Be with the one you're with

Sitting meditation is practice for living meditatively. When I train my mind to concentrate -- gently focusing on the breath, recognizing when I drift off, and inviting my attention to come back -- while sitting in silence, I'm developing the capacity to do that in the rest of my life.

Sitting down to dinner with my spouse, for example, I can bring my awareness to the space where we're interacting. Sure, we're talking about our days and what happened in the hours before we sat down, but but my attention is here. I'm remembering events, not entangled in reliving or revising them. And that leaves space to see them and maybe gain some insight, from myself or my spouse. I'm here with him, not back at the office or on the highway, caught in an encounter that's over.

We went to a dance performance last night, which I'd been looking forward to, even though we'd seen this dance company perform before and not especially liked it. And it was possible to be in that space of gentle attention, watching the dance and allowing thoughts to arise without reacting to them. Good God, a 40-minute-long piece set to Gymnopedie? Really? Thinking. Is this the end? Oh, it's not. What!? Thinking. Even (whispered by my spouse) This is ridiculous. Maybe. Thinking.

Does it make the dance better? No. But it keeps me from going on an internal rant about the quality of the choreography. It keeps me from getting caught in a longing to be home in my comfy pajamas and denigrating where I am. It keeps me from feeling bad that I've brought my spouse to something he's not enjoying and trying to list all the things I've done and not enjoyed because he wanted to, from being wrapped up in defensiveness. It keeps me present and lets me see the beautiful moments among the ridiculous ones.

Really, that's what life is -- beautiful moments mixed in with ridiculous and painful ones. Meditation helps me to be present for them all.

The inner quiet engendered by concentration isn't passive or sluggish, nor is it coldly distant from your experience -- it is vital and alive. It creates a calm infused with energy, alertness, and interest. You can fully connect to what's happening in your life, have a bright and clear awareness of it, yet be relaxed. -- Sharon Salzberg Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

FInding the bright vein of goodness in February

Sharon Salzberg's Real Happiness 28-Day meditation challenge starts Sunday and runs through February. It couldn't come at a better time.

Blame it on the stars, blame it on the snow, blame it on my own failure to try hard enough to find the good in things as they are, the last week has been hard. It's not just the two feet of snow on the ground in my part of New England, but the lack of daylight even as the sun stays up for minutes more each day, and the number of things that need to get done. Life feels small, dry, and airless.

My days already do include meditation, which is a commitment and a joy, but I welcome the challenge to bring it more fully into life, to be more mindful about it. It's called "Real Happiness," and the reminder is to look at the real, look at the happy, look at the attachments and projects that get between me and that state.

In the introduction to Real Happiness, Salzburg writes:

Despite my initial fantasies when I began meditating as a college student, I haven't entered a steady state of glorious bliss. Meditation has made me happy, loving, and peaceful -- but not every single moment of the day. I still have good times and bad, joy and sorrow. Now I can accept setbacks more easily, with less sense of disappointment and personal failure, because meditation has taught me to cope with the profound truth that everything changes all the time.

I usually meditate right after I get home from work (after I feed the cats to facilitate a more tranquil atmosphere). I look out a window. I am intimately familiar with the sunset -- or the deepening of the grey on these dreary winter days when the sun never really pokes through the solid grey mass of clouds. It really does happen later every day. And the snow will melt -- even the additional foot that might fall on Monday. The profound truth of impermanence.

Once I learned how to look deep within, I found the bright vein of goodness that exists in everyone, including me -- the goodness that may be hidden and hard to trust but is never entirely destroyed. I came to believe wholeheartedly that I deserve to be happy, and so does everyone else.

Real Happiness: How to answer the phone

One day I got home from work and found the electricity was off. I reported it to the power company, which gave me an estimate of 90 minutes or so, but when I called back at that time to check, it wasn't even listed as an outage.

I spoke to a representative, who informed that one of the two circuits in my house was working so I had half power, which was not considered an outage and also was not considered a priority. There was no estimate on restoration.

The thing was, the circuit that wasn't working powered everything important -- stove, refrigerator, heat, sump pump. I could sit in my family room and watch TV, but that was about it. What I wanted to do was get warm and cook food. That was impossible.

I did not take it well that my functional outage didn't qualify as an official outage. I expressed that clearly. I suppose you could call it outage outrage. My call was transferred. And my steaming righteousness was met by the kindest customer service representative I've ever encountered. Grace had a musical voice and a soft, pleasant attitude. She empathized. "It's awful, isn't it?" She made typing sounds. She promised to look into it and call me back. I didn't believe her, but my anger was disarmed. My concern was heard and acknowledged.

Remarkably, she did call back, still full of good will and good nature. And she had an estimate. And the power came back on.

My outrage, I saw, was more about having my concerns dismissed than about the lack of electricity. I knew it wasn't urgent and that it might take time, but I wanted the electric company to acknowledge that it was real.

I thought about this while reading the chapter on communication in Sharon Salzberg's "Real Happiness at Work." She writes: How we communicate has everything to do with maintaining well-being and harmony at work.

She suggests using the Buddha's criteria for right speech: Is it true? Is useful at this moment? Can it be said in a kind way?

I work at a newspaper, and part of my job is taking calls from the public -- everything from tips on  political corruption or decisions made in secret to questions about a notice of a church supper. At times, it is inconvenient to answer the phone, but you almost always do it because you don't know what information might be offered.

I used to be impatient with people who called about notices for community events. I have bigger fish to fry than your shrimp dinner, I thought.

But then I realized that the people who called me were just as invested in their issue as I was in getting my power back. For a volunteer-run nonprofit, getting a notice in the community newspaper can be the difference between a successful fundraiser and one that doesn't cover costs. People who don't know how accessible we are might be intimidated by making that call. And communicating that I felt they were unimportant was not skillful.

Grace taught me that.

So now, when my phone rings, I take a breath before I answer. I remember that the call is important to the person making it, even if they are from a public relations firm. And I do my best to sound welcoming.

I may not be able to do what you want, but I don't need to try to make you feel worse about that.

Sharon offers three rules for mindful communication: "I" language, body awareness, and listening. All of these help us to be present in the conversation rather than projecting motivations or meanings onto it.

To quote Bill Murray, "I’d like to be just more here all the time, to see what I could do if if I were able to not get distracted and not change channels in my mind and body . . . to be my own channel, really here, and always with you. Like you could look at me and go, 'Okay he’s there, there’s someone there.'" 

Because if you're here, then I can be here. And then we can get something done.