Month: February 2024

Posted on by joseph mauricio

WHO’S RUNNING THIS SHIP, ANYWAY?

The great farce played upon our thinking is the uninvestigated assumption that we exist. Or more specifically, that we believe ourselves to be a permanent, independent being. Despite evidence that life is unpredictable, we act as though this was not the case. We just assume we are as we think we are. And that assumption leads to the greatest folly of all – we believe we are in control. We believe we are the bozo driving the bus, despite our GPS being disconnected.

I tend to live life from one project to the next, believing that -despite all prior experience- this time I will get it right. This diet, this financial plan, this meditation, this love. Especially this love. True Love. That’s the one that gets me. Each love I fall into becomes my center of being. I have always failed to see that my relationship to loving has all the hallmarks of classic addiction. In his masterwork, The Art of Loving, psychologist Erich Fromm defined “true love” as two people who were both ready for the same thing at the same time. He specifically nudged the reader away from the idea that we were part of something special. But, despite the slight-of-hand of hormonal urges, true love is not destiny. True love, like life itself, is a random occurrence that happened to succeed. Life is opportunistic. Einstein famously said, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe”. It seems, even a thinker as profoundly creative as Albert still searched for the occasional guarantee. If the universe doesn’t play dice it may be because dice only has 36 outcomes. The perplexing game of Go that has kept humans intrigued for 4,000 years, has less than 11,000 possible outcomes. If the universe is playing with us, It is using a much more vast and complex system than any game our brains can presently conjure. And, yet, within that ocean of possibility, we find that apple trees always breed apple trees. This interesting paradox is central to our existential being. Life is random and there are repetitive patterns throughout.

So perhaps there is a pattern to the chaos? So far in our development, humans have always bred humans. But the configuration of any human psychology is a mix of recognizable patterns and random occurrence. In general, we will cling to familiar patterns and ignore possibility. In fact, strangely, we will cling to painful patterns rather than look to an undiscovered alternative. Or even, a newer pattern that brings relief from the pain. It has been said that the mind needs 90 days to fully change a pattern. And this, all the while knowing we must change. We could be killing ourselves and yet our survival instinct, as powerful as it is, is hijacked by some nefarious conditioned need. When we are enthralled in the euphoria of addiction, crawling down the mole hole in fear, or habitually trying to milk pleasure from stones, we are blinded to the alternatives. We mistake the moment for the fantasy, as we compulsively perform the same experiment again and again. And we know what Albert said about that.

Perhaps, God is playing a shell game. Despite astronomical odds of being, once life occurs, it believes itself to be the center of all things. In our small part of the universe,  once conceived, we created an uberbeing fashioned after ourselves – replete with similar attributes, gender and political affiliations. Then we knew we were at the center of the universe and that everything was going according to plan. Ironically, feeling we were the center of all things, separated us from each other and the universe altogether. You see, when we believe we are the center of the universe, our life, or our family, then everything around us is only a projection. We see what we believe, which is to say, we see nothing but ourselves. And on some basic level this is very lonely. On some basic level, below all the games we play to keep us occupied, we are naked, cold and lonely.  Because of this, we cling to all the tangible things that we feel provide us surety.  And as we can reach out and touch these things, we feel to be in control, and so we never look beyond ourselves. We never see that if we were the center of anything it was the “vicious wheel of quivering meat conception” as Kerouac called samsara. We believe that the next thing we grasp will be the real thing and, although we’ve reached for that very thing time and time again, next time we’ll get there.

But, it’s our choice isn’t it? I mean it’s my life, I can run in circles if I like.

Trungpa Rinpoche called this the “myth of freedom.” Spinning on the wheel of samsara can be exhilarating.  It can keep us so occupied we never have to see how naked, alone or frightened we really are. But, what happens when the wheel stops? One of the most frightening things, existentially speaking, is space. But just as “Steamboat Willie” is comforting to us, they are an imaginary narrative based on quickly flickering frames. Moving pictures move so quickly we believe it’s actually happening.  Movies create the illusion of life by flickering 23 still-images a second, too fast for our eyes to see the s p a c e between each frame. But that space provides a glimpse into the possibility beyond. And that space is a crack in the belief systems we establish to prove we exist. In this way, our anxiety drives us relentlessly forward. Flickering images create the illusion that we are steering the ship.

