Discovering Awareness Blog

The everyday, practical aspects of practicing awareness are main focus of this blog. I try to soft pedal the philosophic or spiritual aspects. Today’s may be an exception.

Yesterday (3/8) I mentioned Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese.” For me, it blazes forth deep truths that nurture and enable my awareness. The first line is a call to arms: “You do not have to be good.”

Our culture says the opposite. “You must be good at all times. You must earn respect.”

The third line is: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

David Whyte has called the second word in that line the longest word in English literature. “O*N*L*Y”

Seems to me this is the foundation of awareness as a spiritual discipline. I “O*N*L*Y” have to let myself be. Be in the present moment, observing without judgment or evaluation. I do not have to achieve or earn anything. I do not have to scold, prod, or grade myself. I “O*N*L*Y” …

The title of our book, Discovering Awareness, is a nod to this idea. We don’t achieve awareness. We don’t earn awareness. We don’t scold, prod or grade ourselves into awareness. We “O*N*L*Y” discover what we already have. What the wild geese already have. Being in the present, just as it is, without judgment or evaluation.

Consider the belief in “The inherent dignity and worth of every person.” Or in the U.S.A. Declaration of Independence “all men are created equal” or more poetically in the biblical “created in the image and likeness of god.”

“Inherent dignity and worth” rings true for me. The opposite of inherent is acquired. Our ideals say worth is inherent. But practice of our culture says worth is acquired. We must earn our status, else we lose our dignity.

Each of us has been conditioned by our culture with a powerful unconscious message “You must be good.” That’s why Marie Oliver’s line packs such a punch. That’s why the message of awareness that we “O*N*L*Y” have to be in the present is so upsetting to people seeking an “edge” to their life.

Here is the payoff in the last lines of the poem:

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”

We “O*N*L*Y” have to let ourselves be in the present.

Today, I was about to give a brief talk on awareness to a local group. As this stuff is hard to talk about simply and clearly, I prepared my talk in advance. I chose each word carefully and organized the ideas.

As I sat waiting to talk, the leader on a last minute impulse picked one of my favorite poems to read: Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. It was read responsively, that is the leader read a line and the group responded with the next line. It’s a simple moving poem and sums up in a few words a great kernel of truth that my talk was laboring to describe. (more about this in the next post)

As I stood to speak, I put down my prepared talk and simply repeated the key lines of the poem. I could see heads nodding in acknowledgment. I repeated them again and added a few thoughts that linked
the words of the poem to the practice of awareness. I repeated the lines a half dozen time or so before I sat down. I never used my prepared remarks. Everyone smiled.

I am grateful that despite my anxiety about how the talk would go (the future),
I could be fully present to Mary Oliver’s words as they were read,
letting them to fully penetrate my awareness,
so that I could respond with my heart and my own words.

I think the authenticity of my response, not the felicity of my expression, led to the smiles.

Our worries about the past or the future can rob us of the present.

In practicing awareness, we practice returning to the present moment, the here and now, from wherever our overactive mind has taken us. Gradually, in everyday life, we notice more and more about what is actually happening to us as it happens.

Vail, Colorado
In a couple of days I’ll give a talk on awareness. I’m searching for a meditation we might practice before I start talking so people can have a first taste of awareness. I’m considering using “Eating One Raisin: A First Taste of Mindfulness” from a recent book by William, Teasdale, Segal and Kabat-Zinn.
You take one raisin, and focus your awareness on it without judgment or evaluation. You gently become aware of holding it, seeing it, touching it, smelling it and placing it in your mouth. As you bite and chew it thoroughly and slowly you observe the taste and other sensations. You notice when you want to swallow and then as you swallow, you follow the sensations as the what is left of the raisin reaches your stomach. You notice how your body feels.
What depth the raisin has!
I love this practice when applied to eating a meal. First, put less on your plate than usual, understanding that you can always go back for more. Then, put less on your fork or spoon than usual. Notice everything about the morsel of food. Attentively chew more that usual. When you swallow, try to follow the sensations all the way to your stomach *before* placing anything else on your spoon or fork. Gently attend to all sensations and awarenesses without judging or evaluating.

Vail, Colorado

Today was a day of small struggles. Rushed, I didn’t do a formal meditation. Preoccupied, I wasn’t in the present moment much. I’m sure I smiled less than usual.

