Point of Focus

There are consequences to the numbers we use. Yogis will argue it is only possible to think of one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is what the body does. The mind can only hold one idea. Then embody it through repetition. 

Our attention might jump around a lot, but it can’t be focused on more than one point. Which is why meditation is often the practice of thinking about your breathing. Breathing is a safe anchor to refocus on. 

In stark contrast, if you simplify everything down to a single number for return, and a single number for risk, dividing the one by the other to be your point of focus, you are going to make some poor decisions that ignore long-term consequences. 

If you make the underlying assumption that opportunities to recycle your high return decisions into high returning alternatives is going to remain a possibility. If what you are consuming is less than what you are creating, then that is sustainable. Then you can do it forever. 

If you aren’t considering the unintended consequences of your choices, and what lies outside the numbers, and outside your plan, then you are going to run out of breath when the air disappears.

Trataka - Meditation on a flame

Stillness v Absence

Yoga is stilling the waves of the mind. I think of Financial Yoga as stilling the waves of money anxiety. I don’t see the point of meditation as getting rid of thought/money waves. You aren’t getting rid of the challenges. They are still there. There are important problems we need to grapple with. Which makes it important to worry, in the sense that it is important to think. What you are trying to avoid is those thoughts being given more attention than they should be. Being aware of them rather than pretending that they are not there. Acceptance of the waves, without giving them the power to dominate you. You want to think of the future. You want to think of the past. You want to consciously, and selectively, connect the two in the present. To compound what is important to you, and to make different mistakes that cancel each other out. Stillness is not absence. The waves are part of your path, and the aim is to create behaviours that draw energy from them.

A Micro-Hydro Facility in Vietnam

Building a Practice

“Restraining of thought waves means analysing your thoughts constantly, it does not mean suppression of thoughts.” Swami Durgananda (commentary on “Yoga Sutras of Patanjali”). Financial Waves can’t simply be ignored. If you don’t learn to control money, it can control you. Through study and patient reflection, you can develop a system that works for you. Letting go of distortions, delusions, and obstacles. Finding a way to go deeper into problems and resolving them. Rather than letting unhelpful money anxiety become the driving force in our lives. Whether the problem is misunderstanding, accepting false perceptions of others, or deep soaked prejudice from the way the world is temporarily (but doesn’t need to be). Build a practice to concentrate on what matters.

Step by Step

Clarity and Transition

It is only possible for us to think of one thing at a time. We can do lots of things at the same time. Multi-tasking happens when it is not at the conscious level. But we can only think one thing at a time. Like playing a guitar, it then boils down to the clarity of the sound that comes out with each thought, and the smoothness of the transition. How much control do we have over which particular thought we are focused on, how long we focus on it, and what comes next? How much attention do we give to the various things we are conscious of? In the meantime we carry on doing things. Life goes on without a pause button. Josh Waitzkin talks of “numbers to leave numbers, form to leave form” for his approach to learning. Using numbers and form to get a picture of each thought, and how we swap between them. Stepping back and practising the clarity and the transitions. Eventually, the numbers and form soak in. They become deeper. The healthy mental approach becomes the healthy automatic behaviour. Life still goes on, but a little more musically.

Draw Breath

Ken Robinson points out that if you ask a classroom of five year olds who can draw, they will all put their hands up. It is only 10 years later that just one or two will, because the rest have been taught that they can’t. Rather than something to suck the juice out of, we turn life into a filter. A competition, both in our head and in the world, to sort things into good and bad. Sort is French for Fate. Our shared fate is specialisation that loses the special in favour of the competent. Enter meditation and breath work. This can be seen as a competition too. In reality it is like drawing. We all can do it. We just have to come back to it. Whatever you are doing, whenever, can be meditation if you simply pause and come back to the question “How am I breathing?”. Doesn’t even have to have an action attached. It can simply be developing an awareness of how you breathe. Breath is the source of our energy. It is the source of our calm. Taking a deep breath stills the madness and brings focus. Draw Breath.

