Optimal Mind Institute – Research, Education, and Development

You Can't Stop the River

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 21:15:52 GMT

A boy was given a small bird for his birthday. The boy, not knowing any better, squeezed the bird as hard as he could. “This is MY bird. It will be mine always. I love this bird and it’s not going anywhere.” Then the boy looked down in his hands and saw the bird was squirming and in pain. The boy felt bad, and loosened his grip just a little bit. The bird began to chirp as it had more space to move, more space to change. Then the boy would get scared. “But it’s going to leave!” And he would tighten his grip again. The bird would start suffering, and he would loosen his grip. This is our practice. When we are suffocating the bird, we need to learn to loosen our grip. If we get scared and squeeze again, it’s okay. It seems it’s our nature to cling to things. Just smile and let go.

Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I’m not sure that I agree. I think I understand what Socrates meant, however. And I often ponder this question myself. Me, I’ve spent the majority of my life in an obsessive examination of my own (and others) behavior, intentions and consequences. But now, I found the middle path, where I am able to examine life in general without an attachment to it, or needing it to be a certain way.

The examination these days has turned its gaze inward. When I sit and meditate, and become quite concentrated and calm, the process reveals itself right in front of me. I sit and bring awareness to my body. “Am I my body?” I think. Here I sit with this body…. This skin, bones, muscles, sinews. And when I was younger, I also had skin, bones, muscles, sinews. But, all of our cells are constantly regenerating. There is not a single cell in our body today that was flourishing in our body from infanthood or toddlerhood. This body that I sit with and contemplate today is completely different than the body I grew up with. It grows, it shrinks, it lives and dies and lives again. It looks different almost every day. More hair here, less hair there. More muscle here, less muscle there. It seems the body isn’t a reliable place to lay the claim that “This body is who I am.” Aside from that, the very fact that I can directly observe my body, watch it, sense it, relate to it, means that it can’t be me.

What about my thoughts? Am I my thoughts? Can I claim my thoughts as mine? Well let’s see. I sit and watch my thoughts. I wait for the mind to generate some talk. “I wish I could be in Thailand.” This is quite interesting. Without my forcing it or willfully conjuring it, an image of Thailand arises. And, that image is accompanied by a feeling. In this case, it was a lightness, a warm tingle in my chest and through my spine. And I label that feeling as pleasant. And then, without my help, the image disappears. Next thought. “My back hurts.” This thought too was accompanied by a feeling. It was an unpleasant feeling, a tight and sharp sting in my upper back. And I label this as unpleasant. It’s also accompanied by an autonomic response; namely I begin to sweat and blood rushes to my extremities. Whatever the “I” is, it doesn’t seem to like physical discomfort. But I choose not to listen to it. I choose not to get up. I stay and watch, and listen. I can’t be my thoughts. I sit here and watch my thoughts, and choose, one after another, which one I will attend to. I interact with my thoughts, I exist in this space between my thought and the subsequent reaction. I am not my thoughts.

Am I my feelings? Ever since I can remember, I have felt things with incredible acuity and sensitivity. If I was happy, I was elated. If I was sad, I was heartbroken. In my past, I could see how many occasions that I took my feelings to be “Me.” I was heartbreak. I was anger. I was resentment. I was guilt. But this is no longer the case. Through meditation, I no longer identify so richly with my feelings. As a matter of fact, I sat last night with numerous feelings. I was upset. I was regretful. I was sad. But my relationship to those feelings has changed. And the very fact that I am in relationship to my feelings, is a clear indicator that I am not my feelings. Just like the thoughts, or a pain in the body, the meditator can watch the feelings arise. We can create a space for the feelings to do their dance.

So what does this mean for us? We have this river of sensations, thoughts, feelings, and volitions. I am learning to rest in the space of awareness that can observe all things but not be limited by them. As humans, we are constantly searching for things to cling to as “Me,” or “Mine.” And invariably we do. However, what happens when those things change? What happens when they are taken away? What if we’re not ready to let go? What if we haven’t practiced letting go? This causes confusion beyond measure…. The dark night of the soul. Learn to rest in the uncertainty. Don’t hold so tightly to your opinions. Don’t squeeze the life out of your lover, or your children. When they change, let them change.

Rest in that space of awareness that can observe all things, and not be limited by them. Have a “mind like sky,” as my teacher Jack Kornfield would say. In neuroscience, they call it raising the window of tolerance. I call it a sense of fearlessness, to sit on your one cushion and say, “yes.”

With Love,

Dr. Zack Bein

On Mindfulness of Body

Sun, 09 Feb 2020 02:41:00 GMT

Bringing mindful awareness to the body is common among many of the contemplative traditions. These practices, first introduced some 2500 years ago, have found their way into the bloodstream of our current clinical practices. In this striving and noisy culture, dedicated to progress, we are beginning to learn the value of slowing down and turning our attention inwards.

