Tag Archives: Spiritual Writing

Wrestling with the Angel

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It started on a train. In the rain.

I was traveling from Albany to New York City to catch a plane to Paris to visit my brother and family. It was a hot, humid Northeast summer day, and the sky was dark with thunderclouds. I was already sweating when I ran down the track to catch the train before the whistle blew.

Ten minutes after the train pulled out of the station in Albany, the clouds burst and torrential rains poured. And the train stopped dead in its tracks. I had already cut it close by taking a train that would get me to the airport one mere hour before my flight, and every minute the train was delayed was one minute less I would have to make it in time.

As the rain pummeled the train’s windows, I felt myself get anxious and angry. I was angry at Amtrak and frustrated by the delay. Then I heard a voice in my head condemning me for being foolish to take a late train and another voice that said how disappointed my brother would be if I didn’t get to France until tomorrow. It was part of the story of Lauryn, the Thoughtless Sister, or Lauryn, the Procrastinator. I was beating myself up for something that wasn’t my fault.

I sat in my seat, stewing.

Thirty minutes passed before the conductor came on the PA system to inform us that due to the severity of the storm, we would be stopped on the track for at least an hour more. Now that I was certain I wouldn’t make my flight, I sent an apologetic text to my brother and then a complaining email to my friend, Tom.

“What the hell delays a train?” he asked. “They run like clockwork.”

I explained that the storm had flooded the tracks north of Poughkeepsie and all trains running north and south were delayed. And then, with nothing to do but send texts and emails, I began a conversation about the failure of the American train system, the crazy weather, global warming, and the writings of Krishnamurti, which I had just been reading, but didn’t understand.

“Krishnamurti’s central idea is the problem of thought, which is a problem we all have,” Tom explained. “But you have it especially because of the power of your mind. Your strength is your weakness.”

I defended myself by saying that I was trying NOT to think. And getting better at it…I thought.

He was unimpressed. “A friend of mine’s childhood football coach once summed up a good philosophy when he reprimanded a kid who then began to explain, ‘But coach, I thought…’ The coach interrupted him with, “Don’t think, you hurt the team.”

“Believe me, my mind and I are having our issues. Getting better at not thinking, but still a ways to go. Appreciate all the help I can get on it.”

“If the rain can stop a train, let it stop your mind,” he said. “Rain was a major element in the stopping of my mind.”

Now I was intrigued. Tom had spent almost two decades intensely studying Buddhism and Martial Arts, and I had always admired his ability to bypass his ego, to be present in the present, and to understand things on a level that far surpassed my own superficial understanding. I wanted more information. After all, I was stuck on a train in the rain with nothing else to do.

“In what way?” I asked.

“It initiated a surrender.” Then he told me the story of his “awakening.” Stuck in a teepee during a rainstorm, he suddenly saw that he was not who he thought he was. The egoic mind, the small self – the one that thinks it knows who you are, that creates the story of “Tom” fell away. It changed his life.

I thought about surrender. The past few years had taught me that there are things I simply cannot change, and all I can do is surrender to them. I was getting tired of fighting against what was. Kind of like being stuck on a stalled train and missing a flight. There was nothing I could do but surrender.

“Surrender is what I have been doing for many things lately,” I explained. “Perhaps the final surrender is my mind. I’ll think about it (joke ;-)).”

“Total surrender is the meaning of “stop.” What you wrote is right on, but it’s still the continuation of a story: the story of you searching for selflessness, and doing very well as you do at everything. That story has no end. Just stop. Kill yourself. Die. Cease. Drop it.”

I was taken aback by his directness, and told him so.

“Sorry to be so blunt,” he apologized. “But isn’t about time?”

Then he emailed this quote from the great American Zen teacher, Alan Watts:

 “It is complete letting go. Not only is it beyond theology; it is beyond atheism and nihilism. Such letting go cannot be attained. It cannot be acquired or developed through perseverance and exercises, except insofar as such efforts prove the impossibility of aquiring it. Letting go comes only through desperation. When you know that it is beyond you—beyond your powers of acting as beyond your powers of relaxation. When you give up every last trick and device for getting it, including the ‘giving up’ as something that someone might do, say, at ten o’clock tonight. That you cannot by any means do it—that is it!  That is the mighty self abandonment which gives birth to the stars.”

