Openness and Contraction

by Carol Russell
This essay is adapted from a talk given at the Tuesday night sangha gathering on November 12, 2024

I want to begin by acknowledging the deep feelings many people are experiencing right now as our country has just gone through an intense election season, whether or not the results went the way you were hoping. You may be experiencing fear, worry, anger, or despair, or you might be feeling relief and gladness.

Tonight, we will be exploring the states of expansion and contraction. I am using the term openness alongside expansion, since it captures a certain quality that is important. First, we will look at what might each of these experiences be. How are they valuable? And then we will explore how they work together. It is my hope that spending some time broadening our understanding of these two qualities that are part of our human experience might bring some understanding and solace for the times we are in.

Contraction

One view of contraction is the experience we have when we are living in own narrow view of life. We are up in our head ruminating on our own little world. It can feel like we have fallen in a well; that contracted feeling is our own personal well. It is constricted and isolated. There’s a little patch of light up there, but it casts a dim light. It becomes so normal to us to live within this narrow view that we don’t realize we are in it. This is all so very human.

As practitioners of mindfulness, we begin to have a different experience. There’s a quality of mindfulness that allows us to take a step back and open to a broader view. In our mindfulness practice, we find there is a kind of back and forth, from softness, openness, and expansiveness to being lost in a story where all there is in the experience of the story and all its papancca or proliferation, as the story spins out in our minds, and then back to the open state of being mindful. This back and forth can be very revealing about the possibilities of our own mind.

We get a sense of openness in meditation when we anchor our attention on the breath and, for a moment, the stories fall away. There’s a kind of tranquility, perhaps, or spaciousness. We also get a taste of it when we practice the Brahmaviharas of metta, karuna, or mudita. Our heart opens up and expands.

I remember early on as a meditator having those expansive experiences, however briefly, and the contrast between the openness and the contraction were so vivid.

We can perhaps most readily feel it in the body – the difference between expansiveness and contraction. We can see why the Buddha emphasized mindfulness of the body. So much is revealed when we are mindful of the state of the body.

Hindrances can be looked at this way – as the shrinking of our experience. The Pali word sankhitta is translated as 'heaviness or inertia, a cramped or contracted mind'.

How about the first hindrance, grasping? Holding or pursuing something is tight. The world contracts down to the thing we want.  Anger? The mind and heart tighten around the sense of righteousness, blame, and hatred. Sloth and torpor? To me it feels like spacing out, a dull mind – like a whirlpool in a river, I am sucked in, lost. Worry?  Trapped in an obsession about what might happen, our mind returns to the story over and over. Doubt? When we are consumed by doubt our options are diminished.
 
The stories that the mind generates around our experience are called sankharas. This is an important concept in Buddhism, often translated as mental formations or volitional formations, one of the aggregates, as well as an important part of dependent origination. Sankharas can propel us toward contentment or unhappiness, depending on what kind of intentions we have, whether we engage in worthy deeds, internally or externally, or unskillful deeds.

If sankharas run unchecked, like when we are thinking about something that happened or that the future might bring, they lead to other sankharas, and this can fuel obsessive thinking and conclusive thinking. This can bring on tension and contraction in the body and mind. Bhikkhu Bodhi describes this as: unstable, conditioned processes rolling on with no one in charge.

Rob Burbea says it this way:
When the mind space is shrunken and contracted, the object of that grasping or aversion takes up proportionally more space in the mind. Thus, it seems somehow larger, and also more solid – its size and seeming solidity both corresponding to the degree of contraction in the mind. With the object appearing then bigger and more solid, and the experience of contraction being painful to some degree, the mind without insight in that moment will usually react unskillfully. It will try to escape the situation by increasing the grasping or aversion, in a way that only keeps it stuck or even makes things worse. For unfortunately this further grasping keeps the mind space contracted, or contracts it even more. This makes the issue, the perception, still larger and more solid, setting up a vicious circle in which the mind is trapped.

It is helpful to slow down enough to watch this process of sankharas forming and proliferating unfold. We get more sensitive to the feeling in the citta, body and mind. We can feel it in the body, a tightening as the mind constricts around a thought or experience or object. We can feel the mind narrowing when suffering is being fabricated by a thought. The mind wants to wrap itself around the story and figure it out; the story grows and blossoms. It happens so fast; we can easily miss it. Meditation is so helpful because it slows the process down and we can catch it more easily.

