The tide of injustice and heartbreak has begun to cover Rhode Island’s shores - as elsewhere - with the recent detainments, uncivil treatment, and deportations of citizens with visas and green cards. Detailing the injustices is outside the remit of these pages as are the many actions that are being and can be taken. But the heartbreak is not.
Our mindfulness and meditation practices are critical to our taking care of ourselves and others. They are the oxygen mask we put on ourselves before we attempt to help the child sitting next to us.
But sometimes the tide of heartbreak threatens to overwhelm us. This pain we don’t like, we don’t want, and sometimes we resist even knowing about. It is not uncommon to distract ourselves from the hurt, the frustration, the anger, the sense of helplessness. We may find we are listening to and experiencing more and more agitated messages and rhythms in our daily lives, in the news media, in our friend circles, in our own hearts and minds. The agitation scatters our attention. It is an assault on our attention and leaves us scattered and deeply distracted. Sitting can become more difficult. Finding calm in the roiling storms can feel impossible. Even our weather systems are having their own paroxysms as tornadoes torethrough the midwest and south this weekend.
Agitation, we have been learning, is one of the five hindrances that interfere with meditation and mindfulness. And some level of agitation is deeply seated in our psyches - feeding and being fed by the hyper-vigilance we think we need to survive.
It is often said in the Buddha’s teachings that a monk (community of meditators) goes into seclusion - often to the forest or the root of a tree. In the first foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of body, this teaching embodies that idea.
“And how, monks, does a monk abide contemplating the body as a body? Here a monk gone to the forest or the root of a tree or to an empty hut, sits down; having folded his legs crosswise, set his body erects, and established mindfulness in front of him, ever mindful he breathes in, mindful he breaths out…” Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness p. 46
This seclusion is key to mindfulness and the calm tranquillity that we find so healing and it can take many different forms. In the Buddha’s day, the meditator was advised to go to the forest, the root of a tree, an empty hut. Physical seclusion was the first step. Being apart from people and the busyness of urban life. Especially important now is going into seclusion from the tv, our computers, our cell phones. Our meditation practice is one key way we go into seclusion. Often people find it’s easier to meditate at night or the early morning - when the world becomes quiet and our minds are refreshed by sleep or the knowledge that our day is over.
But we may find these days that events are ringing more loudly in our ears and our minds recycle the resultant agitation to a great degree. How are we to find seclusion from our own wild thoughts?
Shaila Catherine, in her book Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Focus the Mind, has outlined five practices to working with our disturbed thoughts and wounded hearts.
First is to replace negative thoughts and messages with positive ones, the unwholesome with the wholesome. Loving kindness and compassion practice is so important here.
Second is to examine the consequences of the disturbed thoughts and try to arouse a sense of the dangers to the mind such rumination can bring. This is not to say we ignore, turn away from, push out of our minds and hearts the injustice to our fellow travelers. But we need to take care of ourselves and the health of our own minds. And we need to stay in the present moment and not become overwhelmed by past regrets and future worries. We do need to find seclusion from such thoughts and events to stabilize our own minds in order to serve.
The third strategy works is to withdraw the fuel - to avoid the triggers, ignore unwanted data, forget about unwholesome stimuli. This is not meant to circumvent mindfulness but instructs us to assess whether the input in front of us is wholesome or unwholesome. An example given is coming into a meeting where pastries are being served and selecting a chair right in front of the pastries or farther away. We have some choice about where we place our awareness. And we can focus more on the positive action we might take rather than the details of the negative news we have heard.
The fourth strategy is to investigate the causes of distraction. This investigation often will take us straight to the pain or hurt that we wished to avoid in the first place. For this investigation we need to bring our hearts to our hearts - bringing compassion and loving kindness gently to the place of pain. This kindness toward ourselves transforms into coming home to ourselves, bathing our wounded hearts with compassion and caring. This caring approach is a powerful way to free ourselves from the enslavement of suffering. It enables us to soothe ourselves and others with compassion and to re-gather our energies toward effective action.
The fifth strategy is to apply determination and resolve. This involves making a decision not to be picked apart by unsettling thoughts and itchy agitation, saying no to the distraction, the restlessness, the disturbance in that moment. Sometimes that resolve allows the agitation to fall away and a center of calm to grow.
We can explore for ourselves, in our own situations, what going into seclusion means for us. What are the conditions that continue the distraction once it has begun? What conditions soothe, quiet, comfort, and stabilize our attention so that we can drop into our own inner spring of wellness?
These are increasingly disturbing and perilous times. Our practice becomes even more important than ever and the work we have done so far will support us and help us navigate a path forward to restoring our fragmented attention and supporting our best selves.