Tag Archives: buddhism

Practice Idea – Taste The Mud and Be Free

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IMG_6809In Buddhism we often talk about remaining fully present and mindful in the midst of unpleasant sensations, thoughts and emotions. Most people understand this, but actually sustaining presence beyond noting and momentary awareness is often quite challenging.

When we’re in the midst of difficult feelings or sensations, we may transition from avoidance into full presence for short bursts of time. That’s an important step. But with especially intense discomfort, it’s all too easy to quickly re-engage with external stimuli and old stories to blunt the intensity. Somehow it feels safer than stepping over the edge and letting go, where it seems the discomfort may swallow us.

I’ve found a practice approach that helps me sustain attention when I need a little extra encouragement. I look for simple, even playful ways to increase my capacity to stay present long enough to counter my ingrained resistance. What I’m doing is interrupting the flow of mental formation long enough to create a gap.

I discovered this practice at a time when I was so upset and miserable that the last thing I wanted was to increase my discomfort by feeling it more fully. This very resistance was a clue – time to face it, not run away. But my mind was like a wild horse, rearing and bucking, ready to run. To redirect the energy I asked myself what this horrible sensation tasted like. As someone who especially enjoys food, this question stimulated my interest and interrupted an entrenched reactive pattern. My resistance went down a notch; my mind stilled a bit. If you are more auditory or tactual, look for a specific sound or touch instead.

The key here is that you are engaging in direct experience, what’s actually present, no analysis or stories added. Just find a visceral taste, touch or sound. The answer to my own question was mud and manure – that’s what the discomfort tasted like. Really unappetizing and not even food! This lightened me up a little and engaged my curiosity. After the first few moments of really tasting mud in all its dark grit, the present wasn’t overwhelming anymore. I could stay with it. As I let go, the last slivers of separation and resistance dissolved into immediate experience. The mud dissipated on its own.

 

 

Instructions on Working with Questions in Your Practice and A Guided Meditation

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“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Unanswered questions, intractable situations often appear to stand in the way of living from our deepest intentions. At times we might feel blocked even from knowing what our true priorities are. But if we take time to turn inward with a spirit of patience and inquiry, instead of requiring the dilemmas to go away, or insisting on immediate resolutions, we can discover the resources we need. Internal dilemmas contain a rich source of insight; learning to live with them brings about a radical shift that opens the door to clarity and equanimity.

Working with unresolved questions in your meditation practice is an intentional focus, like metta, which is different from basic breath and body awareness. We are directing our attention to something more specific, in this case, deep questions in our lives. We are creating an intention to bring the question into our hearts with a quality of openness and interest, but not with an intent to analyze or resolve.

Your question may be about some aspect of your life that doesn’t make sense: loneliness, career or finances, a difficult relationship, perhaps old conditioning that keeps reappearing unexpectedly no matter what you do. It may be about health or chronic pain, the loss of a loved one or maybe deep spiritual question about life and death. Most of us are intimately familiar with our themes, the questions that we just can’t resolve.

In exploring your questions this way, they can transform into a life force. Living your deepest questions is living your life fully; loving your questions is loving even those parts of your life and those parts of yourself that you may have shut out.

This is where the radical shift can occur. Often unresolved questions represent parts of our lives that we resist. Trying to figure them out and resolve them takes us away from this moment, where the question can come alive. This is the portal to wisdom and insight. It only opens when we can move out of the realm of the intellect and our normal attempts to solve the question. Living our questions brings us fully into this moment.

Guided Meditation

Give yourself about 20 – 30 minutes to do this practice fully.

Find a comfortable place to sit. Take a few deep breaths and settle into this moment. Now take a few minutes to find your question and bring it into your heart

As you find it, just open up to it as a living thing

Keep sitting with whatever arises and let go of any thinking or stories until you become aware of your body

Notice what you feel

As the question settles into your body you may feel sadness or grief, despair, anger, fear, love or compassion. Don’t attach to the name or the explanation. Just feel it. You may even feel neutral. If it’s neutral or blank, just be with the experience of that. Chances are it will change of its own accord as you stay present. It may also appear as energy. This can happen when we move the question out of the realm of thought and into our hearts.