Here I was, once again, faced with a concept that I pretended to understand, but I didn’t truly grasp. Though I had experienced BEINGNESS in the hammock, I had yet to truly comprehend what the egoic mind was, or what the “self” meant, or how to let go of it. Tom often talked about the difference between the small self and the True Self; the small self being the construct of the mind, all the stories about “Me” that include our self-perceptions or our false ideas and our illusions. The True Self is what we really are – our spiritual nature. When we believe the stories of the small self, and identify with those stories, we are separated from our deeper nature and caught in a web of illusion that can only bring unhappiness. Only our True Self can reveal our essential nature as spiritual beings in a material world.

This is what is often referred to as “Awakening.” It’s as if until the moment of realization, you have been asleep. Life has been a dream, or a nightmare. When you wake up to the fact that you aren’t who you think you are, you are suddenly freed from the tyranny of the small self and able to live life from the perspective of your True Self. And that is “enlightenment.”

Many spiritual traditions talk about enlightenment, the ultimate goal of the spiritual practitioner, a kind of perfect union with the Absolute. Buddhists say that the problem with being human is that our minds perceive a separation between us and everything else, especially the Divine source – or God. Reaching enlightenment is the eradication of that false boundary, resulting in the perception of Oneness. It is the true knowledge of the nature of the universe — ourselves included. And it begins with the realization or experience of the True Self, the self that isn’t simply a series of ideas about how you are, but actually who you are – a spiritual being.

These all sounded like great ideas…in theory. But in practice? I had no idea what my small self or my True Self really were. I didn’t even know what “enlightenment” really meant..or what it looked or felt like.

And on top of it, Tom was demanding that I commit a form of suicide to achieve this. Words like, “kill yourself,” and “die” are difficult to hear, let alone put into action. How the hell was I supposed to do that? And did I want to? What would happen if I “died?”

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I have a theory: people only change for two reasons – love and pain. You have to be in enough of either to do the work needed to change. That’s the motivation. The quote Tom sent mentioned desperation, a kind of psychic pain. You have to be so sick of who you are that you are willing to change. We see this in people struggling with addictions. It’s only when they hit rock bottom and are so disgusted with themselves that they are able to go into rehab and deal with the addiction.

In my case, I wasn’t in pain — or not enough pain — to change. I hadn’t yet discovered the magnitude of the stories my small self told, or how living with those stories made my life difficult. I didn’t realize that I was addicted to my small self.

But I was in enough love to change. Tom and I had a peculiar relationship: part lovers, part friends, part teacher/student. I loved him deeply and genuinely admired him, so when he tried to teach me something, I tried hard to learn it.

So I responded: “This is why I love you. Because you don’t let me get away with anything. Just when I “think” I’m doing pretty well, you remind me that I’m full of shit.”

“Everyone is full of shit until they let the bottom drop out of the paper bag holding it all together and empty themselves,” He replied. “There is no effort to this. The effort is holding the bag together.”

I thought about what he said. The “effortless effort.” It reminded me of the hammock. How hard could it really be to let go of the egoic self?

Then he sent me this poem, one of his favorites, by Rainer Maria Rilke.

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after

so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes

that a storm is coming,

and I hear the far-off fields say things

I can’t bear without a friend,

I can’t love without a sister

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on

across the woods and across time,

and the world looks as if it had no age:

the landscape like a line in the psalm book,

is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!

What fights us is so great!

If only we would let ourselves be dominated

as things do by some immense storm,

we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it’s with small things,

and the triumph itself makes us small.

What is extraordinary and eternal

does not want to be bent by us.

I mean the Angel who appeared

to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:

when the wrestler’s sinews

grew long like metal strings,

he felt them under his fingers

like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel

(who often simply declined the fight)

went away proud and strengthened

and great from that harsh hand,

that kneaded him as if to change his shape.

