Darren Littlejohn's Blog

I've been practicing meditation for over 30 years. I've had instruction from many masters and have logged thousands of hours of training and practice. But I still find it quite difficult at times. I'll share some meditation practices that I use when things are challenging for me.



To meditate means to become familiar, gompa in Tibetan. Some in recovery find being in the present moment an extreme challenge. To be still is to confront our own experience. We can't run or distract ourselves. If we're too afraid to do this, we're in pretty bad shape, because we're really being with ourselves. Is that so bad? You might not think so, but for some it's intolerable. Any attempt to meditate can cause high anxiety. But, what are we really afraid of? After all, it's just us.



One of the hardest moments for me is if I wake up from a nap in the late afternoon/early evening. On a recent trip to Thailand, I got pretty ill and had to spend a couple of days in bed. Hour after hour of laying in the bed is one of the worst times for my vulnerability to surface. I call these PTSD naps because I get really triggered and vulnerable to dark, negative feelings. I can usually get out of them by rushing out the door to the gym or a yoga class. When I can get to a class, I normally forget about the way I felt earlier. An intense cardio or yoga session "fixes" me until the next day.



But if you're sick, that's kinda hard to do.



In this kind of situation, all I can do is rely on my previous years of training and practice in meditation and dream yoga. Lay still. Follow the breath, relax. It works unless I get interrupted by noise, a sudden need to rush to the bathroom, or bad physical pain like a headache.



to get through this sickness, I had to come up with an integrated practice, which I'll share with you.



If we're new to practice, it may take some years of discipline of always going to our meditation place with our meditation group and doing our meditation in a certain way.



For many years my meditation practice was to "just sit". Be in the moment. Notice the physical sensations, the breath. Label the thoughts. Be present. It didn't occur to me until well into the second decade that, instead of passively watching, we can also cultivate something that will affect our state of mind. We initiate some aspiration, intention or action into our meditation experience. We can use mantra, visualization, directed breathing (pranayama).



That's not to say that we give up our practice of accepting the present moment. On the contrary. We do a little of cultivation, then rest in pure, naked awareness. In this kind of practice we alternate between effort, and non-effort.



For example, we can practice being still, silent and relaxed in whatever position we find ourselves in. We can't always be in a comfortable meditation position. So we should learn to practice in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. The Buddha talked about four moments; sitting, standing, walking, lying down. This is symbolic of all aspects of our lives.



A meditation session can last anywhere from a few moments to a couple of hours, depending on our situation. We can alternate between visualization, mantra, intention and being present in whatever position we find ourselves in.



This meditation is extremely helpful for dispelling that dark sense of foreboding that I described above. It's a powerful combination of different essence practices from more than one viewpoint in the Dharma; refuge, compassion, mindfulness, purification, accumulation of merit and wisdom.



Fill Up With Light, Send it Out





I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the sacred Dharma. I take refuge in the Noble Arya Sangha.



One breath. Inhale. One moment. Exhale. Relax.



After a period of watching the breath, or just being present, to imagine that your body is transparent. On the inhale, your container it fills up with powerful, bursting light. There are different colors of light related to different systems in yoga. Some are about chakras, others are related to elements. Yellow light is connected to the Earth element and makes you feel relaxed and grounded. Blue light is symbolic of space, and can really open you up to a sense of vastness. This is a good one to do when you feel that your energy is constricted. Green light is connected to the air element and is associated with the deity Green Tara. Green also creates movement of energy and helps free us up from obstacles.



Once you feel that you're filling up with light you can send it out those you love. You can optionally add the mantra, OM MANI PADME HUM to cultivate a sense of compassion for all beings. Visualize those you love, those closest to you. Cultivate the aspiration that they may be free of suffering and its causes.



Afterward, go back to observing the breath, or just sitting.



I hope this practice helps you as it has helped me. May we all be free of suffering and its causes.



-d



Visit http://the12stepbuddhist.com for free courses, ebooks and more.

The Truth is what is real. It's the only thing that's real. It's connected to how you feel, but much deeper than emotions. In fact, the real reality is empty. It's nothing. It doesn't charge money or give sermons or require devotion. It just is. Already.

