Types Beyond/Within Types

Types, roles, and identity politics. As much as I like Buddhism for illustrating various points, vichara is a type of contemplation that I ran into through Advaita ("not-dual" or "anti-dualistic") Vedanta. And as much as all types of Buddhism include an emphasis on mindfulness, vichara presents a wonderful illustration of what I mean by the stage of Mindful Appreciation.

When one practices vichara, one is essentially looking deeply into the question: who/what am I? After calming the mind to some extent, one says to oneself something along these lines (the gist here is more important than the details--try letting each of these sentences sink in before moving on to the next):

I have a situation, but I am not my situation.
I have roles, but I am not my roles.
I have a body, but I am not my body.
I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts.
I have emotions but I am not my emotions.

When we get caught up in the stream of daily life, we most often act as one of these things. Professor Gates talked about different peoples' internal narratives--the thoughts that are paired with explanation, narrative, and feeling. When we identify as our narratives, our situation, whatever, it is like letting something else drive you or like being possessed for a moment. We even say, "I got caught up in the moment; I wasn't myself." Who were you then? Well, when we aren't "ourselves", we're usually responding to some basic drive and/or narrative. The interesting thing is that we also usually identify ourselves as the roles, characteristics, and narratives that we like or that benefit us in some way.

With vichara, we take a step into these identifications--into the process of identifying (forming a self-concept that is described or bounded by something). Instead of taking that step unmindfully, we take it mindfully. Vichara is one way of getting some space between and within the things that usually push you. Do you feel pushed by identifying yourself as a black man in America? If that is how you identify yourself, probably, at least at times such as when the cops show up at your house. Do cops identify with their roles? (Sorry for the horrendously rhetorical questioning here.) Of course they do, we all do to some extent. We also fall into identifying others as their roles. Did Gates respond to Crowley showing up thinking that here was a helpful race relations teacher coming to make sure his house and its owner was safe? It doesn't seem like he did. Did Crowley show up with the attitude about Gates that he expressed immediately following their rendezvous at the White House (which apparently went much better than their rendezvous at the yellow house)? It doesn't seem like he did.

Vichara "ends" with the question: who am I? We have plenty of time to mull this over in a contemplative manner if we take the time. But when we meet other people, we usually ask and have to decide to some extent, "Should I treat you as a who or a what? And if a what--some role--then which role or roles? If I should treat you as a who, then which who?" Certainly, just as with contemplative self-inquiry a contemplative and interested exploration of another who will tend to take time, and if we bring our good nature and take the time, we can usually get something valuable out of the experience. Essentially asking, "Who are you?" verbally or not allows the other who to answer for themselves rather than leaving us to choose from only our presuppositions and role responsibilities in determining who we think they are and thereby determining how we should treat them.

Beyond the neutral tolerance of other roles and potentially interacting in mutual self-interest, we deal in a greater degree of mindfulness and a greater degree of extending ourselves to meet others in this interesting world. Simultaneously, in exploring with others who they are, the equal "flipside" is inviting them into that mindful self-inquiry that we might practice with ourselves. And in a diversity of perspectives, we find a richer abundance to draw answers and experience from.

This is especially where it becomes important to bring up awareness of the self/other divide as well as our expectations. If I am used to people telling me I am very smart and of benefit to my people as well as "other" people, I'll come to expect that sort of treatment. It's human nature. I identify with my roles and status because it allows me to answer the question of how I should interact with others. If I am used to people showing some degree of respect or at least deference based on fear, I'll come to expect that sort of treatment. When the expected treatment (or "narrative" of treatment) is positive, I will begin to feel entitled to that status, protective of that status. It defines me as a social being; it is my precious. If you are my wife, brother, friend, etc., I may allow you close to what I hold dear. But if you are not, a sense of threat will mingle with fear and entitlement and possessiveness to present me a ready-made reaction to you being all up in my grill.

When that happens, I may be educated enough to know that you maybe aren't coming to take away my entitlements, I may be trained in not aggressing just because I am feeling aggressive. And, if I am not driving in the moment when we interact, the training and education go right out the window. The more often I am in the driver's seat, and the more often I bring my good and right self to the table, the more people will tend to form the general impression that I am mature. People who are not mature may be good in many ways, but if they aggress against others in order to protect the good show involved in their reputations, they will tend to come across as aggressive pricks.

The interesting thing is that it is appropriate to create laws around physical aggression but it is important to create customs around verbal aggression and social respect and appreciation. In a pluralistic society, we should be able to enforce laws against physical aggression, but we will never be able to enforce laws against feeling slighted. If the white man slights first or in retaliation, I call both men immature pricks. I don't mean that to say I am a better person; I say they are pricks for not acting as persons although that is their legal right to be pricks as long as it doesn't go too far.

What's more, people can feel when they are either pulled back or moved ahead by social interactions. Eckhart Tolle made the point that adverse situations tend to bring mostly conscious people to a greater degree of consciousness but that adversity tends to push mostly unconscious people into their unconscious ("ready-made") reactivity. Vichara helps us separate the people from their prickish actions. I can say, "You are being a prick now even if you aren't generally a prick." That is the truth of many situations in our lives. Mindfulness practice helps us gain some degree of dis-identification from our roles, narratives, etc. If we include appreciation in that practice, it can also help us become better at identifying as the good and right selves that we can be. And the more I am actually aware of deciding how I choose to act and acting well, the more I will support a mature and mindfully appreciative self as well as maturity and appreciation as social customs and part of my reputation.

