I just loved this comment from William Blake – I think it puts it finger on just how obsessed we are with whether we are good or bad….
…I do not consider either the just, or the wicked, to be in a supreme state, but to be, every one of them, states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil, when it leaves Paradise following the serpent.
William Blake, “A Vision of the Last Judgement”
Perhaps should clearly point out I did not write this but liked it so much I have copied it here.
Addiction: A Zen Perspective
The Zen of Addiction
Whether consciously acknowledged or not, we live in an almost constant state of anxiety. We are concerned with what we may lose, or what we may not gain. We also live in grief and regret over what we have left behind or at least feel we may have indeed lost. We thus attach ourselves to the very things that we cannot, ultimately, control; the past and the future. In truth, there is only today, this moment, and this breath with which we are, and can actually be, connected. The past is gone, and the future has not yet happened. We are here, now.
From a Buddhist perspective, addiction might be considered the archetype of attachment. Addiction is, in fact, a collection of attachments. It is attachment to fear, attachment to loss, and attachment to longing, emptiness, and a lack of a sense of purpose. Whether we choose alcohol, drugs, sex, food, pornography, exercise or even shopping, we are simply employing the means serving the compulsion to fill a space and dampen our pain. The means does not matter; that is simply a gesture. The compulsion is the crux of it, and that compulsion is not so much to drink, or do drugs, or to spend; that compulsion, ultimately, is to fill that space.
And just what is that space? We might look upon it as the “God-shaped hole.” The wisdom teachings suggest that in identifying with a self, a “me”, we divorce ourselves from the true nature of our existence. From a psychological perspective, this division presents itself as inauthenticity, and the internal conflict that condition engenders promotes internal strife. In our attempt to reconcile this sense of inauthenticity, we cling even more desperately to establishing a sense of “me-ness” and can, in some cases, become morbidly self-destructive in our attempts to soothe the pain of failure in that reconciliation.
Addiction generally begins as an interest. As soon as we express an interest in something, we are expressing a preference. In expressing a preference, we are dividing our attention and creating an attachment to something in the world around us. As that interest turns into a fascination, our attachment deepens. Our attention becomes more and more exclusive, and we become increasingly imbalanced; emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.
Fascination may then flower into obsession, and we become a slave to our attachment. We are no longer ourselves, and, rather than ‘losing our mind’, which would be the skillful means by which to escape our attachment, we are trapped inside the mind.
With obsession, our attachment becomes even more intensified, and our exclusion even more narrow. As we become slaves to our attachment, our mind, and our behavior, we lose the ability to exercise free will and, in that light, move from obsession to compulsion; from place of being driven, to a place of need.
At this point we fail the First Noble Truth; our attachment has become so involved that we have invited suffering. We are no longer willful, but, rather, subject to and at the sufferance of the will of our attachments. When we find ourselves in a place that we cannot live without exercising this attachment, whatever it may be, we have fallen into a state of addiction.
Within the context of addiction, people often feel that they do not have a choice. Nothing could be further from the truth. We always have a choice. When confronting someone who themselves is confronting an addiction, saying to them, “Stopping your behavior is your choice.” is, however, often met with profound resistance for their failure to see that choice.
The key to getting a grasp on this is recognizing that choice is a constant state; it is not a single moment in time. If the choice not to be addicted were a single choice point, then all we would ultimately do is move our attachment from something socially defined as negative (say, drinking or being promiscuous) to something that is socially defined as positive (not drinking or being chaste). In point of fact, we would become addicted, or at the very least attached, to not being addicted.
Buddha spoke of the Middle Way. Within the context of choice that suggests that if we are present in the moment, our choices are constant. We do not, then, go right or left, say yes or no, think good or bad, or see black or white; rather, we are aware that both opportunities are presenting themselves, we recognize this and acknowledge it, then choose neither.
When we lose the Middle Way and fall off our balancing point, we create our pain. We create our sense of emptiness, and our anxiety around loss. We deceive ourselves into believing that we are less than whom and what we are by virtue of attaching ourselves to things, objects, situations, emotions, and anxieties that take us away from ourselves. This is the engine of addiction.
Coming back to the present moment brings us back to our constancy of choice. We find ourselves in the Middle Way, on the balancing point and we are able to see both choices. Seeing both sides in balance and in perspective then gives us the opportunity to exercise compassion. Most importantly, it gives us the opportunity to exercise compassion toward ourselves. We are able to see the left and the right, and we are also able to see the left in the right and the right in the left.
Our frustration with the world and sense of victimhood thus becomes transformed into the recognition that we must set an intention in our lives. Our depression finds an antidote for itself in the gratitude that we can express simply for being alive. We begin to see outside ourselves with a clear vision and recognize that the things outside ourselves are, in fact, quite outside ourselves. In letting go of our attachments we also let go of the things that influence us and draw us into a state of mind where we feel less than we are, where we feel that something is missing, where we need to fill the space, or dampen the pain, or simply make it go away.
Coming back to the breath as a marker for the present moment, and exercising the constancy of choice in that moment and every moment also gives us an opportunity to break free of the bonds of this supreme state of attachment and begin to climb out of the pit of suffering into which we have gotten ourselves.
