we need, not only to survive, but to be happy, especially when our days are spent doing something fulfilling and soul-satisfying.

So I've returned with a renewed determination to de-clutter our house, to buy and keep only the essentials - though of course "essential" is always relative. Mostly, I want to consciously evaluate what we have and what we decide to buy. Even though J and I think of ourselves as conscious consumers, it is so easy to fall into the trap of believing that material things reflect status and represent a path to happiness (after all, there are enormous forces inundating our lives that are aimed solely at making us believe just that, and I don't think any of us are immune to them). For me, one of the best ways to avoid this, or at least mitigate it, is to leave it all behind on a regular basis, to carry only the true essentials, to sleep under the stars while the cell phone and computer beep and purr alone back at home, and to practice self-reliance.

I left for my Colorado trip thinking that it might be the final journey for my 15-year-old backpack, purchased for my first Grand Canyon hike as a teenager. "I really need a new backpack," I thought, mostly when I happened to be looking at rows of them hanging in an REI store, drawn to their shiny newness like a fluttering magpie. But guess what? When I got out of the store and into the woods, I realized it was nothing a few patches and new buckles couldn't fix. My raggedy old backpack will surely continue to take me wherever it is I decide I want to go, if I only let it.

Columbine, San Juan Mountains, CO

Bike Here Now

There is a stretch of road on the U of A campus that I often pass through on my bike, just moments after leaving the chaos of the main city streets. It is a gently sloping downhill followed by a gradually curving left turn. The momentum from the downhill carries me effortlessly through the curve, and just as I begin to slow, my smooth pedalstrokes carry me up a slight hill, then downhill again, along the tree-lined road, toward home. There is nothing particularly remarkable about this place, but something about that curve unfailingly brings me joy.

Perhaps it's because I know the rest of the way home is easy, cool, and smooth. Perhaps it's the sweet smell of blossoming campus trees, the density of vegetation unparalleled in the rest of town, and the way the light falls on the red brick campus buildings. But no - it is something less tangible than all of that. It is a perfect moment. The smoothness of the curve, the simple pleasure of riding a bicycle, engaged and present in my body, my mind, and the world around me, and the knowledge that I am almost home - these things snap me so fully into the present moment that my often-wandering mind is momentarily paused. I just am, this moment just is; it belongs to me, and I to it.

This must be a hint at what it means to be fully present. I carry that moment with me always, both invigorated and bewildered by the notion that such discrete moments could become a continuous present, one in which I am fully awake.