Basic well-being is a stable sense of inner peace, ease, and comfort that is natural to human existence. It is no more or less than the normal built-in harmony of our mind and body. It’s the natural way to be in the world - a mind and body working together with ease as they were designed. But this innate sense of simple being does not last long. The traumas of early childhood and the demands of an outer oriented culture soon override our basic nature.
As adults we’ve become accustomed to living without this innate basic well-being. Unknown to us this simple sense of rest and ease is insidiously replaced early in life by a subtle sense of restlessness, rootlessness, and inner agitation that subsequently guides, defines, and drives our life. The difference between a basic well-being and the absence of it is like the difference between a car resting in neutral and one that is always in gear and rearing to go. The latter is how we are. And we don’t know it. We take this subtle state of mental disharmony for normal.
Although we don’t directly recognize this loss we are quite aware of the overt symptoms left in its wake. Our endless busyness, over-sized ambitions, ceaseless striving, anxiety, and overactive physiology are its most apparent symptoms. We simply cannot rest. We cannot be still. We cannot, as the poet Mary Oliver says, “be idle and blessed.” We live with an inner engine that never turns off. We are always on the move, rarely satisfied with what is, always a bit incomplete, and the remedy is always around the corner and invariably related to some achievement, experience, or relationship that at best temporarily relieves our acquired inner malaise - our exile from our natural inner ease.
It is difficulty to describe such subtleties in words. So let’s try another way. Consider a time when you’ve experienced, if even for a few moments, a complete sense of ease, comfort, and inner peace. Perhaps this was at a time of communion with nature, in the abandon of dance and music, in the early days of romance, at the moment of sexual union, after a great massage, or in the relaxation phase of yoga. Close your eyes for a moment and allow this experience of rest to permeate your body. This is a taste of the natural mental and physical experience of basic well-being. I use the word taste because this is not the actual experience itself because it is stimulus driven rather than naturally and effortlessly present, and thus lacks stability. It’s simply a momentary relief. A glimpse of what once was our natural state of being.
Now consider the moments following this experience of rest and ease. Notice how your normal baseline returns. Before long the muscles get tense, the mind fills with chatter, concerns mount, anxiety returns and the underlying sense of restlessness and agitation reasserts itself. We rapidly and automatically shift from a moment of simple ease to our usual runaway chattering mind and relentless doing.
Our Natural State
Basic well-being -– the sense of inner peace, calm, and rest ¬– is naturally present at the beginning of our life. In actuality it never leaves us. What happens is that it becomes obscured by overactive and disturbing mental activity. Our mental life takes over and destroys the built-in harmony of mind and body. Dis-ease becomes our baseline, our ordinary way of life. We lose the experience of our innate restfulness.
Think of it this way. What’s it like when an infant is fully satiated by the nurturing of a caring and present mother – nurtured by the mother’s body, gaze, touch, breast, and assured presence? Can you imagine the natural and innate sense of rest, ease, security and peace of the infant so held? In contrast imagine the agitation and restlessness – mental and physiologic ¬– of a child denied this constancy of care, adoration, and tenderness.
The Loss of Natural Well-Being
Like most of us I searched in many places for this basic sense of well-being. Of course I did not see it that way. I didn’t understand what was going on. What I saw was a successful, ambitious, and achievement oriented young man seeking what we all seek. It seemed quite normal. I didn’t notice the agitation, restlessness, and lack of inner ease that unceasingly drove my life. It all seemed quite natural. Even my eventual pursuit of a more spiritual life was in a sense part of this drive that unknowingly was seeking relief from the stress and distress of the absence of a basic wellness. When exhaustion set in and I had to acknowledge the absence of a deep and sustained inner happiness I knew something was wrong. But I didn’t know what.
It was not until I was attending a talk by a wise teacher that understood this dilemma that I began to understand what was going on. He reiterated the often-made comment by teachers from Asia. When they began arriving to teach in the West they observed a level of mental distress and suffering, the prevalence of a negative self-image, the endless striving and restlessness, and the lack of self-confidence. This was not a sense of life that they grew up with. In time, like many of us raised in the West, they began to realize that this western dis-ease was a result of emotional disruptions of early childhood.. It wasn’t always this way. Children were once raised by an extended family that shared responsibility for meeting a child’s needs. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, and siblings were ever-present sources of care and affection, tenderness and warmth. In our times it is very difficult for a single parent or over-worked parents, suffering from the loss of their own basic wellness, to raise a child while struggling to make ends meet.
