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.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
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.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Somewhere, uh, Musically, Beyond Grunge: II
How do we get unstuck and in touch with our own sense of inspiration? For some people, the first step is to acknowledge feeling stuck. For others, it is to notice the moments when they do feel at least hints or flickers or whispers of inspiration and to follow those hints. If you take my walls and fluidity description, you can be very consistent in looking for cracks in the walls and looking for places where water seeps through. Earlier, I wrote about the process of PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGE. You can take ANY moment, anything you notice and choose, as a sign to begin priming for inspiration. Got despair? That's a sign that you want change. Got hope? Another sign. That sort of perspective leads to priming oneself for the actuality of change rather than letting change or inspiration remain as some idealized thing that doesn't seem to touch your life. When you start thinking of yourself as someone who wants inspiration and therefore takes anything as a sign to look for inspiration, we star flowing through a different form than the form of suffering. That attitude/perspective and the priming it allows is a beginning, but it's not the whole process.
Once you begin seeing your life circumstances and internal reactions as signs that show you as an individual who is looking for inspiration, the question moves to that of how you can begin truly engaging inspiration. There are two major ways that we can engage. The first is to hold onto our walls for as long as possible, to allow "mind" to pile up behind our walls like water piling up behind a dam. The longer we try to stay the same, the more the pressure builds. And eventually the dam breaks. That can be terrifying and exciting. Because the psychological universe is closer to how dreams work than actually facing a real flood, death is not a serious concern even if it is a fear. We--unrealistically--fear that "I" may die when the walls of my self-identity are broken. Think of how often you have felt fear in a dream. How many times has that fear-in-a-dream lead to your actual death? Fear concerning losing our self-identity's walls is like that. It is more likely to lead to us waking up than actual death. Are you curious about what is outside those walls, wondering who might be there with you when you wake up, considering walking out your front door?
So one way is a sort of "forced change" when life breaks something in us. These breaks can lead to breakthroughs or breakdowns. Since I'm not a big fan of breakdown in my own life, I tend to recommend steady change. Let a little water in or out, take the walls down piece by piece until you are certain that change is nothing to fear and can't be avoided anyway. Change is not something that happens to you; it is you. Mind moves; you cannot spiritually be leashed any more than the nature of water can be leashed, although you might pretend to be leashed or imprisoned. There is no way to actually fight the movement of time. Utilizing receptive states or moments of receptivity allows us to take change when we are most open to change--but make no mistake, change is happening to us all when we are aware of it or not. The dam may not be breaking at this moment, but water pressure is building.
Now, some of you are wondering, "In all of this talk of fluidity and universes and change, what about that fountain of youthfulness?" Let's get back to that. Inspiration is the fountain of youthfulness--pure and simple, natural. When we feel inspired, we live; when we don't, we age. Another way of describing it is to say that trying to remain small, trying to remain within the psychological walls of our chosen self-identity, cuts us off from the normal and continual replenishment that comes from exchange and flow within the entire universe of imagination in which we live. Take a moment with that idea: we live in a universe of imagination, our minds are constantly and unavoidably fed by the universe of anything-being-possible. The challenging part of that is that it means if we imagine or idealize God, part of the power in our psychological universe resides in "God". That's okay, but it means that we will want to commune with God in order to feel our power, to feel alive. The catch is that if you can imagine evil, you will have to relate to evil--you won't be able to simply set it outside your walls and keep it there forever. The pressure will build up, and nothing that men can build will last forever. The things we try to set aside are powerful, just as the things we try to draw near are powerful.
Rumi suggested dealing with everything that comes to your door as a guest. That includes external circumstances as well as our internal reactions to circumstances. What sort of mindset does it take to invite God in or accept that invitation to come out? What sort of mindset does it take to admit that evil is not only somewhere outside of my house, to admit that evil is as much within me as without?
It's been very interesting to grow up with Grunge as the most unique and defining musical influence for me, descriptive of my age cohort. (Rap may be as defining of a musical moment, but rap began earlier and seems more lasting.) I'm really enjoying Chris Cornell's solo work lately. Overall, Grunge strikes me as less resilient than the Blues. It's more of a dirge, like singing for one's own funeral. And Curt Cobain is certainly one of the defining characters whose life and music defines Grunge. But if you maintain through that Zeitgeist, if all of what goes into angst and disappointment with life and resignation doesn't break you, you come out the other side changed. And there is something to be said for Dave Grohl and Chris Cornell not only singing about hearts and butterflies. There's something real about Grunge, and something real about making a good life for your self, maybe getting married and living in France, maybe making music somewhere, uh, I guess one could say "beyond Grunge".
Once you begin seeing your life circumstances and internal reactions as signs that show you as an individual who is looking for inspiration, the question moves to that of how you can begin truly engaging inspiration. There are two major ways that we can engage. The first is to hold onto our walls for as long as possible, to allow "mind" to pile up behind our walls like water piling up behind a dam. The longer we try to stay the same, the more the pressure builds. And eventually the dam breaks. That can be terrifying and exciting. Because the psychological universe is closer to how dreams work than actually facing a real flood, death is not a serious concern even if it is a fear. We--unrealistically--fear that "I" may die when the walls of my self-identity are broken. Think of how often you have felt fear in a dream. How many times has that fear-in-a-dream lead to your actual death? Fear concerning losing our self-identity's walls is like that. It is more likely to lead to us waking up than actual death. Are you curious about what is outside those walls, wondering who might be there with you when you wake up, considering walking out your front door?
