Meadow - Posts tagged with spirituality

The power of thoughts

Sat, 31 May 2025 14:11:02 GMT

This week, my wife and kids went to visit my sister-in-law who lives at the beach, meaning I've had an inordinate amount of time for myself. I have to admit I feel guilty about it! They'll be coming home later today, and that got me wondering about how different (but at the same time how similar) this week has been for me.

The first thing I noticed is that when the kids are here I always feel like I don't have time to do stuff. But now that they're not here I still feel like I don't have that much time! Sure, I do a bit more stuff, but it doesn't feel drastically different. Perhaps that's just the nature of time, or perhaps I'm using my kid-free time for things I don't really want to do (e.g. work)?

Something else I realized is that this week I've been a lot less irritated. It makes sense, of course, as I am here by myself without anyone or anything to irritate me. I've found this to be especially noticeable in my mornings, where I think I'm extra susceptible to what my kids do, or keep me from doing. It's so easy to get frustrated with them! I hope that now that they come back, and now that I know this about myself, I will be more able to stay grounded in our interactions.

Staying grounded is the goal, as once you swing out of your center then it's much harder to find your way back. On the other hand, hyper-fixating is a trap and will cause the rug to be pulled from under your feet. We'll see how it goes. But having kids is definitely a stressful hobby. Beautiful, but taxing.

...

Yesterday I was showing my niece and nephew a new project I'm working on where I use text-to-speech technologies to create audio versions of my blog posts using my own voice (I'll probably write more about this in a future post). I was curious to know if they felt the artificial voice really sounded like me. They both said it sounded similar, but not quite exactly the same.

My niece said my real voice just sounds so much happier than the TTS one. She said that my voice always sounds happy. It got me wondering that how they see me is probably not the same way as I see myself. Especially with them, I always feel I'm so... Ironic? Lofty? I don't like it, but it's a kind of wall or shield I put up so as to not be my full loving self. Why I do it I have no idea. Perhaps I think it makes me look cooler in their eyes? Embodying such an ironic persona protects me from having them see my failures and weaknesses. Perhaps I'm chasing after their approval in some twisted mind game?

"My voice is always so happy". Maybe they don't perceive my ironic facade, and instead see me as I should see myself? The faults that we want to hide are often the most evident ones after all. Perhaps the only person I'm fooling is myself... I wonder if they can perceive my internal struggle, wanting to be the cool uncle.

I should be more myself with them. In many ways this ties in with what I was talking about above regarding being centered. How we see ourselves definitely affects how we act. Do I see myself as a calm, grounded person? Do I accept my own faults or try to hide them with flaky wax? Do I see myself as loving?

In the moment, it doesn't matter if I aspire to be happy or compassionate, or truthful. What matters is how I think of myself, how I label myself, in the present. That's the thing through which my actions will be filtered before acting on the world itself. How do I see myself? And how can I see myself as I want to be?

A common phrase in spiritual circles is a variation on "you already are perfect" (e.g., Buddha mind or bodhicitta, atman, etc). Everything you have is already here. Everything. How you choose to label it is up to you.

We all have hate and anger, greed, and violence inside of us. But we also have love, happiness, compassion, wonder, awe. I would say we have them in the same measure, and it's only how we choose to label ourselves that changes how much each of these expresses itself.

A person that views themselves as wicked will do wicked things. If a wicked person repents and changes to see themselves as saved, they're bound to become a more considerate and compassionate being. But what happened with all that wickedness? Did it burn out or is it still inside of them? One would say it's the same person after all, no? But, ah, no. The person is a different one, because the core way in which they were labeling themselves has changed.

I think this goes to show just how important it is how we think of ourselves. How, ultimately, that's who we are.

The good thing is that we can choose. We can reflect on how we think, and choose to think differently. It's not all that easy, but it definitely can be done. I myself have experienced substantial shifts in my own idea of myself over the course of my life, and I would bet most other people have as well. What changed? Life is like a river that erodes us into a shape of its own choosing. And as a leaf in a river, we're powerless to resist the currents of life, nor should we. That way only lies resentment, dissatisfaction, and insanity. When reframing our own idea of ourselves, we should roll with the punches so to speak, and embrace the entirety of our lives.

