Thursday, March 31, 2016
Today is not a typical day in my life.
As often happens, I woke up shortly after 5:00 and got out of bed soon thereafter. I headed for the bathroom and after relieving my bladder I washed my hands. Instead of using my regular soap I used Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps which is heavily scented with an almond fragrance. I was trying to be fully present in the moment, fully mindful of this experience without my mind wandering. But of course it did wander and I gently brought it back to the present moment.
Today is a special day for me devoted primarily to my spiritual journey.
I did not make coffee as I usually do but instead sipped on a glass of water. I did not activate my iPad but instead turned on my smart TV and launched YouTube. I selected a nature video with relaxing music.
After about an hour with the music still playing in the background, I reread a blog entry dated May 10, 2011, How To Meditate by Sam Harris. I have a secular worldview and I am pursuing secular spirituality. Sam Harris is a very helpful guide for my journey. Next I began writing, this writing.
Soon it was getting light outside and I heard that Pat was up. As almost always, went went for our hour long walk. This morning I tried to be very mindful of my breath and of sights and sounds around us, particularly birds and flowers.
After our morning walks I often make breakfast fruit, yogurt, granola and ground flaxseed but not today. Today I am fasting, a practice I am familiar with but have not done regularly for over twenty years. There seems to be growing evidence of physical and mental health benefits from fasting and it seems to be a natural aspect of a spiritual practice.
I retreated to our empty guest bedroom for a fifteen minute period of meditation. I began apractice of meditation on December 6, 2015 using the simple instructions of Sam Harris as a guide. I am trying to make meditation a daily habit but on some days I still forget. While meditating I try to focus on my breath. Of course thoughts come into my mind and I try to be aware of them. Today my thoughts were about my planned activities for today. I felt pleased that my mind had not wandered too far away. But I was still thinking rather than just being present, focused on my breath without thinking. The idea of being fully aware without thinking is still a strange idea to me. But sitting still for fifteen minutes while trying to meditate is notsomething that I find onerous.
Since beginning a meditation practice I have become very aware of something. I have a hissing in my ears. I have tinnitus, a common condition. Fortunately it is quite mild and I am usually unaware of the hissing in my head except when meditating. It is not annoying, it just is. I have noticed that sometimes the hissing is worse than at other times. However, I hope it does not get much worse because for some people this condition can be a big problem.
There are a number of reasons why I am on a spiritual journey. My main objective is not to achieve a spiritual goal like enlightenment, whatever that is. My main objective is to learn how better to manage my moods. I am inspired by Dan Harris who wrote 10% Happier - How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works - A True Story. It would be a wonderful accomplishment if I could reduce by 10% the number of not good, bad,or awful days I have. I do not have many such days but I have too many because one such day is one too many. I have many days which are merely okay. It would be wonderful for me to have 10% more days that are very good or great. To be 10% happier seems like such a reasonable goal, an achievable goal. However, my intentions go well beyond mood management which by itself could not be considered a spiritual goal.
I am seeking a transformative experience. I would like to change the essence of who I am. I would like to become someone who is more grateful, more empathetic, mentally calmer and wiser than the person I am today. I would like to change significantly in these dimensions, to a degree that I feel like another person.
I know from experience that such a change is possible. For the first forty years years of my life I was a Christian but at midlife I lost my faith. For the next twenty years I was neither religious nor spiritual. I have already been two very different persons. I have been two persons combined in one life, my life. I know from experience that that there is no reason why three very different persons cannot be combined in one life.
At the same time, it does not matter if I do not achieve this goal. The goal is not important. The journey, the direction, is important. Others may not notice any significant change in me as only I in my own mind can know whether I feel like yet another person. In a sense I am conducting an
experiment on myself.
So far I have identified two guides for my journey, Sam Harris and Dan Harris, not related and there are two more, Sylvia Boorstein and Eckhart Tolle. At midlife I explored new value systems as a replacement for my lost Christianity. For some reason I bought It’s Easier Than You Think -The Buddhist Way to Happiness by Sylvia Boorstein which was published in 1995. I do not remember if I read it at that time. For some reason this was one of the books I had shipped to Mexico in 2012 when I retired. I have now read this book and I find much in it to guide my life.
And I have now also noticed a very interesting connection. Sylvia Boorstein is a cofounding teacher at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center and the Insight Meditation Society. Sam Harris recommends both of these centres in his Blog. I feel that I am in safe territory as long as I have the support of the atheist Sam Harris.