Until we begin to move beyond tolerance and speak about as well as enact appreciation and maturity, we can throw stones from our glass houses until the "chickens come home to roost", to use a memorable phrase. If I want you to treat me as a mature and decent individual, however I choose to identify and whatever my roles are, I will have to be able to line up my intentions and actions during moments of adversity. Someone once said, "Only the tested can inspire the fearful." (Test yourself: are you really a prick to black homeowners or white cops? Is that genuinely who you are?) That seems a much better example to me than, "Do as I say, not as I do." We must teach one another to act from within roles or types while going beyond those types themselves. I may not be completely described by my body or emotions or roles, but they are what I have to work with for now!

Enforcement of laws needs the domination that literal power brings to a situation. Support of customs has a different feel than legislation and the execution of laws by folks in uniforms that show them to be the enforcers. Appreciation and the equanimity it takes to get through adverse situations is supported by mindfulness practice and experience with social diversity and a diversity of value systems. Without being present, we are not living in real time. When that happens, we lose ourselves for the moment and are left with potentially competing roles and narratives. In reality, we are not so socially and spiritually poverty-stricken.

Right Understanding, Right Self

One of the things I enjoy about Buddhism is the variety. The oldest type is Theravada Buddhism. Theravada means something like "wisdom of the elders". The Theravadins stick to a minimal canon of sutras and are considered by many Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhists to teach the Hinayana--"the small vehicle"--style of Buddhism. This style can be respected for its thrift, simplicity, and universal applicability. It is similar to the passage in Christianity that says the Way is steep and narrow. It's old school--figuratively and literally. The Mahayanists consider themselves proponents of the "Great Vehicle", opening their canon up to an almost unending set of sutras and commentaries on sutras. The Vajrayanists consider their way most complete and exalted (although some Vajrayanists will say that the three ways are equally good). Vajrayana means something like "the diamond way", and a vajra is Indra's thunderbolt. Vajrayana is also known as tantric and can be seen as the most esoteric--full of ritual, magic, and the abundance of the world. Very different feel to it than Theravadin straightforward simplicity.

Anyway, one of the Buddhist teachings that I appreciate is the outline of the "Eightfold Path" to awakening. The eight things one is expected to work on are: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. When we look to relate with others a step beyond hierarchical status or power positions, this usually involves some set of principles, rules, guidelines, or whatever you want to call them. Moving up the ladder from Purpose level interactions to Understanding level interactions, we run into the "good and right" self-identity. Jeffrey Alexander speaks about this sort of relating on a social level in THE CIVIL SPHERE. On pages 228-234, Alexander talks about legitimacy of power, not just power. Between equals who work towards shared understandings and a social contract, power is subjected to the dictates of legitimacy. Fellow citizens and neighbors want to be known as "good and right" people. Being good is socially valuable, and in debates about what is good, one wants to come across as right as well as good.

At this stage, we take one step away from a magically-imbued ideal self--and an animalistic amped self--and a step towards an actual inspired self. The distance between who we are and our ideals now becomes a problem to be addressed--often by attempting to perfectly apply principles. The principles we choose to validate make up our personal sense of "right understanding". At this point, because people test the idea of a civil self among equal civilians, legitimacy becomes important and power is no longer considered to be an acceptable end in itself. And, in a circular but not meaningless way, we put our social weight behind the system of principles we choose while being measured as fallible and lacking by those legitimizing principles. We are "right and good" in our own eyes to the extent we live as examples of our principles, and our principles look right and good to the extent that our actions seem so.

At this point, though, we still are not fully integrated, inspired selves. We have moments of inspiration, but inspiration does not necessarily come on a regular basis just from being authentic. We still put effort into being good, but we are trying to become more graceful about it. There is often the feeling that I could be better if my society were better as well. But having a right framework, a right understanding, may help me work on being a "good" person. We may still look for competition and status, but we may be less likely to believe that physical power is legitimacy, so competition also takes the form as valued debate. The abstraction utilized here helps me recognize that a shitty Christian is a worse neighbor than a good and righteous Muslim even if I believe that Muslim is going to hell for his infidelity and he believes the same of me for my opposing religious beliefs. We may tolerate a good citizen even if he has "false" mythical beliefs (compared to my "right" mythical beliefs).

When two adults--let's stick with the Gates/Crowley couple for now--interact as good and right citizens, they speak to each other as equals rather than competing for status in ways that illegitimately attempt to utilize the power in their positions. This highlights an important shift. We begin to recognize--at least, hopefully, in a pluralistic country--that sometimes I want to be treated as a "person", but the frustrated cashier may treat me as a role (just one more customer). And, as long as the cashier follows the generally agreed-upon laws, I may not like being treated as only a customer, but I can understand it. You can even do the same as a professor and a cop. If you're willing. Now, during stressful moments, we are likely to act less maturely than we do in our best moments. When that happens, we compete for status and the one-up position. The go-to human method is to remember myself as good and righteous and everyone who I see as competing to put me down or put themselves up I see (often correctly) as illegitimately trying to abuse whatever power they can get their grubby hands on. That is only half of right view, though, which means that I'm taking a wrong view. Because I am also trying to get my grubby little hands on whatever advantage I can garner in the situation, influencing the other person to not treat me as good or right. I'm actually asking to be treated as bad and wrong (illegitimate even by my own principles)--which Gates and Crowley did with one another.

Both introjected the righteousness of their ideals but it seems that neither was mindful enough in the stressful situation to actually apply their ideals. A common failing, for sure. Right mindfulness, then, is a huge part of the "mature" self. Neither of this couple seemed to be making mature decisions in this situation even if both might argue about how they were "right". It just goes to show that over-valuing a "right self"-identification keeps us from being good and mature along with being able to claim rightness. As equal citizens, it is sufficient that they can agree to disagree after a beer with the President, but many of their fellow citizens have figured that out without an executive beer order.

