For many people, then, the beginnings of realization begins in uneasiness, fear, and the judgment that the way they had been (largely unaware) was no good or at least not good enough. This makes spirituality or personal growth a trial, a difficult journey, or something along those lines. We end up with truisms like the idea that life begins at the edges of your comfort zone, as if a life of awareness begins in uneasiness. But this sort of understanding puts us in a living paradox like the ones Zeno loved to create. And we end up fighting our own egos or trailing uneasiness and dissatisfaction along with a cavalier sense of jumping into God-knows-what as what life is really all about. As if cliffdiving with your eyes open will keep you alive if you jump onto submerged rocks. A cavalier attitude with its attendant thrills and streamers of dissatisfaction may not be what clarity is about even though it is what some people decide that their lives are about.
Clarity has an effect on what that intermediate state, or clutch state, feels like. The belief in cliffdiving with eyes open definitely involves intention, but it may lack some degree of clarity if it includes the superstition that eyes being open rather than closed means you won't hit rocks. So there are many people out there preaching the value of intention, which is great, but very intentional people have set up oppressive empires, unethical corporations, and corrupt governments. Tranquil folks have improved their own lives by learning to develop a sense of serenity within themselves, often without influencing many others around them. No one of these influences is paramount. They come together in the same vehicle, though, if they are intentionally incorporated. If tranquility is practiced, we diminish the influence and the need for apathy. If clarity and awareness are developed, we diminish the influence and the need for being shocked into awareness.
An emphasis on clarity keeps us aware that things are changing. An emphasis on tranquility allows us to feel an ultimately undefined and indefinable sense of consistency. Ego, like using a pronoun to signify many things at different times and in different contexts, is a vehicle that is real enough to feel real yet empty enough to fit in all these influences. The interaction between immediate awareness of this moment, ego, and environment allows for the combination of continuity and change that sets us up for seeing the difference between random change and spastic actions as opposed to progress.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Ego and Tranquility III
Let's come at this from a different angle to see if we can complete the picture. Internal states, moods, and external situations change more rapidly than self-identity tends to. Ego includes self-identity (what we think and experience ourselves to be) as well as habitual patterns of feeling and behavior. In the same way that what we think of ourselves is not all of who we are, patterns of feeling and behavior are also not all of who we are. We can see genetic temperament, rather than something like Freud's "id" as basic to ego.
Once a relatively consistent ego is established in adulthood (as it is with almost all adults), intentional shifts in state, fluidity between states, and openness--especially awareness of openness--become more important to personal development. Intentionally incorporating openness and fluidity into self-identity incorporates openness and fluidity into ego without changing history or the uniqueness of one's individuality. In other words, one begins to wipe the slate of personality clean rather than wiping it blank.
I guess that if I'm going to title this series "Ego and Tranquility", I should probably include something on tranquility. It sort of fits with the blankness. In moderating states, we might start off by simply noticing what sort of state we're in. Once we notice, we might also notice a response to being in that state--either like or dislike. Both like and dislike tend to drive the "logic" of that state. By not wanting to fear snakes, I keep thinking about snakes, and this reminds me that I fear snakes. David Barlow has done great work with anxiety and fear. You can essentially wear out someone's snake phobia by keeping them around snakes for long enough, showing them that snakes are not necessarily dangerous, and eventually getting them to hold snakes.
If you aren't willing to deal with the intense reactions that his process demands, or if dealing with something less tangible (than snakes) like shame, it becomes important to apply a sort of clutch (like in a vehicle with a manual transmission). We do this by regaining some degree of control over our sympathetic nervous response. This ends up being the same as when moms soothe upset children, except we aren't relying on snakes to wear us out or moms to calm us down. We're relying on ego as a transitional object (our vehicle) and using awareness and intention as the clutch. The interesting thing is that ego might seem to drive us wherever any given internal state is directing us if we are unaware and also unable to hit the clutch. Hitting the clutch may leave us pointed in the same direction, moving with some left-over momentum, but we are no longer continuing to speed towards the goal of some state (like anger) rather than driving the bus ourselves.
This can be like waking from a dream or realizing--all of a sudden--that you're behind the wheel but that you've been on autopilot. That moment between when you are impulsively following the logic of whatever state--like when anger is pushing you towards revenge, for example--and when you realize that you are actually driving can have a number of different feelings. It can feel somewhat disappointing and apathetic, it can feel liberated or light (including an "unbearable lightness of being"), and it can also feel tranquil, peaceful, serene. It is the experiential definition (rather than semantic definition) of unawareness to not notice the state you had been in and the feeling of transitioning. Realizing this lack of awareness can be like suddenly realizing that the ground is not solid beneath your feet. Most people prefer denial and unawareness to this realization and the uneasisness and fear it can bring.
