But what about that bird?

How mindfulness invites us to turn towards our challenging experiences.

One Sunday morning in spring, 2018, I went to a meditation class in a church hall on the edge of the Fitzroy Gardens. Sturdy and elegant, the hall has thick red brick walls, exposed joists, and a pitched ceiling lined with deep stripes of chestnut panelling. 

Fifteen or so strangers gathered, a mixed bunch. There was no chit chat, just polite smiles and the practised selection of cushions and mats (the blue? the red?) before setting up our spots on the carpet. After a short introduction, the 40 minute session began and the teacher led us into stillness. He invited us to settle the body, focus on the breath, notice our thoughts, and return our attention to the breath each time we drifted off. It felt good to be there, meditating with strangers on a Sunday morning. 

And then five minutes later it happened: a pigeon flapped its way into the hall, alighting, after a short scuffle, on one of the overhead rafters. The room palpably stopped breathing. My mind wanted to text all her friends. 

I am used to meeting my unruly mind in a meditation sit. At the start of every single practice I have ever done, it has issued a prompt bullet point invoice of complaint: I’m not really comfortable, this was a mistake, how long till it ends, this is foolish, why did you bring me here. I know the drill. It’s resistance, it’s natural. I label it “Thinking, thinking”, and return to the breath.

However, this was BIG. Unprecedented, my mind feverishly suggested. I waited for the teacher to confirm that yes indeed, we have a bird inside, and then move back, once more, to the breath. 

The teacher ignored the bird.

He hasn’t heard it, I thought.

More flapping overhead, and the scudding of claws on wood. 

Sounding brisk, the teacher continued: “Breathing into the belly now…” As soon as I returned my reluctant attention to my belly, my brain eyeballed me, grabbed me by the shoulders and screamed “THERE IS A BIRD OVERHEAD” into my face.

Momentarily, I lose outward composure and half squint one eye open, quickly taking in the room, and can swear I see the rapidly dropping heads of at least three other squinters.

“I KNOW!” I want to call out. “How intense!!”

I catch sight of myself, and am chastened by this utter lapse of dignity. Here I am, sitting on my cushion in a hot pool of suffering, completely activated, flooded with opinions and judgements, and desperate to control my situation i.e. rescue a pigeon. A deep current of self-compassion washes over me, and reminds me that the very pickle I find myself in — the pull, the inner mess, it all — IS the practice. This flapping bird, right now, is my teacher. I surrender.

Can I notice the pigeon, and breathe?

Can I feel the pull in my belly, and bring curiosity to the cascade of thoughts and sensations that are flooding my system?

Can I wait, allowing things to be as they are, and not wish to change anything?

Can I wish the bird a speedy escape, and feel the immediacy of my pulsing, seated form on this cushion?

Can I return, again and again, to my breath? 

Can I say to myself “Ah, this is exactly what a bird overhead feels like.”

What’s it like to sit here with this lack of control, this vulnerability, this groundlessness?

This inquiry settles my nervous system. With resistance dissolved, a quiet enters my body, and expands both heart and mind. My breath drops down to my belly like a stone. There is more space, more room for these wild thoughts and feelings to coexist with each other. I become less fixated on an outcome, and more okay with the idea of letting go, of not knowing, of sitting with the discomfort of what is. I have found my edge again, and decided not to run.

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One of the greatest sources of our stress and agitation is that we naturally resist our incoming experience. We contract away from pain of any kind — physical, mental or emotional. We perceive it as a threat, arm ourselves against it, reject it, stuff it down, or judge ourselves harshly for experiencing it. When there are prolonged periods of stress, trauma or burnout, this instinctive flinching away can be even stronger.

Think about physical pain. We brace against it, clutch ourselves, contract our body, paradoxically increasing our experience of pain both physically and mentally. We add tension to the area that is sore, and heighten the narrative by inwardly screaming: “This can’t be happening!”