How to do it then? I have no idea. But in my little experience, I know some things that help, and all of them involve getting a bit out of yourself to examine this idea of who you think you are. Psychedelics help, as do meditation and journaling.

I haven't done lots of psychedelics. Only 3 times I can actually say I was blown out of my head. During one of these, I had a strong experience where my mind was clear as the space around your hands, and I could see this thing that I called me, my ego, and all the unbelievable pressures that made it into what it is. I also saw how this me was just another idea. Just an idea. Just a thought floating in my head.

We are just a thought of who we think we are.

Of course, it's easy to say all this and feel holy and whatnot when one is feeling good, when one is high or calm. But the true challenge comes when life doesn't go according to one's plans. How can we maintain these ideas when one is angry, or depressed?

A suggestion I've found useful in these cases is the metaphor of seeing your true self as clear sky, and the anger and depression as dark stormy clouds. You could be in a situation where dark clouds is all you see, from dawn to sunset, but the perfect clear sky is still beyond, still there, waiting. That doesn't make the anger or depression go away, it in fact recognizes it as what it is: just a passing cloud. Eventually it will pass, and the sky will be visible once more.

I think this exercise does something that's really useful for any person struggling with depression or anxiety or what have you: it separates you from identifying with your negative feelings. The moment you feel you are that depression then you're lost. But if you recognize your depression as a cloud, as a passing mood on the perfect clarity of your own self, then you know that the best thing to do is wait for it to blow past, not taking it personally. Not telling yourself "ah I'm such a horrible person because I feel this and this". It's just a mood, a temporary cloud.

Again, this is all easy to say when one is feeling good. I know well that, when in the midst of the cloudy weather, it's really hard to see past it, if not impossible. That's why we should try to reflect and internalize these things when we're feeling well, so they may echo in our heads when we need them. And even if the echo sounds useless (as it often does), it nonetheless offers the opportunity for us not to identify with the clouds. It won't make them go away, but it does kindle the flame of hope.

... ☁ ...

In many religions there's a practice that is basically "repeating the name(s) of God". There's a nice story about this I heard not long ago that I think merits retelling here¹.

One day, an Indian saint was talking to a group of lay-people about the importance of constantly repeating the names of god. Suddenly, a man from the congregation rose up and loudly said

"Why do we have to repeat the names of god? What good will that do? It's just a simple word, it seems silly to expect it will have any effect."

The saint sat still for a moment, and then his face turned to anger and said:

"You're such an idiot for not getting my message. I don't want any imbeciles in my congregation, please go away immediately."

The man was of course taken aback by the harsh reaction, and immediately got angry at having been insulted in such a way.

"Oh yeah? You call yourself a holy man and yet insult me with such vile words?!"

The man rose up and, out of respect for those around him, decided to leave rather than pick a fight with the saint. Fuming, he started to walk towards the door.

As soon as his hand touched the door, the saint called him by name. The man turned, now itching for any excuse to return insults to the man who had wronged him. But as soon as he saw the saint he was surprised and all his feeling of malevolence quickly evaporated, as the saint was now smiling, and his eyes were twinkling as if he had just pulled a particularly funny prank.

"Sit down sit down" said the saint amiably "You ask why repeating the name of god works, and I've just showed you"

The man sat down again, but didn't really understand what the saint meant. Before he could ask for clarification, the saint went on.

"You see, I just showed you the power of what you call simple words. I filled your head with negative words and see how easily you got upset, you couldn't think of anything but hateful things" chuckled the saint.

"Now, imagine what happens if instead you fill your head with the purest love of all, the name of God."

...

I think this is so on point. I'm not a particularly theistic person, but even I can clearly see how this story rings true. Imagine if you were to constantly repeat the word "love" or some other phrase that had especially strong positive connotations for you, and contrast that with the kinds of things we usually tell ourselves: I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy, nobody likes me, I'm not interesting, people don't like me, and on and on and on and on. I know I myself am always critiquing myself. What do these words do to my own mental state? And more importantly, what do they do to this idea of what I think about myself?