As I began exploring spirituality, from time to time I saw the name Eckhart Tolle. I was aware that he wrote the bestseller The Power of Now, a book I have not read. I had seen his name on lists of influential spiritual leaders. But last year something happened that moved me beyond my mild curiosity.
In November, 2015 I made a presentation about Waking Up by Sam Harris and my own spiritual journey at Open Circle. Afterwards several people wanted to talk with me. One lady asked me if I had heard of Eckhart Tolle. I had. She asked me if I had read his book A New Earth. I had not. Then she said with great intensity that that book saved her life and she walked away. I would no longer recognize that lady but I will long remember the very powerful connection I felt with her at that moment.
Soon afterward I bought and read A New Earth. It is a very different book than Waking Up. But I now know that Eckhart Tolle will also be a guide to me on my spiritual journey. I will have much more to say about the ideas in A New Earth in the future.
By midmorning I wanted a break from writing and I undertook an exercise in mindfulness. I went to my garden, a large garden at the front of our house. I walked slowly through the garden, stopping often. I literally stopped to smell the roses. I heard the pleasant sound from our water feature. I looked at the wide variety of plants, looking at the details, the variety of shapes and sizes and colors of the leaves and flowers. I noticed bees, many bees, as well as other insects. I felt the hot sun and the gentle, cooling breeze. I noticed my breath. All the while I tried to be fully present enjoying the experience without my mind wandering away and without getting lost in thought. Of course thoughts came and they were not unwelcome. I let them go and again focused on my breath and the beauty of my garden. I felt gratitude. I was grateful for the beauty and for the capacity of my mind to know and experience beauty. Plants and flowers are beautiful, but only because of the idea of beauty and my ability to experience it.
After a very thorough tour of my garden, I sat in the shade for a while. I continued to be present and attempted to experience beauty without thinking. But I noticed a steady stream of thoughts, a constant stream of consciousness. I ponder whether the idea of awareness without consciousness can be real. I know from my other readings that the answer is yes.
At this point in the day Pat left to go grocery shopping. I was home alone and continued my activities. I have always needed and enjoyed a significant amount of solitude. I decided to listen to a Sam Harris podcast which was about an hour in length. It was his Ask Me Anything #4 podcast published a couple of days ago on March 29, 2016. It was interesting and contained nothing surprising. I was in almost complete agreement with everything he said. It was easy to focus my attention and I had few problems with my mind wandering away. Sam Harris is always interesting, informative and reasonable. But I also appreciated his openness. He shared a lot about himself, little details like having been circumcised as a baby, shared appropriately in the context of a question he was answering.
Near the end Harris talked about his next book. It will be about AI, artificial intelligence, and will be coauthored by Eliezer Yudkowsky with whom I am not familiar. I looked up Yudkowsky in wikipedia and immediately noticed how young he is, born in 1979. It is highly probable that the book Yudkowsky and Harris write will be on my wish list before its release date. Harris indicated that the book is at a very early conceptual stage.
Next I did another fifteen minute session of meditation. This one was noticeably more difficult than my earlier session. My mind had been stimulated by the Harris podcast which covered many topics. Now it was hard to sit still. My mind wandered off in different directions with racing thoughts.
I decided to watch a few Sylvia Boorstein videos which were fine but I prefer her book. Then I watched a couple of Eckhart Tolle videos. They are different, unlike anything I have watched before. I am more than curious.
I think I understand what he talks about but I have never experienced it. Like most people I identify with the constant stream of thoughts flowing through my mind which feels like my real self. But do I really have another self, an Awareness, an altered state of consciousness that is something else? Tolle says that such an awareness of awareness without thinking will have a profound, life-changing impact on our thinking minds. The result is a sense of peace, bliss, joy, calm and all such desirable things. I do not reject this as nonsense. But I also do not accept this as absolute truth. All I know for certain at this point in my life that nothing in my experience confirms this to be true.
It is now almost 2:00 and this seems like enough focus on spirituality for one day. Because I am fasting I am hungry and have declining energy. I will not break my fast until tomorrow morning.
The rest of the day was normal. I checked my email. I watched some news on CNN, more entertainment than quality news, and I watched some golf on Golf Channel. In the evening Pat and I watched some TV together.
Today was not a typical day in my life but it was the type of day that I intend on having about very two or three months.