Sober Synthesis

“The future is being made out of the present, so the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. This is logical and clear. Spending a lot of time speculating and worrying about the future is totally useless. We can only take care of our future by taking care of the present moment, because the future is made out of only one substance: the present. Only if you are anchored in the present can you prepare well for the future.” — Thich Nhat Hahn

RAIN: Acronym for the four key principles  of mindful transformation of difficulties. 

Recognition – Acceptance – Investigation – Non-Identification

Recognition: Recognition is the first step of mindfulness. 

We must begin with a willingness to see what is…what is happening now? Do we pause and acknowledge the reality of our experience here and now?  With recognition, we step out of denial. We name and inwardly bow to our experience. Recognition moves us from delusion and ignorance toward freedom. We can see what is so.

ACCEPTANCE: This is what is so. 

In Zen they say: “If you understand, things are just as they are. And if you don’t understand, things are still just as they are.”

Acceptance is a willingness, a willing movement of the heart to include whatever is before it. 

In individual transformation, we have to acknowledge the reality of our own suffering. 

For social transformation we have to start with the reality of collective suffering, of injustice, racism, stigma, greed and hate. We can transform the world just as we learn to transform ourselves. 

Carl Jung: “Perhaps I myself am the enemy who must be loved.”

INVESTIGATION:

The Four Foundations of mindfulness:

Body, Feelings, Mind and Dharma (teachings, the ‘truth’, universal laws) are the underlying principles of experience and each is thoroughly investigated.

NON-IDENTIFICATION

In non -identification, we stop taking the experience as mine or part of me. 

We see how identification creates dependence, anxiety and inauthenticity. 

In practicing non -identification, we inquire of every state, experience and story, is this who I really am? We see the tentativeness of this identity. Instead of identification with this difficulty, we let go and rest in awareness itself. 

Carl Jung comments, 

perhaps I myself am the enemy who must be loved.