Winning does not tempt that man.

This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,

by constantly greater beings.

Such a gorgeous poem! I remembered talking to him about it the previous summer. It was the poem he had read the day he awakened and I knew it spoke to him profoundly. I tried to understand it from his perspective – from the point of view of a Martial Artist or a Zen monk.  Being neither, it was hard. It simply reminded me of the popular truism, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.”

But a few lines resonated for me on this reading: “What we choose to fight is so tiny” and “When we win its with small things.” These images made me think of the small self. A tiny thing, a small thing, really. There was something greater that could take us beyond the mundane, if only we would allow ourselves to be dominated by it.

“Perfect,” I responded.

“The poem is perfect,” he said. “And if my timing is right, it will lead you to see the futility of maintaining that fine thread of connection to the you that has been constructed and maintained for your whole life.  THEN it would be completely perfect. What are you waiting for?”

“I don’t know,” I said. And it was true.

“It will only be perfect when you let go. I have to leave to teach. Last chance to wake up…can I help you be more disgusted with the whole self thing?”

I realized at that point that I had nothing to lose. I could at least try. But I wanted him to help. “Give me more. How do I die?”

“I can’t do it for you,” he wrote. “All I can do is bring you to the brink. You have to take that step. You will gain nothing by taking that step. You will lose everything.”

“Gain nothing? Lose everything?”

“It’s only letting go, but sometimes its like letting go of flypaper. I am out the door. Later.”

Just then, the train started moving. I had 2 hours before getting to the airport to try to kill myself.

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As the train rolled on beside the Hudson River, I tried to think about my small self. What stories did it tell me?

My small self had all kinds of stories. The story of Me included my roles as mother, wife, daughter, teacher, author, etc. It also had stories about being smart, capable, creative, and adventurous. It also had negative stories – about being selfish, unreliable, unattractive, unlovable. About parents that were controlling, demanding, unable to love. About siblings I was jealous of, past lovers who had broken my heart, marriages, divorces. The library of stories was endless! The more I thought about the small self and the stories it wove, the more disgusted I got. I asked myself: Do I really need these stories anymore? What would I be like if I no longer thought of myself in these ways? Who would I be if I weren’t those things?

I got to the airport, caught the next flight to Paris, and spent the next 9 hours alternating between dozing and trying unsuccessfully to let go of the stories of Me.

At one point, I had a dream in which I was hanging by my hands from the brick windowsill of a tall building. My hands were getting very tired and cramped and I wanted to let go, but I knew that if I did, I would fall to my death on the city streets below. But I simply couldn’t hold on any longer, and one by one my fingers released their grip on the ledge. My last finger slid from the edge and I began to fall.

I woke up before I hit the ground to find my hands clenched in fists in my lap.

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I arrived in France, met my brother and his family, drove to their house in a picturesque village, and was sitting on the patio with a glass of wine, waiting for dinner, still thinking about what it would take to let go of the story of me…to let my small self die. I recalled my dream on the plane, and the image of wrestling with the angel, and then the words “stop,” “surrender.” I closed my eyes, let my body totally relax, and opened my hands and simply mouthed the words to myself. Then, suddenly, without any kind of effort, I had the strangest feeling of weightlessness, as if floating, untethered, in zero gravity. My body felt light, empty. So did my head. Tingly. I sat there, experiencing this, wondering if I was just really tired, or the wine was going to my head.

Dinner was served, and I couldn’t eat. I was kind of giggly with a big grin that made my cheeks hurt. While nothing going on was actually funny, everything was funny to me in an absurd way. I had nothing to say…and it didn’t bother me in the least. I was just chuckling quietly to myself. Like I was watching myself from the outside, as if I were someone I didn’t know. Or an amnesiac. Like I had forgotten everything. Or it never existed. Or I had landed on some other planet. But it didn’t matter. I heard things people said…things that might have really bothered me in the past, or that I would have responded to in some way, but they just passed through me, and made me laugh, like it was all a big joke.