So one way is a sort of "forced change" when life breaks something in us. These breaks can lead to breakthroughs or breakdowns. Since I'm not a big fan of breakdown in my own life, I tend to recommend steady change. Let a little water in or out, take the walls down piece by piece until you are certain that change is nothing to fear and can't be avoided anyway. Change is not something that happens to you; it is you. Mind moves; you cannot spiritually be leashed any more than the nature of water can be leashed, although you might pretend to be leashed or imprisoned. There is no way to actually fight the movement of time. Utilizing receptive states or moments of receptivity allows us to take change when we are most open to change--but make no mistake, change is happening to us all when we are aware of it or not. The dam may not be breaking at this moment, but water pressure is building.
Now, some of you are wondering, "In all of this talk of fluidity and universes and change, what about that fountain of youthfulness?" Let's get back to that. Inspiration is the fountain of youthfulness--pure and simple, natural. When we feel inspired, we live; when we don't, we age. Another way of describing it is to say that trying to remain small, trying to remain within the psychological walls of our chosen self-identity, cuts us off from the normal and continual replenishment that comes from exchange and flow within the entire universe of imagination in which we live. Take a moment with that idea: we live in a universe of imagination, our minds are constantly and unavoidably fed by the universe of anything-being-possible. The challenging part of that is that it means if we imagine or idealize God, part of the power in our psychological universe resides in "God". That's okay, but it means that we will want to commune with God in order to feel our power, to feel alive. The catch is that if you can imagine evil, you will have to relate to evil--you won't be able to simply set it outside your walls and keep it there forever. The pressure will build up, and nothing that men can build will last forever. The things we try to set aside are powerful, just as the things we try to draw near are powerful.
Rumi suggested dealing with everything that comes to your door as a guest. That includes external circumstances as well as our internal reactions to circumstances. What sort of mindset does it take to invite God in or accept that invitation to come out? What sort of mindset does it take to admit that evil is not only somewhere outside of my house, to admit that evil is as much within me as without?
It's been very interesting to grow up with Grunge as the most unique and defining musical influence for me, descriptive of my age cohort. (Rap may be as defining of a musical moment, but rap began earlier and seems more lasting.) I'm really enjoying Chris Cornell's solo work lately. Overall, Grunge strikes me as less resilient than the Blues. It's more of a dirge, like singing for one's own funeral. And Curt Cobain is certainly one of the defining characters whose life and music defines Grunge. But if you maintain through that Zeitgeist, if all of what goes into angst and disappointment with life and resignation doesn't break you, you come out the other side changed. And there is something to be said for Dave Grohl and Chris Cornell not only singing about hearts and butterflies. There's something real about Grunge, and something real about making a good life for your self, maybe getting married and living in France, maybe making music somewhere, uh, I guess one could say "beyond Grunge".
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Somewhere, uh, Musically, Beyond Grunge
Creativity is the most fundamental level of subjective development in mammals--including those that walk upright. Isn't that something? Chuang Tzu woke from dreaming that he was a butterfly and wondered if he might not actually be a butterfly dreaming himself a man. We are so fundamentally creative that we can even imagine ourselves to be uncreative, uninterested, and boring. Frankly, I prefer butterfly dreams to L'Estranger, but Camus certainly did have his moments.
For most adults I've met, disinterest is a bigger problem than an excess of wonderment. Most of them rarely ask why it is this way. We're a little TOO certain that we are not the multi-colored living art fluttering by, living on sunshine and kisses. (Luckily for me, I'm dating a butterfly.)
I've addressed in other places why creativity is fundamental to mammalian life. That leaves the questions--if we are fundamentally creative--then how do we come to see ourselves otherwise and what do we do about it all anyway? How we get this way is a sad story and I feel too celebratory today to tell it, although it is a good story. The "what can we do about it" part is a good story too.
WHAT CAN BE DONE? We probably all know people who blithely or beautifully respond, "Dance, sing, love." And many of us tack onto that a, "...for tomorrow we die." (I guess I'm letting some of my internal Eyor show.) There is something to be said about being stuck here, something to be said for being there (dancing, singing, fluttering, etc.), and something to be done about getting unstuck in order to allow our inherent singing out. (You know you like hearing Elton John's "Tiny Dancer".)
One of the first things to realize is that the fountain of youthfulness (because a Fountain of Youth is just a fairy tale) is not a triple espresso, an adrenaline rush, a hot affair, or a vacation away from anything. Youthful creativity--vitality--comes from living, never from avoiding the actual circumstances of one's life. The struggle is only about recognizing creative playfulness as the most fundamental aspect of who we are and being able to touch and express it. I'll leave how you're going to express it to you, and--at the risk of seeming the frotteur--stick, for now, with the touching part. Once we find out how to get in touch with that aspect of ourselves, that aspect becomes more interesting, fun, and convincing than any explanation of why creativity is fundamental. So I like hows, how it happens.
