i feel like a deer-
caught in the headlight.
you are there.
my heart? thumping… so quiet and so so loud.
i have nowhere to go.
you saw me,
you were there.
you are right here with me.
i’m not used to this
this being seen-
it makes me want things,
it makes me want to want things again.
i know it will lead to pain,
the dice have been rolled.
and i can’t help but STARE.
i want to appear smooth
like i know what i’m doing-
have witty banter,
keep it easy,
but in that gaze i become putty-
no, i don’t know what i’m doing.
i want to run to you,
i want to run away from you.
what childish feelings!
i’m four again. i’m fourteen again.
safe scary safe safe safe…
i want to devalue you-
act like it doesn’t matter:
“it’s just a flight of fancy,
just another archetypal messenger!”
but the world is too heavy
and i feel grateful for the trip-
to pretend for a moment that it’s possible
that i could walk with you,
that we could hold hands,
your arm around me-
safe safe safe safe safe.
thinking about it
does something to my body-
your gaze warm,
i imagine your breath being warm,
what would it be like-
to love again,
to even live again?
she had died
but she’s waking up…
in the memory of your gaze,
i have no where to go-
her childish and insistent desires leave me embarrassed.
where can i go in this night?
Do not pass me by like the shadow of a dream….
This is a poem by Sunetra Gupta- she was inspired by a Tagore song. This poem has haunted me all of my life, it feels like an anthem to my life and my search. I keep losing it, literally and figuratively, and something reminds me of it. Thanks to the internet I found it again, I will put it here in hopes to never forget again… but i know it will elude me again.
In the dense obsession of this deep dark rain
You tread secret, silent, like the night, past all eyes.
The heavy eyelids of dawn are lowered to the futile wall of the winds
Clotted clouds shroud the impenitent sky
Birdless fields
Barred doors upon your desolate path.
Oh beloved wanderer, I have flung open my doors to the storm
Do not pass me by like the shadow of a dream.
My light has been quenched upon this dark and lonely path
For a storm is rising
A storm is rising to befriend me
Darkling disaster smiles at the edges of the sky
Catastrophe wreaks delighted havoc with my garments, with my
Hair
My lamp has blown out on this lonely road
Who knows where I must wander now, in this dense dark
But perhaps the thunder speaks of a new path
One that will take me to a different dawn.
on this last night of spring, I have come empty-handed, garlandless
a silent flute cries, the smile dies on your lips
in your eyes a wet indignation
when did this spring pass by, where is my song?
I lose you, my beloved, so that I may rediscover you
Though oft immersed in a tide of some other enchantment
You remain invisible, yet you are not of the shadows.
I seek you, my mind trembles with fear, waves terrify my passion
You conceal your boundlessness under a cloak of void
But my grief washes away the mirth of that deception.
Your eyes have pleaded with me for a song
Among flowers and stars, day and night, in the dusty light of dusk
You wonder why I do not sing
I lose my lyrics in my pain, I forget my tune
You have called to me in the fierce storm wind
From upon wild waters
In the thunder of mute clouds
In monsoon torrents, you have called me towards death
You wonder why I do not come
I cannot find my way to you across the seas.
The night wind has quenched my light
And you come without haste to bid farewell
Passing upon this path in darkness
The scent of night flower will drown you.
If you did not give me love
Why paint the dawn sky with such song
Why thread garlands of stars
Why make a field of flowers my bed
Why does the south wind whisper secrets in my ear?
If you did not give poetry to my soul
Why does the sky stare like that upon my face
And why do sudden fits of madness grip my heart?
I set sail upon seas whose shores I know not.
deliver me now from this darkness
give me sight
I will drink gladly of its pain
for this happiness sits heavy upon me
let my eyes be washed clean with tears, give me sight.
the magic of dark shadows beckon, my burden grows heavy with
dreams
let me look upon the light that hides on the edge of night
give me sight.
if the doors to my heart should someday close upon you
break them down and enter my soul, do not turn away
if on these violin strings your beloved name does not play
still, I beseech you, do not turn away
if someday, at your call, I remain encased within dead dream
wake me with the agony of thunder, do not turn away
and if someday, upon your throne, I seat someone else with care
remember, you are my only king, do not turn away.
so you want to be president
dear woman, you’re running for president!
you must look presidential, a bar set for men.
you must wear the pants, and you must look strong.
any flair you show, will quickly be undone.
they will talk about your clothes, like they’ve never done before;
after all you are a wannabe, you’re an underdog!
you must fight, you must keep your chin up.
please don’t look too haughty, you better tone it down!
be the wife, the mother, the grandma… be someone they know,
see they’ve made it a challenge, you have to huMANize you.
you see woman, juggling of masks is simply a price you pay.
can you imagine what would happen if you showed your own power instead?
dear woman, you’re running for president!
you must struggle to find that pitch in your voice, the one between the screeching angry bitch that sounds like mother,
and the softy, the one that cannot govern.
and no not that seductive one, lest you be inappropriate.
focus woman, you must sound like them, if you’re to stay in the game.
you see woman, authenticity is simply a price you pay.
can you imagine what would have happened if you had worn that dress instead?
women will pick on you, just as much or more than men.
because woman you’ve got good at fighting for the spot,
where they line you up, bare and showing your stuff,
so they can declare you miss universe!
but know your place, don’t think you can rule the world,
you body is lien, utterly beholden to them.
you’re the stuff of fantasy, don’t you dare kill their buzz!
hide your body! wait no! show it now!
they will undress you with their eyes and cover it with their suits.
you may try to cover it with your own flesh when your bones feel too bare,
but you will be unclothed, reminded who pays your fare.
you see woman, rights to your body is simply a price you pay.
can you imagine what would have happened if you pretended to own it yourself?
but don’t be a victim, that’s weak and unpresidential!
woman you be strong, and look like them, leave that woman card behind.
square your shoulders, wear the suit,
the armor for the weak, will feel like a boxy prison for your strength.
but woman you must wear it to even be up on that stage.
lest the hem of your skirt be used to define you instead.
but now they will test you, your strong and your weak, the mother and whore.
you’ll be pitted against each other, inside you you will roar.
the same body ruthless, too strong, too driven,
you lack stamina, even take disgusting bathroom breaks.
you may think you’re soaring, woman, you’re so close to the top!
but you must pay some price, you will be nudged and shoved.
they will not engage with your mind, your ideas are background noise
a leader of the free world? they will remind you of your blood.
you’ll be made to feel shame that you ever belonged to a man,
but remember what happened when you refused to take up his name?
now they will put her in the front row and blame you for the time he left.
the playbook says get under her skin, so they will try to undo you from within.
dear woman, running for president…
In the course of fair and gentlemanly, and (might i add) suited debate,
you’ve peed and you’ve bled, now they’ll try make you cry,
they will use your waters, they will remind you of your place.
but like the great waters, you can ebb and flow,
you can dance with the earth moving, for it is made of you.
you know the secrets of the earth but they try to harvest you both on demand,
as forests die and lands get barren you wonder in your soul:
you rise from witch hunts, and ashes,
can a suit really contain you?
*they = oppressors
businesses, loves and gods
everything is a microcosm in itself. every relationship, every corporation, every interaction. there is a fractal pattern to everything, by design. i have presumed the blueprint to be the self but if it is all the same does it even matter…
what is it that makes walmart and starbucks different types of companies? there is an oppressive feel to walmart. the saving money includes a cost different from money. when corners are cut, and employees have boxes in a warehouse with no windows, when you are valued because of the number of hours you work and not the creativity you bring… the short term gains may look promising but the loss in goodwill and the loss in spirit is incurred. it becomes a relationship of necessity, employees ready to leave at the first alternative opportunity, customers shifting over when they can afford the extra cents.
and then you have companies like google or starbucks. pingpong tables and gaming stations? at work? the freedom to own your project, to have pride in it. to not be valued by butt in the seat hours but as a resource more than that? to be given hours dedicated to exploring your passions? google has a specific workgroup in which failure is encouraged, the goal is to fail. yes it costs money, but what happens is they trust people and their creative spirits, they trust that a human being who is valued will not just squander away their time, that these optimal conditions of growth will encourage growth and ownership and initiative. and what will follow is good will, people willing to spend $6 on a latte, for the experience. and innovation and evolution.
walmart is the place everyone wants to leave. starbucks is a place people crave to go (coffee addiction aside 😉 )
so when we look at relationships, there’s the obligatory type. the one that rocks on guilt and putting in the hours. scores are kept. the one where mistakes are punished and you hate going home because you’re always in trouble. these relationships bar creativity and spontaneity, and puts an upper limit on happiness and fulfillment.
and then there are those where you feel free to be who you are, mistakes are okay, you don’t have to be someone else. and therein you have the freedom to be your best self. you are fully there because you want to be, you don’t want to leave and you prize it, crave it and love going home.
but why aren’t all relationships like the latter? doesn’t everyone like to feel good?
in comes the design of the self. most of us are highly limited in our capacity for expansiveness. highly anxious and afraid of losing. so we think all that fairy tale feel-good stuff are myths and that to be safe and to succeed we have to create a neat little box. in a warehouse. with no windows. we settle for safety when we could experience much more. we give our all and get all from others trying to preserve the bottom line, the sales goal, the feeling that we are in control. the cost is heavy but we get away with it. because our partners and employees may have never had better either, they may not know it is even possible. we tie each other in a delusion of scarcity.
i was going to wrap up at the self, but what about God? the gods that we worship follow the same pattern. there is a god that wants complete devotion and obedience, who judges watching every single move, no don’t put that into your mouth or you’re going to hell! nope don’t look, and no pleasure! no entering temples and mosques while on your period. bow and move your hands exactly this way. this god may have OCD.
and then there’s the god where the world is a playground, you are good, you don’t have to live in fear, one of grace and love. unconditional love. this god even shares the divinity with you, in this view you are sacred.
but even here although we all may want the latter, we succumb to the story of the first.
personality differences play a role here in all of these. those who are more intuitive or more empathic may be closer to the latter scenarios in which resonating with spirits is more important than strategy. those more strategic and concrete may gravitate to the other. maybe some prefer the clarity that commandments or policy/procedure manuals provide. coming back to safety, that order may fulfill a need for certainty.
as an intuitive, i don’t understand it as a natural desire, but i understand it as a coping mechanism. that we are afraid to fail, afraid that somehow deep inside we’re just beings who will waste away our lives being bad employees, bad partners and sinful beings. that unless we are held to the standards by an authoritarian figure, we will goof up. that if we don’t become that authoritarian figure with ourselves and others, they will goof up. that our parents instilled the fear of God, the fear of the man, in other words fear of them, so much so that we never can trust ourselves or others again.
but the craving for freedom does not stop or go away. i believe that when we are free and allowed to be ourselves and trusted, we allow evolution. we are allowed to move beyond the limitations of status quo to a new reality that cannot be imagined in the constraints. and that means opening up to uncertainty. but if there is any sense of safety to be had in becoming free, i guess we can see that there are plenty of examples. when the first whole foods was destroyed by a flood and they thought they had to close down, the community members helped build it back up. see although the bottom line may not be pursued as fervently, the “feel-good” is actually an asset that cannot be calculated by short sighted overseers. the creative incubators with the video games and all, produce innovation after innovation. the relationships where you are free, you never want to leave. and with the god that loves unconditionally, you are home.
necessary losses and the search for wholeness
the reality of human suffering and the reality of wholeness juxtapositions so that it is never possible to fully grasp both at the same time. sometimes we get stuck on one or the other… caught in suffering, we feel isolated, disconnected, grieved, and heavy with loss. in Judith Viorst’s book Necessary Losses, she highlights losses of all kinds, small and big. loss of wholeness/unity in the womb, loss of childhood omnipotence, loss of undivided love, and it appears that life can be a state of constant longing. like we came from some wholeness, that we know what it feels like, it seems more than just theoretical, but we cannot pinpoint when and how that was. the word fernweh is defined as a longing or ache for a place that we’ve never been to. yet this feels familiar because how would it be so potent, real and palpable if we never tasted it.
there are moments in life when we’re “there.” a sort of suspended consciousness… from bliss in meditation, being out in the woods, being in love… moments of nirvana right here and right now. and the magic is that we’re not “doing” anything… and therefore it is so hard to recreate. yet these moments seem more than just accidental. almost like with purpose and intentionality and discipline we could subtly string along more of these moments.
