Is Buddhism Scared of Reality?

This post is not done (not un-done...not done, but I could not wait to post it for the final edit, so apologies for any non-sensical-ness):



It is true that as Buddhism says, things both appear to exist, and also do not have any self-existing, and inherently existing nature. That both these things are true is something that the meditator must grapple with as they traverse daily live in the world of the grasping ego, infused with the experience of emptiness. This paradox is what makes it possible for us to practice at all, really, because if it was simple, like “well nothing really exists at all,” then we would think we were insane for being so attached to things. The part that says “things appear,” well, that saves us really. Because, of course, they do. Things appear. And we believe in their existence. We believe in our own existence. It is a habit, it is said, that has no beginning, nor an end. And yet, freedom is possible. And no tradition shies away from defining in utterly definitive terms what that freedom is, even if the words used have the meaning, “ineffable.” In my opinion, freedom is in the eye of the beholder, whoever or whatever that may be.
For the devout buddhist, freedom is total freedom from all grasping. The ungrasping mind is completely open, unobstructed, free. This is the jack pot, so to speak, and though most of us just get glimpses of this here and there, there are those who are said to live in such a state for the duration of the life of their body. And so the Buddhist goes on hoping. “Maybe, this will happen to me!”
But until then, one starts to wonder. What about all this suffering along the way? Is there some way to ameliorate this? Especially for those of us with “psychological problems” that blip above the norm of emotional fluctuation. Those of us who find ourselves curled up in a ball crying, unable to interact with our partner because a particularly heinous memory from childhood has been triggered. (For example). Buddhism has an answer for that, too. The answer is to see everything as unreal, as impermanent, and to not grasp at it. “Go for the gold.”
This can work in a certain sense. When I am having a particularly difficult emotion, I may be thinking that I am this emotion, that my existence is in fact defined by this emotion. To see it as unreal, to see myself as unreal, may in fact be very comforting. It may release me just enough so that I can see this emotional experience and its constituent parts as not defining me or my entire life. I may be able to work through the experience temporarily. I may in fact be able to create a new mental habit of relating to this particular emotional event without as much of a charge. This may in time, release this “knot' in my psyche and I may cease to experience this traumatic trigger at all.
This is the best possible outcome. But what about when it does not happen that way? Here is an example of this scenario, which I have experienced:
I have an emotional trigger which is very strong, and bowls me over, reducing me to a child like state. I work with it in terms of sensation and thought in meditation, observing it and reassuring myself of its impermanence and lack of inherent existence, and then it somehow dissolves in the light of my continued awareness. Over time it ceases to arise, at least in my conscious awareness. At some point I believe I have “conquered” this particular emotional fixation. But then something unexpected happens. I have another triggering experience and this intense emotional reaction that I used to have, suddenly comes back, stronger than ever before, so strong in fact that meditation is impossible. This is most likely because I had not “conquered it,” I had only moved it from one form to another - from conscious to unconscious. How could this happen? How could a conscious thought and emotion, through awareness practice, become unconscious? Well, there are many explanations possible for that. Here is one.
Whatever emotion/thought/sensation miasm that one experiences as an “emotional trigger” or outburst of the mind, is not an isolated thing. It has many thoughts feelings and associated belief systems that aid it in its arising in your mind. These other associated thoughts, feelings, and belief systems, may be partially conscious, and partially unconscious. It is quite a process unpeeling the layers of the mind, is it not?
The other relevant thing is that - as Freud made apparent in his discovery of the relevance of the unconscious mind and all it contains – the mind will hide what it cannot endure from the conscious mind. And it will do whatever it needs to in order to accomplish this. It is the mechanism of self-preservation. Our brain is designed this way. The Buddhists call this the “ego” (the thing that wants to believe it exists, and will do whatever it has to in order to uphold this belief), and psychologists call this “repression.” Whatever you call it, it happens. Furthermore, thoughts/feelings/beliefs that cause great distress often develop during a time when we do not have language (i.e. between the ages of 1 and 3), and so take on a backdrop sort of flavor, one which is very hard to identify with the conscious mind. And so when you dissolve the constituent parts of an emotional reaction using mindfulness and awareness, you may not be dissolving all of the thoughts, feelings, and belief systems that brought about that emotional response. You may have, however, sent the message (unconsciously of course) to your mind that that particular “tip of the iceberg” is unwelcome in your mind. “No Problem,” says the mind, “we will do our best to hide whatever else is going on here. That way you can feel in control, and your identity can remain unthreatened! Yay!” (The mind is generally pretty happy when this happens, at least for a very brief amount of time). (Thus the blissed out young meditators). Unfortunately, when some part of this unconscious thought, feeling, belief system gets triggered again, what happens? The house of cards falls again, and this time, it is even scarier because you “thought you were over that!”
Now just to be clear, there is no problem with this according to Buddhism. In fact, according to Buddhism, there is no problem with anything. Because of the non-dual reality, that though things appear, they also lack inherent existence. Furthermore, some schools of thought name this process as traversion closer to the truth, as it were.
But even if you wholeheartedly, with your best Buddhist outfit on, agree with this, and perhaps have even seen it to be so, “with your own eyes,” you may still feel that things, in particular your emotional life, are a problem sometimes. A big problem in fact.
Deep emotional habits that lay in the psyche in such a way that the conscious mind has only minimal contact with them, often are traumatic energies of emotion that lay dormant, waiting for triggers and events which can be interpreted as the initial cause of the emotional reaction. Take, for example, a Vietnam veteran who checks cans of food in the grocery store with great anxiety to see if they are booby trapped to explode and kill someone. This is an example of a traumatic emotional response looking for a trigger in the present moment. There is no doubt that the very energy of loving mindfulness can have a great impact on this kind of intense emotional experience.
In addition, however, it is often necessary to validate emotions. As Alice Miller (the psychoanalyst who in my opinion saved psychoanalysis by refuting parts of Freud's drive theory as a fearful response to authority in her book Thou Shalt Not Be Aware), says, many of our emotional responses become repressed during childhood, due to the fact that the adults around us, did not want us to have those emotions. (I.e., when an abusing adult hits a child, they do not want that child to cry in physical and emotional pain, for that will remind the adult of their guilty conscience. So instead, abused children are often chastised and punished further for their emotional responses to the abuse and the abuser.) In order to heal the wounds of repressed emotion, and in order for access to unconscious thoughts, feelings, and belief systems to be allowed by the conscious mind, often feelings must be validated. This idea of validation is an important part of psychoanalysis, which has as its aim, access to unconscious thoughts, feelings, and belief systems, in order to liberate repressed emotions so that an individual can experience autonomy and, well, (dare I say it?) “freedom.”
