Differences - Inside & Outside

This is a challenging question, Chris. I like it.

What has changed the most is how I relate to just about everything: thoughts, feelings, friends and family, difficulties, pleasures, successes, failures - the whole shebang.

I am now more open to experience, and I have more options for how to respond to any- and everything that comes up. The newly available choices came through a direct observation and participation of life, paying attention to how things work, and experimenting with other options.

I guess I could say I now have more relative autonomy with regard to how I respond to the world, and thus how I experience the world. This makes my life better.

Succinctly, I'd say that I spend about about 90-something percent less time floundering in doubt and dread and figuring out how to blend in with the woodwork. For the last several years, my favorite movie to recall is Stage Beauty-- probably not a reference for anyone else here [but you never know]. Its leitmotif, said in turns by various people in the story is, "Surprise me!" It's about conventions-- in acting, in gender representation, and the ups-and-downs of 'outrageous fortune' in the 17th or 18th century English drama world. And it's about transcending conventions.

For people less congenitally worried about survival than I've spent my life being, this may not be any kind of big deal. But for me, it's huge.

Sort of like Kate said I think, the miracle is that I used to spend about 99% of the time in an internal spin of anxiety, dread, doubt, fear, worry, anticipation of bad things happening and so on. It would just kick in when I woke up in the morning and pretty much go on all day whenever it wasn't masked by something else, and sometimes it was strong enough it couldn't be masked. That then provided a kind of basis for a general stress and fussing and worry that pervaded everything all the time.

This whole mess just keeps dropping away inbig chunks, and now and then I do some activity where in the past I would have been nervous, phobic, anxious, bored, fretful, etc. and I'm just not. I'm just sort of in the moment, enjoying whatever's going on. That's priceless, that change.

I might say that practice is growing me into a more 'whole' human being, which I consider better than the alternative.

It's not really what I first expected, and my expectations continue to change. Over all, I'd say I have fewer expectations than I used to.

I would say that some people close to me recognize the difference. The difference they may notice is that I have more tolerance for being present in and with difficulties, and I am also better able to let go of frustrations when that's the most helpful option. I hope this makes me a person that others like to be in relationship with.

Well, Chris, I think that scientific parameters are relatively crude and weighted very heavily toward the 'objective'. Whereas the meditative traditions constitute a subtle and subjective science of their own-- but expressed in poetic language that doesn't necessarily signify to most present-day people. [My re-wording of what you said, as I launched a response-- I notice on re-reading.]

There is also the time factor-- how many years in, before the baseline has been moved so far that your decade-ago 'normal' isn't even a memory, more like a fragment of a rumor. Never underestimate your own capacity to take something, no matter how amazing when new, for granted.

And as for your companions-- unless it's something you've talked about in depth with them-- their impression of you is usually so vague that you'd have to have the equivalent of plastic surgery or a makeover for it to register. [Having a recurrent problem that is suddenly resolved is the equivalent; but even then, often it registers briefly and then it's on to the next thing.]

Sounds like a rather dour view, I guess. On the 'down' side-- our explorations are necessarily a bit lonely: not so many others are interested in the journey into the interior. And each interior is unique, not generic. On the 'up' side-- each of us is akin to olden-time explorers: we're seeing what has never been seen before. That's the potential and the privilege of 'this precious human life' and what makes us truly human.

To answer your question, Chris, from what I can tell, my personality traits are the same, just more grown up. I suspect that growth would have happened anyway, without a specific practice.

I still experience emotions, but I think I'm becoming less reactive to emotional energy. Perhaps I'm learning to use it more effectively, causing less suffering for myself and others (via my reactions, or lack thereof, in their presence).

There are a lot of ways to practice non-reactivity with regard to emotions. I think it's worth noticing the way the mind elaborates on the experience of some physical sensations, and that learning to break emotions apart into "mind and body" can aid in breaking up some nasty habits. But I think an erroneous view arises through such a practice - at least some of the time - that assumes emotions are always just physical sensations, and that any mental/psychological component is less real.

In other words, learning to focus on the physical sensations of an emotion, and staying with them long enough to increase tolerance for them, can ease emotional pain. But, that doesn't mean the psychological aspects of the emotion have actually gone away. They may just fall outside of awareness and keep operating, arising with great force during periods of great stress.

I've always thought that it makes more sense to cultivate greater tolerance for all aspects of experience as they arise, as well as investigating how all the pieces fit together. But in order to do this, one has to view emotions as OK. There are those who think one can be awake with emotions, and those who think that having emotions means one is still deluded. I fall into the former camp, and I attempt to take responsibility for the assumptions that go along with it, even when they are not totally consistent with whatever tradition I happen to draw from.