the thinking mind seems to stand back and allow flow.
i heard at a recent conference that the right brain is associated with “religious experiences”- the moments where we feel like there is something bigger that just us. we’re connected in oneness. but as Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor writes, the left brain does the opposite. it defines and labels, thus separating. it is almost like we are not capable of hanging out in the right brain oneness connectivity very long without activating our left brain’s need to explain it and define it.
religion transformed from experience into the written word, from silent reverence to rules… as if we are trying to capture the moment and recreate it, and we want a formula. we want to share it with others, let them be a part of our heaven, and sometimes even become insistent and fundamentalist about demanding that others experience. yet that very act, contrived and imitating, seems to induce a loss of heaven. and we’re back in a state of loss, longing once again.
whether to have an opinion
there is an evolution of voice and opinion that occurs as a person develops. opinions may go from inexpressible to expressing with caution to adding the disclaimer of “this is just my opinion” to some depth of belief and conviction that there is some absolute truth to the emerging voice or opinion. there maybe some theory of opinion development, much like theories of moral development. many young people express a reluctance to have an opinion, “whatever” is said frequently because committing to one aspect may seem too threatening. there may be a desire to fit in, or to not ruffle any feathers. then there is a commitment to an idea, perhaps an owning of “this is how i feel.” however putting that out there is seen as almost disrespectful. there is a generosity of spirit that seems to come into play here, where one says everyone is entitled to their opinions, just because i have one doesn’t mean i’m right. “live and let live” is the motto for this stage. often there is also a degree of pride that goes along with having this accepting and tolerant attitude.
however from people i admire, who are wiser and more seasoned in life, i have heard that letting people “just be the way they are” is not that admirable. my mentor strongly believes in helping evolve people, believing that there are absolute truths. this is different from liking blue or liking red, it is more about issues like whether corporal punishment for children is okay, whether healthcare should be universal or not… these are opinions that have implications on people and their lives, and the future of human beings. the idea is that holding a neutral “i don’t care what you do” is not useful, and can even be harmful. on a larger scale, this is what can be attributed to the reason why we have “a silent majority” who can but do not fight for social justice or values. a professor of mine said “without making judgments on what I believe to be anti-justice, I would be on a slippery slope into moral relativism and apathy.”
below is a wonderful TED Talk about the dangers of silence, the dangers of not having and not expressing opinions.
spiritual partnerships
watching Gary Zukav and his spiritual partner on Oprah’s super soul sunday clarified something for me that was often a source of longing, confusion and disappointment. there are people in the world that i feel a spiritual tug towards… it can manifest as intellectual curiosity, attraction, felt sense there is something more there.
a spiritual partnership, as they described it, is one where the individuals are partners in waking each other up. inherent in it is a desire to wake up, to grow, to fully realize our authenticity… and there isn’t much of platitudes and politeness. yet this kind of relationship requires an intention to stay together, to wake up, and to stay committed and not run away because it’s hard. although waking up sounds wonderful, it’s fraught with brutal encounters with ourselves and what we call our shadows, the neighbourhoods within us that we don’t like to go into. so it’s easy to see why we may bail out of these relationships, or tone down their intensity because it feels like too much, too close, too real.
i’ve seen ebbs and flows in my spiritual partnerships. a desire to avoid the truth combined with a thirst to fully realize. like we can’t handle the intensity of being real for too long. but i’m drawn to it just as much.
but friendships and romantic relationships are not always these. they describe how in a friendship, the goal may be to be supportive, to make each other feel better, to not say or do anything that will rock the boat. in fact, in most marriages people spend a lifetime not rocking the boat.
Zukav said “spiritual partners like to swim.” getting swung off the boat is okay.
the paradox is our ever present desire to grow and awaken, opposing our fear of what we will become if we fully wake up and what we’ll face on the way. the road to self discovery is fraught with hidden demons. on a realistic level, these demons are things we’ve already experienced AND survived. but when those movies play in our heads, they seem so real it’s hard to remember.
my mentor says the treasures are guarded by the guardians at the gate and we must be warriors as we seek these depths. a spiritual partner i guess pushes our buttons to make us go there, but make a commitment to be around. not to rescue or protect, but to be around acknowledging and witnessing us becoming real.
left brain-right brain, and contentment
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Harvard trained neuroanatomist, with the experience of a left brain stroke at the age of 37, speaks about the two sides of the brain and what that means about who we are. Dr. Taylor’s TED talk and her interview with Oprah are embedded below and most of the following is based off of what i learned from her talks and her book…
she listed that the left brain thinks in language, works with details, and is very liner/sequential. it references past and future, seeks differences/boundaries, analyses critically, and is judgmental about right and wrong. it is competitive, confrontational, has a sense of time, and is on the clock with a sense of urgency. currently our society is very left-brain dominant. we’re in a very fast paced world where we value boundaries and time, people are separate and disconnected, and we like to keep scores and be competitive. the left brain is very useful (of course!) as it helps us be productive and communicate, it helps us assess danger, and it provides contexts.
however as illustrated above by Dr. Taylor, the left brain cares more about being right than it does about being happy. it cares more about being right than about being connected and content. Dr. Taylor emphasizes that we have a choice, that we have emotional accountability and we are ACCOUNTABLE for our own emotions and states of mind.
the right brain on the other hand is non-verbal, and thinks in pictures. it is kinesthetic and present centered. the type of thinking here is holistic, and it seeks similarities and connection. it is compassionate and non-confrontational and content. its time orientation is that of being in the flow.
there is a lot of research and emphasis on being “whole brained” now. instead of polarizing expertise and personalities on one side or the other, can we be more integrated? Dr Taylor said that what has been happening for decades is that kids who are “left-brained” are in professions that are “left brained.” the benefit of specialization is there, but this social strategy creates a divide where art and science are separate and the scope of an individual is limited.
so the right brain is engaged at times when we are immersed or in flow of something, and we are not paying attention to time. when we feel connection and similarities to others, without being very aware of our differences, when we stop counting grievances and allow ourselves to feel at peace, and in the moment.
Dr Taylor discovered this experientially after having a stroke in her left brain. she could not speak, she could not distinguish form and background, but she described feeling like it was what has been described as “nirvana.” the voice that constantly reminded her of her to do lists, and the constant commentary that we experience inside our heads stopped for her. this was an extreme case of right-brained-ness, but how do we integrate more wholeness into everyday lives so that one side of our brain is not amplified on thinking-steroids?
for left-brain folks: meditation, yoga, art, music… are some ways in which we engage and enhance the parts of the brain that don’t work too well for us. when we feel disconnected and detached we can choose to spend more time being right brained. the right brain would rather be happy than right.
i know that my staunchest left brain friends (you know who you are) and clients i work with dislike, no abhor, the proposition of not being “right.” the philosophy here is that it is not a choice between being right or wrong, my implication is that reality is not dualistic. reality is multi-faceted, and we select what we focus on, we choose which aspects of reality we will integrate and which parts we will ignore and leave out. the result often is an incomplete version of reality. so when the focus is on the differences, grievances, boundaries, competition, criticism, cynicism, and urgency, we enhance our ability to see those aspects of reality more because we work out those “muscles” in the brain more.
as far as we know, it is a simple case of amplifying areas used more often and atrophying areas that are not. just like a language that we practice is remembered and one that is not is forgotten. so when we meditate, it is scheduled brain workout, with the goal being to carry over that mindset throughout the day. however if one really enjoys and wants to continue a sense of separation, grievance and criticism, they can also meditate on that more systematically 😉 (it’s kind of what many of us do all day unconsciously anyways!)
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the objectification problem
sometimes the songs on the radio catch me by surprise, i realize that i didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics of songs i have been singing along with many times. today it was “that don’t impress me much.” catchy fun tune… but if you really listen, it’s a very snooty person who just is not impressed by brains, looks, talents- anything. she is just not impressed. there’s a rejection of whoever she is singing about, almost like the purpose of the “other” is to impress her. the “other” is treated as an object that either impresses or doesn’t. even the “don’t get me wrong, yeah I think you’re alright” was difficult to palate… it may say more about the unmeetable search of the singer than the lack of impressiveness of the other.
but this is not the only song. “you’re mine” and “i’m nothing without you” and “save me” are recurrent themes… it is not hard to see how we as a culture are so confused about relationships, and their purpose. on one hand we want to be rescued, on the other hand we want to be independent, honestly it is hard to know what we want.
we may have objectified relationships and our significant others into need-fulfilling-entities for arbitrary needs. we all have deep needs to connect and be loved. however what transpires in relationship is far greater than that. “i need you to make me happy” “i need you to make me feel complete” “i need you to excite me and love me and be loyal to me” “i want excitement and i want stability”… the list goes on.
however this desire and expectation to be fulfilled by another person is often what gets in the way of being content with relationships. we hunger for more, we hunger for different, we hunger for sameness. we are hungry beings. and that’s not to sleight us in any way. longing is very basic to us.
but what happens when we do this is that the other becomes an object in our mental games. we try to get certain things, and if we don’t we manipulate, or we make up some reason in our heads of why. usually these reasons make us or the other look pretty bad, and often they are far from accurate. it makes sense why that is not helpful.
but there is also another side of objectification we don’t talk about… objectification hurts not only the one being objectified, but also the “objectifier.” whenever we objectify, we reduce ourselves to being impoverished and in need. the “object” becomes critical in our survival or happiness, leaving us with an implied incompleteness. our agency/prowess becomes severely limited.
no one benefits from this.
i’m new to gardening, and i was reading care instructions for petunias. after petunias blossom, if you want the plant to keep flowering, it is best to pinch off the flower bud. if it is not pinched off, the flower “sets seed” and the plant doesn’t grow more flowers. the job of the plant is done. i found this very intriguing… it’s like the plants long to flower and set seed so it can pollinate and continue its genetic survival. once its purpose is fulfilled, it doesn’t need to do that anymore.
i wondered if our hungriness, our sense of perpetual longing, is similar to these flowers. almost like an impetus for life. that life, flowering, all means being on the edge of not complete fulfillment as that will take away our purpose. perhaps the purpose is greater than just feeling safe or rich or pretty or not-alone or impressing someone. perhaps that’s why life does not let us become complacent even when we have “everything we want” because what would be the point of that?
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falling in love
we fall in love with people when we allow ourselves to be our selves in their company.
just like we love the ocean because the ocean allows us to be at peace.
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psyche as process, not substance
John Ryan Haule, in his book Jung in the 21st Century presents the role of the brain in psychic process. He describes psyche as a process rather than a substance. Haule (2011) cites Jung saying “to regard the psyche… as a fluid stream of events which change kaleidoscopically under the alternating influence of different instincts.”
it is important to explore what dynamic or kaleidoscopic means. the brain and neural processes are dependent on structure, the matter of the brain: the cells, the neurophil, the neurotransmitters etc. yet that is only part of the whole. the alive brain, at any instant, is also activity: the electromagnetism, the waves, charges, etc. Haule describes that a present event in the brain only makes sense as a variation on everything that happened in the past. this statement is profound and described by Walter J. Freeman, who is a biologist, theoretical neuroscientist and philosopher at UCBerkley. Freeman studied neuro-biological processes and showed, through studying rabbit brains, that it is “not shaped by stimulus directly but by previous experience with those stimuli including emotional associations and neuromodulators, as well as sensory input.” When a rabbit reacts to a new odor, it does not react directly to the new odor, but to the difference in the background events and processes that were already occurring. He says “pattern depends on the history of rabbit’s exposure, nor merely to the odorant presently sensed.” Haule explains, “process is everything… a single stimulus does not result in identical pattern in every rabbit brain, but rather a pattern idiosyncratic to each individual rabbit. every brain responds against the history of its own variable patterning, and every emergent psyche is likewise defined by its own process.”
Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius in their book Buddha’s Brain discuss how structure and activity impact each other in the brain, and that it is a constant dynamic process. juggling for three months increase the size of certain areas in the brain (Haule), meditating for 3 months increases gray matter in the neurocortex of the brain, taxi drivers show increase in visual/spatial areas of the brain (hanson & mendius). the psyche is constantly evolving and changing based on our historic exposure, current exposure, and activity.
