9
The First Quality of Mystic Cool: Quietly Engaged, Fully Present
It is not in the words. It is not subject to will. It is birds singing, air moving gently, story coming and going, breath flowing, back aching, heart beating, sun shining, beholding it all in silence with an open heart that does not go anywhere.
Toni Packer
The first quality of Mystic Cool is attention. It is the capacity to engage quietly with whatever we are facing and to be fully present in the moment. It is what Eckhart Tolle defined as "the quiet sense of our own presence, our own aliveness that flows into whatever we happen to be doing." Quietly engaged, fully present means we are focused in a way that is spacious. Our openness gives us greater access to information, and our patience with the process enables us to sense the larger relationship emerging from details and to intuit the direction in which things are moving. The obstacle that thwarts this quality of attention is all the racket a mind under stress produces. It is an incessantly thinking, judgmental mind, distracted from the present by pointless preoccupations with the baggage of the past and worries about the future. Shifting these mind-made distortions involves returning our attention to the present moment, quieting the mind, and fearlessly engaging whatever we face.
For most of us, a quiet, fully present moment tends to happen by accident more than by intention. Something external stills the mind -- a sunset, the sound of rain beating on the roof, a deer grazing in a meadow, the motion of the sea, and even something as simple as wind chimes. These are dynamically peaceful encounters that have the power to create an unexpected epiphany. However, our more common mode of thinking is rather incessant.
The FIRST OBSTACLE: INCESSANT THINKING
Incessant thinking can generate all sorts of stressful events, purely in our heads, exciting disturbing emotions that activate a stress reaction, all without anything concrete having actually happened. Our mind can become a nonstop voice, commenting on everything. It has a penchant for taking sides and, at times, is known to reverse its position for no apparent reason. It often points a finger at someone and, in the next breath, turns the same criticism on us. It has been estimated that the average person thinks sixty thousand thoughts a day, 90 percent of which are repetitive. "You are never alone," wrote Byron Katie. "Wherever you are, whomever you're with, the voice in your head goes with you, whispering, nagging, enticing, judging, shaming, guilt tripping, or even yelling at you."
The "thinking" mind takes for granted that it is who we are, and we tend to go along. In the mental confusion it generates, we find it next to impossible to locate a meaningful sense of self. The thinking mind thinks: I am you, and your life is this story I am telling you and constantly revising. It is the mind-made, brain-made story that Shakespeare called a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing.
Few forms of expression can become as histrionic as incessant thinking. Below is an example. As you read it, infuse it with the same exaggerated emotion you might experience on a tense ride to work with your brain racing from a venti-size cup of Starbucks coffee.
POINTLESSLY PREOCCUPIED
@#$%^&*()_+!!! Got a meeting with George at ten, and the stuff at the cleaners, can't forget that even though I don't want to go to that party, why is she making me go? I just want to come home and put my feet up. I need to prepare for George, I don't get his agenda, and what about that tie he wore last week? Is he color-blind? Oh, got to call Linda about lunch, she'll probably make me pay again, she just sits there when the check comes, I hate that. So what do I need to do to prepare for George? I should finish that report, and the brown shoes with the black suit, does he even look in the mirror in the morning? He needs to lose weight. Oh no, I didn't bring my gym bag, not again, oh there it is, thank god, I got to go today, I'm putting on weight, it's so hopeless, weight off weight right back on, NO CARBS TODAY AND NO SUGAR EITHER!!! @#$%^&*()_+@#$%^&*()_+@#$%^ &*()+@#$%^&*()+@#$%^&*()+@#$%^&*()
• • •
This stream of consciousness is really a stream of unconsciousness that never seems to stop. The pointlessly preoccupied narrative you just read could go on for three more pages and not capture the incessant thinking that can happen on the walk from the parking lot to our office. We think so incessantly that the notion that we could turn it off and be still seems impossible. Sometimes, usually late at night, we can paint ourselves into a tight corner with a stream of fearful thinking. If, by some act of grace, we are able to escape it, we realize, looking back from a safer shore, that much of what we thought was delusional. It was largely painful thoughts generating fearful images that batter us into feeling separate and alone in a hostile world. "[Incessant thinking] comes between you and yourself," wrote Eckhart Tolle, "between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God."
