Lobbing Grenades and NASCAR Thinking

It seems I always learn something from the experiences that my sons have and share with me.  I try to listen closely to their tales.  One son was going through Marine boot camp and was on the training field for throwing grenades.  Apparently there is a very specific protocol to throwing grenades effectively.  And this is one of those specific times when “mindfulness” in training is especially important.  Just going through the motions doesn't always work.  More is required.  And this is what my son suddenly realized as he was holding a live grenade.  Without any further thought he heaved it out and away with it culminating with an explosion in an area that was NOT expected by the instructor who yelled, “Where the hell were you aiming?”  To which he replied, “I wasn't aiming, sir.  I just got rid of it.”

The mind is an amazing tool in our lives.  Unlike the body which needs to be fed two or three times a day, the mind requires to be fed constantly.  We are continuously feeding the mind information to analyze, evaluate, and judge.  This leads some to believe that they can “multi-task” efficiently.  Recently I heard of a driver who was driving with his knees and texting on two different cell phones, simultaneously.  What this really reflects is a “racing mind”.  Like Star Trek, this is a mind going at warp speed and spinning out of control.  Sometimes I refer to such thinking as NASCAR thinking.  Racing at 200 miles per hour and going nowhere but in circles and processing the same tape loops over and over.  And we end up just lobbing grenades everywhere with no known aim or direction.

There is a way out of the box of the racing-mind.  We can indeed take noble control of our minds and slow it down.  Vipassana meditation teaches how to do that with breathe awareness.  It helps us come back to NOW and this moment in time and not to dwell in the future fears and concerns.  We can rehearse the future so much that we lose this moment and change the human experience that we are so concerned about being in control.  In all our mental contriving about what is going to happen next, we can stop the flow of goodness already coming our way.  Soon, we are just lobbing grenades.  Mark Twain understood this toward the end of his life when he said;

“I have had many trying and difficult problems in my life. 

Most of which never happened.”

Yesterday I had a doctor’s appointment at 1 p.m.  We arrived early and left after 3 p.m.  We started our wait in the waiting room, then to one exam room and then shuttled to yet another exam room.  Along the way, we learned that the lab work they wanted last week was not done.  It seemed like someone was just lobbing grenades since last Friday. 

I find this is the best time to practice my breathe awareness.  It can be helpful.  And when finally the visit with the doctor came, our time proved worthwhile.  As my wife and I left the exam room, the doctor shook my hand and put his hand on my shoulder and wished me goodness in his comments.  That usually doesn't happen in my office visits.  I suspect practice of the now may well have affected the visit verses having a racing mind after two hours of waiting.  Besides, who wants to be lobbing grenades all day?   

Whatever harm a foe may do to foe,

or hater unto one he hates.

The ill-directed mind indeed

can do one greater harm.

Dhammapada 42

I Can Sleep Through a Thunder Storm!

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Matthew 6

The story is told of a farmer who needed to hire a farm hand to help with the work.  While interviewing one fellow, he asked what his qualifications were.  The fellow responded, “I can sleep through a thunderstorm.”  The farmer thought this an odd response but decided to hire him anyway.  

It was not long before this very scenario came to pass.  A thunderstorm arose during the night and the farmer attempted to awake the farm hand to help secure things.  He could not raise him.  So the farmer commenced to check the barn.  It was already locked and secured.  He checked on the animals.  They were in their stalls.  All was found to be secure and in place so the farmer returned to bed.

When I first heard this story told as a young boy, I thought, wow, that farm hand was quite an amazing weatherman to look at the sky and predict the future weather and what plans needed to be made.  Later, I came to believe that it taught the need to plan for every possible outcome and anticipate that.  But the years have taught me better.  Beyond the physical preparations there are the meta-physical preparations or the things beyond the material world.  It is our thought preparations that matter most.

When the unexpected enters our lives, if we have learned to train our minds, we will not remain awake all night trying to solve the unsolvable and control the uncontrollable.  We will sleep with the peace that exists beyond all words.  Wisdom will have taught us what to let go of and how to treat all things equitably.  If we understand how the mind works, we will not allow it to be the source of our suffering.  Be it a new medical diagnosis for ourselves or a loved one, or a turn of events in our work and daily life, we are not unraveled. 

Recently we had a dear friend come to stay with us for the weekend.  Her thunderstorm was a letter from a loved one that had attacked her most unfairly.  She read the letter again and again and then shared it with others and gained a lot of sympathetic support for the unfairness of it all.  By ruminating upon this letter and turning it every which way but loose, she found she was unable to sleep that night through her own thunderstorm.  Instead, she found herself “stirring the pot” throughout the night. 

There were some other choices that she could have applied.  Rather than “chemicalizing” her body with negative responses to this letter, she could have replaced those thoughts with loving kindness and confirmed what she knew was good and true about the letter writer.  Or she could have remembered that “miserable people spread their misery” and felt compassion for another in suffering.  But this all requires mental preparation and mental training to replace one thought with another rather than be buffeted by the storms’ own arrows.   

 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

                                               Psalms 91

If we are not prepared to control the thoughts that we think, we are not ready for the thunderstorms that will pass through in our lives.  The tape-loops that we play over and over in our minds bear the fruit that we enjoy when we retire to bed each night.  Why?  Because “as is the seed, so is the fruit.” And that is one of the best arguments I can make for learning to meditate effectively; learning how to sleep through a thunderstorm.

“The Buddha spoke about eleven benefits that come from loving kindness.  The first three are ‘One goes to sleep happily, one dreams no evil dreams, and one wakes happily.’  If anybody has difficulty falling asleep, you can be sure it is because of a lack of loving-kindness, and sleeping pills don’t answer this problem.  Lovingness does.  

Then the subconscious also doesn't act in an unpleasant way so there are no evils dreams, no nightmares, and one wakes with the same feeling that one had on going to bed, namely the same loving thoughts toward all beings as one had the previous day.” BEING NOBODY, GOING NOWHERE by Ayya Khema

COMPASSION; one of the great lessons in Suffering.

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.“
John Wesley 

Earlier in life, I suppose I never stopped and looked to see the compassion all around me in the hurried, harried, busy world of daily living.  A Saturday morning shopping at Costco should convince most that compassion is on the endangered species list.  It seems easier to witness the rudeness in others than the compassion. 

Yet a five month stint on crutches for me some time ago changed all that.  As I would gimp along toward the doors of the mall, there would always be some stranger stopping and waiting to open a door for me.  And as I would thank them gratefully for their kindness, they would often remark how they too had experienced such a need for crutches or how a member of their family had need of them.  I found myself depending on the kindness of strangers.      

So what are the portions of my life that I treasure most?  It is the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love to others that I had done.  And because I too have been the recipient of so many of those kindnesses, that has evoked a sublime state of gratitude that I strive to share with those that express such goodness.  

And waffling back and forth between compassion and gratefulness and gratefulness and compassion all day long is a life worth living.  And the people I meet along the way are most beautiful.  I suspect suffering has also played a role in their lives.

 “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. 

These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.“Elisabeth Kübler-Ross