Back to Basics

It’s one of those mornings. I wake up wallowing in self-pity, caught in a downward spiral, worrying about this month’s Visa bill, worrying about whether our house will sell, worrying about mortgage payments. My old scarcity fears come up, inevitably ending up with that horrifying thought: maybe I’ll have to become a Walmart greeter!

My relationship with Susan is deepening as we heal past wounds and open to loving each other in ways we never thought possible. But I’m worried about merging and losing my identity, as I did once before. All my creative juices seem to have dried up. Writing these blogs is fun, but I can’t come up with any projects that excite me. My body is feeling its limits too, as my prostate cancer returns and I face another round of hormone therapy. My memory is shot, but that’s nothing new. Every night I struggle with getting enough sleep. I seem to be tired all the time, or am I just depressed?

Last night I had this stunning realization: I’m becoming less and less “enlightened” every day, rather than more and more “enlightened” every day! For so many years I was sure that I was moving in the direction of becoming more and more “awake.” My whole life was directed towards “waking up.” I went to spiritual retreats; I read everything I could on nondual philosophy; I sat with countless spiritual teachers, from Gangaji, to Adyashanti, to Eckhart Tolle.

I even spent ten years writing a book describing my journey. It was called Ultimate Happiness, Chasing It, Finding It, Living It. If there ever was a book title that was a set up for finding Ultimate Misery, this was it. Ultimate Happiness told the Don Quixote-like tale of my search for enlightenment. Of course, I now realize that this was a crazy, wild goose chase. There is nowhere to get to. Awakened presence has always been here, and always will be here. But that knowing that doesn’t help when my meditations are deeply unsatisfying and I have a wildly restless mind!

No one ever said that the spiritual path was a straight line. We all go off track at some point or enter a numbing place of stasis. In my early years as a budding yogi, I lived by the dictum of “practice, practice, practice.” Then, when I discovered the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and other nondual teachers, I was told that the only true practice is one of self-inquiry, asking the question, “Who Am I?” I remember Gangaji saying, “Practice can take you to the gate, but for that which lies beyond the gate, no practice can take you there.” So I gave up my practice and for twenty years I lived in the hope that one day I would suddenly awaken.. . .. I would meditate, and with varying degrees of success, relax into present moment awareness.

I had little patience for Buddhism, which seemed (based on my ignorance) to have an intricate hierarchy of rules and multiple stages to enlightenment. I avoided month-long Vipassana retreats, thinking I was beyond all that. But I finally had to admit that my practice of no practice wasn’t getting me anywhere.

The other day I came across a Tara Brach video on YouTube. I’ve known Tara for years. She is married to my dear friend, Jonathan Foust, who I’ve known for almost 40 years. Tara is always down-to-earth and delightful to be with when I see her. She’s one of the most highly regarded teachers of mindfulness (Vipassana) meditation in the country, and has written two extraordinary books: Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, and True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart.

As I watch Tara’s video, called Trusting Our Hearts, in the comfort of my living room, I am touched by her exquisite clarity, She leads a guided exploration of what “goodness” is. “We can choose love,” she says, while addressing a large audience. “It’s a choice. We can decide that we want to deepen our attention. We can slow down and become intimate with the life within us when we’re caught in mistrust. We can look at another and say, ‘Wait a minute, behind that mask who is there?’ And we begin to get more and more capacity to see that, that being, just like us, longs to feel at home. That being, just like us, longs to love. We all long for it.”

I see that I need to go back to basics.

I sign up for Mindfulness Daily, an online course given by Tara and Jack Kornfield. It consists of ten to fifteen minute daily lessons that give the key elements for a meditation practice. There are 40 of them in the program, ranging on topics from Arriving in Presence, to Emotional Healing, Mindful Communications, and Living Aligned with Your Deeper Purpose. I marvel at how she and Jack introduce the fundamental Buddhist practices of mindfulness and living from a place of loving-kindness. Again and again they emphasize the need for self-compassion, something I could do with a good dose of. The goal is a life that is more vulnerable, more undefended, more in our hearts.

Tara leaves me with this inspiring thought: “The more we trust our own goodness, the more quickly we see others and see that same light of awareness looking through those eyes and that same warmth coming from those hearts.”

Perhaps I’m ready to sign up for the more advanced course Power of Awareness?

I pick up my iPad, find my Insight Timer meditation app, and sit down for a 15-minute meditation. Breath in. Breath out.

Back to basics.