© 2008 Michael J. Formica, All Rights Reserved
This is a pathwork lecture http://pathwork.org/the-lectures/
I lived in the pathwork centre in Phoenicia in New York some time around 1983-1984 – at times the lectures drive me mad – they can be wordy and repeat themselves, but they can also be amazingly incisive – so I want to put this one out in the world here
Bruce
The Text – Section 77
Previous Section
77. SELF-CONFIDENCE: ITS TRUE ORIGIN AND WHAT PROHIBITS IT
Greetings, my dearest friends. I bring blessings for each one of you. Blessed is this hour.
The subject tonight will be self-confidence. What is self-confidence? When your real being,
your real self, your intuitive nature manifests, there is no uncertainty in you, no doubt about your
right reaction or action, and no wavering. Your instant and spontaneous reaction is of such a nature
that you know deep down, “This is right, this is so.” That has happened to all of you, at least
occasionally. Under certain circumstances your real being could express and manifest, unhampered
by the disturbing layers that usually cover your real self. Whatever the occasion, you lived up to it.
You coped with it in the only way possible, and you knew without a shadow of doubt that this was
so.
The truly healthy and mature human being nearly always reacts this way, and when this occurs,
genuine self-confidence is automatically established. For it is only when your intuitive nature guides
you that you can trust yourself. From this part of your being you have nothing to fear from the
overlayers of error, illusion and compulsion you have. They can only lead you into further illusion
and error, and therefore into unrest.
The ultimate aim of this work of self-search is to free you from the superimposed layers so
that your real self can take the reins and govern your life. Thus it is easy to see that your conflicts,
images, misconceptions and inner problems prohibit your real self from manifesting. At this point
we have to understand the basic cause of the problems.
In the course of the work you are doing, you may have often wondered, “Where is my real
self? What is it?” And you think of this real self as though it were something remote that can only
come to the fore after you search for it in faraway places — within yourself, of course. It is a mystery
to you; you are slightly awed and somehow imagine that the real self is something utterly strange and
new. Therefore, you fear it just a little bit. But nothing could be further from the truth. You know
your real self. You have nothing to fear from it. It is not far away — in fact it is close by, right under
your nose, so to speak, only most of the time you do not realize it. You make no use of it and prefer
to express the other self which you have become used to, but which is not the real you. It consists
of the compulsive drives and impulses which you unconsciously think you have to express in order
to be happy, or just to survive. Whatever comes from this level does not express your real feelings.
Your real feelings come from your real self, which is right underneath the tense, compulsive,
emotional behavior pattern. Once you stop believing, as you unconsciously do now, that the
compulsive drive is necessary, and use instead your real feelings, your intuitive nature will emerge.
After some constructive work is done and valid insights have been attained, you are bound to
become aware of this compulsive current, and feel it distinctly, almost as a separate foreign
substance within yourself. You will then understand that all your wrong conclusions and images are
a product of this current, which I have also called the forcing current. It is based on a fundamental
misunderstanding about life.
In order to get a comprehensive view of the subject, it is necessary that I repeat certain points.
For those of you, my friends, who have already found within yourselves what I discuss here, my
words will fortify your findings, bringing them into stronger focus. Others who have not found this
current, and do not realize what a fundamental aspect this is, may be helped to arrive at the point
that is so necessary obtain freedom, to lose inhibitions and uncertainties, and allow the real self to
emerge. But I emphasize again; mere intellectual knowledge will never bring freedom.
What causes all your conflicts and deviations is your desire to be happy, or to be loved. Being
loved is a necessary requirement for being happy and therefore constitutes a major part of your
compulsive drives. Subdivisions, divisions of this drive, such as the desire to be approved of and
admired, may take the place of your desire to be loved; it may also be an additional factor. There is
also a second aspect. The child in you imagines that you can only be happy if your will is done. At
times, this may simply mean that your will is to be loved and admired. At other times you may feel
unhappy if your dear ones have shortcomings that you disapprove of, or if their opinions vary from
yours, or if you are prohibited from pursuing a certain aim. The child in you thinks that this
prevents your happiness.
You emerge from childhood with the rarely conscious conviction: “In order to be happy, my
will has to be done.” As long as you have not recognized this hidden conviction, you cannot arrive
at the liberation you desire. The more your intellect conflicts with your hidden emotions, the more
difficult it will be to unearth this deep-rooted misconception, which creates a tight, tense current —
the forcing current. It creates constant struggle, tension, and anxiety. The more unaware you are of
it, the more potent it is within your psyche. Unconsciously, you feel that getting your will is a matter
of life or death. Not to get it represents the abyss; not to get it spells annihilation for you —
unconsciously, of course. This fear is so strong that you often do not permit yourself to admit you
have not got your will: you try to pretend that what you really wanted is no longer desirable. This is
not merely pride, but it is based on the misconception that not getting what you want means terror,
darkness, and unhappiness.
Simultaneously, the evolving conscious part has realized that you cannot always get what you
want and this creates an additional element of conflict. You seek ways to overcome the threat of
not getting your will, but since the means are sought unconsciously rather than in the light of
awareness, and since they are sought under the misconception that getting your will and being happy
is one and the same thing, these unconscious strivings are not only inefficient, but they bring further
conflict.