A friend of mine recently sent a link to the Mental Bank self-hypnosis site. In the introductory 2-hour talk, the speaker emphasizes the importance of entering a suggestible state and then utilizing that state by including goal-directed affirmations and structured measurement of progress towards specific goals. The program itself is not really exciting but it may be effective, and if it is, the results can be exciting. Part of this speaker's point is that one naturally enters a relatively suggestible or receptive state in the last half-hour or so before falling asleep. By utilizing this time, we don't need someone else to implant suggestions for us, we don't need to try any extreme cultish groups or techniques, and we can essentially--with no special skills--begin to interact with our ongoing unconscious flow.
This idea of utilizing more receptive states holds a lot of promise. Dream yoga is a somewhat more intense or radical way of interacting with one's streaming subconscious. We find something similar in being part of a crowd that we are moved by, aroused physical states (in which the arousal is above average but not so intense as to overcome intention and memory), relaxed states, novel situations in which we don't feel threatened, etc. Basically, if we aren't just acting habitually within our comfort zone, something interesting happens; we let the wonder in. Rhythm can set us up to be receptive, narrative, art, you name it.
Part of what amazes me is that anything that you can imagine is part of your subconscious subjective universe. That's a lot of stuff. Based on personal choices and social pressures, we create a sense of how we want to be and try to carve out part of that universe as "who we are". And then, in order to maintain that construction/facade/self-image, we have to build psychological resistance-walls against all of the material in our imaginative universes that is "not me". Is the man "not-Chuang-Tzu" or is the butterfly "not-him"? In this conscious construction, every thing or form has its foil, its opposite. When we identify with our conscious constructions to the exclusion of the rest of our imaginative universe, we give up our psychological power, we decide that all of that creativity is "not me". Interesting, neh?
The trouble with that set-up is that the conscious construction is only a small part of the bigger universe. The more exclusive our psychological walls are, the less fluid can we be, the more we have painted our selves into a corner. We might, then, invest a great deal of energy in maintaining our walls. There is a very interesting psychological law that is similar to time. Time always moves; you can never step in the same river twice, as Heraclitus put it. Dreams are a great example of how this psychological fluidity works. Timothy Leary got high on LSD's ability to open up conscious access to this "fluidity". Artists search for moments in which they can bring a degree of fluidity to their craft and mix it with some sort of excellence. So what happens when we believe in solid walls? Napoleon comes along and kicks our ass or Hitler blows through the Maginot line; life moves beyond our walls and eventually moves US beyond our walls. We end up investing increasing amounts of energy into maintaining certain forms and denying others, and since it is the nature of mind to move, any form that we want to maintain takes a great deal of effort. Like trying to fight the flow of a river. Only you are trying to fight the flow of your own mind, of your psychological universe. Then we look around and wonder why we feel tired, why we don't feel creative. It's mostly because we've decided to keep investing in stability when that is an interesting idea that has little bearing on the way minds actually work. Mind moves.
For most adults I've met, disinterest is a bigger problem than an excess of wonderment. Most of them rarely ask why it is this way. We're a little TOO certain that we are not the multi-colored living art fluttering by, living on sunshine and kisses. (Luckily for me, I'm dating a butterfly.)
I've addressed in other places why creativity is fundamental to mammalian life. That leaves the questions--if we are fundamentally creative--then how do we come to see ourselves otherwise and what do we do about it all anyway? How we get this way is a sad story and I feel too celebratory today to tell it, although it is a good story. The "what can we do about it" part is a good story too.
WHAT CAN BE DONE? We probably all know people who blithely or beautifully respond, "Dance, sing, love." And many of us tack onto that a, "...for tomorrow we die." (I guess I'm letting some of my internal Eyor show.) There is something to be said about being stuck here, something to be said for being there (dancing, singing, fluttering, etc.), and something to be done about getting unstuck in order to allow our inherent singing out. (You know you like hearing Elton John's "Tiny Dancer".)
One of the first things to realize is that the fountain of youthfulness (because a Fountain of Youth is just a fairy tale) is not a triple espresso, an adrenaline rush, a hot affair, or a vacation away from anything. Youthful creativity--vitality--comes from living, never from avoiding the actual circumstances of one's life. The struggle is only about recognizing creative playfulness as the most fundamental aspect of who we are and being able to touch and express it. I'll leave how you're going to express it to you, and--at the risk of seeming the frotteur--stick, for now, with the touching part. Once we find out how to get in touch with that aspect of ourselves, that aspect becomes more interesting, fun, and convincing than any explanation of why creativity is fundamental. So I like hows, how it happens.
A friend of mine recently sent a link to the Mental Bank self-hypnosis site. In the introductory 2-hour talk, the speaker emphasizes the importance of entering a suggestible state and then utilizing that state by including goal-directed affirmations and structured measurement of progress towards specific goals. The program itself is not really exciting but it may be effective, and if it is, the results can be exciting. Part of this speaker's point is that one naturally enters a relatively suggestible or receptive state in the last half-hour or so before falling asleep. By utilizing this time, we don't need someone else to implant suggestions for us, we don't need to try any extreme cultish groups or techniques, and we can essentially--with no special skills--begin to interact with our ongoing unconscious flow.
