Our Best is Needed

    "The question we need to ask ourselves is whether there is any place we can stand in ourselves where we can look at all that's happening around us without freaking out, where we can be quiet enough to really hear our predicament, and where we can begin to find ways of acting that are at least not contributing to further destabilization.” Ram Dass

    We can easily remember Ram Dass' words with the help of these two short phrases:

    In the wonderful TV series, "New Amsterdam," Dr. Max Goodwin's response to even the most challenging situations was to ask, "How can I help?"
    And if we can't help, then: "At least do harm."

 

    What do we value most in a human being? What are the best attributes of people we most admire? 

    Decency, honesty, trustworthiness, reliability, kindness, acceptance, humility, courage & nurturing stand out for me.

 

    Aren't these the very same characteristics that lie deep within us all? These attributes - sparks of the Divine - we all potentially or actually manifest under optimal conditions, when we feel sufficiently safe & brave enough to lower our hardened defenses, and be authentic - our true Self? 

    We can easily differentiate between feeling rigid with fear, guarded, aggressive, enraged, versus when we feel safe, relaxed, glowing with an open-heart & open mind. 

    BUT what's really valuable is learning to recognize how we habitually remain armored, at least somewhat tight & hyper-vigilant even when there's NO "clear and present danger" AND how this constantly corrodes all our perceptions, thinking, speech & behaviors. 

    ONLY by repeatedly recognizing & releasing this default survivalist, separate-self, adversarial illusion are we able to gradually stop sabotaging our own quality of life, and the quality of life of all those around us.

    What clues do we have, that we're lost in the default survivalist, separate-self, adversarial illusion? We feel physically tight, strained, anxious, impatient, 'time poverty,' 'empty' or 'lacking' something, desperate to 'keep busy,' competitive, aggressive. OR we may feel 'lack luster,' no energy, no interests, no plans, hopeless, down. OR we may feel constantly anxious, afraid & upset by a wide variety of things, and assume that it's these that are making us sick. But fear of living AND fear of dying are common. Meditation teacher Ezra Bayda calls it the "anxious quiver of being."

    Becoming clearly aware of what's really going on, here & now occurs only in stillness, not by "keeping busy" chasing after stuff, nor running away from other stuff. Perhaps that's why we fear to, and rarely stop & look carefully. Our compulsive activity - like furiously riding a rocking horse - gives the illusion of "getting somewhere." HOWEVER, intentionally being aware of what's really here & now gradually tames our fears, and intimately engages us with the awesome mystery of Reality.

    “When I change the level of my awareness, I start attracting a different reality.” Santon Saint Pierre, French philosopher

    Living in the default survivalist, separate self, adversarial illusion feels bad & harms myself & everyone around me. 

    I CAN learn to detect this default way of being, repeatedly let it go, relax, open my heart-mind, and ALLOW my true nature - decency, honesty, trustworthiness, reliability, kindness, acceptance, humility, courage & nurturing - to shine, which radically changes EVERYTHING - our perceptions, thinking, speech & behaviors. It's a lifelong adventure.

     

Passenger - "When We Were Young"

Awakening, Simple Honesty and Humility

      Below are excerpts from an interview with Adyashanti, who imho is a wise meditation teacher.
     First, an insight into how awakened / awakening people can confidently proclaim that everything is perfect, even when we often find ourselves & our world in a sorry mess.

     “Look at the people that we all admire (I presume he's referring to people like Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad). They are people that have assumed immense responsibility for the well-being of all of us, because they don’t see themselves as being separate from the rest of life. And they may see the innate bottom-line perfection of existence.
     But it’s a tricky thing, once you see that (Here I presume he's referring to those of us on the awakening journey). It’s really seductive to get attached to it. Because you can go ‘I see that life’s just perfect, even when it’s a mess. It’s perfect. It’s all an expression of love.’ At the deepest dimension of being, that’s true. You see and you feel that, and it feels very, very real. And it’s seductive just to hold up in there. And if somebody is in pain you just stay with ‘It’s just perfect.’ Every state of realization has its own built-in illusions. They’re very easy to miss. They’re very easy to miss. You can see the perfection of everything. And it’s not that that’s not true and that’s not real. But that’s not the only thing that’s true and real. Existence is unimaginably paradoxical. It’s absolutely perfect and beautiful AND it’s a total disaster – it’s a bloody mess, at the same time, occupying the exact same space. And that’s why, at least historically, at least as far as I see it, the greatest realizers that have ever walked around this place, haven’t taken their realization, hidden in a cave, and gone ‘Well good for me. I’m in heaven and that’s what I’ll do.’ They’ve generally completely dedicated themselves to the well-being of the world that they see as perfect. But I think it’s because their vision is big enough that it can hold this paradoxical vision, that it’s perfect and complete AND it’s a bloody mess, with a lot of potential. Our minds don’t like those kinds of things. They want to know ‘Which is it?’ ‘Is it this or that?’ Both!"