Freeman (2000) says that “the biology of meaning includes the entire brain and body, with the history built by experience into bones, muscles, endocrine glands, and neural connections. a meaningful state is an activity pattern of the nervous system and body that has a particular focus in the state space of the organism, not in the physical space of the brain.” Freeman refers to “state space” as experience made possible by transitions, the whole organism (bones, muscles, endocrine glands, neural connections) and that psyche is a series of state spaces experienced.
Haule writes, “psyche is both identity and possibility.”
i get excited about these descriptions and studies because i am very aware of the division between what is called empirical science and what is referred to as “new age crap.” i think Jung struggled with people calling him a mystic and “out there” while a lot of what he was referring to, and a lot of what the Eastern psychology referred to, is now being shown to be more accurate than they get credit for. the idea of the collective, the idea of being connected to all around us, the idea of being influenced by “waves,” of being able to be both particle and wave, the idea of our pasts being important parts of therapy, and the ideas of not having a fixed, solid, self are all reinforced by new findings in psychology, cellular biology, physics.
Consilience is when facts and theories from different disciplines point in the same direction, they implicitly support one another and jointly contribute to their mutual likelihood of being proven correct (Haule, 2011). i can see that the research is happening and people who are at the forefront of the research already know a lot and have published a lot, yet there seems to be a discrepancy in the dispersion of this knowledge. as we talk about transtheoretical and transdiagnostic movements in therapy, it becomes more and more important to understand the whole nervous system, and to incorporate that understanding into psychotherapy. the addition of yoga, biofeedback, massage therapies, histories, archetypes, philosophy, to psychotherapy is exciting and promising. allowing the psyche to be a complex and deep and ever-changing entity allows us to respect psychology and to be awed by it at the same time. i think it is not a time for reductionist principles, the consilience emerging points us to expand.
This post is inspired by and HEAVILY based on Chapter 6 of John Ryan Haule’s book Jung in the 21st Century (2011). I’d highly recommend everyone to read this book as it is a wealth of information on how we tick!
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boundaries, on a pale blue dot
we discuss boundaries in many realms. having boundaries, setting your boundaries, being separate, are said to be good things. boundaries protect us. it can leave our egos intact. it makes it easier to say no. it makes it easier to know what the rules are so that we do not transgress them. in a way it is an establishment of rules and policies that protect us from having to make decisions.
however when we set boundaries we often forget why we set them. we become freed from needing to make spontaneous decisions. we are absolved of needing to see each person and each situation uniquely. it takes away from the freshness of the situation, it takes away from the uniqueness of a relationship. especially when certain boundaries are implied and not negotiated in each instance.
boundaries and rules let me say “sorry we don’t do that” without taking personal responsibility for the decision… “it’s our policy” and “i’m not supposed to” are easy escapes to fall back on. but enhanced awareness and presence of boundaries also keeps away meaningful opportunities. it keeps me from asking questions, of doing things differently, of assuming inherent superiority with how things have always been done. it keeps me from seeing each situation uniquely, it takes away my opportunity to say no because i believe it to be no.
the boundaries themselves are initially inert concepts which then have the potential of becoming larger than what created them. if we look at the boundary between nations, it quickly disrobes any pretense we have. people living 10 feet away from each other become of different nations, neighbors become enemies. in fact as we see maps from such young ages, we don’t even realize that the earth does not really have lines between nations, or that the north and the south are arbitrary names we created, there really is not an up and a down in the universe. these boundaries are created, for power control and safety.
as long as the boundaries serve why they were created, it is not a major problem. however when the boundaries start barricading love and good will and spontaneity and creativity… the boundaries become a burden that we forget we created and are not “real.”
we preach mixed messages, we encourage following rules while we encourage standing out, we encourage creativity but we also encourage avoiding risk. we encourage being an individual but we want to batch process everyone… the discussion around rigid boundaries and rules stretches to any all or nothing issues. ultimately we have to be ok with the moment to moment ambiguity of our lives.
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from the elders of the Hopi Nation
separation, not
when the sun’s rays reach plants and plants grow because of its effect, can we say that the sun and the plant are separate?
when a person wakes up and does good work, is goodness and the person separate?
when my heart is warmed by the thought of a loved one, is the one and i separate?
when i eat an apple- when does the apple become me and i become the apple?
when a lotus grows in mud, when does the mud become lotus and lotus become mud?
when i smell a skunk or garbage, is the skunk and i separate?
when does items once loved and paid for become garbage?
we discuss physics chemistry and biology, processes of the natural world, matter and energy transform into one another. everything that is on this earth already is. what we experience is conversions of one to the other to the other and as it converts we see glimpses, moments frozen in time, and try to label it and hold on to it. the universe and everything in it keeps changing and doing its thing, while we see its dance, bookended by our lifespan, or our lunch hour, or the span of a conversation. and in that time, we seek to label and concretize phenomenon that has always existed. but when we look we cannot find the exact moment of transformation, when seeds become flowers, and soil becomes the flower, and sunlight becomes the flower- we never know. the labels we have, soil, flower, sunlight, are useful yet “the sun” is an ever-changing mass of gases, light, vitamin D in our skin, the food of the flowers… can we really find “the sun” in one place?
the baffling secret of life seems to be in the alchemy of all of this. when we learn about life cycles and food chains in elementary school… we acknowledge it. in fact it is right in front of us everyday. the food i eat becomes skin cells and skin cells become dust ALL the time.
what happens when we separate things is that we forget that edge where it all connects, the edge where the sunlight and the flower is one, and life and death is one, and the ocean and clouds, and our kidneys is one, the edge where partners who become strangers is one, and youth and old age is one.
not unlike the sand animation below, all the “sand” in our universe is already on the palette, all we witness, mesmerized, is its transformation/evolution and our evolving consciousness of that evolution.
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incomplete person
I always feel like I’m struggling to become someone else. Like I’m trying to find a new place, grab hold of a new life, a new personality. I guess it’s part of growing up, yet it’s also an attempt to reinvent myself. By becoming a different me, I could free myself of everything. I seriously believed I could escape myself-as long as I made the effort. But I always hit a dead end. No matter where I go, I still end up me. What’s missing never changes. The scenery may change, but I’m still the same old incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that I can never satisfy. I guess that lack itself is as close as I’ll come to defining myself. ―Haruki Murakami
on leaving our bodies
the body is a vehicle for the soul, for awareness, for “me” yet it is also a cage, a room, a house that holds in the spirit. without the body we cannot seem to experience and see things and travel, yet due to the body we cannot move faster and we have to compromise and take care of aches and pains. no wonder our relationships to our bodies seem forever paradoxical, loving and strained, punitive and rewarding, all at the same time.
our bodies have limitations, they hurt, they age, they become infected, they stop working… in a spiritual sense perhaps birth and death are coming into and leaving from the body.
consciousness and awareness seems to be ahead of the body, it is not separate, yet it seems to be able to transcend the body. we can imagine running even when we’re not, we can fantasize about intimacy even when there is none physically, we can invent scenarios and react to them.
yet we suffer when our mind is where our body cannot be or our body is where our mind doesn’t want to be. suffering happens when we are in a place we don’t want to be.
so it makes sense that when we get caught in suffering, we want to abandon our bodies. we want to abandon “reality”- the solid material-ness or is-ness of things that cannot seem to change as easily as our souls can dream. perhaps that is what suicide is.
yet it is this act of wanting to leave parts of ourselves, of fighting with out inner selves, of abandoning either our souls or our bodies, seem to create even more suffering. after all a civil war always depletes the country and leaves it weaker, or split into multiple parts. integration, with all parts intact, is what jung would call individuation. embodying our bodies and materializing our souls seems to be the spiritual quest.
From world weary woman, 
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from the world weary woman
a beautiful excerpt from World Weary Woman: her wound and transformation by a Jungian analyst- Cara Barker. let the soulful inner voice be respected, expressed and heard…
“we forget that these weary ones are not the pathology they wear. they are experts themselves in this approach. they have made it a full time job to change, alter, cut away, suck out, like liposuction, anything which seems imperfect, too human, too ordinary, too plain, too small. so here they sit across from me… mirror mirror on the wall. part of them only too willing to take on another project. yet another time willing to do whatever the outer world asks… willing to prove, prod, produce more competence, exude more charm. willing to please, perform, just one more time.
meanwhile outside in waiting room, the Other one, their woman number two, sits silently and invisibly. she knows how to wait. she knows how to hear again the theory, the idea, the expert opinion, the terminal judgment of her as “case.” she sighs grown weary, she the neglected one fatigued by the other’s penchant for perfection is tired. pure and simple exhaustion. sinking back into the couch with weary achy bones and muscles, not to mention heart and lagging spirit, she sighs once more. the spiritual fibromyalgia runs deeper than any diagnostic code. maybe this time. if only this once the door would open for her turn, her movement, her chance, her niche, her voice and mark. if only there would be a place for her hands and feet, her belly and breasts, her backside, to wiggle and shimmy, to rock and roll, to bump and grind, simply because it pleases her.
woman. sheer unadulterated woman. instincts. good reliable instinctual nature gone dormant for too long. not a blasphemy to god but a blessing of creation. absolved at last from a sin that never was: the one of owning her original innocence.”
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life is not suffering
pain is inevitable and suffering is optional. living includes inevitable pains: aging, illness, impermanence, death. it is one of the hardest lessons to learn and not one we can learn well enough to become stoic about it. the lesson is that living often involves a sense of dissatisfaction, a feeling that things should be different, what is happening should not be happening. this sense is a driving force, to make changes, to grow, to seek a higher level of realization. yet sometimes this pain seems like too much and we can get stuck there, overwhelmed, frustrated, scared, angry. this is when we start resisting reality. instead of working on this moment, we get pulled into the past or the future because the present seems like too much to bear. in a way, we start running from our lives.
pema chodron said ego is the part of us that resists reality, and resisting reality is what causes suffering.
this human life is living on that edge of acceptance and change. it would be painful for a drop of water in the ocean to say i don’t want to move, it will not be able to resist the ocean. yet the drop of water cannot check out. the drop of water must remain a drop of water and do its water thing while swimming with the ocean. the drop of water may feel insignificant and small and inconsequential, yet if all the drops of water decided to check out there would be no ocean.
sometimes the inevitability of pain is paraphrased as “life IS suffering.” it’s a rather dooming statement, and even gives the pessimists and nihilists in us the ammo to say see i was right, life sucks!
there are worlds of differences between accepting pain as part of life and concluding that life is suffering. the former gives us peace and understanding and the wisdom to not resist life and flow with it, and the latter makes life unbearable. the importance of perspective here is literally life-changing.
the drop of water can either be the ocean or it can decide it is alone and being tortured by the ocean. reality remains the same.
a quote from Cara Barker’s World Weary Woman…
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waking up from depression
each time someone experiences depression, it seems to be born anew although so much has been said about it. like falling in love or getting older, it is a new experience that begs to be realized uniquely. it is usually so gradual and silent, that the person becoming depressed does not even realize this is different. it feels more like “new me” than “not me.”
although different for everyone, these symptoms seem common: you start withdrawing, you stop enjoying the things you enjoyed before, you have less energy, things start seeming like a drag, you become more irritable, the lens that you look at the world through seems more negative, you are less hopeful, more sad. i think our ego tries to make sense of this and even creates rationales for why… “they weren’t great friends anyways,” “that hobby was a waste of time anyways”… maybe there is a psychic conservation of energy going on.
when someone is extremely depressed, 10/10 on the depression scale, it is more noticeable. the starkness of the difference makes itself known, usually. however between 2/10 and 8/10 is a wide zone of depression that can closely mimic normalcy. given the way things are in the world, how much pain and suffering there is, how much struggle there is, how unhappy and troubled most people seem, being depressed can seem more “normal” and status quo than not being depressed. in fact i know people get judged for being “too happy” or “too positive and woo woo.” it is possible that people even find you annoying unless you’re complaining about something or venting about how busy you are. again, like Brene Brown said, being busy is a status symbol. she even said (paraphrasing) that in some of her circles she will be eaten alive for being happy and pleasant.
the frightening part of the slow pervasive depression is the loss of agency, loss of potential and loss of the true livability and enjoyment of life. we can spend years in these semi-depressed/depressed states and it seem completely normal. so many of us settle for less happiness than we are capable of because we buy into the idea that life is supposed to be a struggle. we misinterpret challenges that help us grow as punishments, insurmountable obstacles and personal attacks. sometimes, tragically, the Buddhist idea of “life is suffering” is misinterpreted and adhered to too strongly (more on this here).
