Someone said to me recently that if you cant say No, you cant be free to choose. As Dr Seuss put it:
‘You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go. ‘
excerpted from pathwork lecture 58
‘The undeveloped being feels in terms of black and white. It knows no in-between. Either there is happiness or there is unhappiness. If things happen in accordance with its wishes, the world is bright. But if the tiniest little thing goes against its will, the world looks black.
When the infant is hungry but for a few minutes, these minutes are eternity, not only because it lacks a time concept, but also because the infant does not know that the period of hunger will be over in a very short time. So the baby is in absolute despair, which you can observe in a crying child. The issue over which the baby cries seems in no way related to its anger, fury, and unhappiness. This part of the personality, freely expressed in infancy, remains hidden in the psyche of the adult
and continues to produce similar reactions….
If you think it through logically, you will find that the primitive and distorted concept of happiness actually amounts to a desire for omnipotent rulership, for unquestioned obedience from the surrounding world, for a special, elevated position above all other beings — since others are expected to fulfill what the person desires. When this wish cannot be gratified — and it never can –the frustration becomes absolute…
It is impossible, of course, for any human being to remember these early emotions, for you have no memory of your first few years. That these primitive reactions continue to exist without
exception in all human beings is a fact, and you can find these emotions by various ways in the work you are doing on this path. You can find them by observing past and present reactions, by analyzing them from the point of view of the inner infant. First, discover where the infant still exists in you
with its desires, feelings, and reactions, and focus your attention on this particular aspect of your personality. You will then have reached a point from where you can start to outgrow the unrealistic and unrealizable concept of happiness and build the proper, mature, realistic, and realizable concept.
This will be infinitely more gratifying. Until you have experienced the infant in you, you cannot understand certain inner conflicts as being the effect of the chain reaction this fundamental distorted concept sets off.
The more the child grows and learns to live in this world, the more it realizes that the omnipotent rulership it wishes is not only denied but is also frowned upon. So it learns to hide this
desire until the hiding has progressed so far that the growing person himself is no longer aware of it. Two basic reactions follow. One is: “Perhaps if I become perfect, as the world around me asks me to be, I will get so much approval that through it I can attain my goal.” You then start to strive for
such perfection. Needless to say, my friends, although we are all in agreement that all beings should strive for perfection, this kind of striving is wrong. It is wrong because of the motive. Here you do not strive for perfection in order to love better and give more. You do not strive for the sake of
perfection itself, but seek a selfish end. And it is wrong further because you want to reach the goal of perfection right away, since happiness through omnipotent rulership is desired at once. To reach immediate perfection is, of course, utterly impossible. It forfeits the healthy acceptance of one’s
own inadequacies, which enables the personality to learn healthy humility and accept being no better than the rest of humankind….
Now we come to the desire for unhappiness — how it arises in the human soul out of the complex and universal basic phenomenon of misunderstood happiness. As I said, the human personality finds it more and more impossible to find happiness according to the wrong concept, the only one he knows. Instead of finding the right way by changing the wrong concept into the right one, the personality only too often struggles against the tide, trying to force life into the wrong
concept. When this proves impossible, another way out is sought which seems a solution but proves even more damaging in the long run. Unconsciously, the person argues: “Since happiness is denied me and unhappiness inevitable and inflicted on me against my will, I may just as well make
the best of it and turn a liability into an asset by trying to enjoy unhappiness.” Superficially, this may appear to be a smart solution, but of course it never is. Although some aspects of unhappiness can be enjoyed in an unhealthy way, there are bound to be others that are extremely painful and cannot
be enjoyed at all. But you are ignorant of this; you did not bargain for it and when the pain arises, you fail to see its connection with the process described here. Since the entire process is unconscious anyway, the unenjoyable aspects of unhappiness are never connected with the fact that they were self-provoked. Certain aspects of suffering are enjoyed by humanity, although this will never be consciously acknowledged, unless one is on a path of self-finding. It takes time, effort, and extremely good intent to bring what is in the unconscious to the surface.’
Walking round the upper level of the three circumambulatory paths round the temple of Bodh Gaya and the Bodhi tree (where the Buddha was enligfhtened), I came across a small boy about seven years old, sitting against the stone railings, asleep and alone, in Tibetan monks robes; someone had tucked a ten rupee note into his robes.