Dominance Hierarchy as Conflict Management

The most basic attentional skills are (passively) rest/receptivity and (actively) play/creativity. We could consider the ability and willingness to rest in a situation to be "unguardedness" or some better word for that. If you think about the tension you feel when you can't trust someone, that is the opposite of rest/receptivity. Just as these abilities are influenced by individual history and temperament, they are also influenced by the social environment.

Threat reduces one's ability to think creatively or rest. So how does one know that a stranger is not a threat? We do know that if you expect threat and the other does as well, going into any communication with the expectation of conflict closes down most folks' creativity and openness. When that happens on both sides, it's quite likely that there will be some sort of conflict or challenge. If that challenge does not result in death or expulsion from the scene, some degree of dominance and submission is likely. When we deal with this on a purely physical level, there are chemical effects in hormones and thinking--with the "victor" feeling more amped, proud, happy, etc. The "loser" will likely have decreased testosterone, maybe sadness or shame (as the flipside of grandiosity). (In this sort of conflictual situation, we can see that "learned helplessness" and "depression" may result from chronic or extreme prompting of the physical-instinctual one-down response. Both, then, can actually be socially beneficial by discouraging potential competitors from continuing conflict or repeating conflictual encounters.) Socially, we'll also see a status hierarchy along with the classic bodily responses. Together, these shape a crude social identity and social placement.

When people do not choose to mature much beyond this sort of interacting, agentic individuals who are feeling their oats will tend to compete with others who are similar, and competition for the one-up position ensues. These heroic champions will tend to treat anyone not competing as less than they are. It's part of the worldview of this way of interacting and may not have as much to do with personality flaws as it does with lack of vision and experience. But when these folks don't look to move beyond that method of interacting, they are essentially choosing a reductionist, aggressive standpoint or role. Because everything relates in a somewhat personal way at this level (me as center of the universe--appropriate for toddlers), it is fitting that their motivation to mature will come from moving away from frustration or causes of suffering and also idealization. If the ideal is magical or special enough, then it doesn't need to be felt as directly competing with ego, so ego is not signaled to feel the one-down response (in comparison to a wonderful ideal) in a personal, immediate way. In essence, ego has some room to maneuver, so it is safe to consider the ideals without needing to embody them. Because of this distance, contradictions between stated values/ideals and actions are not only likely but are inevitable.

Conscience, in my usage of the word, is socially constructed. We become increasingly self-aware of ourselves as social selves by receiving feedback from others. If we only idealize the one-up response, we will try to see ourselves as superheros, like Nietzsche's uberman. Or, I should say, like Hitler's interpretation of Nietzsche's uberman. Social feedback allows us to construct a self-image that contradicts the toddler tyrant impulses. If we face those contradictions, we look to understand not only ourselves as something other than "magical uberman", but we also consider others as something different than just less than ourselves. And of course, our social emotion-responses are a big part of this process. Because emotion is part of this process, we actually cannot understand ourselves without emotion and communication. There is a "logical" side to this as well as a neurophysiological side.

What this means is that, to become mature adults working and living with other mature adults, we must consider moving beyond the one-up reaction as well as the one-down reaction. We shape the ideal of equality and socially try to support this ideal while still dealing with our instinctual one-up and one-down reactions.

As far as tracking or common purpose is concerned, then, when dealing with the Purpose level ego and its hierarchically-appropriate reactions, cohesion is built around being appropriately one-up or one-down (leading, following, or getting out of the way). Equality at this point is possible with those who are part of one's in-group, but then that in-group will take on the mythical specialness that individuals feel when they engage the one-up reaction in themselves. In other words, the group ends up being the uberman, and so it is nonsensical to consider dehumanization or exclusivity as wrong. They simply do not really register with feelings of wrongness to the same extent. In fact, contempt may be added to winning any sort of competition if the victor feels that they did not want to compete, but that the loser forced the competition (which they, then, so rightly lost).

Pride meets pride in competition or conflict, and in this mindset, the only option besides winning is losing. Hello, Sergeant Crowley and Professor Gates. Yes, I am talking to you.

We can see, then, that with little social awareness and customs that support equality, the ability to concentrate that helps shape a competent or "able self" may add to and shape conflict. Without sufficient awareness of social context (Cambridge in the 21st century), being a great professor or cop sets up two inflated roles for a boxing match. If the actual PEOPLE in those roles were not looking for a boxing match, both end up feeling unfairly punched in the face. I say that if you did the training, put on the gloves, marched to the ring, and you like the cheers from the crowd, you deserve what you get. If one or the other was simply allowed to pummel their opponent, that opponent would likely learn--after enough beatings--to stop stepping into the ring. The ideals of righteousness in the fight between professor and cop, to the extent that they are allowed to be present/activated without being held mindfully, actually impel or exaggerate the competitive energies of both fighters. Let's get ready to rumble!

You can't create the competition by competing and then complain that it is difficult, or about the outcome, without being both a momma's boy and a poor sport. You cannot take someone else's cake, eat it too, and also feel disappointed if they do not thank you for eating their cake. (Well, I suppose you can but it is ridiculous--here's your social feedback for creating a more reasonable self-image.) Luckily, we have laws in America for handling this sort of situation. Surprising that the President would choose to take on the role of referee, but it is a good example of referring to someone higher up the status ladder to keep the ego-competition from becoming more of a conflict.

While a judge and jury must consider citizens innocent until proven guilty, police must consider suspects dangerous and escalating until shown to be not so. Once an American shows that they are not dangerous but merely acting like a prick, we all need to step back and say--that's your right up to a certain extent defined by law more than opinion. Even if Sgt. Crowley got it wrong, the justice system as a whole got it right (including both parties' remaining right to stupidly sue one another for conjointly making mountains out of molehills; it will take lawyers to put that into legal language, I'm sure). America wins even if Crowley and Gates come out looking like puffed-up pricks. I will try to give them the benefit of the doubt 2 out of every 3 times, and if we look at their public records as a whole, they both look like contributors to society even if they both end up eating a little humble pie over this episode. Enjoy, gentlemen. You are a match made in a magical heaven, angels come to earth for our entertainment...I mean, benefit. No, thank you.

