Graduation Day

What a lovely day. Our four graduates, whose self-cultivation required great bravery and persistence, have stepped past our little world into a greater one. For those who are interested, I am posting, with very little adaptation, my comments from the ceremony.

Recently a few date palm seeds were found near the Dead Sea (by the site of the Masada fortress). They were carbon dated to about 2000 years ago...one of them is now sprouting. In Buddhism teaching is said to be like planting seeds. A seed waits for the proper conditions. Sometimes it takes a long, long time.

Does anyone here use the internet? Do you ever have the sensation that you are done watching, reading, searching, whatever we do, and yet are not quite ready to let it go...

For my part I get an empty, restless feeling, a diversity of will- one part of me moving away from another part of me. Sometimes I examine this tension. I find it unpleasant. I was putting my youngest son to bed- it was hot that evening, yet he turned off the fan near his bed. He related to me with admirable clarity the reason why:

"Sometimes when it is on, my mind wants one thing and my heart wants something else and I find my fingers creeping towards the fan, so I turn it off".

This is an awareness of a divided self; the divided self being an everyday experience that is utterly universal and yet, for the most part, considered "abnormal", or undesirable, or problematic. It is as perfectly normal and adaptive as having five fingers on each hand.

Adaptive, in that it keeps many possibilities in play- choices, options. We often express these possibilities in words, as alternative plans and explanations. In some ways, this experience of a divided will is a precursor to abstract reasoning. We can imagine alternatives.

But we do not habitually use that imagination to examine ourselves. We assume- in spite of our direct experience- that our self is a more or less fixed entity. It is very difficult for me to convince myself (and here is a language problem already-convince "myself") that that very self is not a real and solid thing. This is where mindfulness comes in.

What is mindfulness? It is becoming a very popular term- and a very influential concept in psychology- because it has great utility and everyone experiences it. It is, simply put, a clear focus on the immediate present. When I am brushing my teeth, I try to keep my mind on only brushing my teeth. When I am eating, I try to keep my mind on only eating. Why?

For one thing, it immediately throws a light on how jumpy the mind is. Sometimes it seems as if we want to do everything but what we are doing in the present moment. It is a bit like looking through infrared binoculars and sitting quietly in the woods.We learn best through direct experience Knowing that this is the nature of ones minds is rather reassuring.. I am not going crazy. We are all crazy. It is perfectly normal to be crazy. But we don't have to be restless, irritated, overwhelmed, unhappy.

A rock bottom assumption of Tinicum Art and Science is that a person who is aware of the restless nature of their own mind is much more forgiving towards their own shortcomings, and that of others as well. If we can get a glimpse of how changable and restless our minds are, we can assume that if I am miserable now, I will less so in a little while. Of course, being happy now will change as well. So perhaps we should just flow along with it a little, accept it, and trust that it will change. This way we don't get stuck.

But getting stuck in a certain mode, or mood, or self conception is really easy. By sitting in silence we get a direct experience of the constantly changing nature of that "self". This is difficult for everyone. Some people are too young for it. Or too obsessive. Or too flakey. There are other types of focusing exercises to help a person move toward this awareness. But sitting in silence is very, very important.

When I was in my 20's, riding the subways in Boston, I was always, always reading. Walkmen- portable tape decks and CD players were becoming common but were not ubiquitous. I didn't like being cut off from the sounds of the city. It seemed dangerous, anyways. But my distraction was reading. And I was always perplexed at the old ladies who seemed perfectly content to sit quietly and watch the world go by. Back then, I thought they were kind of on the dull side, unintellectual. Now, with everyone fussing with ipods and cell phones every waking moment, those old ladies seem like Zen Masters to me.

I love youtube and wikipedia as much as anyone. I blog, check the baseball scores, and devour political news. But that restless, empty feeling is always there, an uneasy reminder of my divided self. Or rather, that there is no "self" really there at all.

Each of us is of multiple minds. It requires great skill to negotiate all the twists and turns and constant flow of our inner lives. Similarly, as teenagers, when our social worlds multiply and become very involved and changable, great skill is required to negotiate all of that complexity. The inner and the outer develop in parallel. And can get pretty mixed up. But neurologically speaking, the same part of the brain- a small portion of the pre-frontal cortex- is involved in the development of social awareness and inner awareness.

This is why mindfulness training makes for a happier person. We use the same neurological map to figure out both ourselves and other people. And if we practice mindfulness, an understanding of others develops. Wisdom develops. Insight develops. Fear drops away.

(to the graduates) We've planted a few seeds for you. This mindfulness and meditation training. You may not use it now, but you will realize, someday, that it works. It will help you realize that everything you need is here in the present moment. You can't breathe in the past, or the future. You can only breathe now. So go back to your breathing. And trust that if things are not so good, they will change, they will get better.

That is why we do what we do here.