This idea of utilizing more receptive states holds a lot of promise. Dream yoga is a somewhat more intense or radical way of interacting with one's streaming subconscious. We find something similar in being part of a crowd that we are moved by, aroused physical states (in which the arousal is above average but not so intense as to overcome intention and memory), relaxed states, novel situations in which we don't feel threatened, etc. Basically, if we aren't just acting habitually within our comfort zone, something interesting happens; we let the wonder in. Rhythm can set us up to be receptive, narrative, art, you name it.
Part of what amazes me is that anything that you can imagine is part of your subconscious subjective universe. That's a lot of stuff. Based on personal choices and social pressures, we create a sense of how we want to be and try to carve out part of that universe as "who we are". And then, in order to maintain that construction/facade/self-image, we have to build psychological resistance-walls against all of the material in our imaginative universes that is "not me". Is the man "not-Chuang-Tzu" or is the butterfly "not-him"? In this conscious construction, every thing or form has its foil, its opposite. When we identify with our conscious constructions to the exclusion of the rest of our imaginative universe, we give up our psychological power, we decide that all of that creativity is "not me". Interesting, neh?
The trouble with that set-up is that the conscious construction is only a small part of the bigger universe. The more exclusive our psychological walls are, the less fluid can we be, the more we have painted our selves into a corner. We might, then, invest a great deal of energy in maintaining our walls. There is a very interesting psychological law that is similar to time. Time always moves; you can never step in the same river twice, as Heraclitus put it. Dreams are a great example of how this psychological fluidity works. Timothy Leary got high on LSD's ability to open up conscious access to this "fluidity". Artists search for moments in which they can bring a degree of fluidity to their craft and mix it with some sort of excellence. So what happens when we believe in solid walls? Napoleon comes along and kicks our ass or Hitler blows through the Maginot line; life moves beyond our walls and eventually moves US beyond our walls. We end up investing increasing amounts of energy into maintaining certain forms and denying others, and since it is the nature of mind to move, any form that we want to maintain takes a great deal of effort. Like trying to fight the flow of a river. Only you are trying to fight the flow of your own mind, of your psychological universe. Then we look around and wonder why we feel tired, why we don't feel creative. It's mostly because we've decided to keep investing in stability when that is an interesting idea that has little bearing on the way minds actually work. Mind moves.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Psychological Correlates to Stages in Therapy
When I was finishing my master's program in counseling psychology, I was shocked at how few therapists felt solid with their ability to address traumatization. The state and nonprofit agencies that hire counseling and social work masters tend to focus on addictions and family treatments. These lend themselves to operational systematization to some extent. But even though we were encouraged to choose--drugs or families--it seemed to me that traumatization was fundamental to both types of problems as well as depression and anxiety (the most common complaints seen at outpatient clinics). While interning at the local Veteran's Administration hospital, I asked my supervisor what percentage of therapists he'd guess were capable of addressing trauma. He estimated 1:7.
Wow. An entire field devoted to the study of human psychology yet avoidant (the other 6:7) of the most basic problem in human psychology. What's more, as inexperienced interns, most of us were thrown into crisis situations we were not prepared for--situations that were difficult enough that our elders in the field generally avoided whenever they could. They didn't teach much crisis management in our program because that was just case management--social work--not insight therapy per se. Clients in crisis were deemed not appropriate for insight therapy (because they were struggling with intense day-to-days). What's more, many clients were deemed "resistant" to conversation about feelings when they tried to insist on addressing more external issues like paying the rent and coming up with enough gas money to get their kids to school. Inappropriate and resistant because of crisis.
Anyway, it seems helpful to me to see a few different stages in therapy and recognize psychological responses that seem appropriate to the varying situations. The stage that is often most intense and potentially harmful is crisis management. This occurs when people are concerned about making it through the night, through the weekend, through the next encounter with their spouse. When I'm in crisis mode, it's back-to-the-wall time. You're basically in a fragile situation where desperate times may call for desperate measures. Desperate thinking in these situations may not be most helpful, but it is certainly normal. Crises can make people feel crazy or fragmented even though they aren't necessarily crazy. Crisis management was most lacking in my education and traumatization during crises often results when they are not handled well. (Our field has struggled to come up with an agreed-upon definition of "resilience" partially due to not differentiating some of these stages and psychological responses clearly.) If you survive crisis, that is all that can really be expected. Insight therapy is generally inappropriate to crises.
At the next stage, we are dealing with case management--making sure that the physical needs can be met on a regular basis. So in crisis management, you may be trying to find some place to sleep tonight. With case management, you are looking for finding a place to sleep on a consistent basis. Desperation is not called for at this point (but can result from unrealistic expectations or prior traumatization). This is part of where Americans are generally spoiled rather than tough. We think of these situations as crises when they are not. Durability is called for, mental toughness, grit, persistence, whatever you want to call it. This grit is the same thing that many therapists consider to be resistance in insight therapy. Low income-clients (myself included in this economic class) are often deemed inappropriate or resistant because they tend to be insistent that what they need more than a focus on their emotional state is a consistent job, place to live, source of income and therefore food, etc. Farmers and blue-collar workers need to make grit part of their personalities, something they bring to work every day, and it is inappropriate to consider that grit to be inappropriately resistant or antisocial. At this stage, we are not even dealing with emotional resilience yet. We are hammering in mental toughness, tempering one's will and character for difficulty.