Tracking

One of the things that fascinates me is how individual desire gets "translated" into social interaction. In research on psychotherapy, they've found that expertise does not account for at least 40% of improvement when therapy goes well. 40% comes from what psychologists call "rapport"--the interactions or relationship between therapist and client. This finding translates into relating in general, I think. John Gottman found that 2 out of 3 arguments even in successful marriages cannot be solved and must simply be lived with. That means that a lot of what makes up a happy relationship involves all kinds of factors like similarities and differences, but how many people really consider that a huge part of overcoming problems in ANY human relationship means having 2:3 disagreements go unresolved. If we look for a simple definition of maturity, we could say that maturity means giving everyone or almost everyone the chance to disagree with me two out of every three times.

So when I talk about maturity, and people say, "But who can say what maturity is?", you can hold me to this personal goal. I want to have the chops to give each individual I meet the benefit of the doubt two out of every three times we disagree at least, and what's more, I want to communicate that this is what I'm shooting for. If I can do that, much of the time I'll be able to at least relate to someone else on a human level even if we don't ever get married.

That lays out a general goal, a general direction why I bring up the rest of this. If the most basic attentional ability is something like playfulness or attentional receptivity, we can look at ways to improve that in ourselves. One way is cultivating the willingness to give others--and ourselves also--the benefit of the doubt concerning their intentions. But beyond that, the second attentional skill is concentration. How does that translate into groups? In some situations, people might be poor at staying focused on their own but find that being in a group helps them stay "on track". Think about sticking to an exercise regime, a new diet, a difficult job, etc. Those things can be made much easier or much, much harder with or without social support. This happens to the extent that many things we could not accomplish on our own we can achieve with a little help from our friends/colleagues/whomever.

So I'll call "tracking" (staying on track) the social equivalent of concentrating (which happens basically "within" individuals). Different skills go into keeping a group on track. Think of someone you know who is such an expert at something that having almost anyone else around getting involved drags their performance down. This is an example of someone who may be a genuine expert, who may be excellent at concentrating on the task at hand, but who is not so good about translating that expertise into group performance. Think of getting frustrated with anything you can do at least competently and the frustration that can arise when working with someone who is a klutz or an amateur in comparison. Concentrating increases our ability to do difficult and complex things, but it can also increase the intensity of frustration when we feel disrupted while we're trying to concentrate. This is the same with all the attentional skills--they are helpful in and of themselves, but no one of them (in and of itself) is enough; we need to complement one skill with another with another. Expertise and concentration, then, can actually disrupt a group by intensifying frustration and destroying cohesion. At the same time, tracking is the closest social equivalent to the individual attentional skill of concentrating.

Because they correlate so closely, we can often make up for one with the other. If I am bored with math, I'll be much more likely to stay engaged with that topic if I'm around a teacher or class that is really excited by math. We naturally want to feel included in what's going on. Fighting or denying that natural inclination takes attention and energy. The brain uses approximately 25% (!!!!) of our energy, so when we waste that energy, we waste a lot. What's more, since we all want to be part of the group, when there is a strong enough pull in the group towards denying an interest in math (or whatever), we look to become part of that denial or we look to split the group. If you like math, you start wishing that the people who don't care would just leave or try. And they seem intrusive for not getting "with the program". If you don't like math, the people who do will seem nerdy, maybe dominating, and you wish they'd just get out of your face with all that noise; if they like math, fine, but leave me out of it.

If you look at it structurally, this makes sense--we agitate for what we want, our negative emotions tell us something even though we rarely listen to the wisdom in them. Part of where a lot of confusion comes in is when we either want a certain degree of maturity from our groups or when we don't want to be held to some high or abstract standard that we haven't agreed to in the first place. It's hard to do intervene well in a conflict situation when we aren't aware of what makes for good cohesion, collaboration, and tracking. Hopefully, as I get more into these subjects, you'll find my logic to be very circular and self-supportive. That's an internal part of logic as well as group cohesion. Somewhere around 40% of what you like or dislike doing depends on how well you are relating to the group. That's almost half of deciding whether you like something or not. Parents who have seen teenagers run through multiple trends know what I'm talking about--when it's trnedy, it means the world; no trendiness, it's nothing. 40%. The same holds for adults.

Nothing

It is interesting to me that this is the follow-up topic to fairy dust. It feels right.

In some types of addictions treatment, they say that you have to hit rock bottom before you can truly make life-altering changes concerning your addiction. I have found that as long as there is something left to lose, that's not rock bottom. As long as there is something valuable that can be taken away, people can be manipulated by their fear of loss. But, if you feel like you are at the rock bottom, there is still some solidity there, still some feeling of emotional sensation that can be felt as better or worse. There is still something, maybe seemingly for the first time, to rely on.

If you go beyond rock bottoms, you find nothingness. This nothingness leaves not even the sense of something solid to lie on or fall down to. In my experience, memory has still functioned at these life-moments even though there are moments within that rock-bottomlessness where nothing discernible is functioning mentally. As with many quasi-contemplative or contemplative states, there is often a residual or echo of something from the moment before. Like in dreams, we may see something from earlier in that day or week. When we come home from work, we may bring excitement or disappointment in the front door of our homes with us. The preceding moment usually has some effects that noticeably carry over.

