It's A Householder's Life

The upside of a challenge is that it can force a very intelligent use of resources; the downside is that it can make you throw up your hands!

So, let's work the upside. The great thing about the essentialist texts-- like Dzogchen-- is they were not the result of ranks of monastics practicing in institutions [i.e., without 'lives']. There are living Dzogchen masters who all say that many short sessions are the way to go. One of the practices Ngak'chang Rinpoche gives is called 'suspension' and it consists of nothing more than remembering, from time to time, to allow everything to just 'stop' when one breath is ending, before the next one starts. It literally only takes a moment. Others have suggested the simple expedient of counting breaths: starting with one to three; then one to ten. It's amazing how much more focused you are when you are capable of noticing ten breaths consecutively.

Here's the theory that I have developed over the last decade of rampaging through everything that looked the least bit useful-- with my well-focused critical eye, and the persistent inquiry of what any given practice is FOR. Meditation is nothing more nor less than the means of developing better perceptual abilities. It's not an end in itself, and therefore 'working smart' will produce what infinite amounts of obedient drilling on the 'method' will not. Shamatha is about learning to focus, and letting all the noise in mind and body settle down; vipassana is about deploying that focus on an ever-expanding amount of the stuff that makes up our lives.

'On the cushion' vipassana is a kind of training-wheels or playing-scales version of practice. Beyond that, our lives ARE our practice; if we are calmer, more insightful, more patient and kind-- that is the only 'awakening' that amounts to a hill of beans. Every time you notice that you have a better alternative than irritation, self-righteousness, obsessing, anxious thought-loops-- that is a 'sign of accomplishment.'

I have really come to think that what Trungpa meant by 'spiritual materialism' was not accumulating knickknacks or books or empowerments or knowledge-- but that hunger for experiences that prove us to be members of the exclusive spiritual club. It's not some kind of hideous sin-- but it is a terrible obstacle, all that stands between us and what we say we want.

That's great advice, guys. Given it's often hard to remember to do a little thing throughout the day, Tom you might set a beep on your phone or something that goes off every 30 minutes, reminding you to count ten breaths, for example.

Do start with stupid-simple, so you do it and feel encouraged and get a frequent habit going. Then you can start picking other things to pay attention to. The breath is a great one to start with because it's always there and easy to do in any location or position.

And remember to groove on things. Anything that is sensory and not cognative can be practice. Brushing teeth, washing body, yes walking the dog, cooking dinner... If you are feeling body sensations, then you are present. Dipa ma famously counciled a young mother to pay attention to the sensations of the baby suckling at her breast. Buddha said pay attention to the sensations of pulling on a rope to raise a bucket of water from the well. My old army buddy said he could "zen out" on patrol by looking at the actual shapes of the objects he saw.

These things add up and build continuity. Then when you sit, you drop in very quickly. 10 or 15 minutes will feel long.

My trick for walking the dog... is to pretend I'm a dog, too. Ruff ruff! Oh boy, doesn't my body feel good walking, doesn't the air feel cool against my face, aren't there smells, listen to the sounds.... just like my dog. My dog isn't thinking about this, she's experiencing it

Hope this helps!

A lovely and simple exercise a friend suggested for generating close attention to body sensations is to imagine you are an alien from another planet who has just manifested in a human body. So as you are doing something common, like washing dishes, walking the dog, imagine you've never had hands before, never had eyes before, never experienced any of the bodily sensations you are experiencing: how strange, how subtle, how wondrous! Having that kind of attention to the detail of present experience is priceless.

I think there definitely is a matter of expectations to consider.

One thing that extensive meditation practice does is create strong altered states, for example, which give a person an impression of deep progress and tend to be encouraging. They can write "wow, had this amazing experience where I couldn't feel my arms and this strobing light was vibrating in my third eye!"