Between these two stages, we begin to differentiate between definitions of resilience. One common definition focuses on the ability to handle adversity without being traumatized. Another common definition focuses on the ability to handle adversity and come out stronger, better, healthy, whole, etc. Because this differentiation already exists, I'll call the first durability and the second resilience. By this definition of resilience, there is a certain "spring" to one's emotional response, a healthy tension and room for healthy shifts in emotions as one's situation changes. This is different from--but may coincide with--a consistent toughness that may have little "spring" to it. Some people are tough but not optimistic, and I'll call them durable; they may or may not be "resilient" as it is often meant in psychology circles. We can see where an attitude of opportunism may look like resilience from one angle and it may look like idealism from a more "realistic" angle, depending on circumstances. Looking for opportunity often goes with a positive affective tone, so opportunism may be mistaken for resilience, and a lack of opportunism may be mistaken for "resistance" or lack of resilience. Generally, then, opportunism and apparent resilience will correlate, but caution should not be mistaken for a lack of resilience.
Beyond case management, once clients are in a stable economic and relatively stable emotional setting, we can start talking about therapy with a focus on insight. There is a shift away from survival and continuity towards optimization of experience. Many therapists would like to ignore the first two stages, and while it is fine for many to focus on insight therapy, it would be helpful to interns and clients in case management or crisis management situation for those in the field to learn the whole continuum. With insight therapy, we're mostly focused on sensitization of emotional awareness, reducing reactivity, improving communications and connection, and enriching experience. Mindfulness will be helpful for achieving some of these goals, but most clients do not take up consistent meditation at this point.
When we speak of optimization of psychological experience, regardless of whether one is more internally or externally focused, we are talking about moving from competence to expertise in being able to structure one's life and psyche so as to achieve consistent flow. Affluence and professional expertise help set the context for optimization, but adversity will also bring out the best in some individuals. This is another class that helps define another unique definition of resilience. There are a rare number of individuals who are something like "adversity superstars". These folks need more pressure than most to perform at their peak. We recognize them when they grow up in, or find for themselves, situations that are demanding enough to draw out their best. They are analogous to athletes who perform best in the big games in that they may do very well under great duress; they may also be under-stimulated and perform poorly without it.
But other than the adversity superstars, most of us will look our best (feel it too) within a supportive context. We will want enough challenge but not too much. And besides challenge, we will mostly look for physical, emotional, and social comfort. The right physical and social situations will support that pursuit of optimization or flow. (And flow is the general point of most of the rest of this blog.)
So rather than having some definition of resilience that lacks contextualization, we can say that there are different types of contexts that make wildly varying psychological responses "reasonable". At worst, it is a do-whatever-it-takes mentality during crises; this can look crazy to outsiders. Up one step, durability can look like stubborness, cynicism, antisocial behavior, and an avoidance of emotionality. It is--evolutionarily--a luxury to get to the point of economic and emotional stability and resilience. And beyond that, optimization of experience takes a different type of expertise than simple emotional awareness and normal communicational effectiveness. Trying to introduce emotional resilience in a crisis may not be effective, just as trying to introduce optimization to a couple that just wants to be able to communicate with one another may not take hold.
Wow. An entire field devoted to the study of human psychology yet avoidant (the other 6:7) of the most basic problem in human psychology. What's more, as inexperienced interns, most of us were thrown into crisis situations we were not prepared for--situations that were difficult enough that our elders in the field generally avoided whenever they could. They didn't teach much crisis management in our program because that was just case management--social work--not insight therapy per se. Clients in crisis were deemed not appropriate for insight therapy (because they were struggling with intense day-to-days). What's more, many clients were deemed "resistant" to conversation about feelings when they tried to insist on addressing more external issues like paying the rent and coming up with enough gas money to get their kids to school. Inappropriate and resistant because of crisis.
Anyway, it seems helpful to me to see a few different stages in therapy and recognize psychological responses that seem appropriate to the varying situations. The stage that is often most intense and potentially harmful is crisis management. This occurs when people are concerned about making it through the night, through the weekend, through the next encounter with their spouse. When I'm in crisis mode, it's back-to-the-wall time. You're basically in a fragile situation where desperate times may call for desperate measures. Desperate thinking in these situations may not be most helpful, but it is certainly normal. Crises can make people feel crazy or fragmented even though they aren't necessarily crazy. Crisis management was most lacking in my education and traumatization during crises often results when they are not handled well. (Our field has struggled to come up with an agreed-upon definition of "resilience" partially due to not differentiating some of these stages and psychological responses clearly.) If you survive crisis, that is all that can really be expected. Insight therapy is generally inappropriate to crises.
