Peace of Mind (The Right Brain Way)

Midweek Devotion #12

September 23, 2015

My mind is not at peace. Please, set it at peace, master.

Bodhidharma replied, Bring me your mind and I’ll set it at peace.

After sitting exhaustively, Huike returned and said to the master, I’ve searched and searched, but I cannot find the mind.

There, said Bodhidharma, I’ve set it at peace for you.    —Zen Koan

How do we find peace? the moment we seem to know, it seems to slip our grasp again.

For me, when things pile up, when there are fifty different priorities to pay attention to, when relationships and kids and work and financial problems are all aligning in a perfect storm, I lose peace. At times in my life, anger has welled up so strongly that no peace ever seemed possible. At other times depression has taken hold.

It is easy to believe that peace is attainable by meditating, by doing yoga, by “sitting exhaustively” and somehow losing the self. If we “lose our mind” we can finally attain the peace we seek. While there is some truth to letting go and empty the mind completely, this way of approaching life does have its downsides.

Here is a possible solution. What the Koan refers to as “mind” is actually the left hemisphere of the brain. When we quiet that side of the mind, we can find peace.

The Left Brain (LB) is the side that is constantly chattering, criticizing, critiquing, analyzing, second-guessing, time-keeping, labeling, “tweeting,” fretting, strategizing, systematizing, categorizing, utilizing, optimizing. For the LB every person, place or thing in life is a tool to use for one’s own power, protection, and advancement. Many of the information processing skills of the LB are needed for executing tasks and being efficient, for ordering the chaos of life into something we can make sense of. The left brain is perfect for that. But left to run amok, it will destroy your peace of mind.

Access the Right Brain by drawing

The Right Brain (RB) is opposite of all the above LB descriptors. The RB is non-linear, non-time-oriented, altruistic, creative, cooperative, empathetic, communitarian, connective, observant. It is willing to live without labels, categories, and systems. It looks at the self as an organic part of nature, rather than as a detached controller of the world. It is also the side of the brain that connects to sadness and emotions (which the LB tries to suppress).

For more on the LB/RB differences and how those apply to life, there are a few resources I would recommend. I plan to review them in future posts, but here are the ones that have had the most impact on me:

• A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink. How those who can access the right brain will ascend in the workplace as more and more left brained activities become automated.
• The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist. This is the most comprehensive work I’ve come across yet on what science knows about the functioning of the hemispheres of the brain. Well worth the time to study and absorb, especially since it bridges the scientific material to philosophy and culture, the history of the West, music, art, and religion.
• The Artists’ Way by Julia Cameron. A transformative program of self-exploration and recovery using a gentle process of journaling and “artist dates” to open the mind and form new paths.
• The Van Gogh Blues by Eric Maisel. How creative people are susceptible to a unique form of depression that cannot be treated with pharmaceuticals. We enter a meaning crisis when we do not create.

I know from playing violin and painting, that the mind—that is, the LB—must quiet down in order to do these activities, and that I feel a wonderful sense of peace after attaining the quiet mental awareness required. When I teach drawing, I teach people to feel the shift between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. It is like a muscle, that most people have forgotten how to use. It takes some work to train the muscle again.

Many Things Or One? Copyright 2015 Edward Obermueller

You probably use the RB more than you are aware. The Right Hemisphere is the part of the brain that we access to go into the body. So anytime you are doing a bodily activity, whether a sport, or yoga, hiking in nature, or playing a musical instrument, you are accessing the right brain. Your RB is there whenever you are adapting to someone else’s point of view, really entering someone else’s emotional frame, or intuitively making a decision based on a big-picture understanding. If you have ever been in the shower and had an “aha” moment, that was your RB coming to the fore.

We do not and cannot ever really leave the mind behind. But when we allow our right brain more prominence, it actively quiets the chattering left brain. A side effect is peace of mind, guaranteed.

Take a GoodMInute

What can you do today that will help you access your Right Brain and quiet the Left Brain?

Why is it so hard for us, in our culture, to release the control, protection, and power that the Left Brain focuses on?