On the one hand, these inner strivings are directed toward finding fulfillment. On the other,
you are in constant fear of not succeeding and unconsciously you labor to hide the “failure” from
yourself. Thus a current is set up, flowing in two directions. One calls for your pushing ahead,
trying to force life, people, and circumstances to succumb to your will, to conquer the reality in
which everything cannot go according to your desires. There are various ways in which you try to
do that. Often you choose several ways at once, never realizing that they are mutually exclusive and
would defeat your purpose even if it were possible to always get what you want. This is why you
often have much less than life would actually grant you, creating the preposterous situation that the
means employed to always get what you want cause you to get less than you would have without this
struggle. The second direction of this current concerns your fear of not getting what you want, or
even the conviction that you never will, and causes you to adopt means which are so defeatist and
negative that, again, you sabotage what you ordinarily could have.
Both the underlying belief that you must either always get what you want, or that you can
never get it, as well as the various means by which you try to force or defend against these wrong
conclusions, are unreal. All the impulses and drives you employ in their service are equally unreal,
imaginary, and therefore ineffective and damaging. They are the superimposed layers, which cover
your real self. Your real self functions in reality. It cannot manifest in a self-created world of
illusion, in a world based on wrong assumptions. That is why, whenever your intuitive nature
manifested in your life and you experienced a deep and peaceful certainty, at that moment you must
have been free of the forcing current.
Your real self and your real feelings are the same as creation, God, life, fate, the cosmic life
force, the stream of life, or reality. In reality you are not unhappy if you do not always get your will,
you are not unhappy if everyone does not love and admire you, you are not unhappy if others do
not always agree with you, or have faults you cannot tolerate. Nor is it reality that you can never get
what you really wish, that you can never be loved and respected, that life and the world is hostile to
you and prohibit you from unfolding the best you have to offer. You do not have to fight; nor do
you have to retreat and withdraw so as to avoid the danger of life. You do not have to beg, cry,
submit and sell your soul in order to get what you want. Nor do you have to defend yourself against
constant defeat — another supposed fact your subconscious often takes for granted. Your real self
knows all this. But as long as you repeat your useless struggle, it cannot evolve. In your world of
unreality, unreal and untrue impulses operate. They can no more function in reality than real
feelings can in a world of unreality.
Is it surprising then that you lack self-confidence? Your innermost self knows perfectly well
that on this level you cannot trust yourself. Such trust would not be justified, for the superimposed
layer, based on untruth, can only lead you to unsatisfactory pseudo-solutions. Only if you free
yourself of the idea that you always have to get your will in order to be happy, will you be free of the
“I want” current. And only when that is gone will you operate on the level that is real. You will
know that happiness can be yours, but not always the way you want it, and when you want it. In
reality it does not make you unhappy to wait and occasionally to give up. Your unhappiness is an
illusion.
If you are in harmony with the stream of life, giving yourself up to it, whatever comes your
way will smoothly carry you forward. While you are in unreality, you know two alternatives, which
are both equally wrong. The one is, “I can be happy only if everything happens the way I want it
when I want it.” The other alternative is, “Since so many times I could not get what I wanted, this
means I can never get it, therefore I can never be happy.” You operate on a level of illusion, and
where there is illusion, or untruth, there must be constant uncertainty, tension, anxiety, struggle, and
doubt. A part of you deeply feels that you have nothing secure to hold on to. And, in a way, you
are right: as long as you remain in illusion, you cannot hold onto reality, which alone is secure. The
only safety lies in the eternal, flexible truth of the life stream, which is eternally independent of small
wish-fulfillments.
If you cannot trust yourself, you cannot trust life, the world, or God. So, my friends, once
you have established this inner reality by removing the untrue premise and forever taking leave of it,
you are bound to trust yourself, and therefore the life stream. Only then will you realize how this
stream provides you with exactly what you need at each stage of your life. You will give yourself up
to it, since it and your real self are one. This does not mean a fatalistic, passive attitude in which you
wait without ever doing anything. It automatically creates the right balance between activity and
passivity.
Those of you who have encountered the tense nucleus which loudly claims, “I want” will feel
my words; you will derive a deep understanding from them and they will give you a new outlook.
Those of you who have not yet found the nucleus will do so sooner or later, if you persevere in this
work. Find the harsh, tense, rigid, and at the same time wavering current of “I want.” Find also all
the means you resort to, either to get it, or to protect yourself from the horror of not getting it.
I have often mentioned certain attitudes, which also apply here. So far, you may not have
understood that these attitudes are the result of the forcing current. One such attitude is
submissiveness. When you are submissive you cling, and hope for the love of others. To obtain it,
you forsake your own self and your own opinions, and do not stand up for yourself. You always put
yourself at a disadvantage, losing your dignity and self-respect. All this is covered with the
rationalization of unselfishness, sacrifice, and your ability to love. In truth, you just use the forcing
current in the most blatantly self-centered way. You simply try to make a bargain and say, “If I
submit to you, you must love me and do my will.” Although outwardly you appear meek and
flexible, inwardly just the opposite is the case. It is necessary that you find this aspect in you, no
matter how hidden. It is also necessary that you understand it. Submission must never be confused
with love. It may look similar, but the inner content is very different. When you try to appease the
other person, you want something. In fact, you grab for it, not waiting for it to be given freely. The
stronger the submissiveness, the stronger the forcing current, which expresses your desire to get
your way.
