Synchronized Mindfulness and the Dalai Lama
Holistic systems have practices that teach us to tend to the Now. Just this moment. Underlying Now, are qualities of energy specific to times of day and seasons. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, there are 5 specific energies for each of 5 seasons. Besides acupuncture from TCM, there are many practices throughout the world that for thousands of years have been crafted to help explore the qualities of the energy we are immersed in on this planet. And these practices from the world's health and spiritual traditions correlate to some part of us - body, mind, spirit.
In directing our attention to Now, we learn presence and we learn to connect to and feel a deeper resonance with the experience of life. Amazingly, wisdom about past or future can actually come from honing the just right Now. And according to the Dalai Lama, it's also simpler than we think. The purpose of our lives is . . . .
My family lives in Washington, D.C. and the climate is of course very charged with all things political. When His Holiness came to speak one summer, I thought it would be important for my youngest child to have the experience of hearing a spiritual teacher. A different door than the political or religious into who we are. Some sport obligation got a no on the RSVP, but after bleacher-moming it for years for her three older siblings, I was ready. So was she (as youngest she had bleacher-siblinged more than her share of events). We sat in an outside audience with thousands of others. The Capitol building behind us. The atmosphere a strange combination of casual picnic blankets, seeker anticipation, and a kind of nervousness that seemed to me a wondering about how to behave. Concerts, marches, festivals, church everyone knew. But the Dalai Lama? I mean, he’s really advanced and about to impart major life insights. Here we were on picnic blankets and that didn’t seem to quite fit. Others felt the same it was obvious. People were chatting and eating and happy, but it’s not like there were frisbees being tossed on the lawn. It was one of my first experiences of what energy felt like. In that particular space it was apparent to me how discernible fun felt from anticipation from nervousness and that all those could be there simultaneously.
It still moves me instantly whenever I remember the energetic shift that happened to the collective 'us' when he was escorted to the podium. They came from behind us actually, in a line, monk heads bowed. Just think! HHDL didn't enter from the stage. He didn't suddenly appear at a podium in front of us, as our focus. Instead, he was just suddenly there in the community, in a processional and so, he was, they were, with us. From behind, there came this approach of silence. Of reverence. To literally hear silence approaching was unforgettable. It was an energy that was palpable and swept forward through the crowd, tapping us gently with an invitation, a calling for participation. And like a call and response hymn, the crowd just knew how to behave. We knew to stand. We knew how to be. It was an easy yes to be part of this communal escort that wasn’t asking for reverence but signaling us to be in reverence. For and with each other. Years later, the recall is not so much a memory, but a very physical feeling. I try to purposefully call up that physical feeling when I’m feeling stuck and need a door. That invite that day felt like it was a door. And when I do that, call it up, it’s an instant feeling of being so Now that whatever was making me stuck (worry about something), just leaves.
There was such a silence as to be surreal and there was a sense, like a wave, of a building reverence. Silence and something. Silence and something. The monks, the silence, the reverence, and us escorted His Holiness to the podium. No unwrapping of candy wrappers. No rustling of paper programs. Guy who coughs during the important pause in the dialogue or the music - was quiet as well. This collective silencereverenceconnectedpresence was probably the most powerful energy I have ever felt.
So there we all thousands silently were; humbled by this incredible unvocabularied moment, assuming it was something the Dalai Lama brought/gave, enraptured; yearning to hear the reason for life. To hear about the way to . . . be better . . . be more alive . . . be more connected . . . to have this crowd feeling full-time! . . . be more anything. To understand the purpose, secret, and meaning of life from someone who believes in and prays for peace, even while he is in exile and even while his country is occupied. To receive all that from someone who isn’t mean or hateful in his response to his reality. From someone who’s non-hateful response to his reality isn’t fake or a canned PR statement. He began is talk by reading our minds I guess and acknowledging that we were there to learn the secret.
When he told us the answer - the way - the crowd laughed. In unison! Such a big joke! Every different person suddenly connected to the same chagrin. We got the joke! That his punchline wasn't the punchline - the punchline was that we already knew the answer! Soooo much effort and yearning and eagerness, so much leaning to another person to provide guidance, and then in the end - oh yeah - I knew that answer already!
"The purpose of your life . . . ." pause comedic beat anticipatory silence “ . . . . is happiness."
He had that cute zen grin when he said that.
I forget and then remember this message, over and over in my life (and someday I'll write about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and how I came to learn that that is spiritual).
Part of me eye-rolls whenever I remember I've forgotten, but I'm always glad to re-discover 'the secret purpose', because it's just so freaking hilarious. So EASY. Be happy!! Find happy!! Do happy!! Could there be a higher purpose, really, than for each of us to plug-in to our happiness so that we can really get down to manifesting anything we're supposed to be here for!?!
There are ways to hold on to this awareness in the remember/forget cycle. I've gathered them in a format called Daily Practices for a Mind Body Tune-Up. It's a project that's been brewing for a long time and as it turns out, it's deeply connected to the idea that the purpose of life is happiness. My hope is that we can all find reverence in and with one another.
Find the samples and for purchase options at BestBodyMind.com
