Pitbull Serendipity: Don't Eat My Balls

I can't believe I got a good night's sleep last night. Yesterday, I drove from central Pennsylvania to southern Virginia to pick up a stray dog from Alabama. She was so friendly that when a doctor found her on the side of the road, although she couldn't keep her, Dr. Sue couldn't help but adopt her, get her spayed, and send out a Mayday to Emily, her friend in Vermont. Emily forwarded that note to practically everyone she knew, and because I knew my sister (Greta) was looking for a four-legged companion, I forwarded Dr. Sue's request for love. Greta decided that if she could name the dog Bella, and if I'd pick her up, she'd love her forever.

This sounds like a joke: how many Americans does it take to love one skinny pitbull?

Her head is gigagntic, and she eats a lot--still pretty skinny. She's untrained but surprisingly smart. And she listens, trying to figure out what I want even though I don't think she really knows the words like "come", "sit", "no". Even though she slept all day in the car, we woke up after sleeping a good ten hours (she snores quietly and peacefully), stepped outside for a moment, and got some breakfast: dogfood for her, coffee for me. When she plays, she's got the pitbull instinct to latch on with her huge head and jaws and swing her whole body back and forth for as much leverage as she can get, like the rest of the body in full motion almost matches the power (and size!) of her head. She's a ball of energy, but even though we didn't play much this morning, when I decided to sit down to write, she calmed right down too. Little does she know that once her food's digested a little more, we'll head back outside for some real fun!

Same as other pitbulls I've met, she's quite a lover, and I'm sure she can't wait to meet Greta later today and finally settle into her new home. You can tell she'll take to training like a fish to water. Well, for as much frustration as this new technology can create, some of the connections make it worthwhile, too. Now if only I can find where she hid that tennis ball...

Traumatization and Psychotherapy

I've thought twice and three times about whether to put this on the Web. The likelihood of getting more out of it than what I risk may be disproportionate, but as they say, "Fortune favors the bold." As I say, I've met too many fearful and hesitant therapists to want to join the ranks of the fearful and avoidant.

In considering what this new virtual web forum may provide, I keep coming back to traumatization as a topic because it is so important, so complex, and so misunderstood. One psychologist that I asked estimated that only approximately 1 in 7 working therapists were familiar, competent, and prepared to handle traumatization. I can say that less than that many students in my masters program were prepared--myself among them. (In case this seems like only criticism on my part, the field is moving in a number of hopeful directions concerning trauma recovery.) And the majority of folks I've met who have seen therapists for trauma recovery have been sorely disappointed.

Now, this is partially because of where I've been and who I've met. I believe there are some (1 in 7 or so) who are doing a better job than the field in general. But I also believe that the field in general needs to do a better job in communicating how to prepare future therapists as well as doing a better job in preparing clients to face the full-on impact of traumatization. Here's my question: is psychotherapy the best milieu for dealing with trauma recovery? Think about this. I don't know that the answer already exists. A parallel question exists for me: what is psychotherapy in different forms best at?

Having trained in a well-respected graduate program, and (I believe) having done fairly well in that program, I found my preparation wanting and the state of the field unsatisfactory. What I found most odd is the nature of terror and the avoidance of terror.

With the types of traumatization that are caused by long-term or chronic influences, we may be more likely to end up dealing with what is currently diagnosed as "personality disorders". But with shock trauma, our willingness to face being overwhelmed is very important, it's scary, and it's hard to get a handle on without the right approaches. I believe that Peter Levine's (author of WAKING THE TIGER) insistence that trauma is primarily physical is correct, at least concerning shock trauma. If this is so, part of psychologists' avoidance and fear of trauma may involve the basic fact (if this is a basic fact) that traumatization is not primarily psychological. It may simply lie outside their current area of expertise.

But I seriously wonder about terror as an avoided or hidden or deprioritized aspect of traumatization and recovery. Having worked with states of oneness consciousness that are not normally included in graduate school education, I feel pretty safe to wonder about terror. My experience is that there are many states that are overwhelming, but I've survived all of them so far and benefited from most of them--as unsettling as they might have been at the time. I wonder how much of trauma recovery is either intentionally or unintentionally centered around a client's willingness to face terror. Now, this is never easy to do, and it's not a popular topic of conversation, but it seems like good trauma therapy involves building the psychological tools it takes to find this willingness and skillfully--not brashly--"go into the breach".

