Whenever I think about death, or serious illness, or being disabled, or some other tragedy striking me or someone I love, I feel a lot of distress. Most people would feel distress from these topics, I suppose. Yet it struck me today how odd this is.
We know from a fairly young age that any of these things, and many other tragedies, are possible, and do actually happen, and while the depth is often not driven home until we personally experience it, still there is a reaction that I would consider normal - fear, perhaps, or even anger.
What I discovered in myself, however, was a feeling of shock, as if I really had never believed these things would happen. If I hear of someone who had just gotten the news that they had terminal cancer, it would not merely be sad to me, or stimulate fear - each time it would be like a nasty reality that had rudely invaded whatever set of beliefs I had been carrying.
I am realizing that within my mind, I am busily constructing a story about life and the universe that does not include many of the facts of life - I am constructing a fantasy of how life is, despite my solid knowledge of pieces I now realize I am leaving out. I am systematically ignoring certain facts of life in building my story, so that I am continually shocked when one of these nasty facts hit me in the face.
The oddness of this is that, one would think that we as natural creatures, existing as the current end product of a long line of natural processes, with our intelligence and understanding, would have long ago integrated the basic facts of life into our story; that just as a dog or a bird knows instinctively how to live his life, and how to respond to normal occurrences of life, that we, too, knowing these facts, would have come up with a world view that had so incorporated them that they seem normal, natural parts of life, even if they are not desirable. It seems that healthy creatures who have lived in an environment where death and pain have existed for millions of years, would have somehow learned to integrate those facts into how they live life, and would expect these things to happen. A tragedy would happen, and while we might be sad, we would not be surprised or shocked, or have our world view shaken in any way, or lose our faith, or become full at rage at the universe, if these normal occurrences had truly been known and integrated.
Yet, how many people are totally unprepared for a death or a disability to strike near at hand? How is it that so many of us come out of these experiences shaken, even destroyed? Why is it that we, the most intelligent species on the planet, seem to be the only creature who has difficulty accepting the natural elements of life and death in the environment in which we live; indeed, the only environment we as a species have ever known?
"So, I'll continue to continue to pretend
My life will never end
And flowers never bend
With the rainfall."
I would like to know life as I would a lover - to know her good and bad sides, to accept her in all of her aspects, so that it is she I truly come to know, and not an illusion.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
Confessing and Forgiving All
When a hurtful incident occurs between friends who want to be reconciled, there will be something left undone if there are motives left unspoken, stories left unsaid, feelings left untouched. Yet sometimes we fear telling the other what really went on inside of us, for fear that will make it worse. We withhold, trying to make it less difficult; and we resent, feeling our pain has not yet been fully heard.
This does not work. Somewhere inside lingers the hidden shadow pieces that we don't want to share, the parts of us we do not love enough to let them be seen; and the connection between us is of necessity weakened, since we must now filter everything we share.
How can an incident ever be truly cleared, if we have not both confessed all, and forgiven all?
This does not work. Somewhere inside lingers the hidden shadow pieces that we don't want to share, the parts of us we do not love enough to let them be seen; and the connection between us is of necessity weakened, since we must now filter everything we share.
How can an incident ever be truly cleared, if we have not both confessed all, and forgiven all?
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Getting Rid of Judgment
As I went out to lunch from work, I found myself obsessing about getting a good parking place when I came back. I wanted to hurry up with my lunch so that I would beat the majority of the lunch crowd back, and increase my chances of a good place.
Then I caught myself, and started beating up on myself. "Why am I obsessing about a stupid parking place? What's the matter with me? Don't I have anything better to do than worry about if I am going to have to walk a few more feet from the car to the door? God, what a trivial mind I have!", etc., etc
Then another shift happened - I started noticing myself. "Oh, I'm someone who sometimes obsesses about getting a good parking place. I'm someone who occasionally beats himself up because of harsh judgments. Isn't that interesting? I wonder why I do those things?" I found myself now being more curious than angry, and started to muse on the implications of what I had just experienced about myself.
Thinking about this, I realized that when I was judging myself, I was repeating stories from a lot of beliefs I have stored in my brain, ready for moments like this. The beliefs are always the same - they do not vary, and they do not yield easily to evidence to the contrary. But when I started focusing on what was actually happening before me, it became obvious that I hadn't been experiencing myself or my surroundings at all - I was living from a little negative fantasy world about what was happening "out there". When I turned my attention to what was actually happening, I started to notice new things. I was tacitly acknowledging that I did not already know what I would find, that the results were unpredictable, and that they could change at any moment. My experience, not my beliefs, demanded my attention if I wanted to know the truth.
As I mulled over my revelation, I thought about these two ways of relating to the world - judgment and experience. I quickly saw that I preferred experience over judgment for many very practical reasons. Coming from my judgmental stories meant that I was not in touch with the real world, that I was living in fantasy, and that I wouldn't even know it when I was wrong. That could create many embarrassing moments, as well as hinder myself from meeting my own needs. When I focused on experience, I found I was more open to learning new things, to correct beliefs I was carrying, and I felt more alive because my source of information was constantly moving, not static. There was nothing wrong with being judgmental if I wanted - it wouldn't make me a "bad" person for doing so - but living from my experience just made a lot more sense. Judgment was more dumb than bad.