Making Space

Yoga is the stilling of the mind. There are various ways to do that. Vedantic Philosophy talks of four paths. Through knowledge, devotion, action or a direct focus on the mind. When our thoughts are calm, and conscious, we are in a position to look more clearly at reality. Without that calm, life tends to live us rather than us living life. The path a specific person needs depends on their personality, desire, emotions, and situation. I tend to try think through things. To read. To discuss. To argue. I can get stuck in my head. Making space for other ways reduces how hard you are trying. Making space reduces the force being applied. At the moment, that is my focus. It seems like the opposite of productive. Do less. Ironically, things exist through, and are often discovered in, their opposites.

yogas chitti vritti nirodha

Yoga is the stilling of the mind

Improving the Conversation

The printing press was invented in 1440. The telephone in 1876. Radio, 1895. Television, 1927. The World Wide Web, in 1990. Social Media somewhere in the late 90s. Socrates didn't like writing because he thought it would make people lazy. They wouldn't sit with things. Chew them. Remember them. Knowledge was patiently built up through conversation. Today, there is too much for us to ever understand. We are overwhelmed with the knowledge we mostly hold temporarily. Trusting we can access what we need, when we need it. A skill we collectively need to get better at is sitting with ideas. Sitting with each other. Pausing. Somewhere in the madness, we may already have the thing we are anxiously pursuing.

Socrates

Saucepan

Half of our job is looking after ourselves. Even if we care deeply about something, half of our job is protecting that ability to care. My friend Galeo introduced me to the idea of being a 'Half-hearted fanatic'. I use a tool I learned through Yoga. 5 simple points. Proper Exercise. Proper Breathing. Proper Relaxation. Proper Diet. Postive Thinking and Meditation. These are all things we do anyway. We have to do them to survive. But do we do them properly? Consciously? Sometimes the thing that drives us becomes such an obsession that we forget to survive. Life is water, but if it slowly boils, the frog figures that out too late.

Check the Temperature

Gas Mask

Airlines insist you put your own gas mask on before helping others. This isn't selfishness. Quite the opposite. Playing the martyr is one of the most selfish things anyone can do. You have to be fit, healthy, and clear headed to be able to give. One of the consequences of this is creating space as a priority. The temptation when we are busy is to scurry. Gandhi suggested the opposite, 'I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one'. You need to be a Half-hearted fanatic. When things get crazy, first take a moment to check that your own mask is secure.

Check your gas mask

Five Points

Even in our own version of Utopia, we would likely be uncomfortable, anxious, and dreaming of alternatives. Reality can't compete with our imaginations, and emotions. The best I think we can do is find more beautiful questions. In the mean time, it is easy to spin our wheels, and feel stuck. The Yogi who brought Sivananda Yoga to the West felt it was best to keep it simple. While you are searching for difficult answers, set a solid base by answering 5 much easier, beautiful questions. Are you exercising? Are you breathing well? Are you making space for proper relaxation? Are you eating properly? How is your mental health? Proper exercise, breathing, relaxation, diet and positive thinking is a great base for coping with whatever life throws.

Self-Expression – The Dalai Lama & Desmond Tutu (Tim)

It’s a sad truth of life that when we grow older, we tend to become less spontaneous and less creative as we acquire more social anxiety. A lot of times, we’re so worried about what others think of us that we have no idea how to relax and be ourselves. The generally agreed principle in psychology is that social anxiety has to do with the ego. While the ego is something that we tend to protect and cherish (See Donald Trump), the good news is that long-term meditation works to strip away the ego. And if you want proof of the joy and spontaneity that a lifetime of meditation can bring, just watch these clips of the Dalai Lama goofing around with his chum, Desmond Tutu.

Tim Casteling

Conclusion of a 7 part series on Self-Awareness

(1) Doubt (2) Criticism (3) Discovery (4) Awareness (5) Discipline (6) Compassion

Self-Discipline - Mo Farah (Tim)

The old cliché of meditation is that it’s a blissful state of relaxation. Unfortunately, meditation is not always blissful. It’s a lot more like running the 10,000m; great when you have the fitness, but it takes discipline to get there. To begin with, it’s generally recommended that you start with some form of mindfulness meditation like mindfulness of breathing. All you have to do is pay attention to your breath. When your mind wanders, just bring it back to your breath, again and again. As you do this, you slowly get in the habit of catching your errant mind. Eventually, you find yourself catching negative thoughts all the time. By the principle of neuroplasticity, your brain slowly but surely changes for the better. Or so I’ve read.