At the same time, it was like I was translucent, and so was everyone else. You could see right through. As if we were all a bunch of clear plastic clowns. And none of what was going on mattered. It was as if it were an absurdist play or a tragic circus happening in the background – muzak of a sort. I felt detached, but the most present I’d ever been.

Dinner dragged on in European fashion, then it was midnight. I couldn’t sleep, so I was just lying in bed, listening to the frogs and cicadas, and it was as if I were completely porous. The sound flowed through my body, and it was so beautiful. I felt it. It tickled. And then I fell asleep and slept for 10 hours. Absolutely dreamlessly.

I woke up still feeling the same way, detached and a little amused, and as if I didn’t really know what I was doing there. I didn’t know if was just jet lag, or the two glasses of wine I had at dinner, or if I did actually “wake up.” So I emailed Tom.

“STAY WITH IT,” He replied. “WHO ARE YOU?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I am quite disoriented.”

“GREAT! What do you think of your past?”

“Which aspect? Most of it is pretty ridiculous.”

“The story of Lauryn Axelrod.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Call me immediately!” He wrote back.

I was hesitant to make an expensive international call, but I wanted some kind of confirmation — to know if what was going on was in fact a spiritual awakening, or just some kind of travel-induced delirium. So I called and told him exactly what I was experiencing.

“I see vivid colors….things brighter, somehow more alive. I suppose that comes close. Though only certain things are in “technicolor” right now – what I am experiencing- my body, my senses – while everything around me is de-saturated. Like one of those tinted photos, where everything is black and white except for the one vibrant red flower. I am the flower. The contrast is blinding.”

“What about when you talk? What happens?” Tom asked.

“ When I speak, the words – limited as they are – seem like they are being spoken by someone else. I don’t recognize the voice, or what is being said. Its like the voice is speaking another language – one I used to know, but have forgotten. The language of “small talk” or the daily “this and that” or being asked about “myself” and replying seems so absurd (especially talking about “me” or my life. I can’t do it). Its gibberish, and it makes me giggle listening to it. When others speak and whenever I open my mouth, its like nonsense coming out. Like Alvin and The Chipmunks. What needs to be said, can’t be spoken. Or understood.”

“I am happy for you!” He replied.

“I don’t know how I will ever function in the ‘real’ world like this.”

“This is what I meant about losing everything, Lauryn. You have lost everything you thought was real. It will not be easy. But don’t fall back, like I did. Stay with it. And call me tomorrow.”

The next days were a blur. I called Tom everyday to share my experience. I had conversations with people in which I couldn’t bear to hear the words coming out of my mouth. It was as if I were a puppet, or an actor mindlessly reciting old lines from a play that had long since closed. And as I walked along the streets of the little village, it was as if I could see through people. I felt their pain, their stories, the weight of their “selves.” And it broke my heart. I was walking around completely open – feeling and sensing everything from the birds in the trees to the children in the little village park —  and everything was both intensely beautiful and intensely sad at the same time. I felt the deepest compassion for everyone and everything. Birdsong was music. The trees were my companions. Most importantly, I felt directed from someplace much, much truer than I had ever known. There was a sense of inner “knowing.” There was no anxiety, no fear, no worry. And there was no story of Lauryn. I was happy, peaceful and calm and distinctly connected to everything and everyone around me.

Tom warned me that this feeling would wear off in time. But I didn’t want it to! If this was what it felt like to die, then I was content to be dead…and yet so very, very alive! I had wrestled with the angel and though defeated, felt victorious.

It took a few months for the lingering high feeling to wear off. Though I tried to stay with it, I could feel my ego reassert itself in all kinds of sneaky ways. And I was powerless to stop it. All I could do was try to remain what one spiritual teacher calls, “vigilant.” The goal was to try to catch myself before I acted out of the small self.

I was amazed by the myriad tricks the ego has to make sure it stays in the game. It’s like a master ventriloquist – making you say things you know are no longer true, or throwing voices from the past into your mind or twisting the present, trying to make you feel badly about yourself. Little by little, the egoic small self slipped back in. The angel came back for another round. But at least now, I was aware of it! And each time I lost vigilance, I felt worse than I had before I had awakened to the small self.

