Spiritual practice and daily life

(And then a day or a month or a year later, there you are, standing at the edge, and the same thoughts come up...and you remember that last time it wasn't as horrible as you imagined, and it takes a little less time to pull your courage together and take the plunge...)

'Weird thing just happened. He walked in and, without thinking about it, I
did that little zen gassho (palms together like a prayer) with a
slight bow toward him. Bizarre." [Mike]

"Be kind: everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." [attributed to Plato]

This is what I've noticed so far: we all seem to feel unseen, unacknowledged, unappreciated; what some of us do, in the face of the pain of this reality, is make a big noise that HAS to be noticed. If-- by whatever fluke-- we communicate to someone that we SEE them before they have to demand that we do... amazing things can happen. We become two beleaguered human beings sharing a moment-- no longer at war with alienation.

Hooray!

"Be kind: everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." [attributed to Plato]


-kategowen

I love that, Kate.

"I can see that, Jackson. A couple of times in the past several days the discomfort from being humiliated and yelled at and embarrassed at being wrong or seen as wrong was just unbearable.
It was emotional pain at a rare level and I think what happens is first, I kind of freeze inside, and then, I start thinking about how wrong it all is. And that second part lasts a long time and creates more and more stories of course."
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. "Freezing" is a good word to use. Our stories build walls around pain we're not willing to experience.
Being embarrassed is particularly difficult for me. When I move toward it, it opens up as rejection, and feelings of not being worthy of love and acceptance. It all feels very young, too; very childlike. It then becomes possible to hold this feeling differently. The story is less about right now and more a replay of something that happened before (even if the precise situation is unclear). And now it's not adult-me-now, but child-me-then. I am then more able to allow myself to process the feelings, which were previously unprocessed/undigested. It's as if by choosing to process the emotions as an adult, I am relieving the child of its burden. The inseparability of wisdom and compassion shows through, big time.
It's not necessary to reframe things in terms of seeing how old feelings are, but it can be helpful. Anything that allows us to approach feelings as opposed to avoid them is going to be in service of healing and growth. And, I don't consider this just psychology, rather than insight. It's both.

-awouldbehipster

I'm going through that right now.

I was in court, already feeling nervous. It was my boss' turn to get up and do his opening and i noticed that he didn't have his writing pad on the easel so I got up and placed it near the easel on my side of the bar very quickly and quietly. I looked up, saw him, and in a kind of whisper/hiss with wild angry eyes said to me "SIT DOWN!" The jury and the other parties didn't see or hear it.

Wow. Immmediate pain. Discomfort. Abject shame and embarassement. I wanted to run away and never come back.

I just sat there (this was about an hour ago) and went from trying to "feel the feelings" to doing all the normal self talk to try to deal with the feelings. And back and forth.

And, yes, as Jackson says, when I feel the feelings it reminds me directly of certain childhood times and feelings. I had several very shaming events at around 4, 5, and 6 and this feels just like those times, like my body and mind remembers. And in those times I remember using escape and fantasies and fantasies of escape to deal with my feelings. And, I think, set up a lifetime habit of doing this.

I'm feeling a burning going up and down my abdomen, through my chest/throat and then intensely in my face. There is also a burning pain along the back on my head and neck. I'm having trouble focusing my eyes, and my hands are shaking slightly. And, I'm having trouble concentrating.

When I turn to bare feeling, the burning in my face and chest intensifies.

That sounds intense, Mike. You don't have to go looking for it. But when it shows up, be with it as much as you can, for as long as you can. This is good work.

wow, as I continue with this, there is this razor's edge between:

- avoiding the feeling and being afraid of the feeling and of my anxious thoughts and turning all that into narratives of escape and resentment

and

- letting go, watching the feelings in a disembeded bare way and getting something that is hard to explain but it's like a fresh look at it all with a small dash of humor and a knowledge that there is really nothing wrong

unfortunately I kind of go back and forth and don't seem able to hold with the "really nothing wrong" state.

I'm going to keep trying though, I've got nothing to lose, right?

This is all familiar from just regular awareness/mindfulness/vipassana practice -- but for those I mostly just worked with more mundane feelings or lower/normal levels of discomfort. I don't think I've ever worked with such intense feelings before. But, clearly, it should be the same process no matter what.

It's just like you describe, Mike. You are right on. It's one thing to sit there noting "itching, pressure, leg asleep, thought, hungry, restless" etc. It's a whole other depth of practice when you get slammed with a tidal wave of powerful emotion. Like learning to swim in a pool, and then one day you try to swim in the ocean. Damn. Same rules (move arms and legs, breathe) but a much more intense and challenging context.

I'm getting a sort of peripheral hazy lesson that is something like: don't think you are all that great, don't think you are horrible -- avoid any kind of qualitative self pronouncements.

Does that make any sense? Any self judgement or assessment is really just another made-up fictional narrative about a ficitional thing (my idea of a Mike Monson) that starts a pendulum swinging toward suffering.

what perplexes me is that I've had that insight before and it seems all wonderful and then it fades away.

getting such insights seems relatively simple -- but there must be some other process to undertake to be able to maybe sustain the insights longer? Maybe it's not possible.

Please weigh in on this, this feels pretty important.