And this is our opportunity to be present, and just allow the contraction to be there. Create a little spacious awareness around it. Be curious and investigate what the mind is believing about something. Take up the open-heartedness of seeing through the eyes of the Dhamma.

Very important: be exquisitely kind to yourself. Don’t add the contraction of beating yourself up about it. Bring in self-compassion. As Brian Lesage suggests, acknowledge to yourself: Ouch. This is hard.

To broaden our understanding, here are a few other views of contraction.

• I have noticed that contraction can come from being tired. Maybe at times I just need rest and rejuvenation.
• Sometimes a feeling of contraction of our attention comes when we are really focused, deep into a task, giving it our all. We feel energized. Have you heard of the term flow state: a state of intense focus and absorption in an activity, where time is altered? In psychology they also call it: the melting together of action and consciousness. It can feel enjoyable. On the other hand, it can be a coping skill or an avoidant behavior.
  
• Most important to our studies is to remember that the teachings are so vast; we can often find contradictions – I find this useful to challenge myself and broaden my understanding.
• In light of that, contraction can also be experienced as the gathering of the attention, as in absorption, concentration, samadhi.  In the state of samadhi at any level we are more deeply present to our internal experience. Sankhitta (mentioned above as a cramped and contracted mind) is also translated in the suttas as a concentrated or attentive state of mind. One is the result of a hindered mind; one is the result of gathered mind.
  

Expansion - Openness

Coming into the present moment, setting down thoughts of past and future, opening up to more aspects of our present experience can bring on a more expansive and open mind and heart. Simply opening to sensing a connection with the floor, this moment in time, opening to the space of the room, the breath. Allowing awareness to open beyond the confines of the thinking mind.

As we open, we might find discomfort, anxiety, or boredom are here too. Even so, awareness loosens the story around the discomfort, creates space around it, so it doesn’t take up so much of the mind. Just acknowledging discomfort is there opens us up, softens the contraction and expands into the here and now. Just this moment. If we believe we must change discomfort, get rid of it, we can be furthering the contraction. Instead, we simply add awareness of what else is here right now.
 
From this point of view, expansiveness isn’t spacing out. It has energy, confidence, flexibility. It’s creative.

Sharon Salzberg says:
We move from constriction to expansion not by straining to change its nature, but by surrounding it with spaciousness.

She tells a story about a time she and Joseph Goldstein were visiting a friend in Houston, and they went to a restaurant to order takeout:
As we were waiting for the food to be prepared, Joseph struck up a conversation with the young man working behind the counter. After a few minutes, he told Joseph that he’d never left Houston and went on to describe, somewhat passionately, how his dream was to one day go to Wyoming. When Joseph asked him what he thought he would find there, he responded, “Open, expansive space, a feeling of being unconfined, with peacefulness and freedom and room to move.” Joseph responded, “There’s an inner Wyoming, too you know.” At that point, the young man fixed a stare at Joseph and said, “That’s freaky,” as he sidled away.

An inner Wyoming: a potential for openness, spaciousness, clarity, and freedom that exists within each of us. We can make the journey to that place – we don’t have to travel to Wyoming - to discover it, nurture it, and when it’s out of reach, we hold the memory that it’s there waiting for us.

A sense of expansion can come from insight into not-self, the contemplation we explore regarding this body, these fleeting thoughts and passing feelings. Insight into a view of self that is not fixed – this is me and mine - can lead to insight into interdependence and connectedness.

Expansiveness is like climbing out of our little well and looking around. Imagine that experience: the light that was a small circle above us becomes the vast and spacious sky and the small cramped familiar place we in which we made our home becomes the infinitely varied world. We are no longer isolated. We completely change our perspective; we can question the perceptions we have about ourselves and the world, and loosen up the prejudices and biases we have about the people around us, our fellow humans.

As I write this, I think perhaps my favorite practice is to be curious. As Brenda spoke about last week, we are living with uncertainty. Uncertainty can be uncomfortable, a kind of groundlessness. Yet, when we try to relieve the discomfort by looking for certainty, we are grasping after something, and that is painful in its own way. Certainty kills curiosity. On the other hand, acknowledging the state of not-knowing can be expansive; we are no longer willing to stand on: This is the truth. A state of not-knowing is freeing ourselves of having to hang on tightly, defend ourselves from threats to our worldview. If we loosen up the certainty, we nurture inquisitiveness and stay interested in the moment.

