Vipassana Reflections, Part IV – Enlightenment?
As I’m trying to write this, one month after the event, it sounds a little weird, even to me. But stay with me for one last part of the story. On the way home, I was driving and reflecting on the past 10 days, and continuing to notice my perceptions. I was seeing how I would see a car drive beside me and I’d have an opinion about them instantly, and notice feelings in my body accordingly. And I was remembering my experience of pure awareness and wondering about what I do with that. Do I try to experience it again? For longer? What next?
And then in some bizarre, zen-story-like moment of satori insight – a deep understanding arose, and I saw through all of this. There was knowing that none of this was me. These thoughts, feelings, body, breath – but also, even this awareness. All of it was NOT separate from the rest of the universe, like a wave is not separate from the rest of the ocean. But this was not an intellectual insight – it was experiential. I felt the lack of separation deeply throughout “my” body. This description doesn’t really do it justice, but that is the best I can do at this time to capture it.
That lasted for a few minutes and then passed, mostly because I had to keep driving and not get into an accident! Since then, I’ve tried to make sense of this all, hence the delay in writing. It really seems to line up with traditional knowledge and explanations of enlightenment experiences. But it came and went. For a little while, there was NO I. But now there is. But it definitely feels different. Shifted. Lighter. Looser.
To me it seems radical, or even crazy to suggest that I’ve had an enlightenment experience. Like it is out there, flakey, or grandiose. Impossible. Fantasy. But from my studies and experience, I really believe now that it is possible, and I have experienced a taste of it. I’m not writing this to show how I am amazing or now I am some great guru who knows it all. I don’t. I have learned some things from my 10 years of meditating, but I am not a zen master. But I want people to know that this is possible.
In my studies before and after, different perspectives on the path seem to point to similar truths, although they may offer different methods of getting there. Some suggest that pure awareness is the final truth, others suggest that complete disidentification and dissolution of the self is. Some suggest that it can be done in an instant just through realization, others say it requires hard work and persistent effort. I suspect they may both be right. From my experiences, getting to a different level of consciousness can arise spontaneously, or as a result of conscious intention and sustained effort and awareness. But the quality of the consciousness can be different – it can be very fleeting, or more sustained. Shallow or deep. Or throw me for a loop, or I can keep my footing. Generally, it has been beneficial to experience shifts in conciousness, and has led to wisdom, compassion, and peace.
It seems like taking the path of sustained practice and work, tends to lead to more stability, but it is not without its own perils and pitfalls (like turning things into a blind ritual or habit). Regardless, by both methods I have arrived at a similar place. A deep sense of wonder, peace, love, and oneness. But this has never lasted. That state of mind has always come and gone, like all the rest. And generally, when it does, I’m left wishing it would come back and get caught up in the cycles of clinging and aversion once again – that lead me AWAY from enlightment, instead of towards it. What usually takes me there is when I give up, and let go. And come at things with an attitude of peace, love, and truth – non-striving, non-clinging, and not knowing what comes next.
So now what? I don’t know. Honestly. I feel like in some ways I was transformed by this. But in other ways, I’m still “me”. I don’t have all the answers. But I have some clues. And I intend to follow this path and see where it leads, because so far it has been worthwhile in terms of results in my own personal life.
I think I’ve had the concept of enlightenment on a pedastal for a long time, putting it up there with other goals to strive for – thinking, perversely, if I get this, I will be special, I will be happy, and at peace. But finally experiencing a taste of it, I see that it is fleeting like any other experience – and not ultimately satisfying. Still worth exploring and pursuing, but in a grounded way, without fantasy and projection.And knowing that peace needs to be found in the here and now, in everyday living, not just on a cushion.
Vipassana Reflections, Part III – Truth.
