“Stay in the present moment!” I must have heard this hundreds of times during my yoga classes but it never made much sense to me. Far from making sense, it sounded Chinese. I have always been proud of my turbo-speed, multitasking, ability to switch between thoughts in a split second. What exactly the yoga teacher meant by saying “stay in the present moment” was a complete mystery.
35 years have gone by and there was never even a millisecond in my life without a background chatter in my mind. The background chatter would either be heavily criticizing the past; “i allowed him to take advantage of me / oh i should have just turned and walked away / if only i said yes then i would be ... now/ i wish i stayed ... Or it would be dreaming about the future “in my next job, i will be more assertive / when i travel to Asia i'll take a lot of photographs / i'll make sure that my next boyfriend will be more emotionally mature”... Millions and millions of thought particles either dwelling in the past or fantasizing wildly about the future. It was very tiring, every night when I went to bed I would be exhausted. Not because I did much or showed a lot of effort towards something. I was constantly lost among my thoughts and didn't have a way to stop them. Just as my legs would be tired if I ran all day, my mind was tired of a similar pace of thoughts rushing in and out.
At the age of 18, I tried Transcendental Meditation because someone told me that it gave him that millisecond window of “no thought”. There I was sitting in my lotus and constantly repeating “i'm still thinking, i'm still thinking, when will i have my moment of silence, oh the meditation time is almost over and i still didn't have my moment of silence... damn, maybe it'll come tomorrow”. Yeah, that was meditating a là Esin, and of course the extreme craving for a moment of stillness brought nothing but an even more chaotic and disappointing stream of thoughts.
About a year ago I went out with a friend; our plan was dinner followed by an opera. He would then continue the night at a club with his friends. He spent the entire time in dinner calling his friends to brag about getting the tickets to the opera, hence had no idea how much and how fast he ate. Then he fell asleep during the first part of the opera and then spent the second part sneakily texting to decide which club and what time. Poor guy enjoyed no part of the night, because he was constantly trying to make the perfect plan for the next hour. That observation was probably the first time I got a sense of what it meant to be staying in the present moment. Oh well, we don't always learn by positive examples do we? Sometimes an extremely negative experience in our faces would worth a million wise quotes.
That seed began to sprout very slowly. I don't know when and where exactly it happened, but about 6 months ago, I began to get a hazy sense of being present. I realized how much I missed the “now” when I was spending my time planning the good days to come. I was in Asia, traveling, doing as much yoga as I wanted, meeting amazing people but my mind was stuck on when I'm going back and how much money I would have left by then. I had the time of my life, I was happy every single day, yet I was focused on something in the future that I didn't know when and how would happen... From that point onwards, slowly but very slowly I tried to let go. Whenever I caught myself planning for the future, I would say “i am blessed for being here, for experiencing whatever i am experiencing and for being aware of it”. It worked.
If I am really agitated, I would just close my eyes and focus on my breathing. There is nothing as “here and now” as an inhale and an exhale. It is always there, it is a constant flow yet each and every breath is unique. Sometimes I breathe very shallow, sometimes one nostril is blocked, sometimes an inhale is hot... Whatever it is, each breath is a gift and it is unique to the moment it happens. I cannot plan for the 5pm inhale, nor can I regret that an exhale last month didn't fully empty my lungs...
I am light years far from being a master of my mind, being constantly present. My mind is still like a dump site of all irrelevant thoughts, but what I am slowly learning is not to be stuck with it. Even occasionally shifting my attention to only here and now, not dwelling in the past or the future is a major progress for me. What I've noticed is that on days when I can do that, I sleep so much better and feel rested with even a few hours of sleep. It's an interesting state of inner calm, that gives energy. It's definitely more difficult to do that in Dubai, where there are so many stimulants and barely time to close my eyes to feel blessed for being here, for experiencing whatever I am experiencing. I am hoping that it's only true that difficult things are more rewarding at the end.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
old city, new in old city
In one of my previous posts in January, I mentioned how much I enjoyed being in a city for the first time; opening my perception wide to soak in whatever that city can offer. However I just realized that being out of my turf for a while and then returning gave me a somewhat similar experience.
