Discovering Awareness Blog

Sacramento, California
Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Today awareness brought a gift I couldn’t ignore. It was an ashes on the forehead, “Remember … to dust you will return” gift.

We spent the day with old friends in a “Celebration of Life” service for a strong, sassy friend who died suddenly. We did a great job celebrating her powerfully lived life. The hard part, the gift part, was to be aware of her absence. To be in the present moment and observe without judgment or evaluation, that Carolynne Akiko Murphy was dead. That simple fact is so painful, evokes so deep a fear, that we wish for anything but awareness.

When Tibetan Buddhism was opening to the west in the 1950s, an abbott sent a young monk to study at Cambridge. When the young monk returned after two years of study the old abbot summoned him and asked “Tell me what is the most important difference between the East and the West?” The young monk replied without hesitation “In the West, no one believes that they will die.”

Inseparable from our loss was the delight of being present with true friends, seeing the sparkle in their eyes, hearing the raucous laughter, feeling the embrace and tasting the wine poured in friendship and in acknowledgement of our common humanity and, by implication, our common primal fault.

Stars, I Have Seen Them Fall

Stars,I have seen them fall, 

But when they drop and die 

No star is lost at all 

From all the star-sown sky.


The toil of all that be 

Helps not the primal fault; 

It rains into the sea, 

And still the sea is salt.

A.E. Houseman, 1936

I just received this in an email from an old friend:
“Interesting that you are into awareness. I have been dabbling with the mindfulness meditation program from John Kabat-Zinn. When I get busy I tend to cut my meditation time which I know is the exact wrong thing to do.”

Here’s my reply:
Interesting! Check yesterday’s BLOG entry on “Little Things Mean A Lot.”

It’s great when I can do a 20 minute practice each day. Fr. Thomas Keating advised me to try two 20 minute sessions: one first thing in the morning (which I often do) and the second late afternoon (which I do less often). The second one in his terms allows some “psychic unloading” of the day’s events before they pile up too much. That’s great advice and it works wonderfully. It’s also the regime of a semi-pro meditator. (Keating being a 90+ yr old Trappist is clearly a pro, definitely an all-star and probably a hall of fame meditator.)

Once you have developed some skill in awareness/mindfulness, that is you’ve practiced enough to focus, identify when you’ve lost focus, be gentle with yourself, drop evaluation and judgement, etc, I think you can view it as a skill you can call upon when you need it. Kind of like typing.

So when my life gets busy and my beloved 20 minute sessions haven’t happened for a few weeks, I can just seize whatever meditation opportunities present themselves. No matter how brief.

In my former high pressure business life, I used to yearn for a more peaceable way to live. It seemed very remote. If only, … Suddenly, being an engineer, I thought of awareness/mindfulness, as a counterweight on a very long lever. The burdens of every day life were real close to the fulcrum, an inch, say. But meditation was 10 feet from the fulcrum. A gram of meditation could lift a ton of cares and worries.

Here’s the way I crystalized it when I was feeling overburdened and cornered by my job.
1) There isn’t an hour in the day when I can’t find a minute to focus on awareness.
2) There isn’t a day in the week, when I can’t find an hour to practice awareness.
3) There isn’t a month in the year, when I can’t find a day to practice awareness.
4) There isn’t a year in my life when I can’t find a week to practice awareness.

To me, this was freedom.

Today was scattered and hectic. Dangerous driving through ice and snow on steep mountain roads. A bunch of problems to solve and things to fix. A long list of “to dos.”
Wanting to fix things that don’t want to be fixed. You know the day.

I settled for awareness on the fly. Taking a tiny breather, I focused on the trees and the blue sky. I let it take my full attention. My mind instantly wandered to the problem I was trying to solve. When I realized I was solving problems, I criticized myself for lack of focus. “you are supposed to be aware of the trees and sky and you are back in your old thought rut, solving problems. yack, yack, yack.” I quickly and gently recognized that I was criticizing myself, and gently went back to the trees and sky. The whole process only lasted a minute or two but it was an awareness exercise in miniature. I did this several times during the day and while my head was still buzzing I felt I had a little more perspective and space and was a lot less frustrated than in the past.

My point in this post is that if you have the basic awareness skills you don’t need 20 minutes of uninterrupted silence in a closed room to practice. You can bring it to bear minute by minute in your everyday life. Whenever you need a break. Or some focus. or some freedom.

Awareness is yours for the taking.

Around noon today, I saw a guy in fancy ski gear with a big black smudge on his forehead. The words from the Ash Wednesday service surfaced: “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.” Skiing and penance? Giving up stuff? Self-mortification? Self-denial?

Later I ran into a friend who does Iron Man triathalons. Should I be setting higher goals for myself? Do I drive myself hard enough?

I’m trained and educated in self denial. Twelve years of catholic education drilled that into my unconscious. I’m also educated in denial’s polar opposite: setting and achieving goals. Forty years in management drilled that into my unconscious. Anyone want to train for a marathon May 1st?

Taken to an extreme, either approach leads to violence towards one’s self, which after all doesn’t need much mortification or vigorous goal setting.

A challenge is to just be who we already are. To be aware of the present moment without evaluation or judgment. To allow the noise in our heads to gently subside, even if it’s just for a moment or two, so we can glimpse things as they really are.

When we are aware we don’t need much “mortification” or “challenge goals”.

We can simply and intensely engage in the present moment and be true to our deepest self.

“When the mango tree is true to itself, fruits happen.”

We practice awareness as gently as possible so we may discover our true self. Fruits will happen.

It’s Mardi Gras, Fastnacht, Carnival tonight. Lots of people in this mountain town are wearing beads and preparing for parties. Marie and I are heading out for the parade this evening. The roots of the merriment are in the ancient tradition of preparing for spring and the rebirth part of the seasonal cycle. (at least in the northern hemisphere)

For the next six weeks, I’ll be keeping an informal, irregular blog here on ways to apply awareness to ordinary life.
Savoring the present moment is a wonderful skill. Listening, really listening, can transform winter into spring.
Seeing, really seeing, can make flowers bloom. Tasting, really tasting, can transform water into wine.

Want to give it a try?

Sometime, each day, as gently as possible turn your attention to the present moment. In that moment, simply observe without evaluation and judgment. Don’t force anything to happen. Just be aware.