Allan Ramsay
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I'll Be More Like a Dog from Now On

4/14/2016

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In my humble opinion, meditation is a huge part of learning what the Course in Miracles has to offer. Here's a fun article on mediation I wrote for my weekly writer's group. It's light-hearted. Hope you enjoy it.

PictureBecky. My life partner and fave meditation partner on what life seems to bring us.

​The question is: Should I weave a clever web of words that gradually lets the reader discover the point I want to make? Or should I explain everything right up front? I'll opt for the latter, more or less.

So here's the point: The noise of air flowing in and out of my nostrils was loud enough to make me think of tornadoes and wind storms. It raged through my nostrils at each in-breath and, especially, at each exhale. From now on I'm going to lay on my belly when I meditate. That's the point of this story. 

You see, I was listening to that man with three names. Jon Kabat-Zinn. Doctor. PhD. Founder of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine at the University of Massachusetts School of Medicine. 

He was leading me through a guided mindfulness meditation (get an example here) and told me to pay attention to my breath. The idea is that paying attention to breathing distracts the mind from its usual “monkey chatter” of thoughts that pop up and and never stop running. Most people can't ignore that chatter for more than a few seconds, so focusing on one's breath is a good way to stop the chatter and begin noticing the present moment—which is all any of us ever have or will have. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The past is history, the future a mystery, and today is a gift. That's why they call it the present.”

Kabat-Zinn said if I pay attention to my breathing I could find myself mindfully in the present moment. He said I could attend to the sound and feeling of air moving through my nostrils. Or, I might pay attention to the rise and fall of my belly. Or my chest. Whatever, for me, gave me the most vivid sensation of breathing. 

I stretched out on my chaise lounge in the Florida sun, listening to my breath as it wafted through my nostrils. But, as Kabat-Zinn pointed out, the mind has an active life of its own. It's inquisitive. It obsesses over ideas. It can carry one's focus and attention to far away places. So far you forget about your breath and about meditating.

Indeed. After a short time my attention got side tracked. Diverted. High jacked. Soon I noticed I was thinking about what I would do later. What I had already done. What I might do. My breath was just too reserved and quiet to keep my attention in the present moment.

A bead of sweat formed on my upper lip as the April sun shone on my face. A droplet rolled down my cheek and the trickle caught my attention. Forgetting my breath altogether, I wiped my face.  I turned over on my stomach so the sun wouldn't make my face sweat. 

With sunglasses keeping me in darkness against the brilliant sunshine; with iPod headphones on my ears playing Kabat-Zinn's gentle words; and with a ball cap on my head, with the visor re-positioned to keep the sun out of my eyes — I pressed my body and my face into the thick, luxurious cushion of the chaise lounge. But I couldn't find a comfortable place for my nose. No matter how I turned, I couldn't relax without constricting the air flow through my nostrils.

Okay, I thought. This session is about meditation, not distractions. Go with the flow. Get used to it. Forget the problem with my nose. Gradually I relaxed and couldn't help but notice the wind whistling in and out of my nostrils at each breath. 

It was a loud, roaring, sibilant whooshing, whistling, hissing sound, especially on the out-breath. Something like the sound of rhythmically ripping cotton bed sheets into thin strips. That cadenced sound roared in my ears like a white noise tornado sucking air molecules in and blowing them back out. 

After several minutes I raised my head off the cushion and realized: Hey! I can't hear myself think. Yay! That's what I'm shootin' for. 

It seems having no comfortable place to put my nose was just what I needed. So from now on when I meditate I'll try to be more like a dog. They usually lay on their belly. And they never, ever think about breathing.​

Picture
Our beloved shetlies, Sunny Rose and Bonnie Blue. Our best friends for 13 years. We'll join them on the rainbow bridge one day. Until then, they are our most favorite dreams of Love each night.
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​Don't Try this Unless You're Ready for Serious Change.

