Is Your Life Pre-Lived?

Many of us are creatures of habit.  We want to believe that we can predict and control our lives.  We're encouraged to make five-year, ten-year, twenty-year plans, and then to follow the steps to get exactly what we planned.  This type of life is, in a sense, pre-lived.  You live it once when you plan it, then again when you live it.

(This could explain the popularity of the forms of yoga that are always the same each time (Bikram, Ashtanga).  People can walk into the yoga studio and know exactly what's coming.  The practice is pre-practiced.)

But what happens when we give up this planning, and open to mystery instead?  Pre-living robs life of its raw power, sapping out its juice so that it feels like "going through the motions."  When we don't pre-live our lives, will each moment be that much more vibrant?

From the Radiance Sutras: Toss aside your map of the world.  Dare the wild unknown.  What if you took a vacation and didn't plan what you would do -- or even where you would sleep?  What would your life be like if you had no idea what was coming a year from now?  And, really, you don't know, even if you think you do.  What if you allowed that uncertainty to make life fresh in each moment?

Today, I'm open to the mystery.  Will you meet me there?

When a Little Poison is Good For You

While it might seem logical that the complete avoidance of toxins is best for you, some toxins might actually be good for you.

This phenomenon is called hormesis.  It refers to a situation in which a small dose of a toxin causes a beneficial effect, while a larger dose causes harm.  While it's controversial exactly which toxins exhibit hormesis and to what degree, it definitely occurs in some cases, and some scientists believe that some level of hormesis occurs with most toxins.

For instance, kale, broccoli, and many other vegetables contain small amounts of toxins.  It's thought that these foods are good for you not in spite of, but because of, the toxins that they contain.  These tiny amounts of toxins stimulate your cells to produce substances that protect them.  Then, when they encounter larger amounts of toxins, they're prepared to deal with them.  Cells that have never encountered any toxins are left vulnerable.  Hormesis may be one of the primary mechanisms by which plant foods benefit us.

I see hormesis as being important in our lives, as well.  People who are sheltered, who never experience any type of adversity, may become fragile, or they may have trouble motivating themselves to do the things they want to do.  Those who experience a few difficult situations become more resilient.  I know more than a few people who claim that their difficult experiences made them who they are today.  (Of course, extreme trauma can be very damaging; the benefits of hormesis occur only at low doses of a toxin.)

What difficult situations are you dealing with now?  Can you see how they might benefit you in the long term?

Your Heart Rate, Fear, and Creativity

Take a moment to feel your pulse. You can find it at your wrist, or in your neck. For a few moments, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and notice the pattern of your heartbeat.

Did you notice how much it changed from one heartbeat to the next?

Many people assume that the heart beats at a fairly constant rate, whether fast or slow. But the heart is a little more complicated than that. When we're feeling relaxed (i.e., when the parasympathetic nervous system is dominant), there's a lot of variation in the amount of time between heartbeats. This is called heart rate variability, or HRV.

When we're feeling stressed, afraid, or nervous (i.e., when the sympathetic nervous system is dominant), this variation gets ironed out. The heart rate not only speeds up, but also becomes more consistent; the HRV goes down. The amount of time between heartbeats becomes predictable, staying almost exactly the same every time.

I see an analogy here to the way that stress affects our minds. When we're feeling relaxed, we're creative. We're open to change, adapting to the moment. With each heartbeat, the slate is fresh; anything could happen next.  

But fear or stress locks us into a certain pattern. We feel that we can't change. We stick with the exact way that we're doing things. Creativity and adaption go out the window.

I love that feeling of variability. And the beautiful thing about the nervous system is that relaxation –and a higher HRV – is usually only a few deep breaths away.

The Binding Problem

Using all of modern science and technology, scientists still can't explain why you feel like you exist.

In neuroscience, this is called the "binding problem." "Binding" refers to your brain taking all of the different perceptions, thoughts, and actions that are happening simultaneously, and melding them together to create a single entity that is you. The "problem" is no one being able to explain how this happens. There are a few theories; for instance, there's a type of electrical wave (the gamma wave) that sweeps through your brain about 40 times a second under certain conditions, and which some scientists believe could be the answer to the binding problem.

Maybe there's another possibility. Maybe the reason we can't figure out what makes you into one entity is because you aren't just one entity.

Think about it. How often do different parts of you want different things? You want to eat a cupcake, but you want to eat healthier. You want to sleep in, but you want to do a 6am yoga class. Don't you feel like there might be more than one of you at these times?  And have you ever asked yourself a question, and gotten an answer – or several different answers? It's like there are several people inside you, talking to each other.

A rare type of surgery has occasionally been done for severe epilepsy, in which the two hemispheres (halves) of the brain are disconnected from each other. What results from this is essentially two people living in one skull. They can respond independently, although only one of them (usually the left side) can use language to do that. But the other side (usually the right side) can communicate with images. Whatever the right side does, the left side makes up a reason why it did that. Because it can't stand the thought that there are parts of itself that it isn't in control of. (And don't we all sometimes do things without really knowing why?)

Maybe we're all two people living in one head. They just communicate with each other very effectively, and one of them maintains the delusion that it's the only one. In fact, if there are two, couldn't there be more? Could there be tens of consciousnesses that are all part of you? Hundreds? If there are even two, then is there a you that exists at all?

Ask yourselves what you think of this.

Absorbing the Luminous

Vision is the dominant sense for (nearly all) human beings.  So in a sense, we're all intimately familiar with light.

And yet light remains a mystery in many ways.  Light acts like a wave, and like a particle (photon); quantum physicists have not yet explained how this dual nature of light is possible.  We know light well with our bodies, but we don't really know it with our logic at all.  (This alone could be fodder for a contemplative meditation practice.)

Light enters the eye through the pupil, and hits the retina at the back of the eye.  There, photoreceptor (light-sensing) cells absorb the light.  This is why your pupil looks black; all the light that enters is absorbed.  (Unless there's too much light, as in a camera flash, in which case some of the light gets reflected back out and you have "red-eye.")

Think about that.  Light was formed in the furnace of a star.  For millions of years, it traveled through absolute emptiness at unimaginable speeds.  Then it came upon you, gazing up at the night sky.  The light entered your pupil, and you absorbed it into yourself.  You now contain a tiny part of the energy of a star.

Or as Lorin Roche put it in his poetic Radiance Sutras:

Light moves on its pathways through space,

Enters the eyes, and

You absorb the luminous.

It's true, in a literal sense.

Enjoy your stargazing.

Soaking in Your Essence

Have you ever gazed at a sunset, or the ocean, or a mountain vista, and felt a sense of wonder?  You paused, breathed deeply, soaked in the majesty of the universe and felt your place within it.  In other words, without making any effort, you slipped into meditation.

Meditation is a human instinct.  Put very simply, meditation is soaking in your own essence.  We all do this naturally, and we can learn to cultivate this state by following our own inner guidance.  You know what you love, so just follow your own lead!  There is no right or wrong way to meditate, and you will almost certainly crave different experiences at different times.

I believe that meditation should work with your nature, instead of against it.  It should enhance the flow of life through you, rather than cut off any part of it.  You're an individual; let's celebrate that!  It's my joy, my honor, and my privilege to assist people in discovering their own pathways into essence.

I celebrate you -- your whole unique self.