No one is at fault here. It is just a side-effect of modern life, – the nuclear family and economic necessities. We no longer grow up with consistent and high quality intimacy, reassurance, security, ease, comfort, and the confidence it bestows. We learn quite early that we need to perform to feel better inside. We learn to look outside for what we lost within. Our natural peace, calm, and ease get covered over with restlessness, agitation, and the compulsive need to do, achieve, succeed, and be approved.
Culture teaches us to substitute money, materialism, sex, fame, name, relationship, and adult toys for the simple lost presence and loving gaze of a stable parent. Because these outer satisfactions are inherently impermanent we continue on the treadmill seeking more and more of the same. We don’t know why. We just do it and rarely stop. We become exhausted, fatigued, anxious, and discontent. We get used to this experience.
The Symptoms that Go for Normal
The cost of our loss of basic well-being is quite high. It can be seen in our emotional life, our body, and our spirit. It is a precursor of mental and physiologic distress and an obstacle to meaningful relationships and authentic, profound, and enduring health, happiness, and wholeness.
The Mind
The absence of basic well-being is expressed in the mind as ceaseless mental chatter, afflictive emotions, and a persistent restlessness. We call this the ordinary mind. We cannot imagine a life without mental chatter. What will we do? Where will we go? What will happen to our mind? If we let go of our only anchor, our mental chatter, it may feel like falling off a cliff, dropping into nothingness, or leaving life itself. It is our familiar friend. It is our worst enemy.
Our mental chatter leaves no room for insight or understanding, personal development, or meaningful relationships. We run the same scripts over and over seeking a resolution to our subtle inner discomfort – to the exile from our natural home. We don’t know that that mental chatter is a symptom of the loss of basic well-being. It is the problem rather than the solution.
If we do an even cursory examination of our mental chatter we will discover the most of it is negative, afflictive, and disturbing. A good estimate would be that ninety percent of our mind talk is filled with fear, insecurity, anxiety, mood disturbances, anger, worry, and resentment. This is all a reaction to our loss of basic well-being and a mistaken attempt to regain some sense of peace and ease. But of course it doesn’t work. Afflictive emotions become the cause for further mental disturbance and endless rumination that extend through the day and then into our sleep and dreams.
Afflictive and disturbing emotions are the gross manifestations of the underlying agitation and restlessness. The sequence begins with broken intimacy and a loss of our natural peace and ease. This natural state is then covered over by a very subtle agitation and restlessness that grasps for outer sources of peace, ease, security, and comfort. This becomes the basis of and content of our mental chatter and afflictive emotions. This disturbed mental life then defines our perspectives, determines our actions, and drives our life. It invariably leads to mental distress, difficult relationships, and physiologic disharmony.
The Body
The mind and body appear distinct but in reality they are indivisible. They always move together. To mistake the appearance of distinctness for the truth of their inseparability is to defy common sense, logic, and personal experience. ”Butterflies” in the stomach, muscle tension on a difficult day, an anxiety headache, a “nervous” stomach, and the physical response to sexual imagery are among the many examples of common experiences that validate the indivisibility of mind and body.
Our common sense and experience is well supported by psychological research that documents the relationship of physical and mental states, the understanding of the physiological components of the stress response, development of the fields of biofeedback, psychoneuroimmunology and neuro and cognitive sciences, and the more recent correlation of meditative practice and physiologic and structural change. It would be difficult to find an aspect of the body – from organ system to the cellular level – that is not influenced by the state of our mind. There is no longer any acceptable rationale that supports the separation of mind and body.
Yet these fields of inquiry and research have primarily been concerned with gross mind/body interactions. Why? Because our understanding of the mind has been limited to its most overt activities – for example, the stress response, symptomatic anxiety or disabling mood disturbances. We have not as yet explored the more subtle aspects of the mind and thus our mind/body understanding and strategies are of a superficial nature.