It was the first time that I was away from Istanbul for 9 months. Coming back, my perception of the city wasn't so much different probably because that's not a very long period for a rooted city like Istanbul to change. Yet I felt like a complete outsider. At the end of my first day, I had a headache because of all the second-hand smoke and political discussions that I was exposed to. All of us living around the Mediterranean have always loved discussing politics, I cannot remember how many spontaneous conversations I had with taxi drivers in Greece and Israel on the subject. But now, I wondered why people wanted to share their political views with someone whose knowledge was as outdated as the bronze age. I wasn't even interested but people didn't really mind my yawning and went on. It doesn't make slightest sense to me to spend all that time and energy on stuff that I cannot change. Especially the energy that goes into it; nobody seems to talk about politics without a strong sense of judgment, dislike and blaming. And mind you, these are neither politicians nor party members, they are my friends who work in advertising, finance, arts etc
Coming to Dubai, politics seemed to lose it's #1 place into a general sense of complaint of heat, stupid jobs, incompetent bosses, bad driving, senseless regulations, just to give a few examples. It's sad to see that only a few people are fully satisfied with their lives here. I'm not saying that life in Dubai makes sense in all the ways. Quite the contrary, it can resemble to an episode of the twilight zone pretty often. Yet we choose to stay.
I've been thinking about this quite a lot because this was my culture shock. I probably wouldn't have noticed this if I wasn't out for so long. Human beings are supposed to strive towards better (and therefore happier) but it seems that we build a very suffocating fence of complaints and judgments around our happiness so it does not grow up to its full potential. Why?
One possible reason that came to my mind was that we need to be heard, we need to receive attention. Since we are babies, we get more attention when we cry or have a sad face because it's an alarm of things not going as they are supposed to. Everyone hovers around when we are sick. Maybe some of never outgrow the need for this type of attention even when we are grown. Maybe we never develop the skills to seek a healthy dose of attention by means other than complaining. Hence we keep our unhappy masks on; we complain with an acute need to be heard and to be paid attention. Imagine a random night out with friends you haven't seen in a long time, does the group spend more time listening to the one who says “oh it's all good, things are going fine” or to the one who says “in the office I work with the stupidest bunch of people who make my life a living hell every day”.
Complaining is a way to attract attention so that missing/wrong things can get fixed. Most of those chronic complainers however are happy with things being wrong/missing. If you actually try to correct things for them, they will either find a way to be unhappy with the new situation or will shift their focus to the next wrong thing, because the source of discomfort is internal.
I've been thinking a lot about this in the last 3 weeks and this was the only possible answer that I could see. I would really appreciate some fresh insight if you would care to share. What do you think? Why do we focus on what we cannot change and why do we keep complaining on things that we can change but do nothing about it?
It was the first time that I was away from Istanbul for 9 months. Coming back, my perception of the city wasn't so much different probably because that's not a very long period for a rooted city like Istanbul to change. Yet I felt like a complete outsider. At the end of my first day, I had a headache because of all the second-hand smoke and political discussions that I was exposed to. All of us living around the Mediterranean have always loved discussing politics, I cannot remember how many spontaneous conversations I had with taxi drivers in Greece and Israel on the subject. But now, I wondered why people wanted to share their political views with someone whose knowledge was as outdated as the bronze age. I wasn't even interested but people didn't really mind my yawning and went on. It doesn't make slightest sense to me to spend all that time and energy on stuff that I cannot change. Especially the energy that goes into it; nobody seems to talk about politics without a strong sense of judgment, dislike and blaming. And mind you, these are neither politicians nor party members, they are my friends who work in advertising, finance, arts etc
Coming to Dubai, politics seemed to lose it's #1 place into a general sense of complaint of heat, stupid jobs, incompetent bosses, bad driving, senseless regulations, just to give a few examples. It's sad to see that only a few people are fully satisfied with their lives here. I'm not saying that life in Dubai makes sense in all the ways. Quite the contrary, it can resemble to an episode of the twilight zone pretty often. Yet we choose to stay.
I've been thinking about this quite a lot because this was my culture shock. I probably wouldn't have noticed this if I wasn't out for so long. Human beings are supposed to strive towards better (and therefore happier) but it seems that we build a very suffocating fence of complaints and judgments around our happiness so it does not grow up to its full potential. Why?