In the same way, we believe we must steer the ship, lest we fall in and drown. But we may be holding the wheel so tightly, we never see that the ocean we’re steering across is an endless sea of undefinable change.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

THE BURNING CHILD

HEALING THE BROKEN PLACES

The child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down just to feel its warmth.

– African proverb

In a culture conditioned to a linear understanding of causes and conditions we assign blame to a problem, focusing our ire on the object of blame. In extreme cases, we might describe a perpetrator as inhuman, animalistic, or assign them superhuman attributes such as being “pure evil” or “monstrous.” In any case, we are protected from implicating ourselves in the problem.

When emotions run high, the fear mind takes over and latches onto simple answers. And naturally, we believe we are right. This feeling of righteousness wants retribution and dismisses the inclusion of societal and familial issues as pandering snowflakery. The Buddha spoke of Karma as the law of cause and effect. He also spoke of the interdependence of every event to all else. Despite conditioned tendencies toward black and white binaries, the Buddha saw that the causes of any event are myriad and nuanced. This would seem frustrating to the raging defensive mind latching onto rightandwrong. But a reactive mind is generally devoid of nuance or compassion. Compassion doesn’t mean kindness to those who’ve caused harm. It means understanding those who cause harm.

When we assign blame, we are forcing reality into a binary. A binary which has ourselves and our value systems as the prime arbiter. This is good and evil from the way we see it. And the angrier we become the narrower our focus. This might be a factor in why people of color are incarcerated at higher rates than whites in our predominantly white culture. When we are seeing it our way, what of those who don’t conform? But is this willed ignorance only creating time bombs? What are we missing when we push some aside? And are those shadowed voices so needing to be heard that they will grow in ire until they erupt in violence?  The Buddhist teachings on compassion are unequivocal in their directives that we see beyond our parochial beliefs and begin to understand others.  Are we able to step back and see those we demonize? Only recently, a court found the parents of a son accused of gun violence as culpable. Was this a groundbreaking step in widening perspective or was it just shifting the binary? Looking at the home, looking at the school, looking at the community and looking at the gun communities and legislation tied to the influence of economic pressure are all ways that violence is interconnected. So, as the Buddha taught, Karma is complicated.  Then how do we manage the overwhelming preponderance of information that is karmic cause and condition?

What can we do?

Blame is not doing. Nor are platitudes. Nor are promises. How do we begin right here right now? We all have a child, either in our family or in our heart, who needs care and support. But are we listening? Or are we shunting the child aside as we are consumed by our busy lives? Are we in fact ashamed of the child? Are we embarrassed by the snowflakery of caring for an inner child? All too often in our society and our heart we are pushing the children away. Ignoring the most potent and important part of the village. In many indigenous cultures, villages cared for their children. This not only created homecare for stressed parents, but also allowed a wider perspective for the child to grow. This wider perspective also helped to moderate any neurosis the caregiver might pass on the child. A village based on community is self-healing and co-supportive. In this way the child can grow with freedom to become healthy versions of themselves, not reactive copies of a copy of their parents. In some cultures, criminals and those with mental illness were taken into counsel with the elders of the community. This is a healing circle. The view is that connection is healing and isolation, whether by social ostracism or mental evasion, encourages infirmity. The places we hide in our mind may be protective. But they are also places we fail to grow. They are the burning children of our hearts waiting to be heard, held, and understood.

A view of compassion may be that we have the capacity to be our own village. And maybe we can extend our view outward and see others as ourselves. We are all hurting and unheard. Maybe by awareness we can begin to see and heal the places within ourselves that are keeping us in darkness. And maybe we can learn to give expression to the wounded children that so desperately need our love. One way to illuminate the darkness is to burn the village. Another way is to touch the heart and allow that child to be accepted as they are before that happens. Perhaps the flames of anger can be softened into the warmth of compassion.