At the next stage, we are dealing with case management--making sure that the physical needs can be met on a regular basis. So in crisis management, you may be trying to find some place to sleep tonight. With case management, you are looking for finding a place to sleep on a consistent basis. Desperation is not called for at this point (but can result from unrealistic expectations or prior traumatization). This is part of where Americans are generally spoiled rather than tough. We think of these situations as crises when they are not. Durability is called for, mental toughness, grit, persistence, whatever you want to call it. This grit is the same thing that many therapists consider to be resistance in insight therapy. Low income-clients (myself included in this economic class) are often deemed inappropriate or resistant because they tend to be insistent that what they need more than a focus on their emotional state is a consistent job, place to live, source of income and therefore food, etc. Farmers and blue-collar workers need to make grit part of their personalities, something they bring to work every day, and it is inappropriate to consider that grit to be inappropriately resistant or antisocial. At this stage, we are not even dealing with emotional resilience yet. We are hammering in mental toughness, tempering one's will and character for difficulty.
Between these two stages, we begin to differentiate between definitions of resilience. One common definition focuses on the ability to handle adversity without being traumatized. Another common definition focuses on the ability to handle adversity and come out stronger, better, healthy, whole, etc. Because this differentiation already exists, I'll call the first durability and the second resilience. By this definition of resilience, there is a certain "spring" to one's emotional response, a healthy tension and room for healthy shifts in emotions as one's situation changes. This is different from--but may coincide with--a consistent toughness that may have little "spring" to it. Some people are tough but not optimistic, and I'll call them durable; they may or may not be "resilient" as it is often meant in psychology circles. We can see where an attitude of opportunism may look like resilience from one angle and it may look like idealism from a more "realistic" angle, depending on circumstances. Looking for opportunity often goes with a positive affective tone, so opportunism may be mistaken for resilience, and a lack of opportunism may be mistaken for "resistance" or lack of resilience. Generally, then, opportunism and apparent resilience will correlate, but caution should not be mistaken for a lack of resilience.
Beyond case management, once clients are in a stable economic and relatively stable emotional setting, we can start talking about therapy with a focus on insight. There is a shift away from survival and continuity towards optimization of experience. Many therapists would like to ignore the first two stages, and while it is fine for many to focus on insight therapy, it would be helpful to interns and clients in case management or crisis management situation for those in the field to learn the whole continuum. With insight therapy, we're mostly focused on sensitization of emotional awareness, reducing reactivity, improving communications and connection, and enriching experience. Mindfulness will be helpful for achieving some of these goals, but most clients do not take up consistent meditation at this point.
When we speak of optimization of psychological experience, regardless of whether one is more internally or externally focused, we are talking about moving from competence to expertise in being able to structure one's life and psyche so as to achieve consistent flow. Affluence and professional expertise help set the context for optimization, but adversity will also bring out the best in some individuals. This is another class that helps define another unique definition of resilience. There are a rare number of individuals who are something like "adversity superstars". These folks need more pressure than most to perform at their peak. We recognize them when they grow up in, or find for themselves, situations that are demanding enough to draw out their best. They are analogous to athletes who perform best in the big games in that they may do very well under great duress; they may also be under-stimulated and perform poorly without it.
But other than the adversity superstars, most of us will look our best (feel it too) within a supportive context. We will want enough challenge but not too much. And besides challenge, we will mostly look for physical, emotional, and social comfort. The right physical and social situations will support that pursuit of optimization or flow. (And flow is the general point of most of the rest of this blog.)
So rather than having some definition of resilience that lacks contextualization, we can say that there are different types of contexts that make wildly varying psychological responses "reasonable". At worst, it is a do-whatever-it-takes mentality during crises; this can look crazy to outsiders. Up one step, durability can look like stubborness, cynicism, antisocial behavior, and an avoidance of emotionality. It is--evolutionarily--a luxury to get to the point of economic and emotional stability and resilience. And beyond that, optimization of experience takes a different type of expertise than simple emotional awareness and normal communicational effectiveness. Trying to introduce emotional resilience in a crisis may not be effective, just as trying to introduce optimization to a couple that just wants to be able to communicate with one another may not take hold.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Going Clear
In his book THE WISDOM PARADOX, Elkhonon Goldberg states that sometimes you have to make things more complicated before finding the simple way through, before finding the inherent simplicity. For me, life has been about finding some simple, apparently irreducible something. And while Joseph Campbell talked about "following your bliss", i would say I have more followed my silence.
Life, people, and all the confused motivational stirrings have tended to strike me as unnecessarily noisy. Psychologically, and socially, people most often strike me as murky. And experiencing one's critique of life, people, oneself as primarily aesthetic, ethics and any moral sort of high ground have seemed less unreachable and more irrelevant to me. When one looks for simplicity, the complications that come from acting unethically most often make those options seem about as palatable as eating your own refuse, which is essentially what is happening in such a case. Many people feel like they get strong by feeding themselves on their own shit, and they do in a certain way, but it also maintains unhappiness...seemingly categorically. Consumerism of planned obsolescent "goods" is an obvious example of eating our own shit; for a while, we had the strongest economy that could be built on shit and we are starting to face the effects. Garbage in, garbage out as they say.
