Meditation

Do you ever feel like you’re going about your business when the world invariably pulls you in and pumps you full of stress? You didn’t ask for it. It just happens. When it does, what we’re doing is allowing ourselves to become of the world, not in it.

What’s the difference? Being in the world means you have a life like anybody else — a job, family (or not), interests, etc. But you don’t allow any of those things to pull you away from your center. People that are of the world allow themselves to get sucked in by outside influences in one or more arenas of their lives.

The Princeton blues

I know this concept quite well as I spent many years being of, not in, the world. A particularly bad patch occurred way back in my college years at Princeton.

I grew up in a laid back, beach town in Southern California. Then I headed 3,000 miles east to a school teeming with uptight kids from the tristate area and prep school know-it-alls from New England.

Swimming with sharks

I was an 18 year old beach guy swimming in a sea of over-achieving sharks. And I got bit. Repeatedly. How? I hung out, a lot, with my neurotic classmates who did nothing but sit around and worry.

“I have a paper due in three weeks and I haven’t even started. What if I fail?” “I have so much work to do tonight. I may need to study seven hours instead of my usual six.” “I’m going to bomb this physics exam tomorrow!”

How did this affect me? For a variety of reasons I had neither the strength nor the confidence to fend off these tentacles sucking me into the vortices of anxiety hell. So I too became an anxious wreck. I became of the world of 18 year olds stewing in fear. This led to a quasi-nervous breakdown and a couple years of depression.

My trials in Tinseltown

Cut to 18 years later and I found myself in an even more insidious cauldron of of-the-world-ness: Hollywood. Talk about a place that sucks you in and carves you up.

Why is this so? A simple reason: There are a tiny number of jobs available for a huge number of seekers. In acting, directing, producing and writing (my area).

We television writers got inordinately spun up every spring when the networks staffed their new and existing shows. It was an anxious frenzy. Every year.

“How many meetings have you gotten?” “My agent sucks! I should’ve gotten an interview on that show!” “I can’t believe he got a job on that show. He’s a terrible writer!”

Bad karma permeated everything. It was so unhealthy.

Where does the world suck you in?

-Maybe you have a 17 year old child applying to college and all the moms and dads are kibbitizing with each other about who’s applying where. And blah, blah, blah.

You tell a mom your kid is taking the Princeton Review SAT prep course. “Oh no, that’s not good enough. He needs a one-on-one tutor. Let me give you the number of…” At which point you tune out because your stomach is now in knots.

-Or maybe you work at one of the 10 trillion places where office politics runs rampant. “You’re ten times more competent than that boob Cal but mark my words, he’ll get the promotion because his nose is three inches up Ken’s (the boss) butt.” So you constantly churn and ruminate about Cal and Ken’s relationship, which takes your focus away from where it needs to be: Doing your job.

-Or maybe where you get sucked in and “de-centered” is in the general world of social media. You see all the great things your “friends” are doing on Facebook and Instagram and it makes you feel like a loser. Or you get sucked into nasty fights over politics or whatever some provocateur is peddling any given day and the next thing you know you feel spun up and terrible.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. I didn’t have to allow myself to get sucked in and become of the world of Hollywood. And you don’t have to become of the worlds you live in.

Staying centered

The core idea here is about feeling centered and anchored. When you get sucked in you lose your centeredness. When you’re merely in the world, you maintain your center. And as most of us know, uncentered equals anxious and vulnerable. Centered equals peaceful and secure.

So how do we accomplish going from ‘of’ to ‘in?’ Here are three ways.

1. Become aware when you’re doing it. I’ve mentioned several times before that my favorite quote from Eckhart Tolle is: “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” That is so in this case because chances are you’ve been getting sucked into your various worlds your whole life. So when it happens, it’s just normal.

Not anymore. Make it NOT normal. And NOT good. The first step toward achieving that is training yourself to become aware when it’s happening. So the next time that person at the office starts going off on some office politics gossip, just notice it.

2. Speaking of that person at the office, the second thing we need to do is identify the people in our lives that instigate our getting sucked in. Once you’ve identified who they are, slowly but surely back away from them. We all know who they are. The negative, neurotic Nellys who constantly vomit their angst onto anyone who will listen.

Stay away from that office gossip. And stay away from that mom who constantly makes you feel like you’re not doing enough to get your kid into Harvard. And get the heck off of Facebook and Instagram! Or at least drastically cut back your involvement.

This leads to the tough love portion of this piece. Most all of the being of, not in, stems from OUR actions. We allow ourselves to get sucked in. We need to take ownership of that. And begin the process of backing away from all the negative, neurotic guck we allow ourselves to be part of.

3. And finally, take a look at the photo below. I know I’ve used this in other pieces, but nowhere is it more apropos than here.

The photo was taken from Voyager 1 in 1990 at a distance of 3.7 billion miles, making it by far the most distant image of Earth ever taken. Can you see earth? It’s the tiny dot about halfway down and to the right, in the middle of the brown vertical band (the bands are the result of sunlight reflecting off the camera). It’s a valuable reminder of how mind-blowingly infinitesimal our world is, a tiny dot in a vast ocean of blackness.