In short, I think it can be beneficial to "ground emotions in the body" as a way to get to know how emotions are experienced in the body, and to develop tolerance and equanimity in relation to this subset of conscious experience.

However, I think it's potentially problematic to refrain from allowing the other aspects of emotions back into wakeful participation in conscious human activity.

This all goes back to whether or not one is willing to trust the nature of mind as it is. It almost sets up a weird dualism, where "I" have to restrain and fix the "mind" so it doesn't cause problems for "me." This assumption doesn't hold up for me. I suspect that fear is a supporting factor of such a view.

Kate, some practitioners make pretty "drastic" claims, such as "I no longer experience emotions." That's what I was referring to. I should have been more clear. My fault.


-cmarti

Well-- wrt such drastic claims: I'm with the scientific 'objective' bias on this one! And what can be observed from the outside, behaviorally, is that such claims seem to be made, and defended, with a great deal of apparent vehemence. The content of the claims and their expressive mode seem to be drastically opposed. Why on earth would someone in such a superior, pristine, unmoved condition have any wish to convince anyone else of the state he [almost always he] was enjoying, or to proselytize? Even briefly, let alone for months on end, in great volume?

I see a kind of amusing irony: the attempt seems to be to 'go Buddhism one better.' But it reveals a great ignorance of the range and reach of Buddhadharma-- not to mention a profoundly dualistic view. But this isn't surprising: the history of Buddhism is full of such diversions.

This is a fascinating question.

Taking it in parts:

Inside-- wrt this, there is an important acclimatizing factor which you guys have discussed, but it still seems possible to me to check how inner experience is different from how it was. Mainly, I would say that I used to spend much of my time experiencing life as a mind looking out of a body and that is now foreign to me, there is now a greater sense of mind-body unity and unity of mind-body-environment, sort of, wherever I go there I am.

Outside-- here I have little to go on. I could divide this into changes in outer behavior that I have initiated with greater ease or which have arisen spontaneously and which are simply evident to myself and anyone who looks. To me it is clear that these outer shifts are directly related to the inner shifts described above. Many sub-optimal behavior patterns (of mind, speech and body) which seemed to be very solid and unchangeable have opened up and shifted or completely dropped with newer ways of moving, speaking and thinking emerging to take their place as a direct result of taking emotional reactions and mental narratives less personally/seriously/uncritically. BUT-- whether another person, even an intimate, notices these changes, or what their assumptions, reactions, and stories about these changes are, mean, are due to, etc... that's not really my concern.

I could say more about this in terms of the difference between becoming liberated from false beliefs about the substantiality of selves and world on the one hand, to which my above comments relate, and a more positive view of developing explicitly spiritual qualities and capacities which are very evident from the outside which has to do with different phases and kinds of practice, at least according to Vajra and Mahayana teachings, in which liberation from false views and reactive patterns is distinguished from awakening to the nature of reality and the kinds of effects that has on a practitioners body, mind and energy.

One of the things I'm eventually getting to here is the extent to which people with deep, long term practices claim to have a very different internal experience as a result of their practice work and yet what others perceive is, at most, only subtle differences. This is extremely intriguing to me and I suspect it's clue to what's really happening from a brain/neurological/biological/anatomical perspective.
In other words, as the first person experience is shuttered through our practice we perceive huge and cumulative results on the inside -- but the rest of the world sees little or nothing has changed. It's as if the neuronal connections being re-arranged have only to do with how experience is interpreted in the brain/mind and almost nothing to do with how the body/mind complex reacts to external events.
Hmmm... this reinforces the notion that what we experience is simply all mind, doesn't it?



-cmarti

I don't think it is "all in the head of the practitioner" in the way you are implying. That is I have noticed pretty consistently among people I know personally that as their meditation practice deepens they become noticably less easily offended, more patient, more thoughtful/considerate, less judgmental, less hung up on dogma and beliefs, less anxious, less easily stressed out, less defensive and so on. There's a sort of pliability that gradually increases with practice.

That said, each person seems to go through this process gradually, over the course of years, and each has aspects of their own personality, character, habits and so on that change sooner or later, depending on what's most deeply entrenched, what life experiences they've had - karma maybe.

Another thing I've noticed is that there are friends who manifest these changes but at work or with their errant teenage children can still act like a sharp-tongued lawyer, parent, boss, etc. I had this exact conversation with one friend once, who while I was having a dharma-ful conversation with her turned to scold her teenager. Afterwards I said "Are you actually angry at her?" and she laughed and said "No, but sometimes a teen needs to think you are mad to hear you." I've done the same in business meetings, where I really have no particular anger towards a person, but I feel that a sharp word or harsher tone will get them to pay attention better to what I'm saying or move more quickly on a decision, so I use it.

