I Like My Distractions

Q: I like my distractions - my wife, my kids, my work, my hobbies. Actually I am rather happy unless I think about the stuff you talk about and think I ought to seek something else. Eternal happiness eludes me, quite frankly.

MM: Then you are already wise.

Why Distraction?

Q: You say the we seek re-union through distraction. I don't understand that.

MM: We become separated from infinite peace and serenity, and all-knowing oneness through our senses, in other words through being in our bodies, and consequently through our mind. We are not our bodies , or mind - there is much more - or maybe I should say - much, much less to us than meets the eye. We cannot imagine who or what we truly are beyond our physical experience of ourselves. Therefore we seek happiness through what we think will make us happy, but this is all based on what we think will satisfy us.

By that we usually mean what satisfies us in some form through our senses. Health, wealth, pleasure, power - you name it - but none of it will work for long because it can never take us to our original, and eternal, state. That state only needs to be rediscovered by taking away everything that is of body or mind. That is who we are beyond doubt, time, space, or experience.

It sounds mysterious and it is. Yet it is the most natural of all. You could say that our true nature is God. That is re-union.

Distraction

Q: I feel distracted by so many things and it does not leave me much time for relaxing and meditation. Somehow, even though I know I should, I don't seem to be able to change it.


MM: Regarding distraction - we seek re-union and mistake many things as ways to get there - even if it is just people we don't want to say "No" to out of fear of losing them - until our eyes open...

I found this on Wikipedia of all places. Sometimes you just have to wait until you can handle the truth. Then change is automatic and not something "you do", but something that naturally happens in your life.

A striking example of Vipashyana was provided by a student of mine in her early twenties who had been meditating for some time. Since her late teens, she had been a devotee of "raves," dance parties held at enormous warehouses in our area, attended by literally thousands of young people. Well-known bands are engaged, the music is loud, alcohol and drugs are sometimes consumed, and the dancing goes on until dawn. The atmosphere is said to be usually "mellow" and fun, and the young folks are drawn back to the parties again and again. My student was attending a rave one Saturday night and, for no apparent reason, wanted to feel the cool, the space, and the silence of the night. She left the huge warehouse where the party was happening and walked across an adjacent field onto a a hillock beyond. Turning around, she looked at the building, throbbing with music and blazing with light, packed as it was by several thousand ravers. Suddenly, without warning, it was as if her eyes were opened for the first time and she "saw" the party--so she reported--in all its naked reality. She saw the tremendous desperation of the people inside, their loneliness and hunger, how they had all come there seeking to escape from their suffering. She saw how they had all become predators, preying upon one another, in a fruitless search for happiness. It was an endless game in which, she too, was involved. Overcome by the sorrow and hopelessness of the situation, she broke down and wept. She came to talk to me because, as she said, this experience had shown her something not only about raves, but about life in general, about the many things people do out of their own pain and misery. She told me that she felt, for the first time, the meaning of suffering. She saw her experience as a direct product of her meditation practice and her commitment to her spiritual path. Her experience made her realize, again for the first time, that her meditation was the one anchor in her life and that the spiritual journey she had undertaken was about having her eyes opened, in perhaps shocking and painful ways, to the underpinnings of the seemingly normal, everyday world.

I Love My Body

Q: I love my body - except for a few parts I'd improve if I could. But mostly I am rather vain and pleased and it gives me a lot of power to be beautiful. Otherwise I consider myself a spiritual person, but I worry about being so happy about how I look and the time I even spend to make myself look even better with make-up and clothes. Should I fight this and try to overcome this to be a better person?

MM: If you try to fight it, it becomes stronger. You will become vain about being un-vain. You will become vain about your "inner beauty". Just notice the tension in yourself when you are showing off your beauty or standing in front of the mirror trying to make yourself even more beautiful and just relax this particular tension. There is beauty there today, which will disappear in old age - you need to find the knack how to not identify with the beauty today, and the ugliness of tomorrow in old age. Otherwise you have no freedom.

Q: But how do you do that?

MM: Look at your first statement; "I love my body". In a way you are lucky, as most people will say "I hate my body". Both are equally silly tough. Who loves who? Who is it who can say I love or hate - "my" body, or somebody, for that matter?

Is it the body itself that you think is "you". This "I" that the ocean, for example, does not have. The ocean would never say "I hate, or love, my waves". This "I" is foolishness. Without "I", there is beauty or ugliness, but you are free. Free from "I", and all that comes with it - the expectations of beauty and the disappointments of ugliness.

Q: But then, if you tell me that way I am then free, who is free versus un-free?

MM: Precisely!!!

Q: There is no one there!?

MM: ... and there is no "there" there either :-)

Greed

Q: MeditationMom, what exactly is greed and why is it considered unspiritual?

