By Thomas McConkie, adapted from an episode of Mindfulness+
See an introduction and guided meditation below.
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In the late 17th century, a scientist named Antonie van Leeuwenhoek constructed a microscope powerful enough to observe living cells at the microscopic level. It was only a matter of time before other scientists elaborated on the insights based on Leeuwenhoek’s detailed observations of bacteria and realized that it wasn't the imbalance of the humors in the body that led us to getting sick.
A lot of that pre-modern understanding was out the window after this discovery. We developed germ theory, which accounted for a tremendous number of illnesses and also allowed us to come up with a cure after diagnosing the cause of illness properly. Centuries later, we have developed profound technology around healing infections.
Now, there was a kind of proto-scientist who came along thousands of years before Leeuwenhoek. And in a different way, this scientist observed another kind of infection at, we could say figuratively, the microscopic level. This proto-scientist I speak of was Prince Siddhartha — the Buddha. And what the Buddha recognized when he brought the figurative microscope of awareness to the microscopic level of his sensory experience was another kind of infection. He also gave a name to it, he called it taṇhā, and this meant in his language thirst or sometimes translated as craving. What the Buddha recognized was that most of the time, most often in human experience, when we look really closely at what's happening moment to moment, there's a kind of craving, there's a kind of thirst for not feeling the way we're actually feeling right now in this moment.
This craving is a kind of attitude or a disposition towards moment to moment experience that says, “I don't like what's happening now. I want something else to be happening.” The Buddha realized that this thirst, this craving was the root of all suffering and that if we could uproot this fundamental thirst that we would have the experience of being Buddhas — we would be joyful, we would be free, we would be full and content at the deepest level of our being, realizing directly that nothing is lacking.
So, this infection in human life and human experience comes in pairs. What I mean by that is taṇhā takes two different forms. The one we could name seeking, and if seeking could speak, it would say something moment to moment in human life like, “What I'm experiencing right now is not enough. There's something else. I could be feeling something better if I just knew how to feel it, so I'm going to strive and struggle and do everything I can to feel that thing.” I imagine that seeking's evil twin is avoiding and if avoiding could speak, avoiding would say something like, “What I'm experiencing in this moment is not okay. It's not okay that I'm feeling what I'm feeling right now. I need to do something. I need to do anything to not be feeling this.”
In the grips of these infections we live out our human lives. And when we engage in a contemplative or mindfulness practice, we bring the microscope of awareness to the minute detail of our sensory experience and see it with fuller resolution. We see these twins of seeking and avoiding clearly, and we end up seeing through them. It's as if shining the light of awareness on these particular bacteria were like beaming a high intensity ultraviolet light into them, thereby nuking them, zapping them. It's that quality where the intensity of our awareness bakes out these bacteria that infect human life, these bacteria that rob us of our innate sense of freedom and joy. It's really powerful.
We all have high-powered UV lights. We just were born with them. We are that. We are awareness, and we can bring this awareness to bear on our experience. We can go deep into sensory experience and see where the infection is, see where the resistance, the struggle, the seeking, the avoiding, and the craving are. And as we do that more and more, moment to moment when we get real about what we're avoiding, what we're craving, what we're struggling against, a deeper part of us, deeper than the personality, deeper than the thinking mind, deeper than the physical body. A profound quality of presence and stillness just sets in. And when we taste this stillness and this presence, we get insight into what true health feels like. The diagnosis, the prescription, the regimen of the great physician has made us whole.
At the heart of the meditative and contemplative traditions is a realization that whatever happens to us — whatever the content of our experience may be — our response and relationship to our experience is what's paramount. We can't control the content of experience in a significant way. The brain will just think of the next thought, and then we'll be aware of that thought and have an opportunity to have a certain relationship with that thought. Experiencing is flowing, is happening all the time, and therefore we have an opportunity every single moment to be in the right relationship with our experience.
So let's work with it. Let's do this. Let's practice. Let's zap.
Meditation Practice
Take a moment to settle into a place and a posture that is comfortable, and relax. Soften. No need to rush this process. You can just set up the right conditions for yourself and allow the body to unwind in its own time, according to its own rhythms.
Gather awareness in the field of physical sensation that is flowing, that is cascading, that is changing moment to moment, and turn on your high-powered beams as you do this, bring the fullness and clarity of awareness to the field of physical sensation. And notice anywhere you detect any strain, any belief that you need to feel something that you’re not feeling right now — that you need to seek, you need to strive.
And similarly, notice any belief or deep-seated attitude that what you’re feeling in this moment is not okay, that something you’re feeling right now is not okay and you need to escape it.
And as you detect different layers of struggle in the body, you can see clearly that these metaphorical infections are in fact human experience. You can just see them for what they are. Shine all of the light, the heat of your awareness on these two qualities and imagine the heat and light of awareness just baking them out at a microscopic level of cells and tissue — bones, organs, joints — until you are simply left with a naked quality of stillness. No seeking, no pushing, no pulling, just this experience and all of its fullness and its pain and its pleasure is complete.
At the level of pure presence and awareness, you can just totally be this experience, this arising. Open up the scope of your focus to the flow of feeling, of emotion, of thinking. And just notice what you detect. If there's any resistance, any struggle, any subtle belief that what you’re feeling right now emotionally is not okay, that you need to escape from it. Or there's some way that you should be feeling that you’re not feeling right now, and you need to strive for it and go find that.
And when you identify these subtle strains of struggle, you can just fall into the stillness, fall into a sense of transparency, recognizing that these beliefs, these forms of resistance are insubstantial, not ultimately true.
Pervasive in human experience is the subtle belief that what I'm experiencing in this moment isn't okay. I need to go seeking for something more, something better. I need to avoid the unpleasantness that's already here. Don't believe it. Melt through it, bake through it. Include even the sense of struggle and then the even deeper sense of radical okayness.
Stay with it. If you notice the mind active and busy, that's often a clue that there's something uncomfortable in the body that we're avoiding. Stay deep in sensation, deep in feeling, and be willing to bring the heat to the intensity of awareness, to sensation, and see clearly that there is absolutely nothing arising in this moment.
If your fundamental relationship to experience in this moment is one of honesty, one of openness, one of freedom, what you will find is this attitude will give birth to freedom and openness in the next moment and the next moment and the next moment. Touch into the freedom you are in this moment and you will touch into a freedom with no beginning and no end.
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