     Many of us at times become enthused, excited, energized after discovering something, and we just have to tell everyone about it ("missionary zeal"). Our message can be as lofty as an insight into the meaning of life. More often, it's something like finding a decent toaster. Enlightenment or awakening belongs in the former category, but even this is a work in progress, among ordinary, easily deluded human beings, with very human limitations.

     "Even enlightenment itself is part of the game. Enlightenment doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you’re going to be good in intimate relationships; it doesn’t mean you’re not going to delude yourself; it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not going to be seduced by power or desire. It doesn’t guarantee that. The more everybody admits that, then you can get on with business.
     Spiritual awakening is very, very transformative – it’s foundational, freedom stuff. But, that’s one of the high-level illusions, because you start to feel like everything’s totally OK eternally. Even to screw everything up is all OK, it’s all forgiven. And that’s true but if you attach to that, that truth starts to delude you. Because then you’re in unconscious denial of other parts or dimensions of your humanity which might be very underdeveloped. And to call it perfection, isn’t going to do it.
     The funny thing about bumping into these, what we often call ‘realizations of reality’ - it’s like the image of a diamond with many facets. One of the facets is everything is totally perfect. Another one is nothing exists, the world is an illusion. There are lots of these facets, they’re like perspectives of the deepest dimensions of consciousness. But each one feels 100% complete, each one. Because it’s a facet of a totality, you’re kind of experiencing a totality through that facet. But that’s the key. You’re experiencing the totality through a given facet of perception and the trick is, the danger is, that you will conclude because everything in you will feel that it’s complete, because you’re touching upon completeness. But there may be 50 other facets. Each facet has a high level of delusion. And one of the delusions, because it feels totally complete and all-encompassing, is that it is complete and all-encompassing. No, it just feels complete and all-encompassing.
     Like the metaphor of the blind men, feeling different parts of an elephant and from that, concluding the whole animal's appearance: (leg) like the trunk of a tree, (ear) like a huge leaf, (stomach) like a mountainside, etc. (Likewise), the world’s different enlightenment teachings are far from saying the same thing. One has this facet, or two or three facets, another one has another. And people get all confused about which is the right one. And then they usually decide based on their own biases. Nobody’s going to hold the whole diamond. I’ve never read it, I’ve never heard of it, I’ve never seen it.
     But the more of those facets we can touch upon, the bigger our view is. And then, quite apart from the facets of the diamond of reality, don’t let those facets delude you into thinking that you’ve got your entire human act together, or that if you don’t, that it doesn’t matter. Because it does matter. It does matter, because it’s going to affect the next person you meet. And of course if your life starts to play out on a bigger scale, it affects more, and more, and more, and more people. That’s the tricky thing, because enlightenment fills you with a kind of confidence. But that confidence can slip over into overconfidence, into a kind of delusion.
     When we have parts that are underdeveloped, we attract people around our incompleteness. And when you’re playing life out on a bigger scale, everything gets amplified. Those same things happen in a smaller, unamplified version in people’s lives all the time. Every once in a while, I try to scare people a little bit. I’ll say, ‘Well, you know this enlightenment thing comes with immense responsibility. It’s not just a freebee gift. You better realize that you become more and more and more and more responsible. And the consequences for not taking it on become greater and greater, not less and less.’ That’s why you can have these immense falls from grace, because the consequences go up for you as well as for others. I keep that in mind all the time. I don’t get nervous about it at all, because I don’t intentionally pretend to have every facet of the diamond, or that I’m totally perfect … If I did, then you’re darned well right I’d be nervous. One of the best protectors for any of us, forget about spirituality or enlightenment or all the rest, one of the best ways we can protect ourselves and each other is just be honest – just be a real human being. It’s boots on the ground simple.”
     Adyashanti interview: https://play.acast.com/s/advaita/http%3A%2F%2Fpatrick.fm%2Fadvaita%2FAdyashanti.mp3 The ENTIRE 74min interview is well worth a listen!