Yet, in Buddhism, validation can be a problem. At least, for the devout Buddhist. For the devout Buddhist, the instructions are to see all things as unreal, lacking inherent existence, and totally impermanent. So when a feeling arises, such as hatred, don't think of it as real, ok? Think of it as a passing dream. Think of its' lack of inherent existence. Not quite the same as validation. Validation assumes the relevance of an origin. For instance, one might be feeling intense hatred for someone they do not know, and this may be because it is safer than feeling it toward someone in their family. If that is the case, than no matter how many times you see the emotion as unreal, and it dissolves in the space of awareness, it will return until its actual origin is validated.
Many will dispute this point. In fact, in the case of Buddhism, it is said that when one glimpses the actual full nature of reality, that everything falls away, and there is no self at all to reconcile. I may in fact actually believe this totally, and also practice meditation in order to increase my ability to see this nature. In terms of my habitual emotional patterns, however, seeing them as unreal, by either slogans, or the vipassana technique of breaking them down to their constituent parts and “loving” them “to death” with mindfulness, does not help me to understand why they arise again and again.
The truth is, there is no value necessarily in this kind of understanding of the past and how it relates to the present. Except for the fact that it aids in deeply healing wounds which we may not even know we carry, but which contain within them psychic pain that may be so profound that they have crippling effects in our daily life. I for one do not want to wait around for total and complete enlightenment (and/or death) to experience freedom. By validating emotions that my mind believes are wrong and must be subjugated to other, lesser experiences, I may in fact heal primary relationships in my life, unburden myself from fears of being myself, and allow access to my own unconscious mind to be more fluid and open. This may in fact help my ability to meditate more effectively and accurately.
But then, I will have to reconcile the conflicts that psychoanalysis has with traditions such as Buddhism. I will have to recognize and acknowledge the value in relating deeply with my emotional life as something very real. I will have to trust that the ultimate non-dual awareness will neither go away nor be offended by this. This may sound silly but perhaps you would be surprised to know the great resistance to this kind of talk about emotions within Buddhist circles.
It is interesting that Buddhism actually shies away from this type of relationship with the emotional life. In general, the tradition views this type of psychological work as being a reification of the false idea of self. One wonders if this avoidance of the relative experience on the part of buddhism is in fact a fear of the unconscious mind, the mind fearing itself, another manifestation of the self-preservation of the ego at work, and thus a vicious circle for the devout buddhist. For surely an avoidance of the relative experience of the reality of the emotional life is nothing to fear, but only, especially if empty, another vehicle to the great awakening to true non-duality?
I guess if I have a point, it would be to say that I do not think it is enough that modern Western Buddhist teachers make the grand and gracious gesture of endorsing medication and therapy “where it is useful” which many have, in fact. This is a great and important step for Western and hopefully Eastern Buddhism. However, where is psychoanalysis in all this? Where is the trip to the unconscious mind through misplaced emotional experiences? Most importantly, where is the acknowledgment of the most important thing that psychoanalysis has to offer? That is, while looking deeply at links to the unconscious through dreams, associations, and psychological patterns, that we have with us a compassionate witness who acts as a true parental figure who allows us to overcome the training we may have experienced to avoid the emotional reactions that may have been uncomfortable for the authority figures in our childhood?
Part of the problem is that Buddhism includes the possibility of reincarnation, insists upon it, in fact. This puts a chink in trusting analysis that concludes definitively that anything in the present is the absolute result of the past within this lifetime. In fact, it is said within the tradition that “only a fully enlightened Buddha can see karma” which rules out all possibility of truly “knowing” anything about the origins of the present. I can get behind this. But to throw out the brilliang conclusion that when the body and mind actually remember something that relates directly to the present, and through this remembering in the presence of a non-judgemental, validating figure, this emotional distress can actually deeply heal, would be not just a shame. It would be suspicious. It would be suspiciously another “poisenous pedagogy.” In other words, it would call into question the reason for dismissing such deeply felt truths.
If one sees Buddhism as a religion (and now I am really committing blasphemy) then one cannot rule out the possibility that it has an authoritarian element. Authoritarian elements must in order to survive, use their pedagogy to reify their own authority. In other words, does the dogma of reincarnation purposely rule out the possibility of the empowerment of individual and unique realizations of freedom? To some this may seem a leap. But lets take another look.
In psychoanalysis the trip into the unconscious does lead to an understanding of one's own development, and the reality of unconscious defense mechanisms built in the past, due to the fear of authority. (This fear of authority is not the ultimate end, for the abuse, whether large or small is viewed by a child as the loss of love, and so it is the loss of love, or abandonment that is feared, not the authority itself, except in cases of extreme abuse, and even then, this is up for debate). In any case, when this fear is removed, by the understanding in the adult that they can in fact experience freely the emotions they may not have been allowed to feel freely as children, their fear of abandonment by others is lessened. This is due to the trade off. When the self learns about the freedom that ensues from expressing oneself without reservation, there is no comparison, and the fear is slowly let go of. This “freedom” is something that Buddhism does not speak of. However, is it not linked to the ultimate freedom? I hear the chorus of “no” 's from the devout Buddhists. But hear me out.
In the story of Naropa, who is a learned scholar of Buddhists texts, he is visited by an old hag, a dakini, an enlightened woman. She tells him he understands the words of the texts, but he does not understand their true meaning. She tells him to go study with her brother, Tilopa, a true master. So Naropa does just this. He spends years with Tilopa as Tilopa humiliates him in every way imagineable. Naropa is stripped, as Chogyam Trungpa says in Illusion's Game, (his accessible book looking at the life of Naropa) from every aspect of his socialized self.
In this story there is revealed a truth that is seldom discussed by Buddhist practitioners. This truth is that the relative personality, in all of its detail, not only must be dealt with thoroughly and completely on the path, but is also who we are. It may not be who we are ultimately, but it is who we are relatively. And in this sense, there is nothing to fear from looking into our emotional experience as we interpret it. In fact, there is everything to gain. For without autonomy and knowledge of our unconscious mind, we cannot know real, true, freedom. We cannot be freed from things we do not understand. This would be impossible. And for Buddhism or any other religion to tell us that understanding ourselves is impossible, can only be a way to limit our experience of freedom. Why this limitation? Well, maybe Buddhism should look into its childhood....

