Attending to Desire

Desire and aversion my day. I want this to happen, I pray that doesn't. They are really the same: desire is to want something, and aversion is to want something. Wanting sets me up for suffering because it matters when I can't have what I want.

Mindfulness allows me to notice my desires and my responses to them, both when they are fulfilled and when they are not. I notice that the things I wanted desperately ten years ago, I don't even notice today. The distress I felt over the things I didn't get tens years ago is not even a ripple in today's serenity. It seems my intense and overwhelming needs were only temporary, arising out of nowhere to crash through me before fading away again.

Of course, when I am in the grip of desire, it seems concrete and permanent, a palpable force. A mindful approach would suggest that such a moment is the perfect time to look more closely at this phenomenon, to question its seeming solidity. If I want and I don't have, is my only choice to suffer over the lack? Or am I suffering over an illusion?

If my desire is passing, is it necessary that I turn my attention to it and feed it? Should I allow it to rule this moment? Or, can I elect to turn my attention to the next thing in my moment, knowing that my desire is simply a passing sensation? Should such a fleeting thing be allowed to hijack my attention?

Our desires are enticing, captivating, bewitching. They masquerade as real, lasting needs, yet they have no more substance than any other illusion. It is not the presence of desire that causes the pain, but rather the way it passes itself off as something to which I must attend intently, in which I must immerse myself. If I manage my attention, my mindfulness, such that I do not dwell upon the desire, do I reduce the harm? Try this yourself and tell me.

Mindfulness

My last post was about awareness, which is a passive phenomenon by the standards of my culture. Doing is considered important, Being is given honorary recognition as an important but rather automatic and uneventful foundation for Doing. A kind of background process, like gravity: useful and pervasive, but not anything to pay attention to in the workaday world.

In the previous post, I also mentioned attention, comparing it to an adjustable beam on a flashlight with the ability to consciously zero in on a given target or broaden out to get a bigger picture. The analogy came to me from others and works for me personally, and it seems to ring a bell with folks I have shared it with.

Doing is a busy state, mother to goals, successes, failures, various levels of control (anxious lapses in control), industrious activity (desperate schedules) and many perceived needs. Being does not include Doing's many children: Being is the stillness from which activity arises. Doing is the chaos of the storm, Being is the eye of quiet at the center. Doing is a tool for when something would be done, Being is the craftsman who uses the tool.

The thinking mind belongs to Doing. Awareness is Being. Confusing the two creates stress. Attention is the key to choosing between confusion and clarity. Attending to the thinking mind, to thoughts, as components of me (I have fingers, I have hairs, I have thoughts) rather than identifying with them as me allows me to understand that I need not react to every thought, every construct and interpretation, as reality.

Mindfulness is a form of attention. It is the direction of the flashlight and the focusing of the beam. It is the neutral but concentrated observation of whatever is illuminated. When I turn mindfulness on my breath, I am attending to the experience of breathing as directly as possible. Obviously I am doing so through the medium of nervous signals - sight (watch the abdomen rise), sound (hear the breath his), touch (feel the air move in the nostrils). Most importantly, though, I am not attending via the filter of words and thoughts - I am trying for a direct sensory experience.

There are two benefits to mindful awareness of the breath. The first is the training of concentration, of focusing attention. It is flashlight-pointing practice. The second is that I am immersed in the sensory experience of right now, which is an exercise in Being, which removes the created stress of thinking about past or future - a topic worthy of its own post! Mindfulness brings me from the artificial words of the thinking mind back to the reality of the moment.

Mindfulness can also be applied to thoughts. I sometimes get immersed in the stories created by my thoughts, responding emotionally and physiologically to events and phenomena that exist only within my own mind. Mindfulness allows me to step back from the story, to move from lead actor to a seat in the audience, and so become an observer of the drama rather than a participant in it. An old exercise in this area is to sit quietly and watch attentively for the next thought to arise with the alert patience of a cat waiting at a mouse hole. When it comes, I acknowledge it (yes, I do have to go to work soon) and then turn my flashlight back to the mouse hole, allowing the thought to float away. In this manner, I learn that thoughts are simply passing phenomena that arise (often unbidden) and pass of their own accord. They are not me and they are not permanent, enduring realities. Most importantly, I learn the stories are not real and only exist when I point the light at them.

Mindfulness is a powerful tool for use in any self-change or self-exploration project. When resting vibrantly in Being, in Awareness, it is not of much use any more than a flashlight helps see during daylight. If I become lost in the stories, though, stumbling around in the emotional distress of the storm, mindfulness can bring me back to that calmness that always exists in the eye at the center.

http://www.umassmed.edu/content.aspx?id=41252
http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html
http://www.mindfulness.com
http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/instant_mindfulness.html
http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/mindfulness_handouts.html

D

Why Aware?

Awareness is living. To be aware is to notice stimuli, as from the senses or from thought. It is to see through illusion, whether sensory or cognitive, by noticing its presence. It is the core life experience behind thinking, playing, running, lovemaking, eating, sleeping.

Attention is focused awareness. I direct attention for a purpose; it is important to my survival and my goals. Like a flashlight beam, I will narrow in on a single thing or back out for a broader view - attention is useful. Awareness is experiencing the night when the flashlight is off, without imaginary fears or illusory anxieties, but simply accepting the dimness and sound as it happens. When I am simply aware, I am part of the night and have no need to manipulate it or dispel it.

Awareness happens correctly all by itself. It simply is - there is no manipulation or purpose: it is being. We add complexity when we begin doing things: this is normal and expected. To get lost in the complexity is not a requirement of doing, though. We can return to the simplicity of being at any time in the same way an artist can step back from his canvas at will for a new perspective. All of the meaning, interpretation and complexity we add to life is not inherent in reality itself, but rather consists simply of stokes we've painted atop our awareness.

Clarity is reality without concepts. What is, is. Health is clarity. Happiness is clarity, Serenity is clarity. To be only aware in the present moment is all this without the words.

D