We cannot escape this form of mind by trying to figure it out. We cannot change it or will it away. We can, however, transcend it. "When thoughts are whirling about," wrote meditation teacher Toni Packer, "we can let them be like dancing snowflakes in empty space." If we could acquire a little more space between thoughts, meaning a little more peace and quiet between the fears that haunt us, it is inevitable that we will feel increasingly safer, happier, and neurologically, gain more and more access to the enormous power of our brain. Who, in their right mind, would not volunteer for that?
Watching the Thinker
We are going to practice watching the thinker to see if there is an exit we can find that leads away from all the noise into a quiet, open space. The Sufi poet Rumi wrote: "Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." The purpose of this exercise is to take us out beyond the chatter in our mind to see if there actually is a quieter, saner field of experience inside of us.
1. Sit or lie comfortably. Close your eyes. All you are asked to do is observe. Simply be with whatever your mind generates. Notice what you are thinking, feeling, and perceiving. Don't become involved in the thoughts. Don't judge them or try to change them. Simply observe.
2. If your mind gets lost in a proliferation of thought or makes judgments and evaluations, observe this. Notice the thoughts that come and go, the residue of emotion they carry, and the pictures they paint. Stand back from it and simply notice. At first, it may seem there is nothing but chatter and chaos. Do not judge or condemn what you hear.
3. The mind will present you with the impulse to do something other than this process. Ignore that impulse and bring your attention to the breath.
4. The body will demand attention. Ignore this as well, returning attention to the breath.
5. After a few minutes of consciously observing, you will begin to sense the aspect of mind that is doing the observing. You will begin to reach beyond the chatter, simply by witnessing it.
6. Soon you realize: There is a voice chattering away, and I am simply observing it, neutrally. "This I am realization," stated Eckhart Tolle, "this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind."
7. Recall Rumi's words once again: "Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there."
8. Meet yourself in Rumi's field. Relax into the unencumbered space of being. Allow it to expand with each breath. It is the gateway to a quiet mind, setting you free to simply be.
Starting the Day
Starting the morning with the Watching the Thinker process can change the quality of your day. All that is required is fifteen minutes. It is, in part, a classroom for bringing our stress pattern into greater awareness. It offers a kind of laboratory for observing the reactive thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that generate stress. We see firsthand how easily these proliferate when we attach to them, and how, just as easily, they pass into oblivion when we detach nonjudgmentally, by returning our attention to the breath. Through the process we begin to understand with greater clarity that emotions are not facts, thoughts are not truth, perception is not reality, and none of it is essentially you. Thich Nhat Hahn, the Vietnamese monk whom Martin Luther King Jr. nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, recommends adding gratitude to the process. "Every morning, when we wake up," he wrote, "we have twenty-four brand new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others."
A Shortcut: The Clear Button
As we have seen, most stress reactions begin with fearful thinking. When we collapse the thought pattern, before it proliferates into negative emotions and perceptions of threat, we can thwart a stress reaction. Normally, at work it is not possible to take a fifteen-minute break to quiet the mind. But here is a shortcut we can use. It is called "The Clear Button."
Imagine for a moment that you are speaking with someone and the discussion is beginning to cause you some anxiety. You are worried that a decision is taking shape that you do not favor. You begin to feel edgy, and a pattern of defensive thinking starts to surface. Losing your composure is the last thing you want. The Clear Button is a tool that can collapse the escalating pattern of stress.
1. Become aware of the stress you are feeling.
2. Notice the thinking process that is driving the stress you experience.
3. Imagine a button on your chest or p...