I believe that the way life erodes us is by affecting our thoughts, and then our thoughts are the ones that erode our labels. To a firmly positive person, any occurrence in life will be experienced drastically differently than to a firmly negative person. Your mental state is one thing, but the way in which you see yourself will be the way in which you interpret anything that happens to you.

Think happy thoughts. Use them as the antidote for your usual mind processes.

~ 🌥

Note that this paraphrased as I I don't really remember where I read it or who the saint/swami in question was. If you do know then please ping me so I can add proper attribution! ↩

The two headed eagle

Sun, 04 May 2025 18:16:37 GMT

The following is an excerpt from The Heart is Noble by Ogyen Trinley Dorje (the 17th Karmapa). I thought it was especially prescient (though perhaps all that have heard this story have thought it applied perfectly to their time).

[...] The first [story] is of a two-headed eagle; lets call it an American bald eagle. This eagle had two heads. We know from biology that each head naturally has its own brain, but this two-headed, two-brained eagle had only one body. (Sorry, this is funny science, I know!) The two heads had different ways of seeing the world, and they didn't much care for each other. In fact, they each really wanted the whole body to themselves. Each head started scheming ways to get rid of the other.

One day, this two-headed bird landed near some poison. Each of the heads leapt at this opportunity to do away with the other.

Each tried to entice the other to eat the poison, describing how delicious it was and courteously inviting the other to treat himself to it. Finally one of the heads—the less persuasive one, I guess— gobbled up the poison. But of course, this act poisoned the whole body that they shared. They were each so focused on their own self-centered aims and their dislike of one another that they forgot that they shared the same body.

My dog doesn't want to take her medicine and a comment on Karma Yoga

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 02:42:04 GMT

This evening I tried giving my dog some of her epilepsy medicine, but she just didn't want to take it. I tried all the tricks I know and nothing worked. I even put peanut butter and lasagna in her bowl! But she would just sniff at it and then turn around to lie down or go see what the cat was doing. I imagine she was probably feeling ill, but I couldn't help getting slightly angry with her.

I'm sure I must've looked quite silly to a centered/grounded person. Getting angry with a dog, for being a dog. I guess I thought that maybe I could get her to take it if I tried hard enough, but the fact that she didn't, while I wanted her to, made me angry.

I thought about it while in the midst of the anger, and of the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna repeatedly tells Arjuna to "dedicate all of the fruits of his labor to him". A hard thing to do, but I can see how, if one is attached to the expected result of one's action, we can easily get frustrated or angry when said result doesn't happen.

Is the opposite case true? I imagine it is. If I get what I expect then I'm either happier (satisfied) for it or entirely indifferent. In the happier case, I could still become attached to the fruits of my labor. Example: a sculptor being attached to their creation, or a writer to their notebook. Or even being attached to the feeling of goodness that comes when one does something successfully. This attachment is of course a source of disillusionment later on.

I don't know if it is actually in the Gita or I read it somewhere else (maybe some commentary; possibly by Ram Dass or Eknath Easwaran), but there's this really cool metaphor: a person plants a seed but it is not the person that "grows" the seed, rather, it's God/universe. Having this in mind, Krishna's words take on a slightly different interpretation: don't get attached to the outcomes, as you have absolutely no control or power over them. You may play a role in facilitating the preconditions for something to happen (plant the seed; mix peanut butter with the epilepsy medicine and put it in a bowl), but what exactly happens is out of our hands (the plant grows into a flower or a weed, or doesn't grow at all; my dog eats the peanut butter and her medicine—or not).

The thing is we of course have an idea of what should happen, which is informed by previous experience. In my experience my dog almost always eats the peanut butter. But sometimes, things go differently. We forget about the fact that this "experience" is just a historical note. We start treating these patterns as an absolute, and get upset when things go otherwise than we expect.

I think in great part this is a lack of humility on our part. We lack humility to constantly remember that what is around and inside us is, ultimately, a mystery.