Once a relatively consistent ego is established in adulthood (as it is with almost all adults), intentional shifts in state, fluidity between states, and openness--especially awareness of openness--become more important to personal development. Intentionally incorporating openness and fluidity into self-identity incorporates openness and fluidity into ego without changing history or the uniqueness of one's individuality. In other words, one begins to wipe the slate of personality clean rather than wiping it blank.
I guess that if I'm going to title this series "Ego and Tranquility", I should probably include something on tranquility. It sort of fits with the blankness. In moderating states, we might start off by simply noticing what sort of state we're in. Once we notice, we might also notice a response to being in that state--either like or dislike. Both like and dislike tend to drive the "logic" of that state. By not wanting to fear snakes, I keep thinking about snakes, and this reminds me that I fear snakes. David Barlow has done great work with anxiety and fear. You can essentially wear out someone's snake phobia by keeping them around snakes for long enough, showing them that snakes are not necessarily dangerous, and eventually getting them to hold snakes.
If you aren't willing to deal with the intense reactions that his process demands, or if dealing with something less tangible (than snakes) like shame, it becomes important to apply a sort of clutch (like in a vehicle with a manual transmission). We do this by regaining some degree of control over our sympathetic nervous response. This ends up being the same as when moms soothe upset children, except we aren't relying on snakes to wear us out or moms to calm us down. We're relying on ego as a transitional object (our vehicle) and using awareness and intention as the clutch. The interesting thing is that ego might seem to drive us wherever any given internal state is directing us if we are unaware and also unable to hit the clutch. Hitting the clutch may leave us pointed in the same direction, moving with some left-over momentum, but we are no longer continuing to speed towards the goal of some state (like anger) rather than driving the bus ourselves.
This can be like waking from a dream or realizing--all of a sudden--that you're behind the wheel but that you've been on autopilot. That moment between when you are impulsively following the logic of whatever state--like when anger is pushing you towards revenge, for example--and when you realize that you are actually driving can have a number of different feelings. It can feel somewhat disappointing and apathetic, it can feel liberated or light (including an "unbearable lightness of being"), and it can also feel tranquil, peaceful, serene. It is the experiential definition (rather than semantic definition) of unawareness to not notice the state you had been in and the feeling of transitioning. Realizing this lack of awareness can be like suddenly realizing that the ground is not solid beneath your feet. Most people prefer denial and unawareness to this realization and the uneasisness and fear it can bring.
Ego and Tranquility II
The question we're carrying over is: what functions for adults as that supportive field? Is it relationships, community? No. Intention? No. Wisdom, insight? No and no. Tranquility? Also no. Or maybe the answers should all be, "Not only that."
All those things feed in. As usual, I want to turn that question on its side to see what it looks like that way. If we've got a good model of how personal growth can occur (in children), then--given all the differences adults face--HOW does adult growth occur?
Psychodynamics often describes the "primary caregiver" as a transitional object. The kid can explore a little ways, return to Mom and feel reassured that everything is alright, and then explore again. Likewise, then, the space around Mom begins to feel safe. Actual places like one's bedroom, playroom, backyard, or near Mom can then be used as "transitional spaces" where exploration, play, growth, and learning occur. Everywhere else is potentially dangerous and scary. It's not much of a stretch to see that dangerous schools are not really the best "transitional spaces" in psychodynamic terms. And we also grow into professional and romantic relationships where trust is recognized or at least felt to be really important for any meaningful or sustained relationship. So, as we move out of mom's arms and out of the nursery, we can see that the psychological "space" is both real physical space (outside of the nursery) and also sociocultural space (trustworthy relationships).
In essence then, we need the potential, the motivation, the tools, and the space to work in for growth. We need at least one more thing: continuity. Without continuity or coherence, each moment may be intense enough, but there is no way to mark growth as opposed to random change. And, in speaking of personal growth and maintaining the motivation for personal growth as adults, we are speaking in terms of an internal or personal SENSE of continuity. It is this sense that allows us to say that we feel that there has or has not been growth, since personal growth is not as objectively measurable as, say, height.
Here is where ego finds its true value. Ego, like growth, may be made up of many parts without necessarily being any of those parts or influences. As we move beyond the "primary relationship" with Mom, our developing egos become our own transitional objects--that which, in reference to, we either feel growth or the absence of growth. Now, as I mentioned, ego isn't necessarily just one singular thing. Ego is influenced by its own transitional object-space: society. With these three reference points--individual awareness, ego, society--we have what it takes to measure growth.
How does that work out? Well, we create a relatively consistent sense of ego and society even though personal awareness is constantly shifting. The phenomena we pay attention to, shifts in internal brain states, and changes in emotional moods tend to occur more quickly than changes in what we think of ego and society. At some point in our lives, we intentionally attempt to shift our internal state--from anxiety, fear, anger, despite, shame, etc. If we find or are given the tools and stick to the training we can improve at shifting our internal states towards those states we would choose. That's the intention part.