Which brings me to the final insight. Throughout the retreat I had been starting to pay attention to my perceptions. Which is usually pretty tough to do in the sped up busy world of everyday life. But after 10 days of quiet, it gets a lot easier to notice how we notice. And I could see as soon as I looked at anything, or anyone, there would instantly be a judgment or opinion about that object. I could see my biases about the people around me, which had been accumulating the whole time. Which oftens leads to a somewhat unsettling final day, when we all get to talk to each other. Throughout the 10 days of silence, I’ve constructed all these stories in my head about everyone, decided who I like and who I don’t – all without talking to them! But when I talk to them I see how wrong I usually am – that all of them have so many interesting layers to their lives and so much to share.
And I brought this insight about perception to myself, and seeing the stories that I tell about myself. About who I am. About why I matter. About my past. About my future. These layers of identity that I hold on to. That I am a husband. Son. Career counsellor. Farmer. Student. Meditator. Smart. Funny. Helpful. Creative. Or negatively – lame, boring, selfish, and worse. And I saw the power of these stories to affect my behaviour. That they are just stories, and not the actual truth. But I take them to be the truth, and act accordingly. And these stories can limit me in many ways.
In relation to myself and the world, I started to see that what I usually take as perception, and the truth, was rarely that. I think that I am holding up a flashlight to the world and seeing things as they are, but it’s more like I’m holding up a projector – shining images onto everyone and everything – seeing these images projected as if they are the truth.
Things got a little cosmic when I started applying this idea to my perception of my inner experience. I could see how I was projecting images and stories even to my inner experience. That when scanning my body, I would actually be picturing it in my mind at the same time. Or when feeling something intense, I would be telling a story about it simultaneously – maybe telling myself why it was there, judging it for being bad, or trying to hold on to it if it was pleasant. But one of the most intense stories or projections, was that these things were real and solid and ME.
As I started to pay attention, I started seeing that rather than solid things, they were more like holograms projected by my awareness. For those of you that have played with the new virtual reality devices, this can be pretty easy to relate to. When you put on the headset and look around, you see a new reality – and it feels amazingly real. It looks like you are underwater, or on a mountain – but you are just sitting on a couch. And what I take to be reality, is NOT – it is my perception/projection of it. When I think I am seeing an image, I am actually seeing the signal from the light entering my eyeballs, flipped upsidedown by the optic structure, flipped again to be rightside up by my brain, and then edited to focus on key parts, leave out others, and even fill in blind spots – like an airbrushed reality. And all of that is just happening INSIDE MY HEAD.
As I looked at those perceptions, they started to dissolve and I saw them in a new way. Not as solid things, but instead as ripples of consciousness. Like how a wave isn’t a real separate thing – it just a temporary manifestation of the water, NOT separate from it. At this point basically everything dissolved into just pure spacious awareness with ripples coming and going. There was nothing solid. Nothing to fight. Nothing to hold. Nothing to do. Just peace. I was identified now with only my awareness. This lasted for a little while (maybe an hour?) and then it too passed and I started coming back to more normal levels of awareness.
Vipassana Reflections, Part II – Love.
Some very interesting things can start to emerge in this quiet. During the first few days of decompressing at the retreat, I often experience thoughts and feelings related to my current life situation. But after that settles, deeper memories and emotions start to come to the surface. These can be kind of intense at times, to say the least! But if I manage to keep my footing for the most part I can experience them and let them come and go. I’ll often experience waves of anger, sadness, anxiety, despair, or guilt (mixed in with highs of bliss and joy). My usual response would be to try to get right of them, or to get caught up in them, but with practice I can face them calmly.
I have found that one of the most helpful stances towards my inner experience is one of deep compassion. I can easily get critical and blame myself for having these “negative” emotions, thinking I am a failure or a loser, or worse. This tends to NOT help – just dumping more intense feelings on top of the first. Instead, I try to find a way to bring compassion – often I start by looking at my inner self as being the kid version of me. Maybe like 4 years old. Vulnerable, tender, and deserving of love. And if I manage to resist the urge to fix it or change it, and just sit with it, like sitting with a crying child (or one having a temper tantrum), eventually it calms down. And after the storm, things open up to a new level of depth and richness. Raw, but also alive. Real. Here.