Here’s a suggestion. Print out this photo and put it on your refrigerator door. And save it to your phone. Then the next time you find yourself mired in one of your worlds, ruminating about some pointless workplace scenario or feeling badly because some insecure mom made you feel like an inadequate parent, take a look at this photo to remind yourself that we’re living on a tiny rock twirling around in space in the middle of nowhere.

Then feel the stress melt away.

When we get a tickly throat, runny nose or a cough we assume we have a cold coming on. So what do we do? We drink fluids, down some Nyquil and take it easy. And we don’t go on that five mile run in thirty degree weather we’d planned on.

We can use this same construct for personal, spiritual growth. How so?

Vesuvius on the road

Let’s take an example. You’re driving along and somebody suddenly cuts into your lane. You react by leaning on your horn and screaming at the top of your lungs, at nobody in particular because nobody can hear you, “Way to go you F&^%ING A*&HOLE!!!” Then you drive on. After a couple minutes you calm down and go about your day.

But here’s the thing: That volcanic reaction to the wayward driver is no different than the tickly throat. It’s a symptom. Not of a physical illness, but of a psychic one.

Disproportionate reaction is telltale

Why? The response is WAY out of proportion to the incident. Somebody cuts into your lane, causing you the grievous injury of having to lightly tap your brakes, and you absolutely lose it. Come on, we’ve all been there. I know I have (though not nearly as much since I’ve been meditating regularly and practicing mindfulness).

The point is that that behavior is a symptom that something inside you is not quite right.

Here are a few more examples of behaviors to look at as symptoms.

-Your boyfriend wants to watch his favorite football team on TV rather than go on a walk with you. You completely shut down in a depressed huff for the rest of the day and night.

-You were a serious tennis player growing up and now in your 50’s you get anxious to the point of nausea before playing in a senior tournament. (BTW, this one applies to me.)

-Even though you’ve been in executive search for decades, you still get nervous any time you get a new search because you fear that you’ll fail your client.

Fine, so we blow up at other drivers, get bummed at our boyfriend for wanting to watch football and have all kinds of reactions we know aren’t good for us. Is my point to make people feel badly about this?

Use it

No. The point of this piece is to demonstrate that we can use this to grow. We can use these incidents to actually work on ourselves at the deepest level.

How? What is the psychic equivalent of fluids, Nyquil and resting?

It’s much simpler. We just notice it. We become aware of it. We merely step back and say to ourselves, “Okay, I just completely lost my shit because somebody cut me off.”

We don’t judge it. Or feel badly about it. We just notice it.

Really? That’s it? Just noticing when I act crazy? How the heck is that going to help me? you might be asking.

Eckhart says it best

Trust me, it will. And the reason is captured in my favorite quote from my favorite teacher, Eckhart Tolle:

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”

So how does merely becoming aware of these behaviors become the ‘greatest agent for change’? Before answering that, we need to understand that humans are comprised of two entities: an egoic, conditioned self and a conscious self.

The egoic self is the person your mind tells you you are and is largely the result of the experiences of your life. It’s the you of your past and the you of your perceived future.

The egoic self is what causes you to think those obsessive, useless thoughts that plague most of us. “I never reached my potential. I should have worked harder.” “Why does that bitchy mom never say hi to me? We’ve met five times!” “I hope I don’t get laid off. I could starve.” It’s the harsh, relentless, worrying critic inside you.

Your conscious self is the you that exists only in the present. This is the real you, the you that exists when you’re not lost in your mind.

It’s the you that watches a sublime sunset and feels completely peaceful and blissful inside. Because you’re experiencing it in the present moment. Not thinking about how beautiful the sunset is. Just a thought-free experiencing of how beautiful it is.

The ego rules us

The fundamental problem plaguing humanity is that the egoic self dwarfs the conscious self in virtually all of the seven billion plus people on earth. The egoic self is so strong that it envelops and smothers the conscious self to the extent that most people don’t even know their conscious self exists. They think that all of those crazy thoughts are who they are.

So let’s bring it all back to seeing behaviors as symptoms. How does merely being aware of these behaviors and reactions help us? Here’s how: By repeatedly stepping outside your egoic self, and thereby becoming the real, conscious self that merely observes your egoic self in action, you create separation between the two.

Separation is central

And achieving that separation of egoic and conscious selves truly is the goal of all spiritual work. Because it’s impossible to realize and identify with your true self when that true self is smothered by the all-powerful egoic self.

But even stepping back and observing that you just lost your shit because of a meaningless traffic incident isn’t easy. Why? Because all your life you’ve reacted like this is just you. It’s “normal.” So we need to train ourselves to become aware when those psychic “symptoms” arise.

Meditation as facilitator

How do we do that? The single best way to facilitate the ability to step back and observe our behaviors as symptoms is to develop a meditation practice.

All meditation is is practicing observing, without judgment, what’s happening in the present moment. Getting better at that will make you better at observing yourself in your daily life.