There is another attitude, often chosen when people are more inclined to be hopeless of ever
getting from others what they consider necessary. The only hope they see is in their using all their
power, all their selfish, ruthless drives, to defeat the enemy who always stands in their way. They
become hostile because they think the entire world is hostile and aggression is the only means of
getting the happiness they desire. Needless to say, the opposite effect is the result: they are bound to
antagonize people so that these actually do become hostile to them. This only strengthens their
wrong conclusions. They do not see that they have caused this condition, and are constantly
aggravating it. This can be so hidden that at first it would seem impossible to trace. In fact, often
the stronger the hostile attitude is, the more it is covered up. It is also possible that this attitude
exists only in isolated parts of the personality. It may need a great deal of self-search and analysis of
your real reactions, going to the roots of their significance, until you find the existence of this
attitude. When you find an attitude of battling in fear against annihilation, for instance, you can be
sure that this trend must exist within your psyche. In other cases, such a fear may be unconscious
and may apply only to certain aspects of your life, while in a larger part of your personality you feel
at ease with the world. That again may be difficult to trace.
While a submissive person is obviously dependent, the one with a hostile attitude deceives
himself or herself into believing that he or she is independent, standing alone and fighting alone,
never bending to the will of others. They never realize that they are just as dependent as the
submissive type, only they choose different means to pursue their conviction that they must get
what they want in order to be happy. Their way is to reject emotions, affection, and what they may
consider softness. To them all this represents danger. Instead of real or pseudo-positive emotions,
they will manufacture a hardness and aggressiveness inside themselves that is no more real than the
submissive kind of “love.”
Another way of coping with the basic will to be happy is the attitude I have so often called
withdrawal. In this case, people are convinced of never attaining happiness, and this seems to be
such a tragedy that they protect themselves by pretending they do not want anything from others,
life, or the world. They withdraw into isolation, never experiencing the dreaded defeat, never
realizing what a poor bargain they have made with life. They may protect themselves from
disappointments and failures, which in reality would not hurt half as much as they now imagine.
They could experience happiness and the joy they think they do not miss, whereas now they vegetate
without any real life experience. Although a person with this predominant attitude may appear more
cheerful and well-adjusted than another, deep down there is a greater hopelessness. Otherwise he or
she would not have resorted to such drastic means. I have pointed out before that all three aspects
exist in most people in some combination and this creates additional conflicts in the soul. If people
resort to several means, hoping to be guarded fully without risking anything, they will be pulled into
opposite directions.
Still another way of trying to cope is by crippling your real feelings. This also happens with
the three attitudes described before. You never allow your feelings to function freely or naturally.
Either you whip them artificially into a more dramatic state, exaggerating them for reasons that seem
to you expedient. The expediency is, of course, another way of manipulating the other person to
feel obligated to love and obey you. Or else, if you fear defeat, you do not allow either your
intuition or your real feelings to guide and carry you safely through the stream of life. Instead you
artificially cramp, prohibit, and squash your natural feelings. Maybe your real self would cause your
real feelings to recede too in a particular situation. But this is a very different procedure and has a
very different effect on your personality than the artificial manipulation, even if the goal is the same.
At other times, the goal may not be the same and what you do based on your limited view is not
only unnecessary but also damaging.
Your real self knows. Trust it. Your superimposed compulsive behavior pattern is completely
blind. The one is haphazard. It may be right or wrong, but you remain insecure. It is an unnatural
forceful procedure. The other is in harmony with your nature and your life. Therefore, whatever
happens is organic and right. If it is right to feel for someone, you do not need to increase your
emotions artificially. You will feel as strongly as you should when you allow your personality to
develop freely. This cannot happen with all the deviations and basic false premises.
In an artificial manipulation you prevent your soul from growing in harmony with your
innermost self. You prevent your innermost self from evolving. You prevent your feelings from
maturing, from manifesting. All this you may not yet be aware of, but in the course of this work,
you will find it to be true. It is important to understand the implications of the artificial
manipulation of your feelings, either making them bigger or making them smaller than they are. The
negative result is that you prohibit the growth of a living organism, for feelings are that. Any living
organism not left alone, but constantly manipulated, will suffer a very crippling effect. This is what
you do with your real feelings. You do so when you exaggerate and dramatize a positive feeling
about a person. And you do so when you talk yourself into resentment and contempt for a person
because you believe that this is protection against the tragedy of being rejected. Finally, it is not
surprising if you no longer know what you really feel and want, and who you really are. Your
feelings are the expression of your being. If you constantly prohibit your real feelings from
functioning and substitute artificial ones, you cannot know them, and therefore you cannot know
your real self.
There is only one way to find the real self that you are so ardently looking for in your work.
