Month: June 2023

I am writing this on Juneteenth, a holiday in the US that has recently become a national observance, although many states have yet to institute that. The date marks the anniversary of the legal emancipation of enslaved people on June 19, 1865.  A day we not only celebrate the independence American slaves, but also acknowledge the great suffering that Slavery created, the reverberations of which continue to this day.

Today may remind us of the trauma humans inflict on each other when they are driven by economic pressure, racial prejudice, hatred and ignorance. Optimistically, it may mark an ongoing movement to attempt to address the wrongs committed by our national social and economic reliance on slavery and perhaps the wrongs instituted by racism and hatred then and since.

How could a country that longed to be a world leader have remained economically beholden to the enslavement of humans well past the point other nations had shunned the practice? How did something as ethically and morally dubious as slavery become an integral part of its social base? How could this society declare that all men (sic) were created equal, endowed with a God-given right to freedom when, in truth, the freedom of a few was secured by the oppression of others?  Perhaps, rather than saying “freedom for all”, they may have said, “freedom from all.”   The founding fathers may well have seen themselves as the God-chosen few, and others as … well, other.  As much as hatred or bigotry play significant parts in the hearts of extremists, it is the failure to recognize the humanity of those unlike them that allowed them to systemically turn a blind eye to such cruelty.  Cruelty is different when applied to property rather than humanity.  Whether it was slaves, women or children much harm was inflicted upon those deemed property. It is easy to justify cruelty when it is inflicted on property. Hence, educated and “aware” people could be blind to their actions. There were many who spoke against slavery as they dressed in the fine cotton clothing available at an affordable price. Many of us still do.

Are we so different today? Where are we blind to how, despite our best intentions, we might be contributing to societal imbalances?

The wrongs of slavery were historic, but also have created a human trauma that exists contemporaneously. The disparity between those we consider like us, those we see as other and those we believe are against us are standards very much embedded in our culture. While this exists along racial lines, it also happens along gender and religious lines, as well as and lines of sexual orientation and expression. Otherness is very common to our society. Seen as a spectrum, there are levels from the relatively innocuous to the egregious that manifest as appreciating a different culture, to shunning them, to actually seeing them as an enemy to your way of life. As explained by the character Demosthenes in Ender’s Game, the ability to accept another as an equal is not an acknowledgement of their spiritual evolution, but of our own.

Juneteenth, and the idea of reparations, are much debated. Maybe this is sparking a conversation we need to have right now. And maybe we can look at this from a personal point of view. What harms have I caused others that require some repair? The point of reparations is not self-denigration, but possibly self-liberation. How can I free myself from the entanglements of the past, by acknowledging when I have harmed others? How can I use that to try and assuage the damage? Amends to another is not always practical, or possible.  However, it is always possible to take responsibility for my own behavior and understand its effects. By acknowledging my own prejudices I can grow beyond bias and begin to see how I other others. When do I segregate my feelings into categories of “othering” – those I appreciate, those I appropriate, those I tolerate, and those I hate.

And when am I using this system of segregation as a moral high ground? For, looking down on another, is a very effective  way to other another. Looking down on those I feel are in the wrong (perhaps even wronging others) makes me feel good about myself and protects my cherished point of view from the threat of change. The truth is, we only see a fraction of what is just before us. Actually, we only see a fraction of what we actually see. We select and choose what is important to us before we are ever conscious of doing so. For the meditator, the antidote to ignorance is developing mindfulness. This is our very personal repairation. We recognize when our consciousness is ensconced in a thought, which is often a frame or a point of view.  And we release ourselves for the grip into a new and more creative way of being.

Maybe today is about beginning conversations as a way to step toward acknowledgement and reparation. Being willing to question ourselves is not demeaning. It’s not attributing guilt or fault. It’s just developing the strength to see what we are otherwise missing, especially when we believe we are right.