Grief

I was just reading a chapter from Ed Podvoll's brilliant book The Seduction of Madness. I specifically read the chapter called "Recovery from Medication." I had this response:


I have deleted this post, in order to contemplate the topic further. I wasn't satisfied with the original post.

The Three Selves

This blog entry is about an idea I call the Three Selves. In the constant conflict of the psyche, Carl Jung said that we must make the conflict conscious, otherwise it will be forced to impress itself upon us through our external world. It seems also that he believed that this conflict will not disappear when one illuminates the conflict within but will be seen as the conflict within. A conflict that I see clearly is between three ideas of what we view as our self.
The first self, is the self as we want it to be. This is the self that plagues us, it is the self that we have pieced together through our projections on other people. It is the idealized self, the self constructed both through our parental internalized messages, through the societal messages that are sometimes universal archetypes, and sometimes culturally specific, and through our personal social cues regarding our specific circumstances of growing up. This is our source of striving, of self criticism, and is the sense that our very experience is in some way deficient, inadequate, and uncompleted.
The second self, is the self we fear we are. This an aspect of what Jung called the Shadow, though what I refer to here is not just the unconscious negativity, but the things we have learned to abhor, the things we fear. In essence, the opposite of the idealized self.
The third self, is the self as it is. In this natural self, there is a lack of substance which could be mistaken for simple lack, as the self as it is, is in constant motion and lacks at times the coherence that we associate with the idealized self. As Jung pointed out, every person is looking for a sense of value intrinsic to their nature, and not derived from the outside. Without it, they will continue to project their sense of lack onto the other. In the natural self, is the only experience possible, the only numinous experience, the only experience of value. And yet the conflict between the three selves must be brought to light. The creation of the three selves as a conflict can only be the individual's search for value within their intrinsic existence, and the mistaken belief that this value will come from an external source.
No person is exempt from the trappings of the idealized self. This is the self which our parents and society, for the various reasons that exist, was attempted to be created within us. An interesting point, though not the subject of this post, is each individual's interpretation of that idealized self. Each is of course different, and so creates the conflict between individuals.
Much of the idealized self is unconscious for most people, as they will not be confronted with the loss of it. For instance, an aspect of the idealized self is a functional self, which in society maintains consistency and blends prettily with the others. For those of us who were confronted with the lack of this, such as myself who had a mother with mental illness, we became slightly if at all more conscious of this as an aspect of conflict.
For myself, I was very affected as a child by the media, and the idealized self images that were a part of the message of this media. For instance, I found the image of the seductress to be a part of my idealized self, in a very strong way. This was a result most likely of the combination of messages I received as a child growing up. My value I believed (and still tend to believe) was inextricably linked to my ability to seduce and hold the attention of the people around me. Without this, I became invisible, even to myself.
Interestingly, much of my experience of growing up was feeling invisible to a family that was perhaps too preoccupied with their own issues to look and see someone outside of themselves. This, and seeing the same tendency in others to magnify that which was missing in their childhood and possibly adult experience, leads me to believe that the pattern is somewhat like this: The individual seeks to understand success in personhood through their own sense of lack or failure. The achieving of success of personhood would then be illusioned to come from the attainment of characteristics which matched the idealized self. But this is an impossible goal, for an idealized self requires an experience of self from the outside. Which is not an experience of self at all. This could be said to be the origin of the conflict of the three selves. For then, the idealized self is constantly met with the self as it is.
And what of the self we fear we are? The self we fear to see? The truth of the three selves, is that they are all who we are. The self we fear we are, is the self that we see that opposes the idealized self. Within this view then there is no reason to fear the idealized self or its opposite, as they are like two children tumbling on the playground. They will fight each other until the end of time. And behind them lies the actual self, which includes both our fears and accomplishments. Interestingly, from this point of view, accomplishments are equally unimportant, but what is important, is the intrinsic value we place on ourselves as we are, and the way that our conflict displays itself to our consciousness.