Tim Casteling

Part 5 of a 7 part series on Self-Awareness

(1) Doubt (2) Criticism (3) Discovery (4) Awareness

Mo Farah

Self-Awareness – Matthieu Ricard (Tim)

Matthieu Ricard

While self-help and psychedelics may be dismissed as snake oil, the benefits of meditation are increasing well documented by science. Matthieu Ricard is a Tibetan Buddhist monk who has the distinction of being both the “happiest person in the world” and one of the most studied individuals in the history of neuropsychology. Studies on the brains of Ricard and other skilled meditators showed that they were significantly more active in areas related to compassion, conscious attention and happiness, but significantly reduced in their capacity for negative thinking. This is down to the capacity of even the adult brain for growth and change – neuroplasticity. And, as you would have guessed by now, the engine for change in this case is meditation.

Tim Casteling
Part 4 of a 7-part series on Self-Awareness
(1) Self-Doubt (2) Self-Criticism (3) Self-Discovery

Space Makes Time

I am not sympathetic to the response, 'I don't have time'. We all have time. 24 hours in a day. We choose between various options. 'I am choosing something else' is more accurate. Buddhists say that if you are twice as busy, you should meditate twice as long. What is very important is managing your energy and your perspective. Quite often, the thing that gets our time is the thing that shouts the loudest. Adding space to your day allows you to consciously make the choice of how to spend your time. Space makes time.

My grandfather's homemade language clocks

Making Time

Finding a Moment

The breakthroughs in new fields tend to come from young people. In established fields, there is normally a vast sea of knowledge to conquer before you get to the edge. If you want to contribute by pushing the boundary further, you have to specialise. You have to focus. The contributions tend to come from people who dedicate their lives to something very particular. Their circle of competence shrinks as they go deeper and deeper. They reach the frontiers later in life. The question is then whether they are able to send the message back in a way that lay people will understand. In a way that makes their adventure, our adventure.

It doesn't matter how smart you are, you have a human brain with human constraints and 24 hours in the day. We all let go of things in order to specialise. We make choices. We can't do everything. My concern with this is that we aren't very good at keeping in mind all the things that are important to us. We aren't very good at prioritising, and being pulled back to the things that matter. In a world that requires specialism and a shrinking circle in order to contribute, my worry is that we let go of basic competence at life. 

In order to specialise, we need to delegate tasks. We need to be selectively ignorant. Okay with not knowing how to do certain things, because other people can do them better. We get better and better at the things we are good at, and that is seductive. Being a beginner is confusing. There is anxiety involved. There are lots of people who can judge you. The better you get, the fewer people there are who know more. It can feel safe to be in a spot where no one can give you rubbish. Where you are the rubbish giver. You can walk confidently.

But there are lots of areas of basic life you can't delegate. Relationships. Physical Health. Mental Health. There are lots of things where it isn't about being the best. It is simply about being competent. Being able to do simple household chores. Being able to make a meal. The nuts and bolts of life. Without which nothing else matters.

I have just returned from two weeks in Marrakech. It was my first decent stay in a Muslim Country for any significant period. Five times a day the call to prayer would sound. Sunrise, Mid-day, Mid-Afternoon, Sunset and in the Evening. For many their day would continue. But as the sound spread over the city, it was a moment to recall the things that are important. I find that idea powerful. If 5 times a day, we stopped whatever we were doing for just a minute. Closed our eyes and remembered what mattered.  

I grew up a religious little guy. One of the things we were encouraged to do was 'Quiet Time'. To wake up a little earlier. Find a quiet place to sit or walk to, read a little bit of the Bible, and then spend some time in prayer. Yogis talk of the quiet period just before sunrise (4-5 am) as an especially good time to sit in silence. Stripping away religious additions, I think carving out time, even moments, in the day for stillness is a useful habit to form.

When I do that, the things that matter most aren't complicated. They aren't near the edge. They are close and they are shared.

Marrakech, Morocco 

Kissing Babies

We have a natural limit on how much we can interact with the world. Unlike the Artificial Intelligence that is being developed to drive cars, we can only be aware of one thing at any specific moment. We can divide and shift our attention, but it still means we are moving from one thought to another. No two thoughts can exist at the exact same time. The reason learning to meditate is so powerful is because it is developing the ability not to jump from thought to thought. To still the mind and focus.

