Tinge of Agression

154 Sundays to go.

• Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets.  I’ve read 0 of them not even the Cliff Notes.   I appreciate lines like “full of sound and fury signifying nothing” which will be on my tombstone.    I know people who say they love Willie once they took a class and someone explained what was going on.   I don’t want to work that hard.  
• Up until 1961, Major League Baseball played 154 games before increasing to the present day 162. 

       I began a daily meditation practice of 20 minutes this week in the evening while my wonderful wife was watching her favorite show.     I don’t do the full lotus, or even the half lotus because its too painful.    I can’t get my legs into that position.    I remember seeing my 8 year old students sit on the floor and sitting on their butts.   Then they put their legs underneath them into an “M” shape.   That’s a flexibility I never had even as a youth 50 years ago.   I tell that to my students and tell them about the “M” shape and half of them immediately flop into it beaming at me as I stare in amazement.      I used to sit cross legged on a meditation cushion but now I don’t even do that.    When I get up 20 minutes later I’m stiff and hobbling.   If I thought I would loosen myself up eventually and get used to it, I would persist but I tried and it doesn’t get better.    So now I just sit comfortably on my bed with my back straight.    Again,  I don’t want to work that hard.   The Buddha called it the middle way.    Why torture myself?

         The first day went fine, boring but fine.   But that’s the meditation, to be aware of the boredom and be ok with what is happening.    The second day, I realized about 5 minutes into it that I forgot to send an email and spent another 3 minutes conceptually thinking about the email.   I knew I could just do it later but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.    I tried to be fine with not being able to do it.    I tried being fine that I was uncomfortable with not being able to do it.    Then I just got up and did the email.     Hell,  its just one day.     Later I thought that’s how, in my alcoholism, I used to confront  wanting to drink.    I would tell myself all the reasons why I shouldn’t but then I would still find myself driving to the liquor store getting alcohol.   Oh, well.   I’ll just have a couple.   A couple turned into another vicious hangover and all the regrets and bad feelings that come with another alcoholic ass kicking.  

        The next day, right before I went in for meditation I started thinking about a recent situation where I was wronged and what I should have done and said.   It was too late to turn it around but still mind was racing and the angry feelings of martyrdom were percolating.    I went in and sat with it.   I felt the feelings and then about 3 minutes later I realized I was not meditating but deep in martyrdom and wasted the last 3 minutes.    I got back in and was OK with not feeling OK but a little while later had gone back into the “land of what’s not happening” and quit.      I knew again I should just ride it out but saw myself getting up rather than confront what was really happening.   I was “not content with what I was experiencing.”

          I read a column in Shambala Sun by Sakyong Mipham, the son of Chogyam Trungpa.   He said, “…you are experiencing a tinge of aggression, which manifests as a feeling of disharmony and uneasiness.   We are not content with what we are experiencing.”  I was not content with being bored, not being able to do the email or the feelings of being wronged.
He goes on to say we have a natural ease and clarity.    I stumbled upon this when I used to use Thich Nhat Hanh’s method of a half smile during meditation.  Sounds ridiculous to be smiling like an idiot when you’re by yourself with nothing obvious to be smiling about. But, you know what? It works. Turns out subconsciously you know you have lots to be smiling about. Conceptual mind or ego blocks it out. Ego survives on being in turmoil.   It was easy and natural and is always instantly available.    

        I was armed to use that the next day in meditation.    I was going to smile when I felt like getting up.    I  never got the chance.   The meditation went off without a hitch.    A little boring in spots but then I’m trying to get over that sometimes life is just what it is and it is just is sometimes.   In fact it always just is.    Smiling and being happy is easy.    When I do it, I sometimes just disappear and become the happiness.     I feel the boundaries of what I take myself to be expanding.    There is a pressure in my head and a feeling that I am expanding my physical space.     It is a little scary.   I wonder when I do it if it could be dangerous.    Maybe I won’t snap out of it and will disappear.

       I remember once having an out of body experience when I was in high school after smoking a lot of pot.    I was lying in my bed and I had this sense that I was above myself.     I sensed my family around me talking about me as if I had died or that I never snapped out of the high and I was just lying there as a vegetable.      It was scary and it bothered me for a few days after.   Maybe the memory of that still lingers when I do that meditation.    I’ll lose what I take myself to be.    From what I read and hear from the masters that exactly what I should want to happen.   Still its a scary proposition turning away from exactly what ego has built to protect itself.   Ego wants it to be scary.

       I will keep it going.    No word yet on when I’m going to start my daily guitar practice again.    First things first.    At least that’s what I’m going with.