HOWEVER, what is very much overlooked in approaches that encourage deep states and long periods of sitting is that ultimately the states and experiences are utterly irrelevant. They are side-effects of intensive sitting. Like I said, this is very encouraging to people in general (raising my hand, here!) but it is NOT THE SAME as insight. And insight develops very well indeed in traditions that do not include sitting meditation, such as self-inquiry/advaita/dzogchen, for example.

The other thing long periods of sitting does is help a person learn to pay attention to the present moment with total attention. Because one sets aside other activities, it is a helpful way to learn this. However, one can cultivate intensive attention to the present moment (particularly body sensations and breathing) without sitting. Even in monasteries of many traditions work-practice is intended to do this - raking gravel, working in the garden, milking the cows, fixing the roof - these are meant to be practice sessions, not breaks from practice.

Third, you simply don't have time to sit for 1-2 hours a day, so keep in mind this: the practice that will work is the practice that you actually do. Doing the practice you can do right now, all day, every day, is a million times better than wishing that one day you have time to do a different practice. Meanwhile the months and years go by, and you don't do any practice at all. Seize the moment, figure out a way to make it work. Figure out a way to fit in the breaks - perhaps each time you finish a section of code, get up to pee, go to make another coffee, etc. Set an intention to find a way, and figure it out.

I'm 100% confident you can figure out something that will work. And that you can develop the confidence to recognize that it may well work very well even if it doesn't meet your expectations of how it should feel.

Another way to look at is this: if you cultivate some of the suggested practices that can be fit into your day, then in the future when you DO have time for a retreat, sitting, etc. you will be extraordinarily primed to take best advantage of them, rather than having to build up a practice from scratch.

The worst possible kind of practice is the one you only think about.

I have a whole argument against pragmatic dharma being "optimized" or better than other methods (largely because the sample of success is based on the small group of people who stuck it out and were "successful" and continue talking about it on forums we read, and leaves out anyone who tried, dropped out, quit, didn't get it, switched to another method, decided not to talk about attainments anymore, etc.) but perhaps that's another thread entirely.

Ona Kiser wrote: The worst possible kind of practice is the one you only think about.

Ironically, I was just going to post something about objectifying thought!

Pre-stream entry practice is pretty hard, just because it's hard to get a crowbar into the stream of thoughts and expectations for life --- and for practice! It takes a lot of "work" to get to equanimity, where we're finally able just to see the whole machinery of our experience. Obviously it's there all the time, but we're pretty embedded and don't let ourselves objectify our experiences including our thoughts.

BUT... if you know that, if you resonate with that, you might use short sits just to get a feel for how your mental machinery works. Not try to change it or get somewhere, but just to see it. I'll bet it will give you a little bit of disgust and distance... which might help you move more quickly to an EQ-like state when you get a longer sit. It's like training for a marathon by running a few miles a day.

Hope that helps a little!

I agree with what is said here. I am in the same situation as you. I own a small business, have 2 kids (4 & 6) and almost every waking moment is spent participating in this life stuff.

Now, while everyone is different, some people here have made incredible progress with as little as 30 minutes a day of formal practice, and you don't even have to start with that. I don't think I have ever had a sit longer than 45 minutes or so. I have never been on a retreat either.

You can do this, and you obviously want to or you wouldn't be posting this.

Most of my sitting was/is done after the work day was done, after the kids were asleep, after the wife and I spent our time talking and eating, and even after watching TV. Right before bed, take some time, relax, do the prescribed technique (you can start with a really low dose) and then hit the sack for a good nights sleep.

Tom, I feel for you, with you. I think we're both trying to row the same boat. Sorry to set a bad example with my attachment to lots of sitting!

Especially hectic weeks like the last several days, I'm trying to take to heart all the sage advice above also. (But don't leave me alone in a room with a chair!)

The 'secret teaching' is that there is nothing that is not grist for the mill: you sit, you notice silence-- you're doing it! You sit, you notice disturbance-- you're doing it! You walk the dog, you notice cold air, legs moving, tension on the leash, etc.-- you're doing it! You walk the dog, you think about work, or what you should have said to someone, or what you have to do when you get home-- and realize you've been lost in thought for 10 minutes... and that realization is 'it', too! Once you start, you're permanently on the path, no matter what you think at any given moment.

