How do I improve my situation?

How do I improve my situation?

Let's look at that question or thought closely. That thought implies that there is a situation and that it needs to be improved.

What is a situation?

It's what my mind perceives to be the reality.

What's the reality now?

I'm sitting in my room, typing. And my mind says that I should be doing something to improve my situation. It's not even my mind. It's the discomfort inside my chest.

What is that discomfort? Can you stop typing and sit with it?

I sat for about 10 minutes. At first, I was dehydrated and needed water immediately, but I didn't get myself any, I continued sitting. Then the dehydration turned to fatigue and I wanted to lie down. As I continued to sit with it, I felt a pang in my heart and I heard the word, "worthlessness." Is that why I want to improve my situation so that I don't feel worthless?

Can you actually feel the worthlessness? Don't answer right away it. Feel it.

I sat for another 10 minutes. My mind immediately tried to search for an answer and I spaced out. I kept jumping from my journal to my breath. When I placed more of my attention on my breath than my thinking, then the feeling subsided and I felt nothing. Worthlessness feels like nothing in particular.

Who are you without the thought, "How do I improve my situation?"

Nobody.

Reflection

There are these thoughts, especially when I first wake up, that I need to do something other than what I'm doing or not doing. My mind tells me, "it's not enough, you need to do more." Maybe that's true and maybe it isn't, but by looking at the root of such thoughts, I'm discovering that there is no root. It's like I've been programmed to believe that I have to think these thoughts in order to do something. When in reality, I'm already doing something with or without these thoughts. It feels like this unnecessary added pressure to fulfill an image that doesn't exist.

Join me in doing what we're already doing, not what we "think" we should be doing.

Thank you!

What is mood?

"I'm not in the mood."
What do you mean?
"I don't feel like doing it."
You don't feel like doing what?
"I don't feel like writing, working out, getting out of bed, living."
What does not feeling like doing the above have anything to do with anything?
"Don't I have to be in the mood to be inspired to do things?"
Who told you that?
"Everyone."
Why don't you just do whatever it is you're not in the mood for?
"Because not being in the mood for it is what's causing me not to do it in the first place."
Do it first and then think about not being in the mood for it.
"That doesn't make any sense."
Let's start from the beginning: What is mood?
"It's a state of being."
What does mood feel like?
"It depends on which mood you're in."
Let's say you're not in the mood to do something. What does that feel like?
"It feels like dread. I know I should do it and immediately the feelings of guilt arise, yet I still can't make myself do the task."
What does guilt feel like?
"Like I'm sick to my stomach and I'm going to throw up. But writing it out like this has diminished the feeling considerably."
What are you feeling now?
"Less anxious and worried about what it is that I should be doing."
And what do you feel like doing now?
"Writing creating me post."

Moods are like clouds up above our heads and they stay just long enough to cast the shadow. What tends to happen is that we get stuck under the shadow even though the cloud has long gone. We live our lives attaching to overcasts and letting them carry us every which way. In the above conversation, I could clearly see how I allowed the mood I was in to drag me around until I really looked at it.

The more we look at the inner conflict at hand like the mood we are in or the emotion we are experiencing, the overcast starts to slowly, but surely dissolve. It cannot sustain itself in our awareness of it. Just by looking at our moods, we are moving beyond them.

Join me in observing our moods.

Thank you.

City Noise Has a Voice

I am sitting in the Zen dome with my eyes half-open, half-closed, with my hands on top of each other, and my thumbs slightly touching. I shift my body right and left, back and forth, and take three full breaths. My intention is to concentrate on my breath and allow thoughts to fade away like mist. I hear the sound of the bell DING! It's time to start sitting in silence.

Three seconds after hearing the relaxing bell, I hear BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Following the car alarm, an ice cream truck, playing the music we used to salivate over as children, parks what feels like right outside the window where I am sitting. It makes a home next to me for the next half an hour, which is approximately how long my first sitting session lasts. It doesn't end there. Ambulances, helicopters, cars, arguments, channel news, and other city noise penetrate the dome of silence.

As I'm sitting there, I ask myself are these noises penetrating the dome or are they penetrating me? Of course, the point of meditation is not to ask questions, but to allow whatever arises to be there, without judgement. That is exactly what I do to the best of my ability. I'm listening to the noise out there along with listening to the disturbance I'm experiencing inside of me. With each disturbing noise, I place more and more attention on my breath. Undeterminable amount of time later, I am no longer listening to the noise and my breath, I am the noise. I and the noise are one. My breath and the noise are one. Everything out there stays exactly how it is, but I am no longer this separate person who is bothered or not bothered. I am what's out there and what's out there is me.

Reflecting upon the above experience, I realized that I had a first-hand glimpse of what all true spiritual teachers are talking about. Everything that happens out there is actually inside of me. There is no out there. Even the city noise has a voice and that voice is me and that voice is you and that voice is us.

Join me in letting the noise in so we can hear the silence from within.

Thank you!

What is security?

Will I not still die? Will I not experience pain once I reach a certain amount of security? Will I not still lose people near and dear to me?

My intention is not to scare you, but to bring reality into light. What is security? We all strive for it, whether it'd be securing ourselves financially, socially, or spiritually. Whenever we experience slight discomfort inside, we run to our safe places: "at least I have this" or "at least I have that." But what do we really have that we cannot lose? It only leaves who we are in our essence, the depth of our being. Eckhart Tolle calls it the "stillness within."

Why am I bringing this up now, you may ask? Because I have been catching myself making decisions and acting based on this assumption of "what's more secure?" And the realization that I've been having is that nothing is more secure. That's the trick and the trap that we fall into everywhere we turn unless we turn within.

It does not mean that we have to try and fight the idea of security out of our minds. We would not be able to even if we tried. It is just a matter of noticing that it's there. For now, looking at it is enough.

Join me in looking at security for what it really is.

Thank you!