One possible reason that came to my mind was that we need to be heard, we need to receive attention. Since we are babies, we get more attention when we cry or have a sad face because it's an alarm of things not going as they are supposed to. Everyone hovers around when we are sick. Maybe some of never outgrow the need for this type of attention even when we are grown. Maybe we never develop the skills to seek a healthy dose of attention by means other than complaining. Hence we keep our unhappy masks on; we complain with an acute need to be heard and to be paid attention. Imagine a random night out with friends you haven't seen in a long time, does the group spend more time listening to the one who says “oh it's all good, things are going fine” or to the one who says “in the office I work with the stupidest bunch of people who make my life a living hell every day”.
Complaining is a way to attract attention so that missing/wrong things can get fixed. Most of those chronic complainers however are happy with things being wrong/missing. If you actually try to correct things for them, they will either find a way to be unhappy with the new situation or will shift their focus to the next wrong thing, because the source of discomfort is internal.
I've been thinking a lot about this in the last 3 weeks and this was the only possible answer that I could see. I would really appreciate some fresh insight if you would care to share. What do you think? Why do we focus on what we cannot change and why do we keep complaining on things that we can change but do nothing about it?
Saturday, July 10, 2010
masafi souq al juma (masafi friday market)
I had enough of sneakily driving around in the city after midnight everyday and decided to get a little bolder yesterday to visit the Masafi Friday Market.
Being Turkish, I am very used to getting almost everything by the roadside while driving between cities. A trip from Bodrum to Istanbul gets me the best olives in Gemlik, honey in Marmaris, freshest nuts near Izmir. Most are sold directly by growers, in the trunk of their car or on a stall by the shade of a tree. So coming to Dubai was shocking; because of the harsh climate there was no roadside culture. No stalls, no mom and pop eateries, no locally grown stuff on a car trunk, nothing at all. After two trips with no food (you can only get the packaged boring stuff from the gas stations) I learned my lesson and started picnic-packing whenever I was going outside of Dubai. Years ago on my way for a day trip to swim in the ocean in Fujeirah I came across a roadside market. It was a colorful surprise among the curvy mountain road, lined with nothing but the desert. There were stalls on both sides of the road, selling fresh fruits grown mostly in the UAE and Oman . It was heaven; the fruits weren't flown 5000km from wherever, they were ripe and I was able to taste them before buying, even bargain a little. Afterwards, I never got the chance to go there again.
Yesterday, I drove about 175km one-way to get there. First surprise was seeing a road sign saying “masafi friday market 500m”. A great indicator that the place became more known and popular. 500 meters later, there was no need for more indicators. The once small and unorganized stalls now had parking in front of them wider than the spots in the Mall of the Emirates. Of course there were more shops and they looked pretty uniform. I have no objections to receiving better service but the real shock came when I saw that most of the fruit sold was also flown in from Syria, Turkey and India.
Being Turkish, I am very used to getting almost everything by the roadside while driving between cities. A trip from Bodrum to Istanbul gets me the best olives in Gemlik, honey in Marmaris, freshest nuts near Izmir. Most are sold directly by growers, in the trunk of their car or on a stall by the shade of a tree. So coming to Dubai was shocking; because of the harsh climate there was no roadside culture. No stalls, no mom and pop eateries, no locally grown stuff on a car trunk, nothing at all. After two trips with no food (you can only get the packaged boring stuff from the gas stations) I learned my lesson and started picnic-packing whenever I was going outside of Dubai. Years ago on my way for a day trip to swim in the ocean in Fujeirah I came across a roadside market. It was a colorful surprise among the curvy mountain road, lined with nothing but the desert. There were stalls on both sides of the road, selling fresh fruits grown mostly in the UAE and Oman . It was heaven; the fruits weren't flown 5000km from wherever, they were ripe and I was able to taste them before buying, even bargain a little. Afterwards, I never got the chance to go there again. Yesterday, I drove about 175km one-way to get there. First surprise was seeing a road sign saying “masafi friday market 500m”. A great indicator that the place became more known and popular. 500 meters later, there was no need for more indicators. The once small and unorganized stalls now had parking in front of them wider than the spots in the Mall of the Emirates. Of course there were more shops and they looked pretty uniform. I have no objections to receiving better service but the real shock came when I saw that most of the fruit sold was also flown in from Syria, Turkey and India.