One particularly powerful insight that helped me have more compassion for myself came towards the end of the course. I was observing myself being competitive with the other meditators beside me in the front row (ridiculous sounding, I know – but I manage to be competitive when meditating even!). After fighting with that, I just gave up and sat with it, being competitive. But I started to have this deep unravelling running back through my life and seeing how I’ve always striven to be the best (or judged myself for not being so). And I could see that this was tied to insecurity. A sense of not being good enough as I am. And wrapped up in my tendencies towards social and performance anxiety. All of this striving was an effort to avoid this deeply painful feeling of inadequacy, of not being worth paying attention to.
That’s when I had an a-ha insight from a research paper I did in my Master’s, on the connection between the trait of behavioural inhibition in babies to social anxiety in adults. To sum up a complex topic, babies who are born as more introverted/shy/timid, tend to be treated differently, not exposed to as many social settings, sheltered more, left alone more, and tend not to have experiences needed to develop social confidence and esteem. I saw my own childhood in a new light, seeing myself born as the second child (and naturally getting less attention because of that) of loving but busy parents who were working hard to set up a new life in the country, and dealing with their own lives and feelings. Who saw a child that seemed to prefer to be alone. So they often left him to play by himself, reading fantasy, constructing worlds in his own imagination – which I did enjoy. But I also learned that I wasn’t worth paying attention to – unless I was hurt, or helpful, funny, or accomplished something smart or special.
And I saw all of this behaviour was rooted in that childhood experience. Stemming from that feeling of not being adequate – and not wanting to feel it. Trying to escape it, to be special, helpful, funny, or smart as a way of avoiding it (again touching on experiential avoidance). These behaviours had some good results – I’ve worked hard, learned lots. But also they cause suffering. And by sitting with that deep sense of inadequacy and NOT acting, something interesting happened. I could see that it was just a feeling. Not the truth. It was based on a judgment I made as a tiny kid that lack of attention meant I was defective, rather than that my parents were busy with their own shit, or thought I was doing fine, or I was a second kid so going to get less attention anyways. And that judgment wasn’t accurate. And this helped me let go. But also to sit with myself in a whole new way. With compassion. Deeply. Seeing that child in me that suffered so, and cherish and hold him.
Vipassana Reflections, Part I – Peace.
Going through a 10-day retreat might seem like a relaxing vacation on the surface, but it can actually be an intense roller coaster with gruelling lows and blissful highs. Who woulda thunk it? And to help me keep my footing as I go through all of this, a few things helped me immensely – namely, abiding in peace, love, and truth.
After writing this, it turned out to be pretty lengthy, so I’ve split it into 4 parts to make for more bite-sized chunks of reading. This will take you somewhat in-depth through my experience, warts and all. Please keep in mind this is my 15th time going to one of these retreats, so a beginner’s experience would likely be different – in fact everyone’s experience will vary! I don’t totally understand everything that happened there, but I will report my experience as best I can.
Part I – Peace
Coming in to the retreat, I brought with me my busy mind, and my striving attitude towards life – always trying to accomplish things, and be successful. In the outer world, this tends to be rewarded, and to a certain degree, actually useful. But in the inner world of thoughts, feelings, and awareness it is often somewhat counterproductive. At this particular retreat, there are detailed instructions to follow, and me being the accomplishing kind of guy that I am, I try to follow them. The problem is, that by striving, we may actually muddy the waters.
Imagine if you had a glass with water and sand in it that was all stirred up, but you want it to be clear. Our doing self would be tempted to reach in to the glass to slow it down somehow – but ultimately any action we’d take would just stir it up further. What we need to do is be STILL. Just let the water calm down, and the sand will settle to the bottom. With observing breath, sensations, feelings, and thoughts – the more I am able to just abide and watch them come and go, the calmer the waters become.