If you feel overwhelmed and quickly engage in busy or intensive thought, the question may be too charged. Pull back and focus on the breath or another object of attention until you feel more settled. Then return to your question as you feel ready.

There is a lot of life and energy in our deep questions once we open our hearts and minds to them.

Once your question settles into your being, just let it rest there and don’t try to direct or see the outcome. This is where your mindfulness practice will serve you, in this spaciousness of mind and heart that we can’t always so easily access in our day to day activities.

If you feel something arising allow it to flow and move. Sadness grief, energy, even joy, whatever it might be, just be open to it welcome it and let it be in your heart. If you need to cry that is ok too.

What we’re learning to do is hold the question in the realm of not knowing, the realm of mystery. With patience, we let go of trying to resolve anything. Slowly, we learn to respond from an unbiased heart, our inherent wisdom.

You can listen to my dharma talk on working with questions here.

For my Buddhist Geeks podcast on working with questions, click here.

Gratitudue Overcomes Me

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A Shroud of Mist by Lisa Ernst

A Shroud of Mist
by Lisa Ernst

Whatever it is, I cannot understand it
Although gratitude stubbornly overcomes me
Until I am reduced to tears.
– Saigyo

The Joy of Presence: A Mindfulness Meditation Workshop, April 5, 2014

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Guest meditation teacher Lisa Ernst from One Dharma Nashville will lead The Joy of Presence: A Mindfulness Meditation Workshop on Saturday, April 5, 2014 at
The Yoga Center of Huntsville

LisaprofilepicsmThis workshop will help you learn effective techniques to establish or deepen an ongoing mindfulness meditation practice. You’ll learn correct sitting postures and concentration as well as how to work with thoughts and emotions. You also learn deep listening and mindful communication, along with powerful forgiveness and loving-kindness practices that you can offer to yourself and others. The workshop will include periods of sitting and walking meditation, instruction, discussion and Q & A. Appropriate to beginners as well as more experienced mediators who wish to refresh and deepen their practice.

Lisa Ernst is a meditation teacher and founder of One Dharma Nashville. She has been practicing Buddhist meditation for 25 years in both the Zen and Vipassana traditions. In her teaching, Lisa emphasizes both transformational insight and everyday awakening as n invitation to embrace all of the path’s possibilities. Lisa leads daylong and residential meditation retreats and has taught meditation in universities, corporations and prisons. She also offers individual meditation instruction and guidance. For more information about One Dharma Nashville, visit http://www.onedharmanashville.com.

Session duration: 12:30–5 pm

Pre-registration price: $85 (if registered and paid by Friday, March 28)

Drop-in price: $95 (if registered after March 28 until day of workshop)

To register, email Annette Beresford at annetteberseford@hotmail.com or call

256-658-9748.

Guest Blog from Saturday’s Writing and Meditation Workshop

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February is always a little tricky for scheduling events — there’s always the chance, no matter how slight, of snow. Last year I awoke to snow on the day my writing and meditation workshop was scheduled and I deliberated for a couple of hours whether to cancel it. Ultimately I went forward as the temperatures warmed up  just in time to melt the snow. This Friday on the eve of my workshop, the Weather Channel predicted an 80% chance of snow with a 1″ accumulation for Saturday morning. I went to bed unsure whether the workshop would happen.  Thankfully, though, the snow passed us by again here in Nashville. We may be one of only a few southern cities to have avoided snow this year – so far.

