Nail Biting Remedies

Wear gloves, carry a nail file, use bad tasting nail polish, keep your hands busy doing something else, or… go on a meditation retreat?

I went on meditation retreat for three days. I remembered what it is like to let go of thinking. I found the spaces inbetween the thoughts. I saw the stories playing in my mind. I saw myself getting caught up in them over and over and then remembering to rest in the space between the thoughts. I even had a wonderful hour and a half or so where thoughts were completely in the background and I was primarily aware of breathing. Effortless awareness. Walking meditation during that time was amazing. All information coming in through my senses was only simple experience and nothing extra. My attention was refined. I noticed the subtle sparkling of the stones in the sidewalk under my feet and the ants scurrying around their holes.

Then of course, attachment to that bliss crept in and I had to go back to my steady practice. All is impermanent, even and especially samadhi, that blissful absorption that arises when the mind is concentrated. It is more or less a spontaneous experience. All we can do is to provide the conditions for it by continuing to come back to the breath over and over and perhaps we will come to that place for awhile. That sort of joy, even though it arises and passes away, has a real impact on us. The taste of freedom keeps us inspired to practice.

Paying attention to the spaces in between the thoughts is the key to seeing thoughts and stories more clearly. The spaces are just as real if not more real than the stories that play over and over in the mind.

Retreat practice is so wonderful because it is an opportunity to let go of thinking. What will be dropped or messed up or forgotten if we do that? That is the fear that keeps us lost in thoughts so much of the time. On retreat, we don’t have to have that fear. There is nothing that we need to remember or get right while on retreat. Just follow the schedule. Just breathe. Just sit. Just walk. Just eat. Just use the toilet. Just brush your teeth. Just sleep.

When all is quiet on retreat, it takes less and less to get the stimulation that we are always seeking through various forms, primarily through our own thoughts and stories. More subtle things, like ants crawling, become more exciting. The challenge with that though, is going back to the real world after retreat and dealing with that heightened sensitivity. I take for granted how stimulating the world and daily life is. It is amazing to me how we as a society continue to seek more and more stimuation, like addicts. Meditation is like a re-set button. Start over. Like a clean slate. It is like addiction in reverse – the more we meditate, we need less and less stimulation.

Retreat is over and I can already see myself getting all worked up by life again. It sure doesn’t take much or very long. But somehow my perspective expands in some new way with each extended period of meditation practice. I still have my obsessions and anxieties, but meditation practice puts holes in them. They are not quite as solid as they seemed before.

My fingernails grew a little bit in the last three days. Back at work today I noticed myself bringing them to my mouth to bite them again. That nasty habit is really a great little signal to remind me to breathe. The length of my nails is a good indication of the strength of my practice at any given time!