First become aware of the forcing current, the current of “I want” on the one hand, and “I fear that
I will not get what I want” on the other. Once you are clearly aware of how this current manifests in
you, you will be able to let go of it. Then, and then only, can you give it up. If you do that again
and again, soon you are bound to become aware of the feelings of your real self which slowly rise to
the surface after you have banned them in fear for such a long time. You did not trust them;
therefore you could not trust yourself. You can reverse that process only by becoming aware and
then removing the element that you substituted.
You will clearly distinguish between the real feelings underneath and the compulsive
manipulations, drives, and impulses which you confuse with your feelings. The real feelings are
calm. They do not mind being patient. When they express themselves, there will be no doubt, no
wavering. Since they are one with the stream of life, they will carry you in the right direction and
you will have no doubt if you are willing to trust them.
How can you have self-confidence if the only thing that can truly give it to you — your real
self, your real feelings — is not allowed to function, and if instead you use substitutes that leave you
in a state of inner frenzy? Those who are outwardly calm and well balanced are not necessarily free
of this aspect. In fact, it may only be more hidden, and perhaps even more damaging. But I venture
to say that the frenzy exists in each person unless it has been found and dissolved in your work.
Unless you become aware of it, feeling it almost like a separate element in you, you cannot relinquish
it.
Once you reach that state, you will experience feelings which are almost impossible to convey
in words. The relief of a burden you have unnecessarily carried will be so tremendous that your joy
and liberation will be a strongly felt reality. What you have so far experienced only on isolated
occasions, the manifestation of your intuitive nature, will become more and more a constant
reaction. You will have the deep inner knowledge — not in your brain but in your solar plexus —
that your reaction, or your knowledge, or your decision is right, feeling neither guilt nor pride nor
doubt. You will spontaneously be the best you can be: poised and unrepressed. You will say the
right thing at the right time and know when not to speak. You will be relaxed and concentrated at
the same time, fully aware and alive to the moment and its requirements. You will know that
nothing that should be yours could fail to come to you. You will not need to be in a frenzy about it,
worrying whether or not you do too much or too little. You will do what is necessary and eliminate
that which is unnecessary, without fear and worry.
This serenity sounds like an ideal impossible to attain on earth, and I do not say that you will
reach it overnight. But gradually and surely you will increase it, having unavoidable setbacks less
and less frequently. Eventually it will become your real nature, as it truly is, once you dissolve the
fearful and tense inner clamoring, “I want, I must.” When the tension is relaxed, you float, you do
not fear, you have no doubt, and you recognize clearly what an illusion your struggle has been. You
will no longer need it. You will shed it like an old, dirty, heavy cloak you have no use for. Your
potential will become reality. You will be poised within yourself and in life. You will not need to
exaggerate. You will not believe that you must have everything or you have nothing. You will find
happiness, but will know that not everything need go according to your wishes. You will not believe
people are “good” or “bad,” neither depending on them too much nor distrusting them and standing
alone in a seemingly hostile world. You will judge in reality, seeing what is valuable and trustworthy,
but not “needing” it. And you will also see the weaknesses of people, without being personally
threatened, and without generalizing this human aspect. Right now you are doing all of this
constantly, no matter how much it is camouflaged.
Your right, spontaneous, uninhibited expression depends solely on whether or not, or to what
degree, you become aware and then let go of the forcing current, “I want.” This work is a path
within the path. Once you have the distinct awareness and feel the current, visualizing it as a foreign
substance, you are on the halfway mark of this aspect of your development. Then the next step will
not be quite so difficult.
Now, are there any questions?
QUESTION: I feel this forcing current in me. I know that I want certain conditions, while I
intellectually know that I can’t have them. How can I give up the forcing current? In what way do I
work?
ANSWER: The first requirement is to feel its existence. Just verify it. And then ask yourself
specific questions. What is it that I want? Why? A clear and precise answer to these questions is of
utmost importance. Know what you want in any given moment, and why. Moreover, why does the
attainment seem so important? Consider whether it is really as important as you now think. Ask
yourself, what would happen if I did not get it? Consider this alternative with a fresh outlook.
Sometimes it may be necessary to concentrate temporarily on something else that appears to have
no bearing on the subject, but in the end you will see the connection. The work itself guides you in
the proper direction, as my friends have often noticed.
When you have considered the illusion of the importance of your wish fulfillment and your
feelings still remain as tense and unfree as before, there must be something hidden that you have not
yet found. You will see that the intensity of your feelings is out of proportion with your intellectual
view of its importance. Emotionally, it seems that your life depends on it, while you know perfectly
well that it does not. This will show you the discrepancy between the issue and the intensity of your
feelings. When you realize this, you may be quite shocked.