As we repeatedly use our intention to build the attentional skills that allow us to shift our internal states, those intentional choices and intentional states become part of our self-identity (which is part of ego). Those chosen and increasingly familiar states become more consistent traits, more consistent parts of who we are. It's just that, at this point, the "who" in who we are is bigger than a concrete self of who we were, more real and complex than an ideal who that we might have wanted to become. The growth itself changes us. As we move closer to the ideal, the ideal must also change and come closer to the complexity of reality and history and personality, etc. At some point, it becomes very clear that we are trading, piece by piece, a sort of thin and sterilized (yet bright) ideal self for a very real and complex and sometimes still problematic but inspired self. Idealization becomes inspiration as we become intimate and familiar with our own active potential.
All those things feed in. As usual, I want to turn that question on its side to see what it looks like that way. If we've got a good model of how personal growth can occur (in children), then--given all the differences adults face--HOW does adult growth occur?
Psychodynamics often describes the "primary caregiver" as a transitional object. The kid can explore a little ways, return to Mom and feel reassured that everything is alright, and then explore again. Likewise, then, the space around Mom begins to feel safe. Actual places like one's bedroom, playroom, backyard, or near Mom can then be used as "transitional spaces" where exploration, play, growth, and learning occur. Everywhere else is potentially dangerous and scary. It's not much of a stretch to see that dangerous schools are not really the best "transitional spaces" in psychodynamic terms. And we also grow into professional and romantic relationships where trust is recognized or at least felt to be really important for any meaningful or sustained relationship. So, as we move out of mom's arms and out of the nursery, we can see that the psychological "space" is both real physical space (outside of the nursery) and also sociocultural space (trustworthy relationships).
In essence then, we need the potential, the motivation, the tools, and the space to work in for growth. We need at least one more thing: continuity. Without continuity or coherence, each moment may be intense enough, but there is no way to mark growth as opposed to random change. And, in speaking of personal growth and maintaining the motivation for personal growth as adults, we are speaking in terms of an internal or personal SENSE of continuity. It is this sense that allows us to say that we feel that there has or has not been growth, since personal growth is not as objectively measurable as, say, height.
Here is where ego finds its true value. Ego, like growth, may be made up of many parts without necessarily being any of those parts or influences. As we move beyond the "primary relationship" with Mom, our developing egos become our own transitional objects--that which, in reference to, we either feel growth or the absence of growth. Now, as I mentioned, ego isn't necessarily just one singular thing. Ego is influenced by its own transitional object-space: society. With these three reference points--individual awareness, ego, society--we have what it takes to measure growth.
How does that work out? Well, we create a relatively consistent sense of ego and society even though personal awareness is constantly shifting. The phenomena we pay attention to, shifts in internal brain states, and changes in emotional moods tend to occur more quickly than changes in what we think of ego and society. At some point in our lives, we intentionally attempt to shift our internal state--from anxiety, fear, anger, despite, shame, etc. If we find or are given the tools and stick to the training we can improve at shifting our internal states towards those states we would choose. That's the intention part.
As we repeatedly use our intention to build the attentional skills that allow us to shift our internal states, those intentional choices and intentional states become part of our self-identity (which is part of ego). Those chosen and increasingly familiar states become more consistent traits, more consistent parts of who we are. It's just that, at this point, the "who" in who we are is bigger than a concrete self of who we were, more real and complex than an ideal who that we might have wanted to become. The growth itself changes us. As we move closer to the ideal, the ideal must also change and come closer to the complexity of reality and history and personality, etc. At some point, it becomes very clear that we are trading, piece by piece, a sort of thin and sterilized (yet bright) ideal self for a very real and complex and sometimes still problematic but inspired self. Idealization becomes inspiration as we become intimate and familiar with our own active potential.
Ego and Tranquility
In the Mahamudra tradition, they sometimes say that anything without tranquility as its base or foundation does not last. It seems to me that, when we begin considering how intention fits with tranquility, we come to an unusual understanding of ego. It helps, probably, to include some understanding of how our self-identities develop.
Think about baby-talk from babies' perspective. It's not that far from when adults hear a foreign language. Under the right circumstances, you can comprehend that the apparent babble conveys intentional, and even understood meanings. Babies will mimic the babble they hear, and we approximate the sounds we want them to make. We help shape their noises into closer approximations of the language(s) we speak around and to them. While adult learning at this early stage of language acquisition may be more formalized, we still start off with some degree of exposure to the new language, babble on our own, and are prompted to improve our babbling.
In order to stick with the process long enough for our babble to become semi-intelligible and for us to understand at least basic words and phrases, we need to stick with the process long enough. For babies, they need someone beyond themselves to "hold" or maintain that intention and the process. Now, if our societies were full of enlightened individuals sharing their personal growth, personal development could go pretty much the same way. And that is happening to some extent. But most of us had mothers and teachers who put a great deal of time into language acquisition support when we were most motivated to learn language. We tend not to get the same one-on-one time with multiple personal growth gurus.