Tom, in my log I described the idiosyncratic mix of motives behind why I'm dependent on sitting, and not trying to suggest that it's helpful to be obsessive about that part of practice. But if you are trying to find ways to squeeze some more in, some of these have helped me.

One is to get up just 10 minutes early and start each morning with a 10 minute sit. Same with before bed. A variation is to pick just 1 or 2 days to get up 20 or 30 mins early. I find Friday mornings work well for this because I figure I'll get to make it up sleeping a little later on Saturday.

(When I had kids your age, I never knew if I'd get in more than a few mins before they found and jumped on me.)

Often I wake up and lie there restless in bed for an hour or more, irked that I can't get back to sleep. Sometimes I'm so anxious at those times and felt like I'd jump out of my skin that in desperation I got up to sit. Then discovered that getting vertical would channel all that energy somehow sometimes up into A&P like states with a magic kind of midnight quality. I'd get really chilled out and happy and easily fall back asleep. It might sound implausible, but it's an interesting schedule option.

I've read down through many of these posts and there is a great wealth of advice here. The one theme I keep seeing through it all is that your life is your practice. There was a time not long ago when this concept really sunk in for me and it profoundly changed the way I approached existence in general. I had some of the same "attachments" to sitting practice (feeling like if I couldn't find time to sit I wasn't getting anywhere) but I think now, and it seems many agree, that the trick is to realize that it's always happening, all the time. Every moment is an opportunity to practice. Life IS practice. Just engage in it consciously, move forward into it as often as possible. Be there with the kids, wife and dog. Experience all those situations as fully as possible and a wider range of momentum will be generated. Rather than just hoping for a glimpse of some profound truth while sitting, be in your life. That's where it happens.

And by the way... Wife, 2 seven year olds, full time job..etc.. It's a challenge!

Take care!

You got it-- once you step into a true encounter with dharma, it is the gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe: you couldn't lose it if you tried.

Tom Otvos wrote: ...my cup is overflowing with dharma practice.

Love that!!!

Now that much of my time is spent caring for my daughter, I'm definitely feeling the effects of having less time to practice. I'd say the only time available for relaxed practice comes during her naps. If I can get her to sleep for 20-30 minutes, I'll lay down and practice mindfulness of breathing. I've been doing this meditation stuff for long enough now that it doesn't take a lot of effort. It's mostly a matter of intention, and having enough time.

I keep wanting to get back into this stuff, but I tend to settle for other activities that are much less rewarding. I'm back to reading constantly, and getting worked up about stuff that really doesn't effect me in the here and now all that much. Here's to finding more time.

And with that, I must tend to the little love bug that just started fussing

Kate Gowen wrote: You got it-- once you step into a true encounter with dharma, it is the gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe: you couldn't lose it if you tried.

Stream-entry defined!

What's very funny in this seeking is that "I must have a specific experience, and I'm going to make it happen" runs head on into "no self" and "everything arises and passes by itself, not me, not mine" doesn't it?

By simply paying attention to the moment (which is something that various meditation practices cultivate via exercises in noting, mindfulness of body, mindfulness of breath, mantra, inquiry, prayer, or many other techniques) one can observe this truth of each sensation and experience arising and passing away by itself (ie triggered by myriad causes and conditions far beyond our ken, not by our will or desires). These sensations and phenomena do not arise and pass away because "Goddammit I'll make them if it kills me" nor because "I'll sit on a cushion until I gain control over the phenomena of the universe."

Cessation arises naturally as a result of paying attention. Paying attention arises by having the intention to pay attention and practicing paying attention. The more one practices paying attention, the more detail one begins to see. The more detail one begins to see, the more the boxes into which we shove our experiences break down and the more we recognize this flowing, unfolding quality of all experience (and even the experiencing/paying attention itself). You don't have to plan ahead. You only have to pay attention right now...and now...and now.. and now.... The rest will take care of itself.