“…there is not only overwhelm – there is also hope, and real access to clarity and a deeper sense of calm right in the midst of it all”
How are we to navigate all the noise and overwhelm of our world?
InsightLA teacher Paloma Cain and Ron Ames share their “origin stories” – what brought them to meditation.
Paloma:
My own practice journey began in childhood. That’s not to say that I was meditating as a
child, but I was very young when I first saw people meditating as part of daily life.
Admittedly it took a while to catch on. When I was turning 20, I went on a pilgrimage
with my mother and older brother. One of the memories from this time is almost
comically poetic. I was standing with my brother and a few Buddhist monks above a
monastery in the Himalayas, surrounded by a distant horizon of mountain peaks. One of
the monks, an American, was saying that the true nature of our minds is like the sky
above us, so vast and clear, with the occasional bird flying across it. While we may
notice the bird, it doesn’t change the nature of the sky. When it is gone, it is gone. I
remember thinking that this may be his mind, but it was never going to be my mind. My
mind was filled with constant distraction, uncertainty, confusion and all of the normal
concerns of an American young adult. It all seemed… well… poetic. But implausible. I
couldn’t believe that my mind would ever find that kind of peace, clarity and open-ness.
A few years later I was studying Tibetan Buddhist philosophy at UC Santa Barbara with
Alan Wallace. I was reading traditional texts and commentaries and writing papers
about definitions of emptiness and conceptions of the self, but my mind felt as wild as
ever. I felt like I “should” meditate so occasionally I would try. I would set a timer for five-
minutes but I never made it to the end. My mind was too bouncy and restless to sit still
for even that long. Frustration won.
Another few years passed and then my mother invited me to a weekend retreat and
there it finally clicked. Sitting in the company of a hundred or so other people all
meditating, my mind finally got a taste of what settling down felt like. I was amazed to
discover that some calm and ease in the mind was a real possibility, not just a poetic
ideal. No, my mind did not instantly open into a vast clarity like that infinite Himalayan
sky, but that memory-seed returned and with it the awareness that I was so much more
than I knew.
Ron:
I came to meditation because I thought it would be good for me. I continue to meditate
because it feels good and brings me joy. My meditation is not work. I have learned that
mindfulness is a human capacity that can be developed with practice. I have found that
the practice can be fun and pleasurable. It doesn’t have to feel like work. It can be
creative and reveal the nuances of the flow of life.
I remember when I started my meditation practice. A friend had suggested that learning
to meditate would be a useful thing for me to know. The suggestion came along with a
book on meditation. I vividly remember sitting in my living room, reading a few pages of
the book and then closing my eyes and wondering was this mediation? Was I doing it
right? Is this what it was supposed to feel like? What about all those thoughts racing
around in my head? What about the itch on my hand and the incredible need to shift my
sitting position? Was I actually meditating? I had no idea if I was doing it “right”. When I
first started my practice, I wondered if I was going to be able to sit long enough to “bring
mindfulness to the fore.” I thought that perhaps I might never learn to meditate.
It wasn’t until I sat with a well-trained, experienced teacher that I could sit still for
enough time to notice that mindfulness was present. As mindfulness arose and I
became confident in my ability to stay present, I began to experience spaciousness and
calm.
Conclusion of Two Minds:
The intention is not to try to escape from the predicament in which we find ourselves,
but to learn to maintain our balance within it, and navigate from a place of greater
understanding and clarity as things unfold. There is a Zen teaching in which a master is
asked, “What is the fruit of a lifetime of practice?” The response? “An appropriate
response.”
Through listening carefully to life itself and to our own inner world, over time we develop
a spontaneous, effortless response as things arise that is both compassionate and wise
without premeditation: an appropriate response in any circumstance. A response that
includes care for the world, for those around us, and for our very own selves.
Everyone has the capacity to develop mindfulness. It is a gift of being born into this
human body. We all have the innate ability to experience and expand our mindfulness
as we deepen our capacity to meditate.
Warmly, Paloma and Ron