Delusions of Difference

     Several times I've observed people who had fairly consistently been arrogant, become distinctly pleasant, approachable - essentially "more human", after being diagnosed with cancer. Sadly, they tended to return to their "old self" when they assumed that the danger had passed (new delusion: remission = immortality). 

          Only when all our hold on life
               is troubled,
          Only in spiritual terror can
               the Truth
          Come through the broken mind -
                                                                                                             W.B. Yeats


     I suspect we all have at least moments of delusion when we feel special, somehow above, completely separate & immune from common human frailties. At these times we're quick-fix superheros, right wing, law & order, hanging judges. More than a few of us retain this attitude till they "pry our gun from our cold, dead hands."
     An individual or "group may assert exceptionalism ... in order to exaggerate the appearance of difference, perhaps to create an atmosphere permissive of a wider latitude of action, and to avoid recognition of similarities that would reduce perceived justifications." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exceptionalism

     Dysfunctionally reacting to, instead of wisely addressing, existential dread, is perhaps our central problem: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2017/05/elephant-in-room.html

     "A neurosis is suffering that has not yet found its meaning."     Carl Jung

     "Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose." Carl Jung

     "Real liberation comes not from glossing over or repressing painful states of feeling, but only from experiencing them to the full." Carl Jung

Path of Maturation

     We have an intuitive sense of what's really going on, but to help maintain the momentum of life, we keep this from every-day conscious awareness. 

     “The person who can freely acknowledge that life is full of difficulties can be free, because they are acknowledging the nature of life - that it can't be much else.” Shunryu Suzuki

     Our conscious mind (left brain) is concerned primarily with survival. The left brain, home of the egoic self, pretends that we have far greater control over the environment & our life, than we actually do. Exaggeration of a normal, healthy sense of agency ("illusion of control") is most clearly seen in young men who take crazy risks with the assumption that they'll be just fine.
     Another delusion our left brain holds is that of our own normality. We readily notice others' faults, idiosyncrasies, and strangeness, but hold (idealized versions of) ourselves as models of perfection, or at least what's proper & normal.
     Interestingly, as we become increasingly self-aware through years of meditation practice, we see with increasing clarity how we truly are. This is very, very humbling. So much so, that we're filled with love & gratitude towards all those who patiently tolerated our (to put it gently) eccentricity over the years. When we now see our own "eccentric" traits & behaviors in others, instead of being harshly critical (projecting or externalizing) as in the past, we're far more apt to warmly recognize common human steps on the long, slow road to growing up.
     Seeing things more objectively or realistically (allo- & ecocentrically, rather than egocentrically), is the work of the "right brain". An improved left-right brain balance may occur gradually as we age, but aging definitely does not guarantee maturation. Regular meditation practice does tend to accelerate our human psychosocialspiritual maturation process.

     

 

What is Love?

     "How few understand what love really is, and how it arises in the human heart. It is so frequently equated with good feelings toward others, with benevolence or nonviolence or service. But these things in themselves are not love.

      Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and how and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person, or this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves.

      The first act of love is to see this person or this object, this reality as it truly is. And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping your desires, your prejudices, your memories, your projections, your selective way of looking ... a discipline so great that most people would rather plunge headlong into good actions and service than submit to the burning fire of this asceticism. When you set out to serve someone whom you have not taken the trouble to see, are you meeting that person's need or your own?"

       Father Anthony de Mello

     See also: http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/11/love-where-we-end-where-we-begin.html

 

Marc Chagall

Our Confused Urge to Purge

     Don't we just love to hear an intelligent, devastating critique of a person or group we hate? Yes! It makes us feel so right, smart, good, holy; and makes "the other" look so wrong, stupid, bad, evil!
     It's easy if people we hate are different - not one of us. As Homer Simpson famously said "He's different - I don't like him!" We can even create differences to suit an agenda, as was apparently the case to divide Rwanda into Hutus & Tutsis. Religious belief is trickier, especially among those with essentially the same religion, but we've succeeded with a vengeance in this as well - Catholics vs Protestants, Shia Muslims vs Sunni Muslims ...

     Reformers within such groups, who believe that butchering each other may not be the best, most evolved, or sustainable approach, are often branded as traitors & heretics, shunned or even killed. Whistleblowers in large companies or governments fare no better. Why?

     Because we hate to face, much less to clean-up, our own home. It's so much easier to find fault in other individuals & groups, and then eradicate all our problems by declaring war on ... anything but the real problem. Eradicate whoever / whatever we project our own shadow upon, then everything will be perfect. "And how's that working for you?" Dr. Phil might reasonably inquire.
     We must recognize that we're still surprisingly primitive & tribal. The present state of the human race reflects the very early level of our individual psychosocialspiritual evolution. Each of us has a lot of growing-up to do. 
     This requires a complete turnabout, an inversion of sorts, turning our world right-side-up. Whenever we get very righteously energized to denounce or attack (verbally or otherwise) a person or a group, let's remember to look within - what dark aspect of ourselves are we trying to disown?
     Studying oneself, with steady awareness & gentle acceptance, is a continuously humbling experience. It makes one less & less judgmental of others, and more & more grateful to all those who put up with us while we were even less civilized than we are today. 