Throw in the challenge that by the time we begin considering personal growth seriously, we've also developed to the point where we have multiple, conflicting intentions to deal with. The average adult has to juggle the importance of paying the bills, maintatining relationships, maybe even teaching their own child to speak, etc. These competing intentions make it very difficult to focus wholeheartedly, to commit to any process 100%, and yet that is often how people learn best. Plus, that guru isn't going to feed and clothe you while spending up to 18-20 hours each day making sure you are happy, secure, and learning. Moms may not bring what gurus can bring, but gurus don't match up to moms in the mom-ing category either.
What all that means is that something our brains and environment did for us when we were learning language as children needs to be done by ourselves when learning personal growth as adults. When we are born, our brains are exploration-oriented--ready to learn. Mom, or whoever, works with that potential and a lot of emotional input to help us learn. Our brains respond to all this stimulation by growing lots of brain cells, training many of those brain cells to fire together in cohesive patterns that repeat when we see meaning repeated, and letting many other cells (the ones we hadn't needed to speak our specific language) die. They die because, like a screaming baby bird or an aggressive puppy, fortune in this type of instance favors the bold. The cells that are used get the metabolic energy while others starve.
The same basic process goes for adult attention. If you find it more valuable to sell more cars than to increase your sense of faith and virtue, your attention will predominantly go to what you deem more important (selling cars) while personal growth starves for attention. But this is simple attention economy stuff. What allows a baby to "believe" that there may be some meaning in the babble? Whatever that potential is, it is probably some part genetic predisposition, some part emotional connection with the caregiver, some part neurological surplus, etc. It is not just intention. There is a sort of "field" or environement of things that come together to allow for growth into and through that field.
As adults, we need to find something to function as that supportive background or field. Our brains are not growing at the same rate, mom probably isn't going to spend 18 hours a day with us, and--instead of our whole society pushing us to learn language--we have all of these other demands on our time and attention.
Think about baby-talk from babies' perspective. It's not that far from when adults hear a foreign language. Under the right circumstances, you can comprehend that the apparent babble conveys intentional, and even understood meanings. Babies will mimic the babble they hear, and we approximate the sounds we want them to make. We help shape their noises into closer approximations of the language(s) we speak around and to them. While adult learning at this early stage of language acquisition may be more formalized, we still start off with some degree of exposure to the new language, babble on our own, and are prompted to improve our babbling.
In order to stick with the process long enough for our babble to become semi-intelligible and for us to understand at least basic words and phrases, we need to stick with the process long enough. For babies, they need someone beyond themselves to "hold" or maintain that intention and the process. Now, if our societies were full of enlightened individuals sharing their personal growth, personal development could go pretty much the same way. And that is happening to some extent. But most of us had mothers and teachers who put a great deal of time into language acquisition support when we were most motivated to learn language. We tend not to get the same one-on-one time with multiple personal growth gurus.
Throw in the challenge that by the time we begin considering personal growth seriously, we've also developed to the point where we have multiple, conflicting intentions to deal with. The average adult has to juggle the importance of paying the bills, maintatining relationships, maybe even teaching their own child to speak, etc. These competing intentions make it very difficult to focus wholeheartedly, to commit to any process 100%, and yet that is often how people learn best. Plus, that guru isn't going to feed and clothe you while spending up to 18-20 hours each day making sure you are happy, secure, and learning. Moms may not bring what gurus can bring, but gurus don't match up to moms in the mom-ing category either.
What all that means is that something our brains and environment did for us when we were learning language as children needs to be done by ourselves when learning personal growth as adults. When we are born, our brains are exploration-oriented--ready to learn. Mom, or whoever, works with that potential and a lot of emotional input to help us learn. Our brains respond to all this stimulation by growing lots of brain cells, training many of those brain cells to fire together in cohesive patterns that repeat when we see meaning repeated, and letting many other cells (the ones we hadn't needed to speak our specific language) die. They die because, like a screaming baby bird or an aggressive puppy, fortune in this type of instance favors the bold. The cells that are used get the metabolic energy while others starve.
The same basic process goes for adult attention. If you find it more valuable to sell more cars than to increase your sense of faith and virtue, your attention will predominantly go to what you deem more important (selling cars) while personal growth starves for attention. But this is simple attention economy stuff. What allows a baby to "believe" that there may be some meaning in the babble? Whatever that potential is, it is probably some part genetic predisposition, some part emotional connection with the caregiver, some part neurological surplus, etc. It is not just intention. There is a sort of "field" or environement of things that come together to allow for growth into and through that field.
