Some confusing dualities

[piedwagtail91]

When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

I think that everyone comes to mindfulness for a reason. Self compassion is tricky but it sounds like you are doing well.

love the student/teacher quote, that's just how it is

[JonW]

What piedwagtail91 said.
Also, I meant to add re. planning ahead in our lives.
In the past I used to fret endlessly about making decisions and making plan. In general, the future was a a bag of worries for me.
Since embarking on the adventure of mindfulness, I find myself making decisions and plans from a much calmer, far more centred place.
My worries about the future are much the same as anyone else's: health, financial security, job security...I worry a lot less about these things now.
A good example is my job situation. In January I learned that the newspaper magazine that commissions most of my work was soon to install a new editor. In the past I'd have worried about this endlessly: "What if he doesn't like my writing? If I don't get enough work, how will I be able to pay the rent? What if I end up homeless? Etc. Etc."
I kept telling myself that no amount of worrying about the situation would change whether the editor wanted to give me work or not. As it turns out, he really likes my work. So there was nothing to worry about.
As Mark Twain famously said, "“I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

[Cheesus]

As Mark Twain famously said, "“I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

I like that quote! Another one I often fall back on is 'Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know'. I think it might be attributable to Betrand Russell, but I can't quite recall.

I don't use it as a justification to be sad. I use it because it provides some really useful insight. I think when someone reaches a certain point of critical reflection (something I think probably all people who practice are capable of), you can find yourself becoming too analytical and getting too caught up in the ebb and flow of abstract and critical thought. One of my assets is my intelligence, and I have witnessed that intelligence sabotage me again and again over the years.

I see mindfulness as opportunity to become aware of the fact that I can sabotage myself. I see it as an opportunity to cultivate the knowledge that my mind is frantically synthesising all manner of murky, abstract, incomplete and unfounded discourse about myself and the world around me.

The great thing about this conversation is that I can now see better what I should be doing about it. It's not saying 'oh I have to accept that this happens so I'll just let myself get swallowed up'. I can say 'I understand that this happens, and I am aware that sometimes my experience is tainted by it'. In that way I actually am not being swallowed up by it at all, rather I am living skilfully alongside it.

Phew! I think I need a stiff drink. Though I think a better option might be to go and sit quietly

Muchas gracias, mis amigos de meditacion!
Cheesus

[BioSattva]

I am going to add to and reframe what others have said a little.

an apparent contradiction between acceptance and action. Clearly we can't just accept everything - if I need a glass of water (to use a fairly clear cut example) I shouldn't just accept that I am thirsty, I should really go get myself a drink. There are times, though, when it is not clear whether one should accept or one should act.

I think the key here is that non-action is a kind of action in itself! We can never not act because we are dynamic biological systems. This is why, for example, parents can be punished for neglecting their children - "But I didn't do anything!", the parents may protest - "Exactly our point!", Social Services will respond. Since we are always acting - choosing not to go chasing some desire or need is just as much of an 'act' as choosing to chase it. I find that considering this 'cancels out' the confusion regarding 'when to act', so to speak.

Instead of us believing we have the potential to step out of the world into some place of non-action, we can consider that it is more like we have a tap that can't be closed off attached to us and we need to constantly 'manage' where the water is flowing to. Mindfulness apparently allows us to do that job much better than when we are not mindful - it allows us to 'go with the flow' more in a healthy way. Because mindfulness is about bathing everything in compassion, when the presence of compassion begins to fade - our tap is not being 'managed' properly, we know that some alteration in our behaviour is necessary to act healthily, and by remaining mindful we do that automatically.

The second is striving vs. non-striving. I'm not destined to be a Buddha, and I still need some goals and drives in my life. Moreover, by practicing mindfulness I feel I am aiming to do something for whatever purpose, which is essentially a striving. It's as though I am striving not to strive.

Again, coming from the angle of our necessarily 'active' existence, with our cells always 'striving' to metabolise, and our diaphragm always 'striving' to keep oxygen entering our bodies, it seems we can never be in a place of true non-striving. I think the non-striving teachings are more about trying to control and force situations instead of (again) 'going with the flow'. As my current favourite sentence about non-striving goes: "You can't still the mind with thoughts" (old Zen teachers said "You can't move mind with mind").

Jon Kabat-Zinn often talks about the process of going to sleep to illustrate the futility of striving in order to meet the goal of a peaceful mind. We've all been in a situation where we want to get to sleep and our thoughts about how we are not going to sleep are preventing us from getting to sleep. We can harness some of the other 7 pillars - acceptance, letting go, and patience ... and non-judging, beginner's mind, and trust, lol - all the others - in order to help deal with habitual striving.

Hope any of that helped.

Bio.

[Cheesus]

Hi Bio

I think that sums it up really well, thanks! I have sometimes thought about how the dilemma might echo with nihilism. I think your idea of ensuring that action should in essence grow out of compassion is an excellent way to address any uncertainty regarding whether or not to act. It gives the decision some structure.

Also, regarding striving, I think the cultivation of the other pillars is a good way to go. It might be like how if one were having difficulty sleeping, they would ensure that their environment and activities prior to sleeping were going to be conducive to sleep. I have more or less abandoned thinking about it for the time being, and really just quietly in order to know myself better. I think an element that has been missing from my meditation is the compassion as mentioned above. I often remember to study myself carefully, but being kind about what arises can sometimes be more difficult.

Thanks
Cheesus