We Have a Self, Whether We Need One or Not

I am in therapy, and I have reached an interesting point with my therapist. I am feeling as though I must disagree with him on a basic philosophical point. He has told me many times a quote from a meditation teacher which says, "You need to have a healthy self in order to lose it." I can appreciate this sentiment in as much as it points to the unfortunate reality of spiritual bypassing, when we attempt to skip over the issues of our "self" and attempt to realize non-existence without realizing the full manifestation of our existence, which is, of course, disasterous.
But is this whole thing actually as linear as this quote implies? I doubt it.
I have been contemplating this as of late, and wondering if in fact the process of developing a healthy self cannot exclude an understanding of no-self. Let's start with why one has an unhealthy self to begin with.
We can agree - hopefully - that no one has a completely healthy self, as long as they are completely indentified with their individuality. Because, if we are contemplatives, we know that the self is based to some degree on a basic anxiety which is the fear of death. Beyond that, most people have basic styles of neuroses for dealing with this anxiety. Like being too controlling, being too much of a push-over, tending toward anger, tending toward smoothing over things with fake happiness, whatever, you name it, humans do it.
Beyond that, there are much more serious problems. I think these problems are more along the lines that the statement "you need a healthy self in order to forget it," are referring to.
Many of us, due to a variety of circumstances, did not develop a healthy, separate , and distinct sense of self. Perhaps we experienced trauma, abuse, or enmeshment. Perhaps we did not attach properly to our primary care-givers. There are many causes which can lead to a sense of self which is fragmented. Where the person may not understand where they begin and end, where the person may not be able to track their own emotional states, where a person may not feel connected to themselves in a wholesome fashion. There are many forms of this, and as I said, many causes, and it is rather common. So the implication of the statement in question is that one must solve this fragmented self, heal it, fix it. And then that person can go about learning the "true nature" of the self as empty, without inherent existence.
There is a fallacy in this theory, and perhaps more than one.
The first is that from a contemplative perspective, the reason that the sense of self can get fucked up, fragmented, etc. is that it does not exist in the first place. Most people who experience fragmentation of their self, are simultaneously experiencing non-existence.
Non-existence is tricky. It is not like a disappearing act, where the self is gone. No it is not that simple. It is seeing through the self. Seeing that the self is in fact a sort of dance, a play if you will, a set of actors wearing costumes, and when the costumes are taken off, they fall to the ground, with nothing to hold them up.
When a person experiences trauma, they experience and unexpected break in the self. Our survival mechanism is strong, and so this causes extreme fear.
In order to heal this fear, the person must begin to understand that what they are experiencing in terms of fragmentation and fear is not abnormal. It is in fact, completely normal, predictable, understandable.
Perhaps though, a contemplative person on a path of meditation in this situation, could also be helped to understand that their experience of no-self, is also in fact, completely normal, predictable, understandable. This would seem to ease the tendency of the self to hide from its own reality. To hide from its own fear of death by hiding from death itself. By normalizing non-existence, the fear of it could be partially quelled. By thinking that we can by-pass non-existence for the self, must also be wrong. They both happen simultaneously.
We cannot build walls between ourselves and death. The reality of non-existence surrounds us. Many practitioners with an "unhealthy" sense of self actually know this better than those practitioners with a "healthy" sense of self. To ask a practitioner in this situation to not pay attention to non-existence seems like more of the same, more smoke and mirrors leading in a sense to a greater potential for re-experiencing trauma.
Now, lets look at another aspect of this discussion: The "healthy" self.
What is a healthy self? If you google "healthy sense of self" (most DEFINITELY not the best source for psychological info - but it is late and I am lazy) you will get a lot of pages talking about self-esteem. Thinking highly of yourself. I would take this to a somewhat deeper level and say that a healthy sense of self includes a sense of intrinsic self-worth.
In addition, the healthy self includes the ability to move through emotional states and situations without getting deeply stuck or caught in fear and doubt, allowing the human exchange to be fluid, largely positive, and imbued with some degree of clarity about ones own experience.*
(*This is most obviously my definition. I promise to do more citing in my next post).
Where does this type of self come from? Ideally, It comes from great brain chemistry, excellent endocrine function, and kick-ass healthy loving parents with great boundaries. But, if we did not or do not have these things, then what then? Obviously, relearning relational things is important, re-organizing thinking patterns, repatterning relationships, healing old trauma in the body, these are all important, vital things.
I would add however, that a healthy self is an evolving self. In order to truly be a healthy self, the self must not be in fear of itself. It must know that it can look at all aspects of its own experience, without hiding from itself. This is where fragmentation comes from.
To not hide, is to evolve. Evolution of the self, comes from deeper and deeper seeing of things as they are, not just as we want them or think we need them to be. Things as they are, are inherently paradoxical, and through paradox, we become larger, and more complex. Simultaneously, evolution of the self allows us to become more simple, as we develop a greater trust in basic reality. Evolution is vital to the healthy self. Without it, the self must actually create false walls in order to hide from reality.
But where does evolution lead? Why, funny you should ask, evolution leads to non-existence! Evolution inherently points directly at the universal identity that has no preference. There is a road to get there, obviously, but each point of evolution identified by the self, includes a greater understanding, a nearer understanding of this ultimate point. This ultimate point is of course glimped along the way, but each glimpse is colored by the degree to which the self has evolved. The self itself must understand both its existence and its non-existence, healthy or not, in order to become whole. Wholeness in the psychological sense may not actually be the ultimate no-preference of non-existence. But even psychological wholeness specifically could not hide from non-existence, as that would be fragmentation. No, wholeness must point to non-existence as a possibility, as non-existence also points to the self, "healthy" or not.
So the statement "you have to have a healthy self in order to lose it," may in fact not be completely true. It depends on ones view of enlightenment. But regardless, I don't think any path to healing and wholeness could possible preclude reality itself. This would be a further step into madness.
Singning off-
Jenna