As we delve deeper into consciousness we begin to unveil a subtle mind/body understanding and medicine. If we look below overt mental disturbances to the subtle restlessness, agitation, unsettledness, and dis-ease that drives the “ordinary” life we touch the more subtle aspects of the mind and open an entirely new aspect of mind/body understanding. We know that overt mental distress elevates blood pressure and pulse, activates stress related hormones, dis-regulates the immune system, and effects most physiological functions. But we assume that when overt mental distress is absent that our physiology returns to normal.
We are so accustomed to a subtle restlessness, agitation, dis-ease and its reflection in obsessive striving, ambition, and ceaseless mental chatter that we are unaware of its constant influence on our subtle physiology. Only when we begin to calm our mental chatter with meditative approaches do we become aware of this underlying mental unrest and its subtle mpact on our body. When we first feel a stable stillness of mind we become aware of the correlate of a truly still body. The exploration of the subtle mind and its relationship to our subtle physiology will allow for a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the mind/body interface, an increased appreciation of the long-term effects of childhood wounds, and appropriate strategies to restore basic well-being to mind and body.
Spirit
When we lack a sense of basic well-being – a natural ease and peace –we are unable to further develop our health. We are in a constant “on” mode. Our engine is always running and our mind contracted on our day-to-day existence. We cope with the moment. We cannot see further. We cannot see the possibility of a life without suffering, a mind that is still, relationships that are steady, harmonious, and life giving. We cannot image a life of a profound and enduring health, happiness, and wholeness that is resistant to outer adversities including disease, aging, and death.
That is why it is so essential to understand and know through direct experience this basic absence of well-being. Without this recognition and understanding we can neither restore the innate natural balance of mind and body, nor aspire and to and actualize the highest levels of well-being – what the wise beings have called the perfection of health.
Basic well-being is the launching paid for a high-level health. Human flourishing – a profound and enduring health, happiness, and wholeness – is our human birthright. It is present within us in the beginning of our life, the middle, and at the end. But it cannot be revealed, known, or realized until we confront the subtle restless and agitation in our life and return to the calm and ease of our natural state. This inner harmony is the sole basis upon which we can develop, mature, and stabilize the qualities of a profound well-being.
Basic Well-Being
We begin by taking steps to shut off the ceaseless engine that drives us, and in this way slowly but surely return to a life grounded in natural comfort, security, and ease. How do we do this? There are two ways: psychological strategies and meditative techniques. They both aim at restoring basic well-being. Each approaches the same problem from different directions.
We are most familiar with the field of psychology whose development can be traced to the seminal psychologist William James in the late 19th century. The diverse field of psychology that followed is based on the personal narrative. The individual’s “story” provides the elements of an individual’s historical development. Old wounds, ingrained patterns, fixed perspectives are uncovered and current life afflictions are traced to their historical roots in this lifetime. Once early childhood traumas are understood, the light shined upon them undermines their power and force.
What was once unconscious becomes conscious. And once conscious the power of these old imprints is diminished. We can now see why we do things. We can see why we repeat the same patterns. We can see the patterns themselves. This knowledge allows us to question our choices, to look more carefully at our actions, to understand why we suffer, and to develop strategies and practices that help restore basic well-being. The field of psychology has greatly advanced our understanding of emotional afflictions and assisted the process of restoring basic well-being.
But it is not enough. Psychology is based on our historical history – the chain of events that leads from childhood wounds to adult mental distress. It works to control, manage, and diminish the effects of these early traumas, but it does not go to the source – to the fundamental cause of the restlessness, agitation, and disease that underlie mental distress. Psychology allows us to understand the historical sequence of events that lead from childhood traumas to adult disturbances. But it does not help us understand why childhood traumas persist and continue to cause damage so many years after the fact. Psychological investigation does not explore or explain the flawed workings of the mind that transform past childhood traumas into persistent, rigid, and dysfunctional perspective and patterns that express themselves in the now.