2/18/2016

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Picture
I've recently discovered a new tool that is enriching my practice of the Course: Loving-kindness meditation. Perhaps this is something you've practiced for a long time. For me, it's much more than a new tool I'm adding to my meditation practice around the Course and its Lessons. It's something that brings the Course alive moment by moment as I interact with others.

From The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, “Metta bhavana, or loving-kindness meditation, is a method of developing compassion. It comes from the Buddhist tradition, but it can be adapted and practiced by anyone, regardless of religious affiliation; loving-kindness meditation is essentially about cultivating love.” What could be better?

It brings about an emotion, something you feel in your heart. It's much like the warm, pure, clean feeling you might have after communing with the people in your Course in Miracles study group. It's much like the feeling you might have as you contemplate your love and appreciation for your pet—perhaps the only creature on the planet that gives you unconditional love. No matter. It's a powerful feeling, a powerful emotion. And it feels really good.

Loving-kindness meditation is truly powerful. When I think the words and ideas this meditation uses as I interact with others, it magnifies the encounter. The cashier at the grocery store checkout line. The friend sitting across from me at Starbucks engaging in conversation. The driver in the next car who may have cut me off. The person I am speaking with on the phone. To all of them I can say one or a few of these ideas silently:

May you be well.
May you be happy, healthy and whole.

May you have love, warmth and affection.
May you be protected from harm and free from fear.
May you be alive and joyful.
May you experience inner peace and ease.

As I extend those ideas to them, I picture them receiving my good wishes. Those wishes put a “halo” around the other person; those wishes endear the person to me. What's more, they encourage me to think in terms of the many foundational teachings the Course offers. For example:

When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose sight of yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet, they are given another chance at salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it yourself, for I am always there with you in remembrance of you. (ACIM OE T.8.IV.19) 

Want to learn more? Check out this amazing website that offers a complete eight-week free mindfulness training program, the same as offered by Jon Kabat-Zinn and his associates at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. At the sidebar on the left you'll find a simple, clear and effective thirteen-minute guided loving-kindness meditation. Click the icon at center screen to hear the meditation. Better yet, download it to your device (lovingkindness.mp3) so you can listen to it whenever you like. 


Enjoy! And do get started. What could be a better  time for some serious change? All we have is now.

​


Photo credit: Flickr, by Andy Bernay-Roman, Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic_
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You habitually think about only two things. I know what they are. Do you?

1/29/2016

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PictureImage Credit: Flickr. Antoine Vasse Nicolas, Creative Commons
Studying A Course in Miracles isn't about rote learning, the kind we did as kids when we memorized state capitals or the multiplication tables. The Course is a mind training curriculum that teaches us to learn an entirely new way of perceiving. Once we begin to master that new way of perceiving, we can begin thinking about what we perceive with freshly-opened eyes. 

Each day's lesson asks us to spend some time thinking about the lesson throughout the day. Rather than just repeating the words of the lesson, I like to meditate on the lesson with hopes of finding the profound truth that usually underlies the words themselves. 

But there's a problem. When I sit down to begin meditating, my mind wants to think only about one of two things: the past or the future. 

Think about it. We spend much of our waking life replaying what-if's in our head about what happened yesterday, last month or decades ago. "What if I had done that differently? I was such a jerk! I shouldn't have acted that way..." Sadly, there's no end to the lifetime of memories we can dredge up from the primeval ooze to take front stage in our thinking. The past is dead and gone. Funny how we spend so much mental time there! Even stranger is that we spend so much time beating ourselves up over things dead and gone. ("Beat and repeat." That seems to be the mantra we use to make damn sure we never forgive ourselves for past "sins." But that's a topic for another day.)