Priveledge, Development, and the Fall from Arrogance

Hi! Long time since I posted. Latest essay:

Our embarrassment is key to our development. Arrogance, or hiding our vulnerability, is our way of abandoning our self. We abandon our self in this way for a variety of reasons. Throughout our lives we are told that being wrong, being incorrect, making mistakes, are all bad things that will cause us to fail in our lives. We are told that if we are suffering, it is because we have made a mistake, and if we ceased to make mistakes, we would cease to suffer. The truth is, we cannot help but make mistakes. Because, in fact, there are no rules at all in life, things are constantly changing and who we are is always in some way inherently at odds with things in our environment, and ourselves for that matter. This is nature, it is the chaotic element, it is the element that demands of us relaxation, of surrender to what is. But we try to accommodate what we see as the “right” way to be. And ironically, the more privilege we have, the more we have to cover over. Privilege is in essence a covering-over. To have wealth is to cover over the basic anxieties of life. To have health is the same. To be attractive, can also at times offer protection from basic fears of aloneness and security. To be educated, etc, offers us a way to cover over the fact that we are in a precarious situation as humans, subject to illness and death at any time. Arrogance is nothing more than the belief that this privilege is inherent to life. It is, of course, not. Privilege is super-imposed over the basic structure of nature. It is not in itself wrong or bad, but when it is used to avoid reality, it becomes like a prison, hiding our basic human-ness and cutting off the possibility of connecting with the human race in a joyful way.
When we are privileged in one way, and in the presence of someone who is not, we feel the awkwardness, the ingenuineness of our situation. As a person born into privilege, I have experienced this a lot in my life. Being around a person in poverty or in extremely poor health I felt stupid, embarrassed. This is an appropriate reaction, not because I should feel that way, but because I had the wrong belief that my privilege was who I was, it was inherent to my life, to life itself, and so its absence could only be explained by blaming the person for whom it was absent. In the face of suffering, this blame becomes ridiculous, and so there is a natural feeling of embarrassment in recognizing ones own arrogance.
This state of ignorance, or arrogant privilege is an alienation from our true self, our genuine state of being. In this state of arrogance, we do not realize our own helplessness, our own ineptitude in the face of the forces of nature. By becoming intimate with this sense of basic pain, suffering, and helplessness, ironically, we become empowered. We become empowered for the basic fact that we have connected with our ground, with our actual situation. Our arrogance about ourselves and our lives was false, and we knew it. Knowing we are fundamentally stupid, makes us intelligent. In seeing that we are fundamentally not able to control life, we relax. In knowing that we are fundamentally helpless, we become empowered.
Why is this? Because in connecting with the ground of all human beings, we feel in connection with nature itself. We lose our fear of our own falseness. We see that there is nothing left to be embarrassed about, nothing left to hide, and that is freedom, of a type. This freedom actually releases our true human connection, our ability to see other people without guilt, without fear, and without hatred. We feel that at any point we can recognize our own faults, our own mistakes, our own ignorance when it arises, and in this way do not have to fear ourselves or others. We can, in essence, be ourselves.
It this “coming home” interestingly enough, is our connection to the entire human race, our humanity, our love, our selflessness. And so the paradox is born: In stupidity, intelligence; in ignorance, wisdom; in humility, self-love; in self-love, selflessness.