The Law of Attraction



In 2008 I sold my first book to Beyond Words publishing. They'd just been bought by Simon and Schuster after phenomenal overnight success with the now infamous, "The Secret." I'd looked at "The Secret" when it came out and thought it was really hokey. This wasn't new material, after all. It was derivative of the so-called, "New Thought" movement of the late 1800s, early 1900s. The ideas are varied, but what I take from it is that our minds are responsible for our well being. In other words, we create our situation. This throws a wrench into the notion that our fate is determined by a deity, which lends itself nicely to the basic ideas of Buddhism.



The view that we can fix ourselves by adjusting our thinking is definitely not new to psychology either. In undergraduate and graduate school I studied both the Cognitive and Behavioral Psychologies. The former holds that mental health can be improved by changing the way we frame reality. Behaviorists are more inclined to say that thought mattered less, but that our learned behaviors are what cause our happiness or suffering. Behavior modification programs aim at retraining our brains to learn new behaviors based on reward and punishment schedules.



For many years prior to college, I studied Emmet Fox's, "The Mental Equivalent," and "As a Man Thinketh," by James Allen. There was also, "Think and Grow Rich," by Napolean Hill, which I read when I was a budding young retail salesperson. All of these books made the same points as "The Secret": As ye sow, so shall ye reap, which is a King James Bible quote.



The way that Fox and other Metaphysical Christians saw it, if we placed our thoughts on God, we'd benefit. God has all power, so when we turn to "Him," we of course place our thoughts on a higher plane. The practice was one of prayer, scriptural study or, as AA co-founder Bill Wilson put it, "a raising of the heart and mind to God." This one makes the most sense to me. I feel that if we can align ourselves with a power greater than ourselves, we have a chance to change. But self-worth and the feeling that we deserve abundance is key. No matter how much we believe in a power, if we don't feel worthy, we'll get what we feel we deserve.



And that ain't much.



What's Buddha Got to Do with it?



Thoughts have power. But do all thoughts have equal power? What's required to give more power to one kind of thought and less to other kinds?



Buddha would say that any thoughts, even the most subtle, deep unconscious ones, have an effect. But the juicy ones are those that we fuel with our intentions, ignite with our actions and keep burning with our relative satisfaction. For example, if we plan to hurt someone, then go harm them somehow, maybe with a whack upside the head, then are super proud of ourselves for doing so, we create a very powerful seed of negative karma. This seed will one day (no one knows when) sprout, grow into a tree and bear fruit. That takes secondary causes, such as soil, moisture, sunlight. Karmic seeds lie dormant until secondary conditions arise.



Conversely, if we want to make someone feel good, set about a course of action to achieve that, did it and subsequently feel great about it, we also create a seed, albeit a different kind, called good karma or merit. Buddhist practitioners do a lot of things to collect merits, like saving bugs and blessing food (and all the beings killed in it's production). We also do things like meditation on death, cultivating the intention to have compassion for all beings and dedicating our merits to the benefit of all beings.



On the grossest level then, three things make up our experience: intention, action, satisfaction. The Buddhist path is about removing all of our ignorance, so the practices go deep into meditations that root out the original causes of suffering to the point where there are none left. This is called liberation, from a Buddhist perspective. So even though we might work for many lifetimes on the grosser levels, we eventually have to meditate and purify at the most secret and most subtle levels of our mind stream to completely eradicate all causes of suffering.



You can see that Buddhist analysis goes into some pretty deep levels of power that even our most subtle thoughts have in our lives. The reason is that while there's still a cause left, even a tiny trace remaining, one little cause can lead to a nuclear reaction of bigger, more powerful effects. First there's nothing, then a chain reaction causes the Big Bang. One cause can lead to a universe. So Buddha would have us eradicate even the most minute traces of negative causes, because with secondary conditions, they will grow.



From the Buddhist perspective then, the law of attraction or power of positive thinking has enormous, monumental consequences. This isn't just about creating abundance, losing weight or finding our soulmate. Those are important to our relative condition, but are considered mundane concerns, which eventually lead us to more suffering. The ultimate goal of the Buddha is to end all suffering. That said, it's important to have a good situation while we're here on the planet.