Extend this further and we end up having to develop the ability to communicate what we are doing. The most powerful person in the world can still only think of one thing at a time. They are completely reliant on the ability of others to communicate (and do) whatever else is going on. The problem becomes that, without trust, a lot of time ends up being spent on the communication part. Communication is ridiculously hard because it relies not only on the message but also on the context in which that message is received. We hear differently. We react differently. We interpret differently.

Rather than communicating, we may wish to choose someone we trust to represent us. This is true in terms of front line decisions and the 'employees bosses hire' and big picture decisions and the 'politicians voters hire'. Without trust, you can end up almost permanently on the campaign trail. We see it most obviously in the reality TV show that is the American election cycle with almost two years in every four dedicated to the communication (entertainment) part. Before we get too critical, there are two other places where we do exactly the same thing.

Politicians Kissing Babies

In the workplace, a huge amount of time is spent trying to communicate about what we are doing. You can't just diligently get on with your job unless you work in a role where outcomes are quantifiable, visible and regular. If you work in a job where subjective creativity, knowledge and personal interaction are involved it may be nearly impossible for anyone to understand what you are doing or the value you are adding without direct engagement. What ends up happening is people effectively have to 'look busy' or engage in other means of self promotion. If you aren't good at marketing yourself, how will you get the recognition you deserve?

The second example is in the home. In 'Thinking Fast & Slow', Daniel Kahneman talks about the phenomenon of household chores. Ask each family member how much they contribute as a percentage. It will add up to well more than 100%. Why? Because we are only aware of the chores we do. If you do the washing, pop it in the tumble dryer, iron it, fold it and put it in the cupboard - the house is wonderful and clean. In other words, it is not noticeable. Instead, Day 1: Wash and hang in the lounge. Day 2: iron and put in piles on the dining room table. Day 3: Pack into the cupboards. The second method is a much better political campaign.

Whether a politician, a colleague, or family member, we end up spending a lot of time dealing with the fact that we are limited to our own view of the world. Unless we build, earn, give and accept trust.

Finding Flow

One of the disadvantages of our inability to keep lots of things in our head at one time is that we aren't great at stepping back, looking at the big picture, and deciding what tradeoffs we want to make. One of the advantages of our ability to not keep lots of things in our head at one time is focus.

Meditation is not something mystic or fluffy. You can dress it up any way you want to make it appeal to you, but what it really is is practising focus. We are all good at putting the majority of things out of our mind. It is just the last few things that we struggle with and hop between. Enter Flow.

Flow happens when you are involved in a skill based activity where the feeling you have is so intense you feel like you don't exist. Your identity (worries, daily life, fears, responsibilities) disappears from your consciousness. That sounds almost exactly like a definition of meditation. The great thing with flow is that we all find it in a different place, and often it is when we are engaged in the process of creating something new. Even when it is not necessarily creating a physical thing, watching someone in flow is a thing of beauty (Federer, Messi etc.).

I believe strongly the world is moving forward. The reason being that a fundamental thing that makes us happy is being creative. We find something that pushes us. Not so much that we are anxious and not so little that we are bored. As each of us push a little, we all benefit. One challenge we face is that we have lots of people whose daily tasks are such that the skill level required is low and the challenge is low. Worry, apathy and boredom can become a habit. If we are able to nudge more people out of those zones then I think we will be on the right track.

So if you want to start a meditation practice, one way to do it is to find something that has a long path of progression where the challenge can push just beyond your skill level. Something that offers life-long learning.