Too many people just try to jump right in, feel pushed in, or try to avoid it altogether. Interestingly enough, the path taken by graduate students often mirrors that brash, jump-in-with-both-feet, approach. If this were a recipe for failure, I think you'd bake an award-winning cake every time. Unfortunately, more is on the line than cakes and awards. Prospective therapists end up going through similar experiences (of being overwhelmed) as their unprepared clients do through a phenomenon called "emotional contagion". Unskilled students--who usually receive almost no direct training in trauma per se--find themselves immersed in various situations where they are often dealing with the most extreme client cases in the field. This occurs partially because the better-trained and more experienced folks move themselves into more comfortable positions.

Now, it makes sense to me to move into better positions as your career advances, but it does not make sense to me to avoid the centrality of traumatization in therapy. It seems to me that a little more transparency and group effort may be called for and eventually effective. Part of the difficulty lies in the nature of trauma and that of research. It is impossible to run genuine experiments involving trauma because you might actually lose "subjects" to suicide or just to horrible experiences if your experimental method is not all that successful. So we can't fully apply the scientific paradigm.

But it seems to me that a focus on the pathological aspects may remain largely because it has been difficult to collect the wisdom and understanding of those who are resilient, of those who have faced potentially traumatizing situations well, those who have come through perhaps a little weathered but feeling whole.

There is a constant underground dialogue going on concerning what has worked for whom and what does not work. I wonder: what is the best situation for addressing traumatization, what needs to be included? How do people face adverse situations without being traumatized? Is the willingness to face terror actually central? What needs to be known about emotional contagion before our preparatory programs actually prepare students to face trauma and succeed--rather than just preparing them to face trauma? Is it possible for the public to provide more complete answers sometimes when the academy must focus on specifics?

Solid, but Nimble (It's All Very Curious!)

Very peaceful today. As my understanding of what mindfulness is is really coming to fruition (years after beginning to work on it), the solidity of understanding fits with the balance and clarity (which mindfulness supports) to relax a lot of unnecessary personal agitation. Whereas I knew how to relax before, I didn't really get it that soothing or relaxation can occur--which is better than just being stressed out--but without necessarily building towards progress the way mindfulness does. I had a hunch before, and it's coming clearer now.

Working with the book MAHAMUDRA THE MOONLIGHT: QUINTESSENCE OF MIND AND MEDITATION (kind of advanced, a better introduction to Mahamudra is MIND AT EASE), the differentiation between a gradual path and an immediate or lightning "path" came to the fore again. I've always wondered--if IT can happen immediately, why wait, why go slow? You run into all these sectarian disagreements, too, about what's the best way to go about personal progress or, in more Buddhist terms, what's the best way to go about something along the lines of enlightenment or insight into anatta? Besides disagreements, there are also warnings: "The great medicine for seekers of gradual illumination becomes a poison for the seekers of instantaneous illumination. The great medicine for seekers of instantaneous illumination becomes a poison for the seekers of gradual illumination." (From the AHAPRAMANASAMYAK, quoted on p.145 of MTM).

So somewhere between true self and no-self, there's poison from both sides, but illumination if I just happen to get lucky?! Pick your poison, right? I just want to know what works! Ha, ha, ha!

Here's how it seems to me now. If you learn to relax a sense of agitation when you notice agitation, that's intentional relaxation. But if you just try to focus by avoiding agitation or applying an antidote to agitation, you might get sleepy, distracted, or bored. This is where a lot of people have a hard time meditating or feeling motivated to meditate, and plenty of folks get led down the back alley of the confusion around, "Should I want something out of meditation, should I expect something or have goals, and what's my motivation to begin if there's no goal?" That's basically a red herring, evidence of a lack of understanding (which is different than transcendental insight). It's the same as not knowing how to drive to Colorado State University from wherever you are--not evidence that you can't read a map or find the way on your own or figure out if you want to go.

Everybody needs a different amount of understanding, a unique proportion between understanding (along with curiosity, delight) and meditative stabilization (centeredness, groundedness, acceptance). With an emphasis on understanding, you can seem to cover more ground quickly. Problem is, when the going gets tough, you may feel like you KNOW how to handle things without being able to actually do or apply what you know. Other folks focus more on just concentrating and using good concentration to stabilize a sense of attention into tranquility or samadhi. The problem on that side--if it is overemphasized to the exclusion of understanding or fluidity--is that it's easy enough to feel solid but immobile. In that case, people start to feel attached to meditation and may avoid other aspects of their lives--which is fine for monks and nuns, not so healthy for the rest of us.