this is a call to not give in to depression and to wake up from the trance of it. it can happen due to situations or biology or both. they feel very similar. those chemicals in our brain can act up (hormonal issue, genetic predisposition, other factors) and suddenly things start sticking more, more rumination happens, more despair is experienced. women who experience pre-menstrual syndrome can see this more experientially, all of a sudden you are crying at commercials or become highly irritable. the shift does not have to be much and it is powerful! the fact that it happens like clockwork is an easy way to see how chemically modulated our moods can be.
the stigma of having “mental health problems” is not diminishing fast enough. maybe we can rename depression to “feeling bad” and it will be more acceptable to talk about. chemically, it is not different from how diabetes or any chronic disease works. and just like it is not possible to cure diseases by “trying harder,” chemical depression does not go away on its own. i can see why there is some semblance of control when it comes to mental health. it gets tricky because it’s a chicken or egg situation. see once we’re depressed, we start withdrawing and then it feels like we are causing what is happening by choice.
yet just like in diabetes, there is an element of lifestyle choice. exercising, eating well, taking care of ourselves, DOES help. but it may not be enough. and it may not be possible when there is no energy. we have to be kind and accurate when we look at where we are and what we need to do.
non-chemical depression is also not “normal” and should be treated. it is also not a choice. in these cases i think depression serves as a symptom that provides the clue that something is wrong in the dynamics of our psyche. perhaps it is our psyche calling out for help. whether it’s a result of trauma or repression or functioning lower than our capacities, needs to be explored.
our souls seek to be happy, content, fulfilled… it hungers for authenticity and connection. when we become disconnected from our core, we become weary and disappointed with life, often forgetting that there are clues to grow in what we feel, if we stop to look at it. if i can look at the depression and try to understand where it is coming from instead of trying to violently swat it away or letting it be a chronic hum i get used to, i agree to work with it. the Buddhists say that every challenge has its own answer embedded in it. but we have to work with it, abide with it, enough to be able to learn and grow from it.
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the moral superiority of waking up
Elizabeth Gilbert shared David Whyte’s line today: “anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.”
i struggle with this idea while being attracted to it.
there are relationships and projects that do not seem to make me “come alive”- i think what is being referred to here is a sense of wonderment and growth. i’ve heard it described in different terms- like what makes you wake up, what makes you feel alive, what energizes you, what makes life worth living. there are conversations with certain people, reading certain books, watching certain movies, listening to certain songs… at certain times… that create this numinous feeling of expansiveness. in Whyte’s words- they make me come alive.
but many interactions seem mundane and status quo, what Stephen Gilligan describes in the following quote:
Some people are contented to just live like couch potatoes, settling into what Thoreau called “lives of quiet desperation.” Some can do that; just run out the clock and live in a fog all their lives. But others, what I call the lucky ones, cannot; and their soul creates terrible disturbances and suffering to say, “Wake up! Wake up! Your life is about something more than this low level trance!”
i agree that we have gotten lost in the trance of consumerism and paying bills and achieving a pre-designed socially acceptable life. we forget the essence of our Self, of our life. life becomes just about the daily struggles of life. nothing is imagined or sensed beyond our immediate environments and the fantasies we do have are based on manufactured ideals. i’m grossly generalizing here. this is the kind of thinking that that perhaps inspired Fight Club.
so it’s a worthy endeavor to try to wake “people” up and bring up consciousness. so allowing what does not make us wake up to put us to sleep sounds like a bad idea.
what i struggle with is the moral or ideological superiority that this thinking gives rise to. essentially it is a sense that “I” am more evolved than others. “I” am growing and need other people who feed me to grow my world. “I” am hungry for the highs of feeling awake and only want to associate with those that make me feel high.
yet the “highs” can sometimes just be a result of narcissistic mirroring, how do we know we are trying to “grow and evolve” as opposed to just finding people who think like me and talk like me and make me feel good? what is the wisdom that is missed out on by not spending time with who or what does not make me feel alive? can i feel alive in every moment if i am awake without needing others to serve as props?
but im attracted to the statement as well because there is a shared resonance and sense of awe in the encounters. somehow they are “more” than the mundane. somehow the food it provides seem richer for the soul than fast casual available food.
where is the line between hedonism & superiority, and desire to evolve & authentic spiritual growth?
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between absolutism and ignorance
i’ve come across another paradoxical edge in human behavior and perception. personally i admire a sense of not taking oneself or one’s ideas too seriously, i admire not knowing surely who you are (since you’re ever-changing) and what you’re about. to allow theories to just be guidelines and not immutable facts.
i dont think not having absolutes means being ignorant or clueless. i think some where in between the two there is a land of working definitions and theories that can inform as well as mold change and evolve. i admire people who have the flexibility and lack of adherence to certain ideas. in line with that, i am not tied to the idea of disliking such adherence every time 🙂
i’m reading Carl Jung, and he said:
“i can only hope and wish no one becomes “Jungian”… I proclaim no cut and dried doctrine and I abhor blind adherents. i leave everyone free to deal with the facts in his own way, since i also claim this freedom for myself.”
at a different time, he said: “theories in psychology are the very devil. it is true that we need certain points of view for their orienting and heuristic value; but they should always be regarded as mere auxiliary concepts that can be laid aside at any time. we still know so little about the psyche that it is positively grotesque to think we are far enough advanced to frame general theories. no doubt theory is the best cloak for lack of experience and ignorance, but the consequences are depressing: bigotedness, superficiality, and scientific sectarianism.”
(these quotes were collected from Mario Jacoby’s book, The Analytic Encounter.
Jung himself made statements at different points in his life that were discrepant. and this makes sense, we should not hold consistency so dearly that we don’t allow for growth and evolution.
i once had a debate with a friend because i like this quote from Haldane: “I am coming to the conclusion that my subjective account of my own motivation is largely mythical on almost all occasions. I don’t know why I do things.” my friend said “really?” with a lot of incredulity, in her world you cannot trust a person who does not know himself and his motivations. it is a view shared by many. it is logical too, because theorists must stand by their beliefs, or else why would anyone else buy their theory?
the certainty required about what we know is a pressing force, it gives credibility, heft and a certain kind of empirical respectability that “not being sure” does not have. i believe this is what Jung described as “scientific sectarianism.”
there is capitalism/commercialism here. although certainty can be heartfelt, a lot of times the motivation is advertising and making sales: one needs to be shamelessly promoting/marketing one’s views and products… any reservations and concerns are problematic. it is not ok to say “this is a great product for A and B, but…” as a society we don’t like ambivalence. this is not problematic except when there is a conflict of interest between profit and public benefit.
yet there is a different kind of thinking, quotes like “He who thinks he knows, doesn’t know. He who knows that he doesn’t know, knows.” i am somewhat delighted and not surprised to find that Joseph Campbell said this. i’ve also heard another version “wisest is he who knows what he does not know.” these ideas imply that there is some wisdom in the humility of not being absolute. the benefit of this is reflected in the problems that arise from religious absolutism.
so when i read someone like Carl Jung who meanders through his thoughts in his writings, stops, hesitates, adds a real voice of contemplation and thought, and mustering through those thoughts, i do not get bullet points and unequivocal strategies. what i get is wisdom and wealth of experience, that i can take and use.
ultimately this may be the difference between therapeutic wisdom and manual-based therapy. different psychotherapists would disagree with both polarities and fall at different points in the spectrum between.
i understand the need for protocol and guidelines, but it is when protocols and guidelines blind us from the true essence is when i have a problem with it. i love the quote that “even the Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist,” again delightfully similar to Jung telling people not to become “Jungians.”
the Dunning-Kruger effects may contribute to amplification of this dualism. someone like Jung would be a lot less likely to say “my theory is true and always true and EVERYONE should follow it.” people are more skeptical about someone who does not seem to “know their stuff” or “stand by their stuff” whereas someone like Dr. Phil gets his voice heard and spoken OUT LOUD.
i wonder if this need for certainty comes from our basic fear. that somehow following what is staunchly defended vs some loosey goosey insights and ideas makes some of us feel better. i wonder what the personality factors are that determine our leanings to one side or the other. thoughts?
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the unbearable and necessary pain of growing
a message is as good as its receiver. it’s fascinating to see how we interpret the same texts, the same holy books, the same gestures and rituals so differently. the theme of solidifying the messages, by either idolizing or demonizing, or dismissing with indifference stops our ability to learn from the message anymore. wisdom and receptivity evolves. the same book read at a different age, the same song heard at a different mood, the same person at a different situation… can all evoke unlimited possibilities. the message doesn’t change, but the reader’s willingness and readiness to allow it to change and evolve and grow does. throughout time we’ve frozen god into moulds that serve us at the time, yet as we grow if our image doesn’t grow, we are held back and stuck at a primitive point. nature pushes us to grow and evolve.
i imagine when we didn’t pretend to know everything around us, if we could be surprised and awed by an ant, enamoured by a flower, mystified by a storm, if we could wonder at the partners, friends and relatives that we have narrowed down to an idea or label, if we could be surprised by our own bodies and minds without always trying to predict control criticize or aggrandize.
that sense of awe and freshness is what fosters creativity evolution and growth. if im willing to take a fresh look at what’s around me and if i dont limit its potential with my limited ideas picked up at an earlier time, i can learn so much more.
we’re very comfortable with kids growing. when growing pains like muscle strains and teething happens, we understand, often with a lot of compassion. yet when we are older we expect ourselves and others to stay the same, so when discomfort arises, when anxiety arises because we are growing, when hearts break because we are growing, when fear is evoked because we don’t know what is happening to us because we yet do not know what it is that is happening, instead of treating it like a child when scared of a tooth falling out, we treat it as pathology. perhaps its because no one is telling us it will be ok, it is normal, it is growing pains.
my mentor says we grow when we are ready and when we have a teacher. the existential angst of not knowing where we stand because we have not yet experienced what we are becoming is so natural, so fully human, yet we need a teacher to remind us it’s ok, keep growing. the readiness perhaps comes nature and nurture driven, like when kids are ready to recognize their own reflections in the mirror, when they understand object permanence, when they realize the moon is not following them, when they realize their parents are human, when we realize we dont know much, when we struggle with the meaning of life… part of growing up and being fully human is perhaps knowing that the archetypes exist and live on and nothing much changes on the outside until we are ready to see it and grow with it.
I wonder what those adult milestones are… when our inner worlds expand a little bit to allow and make room for more of the expansive universe.
one of the best expressions of this existential fear of becoming more than we are was expressed at the Berlin Artparasite facebook page, here’s a screenshot:
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it’s worth it
we visited the rocky mountain national park this weekend. it was our first trip to Colorado. we had heard stories of altitude sickness, and being neurotic hypochondriacs, we were sure we will be nauseated and dizzy. so we went to the park, drove to bear lake, and we were done with no plans to hike, we’re city people and we’ve never really been “hiking.”
but something kept calling me to explore. there was something about the place that 
required a deeper level of connection and intimacy, not a touch and go but a real visit.
the names “nymph lake,” “dream lake” and “emerald lake” enticed me. if a place is called “dream lake” there must be something about it that inspires the spirit. so wearing flip flops and with no plans to hike, we started following the signs and trekking up.