Why, does the mind allow this to happen? Why isn’t the past just the past? How does our imagination carry a long ago event into current experience? Psychological explorations do not get to the root of the problem. It’s like pulling weeds out of a garden. We think we’ve done the work, but the roots have been left in the ground and the emotional afflictions invariably return. Psychology contributes to the restoration of basic-well being, but it cannot complete the job. For this we need the practices of meditation.
Meditation is not concerned with the specifics of the personal narrative. It is not concerned with the historical development of mental distress. It goes directly to the source. Basic well-being is lost because the mind has, in a flawed manner, taken these early experiences, fixated on them, and brought them into adulthood as if they were present in the here and now. Yes, if not for early traumas we would have retained our basic ease and natural peace. But once having occurred it is the way our mind mistakenly processes these early traumas that fixes them in place. If we understand these flawed workings of the mind than we can address the root cause of all mental distress and cut it at the source and restore basic well-being without addressing the individual historical components.
The first goal of meditation is to calm the mind through a variety of approaches. Calming the mind allows us to temporarily experience basic well-being, and with some distance to investigate how the mind actually works to create the sufferings of adulthood.
Time and again I have seen individuals arriving for an office visit suffering from one or another form of mental distress. After listening empathicaly to their entire story we close our eyes and work at calming the mind by moving beyond the personal narrative. I have found that with skill and time any individual can be taken from an agitated and restless mind to a calm mind. For the few moments that the calm and still mind is present the individual can directly experience the feel and possibility of basic well-being. She or he can feel the ease, peace, security, comfort and openness that is the characteristic of mother’s tender embrace and gaze.
For many individuals this is the first time such inner rest has been experienced. With no change in outer circumstances peace has replaced suffering. And this peace and ease of mind seems so natural and simple. I point this out directly by stating the obvious -– that I have not injected that experience into their blood. It is there, has always been there, and although it is now only a temporary encounter with basic health with practice it can become increasingly permanent. Basic well-being can be restored through mental training.
Until the mind is settled it cannot get the distance and perspective that is necessary to “look at” its own workings. Mental chatter seems real, tangible, and a fixed part of mental life until you get the space to look directly at it. This is the second gift of a calm mind. It allows us the space and distance to observe our mind and understand its workings. We can explore how thoughts, feelings, and mental images arise, abide, and dissolve back into awareness. We can ascertain how an early experience gets erroneously fixed in the mind and body.. We can understand from a perspective the flawed workings of the mind and how and why an experience of childhood becomes our life. And in this way we can re-orient our mind, more easily than you would think, recovering its normal function. In this way we use meditative approaches to restore basic well-being – our innate way of being and the essential foundation for a larger life and health.
Getting Started
It may appear a Herculean task to tame and quiet the mind. At first many individuals cannot even imagine a still mind and the ease, peace, and comfort that comes with it. It is important to remember that we are not actually creating a still mind. The still mind is always present even though we cannot see it through constant mental chatter. So the first step in returning to a basic and natural sense of well-being is quieting the mind.
Almost all spiritual traditions seek to calm the mind as the first task in establishing the basis for a larger life. The techniques and approaches may vary but the aim is the same. There are certain basic preliminaries that greatly assist in accomplishing our objective. There are conditions that support our effort to calm the mind and those that are obstacles. So we must become aware of what to cultivate and what to abandon in our life. We cultivate those aspects of our life that support our effort and slowly abandon those that create obstacles. This is an ongoing process that gets refined over time. What in the beginning is an intentional effort in time becomes a preferred way of living.
While learning to create a proper and supportive context for our effort to tame and train the mind we being each day the actual sitting practice of meditation. Practice is an intentional focused effort to work with our mind, take control of its chatter, and return it to a state of natural ease and rest. To further support this effort we continue to practice while engaging in our daily routines by using all of our life as a possibility for practice. We each have a busy life and so it is most important to learn to integrate our practice into daily life – into our activities and our relationships. We will see how to accomplish this in the chapters that follow.
As we take these initial steps towards restoring a basic well-being we can have faith in the knowledge that many wise and courageous individuals past and present have undertaken this journey. They have shown us the way with time-tested approaches that can easily and progressively integrated into your life. So this is where we begin. We start by calming our mind, creating mental spaciousness, and restoring our natural sense of peace and ease.