This translates into the realms of psychology quite nicely, and the idea of experiential avoidance (which I’ve written about before). To briefly capture that complex idea, at the heart of many emotional disorders and stress is the core problem of NOT wanting to experience what we are feeling, and trying to DO something to make it go away. If this behaviour seems to work, it often ends up being repeated, and turns in to a safety behaviour that we cling to – like compulsive hand-washing with OCD for example. This also applies to many other behaviours that might actually turn out to be compulsive if we stop and look – like working, drinking, gambling, shopping, surfing the internet, checking our phones, and more – often triggered by some discomfort or unease.
It’s tricky at first to just sit and NOT respond. Because we are SO used to it. But the more I sit and DON’T respond, the more I can see that things come and go on their own.
A few lessons help to let them go – namely Buddhist insights of Anicca, Anata, and Dukkha. Put very simply -Anicca tells us that all things are changing and impermanent if we pay attention, hence not worth reacting to. Anata touches on ideas of emptiness, but may be best understood as lack of a separate, solid self. Dukkha, talks about suffering and unsatisfactoriness – that with the impermanence of all things, getting attached to pleasant feelings, or resisting unpleasant ones only leads to further suffering.
All of this helps to stay focused and not get swept away (kind of like Odysseus lashed to the mast to resist the siren songs). Eventually things get a little calmer and it is possible to start noticing some interesting things that are usually too subtle to see with all the busyness. My most successful sits were often the ones where I went in having given up my agenda, and decided to just sit and see what happens.
Hunting Highs and Lows
What makes me suffer? Or happy? So often I give too much credit to the external world of events and other people for what is going on inside me. Is it more about the weather outside or inside that determines how gracefully I go through my days? Continuing on the theme of finding new ways of dealing with inevitable pain and suffering from my last post, I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on my attitude towards “positive” and “negative” events, situations, people, and emotions.
Spectacular sunrise after a heavy frost…
When I am zipping along somewhat unconsciously through life, it is easy to be guided by my unconscious reactions – I like this, I don’t like that, avoid this, get more of that… And generally this seems to work ok when I can have some control over the conditions at hand. I don’t have to eat gross things usually, and can listen to music I like, etc… Usually I get my way. But definitely not all the time. Often there are things I DON’T like and I CAN’T make them go away, at least not right away. The more extreme the dislike or discomfort, the more intense the suffering.
I can see a lot of times that I am primarily reacting to my own judgments about whatever it is, for example if Carlyn wants to listen to a new Metallica record she bought – am I going to react thinking that I know what that is like and keep to my opinion? If I make a little room and listen to it as if it is a new thing I haven’t heard, I am often pleasantly surprised, and start letting go of some of my judgments. Maybe I don’t hate Metallica so much after all?
Having these preferences and reactions to things gets more complicated when dealing with performance psychology. Lately I’ve been playing this addictive game on my phone called Dots, and it is SUCH a valuable teacher! To summarize, in the game you try to blow up dots by connecting two of the same colour together, and if you can connect them so they form a box, then all the dots of that colour on the screen disappear. Quite simple really. The thing is, you only have 1 minute to play the game, and if you want to get an exceptionally high score, EVERY second counts. Seriously. Getting frustrated or trying too hard will totally kill your score. So the key to me seems to be finding this relaxed but focused attention, staying totally focused on the next move and not getting caught up in a mistake I just made, or how shitty the board looks currently.
What gets me hooked the most is when I finally get into the relaxed state of flow, in the zone, I usually have a great game! And THEN I want it again, because it feels SO good. More please. And of course, the next game is different, with a different layout, and quickly I am frustrated and disappointed that it doesn’t match my expectation, and I end up trying to force it and get frustrated, losing the flow. As soon as I am clinging to the perfect game, I am lost. So the way out? Seems to be finding a way to be ok with having a shitty game, while still trying my best. Finding a way to be ok with losing, making mistakes, but still working towards the goal of winning. Tricky. Caring, but not overcaring.