The spiritual teachers that speak of these experiences never tell you what happens AFTER you reach a new level. They never tell you that your world will change dramatically. All Tom told me was that I would lose everything. And I did. I lost everything I THOUGHT was Me. I found it hard to function in “normal” situations without laughing at the absurdity of what was going on around me. And it resulted in months of wandering around disoriented. But it was worth it. I saw the world and myself with entirely new eyes – eyes that knew that my mind was just spinning tales that I didn’t need to believe anymore.

This awakening was just the beginning. It wasn’t enlightenment – which I doubt I will ever reach — but the first step towards it.

The real work had just started.

The Hammock Epiphany

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A small ray glided past in the clear water of the bay, effortlessly skimming just below the surface, like a breath of peace just beneath the clutter of the mind. I watched it, not thinking about anything in particular, just paying attention to the way its wings danced through the water, the dappled reflection of the sunlight, and the gentle lapping of the waves. Trees swayed overhead. I felt the warm breeze against my skin and the ropes of the hammock gently supporting the muscles of my back. I took a deep breath, letting it out with a long sigh, and felt my body relax completely.

My 12-year old son and I had just finished a 3-day hike on the Queen Charlotte Track on the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island. I was tired from the exertion and happy to be laying in a hammock at this little hostel, my legs relieved of the weight of my pack, the hours of walking. It had been a glorious, if difficult hike. At each turn of the track, the view opened to a vista across the sounds of lush hills flanked by turquoise bays. We had discovered tree ferns and wekas, small chattering birds that followed us as we hiked, patiently (or sometimes aggressively) catching any crumbs we dropped from our granola bars. We laughed at their antics and even made up rhymes about them to recite as we walked.

My son was a trooper. Carrying his own backpack almost 10 miles a day, he barely complained. I had him in training for a longer, more strenuous hike in the next few weeks, and he had handled this one with skill and pleasure. Now he was relaxing, too, playing cards in the main room of the lodge where we had landed for the night. He was content.

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I was a type-A mom: working full-time, raising a child, taking care of the house, the garden, the family, cooking, cleaning, making sure my son had his homework done and his guitar practicing completed before falling into bed exhausted at the end of each day. I was so busy I rarely had time to put my feet up, let alone enjoy the luxury of quiet, alone time.

But nine months earlier, I sold my business and took my son out of school to do something we had always dreamed of…travel the world for a year together. In these past months, we had climbed castles in Ireland, mountains in Switzerland, and temples in Cambodia. We rode horses in Mongolia, scuba-dived in Thailand, walked the Great Wall of China, and surfed the waves of Bali. We ate reindeer curd with Siberian herders, sukiyaki with monks, and pastries with poets. We had just finished skydiving over the volcanoes of New Zealand and were headed south to climb glaciers and hike the Southern Alps.

The planning and effort that went into this trip was Herculean. Every day involved making countless decisions about where we were going, how we were getting there, what we were doing when we got there, what and where we were eating, and where we were sleeping that night, all in a foreign language in a different country. On top of it, I had to make sure my son got his homeschooling homework done, and his guitar practicing in, as well as work on whatever freelance article I had to complete by a deadline. While the educational and fun value couldn’t be surpassed, in some ways, it was even more exhausting than our life at home!

And I hadn’t realized how tired I was until this very moment.

Laying in the hammock, for the first time in my life that I could remember, I suddenly realized I had nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing that had to be planned, reviewed, or imagined, nothing to worry or fret about, no one I had to talk to, no phone calls to make or emails to send. I didn’t have to be mom, tour guide, cook, author, or teacher. My son was fine where he was — safe, fed, and content — and I was fine where I was. I could stay in this hammock all afternoon if I wanted.

That first epiphany came softly, like the breeze. It was simply this: I didn’t have to do anything. I didn’t have to be anything. I could just BE!  That was it! As quiet as that realization was, it was louder than an atomic bomb. There, lying in a hammock, watching a ray skim past, for the first time in my almost 40 years, I just WAS. And every cell in my body breathed a long sigh of relief.

