Trusting the Present Moment, part 2
Question: "I have difficulty in trusting the moment, in relaxing into 'what is' instead of trying to control everything. I have difficulty trusting people, even though I would like to see the good in them. Sometimes I just don't. How can a person learn to trust more?" (from 2002, email correspondence continued from part 1)
There are two particular areas of trusting the present moment that are interesting to look into. One is about how we think about who we are, and one is about how we think about what happens to us.
It was amazing to me, when I actually started meditating, to notice how many thoughts came up about what other people think of me--what they might think about something I had just done, or about something that I did last week, what I was about to do--whatever! I didn't even realize that I had that going on. Even if we are confident and socially skilled, it is as if we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to "manage" how other people see us, by making sure that we haven't offended, or that they understand our motivations, or that we repair anything we've done that might leave the wrong impression, or that they see us in a way that we are comfortable with. It is daunting to realize how much we don't trust that who we actually are is okay, okay to be revealed to the world.
I am finding that the best way to work with this is to (surprise!!) notice it more. I find that when I notice it, I can also recall my intention to be more defenseless and real and authentic--and it's easier to drop any spinning about it. If I say something that I later find wanting, I find I am more often able to say to myself, "Well, that's just me, that's what's really true, that's what I was really thinking", not in a resigned or disgusted way, but just--undefended, like "It's okay for you to see me as I really am." (Unless I think I've said something unkind--even though it's accidental I find it hard to forgive myself).
Of course, lots of times it is not so easy. There are always parts of ourselves or things we've done that we are ashamed of or feel inadequate about or are very vulnerable about. So it's not always easy (though it can be powerful if you can do it) to start with big giant things. But if we start small, by noticing how often we think about how we come across to others, and try seeing if we can feel safe to be revealed in the smaller idiosyncracies and failings, it softens things up. Eventually we may feel that we can be more and more authentic, even when we feel embarrassed about our weakness and failure. It's not so much that those things stop making us uncomfortable, more that we need to spend less mental space planning how we can hide/justify/distract from/make up for all the places where we think we are less than perfect.
In many ways this is the crux of the whole thing--Buddhism, that is, and just being present. It’s our unwillingness to actually be who we are, undefended, authentic, revealed. That feels so scary and unsafe, and in practical terms sometimes it is (e.g. in our jobs there times when being our most authentic selves might cause consternation!). But I believe those times are much less frequent that our fear would have us believe. In my experience the practice of looking into that, seeing all the ways in which we try to manage how people see us or react to us or evaluate us, brings us closer to seeing how we're not trusting this moment, this self in this moment, as it actually is. Just seeing that clearly causes transformation to occur over time.
You can actually see that it is safer than you think, by remembering what it feels like to be with someone who is being real, whole, authentic. It's such a relief. It's like a compassionate side effect--when we are real, other people feel safer to be real too--it's a ripple effect. It feels safe to be human, an incomplete, imperfect self, but real.
So, it's not trying to do anything differently--just noticing the amount of mental chatter that is aimed in that direction--evaluating and managing other peoples' image of us--and maybe occasionally asking ourselves, "what's that about?" to see what lies below it at deeper levels--but not getting too stuck in analyzing that, either.
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The other thing about trusting the moment, is looking at how we react to what happens. I don't know if you've heard this particular story but it goes something like this:
A farmer finds a wild horse and with great effort brings it home. His neighbour says, "That's great, you have a horse for free." The farmer says, "We'll see."
The next day the horse escapes. His neighbour says, "Isn't that a shame after all the effort you put into bringing it to your farm." The farmer says, "We'll see."
The next the horse returns leading another horse. The neighbour says, "Isn't that lucky, now you have two horses." The farmer says, (you guessed it), "We'll see."
His son tames the horses and while doing so falls off and breaks his leg. The neighbour says, "That's too bad, you shouldn't have brought the horse home." The farmer says, "We'll see."
The nation goes to war and all able-bodied men are sent to war, but the son is not called because of his broken leg. The neighbour says, "Isn't that a great thing that you had that horse after all." and the farmer said, "We'll see"....
