If mental stories arise. focus on the delightful experience by using your verbal mind to silently name the physical and emotional feelings . This technique pulls attention away from narratives and allows you to let go of our mind. This is one way to deal with the Monkey mind.
My delightful experience is doing the crossword puzzles daily. It’s supposed to be an intellectual pursuit. It activates the memory. But for me it is a pleasant way of letting go of unnecessary chatter of fears and anxieties. It’s a shamanic way of repatterning my thoughts.
I’m not alone in using crossword puzzles as a meditative pastime. This is confirmed by one of my books The Zen of Crossword Puzzles. I’ve read about David Cook of American Idol doing crossword puzzles before he won and continues to do so.
For over a month now Emil has been bringing me daily except on Sundays the 3 major broadsheets plus my favorite Los Angeles Times crossword found in a not-so-popular newspaper with a small circulation. Of course, I’m delighted.
I manage to completely answer the 4 puzzles daily except for fully difficult ones usually on Fridays or Saturdays. For quite some time now I surprisingly get difficult answers after I nap. It’s true. A relaxed mind is an inspired mind. Answers simply come from nowhere. Funny I may be staring at the puzzle grid and I can read the answers from inside usually from the back of my head!When I get a most difficult answer I hang on to the quiet but victorious state of mind. I try to dwell on the moment, oblivious of everything around me. I retrace the letters of the correct answer to etch the answer on my photographic memory. I take advantage of a learning technique consisting of the use of the five senses to retain what has been learned. I get a taste of how it is to be present to the NOW
While still teaching at a college of nursing, a close friend stated that I was cheating. This was a reaction to my consulting a big comprehensive puzzle dictionary I have been using since 2002. I was bothered; but I continued solving my puzzles and consulting my dictionary. This morning, Emil gave me a convenient excuse. It’s research! I felt I needed to give myself permission to do what I felt was right. I was having an attack of unworthiness inasmuch as I was not following rules. I was not true to my social conditioning.
I am kinder to myself when I reread passages from the books of Sylvia Boorstein, a Jewish Buddhist. She gives me permission to break through my limited thoughts. She has insights about strict practices related to Buddhism. To think that being Jewish would make Boorstein an obedient follower of rules to the letter. Take for example the grim and unpalatable concept of emptiness. The sounds harder than silencing the Monkey Mind. At least dealing with the Money Mind doesn’t conflict with my daily crossword puzzles.
Emptiness ordinarily would mean renunciation. It would mean dealing with nothingness. It would mean not having anything or anyone. But to my surprise Boorstein gives emptiness an abundant interpretation. She views emptiness as a possibility. It is the precursor of creation where everything and anything can be given birth.
Emptiness is a possibility. When I look out of the window around 6:00 in the morning, the panorama has been ensheathed in a murky haze. Darkness can hide beginnings. As the sun penetrates the mist the buildings and other structures emerge. Each morning something new comes to life: new construction, repainted buildings, different foliage, wild and cared-for flowers coloring the scenery. The calachuchi, of my childhood years, seen against the lush background of greens reigns like a queen in the side streets of Taft-Vito Cruz. Indeed, I can have delightful experiences from my vantage point of view on the thirty-seventh floor.
Take for example my present life style. For almost 3 years in the apartment where we used to live I had a garden, small but with many plants that fed my soul. Today being on the 37th floor of
Of a building I have only 2 plants. I’m not even sure if these are allowed by the admin of the building.
Confinement. I sometimes feel the constriction that factory workers are forced into even during this century. But my introversion as a rule makes me enjoy the comfortable isolation of our condo. Nobody can disturb me except the young men who deliver our laundry and our meals. Even then they are subjected to screening first by the guards at the entrance then by the guards in barong at the lobby.
Luckily even if I stay at the condo the whole day I get a lot of sunshine. My body may not have the luxury of living in the wild but I am close to Nature. With my unobstructed view of the skyline I can stay in bed and wait for the sunrise to burn the sky into crimson. Between 5:30 and 6 in the afternoon I am treated to another type of red – the sunset.
In the mornings, U don’t need an alarm clock. I know it’s time for morning prayers when the dogs bark and the roosters crow. I prefer these sounds to those of the LRT and those of the buses.
I can watch the moon’s cycle as it waxes till it wanes. Many times I get the best of both worlds, the ancient and the post modern with airplanes seemingly circling the stars.
I have perpetuated my picture of myself as sickly. I’ve rehashed my family and social conditioning revolving around my heart murmurs. It was a nice lady family doctor who sentenced me to no sports nor physical activities. Anything that would get me exhausted.
I know the updated healthcare would be to give the heart some exercise.
I wonder if this gave my psyche reason to shun housework. I wonder if this is the history of my lopsided life – intellectual glorification and gratification at the expense of partnering with my body. I was always out of gas because I was short circuiting my energy flow.
I remember how the voice engineer of Cynthia Patag diagnosed my voice problem in the 90s as one of atrophy. I wasn’t using my vocal cords according to how they were designed. Perhaps It was a frustrating cry, a wake up call for me to sing my heart out. But I listened to my old script of limiting beliefs.
According to one male author” if we always follow the same script, we’re going to get the same results. But when we change the script, or create a new one, we propel ourselves into a completely new realm of possibilities and opportunities.
Emil and I would climb 4 flights of stairs to the flat of our daughter in London. Yet I wouldn’t pant the way I did climbing the stairs to her room in a condo near Ateneo during her college years. When I mentioned this to a local in London he had a matter-of-fact explanation.
The air in London was no longer polluted; they had outsourced their products. In other words like the rest of the first world countries most of their factories were relocated outside the city or to other countries.
In an attempt to rewrite my script, I have been doing the Healing Code exercise. After 2 months I no longer have heaviness on my legs. The discolorations from poor circulation are still with me but I have accepted these with humor. How can the exercise addressing cellular memories to be forgiven effect healing of body parts of considerable distance from the head and the heart?