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I had heard “Just BE” for decades — the mantra of the neo-Buddhist, the spiritual seeker. In my mind, it was akin to the dictum of “drink water” — something you HAD to do to be healthy or happy. Truth is, in spite of reading plenty of books, going to classes and workshops, and spending hours contemplating it, I never really knew what it meant, let alone how to achieve it.

And I was certain I had never experienced it, even though I tried for years. I sat for hours in meditation, watching the endless cascade of thoughts run through my mind – the obsessions, the review of past events or conversations, the random images and ideas that popped into my mind from nowhere, trying always to dismiss each thought without following it and return to the breath. I failed miserably at it.

There is something so absurd about sitting still, trying not to think. It’s the complete opposite of what we do everyday. We have busy bodies and busy minds. The mind wants to be active, to observe and to think. That’s its job. It wants review the conversation you just had with your spouse, to fantasize, to plan for tomorrow or next week, to complain about how much your left knee hurts, or the itch on your shoulder. The Buddhists call this incessantly active thinking “Monkey Mind.”

I felt like I had a whole barrel of monkeys inside my head. Often times, I found myself thinking about my thinking, judging it. “Really? THAT’s what I am thinking about? How ridiculous!” Sitting and watching the mind so disappointing.

I once had a meditation teacher who used the metaphor of the Zamboni – the machine that clears the ice on an ice rink, pouring a thin layer of water on the ice to fill in the grooves and chips, creating a smooth surface that thoughts could skate across without getting stuck. So when I found myself thinking, I would bring out the Zamboni and visualize it smoothing the surface of my brain. And then, for a few seconds I might find the quiet in the spaces between the thoughts, but as soon as I did, I got excited, and the next thought would arise: “Oh, I’m not thinking!” The moment was lost.

Being still and quiet was such hard work. And part of me thought it was boring. I liked thinking! I began to view myself as a failed meditator, a hopeless Spiritualist. How could I ever achieve that supposedly ideal state of profound stillness, of “No Mind?” And did I really want to?

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Years ago, I taught English to Tibetan monks in Dharamsala, India. It was monsoon season, and the rains were endless and torrential. The red dirt roads of the village ran like muddy rivers, my clothes were always soaking wet. Mold began to grow on the walls of my small cement block room and between my toes. I grumbled and groused. I had just begun learning to meditate, and when I tried to sit and clear the mind, all I could think of was how much I wanted to be dry, to be elsewhere. And yet everyone I passed, the monks and nuns, had this beautiful quality of contentment. They were smiling and laughing all the time, not complaining like I was. I was envious of their easy joy and peacefulness and I was determined to learn their secret.

So I asked Yeshe Nyima, one of the young monks I taught each day. Nyima had become a monk at age 6, when he and an uncle fled Tibet, walking over the Himalayas to the sanctuary of India. He already spoke passable English and wanted to be a Buddhist teacher in the West, so our classes involved taking walks through the village as he taught me about the foundations of Tibetan Buddhism. I would simply correct his mispronunciations or grammatical errors.

“What is the secret to successful meditation, Nyima?” I asked as we huddled together beneath an umbrella slogging though the muddy street toward the Dalai Lama’s temple for prayer session.

“There is no success,” he replied with a smile, presenting me with one of the Koan-type lessons Buddhists are famous for. “There is only practice.”

“But how do you still the mind?”

“The mind is only still when there is nothing important to think about.”

“You mean, ‘if.’ ‘If’ there is nothing important to think about.”

“No. I mean ‘when.’ Mostly, what you think is of no great concern. You must discover disimportance.”

I wanted to correct his last word, but I didn’t know another word for what I thought he meant. The only word I could think of was “insignificance,” and I balked at it. We walked a bit further in silence, as I tried to think about how what I thought was unimportant. I thought everything I thought was important! After all, I had gone to school to learn to think important things and had a great deal of respect for people who thought about important things. Wasn’t everything we thought about important?

