Mind Set Go

One of my favorite books to read is, what I later learned, an anthropology text entitled, Millenium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World by David Maybury-Lewis.  I didn’t say, “One of the favorite books I have read.”  You see, it’s a book you can savor.  You can pick it up and learn, and learn, and learn about other cultures, their ways and their views; it is wisdom that goes back millennia.  Maybury-Lewis also reveals how certain tribes were misunderstood and how some of their practices, once thought to be bad (like selective burning in a migrating tribe in Keyna) are now understood, appreciated and practiced.  Since I started reading and rereading the book, I think a documentary has been created based on Maybury-Lewis’s findings.

I dabble in online courses offered by the company The Great Courses.  You can imagine my curiosity when a free lecture came into my digital library from a course entitled, Ancient Wisdom for the Modern World led by Professor Prince EA and guest lecturers.  I decided to listen to the free lecture this morning.

This lecture delves into the area of flow.  Prince Ea lists a number of other terms for this concept: mushin (Japanese); “being in the zone” (athletics); flow state (science); samadhi (Buddist); “one with Dao” (Daoism).  He also uses the terms awareness, nowness, “doing but not doing,” “total presence.”  Something he said really struck me.  He said that doors and windows could be cut “from the walls of a house, but the ultimate use of the house will depend on the part where nothing exists.” (Prince Ea, Ancient Wisdom for the Modern World, course from The Great Courses)

This course beautifully presents scientific proof of the benefits of flow, much of which is presented in this particular lecture by Steven Kotler of the Flow Research Collective.  And finally, with a little background info in the 20 minute lecture, you, the student, are encouraged to go outside and experience the world as an infant would.  I do think this would be an inspiring, informative course filled with a lot of information.

I am amazed, however, at how our western society, complete with modern biases, presents ancient topics (grounded in hours, days, months, years, centuries, a millennium on to millennia of practice,) as something we can and should do to benefit ourselves.  I am left wondering:

Are all humans motivated by benefits such as increased productivity and creativity cultivated by meditation and flow—or just the humans today, or in our society?  Is that the purpose?  When we take something so foundational and pure and analyze it, document it, and then reduce it to our terms with proof of what it can do for us, for people in the military, for those who want greater productivity, aren’t we missing the real point?  

I do think that unbelievable benefits can and do occur from getting your mind into the free zone–  free of judgements, free of time and space and almost breath, itself.  (Close, but not quite.)  One doesn’t become one with the universe because of what it can do for you.  Does one, really?

I was meditating long before I was sick.  I do believe meditation helped me get well.  But, I didn’t sit down and think, “Hey, if I meditate, maybe I will get well.”  I wasn’t using meditation for some self-motivated purpose. And, I needed no instructions on how to do it; however, now that I have seen instructions set forth to help people understand and practice, I realize I was doing it, (whatever it is or isn’t,) and still am, in what some would view as “right.”  By doing nothing, I was really doing something.  You don’t have to sit in a certain way, hold your hands this way or that, etc.  And as you sit, or lie, or stand, freeing your mind, things do begin to change about yourself.  But it is not an assignment.  It is not an extension of life.  It is life, itself.  Life freed.  Life renewed.  A fuller life known and realized.

I texted a friend parts of this message this week:

“This ever-changing process we call life is our own particular journey—one filled with mystery, and yes, a lot of predictable things, too.  Once (someone who was staying in our home) walked into our bedroom.  I bombarded him with questions, ‘What’s wrong?  What are you doing?’ Etc. He was sleepwalking.  My husband looked over and simply said, ‘Go back to bed.’  And he did.  I know our journey is not a ‘sleep walk,’ but the questions we create about our journey don’t necessarily help or are even kind to/for ourselves.  When we let go of the why’s and what’s, and just live in the moment, life has positive momentum that we accept as ‘just is.’  And ‘just is’ is great…”

While mindset may reap many benefits, and although some may practice it with those benefits in mind, I think we should, as I wrote in the text, let go of the why’s and what’s.  I don’t think it is wrong for a course to present documented statistics about the benefits of flow.  Putting those statistics into our minds as creating purpose for what we do misses the point.  There’s a fine line between doing something because it may reap benefits for egotistical-me and doing something to become a better person amongst people.  

Julia Cameron, in her book that was all the rage when it first came out in the 90s and has serious followers today, The Artist’s Way: A spiritual path to higher creativity, encourages individuals to embrace creativity through a flow of daily writing and other simple tasks.  Tapping into our minds first thing in the morning and letting ideas flow (without fear of showing our words and innermost thoughts and ideas to be judged by others) can be freeing. 

A real world exists.  Not just out there.  But in here, deep in our bodies, our minds, our souls.  A new world to us.

But what do we make of the other part of the real world—the one out there?  The one where war rages and babies are killed?  Where hurricanes ravage and icebergs melt? 

I remember my parents talking about something new in the early 60s.  My parents were among the first to have television when they were children in their neighborhoods.  But later, in the 60s, something changed.  It was the first time reporters were imbedded in the field, bringing the reality of war and chaos into their living room.  Life would never be the same for them, although nothing had changed in the war zone. 

As we watch the war presented to us in real time, presented by news stations each from their own particular slants, how do we justify sitting, praying and meditating?  Do we sit in meditation to block it all out?   Do we sit so that we may have more creative ways to deal with it personally?  Do we have a personal agenda for the ancient practice of sitting?

We sit, in part, because in so doing, we become more in touch with ourselves and thereby, with others.  Although more creative ideas can and will be generated that will unite rather than kill and destroy, we actually sit because a world exists within us, guided by something far greater than ourselves.  Through sitting we become more understanding.  More aware.  Kinder.  Gentler.  More at peace within.  We sit because the war without, while real, does not have to be within—a place perhaps of even more of reality.  We sit because it is our mindset to do so.  Not for personal gain, but for unity, forgiveness, love.

Noone knows you better than you can.  And yet, how little each of us know of ourselves.  Hindis recognize those in this world who have been filled with what I think of as unfathomable skills and traits.  None of them who walk or walked this earth have done so for selfish reasons.  Neither should we.  We do not sit to change the world, but it is those who sit who have the only hope of changing it.  4, 3, 2, 1.  Mind.  Set.  Go!

Nancy Marie Farley Rice