Spacious Freedom from Difficult Emotions

     Fear & anxiety can completely take over our life, squeezing out clarity, perspective & judgment.  
     Genetics & environmental factors clearly play a large role.  
AND ALSO
     “one’s happiness or unhappiness depends on one’s habits of mind.” Guy Armstrong. “Emptiness. A Practical Guide for Meditators.” Wisdom Publications, 2017.
     The context in which we hold our 'self,' experiences (past, present & future), thoughts & emotions is surprisingly influential. Two experienced meditation teachers - Guy Armstrong (GA) and Sharon Salzberg (SS) - elaborate on this:

     GA “I think emptiness is a really practical concept, although it takes a while to understand what makes it work. The (Buddhist) idea of emptiness, very briefly, is that the world is not as solid as we think it is, and we as humans are not as fixed as we tend to think that we are. And so once we start getting into the direct experience of ourselves and of the things we find in life, we find they’re characterized by impermanence – none of them last long enough to be satisfying. And there’s this interesting kind of mystery that in the center of it all is not a solid entity that we would call a me or self, but it more opens into space. So emptiness, as we start looking into it, opens into this feeling that we first probably contact in meditation, that really our experience is made up of a lot of space. You can see this in the outside world – you look out a window and things are there but there’s mostly space. And you start to look internally, and yeah there are body sensations, thoughts, moods and everything, but there’s a lot of inner space too. So as we start to open up into that inner space, emptiness really opens us up into being more grounded. And opening to space leads us into relaxation, ease & settledness. So I think if we can find avenues into feeling the extent of space that’s in our experience, that really leads to a settling of our whole being.”

     SS “Space is like a relief. In my own experience, mindfully looking at my own fear, and by mindful I mean seeing what we’re looking at in a certain way – not holding on, not pushing it away, not trying to explain it, not trying to make it go somewhere else, but just being with – so in being with my own fear in that way, I realize that I’m largely afraid when I think like I do know and it’s going to be really bad. And lots of stories that I’m telling myself ‘this is going to happen, & this is going to happen.’ And then when I remind myself that I don’t know what’s going to happen, I feel space. And in that space, which is a kind of emptiness, I don’t have that sense of dread, because I don’t know, and it’s like many things are possible. I don’t know what’s going to happen and it’s kind of a mystery. It’s such a relief to be in that space, because it’s also true.”

     GA “One of the things we find when we come into the moment, is that things as they are in the moment are mostly bearable. Even an emotion like fear, which is one of the hardest things for people to bear, if you are not in a physically-threatening situation at that moment, and you can allow yourself just to feel what the feeling of fear is, it doesn’t have to feel overwhelming, it doesn’t even have to feel threatening. And so that very openness and acceptance of it, creates a lot of space around it. And we find that the present moment isn’t as scary as all the stories we make up. And so it kind of gets into this interesting exploration of well, why are we telling ourselves all these scary stories, or wanting stories, or sad stories? One of the interesting things about coming into meditation is we start to see what the mind is doing most of the time, that we normally don’t pay attention to because we’re doing something else. But when we become still with our body and look inward, we start to see 'Oh, there’s a really strong habit of thinking, mostly about the past & future, and that fills us with fear on the one hand, or sadness, or wanting on the other hand. And it’s all that activity that keeps us feeling stirred-up.' And so when we can put some space around that, it really helps to let those thoughts & emotions settle down.” 
Metta Hour with Sharon Salzberg Ep. 90 – Guy Armstrong https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/metta-hour-podcast-episode-90-guy-armstrong/

What If?

     If creative imagination materialized continuously, in real-time, each piece of material could perceive only "self" - who or what they are. Might not myriad pieces of material mistakenly assume separate individual identities, forgetting their true identity, nature or origin?
     But what if the materials began to realize that their properties were impermanence, unsatisfactoriness & not-self?

Core Insights of Buddhism

     “The three core insights of the Buddhist tradition are the facts of impermanence, of suffering, and of non-self. 
     The first of these refers to the truth that all phenomena, without exception, change; 
     the second recognizes that all experience is structurally incapable of yielding lasting satisfaction; 
     and the third points out the awkward truth that we are not quite what we take ourselves to be. 

     To these we might usefully add the associated ideas of the interdependent arising of all phenomena, and the notion of awakening as a radical psychological transformation.”


       Olendzki A. "Unlimiting Mind. The Radically Experiential Psychology of Buddhism." Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2010. 


     Useful introduction to the above: http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/08/exploring-mysteries-of-human-condition.html

Deluded Ordinary Mind

     “Buddhist psychology offers models of the process and structures of the mind. It shows how flight from the existential inevitability of loss, pain, and death leads to delusion, which is a subtle and pervasive refusal to face reality. Instead, we attempt to find and hold on to something that is concrete and substantial. This common mentality is one of grasping, which leads to attachment and creates an accumulation of habit-energies, preferences, and behavior patterns that support the illusion of an enduring self that can escape impermanence. Buddhist psychology sees this self as a defensive structure that lacks foundation yet dominates the ordinary mind.”

        Caroline Brazier. “Buddhism on the Couch. From Analysis to Awakening Using Buddhist Psychology.” Ulysses Press, Berkley, CA, 2003. 