After 4 hours of driving in 45+ degrees of heat and blinding sunlight reflecting from the desert, I ended up buying Indian bananas, mangoes and coconut, Syrian cherries, Lebanese grapes and some local fresh dates; all just marginally cheaper than the supermarket price. The punch line was when my camera decided to stop working as a protest to the heat after only shooting 10 frames. I was really expecting to linger around for quite a while to shoot photos but apparently the camera felt more like taking the friday off. Still, I was very satisfied to be outside the city, seeing long stretches of desert and buying fruit from the road.Would I go again? Yes, but only on my way to Fujeirah and in a season that my camera would not suffer a sun stroke.
Friday, July 09, 2010
fear factor
The only thing that I really and constantly missed in Dubai was my car and I was looking forward to driving it. As shallow and as materialistic as it is, car is a major attachment that I am yet to learn letting go of. Oh well, every yogini should be allowed her bit of materialism be it shoes, car or make-up :)
So in my second night in Dubai, the only thing in my mind was to get back in the driver seat and ride. (I can't drive in broad daylight because the car registration expired and police would impound the car if they catch me on the road) I started driving a little after midnight; I was curious if I really missed my car or was it constantly in my mind all these months because there was absolutely no way for me to have that in Asia. It turns out that I was still really attached to it.
Sometime around 2am, trying to follow a sign to the Sheikh Zayed Road, I ended up in a dirt path leading to a big constuction site in the middle of nowhere. It seems that the constructions still pop up unplanned in Dubai and they don't even have time to remove the signs before they completely demolish the roads. While I was trying to figure out how to get on the highway, I saw a worker walking in my direction. My initial impulse was to reach for the buttons to make sure that the doors are locked and the windows are up all the way. I immediately sensed the fear arising; something I haven't felt in a long time. Then I realized that fear was just an automatic response, coming from a deep-rooted pattern. The pattern which suggests that I am different and therefore I have something to protect from others; I am better and those who are inferior want to take away what's better or more from me... It was a moment of very shameful awakening.
In reality, I had nothing to fear. If anything, that worker who was just minding his own business walking towards the construction had more than me. He was legal in the country, had a regular job, a salary check and a purpose he was walking towards. Whereas I had no money, no job, no right to drive the car (because my driving license was no longer valid) and the car I was driving wasn't even supposed to be on the road. Why then still the fear response?
Especially in a country as safe and as strict as the UAE, it is unheard that a worker would attack a woman at his work site. I was no longer “better” and I had nothing to protect, however the response associated with it was still there... Why was I still hanging onto a pattern that was no longer relevant to my situation?
Living in Bali, it's easier to feel that I am one with everyone else and we are all different reflections of the same thing, whatever that may be. The real test of change is to feel that sameness in a place like Dubai where there's an abyss between nationalities, ethnicities, income levels, sexes and expectation from life.
So in my second night in Dubai, the only thing in my mind was to get back in the driver seat and ride. (I can't drive in broad daylight because the car registration expired and police would impound the car if they catch me on the road) I started driving a little after midnight; I was curious if I really missed my car or was it constantly in my mind all these months because there was absolutely no way for me to have that in Asia. It turns out that I was still really attached to it.
Sometime around 2am, trying to follow a sign to the Sheikh Zayed Road, I ended up in a dirt path leading to a big constuction site in the middle of nowhere. It seems that the constructions still pop up unplanned in Dubai and they don't even have time to remove the signs before they completely demolish the roads. While I was trying to figure out how to get on the highway, I saw a worker walking in my direction. My initial impulse was to reach for the buttons to make sure that the doors are locked and the windows are up all the way. I immediately sensed the fear arising; something I haven't felt in a long time. Then I realized that fear was just an automatic response, coming from a deep-rooted pattern. The pattern which suggests that I am different and therefore I have something to protect from others; I am better and those who are inferior want to take away what's better or more from me... It was a moment of very shameful awakening.
In reality, I had nothing to fear. If anything, that worker who was just minding his own business walking towards the construction had more than me. He was legal in the country, had a regular job, a salary check and a purpose he was walking towards. Whereas I had no money, no job, no right to drive the car (because my driving license was no longer valid) and the car I was driving wasn't even supposed to be on the road. Why then still the fear response?
Especially in a country as safe and as strict as the UAE, it is unheard that a worker would attack a woman at his work site. I was no longer “better” and I had nothing to protect, however the response associated with it was still there... Why was I still hanging onto a pattern that was no longer relevant to my situation?