If after ascertaining realizing your wishes and seeing the discrepancy between them and your
actual needs the intensity still remains, consider whether the fulfillment of the desire would mean to
you an imaginary protection against an imaginary danger. Needless to say, you have to find your
particular imaginary danger. Unless you are aware of this, you cannot let go of the “weapon” of your
forcing current.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough that in this work you cannot get any real results by
absorbing general knowledge. It does not suffice that you know, and even feel, that you have the
forcing current in you. You have to find the exact, specific way in which it works, what the issues
are, and in what way you try to overcome the obstacles to your childish concept of happiness. This
may not only vary with each person, but it also varies with the same person. One day your forcing
current manifests in one way, the next day in another. You may find two or three ways
simultaneously which conflict with one another. All this is very individual, and it is necessary to find
out how these different ways are expressed in you. In fact, when you have a real insight, you will
probably even forget at the moment to identify it as the forcing current. Only afterward will you see
what it was. Perhaps this is one way of distinguishing real and false recognitions. In the former, you
hardly realize what it is you seek and find at the moment. In the latter, you struggle to use
knowledge you have heard and try to apply it artificially.
When an emotional obstinacy is discovered in the course of this work and you are perfectly
aware of its unreasonableness without being able to help it, then, as I said before, you must be afraid
to let go of the attitude because it is supposed to be a protection against something you fear. It is an
armor. So it becomes imperative that you find out specifically what the danger is that the stubborn
holding on to the “I-want-current” is supposed to save you from.
Of course the answer is that the child in you believes that you will avoid the abyss of
unhappiness by holding on to this current. But again, this general answer is not sufficient because
many individual variations are possible in which this is experienced in the subconscious. Perhaps
the only way you can discover the truth within is by using completely different words. You have to
find it all afresh. And then you may, perhaps, see that it amounts to just what I say here.
Unconsciously, you may think of your forcing current in different terms, so that emotionally my
words may have no meaning for you.
Incidentally, my friends, I would greatly welcome questions, especially from those friends who
do not yet have the opportunity to get private help for their individual work, who still have to wait —
the time will come if they persevere. They need it more than the others who are already well
launched on this path; they can do much to prepare themselves for receiving more intensified help.
It would be constructive for all of you, even those who already work with a helper, to ask what to do
as preparatory work. This will also be beneficial for those friends who cannot attend personally but
read these lectures. So give up your shyness and inhibitions. The more you participate with
questions, the better it is for your inner readiness and for the shedding of your inhibitions. This will
be of substantial benefit that you cannot yet evaluate.
QUESTION: Isn’t it that sometimes we want to nurse our resentments for certain people
and that’s why we seek their faults? What do we do about that?
ANSWER: This is a very constructive question. When you want to have resentments, the
most obvious and first question would be, why? Once you realize that you want to have such
resentments, it will not be so difficult to find out why. As always, this should be approached as
dispassionately and with as new an outlook as though questions of this sort had never been asked.
Disregard the ready answer that would say, because of this or that fault in the other person. This is
not the reason. You have to find out what your imagined advantage is when you are aggressive and
hostile.
QUESTION: An armor, so as not to be on the defensive?
ANSWER: If you are afraid of being on the defensive, you must find yourself guilty,
otherwise you would not have to protect yourself by going on the offensive.
QUESTION: Yes, but it also gives self-confidence and self-trust.
ANSWER: Actually, it does not give you self-confidence if you resent another person and
you are helplessly caught in the resentment. Your emotions become so strong that you cannot
handle them anymore. This does not make for self-confidence. But in your unreality you may
believe it does, simply by avoiding looking for what you feel guilty about. If you attack in order to
hide something, it will make you as helpless as the object of your attack. Thus you are caught in a
whirlpool, losing self-government.
It is often the case that one resents in the other what one actually resents in oneself. If you
look at what particularly irritates you, you will inevitably find that, perhaps in a distorted or modified
way, you have a very similar aspect or attitude. The stronger you dislike it in yourself, the more you
project the dislike on others. The more it is hidden, the more you may overcompensate for it by
going in the opposite extreme outwardly. But since any ungenuine solution has a negative effect, so
must this, too. One of the symptoms is that you particularly resent the same thing in others. The
remedy, therefore, lies in finding that in you which is still hidden and then, through understanding
its imagined necessity, dissolving it. In that moment, you will no longer have such strong reactions
toward others. Is that clear?
QUESTION: Yes. I also think that it is a cover for the procedure, “If there is a hurt anyway,
I’d rather have a self-inflicted hurt than be hurt by someone else.”
ANSWER: Yes, that may often be the case too. I have touched upon the subject of self-
destructiveness in the past, but in the light of our new knowledge I would be glad to discuss this
element again. Please bring it up another time.
My dearest friends, let me part from you tonight with the assurance, once again, that this is a
benign universe, that you have nothing to fear if you come out of your illusion, if you give up the
fear, as well as the error, that your little self can be the judge of what brings you happiness. Let your
big self, your real self that is so much nearer than you believe, guide you in the stream of life. All
people on this earth who have found ways of exploring the realms of the subconscious, whether in
psychoanalysis or in any other form of psychotherapy, if truly successful, discover the old, old truths
of metaphysics and spirituality. The more successful your earth methods become, the more will they
integrate with the basis of all religions. For the divine laws work eternally within the psyche and this
will be more and more discovered to be so.
Go in peace, my friends. Rejoice in the knowledge that reality must make you happy. Be
blessed, be in God!