India is uncontrollable – the population has more than doubled since I first came here in 1972 – its now about 1.27 billion people. You cannot avoid seeing corpses in the Ganges, (wood to burn corpses is increasingly expensive in Varanasi), deformed people, and beggars who thrust their babies in your face.
On retreat a stones throw away from where the Buddha gave his first talk in Sarnath, (the meeting point of the main roads from West to East and North to South in those days) is a good place to focus on what the Buddha thought was important to say in his first talk.
Recognising ‘there is suffering’, (and the two codicils – ‘suffering should be understood’ and ‘suffering has been understood’ – leads to the medicine for suffering within an understanding of conditionality; ‘Attachment to desire is the origin of suffering’, and its two codicils: ‘desire should be let go of’, and ‘desire has been let go of’
This is where mindfulness becomes real – in the cessation of the self-view that is suffering…
The process of healing the negative consists of first identifying honestly the negativities within, then allowing ourselves to fully feel the feelings behind them. Any feeling we avoid gains power over us until we allow it to be felt. Old wounds fester within because we buried feelings we dared not feel at the time, afraid they would overwhelm us. From childhood, when we were emotionally immature, we carried forth the belief that strong feelings could not be tolerated. Healing comes through feeling whatever needs to be felt and learning that it is no longer unbearable. As we experience our feelings fully, we find a new strength within. In Pathwork Lecture #190, “The Importance of Experiencing All Feelings, Including Fear,” the Pathwork Guide says:
Through the gateway of feeling your weakness lies your strength;
Through the gateway of feeling your pain lies your pleasure and joy;
Through the gateway of feeling your fear lies your security and safety;
Through the gateway of feeling your loneliness lies your capacity to
have fulfillment, love and companionship;
Through the gateway of feeling your hate lies your capacity to love;
Through the gateway of feeling your hopelessness lies true and
justified hope;
Through the gateway of accepting the lacks of your childhood lies your
fulfillment now.
In giving ourselves permission to feel all of our feelings, we free ourselves from the tyranny of our defenses and open ourselves to our hear’s desires. That is true healing.
Taken from Dottie Titus, who wont mind….
I have found mindfulness profoundly challenging – because I had to wean the parts of my mind that were addicted to false supports. In questioning the widespread development of modern mindfulness I came across this short introduction to mindfulness by Master Sheng-Yen, who was one of my teachers, which I think puts things into perspective. Internal Family Systems attempts to systematically recognise and identify the obstacles to mindfulness – trusting your deepest nature.
“What then, is mindfulness? A good way to answer this question is to refer to the Buddha’s teaching on the Sutra on Mindfulness (Sattipathana Sutta), otherwise known as the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. These are the four contemplations:
▪ contemplation of the body
▪ contemplation of sensations
▪ contemplation of the mind,
▪ contemplation of mental objects (dharmas).
(For more on the four foundations of mindfulness, see the Ashoka course The Buddha’s Teaching As It Is >>>)
In the contemplation practices that make up the Four Foundations, the mind that is caught up in the ordinary delusions of sentient life is gradually weaned, as it were, from its attachments to the body, to sensual longings, to emotions and feelings, and finally to fixed notions and ideas about reality. When the mind is thus gradually reduced of its myriad attachments, what remains is luminous awareness. This awareness can be called “mindfulness.”
For the practitioner of Chan, there is no meaningful distinction between practice and daily life: practice is daily life and daily life is practice. The distinctive quality of Chan mindfulness is not just being “here and now” but being here and now without distraction, vexation, or conflict. It is a quality of being wholly in the present, with no left over afflictions and impurities.
Cultivating mindfulness
Unfortunately, mindfulness is often seen as something to be achieved in itself, somewhat analogous to the idea of climbing Mt. Everest without also scaling its intermediate peaks. This leads to situations in which there can be much talk about mindfulness but little evidence of it. Therefore, from the Chan point of view, it is better to think of mindfulness not as practice in itself but as a fruit of practice, the rich harvest after diligent treading on the Path. In other words, one should cultivate mindfulness by practicing of the Path. And what is the practice of the Path? We have already discussed this as the Three Disciplines: precepts, meditation, and wisdom. Let’s briefly review them from the point of view of mindfulness.