MM: It is just a tension. Greed enters your heart through the eyes. You see something and you want it - or really, really don't want it - which is reverse greed - aversion and fear. There isn't anything more wrong with greed than with any other kind of tension. There are only two ways to relieve the tension of greed. One is to "get what you want", and the other is simply to relax and let go of what you think you want. You have to let go of thinking and all the attachments that feed greed. This can be surprisingly difficult even for typically non-greedy people in certain circumstances.

The first way to get rid of greed - achieving what you wanted -  is temporary and you will only want the next thing once you get what you wanted, so it doesn't really get rid of greed.  The other is in your control and can be permanent if you chose. Once you can relax greed, you can also "turn it on" at will when you need to compete with another person for resources, or just for fun and games - like any sport or game. People channel their greed and violence into sports and games and there also learn that detachment leads to better outcomes.

The first way is the way of the world and highly useful in many instances, like getting food and shelter, or winning a game. It becomes "evil"- in the sense that it makes other people afraid - depending on the lengths you are willing to go to get what you want. And it becomes plain silly when you want silly things like garden gnomes or Warhol paintings and are tempted to steal from your neighbor's house, or if you decide to cheat at golf. Greed itself is natural - how you go about relieving that tension is what makes it good or evil in your or other people's eyes. Whether you are the master, or it is master over you, is what makes it "spiritual" or "unspiritual".

Greed and fear are closely linked - and almost the same thing. Like night and day they melt into each other. Greed and fear are the tug of war of the mind, while a peaceful mind feels no such thing as fear or greed. "Spiritual" simply means "peaceful mind" - a peaceful mind is a mind grounded in the non-material. You can act on your own behalf against others in the material world with a perfectly peaceful mind. Such a person rejoices in what others gain as much as in their own gain, while the truly fearful and greedy are very much troubled by other people's good fortune.

Q: If greed enters the mind through the eyes, does that mean blind people are never greedy?

MM: No. It also enters through hearing, touching, smelling...there are many doors for greed to enter. The magic phrase to hold in one's mind to trick greed is "less is more" and "loss is gain" and then learn and know that it is true. Even when you lose your life.

Q: Even when you lose your life? How can that be a good thing?

MM: I didn't say it is a good thing. If someone steals something from you it also is not a good thing. But your distress can be instantly relieved if you remind yourself that less is more and loss is gain. Now you are free from all that worry about someone stealing from you, or your life being threatened or lost. Knowing that anything in the material world ultimately has no value at all - even your life - is the key to happiness and serenity here on this earth.

Q: Yes, but in the meantime we have to survive and often fight with others for resources.

MM: Yes and No. Jesus simply decided to stop all that and see what happens. It ended in him getting crucified, of course. He was very sure of the truth and trusted it - although with some difficulty during the crucifixion ("why have you forsaken me"). But in the end, he died a free man. ("Forgive them, for they do not know what they do.")

Q: Jesus was different and unique, though. It's not that you or I could say that, if someone were to murder us or one of our children.

MM: That is just an excuse, and not the truth. We are all able. Jesus was also "only human" when it came to being rather unhappy and uncomfortable, to say the least, at being crucified.

Q: Doesn't that kind of thinking makes many Christians just doormats for abusive people.

MM: Yes, Jesus was the ultimate doormat. As far as survival goes it is better to be the torturer than the tortured. As far as eternal life is concerned, though, you will not know it unless you are willing to give up what you have. All of it. Your possessions, you opinions, your religion, your philosophies, your loved ones, your own life.

Now, don't start giving it all away, leave your family, or kill yourself to get into heaven. That is greed in disguise. Just don't concern yourself with all these things - having and not having, getting and not getting, losing and keeping - but abide in truth and serenity. It is a choice you make, more than anything else.

Q: That makes me think of Bernie Madoff and all of his victims. Are you saying they can benefit from having everything stolen from them?

MM: We have no control over thieves and robbers. When you get robbed in life - of your money or your dignity - it is completely up to you whether you benefit from it or suffer from it. You do have control over that. The root cause of all suffering is your mind. You can turn lead into gold, suffering and pain into joy and freedom, but you cannot stop thieves.

Q: That's sounds like thieves somehow get off the hook. The thought of Bernie Madoff in his cell contemplating that he may have benefitted his victims "if they only turn it around" in their heads... I don't know...doesn't work for me. I am more the revenge type of guy who would like to see him hanging from the nearest tree.

MM: I have seen some very sweet old ladies on TV who "couldn't hurt a fly" who feel very strongly - like you - that he deserves the death penalty for the amount of suffering he has caused. It just proves that all of us are murderers if provoked. Stealing pales in comparison to murder.

What Is Evil?

Q: What exactly is evil if there are different standards in different cultures?

MM: We tend to call what we are afraid of "evil". Of course we would be afraid of someone trying to murder us. So we call murder evil. We would call a hurricane or earthquake "sent by the devil" - or by" George Bush" - but there is no inherent evil in it. We are just afraid of it. There are infinite things to be afraid of. When there is no fear there is no evil. Even in the case of the murderer. If you are not afraid of being murdered, you can not see any evil in a murderer.