The process is called meditation, Mike. Path moments will help make the not-self insight more permanent. The mind undergoes some form of organic re-wiring (aka neuroplasticity) at those times, I think. At least that's how it feels (and felt) for me. The more you experience the insight the more you become accustomed to it, too. It becomes a sort of mental habit, a more permanent view.

-cmarti

Interesting.

This is where the profound Tibetan pun comes in: "Meditation isn't; getting used to, is." [It's a pun because the Tibetan words for meditation and becoming accustomed (think 'integration') are spelled differently but pronounced the same.] Meditation allows us 'glimpse after glimpse' in controlled conditions; life allows us opportunity after opportunity to adopt new responses based on the glimpses. Believe it or not, some day the old, painful habits will be like stories of weird stuff you did as a kid: you won't really believe it was like that-- because it will be so obvious that it doesn't have to be.

Mike, I really sympathize. Meditation is the answer, but it's going to be a whole different flavor. Awareness of body sensations is the only thing that got me through the worst of it. It will feel more like a purification by fire and less of a series of gentle releases... but then it will become a series of gentle releases... and then you will look at the story of it all and probably laugh a little.

Here's my theory on all of this... Basically your boss is trying to get rid of all of the thoughts and feelings that you are experiencing. He creates a psychological environment where -- if any of those thoughts or feelings come up -- he can instantly blame it on other people. And then to exist in that environment, people have to deal with all of that energy, which creates the examples of thoughts and feelings that he wanted "out there".

So, for example, you felt the concern over the missing tablet that he would probably have felt if he noticed it, and when you corrected it, he could simply blame you and not even "see" the situation which caused it --- which was his own mistake and his creating a context where you felt you had to protect him from his own habits.

I think this is a universal human coping mechanism and once you see it in others, you see it in yourself.... which is why it's possible to have compassion for assholes. They are struggling and living very narrow lives, too bad they dump their shit on others.

But once again, how YOU react is somewhat open. You could have just laughed off how fragile and skittish he was because you moved the tablet. But that would mean you would have to see through his emotion and see the suffering underneath that caused it ---- and see how it had nothing to do with you.

Here's another theory.... Throughout life we get paired up with "our shadows" --- people that seem the opposite of you but who actually have very similar coping mechanisms. They help us see our own psychological approaches, but through what seems to be a reverse image, but something that they do is similar to what we do, otherwise we wouldn't get so sucked into their story!

Of course it isn't always the case, but taking that viewpoint (even if wrong) helps me really look at a situation more creatively and with a spirit of investigation. And frankly, I do see my shadow out there a lot.

Hope this helps!

@shagrol - I think you've really hit the nail on the head in terms of evaluating "assholes."

@mike - the stories do drop away. Sometimes it's really painful for a while (like you were experiencing) as we practice through the most intimate fears and anxieties. Sometimes it's not so dramatic. Sometimes they just drop away quietly, when we aren't looking (one day someone does something that always set you off, and you don't react, and then you think "What?? Did I just NOT react? Amazing!"). And there are more stories! So the dropping away goes on and on. But I do think the more courage we bring to being with the ugly stuff when it rears up, the more prepared we are each time to apply our insights and our practice and do our best to be with the tumult and discomfort. We get more and more confident that no matter how icky it might feel right now, the practice works, and there will be a release, in time, when the work on that renovation project is done.

@Chris - yes, feels like brain renovations, I've often thought.

I don't think that's useful, Chris, because it presupposes a whole work-through on "what does it mean to be human." Isn't the asshole's anger human, your rage about it human, you resentments, etc. all human, too?

Just to jump back on the practice and daily life theme - I just noticed an interesting reaction in myself. Certain people I've encountered (one recently, but reminded me of another last year) who are very... direct? make me suspicious. It's a social skills/body language thing - in both cases a person who stood too close, made too much eye contact, asked blunt questions out of the blue without first doing the "hey how are you, what have you been up to" stuff, etc. I felt it this morning - a quick inner shielding and sense of suspicion and caution arose. An instant suspicion that the person probably wants something, or more likely is going to run over a bunch of boundaries of politeness and privacy. So it's interesting being aware of that reaction, and letting it melt. Being aware of that I have already moved my list of "sorry, I don't feel like discussing that" or other rebukes to the top of the database, but trying not to start from that place, and allow that they simply might not have good social skills and don't intend anything other than trying to be friendly.

I see. I didn't what you meant, but thought you were meaning "human" being just the best/nicest or idealized parts of us. Your clarification makes sense.

"beings who have the same inventory of wants, needs and desires that I do"



Agreed. This is the heart of it. Whether or not it appears as gross pathologies or subtle energies, frequently or rarely, this is the stuff that arises in all of us. That's what makes compassion possible.



Even if we're somehow past a particular stage or intensity of these drives, I often say to myself when seeing it in others "whew, I remember that, it was so intense, it is a minor miracle I ever got past that, it was so ensnaring, I understand what it is like to be that way and not have any clue on the way out."

"Being aware of that I have already moved my list of "sorry, I don't feel like discussing that" or other rebukes to the top of the database, but trying not to start from that place, and allow that they simply might not have good social skills and don't intend anything other than trying to be friendly." - ona

I have a friend who suddenly starts conversations with very deep, philosophical "what-if" scenarios. We could be getting out of the car to go to a Chinese buffet and she just blindsides me with one. After resetting my head on straight, I just laugh because we both know that she's not good at "small talk" and she readily admits it.