It seems to me that both (understanding-into-insight as well as samadhi) are very valuable, but both (as superficial conceptualization or, alternatively, as immobility) are also poison. Well, what then? If I don't want to go slower than necessary AND I don't really want to poison myself one way or another, what then? Really letting this question sink into my life and mind has helped me move towards a solid experience of mindfulness's application and value.

The A-ha! energy of insight is light and quick, but it can feel somewhat sporadic or thin when we don't know how to fully or thoroughly engage with it, when we haven't deeply established ourselves in/as it (as nonseparate with it). The essential lesson of nondoing that feeds into the stabilization can lead to immobility if we aren't sure how nondoing is not separate from doing. While there are various ways to break through, avoid, or crush this apparent dilemma, the suggestion to mindfully observe allows consistency in how one faces and begins to resolve it. With either enough insight or stability, the dilemma does not need to be engaged, but if it feels like a dilemma, something needs to happen!

An unskillful answer to the problem of insight's apparent inconsistency is to insist on stabilization, and an unskillful answer to the problem of stabilization's apparent immobility is to "lighten up", just be "spontaneous", or learn. With a limited perspective, someone could just stabilize their reliance on conceptualization (stay too conceptual or superficial) or "lighten up" about immobility being a problem (and stay unmoving). Those options won't work without complete commitment. (Maybe this is obvious to some folks, but I'm glad I've come to realize this.)

Mindfulness is an important part of both the ability to continue meditating and to take in new conceptual, sensory, and emotional material. Because it is central to both "paths", it is one solution to the dilemma. Rather than trying to slow down fast folks or speed up slow folks, rather than trying to work against someone's temperament like that, mindfulness encourages a shift from quantities (like fast/slow, insight/concentration, etc./etc.) to qualities of attention. You can't make curiosity or vitality faster or slower than someone's experience of it--can't force or insist about your own or someone else's meditation.

Previously, I've described mindfulness as a balance between focus and relaxation. But it's been really helpful for me to add the SENSE of mindfulness as a single stream of consciousness. Working with that has brought about the reconciliation of focus/stillness and movement. This way, I can experience the centeredness or groundedness of concentration along with the quicksilver brightness of movement or flow. While it's still new, not matured or thorough in me, knowing it very clearly, having it formed conceptually, gives me the foundation for certainty (and the requisite scientific or experimental polishing/adjustments as appropriate) and the space or time to keep working on it (playing with it) without being rushed or hesitant.

In all this, Ajahn Brahm's work has been excellent and complimentary to the Mahamudra and Madhyamika that I seem to have a greater affiliation for. Ajahn Brahm's teacher, Ajahn Chah's comments have seemed insightful and vital since I first came across them, and I am glad that all these folks took up their own paths and decided to share some of what they've found.

Procrastination, Procrastination

Ha, ha, ha! Today is funny--I'm getting a better grasp on mindfulness. The idea has come around again that putting off one thing puts off others as well, that when I'm missing something I want it's usually because I'm avoiding something I don't want to do.

My girl told me yesterday that I'm patient with her, and I thought, "Really, how to know something like that?" I guess that at a relatively elementary level, patience is like forcing myself to not be impulsive or pushy or frustrated. One step up, being patient is supported by realizing when being pushy isn't helpful anyway; sometimes that conceptual justification helps. One more step up, though, and we get to mindfulness. The nature of "patience" seems to change with mindfulness, when waiting becomes an opportunity to appreciate peacefulness in the moment. So most times, I don't FEEL patient with her, I feel like I'm paying attention to what's going on with us at the time, and I'm happy to be there with her. It's only when I'm not feeling mindful that I have to push myself to TRY to be patient.

But I've been spending a lot of time with reluctance lately, too. Reluctance feels like the opposite of this willingness which allows mindfulness. Because she's my girl, it's usually easy to feel mindful about being with her. I want to pay attention, I'm willing to be present. It's harder sometimes to do that on my own, to be mindful about myself.

The interesting thing about it is that mindfulness on its own never really attracted me much. It works nicely that way, that it is something that is hard to want--it's unsatisfying just to think about it. Being hard to want on its own makes it like an open window or view onto what is actually happening. Instead of wanting the window glass, we can look through that clear glass and recognize the spaciousness outside; when we do that, there is a response inside that feels like opening.