The practice of meditation allows us to uncover how we hurt others while we develop the compassion and kindness not to inflict harm upon ourselves. From a Buddhist perspective, any time we distance ourselves from aspects of our world, we are acting with aggression. We might do this by hating them, or what they stand for, but more commonly, we do this every time we lock someone behind a self-protective protective frame. How often has our internal dialogue dismissed someone with “oh there are so crazy today”? Are we listening to each other?

Coming back to the breath we leave our frame and step into the openness of the naked present. We can step back within ourselves and see our tendency to push away, or drw closer in order to avoid intimacy. Coming back to the breath is very intimate. It’s a way of accepting ourselves in the present, which will allow us to accept others. By accepting ourselves we can begin to accept how we have caused harm to others. By acknowledging that, we can learn how to be more conscious and more kind in the future.

Reparations, amends and forgiveness do not change the past. But they may change our future.

Last week we discussed letting go from the point of view of releasing our grip. We spoke about this as not being getting rid of anything, but releasing our grip on a few things so we can gain access to everything else. This doesn’t mean we dont touch on things we need or appreciate, but that we are willing to let go of our grip, so we can move on to what’s next. We’re  effectively touching in and then letting go as a process of moving forward.

In my coaching, I use the analogy of rope climbing. We move up our life-cliff one hand at a time, reaching forward and then releasing as we go. Holding is actually an important part of this process. Mindfulness is, after all, holding to an object (Tibetan: Trenpa). We do this to stabilize the mind so it relaxes into awareness. This allows us to see more clearly. We call the fusion of awareness and clarity “presence” or “presently knowing,” as in being presently aware (Tib: Sheshin). This presence allows us to relax into the flow of life.

Once we come back to the present, it’s important we remember to let go. In the Shambhala tradition they call this “touch and go“.  If we don’t let go then mindfulness becomes fixation. The point of our meditation isn’t to become experts at breathing. It is to use the breath to synchronize with the present. We do this so we can let go into the flow of life. Fixation obscures awareness by closing down on an object. We lose objective awareness and see our own projections as real. Rather than a point in actual reality, our mentally imagined projection becomes the reference point.  When this happens, we become fixated on our mind, rather than connected to our life. Instead of using a taut rope to pull ourselves upward, once we intuit that our rope is not real, we become frozen. Our reference point becomes more important than our life. We become stuck on the cliff face afraid to let go.

However, the rope of our mindfulness is always there if we remember to come back to it. We touch into the present and then let go into the flow of life. LIfe is not static. Life is dynamic and in constant motion. This is why I’m not comfortable with terms like “being in the Now.” It’s as though now is a thing we can possess. But the only things we truly possess are the imagined fixations and attachments of our mind. Reality is much more fluid. The present moment is an exciting place as anything might happen. However, that can also be unsettling. It’s like looking down from the cliff. As we said, our tendency is to freeze (fixate) in response to fear. This is how fear forges attachments. Attachments are things we cling to when we are afraid to let go into the flow of life. However, the good news is that the remedy for fear-based clinging is to let go. Just return to the breath. When we do this, we are no longer locked in the mind. And the mind becomes able to perceive the world. 

A common technique in developing mindfulness is to use the breath as our reference point – in the case of the cliff analogy, it is our rope. When we connect to the rope (Tib: Tendril), we are stabilizing our awareness.  We can connect to the breath in formal meditation as well as on the spot in life when we become triggered. When we become triggered, we feel attacked and our reflexive tendency is to shut down or fixate in defence. However, connecting to the breath we can actually breathe though this mental panic and relax back into the presence of real life. As the breath always happens in the present, when we become mindful of breathing we are becoming present.  Mindfulness of the breath is also a natural relaxant, so connecting to the breath allows us to relax into the present. Relaxing into the present we are developing presence, the power of presently knowing (Tib: Sheshin).

