Naikan: Introduction

Introduction

Sometimes I go out in the woods and just sit. Then I become aware of how noisy it is. Most of that noise comes from inside my head. It's filled with ideas and plans. There appears to be an endless stream of thoughts, complaints, fears, worries, hopes, and dialogue. A to-do list pops up regularly. "Don't forget to check the oil in the car." "Remember to return the library books." I'm generally not aware of this noise. My life is too busy. It's so busy that even when my body stops, my mind doesn't. My mind seems to roll on from momentum. For a while.

After a while it begins to quiet down. Then I start to hear real noise, noise from the world around me. The sounds of the chickadees talking to each other. The screech of a blue jay overhead. The clicking of a flitting hummingbird defending its territory. I notice the blossoms of a new columbine and the emptied acorn shells piled next to a rugged oak. Such sounds and sights are music. They are real. They are happening right now.

As I listen to the conversation of a red squirrel in the maple tree across from me, I notice how the rest of the music fades into the background. Even the maple itself, looming in front of me, showing off its new line of fall colors, goes unnoticed while my mind is engaged in squirrel talk. My sweater also goes unnoticed. It's been keeping me warm on this crisp morning. My glasses go unnoticed. They reveal sharp lines to the edges of leaves and allow me to see the alternating stripes on a chipmunk's back. As I notice, I learn about noticing and not noticing. I learn about attention.

Learning about attention has been an adventure for me, one full of surprises. I was surprised by the endless chatter of my mind. I was surprised by how often my attention is on myself, my feelings, thoughts, and ideas, rather than the world around me. I was surprised at how my attention shaped, actually became, my experience. But nothing was more surprising, truly shocking, than when I began to notice what I hadn't noticed. My early teachers were fallen trees.

Obstacles along the Way
On a sunny Sunday morning in April, I set out along a trail toward a magnificent promontory from which endless miles of Blue Ridge mountaintops could be viewed. The trail was rocky and ran along a creek, winding through a dense forest of pine, hemlock, and maple. Winter storms had strewn many trees and limbs across my path, creating unexpected detours.

After nearly three hours of effort I reached my destination. The view surpassed my expectations, and a cool breeze swept up the valley walls. As I enjoyed the view I recalled the difficulty involved in making my way past all of the fallen timber on the way up. One section of trail had resembled the hurdles event in the Olympics. At another junction stood a tree with its double trunk requiring a skillful slither above one trunk and below the other. How much easier my climb would have been had the fallen timber been cut away with a chain saw, leaving a pleasant, unobstructed path from beginning to end.

At that moment I vaguely recalled that some timber had, in fact, been cut away to clear the path. I remembered a few places in which a section of the trunk had been surgically removed, leaving the bottom and top of the tree resting unobtrusively on either side of the trail. How interesting that I could so clearly remember trees that blocked my way, but only with the greatest effort could I recall that there were obstacles that had been removed.

As I made my descent I noticed quite a few of these cut trees and decided to do some research. For a fifteen-minute period I counted both the trees that obstructed the path as well as those that had been cut to clear the way. The former were easy to count because they were in my way. If I didn't pay attention to them I'd trip over them. Noticing the latter, however, required additional concentration. I had to scan the borders of the trail for the cut ends of the logs. At the end of the sample period I counted forty-two obstacles. However, forty-seven trees had been cut to make the path easier! The reality was that during my ascent there were more trees cleared than left blocking the path. Yet it was the obstacles that dominated my memory of the experience.

For many of us, this hike resembles our lives. We notice the obstacles because we have to get around them to proceed. But what if we go through life only noticing obstacles, problems, and difficulties? Shouldn't we expect our experience to be one of anger, hurt, disappointment, and anxiety? What about the support, care, and kindness we receive each day? Through such awareness, we discover the invisible gifts of life. Trees that have been cleared magically reappear as kindness.

Self-Reflection
Those trees taught me about attention and self-reflection. They taught me how important it is to see life more accurately and precisely. I learned the significance of taking time to step back from myself and reflect on what I had noticed and had not noticed. If my response to the upward path was so skewed, what about my perspective for the past decades of my existence? What else had I missed? I was busy. I had things to do. Time for quiet, self-reflection seemed like a luxury. Yet I had a sense that my life was at stake. It was.

I was fortunate to discover a method of self-reflection that was developed in Japan. The concept of self-reflection is one that is endorsed by nearly everyone: religious leaders, therapists, educators, scientists, and others. Most people would say that self-reflection is a good idea, just as most people support the good ideas of love, peace, justice, and healthy living. But it is in method and practice that ideas become realities, and it is here that we must define and evaluate self-reflection. How do you actually reflect on yourself? What is the best method for examining your life?

The practice of self-reflection goes back many centuries and is rooted in the world's great spiritual traditions. Early adherents

of such practice included the Christian desert hermits and Japanese samurai. More contemporary proponents include Albert Schweitzer, Benjamin Franklin, and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. Franklin, in particular, had a rather comprehensive and systematic approach to self-reflection. He developed a list of thirteen virtues, and each day he would evaluate his conduct relative to a particular virtue. Daily self-reflection was a fundamental aspect of Franklin's life.

The type of self-reflection I am discussing involves certain basic characteristics. First, there is the requirement of time set aside exclusively for the purpose of self-reflection. Second, use of a space, preferably with some degree of isolation that limits external distraction. And third, the application of questions or a structure that helps us examine our lives with an emphasis on our conduct in relation to other people, creatures, and objects. A sincere examination of ourselves is not an easy task. It requires attention to what has not been attended to. It involves a willingness to squarely face our mistakes, failures, and weaknesses. It requires us to acknowledge our transgressions and actions that have caused difficulty to others. The fourth step of the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve-step program asks us to make a searching and fearless moral inventory. Albert Schweitzer's suggestion was to "make a secret account of what you have neglected in thoughtlessness or in meanness in consideration of some other person's existence." Such self-reflection leaves little room for blaming others or complaining about how we have been treated. Instead we are stripped naked of our excuses, rationalizations, and self-justification, leaving us to view our life as we have lived it. There is great power in reality as it is.

As human beings we possess the heartfelt desire to know ourselves and find meaning in our lives. And we have the capacity to do so. We may be the only creatures in the universe who can reflect on ourselves. We can observe our own thoughts and feelings and recall the actions and events of the past as if observing ourselves in a mirror. This capacity for self-reflection holds the key to our freedom while, at the same time, emerging from the roots of our own suffering.

Yet it is our suffering that awakens our desire for truth. It nudges, pricks, and pokes us with difficult questions and discontent. We can no longer be pacified by the accumulation of more "stuff." We become exhausted by a mind that constantly complains, criticizes, and judges others. Our dissatisfaction with ourselves and our lives spawns a sincere examination of that life.

So please join me on a journey of attention and self-reflection. Let's examine reality in a cup of tea. Let's study attention using our attention. Let's explore freshness in a candy wrapper and discover who taught us the ancient ritual of tying our shoes. Let's watch the film of our life to see how we have lived and how life lives through us. On this journey we'll destroy false myths, do battle with ego-centered dragons, get snared in traps of pride, and get stuck in the quicksand of selfishness. Yet even as we travel, our courage and effort are gifts, and the limited faith we have in ourselves is replaced by greater faith in life itself.