So I notice that when I feel reluctant, it's usually because I don't feel spaciousness. I often make the mistake of thinking there is no spaciousness in the part of the world I'm in at the moment, no room to move in the things I should be doing. (Some people try to get rid of "shoulds" altogether, and that's funny to me to--you shouldn't shit where you sleep.) Mindfulness, though, is like that window into spaciousness but I have to check whether I'm willing to look "out", whether I'm willing to admit openness. The willingness is itself the openness, on the inside, and when I look with openness, I see openness. That's the type of world I want to live in. When mindfulness is present, the reluctance doesn't have a place to land. It has no cause, no power, where is it? Where has it gone? Ha, ha, ha! When mindful appreciation is present, why go looking for reluctance?! No sense "shitting" where I could be peaceful.

That sense of peaceful openness, and the accompanying mental energy no longer tied up in some sort of frustration, are themselves the possibilities I wanted to experience. The inside action-energy to the outside forms I want to see. Why put off feeling that energy in openness?

Insight with Balls

I had a beautiful experience this morning while reading in MINDFULNESS, BLISS, AND BEYOND. While Ajahn Brahm's writing is a little doctrinal, it seems technically very good ("seems" because I'm no expert here). In reading about the jhanas this time around, I realized there were a few reasons why I didn't find deep absorptive types of meditation trustworthy. One partial reason is probably the existential fear that many proponents cite, the fear of losing my sense of self. But I've found the same basic problem in politics and psychology as well. In politics, it looks like humanists who can't understand or admit the necessity of military applications. In psychology, it looks like therapists who are very sensitive but afraid or unable to face traumatization and deal in trauma recovery.

When it comes to meditation, then, it is most often seen as the difficulties involved in translating these wonderful systems of meditative actualization from the convent or monastery into everyday life for us non-celibates. It's all about insight with balls.

(I'm going to throw out some religious/sectarian language along with what I have to say, but I think you'll be able to follow my gist even if you're unfamiliar with terms like "Mahamudra". I'll include the terms in case anyone wants to run down these valuable leads.)

The Mahamudra approach does a great job of describing the interaction between tranquility and insight. This relationship runs through samatta meditation--a focused kind of meditation that involves stabilizing one's mind, which results in tranquility. When tranquility is applied to adequate analysis, insight results. Without tranquility as the basis of analysis, opinionation and sectarian ideology result. This is a very reliable, steady approach to meditation. (Mahamudra also includes descriptions of the lightning path or immediate path, as well as much much more.)

Brahm's presentation is a nice challenge or addition to my understanding of this interaction between tranquility and insight. It asks the question, "What about delight?" Brahm has called himself a "meditation junkie", and he begins his instruction in this book in mindfulness and the joys of meditating. Joy is good, right? He makes a very interesting point that Buddhist meditation centers around bliss, presenting the jhanas as the way in which bliss is stabilized. In my own terminology, I've said that the center or inertia of one's motivation eventually moves "up" to inspiration and flow. Bliss is very important here, and I'm happy to see that Brahm also puts mindfulness as the doorway into bliss and also somewhat of a balance or fulcrum for further movement.

My hesitation has concerned developing subtlety or some sort of transcendental nice feelings without being able to apply those states and motivations in everyday life. Do these various systems have the balls to make it into and through war? What about thirty years of physical labor? Seeing the pictures of monks immolating themselves in protest of the Vietnam war encourages me to answer that yes, the power is there, but I also believe we have a little more translating to do--translating the bliss into balls without losing the tranquility and insight. Who's out there?

Rejection and Reluctance

With figuring out how to situate and work with bliss types of absorptive meditation, a few things came clear on rejection and reluctance. I've also been thinking a lot about translation, like how nonduality tends to be experienced at different stages. (I may eventually end up doing research on how to keep beginners happy with a sustained program of various types of meditation--now that I've done a reasonable job of facing my own reluctance around research and discipline, etc.) Anyway, I'm excited about doing a type of meditation where the focus is on what you (whoever) are capable of noticing. It's fun to experience how it begins with trying to imagine what might be going on, move into glimpses, and develop a fuller awareness. With as serious about it as so many folks have been, I've wondered whether or not to encourage other people in their own sense of humor, curiosity, and desire. I think, yes, aboslutely. It's crazy to see how this became somewhat of an overloaded question historically.

This essay is pretty much the extended punchline to the question, "How is conflict in the Middle East like potty training?" (Just breathe, son, don't clench.) Oh, and this sort of approach fits nicely with easing into agency and emotional openness around traumatization. I know at least Wade and I are familiar with how relaxation can open the door to sorrow and some other potent emotional experiences. It's amazing how much can be done by focusing on having a sense of confident and skillful agency in concentrating and relaxing.

http://mertzian.googlepages.com/rejectionandreluctance