Real Life is NOT "Picture-perfect"

     “When I was twenty-four I had a flash of insight: that this was in fact my life, this is exactly what it looked like and presumably always would. That one’s studies, this fabled and much-talked-about period in life, on which one always looked back with pleasure, were for me no more than a series of dismal, lonely and imperfect days. That I had not seen this before was due to the constant hope I carried around inside me, all the ridiculous dreams with which a twenty-year-old can be burdened, about women and love, about friends and happiness, about hidden talents and sudden breakthroughs. But when I was twenty-four I saw life as it was. And it was OK …” 
       Karl Ove Knausgaard. “A Death in the Family. My Struggle: Book 1.” Vintage Books, London, 2014. 

     So, is Knausgaard depressed, pessimistic, cynical, temporarily "down" - OR - is he seeing life as it actually is, far different than our common hopes and dreams? Don't we keep hoping for life to transform into one continuous glorious beer commercial? And don't we repeatedly feel disappointed because our life is "so damned ordinary"? For Freud, "ordinary unhappiness" was the best he could hope for, the goal of psychotherapy.
     In 500 BCE, the Buddha understood deeply the stressful unsatisfactoriness that (unawakened) life entails, even though he was born healthy, intelligent, wealthy - a handsome prince, with everything the world could provide at his fingertips.

      “Dukkha (refers to) stress, suffering, misery, unsatisfactoriness, pain: literally, ‘hard to endure, difficult to bear.’ 
     In its limited sense, dukkha is the quality of experience that results when the mind is conditioned by avijja into craving, attachment, egoism, and selfishness. This feeling takes on forms such as disappointment, dissatisfaction, frustration, agitation, anguish, dis-ease, despair – from the crudest to the subtlest levels. 
     In its universal sense, dukkha is the inherent condition of unsatisfactoriness, ugliness, and misery in all impermanent, conditioned things (sankhara). This second fundamental characteristic is the result of anicca; impermanent things cannot satisfy our wants and desires no matter how hard we try (and cry). The inherent decay and dissolution of things is misery.”
       Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. “Mindfulness with Breathing. A Manual for Serious Beginners.” Wisdom Publications, Boston, 1988. 

Public Gardens, Halifax, NS, Canada

Quality of Awareness & Perception

     "By bringing non-conceptual, naked attention to whatever you are feeling or sensing, the impermanent nature of your perceptions is revealed. You witness the dissolution of that which appeared solid."     Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

       Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, Fall 2012

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Seeing Clearly

     "essential aspects of the practice:

• Contemplating our experience internally, externally, and both;

• Contemplating the nature of impermanence: the arising, the passing away, and both the arising and passing away in regard to our experience;

• Establishing enough mindfulness to recognize simply what is unfolding moment to moment - without mental commentary - and to remain mindful of what's happening;

• Abiding without clinging to anything that enters our realm of experience.

       Goldstein J. Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening. Sounds True, 2013. - except published in Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, Winter 2013.

Berries, Thorns & Paint - Dundas in December

Anicca - Everything is Transient

     Corporality is transient, feeling is transient, perception is transient, mental formations are transient, consciousness is transient.       Buddha 

Prayer Wheel, Samish Island, WA

Accepting the Numinous Seething Sea of Change

     “Trust Emergence. With this instruction we are invited into the numinous but observable impermanence of all experience.
     To trust is to make the leap of faith required to enter this seething sea of change. Emergence refers to the process by which the complex things we experience arise spontaneously from underlying contributing factors.”

        Kramer G. “Insight dialogue. The interpersonal path to freedom.” Shambhala, Boston, 2007.

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Discomfort with Closeness, Strong feelings, & Meditation

     Many people, particularly male physicians and dentists, have "marked discomfort with closeness and an even more marked reluctance to acknowledge this discomfort or deal openly with it. Such tendencies are particularly prominent among those who have compulsive personalities, in which difficulty with the management of strong feelings, both positive and negative, is a central feature."        Gabbard GO, Menninger RW. "The psychology of postponement in the medical marriage." JAMA 1989; 261(16): 2378-81.

      One of the determinants of the choice of the medical profession may be to defend against the horrible existential dread associated with feelings of impotence in the face of one's own ultimate death. ... another grand paradox on which to reflect is that those individuals who are so vulnerable to feelings of helplessness choose a profession where they are repeatedly reminded of their inherent impotence in the face of disease and death."
       Gabbard GO. "The role of compulsiveness in the normal physician." JAMA 1985; 254(20): 2926-9.

      “Life and death are not, as they say, rocket science. We can all understand them because we all can, and must, experience them. When we take up meditation or go into therapy, at the most basic level, we are looking for a way to cope with the fact of impermanence, which ultimately comes down to the fact of our mortality. At first, we inevitably try to deny it, control it, or avoid it. Eventually, if we stay with a real practice of emotional honesty and awareness … we may discover the joy that underlies life as it is – this fleeting, ungraspable, uncontrollable life-as-it-is.”
        Magid B. "Ending the pursuit of happiness – a Zen guide." Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2008.

Photo: Suhdeep Mehta   www.dpreview.com