Full of Paradise, Part 2 – How to Achieve the Illusive Calm

  

“To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooners of this world must start to their feet out of idleness, and not out of toil.” 

I promised last time we would learn how to get mind, body, spirit and behavior to work together.  “Join forces and protect the King.”  The answer must certainly lie in our mind’s ability to look inside, without distraction, and clearly see.  However, as we have discussed before, this is difficult.  We have talked about how difficult it can be to calm our minds.  We also looked at the complex interdependence of events, thoughts, feelings and behavior.  Considering these challenges, how are we ever going to be able to see what’s inside whether we find paradise or not? 

“Full of Paradise Without Knowing It” – Part 1

“I suppose what makes me most glad is that we all recognize each other in this metaphysical space of silence and happening, and get some sense, for a moment, that we are full of paradise without knowing it.” – Thomas Merton.

There is a clue hidden in this wonderful quote from Thomas Merton.  It leads us to an answer to the question, “why can’t I stop my mind from racing, thinking and constantly processing my to-do list or my thoughts and feelings?  It’s easy to tell someone to “be still”, “calm down”, or “take some time for yourself and meditate”.  But why does this seem so hard to do?

Leaf in the Wind…?

Do you ever feel like you’re being tossed around like a leaf in the wind?  I’m talking about mentally/emotionally.  Take a moment to think about how much of your time throughout the day, you are thinking about things that you really didn’t decide to think about.  You just think about them.  But you didn’t say to yourself, “hey, I’m going to replay that conversation I had yesterday, over and over again until I craft the perfect comeback I wish I had said but didn’t because I couldn’t think fast enough at the time and I was nervous.”  Does anybody really ever decide to have and hold onto thoughts like that?  Or do they just kind of creep up on us and take hold of us.  Or here’s another way of saying it.  Do our thoughts take hold of us?  Or do we take hold of our thoughts? 

My Favorite Mantra

I like the idea of taking a teaching from Thich Nhat Hanh and using it to deepen my ability to meditate on God’s word.  One idea I gathered from the book “Miracle of Mindfulness” was the notion of developing a clear mind and calm heart.  So when I need a quick break I will breathe in saying to myself “clear mind”.  Then breathe out saying, “calm heart”.  Then I consciously focus on lengthening my breath by taking a longer breath in while saying to myself, “my mind is clear”. 

Purpose of the Brain

Let’s consider, for a moment, the purpose of the human brain. Let’s also take a look at how this purpose is impacted by its attackers coming from inside and out.

A.R. Luria defines the three goals and objectives of the human brain. They are:
1. To be alert, awake, aware of reality;
2. Collect and store environmental information; and
3. Monitor and correct our conduct for health and well-being.

I would summarize the above definition this way; the brain’s purpose is to be aware, store information, and manage our conduct for our benefit. If this is true, then the brain becomes the key instrument used to fashion our overall ability to obey God by following his commands. The brain, not only the heart, drives our ability to love with compassion.

Why is this important?

…with all your mind.

Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”[1] He went on to say that this was the greatest commandment.

It’s interesting to think about how much has changed in the 2000 years since these words were spoken. Back in the time of Christ, I’m pretty sure they didn’t have Twitter, Facebook, cell phones, email, the internet, or texting. I’m also quite confident that most people didn’t end their days with a snack and DVRs of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann. It was a very different time then.

So why does this matter?