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Writing and Healing Prompt: Locating a Potential for Change

Posted by Diane Morrow on April 27, 2014 in Blog, Writing and Healing Prompts, Writing and Meditation

The idea here, coming out of Matthieu Ricard’s instructions in Why Meditate? is to establish a motivation—a why—right at the beginning. His first suggested meditation, “A Vow to Transform,” included in his preliminary instructions, brings together many of the early ideas from his book—especially this notion that change is both desirable and possible—for any of us—for all of us. Though he presents it as one paragraph in his book, I’m presenting it here in 5 pieces—2 questions and 3 pieces of advice. And, of course, you could adapt this in a way that makes sense to you. Here are the 5 pieces: Reflect on how you are now. Do you find patterns of behavior and habitual reactions in yourself that need to be improved or transformed? ** Look into the deepest part of yourself. Can you sense the presence of a potential for change there? ** Arouse the confidence to believe that change is possible through effort, determination, and wisdom. ** Take a vow to transform yourself not only for your own sake but also, and especially, for the sake of one day being able to dispel the suffering of others and contribute to their enduring happiness. ** Let this determination grow and take root in the deepest part of your being. Looking over the pieces now, I feel like the second piece is the core of this meditation—its seed: Look into the deepest part of yourself. Can you sense the presence of a potential for change there? What does this potential for change look like? Does it appear as an image? A feeling? A word? Where in yourself do you sense it? What might it look like and feel like if it began to grow and take root? What kind of attention does it need? What kind of nourishment? _______________________________________________ The book, Why Meditate?, can be found here. You can learn more about Matthieu Ricard and his work at matthieuricard.org and at karuna-shechen.org The picture above is from a time-lapse video of a crocus unfolding by Neil Bromhall. Because it is spring and because I love time-lapse photography and the way it makes change visible. You can learn more about Neil Bromhall and his work...

Why Meditate? by Matthieu Ricard: Preliminary Instructions

Posted by Diane Morrow on April 20, 2014 in Blog, Motivation, Writing and Meditation

My copy of Why Meditate? has arrived and I am reading it slowly, trying to become at least a beginning student of meditation, and at the same time think about what writing and meditation might have to do with each other. After a chapter on the why of meditation—with much of the material similar to his video on the art of meditation that I’ve been writing about—Ricard begins the much longer “How to Meditate” section with preliminary instructions and offers six pieces of advice. I’m going to write about the first one briefly here: Establishing motivation. He argues that we must become very clear about our motivation before we begin to meditate: “For it is our motivation—altruistic or self-centered, vast or limited—that will give the journey we are about to take a positive or negative direction and thus determine its results.” I think this is something that I haven’t thought about enough when it comes to writing and healing. When I was first working as a doctor, the motivation for people coming to see me seemed obvious and assumed—they want to get better. They want to feel better and be more healthy and live longer if possible. They want to be able to work and be with their families and pursue the things they love and get a good night’s sleep and get up the next morning ready to face the next day and to contribute to the world in whatever way they can. This seemed like plenty. And in a sense it is a lot. But Matthieu Ricard is suggesting we can think much bigger from the beginning: . . . just getting rid of our own suffering is not enough. Each of us is only one person, while there is an infinite number of other beings—human and non-human who want to avoid suffering as much as we do. Moreover, all beings are interdependent, so we are intimately connected with every other living thing. So the ultimate goal of meditation is to acquire the ability to liberate all beings from suffering and contribute to their well-being. This is so vast. So huge. To even consider this is huge: that the ultimate goal might be to train and train (no matter how long it takes) and acquire this kind of ability. Not just for our own well-being; not just for that of our families or our friends or our co-workers, but so incredibly far beyond this—for all beings. It reminds me of a quote I came across a while back by the Dalai Lama: I decided that my being should be dedicated to something useful for others. One of my favorite prayers says, ‘So long as space remains. . . So long as sentient beings remain. . . I will remain in order to serve.’ This gives me a lot of comfort. This is the meaning of my life. I love this idea that such a vast motivation could bring comfort—and meaning. And I love this idea that setting this kind of motivation at the beginning of one’s work could make a difference. It’s so outrageously far beyond where we are now–at least beyond where I am now. But I do kind of love the notion that just setting our sights on this—heading in this direction—could make a difference....

