The Five Hurdles to Happiness by Mitch Abblett

Author:Mitch Abblett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2018-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

Opening to Wilting by Rip Van Winking at Time and Impermanence

For centuries in Japan, Shinto practitioners have engaged in a purification ritual called misogi, which involved dousing oneself in sacred (often very cold) waters. Legend has it that samurai warriors would use this method on occasion to enliven their body and spirit prior to battle. Though I’ve never traveled to Kyoto to dip myself in the frigid waters of Kiyomizu Temple’s “Sound of Wings” waterfall, I have tried a “samurai shower” in my less-than-sacred bathroom at home on occasion.

What I noticed from such frigid dousings is an immediate shift in my experience of energy in body and mind. And if I’m aware and watching, I also notice how this jolt to my system ripples out and opens me up in the hours that follow. Joseph Goldstein writes, “The great power of mindfulness here, as with desire or anger, is that we can be with all these states when they arise, and when we can stay aware of them until they disappear.”39

Here, we escalate our practice with sloth and torpor by moving from mere watching (acceptance) of how this hindrance shows up in our experience to now actively intervening with our wilting. And here’s where the Western mind gets a bit more interested. “Finally, we’re doing more than this passive meditation stuff,” it says. “Now we’re doing something!”

True, and yet it’s an escalation because we’re not just going to mindlessly intervene (as with, for example, energy drinks, coffee, or cigarettes); we’re doing specific, healthy things and maintaining the watching, noticing, mindfulness we’ve been practicing throughout this book. It’s a powerful combination. Particularly when the wilting within our body-mind is on the mild side, it can help to give our systems a nudge toward more energy.

There are no diets or workouts or ultimately even practices for transcending the hindrances, including sloth and torpor. It boils down to a fundamental shift in awareness—a mind-set of opening versus closing. And when we see ourselves and the world with open eyes, we see the unshakable truth of certain changes to our daily habits around the intake and output of energy.

You have endless book and online options elsewhere around the energetics of nutrition, yet with the wilting body-mind, it bears repeating the following:

Eat and drink libation in moderation (think Ben Franklin’s virtues).

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