A Distant Look at Poverty

Hi to all those who read this blog! (Not many I presume). It has been a while. Not that I haven't been boiling over with ideas but not an inspiration to write them. I just read Catherine Ingram's introduction to her book In the Footsteps of Gandhi for the second time, and though I think the book is stupendous, I suddenly felt that if I read another white rich person give their resume of Eastern contemplation and meditation, and then brag about how their well-fed low-cholesterol heart has been ripped open by the poverty of the third world I might puke.
Okay, I know that is truly ridiculous because of course their hearts are ripped open, especially if they have been meditating for 12.5 years, or even if they have never meditated, because it is truly a shocking thing to witness extreme poverty. And furthermore, of course they are writing about it because they are the ones with the education and means for attaining publication. My nausea was actually personal and has more to do with my own confusion and inertia than anything else.
I am now a TA for a class called "Spiritual Models of Social Action." In this class we study Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Desmond Tutu, among others (-even women!) all of whom have explored and expressed social action birthed from contemplation of the spiritual. This is a primary interest of mine.
What is truly helpful in this world? It is true that it often appears hopeless when there are people fasting to the point of illness in protest of the war and President Bush smiles into the camera utterly unnaffected. Do we give up attempting to reach politicians? Do we throw away our modern lives to travel to places where we can work more directly with governments more porous than our own? Do we live in the inner-cities of our own country in an attempt to reach those most affected by the imbalance of the modern ways?
Do we sit in our houses writing blogs and waiting for inspiration to seize us into booking a decisive flight on travelocity?
I do not know.
The other question is: Whose pain do we want to mitigate? Is Catherine Ingram trying to save the world, or attempting to quiet the questions in her own heart? It seems to me that it is the latter for most of us, and perhaps along the way we find a selfless heart amidst our own journey.

I have of late been contemplating vocation, as I just graduated from a Masters program. As of late I have been craving an emancipation from the "disease of American prolongued adolecense." This disease seems to manifest for most, myself included, in an inability and disinterest in the intellectual pursuit of selfless integration into the working world. I am not talking about becoming Mother Theresa and opening an orphanage/hospice/contemplative halfway house. I am referring to the ability to realize vocation fully through the human means available to us. That is, if in fact we are modern people, which I assume anyone reading this blog most likely is, and we have access to education, etc., than we have the means to bring ourselves into the circles of conversation which have throughout history documented the opening and expansion of human thought and human consciousness. Some would argue that intellectualism is unneccessary as really we must move beyond thought into the realm of the Ultimate. But this is truly short-sighted. In actuality it is only thought itself which can lead us to the Ultimate (thus all the world wisdom traditions and contemplative philisophical pursuits). And through education we can bring ourselves into conversation with those who contemplate the spreading of peaceful ways and the opening of the modern human mind.
What is limiting our access to this conversation? This is a huge question, as it has to do with oppression in many arenas and in many levels. Obviously education will not serve alone to bring one into this larger converstation. For education cannot overcome histories of oppression as many people of color have suffered, for instance. This affects language, the ability to be heard by the larger community, and all sorts of other aspects of communication. How, then, can we help the oppressed to enter this conversation? We must ourselves first be a part of it. So, here I will explore briefly my own self-imposed limitations in this area.
I must first realize what I have to contribute. This has to do with my personal life experience, my race, my education, my gender, etc. To narrow things even further, it has to do with my areas of interest. Through understanding these things I can more easily contribute. Furthermore I must not limit the arenas in which I contribute. The more ways I attempt to make contact with the larger conversation, the more likely I am going to reach someone who has an interest in responding, thus creating movement in the direction of greater understanding, which is always the goal of conversation.
So I don't really mean to pick on Catherine Ingram who has written a truly beautiful expression of her vocation, however, I do want to pick on the modern spiritual tendency to stick with emotions and meditation and avoid intellectualization. Let's not be afraid to think!
Okay I will stop there and head off to bed.
Good night!

Meditation Corner

Okay boys and girls, here we are in my newly designated "meditation corner." I am no dharma teacher (that would be bad karma!) however, after meditating for 12 years I have noticed a few things. First of all, through the process of meditation, we tend to peel off layers of the constructed self. This is well discussed by many real dharma teachers all over the world, and yet even very advanced dharma practitioners seem to miss it. It reminds me of that scene in Star Wars III where the governor (or whoever that guy is who brings Darth Vader over to the dark side) morphs into his true self. Now actually, in terms of the path of meditation, that is not actually his true self. His face changes and he becomes incrediby deformed. (I totally love that scene). This happens often to meditators who begin genuine seeking. After a time, they may become sick or strange or not recognize themselves in the mirror. Often times this is misunderstood, as I myself did, as a discovery of who we "really are." More accurately, this would be described as "who we really think we are." Sometimes, under a layer of personality, lies a hidden (to our conscious psyhes) self-loathing, a belief that we are useless or undeserving. When this emerges as the only accessible layer, we mistake it for our real and hidden identity, which is simply a part of the layer. On the flip side, some find a layer of arrogance. Some meditate for years, something falls away, and suddenly the meditator thinks they are Jesus Christ. Again, it would be a mistake to think that this was a discovery of the true self. It is simply a layer of identity. Most of us have all of these layers which we must peel away at an excruciating rate. Unfortunately, people can get stuck at certain layers. What happens if a meditator has an experience of a state which is blissful, perhaps buddha-like? Their particular layer of unconscious material might say, "I knew I could get enlightened, and it's happening right now." What then? Where in these traditions is there a checks and balance system for this type of experience? It is important to remember that all of these experiences are relative experiences. From the perspective of the self, the ultimate does not even exist, only more layers of self. From the perspective of the ultimate, the self doesn't exist. Reliance on the guru these days does not insure, unfortunately, a proper reflection.
Just some things to chew on.

