Subtlety, Intimacy, Motivation XV

Wow, I've been wondering when this spate would end, how to end it, if it can end. After taking a few days away from thinking about this stuff, I ended up meditating on the idea, "Without tranquility as the base, nothing is certain." One of those endings that is a beginning or at least the space for a beginning.

Without a solid base, subtlety, intimacy, and motivation seem to lead one all over the place. In this way, practicing mindfulness and subtlety of awareness without a solid sense of concentration and the ability to intentionally relax can feel somewhat depersonalizing as well as removing one's foundations (however shaky they might have been anyway). Intimacy without conscious and chosen emotional resilience can feel mostly like vulnerability--especially if those with whom we allow intimacy do not themselves manifest tranquility. And motivation without courage and vision can often come across as simple selfishness, somewhat spastic impulsivity, or a willingness towards domination (the will to power, eventually corrupting).

One famous Zen koan asks, "The many return to the One; to what does the One return?" I don't believe tranquility is the answer to that question. I do believe that tranquility clears the space for pursuing this question, ingesting this question, digesting the question, and answering. It seems that tranquility allows everything. If everything is possible or allowed, what do you choose to do? What do I do? In Ramana Maharshi's words, "Peace is the state of utmost activity." Within that space where anything might occur, it seems that most people I've met--if not all--want a sense of vision, togetherness or communion, freedom, and liveliness. Without establishing tranquility as the base, we waver. When all movement is allowed, though, movement is flow. With tranquility as the base, there is no reason to be stuck in one place or in many, no need to even be stuck in tranquility itself.

Subtlety, Intimacy, Motivation XIV

Unflagging certainty in oneself. In Chogyam Trungpa's words:

The key to warriorship and the first principle of Shambhala vision (Trungpa's version of enlightened society) is not being afraid of who you are. Shambhala vision teaches that, in the face of the world's problems, we can be heroic and kind at the same time. Shambhala vision is the opposite of selfishness (Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior).

The certainty is important, even if we speak about it in somewhat different terms; courage counts. Muhammad called conquering oneself the "greater jihad", and a similar motivation is expressed in the Bhagavad Gita. In Mahamudra and other forms of Buddhism, they speak about how analysis and insight based in tranquility can be counted on while analysis and insight that does not have a base in tranquility will tend towards delusion and further troubles. The one-pointed focus of tranquility and certainty are not far from one another.

People often get confused around courage, fear, fanaticism, and selfishness. It's easy to lose a sense of directed motivation if we only value a selflessness that lacks character. In other words, some people want to avoid selfishness rather than overcoming it. There's a root of fear involved with all avoidance. Eventually, wisdom or equanimity or something like that may end up addressing any fear, but it initially takes courage to face our fears. Courage is ego-based even if something like faith and altruism are involved. Courage would be meaningless if it did not need one's decision to act in a certain way. In the same sense, character would be a meaningless concept without ego, so I am not unconditionally all for selflessness. There is a selflessness that avoids character and courage and a selflessness that is basic to and/or goes beyond character and courage.

Fanaticism, besides including resentment and fear, also involves a physical, psychological, or spiritual materialism. We can enjoy a certain fanatic devotion to a favorite sports team without feeling much connection between that devotion and righteousness. But most people prefer their fanaticism with righteousness. Not only do they want their team to win, but they want to believe that God or destiny or the moral right is also a fan for their team. Fanaticism is craziness. A little craziness with sports fits fine, but fanaticism as a political agenda and social program is unsustainable. Or rather, the human propensity towards fanaticism may be a constant potential, but each brand of fanaticism is bound to fade away. Fearlessness and fanaticism cannot exist in the same place at the same time because fanaticism involves fear. That might be somewhat titillating when we fear horror movies or when we fear our team may lose the championship game, but when fed into political extremism, that need to rely on extremism shows a lack of courage as well as a lack of vision. Conceptually, it may be impossible for us to settle on a clear and applicable definition of fanaticism that everyone can agree on, but the feeling is clear. Being unable to admit fanaticism in oneself when it occurs also displays a lack of courage. Fanaticism, though, can be seen from the outside (by others) by its eventually materialistic agenda.