Compassion can be seen as the transformation of hatred into empathy. We don’t have to fear the flames. We can hold them and allow their rage to soften into warmth.

The picture is from photo sessions for the album WAR by U2.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

GIVING UP CONTROL

    … and Stepping Beyond Fear

One of the ways we rob ourselves, and reduce our life is by demanding ownership of our experience. And ownership implies controlling the process and the outcome of what we own. But our life is not property. Life is a self-existing dynamic with our past and our world, unfolding naturally as a flower grows and unfolds. Ideally. But, as it is our life, we want what we want to occur in ways we want them to occur. And we want this in our time-frame. Like standing over a flower and yelling at it to grow faster. Or, maybe we are shaming, intimidating or manipulating the flower. Or maybe, more generously, we try coaching the flower to be its best self.

I hate that ‘best self’ thing. I’d like to tell the best-selfers to find their best self someplace away from me.  Best self implies that there are unfortunates below, and those we aspire to above. But aspirations can be limiting. I know this is the opposite of what is meant by aspiration, but what are we usually aspiring to? Someone else’s value of success? Some way of finding love when we believe we are unlovable?  Maybe we are basing our future on trying to rectify a broken past?

Or maybe we just want it our way.

With all respect to Frank and Sid, that my way thing is odd. Do we even know what my way is? All I know is that my way is a demand on our future. It is an expectation. An expectation based on what we know so far. This precludes any knowledge we might develop, or changes that are unforeseen. But life is unforseen. Expectations are a recipe for disappointment and disappointments breed resentment.  So we are locked in the ouroboros cycle searching for the definite in an undefinable world. This leads to further resentment.  Resentments are like cold condiment bottles from the back of the fridge we can’t seem to throw away. Resentments rob our life of joy. Suppose we just cleaned the fridge? Suppose we tossed out that old mayo turning gelatinous yellow? Why do we keep holding on to it? Are we hoping to meet someone with baloney and bread who needs us? But that mayo’s no good now, son. In fact it’s dangerous. Just let it go.

Most aspirations and expectations lead us to carry resentment. Are we trying to fill something lacking? We believe we are less-than and so shout in the mirror that we will change. We swear it. We promise it. And when it doesn’t happen, we ignore that and begin the cycle again fueled by resentment aspiring to change this time. When we don’t lose 10lbs, we try to lose 30. Maybe all we want is to be a version of ourselves that we can live with. All of these projections are based on what we already know and ignore all that we might become if we learn to let go. We are clinging tightly out of panic to the straws on the shore afraid of where the river will flow.  Although straws won’t save us, they are not the problem. The problems come when we clench our eyes and hold to the straws, (the person, the moment or the memory) with such tenacity that we miss what is actually happening. We are still singing that song about the one that got away as we miss all the others asking us to dance. Sometimes I think we do this deliberately, specifically so we don’t have to try something new. It’s a peculiarity of humans that we will choose what we don’t want over what we don’t know. We will choose pain we have had over the possibility of a cessation of pain we haven’t experienced. Hamlet didn’t fear the sleep of death. He feared “what dreams may come”.

We choose the devil we know, I guess. The problem is we never know. Even the devil doesn’t know. The unexamined life leads to dancing with one devil we know after the next, just so we have a semblance of control. But the only way to have control over life is to reduce that life down to a very small space. Even then, none of us are really ever in control. And, although that won’t keep us from trying, the river of life will do its thing, as it does. It doesn’t need us. It is actually not our life at all, but an experience we are invited to take part in. And the more we try and wrestle it into submission the more we feed our discontent. The river flows where it will no matter what straws we cling to or plans we make. Our need to control the flow does nothing to enhance our journey, it just makes the ride cumbersome and inelegant.

So are we to just roll over and play dead? Have we no say in our life, even to lead a virtuous life? I believe we have every say if we release control and gain agency. Control is blind clinging based on fear. Agency is an awakened flow state based on acceptance. As the only way to effectively approximate control is to limit possibilities, we are allowing fear to reduce our life. But if we are in acceptance of what our life is, and where it is growing, then we can navigate our journey on the path. In order to navigate, we have to have our eyes open. We must see where we are in order to have any hope of influencing where we are going.  And then we have to develop the mindfulness to pay attention as life unfolds. If we are awake and present, then life will show us where it leads. And then we can make an awake decision on how best to follow.