The LOA and The Buddha



The Law of Attraction (LOA) is nothing more than a repackaged version of the Law of Karma. Karma means cause. All causes have effects. Effects have further causes. There are too many to keep track of, so our minds tend to try to draw straight lines from Cause A to Cause B. Ah, if only life weren't so complex. Maybe then we could understand it better. Some people jump to conclusions about karma. They cry, "Sure, blame the victims," and feel that if we say the LOA and/or LOK are valid, then the babies born with AIDS must deserve it somehow and, well, we'd be beasts if we held such beliefs. But karma isn't about belief. It's about evidence. And the evidentiary tributaries can only be followed within the individual psyche. Unless we're omniscient, we simply can't know the karma of anyone but ourselves. And even that is a multi-lifetime meditation journey, according to the Buddha.



Addiction and Recovery



As a practicing Buddhist in Recovery, I think of addiction in terms of Dharma (any spiritual teaching but for our purposes, Buddhist teachings). Buddha said that attachment is our main problem. We all have attachments. Addiction is what I consider attachment gone wild. When we're merely attached, Buddha would say that we're sowing seeds that will lead to further suffering for ourselves. When we're attached at a level that causes the people around us to suffer, we've got a problem. We might drink too much, which looks socially acceptable on some levels. More so than porn addiction, gambling, eating disorders. But they're all manifestations of the same types of causes. Mainly, we don't feel satisfied, so we try to take something or do something that satiates us. But addiction is a brain disease, and when we're addicted, our brains don't produce the happy chemicals that we need to maintain a balanced, healthy life. Satiation doesn't ever really satisfy us. The hallmark of addiction is that unquenchable thirst. Thirst of course can mean a desire for any object, person, situation or event.



From the perspective of the Law of Attraction, it would be better to turn our thirst to abundance, love and joy. From a Buddhist perspective, we'd take that thirst to focus on the happiness of other beings. From a recovery view, we might say, "We have to give it away to keep it." You can see that all of these systems compliment each other.



I've worked the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous for over 30 years. They are an excellent way to upgrade our thought vibrations to a higher energetic level which helps us be more free of the need for our attachments. But there is a lot of room for improvement. Many 12-steppers are stuck recycling low self-esteem, poor self-care and not much in the way of self-improvement beyond being sober. I think we can do better. If we can be open to try some additional tools, we can be great examples for those who are struggling with addictions.



For more on what I do to integrate all of these tools, I invite you to try my free eCourse, Get Abundant Energy in 10 Days. It's free. It's awesome, and you can take it at your own pace.



I welcome your comments and experiences below. It would also be awesome if you could share this post. Keep up with my work at the12stepbuddhist.com.



Be wellness,



-d



---



Need help with substance abuse or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.

When actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died, I didn't write about it. It was just too depressing. Another long term sober addict who'd relapsed and hit the ultimate bottom was, for me, not news. This was just about someone famous and got a lot more attention. Besides, I wasn't super familiar with him as an actor, though I'd seen some of his work. But Robin Williams? What the eff? ROBIN WILLIAMS? This one hit home, in more ways than one. So I thought I'd share. Pardon the length. Some topics won't fit on an Instagram meme.



I used to hang out in a Starbucks in Northwest Portland, where I wrote my first book, The 12-Step Buddhist. There were a lot of local characters in the neighborhood where the movie Drugstore Cowboy was shot at a time when it was a ghetto. The area has since been upgraded to a place where affluent white people dressed in casual clothes can shop for expensive things. One of the locals was cartoonist John Callahan. John had become quadriplegic in a drunk driving incident at the age of 21. He died a few years ago of complications related to the accident. John, though he wasn't sober to my knowledge, knew everyone in AA and often counseled people in their recovery, right next to me at that Starbucks where I sat meditating and writing. At one point he was going to do a movie of his colorful life, starring Robin Williams. They were friends. Mr. Williams had, I think 21 or so years sober and had relapsed. He used to come to that same Starbucks when he went to Portland for treatment after relapsing. A lot of sober people hung out there, with their AA big books, studying recovery. It was kind of surreal for me because I grew up on Mork and Mindy and Williams' HBO specials and years and years of amazing comedy. He became a serious actor and I still followed him with amazement. I knew he had substance abuse issues and I've had similar experiences.