As adults, we need to find something to function as that supportive background or field. Our brains are not growing at the same rate, mom probably isn't going to spend 18 hours a day with us, and--instead of our whole society pushing us to learn language--we have all of these other demands on our time and attention.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Rhythm, Lucero, Drugs
In Anatomy of an Epidemic, the author develops the perspective on prescription psychotropic drugs of seeing them primarily--and perhaps only--as simply causing perturbations in brain functioning. At the farthest remove, that can be said of just about anything I suppose, but more specifically, it presents a different starting place than the institutionally-taught perspective that these drugs are primarily "anti-": -psychotic, -anxiety, -depression, etc. There is a basic difference between seeing all effects as perturbations and seeing one effect as a "side effect" and another as a "main effect". As all believers in superstition of whatever stripe, it is not hard for believers in prescribed drugs to find ways to write off and/or justify harmful "side effects" while relying on "main effects" or intended effects. Since these packaged chemicals are considered to be psychotropic, their neurological and psychological effects (main and side effects) are often considered to be more important than primarily "somatic" effects like weight gain or liver dysfunction, etc. And again, in comparison, you can consider how something as simple as ingesting a very salty meal or mustard late at night can effect, can psychotropify, your dreams. The perspective that specific chemicals are more accurately considered for their intended use rather than as chemicals with a whole slew of influences is somewhat limiting and less realistic or straightforward than others. It falls into a normal human bias that over-rates intention while under-rating history.
I'm tired of all these love songs, they won't make you mine. But the songs eat up some of the pain.
The starting point of seeing anything we put into our bodies as primarily perturbations ends up rather rashly or irreverently categorizing Prozac with LCD with table salt. Depending on your overall health, consistent overusage of sodium chloride or sugar might be more dangerous to your longterm health than consistent acid usage. And from a religious viewpoint, depending on how stuck your soul is, anything that supports distance between you and divinity is a stumbling block to the clarity, beauty, and development of your soul. Now, just as I'm ok with considering SSRIs to be just chemicals, I'm ok with seeing souls as an interesting example of human imagination whether they "exist" or not. In some ways, the only koan is the rejection of suchness.
As a psychologist, sometimes to a perverse or fanatical extent, I end up asking myself questions such as, "What could be the point of depression?" And in search of answers that cut straight to the existential bedrock (if that "exists"), I spend time reading Prozac Nation while sitting in the hospital waiting to heal from surgery which, only "hopefully", removes seriously malignant cancer. And other things like that; if you're thinking of better examples of such instances, then good, we're on the right track. Folks like me sometimes need the hard way, hard rain, dark nights, the long way home, the narrow path, wide paths, or as Krishnamurti said, "The Pathless Land." Rumi spoke of circling something like a moth to the flame while Sigmund Freud spoke of "normal unhappiness" and a "death instinct".
Lately, I've been considering how silence seems to connect eternity-as-feeling with the instantly-passing present instant. To the same extent that misery loves company, it loves repetition, too. Kids love dizziness. Perturbations.
If I bring the angle closer than seeing everything as perturbations in consciousness and wider than how much monoamine oxidase inhibitors affect a few synapses in one brain, I find myself in the interactions between a loosely-constructed social reality and consistently different viewpoints on just that. Depression, as a somewhat consistent "place", is not at the center of that constructed reality. But neither is dizziness. By moving in a certain way, through similar steps repeatedly, a sense of rhythm can develop as we learn the dance steps. Some of these rhythms happen at the speed of a single neuron firing, maybe even faster. In our repetitions, a sense arises, passes, returns, and can consolidate.
Something beyond yet not exclusive of a sense of individual self, uhh, grows. Existential roots, or a backdrop, rises. It might eventually feel like sorting through your attic full of boxes full of stuff your parents put aside for you in order to find the one toy or picture or belonging that perfectly carries the feeling you want to share with your kid at some important right-now. Misery loves rhythm, so does joy.
I always like the studies of shamanism that point out that "finding one's power" often comes late in life. We have a lot of sorting to do before then. As some Chinese have said, "The young rush in order not to miss anything; their elders take their time, in order to not miss a thing." It is silly for me to feel like eternity is just that kind of girl, but some things are worth sharing.
Thanks for sharing, Amy. Wade, I lean on you sometimes.
I'm tired of all these love songs, they won't make you mine. But the songs eat up some of the pain.
The starting point of seeing anything we put into our bodies as primarily perturbations ends up rather rashly or irreverently categorizing Prozac with LCD with table salt. Depending on your overall health, consistent overusage of sodium chloride or sugar might be more dangerous to your longterm health than consistent acid usage. And from a religious viewpoint, depending on how stuck your soul is, anything that supports distance between you and divinity is a stumbling block to the clarity, beauty, and development of your soul. Now, just as I'm ok with considering SSRIs to be just chemicals, I'm ok with seeing souls as an interesting example of human imagination whether they "exist" or not. In some ways, the only koan is the rejection of suchness.
