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In this first installment, I provide a 12 point introduction to a wonderful set of mindfulness metaphors, in which compare the task of living a human life to the complex task of sailing a ship on the open ocean. The ship in this metaphor is You, and represents the reality that you wake up in your life (on your boat) every morning. The external conditions such as the seas and the weather in the little model, are the life circumstances that you find yourself navigating from one day to the next.
Now…. Isn’t it true that even if you wished you had a different boat and/or were sailing different waters? Yet nothing will change that you are on the boat you are on, and sail it you must, with the crew you have, with as much kindness and wisdom as you can muster?
….. And yet how to do that?
In this 3-part series I will help you build up a framework for living this one precious human life as we sail on the seas of experience, and how to become the best Captain, Medic, and Cheerleader to ourselves that we can become.
The Captain Metaphor
1. The Basic Comparison: I propose that living a human life is a complex undertaking, and can be compared to the job of sailing a mighty Ship on the Seas of Experience – from the past into the future.
2. In theory, the basic aim of a human life is to steer the course as best we can, navigating the rocks that we find in the water along the way. This involves balancing our need for things like love, adventure and accomplishment on one hand, with the job of fulfilling our obligations to ourselves, and to the people in our lives, on the other.
3. The Ship here is the reality of the body, and to some extent our basic temperament – our personality and proclivities. It includes the non-negotiables that you wake up in your body, as “you” every day. You may wish for a different ship, and whilst it’s true that you can make modifications to your own, nothing can change the fact that you are on the ship you are on.
4. The Seas here are the reality of our external circumstances. It is the life that we live and are called to navigate from one day to the next. Sometimes the seas are a good fit for our kind of vessel and sometimes not. Sometimes it’s rough and stormy, and sometimes it’s plain sailing. Often the weather changes without much notice at all, and all of a sudden our ship is taking on water!
Even when life is relatively plain sailing, the reality is things are always going wrong on the boat, and typically some sections of the crew are unhappy, strained or suffering in some way.
5. The Crew in this metaphor represents a large chunk of our subjective experience. The crew in us includes all the different facets of who we are as complex human beings, with all our competing desires and priorities from one day to the next. It is also the part of us that has an autobiographical story of being on this boat as we have sailed across time. In this regard it is that part of us that retains the scars and the sensitivities with the often difficult parts of living a life on the high seas.
6. The Crew part of us, being prone to impulsiveness and acting out of these ‘sensitivities’, needs a Kind and Wise Captain, who is on deck, in touch with changing external conditions as well as tracking what is happening on the boat.
7. Ideally, the Captain part of us presents as a Mindful Self – which is a state of mind that is a flexible, present centered, in which we are capable of showing up, and toggling our attention to what is unfolding in the present moment, both on the ship, and with the external conditions (eg our relationships) as well. It is important to note that for this paying attention to be truly mindful – rather than hyper-vigilant, a sense of Active Acceptance must also be present. Active Acceptance is a dimension of mindfulness, representing an openness to experience – good and bad. When the Captain in us is practicing acceptance, it’s a wisdom of sorts – it’s a recognition that no matter how hard we are trying, or how well we are sailing, there is always going to be some suffering in our lives. Ultimately the aim of this mindful part of ourselves is to be “tracking” what’s going on mentally – with acceptance on one hand, whilst setting limits on the bad ideas and non-adaptive impulses of the crew on the other.
8. As well as the Captain being a Mindful State of awareness, which is present-centered and sailing to the conditions, it also includes a reflective, or wisdom component, in that the awareness that the Captain has right now, is obviously informed by a working knowledge of the ship and the crew, and what it is to sail a human life, accumulated over the many voyages of a life lived out to sea.
9. One of the big accomplishments of the Captain inside of us is to come to terms with the fact that none of us built our own ship. The fact is, we did not choose the materials by which our ship was made (our genetic structure), nor the shipbuilders who built nor designed it. We did not choose the bay into which our ship was launched, nor the culture of the time. As a matter of experience, we do not choose our crew either, with all our basic predilections and peculiarities, as well as our sore-points and sensitivities.
10. All of these facts of experience emphasise the need for generosity, compassion and tolerance for our crew, the nature of our ship, and the goodness of fit problems that we run into between our ship and the waters in which we find ourselves situated.
11. Being a mindful and reflective Captain of this boat and to this rambunctious crew therefore, means having a commitment to being “on deck” and to paying attention, in addition to being able to set-limits on one’s own, and the crew’s tendencies towards a whole array of bad habits such as avoidance, self criticism, and nasties like ‘jumping to conclusions’, rumination etc. It also means treating yourself and the crew with as much compassion, tolerance and support as you can muster, given the reality of rocks in the water as we sail.
12. Rocks in the Water As a matter of our daily experience on the high seas, isn’t it true that we must contend with a multitude of mishaps? Daily mishaps happen when we hit what I refer to as “rocks in the water.” Whether it’s traffic when we are already late, a guy interrupting us during our presentation, technology not working etc, these are the daily setbacks of our lives. Having to tend with rocks in the water, dropped by other ships – or just as a consequence of life on life’s terms, is a universal issue. Meaning that no matter how hard we are trying, or how well we are doing, there is no avoiding the reality of them (or what Buddhists refer to as the First Noble Truth of Suffering). Sometimes, we have nothing much to do with the rocks we hit, and other times, those rocks appear because of the course on which we are charting. Because hitting rocks in the water can be distressing and upsetting, the Captain sometimes needs to wear a Medic’s hat very often to deal with the hurts and the heartaches, and to settle the fears and frustrations of the crew.
….. But that is for the next installment. Stay tuned!