Thoughts?

Another thing I've noticed is that there are friends who manifest these changes but at work or with their errant teenage children can still act like a sharp-tongued lawyer, parent, boss, etc. I had this exact conversation with one friend once, who while I was having a dharma-ful conversation with her turned to scold her teenager. Afterwards I said "Are you actually angry at her?" and she laughed and said "No, but sometimes a teen needs to think you are mad to hear you." I've done the same in business meetings, where I really have no particular anger towards a person, but I feel that a sharp word or harsher tone will get them to pay attention better to what I'm saying or move more quickly on a decision, so I use it.

Thoughts?

-ona

I think this is a thought-provoking topic, Ona.



A lot of the time, for most people, outward expression is perceived as correlated to a familiar inner emotional state. We respond to others based on what they do, and what we think they will do next, depending on the information we receive in the form of posture, movement, tone or pitch of speech, word choice, etc. We all, to a large degree, mentalize our fellow human beings, making educated guesses regarding what they're experiencing in first-person terms.



But, what happens when a person is able to gain greater autonomy with regard to their first-person experience of the world?

If one is internally less reactive and turbulent, does that mean they will necessarily respond differently to others at all times? If human beings were simply stimulus and response machines, the answer would be an obvious Yes. But we’re not. There’s more to our decision making process than immediate reaction (for most of us). We can also operate based on our desired outcomes, even those which are not necessarily conscious and deliberate.

In your example, Ona, your friend raised her voice at her teenage child in order to bring about a change in the child’s behavior. The message was intended to convey a certain state experienced by the mother, but that state wasn’t really being experienced. We can certainly call this deception, and it raises the question as to whether deception is “good” or “bad.” In this case, it could certainly be seen as “skillful” or “unskillful” depending on the result. Depending on one’s idea of what it means to be moral or ethical, it may or may not be acceptable to deceive even when doing so promotes help and/or diminishes harm.

And then we have the whole “crazy wisdom” idea. The idea that what one says and does is not necessarily consistent with their inner state (at least in any usual, common sense way) has been used to justify some dastardly behavior by gurus, priests, and other figures with some measure of authority – particularly of the spiritual variety. If one believes their Roshi can only act in such a way as to benefit all sentient beings, even the worst offenses can go (and have gone) unquestioned. Because of the severity of the devastation caused by these people, deception of any kind – including that which may in fact be considered “skillful” – is called into question. To open one’s self up to deception of any kind is to risk the possibility of being taken advantage of.

And yet, and yet…

We do it all the time. As much as we’d like to think that we live in a world mostly free of deception, we don’t. It just doesn’t get talked about in a positive way because the negative uses are frightening enough to make the former into a taboo. I can tell you from my own first-hand experience that training to be a psychotherapist includes a lot of training in skillful manipulation, mostly in the area of cultivating a strong therapeutic alliance, which is the foundation on which successful therapy can be carried out. It’s important for a patient to like their therapist, as the best research shows that without a good client-therapist relationship, the likelihood of significant change/healing is much lower than it would be otherwise.

We don’t always act in concert with how we feel, even though that’s the message we would like to convey in order to bring about our desired ends. That’s a reality worth keeping in mind.

Think about people you know who do NOT have a dharma practice of any kind (just to keep it simple for the sake of discussion). Some of them have functional skills, like compartmentalizing and impulse control, so that even if they are stressed out by some personal or inner turmoil they behave in a competent way, rather than spewing their anger at every random person they meet. You might even tend to say about those people that they are happy, competent, relaxed, fair, nice, good bosses or partners, etc.

Other people you know, if they are stressed out, spew it randomly all over, unable to compartmentalize it into the appropriate situations. Of these people you might say they are anxious, neurotic, hard to get along with, difficult, etc.

Both people might be suffering similar inner turmoil or stress.

ETA: just to add, think about how often "being totally honest" would mean really violating personal boundaries, being disrespectful, being very rude, too much information, etc.

I have no doubt that my practice has improved my inner experience of life. I've been practicing on and off since about 1973 sometimes consistently and sometimes not so much - but since about 2007 it has been very consistent and directed.

One benefit -- it has satisfied my urge to be as engaged and intimate with my life as possible. This is something that is important to me and to be actively pursuing intimacy makes me feel good about myself and the way I am living my life.

And, like a lot of you, there is a lot more space in my head to deal with a wide range of emotions, thoughts, and feelings. This is a great benefit, I think.

I also think that what I've taken away from what might be steam entry and subsequent continued integration of that process (which I see as apprehending the three characteristics on a insight level and then continuing to practice to deepen the insight) is a sort of ultimate knowledge that while self-centered concerns are important and need to be honored, they are, at the very same time -- merely mental constructions based upon instinct, DNA, memories, experiences, patterns, etc and are, in a true sense fragmentary figments of imagination with no real substance. This brings freedom, relief, and, quite often, humor.