 

He Had to Say Something ...

He did not wax poetic
He spoke plain
With turning words
Mirroring
Death
Birth

Common Factors - for Meditation Teachers?

     "Common factors" play a very important role in all forms of psychotherapy & counseling. I suggest that they're equally important in teaching meditation.
     Perhaps the most detailed analysis of common factors is found in: Nancy McWilliams. "Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. A Practitioners Guide." The Guilford Press, NY, 2004. Below is a long but valuable series of quotes from McWilliams' excellent text, which should startle meditation teachers, especially those without formal training in mental-health care. I found that almost every point (with perhaps one notable exception), is equally applicable to teaching meditation:

"People who seek psychotherapy are generally looking both for specific expertise and for the kind of relationship that will allow them to unburden themselves and grow in a more general way.

     'We must not forget that the analytic relationship is based on a love of truth - that is, on a recognition of reality - and that it precludes any kind of sham or deceit.' Sigmund Freud

... The overarching theme among psychodynamic approaches to helping people is that the more honest we are with ourselves, the better our chances for living a satisfying and useful life. Moreover, a psychoanalytic sensibility appreciates the fact that honesty about our own motives does not come easily to us. The diverse therapeutic approaches within the psychotherapeutic pantheon share the aim of cultivating an increased capacity to acknowledge what is not conscious - that is, to admit what is difficult or painful to see in ourselves.

Psychoanalytic clinical and theoretical writing has always specialized in exposing motives that are not obvious to us, on the premise that becoming aware of disavowed aspects of our psychologies will relieve us of the time and effort required to keep them unconscious. Thus, more of our attention and energy can be liberated for the complex task of living realistically, productively, and joyfully. Motives that tend to be relegated to unconsciousness vary from individual to individual, from culture to culture, and from one time period to another. It is probably no accident that in contemporary Western cultures, where individual mobility is assumed, where extended and even nuclear families are geographically disparate, and where the assumed solution to most relationship problems is separation - in other words, where longings to cling are unwelcome and signs of dependency inspire scorn - psychoanalytic researchers and theorists are emphasizing attachment, relationship, mutuality, and intersubjectivity.

If this account sounds somewhat moralistic, that is also not accidental. Several decades ago, the sociologist Philip Rieff made a scholarly and persuasive argument that Freud was essentially a moralist - not in the popular sense of the person who gets a rush from attacking others for engaging in specific sins, but in the more philosophical sense of being ultimately concerned with what is true:
     '... Psychoanalysis ... demands a special capacity for candor which not only distinguishes it as a healing movement but also connects it with the drive toward disenchantment characteristic of modern literature and of life among the intellectuals.'

... Psychoanalysis as a field has ... embraced an ethic of honesty that has precedence over other aims and regards therapeutic goals, including symptom relief, as by-products of the achievement of honest discourse. ... For many decades, the ethic of honesty was personified in the image of a therapist who had presumably attained unflinching self-awareness in a personal analysis and who bore the responsibility for fostering the same achievement in the patient. In current analytic writing, there is more acknowledgement that participation in a therapeutic partnership requires both analyst and patient to become progressively more honest with themselves in the context of that relationship.

... psychoanalysis is located at the intersection of two vertices: the medical and the religious. By 'medical' (Bion) referred to the more objective, rational, technocratic, authoritative stance of the person trying to offer practical help to those suffering from mental and emotional disorders. The medical vertex is characterized by validated techniques, applied by an expert, intended to have specific, replicable effects. Recent efforts ... to develop manualized treatments for borderline personality organization exemplify this face of psychodynamic practice. Current writing on the neurology and brain chemistry of subjectivity and the changes that occur in analytic therapy also belong to the medical axis. In noting the equally important 'religious' vertex, Bion was calling attention to a dimension that is often depicted as existential, experiential, humanistic, romantic, collaborative, or discovery-oriented ways of seeking answers to (unanswerable) human questions."

      Nancy McWilliams. "Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. A Practitioners Guide." The Guilford Press, NY, 2004.