Jon-Kabat Zinn was a scientist at University of Massachusetts. He had developed a program based on mindfulness, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). He asked the university to give him the patients that were having real difficulty with chronic pain and terminal illness. Through providing these patients with MBSR, he was able to achieve significant improvement in patients’ symptoms that they were not gaining with treatment as usual. Mindfulness of the body, a key component of MBSR, was clearly moderating patients’ success in the unit. Then we were off and running.

Before we go any further, I would like to clarify what I mean by “mindfulness.” Ask five people to conceptualize mindfulness and you are likely to get five different answers! In Clinical Psychology, we define it as, “deliberate regulation of one’s attention and awareness in the present moment.” The most natural place to begin with mindfulness of body is the breath. Due to the accessibility of the breath, it becomes the anchor from which we go explore in meditation. Always returning to the breath. It is important to note that mindfulness of breathing is not a breathing exercise! It is not deep breathing. It is a practice of mindfulness. We practice becoming aware of our breath. There is no effort to control it, and no particular type of breath that we are looking for. The aim is to allow space for the body to breathe naturally. Eventually, it becomes quite easy for the breath to fall into its natural, easy rhythm.

Let’s try.

Find a way to sit that you can try to sustain for the entirety of your practice. You want to be comfortable because the encouragement is to stay as still as possible. Make any final adjustments to your posture before you continue. Gently place your attention on the breath. It is helpful to notice where you feel the breath the most in this moment. Is it the cool air at the tip of the nostrils? Maybe the inflating and deflating of the chest? Perhaps it is the rising and falling of the belly? It doesn’t matter. Just notice where the breath is the most obvious in your body and gently hold your attention there. Make no effort to control it. Simply allow it the space to rest in its own natural rhythm.

As you are becoming mindful of the breath, the mind will wander. Each time you catch it, simply return your attention back to the breath without judgment. Some people find it helpful to count breaths in the beginning. Others have found that a naming practice is helpful (inhale, exhale). Others rest in the felt sense of breathing. It doesn’t matter what strategy you use, but it is helpful to pick one and stay with it for the entirety of the practice.

Mindfulness of breathing is a practice that is always available to you. It is a safe place for you to return to as you move through the day. I suggest incorporating it into your daily routine. Once it becomes a habit, you will find yourself able to access the calm of the breath in even the most difficult situations.

With Love,

Dr. Zack Bein

On the Topic of Human Suffering

Sun, 09 Feb 2020 02:41:00 GMT

The topic of human suffering has always fascinated me. It wasn’t until about five years ago that I realized that we spend so much of our life’s energy on futile attempts to avoid suffering. We use drugs and alcohol, denial, dishonesty, and dissociation. Sometimes it seems like we spend our entire lives trying to avoid suffering and increase pleasure. What I ha ve come to realize, through different spiritual texts, spiritual practice, and simply my own experience, is that suffering is an inevitable part of human existence. This we cannot change. No amount of running or hiding, and certainly no substance can change that fact. What we can change, through meditation, is our relationship to that suffering. Maybe the fact that painful events exist in life is not by itself a cause for true suffering. It is our constant aversive relationship to that pain that creates true suffering.

I am reading a wonderful book by Jack Kornfield in which he writes a great deal about his time in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand. If he perhaps looked depressed or upset, his teacher, Ajahn Chah, would approach him and say, “Are you suffering?” And Jack would reply, “Yes I am.” And Ajahn Chah, with a smile, would say, “Must be quite attached to something,” and scamper off into the woods. I don’t think one needs to go off to a forest monastery in Thailand to change their relationship to suffering. The wisdom is in our own experience. For me, when I look back at my life, the times I suffered the most was when I was running the hardest, when I was hiding from reality. If I wasn’t hiding from it, I was attached to an idea of reality being a different way. My way. This is just not the way it’s supposed to be. We’re supposed to be together. He’s not supposed to do that. I’m not supposed to be in the hospital. Life isn’t supposed to hurt this much. This type of inner dialogue serves to reinforce this false idea that our ability to be okay depends upon conditions being ideal, or at least in our own favor. And this is delusion. And this sets you up for a lot of disappointment.

When you realize things are impermanent, unstable, and find your peace even in that place … That is true awakening. That’s the ability to be okay regardless of conditions.

On a ten day silent Vipassana meditation retreat, some monks were brought into the temple to chant for us while we sat on the last night after the hauntingly beautiful silence and stillness that is born out of ten days of practice. The monks mindfully walked up to the front and sat down silently on their cushions. I waited, eager to hear them sing. They began to chant in a very low and deep tone in Sanskrit, phrases that I will never forget. All things are impermanent. They arise and they pass away. To live in harmony with this, brings great happiness. All things are impermanent. They arise and they pass away. To live in harmony with this, brings great happiness.

So take a look around your life. Is there an area where maybe you’re a little attached? Maybe attached to a certain outcome? Attached to a certain lifestyle? Attached to a certain person? Or people? Don’t judge, this is not a place for judgment. Just notice. What would happen if you let go just a little? What happens in your body when you even think about letting go just a little? Start investigating these things. Because I know that when I’m suffering… I must be quite attached!!

With love,
Dr. Zack Bein