St. Jude's Summary 11-11-2008

There was a question regarding the commentary on the Third Commandment from last week. The interpretation of that commandment as I understand it, is that we are not to proclaim that we are doing God’s will when we are really carrying out our own agenda. The problem with “doing God’s will” is that we are simply not wise enough to know what that is. Even if we think we are doing the right thing, we may simply not have enough information to know what is best, or simply be thinking incorrectly since we are human and make mistakes. However when we have convinced ourselves that we are “doing God’s will” we become blind to our mistakes and we stop listening to the input from others. Thus our actions can be extremely destructive even if they are well-intentioned, and because we are “doing God’s will” God takes the blame for that. I think that commandment is telling us that it is much safer for me to simply to take responsibility for my own actions and leave God out of them. That way I can keep questioning myself and if something goes wrong no one blames God.

Another question was about the idea of smiling with the breath, or becoming mindful of a smile as one breathes. There are four levels of mindfulness that have been described. The first is being mindful of sensations as they come and go. The second is being mindful of thoughts, especially thoughts that are fleeting. The third level of mindfulness is being mindful of craving or repulsion toward whatever it is arising in awareness. The fourth level of mindfulness might best be described as the “way of relating”. This is more nuanced than the craving or repulsion from the third level of mindfulness. Being mindful of a smile as one breathes relates to this fourth level of mindfulness. One relates to the breath with a warm, friendly attitude that can then generalize to phenomena other than the breath.
Note that mindfulness is not passive acceptance, it is cultivating a receptivity with the intention of changing one’s way of being in the world. Becoming aware of the way one relates to the breath and cultivating a warm friendly way of relating changes how we breathe and how we live.
When we smile with our breath we want to smile from the heart first and let that smiling energy radiate up to the eyes and then to the face as a whole. We don’t just smile with our mouth. Once we are smiling with the breath it is easier to radiate that smiling, warm, friendly energy to others in our environment. This is a fun practice during the holiday season. We can move through crowds of stressed, hurried shoppers and radiate a warm friendly smile. It’s interesting and enjoyable to watch the results.

Meditation and learning. When we are learning a new task, we have a low probability of succeeding at the task. As we succeed at the task, our probability of future success increases. For example, when a baby starts to walk it has a low probability of taking a step successfully. Once it starts taking steps successfully the probability of taking steps successfully increases until the steps happen automatically. When we meditate we are training ourselves to shift awareness and attention in order to evoke various responses. When we first start the chance of success is usually low. However each time we succeed in shifting our awareness or attention than the chance of succeeding the next time increases.
A key to succeeding is to give ourselves lots of chances to practice and to have patience when we are first starting. That is why it is so important to create brief meditation techniques and practice them throughout the day. Those give us lots of chances to succeed and even if our chance of success is low and it will happen occasionally. Once we start getting a few successes the chance of success goes up and success becomes more automatic. We can also reinforce the success if we remember it several times after it’s happened. So instead of having a successful experience and then just going about our business we can remember the successful experience a few times to reinforce it.

Meditation on flow and movement. Our physical body moves and curves. Our joints rotate and we can meditate by directing our attention to the arcs and curves that our body describes in space. We can also become aware of the flow of momentum or energy from one joint to another. By placing awareness and attention on the flow of momentum in curved paths through our body across the joints we can release tension and become more graceful and our movements.

Meditation on flow and movement with light. When we visualize light there is a tendency to make it static. We are supposed to visualize like light or a particular color of light filling our body but there really isn’t much dynamism to that. We can also use our imagination to imagine light as a dynamic experience. The light is shifting or flowing in its intensity and color. For example if you’ve ever seen dawn in the desert you’ve experienced light in a dynamic way. Light on water is another example. Photos or videos of solar activity show huge surges in energy and movement.
When we meditate on light as a metaphor for Spirit I think it helps to include this dynamic aspect of light because Spirit is dynamic.