Living in Bali, it's easier to feel that I am one with everyone else and we are all different reflections of the same thing, whatever that may be. The real test of change is to feel that sameness in a place like Dubai where there's an abyss between nationalities, ethnicities, income levels, sexes and expectation from life.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
third Vipassana
I left Bali at the end of May and gradually made my way to Dubai, arriving just yesterday. I had a 2-week stopover in Thailand, because I felt that another Vipassana was a must before leaving Asia.
It turned out to be a good decision, those 11-day long silent meditation sittings do amazing things for me. I believe that there are “mental membranes” between unconscious, subconscious and conscious minds. The more I externalize my attention, try to seek satisfaction in stuff and do not take time to settle my mind, the thicker the membranes get. Corporate work, drinking, trying to keep up with social expectations and trying to please others have been my major membrane thickeners. As a result I lose touch with the reality deep down and things get distorted in my mind. Vipassana drills huge holes to those membranes, and things start to flow freely towards the surface. I remember things, I see the reasons why things happened, I understand how my mind works. I get in touch with the relativity of truth, my truth... Sometimes it can get quite overwhelming to see myself as it is; that I am not always the ever so sweet and innocent Snow White, in fact I am very capable of injecting poison into an apple before offering it to a Snow White. It's easier to believe that I am a result of randomness or consequences of stuff that other people do. I am commitment-phobic to men because of my father, I could not complete my masters degree because the dean hated me and did not give me a make-up exam, I am now broke because my last company fired me in a horrible way, etc etc... All these may be true or they may be a result of my exaggerated imagination, it doesn't matter at all. What matters is how I respond to such situations. Vipassana makes me realize that giving the power to the others/situations and pretending to be the victim is actually very comforting and easy. It's scary to take charge of my life and accept that I'm responsible for every tiny bit that happens in it. It's like constantly trying to balance myself on a pilates ball; the minute I think I got it and try to release a little will be the moment that I fall flat on my face. If I want to stay on top, I cannot afford to let things go auto-pilot.
Then where and how does “letting go” come into this picture, I have no idea... How can I take full charge and then let things go in their universal flow is a total mystery to me. That seems to be another fine-balance on the ball that I haven't mastered yet. Tighten your muscles too much and you'll be tired too soon, let go of everything at once and you'll fall. Yep, it sounds perfect when I put it this way but I am yet to experience this perfection.
It turned out to be a good decision, those 11-day long silent meditation sittings do amazing things for me. I believe that there are “mental membranes” between unconscious, subconscious and conscious minds. The more I externalize my attention, try to seek satisfaction in stuff and do not take time to settle my mind, the thicker the membranes get. Corporate work, drinking, trying to keep up with social expectations and trying to please others have been my major membrane thickeners. As a result I lose touch with the reality deep down and things get distorted in my mind. Vipassana drills huge holes to those membranes, and things start to flow freely towards the surface. I remember things, I see the reasons why things happened, I understand how my mind works. I get in touch with the relativity of truth, my truth... Sometimes it can get quite overwhelming to see myself as it is; that I am not always the ever so sweet and innocent Snow White, in fact I am very capable of injecting poison into an apple before offering it to a Snow White. It's easier to believe that I am a result of randomness or consequences of stuff that other people do. I am commitment-phobic to men because of my father, I could not complete my masters degree because the dean hated me and did not give me a make-up exam, I am now broke because my last company fired me in a horrible way, etc etc... All these may be true or they may be a result of my exaggerated imagination, it doesn't matter at all. What matters is how I respond to such situations. Vipassana makes me realize that giving the power to the others/situations and pretending to be the victim is actually very comforting and easy. It's scary to take charge of my life and accept that I'm responsible for every tiny bit that happens in it. It's like constantly trying to balance myself on a pilates ball; the minute I think I got it and try to release a little will be the moment that I fall flat on my face. If I want to stay on top, I cannot afford to let things go auto-pilot.
Then where and how does “letting go” come into this picture, I have no idea... How can I take full charge and then let things go in their universal flow is a total mystery to me. That seems to be another fine-balance on the ball that I haven't mastered yet. Tighten your muscles too much and you'll be tired too soon, let go of everything at once and you'll fall. Yep, it sounds perfect when I put it this way but I am yet to experience this perfection.
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