Let’s be clear. I’m not saying don’t have a guiding light in life. The dhamma offers a clear way, calling us to be ethical, to stand up for what is non-harming, stand up for kindness and generosity, and to take care of our world.

Sharon Salzberg says:
The dharma reflects a breathtaking capacity of any one of us to take a journey away from constriction and resignation to a vital, creative, free life.

From that place of openness, we can energetically and kindly and wisely engage with the world in whatever way we are called to help. The world really needs us right now. We won’t readily burn out if we are holding to the center. We will be more resilient and creative and responsive.

We can embody this gem from Ajahn Succhito: Openness is innately joyful.

It is expansive to cultivate the beautiful, a sense of joy, well-being, goodness of the heart, and a deep caring. The inner Wyoming that exists with each of us.


Again, remembering the expansiveness of the teachings and the cultural knowledge we benefit from, here are a few alternative views of expansion:

• When our attention is scattered and unfocused, that can feel expansive, like when we are beset with the hindrance of restlessness and worry. Vikkhitta is a Pali word meaning 'a diffused or restless state of mind resulting in lack of concentration'. There is a sutta where the Buddha directs the student to contemplate both positive states of mind as well as the negative counterpart. He or she also knows the distracted state of mind, as 'Distracted state of mind'; he or she also knows the developed state of mind, as 'Developed state of mind'. Clearly knowing the difference is very useful information for our practice.
  
• There is a modern phrase called ‘leaky attention,’ referring to when people are concentrating on one thing and other irrelevant information seeps into their consciousness. As technology develops, our attention span is shortening. There’s a lot of seeping going on. According to CBS News, twenty years ago people would shift their focus from one screen to the next every 150 seconds. That seems like forever, doesn’t it? Nowadays we call this swiping, and today, it’s down to 47 seconds. Get this: for young people in Gen Z the average is 1.3 seconds!
  
• I read a beautiful essay by Ajahn Succito where he writes about openness as a careful practice. Being too open makes us vulnerable to harm or manipulation. What is always skillful is to be open to yourself about what’s happening to you in the here and now, and checking it out – in your body and heart. Maybe something is off. Maybe a clear boundary needs to be established – or a clear communication. We learn to wisely navigate this world of openness and expansion with discernment.
  

Openness and Contraction

I like thinking of openness and contraction as a continuum, not wholly all one or the other, but including these in-between states of somewhat open, somewhat closed.

Rhythm is a natural part of life. Seasons. Day and night. Our relationships have a rhythm of closeness and a little more distance. Our energy levels during the day fluctuate. Our breath, our heartbeat. This is the rhythm of life itself.

Jack Kornfield says:
Life is a process of expansion and contraction. We breathe, and as we sit in meditation you notice there are long and short breaths, cool, fast, deeper ones and shallow ones. If you let it, breath itself it has all these rhythms of the body opening and closing all the time.

This is a direct experience of the impermanence of any state of openness or contraction.

As we practice, we become more familiar with how we naturally move between states that have qualities of calm, openness, spaciousness, generosity, and peace, and times where we have less of these qualities, and we are more contracted, more caught in craving, reactivity and confusion.  We also move between states of being scattered and restless and times where our energy is more gathered and focused around a state of well-being.

It’s messy. Things will knock us off our center. That’s how we learn. Over time, we catch on to when contraction around a story is happening and, as Rob Burbea writes, we know not to trust the web that is being spun.  We can see what the mind is doing and know we need not fall for its concoctions. Little by little our experience of well-being becomes more trustworthy and we can more easily shift back to openness and kindness, without being swallowed by our reactivity every time.

I’ll end by offering a poem by Rumi:

Your grief for what you’ve lost holds a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.

If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.


Here's to that brave work that we are all doing, honoring our suffering, understanding it, giving it some space, letting it go when it’s ready. We are invited to look and see:  life is flowing, rhythmic, like a hand: open, close, open. As Rumi says, to wish it would only be one or the other is deadening. We are heading somewhere: to freedom, healing, insight, joy, a deep caring for the world around us. We are carried there on these two balanced wings of opening and closing.


May our efforts to awaken be for the benefit of all beings.