If you’re interested in starting a meditation practice go to davidgerken.net where I have a free program designed to be as easy as possible.

From chapter 30 of the Tao te Ching:

“The Master understands that the universe is forever out of control, and that trying to dominate events goes against the current of the Tao.”

Though Lao Tzu wrote those wise words 2,500 years ago, I’m certain they ring truer today than they did in ancient China. Why is that?

How many of us spend our days wrestling with the world/universe to conform to the way we want it to be? It’s impossible. Yet we keep trying.

A bat shuts the world down

How about this for an example of the pointlessness of trying to outmaneuver and outsmart the universe: Somewhere in Wuhan, China, a bat bit an exotic animal which was then ingested by a human shopping at the Huanan Market. The result? The entire planet has been shut down for seven months. And humans think they can control the universe?

In America especially the culture teaches us to go, go, go, do, do, do, control, control, control. Make things happen. Get the big job. Buy the big house. Go to the ivory tower college.

America the anxious

And what has that gotten us? A citizenry that is inordinately anxious, exhausted, angry and unfulfilled.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Why? Because there is another way to live. And that other way can best be described as the polar opposite of trying to control everything.

What is that polar opposite?

Surrender.

Instead of trying to control the universe, surrender to it. Instead of fighting against the reality of the moments the universe has put in front of you, accept them.

Don’t get me wrong. Surrendering doesn’t mean sitting around doing nothing. It doesn’t mean leaving the world behind and moving to a cave in the desert. Or allowing your meddling mother-in-law to walk all over you. Or staying silent and doing nothing if you feel your government or your police department or your society is giving you a raw deal.

What does it mean? Here are some examples of what surrender looks like in your life.

-It rains on your wedding day. You’ve been looking forward to this day since you were five years old. What do you do? Surrender to it. It’s reality. A bunch of clouds became engorged with so much moisture that it turned into water and came pouring down. On your wedding day. There’s nothing you can do about it. Complaining about how unlucky you are won’t change one thing. It’ll just make your day worse. Surrender.

-You desperately want your ten year old son to play football. You played as a kid and loved every minute of it. But he has zero interest in it. In fact, he’s not into any sports. His passion is playing the guitar. What to do? Surrender. It’s who he is. The universe doesn’t want him playing football. So let it go. And encourage him to go whole hog on the guitar.

-You come back to your car in the grocery store parking lot to find your bumper dented. No note. The perpetrator did it and just drove off. What to do? Surrender. It’s what happened. Yes, it will cost you some money and some hassle getting it fixed. But again, getting mad, upset or depressed about it will only make it worse. Surrender. Get on with your day.

Let me stress that if you’ve been a control freak most of your life this won’t be easy. But as I’ve emphasized in many previous articles, there are two keys to success here:

1. Commit to wanting to become less controlling, then —

2. Practice, practice, practice. The more you let life’s episodes roll off you like water off a duck’s back, the easier it will get.

Be a leaf on a river

Here’s something else to try. Imagine that you are a solitary leaf that has dropped onto a slowly moving river. You’re just floating along. A puff of wind might blow you a few inches. The leaf doesn’t resist it. Just continues floating.

As an exercise, use this scene as a visual. When someone honks at you or hangs up on you or when you feel yourself contract inside because you want to control your kid, your spouse, your friend… simply visualize yourself as that leaf floating with the river, surrendering to any and all forces that act upon it. Just enjoying your peaceful journey down the river of life.

Try this for fifteen or thirty minutes. Set your iPhone timer or your watch. See what happens.

I predict you’ll feel calmer. And better.

And that’s why the title of this piece says that this passage from the Tao could change the course of your life.

Because if you decide to pursue this path of surrender and stop trying to dominate the events of your life…if you surrender to the universe, big, good things will happen to you.

The first step? Deciding that that is what you want.

A question that has come up several times in an online meditation and mindfulness course I’m currently teaching is this: How should those on the spiritual path deal with difficult, irritating people? I’ve found Eckhart Tolle’s approach to be the healthiest and most effective. There are two components.

First is Eckhart’s axiom that it is impossible for any person to act beyond their current level of consciousness. He believes that each individual is progressing along their own path toward consciousness and some are further along that path than others.

Yes, this may seem to be a frustrating, overly forgiving take on dealing with “bad actors.” It’s not much different than when your mom told you at age ten that that thoroughly obnoxious boy who drove you nuts “…doesn’t know what he’s doing; he can’t help himself.”

But I’m not, nor is Eckhart, saying this means one should accept or condone bad behavior. I’m just saying that you need to accept that this is where the annoying person in front of you is in their evolutionary development and respond accordingly.

It’s not easy

I acknowledge that this is definitely easier said than done. But it is absolutely worth working on. Why?

Think about how much better off you’d be if you could eliminate the bad feelings you harbor about the difficult people in your life. A colleague at work. Maybe some in-laws who are nasty to you. Whoever they may be. Those feelings are an enormous energy suck that are all harm to YOU and no benefit.