(the 2.5 miles was a very short hike in relative terms, but…) we were getting short of breath, tired, dehydrated, and ran out of water. and it was all uphill. my husband, more cynical than me, was not impressed by my whim to follow these names. he wanted to turn around and return. his fears included running into wild animals, getting lost, getting sick. my fear was he’d be right or it would really not be worth it.
the journey was quite beautiful all the way. there was a view of the mountains everywhere we turned, there were random water falls and streams, there were little carpets of snow that did not melt yet for the shade… yet our impatience to get to the lakes and back, kept us in a bit of a hurry and the bickering didn’t help.
as we kept walking, and it seemed like we’d never find the lakes, we asked people returning on the trail whether the lakes are up front. and twice, two different parties coming back said “keep going, it’s worth it.”
sometimes we would just hear the sound of water and believe we are close. sometimes we would reach a particularly steep area, look up, be intimidated and want to turn around. sometimes we felt lost and almost convinced ourselves we’d never find it.
and when we reached, it was PEACE.
the pictures and the words do not describe what you see for yourself. perhaps if i go again searching for “it,” it may not be the same again. but this time it was pure oneness. like plopping down on the sofa after a long day, it made sense to be there and it didn’t matter how hard it was to get there. it was like a big exhale and reaching home. it was pure wonderment and gratefulness and awe at the universe and all the secrets it holds if we seek to find them.
to state the obvious, this seemed very much like the spiritual journey or what joseph campbell called, the hero’s journey. there was a call that demanded to be answered, there was struggle, difficulty, wanting to turn back. there was impatience about wanting to get to our destination and a lack of appreciation of the beauty that was already around. there were people who had seen “the view” and encouraged others on their way, there were people who were skeptical and it all made sense.
in fact the return was archetypal too. i’d have loved to pitch a tent and just stay there. that’s what it felt like in the moment anyways. but we couldn’t just live there. we had to come back and on the way it rained and stormed and we told some other people “it’s worth it.” i had to smile about how glorious that rain felt, being refreshed by a cool mountain rain in the forests was the perfect end to the trip.
when i wonder about what would have happened if we just stayed there… what comes to mind is how we get accustomed to bliss if we stay there long enough… it’s not a “high” anymore. in fact if we stop growing and our energy starts getting bored and dormant, we may even start finding faults with bliss. if i pitched a tent there, i know i would have complained about the mosquitoes.
in the end, answering such calls of spirit seem to be worth it, all the way, even when it does not seem like it. as joseph campbell said “follow your bliss.”
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faith and religion: differentiating God from the image of god
Brene Brown said “the other thing we do is we make everything that’s uncertain certain. Religion has gone from a belief in faith and mystery to certainty. I’m right, you’re wrong. Shut up. That’s it. Just certain.”
when we experience something we seek to define it, to find a name for it, to write it down, to take a picture of it and save it forever. there is something about the fleeting, the mysterious, the unknown, that as a species we try to grasp on to. one day as i was driving, the sun looked more beautiful than usual. the clouds covered the bright intensity but i could still see the orange-gray orb. there were wispy clouds floating by in an overcast and enchanting sky. for a moment it was just an experience, one that i cannot describe accurately in a thousand pages. and then i wanted to “capture it.” i wanted to share it with my friends, i wanted to keep it forever and i reached for my camera. i went from enjoying a blissful pure experience of magnificence to scrambling in my purse for my phone. i lost touch with the magnificence.
when human beings did not have language or symbolic consciousness, i would assume everything was just experience. yet at some point when the thunders roared or the seas rose, and when we had language, we started saying the gods are angry, that’s why there is thunder. we said the gods are happy, that’s why there is rain. and why wouldn’t we? clearly there is a mysterious force making things happen in our environment. it feels beyond our powers, it is unknowable, it can be fearful, it can also be merciful.
it is beyond the limits of my imagination because i can only imagine with the objects/characters that i already know of.
a beta fish born and raised in a fishbowl perhaps cannot know that there are cars and buildings and volcanoes and bottle openers and bubble tea out there. yet she probably knows hunger, and fear (if you tap the bowl), and anger (if you put another beta fish in there)… like that information is available to all, by instinct by design. a seed does not need to look at the parent plant to grow, the information it needs is already in its cells. there’s some intelligence there too, plants knowing to grow towards light, knowing to produce flowers if the conditions are right, knowing to fold its leaves when the sun sets.
the scientific approach describes it well… we have logic and hypotheses, never really immutable facts, but working definitions and theories about why things are the way they are. we become fascinated with what we don’t know and we try to define it and we try to build on it.
when we talk about faith, we refer to what is unknowable. having faith is like having hope, not knowing for sure, yet having a guiding light or direction. there is a deep desire to know and be closer to God. there is a potentiality to be closer and yet a humility or understanding that the world of forms cannot truly know God because God seems to defy form. perhaps real-izing God can only be done in brief glimpses. so we train our bodies and our minds to become more receptive to soul, we build holy places and sanctuaries, places where the limitations of form seem to drop away, and there are fewer obstructions to experiencing God. this is why Christian and Buddhist monks and Sufi dervishes and Hindu sadhus take refuge in nature, this is why those living the “regular life” pray in a clean place, unencumbered by disturbances.
yet religion is more about certainty. suddenly the experience of God and the numinous nature of what is experienced is solidified into an image, a book, a religion, with x number of tenets, and rules, and judgments, punishments and rewards. in religion, perhaps God becomes smaller than the experience of God. God becomes condensed into a representation that comprises of the justice system of the locale, the love and wrath of our parents, the promise of conditional reward and punishments, and an escape from the world because we want to all transcend. it seems to make more sense that God cannot be in this vile world, but is in the skies, and we must leave behind this earth to get a shot at living in God’s real kingdom.
it feels safe to have a rule book, to have a code to live by, to keep myself and others in line, to not have to struggle with thought and discourse, but to know for sure. on some level we never want to grow into adults and become self-reliant. a duality and thus separation is created between God and ourselves. and because we cannot imagine beyond what we have already experienced, we write our myths and stories, using what we already know. thunder seems to incite fear, just like when our parents are angry with us, it must mean the gods are angry with us. we feel loved and blessed when we get something good, it must mean the gods are happy and merciful.
can i sense God in the air i breathe, in the leaves fluttering in the wind, in the sunlight, in the red truck, in the asphalt, in the muddy pond, in my skin, and in every being? perhaps when my heart opens up into an expansive quality when i get out of my way, that i become closer to God. perhaps when i feel constricted and my heart becomes smaller and my experience becomes dull, i move away from God. perhaps… there’s something magical in this wondering and wandering quest.
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quality of attention (love)
once i read a story that was roughly: a kid thought his friend’s bicycle was awesome! there was something special about it. the friend took care of it and he seemed very happy about it. so the kid was given the exact same bicycle. but his friend’s bike still seemed to be more special. the friend was just so excited and he seemed to be having a good time even when he was just cleaning the bike. the lesson was: what makes something special is the quality of attention we give to it.
there’s a difference between glancing at something with disdain, with indifference, and with longing. all of these reactions are pre-set, the emotion is muddled with the viewer’s judgment, attachment and repulsion. how we view something colors our perception of it.
i’m learning an important lesson in life: don’t overfeed fish and don’t overwater plants. yet don’t neglect them to starvation either.
i’m learning that we can re-late, look with love and nurturing, recognize the natural aliveness of everything around us. that everything around us can tell us about themselves without us needing pre-set strategies. that i can relate and communicate with myself and all outside of me, without necessarily viewing it as separate.
what changes when we become enamored and when we become bored with the same thing or person? it seems like the quality of attention we give to things, the interest, the focus, the curiosity to find out more, to allow this entity to be itself and tell us about it- i want to say that is what love is.
i like the analogy of the sun giving energy to all life as an aspiration of what love may look like.
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to evolve or to stabilize
the problem with having an interesting inner life where flow is not impeded by human limitations is that it becomes difficult to adjust to reality with its limitations. it’s like the phenomenon when your mind is faster than your words. it’s important to ask which frequency to adjust to. one one hand we may be focusing and holding on to lower frequencies when we don’t have to but the alternative means leaving behind a sense of stability and pace that we are accustomed to. is it a disservice to all to stay in a low energy state, as in this way no one gets to grow, is it a safety mechanism to blame others for not being able to take off when the fear is our own, is it selfish to follow one’s instincts regardless of who comes along or not, or is the stability of life dependent on settling and adjusting? it’s difficult to answer because we never get to know one side when we choose the other. a system that doesn’t evolve or grow is dead whereas one that evolves too much is chaotic and unstable. but how do we know where that line is that we’re neither crazy nor dead? must we err on one side?
but is the challenge to grow or to adjust? or can adjusting be the biggest opportunity to grow! does it depend on what one is working on? the middle way metaphor comes to mind, despite my wishes that everything wasn’t so paradoxical. when we are trying to be buried in the heaviness of limitations, perhaps we should shoot for transcendence. whereas if we are feeling so light that we want to fly away, perhaps we should try to touch back.
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insistence on suffering
the insistence on suffering. it is a concept i don’t understand in myself as much as i don’t understand it in others. no, i understand it in my self even less. for others i give benefit of doubt, i know i dont know everything, and i have compassion. but i expect my self to not suffer unnecessarily, to know better, to be able to switch views, and to be able to “practice what i preach.” in a sense it is a desire to be better than myself (and by implication, others). it is an expectation that i should be above “it.” i don’t know if the “it” is my human limitations, maybe i want to transcend my body and my natural instincts, maybe i want to be one with things despite the fact that i strongly feel a sense of separation, or pain, or suffering.
in On Not Being Stingy, writes:
We also try to turn a profit in practice—to get something from it. We try to get better. We try to get enlightenment. We try to get seen for doing it right. What are we being stingy with here? Wholehearted surrender to the present moment or to what is. Think how stingy we are with that. Think how tightly we hold on. We also imagine that in practicing, what we will “get” will be ours—which is, of course, the greatest delusion of all.
And then there is surrender. In addition to treating it as a bargaining tool—“I’ll surrender to the present moment and then get something back”—we imagine that surrender is something we can do… Bargaining is something stingy people do all the time: “I’ll do this if you do that”; “I’ll do this in order to get that.”
even in the search for peace, there is a sense of if i practice then i will not suffer anymore. this paradigm is difficult to re-frame. it is hard to accept that there will be suffering/discomfort in our lives no matter what. i’m not sure if this is due to promises of quick fixes in advertising combined with how easy it is for us to buy these fixes: move, switch jobs, switch partners… these promises and possibilities keep the hope alive that there is a solution out there and i have not found it yet. life starts being about finding this panacea or relief. i suspect, and have learned, that much of our suffering is caused by rebooting so many times, of not finishing the programs and commitments, of being so preoccupied and paranoid with making sure we get what we need. Pema Chodron says that suffering occurs when we are unwilling and unable to accept the present moment. i guess it includes when we are unwilling to work with what we have in the present moment. how much does the frantic efforts to jump out of our lives, of always wondering if things could be better, of always assuming the grass is greener somewhere else, keep us from actually finding the goodness or at least the real-ness of the present moment?
in the book When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron said:
Life’s work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into your life wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will. It’s going to stick around until you learn your lesson, at any rate. You can leave your marriage, you can quit your job, you can only go where people are going to praise you, you can manipulate your world until you’re blue in the face to try to make it always smooth, but the same old demons will always come up until finally you have learned your lesson, the lesson they came to teach you. Then those same demons will appear as friendly, warmhearted companions on the path.
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extroversion and introversion
this morning a friend spotted someone wearing a t-shirt of my alma mater. i knew if my extrovert husband was there or my extrovert best friend was there, they would have broken out into the college cheer, introduced themselves, talked about the school and how they are connected. i’ve seen both of them break into random conversations with strangers… many many times… it’s like they think out loud. as an introvert, i would notice the logo, i would wonder if they are from there, but i would probably never ask. i’m an introvert. i do not think out loud 😛
my mentor has phrased the difference before as “an introvert is more unconscious of their outside whereas an extrovert is more unconscious of their insides.” it is not all or nothing, but each type seems to lean one way or another. for example, when my husband and i go to a restaurant, he is aware of all the other people around and what they are talking about. i am oblivious to the surroundings unless someone is being super obnoxious.
when i hear information, or feel something, i gravitate inwards. it was shocking to hear not everyone does this. i can break it down into mechanical steps, but usually it involves a verbal or non-verbal internal dialogue. then i speak it out loud if i want to tell others about it or i need to know something more. often, in a conversation with extroverts, by the time my internal dialogue is over, they have moved on to another topic.
my extrovert friends respond immediately. there are less quite pauses between their topics and sentences. it’s fascinating for me to watch. in fact silence in a conversation feels uncomfortable to some of them. some responses i’ve heard is that the silence or pauses are seen as rude, reserved or “this person is slow.” i’ve seen a few extroverts get very nervous about people being quiet around them, they start to think people are angry with them or don’t like them. my own negative judgments on extroverts has been “they just keep talking!” or “i need space to think.”
it is like driving on the freeway and judging everyone going slower than you or faster than you. yes we are oddly ego-centric.
it is difficult for each side to understand the other. my best friend and i have talked about how i think she has super powers by how she can just go up and talk to someone. my extrovert friends have commented that my ability to do a silent retreat without going crazy is a superpower (or crazy!). neither of us think we’re very special in these abilities because they come so naturally.
my mentor has said each dimension of the personality types triggers anxiety in the other. having too many plans is anxiety provoking to the P types on Myers Briggs scales whereas not having enough plans can be anxiety provoking to the J types. similarly hanging out in silence is anxiety provoking for the E types and having too much talk is anxiety provoking for the I types. once again, the reality may be the same, but how we respond to it varies based on our individual propensities.
most of us exist somewhere on the continuum. how far someone is on the continuum effects how we relate to them or feel around them. we have a lot to learn from the opposite types. like everything, the balance may be in the yin and yang of this. if we were all Ps, things may not get done, but if we were all Js, there may be no spontaneity. living and relating is a dance between the scales. we even change moment to moment, some days i’m more introverted and some days I’m less introverted.
while sometimes it may be more comfortable to hang out in the presence of those who resonate at a similar frequency, those who are different challenge us and share a unique viewpoint and remind us that the world has many realities. as we spend more time with each other, instead of shutting down or avoiding, we get to learn to pause, we get to learn to speak, our nervous system becomes more and more capable, and the world opens up more because there are fewer situations that freak us out. labels change from “they’re weird or intimidating” to “they’re different” to becoming a more fluid “we are all just being and i kinda enjoy this right now” and “it’s fascinating how we process differently.”