What this game is teaching me about emotions is totally translating over into the fields of performance psychology. I often struggle at the beginning of a workshop or in some social situations, putting pressure on myself to have a “perfect game”, and be calm and confident. And when it seems like the external world (or inner world) is not matching up to the image in my head, I get disappointed and lose focus and my performance starts to suffer. In wanting NOT to be anxious or awkward, I usually end up being MORE anxious or awkward. At least for a little while until I realize it, and accept it, and kind of give up my dream of being perfect or spectacular, and make room for being the anxious or awkward, imperfect me. And then at that point I am often right back into the state of flow and in the zone. Being myself, present, accepting what is and reacting to it naturally.
So what defines that ZONE? Being present with what is happening, welcoming it even, while still being focused on my goals for the future in a loose way. Goals more shaped like values than outcomes, looking at the process – am I being honest, brave, curious, compassionate, playful? If so, then the outcome doesn’t matter as much – and usually the outcome will be more positive when I am acting from those values anyhow.
As is often the case with anxiety or other “negative” emotions, we can start focusing on wanting to NOT feel anxious. And get caught in all kinds of behaviours to avoid it, but this trying to control it usually just ends up making more entrenched. A lot of popular theory, like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) or Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) talk about simply making room for these painful feelings, and going about our lives, taking action in line with our values. And I am finding this a powerful approach, instead of waiting for perfect conditions, I do things I want despite feeling uncomfortable, which tends to begin to lessen the distress.
But there still seems to be a lingering tension here. I am trying my best to accommodate these feelings, really, but still struggle with them. To me there seems to be a powerful difference between just accepting or tolerating unpleasant feelings, and actually welcoming them. The few times where I’ve gone into a workshop actually HOPING to be anxious so that I can practice new skills, it has essentially dissolved. The more I shift in this direction, of being wary of the highs (celebrating but not getting too attached), and opening up to the lows, the easier life seems to become. Pema Chodron talks of using the highs for inspiration and motivation, and using the lows to develop humility and compassion for others, to soften and open us to life and other people. This paradoxical attitude is captured quite well in a story she tells in the Pocket Pema Chodron:
Into the demon’s mouth…
Milarepa, who lived in the eleventh century, is one of the heroes of Tibetan Buddhism, one of the brave ones. He was also a rather unusual fellow. He was a loner who lived in caves by himself and meditated whole heartedly for years. He was extremely stubborn and determined. If he couldn’t find anything to eat for a couple of years, he just ate nettles and turned green, but he would never stop practicing.
The story goes that one evening Milarepa returned to his cave after gathering firewood, only to find it filled with demons. They were cooking his food, reading his books, sleeping in his bed. They had taken over the joint. He knew about the teaching of the nonduality between self and other, but he still didn’t quite know how to get these guys out of his cave. Even though he had the sense that they were a projection of his own mind- all the unwanted parts of himself- he didn’t know how to get rid of them.
So first he taught them the dharma. He sat on this seat that was higher than they were and said things to them about how we all are one. He talked about compassion and emptiness and other key Buddhist teachings. Nothing happened. The demons were still there. Then he lost his patience and got angry and ran at them. They just laughed at him. Finally he gave up and just sat down on the floor saying, “I’m not going away and it looks like you’re not either, so let’s just live here together.”
At that point, all of them left except one. Milarepa said “This one is particularly vicious.” (We all know that one. Sometimes we have lots of them like that. Sometimes we feel that’s all we’ve got.) He didn’t know what to do, so he surrendered himself even further. He walked over and put himself right into the mouth of the demon and said, “Just eat me up if you want to.” Then that demon left too. The moral of the story is, when the resistance is gone, so are the demons.
Copied from: http://nonduality.org/2010/01/12/milarepa-pema-chodron-and-a-regular-guy-oh-and-demons/
Subjectivity and Emptiness.
The flickering nature of the candle’s flame parallels the slippery essence of our existence…
Contemplating Buddhist ideas of emptiness has gotten me awfully confused from time to time. It’s complex and I won’t do it justice here, but my (fluid) interpretation of it is that basically all things are empty of a permanent independent nature. This is meant to disarm powerful feelings and ideas from taking over, diminish our sense of ego, and lessen our attachment to objects and people. If everything is inherently “empty” (perhaps fluid, dynamic, changing would be more helpful) – then nothing is worth getting that worked up about or clinging to. Which is liberating at first. But I have also found it terrifying.
