The story and the storyline

In developing mindfulness through meditation, we're advised to drop the storyline and simply be aware of what's happening in the moment.

For instance, in this moment, I'm sitting in the largely empty newsroom of a daily newspaper. It's bit chilly and a bit darker than usual since it's snowing out. My hands are cold. The police radio chatters away, the voices matter-of-fact. That's what's happening.

The storyline is Why am I the last one here again? Where is everyone? Yes, they come in earlier than me, but is it that much earlier? Why do I have so much work to do? (And here's where the rollercoaster goes over the top of the hill...) it's always this way. I always get stuck with the metaphorical ditch-digging. I do more work. Everybody else gets away with murder ....

The story is that I'm here. Maybe there could be some discernment around why I am generally the last one here. But my wise witness has to own that I arrive late, that I like to get certain things done the afternoon before so that I have time in the morning, that it's not even the usual quitting time, that I left early yesterday. My wise witness reminds me that it is never always this way. And that I have control here.

The story describes what's happening. The storyline blames or justifies or feels guilty or sulks or whines. Not 'this is how it is' but 'this is how it is and why it's not fair/right/deserved.'

Pema Chodron talks about it as the hook -- as in, don't bite it. She describes the process of avoiding an emotional reaction as Recognizing that the hook is baited, Refraining from biting it on sight, Responding wisely (by swimming away, unless we decide we're skillful enough to steal the worm without getting hooked), and Relaxing with the Result.

This is seen in the 12 Nidanas around the creation of karmic seeds. Something happens and we react. But if we slow it down, we see there's a stimulus, a recognition, and then a gap before the response. In that gap we can choose to react in our habitual way or to respond to what is new in the situation.

The storyline is the habitual, usually emotion-laden, response to the story, the set of details.

I've been thinking of this because of a class I'm taking in Mayahana Buddhism and Psychology,. The psychology aspect of it looked at attachment theory and styles ... based on what happened when you were a child, how do you react now?

This makes me uncomfortable, personally, because it's hard to see that as story without getting caught up in the storyline. It's hard to be dispassionate and not relive experiences that are long past. The past has an emotional charge that is hard to avoid -- and that I don't necessarily want to set off.

Can you listen to your story without getting tangled in the storyline. Don't know. I am a work in progress.

Body issues

I've been working a lot with body issues recently -- not the body issues you usually hear talked about of weight and height and hair and bra size, but the ones that have to do with functioning. It could be a(nother) diagnosed condition, which brings another medication and another doctor I have to fit into my schedule. It could be the infection that I tried to treat naturopathically, only to give in and go for antibiotics.

Or it could be the new practice I'm working with, a form of chod, in which you locate demons in your body and transmute them into protectors.

Along with all the relative reality of going to doctors, taking pills, doing yoga, lifting weights, getting exercise -- and trying to determine when it's wise to take a break from that and just rest -- there's the larger reality.

Five Daily Recollections

1. I am of the nature to grow old; I cannot avoid aging.
2. I am of the nature to become ill or injured; I cannot avoid illness or injury
3. I am of the nature to die; I cannot avoid death.
4. All that is mine, dear and delightful, will change and vanish.
5. I am the owner of my actions;
   I am born of my actions;
   I am related to my actions;
   I am supported by my actions;
   Any thoughts, words or deeds I do, good or evil, those I will inherit.

from AN V.57  Upajjhatthana Sutta: Subjects for Contemplation

For a lot of people, #3 is the big one, judging by the way many Buddhist teachers talk. Death! The great fear at the bottom of all others! I'm not all that troubled by death. It will happen. I don't know when or what happens after. All I can control is what I do now, in this moment; I live my life with the aspiration to create as much ease and benefit as I can for the most people, and what happens next time around will be the inevitable result.


I don't even mind #1 that much. I'm 55. I don't dye my hair, don't wear makeup to try to hide that. I probably dress too young for my age, but it's not to appear younger. I don't like mom jeans around my waist, shirts tucked in. Maybe there's some deeper issue here, but I don't project what I think people think about how I look -- "they must think I look hot/cool/silly/old." I smile at them, and I hope they feel a moment of lightness, but I own only my actions, not their reactions.

Nah. It's #2 that makes me anxious. I am of the nature to become ill or injured; I cannot avoid illness or injury.

I understand the reality of that one. And it terrifies me. I don't want to have a knee replacement that will take me away from my routine for at least six months. I don't want my stomach to hurt. I don't want to feel drained of energy, where the thought of leaving the house is daunting.


I resist the idea that I won't just drop dead one day, that I may have to experience the limitations of body that come with age. That I already am experiencing them. I suffer about it. Sometimes.

And yet ... most days I get up and walk around and do what I want. I take a two-mile walk at lunchtime on workdays. I breath, and I don't even think about it except when it's impeded. I type. I type a lot. And sometimes my hands hurt, but they still work. Truly, my medical conditions are not all that serious in the moment, just annoying.

So I try to stay present, meditating on examining tables while waiting for doctors to come in, feeling the feels, rejoicing and mourning from moment to moment. It is the best medicine I have found.

[4] "Furthermore...just as if a sack with openings at both ends were full of various kinds of grain — wheat, rice, mung beans, kidney beans, sesame seeds, husked rice — and a man with good eyesight, pouring it out, were to reflect, 'This is wheat. This is rice. These are mung beans. These are kidney beans. These are sesame seeds. This is husked rice,' in the same way, monks, a monk reflects on this very body from the soles of the feet on up, from the crown of the head on down, surrounded by skin and full of various kinds of unclean things: 'In this body there are head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, tendons, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, pleura, spleen, lungs, large intestines, small intestines, gorge, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, skin-oil, saliva, mucus, fluid in the joints, urine.'
"In this way he remains focused internally on the body in & of itself, or focused externally... unsustained by anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself.

(gory descriptions of rotting corpses)

"In this way he remains focused internally on the body in & of itself, or externally on the body in & of itself, or both internally & externally on the body in & of itself. Or he remains focused on the phenomenon of origination with regard to the body, on the phenomenon of passing away with regard to the body, or on the phenomenon of origination & passing away with regard to the body. Or his mindfulness that 'There is a body' is maintained to the extent of knowledge & remembrance. And he remains independent, unsustained by (not clinging to) anything in the world. This is how a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself.

Satipattana Sutta