Read Susan Cain’s book Quiet and her Quiet Revolution site for more information on introversion.
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finding our stream
there are times in our lives when things just seem to flow. homes get sold, jobs get found, friends appear, and there is a sense that the universe is conspiring to make things better for us. i’ve wondered if these are just random chances, and i’ve dabbled into concepts of fate and karma.
there are also times when it seems like our lives are staggered with obstacles… when nothing seems to go right and there’s something “bad” lurking in every corner.
i’ve heard theories about how raising one’s energy allows us to find what is energetic and joyous in our environments. even when “bad” things happen that are outside of our control, from a centered higher energy state, it is all more “grist for the mill”… there is no separation of good or bad.
in this state, feeling really sad or heartbroken is a chance to feel another high energy, not so different from joy and ecstasy. another chance to get in touch with the core, another chance to be vulnerable and realize i’m not separate. the image of a ship in a safe harbor in contrast to one that is free to roam and be one with the oceans comes to mind. being one with the energy of the entire ocean is scary, and powerful, and even exhilarating!
the skeptic in me calls this energy stuff “new age mumbo jumbo” whereas the part of me that has been able to ride these streams of high energy feels there is something deeper to it. i can try to explain it, with theories of self-fulfilling prophecies. it also makes sense that when i’m more energetic, i am more likely to see the more energetic possibilities. it is more likely that people want to spend time with me more in these states than when i’m being glum and judgmental or restrictive. it makes sense that i experience more when i am open to more experiences.
my suspicion is that the stream i’m talking about “finding” is always there and sometimes we allow ourselves to tune into it while at other times we restrict ourselves from it. it is hard for me to believe this when things are “not going well.” when i’m sad and i cannot imagine the possibility of having the option of not suffering. but at those times i believe my resistance to feeling what i’m feeling, and my efforts to stop what is happening, is what makes me suffer.
like a fly banging its body on a screen again and again and again, without realizing it is not trapped. fly little fly.
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the transaction of relationships
we’re all directors in our lives, with a story or certain outcomes in mind, we play a part. external circumstances can change the scenes at times but what roles we play depends largely on us. it gets complicated because our plots involve other people. everyone we know seem to “serve a role” in our movie. there are easily replaceable extras who seem to have no consequences on our story, there are those who are significant enough to cause some wrinkles but leave no permanent damage or improvement, and then there are those special important ones that seem to have the potential to change the story. these roles can be of great honor but also of great responsibility. a certain kind of commitment, implied or stated, seems to go along with it. after all we are taking “a risk” of letting this person impact our lives. we want the “good stuff “this person has to offer (or what fits in our story line), and we’re willing to put up with some nuisances. however, significant potential derailments seem to threaten our story. and at this point there seems to be a win or lose situation. to state the obvious but frequently forgotten caveat: this other person is also running their own movie. if our movies are not perfectly aligned, we have to split or one of us has to lose.
the dream of everlasting love and friendships and continued intimacy often starts with the fantasy of perfectly aligned goals… a shared dream. some of us think we are realistic enough to say “i know it won’t be perfect” but there is a relative deal-breaker-threshold. this shared dream or expectation is not always false. it’s just that we change and grow and our scenes change and grow and that snapshot image of a shared dream does not always evolve with us.
as we grow older and incur more experiences, it is realistic that our image of the future changes. in fact if we keep growing, it is imperative that the image changes, because our dreams are bound by our current experience, thought and vocabulary, we can envision a future but do we want to limit it by our current limitations?
when we look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, our needs evolve. when we are without food and shelter, all we want is that. but once we have food and shelter, we want love and belonging. so it is not uncommon to say all i want is basics, and then we change that requirement as we grow and our situations evolves.
there’s a paradox in the idea that there is no end to wanting, yet if we solidify what we want we become stagnant. a creative process is called for in which we don’t stop growing but we’re able to not get derailed by cravings and attachments that impede us.
so when we have others in our lives who seem to serve a role in our pre-determined movie, it is not a surprise that if the movie does not evolve, we will be requiring great sacrifices of our “others.” our relationship will become transactional, the other will become an object that serves a purpose. “i need you to fulfill this need of mine, and if you don’t i don’t want you in my life.”
the idea that i am conveying is that a blind adherence to a rigid storyline is not helpful to us or to our “others.” it is a fear-based clinging to an old idea that seemed good enough and safe enough at the time we dreamed it up. but to forget our real in-the-moment aspirations because we are blinded by an old label is a disservice to our creative potentials and binds us and our others in a stifling place of obligation and need.
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one
there is no difference in you and i because i view you with the definition of you that is within me. i react to you based on what is stirred up in me. are you even there or do i dance along with my projection of you? am i there or is it a momentary snapshot of me that i construct?
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the concept of identity and independence
the Buddha talked about the 5 skandhas (heaps or components) that make up an individual. yet a self cannot be found in any of those components. Pema Chodron talked about how a car is made of many parts. for convenience we call the entire thing “a car.” it is easier than listing every single part. yet i cannot find a car in any of those parts. the car does not independently exists. the label or construct is empty.
Pema said the funny thing is, once we label something, we don’t see the parts anymore. that it is like we are unable to actually appreciate anything we perceive. She told the story that one of Chogyam Trungpa’s teachers once pointed out (a tree) and said “they call that a tree.” once we label, perhaps the essence or the direct experiencing of the tree is lost.
we are all made of parts. for example, we can be very “cunning and resourceful.” someone looking for entrepreneurship may see that as a great asset while a philanthropist may be repulsed by it. in addition to our cunning and resourcefulness, we can also be a “procrastinator.” suddenly we are not that much of an asset to a headhunter. when isolated into parts we may look a thousand different ways. when seen as a whole person made of all those parts, we cannot get the essence of all those parts into a singular label.
who am I? does my name describe me? do i live in my head or my toes or my elbows? i cannot find me in any of those parts. yet “i” have a sense of being here. can “i” be kind sometimes and unkind at others? can the same “i” love and hate the same person? i cannot define “i” because it is so many different things. yet none of those things are “me.”
Pema said that “even the most enlightened ones have a continued state of being”… she said it is not helpful to think of the self as non-existent or as an illusion, but to view it more as a present, clear, moment to moment awareness that is open to creativity.
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“if you don’t have a sense of humor, it isn’t funny”
Pema Chodron said at the retreat that Wavy Gravy (?) said “if you don’t have a sense of humor, it isn’t funny.” she said our minds create our worlds.
we can see this in our lives all the time. if i have a modern art aesthetic, i am attracted to modern art. if i like traditional furniture, there is something about that style that speaks to me. if i am pessimistic, i am likely to pick out the signs of doom in my environment. i am more inclined to like a sad song when i am sad, especially if the lyric is telling my story or i resonate with the tune.
yes the material world exists and it has features that can trigger certain “feelings.” if i leave a clock in a drawer in a dark room, that clock still exists when no one is watching it (i think! 😉 ). if it is a red clock, it may even be safe to assume that it is still red when no one is watching it. there’s a continuity to objects that make things seem more permanent, at least for relatively short time spans.
i believe the most important concept i learned in my education is theory of mind or there being multiple perspectives that are “right” from those perspectives. the world is not how we, as individuals, see it. our image of the world is a co-creation of the material world and the meaning we attach to it.
a joke isn’t funny if there is no sense of humor. a joke is just words, or even just sounds if we don’t know the language. a red clock in the store does not mean anything to me unless it looks exactly like a clock that i loved as a child. the world is not a scary place if i’m not scared.
it is an insensitive and flippant stance to say a heartbreak is not devastating if we just don’t “see it as devastating.” we are humans, and we have propensities. we have hungers for love and belonging, for safety and security. if we did not care about outcomes and just remained inert, we may not feed ourselves, or learn things, or have relationships. yet somewhere in the attempt to ease our hungers or suffering, we may become more hungry and generate more suffering. sometimes our habits become stronger than our wisdom.
it is helpful for me to be aware of safety issues as i walk through a notoriously unsafe city, it is helpful for me know that poisonous snakes may kill me… but when i overdo these habits, i become scared to ever go out or i never get to experience what lying on the grass without worrying about snakes feel. i create demons and snakes in my head even at times when in reality they are not there. my healthy fear of avoiding what’s dangerous becomes pervasive and i create it in my mind, and there is suffering that can pervade my entire life. in extreme cases, essentially i have taken what i fear and then plastered my life with it.
the powers of our imagination and the capacity of our mind to evoke responses in our body and whole being is powerful! yet our wisdom of discerning reality from imagination, can also be as powerful.
so when we label a person as boring or ugly or worthless, when we label an idea as meaningless or untrue, or when we deem a situation to be unsafe, it is important to ask is that always the case, is it seen like that by everyone, are my feelings facts right now…
the idea is not to blame ourselves for being wrong or finally believing that “the problem is with us”… it is about allowing space around these concepts or ideas so we can liberate ourselves and others from the grips of a fixed sense of reality that may be causing us more suffering.
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skandhas or heaps or aggregates and the antidote of meditation
this is a summary of skandha formation from Pema Chodron at the Touching the Present workshop at the Omega Institute.
suffering may have its roots in the building up of skandhas or heaps or aggregates.
the best explanation of this is that objects have form. this is the first skandha. these are the elemental qualities such as sound, shape, size, color. they are a description of what is. they are perceived through our senses. they are qualities of objects as they are. the red color (of an apple), the mooing (of a cow), the sharpness (of thorns).
the second skandha is the sensation or feeling that is experienced of the first skandha. it is seeing the red color, it is hearing the mooing, it is feeling the thorn. associated may be an instinctive feeling of pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. the red may be pleasant, the mooing may be neutral, the thorn’s sharpness may be unpleasant. there is no judgment, just a pure experience or feeling of the stimuli.
the third skandha is the perception. it is the level at which we recognize or label. that’s a red “apple,” that’s a “cow mooing,” that’s a thorn. we put a name or a concept to the initial form.
the fourth skandha is mental formation. these are feelings and emotions that are attached to the label. pre-learned ideas or predisposed propensities. such as i like apples, i don’t like thorns, i’m neutral to cows. the concept solidifies and there is an emotion or thought attached to the label. it is an escalation to thoughts such as red apples are disgusting, or it is a bad omen if a cow moos, or thorns are poisonous and what if it will kill me.
the fifth skandha is consciousness. it is the coming together of all the skandhas and is the totality of experience. it is a heavy building up that the skandhas are built on each other. it may be said that it is empty of the concept.
Ani Pema used the example of hearing a thud in her mountain retreat in Colorado. she said she heard the sound, it was unpleasant, she thought it was a bear, she became anxious that it may be dangerous, and the consciousness of all this was full on panic. she said the next day she found out it was just a tree branch hitting the house.
this building up of skandha happens so fast that we don’t realize it is an interactive process. it is a process we are contributing to and impacting. the concept or consciousness we build up may be empty of truth or substance. Ani Pema described meditation as an antidote to this, or a reverse skandha:
At first we have the full on consciousness- OMG I’m panicked
then there is an acknowledgement of- I’m scared there is a bear
then- i think that the sound is a bear
then- that sound is unpleasant to me
and finally- there is a sound
this process of building up story lines and becoming emotionally charged can be deconstructed in meditation, with a gentle attitude of curiosity. it is making a commitment to slow down the process of skandha formation, making a commitment to be curious instead of jumping to conclusions and narrowing down possibilities into familiar and habitual patterns. it is allowing experiences- like sounds, sights, tastes to unfold.