During the workshop everyone had a chance to read their writing in small, intimate groups or at the end of the day, to everyone there. Andrea Hewitt read a beautiful and inspiring essay she wrote that morning and I want to share it with you here:

When It’s Time to Fly

Andrea Hewitt

What touched me today was reading about the actress Ellen Page’s coming out and particularly watching the video on the Human Rights Campaign website. Here was this accomplished young actress speaking in front of a crowd–something I’m sure she has done many times before. You could hear the nervousness in her voice–the wavering and uncertainty.

But what I was most transfixed by were her hands. They were shaking so much that she had to hold them cupped together for almost the entire time. At one point, she let them go to make a point, and they were like tiny birds released, but still unsure of how high to fly.

About halfway through her speech when she finally said the words, “I’m gay,” and the audience stood and cheered for her, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be marvelous if everyone upon coming out had a cheering audience swelling with whoops of joy, mirroring back to you the terrifyingly awesome feeling of finally releasing your authentic self out of your mouth and into the world?”

It’s like watching a birth: the long wait and gestation before, the agonizing pains of labor, but then the deep knowing that there is no going backwards–in fact, what’s back no longer exists even–and you are propelled into a shiny, brand new, sparkling world that blinds you with its rightness. And you wonder how you ever lived in the dull past with you old, small, tightly-reined-in self.

Letting it all go–the expectations, the dreams of someone else for you, your own dreams that never quite fit no matter how you cut and sewed and re-sewed them–it’s the scariest thing ever. It’s tough enough to do that for yourself and your family & close friends privately, let alone on a widely-broadcast YouTube video.

But to live every day as authentically as you can–what a gift to yourself and the world! I could see the relief on her face when the words came out of her mouth. Naming ourselves, saying the words, and believing that you can say them and there will be a bridge to carry you to the other side requires such a leap of faith.

I remember testing out the words myself before I dared to speak them aloud to anyone. It felt like I had a tiny baby bird inside me–me, its nest–and it was time to push her out. Keeping her in the once-safe nest was no longer an option for that would only stunt her growth. I had to have faith that her wings were ready and strong enough to take on the world.  It was her time to fly.

Please go by and visit Andrea’s new blog: A Late Life Lesbian Story

A Dream of Cherry Blossoms

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Early Spring Blossoms photography by Lisa Ernst

Early Spring Blossoms
photography by Lisa Ernst

A branch snaps under snow
waking me from a dream of the cherries
flowering on Yoshino
—Buson

InsightLA Dharma Talk on Living the Questions

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This dharma talk was recorded at InsightLA on October 13, 2013. It was part of a daylong retreat I taught about how to work with our questions in a way that can help us live from our truest intentions. You can listen  here:

Buddhist Geeks Podcast — Working With Questions in Your Practice

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I was interviewed recently by Vincent Horn, founder of Buddhist Geeks, and we talked about how to work with questions in your practice. Unanswered questions, intractable situations often appear to stand in the way of living from our deepest intentions. We might feel blocked even from knowing what our true priorities are. But if we take time to turn inward with a spirit of patience and inquiry, instead of requiring the dilemmas to go away, or insisting on immediate resolutions, we can discover the resources that we need.  Internal dilemmas contain a rich source of insight; learning to live with them brings about a radical shift that opens the door to clarity and equanimity.

You can click on the image below to access the podcast. I hope you enjoy it!

LisaErnst_Overlay copy

Daylong Meditation Retreat

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Taking Refuge in This Moment

Saturday, March 15, 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Led by Lisa Ernst

bf9a3-lotusblossomPlease join us for a day of sitting and walking meditation at a beautiful, wooded site in rural West Nashville. True refuge is turning toward our experience and finding freedom in the way things are. This silent retreat will focus on cultivating a quality of compassionate presence that embraces our experience with kindness and insight.

Led by meditation teacher Lisa Ernst, the retreat is suitable for both beginning and experienced meditators; it will include sitting and walking meditation, practice instructions, and a dharma talk.

