Mind As Enemy, Mind As Friend

A few nights ago we drove into town to see an art opening by Lady X, a mysterious 70 yr old woman whose paintings sell out immediately. I was curious to see this show. And as I wandered the exhibit I enquired of the gallery owner if Lady X might be hiding in the crowd. I imagined how much fun that could be for her.

But the salient experience of the night was not so much the art, but the feelings that were following me that evening. There was the awkwardness of not knowing a soul. You've been there, I know you have.

It was early evening and overcast, the countryside quiet. And not that I was given to wild evenings of revelry and socializing in the city, I found myself feeling lonely. And with the feeling of loneliness I noticed the thoughts that supported it: worries about will I make friends here in this new place, maybe my art isn't good enough, will we find a home we love. The mind projecting itself into the future, on a little jet stream of worry and doubt. In truth these thoughts have been percolating in the background for a while now.

Yet as we chatted about them on the way in to town they somehow lost their grip. Monsters hate the light of day. I could see them as just thoughts, with all their unreality, the mind doing it's reflexive thing. Certain habitual thoughts seem to arise as the Buddhist saying goes "when all conditions ripen": the time of day, the grey sky, the quietness of roadways. I could remind myself that this beautiful green landscape was what we'd been longing for when we lived in the city.

Life here is simply minus the city activities of nipping out on an errand or two. The hum of the TV doesn't fill the evening. Without these things life is quieter, simpler. It takes time for the gear shift to click in. But it's good to notice the arising of these thoughts and feelings that create subtle undercurrents. It keeps them from getting up to their subversive little tricks of masquerading as the truth. What's that bumper sticker? "Don't believe everything you think."

In all of this I was reminded of a quote from a book I am reading, "The Wise Heart" by Jack Kornfield. "Who is your enemy? Mind is your enemy. Who is your friend? Mind is your friend. Learn the ways of the mind. Tend the mind with care." -The Buddha

And which of those grey haired women was "Lady X"? My mind has several theories, including me as Lady Why.

Comfort Soup

I confess. I am a "feelings" junkie. I live in a thick bubbling soup of feelings. I am not so much a thinker but a feeler. This rich stew of feelings is like a pot of winter evening soup, roiling and boiling. Ingredients rise to the top and surface at random, a small fluffy dumpling of delight, one moment, the pungent scent of fear, next, perhaps, a hard lump of sadness later.

As the sun disappeared this evening, the soup sent up little tendrils of melancholy for no apparent reason. Sometimes there is a reason, as in someone turned up the heat on the pot, but sometimes feelings just arise. Is there some deep human sense of melancholy associated with the falling of night or the depth of winter? Or is it something more karmic, peculiar to this body/mind in this lifetime, or perhaps carried over from other lifetimes if you care to tug on that green bean.

I can remember my Zen teacher once saying to me "that feelings were not a good measure of things". If the soup gets too hot, it can burn your mouth. Like our thoughts, feelings are cycling through, ebbing and flowing and not a solid ground on which to rest our choices. They are impermanence manifest in the heart. A favourite bumper sticker of mine is "don't believe everything you think." Ditto for feelings too.

As I write theses words it seems important to distinguish "feelings" from that deeper sense of "knowing" that comes from inside, that may seem illogical or irrational but carries intuitive information that is a good basis for choices. I am learning to work with this. It can be very difficult to discern this "knowing" and only through experimenting with it, it seems to me, do we get an actual sense of it. I remember a number of us asking our teacher with such urgency, "how will I know the still small voice?" "how can I distinguish it from my imaginings and my longings?" Have faith and patience she would say and you will become acquainted with it.

And so as I sit here on this wintery, evening, the furnace has come on and there is a soft yellow glow to the light coming from the dining room. I think there is a tasty bowl of soup being created in the kitchen, filled with wonderful comforting things like cabbage and tomato and onion and potatoes. Comfort is bubbling to the top.