As a psychologist, sometimes to a perverse or fanatical extent, I end up asking myself questions such as, "What could be the point of depression?" And in search of answers that cut straight to the existential bedrock (if that "exists"), I spend time reading Prozac Nation while sitting in the hospital waiting to heal from surgery which, only "hopefully", removes seriously malignant cancer. And other things like that; if you're thinking of better examples of such instances, then good, we're on the right track. Folks like me sometimes need the hard way, hard rain, dark nights, the long way home, the narrow path, wide paths, or as Krishnamurti said, "The Pathless Land." Rumi spoke of circling something like a moth to the flame while Sigmund Freud spoke of "normal unhappiness" and a "death instinct".
Lately, I've been considering how silence seems to connect eternity-as-feeling with the instantly-passing present instant. To the same extent that misery loves company, it loves repetition, too. Kids love dizziness. Perturbations.
If I bring the angle closer than seeing everything as perturbations in consciousness and wider than how much monoamine oxidase inhibitors affect a few synapses in one brain, I find myself in the interactions between a loosely-constructed social reality and consistently different viewpoints on just that. Depression, as a somewhat consistent "place", is not at the center of that constructed reality. But neither is dizziness. By moving in a certain way, through similar steps repeatedly, a sense of rhythm can develop as we learn the dance steps. Some of these rhythms happen at the speed of a single neuron firing, maybe even faster. In our repetitions, a sense arises, passes, returns, and can consolidate.
Something beyond yet not exclusive of a sense of individual self, uhh, grows. Existential roots, or a backdrop, rises. It might eventually feel like sorting through your attic full of boxes full of stuff your parents put aside for you in order to find the one toy or picture or belonging that perfectly carries the feeling you want to share with your kid at some important right-now. Misery loves rhythm, so does joy.
I always like the studies of shamanism that point out that "finding one's power" often comes late in life. We have a lot of sorting to do before then. As some Chinese have said, "The young rush in order not to miss anything; their elders take their time, in order to not miss a thing." It is silly for me to feel like eternity is just that kind of girl, but some things are worth sharing.
Thanks for sharing, Amy. Wade, I lean on you sometimes.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Impulse, Effort, Intention, Grace
I'm starting to study the Lamrim teachings on Abhidhamma as my next step towards unconstrained awareness. At this point, I'm finding a definite commonality between my own explorations and this Buddhist method of categorization and applications. At the same time, I'm not certain that insisting on the infallibility of Siddartha Gautama's pronouncements and dialogues is a necessary aspect of moving forward. In other words, there are probably some simpler ways of presenting the next step--or next few steps--for many of us (as opposed to in-depth, long-term Abhidhamma study). You can also look at what I'm circling as a way of redeeming/utilizing projection and identification.
Much of what I've been working on is simply a progression of perspectives. The question is: a progression towards what? A better experience of this lifetime. This goal can be seen as relative or small from a religious perspective, but it doesn't exclude religious perspective. One can include either the after-death progression of one's soul or non-self-self in determining how "better" could be defined and experienced.
Part of improving perspectives comes down to condensing information and also to presenting it in ways that are immediately applicable and fruitful. Here's the skinny. We can experience the desire(s) we experience as individuals as including a few different feelings. There is a continuum from nonconscious impulse (like instinct) to conscious effort (which is often tied up in personality disordering and negative habits/addictions) to intention (which can remain consistent even when our pushing/effortful energy wanes for a time) to something like grace (which can be seen as extending beyond individuality).
For anyone who does not simply want to fight against basic impulses and feelings, we can see a path from impulse of biological action potentials towards increasing consciousness and lack of constraints. One of the interesting things that happens when intention is included, though, is that we can feel frustration when we lack: the energy it takes to put in pushing/driven effort; achievement of the results we are looking for; consistency or clarity in intention; the smooth feeling of things working out "simply because".
An integrated perspective allows us to relate to impulse as the basic energy, effort as directing that basic energy, intention as potentially clearer and more consistent than effort (which will cycle with our need for food, sleep, etc.), and grace as a goal that may or may not end up as somewhat defined. These all web together (as something like sattva) if we can maintain that impulse, effort and intention may all lead towards grace while being willing to take care of--behaviorally attend to--whichever lower levels need attention. And it is possible to determine whichever levels need attention by simply moving downwards, checking each one as we go.
It works something like this. We never need to feel undirected because we can always affirm that, whatever more relative goals we may or may not hold, we are always looking for grace. We can always recognize that we may not find grace if we don't line up that intention to find grace (or whatever other intentions) with our ability to maintain effort in that direction. And we maintain effort through consisitency of intention and physical health (the wellness of neurology through psychology--crossover with stress, immune response, blood pressure, digestion, etc.).