Satin or Satan?

Well I got the first comment on my blog which was an accusation that I am in fact really Satan. Or actually, the person wrote "Satin" and though I was flattered, I knew what they really meant. It is actually perfect because my good friend Annie Mcquade at Integral just gave me a sticker that says, "Even the Devil is God," and I just put it on my car. Don't get to leave anything out, do we? Too bad! (Or too satanic), (Or not satanic enough-which is it?)
So, I wanted to clarify something about "chosen form." This term in no way refers to the kind of new age interpretation of picking and choosing pieces of spirituality and mashing them together into a sort of "everything is truth that has been done in the name of spirituality" pile of goop. Chosen form is spirituality which comes from a definite depth of practice, where the imposed super-ego of religion which says, "if you don't do this you are not getting any dessert" or whatever it is, is gone. In fact, it comes with the realization that there is in fact no dessert, only dinner, which we are already eating. In this sense, chosen form could be absolutely anything in terms of tradition and practice, as there is no longer the pointed finger wagging at the book of right and wrong, which doesn't exist anyway.
For many indigenous people, there is seemingly a different process, as the form was never imposed to begin with, but rather integrated into their cultural living in such a way that they actually identified positively with it. This is not always true, however, but perhaps appraoches explaining why this process of moving from imposed to chosen is more of a modern issue.
[I am only explaining this in order to clarify the point of view of the blog.]
So let's say for instance that your first imposed form was Christianity. After which, you realized it was imposed and moved to a supposedly chosen form of Buddhism. After years of practicing Buddhism as a religion, you realize that you are practicing Buddhism in almost the same way as you practiced Christianity only now the voice is inside your head instead of outside, so it was MUCH harder to hear. The forms assisted you in hearing this however (as they were created by someone practicing authentically chosen forms), and now you must transition to authentic chosen form, letting go of whatever outcome the super-ego has set for you.

Child Prostitution and Expensive Dharma

Okay, I said that was it for today but I was wrong. I just saw the movie Water which was truly an astounding representation of widows in India in the late 30's at the time of Gandhi's influence. I will not ruin it for you but suffice to say it is a shocking account of the suffering and oppression of women, recommended for all but very young audiences.
I began to think again of my irritation at spiritual teachers who claim that prayer and meditation are what we need to reconcile the pain of this world. This, in my opinion, is utter bullshit, and serves to reveal the low level of psychological development that most spiritual teachers have, in that they cannot accept the fact that the pain of this world is unreconcilable but that does NOT mean that we as a species reach our highest evolution when we cease to involve ourselves with those who cannot free themselves from it. In fact, if we deny our human connection to those with "negative karma" we are denying the most basic and fundamental and simple potential of human life, which is compassion and love. How will we find out how human we are without feeling helpless and stupid? I believe it is surely impossible, and furthermore realizing our humanness is our only hope for any type of realization. For what humans became other than human when they realized the Truth??
A particular source of irritation for me (and I have many as you will see as this blog progresses) are "spiritual" teachers who charge exorbitant rates for their teachings, like upwards of $3000 - $4000 for a retreat that they claim is the only way their students can receive the REAL spiritual truth. This is simply not true and never will be: No one individual has the corner on the truth, or anyone's individual path of the unfolding of their wisdom. Luckily this unfolding comes in as many forms as there are sentient beings. When a teacher says, 'But you must come to this retreat. This is where it's happening. Don't think about the money. The money will come." What about lowering the cost of the retreat? Evo Morales, Bolivia's president who calls himself an "Amerindian President," immediately cut his salary by 57% in the old way of teaching by example. But also there was a razor sharp practical edge to Morales's salary cut. In order to accomplish his aim's, the people needed more money. In the Buddhist world, I think there is a major slip up by teachers who have accumulated fame through their albeit genuinely helpful teachings: They seem to feel that fame, and the current rate of inflation, justifies giving teachings that are only accessible to a certain socio-economic group. This group not only has lots of disposable income, but they also have the ability to leave their job at a whim and spend weeks or months even on a retreat. Or conversely, they are willing to risk being homeless and jobless to spend all their savings, and leave their job for too long. This is a select group of people, many of whom have family who will help them, or nest eggs set aside in the 80's, or are self employed. Interestingly, many jobs that bring people closer to society and it's needs and ills, those who work in the trenches (yes I am in this group working at a homeless shelter) who are spiritual in their desire to serve, are the very ones' stuck in a working class category that looks at this other socioeconomic world through a bit of glass. Sure I would like to go on a retreat for a month that costs $3000, but I am a bit concerned with losing my health insurance. And since I only make $35,000 and have large student loans from my Master's in Buddhism, I have no real savings to speak of, so hopefully I won't lose my job.

