Wild Mind

This morning I am dealing with my “wild mind” after a night of recurring bad dreams.

Wild mind is my metaphor for the mind that runs away from me, dreaming up possibilities that will probably never exist.

There have recently been several crises in a row in my family and my immediate family, and my tendency is to expect the worst, to begin to worry.

Worry, as I know all too well, despite being the worst thing I could do for high blood pressure, is a tendency I fall into with a stunning and deliberate ease.

And then I double the anxiety by planning avenues of attack and/or escape from the still un-manifested scenarios arising in thought, by dealing with them mentally and exhausting myself in the process.

Confusing? Yes!

This morning was one such morning and it was only when I reached the part of my morning routine that is exercise and prayer that I realized what I was doing. These disciplines, aside from being crucial to my physical wellness help me focus.

The focus is then not on the thoughts, but on the physical movement, the words of the prayers and the breath.

Breathing is the one touchstone that is common in the prayers and meditations of every world religion, just as it is in music.

By breathing, I don’t mean some sort of artificial pattern imposed on the breath like 7-in, 4-out but rather the awareness of the rising and the falling of the breath, the natural in and out flow of it.

Keeping the attention on this is at the heart of Zen meditation.

As my friend Paul Reps used to say, “Don’t breathe...be breathed”.

If I do this mindfully, there is no time to follow my wild mind into the flowery canyons of fantasy, euphoria or horror.

I am so very thankful for this teaching. It has helped keep me sane.