In this interest of finding silence or simplicity, meditation once seemed like a fruitful path. After years of studying all kinds of methods, techniques, and research, I have found myself wanting to divest myself of the excess cultural baggage that can come along with the pursuit of meditation, silence, simplicity, personal peacefulness. I think it is possible, and perhaps valuable for someone else as well, to strip away the majority of accoutrements. The medium is the message. It looks to me that there are two ideas that are helpful and necessary in finding clarity. Everyone's path, and therefore method, of finding clarity is unique; whatever anyone might do with clarity is also unique. Having too much extra baggage seems to only slow us down in getting there.
The first idea is that meditation is the willingness to return. No one can tell you what it is a willingness to return to and have the telling be an actual return. So if you think of meditation as balance, you can always ask yourself what would return you to balance. Sometimes rest returns me to balance, sometimes humor, etc. When we get used to the idea that it can be almost anything, depending on the situation and our current state of mind, we can begin to look for what that thing is in any given moment. And of course, we can learn from and share with others. (Sometimes communion is what returns me to balance.)
The second idea is one that describes balance. I find that it is helpful to think of six points, each one connected to one other, making a sort of line. The front/back directions/line involve whatever might be seen/felt as going forward or going back. So one part of balance involves moving forward enough, moving back enough, and being able to be still enough. When we're off-balance forward, we're too aggressive or needy of something. When we're off-balance backward, we're fearful or depressed, feeling victimized rather than competent. The second pair of points involves the up/down directional. At the base lies play and creativity, abiding consciousness is at the top, and there is a full range in between. Many theorists, teachers, and systems have presented this sort of spectrum. When, in any given moment, I'm responding from too low on the spectrum, I will be missing the big picture in some way, acting too immaturely or too impulsively or too bluntly. When I'm responding from too high, I'll seem to be stretching, seem preachy, come across as too conceptual or irrelevant by showing up with something that may be subtle but not effective. And the left/right points involve tight focus (like self-focus) or open awareness. When I'm too focused on one thing, I'll have trouble appreciating the overall situation. When I'm too focused on many things, I'll be distracted and uncertain, finding it hard to make decisions that seem to work.
The actual "point" of psychological balance is so small it isn't there; it's precise as a needle that reaches a point of nothingness. Because my mind and my situation always move, the point is always somewhere but never fixed. The more I intend to find that point and move to as well as "from" that point rather than something noisier or murkier, the more affinity or resonance I have with it, the more balanced I feel and act. When I am willing to do what it takes to return, whether I am moving or relatively still, the more I feel balanced, the more life seems clear, the more meditation seems to arise on its own. I stop feeding the imbalance that feeds on itself.
Two ideas. Balance and the willingness to return to balance.
Life, people, and all the confused motivational stirrings have tended to strike me as unnecessarily noisy. Psychologically, and socially, people most often strike me as murky. And experiencing one's critique of life, people, oneself as primarily aesthetic, ethics and any moral sort of high ground have seemed less unreachable and more irrelevant to me. When one looks for simplicity, the complications that come from acting unethically most often make those options seem about as palatable as eating your own refuse, which is essentially what is happening in such a case. Many people feel like they get strong by feeding themselves on their own shit, and they do in a certain way, but it also maintains unhappiness...seemingly categorically. Consumerism of planned obsolescent "goods" is an obvious example of eating our own shit; for a while, we had the strongest economy that could be built on shit and we are starting to face the effects. Garbage in, garbage out as they say.
In this interest of finding silence or simplicity, meditation once seemed like a fruitful path. After years of studying all kinds of methods, techniques, and research, I have found myself wanting to divest myself of the excess cultural baggage that can come along with the pursuit of meditation, silence, simplicity, personal peacefulness. I think it is possible, and perhaps valuable for someone else as well, to strip away the majority of accoutrements. The medium is the message. It looks to me that there are two ideas that are helpful and necessary in finding clarity. Everyone's path, and therefore method, of finding clarity is unique; whatever anyone might do with clarity is also unique. Having too much extra baggage seems to only slow us down in getting there.
The first idea is that meditation is the willingness to return. No one can tell you what it is a willingness to return to and have the telling be an actual return. So if you think of meditation as balance, you can always ask yourself what would return you to balance. Sometimes rest returns me to balance, sometimes humor, etc. When we get used to the idea that it can be almost anything, depending on the situation and our current state of mind, we can begin to look for what that thing is in any given moment. And of course, we can learn from and share with others. (Sometimes communion is what returns me to balance.)
The second idea is one that describes balance. I find that it is helpful to think of six points, each one connected to one other, making a sort of line. The front/back directions/line involve whatever might be seen/felt as going forward or going back. So one part of balance involves moving forward enough, moving back enough, and being able to be still enough. When we're off-balance forward, we're too aggressive or needy of something. When we're off-balance backward, we're fearful or depressed, feeling victimized rather than competent. The second pair of points involves the up/down directional. At the base lies play and creativity, abiding consciousness is at the top, and there is a full range in between. Many theorists, teachers, and systems have presented this sort of spectrum. When, in any given moment, I'm responding from too low on the spectrum, I will be missing the big picture in some way, acting too immaturely or too impulsively or too bluntly. When I'm responding from too high, I'll seem to be stretching, seem preachy, come across as too conceptual or irrelevant by showing up with something that may be subtle but not effective. And the left/right points involve tight focus (like self-focus) or open awareness. When I'm too focused on one thing, I'll have trouble appreciating the overall situation. When I'm too focused on many things, I'll be distracted and uncertain, finding it hard to make decisions that seem to work.
