Like a Well-oiled Machine

What does it take to move beyond customs and interactions based on mindful appreciation--and what is that like anyway? Mindfulness gives people a real, genuine taste of emptiness, spaciousness, like that old cowboy song, "Don't fence me in." If you can imagine spending your whole life on horseback out in the truly wilderness-wild of the old American west, tending barbed wire fences that stretched almost farther than you could ride in a month, moving cattle with a few quiet ol' boys during the summer and wintering pretty much alone on the high plains of Wyoming--if you can get that feeling of a dry wind off the plains that smells of sage and blows on through your soul, then you get some sense of what emptiness can feel like. If you take the social aspect out of mindful appreciation, the applied aspect, mindfulness can introduce that feeling of cleanliness which is right up there next to godliness. And over time, you become familiar with the existential certainty that there is no bucket, no type of fence, no prison that can really contain that in our souls which is the ether of the universe.

If you're more of a THE BIG LEBOWSKI type than a fan of Sam Elliot's earlier movies and handlebar mustache, the feel or accoutrements may be different, but the thing itself is the same. Gautama Buddha said that mindful awareness itself would get you there, and it will.

Mindfulness practice allows us to actually turn away from--in Buddhist literature, to stop "feeding the fires" of--the things we do to create unhappiness and distaste in our own lives. That's the therapeutic side. But it also brings that openness into big and small aspects of what we do, and that is what I see as the real value of it, the sati of sati.

When we're free of disturbances and distractions enough to really focus with gentle intensity on something as un-extraordinary as tying our shoes, at that point, we're really sinking into something that is sinking into us. We get beyond the boundaries of a concretely definable ego and into something spiritual-without-pretense. The ego itself isn't necessarily good or bad--like the habit of wearing shoes--but it works the way it works and we bring our presence right there. When we turn mindfulness inwards, we begin moving into responding to how our own egos work with spaciousness and equanimity. Over time, mindfulness becomes commonplace--like getting used to Big Sky in Montana--but it becomes no less valuable for being there. It is foundational, hard to imagine after a time, how anyone could or could want to live without it. Rather than being something to be feared or worked at, it is like the feeling of taking a hot leather hat off your head and taking in the breeze.

I call this clarity. Beyond mindful, effortful concentration and somewhere before grace, we incorporate this openness into who we are. Taking openness with you into big situations and small allows a certain personal balance and clarity, an easygoing way even with difficult people and work. Well, it lends to being easygoing if you also believe in the intentional relaxation I talk about elsewhere; it also lends to being intensely focused and determined when that is called for.

In order for people to bring that to a group, the group will need to feel in some ways like a well-oiled machine. Think about this as a comparison. Cognitive psychologists talk about the difference between experts at some field--say chess, it's something I know a little--and amateurs. They have found that, across the board, something significant changes once people reach a point where they have put in 10,000 quality hours of practice in their chosen field. In my language, the associational matrix at that point is so familiar (like the back of my hand) and so rich (after somewhere around 8 years of near-fanatical practice) that things "just come together". Without extraneous effort, things "click". Michael Jordan blows by defenders, jet fighter aces feel like there is no one else even in the sky with them--just the goal, and this is genuinely a "peak" experience like stepping to the top of Everest and feeling that the only higher elevation is more space.

There are few groups, if any I've seen, that perform at this level. It goes beyond good customs and being supportive of one another's mindful appreciation. More often, there may be one or a few stars that bring openness, flow, and superior performance into a group situation. The other people in their group say of them, "He/she's on another level." How can it be when experts take enough time working together to get to a point where their team functions like their individual expertise does? Whatever else that would be, it would be inspiring. If you create this in a group, you won't want to leave.

The individuals who are capable of consistently operating at such a high level still often irritate others with their behavior and are irritated in turn by others' comparatively poor performance. While clarity is still new, it's like a favorite Christmas present that we are somewhat jealous of. We can get distracted by or frustrated with anyone who screws up our mojo. It's also possible to have one "well-oiled machine" fighting with a similarly well-oiled machine over which is best. The next step can seem somewhat modest in comparison with the potential star power of this stage, but it is impressive in its own right. (Here we will have to extrapolate almost completely from the behavior of a few rare individuals.)