     "Be kind, for everyone is carrying a heavy load."

Near Mahone Bay, NS

Self-awareness vs Externalizing / Projection

"Those who are at war with others
are not at peace with themselves."                  William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_hazlitt.html

Choose Now: Fresh or Stale?

     Each and every moment we choose how we perceive this moment - fresh or stale?

     This very moment is completely new, never-before experienced, unique. We ourselves are, in each moment, completely new, never-before experienced, unique. Each millisecond of life is a brand new dawn of creation. Accurately perceived, we live in the miraculous flow of endless creative change.
     To see accurately, we first must let go of our "me, myself & I": self-talk ("narrative focus") and all our many forms of self-absorption (egocentricity). We either see things as they truly are, or see ourselves projected onto the external world.

     “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”      Anais Nin

     Sadly, most of us don't even realize that we have a choice in this matter. The momentum of our lives, our story lines, our baggage, is so great, that we spend much of our lives completely lost in it. And when we get a brief glimpse of freedom from this psychic swamp, it scares us, and we feel completely unequipped to deal with this (to us) strange landscape of bright consciousness. Sadly, many of us quickly retreat back to the swamp we know (and hate). BUT INSTEAD, WE CAN CHOOSE TO BE FREE ...

     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/10/keeping-this-moment-clean-train-to-be.html

Photo Sonia   www.dpreview.com

Don't Know Mind, Have No Opinions, See Things as They Are

     “Thinking we know costs us all we don’t know – which is nearly everything. Knowing is a veneer our minds create and lay over the landscape like a painter’s drop cloth set upon a forest floor. Its uniformity protects us from the pine needles and beetles, but it also obscures them, as well as the soft moss, fragrant soil, and teeming complexity of nature’s bed. Our knowing is nearly always tinged by the filter of our conditioned outlook, and what we see as ‘true’ is determined by our expectations, preconceptions, hopes, and fears. In short, the things that define the self stand between our awareness and our environment as such. In moments, however, we catch glints and feel the breezes of something more direct, something outside that self system. It may just be a clearer view of a mountain range … or it may be something with a strong impact on our lives.
     We can meet this world immediately, but … we sacrifice security.”

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

     Our sense of "being certain": http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/03/crisis-of-faith-limits-of-intellect.html

Tim A2   www.dpreview.com

 

Creating Enemies, Externalizing, Projection, Avoidance, Suppression ...

          "When you're in a hole,
          Stop digging!"                    Will Rogers

     "An enemy is an experience that we can't tolerate, or we choose not to experience. Something comes up in us, and we can't experience it. Maybe we lack the skill, maybe we lack the capacity - certainly the case when we're small children, maybe we lack the willingness, maybe some combination of all of those. But we can't experience it. And so the only thing we can do then is to get rid of that experience. One of the ways we do that is we suppress it. But we don't really get rid of the energy of that experience it goes into the body and makes us sick in various ways. The more common way we discharge that energy by expressing it. We react in other words. 
     'There is no enemy' is a way of saying that there is another way, perhaps, to experience everything that arises. What is an enemy? It is the projection of our rejection of our own experience.
     When we encounter someone in our lives, or encounter a group or situation, and we say no, it's because something is coming up in us, which we can't tolerate. And so we have to push that away. Or if we can't push it away, then we seek to destroy it or neutralize it, or annihilate it ... This is how enemies come about."    Ken McLeod
"There is no enemy: A toolkit for change" Buddhist Geeks Conference 2011
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2012/09/there-is-no-enemy/

Artist: Joanne Hunt CSPWC, SCA    http://www.gallery78.com/

Perception and "the Gaining Mind"

     "When a thief sees a saint, all he sees are his pockets." Sufi saying

     “one’s understanding of the self, the world, and others, when fully perfected, leads to actions whose moral qualities are commensurate with the level and depth of insight or ‘vision’ of one’s mind. That is, the greater one’s intellectual penetration into the fundamental nature of reality, the greater the virtuosity of one’s actions. In short, moral action is the fruit of intellectual insight … the Buddha and Socrates seem to share the view that lack of vision or insight in the realms of epistemology and metaphysics leads inevitably to failure in the moral sphere.”   

       Laumakis SJ. An introduction to Buddhist philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 2008. 

     “Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore.”              Franz Kafka

 

Photo Source: http://www.quick-good-fortune.com/Health-Wellness.html