Awareness is Not for Wimps

     “Wasn’t it true that there was a place in all of us where we kept our secret under lock and key, vain animals capable of strange, petty, sometimes violent unpredictabilities? ... We all had our secrets, and maybe the most terrible of them was that we weren’t exactly who we thought we were, who we said we were, who we dreamed of being, that we were divided and at war and half made of self-mythologies, too. Sometimes on that staircase spiraling up from the darkness, we met ourselves coming up into the light, not recognizing ourselves or what we might do next.”

       Michael Paterniti “The Telling Room. A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese.” The Dial Press, NY, 2013

 

Public Gardens, Halifax, NS

Artistic Freedom - Authentic Leadership

     "Knausgaard believes that to create literature of lasting value, a writer must try to carve out a freedom from the strictures of society, to stand outside the realm where consideration comes before honesty. It’s an important principle, he thinks—but it carries no weight on a human level."

       Evan Hughes on Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117245/karl-ove-knausgaard-interview-literary-star-struggles-regret

     The choice to exercise this freedom means giving up compulsive living - constantly running from (aversion) or running after (craving) ghosts, phantasms & vapors. This choice frees up time & energy to cultivate something of value. See: http://www.johnlovas.com/2014/08/shining-character.html

Richard Kelley, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

Being Visible

     "There is an incredible intimacy that develops when you're with a person who sees you as you are. When you're willing to be seen, when you know you're seen and recognized, there is an intimacy that is like nothing else. In Zen you might say there is no gap between you. We don't get that very often in our lives."              Sallie Jiko Tisdale

       Forum: Your Teacher and You. Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, Spring 2014.

Blub   instagram.com/lartesanuotare   Florence, Italy

Calm, Tranquility, Serenity, Composure - Important but

     "Calm ... plays a crucial and powerful role on the path of liberation, yet it is often overlooked or underemphasized in our practice. ... It is the soothing factor of mind that quiets the disturbances. It manifests as peacefulness or coolness in both the mind & body. It is what a tired worker feels upon sitting down in the cool shade of a tree on a sweltering day, or what a child feels when her mother lays a cool, soothing hand on her feverish forehead.

     Passaddhi (Pali term for calm) encompasses both physical composure & mental tranquility. It is this quality of calm that keeps the mind composed & unruffled in times of difficulty. Buddhist psychology describes how it brings along with it other wholesome states, such as lightness, wieldiness, proficiency, and sincerity. While the first three of these associated states seem obvious concomitants of calm, it is interesting to reflect on the last. Why does calm bring sincerity? When our minds are tranquil, a natural genuineness, honesty, and freedom from duplicity are also present.

     In meditation teachings, we sometimes hear of the danger of becoming attached to this wonderfully calming, peaceful state of mind. When we first touch this space of tranquility in our meditation, there is a profound sense of relaxation, relief, and ease, especially as we contrast it with the speed and distractedness of our daily lives, and with the difficulties and struggles we sometimes experience in practice. The tranquility can be so enticing that we might start practicing only for the calm, becoming attached to it and identified with it, and forget that it, too, is a constructed state. We can easily sink into the enjoyment of it and forget to bring mindfulness to it.

     Although this is an important caution, the Buddha clearly emphasized the importance of calm in the list of the awakening factors. The happiness of a tranquil mind plays a key role in the path of awakening. Here, the instructions on the factors of enlightenment, found in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, provide crucial guidance: 

     If the tranquility awakening factor [or any of the others] is present [in him], one knows, “the tranquility awakening factor is present in me”; if the tranquility awakening factor is not present [in him], one knows “there is no tranquility awakening factor present in me.” One knows how the unarisen tranquility factor can arise, and how the arisen tranquility factor can be perfected by development. 

     It is mindfulness that knows whether tranquility is present or not. And investigation, energy, & interest — what we might call 'meditative intelligence' — lead onward to its development & fullness, but without becoming identified with or ensnared by it."

 
       Goldstein J. "Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening." Sounds True, 2013. 

       http://www.soundstrue.com/shop/Mindfulness/4436.pd

 

Steve McCurry   http://stevemccurry.com

Equanimity, Honesty & Compassion

     “… liberation arises when we are ‘without anxiety about nonperfection’ … when we are able to see ourselves and the world with honesty and compassion.” 

       Kornfield J. “A path with heart. A guide through the perils and promises of spiritual life.” Bantam books. NY, 1993. 

Kevin Van Paassen / The Globe and Mail