If things are empty and changing – then what matters? Why should I ever do anything? Does my career matter? Do I? My ideas? If my feelings are changing can I just ignore them until they go away? It can get awfully nihilistic awfully fast if it is carried to its seemingly logical conclusion.
I think the trick lies along the lines of the idea of “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form”. While it IS true that everything is fluid, changing, interconnected and empty of a separate permanent existence – it’s also true that things still EXIST. And this impermanent, shifting, ever-emerging and elusive existence is all that there really is. Right now. So back to the previous dilemma – WHAT MATTERS?
I think that SUBJECTIVITY matters.
Had an interesting chat with Carlyn recently about subjectivity and have been pondering the ramifications since. Subjectivity itself seems to be so inherently part of experience that I often forget about it altogether, to my detriment. A few key points I’ve been pondering include:
1. Subjectivity is all we can actually know. Every situation we look at is always going to be from our own perspective. It’s always through our eyes, our ears, our beliefs, and our feelings that we interpret the world and come up with reactions to it. And it is never wholly accurate. We can never really see the objective reality in a situation. Never. Even from a scientific perspective this is true – Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle tells us this. When we try to observe something, the observing of it CHANGES it. And even the fact that we are looking from one angle means that we are NOT looking from another. Does this mean our point of view is flawed and should be disregarded? I would argue no. Because…
2. Every perspective on a situation adds to our understanding. If we can never see the actual truth in a situation, we can shed light on it from as many perspectives as possible. There is a rainbow of truth and no one side of anything is actually true in itself. Politically, religiously, or even just physically – you can’t see everything from one angle. You can’t only consider the social, economic, or environmental consequences – you need to look at all of them to truly see. Without it we are subject to…
3. Atomic thinking. Compartmentalized and specialized. Looking at things from the point of view we’ve got leads to serious flaws in logic. On one hand, it is valuable to be specialized and dive into an area of expertise – like sociology, economics, psychology, history, or science. By diving deep we can make some insightful conclusions and discoveries. But isolated we lose our power to see interconnections and various angles.
The thing that struck me is what this means for how I should be applying this to my daily life. When I am talking to people I often either value my own opinion or their opinion higher than the other. One is expert, one is passionate, one is uniformed or hasty, etc… But they all count. And this is a real boost for ME! Because it means that what I have to say matters – even when I am hesitant to share my thoughts. The catch is that is matters as much as someone else’s perspective. And remembering this in the course of my day can lead me to balance respect for other people’s ideas with assertiveness for my own – keeping a place at the table for every perspective.
Sometimes this gets tough, but that seems to be when I need it the most. Listening to perspectives that I would often prefer to discount. Like a more conservative political one, or a fundamentalist religious one, or even just the business case for something. But it sure seems to lead to leaps in understanding. And smooths out relationships and conflicts. People like to feel heard. And that their ideas matter -but they need to be kept in line too – their idea may matter – but so does it’s opposite.
And that works internally too. I’m chock full of contradictory ideas and feelings. And sometimes I go one way or the other, seeming to contradict my own feelings or ideas. But really they both count. I can love someone and be furious with them at the same time. Or feel confident and ashamed at once too.
And that brings me full circle to emptiness. I think BOTH matter. Subjectivity matters. Our experiences, ideas, feelings, views, beliefs – all matter. AND don’t. Value them, cherish them, celebrate them – because they are what life is made out of. Art, music, philosophy, science, conversations – all celebrated various perspectives – that are changing and flowing with time. But right now is where it’s at. And it won’t last. So instead of holding on and clinging to life because of over attachment, or letting go completely and drifting off into emptiness and void – it is the middle ground that is the freshest and most alive intersection for me. Counting this moment and cherishing it, but at the same time letting it go and making way for the next.
K. Miguel Hahn 