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Gently radical changing 1
“It’s life-changing!” is a phrase that often points to a dramatic shift. We tend to think of life-changing occurrences as radical, and in the conversational context of the phrase life-changing, we may associate the word radical with extreme and even violent change, such as an illness that disturbs one’s body or the death of a loved one. Life-changing situations or events as crisis-motivated. Radical change as unexpected and unchosen.
Radical derives from the Latin radix, root. So, radical change is foundational, it happens in the ground of a person’s being. Radical indicates profundity, and a power within that, but neither vehement force nor boggling intensity. A radical change in life can be gentle, and I’ve been experiencing a gently radical change, one that I chose.
It began during a silent meditation retreat from September 23 into October 4, 2009, a 10-day course in Vipassana for which we meditators actually arrived at the meditation center on day 1 and left on day 12. Vipassana is a body/mind tool created by the man we call the Buddha. His intended result for meditators? An end to misery. In other words, happiness as the basic condition of a person’s life. Vipassana, a Pali word, means insight or introspection, and it can be taught in a number of ways. (Pali is the language that Gotama Siddatha, the Buddha, spoke. Gautama Siddartha, the name with which more people may be familiar, is Sanskrit.) The instruction that I received is very somatically oriented–perfect for this person for whom bodily practices are key to any kind of awakening–and in this lineage of Vipassana I have found a practical and elegant integration of body and mind and of theory and practice that beautifully suits me.
The gently radical changing is coming from sustained and concentrated self-observation that leads to a desire to help others end their misery. The self-observation occurs as one sits–still–in meditation for many hours each day of the retreat, as well as from the silence and other practices and realities that you can read about on dhamma.org, and it continues for me in a home practice since returning to Tucson. Simply and incompletely, the meditator observes without reaction whatever arises physically and psychically, then lets it pass, lets change happen; for change is of the essence in our bodies, and our bodies are no different from the changing essence of everything else, from institutions to governments to relationships and the weather.
Sitting in the aloneness of silence day after day relaxed and softened me. In that physical and mental posture, I observed, as best I could with equanimity (as per instruction), the pressure, strain, numbness, heat, tingling, cold, vibration, or any other sensation within my body, knowing that sensations come and go, manifest suddenly or dissolve after days, and journey through us in infinite variety. Softening and relaxation allow for receptivity and spaciousness, which open a person to thoughts that surface and acts that materialize from peace and happiness. Those thoughts and acts are anything but pretentious, righteous, or holier-than-thou. Their focus can be work, marriage, combing your hair, baking cookies, laughing with your 2-year-old, or clearing your throat.
Vipassana works in everyday life and in the most ordinary of circumstances. Vipassana is both a method and a process that elucidate for the meditator: I can observe and not react, I can be calm, in other situations too. Reaction is often impulsive and based in an individual’s patterns of behavior. Such habits and their impulsive even compulsive nature are often detrimental to happy outcomes.
Scholars themselves praise the objectivity of scholarship. I’ve mostly seen such objectivity as an idea and a myth, far from the obvious ideologies and unconscious personal biases written into scholarly texts. I’m finding objectivity–what a surprise!–in the inescapable feelings, both bodily and emotional, of the gently radical changing that is what I call me. Me–just a name for something in this world, both natural and human-made, of ephemera and transformation.
- October 18, 2009
- Filed under: Body and mind
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