The 5 + 2 Points

We like to think we are in control. Much of where we end up depends on the path we take. I moved to Putney because my brother lived here. Although he moved a few months later (I am assured it wasn't me), I still haven't - partly because I live a stones throw away from the Sivananda Yoga Centre. My preferred means of keeping fit when I arrived was swimming, but London is a little chillier than South Africa and so I was looking for something indoors and the Yoga Centre happened to be there. Fast forward five more years and Yoga is now very much a part of my life. I teach regularly and try practice daily. Part of why I enjoy the Yoga I do is the philosophical side of it. The founder simplifies how to approach life into a very practical five points:

1) Proper Exercise
2) Proper Breathing
3) Proper Relaxation
4) Proper Diet
5) Positive Thinking and Meditation

When not feeling right, it is a very useful checklist to pin-point where you are struggling. The two points I would add to the list are

6) Proper Flow
This is a concept articulated by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi as 'a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. It is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter' For everyone, this is different. Discovering what gives you Flow and putting in the effort required to experience that state is I believe both an engine for personal satisfaction, and for the world moving forward. Like every part of the body has a function, the fact that what provides each of us with Flow is different, allows us to create magic together.

and
7) Proper Relationships
'No man is an island', and one of the issues I grapple with about definitions of happiness that suggest it being purely a choice is that that can imply inaction. While you may tick the first six boxes in a cave with a source of fresh water, a few fruit trees and a self-sustaining vegetable patch, something of what makes us human is our interaction with others. While you can choose to be happy and abstain from life, something in that choice seems wrong to me. I don't believe life has meaning, I think we give it meaning. We give it meaning primarily through our interaction with others.

So yes, I think happiness is a choice - but there is more.

http://www.sivananda.co.uk/

Catching the good waves

I am busy reading a little book by Matthieu Ricard entitled 'The art of meditation'.

On my shelf I have Daniel Goleman's 'Destructive emotions', which in now linking to Ricard's wiki page, I see he contributed to. 'Destructive emotions' is a collaborative work between Goleman and the Dalai Lama. While I have read a few of Goleman's books, I have not read much, if any, Buddhist literature. What I was interested in in the preface to that book was the argument that the Dalai Lama had that the role of Buddhism was (not in the same words) to have Popper-like bold ideas, and then work with science to disprove some of the theories, then find better ones. Basically... if something doesn't make sense or is proved wrong, accept it and move on.

I like that. It discards the 'dogma' aspect of religion where there are some sacred cows that when questioned are just accepted blindly as 'beyond human reasoning'.

It seems no wonder then that many of the things in this little book resonate deeply. It is a guide to meditation, which as far as I can see on my admittedly very early and naive journey, is quite simply learning to control/direct the mind in a positive way. Not to ignore emotions, but not to let them control you. A way to calm down thoughts and focus. A way to cut through the noise.

For example, this paragraph:

A third form of laziness is not having the determination to do immediately what you know to be the most important thing and wasting your time instead on minor activities. To remedy this, establish priorities among your projects, and remember that while your days are numbered, ordinary activities are like waves on the ocean - there is no end to them.'

I had always thought of meditation as an escape from reality, and a path to inactivity and 'giving up'. It seems quite the opposite. It seems like it is a path, to extend the metaphor of the above paragraph, that lets you catch the good waves.

Conversations with yourself

Further to my last post and having finished 'Eat Pray Love', I have been thinking more about the idea of meditation. In the book, she talks of a Balinese version where all you do is sit in silence and smile. She also talks of an Indian version where there are various mantras to help you silence the mind and focus. Jonathan Haidt says in 'The Happiness Hypothesis' that people who are struggling to find happiness can often be helped with Cognitive Therapy, Drugs or Meditation or a combination.

I have always been a little concerned with mantras, oaths, creeds and the like where you repeat something until you believe it, or just repeat it hollowly because you have to. I have thought of it as a kind of brainwashing. Something that gets people to repeat what they have been taught rather than thinking for themselves.

The thing is, the mind is a very powerful thing... and we spend most of the day in conversation with ourselves. So... if you spend the whole day with thoughts like,

• I am lonely
• I am busy
• I am never going to be able to do it
• I miss her so much
• I can't believe he did that
• I am never going to get organised

and alike, then it is bound to affect you in some way. It is easy to be cynical about figuring out ways to repeat positive sentiments, and 'the power of positive thinking'. Especially since people often overdo it and make out as if the world is all rosy with nothing wrong, and try to spin everything to be positive.

But I am starting to think that putting aside time for this kind of thing... for focusing on strengths and things that are going well, and for generating positive energy is very important. Perhaps positive mantras have some value?

I will still need to get completely over my cynicism, and then there is that whole inertia thing where I can add this to my list of things I want to do... like eating healthily, stretching more and getting fit.

That said, you have to want to do something before you do it.