The nice thing about this progression is that we don't have to believe that, "A tired man no longer cares." It takes less metabolic energy to maintain intention than it takes to maintain effort. The reality is that a tired man may no longer have the energy it takes to make the necessary efforts while he hasn't changed his intentions. Blaming oneself or others for unclear intentions, imperfect effort, or basic impulses keeps us from achieving grace. If we can maintain a consistent goal (grace), it is possible to change one's "local" intentions while retaining consistency. If we experience ourselves as moving towards grace, it is possible to dispense with the greater part of psychological wastes of energy such as blaming and excessive doubt.
Much of what I've been working on is simply a progression of perspectives. The question is: a progression towards what? A better experience of this lifetime. This goal can be seen as relative or small from a religious perspective, but it doesn't exclude religious perspective. One can include either the after-death progression of one's soul or non-self-self in determining how "better" could be defined and experienced.
Part of improving perspectives comes down to condensing information and also to presenting it in ways that are immediately applicable and fruitful. Here's the skinny. We can experience the desire(s) we experience as individuals as including a few different feelings. There is a continuum from nonconscious impulse (like instinct) to conscious effort (which is often tied up in personality disordering and negative habits/addictions) to intention (which can remain consistent even when our pushing/effortful energy wanes for a time) to something like grace (which can be seen as extending beyond individuality).
For anyone who does not simply want to fight against basic impulses and feelings, we can see a path from impulse of biological action potentials towards increasing consciousness and lack of constraints. One of the interesting things that happens when intention is included, though, is that we can feel frustration when we lack: the energy it takes to put in pushing/driven effort; achievement of the results we are looking for; consistency or clarity in intention; the smooth feeling of things working out "simply because".
An integrated perspective allows us to relate to impulse as the basic energy, effort as directing that basic energy, intention as potentially clearer and more consistent than effort (which will cycle with our need for food, sleep, etc.), and grace as a goal that may or may not end up as somewhat defined. These all web together (as something like sattva) if we can maintain that impulse, effort and intention may all lead towards grace while being willing to take care of--behaviorally attend to--whichever lower levels need attention. And it is possible to determine whichever levels need attention by simply moving downwards, checking each one as we go.
It works something like this. We never need to feel undirected because we can always affirm that, whatever more relative goals we may or may not hold, we are always looking for grace. We can always recognize that we may not find grace if we don't line up that intention to find grace (or whatever other intentions) with our ability to maintain effort in that direction. And we maintain effort through consisitency of intention and physical health (the wellness of neurology through psychology--crossover with stress, immune response, blood pressure, digestion, etc.).
The nice thing about this progression is that we don't have to believe that, "A tired man no longer cares." It takes less metabolic energy to maintain intention than it takes to maintain effort. The reality is that a tired man may no longer have the energy it takes to make the necessary efforts while he hasn't changed his intentions. Blaming oneself or others for unclear intentions, imperfect effort, or basic impulses keeps us from achieving grace. If we can maintain a consistent goal (grace), it is possible to change one's "local" intentions while retaining consistency. If we experience ourselves as moving towards grace, it is possible to dispense with the greater part of psychological wastes of energy such as blaming and excessive doubt.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
From Grunge to Intersubjectivity
All of this, for me at least, is some kind of spiralling inward towards a genuine grasp and expression of meditation. Earlier on in my life, there was more sense of ecstasy and perhaps less serenity or what feels like some degree of equanimity. I felt a particular euphoria in focusing on a sense of disembodied love connection that best seemed to fit with Rumi's ecstatic sort of poetry.
Dr. Lorna Smith Benjamin presents the perspective that psychopathology (especially so-called "personality disordering") results from an unrequited gift of love--to our parents, our God(s), our fellow human beings, etc. I find that my own patterns of unhelpful, uncreative habituations seems to follow that sort of blueprint. Although this is a very deep point, it is not necessarily all that subtle if you think about it. How many unhappy people create unhappiness in their own lives and with those around them because they do not feel adequately loved and loving? If you feel loved and loving, do you want more fame/power/money or would you rather sink into that loving as a sensual, intimate, delicate indulgence in and expression of the beauty and wonder of life?
There's a lot of energy or power or whatever you want to call it in that spiritual-disembodied affirmation of love and a lot of the same in the negative feeling and habituation of unrequited love. Depending on what we are able to feel and express, we either project more of a shadow (echoes of unrequited love) or a halo (emanations of affirmation). And other people respond to what we project, what we bring to their lives. Feel the love?
Ajahn Chah gave the metaphor of meditation as being like sitting quietly by a still forest pool at night. If you are quiet and still enough with your mind, animals will come out of the dark forest to refresh themselves at the pool. If you are loud or startle them with crashing around, movements, expressed dissatisfaction, you disturb their "wa"--their inner settledness--and they run away if you even get to see them at all. The same is the case when we are unable or unwilling to leave the the confines of a solid self-identity; we never see what is out there in the rest of that universe. In responding to others, most of us feel the value in the wildness and delicacy of connection with the aspects of ourselves and our universe.