Also, and I guess this would fall under the category of "spiritual materialism," but I've had many experiences of unity and connection with all things, as well as many moments in which everything just seems peaceful, quiet, and perfect exactly as they are. And, I love that my practice has brought me these experiences and in many ways, having and having had these moments has helped me feel like my life has and is good and worthwhile.

I don't think many people would notice much about me in terms of the effect of practice. I'm not very close to my family of origin at all, and I have very few close long term friends. And, I recently spent a week with a man with whom I was very close from about 1969 to to the mid-1980s and hadn't seen in years -- and he told me that I am "exactly the same."

However, I've been very close to my wife Rebecca since 2007 and we've been through a lot of stress and bad times (as well as good of course) and she agrees with my assessment that over the past four months or so I've experienced a significant increase in self-acceptance and general all around happiness.

Mike, the contrast between your wife's and your old friend's assessments of you underscores one point I was trying to make up thread which I think really bares repeating in the context of this discussion: when looking at others' assessments of us, there are so many complexities in terms of their ability to see past their expectations and assumptions, how and to what extent and on what basis they are filtering their experiences based on what they "know" about you already and so on, that I'm not sure how to find meaning in such assessments except in my own life based on my assessment of a particular person's capacity for making such assessments. (Which is why I said, r.e. how others may assess how I have changed, it is strictly speaking not my concern).

Even if we shift to an agreed on objective measure such as, say, keeping precepts, can we really say definitively how we have changed from the outside? Because taking simply the precept to "not deceive" we see in the discussion up thread all the complexities involved therein, not least of which that as practice deepens, it's quite possible that our understanding of "keeping a precept" may evolve in a decidedly non-literal direction (in browsing a Kaplau book on Zen recently I stumbled across a reference to an ancient Zen master's glossing of this precept in terms of a very deep buddhanature view: that any mind-moment in which true nature isn't explicitly appreciated is a moment of "stealing" from true nature, and thus, not-stealing means resting in the natural state...). And even in a straightforward literal sense, there is the distinct possibility that literally keeping a precept could actively express ill-will, which would violate the spirit of the precept, while breaking the precept and expressing some skillful lie could express a good will and have a palpably beneficial effect (If I visit my grandfather, dying of Alzheimers, and he believes I'm his son, with whom he had a falling out many years ago, what's more compassionate and beneficial: insisting on my actual identity at the expense of confusing and frustrating him, or saying "umm.. hey, "dad", all's forgiven, I love you!").

If anything I would say that my inner attitude to Sila has radically changed in that there is nearly zero (if not literally zero) conflict around "doing the right thing"-- it is simply evident to me that the right thing is what supports others' and my own genuine well-being, and never about following rules for the sake of following rules. This means taking responsibility for my actions, because I can't say "well, there were some bad consequences from that action I just took but I did it by the book...". And hopefully needless to say this doesn't in any way mean I always "do the right thing" as I see it--- far from it-- just that, I have seemingly lost the capacity to engage in tortured reflection on what the right thing is and/or rigid adherence to "knowing" what it is in a general sense, as a rule that holds good in all situations. There's just an increasing sensitivity to what brings palpable harm and benefit to self-and-others in each discrete moment of living, and "conscience" is the feeling of not acting according to that palpable and direct sensibility. Again, what this might mean behaviorally in terms of what is explicitly evident to others, is probably very little. At most, perhaps, it may be noticed that I am less judgmental about others' actions and more willing to see others' behaviors, even those which harm me, as expressing an inner logic and perhaps even a (misguided?) good will...

@ jake:

" it is simply evident to me that the right thing is what supports
others' and my own genuine well-being, and never about following rules
for the sake of following rules."

and

" At most, perhaps, it may be
noticed that I am less judgmental about others' actions and more willing
to see others' behaviors, even those which harm me, as expressing an
inner logic and perhaps even a (misguided?) good will..."

Nicely said, and this resonates very much for me right now.

I'm joining this cocktail party discussion a bit late, but the biggest changes I see are:

1) people feel much more comfortable around me... about two or three years ago co-workers started showing up and sitting in my cube completely without purpose -- very strange at first, but I can see that I'm basically just giving them ease of mind, nothing personal really, just that I allow a lot of space for them and myself to be, and

2) a LOT more acceptance of just not knowing what is happening or what will happen... I faced some crazy situations this summer that would have psychologically destroyed the old me, but mearly put me through the wringer and recovery was pretty quick. The latter I attribute to a quicker "rebooting" when tensions got really intense.

I think that's an "outside" and an "inside" example.