Meditation

The Joy of Cultivation

by

In my various Taoist-infused spiritual meditation. There’s something I noted in both my own experience and in the writings of different teachers, sage, immortals, and weirdos – that there’s a real joy in self-cultivation.

Meditation. Ethical contemplation. Dietary improvement. Self-analysis. Reading and informing oneself. There’s a real pleasure in all of it that I saw in everything from Taoist mystics to Confucian intellectuals to mystics and magicians. I get this, and it’s a joy I think more people could appreciate.

My meditative work, both breath and energy work, help me explore myself, develop myself, understand myself. It’s like refining a metal, gradual work as something beautiful emerges. I sit down and tune my breath and rest mind, or circulate energy, there, in touch with myself – even when a distraction frustrates me at least I’m there, alive.

My meditative work is also about skill development. Tuning that breath and attention. Being aware of the flows of energies. Every day is a chance to improve that skill, every day I’m a little bit better (well, statistically) at what I do.

My meditative studies are fulfilling. To read documents thousands of years old, to analyze symbols and translations, informs me and connects me to others that laid the foundation for me now. Wrestling with symbolism may at times be frustrating (notoriously so in Taoist alchemy) but it is also connecting and energizing. I’m there, understanding, relating, and going “what the heck” just as people have for thousands of years.

I also work on my ethics, my place in society because you can’t escape that – being human. I may be a mystic of sorts, but it’s not in a monastery – indeed I’m of the mind that self-cultivation is best directly in human society if you can handle it. It may be more challenging, but it’s also fulfilling as I am in direct contact with people and can learn more quickly.

My ethical studies and interests also, again, connect me to others. I can discuss with other people so included to self-cultivation, but I also connect with past writers as I read their books. There is something about reading advice from a thousand years ago that is relevant to today that is illuminating and connecting. There’s also something about trying to be a better person and really figure out what to do in this world.

(And at times frustrating, as you’re realizing how many a human problem hasn’t changed. But it’s a frustration that connects me to another frustrated person of centuries ago!)

My mystical work, prayer, theurgy, also connects me to the bigger picture. To think of gods, of the great forces of the world (however abstract or embodied you prefer) is to think of the way the world works. It is to think about the powers that are and what your role in all of it is. It is to ask “where am I in all of this?”

Of course there is the Tao, and it’s hard to discuss the contemplation of that, of the Big Picture. But you get the idea.

And of course there’s questions of diet and ethical diet, of proper use or non-use of certain substances, and so on. That joy of cultivation, of becoming better, connects you to so many things. Even when those things are questioning if you should down a glass of rum (my preferred alcohol) or not.

There is a joy in this cultivation.

This is something I also think is important to modern times – if I may be so bold, needed. Making being actually better part of your life. Not what’s expected, necessarily. Not what’s trendy. But of getting real.

Maybe, as I write this, that’s a joy I should share more. But I suppose writing this is a good start.

–Xenofact

Meditating Calmly, Feeling Like Crap

by

Recently, I felt a bit poorly. It was mostly a sudden outburst of pollen, a bit of stress, and possibly something I ate. So when I went to my daily meditations, I wasn’t quite sure it was a good idea.

I mean I felt kind of crappy, and I wondered could I focus? Would it be worth it? When it comes to my energy meditations, I even wondered if it might make it worse.

However, a few things came to mind:

First, I recall a story of a woman who, dealing with a critical illness, kept meditating. Just made me think “hey, I can do this.”

Secondly, I wanted to keep my discipline up. Even powering through this would make my discipline better. So why not use it like practiced.

Third, and finally, I wondered if it might actually help me feel better. Medicalizing the benefits of meditation has risks, but still.

So, feeling slightly nauseous, I did my energy work and my breath meditation. Know what, it was worth it. It wasn’t just the discipline, but I was glad for that. It wasn’t me remembering that I can power through. It wasn’t even if it could help me feel better – though it did a bit (though in one case I had to moderate my practice).

It was experiencing meditation in a different state of mind and body. Admittedly one that was questioning some choices but it was different than my normal state of meditation. Somehow that made it especially fulfilling. I was aware, I was engaged, it was different, it required different pacing, it shook things up.

And, pleasingly, except some exceptions, I did “as good” as I had before all this hit.

Now it had all those benefits I had mentioned, but meditating when not feeling great also helped me realize how much of meditation is being there because the there as different. I feel I have a better grasp on meditation now that I had this experience.

I admit I’d like the allergens, gone, thanks, but at least powering through provided me some valuable lessons.

(Note the next day the symptoms were way worse, so I just slept through the pain and it helped. But I’m processing some lessons from that as well I may share.)

–Xenofact

It’s All Grasping

by

Lately I’ve been contemplating several psychological phenomena I see in my meditations and self-analysis. The funny thing is the more I look at the different problems we face – and that we address with meditation, psychology, and spiritual pursuits, it all seems a whole lot alike. In a way that seems very familiar. It’s all grasping.

I have talked before of what I call The Escape Capsule, that place in our heads and minds where “we” hide. Where we run away from things. Where we think we’ll be safe, but we are not safe, and our “we” is ephemeral.

I’ve talked of the Place of Death from the Tao Te Ching, where we hide, where we cut ourselves off from life, and where we usually seal our fate by being so disconnected. We can’t move through the world and flow with it, we can’t respond, and we fail. I noted it was a lot like The Escape Capsule, if not the same.

In contemplating Desire, I’ve seen how I have habits of mentally grabbing or seeking certain things. I’ll latch onto something, some urge or thought, and my mind is engaged in everything from rumination to playing with mental puzzles. In fact, my mind seems to want to have something to grab onto – I imagine you’ve been there as well.

All three of these things I’ve analyzed over time- and named, are reflections of one simple thing – Grasping or Craving. You know, what Buddha warned us about explicitly in his Four Noble Truths, and what everyone else warned us about. Buddha though really brought it to the surface with his gift for specific organization, so game recognizes game.

Needing a separate self, needing to wall it off (in a way that ruins it), and just craving really are the same thing. We’ve got all these grabby complexes in our heads, burrowed into our habits and even our physical postures and tensions, that are active. They also end up backfiring and making us miserable if they solidify too much.

Desire and fear, hiding away and reaching out, it’s all the same, grasping. You can feel that in the tension in your neck, in the worry running around your brain, in the obsession that makes you stare at the cigarette or angry email in horror. You’re stuck in the machine, and the machine is what you thought you were – and thought you enjoyed it sometimes.

As we get reminded, craving, what makes us suffer, is the problem. But this is a reminder it has many faces. The desire that torments us, the cutting off we create, the attempts to escape – they’re all the same.

This is where I get thankful for the legion of sages, therapists, mystics, artists, writers, and so on that keep reminding us that being alive isn’t the same as grasping, or having, or running away from danger. It’s being alive, flowing like water, present, there. That’s what meditation and therapy and so on are about in the end – seeing, understanding, but most importantly being there and being real in the midst of it all.

It’s all been said before, but I’m glad people keep saying it.

– Xenofact