When we relax into the present we have what Trungpa, Rinpoche referred to as panoramic awareness. We are able to see the space around things rather than attach to those things as things we attach to. As we ascend the cliff and are able to see more of the life around us, our attachments become appreciation. Rather than closing our eyes to the world, we are learning to open them without distraction. It is said, we begin to “see pain and pleasure alike as adornments, which are pleasant to wear.”  We are able to touch on the wonderful things in life without having to own them. By developing mindfulness, we learn to touch and then let go into awareness. In other words, we come back to the present in order to let go into the flow of our life.

And our life is always happening here in the present, whether we are aware of it or not. Our job is to return to it so we can move on with it.  This essential existential synchronization can happen anytime we remember. It doesn’t matter how long we were lost in our mind. Once we return to the present, we are back. The rope is always there. When we fixate, we become stuck in our mind. But no matter how long we were gone, or how compelling our fantasies were, when we come back to the present, we synchronize with the flow of our life, already in progress.

Then instead of being stuck in our life, we can learn to move on.

 

(PIcs are the remarkable banksy, of course… )

When we talk about letting go we usually think of getting rid of something or pushing something away. But this negative is perhaps more work than necessary. From a positive point of view, rather than struggling with anything, we can see letting go as adding space by releasing our grip. Letting go can be seen as opening up and relaxing into the flow of our life instead of grasping and clinging to the straws on the shore.

When we attach to something we distort our perception of it and ourselves.  We imbue the object with qualities it doesn’t necessarily have and open up a number of programs in our deep psychology, such as fears of failure or abandonment, that only cloud our understanding. Hence, Buddhists look at attachment as causing “obscurations” to clear seeing or true understanding. Rather than strangling things we love so they will never leave us, we can actually honor them by stepping back and seeing them more clearly.

The same is true of the things we fear and those we wish to avoid.  While it’s obvious to see our clinging to things we love, it’s harder to understand that hatred or disinterest are also forms of fixation. When we keep arguing with someone in our minds, we are clearly attached to them. The more we try and push them away the more stuck with them we become. Similarly, dissociation and procrastination can be the result of attachment to avoiding underlying, unregarded fears.

I used to speak at the Shambhala Center of New York and there was a student who came regularly and regularly had a list of complaints about community founder Trungpa Rinpoche. I always honored his point of view because critical intellect is so important to true understanding. But at some point his point was made and made again and yet the complaints continued.  Finally, I told him that I wished I had as much devotion to Trungpa as he had. His one-pointedness was impressive. Yet, if he was willing to let go just a bit, he may have experienced other points of view.  Letting go is not an admission that we are wrong, or that our affection was misplaced, it’s simply that maybe we can understand more fully if we step back. I call this offering a “loving space.” It’s not a dismissal, it’s a way of understanding.

When we become attached, we actually identify some aspect of our experience with the object. One aspect of this is when we become dependent upon a relationship of any kind.  We might lose perspective and get lost in a tug of war of need. I need this or I need that. This doesn’t allow room for either partner to be themselves.  We call this codependent.  Some people look at codependency as two people who co-trigger each other. But from a Buddhist perspective, we understand that it’s our attachment not someone else’s. The work for us is to avoid blaming anyone or expecting them to change, but to recognize that trying to fix things is still fixation. The remedy is easier than we imagine.  All we need to do is loosen our grip and take a step back.

Again, letting go is not pushing anything away. That is another form of fixation. “I don’t want it!” doesn’t mean we are seeing clearly. It’s about perspective. Stepping back need not be dismissive. In fact, it can be loving. It’s adding loving space.

From an experiential point of view, we are talking about the difference between gripping and opening. With regular meditation practice we develop mindfulness of body. We can actually feel our body gripping as it happens. Our stomach tightens, our jaw clenches, our brow furrows. All of these are ways of closing down and fixing. I had a student who was actually frowning when we were discussing joy. I asked her about this, and she said she was thinking about what I said. But it felt more like blocking. It seems joy is an experience that begs us to open. The same is true of so much of life. Whether we love it, hate it or just want to get away, if we cling to it, we are shutting down and making everything more important than it needs to be.

Letting go can be seen as releasing the grip and opening the loving space within our life.