Wholesome & Unwholesome Habits

I have come down with a new addiction, and I must say, it's not good.

It starts at 5:30 in the morning and can go until 9:30 at night before I go to bed.  It is happening multiple times a day, and I can't seem to stop it. 

I do it at home, in my car, at work, and it never seems I can get enough.

The weird thing is, I know it's not good for me.

Like, I will be doing it and think to myself "You need to stop this behavior!"  But then, I don't stop.  I just keep doing it, but just feel really bad about doing it.

I don't think I'm the only one though.  I hear there are others just like me who have fallen into the trap of compulsive news watching of the current tragic-comedy of U.S. National Politics.

One such person might be Western Buddhist teacher and author Sylvia Boorstein because she mentioned in one of her January, 2017 podcasts on Dharmaseed.com that she had "taken a vow to turn off cable news."

I was recently (shamefully) telling someone about this new addiction of mine, and the person tried to validate me (maybe because he too  has the same new addiction) by saying, "Yeah, but it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You want to turn away because you can see how awful it is and how much carnage there will be, but then you just can't take your eyes off of it."

Maybe.

I've also tried to rationalize that news watching is the behavior of an engaged citizen in a healthy democracy.  But that was until I saw this Tweet by someone named Ben Greenman that is now in circulation:


I made a flowchart of everything we know so far.

Okay, so maybe that argument doesn't really hold up right now.

What I could probably could say however, and this might actually be true, is that turning on the news right now seems to very temporarily relieve a growing sense of apprehension and powerlessness.

I want to know what is happening in US politics, right now, in order to decrease my feelings of apprehension and powerlessness.

I want to know: Who is resigning? What is the new executive order? Who's being nominated? Who's being confirmed? Who's being sued? Who's being deported?

Somehow I've gotten it into my distorted head (see again Ben Greenman's picture in Tweet above) that the compulsive news watching will meet this need.

Because in reality we all know, like any good "fix," the second after I saturate my appetite, the discomfort to get another "hit" begins again- sometimes even harder than the first time.

Yet, here's the even bigger irony: because of all these hours of news watching that I'm doing to relieve a feeling of apprehension and powerlessness, I have decreased my meditation practice to all but a single breath- typically done while hyperventilating.

Okay, I know, it doesn't make any sense, but alas, this is where I am.

So, what is a yogi to do?

Step One: Admit to myself that I am powerless over news watching and my life has become unmanageable.

Step Two: Come to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.

And for me, that has been a meditation practice.

I am more sane when I meditate regularly.

Or, as Ms. Boorstein said in paraphrasing the words of the Buddha in the same January podcasts on Dharmaseed.com: "When my mind is relaxed and clear, my heart is open and generous."

My experience in the last six years tells me that when I meditate regularly (cause), I feel less depleted, less irritable, less bitter, less argumentative, less anxious (effect). 

However, when I compulsively watch CNN and CNN.com (cause), I feel more depleted, more irritable, more bitter, more argumentative, and more anxious (effect).

In this case, 1 + 1 does = 2.

In Western Buddhist teacher and author Joseph Goldstein's piece entitled "The Science and Art of Meditation" in the 1999 anthology called Voices of Insight, he reminds us that a meditation practice can help us see that in choosing a behavior

the criterion is not whether something makes us feel good or not, but what factors in the mind are being cultivated.  If they are the wholesome, skillful factors, they lead to genuine happiness and peace.  If they are unwholesome, even if we feel good in the moment, they will be the cause of future suffering.  So we need wisdom and understanding that our actions are going to have consequences. We want to be making the right choices.

Today, I am going to make an effort to increase behaviors that my own experience tells me will yield more genuine happiness and peace and decrease behaviors that are, at present, not nourishing or wholesome (i.e. the news on US politics).

What behaviors will you choose today?