Subtlety, Intimacy, Motivation

Woke up this morning thinking about subtlety (of consciousness, internal states) and intimacy. The supposed "Western mind" has been proposed to be unfit for, or undirected towards, subtlety of consciousness or realization. The Dalai Lama once remarked that he was unfamiliar with low self-esteem until he began spending more time with Westerners. Since his particular Tibetan lineage and his personal actions seem to value study and science (while many meditative traditions reject "the thinking mind"), this comment has remained stuck in my head from the time I first heard it.

I have yet to hear someone propose that Western culture has poor scientists and no propensity for mathematics and technology, so I have been questioning what subtlety itself is. That Westerners are quite subtle with "objective" material (this could be phrased as "gross awareness" if you don't like the objective/subjective dichotomy) is not at issue. But concerning the internal workings of "subjective" experience, it has been said that Westerners almost inherently REJECT subtlety. (I think this must be the experience of certain sensitive Westerners as well.)

In my own journey, or collection of escapades perhaps, I have avoided trying to involve emotions too centrally in my understanding of psychological happenings because it seems so easy to flip-flop from being avoidant of emotions to overly sentimental. I think this is an important dynamic involving intimacy, self-esteem, and motivation. In order to stay focused on my studies, I have also often avoided my own desire for intimacy. I have met quite a few people who have been extremists in the other direction, fetishizing emotionality or infantilizing their interior life (think of the people who insist on being "inner children" as if they have no "inner adult").

In my experience, it often feels that the greatest obstacle to maintaining subtle states is other people. It's easy enough to judge that comment as a self-protective, egoic defense mechanism, but there is definitely something to it. I know I have been very irritating, at times, to others who are fairly well-equipped to be around other people without letting those others affect them unduly. In other words, I have learned to bring other meditators "down" or out of their sense of peace even when some of those meditators have learned to maintain their state around most other people most of the time. My point in bringing up that I can be pointedly irritating is to say that simply discounting the downer effect other people can have is not a viable option. The injunction to simply work harder on oneself is an ego-based, fearful response that doesn't work for me and has not worked for many others as well. Of course, the contagion of positive and negative emotions is noticeable regardless of one's degree of subtlety or realization; anyone can be "brought down" by the prospect of having to spend time around angry or depressed or cynical folks, so these comments are not just about meditators or realization. (This note ties in with the essay "Nonconceptuality and Beyond".)

Concerning meditation, I started off studying mostly Mahayana Buddhism. One of the major apparent paradoxes in Mahayana is the prioritization of both insight into emptiness and compassion (as seen in the Bodhisattva ideal). Within my own temperament, I was attracted to Mahayana partially because the focus on emptiness also felt like a justification to escape people. I was able to begin working on insight into emptiness or spaciousness, openness, anatta, sunyata, et cetera while holding (at arm's length) this ideal of compassion. I also traveled quite a lot in those eleven years, moving residences approximately every seven months. I've lived in 12 states so far, and Hawaii is the only one I have yet to visit. Moving so often has allowed me to meet a lot of people, make connections, and then move on--a lesson in accepting impermanence. Meeting so many people--and often being able to either stay or leave--has really pointed out just how much most doctrines lack, just how many people most doctrinal answers simply do not work for. And comparing various doctrines to many people has pointed out a great deal of what many or most Americans lack in their personal structure and abilities. Because almost any doctrine, if embraced wholeheartedly, can be very helpful (just think of how many folks you've met who have proclaimed the greatness of some really crazy doctrines). As much as emptiness is a big part of Mahayana, you also find Mahyana teachers saying things such as, "Realization is intimacy." So there is no necessary paradox between emptiness and compassion. Very confusing at first. (More to come in a separate post.)