“We”—whoever we imagine ourselves to be—are not the ones thinking our thoughts…our minds are endlessly repeating habitual thought forms that result from familial, cultural, and karmic conditioning.” Caplan, Mariana
My elderly friend Walter hoards things. To enter his home is to arrive in an overwhelm of congestion. He once owned an “antiques” store; when that closed, he simply moved its contents to his already teeming house and basement and garage and shed and yard. Overflowing the shelves and corners and closets, filling every available space, are mounds of clutter. He is reluctant to part with any of it, fearing that he will let go of something needed for his happiness.
At first, I was eager with my suggestions; with time and a deeper inquiry, I have found a tender compassion; I understand. When I examine my own mind, it is easy to see my own fears and my own forms of hoarding: “Yes,” I can acknowledge, “me, too.”
While my home and external surroundings are simple and tidy, as I reflect, I see that my
internal world can be that of a hoarder. Beliefs about myself and others, memories, stories and behavioral strategies from long ago, repeating thoughts and emotions about daily events: all these can crowd my awareness even as they give rise, at times, to agitation and unskillful action.
For instance, this morning, I found my mind filled with clutter. I had called to check on the delay of some important home maintenance only to be told that it had to be delayed, yet again. My mind erupted into repeated and busy objections. Thoughts of “It shouldn’t” and “who didn’t” and “they must” and “why can’t” all tumbled about and overflowed into an ever deeper and unhappy muddle.
The Buddha invites me to notice, to know directly both the unpleasantness of the external situation and of my internal ruminations. I am invited, first of all, to remember the arising of all this difficult clutter as, simply, an unavoidable aspect of any human life. It’s not personal. Really, Sharon, it’s not personal. Human life doesn’t always work the way I want it to, externally or internally. Actually, it’s like this now. Darn.
My mediations today gives me the gift of simple awareness: to see this hoarding of mine as the dukkha, the stress that the Buddha talked about. My suffering, he taught, is arising as insist that life should be otherwise, when I cling to views about how things “should” be, when I am unwilling to bring a quiet curiosity or to simply let go into how it all actually is.
Without first seeing this, I might mistakenly add to my stress by trying to use my meditation as a means to find happiness by indulging or acting out or denying or figuring out or fixing or refining or escaping or drowning out or spacing out or simply moving around my mental clutter. Without noticing and investigating the mental activity for its true character and its real usefulness, I am, like Walter, compounding suffering by simply adding the busy-ness of thoughts and views and struggle into my already crowded mental house. Without the clarity of a simple and kind awareness, I might, in confusion at one extreme, attempt to aim my meditation practice toward a silent and blank emptiness or, at the other extreme, I might exhaust myself with working hard to protect and sustain what I like by endless efforts to fix – or at least tidy up – all of this internal and external muddle.
So, what am I to do with the internal contents of the mind and with all of this “stuff?” Internally, how do I navigate my disappointment? Externally, how do I navigate with those pesky contractor schedules? Our teachings invite me to be in the present moment, awake, knowing experience, aware. How do I do that?
It starts with my kind and compassionate consent: permission for both the external event and my own internal experience to be, simply, what it is. It requires me to first notice but then let go of indulging in all sorts of the additional mental clutter: the mind’s stories and ruminations about why this is happening, about its similarities to other events in my past life, about what it all means about who I am and who the other is and about what really should be happening instead, about what I or others should be and should be doing. It requires me to consent very simply and directly to what the unpleasant is like in this mind and body.
When I look closely, there is heat. There is tightness in the chest and throat. There is a sadness, even, a drooping in the face, a wetness behind the eyes. “It’s like this now.” If I don’t keep retreating into story and rumination, I find that the feeling, while unpleasant, is quite manageable. There is kindness and compassion. Ouch. The stress of human life is like this; I am not in control. As I allow my experience, it shifts; it softens.
In that softer openness lie the clues about my choices and any action that needs to be taken. I Investigate. What is needed, essential, possible with this? Today, that investigation reveals that a wholesome response for me in this moment seems to be primarily internal, in letting go, in simply not accumulating or adding to stress by acting out what is not helpful. Right now, life is just like this.
There is clearing. Patience arises. A bit more freedom. A smile. Nothing to hold onto here: today’s wild ride.