Meditating on anxiety

I attach anxiety to future events.  Some attachments are strong and thick like a rope, others are like whispy threads, easily pulled apart.

Dealing with anxiety during meditation can be counterintuitive.  Increased heart beat, tightening of the chest, shortness of breath, tight muscles, restless mind – these are properties that you aim to dissolve  during meditation, not cultivate.  Yet, it is inevitable that unpleasant thoughts arise, triggering stress and tension in your body and mind.

Pushing away thoughts and feelings and dragging pleasant ones in – not a fruitful exercise.  This can result in more anxiety and dissatisfying thoughts that your meditation practice is ‘not working’.

One approach I use is to intentionally think of things that will stress me out, small and big thoughts alike.  ’I need to fit in laundry, yoga and meditation into the morning before the day gets going, otherwise I won’t do it’. (Meditating about meditation is even stressful).  Or, ‘I’m running out of time to accomplish everything I want in this life, yet here I am watching reruns of Seinfeld that I have seen at least five times.’  Or, ‘I’m worried about my parents aging, getting sick, and eventually dying.’

This gets the heart pumping and not in a pleasant way.

As you invite these thoughts, notice how your body changes, notice how your mind tightens up, even freezes.  Focus less on the event and more on the impact the event has on your well-being as you sit.  After a few moments of observation, let that thought leave, and invite the next one in.

My experience is that the more and more we witness the detrimental effects that this attachment of anxiety causes during meditation, the more we notice this happening in every day life.  This is the first step to severing the ties between our thoughts and the anxiety we attach to them.

Orison Swett Marden wrote:

Obstacles are like wild animals.  They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can.  If they see you are afraid of them… they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.

Orison Swett Marden – A Man with Merit

Everything in life is ever-changing, except this blog.

This inaugural posting of 2011 shines a light on Orison Swett Marden, an American author and physician born in 1850.

At the age of 3, Marden lost his mother, and four years later, lost his father.  This left him and his siblings in and out of the custody of numerous guardians, with Marden working to support himself from this day onward – as an adult, working in a hotel and eventually owning and operating several of them.

Despite the seemingly unsurmountable adversity, Marden graduated from Boston University and eventually graduated with an M.D. and LL.B from Harvard College.

Marden was inspired by the Scottish author Samuel Smiles, the father of self-help books and the author of ‘Self-Help‘, written in 1875.  The book was coined ‘the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism’, and played a huge role in the course of Marden’s life.  Marden himself went on to author an impressive list of books on the common theme of cultivating will-power, belief in oneself and achieving success.

‘An Iron Will’ (free download) is the only Orison Swett Marden book I have read so far, and I found it to be a tremendous source of inspiration.  Unlike other self-help books that espouse shortcuts to reaching goals – positive thinking – this book offers no shortcuts.  You will reach your goal and attain fulfillment no other way than by cultivating discipline, motivation and good old-fashioned hard-work.

Marden founded Success Magazine  in the late 1890s.  An interesting article is featured in Success entitled ‘Orison Swett Marden – An Original Thinker‘.

Events from the UBC Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program

Thanks to the UBC Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program for the announcement that Thich Nhat Hanh will visit Vancouver in August 2011. As well, there are a number of interesting events happening this fall.  Check it out!

Happy News: A welcome change to balance things out

If you are tired of being inundated with news of the dismal, here is something new:  Happy News – Real News.  Compelling Stories.  Always Positive.

Why  not contribute and add to the positivity?

Why You Can’t Meditate – Part I

There are so many reasons why you can’t meditate.  Or so you think.

1.  You don’t know how!

Do you know how to sit?  And close your eyes?  Do you know how to count mindfully from 1 to 10 repeatedly in your mind?  Do you know how to observe your thoughts as they enter your mind?  You can meditate.

2. You don’t have time

You can skip that episode of ‘The Office’ that you have seen thrice before.  You can cut out 10 minutes from Facebook, Twitter and Internet ‘research’.   You can make time.

3. It’s too noisy

Your sitting practice will not always happen while perched atop a serene setting such as Spirit Rock.  A typical sitting practice will occur in your home, on a regular day, with life moving full steam ahead.  The noise is an important part of your practice.   It can never be too noisy.  Treat the noise as you would your fleeting thoughts.

4. Your body aches

Two words: Pain Meditation

Stay tuned, as there are many more reasons why you shouldn’t meditate!

Meditation and emotional impact on pain

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100602091315.htm

Meditating Health

Can meditation have long-term beneficial effects on the plasticity of our brains? Bon meditation practitioner Alejandro Chaoul and oncologist Lorenzo Cohen evaluate the healing potential of meditation in a discussion from the Rubin Museum of Art’s Brainwave Festival.

Listen to the audio recording of the talk.

Paul Ekman on Darwin, the Dalai Lama, and the nature of compassion

Paul Ekman is coming to Vancouver March 11th to discuss the similarity between Darwin’s thinking about compassion and virtue, and the Buddhist view.

A Theory of Fun

hi everyone,
Since game design is top of mind, I thought I’d call out this book which I have listed in the ‘Recommended Readings‘ section called ‘A Theory of Fun‘.  I have yet to read it myself but it’s in my list – I believe it will be informative for the purpose of designing a suitable game for our experiment.

Survey of flow-inducing online games – ‘Nightmare’

Interested in your thoughts on these mini games that just launched today.  In particular: ‘Reactions’ and ‘Focus’ are two ideas that might work if we are able to extend the trials.

Have a play!