Feeling worthless and then touching love within myself

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 12:50:18 GMT

Yesterday, I took my father-in-law's car to a lube center at a mall where we had some other errands to run. The guy who attended me was nice, and he took about 30 minutes to check the car and explain all the things they needed to do, and how I should do them immediately. He gave me a huge list of recommended repairs, and the total cost was quite high, around $1k. I went into a slight panic since I really don't know anything about cars or whether what he said was true. I also had no idea if the price they gave me was appropriate.

This triggered my social anxiety to levels I hadn't experienced in a long while. I managed to ask the guy to give me 10 minutes and went to sit in the car. I called my wife, who was with my parents, and told her the whole story. In the end, we decided not to go ahead with any of the repairs at this lube center since it was too expensive. Besides, we needed to talk to my father-in-law first, and the kids were already tired—so we figured it was best to just go home.

I apologized to the guy. He was nice enough, but I could tell he was annoyed. I felt flustered about the whole thing and just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

I got in the car and, while reversing to finally leave, I didn't notice an obstacle in my way—one of those metal arms they use to lift cars for oil changes. I drove straight onto it with my front-left tire and immediately heard the hisshhh of high-pressure air escaping. I had punctured the tire. Well, not just punctured—it was completely ruined, with a huge gash on the side that meant I couldn’t just get it repaired. I needed to buy a new one.

I sat there for a second, breathing in and out. Then I looked outside the car and saw everyone in the store staring at me in disbelief. So, I opened the door, plastered a smile on my face, and and went to see how bad it was. Thankfully, the guy who had been helping me was super nice and changed the tire for me (which was fairly quick since they had one of those guns to tighten the bolts (impact wrenches)). Once the spare tire was on, I thanked everyone and got out of there as soon as I could, taking care not to hit anything else on the way.¹

Now, my social anxiety had escalated into a feeling of being a totally incompetent person. Incapable of anything. Worthless. Not just because of my lack of car-knowledge, or because I wasn't able to do normal adult stuff, or because I had just done something really stupid by not paying attention and gashing the tire. But also because my wife and kids were tired, and I had somehow let them down.

I knew these feelings of unworthiness well—I’ve been dealing with them most of my adult life. Usually, I manage to keep them under control, but the situation was just too much for me.

I called my wife, who had been waiting for me with the kids all the while, and explained what had happened while trying not to hit anything on my way out of the parking lot. She was kind enough, but not exactly trilled about that fact that we now had to go buy a new tire before we could go home.

The rest of the day wasn't so bad. The guy who changed the tire for us was very friendly. More than anything, we were just tired (no pun intended). As I distracted myself with other things, the feeling of worthlessness subsided a bit, but it did not go away entirely.

By the time we finished doing everything, it was already 6pm and both kids were exhausted. Our oldest fell asleep almost immediately once we started our ~1h drive back home. There was a lot of traffic so I had time to sit with my feelings.

After about 30min of observing them I started to feel an unexpected warmth of love spreading from my chest until it encompassed my whole body. If I reflected on it then it stopped, so I just let it be to see what would happen.

At this point I remembered a quote by Ram Dass (I think it's from his book Be Here Now) about his feelings of unworthiness and his guru. It went something like this:

Maharaji said to me, "Ram Dass, love everyone and tell the truth." And I looked at him and I said, "I can’t do that. I can’t love everyone." And he just laughed and laughed, because he saw right through me. He saw all the places where I held back my love, all the ways I judged others, and he loved me anyway.

At this thought I started feeling tears swell in my eyes. I realized how I put up this wall to protect me from situations like what had happened today, but this wall also keeps me from allowing others to love me, and (more importantly) from being able to love myself.

I wasn't full-blown crying, but it was a powerful experience. The wonderful thing is that now I feel there's a tiny tiny dent in my armor, where my heart is, and a tiny tiny light has been shining there since then. And, if I give my attention to it, I can feel it, I can feel it grow.

...

It's funny thinking about this in retrospect. At the time my day seemed so awful and I just wanted it to be done, to hide in my bed and hope that tomorrow would be a better day. The thing is that this strong experience of sadness was a necessary precondition for the realization of love that I later had in the car.

For better or for worse, only through suffering will growth come.