Last night, during our weekly meditation and mindfulness session we talked about how we can help ourselves to flow more harmoniously in and with our live.
One thing that came to mind is the study and the exploration of, what we call in Zen, emptiness. Studying and exploring emptiness is to take some time to notice how all our experiences, all things that surround us, all our ideas, believes, convictions and so on, don’t really have a fixed and solid entity. Everything is the result of something else which happened previously. One could easily say that life as we experience it is a continuous and on-going flow of causes and effects. Because that happened, I am experiencing this. When looked closely, we can clearly see that we are the flow. Our bodies, our thoughts, our ideas, our emotions, our believes, nothing has a fixed and solid entity. All is a result of this already mentioned on-going flow of causes and effects. Hence the term emptiness, empty of a fixed identity, starting from the sense of identity we might experience about ourselves. Are we something fixed, solid, self-standing, independent and separate?
I guess that our inharmonious sense of flow arises from having and allowing a sense of fixity, a sense of solidity, a sense of fixed identity in our life experience. Perhaps, we have even managed to convince ourselves that we are this fixed and solid idea of ourselves. That sense of identification, might make us feel comfortable, accepted or not-accepted, wanted or not-wanted, part of something unique, worthy, better than or worse than and so on. All these sensations and perceptions we might have about ourselves, can trigger a sense of harmonious or disharmonious flow with things as they are moment to moment. However, where is this sense of identity really coming from? Where can we find something fixed and solid in this process of identification we might experience?
Of course, it seems to me that this sense of identification has something to do with a less harmonious mode to flow in life. How so? That is something we need to explore ourselves. Where do I get stuck? When and why do I feel disharmony? When we start noticing that things don’t feel to flow, when we start noticing that we are striving, that we feel pulled or pushed, that we try to escape our current experience, there is when we need to pause and reflect. Perhaps, we can start noticing that we can switch mode. Going from this sense of solid and fixed identification to doing our very best to see the total emptiness of this sense of fixity we might experience. Keep observing without getting stuck in anything, keep noticing how we can’t really grab or grasp anything. Keep observing the wonderful flow of causes and effects which we are all inevitably part of. We are not a fixed or solid entity in all of this, we might want to try and see how we are simply something well beyond our “normal” mental comprehension.
Of course, we want and need to use the current of this flow to navigate our moment-to-moment life experience. We just want to reflect on our experience, we don’t need to strive to work it out as, I suspect, that might lead to disharmony again. In my experience, flowing means to simply attend this moment without getting stuck in any mental hold. I can notice all that is arising in the form of thoughts, ideas, concepts, philosophies, believes and so on but, do I really need to strive to make anything out of it? Is it, perhaps, not more important to participate into what is really happening right now than being consumed by a million of empty and fleeting mental formations?
Perhaps simply arising with this sense of not understanding, not knowing, not making sense of things is a nice, relaxing, comfortable place to be. Perhaps, it is not and this could trigger worries, confusion, fear; that we want to explore too, maybe out of curiosity or maybe to notice that those emotions are also empty and will certainly die away too.
We might want to explore stopping striving to work things out and just attend each present moment empty of ideas of should or shouldn’t. Stop striving and arise genuinely and naturally act in this present moment. Perhaps we can explore the possibility of diverting the attention from wanting to work things out to seeing, experiencing and taking part wholeheartedly in what is really here in front of us.
Do we need to free ourselves from the mind? Perhaps, all we need to see and understand is the true nature of the mind and rather than trying to free ourselves from it we simply want to understand and see what is what when it comes to our mind content.
Enjoy exploring harmonious flowing, enjoy exploring the content of the mind, can you find something fixed and solid there which is worth getting lost and confused for?
Zen Mindfulness Cambridge Zenways Italia 