The Art of Meditation, Part 4: The Mind as Translator

Posted by Diane Morrow on April 13, 2014 in Blog, Happiness, Writing and Meditation

I’m returning to “The Art of Meditation,” and to a quote from the video that I wrote about last week. But now I’m looking at a metaphor that Matthieu Ricard uses: the mind as translator. We aspire to be free from suffering and to find some happiness. There are outer and inner conditions to that. The outer conditions—we ought to improve them as much as possible. But if we know that the way our mind experiences that, the way our mind translates the outer condition as happiness or misery [then] we know the fact that our state of mind can very easily eclipse the outer condition. We can be miserable in a seemingly perfect paradise. We can have strength of mind, joy of being alive, even [when] the conditions seem to be difficult. We know all that. The metaphor of mind as a translator has me thinking about my math book in grade school and how, at least for a while, we were working with math as if it were happening in a machine: with inputs and outputs. Something like this picture, which accompanies something called “The Function Machine Game”: Or something like this (the picture above): If the mind can be thought of as a translator, as Ricard suggests, then we’re not experiencing input purely—but as something altered and translated. We’re altering it according to rules. Instead of the rule “add 4” we’re interpreting our experiences with other rules. Say the input is a snow forecast. We might have a rule inside our head that says: “Snow is good because I get to miss school.” Or we might have a different rule: “Snow is frustrating because I’m going to have to worry about the roads and missing school.” Or: “Snow means getting up earlier and shoveling the driveway.” Same input. Different rules. Different experiences of happiness or misery. We know all this. I know all this. But at the same time I don’t. Or I forget. I forget that my mind is altering experiences and making interpretations all the time, and doing so according to rules that I sometimes don’t pay much attention to. I think Ricard is suggesting that meditation can change the rules inside our minds. And I think he’s suggesting that we can change the rules so that they increasingly lead to happiness. Here’s his quote from the Independent article again: If you allow exterior circumstances to determine your state of mind, then of course you will suffer; you become like a sponge, or like a chameleon. I have lived in difficult areas. I lived in Old Delhi for almost a year. That really is a miserable place. And yet sometimes I felt so light there. It was like—how can I put this—different weather. Old Delhi can be, apparently, a miserable place—but the experience of it doesn’t have to be miserable. The mind can translate it differently. This is tricky. I know that 2 different people might experience it differently. And I know on 2 different days I might experience it differently. Ricard is implying something more than this though. He’s implying that we can use meditation to intentionally change our mind in some way so that we will experience a...

The Art of Meditation by Matthieu Ricard, Part 3

Posted by Diane Morrow on April 6, 2014 in Blog, Happiness, Writing and Meditation

After Matthieu Ricard talks about his own deep goal and motivation for meditation and after he compares it to the kind of training we’re already familiar with for athletes and musicians, he begins to set up an argument for why meditation might be beneficial. To set up this argument, he poses a question which is also the first question in his book, Why Meditate? Is change desirable? I like how fundamental this question is—how he starts with something very basic. And I find two of his arguments in response to this question especially persuasive. The first is that nearly all of us have something in our lives that could be more optimal. To put this another way, not every day is a perfect day—or as good as we would like it to be—even if our rather stressful day seems rather normal and that’s how we make our peace with it. Oh well, that’s just the way some days are. “Normal,” he argues, “doesn’t mean optimal.” Optimal simply means best or most favorable. He’s suggesting that meditation could eventually lead us to some kind of best possible state. That sounds desirable to me. His second argument has to do with considering inner and outer conditions. He says: We aspire to be free from suffering and to find some happiness. There are outer and inner conditions to that. The outer conditions—we ought to improve them as much as possible. But if we know that the way our mind experiences that, the way our mind translates the outer condition as happiness or misery [then] we know the fact that our state of mind can very easily eclipse the outer condition. We can be miserable in a seemingly perfect paradise. We can have strength of mind, joy of being alive, even [when] the conditions seem to be difficult. We know all that. We know the fact that our state of mind can very easily eclipse the outer condition. Hmmm. I think this does happen sometimes. Both the negative and the positive eclipse. The positive eclipse is more interesting—the possibility of having joy of being alive even when conditions are difficult. But I wonder if this isn’t a bit easier for Ricard than it is for many of the rest of us. I’m thinking of the interview he did for The Independent. His interviewer, Robert Chalmers, suggested that perhaps Ricard’s living conditions might have something to do with his happiness. “How hard is it to be happy when you live on a mountainside with breathtaking views of the Himalayas, where your only concern is polishing your wind chimes?” Ricard responds: Ah, I understand what you’re saying. I believe that, if I had to live where you live, I could. By choice, I would not move there. But if you allow exterior circumstances to determine your state of mind, then of course you will suffer; you become like a sponge, or like a chameleon. I have lived in difficult areas. I lived in Old Delhi for almost a year. That really is a miserable place. And yet sometimes I felt so light there. It was like—how can I put this—different weather. That could be a poem: A miserable place And yet sometimes I felt so light there It was like—how can I put this—different weather....