The first time I lost my soul-deep unhappiness in exchange for nothingness, it was horrifying. My mind struggled like a fish whose tail is nailed to the cutting board. You're aware of where you were and where you are and what that means is happening as you gasp for air, thrash, and hope for some miracle. When the knife comes instead of the miracle, depending on your situation, the reality of disappointment may be harsher and more real than the pain of the knife. When you realize that the disappointment and pain go so deep that they mean nothing, not even to you anymore, something completes itself. Not only does the fish get no more air as it is eviscerated, but the disappointment also runs out of air and it breaths no more.

The nothingness is unimaginable.

I've been reading Hui-neng again. Always liked Hui-neng. The first major occurrence once Hui-neng gets to the monastery is that the teacher calls him a barbarian, denies his sense of reality, tells him to shut his mouth, and sends him off to do menial work. This is quite a contradiction to the flash of insight or recognition or realization that comes when Hui-neng hears the Diamond Sutra being spoken (his motivation for completely changing his life and heading for this Zen master).

Hui-neng says, "If you just do not think of anything at all, once all thoughts end you die and come back to life someplace else. This is a big mistake; those who study the Way should think about it."

While I am altering the context to some extent, this was the feeling of coming through the moments of nothingness. There was the lack of air or a total suffocation of spirit (sometimes accompanied by some other sort of pain or suffering), some sort of death and the stillness of death, some strange state in between where there was what I can best describe as glimpses or flickerings of feelings or perceptions or sensations, and the awareness that waking up tomorrow would bring a different "someplace else" but that I would be no wiser, better, no healthier for that change. After the first time, those flickerings felt as if soul or self or whatever was clothing itself once again in its same old trappings--something like a dance of the seven veils in reverse.

Somewhere in the repetitions, you become familiar enough with the process that the surprise lessens; when that happens, the horror begins to drop off; the interest in paying attention to the suffering--the fascination with one's own suffering--begins to fall away. And although there are moments within this moment where there is no attention that can be called as such, there are also moments where--without some previously or instinctively chosen "object" or focus, attention is present. In "Braveheart", we have the William Wallace character find something through the pain of being quartered and he cries out heroically, "FREEDOM!" If the gutting happens, but for some mundane reason like dinner, and if you are something like prey rather than a hero, there is no heroism or other ideas to draw that momentary attention.

Now, if all of this seems melodramatic, it is not far from a great deal of the Theravadin focus on death and decay. We can imagine ourselves a good bit of the way into this process and pair that with analytic meditation. As long as there is some drama to hang our attention on, we can imagine into it. But when it happens often enough, slowly enough, or deeply enough, we are there for the moments of attention as well as everything else I have described. I don't know that it is pleasant or that I recommend this aspect of Theravadin monk training for anyone, but the process is like that which has become somewhat popularly known in the all the assassin movies when the Cleaner comes in to clean up the mess. The bodies must be disposed of, usually in some caustic manner.

In contemplation--spontaneously or intentionally--the body and mind are disposed of. Especially if it is your first time, you may feel a slight burning sensation.

I don't specifically know any Buddhist take on the matter, but if you pay attention during those moments of attention, you may notice some light, almost careless, curiosity. It's without care, but it isn't the common connotative usage of careless. It may be one instance of bare attention--bare due to wearing everything else out rather than some degree of actualization. The sense of utter nothingness provides a great deal or depth of equanimity afterwards. Nothing can be taken from, nothing can harm you because you are already gone. It's like the shadow of prajnaparamita.

Gretel Ehrlich is a fascinating author who has been struck by lightning twice. She said that a cowboy is most like a pile of stones. More than anything else, he makes it through the brutality of the seasons; he lasts. That is the impression afterwards: "I last", or "Awareness lasts." This is different from the more vital "I am" experience. The lasting is more a sense of vulnerability than invulnerability; there is no escape, no way out, no relief available, the wind and rain and cold abide. The word "unremitting" describes everything that is and ever was. The lastingness is different from the equanimity, but the association between them runs deep as the feeling of a razor's edge cutting into the inside of your backbone.

After all of this, the brightness of attention or awareness stands out like the feeling at the end of A DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENOSOVITCH, like if you ran until you collapsed from complete exhaustion--long after running through vomiting and migraine and sunstroke--then a cool breeze blew across the back of your left ear. The equanimity seems less something that came from the nature of the universe or humanity or consciousness and more something that has been hammered into your spine by a sledge with the weight and force of a collapsing star. And you may not know if the lastingness is the greatest blessing that could be given or the harshest sentence even a cruel god could devise.

With all of that, I say smile. But bullshit doesn't mean much here.

Glimmerings (III) Don't Exist

I'd like to address the, "There are no such things as fairies," perspective. That idea is an impediment. Many people impede themselves without knowing that they are choosing, behaviorally if not intentionally, to impede themselves. Hui-neng, again, said that the substance of mind going and coming freely is prajna. Hasrat Inayat Khan said, "The more one knows reality, the less one uses the word 'real'." There is an interesting feeling of denial and exclusion that comes along with the perspective that there are no such things as fairies or that glimmerings don't exist if they don't have a boring scientific or Latin name. That feeling, like mental constipation, is the opposite of the "freely coming and going". Structurally, "freely coming and going" is not a bad description for playfulness or for subtle phenomena. What's the difference?

I don't know that we can say that there really is a really real difference. I like that Khan focused on the difference between talking about ideas about God as opposed to realizing the presence of God. In the debate, presence is often ignored; in the presence, the debate becomes meaningless. But God may not be really real. As we come to know reality, the mental constipation and the wavering of doubt become less interesting and we tend to go with gnosis over impediments to prajna. (From a Buddhist perspective, we might focus the language more on the form and emptiness of a "self" as present but not necessarily really real.) Trungpa talked about the existence of the "illusory body"; Chuang Tzu gave his famous butterfly dream remarks. In the Bible, in Ecclesiastes or Lamentations I believe, it says that nothing is really real but life is hard anyway.