For one, I'm an addict. I did a lot of drugs and drank a lot of booze and fried my brain real good, all before I was 21. At certain periods of my life, I've wanted to die. In fact, I knew that I wouldn't make it to eighteen. But, somehow I did and had to deal with the wreckage of a life lived as if each day were my last. In fact, I'm still picking up those pieces at age 52. I got clean and sober in 1984 at age 22 and stayed sober in AA until I was 32. Then I decided it would be a cool idea to meditate on LSD. My logic was that since I had almost figured out the key to the universe as a fucked up, depressed teenager, I was surely more equipped as a clean and sober AA member with nearly a Master's Degree and 10 years of therapy, meditation and 12-Step work. I was wrong. The LSD and meditation combo gave me insight alright. I'll share the discovery with you: I was totally depressed. The acid took me deeper into it. So deep, in fact, that I had to drink. A few years later, I got sober in AA again, where I met now guru Noah Levine (Dharma Punx, Refuge Recovery) and tried to stitch together a new life. Again. But he couldn't help me. No one could. I needed to go on my journey and find my own way.



It took years and years of more therapy, more AA, more Buddhist meditation and meeting Tibetan teachers for me to find a bit of stability. I wrote a book, did well, hit another bottom and somehow have stayed sober. During the time of hanging out in that Starbucks, I had come to somewhat of a peak of my existence. People came in there to sit and talk with me. I was leading retreats, being asked to speak, writing columns. But the depression, suicidal tendencies, post hallucinogen perceptual disorder and other things always kept me struggling. There were times when I actually planned to jump off of Portland's Fremont bridge on my way home. But I remembered the teachings I'd been given. We don't kill ourselves. The reason is that it won't change anything. It'll make our consciousness worse, putting us in a karmic nightmare realm that is much, much more difficult to navigate out of than anything we have to deal with in the Human Realm. So I didn't do it. I trudged along, became a yoga teacher, moved to the less depressing and perennially sunny San Diego. Things are good. I'm working on a new book on integrating yoga and recovery. These are the best years of my life. Because I didn't drink and I didn't die.



I remember seeing Williams on Leno a few months after his stint in Portland. I knew he had to be fresh, raw and suffering. But he acted like nothing happened. I couldn't believe it. Having been through relapse with long term sobriety, I knew what it was like. I felt in my gut at that time that he wasn't going to make it sober again unless he got honest, publicly, as he did some time later. But he seemed to be suffering under the surface of that manic laughter. Maybe it was because of that that he was the funniest man alive, as Norm McDonald says. Gibran spoke to us of love. Love is all inclusive, good and bad. We must know the bitter to taste the sweet. But for Robin Williams, did we know his suffering? True, he made us laugh all of our laughter. And now, with his death, we should cry all of our tears. It is a sad, sad thing.



I wish I could have spoken with Mr. Williams. If he'd been open to it, I would have tried to share Buddhist and Yoga teachings with him. I'd have tried to teach him some techniques that have saved my ass for yet another 17 years of sobriety. But that didn't happen. Instead, he fell into the abyss. I'm sad for that and I'm sad for all of the suffering that all beings in all realms in all times suffer endlessly. Does that seem extreme? Buddha taught that life is, indeed, unsatisfactory. We should find a path of liberation from this suffering. Here's the trick: believing that there is a path. We have to believe that more than we believe the darkness. That's why it's said that Buddha was enlightened. The darkness was dispelled. If we don't believe in that possibility, we sink. And I'm sad for that. I nearly sank to the bottom. It's unnecessary.



And so the disease, of addiction, of mental illness and of samsara, the realm of attachment, ignorance and aversion, takes another one. This is why I do the work that I do, for myself, for others. May we all be free of suffering, and its causes. May we all become fully liberated Buddhas and clear the infinite oceans of samsara for the sake of all. If not me, who? If not now, when? I invite you to explore this question for yourself. Life is suffering, yes. And as we say in AA, there is a solution.



Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Being an addict teaches us, probably more quickly than for non-addicts, the nature of what Buddha called attachment, aversion and ignorance and how these three poisons keep us stuck.