When we think about the future we're focusing on something that's not happened and may never happen. But, oh my, what if so-and-so does happens? What if she says she doesn't love me? What if I don't have enough money? What will I do when he or she dies? Our thoughts about the future are often worries. Fears of what might happen. It's interesting to learn that the subcortical brain structure known as the amygdala is linked to fear responses. In women the amygdala is slightly larger, prompting some to speculate that larger size explains women's more cautious, circumspect and less aggressive approach to life. I'm no expert on brain physiology or function, but I know many of us tend to think about the future fearfully, in terms of what might go wrong, no matter how large or small our amygdala might be.

Now none of this is to say that we don't also spend time thinking about a wonderful vacation we had a few years ago, or the love of our life, or the loving fun we had with our dogs when they were puppies. Or, the exciting times yet to come when some goodness descends upon us. Sure, we can have happy thoughts about the past and future as well as fearful thoughts. But my premise survives: We spend most of our time thinking about the past and the future. 

LET'S DIVE IN

What's so hard with thinking about right NOW? That's not a rhetorical question. Here's a simple challenge that will reveal your own mind to you. 

1. Sit back in your chair and relax.
2. Close your eyes.
3. Pay attention to the inflow and outflow of your breath.
4. Once you're comfortable, mentally say "GO." Begin counting your inhales and begin watching your thoughts as you continue to count.
5. See how high you can count without your mind bubbling up a thought related to the past or the future. 

The goal isn't to avoid thinking. It's simply to notice what bubbles up. If you want to see how your mind truly works you'll have to be brutally honest with yourself. You'll need to notice any thought that bubbles up as you sit relaxing and counting your breath. 

I'll bet you won't get past a count of three without having a thought of the past or the future. A count of five would be amazing!

This simple practice reveals how unconsciously our so-called conscious mind works. Mindfulness expert Dr. Mark W. Muesse refers to our everyday state of mind as "mindlessness." It's a state where our mind bubbles up a constant stream of (what I call) babble, and what others have called "monkey mind." Our brain, as Michael Singer would agree, is just an organ that does a certain job. Complex through it may be, it's an organ just as a thyroid, a kidney or a spleen are organs. The problem is, we think the mind that seems to live in our brain, along with our body, is what we are. Students of A Course in Miracles all know, on some level, that's a false belief.

BUT LET'S GO EVEN DEEPER

Now, if you'd like to take a deeper dive into this little challenge, you could choose to analyze your thoughts even more acutely. You'd be looking for any thought that suggests you know what the subject of your thought is all about. For example, a thought might bubble up about the cup of coffee you sipped moments ago, or the coffee you'll pour in a little while.

It's clear that in either case you're thinking about past or future. But there's another layer. It has to do with what you think you know.

Of course you think you know what a cup of coffee is. But I'm sure you'll agree: What you know about a cup and about coffee is based in past learning. For example, a cup is a small, open container made of china, glass, metal, etc., usually having a handle and used chiefly as a receptable from which to drink tea, soup, etc. You learned that sometime in the past. When your thought bubbles up something about a cup of coffee, it's using the past. So for the sake of this exercise, such a thought is a thought of the past. 

Adding this new qualifier to your thoughts makes it virtually impossible to think without invoking the past, simply because all our learning about everything comes from past learning—from language itself to our understanding of the universe and all the things in it. 

"So? What's the point?" you might ask. This is where you can take the deepest dive. Practice the exercise above with the intent of surpassing your previous count. Practice every day. (I like to envision the past on my left and the future on my right. I set an intention to sit directly between and equidistant from each of them in perfect mental silence). Bit by bit you'll find you can extend that mental silence and approach what Lesson 189 talks about in paragraph 7 when it teaches us that "I feel the Love of God within me now."

SUMMARY
Is there a summary? Sure. NOW is the only time that exists. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that’s why they call it the present." This little exercise can be quite profound if you choose it to be. See if you can get past three breaths without thinking of the past or future. Let me know how that works for you!

P.S. If you'd like to learn what it's like to have no knowledge of anything, (which Lesson 189 asks us to do), check out this TED Talk video by neuro-anatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.

It's a fascinating 18 minutes describing a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one. An astonishing story. 




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