But, as with many things involving attention and mental phenomena, we can say that if you pay attention to the glimmerings, you notice them more. The more you notice them, the more you increase your familiarity. The more you increase your familiarity, the less you doubt or deny their "reality". And the less you spend your mental time and energy in doubt or denial, the more vital you feel and the more life you bring out of your body and mind and into interaction with the world. The quickness involved is something--whether it is a real or formed something or more of an unreal or formless something is unimportant. Glimmerings don't exist. (Wink.) Derrida is laughing. Psssh, glimmerings. Whatever. The laughter is certainly one possible response to my original reactivity.

Want a Zen joke? This is just my style.

How do you split the ocean in two?
With a see-saw.

(Good one, Betty.)

Glimmerings II: Pull-up Diapers for Everyone!

I like stories. I like the story about the crazy astronaut who drove across the country in Depends so that she could get right to attacking her romantic competition with pepper spray. Yes, there is evil lurking in the darkness (of the parking garage). Then there's also the story of Jesus saying we can't get into heaven unless we become like children. So, then, diapers for everyone?

While you can do what you like on that subject, I systematize. It's not always entertaining, but it can be helpful. Something I've figured out is that gross-level affirmation of a subtle self is important for developing what I consider to be an adequate understanding of self, consciousness, the world, etc. Mindfulness trains one in equanimity, and equanimity is good for allowing one to deconstruct the up/down reactive interpretation. Communion is good for by-passing the in/out division, rejection, by bringing people in. In a psychological sense, then, equanimity and communion structurally counteract or can't really exist simultaneously with the up/down/in/out complex of reactions. So that's part of the goal, but how do kids get that sort of thing across without writing long blogposts?

Kids often work in and with glimmerings. It's so natural, they often don't know they're doing it--which makes them good at it because glimmerings are faster than thought. Think of how many times you were told to stop fidgeting or to be consistent or pay attention or whatever. When we introject that domination, we learn to deafen or blind ourselves to glimmerings. Dogs have glimmerings, and we can teach dogs to sometimes ignore their glimmerings. Glimmerings are nearly universal--they aren't limited to people. And there is a magical life-energy that comes with glimmerings, an energy that is diminished in our world when we blind and deafen ourselves to it.

Probably my favorite biblical quote is the one where Jesus talks about glimmerings, fairy dust. Did you know that Jesus told his disciples about fairy dust? He did. He said that they would not be ruined by what they put into themselves (the way they had been taught that shellfish and pork were defiling) but by what they did not bring out of themselves. In other words, heaven is not an absence of pork (what kind of heaven would heaven be without bacon?) but rather a magical life lived by bringing the fairy dust within you (which we feel as these glimmerings) out. Jesus liked stories, so he also talked in metaphors about keeping your light going, not hiding your light, etc. Show your glimmerings. Other than wanting sons who will one day play in the NBA and take our last names into glory and history forever, we love kids for bringing out the life they feel.

I won't necessarily suggest Depends, but Jesus and I believe in wine and fairy dust. That just leaves us with the difference between play and subtle awareness. In Hui-neng's words, "Going and coming freely--the substance of mind without blockage--this is prajna."

Glimmerings: A Quasi-technical Talk on Fairy Dust

Prompted by the questions, "What is play therapy?" and "If I'm more actualized/conscious than you, why does interacting with you make me want to punch or avoid you?", I've worked out somewhat of a structural analysis of interacting beyond and within an Understanding level of awareness. A slightly less personalized way of looking at this topic is to think about it as looking at the difference between play-states and "subtle" states.

The second question (punch/avoid) is easy enough to answer, although an answer doesn't necessarily change the feeling. The aggression and avoidance are two behavioral options (fight/flight) that spring from the reactivity which results from feeling that anything I do will be interpreted from a limiting perspective. This is slightly different from simply being misinterpreted from a wrong perspective. Wrong perspectives (if someone simply misconstrues intention) can be corrected with a simple, "That's not what I meant; I mean this instead." Of course, spending all out time correcting one another is not all that much fun, so that answer is not really a solution.

And if we think about Vygotsky's "Zone of Proximal Development", we can reference how kids learn from one another in ways that often don't happen when overly institutionalized adults are around. See Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments. This is like the educational variation of play therapy--mixing fun, competition, and collaboration into education. Certainly, kids can be pedantic, but their groups often have less tolerance for pedantry than adult groups. If you watch enough groups of kids, you will clearly notice some times when kids are intentionally learning. But you will also be struck by how often kids pick things up that they didn't seem to be paying attention to. Adults are the same way, but we may be better at denying just how much we are influenced by things we don't necessarily choose to be influenced by.

This raises an important question: can we really design an effective educational system if we don't really know when and what people are learning? A second, equally relevant question: do we want to? Let me contextualize: if people are not clearly aware of having peak experiences, what is their motivation to move beyond a pedantic worldview? And, for the folks who are clearly aware of subtle and/or causal states, how can they share this sort of experience without being pedantic. (Hopefully, you can take my pedantic answer somewhat ironically.)

The obvious solution is fairy dust (dreadfully sorry for having a title that ruins the surprise). Think of how serious kids can be concerning its importance.

Without waking experience of higher states, the motivations towards contemplative practice (into intentionally achieving higher states) include idealization with aspiration and also suffering-avoidance. We have all wished for a better something, one without some particular cause of suffering (like hunger, back pain, reductionistic interpretative frameworks, 80s music and styles, a lamentable absence of ice cream, etc.). Idealization and avoidance both structurally mimic the up/down and in/out relationships we are instinctively primed for. This place is better/worse; this group is better/worse; I can't believe I'm part of this family; Mean people suck, nice people swallow...you get the drift.