Certainty can never be fully accomplished when selfishness is involved--the best we can do with selfishness is to develop a stubborn narcissism. When that narcissism is broken through, the ego usually appears quite fragile. Sustained courage, on the other hand, comes along with allying oneself to goals deemed bigger than oneself. Fanaticism propagandizes personal grandiosity in one form or another.

Subtlety, Intimacy, Motivation XIII

Part of what I'm wondering is how to live with full experience of subtlety, intimacy, and motivation. A big part of feeling motivated is feeling those passionate emotions which might seem the opposite of subtle. Besides that, by saying I don't believe in total pacifism, it could seem like I'm saying I don't believe in total intimacy--with everyone around me, with the whole of this world we live in, etc. While understanding how living this life passionately, subtly, and intimately may seem somewhat complicated, it seems to me that actually doing so is much simpler than understanding how it all works. Only, in doing it, one must be very consistent with one's willingness to pay attention and one's openness--and that is easier to say than to do, although it is not complicated. Perhaps, the incredible simplicity lends to the unlikelihood of carrying it out.

The puzzlement or paradox between simplicity and complexity, between difficulty and ease and naturalness, is why I focus on subtlety, intimacy, and motivation rather than focusing on what seems comfortable or easy or just "natural". Sometimes living the good life takes commitment more than complexity or sophistication, effort more than ease, planning more than an unquestioned or unthinking "naturalness" (an idea that often encourages impulsivity and superstitious/magical interpretations). It is natural for humans to think, but this leads into all kinds of complexities and possibilities; it is just as natural for us to feel completely at peace with where and who we are. That's where I return to this maleness, competition, and respect of competitors even during conflicts.

For those who are enlightened enough (or whatever) to side with Gandhi and his focus on nonviolent progressive politics, that's fine or perhaps even laudable. But for the rest of us, it does not look like there will be peace in the Middle East anytime soon, and nonviolent measures do not seem to moderate the relationship between George W. Bush's "you are either with us or against us" and Osama bin Laden's animosity towards Saudi royalty, Israel, and America. We're going to fight out some of these disagreements and differences whether or not it might theoretically (and actually) be possible to work things out differently. Fighting "fair" is also not an option because none of us agree on what international council gets to decide what is fair or unfair. So the question in my mind is whether we can fight unfairly but with some sort of honor. An equal and related question is whether it is actually possible to fight for anything one believes in without fighting with some degree of honor.

Obviously, bin Laden and Bush have not decided that their worthwhile opponents should be some plumber in Djibouti. Why not? While this example is tongue-in-cheek, the point is not. There seems to be an almost comic-book mentality in a lot of these struggles, and no one claims to really be kicking the ass of someone lacking all ability to fight back. Even Mike Tyson doesn't do that (that I know of). Since Mike Tyson can really whoop ass (being maybe the best ever in his sport, in his way), he doesn't often brag about stealing candy from babies even if he hasn't always fought honorably in the boxing ring (and even if he has stolen candy from babies). Bush doesn't brag about killing Iraqi children and neither does bin Laden. Both men, then, are honorable to some degree even if their honor doesn't obviously translate into perfect action or even clear purpose, even if some of what they allow themselves to say and some of what they consider to be honorable is enforced by the people around them. You might hate either one or both of these men, but it is hard to say they are unbelievers. They might be dangerously fanatic (over the top, off the deep end, even bats in the belfry), but neither seems apathetically unbelieving or totally Machiavellian--although, the same may not be as clear concerning Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rove. Even Mike Tyson did a decent job of handling himself while he was guided and supported by a man he could love, trust, and learn from. By the time he was surrounded by sycophantic nonentities and manipulative assholes, after his mentor had passed, he struggled under the bright lights. Wouldn't we all.