It helped me a ton

Incorporating this idea of Eckhart’s into my life these past several years has been of enormous benefit. I came out of the womb a sensitive soul, which has manifested in many positive ways. But one negative effect has been a predilection for harboring ill will toward those who I thought were awful people.

None of this did me any good. Working on this over the past ten years or so helped me excise a ton of bad feelings I used to have for people.

Resist spiritual ego

One note of caution: Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of saying to yourself, “This poor sot is so spiritually clueless. If only he could be as advanced as I am.” That’s just spiritual ego and doesn’t do anybody any good.

What should go through your mind as an unconscious person is laying into you about something? “This person is unconscious and on their own path.” Short and sweet.

Second is Eckhart’s assertion that we humans need to handle every single moment of our lives in the same way: By being present. It’s the central objective of mindfulness — to be present for the moments of our lives.

Stay present in face of annoyance

So the next time somebody does something that annoys or even infuriates you, force yourself to pause for a few seconds and place attention on your breathing. In other words, stay in the present. Thengo ahead and respond to the situation from a place of calm presence.

The most important thing here is what not to do, which is to react with fury right in the moment. Why is that? Because when you react, you are exiting the present moment and handing control over to your egoic/unconscious self which craves drama and stirred up emotions.

Presence is priceless

I agree with Eckhart when he says that the best thing any human being can do for another is to simply be present. Not stuck in their head thinking about five different things. Just there. Present. With you.

This is true in many areas of life. Have you ever seen how valuable just one calm, present person can be in a business meeting? They can be the difference between the meeting falling off the rails or actually accomplishing something positive.

The complaining Londoner

Eckhart recounts a story from his own life of how valuable a present person can be to unconscious people. A thoroughly unconscious woman who lived in the flat above him in London used to drop by his place and vent and complain about everything under the sun.

One day she raged on and on about something the landlord had decided to do. Eckhart didn’t say a word. He said he just listened to her as intently as he could. In other words, he was present. Eventually the woman stopped, looked at Eckhart and said, “This really isn’t that big of a deal, is it?” Eckhart smiled and said it wasn’t. He defused the whole tirade by simply being present with her.

So that’s it. In dealing with challenging people, accept that it is impossible for any person to act beyond their current level of consciousness and remain present when they engage you. These two Eckhart nuggets really work and will save you a ton of angst. Give them a try.

Chopping wood and carrying water. For me these are the most powerful words in all of Ram Dass’s iconic, groundbreaking book Be Here Now.It’s an apt metaphor for how best to travel the spiritual path. Why?

First, what does Ram Dass mean by chopping wood and carrying water? In older, more primitive societies these would be two of the most basic, daily activities. Essential tasks done every day. Wood for fire. Fire for warmth, cooking and smithing. Water to drink, wash clothes and bathe in.

It’s the little things

How does that translate to the spiritual path? Because growth comes from doing the little things that are no less essential, in a spiritual sense, than food and water. And we do them over and over again. Every day of every week of every month of every year.

What little things? What are the spiritual equivalents of chopping wood and carrying water?

-Noticing that your attention has wandered off into thought and bringing it back to the here and now. While driving on the road, brushing your teeth, participating in a meeting. Whenever and wherever you wander off. Do it twenty times a day. Thirty times a day. Whatever it takes. Split logs and haul water.

-Noticing when something has upset you. It could be something someone said. Or texted. Or it could just be a disturbing thought about your past or future that popped into your head. The chopping wood and carrying water of it is noticing something upsetting has happened, then leaning away from it to give it some space, relaxing your body and then releasing that feeling. Over and over.

-Meditation. Not to reach sublime levels of spiritual nirvana. Just to come back to yourself. Back to home base. To the presence and stillness that is you. Nothing fancy. Just sitting in your chair or on your cushion and chopping wood. Every day.

Flashy doesn’t work

The reason this is important to comment on is that many people focus on the “bigger,” flashier aspects of the path. For example, instead of a consistent, moderate meditation practice, many will opt to do a one or two week meditation retreat. And it will be mind-blowing. But a month later life settles back in and the wood pile goes untouched.

Or people read every spiritual book from Be Here Now to Full Catastrophe Living to The Power of Now. But no wood and no water.

Hit thousands of balls

It doesn’t work. The spiritual path is no different than any other path. If you want to be a good golfer, you go to the driving range and hit thousands of balls, putt thousands of balls and chip thousands of balls. Day after day, year after year. That’s how one masters golf.

Same with basketball. And piano. And writing. And learning French. You chop the wood and carry the water.

And what is most necessary to master these things? Is it talent? No, but talent will get you there faster.

Most necessary is WILL. And discipline. There aren’t any shortcuts.

Use your free will

How does free will manifest on the spiritual path? It’s simple. It means bearing down and committing to becoming aware when your attention gets hijacked by your voracious mind. That takes energy and discipline.

It also manifests in getting your butt in the chair (or cushion) to meditate on a regular basis. The good news is that all of that gets easier and less onerous the more you do it. And the more you do this spiritual wood chopping and water carrying, the more awake, happier and better adjusted you become.