Finally, we have to be willing to work with fear and not succumb to the need to “do it my way.” Working with fear is acceptance of fear. It’s a willingness to allow fear to guide us. Fear is important for our survival, but it does not have to control us. If we accept our fear, we can use it as a stepping stone into the unknown. Rather than reacting to fear by reducing our world to habitual behaviours we have done time and time again. However, if we relax with our fear we can respond to life and all its dangers with creativity and spontaneity. We can try and control the path and predict outcomes to keep us from pain. But, pain is inevitable. If we accept this, and are willing to rest with our fear in the present, we might become an engaged partner in life.  Like being seated and balanced in the Kayak, we can navigate the flow if we keep our eyes open.

 

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

PROGRESS ON THE PATH

The OG yogis, in their old-school yoga days, referred to their path as leading to the perfection of human experience. Okay. But what is meant by perfection? And according to whom and what metric?

A worldly path to perfection is quantifiable in comparison to our world.  As vicious as it may be, it is comforting to judge our progress with standard quantifiable metrics. Are we becoming richer, thinner, or more popular?  Do our peers turn their heads in admiration, or avert their glances in disdain? Whenever we have the wherewithal to stop and look, are we able to see our world? Or do we only see how far up the ladder we are?

And where the heck does that ladder lead anyway?

Progress on a spiritual path is not perfect at all. It is based on reality.  But our mind needs to be trained to see reality. It needs to be disabused of believing in incremental progress toward a perfected state. While a material path may be leading to a defined sum, the spiritual path leads to being here. And here is a very changeable state.

We can become misled if we measure the path by worldly benchmarks. A worldly path leads to material accumulation. Materialism refers to  anything we believe is real, that can be quantified, and that we cling to in order to enhance our personal value. However, reading the fine print on this contract, we see that by placing these things above us, material things become our overlords. This is true of money.  Is our money working for our life, or are we living for money? This is also true of our beliefs, such as believing in spiritual attainment as though it was a thing that gave our life meaning. Our life gives spirituality its meaning. Which is to say a spiritual path leads to life. From this point of view, progress on the path is seeing where we really are in life. Are we more connected to our life, our family, our own mind? Or are we retreating into the fantasies of an ego state as we try to attain some vague thing that we believe will save us?

Progress on a wisdom path is letting go into what is here. It is living with acceptance that worldly metrics are not reliable and that our value comes from how deeply we understand our own mind and being. Are we clearer now? Are we more aware of our feelings? Are we able to be present in our life? Do we experience joy in life independent of any material cause? Are we able to experience negativity without deflecting the feeling with blame, or deadening it with substances? How much are we able to simply be?

It is said that the journey is the goal or the path is the fruition. Where are we going? Right here. When will we get there? Now. Our goal is the progressive stages to be here. And realization is happening all the time. The idea of perfection is an ego fantasy that keeps us from trying. WE WILL NEVER GET IT RIGHT! Nor will it ever be perfect. The idea of perfection is lazy science. Do we even know what perfect means?  Maybe it’s just an excuse to berate ourselves. Or is it an excuse not to even try?

The spiritual path is never straightforward. The development of wisdom in our life simply will not conform to the linear way our egoic mind conceives it. If our view is to develop wisdom, remove the veils of ego deception and be more helpful to our world, and if we are willing to train our minds to get there, then we can see our progress by learning to look with acceptance and love. One of the tools of mind training is to learn to see ourselves. And seeing is an experience. When I am thinking about where I am with judgement, then it is an ego qualification that, by nature, will always lead to dissatisfaction. But when I see myself with loving acceptance I see that I have come a great way. I see how much more caring I am, and how much clearer I am. It is very good to give ourselves a break. We are already wisdom beings.

We are already here. Progress is how much we see.