I used to work with kids excluded from school – they all had files inches thick – what really dumbfounded me was that none of the experts they met actually listened to them.
The psychiatrists tended to believe their bad behaviour was due to chemical imbalances, the analytically trained therapists interpreted their unconscious drives, the clinical psychologists don’t have any mandatory therapy themselves and tend towards quick fix CBT solutions, and the educational psychologists don’t have the experience of in depth emotional conditions, and hence tend to come up with very shallow solutions ( measures should be taken to deal with his anxiety,) said the statement of one of my pupils – this of a boy whose mother was cutting herself in front of her son to blackmail him to get his Dad home – but then the boy didn’t trust them enough to really tell them what was going on.
Does this remind you of the five blind men and the elephant ?
In the West we are – if we are completely honest – unable to approach our own minds – we have got to the point where we see there are just different stories about it, but don’t know how to take that extra step. In my view the Buddha took that extra step two and half thousand years ago and his discovery of mindfulness is now beginning to impact western psychologists in a big way. But they all too often don’t understand it – just because mindfulness cant actually be understood – it can only be surrendered into – allowing oneself to not know, and from there simply listen and watch the way in which our perceptions and conceptions and feelings arise and pass like waves in the ocean.
But psychiatrists are sadly stuck in the past and unwilling to give up their belief that they have the answers – and with that of course the kudos and the money.
Phillip Hickey is a retired psychologist who blogs with great clarity about the way psychiatric diagnoses depend on an assumption there is such a thing as a mental illness – and that therefore they as doctors have the right to diagnose it and treat it.
In his blog at behaviorismandmentalhealth.com, he writes
“Psychiatry’s most fundamental tenet is that virtually all significant problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving are illnesses that need to be studied and treated from a medical perspective. What’s not usually acknowledged, however, is that this is an arbitrary assumption.
In common speech and within the medical profession, the word “illness” indicates the presence of organic pathology: i.e. damage or malfunction in an organ. Historically, mental illnesses came into being, not because some scientist or group of scientists had recognized and established that problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving are caused by an organic malfunction, but rather because the APA had simply decided to extend the concept of illness to embrace these kinds of problems. For the record, some problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving are known to be caused by organic pathology, and I exclude those from the present discussion.
It is not superficially obvious that other problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving are actually illnesses, and there is a strong burden of proof on those who adopt this position. Psychiatry, however, has never proved this assertion, but nevertheless continues to expand its diagnostic net in the same way that it started – by fiat. …
Client’s daughter: “Why is my mother so depressed?”
Psychiatrist: “Because she has an illness called major depression.”
Client’s daughter: “How do you know she has this illness?
Psychiatrist: “Because she is so depressed.”
The only evidence for the illness is the very behavior it purports to explain. Unlike diagnoses in real medicine, there is no actual illness behind the DSM symptom lists to provide genuine explanatory value.
For another blog by a UK psychiatrist who also says that
“Psychiatry has its head in the sand: Royal College of Psychiatrists rejects discussion of crucial research on antipsychotics,” seehttp://joannamoncrieff.com/blog/
In saying that there are no mental illnesses, this is not to deny the very real suffering mental conditions create – but ti does suggest they require UNDERSTANDING, and true listening on the part of the therapist and the client…
The Buddha taught us to recognise our suffering – just to fully acknowledge it without reacting. When we bathe our suffering in mindful awareness, we discover there is a refuge in us, one that has resources we could not imagine, which can gradually dissolve whatever it is facing. As Thich Nhat Hanh writes, the ‘practice is not to fight or suppress the feeling, but rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness.’
IFS (internal family systems) can help with this because it helps YOU recognise and understand the barriers to mindful awareness – all the habitual reactions that are attempting to bury your suffering – listening to them, understanding what they are on about, making sense of them, means you begin to identify the reactions rather than be identified with them, then there is space for mindful awareness to do its work….
I loved this encounter between John Blofeld and Xu Yun – the Chan Master in China who lived to the age of 120. What I love about it is the trenchant reminder that enlightenment is just seeing there is no place to reach – right here, right now, just being the knowing. Its so simple its easy to overlook (the understatement of the century) but it is alive and well, and undamaged in all of us – without it healing would be impossible…
“Is this famous monastery purely Zen, Your Reverence?”
“Oh yes,” he answered in a surprisingly vigorous voice. “It is a great centre of Zen.”
“So you do not worship Amida Buddha or keep his statue here?”
The question seemed to puzzle him, for he took some time to reply.
“But certainly we keep his statue here. Every morning and evening we perform rites before it and repeat the sacred name while circumambulating the altar.”
“Then the monastery is not purely Zen,” I persisted, puzzled in my turn.