To really move beyond the affirmation or endorsement of that sort of separative reactivity, mindfulness practice works really well, but if you're not already doing it, then we come back to the question of how to engage with contemplative practices without simply reproducing the up/down/in/out while possibly adding subtle experiences (you know, the ones that allow a spiritual-not-religious us to feel better than them while denying that we hold that truth [our betterness] as self-evident as well as backed up by our higher consciousness and their decrepitude).

Time: It's On My Side

Here's a link to a presentation by Philip Zimbardo concerning time perspectives. This supports part of what I've put together as a combination of stages, changes in brain potentials, self-identities, and attentional abilities.

The developmental part--approximately 11-15 minutes into the video--covers generic differences in time perspectives across a lifespan. When we're young, we're present-oriented. As we grow up, we learn future orientation and past orientation. The more educated we are, the less present-oriented we become. If we're lower-class economically or in a politically unstable situation, we stay more present-oriented. Zimbardo's basic point is that there is an optimal time perspective that involves some past, present, and future orientation along with some degrees of optimism and skepticism.

An interesting point is that, as we get into the age-range that defines the stage of Understanding, we become less present-oriented while we're learning theories and complex systems of logic, social organization, and ideals. Further down the road--as all that new prefrontal growth during adolescence has also been pruned, after some of the raging hormone storms die down a bit--we shift back towards present-orientation to a greater degree. Raising children encourages and also forces this to some extent.

Part of what Zimbardo gets into, then, is that as adults we have enough perspective to look to optimize what we focus on. This is Mindful Appreciation, but since most people don't make the mindfulness or the appreciation explicit, they often mush themselves partially into this stage without really grasping it decisively. That's not surprising since they are, to some extent, leaving the conceptual ideals--the absolutes--of the stage of Understanding behind to some extent. (Maybe mitigating or contextualizing the ideals is a better way of saying it.)

Mindfulness, though, allows us to put a sharper edge on those ideals and apply them less often (or more appropriately) as an option to putting a duller edge on ideals or hiding them away in a certain cynical/cosmopolitan embarrassment of our adolescent idealism. When mindfulness is applied with an explicit awareness of the desire to include appreciation, we can choose to modify realistic potential over fighting for unreasonable ideals.

Ideas at Play

I've been thinking about what happens "structurally" to mental phenomena once we become somewhat accustomed to mindfulness, when mindfulness becomes enough of a trained habit in our brains that the potential onslaught of phenomena is too familiar to be troubling or distracting. I put the word structurally in quotation marks because I am not as interested in the physiological correlates as I am in the "logical" structure--mind, not brain, in this note.

And, as always, I question the place of play--how important it is, how it fits in with work, relationships, meditation...etc. Hasrat Inayat Kahn said that many people feel their ideas are dead because they model their ideas (or their ideation, the process of making and using ideas) on inanimate things. People, then, who model their ideas on living things seem to adjust more easily to growth, change, novelty, and unexpected occurrences.

I am also interested in this intersection during a meditation session where, once one has calmed the mind and found a reasonably stable sense of centeredness, clarity, and precision, what then? There are all kinds of possibilities. The tranquility is not the same as mind-blowing or transcendent insight, but the moment of tranquility is certainly rife with potential. In Zen, there are plenty of warnings about makyo--illusory phenomena--and how easy it is for one to invest the feeling of novelty and interest in unimportant, even deluded, daydreaming. Certainly, if one is on the straight and narrow path to "enlightenment", all this potential is a distraction to progress. But part of what makes makyo compelling, besides the novelty, is the heightened sense of awareness-energy that it involves. Like being high, makyo is enticing because it is different and can be pleasant--although, even when it is unpleasant, it tends towards being fascinating. (Alas and alack, though, vacationing in makyo will probably not lead to the true-dharma-eye-treasury.)

For those who are not familiar with makyo in Zen or in their own meditation, makyo brings in a range of feeling(s) that is similar to those in dreaming. Ken Wilber calls this range "subtle" phenomena. In this range, or realm if you like, we end up feeling enchanted, compelled, enticed, curious, bright, enlivened, quick, etc. Even something like fear is likely to be pumped up and become something like the terror that lets you know you are alive. And this terror easily rolls into jubilation once the perception of threat has passed if one is not already feeling an adrenalin "rush" while the perceived threat is still immediate.

Play is often hard to logically structure adequately. What really happens in play? In asking this sort of question, we are usually trying to see what purposes can be imposed on play. While we grow, the types of play we choose change. Sometimes play can be engaged in in order to determine a status hierarchy, and especially this type of play can go "over the line" and become not so fun while still being rewarding for the winner. We incorporate formal conceptions into play in strategy games. I love chess, and I like to play just for the fun of it, but I also prefer to win. In playing chess, some days I get in the flow of the game, and it's almost like I'm not thinking through what my moves are. My awareness is very much on the chess, but it feels like I'm almost not there. The normally functioning, gross-ego/chunk-processing is occurring, but it is not the only thing going on in my awareness; it's not even primary on the better days.

Now, we all always have more going on in our brains than we can attend to. With mindfulness training, we can learn to attend (be aware) at a much higher degree of precision and to a much wider range of phenomena than is usual. In these moments of flow, I'm aware of being able to think and attend in my usual manner or I can "let go" to a greater extent, like mentally relaxing my focus analogously to the way we relax our visual focus to see a certain type of visual illusion (the type I am terrible at seeing). In team sports especially, coaches talk about "letting the game come to you". In more individual athletics, it's more like, "Be the ball."