Cost: $50, plus dana (donation) to the teacher. A deposit of $50 will reserve your space and is due by Friday, March 7. Paypal is available here. If paying by check, please make it out to One Dharma Nashville and send to: 12South Dharma Center c/o One Dharma Nashville, 2301 12th Ave. South, Suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204. Please include your email address. Directions and additional information will be emailed prior to the retreat.

For questions, email onedharmaretreat@gmail.com

Freedom and The Demons

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White Heron in Open Sky photography by Lisa Ernst

White Egret in Open Sky
photography by Lisa Ernst

I often encourage practitioners who are struggling, tied up in knots and feel stuck with nowhere to run, to surrender and put their heads in the mouth of the demon. Its one of my favorite teaching metaphors because its so vivid and unambiguous. From some this image draws stunned silence or a wince; from a few others a slight smile and a nod. Even though many practitioners reach an intellectual understanding, I’ve found that only a few fully experience the liberation that comes from an intimate view inside the demon’s mouth

This metaphor arises from an anecdote about the Tibetan yogi Milarepa.  Here’s the story from Tara Brach in her book, Radical Acceptance:

The great Tibetan yogi Milarepa spent many years living in isolation in a mountain cave. As part of his spiritual practice, he began to see the contents of his mind as visible projections. His inner demons of lust, passion, and aversion would appear before him as gorgeous seductive women and terrifying wrathful monsters. In face of these temptations and horrors, rather than being overwhelmed, Milarepa would sing out, “It is wonderful you came today, you should come again tomorrow … from time to time we should converse.”

Through his years of intensive training, Milarepa learns that suffering only comes from being seduced by the demons or from trying to fight them. To discover freedom in their presence, he has to experience them directly and wakefully, as they are.

In one story, Milarepa’s cave becomes filled with demons. Facing the most persistent, domineering demon in the crowd, Milarepa makes a brilliant move—he puts his head into the demon’s mouth. In that moment of full surrender, all the demons vanish. All that remains is the brilliant light of pure awareness.”

Most of us have ingrained responses to painful and difficult challenges. Usually these patterns involve resistance and struggle, which worsen our suffering.  As the noose tightens, the problems may grow into unfathomable monsters that we must avoid at all costs.  We create an “other” out of our suffering or we create an “I.” Either way, we start to view these conditions as problems we must solve or personal afflictions we must vanquish.

 As committed practitioners, over time we become more skilled at meeting these challenges. Gradually we’re less fearful of our demons, at least some of the time. We have the space to explore them with less reactivity, maybe inviting them in for tea once in a while. The intensity of our suffering diminishes and the demons disperse. Yet at other times, a particularly menacing demon may return, bearing down on us with full force. At moments like these we may feel that nothing can save us.

The demon is staring us in the face and we’ve got nothing to stop it. We’re sure the demon will devour us if we don’t find a way to protect ourselves or escape. Fear consumes us. At this juncture I’ve found that the full act of surrender, of putting my head in the mouth of the demon is the true way to freedom. It’s not really something I do as something I let go of. I release my need to survive, to protect or preserve the idea of myself in any form at all. I’m willing to let what I dread devour me.

Although this might sound scary, ultimately it’s the opposite. The moment I let go, when the demon has entered me and I have entered it, the demon dissolves into open space.  I dissolve into open space. There’s nothing inside or outside, only the sweet, unobstructed stillness of this moment. Gradually wisdom arises out of this emptiness. The situation reveals itself; the delusion dies.

There’s an important place for compassion in this process.  Sometimes we’re just not ready or able to move closer to the demon or even invite it in for tea. Taking a step back and offering lovingkindness to ourselves and to the fear, even the demon, can soften us. When we’re truly not ready to meet the darkness directly, we need to soften our hearts and minds into kindness and compassion. Then gradually we’ll find our way to the next step, of giving all of ourselves to the demon. At last we see it’s all a grand illusion and the demons of suffering and fear transform into equanimity and openness.