On Balance of Mind

Want a little more sukha and a little less dukkha in your life?

Deep within your inner ear lies an amazing little doohickey called the vestibular apparatus, consisting of three semi circular canals.  Each of these canals contain little hair like fibers awash in a fluid bath.  All together these canals detect motion in three dimensional space.  One canal detects movement in the horizontal plane, one in the vertical plane, while the third detects forward and backward movement.  When your head moves it stirs these little hairs within the fluid and as they detect movement, corresponding adjustments to the rest of the body are required in order to offset the change in your center of gravity.  This little vestibular gizmo is also used by your eyeballs to help maintain focus and contact on moving objects at the same time you yourself are moving.  As the little hairs detect motion they send a signal along nerves to a small group of neurons in your brain called the vestibular nuclei where the information is processed.  A signal is then sent from the vestibular nuclei to the appropriate muscles for adjustment, keeping your body balanced in relation to the world around you.  I know it sounds complicated when you think about all the thousands of signals traveling to and fro, moment by moment just to keep your body upright and moving in any given direction.  But all in all it just comes naturally to you, and because you don’t think about it, you don’t struggle with it.  When you want to take a step, you just take a step.  When you want to sit, you just sit.  You simply wake up, you go about your day and hopefully you don’t fall over. 

Now that we’ve gone over the simple complexities of our vestibular apparatus and brain to body balance, the question might be…how do we achieve and maintain balance of mind?

As humans we tend to want, desire and crave.  These cravings are the cause of much of our self inflicted angst and imbalance in our lives.  In the world of Buddhism the word dukkha is often referred to as pain and suffering, but the word encompasses much more than physical pain or mental anguish.  Dukkha is described in classic Sanskrit as a wheel off kilter or unbalanced.  The opposing word to dukkha is sukha loosely defined as a wheel of perfect balance. 

With all of my recent studies on the subject of life, the universe, spirituality and my efforts to obtain the strength of a positive and optimistic mind, I am coming more and more to see that in order to achieve balance in life we must live within the moment that is ‘now’.  What happened yesterday, an hour ago, or a moment ago is what was, and not what is.  Although it is nice to reminisce over our treasured memories and feel sorrow and ache over the painful ones, we should always reflect on them simply as memories.  We should not hold them too tightly, as when we do, we become bound to them, slaves to our past.  Our memories, good or bad, are not the reality that is ‘now’.  Reality and truth are grounded in this moment and can be found only in this moment and nowhere else.  What may happen tomorrow, in an hour, or in a future moment, is a now that’s time has not yet come.  This does not mean we shouldn’t plan for the future.  But once again, it is easy to  become a slave to our conceptual thought of what the outcome of that future might be.  The idea of what a future moment might be is akin to past memories and not an element of reality.  It is but a abstract mind made dream that is not real, not grounded in truth.

So how do we make ourselves stop the wanting and craving that keeps us out of true center?  We don’t!  To want to stop wanting, or to crave to stop craving just adds to the wanting and craving.  We can however, become the observer of the wanting and craving.  When we become the watcher of our thoughts the yearning subsides and when the yearning subsides the mind comes into balance on its own natural accord, as we are the thinkers and not the thoughts that are thunk.  Thunk you say?  Yes I said thunk, but it was just a test to see if you are truly giving these words your full attention (and a test for my cherished wife who edits my lexis, just to see if she will allow such a cataclysmic calamity of the precious written word).  One way of achieving balance within the mind is to stay present within the moment, to be mindful and alert to all our surroundings.  To give our full and complete attention to this moment that is ‘now’, is to honor life, to honor truth, for this moment is the only place truth and life can ever be found, not our concept of what is happening in this moment but the moment itself.  Become the observer, hear the crackle of leaves beneath your feet as you walk.  Feel the air as it passes through the hairs in your nostrils with each breath you take.  Become the witness without generating thought, without forming judgment.  But thoughts do tend to create themselves, so we should monitor these thoughts with no attempt to stop them from arising.  The goal is to attain what is known as ‘mushin’ or ‘munen’ loosely translated as ‘no mind’ or ‘no thought’.  It is achieved through meditation, relaxation, and inner stillness.  This may begin as small gaps of no conceptual thought, filled in with direct perceptual thought that at its core forms an opening for the rebalancing of our subconscious mind. 

Much like the balancing of body by vestibular gizmo and brain, we can also train our mind itself  to come into perfect balance and harmony.  Without thinking about it, without struggling with it, we can balance our mind with our mind.  We can wake up from the endless prattle of conceptual fret and our minds will balance themselves naturally without struggle.  We can move away from the dukkha and have a little more sukha in our lives.  We can wake up go about our day and hopefully we wont fall over.

By Mark McCann

OlDustyAces on PokerStars

Ol_Dusty on FullTilt

Your Luck is Not Determined by the Turn of a Card and Real Men Wear Pink!

