~ Question: On Putting out the Garbage
The letter below came to me from a young friend who is a Buddhist practitioner and nursing student, a wise old soul in a young body. I thought you might find it inspiring as she is dealing with a situation we all experience. ~ Nadhia
Hey Nadhia,
You always say that if there is garbage that is 'stinking up the house', then one cannot proceed in meditation until the garbage is clearly seen, understood, and detached from; that the reason it is 'stinking up the house' is that we are still unconsciously buying into it somehow. Well, that is what this retreat was primarily about for me. It was wholeheartedly allowing the garbage to surface without judgment, criticism or any ideas about how 'badly' the meditation was going on account of it.
In the beginning of the retreat I was able to develop a momentum and concentration fairly quickly (as usual for me). Some meditations were quite peaceful and blissful. BUT, that doesn't mean that I was addressing the garbage wholeheartedly (as usual!). There was a tension that kept entering the practice, and I would use the manifestation of it to develop deeper concentration (a habit that started years ago), but again that was not addressing the garbage. Until, FINALLY, I opened to the SOURCE of the tension ... and that was good. It shifted the quality of my mind, but still concentration remained.
I saw clearly that the tension is motivated by the same old thing: a fear that if I don't get deep, it won't be a successful retreat, I will look stupid to everyone and no one will love me. So then I started to see on much subtler levels the fear of not being loved (triggered by having other people around me), how that made me act/react, and how that was a major source of distracting me from being mindful in life.
Again, I allowed (i.e., didn't suppress) the manifestation of the reaction and just kept checking to see that wisdom was operating in the background [vipassana way of expressing non-judgemental awareness] ... this was what I had attempted to do around my ex-lover in the fall, but was only partially successful. This time it was much cleaner, and there was more wisdom and loving-kindness towards myself, not to mention a safer environment.
This fear of not being loved by EVERYONE -- but rather being hated (no exaggeration) -- has been so blinding and, it seems from what I saw, occupies so much unconscious space, that it clearly causes me to do the many unwholesome things I habitually do. So that is really very good, and I feel really empowered by this insight.
Also, because I have known about it intellectually -- in my head rather than in my gut -- for some time, I used to condemn myself for it, like it's a weakness and needs to be abandoned. But the shift that occurred on this retreat allowed me to SEE that actually it's OK if there's a weakness as long as there is awareness, wisdom and loving-kindness around it. Then real humility can arise and genuineness in life. After all, it's just conditioning, it's not me, who I really am -- just stuff, content, like dust motes floating in a ray of light.
Love,
L.H.
Hi L
This struggle is common to all of us. We all have ‘stuff’ – conditioned attitudes and reactions that cause us conflict and suffering as well as blocking certain areas of expression, love, expansion. We may have deeply rooted fears, destructive desires, negative emotions, and other psychological burdens which we live and cope with, rationalise or ignore because we don’t know how to deal constructively with them.
In vipassana practice, one seeks to maintain non-judgemental awareness of whatever arises in consciousness. This does NOT mean ignoring the content, neither is it interfering with it in any way: it is being fully aware of whatever arises without identifying with it.
The analogy of dust motes floating in the light is used to illustrate this attitude. The dust motes are our ‘stuff’. The light is the light of consciousness, our consciousness – ourselves. The light is NOT the dust; the dust is NOT the light. Because of the light of consciousness we are aware of the dust particles. By maintaining our age-old habit of identifying ourselves with everything the light illumines (“I’m good,” “I’m bad,” “I’m angry,” “I’m ugly,” etc.), we remain entrenched in whatever quagmire we find ourselves in. Modern psychiatry tries to ‘fix’ the quagmire, the personality with all its quirks. Spirituality, however, teaches that this is futile so long as we remain identified with the quagmire. We must take a step UP in the scale of conscious awareness: from the level of complete identification with the content of consciousness to identifying with the light of consciousness itself – that which illumines and makes known the content. The light of consciousness is distinct from the ‘dust motes’ it illumines. Our first step, therefore, is to come to identify ourselves with that LIGHT which is, in fact, our true self.
Thus, when we are meditating or practicing mindfulness in daily life, we become more aware of the dust, the content of consciousness, especially the stuff we find objectionable. However, every judgment, criticism or reaction is also dust, and when we understand this clearly, things do begin to shift dramatically. So we aim to simply notice whatever arises, calmly and without judgment, criticism or trying to change it.
This shift in attitude produces a corresponding shift in consciousness. As the impartial witness of whatever stuff arises, we find ourselves in the position of the light, and merely observe the dust motes. Moreover, by no longer fueling our stuff by repeatedly identifying with it, there results a steady weakening of whatever power the stuff has over us – it’s charge – until we are no longer susceptible to its pull. By thus depriving it of attention and identification (which are its ‘food’), it eventually dies out altogether.
There are two common glitches here:
1. Some people, usually beginners, imagine that because they know about some ‘dust’ (perhaps it’s been pointed out to them by others, or they have noticed it once or twice), then that is equal to being aware of it. To know our stuff is NOT the same as knowing about our stuff.
It is important to understand that knowing about something is not at all the same as impartially witnessing it in action each and every time it arises. Knowing about something never accomplished anything but the creation of more guilt, fear and suppression – more ‘dust’. One is still completely identified with the desire, fear, compulsion or whatever it is. So knowing about it is only useful as the first step to seeing it dispassionately.
Seeing some piece of dust dispassionately, without identification, when it arises in consciousness gives us true choice. Because we are not instantly ‘glued’ to the dust through identification, we have the choice to either identify with it or not. When we maintain the attitude of non-identified, impartial witness, we are refusing to plug into that bit of conditioning, we are refusing the ‘juice’ it needs to operate. And that refusal to feed or buy into the dust effectively neutralises it. And if we do this consistently, every time it arises, remaining poised in the light, not fighting or resisting or judging ourselves, that piece of dust will eventually leave us completely.
2. There is a common attitude among some meditators (particularly in the neo-advaita line) that if they just ignore the ‘dust’ it will go away since it is ‘unreal’ in the first place. While this is based on the truth – that if we completely and thoroughly refuse to feed a tendency, it will die out – all too often it is just an excuse to avoid facing and acknowledging the stuff in the first place because one is, in fact, so identified with it that one just can’t face acknowledging it. Detachment is NOT denial; it is full acknowledgement with dispassion of whatever is there.
Treading water may prevent you from drowning, but neither does it bring you any further to the shore. Eventually, you get tired and sink.
Nadhia |
