It’s me. Hi, I’m the problem.
I handed over my phone during a couple of short meditation retreats recently. It felt great to disconnect, but unplugging didn’t eliminate my obsessive habits. It actually brought them into focus.
Doubting Debussy
One of the retreat centers had an old spinet piano in the meditation hall. I recently memorized Clair de Lune, so I kept imagining performing it after the silence was broken. Even though I’ve played it over and over for months, I couldn’t be certain about the notes the right hand plays in the first measure.
This quickly turned into a low-key preoccupation. If I’d had my phone, I definitely would have looked up the sheet music. Instead, I decided to cancel the imaginary concert and redirect my attention back to the mundane sights, sounds, and sensations at hand. This is much more difficult than it sounds, but eventually got easier.
When I got home, I played the whole piece from memory.
A face without a name
During another practice period, I was imagining the well-being of various people in my life. The face of a person I really like appeared on my mental screen, but I couldn’t remember her first name.
I knew it would eventually come to me, but the temptation to diagnose my cognitive decline was persistent. Who needs WebMD when you’ve got gnawing concerns and an active imagination?
The name bubbled up effortlessly while I was taking a walk later that morning.
Unknowable ETA
Regardless of the duration of a meditation period, the murky time between the onset of discomfort and the ending bell can be a precarious slog.
The impulse is to estimate the remaining time to determine if I’ll be able to endure riding out the clock. This never goes well. Aches quickly intensify making pleasant sensations harder to spot.
A much better response is to keep gently steering my attention back to a specific sensation I can live with for a handful of seconds and repeat.
“Forever is composed of nows.” The sooner I accept this, the better.
The need to know runs deep
Taylor Swift and I know we should not be left to our own devices, but with or without my phone, I’m easily seduced by the need for certainty.
It doesn’t happen overnight, but consistent mindfulness practice transforms our ability to respond more effectively to the pain of uncertainty. We learn to reinterpret confusion and resist it less when we can. As Pema Chödrön’s says, “Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material.”
Off and on for the rest of my life, I will convince myself I’m unable to perform what I’ve repeatedly practiced, I will be rattled by the aging process, and I will yearn for unknowable information.
Instead of waiting for a better version of myself, though, I’m working on getting more comfortable being uncomfortable and letting my current responses to uncertainty be enough even as they slowly improve.
Daron