Which is why I say there is no more important area to exercise your free will and discipline than in traveling the spiritual path. Because chopping the wood and carrying the water will make you a better parent, friend and overall human being, all of which our world desperately needs now more than ever.

The concept that we are not our thoughts is central to the teachings of Eckhart Tolle, Michael Singer, Deepak Chopra, Buddhism, Hinduism and too many more to mention. But for many on the spiritual path this is a difficult idea to wrap their arms around.

“What do you mean I’m not my thoughts? Of course I’m my thoughts. I’m the one who’s thinking them!” Actually, those thoughts are a product of your conditioned past and have no bearing on your true identity.

Who are you?

What is that true identity? The teachers and spiritual traditions mentioned above would say your true identity is the consciousness that notices those thoughts.

As I posited in a previous article, disidentifying with our thoughts is difficult. Why? Because most of us have been identifying with them for several decades. In that piece I laid out a three-step process for improving our ability to disidentify with our thoughts.

The first step in that process was becoming aware of and acknowledging that you and your thoughts are two distinct entities that are entangled inside. Because they are so entangled, most people think they are just one entity — their compulsive, incessant, involuntary thoughts. Peoples’ conscious selves are so swallowed up and enveloped by their thought-producing minds that they think that their thoughts are who they are.

Acknowledging the two selves

So what needs to be acknowledged is that humans consist of two inner selves: 1. A conscious self that is the real you; the you that exists only when you are rooted in the present moment and not lost in a stream of thoughts. And 2. The egoic/unconscious self that constantly pulls your attention to your thought factory mind. This egoic self is extremely powerful and dominates the conscious self in most people.

Recently I came upon another technique that helps strengthen my ability in this arena. Whether I’m meditating or practicing mindfulness during my daily life, when I notice that my mind has whisked my attention away into involuntary thinking, I do the usual and say to myself, “Okay, I’ve gone off into thinking. Let’s bring attention back to the here and now.”

The new technique

But I’ve added a new wrinkle. I include to what I say to myself, “And these thoughts are just like anything else that is happening in my experience of the present moment — the faint sound of the cars driving by, the low whirr of the fan in my office, the breath I was following and the stillness I sense inside my head. The thoughts and all of the rest are just things happening in the present moment. And none of these things are me. My thoughts are qualitatively no more ‘me’ than the car sounds, the fan or my breathing.”

Equating my thoughts with anything else happening in the present moment helps solidify inside me the separation between my conscious and unconscious/egoic selves. And as I’ve written many times, increasing the separation between those two selves is the essence of the spiritual journey.

Try it

So give this a try. Any time you notice you’ve drifted off into thought, whether in meditation or mindfulness practice, simply acknowledge that those thoughts are no different than anything else occurring in your present moment field of awareness.

And remember that thoughts and everything else happening in your present moment have one thing in common: They’re not you.

I’ll be upfront from the get-go: I’m a lifelong Democrat who strongly favors Joe Biden. But this piece isn’t about slamming Trump. For though I worked in the political world in Washington for fifteen years, my work now focuses on teaching meditation and mindfulness.

What is the purpose of this piece then? To offer three ideas to those of you flipping out about the upcoming election and, probably more important, what happens after November 3.

As someone with DC experience, I get asked a lot about the current political tempest. Friends and relatives froth at the mouth with “Oh, my God! Can you believe he said he won’t respect the results of the election unless he wins!?” “Can you believe these a-holes are going to ram through a Supreme Court pick six weeks before an election when in 2016 they said nine months was too close to an election to consider a nominee? Shameless!!!”

Instead of flipping out about these things, try doing all three of the following.

1. Stay calm, be present

A little tough love is in order here. Buzzing around like a pinball venting to anybody who will listen about how angry, scared and fearful Trump’s actions make you does you no good and does nothing to help the situation. It’s just neurotic noise.

Staying present and not allowing your attention to be dragged into future ‘what if’ scenarios is the mindful way to handle this and all matters in life.

Think of two of the most successful activists of the past hundred years: Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Gandhi and MLK didn’t panic or become unhinged when the going got tough. To the contrary, they were the personification of presence and calm.

The result? They were effective. They achieved real reform. “Great,” you’re saying, “easier said than done. I’m not Gandhi or MLK.”

Fair enough. So how do we mere mortals actually accomplish this ‘being present’ thing when our minds constantly drag us into Crazytown? I’ve found that practicing meditation and mindfulness is the best concrete strategy for building ‘presence’ muscles. These muscles are in your brain and are like any other: When we exercise them they get stronger.

Practicing meditation and mindfulness is the mental equivalent of pumping fifty pound dumbbells to build up our bicep muscles. So if you haven’t developed these practices, now is a great time to start. (Go to davidgerken.net for a free program to get you started.)

For those of you who do practice meditation and mindfulness, remember that spiritual growth occurs during times of challenge and duress not when life is hunky dory. So use the current political firestorm as an opportunity to strengthen your practice and become more conscious.

2. Take action

Fine. Let’s say you can remain present and calm. Is that all you can do? Stay calm and present and watch our democracy go down the drain? No. Here are some concrete actions you can take in the now that will give you a sense of empowerment and hopefully quell your propensity toward aimless venting.