The actual "point" of psychological balance is so small it isn't there; it's precise as a needle that reaches a point of nothingness. Because my mind and my situation always move, the point is always somewhere but never fixed. The more I intend to find that point and move to as well as "from" that point rather than something noisier or murkier, the more affinity or resonance I have with it, the more balanced I feel and act. When I am willing to do what it takes to return, whether I am moving or relatively still, the more I feel balanced, the more life seems clear, the more meditation seems to arise on its own. I stop feeding the imbalance that feeds on itself.
Two ideas. Balance and the willingness to return to balance.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Koans and the Matrix
In continuing to work on descriptions of balance and Clarity, an interesting thought experiment developed in an imagined conversation. Also playing in was a koan that I've carried around for a few years. With koans like this one, the ones that have struck a chord without bringing any more particular response from me, I have often circled around them, coming to different interpretations and points of insight. The more you get to know certain koans, the more you get out of them.
The one I'm speaking of struck me as fairly brief, as if there were one point to it, although that single point seems to mean different things depending on how you relate to it. "Standing at the top of a hundred-foot pole, what is your next step?" It is something like that. In relation to trying to describe six points of psychological balance, my next conceptual step with this koan is to remove the pole. This sort of process is like following the trajectory of an arrow. First there is a hundred-foot pole and the impossibility of taking a next step. Then there is no pole. Next, no you. So no one, and what's more, standing at the top of nothing.
This begs the question, is there a next step? (And I'm assuming that, if you could actually focus in on the koan enough to include only the pole, the hundred feet, and your next step, then the world around your predicament is already out of focus enough to consider it so insignificant that it was already as if the world wasn't there back when you were facing the dilemma of which next step to take. And, since there are lots of ways to relate to this koan, feel free to pick it up and see what happens for you that might be different than this description from me.)
Everything that you could possibly bring up around/within this spaciousness is your associational matrix. Being able to return to or rest in this spaciousness is what I would consider to be the quintessential experience at the level of Clarity. Being unencumbered by anything and yet taking some step gives rise to the feelings of inspiration and engagement. There being no need for "you" here opens one's self to the experience/reality of anatta. And this place or point may help one see what Dogen might have meant at times by "thinking nonthinking" or imagining nonimagining. Everything other than this spaciousness involves imagining, and imagining this spaciousness without adding more content from one's associational matrix is imagining nonimagining.
From right here where nothing is excluded a priori because no a priori thinking exists here, what step is not possible? While that question may be interesting in some way, the full-bodied answer to, "What is your next step?," is so much more fascinating. While we don't always think of this sort of spaciousness, it is as if this question is constantly posed and as if everything we do is our answer. Whether you ask yourself the question or not, we are watching and interacting with how you answer. Because everything comes "through" this no-self spaciousness, nothing that any of us do is not our true selves.
There is one single quality-feeling that encompasses all of what is written here, and that quality is exemplary of Clarity, included in inspiration. (With whom was the conversation that sparked this in me?)
The one I'm speaking of struck me as fairly brief, as if there were one point to it, although that single point seems to mean different things depending on how you relate to it. "Standing at the top of a hundred-foot pole, what is your next step?" It is something like that. In relation to trying to describe six points of psychological balance, my next conceptual step with this koan is to remove the pole. This sort of process is like following the trajectory of an arrow. First there is a hundred-foot pole and the impossibility of taking a next step. Then there is no pole. Next, no you. So no one, and what's more, standing at the top of nothing.
This begs the question, is there a next step? (And I'm assuming that, if you could actually focus in on the koan enough to include only the pole, the hundred feet, and your next step, then the world around your predicament is already out of focus enough to consider it so insignificant that it was already as if the world wasn't there back when you were facing the dilemma of which next step to take. And, since there are lots of ways to relate to this koan, feel free to pick it up and see what happens for you that might be different than this description from me.)
Everything that you could possibly bring up around/within this spaciousness is your associational matrix. Being able to return to or rest in this spaciousness is what I would consider to be the quintessential experience at the level of Clarity. Being unencumbered by anything and yet taking some step gives rise to the feelings of inspiration and engagement. There being no need for "you" here opens one's self to the experience/reality of anatta. And this place or point may help one see what Dogen might have meant at times by "thinking nonthinking" or imagining nonimagining. Everything other than this spaciousness involves imagining, and imagining this spaciousness without adding more content from one's associational matrix is imagining nonimagining.
From right here where nothing is excluded a priori because no a priori thinking exists here, what step is not possible? While that question may be interesting in some way, the full-bodied answer to, "What is your next step?," is so much more fascinating. While we don't always think of this sort of spaciousness, it is as if this question is constantly posed and as if everything we do is our answer. Whether you ask yourself the question or not, we are watching and interacting with how you answer. Because everything comes "through" this no-self spaciousness, nothing that any of us do is not our true selves.
There is one single quality-feeling that encompasses all of what is written here, and that quality is exemplary of Clarity, included in inspiration. (With whom was the conversation that sparked this in me?)
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