BRAINZ SUBMISSION, SEPTEMBER 2018
After I had my heart attack, and I was well into physical rehab, I took a meditation course. I was physically recovering, so I thought I would change my inner life as well.
The meditation course taught two, very simple, basic types of contemplation.[1]
The first type was a focused gaze on an object. They gave me a river pebble to look at. “Look at the stone carefully, Jean, then shut your eyes and imagine the pebble in great detail.”
The second type, was to adopt a wide gaze and not focus on the stone. See the stone, on your hand and the rest of the room, how the light is coming in the windows, etc. A wide gaze. Then look way and imagine the wide gaze.
I could do the first, the focused gaze like gangbusters. The wide gaze I could not do. I had lots of excuses. The line on my bifocals got in the way, I couldn’t get the angle right, lots of excuses.
So, I went to the facilitator and described my difficulties. He is a close friend of mine and he said, “Well, Jean, that’s why you had your heart attack.”
“Oh, really?” I said.
“You see, the narrow gaze is easy for people whose life is organized around details. You’re a good writer and non-profit administrator. You hold all the details, the decisions, and the like. Those details take all of your attention and that works its way into your physiology. It becomes you. People say you are an “attention to detail” kind of guy. You dress neat. You order your meals. By holding on to so many details, by living for the details, you have regimented your life and your physiology and have hardened your heart. You have hardened your arteries and that caused your myocardial infarction. To not have a second heart attack, you have to not focus on the details. Learn to adopt the wide gaze. Delegate in your job, and at home. Strengthen the wide gaze. Learn not to care about the details. When you jog, try not to see specific trees you pass by, try to see the forest.”
“And this makes a difference, really?”
“Oh yes.” He said. “Your heart has a very strong fear – a phobia, really - that if you don’t cling tightly and live for the details in your life – what you now consider so important - you will disappear.”
My phobia was my fear of not existing, of disappearing.
So, I worked at it hard, and delegated, and trusted the details would be carried by others, decided by others. I had to learn to trust. And, slowly, I changed. I saw the forest, not the trees. The green and not the plants.
But now, my phobia is back and resident in my smart phone.
All my apps deliver a persistent, super abundance of details; specifics some aspect of my life. All claim to be essential. They are a type of consciousness which works to re-create the phobia that if I don’t pay attention to those details – to them – then I may miss some detail.
A techno-phobia. So, I am now practicing the techno wide gaze.
[1]Contemplation just means imagination or memory.
(C) Copyright 2018, Jean W. Yeager - All Rights Reserved
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