Setbacks on the Path - In Meditation and Life

A friend recently sent me the following email: "I had a 'set back' yesterday and was struggling with 'too many thoughts' and feeling frustrated. I did some deep breathing --- which helped. I just wanted to ask you --- what do you do when this happens to you? What is a good way to push these feelings aside in a helpful manner? Sometimes I just get overwhelmed."

My friend is new to the practice of meditation. She recently began participating in Oprah's online seminar featuring Eckhart Tolle. She is not in a class or studying with a local teacher. Her concerns and questions are common to almost all beginners and serve as a reminder to all practitioners that the journey is never over. These are some of my comments.

Each time we sit in meditation, we are inviting all of our self to show up. In fact, all of our self may show up whether we have intentionally invited it or not. If we expect only the peaceful part, we will inevitably be frustrated or disappointed. Does this sound like other parts of your daily life? How much struggle and discomfort do we create by our expectations? Meditation does not and should not replace our life but sharpens our awareness of how we see and live our life.

And that which seems a "set back" is really only our judgment of our performance. If we look at our life and our growth of awareness and consciousness, it is rarely a linear path. I would liken the path of practice and increased awareness to an ascending spiral. We make a little "progress upward" and eventually come back around to the same recurrent issues. This next time around however, perhaps our perspective is a little different and the emotional and mental noise is not so loud.

So here we are given the opportunity to not judge. We just notice - "Ah, yes! There is my frustration again. There are my thoughts trying to make me believe that they are in charge." You notice your thoughts. You notice that you are not at peace. You remind yourself that you are not your mind. You are bigger than that. You remind yourself that you can accept who you are just as you are. Nothing needs fixing. You are not broken - only human.

Is there a "good way to push feelings aside?" There certain are many ways. Our culture is rampant with methods. But is it a good idea? Paradoxically, meditation practice, by "neutralizing" many old thought patterns, can allow a greater degree of experience of our emotional selves. Trying to push away a part of our self is like engaging in civil war: a lot of resources get spent, there is often no apparent winner, and at best there remain two parts occupying the same territory and living an uneasy truce - certainly not the path to peace.

As for "too many thoughts", your focus on the breath or a mantra or other method can help calm the whirling of the left brain. But remember that your brain activation is triggered mainly as a defense against your immediate experience. It is a lifelong habit grounded in our beliefs in what is acceptable to think or feel. When we begin to feel something outside this framework of acceptability, our brains "come to our rescue". When your mind speeds up, allow yourself to tune into what you would be feeling if you weren't so busy thinking. How would you feel if those thoughts were not true? Go back to your breath.

Again, frustration is the result of an expectation, of not embracing our present reality. We think something should be other than it is. We think we should be other than we are. We try a new practice, begin changing our perspectives, then find we still have some old issues to deal with. We think that we will always be peaceful if we practice, but often, when we become still, the turmoil beneath the surface bubbles up. Our minds don't like this and try to distract us from our immediate experience. But that turmoil is only a part of ourselves wanting to come forward so we can heal. So practice. Practice patience and trust. Trust that what surfaces emotionally when you sit is merely part of yourself that needs to be seen and felt in the present.

When we embrace our immediate experience, we are practicing reality and most of all acceptance. Only from that point can things ever shift or change. Only from that point can we find peace.

Kay Goldstein, www.kaygoldstein.com

Comments

[LordMoon]

Meditation can never be "thought" oriented. Countering ideas with more ideas, just creates more confusion more "identification" with thought.

Mind is not the solution it is the problem.

[Kay Goldstein - Huffpost Blogger]

Agree completely. By opening our awareness to what we think, observing how our thoughts restrict us from living fully our lives, is often a critical first step. The point is that no aspect of our self should by cut off from our consciusness. Living inside our thoughts is the cause of much suffering. Not knowing what we are thinking at all is a perhaps a bigger obstacle to growth of awareness. kg

[Jonahson]

Pt. 1
Follow this parable closely; "Suppose there was a person living in an island and he wish to cross the sea to he other shore so he goes in search of knowledge to built a vessel. He manage to obtain such knowledge and he build a boat to cross the sea. Not long into his journey, his boat began to take in water from six holes and he bails the water out. Soon he spent more time and energy bailing out the water than rowing the boat. Before even reaching half way he runs out of energy and the boat sinks."
What the parable represent ; Obtaining knowledge to built a vessel represent the Dharma knowledge to guide you through the sea of suffering. Building the vessel represent effort , leaking water from the six holes represent karmic violation committed through our six senses. Bailing out the water is what you described in your blog.

[Kay Goldstein - Huffpost Blogger]

thank you. Stay tuned. I will comment further- need a new boat. kg

[Jonahson]

Pt.2
Before you people start to meditate it is important to get proper guidance otherwise your DIY will eventually come to nought. In meditiation you look inwards and learn to deal with your problem. Being patient with phenomenan that arises is actually releasing some of those trapped karmic energy within that is why you feel peaceful when those energy drains away. What happens when you are awaken from that state? The Eightfold Noble Path helps you to prevent fresh karma from developing through guarding of the six senses, by way of right speech, right action, right thoughts, right effort, right livelyhood, right understanding. You need to stay on the path you have chosen by means of right concentration or focus.
For example when you come out of your meditative state you carry on with your daily routine and quarrel with people in your office or the people you come in touch with, then, you are like the sinking boat with the unplugged six holes!

[ClintonFun]

YOUR LIFE UNDER HILLARY AND HUSSEIN OBAMA? The quality medical care Ted Kennedy quickly received after his brain cancer diagnosis would not be available to Americans if Hillary Clinton"s, Hussein Obama"s and Ted Kennedy"s healthcare policies were law. One day after an MRI found a tumor, Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant glioma, and less than two weeks later the tumor was removed by a leading brain cancer specialist at Duke University Medical Center. He will take the chemotherapy drug Temodar and receive radiation treatments. Of course, with his wealth and power, Kennedy would get good treatment anywhere, but the same care WOULD NOT BE available to every American if we make the health "reforms" called for by Kennedy and Obama.

Countries (England, Canada, France) with universal healthcare policy "always wind up cutting corners simply to save money. People with Kennedy"s condition are dying or dead as a result. A woman in England who complained of headaches for months, but had to wait a year to see a neurologist. Then waited more than three months to get only a "relatively urgent" MRI scan. Three days before the MRI appointment, she died.

Temodar Kennedy is taking, but Britain Universal Healthcare Policy has ruled that the drug wasn"t worth the money. Democrats are pushing a Senate bill to set up a similar U.S. In Canada, the wait for an MRI " after a referral is granted " is 10 weeks.

[CaveatMagnusFrater]

So determined to slam Senator Clinton that you couldn't be bothered to find an apporpriate blog? And why do you feel compelled to propagate the lie that Obama is Muslum? Go back to watching Fox News and have more Kool_Ade.

[InformedSources]

Thank you for this insightful commentary on meditation and life. I am reminded of a favorite passage by Steven Levine, which says much the same thing: "Nonattachment is not the elimination of desire. It is the spaciousness to allow any quality of mind, any thought or feeling, to arise without closing around it, without eliminating the pure witness of being. It is an active receptivity to life."

[Jonahson]

Good post. It is a summary of what they shoul be doing.

[Kay Goldstein - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you. especially for that gem of a quote, not just about non-attachment but non judgment and surrender. kg