But here is the kicker: part of these teachings are about facing fear, losing ground, stopping being controlled by a consensus society that fabricated rules and boundaries which keep you imprisoned in a non-existent self which is the root of all suffering. Tie that with a message of "don't fall into a poverty mentality around money, don't be afraid to take risks" and I might just be singing up on my credit card for a $4000 month long retreat, with my deep longing for inner and outer peace, and my connection to the teacher who leads the retreat.

It is not the retreat itself that is the problem, or the teacher, or the teachings. It is simply the cost of the whole thing and the lack of recognition of most people's actual financial situations. It reminds me a bit of private schools, GRE prep courses, and all the other ways we self select in this country who gets to be educated. It has become the same with some spiritual "journeys." All I am saying is, let's look at cutting costs. Let's cut the teacher's salary in half, like Evo Morales! Maybe the teacher should live in an apartment, instead of a house, until he gets enough students at a reasonable rate to fund his savings account, and he can have enough for a down payment. Sounds more normal, more integrated. Don't these teachers want to understand their students? And if not, why not?

It was hard for me, when the beloved Jack Kornfield came to Mount Madonna Center where I lived at the time, gave beautiful teachings to largely middle to upper class people, and young people willing to risk homelessness to see him, for exorbitant rates, and then I laid a check for thousands of dollars, his payment for 3 days of teaching, next to him expensive leather shoes.

Not that he shouldn't have nice shoes! He should. But like his students, he could save for them. Perhaps, as well as setting a spiritual example, he could set a financial example. This is how you charge for your services so whomever wants to receive teachings and meditate with me can do so. This is how you live, so you are not using money from spiritual teachings to live far above the living standard of most human beings in the world. This is how you live. What a teaching that would be, to me.

Part of the problem is these large conglomerate organizations that form around Buddhist and other spiritual teachings, and then have to be maintained with lots of money. They have to be cleaned, the mortgage and taxes paid, they need an accountant, a web designer, they need office staff, etc. Part of the work gets done by volunteers who are on retreat at the center, but it's not enough, because they simply have to keep up with the salaries of their staff, including the teachers. It is honorable to provide a good salary for a job well done. However, again, there could be another way. Buying land in the most beautiful and expensive parts of the country are an aspect of most retreat centers. What about lowering expectations with the idea of serving more different kinds of people? Isn't access to the teachings more important than peaceful serenity of nature?

Yes, I am ranting, but I just saw Water and child prostitution makes me SERIOUSLY pissed off. We need more hands. More encouragement for us all to come together about spiritual answers, spiritual answers that nourish people, and meet them where they are.
Signing off.

Fuck Fear

Perhaps the title of this post is a tad immature but really we are all just talking to ourselves right? The purpose of this blog is not necessarily to offend (though that is an honest by-product of any good critical writing), but to thoroughly explore spirituality for the true seeker, those wishing to evolve to their greatest potential. Our evolution could be measured by how easily our authentic self is offered to the world. Right now I am calling this exploration "beyond spirituality," as it is my experience that we get on the train of seeking through imposed form, only to be dropped off eventually in a no-man's land called "our life." One could also call this "our self." For me, religions such as buddhism, taoism, and hinduism allowed me an opportunity to aquire tools for looking deeply, and transforming states of mind. I still use these tools regularly, namely meditation and various forms of prayer, but the questions have changed from "What religion am I?" and "Who is my Lama?" to "What do I enjoy?" and "What other way can I say fuck you to fear?" In truth, I thought I was beginning my quest with these questions, as a nineteen year old girl really into drug abuse and for some reason dying to learn meditation. However, as a thirty-one year old, I realize now that these new questions are being asked with a much deeper level of authenticity. This is the type of authenticity that can only be reached through having gone through many states of consciousness, none of which have conceptual frameworks or explanations, but which elucidate simply how much the human mind cannot grasp. In addition I have the benefit (ha!) of having to deal and have dealt with various formations of trauma and difficult psychological states as many of us had, plus three wonderful years of therapy. So in other words, the simplicity of "beyond spirituality," which perhaps should read "beyond spirituality: life as it is," has been reached not through a morning whim but through a hard won occasional emergence from undying complexity.

That said, onward:

"Beyond spirituality" has an underlying question: once we have emerged from imposed form, into chosen form, do we then create framework again? I suspect this is choiceless, as framework is simply a part of the mind, so then how do we create a framework based on chosen form in spirituality? I suspect that this is precisely what Ken Wilber is doing and I seriously need to do my homework and read more of his Integral Theory. However, not having done that, I still enjoy speculating about a theory of seeking truth which has eliminated imposed form and instead integrates chosen form. I believe this is what many artists have been doing since the beginning of human thought. Art for me is a particularly exciting chosen form as it is by nature limitless.

I am curious also about the need for my extreme irritation toward buddhist communities and yoga communities (not all of them I am sure, just the ones I have encountered so far!) If we are all truly needed exactly as we are as a perfect compliment to the universe as it is (and I do believe this is true even though we are un-pin-downable, and ever-changing) then surely my irritation is welcomed as well! That is also a part of this blog: a channeling of irritation with spiritual community that cannot entertain chosen form, or at least in an evolved sense. I do not say this lightly, as I myself have been harmed by the imposed form view (that is, those who will tell you you are going to buddhist hell for telling an enlightenened being that they are, simply, wrong), and so this blog is also an important opportunity for me to become less insecure with the self authority of chosen form.

I will stop there for today.