A. Indivisible.com: Go to indivisible.com, a fantastic, one-stop resource for grassroots involvement. Surf around the site to find events you can attend near you and all kinds of opportunities to make your voice heard.

B. Contribute: Biden-Trump isn’t the only race right now. There are several close Senate races, too. If you have some extra dough, contribute money to them. Jaime Harrison has a chance to beat Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.

Ditto John Hickenlooper in Colorado, Steve Bullock in Montana, Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, Mark Kelly in Arizona, Sara Gideon in Maine, Theresa Greenfield in Iowa and Amy McGrath in Kentucky. Go online and send them some money.

It doesn’t have to be thousands or even hundreds of dollars. The point here is to give yourself a sense of empowerment, of doing something other than just kvetching. You’ll feel better if you do.

3. Cut down on news

If you’re like me, you’re OD’ing on news every day. For me it’s reading The Washington Post and Politico.com throughout the day, catching a little MSNBC at breakfast and lunch and then watching a full hour of Rachel Maddow at 6. That’s too much.

So I’ve decided to cut waaaaay back. It’s now just the Maddow show.

I don’t need to read all these articles and columns all day. It just gets me spun up.

But I also don’t advocate completely tuning out. It’s important to stay informed, especially now.

How about you? Do you doomscroll through Twitter all day long? Do you read every political piece that comes across your transom?

Then cut back. It’s that simple. Think of one news source you can read or watch at one given time during your day and leave it at that. Surfing around intermittently throughout the day is a huge waste of time and, worse, just makes you anxious. So cut back.

Discipline

Stay present. Take action. Cut down on your news. What do all of these require? Discipline.

I know many people recoil when they hear that word, including me. But this is doable. You just need to hunker down and exercise your free will to do these things.

Because the next few months can either be a never-ending avalanche of apocalyptic anxiety or a period of proactive presence. Be good to yourself and choose the latter.

In traveling the spiritual path these past ten years I’ve noticed that my favorite teachers consistently place compassion at the top of the pyramid of human behaviors. Everything they teach seems to culminate with showing compassion for others.

Who are these teachers?

The Dalai Lama

Probably the most influential spiritual leader in the world for the past fifty years, the Dalai Lama places compassion at the center of his teachings. He has famously said:

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”

And…

“The topic of compassion is not at all religious business; it is important to know it is human business, it is a question of human survival.”

How does he describe compassion? He says it is “love, affection, kindness, gentleness, generosity of spirit and warm-heartedness.”

People with these traits don’t go into a personal encounter seeking something for themselves. They go in with the intention of serving that person in some way, especially if that person is suffering.

Thich Nhat Hanh

The other Buddhist teacher who has made a lasting spiritual mark since the 1960s is Thich Nhat Hanh. Here again, in the many interviews and talks I’ve heard him give, Thich Nhat Hanh consistently mentions the importance of compassion over everything else. Here are my two favorites:

“I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”

“Look at flowers, butterflies, trees, and children with the eyes of compassion. Compassion will change your life and make it wonderful.”

Eckhart Tolle

While Eckhart doesn’t often use the word compassion, his central teachings are synonymous with it. He teaches that we are not our thoughts but the consciousness that can only be present in the absence of thinking. He states that only when we are conscious like this can we be there for and with another human. In other words, the purpose of presence is to exhibit compassion toward others.

Mickey Singer

Mickey also doesn’t use the word compassion, but he too teaches concepts that describe the same thing. He teaches that we all have a beautiful, loving energy inside us that is blocked by the emotional scars (samskaras) we’ve trapped inside ourselves. Remove those scars and the energy will flow. He describes that energy as pure love for others, i.e., compassion.

Jesus Christ

While I’m not a practicing Christian, I do subscribe to the basic thrust of Christ’s teachings: Be good to others, especially the less fortunate. I don’t think you need to be the Pope, a minister or a theologian to conclude that compassion for others towers over Christ’s other teachings.

Fine, so the central teaching of these master spiritual beings was for we humans to show compassion toward one another. What can we derive from that?

That the endpoint of the spiritual path is not our own self-realization or some blissful state of nirvana. The endpoint is what we do with that self-realized bliss, namely showing compassion for others.

Personally, the very best I feel in life isn’t when I’ve won some athletic contest or achieved professional advancement. Those satisfy my ego but, by definition, there is no authentically good feeling that comes from doing that.

The best I ever feel has always come from showing compassion to another person. Could be a stranger you help carry their groceries. Or talking a friend down from the ledge. Or calming my three year old daughter when she’s having a meltdown.

Those things actually make me feel good. And I don’t think I’m alone. I think it’s universal that people feel their best when they’ve shown compassion to another.

Why is this so? Is it some Darwinian, evolutionary dynamic where we have some inner, genetic impulse to help each other because that will perpetuate the human species?

I don’t know. And I don’t think it matters.