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What is a thought? It is simply a creation of the mind. The mind cannot process what it experiences without words and images, so it creates them to organize experience. At it’s most basic, the mind is naming sensory experiences: “this is cold” or “that is red.”  As children, this is the vast majority of our mental activity – learning to name our sensory experience. As adults, most of that type of thinking is below our awareness. It happens automatically.

But the bulk of what we think about as adults is comprised of random thoughts about what we ate for dinner, what our boss said at work, what we might do tomorrow, obsessing over some detail of our day. Much of it is fear, worry, control, justification, defense, or a form of self-talk. In fact, if we pay attention to what we think, 95% of it is, as Nyima said, “of no great concern.” We are either reviewing the past or planning the future, either of which take us immediately out of fully experiencing the present. The mind cannot do two things at once: it cannot think about the past or the future, and think about the present at the same time. If we are thinking about the past or future, then we are NOT in present moment.

Of course there are times when we need to think: when the application of our mental skill is necessary – at work, when cooking, writing, driving, fixing something, or when we need to figure something out in the present moment. That’s useful thinking. But most of the time, our mind is just chattering to itself like an insane person wandering the empty hallways talking to herself all day.

In and of itself, thinking isn’t bad, it’s just that it prevents us from fully experiencing the present. From just BEING. We aren’t “being,” we are “thinking.” Even commenting on our present experience is a form of thinking that prohibits full experience. You can’t experience something and think about it at the same time.

We can EXPERIENCE the present moment without thinking about it, and without commenting on it. The Buddhists call this, “Beginner’s Mind,” meaning that each moment can be experienced as if for the first time, before we name, categorize or classify it. In other words, we can just BE with our experience. And it doesn’t take practice, or hard work; it only takes a profound kind of letting go, an “Effortless Effort.”

But how does one do THAT?

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My body was tired and achy from the hike, but suspended in the hammock, the joints didn’t feel the fatigue or the pain, just a sweet exertion; the pleasure of working. The next few hours and days were completely planned and organized so I had no need to think about details of destinations or travel. The memories of the hike were pleasant, but fading quickly, leaving only lingering sensations. In other words, I really had nothing to do; I couldn’t think about the past or the future, so I just relaxed, and began to enjoy the gentle swing of the hammock, the sights and sounds, just experiencing the moment, listening and hearing. I was just BEING and it took no effort at all.

And that’s when I finally grasped what Nyima was trying to teach me all those years ago. When you realize that what you think is largely unimportant, then thinking becomes uninteresting, and the mind stills without effort. And then you can simply be with your experience.

All those years of struggling with meditation, with trying to understand MENTALLY what is essentially a non-mental experience were swept away on the breeze. For me, the experience of a stilled mind took only a second — and it was simply about stopping. And surprisingly, it was the opposite of boring. It was rich and full and deeply pleasurable. The ray swimming in the bay became exquisitely beautiful. I felt the sun as if I had never felt warmth, the breeze as though my skin had never been touched. And I felt myself part of a greater reality – beyond my own petty concerns and small life. I was deliciously at peace, happy, and the most fully myself I had ever been.

I don’t remember how long I lay in the hammock like that. It could have been only minutes, or it could have been hours. Time was irrelevant and I lost track of it. At some point, my son found me and we went inside to cook dinner. Even in the process of chopping and cooking in a crowded hostel kitchen was a peaceful one, filled with sights and sounds and smells and conversations that made an otherwise onerous task perfectly enjoyable.

I went to bed that night relishing the softness of the mattress, the warmth of my sleeping bag, and the quiet of the evening…and I dozed off to the sound of lapping waves.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my life changed utterly from that experience in the hammock. Once I had experienced “No Mind,” or “Just Being,” I felt I finally knew what all those books and spiritual teachers were talking about. Just BEING was the richest, most profound experience I had ever had, and all the other experiences of daily life suddenly became boring. No, that’s not it: life’s experiences actually became more vibrant, more pleasurable, more alive. It was the thinking about them that became boring.

I vowed I would never go back to being caught up in the thinking again. All I had to do was stop. Just stop. I had already done it once, so it should be easy. Once you know something, you can’t un-know it, right?

Or so I thought…