Being the ball allows for time to "stop" or be so unimportant as to seem nonexistent; the same is true of self-awareness in that it is so heightened that the usual self may seem nonexistent. When coordinating with others, flow involves feeling not only some degree of relationship but also of pacing, timing. Time only seems nonexistent after these flow moments when we look back and have the feeling that time didn't matter then. If you think about it, you can re-mind yourself of your sense of timing during that moment of coordinated action.

In the same way that tranquility can be said to exist between (temporally) thoughts, and we can become very aware of this by doing intentional relaxation meditation, the bright energy of bliss can be said to exist between sensations and perceptions that are more subtle than thoughts. As we become aware of thoughts, we can learn to dis-identify with them, and this dis-identification allows us to familiarize with the time/space between thoughts. And as we become more mindfully aware of perceptions and sensations, we can either be led around by the tails or trailers of these stimuli or we can familiarize with the energy that is available as like the background of all of that. We can stick our attention in the background, in the bliss, while allowing sensation and perception to pass in and through, or we can also "follow" the sensations or perceptions that seem so alive with this energy. It is like playing hide-and-seek in heaven. This variety of options is becoming more obvious as it becomes more familiar.

And then--there is always one more "and then"--it is very interesting to think about bringing this energy consistently and intentionally into relating. I think that we can do with ideas, relationship, pacing, etc. the same thing we do with impulse and emotions when we play in ways that seem more simplistic. It's just harder to say what the game is, to limit the game, because of referring to a wider array of stimuli and also investing our responses with bliss--which is like the icing on the cake of ecstasy. It's okay to just eat the icing.

Regarding Others Equally

For a long time I've been wondering what would be a complimentary form of contemplation/meditation to go along with mindfulness training. Much of the mindfulness training I have been exposed to is somewhat depersonalizing, so it is very helpful in creating the space that allows one to drop a great deal of one's negatively reactive responses, but it doesn't necessarily help beginners become more connected with other people and connective emotionality. This is not meant as a slam on mindfulness training in general or on any particular techniques, nor is my exposure to various techniques exhaustive. But in my experience, mindfulness leads people away from habitual reactivity and also often leads away from connectivity to some extent. Stepping away from habitual reactivity is like opening the door to a more immediate and authentic connection, but it's still necessary to step through that door.

I'm a big fan of Traleg Kyabgon's book MIND AT EASE. One of the few aspects of this book that can make it somewhat inaccessible or not directly and deeply applicable (especially if you spend your life grinding through books on meditation to distill techniques and effects!) is the number of suggested meditations. I've often felt like, "Well, there are so many things to possibly focus on, how can I just focus on one? And which one? How do I know which one?" As my study focus and interest shifts somewhat away from an emphasis on neurological effects and metaphysical states, it is shifting towards emotions and relationships.

I believe there are probably one or two techniques that can be chosen as "essential" for each level of attentional ability. Obviously, mindfulness practice will be hugely important at the stage of Mindful Appreciation. But I also wondered if some seated meditation technique might be really applicable concerning the appreciation side to go along with the precision of mindfulness. Since a great deal of my remaining stress comes from interactions with other people, I'm most interested in turning that "stuck energy"--frustration and disappointment--into appreciation and communion. Our frustrations and desires and inspiration are usually closely connected.

I like Kyabgon's method of moving through a variety of steps in one meditation session. Starting off with releasing stress and deep breathing perhaps, establishing calm and some degree of clarity, and then incorporating some type of analytic or thoughtful contemplation into that state of tranquility or balanced mind. And, again from Kyabgon, I like the effects of comparing one sort of personal reaction to another. This is the one I find most solid, earthy, or fitting right now.

After about three minutes of calming and focusing--it may take up to twelve or so minutes to feel relatively calm and somewhat stable in one's calm--I spend a few minutes (maybe three to five again) thinking of everyday stress. I think of how I tend to be when I feel agitated or frustrated in my daily life. There's the exasperation in facing chores ("I don't want to do dishes again!"), worry (With all this traffic, how will I get there in time? If I'm late will I keep my job? How will I pay my bills if I lose my job?"), disappointment in myself and others (We should be so much better than this; I thought so much better of you/me"), frustrated aggression ("Get out of my way, Jackass!"). Although spending time in this frame of mind is unpleasant, I know I'm going back to it at some point tomorrow if I don't find a way to address it. I can't just feel nice when I feel agitated this way, and positive thinking doesn't do it for me. So I'm sharing what works for me. After I feel like I'm really "in" this sort of feeling, I switch gears. I shift to focusing on some instance when I helped someone, when I did something worthwhile for or with someone else that I can feel good about. I think about some instance where maybe I could help someone and I visualize myself helping. I think of some instance where I could use some help, and I visualize what it would be like if someone helped me then. I stay with this emotional feeling for a long time (I don't know what will feel like a long time to other folks). I listen to this feeling as a very important and basic part of human nature. And I take a few minutes, going slowly, to think about engaging with this part of other people when I run into them. I think about how this is part of their emotional make-up too, but that they may get caught up in their everyday preoccupations like I do. And I resolve to value this state of mind over being stressed, this type of action over those that are focused primarily on gaining me some comfort. (There is actually a different set of neurological pathways in the brain that are activated when we regard ourselves and our comfort as opposed to when we are generous with others.)

If this seems like too much of a "hearts and flowers" type of meditation, read ON KINDNESS. Rather than giving metaphysical "reasons" why we should be good, I tend to prefer the evolutionary psychology and neurophysiology that presents evidence on how we are social animals. So I've got more references if ON KINDNESS doesn't fit the bill for you. But the more we practice shifting out of self-regard-mode, the more able we are to get outside of our personally constructed mental prisons. The more we regard others, the more our minds "naturally" move in that direction without effort. And the happiest people are those who are most socially connected and active (along with getting into flow-states). That is simply how it is. This is one of the techniques that strikes me as directly applicable, effective, and fitting. Exemplary.