Or say anger is present. When unacknowledged, we contract around it and it solidifies. We stay identified with it, secretly fearing that this is who we have become. This only serves to generate more judgement, shame and self-aversion, increasing the likelihood that we will project the anger onto those around us or act it out. We treat all of our deepest vulnerabilities in the same way: we refuse to acknowledge flapping bird after flapping bird. And then all they do is distract us, send us into fear, and keep us locked in relationship with them.

Mindfulness teaches us to breathe into our pain, to turn towards the flapping pigeon, with interest and curiosity. The central and radical paradox of the practice is that it’s only through the calm acceptance and warm inclusion of our challenging states — with no seeming desire to be rid of them — that they are able to integrate, shift and ultimately dissolve. If we ignore them, or meditate by blocking our ears and trying to transcend our lived experience, we’re robbing ourselves of the chance to engage with life and all that it can throw at us from the left field, and we miss the baffling alchemy of transmutation.

Modern psychology agrees. It tells us that when we name and acknowledge our afflictive states, we are activating the prefrontal cortex, the most recently evolved part of the brain and seat of our strategic thinking, perspective and creativity. This ‘affect labelling’ has the effect of down-regulating the amygdala and signalling safety to the nervous system.

Science has played catch-up with the ancient teachings.

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After the bell sounded we all looked up, and there she was, watching us from her perch.

I wondered why the teacher didn’t mention the bird. I asked him, and he answered that he wanted to keep focus. I do get it. I understand the need to push on, to meditate ‘well’ so we don’t get distracted. But it’s kind of missing the point, and reflects the tempting notion that somehow the sign of meditating ‘successfully’ is managing to maintain a sense of calm and uninterrupted focus for the duration of the sit.

Perhaps, understandably, the teacher had been inwardly imploding. “My god there is an actual BIRD in the room — what the hell?” After all, a pigeon overhead is not a protocol that’s covered in many a meditation teacher training manual. But perhaps it should be.

Mindfulness is more than attention training. Essential to the practice are two qualities: awareness, and compassion, classically taught as the two wings of a bird. We practise being aware of our breath, our seated form, the activity of the thinking mind, the unceasing flow of sensation that passes through mind, body and heart. And we hold this ever changing experience with a quality of compassion: with curiosity, with warmth, with kindness. This is where the paradox lies, that seems so counterintuitive. Compassion says “Yes” to our experience, regardless of what mayhem presents.

Blocking the visceral experience of the bird creates cognitive dissonance: when we don’t acknowledge it, all our brain screams is “But what about that bird ?” This pigeon above our heads is the strutting talisman of all our collective anxiety: if we allow its input, our experience only becomes richer. It invites us to dive down into the deeper water beyond resistance, where nothing is certain, or predictable. There is vulnerability. We are adrift. We are in a space outside of our habituated emotional reactivity and instinctive grasping towards safety and control. This is what Pema Chödrön calls ‘the soft spot’. Learning to lean into this edge generates growth. We begin to find ourselves through what we let go, and what we no longer resist.

This is the kind of training I want. This is why I practise. 

This is what is useful to my nervous system, still dealing with post traumatic stress following three years of cancer treatment. I want my heart to have room for a flappy pigeon. I want to be able to sit with that. This is what will be of some use when anger leaps up into my face, or fear lurches into view, changing the dials and losing my station. Or when a giant wave of sadness crashes on top of me while I brush my teeth. I don’t want to hide from it any more, and make it wrong. I want to open my arms to the deluge and hold it close, and whisper “Ah yes, this is exactly what sorrow feels like. I know this.’’ I want the tears to come, unchecked. I want this dance to pass through me with love, and I want it seen and felt. I want to be danced by it. I want it to leave its trace. AND feel my body breathing at the same time.

The things we think we need to get rid of in order to practise well, to develop equanimity, to live our best lives — ARE the practice. They are the path. Quite literally, they are the way in. The next time you feel rattled or angry or scared or even just mildly irritated, picture it as a bird flapping somewhere in your nervous system. Locate it in the body, let it be there. Without feeding the narrative or the backstory, notice how it presents: is it a tightness? A heat? A fizziness? A weight? Welcome this bird without any desire to change it or fix it or free it. Let it be just as it is, fully, and breathe with it.