What does matter? In this time of Covid-19, political insanity and racial unrest, I think it would behoove all of us to remember the aforementioned great masters who teach us that compassion is the answer.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a 93 year old Vietnamese Buddhist monk who has been one of the most influential spiritual leaders on earth for the past fifty years. Here’s how far back he goes: Martin Luther King nominated him for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Vietnam War.

He is best known for his beautiful, simple teachings about mindfulness. In that vein, here are four quotes of his that will help you become a better, happier human being.

1.“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”

That’s it. Just be there. All of you. Listening. With no agenda. Just 100% present. With your spouse. Your kids. Your coworkers. Your friends.

Thich Nhat Hanh is right on the money here. Being present is the deepest gift we can bestow on anybody.

Eckhart Tolle, another of my favorite spiritual teachers, states the very same thing.

2. “To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don’t need to be accepted by others.You need to accept yourself.When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don’t try to be a magnolia flower.If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life.True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself.”

I am the father of 12, 10 and 4 year old kids and if I had to pick the number one thing I want to teach them it would be the sentiment behind this quote. Don’t fight yourself. Be yourself. Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed it in the most positive way: “Absolve you to yourself and you shall have the suffrage of the world.”

There is, however, one vital point on this subject of self-acceptance that I wish TNH, Emerson and others would emphasize, which is this: For most people, it takes courage.

Example: If your father is a macho ex-Marine, it takes courage to follow your inner compass that’s telling you to become a male ballet dancer.

Our families, our friends and society all pressure us to do what they think we should do. We have to summon the courage to say to all of them: “Sorry, but I’m the one living in here. I know what’s best for me and I need you to respect that.”

3.“The best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment.”

The first quote was about presence being the best thing we can do for others. This quote is about how presence is the best thing we can do for ourselves.

So much suffering in the world is caused by our worrying about the future. And what does worrying do? It takes us out of the present moment and makes us feel miserable.

We worry about the future and turn our backs on the present moment because we feel if we don’t, our future will be bleak. Well, how about this for an idea? If you’re worrying about having enough money to pay the rent, don’t spend your moments worrying about it. Place your moment to moment attention on making enough money to pay the rent.

But again, there is this insidious feeling in so many of us that worries that if we don’t worry things won’t work out. As if worrying will pay dividends for us. It’s crazy. And it’s not true.

What I’ve tried to do the past several years is live by the motto, “Be present and trust in life.” Because it does take a leap of faith to just say to yourself, “Screw it. I’m going to give everything I have to the present moments of my life and let the chips fall where they may.”

I can tell you that it’s definitely working for me and I know of nobody who truly lives life in the moment who has been ill-served by doing so. We just need the courage to toss the yoke of worrying by the wayside.

4.“Your breathing should flow gracefully, like a river, like a watersnake crossing the water, and not like a chain of rugged mountains or the gallop of a horse…Each time we find ourselves dispersed and find it difficult to gain control of ourselves by different means, the method of watching the breath should always be used.”

This one sums up the ultra-simple mindfulness technique for re-orienting ourselves after we’ve been knocked off track: We just come back to our breath.

I’m teaching a meditation and mindfulness course right now and my class is practicing this very technique this week. So simple, yet so powerful.

How do you do it? Example: You’re driving home after a tough day at work when the car behind you leans on the horn for five seconds because you didn’t signal when you changed into their lane; a minute later your teenage daughter calls and yells at you for not being home on time.

What do you do? At the next red light you stop. Close your eyes. Find your breath. Then start following it. Long, slow breaths. Just for a minute or so. When you open your eyes you’ll feel better and back on track.

If you don’t do this? There’s a good chance you’ll let these two irritating incidents affect your mood for the rest of the evening.

Finally, do yourself a favor and watch this interview with Oprah and Thich Nhat Hanh. The man just exudes goodness.

Last year I took an online course called Living From a Place of Surrender taught by bestselling author Michael Singer (The Untethered Soul). The thrust of the course is about why people aren’t happy and how they can be happy.

Singer doesn’t use the word happy. He says that life can be consistently filled with feelings of joy, love and energy. Not just some of the time, but most of the time.

Many of you read that and think, “That’s ridiculous. Nobody feels great all or most of the time. That’s just not the nature of life. It’s impossible.”

I felt the same way up until taking this course, which is the best I’ve ever taken. (BTW, I’ve taken tons of courses, read all the books and done a lot of online seminars so that’s saying something. Do yourself a favor and take it. You can find it at Soundstrue.com).

Our baggage dictates our life

Singer’s teaching is that people are unhappy because as kids and into adulthood they hold onto and push down emotionally difficult experiences (he calls them samskaras, a Sanskrit word) instead of experiencing them and letting them go. These samskaras then become lodged in our psyches where they dictate our actions and life decisions.

In fact, most of us spend our lives in what we think is the pursuit of happiness, but is in reality just trying to manipulate the world to accommodate these traumas. That’s a lot of spiritual-psycho babble so let’s look at a few examples to clarify.