Mindfulness and the precepts
When we practice and uphold the precepts, we are ensuring that our lives will be in accord with Buddhadharma, and that means that our lives will also be more harmonious with others, less afflicting to ourselves, and more conducive to serenity. Even in adversity, knowing that our life is righteous, we can face problems more calmly and deal with them as they really are, not as we imagine them. When we can depart from vexations in this manner, our minds become more spacious and receptive to the opportunities to experience the present as wholly “here” and vividly “now.”
Mindfulness and meditation
When we are meditating, we are effectively reducing the noise and fluctuations of a mind otherwise caught up with life and all its distractions. When we are fully engaged in a method of practice, whether it be following the breath, contemplating a huatou or gong’an (koan), the mind has no space for thoughts of the present or the future. The method is all there is.
At such times we are entirely in the present and the mind is given a chance to experience the awareness of “now.” Like the marathon runner training for the big race, when we meditate diligently for a long time, the mind becomes habituated to facing the daily clamor of life with equanimity and stamina, not being tossed and turned around by obstacles and events. The ability to stay on track, nurtured by meditation, contributes to one’s ability to be immersed in the present, and to deal with it effectively.
Mindfulness and cultivating wisdom
When we cultivate wisdom, we begin to learn how to distinguish the real from the illusory, the true from the false, and the precious from the useless. Like a sword cutting through the underbrush before us, wisdom allows us to find the middle way between craving everything life has to offer and being indifferent to it all; it is being able to invest our time and effort in only those things that benefit ourselves as well as others in accordance with the Dharma.
By cultivating wisdom we also cultivate compassion, the ability to empathize with the suffering of others and to respond without self-interest. Based on a foundation of loving-kindness, compassion in daily life is best practiced as a “hidden” virtue. It is simply there as a potential to think wholesome thoughts acts, speak kind words, and perform beneficent acts. As such, compassion is also mindfulness.”http://www.dharmanet.org/coursesM/26/chan5b.htm
The following blog post was written by a young woman just after she had been caught up in a killer’s random firing in a Toronto mall. She had a strange sense of something amiss which took her out of the mall just before the crime happened. I hope you won’t be upset by this blog, because to me, the taste of death can be oddly liberating – it takes away all the imaginary future we live in and leaves us utterly at peace in the unknown – smack in this moment.
The odd and tragic thing is this same girl was caught up in the Aurora shootings in Denver, just two months later and died there.
“I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath. For one man, it was in the middle of a busy food court on a Saturday evening.
I say all the time that every moment we have to live our life is a blessing. So often I have found myself taking it for granted. Every hug from a family member. Every laugh we share with friends. Even the times of solitude are all blessings. Every second of every day is a gift. After Saturday evening, I know I truly understand how blessed I am for each second I am given.”
Jessica Ghawi.
‘Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.”
Rainer Maria Rilke.
And yet, to know there is something you do not know, and to begin to be curious and willing to find out the truth is the way through the labyrinth of your own mind to the purity and ineffability of that which knows through you…
Dr Joanna Moncrieff, senior lecturer in psychiatry at University College London and author of The Myth Of The Chemical Cure.
“I’ve been practising psychiatry for 20 years, and in my experience antidepressants don’t do any good at all. I wouldn’t take them under any circumstances – not even if I were suicidal.
All the research shows is that, at best, antidepressants make people feel a tiny bit better than a placebo. But this doesn’t mean they actually treat depression.
After all these years of brain scanning, we don’t even have evidence that depression is related to a chemical imbalance in the brain, so the whole idea that we can treat it chemically is questionable.
I believe depression is an extreme reaction to our circumstances, and the best way to recover from it is to work out the cause.
Sometimes that means talking therapies and sometimes it means changing your circumstances, such as getting a new job or addressing relationship problems.
There are, of course, some people who are depressed for no apparent reason, but there is still no evidence they suffer from a brain disease or that antidepressants can help. It’s still better to try and find new things and break the cycle of thoughts and behaviour.