That delicacy challenges the primacy or importance of what we project while responding directly to what we (ourselves) and others both feel and project. Besides the positive or negative feelings, there is a degree of stillness and subtlety that can lend towards serenity. And there is a well of energy in which we can feel stillness running infinitely deep. Things change when we begin to experience ourselves as one (or perhaps as many) of those wild forest animals that returns to this pool. In regards to love, feeling this wildness in your soul can bring us also in touch with intensity from a different direction.
Most folks are used to feeling intensity as pressure or as a rush. For those who can get in touch with their own potent-and-delicate wildness, it's possible to begin feeling that intensity comes from that still pool, that infinite-living reservoir of energy that is life itself. When that happens, we start to register pressure as extra or unnecessary, as karma, samsara, judgement, punishment, whatever. Pressure as pressure pushes us into that shadow which follows each of us always.
Peace or serenity or that pool of stillness-as-intensity, on the other hand, opens up the possibility of relating without pressures. Rather than trying to push towards whatever we might feel as good or--as Ken Kesey said, fighting/leaning against evil--we live (in Rumi's words) "in a field beyond right and wrong", gone beyond, parasamgate. Rather than carving out a space for self-identity, rather than being in this world but not of this world, rather than being spirits in a material world (sure, I grew up listening to the Police), we live in and of and as and with the universe as pluribus and unum. In Zen, it is asked, "If the many return to the One, to what does the One return?" I have described meditation as the willingness to return. It's not that the animals or spirits of the forest live only in and of the still pool, but they return. And you know why they return. I'll sometimes refuse to meet you somewhere other than there. Even when you don't KNOW why, you feel it.
Dr. Lorna Smith Benjamin presents the perspective that psychopathology (especially so-called "personality disordering") results from an unrequited gift of love--to our parents, our God(s), our fellow human beings, etc. I find that my own patterns of unhelpful, uncreative habituations seems to follow that sort of blueprint. Although this is a very deep point, it is not necessarily all that subtle if you think about it. How many unhappy people create unhappiness in their own lives and with those around them because they do not feel adequately loved and loving? If you feel loved and loving, do you want more fame/power/money or would you rather sink into that loving as a sensual, intimate, delicate indulgence in and expression of the beauty and wonder of life?
There's a lot of energy or power or whatever you want to call it in that spiritual-disembodied affirmation of love and a lot of the same in the negative feeling and habituation of unrequited love. Depending on what we are able to feel and express, we either project more of a shadow (echoes of unrequited love) or a halo (emanations of affirmation). And other people respond to what we project, what we bring to their lives. Feel the love?
Ajahn Chah gave the metaphor of meditation as being like sitting quietly by a still forest pool at night. If you are quiet and still enough with your mind, animals will come out of the dark forest to refresh themselves at the pool. If you are loud or startle them with crashing around, movements, expressed dissatisfaction, you disturb their "wa"--their inner settledness--and they run away if you even get to see them at all. The same is the case when we are unable or unwilling to leave the the confines of a solid self-identity; we never see what is out there in the rest of that universe. In responding to others, most of us feel the value in the wildness and delicacy of connection with the aspects of ourselves and our universe.
That delicacy challenges the primacy or importance of what we project while responding directly to what we (ourselves) and others both feel and project. Besides the positive or negative feelings, there is a degree of stillness and subtlety that can lend towards serenity. And there is a well of energy in which we can feel stillness running infinitely deep. Things change when we begin to experience ourselves as one (or perhaps as many) of those wild forest animals that returns to this pool. In regards to love, feeling this wildness in your soul can bring us also in touch with intensity from a different direction.
Most folks are used to feeling intensity as pressure or as a rush. For those who can get in touch with their own potent-and-delicate wildness, it's possible to begin feeling that intensity comes from that still pool, that infinite-living reservoir of energy that is life itself. When that happens, we start to register pressure as extra or unnecessary, as karma, samsara, judgement, punishment, whatever. Pressure as pressure pushes us into that shadow which follows each of us always.
Peace or serenity or that pool of stillness-as-intensity, on the other hand, opens up the possibility of relating without pressures. Rather than trying to push towards whatever we might feel as good or--as Ken Kesey said, fighting/leaning against evil--we live (in Rumi's words) "in a field beyond right and wrong", gone beyond, parasamgate. Rather than carving out a space for self-identity, rather than being in this world but not of this world, rather than being spirits in a material world (sure, I grew up listening to the Police), we live in and of and as and with the universe as pluribus and unum. In Zen, it is asked, "If the many return to the One, to what does the One return?" I have described meditation as the willingness to return. It's not that the animals or spirits of the forest live only in and of the still pool, but they return. And you know why they return. I'll sometimes refuse to meet you somewhere other than there. Even when you don't KNOW why, you feel it.
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