The first is from my own life. With five older, intelligent, successful siblings and a Fortune 500 CEO father, I developed a deep insecurity about not measuring up in my family. So most of my life has been about “pursuing happiness” by manipulating the outside world in ways that would make me appear “successful.” How specifically did this play out?

My college admission rat race

First there was the whole college rat race. I had two siblings who’d graduated from Stanford and another was at Harvard while I was still in high school. To compensate, I did everything I possibly could with my academic and athletic talent to get into as good a college as I could. I didn’t have the straight A grades most of my siblings had and I was not as good a tennis player as my older brother who went to Stanford.

So I pursued the tennis coach at Princeton who I convinced to take a chance on me by putting me on his short list of 3–4 players he pushed with the admissions office. I squeaked in. Did this make me happy? No. It just fed my insecurity samskara.

Mr. Gerken goes to Washington

Next came Washington, DC, where I again tried to manipulate the outside world to accommodate my insecurity “stuff.” I pushed hard to make it up the power ladder, securing jobs with the eventual speaker of the House and also the House majority whip. It never felt right and it didn’t make me happier. Why? Because my stuff/samskaras were still lodged inside me.

What tough emotional experiences/samskaras did you push down and never let go of that you’ve spent your life compensating for?

Was your dad distant and unavailable, leading you to try and accommodate that through relationship after relationship where the guy could never be “there” enough for you?

Were you bullied as a kid and not the popular guy at school, causing you to exert every fiber of your being to become rich and successful in order to “show them”?

Did your parents’ terrible, rocky marriage result in you compensating by being the non-confrontational, people-pleasing, peacemaker in all areas of your life?

We all do it

We’ve all done this to one degree or another. And the fundamental problem is this: It doesn’t work. Ever.

It doesn’t matter if you lose that thirty pounds, buy the Ferrari, marry your dream guy or get into Princeton, you’ll still revert to your default level of unhappiness/unease. Why? Because your stuff is still there.

How does having all that emotional baggage actually manifest in making you uneasy/unhappy in life? Singer’s basic assertion is that these samskaras block the free flow of energy that is our natural state. They are like rocks in a river that create disturbances and eddies, etc.

Mickey’s central teaching

Which leads to the crux of his teaching: The path to happiness doesn’t involve adding a single thing to your life. Not a car. Not a person. Not kale-celery smoothies, fasting cleanses, Soul Cycle workouts or even three month meditation retreats.

No. You don’t need to add anything.

The entire path is about eliminating these emotional blockages.

So don’t go for the mansion. Remove your baggage. Don’t look for the perfect guy/relationship. Remove your baggage. Don’t devote 95% of your attention to treating your body like a temple. Remove your baggage.

How to remove the baggage

Which leads to the $64,000 question: How do we remove that baggage?

Singer offers one simple practice. Any time one of these feelings comes up, the moment that happens, stop, relax everything in your body, and then let that feeling rise up and out of you.

And just keep doing that. And doing that. And doing that. It’s a continuous practice of relaxing and letting go of your stuff.

The hardest part is training yourself to become aware when these feelings are triggered. Why is that so hard? Because these feelings come and go all the time and we’ve just accepted them as normal, in my case for several decades. So recognizing them when they arise requires vigilant attention.

My tennis example

Here’s a current example from my life where I’m working on this. I’m a tennis player. Played juniors, varsity at Princeton for four years and won many club championships over the past many years.

Next week I’m playing in one of the biggest American senior tennis tournaments of the year. And guess what? I’m experiencing nervous feelings already.

This is a perfect example of a samskara that’s been lodged inside me since I was nine years old. “If I don’t win, I’m a loser and people will look at me differently. If I win people will think I’m a better person.” It’s embarrassing admitting that in my mid-50’s I still get nervous for a tennis tournament. But it is what it is.

This time, however, I’ve decided to use this tournament to let go of this particular baggage. I’ve already felt this nervous feeling probably ten times so far and each time I’ve stopped, relaxed and let it go.

Use getting your buttons pushed

I encourage others to do the same. Use the arising of these feelings as opportunities to let them go.

When you notice that angry feeling rising up because your husband just ignored you as your dad did when you were growing up, instead of engaging with it, just stop, close your eyes, relax and then allow the feeling to rise up and out of you. Just like removing a rock from the river.

Make this your primary focus

Finally, to be successful at this we need to put it at the forefront of our attention. It can’t just be one of twenty things you work on in life. Letting go of your stuff needs to be number one.

But if you think about it, it makes sense to do just that. Because getting rid of that baggage is going to make you happier, more loving and an overall better human being. Which is great not just for you but for your spouse, kids, friends, coworkers…everybody you come into contact with.

So that’s the one-two punch of Mickey Singer’s teaching on why we’re unhappy and how we can become happy. 1. We all have a ton of baggage stuffed inside that controls how we live our lives, and not in a good way. 2. Our life’s work is to continuously let that baggage go.

When we do that we actually feel better inside. Lighter. More energetic. More compassionate. More joyful.

I’m nowhere close to where Mickey is on this path. After all, he’s been on it for fifty years and I’ve just gotten serious about it the past few years. But I do sense progress and good things ahead.