Antidepressants are psychoactive drugs -they alter the mind, like cannabis or alcohol, and I’ve always thought that were I depressed, I’d want to have all my faculties to get me out of the rut – not be clouded by a drug whose effects we don’t really understand.”
from the Daily Mail 6th May 2014.
Paul Tillich described neurosis as ‘the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being.’ The trouble is that the more we avoid ourself out of our fears, the more we feel empty and lost, and then the tendency is to look even harder to fill ourself up. Ours society completely colludes with this illusory vision, constantly holding out an idea to pursue, or something to buy – secretly telling us then you’ll feel good.
Sanity begins when we stop seeking out there – Joshu – one of the greatest of the Chinese Zen masters asked his master when he was young – what is the truth/ what is the way ? Nansen said, ‘Ordinary mind is the way’. Joshu said, well, how can I get it ? Nansen said, ‘if you try to get it, it will push you away’. (Literally in Chinese, it says: to seek, is to deviate). So Joshu said, well if I dont try how will I know if I’m on the way or not ? Nansen said, ‘knowledge is delusion, not-knowing is ignorance, it is like vast space, how can there be right or wrong (or getting or not getting) in it.’
In the west we have come to a strange juncture, in post modernism where we recognize the stories we used to tell ourself (marxism, christianity etc) are just stories. But we are stuck there. Zen takes a leap into the underlyng field of the Mind – which is before any kind of idea or understanding.
This is why there are now ten thousand different versions of psychotherapy – they are all trying to grasp the ungraspable – like the monkey in the Chinese paintings trying to grasp the refection of the moon in the river. Only when we stop seeking and grasping do we suddenly find ourselves at one with the flow of Life – actually not too far off the Gestalt theory of change – that when you stop trying to change things, things change of themselves…
As an ex-Buddhist monk, I spent years sitting – sometimes my mind would stop, but sometimes that could be really scary. There is a joke but a very accurate one that neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them, and the psychiatrist collects the rent. So when your castle in the air begins to crumble and you fall into space, it can be scary. Nevertheless, the space, the pure mind is the true agent of healing – sadly this seems to have become commercialized in a kind of gold rush by psychologists…
“Developed at Google and based on the latest in neuroscience research, our programs offer attention and mindfulness training that build the core emotional intelligence skills needed for peak performance and effective leadership. We help professionals at all levels adapt, management teams evolve, and leaders optimize their impact and influence.”
Mindfulness is enabling corporations to “optimize impact”? In this view of things, mindfulness can be extracted from a context of Buddhist meanings, values, and purposes. Meditation and mindfulness are not part of a whole way of life but only a spiritual technology, a mental app that is the same regardless of how it is used and what it is used for.
Bringing Buddhist meditation techniques into industry accomplishes two things for industry. It does actually give companies like Google something useful for an employee’s well-being, but it also neutralizes a potentially disruptive adversary. Buddhism has its own orienting perspectives, attitudes, and values, as does American corporate culture. And not only are they very different from each other, they are also often fundamentally opposed to each other.
A benign way to think about this is that once people experience the benefits of mindfulness they will become interested in the dharma and develop a truer appreciation for Buddhism—and that would be fine. But the problem is that neither Buddhists nor employees are in control of how this will play out. Industry is in control. This is how ideology works. It takes something that has the capacity to be oppositional, like Buddhism, and it redefines it. And somewhere down the line, we forget that it ever had its own meaning.
It’s not that any one active ideology accomplishes all that needs to be done; rather, it is the constant repetition of certain themes and ideas that tend to construct a kind of “nature.” Ideology functions by saying “this is nature”—this is the way things are; this is the way the world is. So, Obama talks about STEM, scientists talk about the human computer, universities talk about “workforce preparation,” and industry talks about the benefits of the neuroscience of meditation, but it all becomes something that feels like a consistent world, and after a while we lose the ability to look at it skeptically. At that point we no longer bother to ask to be treated humanly. At that point we accept our fate as mere functions. Ideology’s job is to make people believe that their prison is a pleasure dome.
from an article in Tricycle by Caring-Lobel
Contrast this with Master Rinzai : ‘You listening to the Dharma, if you are men of the way, who depend on nothing, then you are the mother of the Buddhas…Students seize on words or phrases.. which blinds their eyes to the Way`’