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starting here and deeper
spirituality and self-help can be sought as another quick fix, not different from a diet plan or a new face cream that promises total transformation. the Shambhala school of thought, rich in rediscovering the jewels within, continues to reiterate this simple, yet very difficult to practice path of searching within oneself. i heard one of Chogyam Trungpa’s student, David Nichtern, recently give a talk at the Shambhala center of New York. he said it is an emerging of wisdom, not a transplant. it is not about being better but about fully being who you are.
there is so much shame and rejection and revulsion at who we are and where we are right now that we’d do almost anything to avoid being here and being me right now. Pema Chodron described having an aspiration to be fluid like water and rejecting the icy rigid self, yet how is one to get the water if not in that very ice. we can only build with wh
at we have, as we have it, right this moment.
this is disappointing when the chance of external salvation gets taken away, yet also liberating because we know that we already have what we need, already have what we can get. can i get there if im never here. in a world without jumping and transplants and magic, we have to grit through what we have.
it’s like instead of wondering if we will be rescued from our island, and having hopes and fears about it, we start looking around and building what we can. Trungpa said “hopelessness is getting into the teaching more because you have no choice. hopefulness involves choices of all kind. when you realize there is no hope at all, the way we think about it (being saved), you end up with just yourself”… now you are liberated to work on yourself.
the images above are from The Pocket Chogyam Trungpa- a great Shambhala classic book to carry with doses of wisdom from Trungpa
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the other side of sentimentality
i used to be a hallmark cards girl… i used to buy cards with beautiful sentiments, write letters, listen to sad songs over and over again and allow the emotions to wave through me. i used to imagine scenarios of loved ones leaving and dying, and also pleasant scenarios of love and connection. i used to enjoy the idea of someone missing me, or having a “special place” in someone’s heart… being remembered, being unique, being irreplaceable. of someone making me feel a certain way.
i still am all of that now from time to time, but the power has diminished. and it looks different. it may even look insensitive.
the push and pull of sentimentality is a very strong hope and fear cycle. the expectations are double edged… on one side there is adoration and extreme idealization- a unique special irreplaceable bond and connection. but because the expectations are so high and the cost of loss so devastating, it teeters very close to devaluation and extreme fears of abandonment. relationships become high stakes. the margin of error- small and scary. we either cling or we push away, trying to be safe. mentally there is a lot of paranoia, am i giving enough, am i getting enough, do i go all in or do i fold… we attempt to outsmart life.
it is hard (maybe unnecessary) to be on that severe edge when there is a lot of space around us. we may be programmed to split our worlds- good and evil, black and white, friend and enemy… categorizations feel safe. yet the truth is most of the time we live in the in-between space. does it serve us well to draw harsh lines when we can freely navigate the whole spectrum? what does it do to our world? in our attempt to win and be clever and plan so that we get out ahead, do we lose something more important? do we close our doors to possibilities when we try to keep out risks?
i like Thich Nhat Hanh’s description, that when we have a stick, and it has a left and a right, and we have an aversion to the extreme right, of course we can cut that part off. but the consequence will be a new extreme right. and a shorter stick. our world will become smaller and smaller with each cut. we will become more picky and look with more scrutiny. perhaps ultimately we’ll be just left with ourselves and resort to dichotomizing our own good sides and bad sides. or maybe we already do that initially and then extend/project that onto the others. perhaps we start with having propensities for aversion to certain situations and people, and we don’t like feeling what they make us feel, so we think it is best to just cut them off.
maybe reality has more space than the false duality we may create. so sentimentality is neither good nor bad. it can be great when we can feel the connection and feel warmed by it. yet once we grow an attachment to that warmth and an aversion to the lack of it, we solidify the relationship and we become chained to our idealized image of a person, losing sight of the real person that we loved initially. suddenly my expectations and my image of my loved one is in direct competition with the actual person. suddenly i’ve solidified infinite possibilities and made my loved one an object that fails or succeeds at meeting my standards.
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a bodhisattva aspiration
Pema Chodron ends all her teachings with this aspiration from Shantideva:
and now as long as space endures, as long as there are beings to be found, may I continue likewise to remain… to drive away the sorrows of the world.
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a meditation on people
sitting at the Columbus Circle as cars and people pass by. every single person has a story, perhaps an inner narrative, and also a narrative by everyone who views them. mirrors within mirrors within mirrors, and all the viewers seeing something at least slightly different. you can see the lightness of being and the heaviness of being all in the faces and bodies of each. perhaps awareness passing through and living through each body independent of viewers.
it is upto each person to create their world with view. i walked over to Central Park and as i am sitting at a beautiful fountain and pond, i look around. many other bodies seemingly very happy while others worried. a couple fighting, a male body making angry gestures and shouting and a female body crying. some kid ecstatic about the ducks stomping around. another group of teenagers gently teasing each other. it appears that no matter where one is and what they are experiencing, a prison cell or a park, New York or Dhaka or a village in Europe, the stories and what is capable of passing through us is the same.
as an uninvolved bystander, i can easily tune in and out of the narratives. i can smile at the kid, be disturbed by the fighting, and i can zone out of the storyline and look at the sky and the trees and the pond and the duck and the turtles doing their own thing.
the realization that this spaciousness around us exists, always exists, and we can see it if we can slow down and give space around the narrative, woke me up instantly, like lifting away a veil from light that was always there. the brilliance and the life and awareness in all that is sprung into life, or no i sprung back into awareness that is always there. so vivid and powerful and sad and beautiful and it is all of that at the same time.
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the importance of perspective
Viktor Frankl (1984) wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” (pg. 86). this view of having the power to change our attitudes in any given circumstance can be very liberating, but it can also be taken as insensitive and overly simplistic if we do not explore deeper into what it means.
is changing our attitude simply a mind game, a form of mental gymnastics to deny how we really feel or is there more to it? should we blame people for feeling bad about unfortunate circumstances?
i would like to propose that there are unlimited potentials and possibilities available to us at all times and that we simply tune into different experiences based on our perspective, history and pre-dispositions. the trouble may lie in the fact that we often forget that we are at liberty to choose the perspective we take in a given circumstance. unfortunately once we are tuned into a particularly unpleasant possibility, we may become lost in it, and focus on it so much that we forget our way out of it. we can dig ourselves so deep into the problem that we feel we have lost our way. we may focus on certain aspects of reality and deny what else is available. we may accept certain things as immutable facts without remembering the possibility that the “fact” that we believe and hold on to does not have to become the truth. we may be drawn to habitual responses that do not serve us well.
what happens in my body when i slam the break because i am close to having an accident is similar to what happens when i am on a roller coaster and am excited about the ride. the level of fear and doom i feel is related to my perspective. do i think i’m dying or do i think i’m in for a fun ride. excitement and nervousness can use the same pathways, intense love and intense sadness can activate similar feelings… this is why sexual arousal may be traumatic and anxiety provoking for some and exciting for others, falling in love can feel euphoric to some and be an anxiety provoking prelude of pain to others. so although what happens to trigger us may be out of control, how much suffering is yielded may be something we can work with.
our past experiences, learning and biological pre-dispositions may make this easier or more difficult. i am not interested in blaming myself or others for feeling bad when they may be able to find peace, my interest is in empowering ourselves to remember that there is some possibility of freedom and peace that lies within us.
the “roller-coaster of life” image was drawn by Poroma Kanya
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the arrogance of selective symptom-based treatment in psychotherapy
the medical model has a presenting issue or reason for visit. if my reason for visit is acne and i mention pain in my abdomen… the doctor can do one of two things. i have had experience of both. there are doctors who connect the dots and treat the body as an interactive system, and acne and abdominal pain could have a common hormonal cause. however there are also doctors who want one problem per visit. they do not want to know what else is going on. they want to treat just the acne. maybe some antibiotic, maybe some topical cream. it is easy to see the pros and cons of this. the first approach gets complicated, in a 10 minute visit the doctor can only focus on so much, if you open up to a whole body/system concept you can be stuck for some time. insurance companies also like specific codes. the human body and its problems are treated as separate and unrelated entities, maybe like a car’s side view mirror and it’s fuel tank are separate. this works well for doctors and insurance companies. life is simpler, you don’t have to dig too deep, you can get two visits and therefore two payments instead of one. the problem is not resolved so they also get a repeat customer.
to make things more complicated, the topical cream or the antibiotic may work for a bit, but the doctor and the patient loses the opportunity to see the link with the abdominal pain. they don’t get to identify and treat the root common cause. the patient may also be temporarily relieved to have a simple fix.
when one thing is based on another, the integrity of the latter will depend on that of the first. when psychotherapy becomes based on the medical model, therapists can identify separate factors or reasons for visit. client comes in and discusses that they want to change their procrastination habit. in a couple of session they mention their mother and their unresolved issues. the reaction to this new information varies wildly based on what school of therapy you come from. it can be a Freudian wet dream and it can be a “this is a separate issue, let’s talk about your procrastination.”
the fallacy of this is pretty clear to me in the medical model but it is even clearer here. but similar to the medical model, how deep do you go? can it be simpler, can we simply work on changing a particular behavior, why should we dig deeper than necessary?
in my view, the isolated treatment of symptoms in evidence based therapies is arrogant. see even in a car, one thing can effect another. tire pressure can effect fuel mileage. in sports, weather, condition of pitch, how old the ball is, it all effects gameplay. so how have we come to isolating psychological symptoms and targeting them is somewhat mind-blowing. it makes sense for simplicity’s sake, but does the model hold true.
when we reach conclusions like behavioral therapy is an evidence-based treatment for eating disorders, to me it seems like saying aspirin is an evidence-based treatment for treating tumors. when we look at mental health diagnoses, there are a number of symptoms one has to have to meet criteria. therefore, eliminating one symptom can technically make an individual not have a diagnosis anymore. it is great to be able to help people have less pain, if i can help to abate one symptom for my client, i’m happy for them having slightly less pain. but can i claim that i have cured them of their eating disorder? technically yes, but with integrity no. just like an aspirin is amazing and can help ease the pain of a tumor, it wrong to say it cures/treats tumors.
sometimes we forget that the names we assign to disorders in the DSM are descriptions of things, they are not real things. they are constructs that help us have a common language. they are subgroups of symptoms that seem to occur together. there are so many variations in degrees and occurrences of symptoms, that to create the construct of a disorder with a list of symptoms and then to say i have successfully treated the person by removing one of those symptoms is not what psychotherapy is or should be about.
i am excited about the gradual shift of psychological research towards neuro-biology where when we talk about “evidence” we are discussing changes that in fact can be measured. however, as we have not achieved that level of precision, the evidence, I think, should be based on the well-being of the whole person.
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drowning where the mystic swims
there are some people who have tremendous insight into the nature of reality as vast and wonderful—what is sometimes called sacred outlook—but then they become completely dissatisfied with ordinary life. rather than that glimpse of sacred outlook actually enriching their life, it makes them feel more poverty-stricken all the time. often the reason that people go from neurosis into psychosis is that they see that spaciousness and synchronistic situation and how vast things are and how the world actually works, but then they cling to their insight and they become completely caught there. it has been said, quite accurately, that a psychotic person is drowning in the very same things that a mystic swims in –Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape
buddhism is…
to me buddhism is not a “religion” but a study of the mind (psychology) and a lens to view the world through (philosophy).
in 2005, the 14th Dalai Lama said “empirical evidence should triumph over spiritual authority, no matter how venerated a scripture may be. even in the case of knowledge derived through reason and inference, its validity must derive ultimately from some observed facts of experience” (Germer & Siegel, Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy, 2012). There is a very scientific and observation based approach to schools of buddhism. the focus is on attaining happiness and peace, working with suffering, and training the mind. according to the Dalai Lama (2006), “Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of the mind.”
of course there are many schools of buddhism and different ideas and interpretations. some subscribe to it as a religion while others see it as a way of viewing reality. buddhism is said to be a non-theistic spirituality in which everyone has the capacity of becoming a buddha. most buddhist teachers and scholars instruct people to not become buddhists, but to discover “Buddha nature” – a state of being free from suffering, and in the service of love and compassion.