“Why not? It is like every other Zen monastery in China. Why should it be different? Hundreds of years ago there were many sects, but the teachings have long been synthesized – which is as it should be. If by Zen, you mean the practice of Zen meditation, why, that is the very essence of Buddhism. It leads to a direct perception of Reality in this life, enabling us to transcend duality and go straight to the One Mind. This One Mind, otherwise known as our Original Nature, belongs to everybody and everything. But the method is very hard – hard even for those who practise it night and day for years on end. How many people are prepared or even able to do that? The monastery also has to serve the needs of simple, illiterate people. How many of them would understand if we taught only the highest method? I speak of the farmers on our own land here and of the simple pilgrims who come for the great annual festivals. To them we offer that other way – repetition of the sacred name – which is yet the same way adapted for simple minds. They believe that by such repetition they will gain the Western Paradise and there receive divine teaching from Amida Buddha himself – teaching which will lead them directly to Nirvana.”
At once reluctantly and somewhat daringly I answered: “I see. But isn’t that a kind of – well, a sort of – of – er – deception? Good, no doubt, but…”
I broke off, not so much in confusion as because the Venerable Hsü Yün was roaring with laughter.
“Deception? Deception? Ha, ha, ha, ha-ha! Not at all. Not a bit. No, of course not.”
“Then Your Reverence, if you too believe in the Western Heaven and so on, why do you trouble to teach the much harder road to Zen?”
“I do not understand the distinction you are making. They are identical.”
“But…”
“Listen, Mr P’u. Zen manifests self-strength; Amidism manifests other-strength. You rely on your own efforts, or you rely on the saving power of Amida. Is that right?”
“Yes. But they are – I mean, they seem – entirely different from each other.”
I became aware that some of the other monks were beginning to look at me coldly, as though I were showing unpardonable rudeness in pertinaciously arguing with this renowned scholar and saint; but the Master, who was quite unperturbed, seemed to be enjoying himself.
“Why insist so much on this difference?” he asked. “You know that in reality there is nought but the One Mind. You may choose to regard it as in you or out of you, but “in” and “out” have no ultimate significance whatever – just as you, Mr P’u, and I and Amida Buddha have no real separateness. In ordinary life, self is self and other is other; in reality they are the same. Take Bodhidharma who sat for nine years in front of a blank wall. What did he contemplate? What did he see? Nothing but his Original Self, the true Self beyond duality. Thus he saw Reality face to face. He was thereby freed from the Wheel and entered Nirvana, never to be reborn – unless voluntarily as a Bodhisattva.”
“Yet, Reverence, I do not think that Bodhidharma spoke of Amida. Or am I wrong?”
“True, true. He did not. But when Farmer Wang comes to me for teaching, am I to speak to him of his Original Self or of Reality and so on? What do such terms mean to him? Morning and evening, he repeats the sacred name, concentrating on it until he grows oblivious of all else. In time, after a month, a year, a decade, a lifetime or several lifetimes, he achieves such a state of perfect concentration that duality is transcended and he, too, comes face to face with Reality. He calls the power by which he hopes to achieve this Amida; you call it Zen; I may call it Original Mind. What is the difference? The power he thought was outside himself was inside all the time.”
Deeply struck by this argument and anxious, perhaps, to display my acquaintance with the Zen way of putting things, I exclaimed:
“I see, I see. Bodhidharma entered the shrine-room from the sitting-room. Farmer Wang entered it through the kitchen, but they both arrived at the same place. I see.”
“No,” answered the Zen Master, “you do not see. They didn’t arrive at any place. They just discovered that there is no place for them to reach.”
An Extract from The wheel of life
john blofeld
Half way up Mt Rigi, sitting still, mind on the sensations of the whole body, mind and body begins to unify. All information about the world comes through the body – light through the eye, sound through the ear, touch through the skin, smells through the nose, tastes through the tongue. As the mind and body unify, so the apparent duality between the environment and the self also unifies. Hearing an owl, there is no gap between the sounds and the one who hears – as the Buddha put it, ‘In the sound, there is just the sound’. This is a magical miraculous world, which we are normally shut out of by believing in the constructions of the Mind.
And none contented: sometimes am I king;
Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I king’d again: and by and by
Think that I am unking’d by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing: but whate’er I be,
Nor I nor any man that but man is
With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased
With being nothing.
Richard 11 Act 5 Scene 5
I went to talk to a 10 yr old boy who had nearly strangled someone. His mother was screaming at me, ‘My son does not have mental health problems!’ I said, well we all do, and asked the boy, ‘What sort of animal is your anger ? He said, ‘Its a lion that kills its prey!’ Later he told me,’the lion and me think differently – he goes boo and I go eek! Out of the mouths of babes… I went on Radio 4 to talk about this on a programme about knife crime – my heart sank as they brought in someone else who said all psychologising is a waste of time – kids who are violent only understand firm handling. But listening to the programme later found out Dominic Grieve (Shadow Home Sec) and the presenter from the Centre for Crime & Justice at Kings College had really liked it
Watching Dick Schwartz (the creator of IFS) work with someone who had a deep sadness in his heart but was terrified to go there. Part of him said it cant be healed, there’s no point, I’ll only feel hopeless… Dick is just so clear that the sadness can be healed, and that the protectors can continue doing their job if they really want to, but if they would like a break he can guarantee the parts they hide can be healed…As the protectors were willing to seperate from the man, so he could open his heart, and see and understand the deep sadness of the boy in him from a place of Self – it is this dual consciounsness that is so powerful – not lost in the emotion, not lost in intellectualising..