And on and on it goes. I have noticed in my life that this is true. Events that seemed disastrous or intolerably painful at the time, often contained the seeds of future happiness or lessons that improved my wisdom or clarity tenfold. Things that I was sure would bring me happiness often didn't, or did for a time, then things changed in some way. When I am able to remember this (which is--not always!) it makes a lot of my analyzing and problem-solving seem irrelevant, as I can clearly see that from this vantage point, I really have no idea what is best for me, although I might think that I do at the time. So all my strategizing to grasp onto things that I think will bring me happiness, or pushing away things that look painful, might just be getting in the way of what is supposed to be.
This isn't to say that one should be passive or just float through life--not at all. It is more the idea that if we are actually experiencing what is happening to us right now, with some kind of open-mindedness and spaciousness and awareness, instead of locking into our usual patterns of grasping and pushing away, instead of being in our heads and analyzing, then often we are able to tap into the richness of things we didn't anticipate or expect (or want, even). There is something about being fully present, that leads to actions that are more wise, more honest, more appropriate, more helpful, because they arise out of our intimacy with what is actually happening, as opposed to arising out of our fears and ideas and patterns.
This week I had a few times of very painful darkness, and my initial reaction is to resist it, get rid of it, fix it, solve it--need to "get functional". But I was looking through a book by Richard Moss for a particular quote, and stumbled onto others about how most growth comes at the cost of emotional pain, yet we are always trying to get rid of emotional pain. It made me remember that my commitment is my willingness to see what lies between where I am now, and being more present--and knowing that that will involve some pain. It made me relax a bit, surrender a bit, and remember that I might not know what this darkness was in the service of. But that my experience in the past has been that usually there is some insight underneath. That I don't have to like it, but I also don't have to fight it.
I find it helpful to look back in my life (sometimes not so far back--a few weeks could do it!) at how unexpected and unpredictable life is, and although in my life I've spent a lot of my mental energy trying to "manage" everything, it hasn't really helped me be happy in the way that life feels when you are in fully in touch and appreciating every moment, being in the "flow", a richly felt state. It's accepting that in a very real way we are in the back seat, we're not driving, even though we take comfort from the illusion that we have the wheel. That in some sense life lives us, not the other way around. Making the decision to work towards really being with how things are right now, rather than resisting the past and the imagined future, helps us make wiser choices that are grounded in actual contact with the truth.
Sometimes we think that by relaxing and relating with how things are in this moment, that we are saying—“how things are right now is fine”. It feels like being present is somehow condoning or accepting or encouraging a painful situation, or saying that we want it to continue. But really, being present is just saying—“how things are is how things are, in this particular moment”. This particular moment might contain a situation we don't like, and it might also contain our resistance or dislike. Just being with all of that is being present. Being present doesn't mean always being calm or happy--it means being with things as they actually are. Present with our emotional state, our body state, the physical environment, other beings around us. Also, it feels like a relief to be present, like space opens up; we escape from the speedy chattering of our minds.
Again--how to work with this is mostly just noticing how difficult it is to do. Notice ourselves trying to anticipate the future and steer it, or brace ourselves, or rehearse it. I try to gently ask myself the question sometimes, could I just drop the analyzing and be present? Sometimes the answer is yes, because it's just a habit; other times my body has a strong reaction--"No! I need this analyzing to feel safe!" Then I will usually see if I know why--but I try to stick with the goal of understanding/noticing, vs fixing/judging/changing (not always easy to do though!!).
Maybe in the end, our goal is simply to become more intimate with how our minds actually work, what stories they tell us, what habits they have...so that we can see what holds us back from the being in the wisdom and magic of the present. I often have the sense that my mind is like a misguided little elf, full of concern and anxiety for me, committed to the job of protecting me, hyperactive but not very wise...when I am able to be undefended, sometimes it will dance around screaming and wringing its hands, "it's not safe, it's not safe". It helps to understand that it is just the little elf trying to do the job it thinks it has, the best way it knows how, but that there is a wiser part of me that gradually takes up more and more of the space. Hope that doesn't sound psychotic! But the more I am able to work with being present, the more I see for myself that it is true that I am not my thoughts and feelings (which I once thought that I was, even just a few years ago)--my thoughts and feelings are like weather in the bigger sky that is my best self, my buddha nature. Weather still happens, sometimes very stormy, but...it helps to know that I am not the weather, I am the sky.