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being childlike
i was talking to some friends about the 14th Dalai Lama and my friend’s brother commented (i’m paraphrasing): “I’ve heard the Dalai Lama is like a child, he went into training so young, he’s very wise but he has this child-like attitude.” i knew exactly what he was referring to as i’ve seen his eyes and his smile twinkle with curiosity, joy and awe at things.
there is a meditation with six techniques for settling the mind, one of which is: settle the mind like a baby looking at a temple wall. not inspecting or scrutinizing the details of the murals. just observing the rough design without becoming involved… in other words, we consider any external object before us while we are meditating to be merely a play of light and remain focused instead on our object.
but being childish or childlike is also used as an insult, to show immaturity and naivete. i’ve heard adult clients call themselves childish with intense shame, and i’ve heard adults tell children to “stop being childish” and i wonder what it means to be raw, emotional, unworked and why it is an aspirational state as well as a state to overcome. perhaps what we want is a modified child state- awe, curiosity, happiness without the intense vulnerability and propensities to “make mistakes.”
i wonder if we get angry because we want to deny our inner child or because we are so far removed from it that it makes us sad.
recently i saw our two month old niece smiling away and cooing to some bright paintings on the wall. we, the adults, sat around, wondered what she was seeing, what was she looking at, what was she so happy about. it invited us into a state of wonder to see the paintings with different eyes, we were reminded how cool lights and colors are, but as we did it we also tried to rationalize and provide a storyline about why she was happy. meanwhile the baby continued to aah and ooh.
at some point we grow up and the novelty can wear off. but more so it seems that there is social pressure to not be excited anymore. Brene Brown, in an online class on vulnerability, said if she really told certain groups how happy and excited she is about her day, she will get skewered. she said being busy [and unhappy and un-childlike (read serious and bitter)] is a status symbol.
life can be busy and not always what we want it to be. sometimes the maintenance of bitterness, and needing to prove that things suck, and the refusal to accept the possibilities that are present, prevent us from becoming unstuck and free.
could i be childlike and have no shame and fear? could i be childlike despite my shame and fear?
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connection
sometimes there is a dropping away of the boundaries, the moment when the room that houses me is not there anymore and i’m left with just (me). this me doesn’t remember it’s me-ness. it is like becoming aware of my breath, the breathing cycle continues on its own all the time but as soon as i become aware of it, it becomes more labored, less spontaneous, it becomes self-conscious. self-consciousness flirts with the boundary between being aware and being separate. it is when i pull out a figure from the ground and focus on it, that i lose the ground. it is in this edge of perception that non-duality and duality collide. the rubin’s vase illustration demonstrates that.
i remember being fasc
inated as a child by optical illusions. i wonder if that was a fascination with being on that edge, of getting a taste of the perceptual edge we live in. as far as i can tell, the vase and the faces both exist, co-exist, yet my perception sways. perhaps connection is realized when the duality diminishes.
on one hand. letting my boundaries dissolve is overwhelming. and i fight to keep my existence intact, the filters of our perception allow reality to be more manageable in our limitations. but as the boundaries of our limitations evolve, the perception of reality wavers between being too intense and too un-stimulating.
macro photography highlights how much richness can be experienced in each micro-segment, if we bother to zoom in.
the rubin’s vase image was obtained from Wikipedia
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birth and death
babies make sense of their bodies as they grow. they don’t know where their bodies are, and initially they don’t recognize themselves in a mirror. the awareness that is partially housed in the body starts getting acquainted, like getting familiar with a new neighborhood, it starts exploring and knowing its way around. but perhaps, as it starts getting familiar and settled into the form of the body, it forgets that there is a world outside of the neighborhood, or that this body or neighborhood was once (and is) part of the bigger world or awareness.
in the book Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder writes: a magician does a trick… “a white rabbit is pulled out of a top hat. all mortals were born at the very tip of the rabbit’s fine hairs, where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick. but as they grow older they work themselves deeper and deeper into the fur. and there they stay. they become so comfortable that they never risk crawling back up the hair again. only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. some of them fall off and others cling desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness stuffing themselves with food and drink: “ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space!” but none of the people down there care.”
the Buddhists talk about the one mind. other metaphors also include the idea that death is returning to oneness. that the awareness or spirit that is housed in our body for the duration of our life escapes. when i think about it, my statement about life escaping is akin to how we talk about the sun rising and setting although in fact, it is the earth that is rotating, the sun is not “rising” or “setting.” from our perspective, the spirit gets liberated but in reality, may be, the construct of the body drops away while the spirit/soul/awareness was always already united.
is a room made of the walls or is the room the space inside the walls… when we remove the walls does the room still exist?
you are my consciousness,
awareness and freedom.
i am the deep waters
of your unconscious.
you are my light
and i am your shadow.
you are my expansiveness
and i am your depth.
you open yourself to me
and i to you…
as bodies transient, suffer
illusions of separation,
spirits unwavering, dance in our breasts
ecstatic, boundless and infinite.
you are the man in me
and i am the woman in you.
you are me
and i am you.
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psychotherapy is… part 1
psychotherapy and acceptance can seem to have paradoxical goals. how can i change if i accept myself, how can i accept myself if i want to change. yet acceptance-based psychotherapies are proliferating. it is important to clarify what psychotherapy is. i will have to define it for myself as schools of thought can vary on this. i see the role of a psychotherapist to be that of a mirror. a clear accurate reflection back of oneself. as the instrument is human, it is easy to interject inaccuracies.
this is why it is so important for therapists to analyze their own biases as they can easily be projected. although it may not be possible to be perfect, the aspiration is to be as accurate as possible.
as we are born and as we grow, we are impacted by many factors. our genetic predispositions, our environment, our learning… the universe affects us as we affect the universe. therefore what we are exposed to shapes what we become and how we perceive ourselves and the world. but sometimes what we learn is not true. sometimes the conclusions we reach are not accurate. a child may believe that she is worthless because she was neglected. a boy who was in a car accident may learn to fear cars. these beliefs can be poignant, and may even seem logical. as meaning-making beings we develop beliefs to simplify our worlds and try to use these beliefs to protect us. however, although one can understand why these beliefs were adopted, they can cause a lot of pain.
people seek psychotherapy when they’re in emotional distress. it is important to ask where the distress emerges from. due to perceptive biases we are often selective of what information we attend to and what we reject. the mode of thinking that produces suffering can cloud our views and create perceptions that cause distress.
truth is important. if i am really worthless i want to know that. however most of the time these conclusions are reached by selective attention. i may focus on being ignored by parents but i may not remember that i am a good student or that my friends like me. i may ignore the little voice that says i’m ok. seeing the world accurately involves taking a step back from the emotional entanglement of the situation.
sometimes we may need a proxy or a mirror to help us see.
Carl Rogers said “the curious paradox of life is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” acceptance should not be a trick to make ourselves change. what this quote highlights is an invitation to see and understand ourselves clearly. to be fully in the presence of who i am, in this moment, fully. while this is difficult and can be frightening, the image we have of what we will uncover is scarier than what we really are. and even if we are shocked to see our true selves, it is uncomfortable but we survive. instead of being afraid of invisible, unknown, lurking threats, we become familiar with who we are.
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i’m good because i do
as we zoom in on things we see more. true constructs reveal deeper symmetry and strength, whereas clusters not connected in those ways appear disconnected and weak. i feel i need to explain myself for picking on “self-worth based on do-ing” as a concept. certainly of all that is amiss in the world it seems like a small one. but in this world of paradoxes all things seem to affect one another. sometimes exponentially.
self-worth based on doing is a fickle friend. it can feel amazing when we’re do-ing and doing things “right.” but to be valuable because one is charming, intelligent, beautiful, productive, etc. is an or-else construct. the because clause adds the element of what if i wasn’t these things. it adds a grasping to keep it that way, often at great costs. the world becomes constructed with a gaping, yet unspoken caveat: if i’m not charming, intelligent, beautiful, productive, silent, outspoken, or any-other-fill-in-the-blank, then maybe i’m worthless. in her book Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller asks the poignant question- “would you still love me if i was angry or dirty or anything but this perfect child?”
when this fear is introduced, being is not good enough anymore, one needs to earn “it” by doing.
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basic is-ness
i started writing this post with the title “basic goodness”… but as words become used, their meanings diffuse and dilute and change. “good” is one of those words. i don’t know what it means anymore. i learned about basic goodness, or what i believe it implies from the teaching of Pema Chodron. she teaches about a fundamental basic goodness that human beings have, in the form of compassion, gentleness, wisdom, inner peace. yet the word good is now tainted with social and cultural expectations and meanings. good is positive. as we learn to discern and refrain from labeling, a basic sense of neutrality, or what Chogyam Trungpa called “is-ness” emerges. Things as they are.
When the concept of the neutral awareness or neutral mind is introduced, it creates a groundwork for change and reminds us that change is possible. Dharmakirti said that “the nature of mind is clear light, defilements are only adventitious.” Geshe Dorjee, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher explained, that the mind is like water and it can be muddied up or enriched, yet the fundamental quality of water remains pure and can be separated back to its pure nature. Many familial, cultural and religious traditions emphasize that human nature is corrupt. Media, advertising and societal competitions also imply that there is something wrong with us. These views can induce shame and blame instead of encouraging growth. If we can start with the idea that each moment is fresh and new, and we can choose, and we are not predisposed to “bad” or “good”… it makes us see possibilities and accept and befriend ourselves to move forward. If I can believe I am not doomed to suffering and can be free, I can clear out the ideas, habits and teachings that cause suffering. On the particle level, every moment is different. Our body is changing and our thoughts are changing constantly. Our brains have neuroplasticity. Acknowledging that learning and seeing in a new way, although difficult, is possible, opens us up to the ability change and abate our suffering.
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how to meditate
an open awareness and mindfulness meditation
seat:
sit on a chair or cross-legged on a cushion on the floor. find a way to sit that works for you. find stability in your posture and groundedness in your seat. if on a chair, feel your feet flat on the floor and establish connection to the ground. if on a cushion, feel connection to the ground through your seat.
hands:
rest your hands on your thighs. alternatively, place one hand on top of another with your thumbs gently touching.
back:
keep your back upright in a comfortable, yet non-rigid, posture. you may gently rock back and forth to find a neutral posture. feel a string pull the top of your head towards the sky to help with posture.
mouth:
you may keep your mouth very slightly open. the openness is not visible to others but allows your breath to flow.
eyes:
keep your eyes open with a soft gaze and no specific focus. if meditating in a group, individuals often lower the gaze few feet ahead towards the floor.
aspiration for attitude:
allow your awareness to be open and accepting. allow yourself to be in the present moment without judgment. internal and external events will occur such as thoughts and emotions, or sounds and sights. allow these to pass through your consciousness, as if you are watching a show in which you are not an actor.
everything passes through your awareness, without rejection or attraction or apathy. with this openness and curiosity, allow yourself to just be. it is natural that you will be distracted or get stuck on ideas or feelings. this is a natural part of the process. when you realize you are lost or stuck, gently return to your open and aware consciousness.
this is simple but not easy (Christopher Germer, mindfulness and psychotherapy, 2013). start with five minutes a day. be with what is, openly willing to be with where you are now with you as you are now. if you are bored, open up to that, if you are frustrated that you are bored, open up to THAT, you’re just watching, right here, without trying to do anything. this is be-ing instead of do-ing.
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mindfulness is…
mindfulness is being here, in this present moment, non-judgmentally, with acceptance, awareness and compassion. it is not emptying the mind or stopping all thoughts or eliminating all emotions. it is not relaxation. it is not an escape or distraction. it is being more fully with all that is, inside and outside (perhaps they are one and the same).
it is important to start with what mindfulness is not. it seems as though acknowledging what mindfulness is NOT will allow a gentle dropping away of habitual constructs to reveal an awareness that always is.
mindfulness can look like mental gymnastics, striving, grasping, competing, to become better, more peaceful, more spiritual, more… in this form it becomes the opposite of acceptance. there is a fervor to be somewhere else, to be better.
mindfulness is being just as things are. it is seeing clearly the true nature of reality, without excess negativity or positivity. just as is.
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the paradox of being 