Even so, there were brief moments of awareness. My wife’s laugh made me glad to be with her. Stopped by strangers for a favor, I managed to notice the deep deep blue of the Colorado sky set off by the snow capped peaks of the Gore Range while taking a photo for a father, son and grandson from Richmond, Virginia.

It’s a pleasure and a comfort to be aware of small things in the midst of frustrating day. It’s also gives me some comfort to be aware of my frustration without judging myself or projecting it either into the future or the past.

Vail, Colorado
Yesterday, my meditations sessions were pleasurable: easy, relaxing, comforting and warm. Today, my session felt difficult, tense, a struggle. The rest of the day turned out to be the same.
Thomas Keating has some wise things to say. He doesn’t thing we should pay attention to how the meditation session itself turns out. “Students don’t grade their own papers.” he says. Secondly he directs our attention outside the meditation room. “The fruits of meditation aren’t found in the meditation, but in everyday life.”
So if I have a pleasurable session, I don’t regard it as a victory. If I have a difficult session, I don’t regard it as a defeat. It’s called a practice for a reason. It’s not a performance. Pleasurable or difficult, I try to end every session by thanking myself for taking the time to practice awareness.
I do look for the effects of awareness in how my everyday life flows. For example, what things get under my skin? Some days though are just difficult and today was one of them.

Boulder, Colorado
My alarm went off at 6:45 this morning. I arose, dressed and went downstairs to find the bell, light a candle and some incense.
At 7:00, Marie and my friend Sandy took a seat next to me and I rang the meditation bell. Twenty minutes later, I rang the bell again and we shared a cup of coffee and some laughs. Great way to start the day.

My friend Pat Johnson from Snowmass gave me some great meditation advice. She said “Just sit. My husband and I set an alarm. When it goes off, we just get up, go to our room and just sit. No thinking, no changing clothes, no cooking, no nothing, just get up and sit.” I love the advice. Even though I’m not very regular at a formal “sit”, when we decide to do it, Pat’s method makes it easy. We often sit when Sandy asks if we are going to. Just the question gets us moving. We get by with a little help from our friends.

The Three Jewels of Buddhism are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sanga, loosely translated as the Leader, the Truth and the Community. Often a Buddhist meditation session ends with a prayer taking refuge in the Three Jewels. For example “I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sanga.”

Well, on these mornings I take refuge in our little sanga – Marie, Sandy, & Bud. It’s amazing the difference between meditating alone and meditating with friends. In Ringo’s immortal words, “I get by with a little help from my friends;” alternatively “I take refuge in the sanga.”

Boulder, Colorado

Isn’t flying fun? We had an airline delay that extended the travel time from Sacramento to Boulder to eight hours door to door. Racing from the airport to the CU campus, we arrived at a concert eight minutes late but before the Takacs string quartet was seated. We made it. Whew! Now what?

Be present. Observe without judgment or evaluation.

Now it isn’t easy for me to suspend judgment or evaluation at a concert. I’m not trained or educated in music appreciation, but I feel I should be. You know the drill.
Anyway, I decided to just *be* with Beethoven. Easy, sweet, pleasant. My mind wandered constantly through the quartet. Gently I brought it back each time to the music.

Next came Bella Bartok’s Quartet No. 3. The program notes describe the piece as “elliptic, elusive, enigmatic, uncompromising and harsh to the point of aggressiveness.” Talk about judgment and evaluation. It’s a good thing I hadn’t read the notes because I experienced great delight just listening to sounds as simply and directly as I could. Funny how our “higher faculties” can get in our own way.

After a break, Takacs played some more Bartok, this time wonderful Roumanian Dances reminding me of a Klezmer band. I wanted to dance with a table in my teeth.

The highlight of the concert was the world premier of “A Tent for the Sun” composed by 32 year old Daniel Kellogg. The music was inspired by a summer spent the the glorious
Rocky Mountain National Park. Here are Kellogg’s words:

“I watched the valley and the sky from the earliest morning light through the hottest part of the day and into sunset and twilight….I was not distracted by phone calls or the internet and spent a rather isolated two weeks in an intimate relationship with this valley, awestruck by the slow passage of time and the long arc of the sun and its rays. I was struck by the sun’s immense power and how small we are in comparison, and by the stillness and the quiet of a windless sunset contrasted by the deafening immensity of the mountains.”

Makes you want to listen to his music, doesn’t it?

I listened with my eyes shut. I listened with no words, no concepts. My mind wandered. Gently, without violence, I brought my attention back to the sounds that are beyond names.

You never know.


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.