Do you know how incredibly lucky you really are? 

So you say, “but Dusty, my ace king never seems to hold up when I get it in against ace jack.  My pre flop aces always get cracked.  I’ve been buying lottery tickets for years and have never hit it big and my horse just never seems to come in.”  But if you really think about your gift of human life, your ability to love and be loved, I think you’ll realize just how lucky you really are.

Of all the other living organisms on earth, you were born a human child, and that’s not even considering other life lying beyond our realm of the universe.  I mean really – think about it for a moment - try to contemplate the odds of you being born a human rather than a fire ant, a blade of grass, or a parasite living your life stuck to the side of a fish.  Well the odds of this are simply too enormous even to ponder.  So I guess we’ve all hit a sort of ‘lottery’ before we even knew we wanted to be lucky!

I suppose this is an egoic way of thinking in that it assumes being human is somehow superior to being the fire ant, the blade of grass or the petite little parasite living its modest life stuck to the side of that ill-fated fish.  But, if you do feel lucky to not have been born into the parasitic family, you may wish to read on.

The other night I made the final table of a five dollar re-buy.  I was third from the bottom in chips on the button with the second hand dealt at this final table.  I had around twenty big blinds when the player under the gun made a minimum raise.  The table folded around to me and I pushed all in.  It seemed I had gotten lucky being dealt a pair of kings pre-flop.  Both blinds fold and expecting the under the gun player to call his big hand or fold his trash, to my delight, with little thought he calls with his ace four off suit.  I get that sick feeling in my gut as the ace drops on the flop and I’m all done by the river.  I was very disappointed with all my bad luck of late.  This would have been a much needed $7,000 plus payout had I taken first place, and of course, when I make a final table I expect to take first place, barring bad luck that is.

Feeling disheartened and dejected, I shut down the PC and walked out into the living room where I told my non-poker playing wife about yet another episode of bad luck.  She consoled me and asked me if I played well.  I replied yes I played the entire tourney at my highest level and she said “that’s all that really matters isn’t it” and gave me a hug.  I immediately realized that I am far luckier than I sometimes give myself credit for.  To have the support, understanding and compassion of such an incredible individual as my beautiful wife.

You see friends, my wife is today recovering from her second surgery in three weeks.  This one was a minor, yet painful surgery to install a port that leads from her right chest wall through an artery going toward her heart.  I’m told this will mix her medications better and will avoid her having to constantly get stuck with needles and avoid the blowing out of the veins in her hand, wrist and arm.  A few weeks ago she had a total hysterectomy and pathology reports found metastasized breast cancer in her ovaries, uterus and cervix.  It is also metastasized to her bones.  She began treatment two years ago after a radical modified mastectomy taking her left breast and 47 lymph nodes.  She then underwent chemotherapy and radiation.  We hoped for the best but recent scans showed new problems.  Many tears have been shed, much anger has been felt.  But through it all, she still smiles, laughs, loves and lives life to the fullest.  She is compassionate and caring and always puts the interests of others before her own.  I learn a little more about life from her each and everyday and I admire her in every way.  Her body has become a road map of battle scars and yet she is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. 

Ah my friends, I am truly a lucky man to be such a part of Susan’s life.  Now you may say, “well it doesn’t sound like Susan is so lucky”!  But you would be wrong.  Although it was very unlucky that she contracted a type of cancer known as lobular breast cancer, easily missed in yearly mammograms and in her case missed each year for at least five years, the fact is, there is no single individual on this planet who is not terminal and there never has been.

Susan will soon begin her treatment and she will again get the upper hand on this dreaded disease.  She is very lucky to live in this time of modern medicine when a cure may be found at any time as she continues her battle.  She is indeed lucky to have so many loving and caring friends who pray for her, sending good will and the best intentions for her well being.  She is lucky to have me.  That’s right; I will take credit for the love and care I give to her, and the loving thoughts I feel for her, as she knows I will always be at her side and will always have her best interests in my heart.  She is lucky to know her God that she counts on to carry her through times that can seem so treacherous and sometimes unbearable.  She is lucky to have the kind of attitude that will not allow luck to determine the outcome of her life as she will not blind out of life and intends to fight until she defeats her stealthy opponent. 

One hundred years from now none of our lives will still be in existence, but we will have been truly lucky to have lived them.  Some of us will have been extremely lucky enough to have shared our lives with someone as incredible and extraordinary as my girl Sue.  So please my friends, appreciate the luck you are given, accept the bad with the good and count your blessings each and every moment… and don’t ever forget…your luck is not determined by the turn of a card and indeed poker truly is just a game.  

So guys, man-up, take a night off, put on your best pink shirt and take your girl out for a nice dinner…she deserves it!

By Mark McCann, AKA on PokerStars as OlDustyAces, AKA on FullTilt as Ol_Dusty