So-called "evil" is mostly stupidity. Pretty mundane and boring, committed by dumb or even innocent people out of fear or greed, or misguided notions, who "do not know what they are doing". And don't be fooled by the "highly intelligent" evil. There is no greater stupidity than the superiorly intelligent who commit evil. Hitler, for example, would be called "evil" by a fearful person, or "stupid" by a scholar, or "poor" by a childhood psychologist.

Q: How about "the evil in us"? Our not so pretty selves we try to manage or hide?

MM: Greed and fear, nothing else. Don't hide it. Be greedy, be fearful and see how foolish it is. There is no need to struggle with it once you experience it directly for yourself. You will naturally give it up. Otherwise you will always think the greedy are smarter, and the fearful dumber than you, and you will lack compassion.

Q: There are times I think I am evil.

MM: You are afraid of yourself. When do you think you are evil?

Q: When I am greedy.

MM: Who is calling you greedy?

Q: I am.

MM: Then stop. If there is no one there to call you greedy you will not be needy and afraid anymore.

Q: But how do I work on myself to grow and become a better person, then?

MM: Who is there to be improved, and who is working on whom? It is all nonsense of the mind.

First the mind says "I like, want, need, or should have" and grasps for something, then it calls this greed, and then it wants to fix this greediness out of fear of being judged greedy. It is all your mind doing all this. It all starts with "I". This idea of "I" is the root cause of all fear and greed. Simply stop.

Q: But what if others call me greedy?

MM: Or "stupid", or "rude", or "fat", or "mean"...or "beautiful", or "smart", or "kind", or "enlightened"...make sure there is no "I" there to agree or disagree with "them"!

2012 And Your Children

Q: There is a new movie coming out - "2012"-  about polar shifts, the end of the Mayan Calendar, and the possible end of the world. I don't know what to think, and I especially don't know what to tell my children about it.

MM: What are they asking you?

Q: Is the world ending, Mom?

MM: So then what do you say?

Q: I just say: "No, honey...that's all nonsense."

MM: That's a good answer. It's what NASA is telling people - so you are in good company.

Q: But what if there is truth to it all?

MM: There is never truth "to it all". There is truth to the fact that the world can come to an end - anytime - even if it just means you or your child could get killed in a car accident tomorrow.

The response to the possibility of death needs to always be gratitude for today, rather than fear of tomorrow. Living without fear, but in gratitude and joy, in the face of our undeniable physical mortality, is the highest teaching you can give your child. It means never taking life for granted, without being hopeless, no matter the material, physical circumstances. It is the secret to eternal life. Eternal life is not immortality. As we seek immortality, we move further and further away from eternal life.

Hollywood has gotten to you :-). It is how they make their money. "The End of the World" has always made a lot of money for preachers, churches and many entertainment and survival industries. It is the oldest trick. There is only one real way to prepare for the end of the world - and that is to say "Thank You" for today - every day. Then you will encounter your last day on earth - whenever and for whatever reason it comes - like every day, also in peace, gratitude and celebration.

Q: Then why do people fall for these doomsday predictions?

MM: It makes them feel special and clever. There is nobody more disappointed when the end of the world doesn't come, than the well-prepared. The true "end of the world" is an internal experience - when you are ready - a mystical event that sets you free.

Q: So is this movie irresponsible, then?

MM:  It is exploitive, but that's just business, like countless others. It is up to people to inform themselves properly, be that about astrophysics, or nutrients in food, or spiritual truths. It is also up to people how they respond to the real fact that all life ends in death and that this death is unpredictable, unavoidable, will most likely include suffering, etc. It is each individual's own responsibility. It is easy to exploit people who are afraid -  of anything - being too fat, or ugly, or old, uninteresting, or doomed by planetary alignments. It is what most of our economy runs on.

Q: What if my kids really want to see this movie?

MM: You as the parent can say "No"..., or go with your children and counter the message. Most likely the message of the movie will also be that "if we - who love each other - stick together against all the evil forces in the world and universe, we will survive - against all odds. Even if we die, our love for each other is eternal and cannot be touched by all this destruction" Very much like in the other Sony movie, "Independence Day". It is always the same formula. Love overcomes fear and doom, which actually is a spiritual truth. Hollywood gets us into the movie by using our fear, and our greed for the spectacular, and releases us in higher spirits, of hope and love.

Q: To your earlier point - I don't think I could "face death in peace, gratitude and celebration" - no matter how much I were to meditate. I would be too worried about my children, no matter how much I appreciate today. That might make it worse for me, actually. To die, or have anything happen to them, seems worse, the more I enjoy today.

MM: No doubt this is true for most parents. But - you are very much underestimating meditation. You have not yet touched eternity. The enjoyment you are talking about is the kind we call "having fun" and "having a good time" - staying  in a good mood, etc. The enjoyment I am talking about, the one that "touches eternity", is much deeper and cannot be taken away by death.