When have you felt deeply at peace? Can you identify the aspects of the situation that were quieting your Left Brain, such as being away from the constant stream of sound-byte media, from constantly being aware of the time, or being involved in a physical activity that absorbed your whole attention?

Sinking Into the Joyful

Midweek Devotion #8

August 26, 2015

To let ourselves sink into the joyful moments of our lives even though we know that they are fleeting, even though the world tells us not to be too happy lest we invite disaster—that’s an intense form of vulnerability.

—Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

Family reunion season is winding down. Many of us have found ways to be together with people we haven’t seen in years. I was grateful to be a part of a wedding at the other end of the country, and reconnect with important people from my childhood, people who I love and who love me.

Family Pose

Yet we sometimes hold ourselves back. How much do we give, how connected do we allow ourselves to be when we know we will not see people again for another year or more? I love Brené Brown’s phrase, “sink into the joyful moments.” In her research she found that people are very afraid of that, because of the immediate anxiety that follows. We fear the loss of such moments.

Since my own children do not live with me, I have learned to let myself sink in to the joyful with them. Probably because I recognize that the time is fleeting, I find ways to be more present to them while we are together.

It is because there is an end that our time together is so potent.

I believe this is a very mindful state to achieve: letting the joyful sink in, being vulnerable to loss and ending, embracing the whole of presence and absence together.

Take a GoodMinute:

Where do I hold back for fear of loss?

What are my family reunions like? Where do I hold back?

Being Open

Midweek Devotion #3

July 22, 2015

Probably the most important thing I have learned from Taoist thought is the idea of yin, or the receptive.

In the I Ching, yin energy is parallel to that of the earth, receiving and absorbing light from the sun. The sun is outwardly directed energy, or yang.

When we are in yin, we become open and non-judgmental, we are like empty vessels. We are ready to receive messages intuitively, from nature, from ourselves, or from God. Our positive actions and intentions flow from that emptiness. In Taoism this is compared to a bellows, blowing air into a forge.

We live in a culture of doing, of activity, of action. We like to define goals and then set up a series of tasks to get us there. This is good but it only tells half the story, the yang half. Like living with only half a body, we tend to dwell only in the yang. We can push too hard at things, drive our energy so far that we have no sense of simply being.

Constantly pushing at goals, constantly striving for more, causes us to focus on a narrow band of reality. Paradoxically, we also gradually lose our ability to push. We become weakened, ineffective, and less sharp. But when we allow ourselves space to recover the yin, we find that yang is also strengthened.

With too much focus on yang, being like the sun, only the things that matter to our own power and our own goals become important. This is the way we lose our deepest sense of self. This is the way we lose our compassion for others. This is the way we lose our humanity.

Take a GoodMinute:

When was the last time I went on retreat?

When was the last time I felt myself simply allowed to be?

What associations do I have to words like non-action and non-belief?

How would a Taoist describe me?

A Dale Chihuly Glass sculpture. Its open-mouthed clam shell shapes remind me of being open and receptive to the energies of nature

An Awe So Quiet

During a recent trip to Iowa, I took this photo of the Mississippi at dawn. I noted how still it was, almost like a lake. It is moving ever onward, and yet here it is at a moment of timeless beauty. It reminded me of these words:

An awe so quiet I don’t know when it began.

A gratitude had begun to sing in me.

Was there some moment dividing song from no song?

When does dewfall begin?

When does night fold its arms over our hearts to cherish them?

When is daybreak?

-Denise Levertov, from the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition

I have felt a deep calm settle over me in recent weeks. It has come over me as I have discovered a place within the fellowship of the Unitarian Universalist faith. My involvement there has helped me take important steps in being more public again, more involved, more committed to serving out in the world.

My activity in the UU has calmed me while also making me busier. A paradox of sorts. Moving, and yet still. When I engage in the business of enriching people’s lives at the spiritual level it has a stilling effect.

The tasks that flow out of our deepest calling are both quiet and powerful. They are quiet, because they arise from deep within. They are powerful because they are so right, right for us, and right for the world in the sense that they truly help other people.

When is daybreak? For me it is when I am moving and still, discovering that deep inner rightness.

When Is Daybreak? The Mississippi at Dawn