I think that shame comes from believing in judgment. When our focus is on what is, there are no longer shoulds or shouldn't, there is just what is. There is no judgment out there in the world, there are no rights or wrongs, goods or bads; there is only sun, air, trees, people doing what they do, roads in the condition they are in, life behaving like life. All the judgments, shoulds, and shouldn'ts are riding around in the little heads perched on top of our shoulders, and no where else.
This strikes me as a good reason to befriend reality, to connect with what is, to continually take our queues from the continuing experience we are immersed in - in doing so, we can live in a world much bigger and more alive than the world inside our heads.
Monday, April 26, 2010
When to give in
I have several friends into the Law of Attraction and other philosophies that encourage me to not give in to perceived limitations. Some of my friends insist, "you can do anything if you believe in yourself", and they refuse to put any qualifications on that statement.
My father loved to ride trains. He did it as a hobby, following train routes, going places he had not been before, loving the feel and touch of the engine and rails. As he grew older, he became more and more disabled, and less and less able to pursue his passion. However, he always talked about his next trip and how good it would be. Eventually he was unable to walk, confined to bed, and did not have that long to live. He went farther into fantasy, and would talk about heading to New York tomorrow to catch a train to DC. He refused to accept his limitations, even though the limitations were very real, and independent travel for him was truly no longer possible.
I am not someone who chooses to lie in fantasy. I'm the one who wants to know from the doctor, how long do I have? I'd rather struggle with the truth, even though I don't like it, than live in my own dream world.
But at what point is it healthy to give up one's dreams? When do we face the facts, and realize the chance is gone? I will never win an olympic gold metal. I'll never be the rock star I had once wanted to be. But what about more subtle things? Will I ever conquer my shyness? Should I give up on that goal, and accept myself as I am, or should I continue to try to change myself into the person I wish I was? We all are familiar with the other extreme - limiting ourselves by our negative beliefs, when the truth is that we are far more capable than we believe. But sometimes we truly are not capable, and there is a lot of gray area in between.
The grieving process is now a well-understood and well-documented process, necessary to handle in a healthy way any major loss in our lives. When the loss is a perceived loss of capability, and we cannot really know for sure that we are truly incapable, we can get stuck either in a perpetual striving after something that never comes, or a continual grieving combined with the suspicion that if we had only tried harder, or if we only try harder now, things would change. This limbo land between letting go of one's dreams and choosing to continue to believe despite all evidence can be hell. Who wants to live with the torture that if they had only tried harder, they could have had their dream? And who wants to spend their life pursuing something that is never going to come? When progress is not happening, how does one cut their losses when it is not clear that they have lost yet?
I have a tendency, inherited strongly from my parents, of living a victim story - I don't have what I need because of X - abuse, lack of love as a child, lack of natural ability today, etc. I fight this tendency all the time, seeking to believe more in myself, seeking to take risk, to learn how to move forward, to grab onto life with gusto. But how long do I live with lack of success before I finally give in? And how can I ever know that giving in is really the right thing to do, when there is no proof that I am truly incapable?
My father loved to ride trains. He did it as a hobby, following train routes, going places he had not been before, loving the feel and touch of the engine and rails. As he grew older, he became more and more disabled, and less and less able to pursue his passion. However, he always talked about his next trip and how good it would be. Eventually he was unable to walk, confined to bed, and did not have that long to live. He went farther into fantasy, and would talk about heading to New York tomorrow to catch a train to DC. He refused to accept his limitations, even though the limitations were very real, and independent travel for him was truly no longer possible.
I am not someone who chooses to lie in fantasy. I'm the one who wants to know from the doctor, how long do I have? I'd rather struggle with the truth, even though I don't like it, than live in my own dream world.
But at what point is it healthy to give up one's dreams? When do we face the facts, and realize the chance is gone? I will never win an olympic gold metal. I'll never be the rock star I had once wanted to be. But what about more subtle things? Will I ever conquer my shyness? Should I give up on that goal, and accept myself as I am, or should I continue to try to change myself into the person I wish I was? We all are familiar with the other extreme - limiting ourselves by our negative beliefs, when the truth is that we are far more capable than we believe. But sometimes we truly are not capable, and there is a lot of gray area in between.
The grieving process is now a well-understood and well-documented process, necessary to handle in a healthy way any major loss in our lives. When the loss is a perceived loss of capability, and we cannot really know for sure that we are truly incapable, we can get stuck either in a perpetual striving after something that never comes, or a continual grieving combined with the suspicion that if we had only tried harder, or if we only try harder now, things would change. This limbo land between letting go of one's dreams and choosing to continue to believe despite all evidence can be hell. Who wants to live with the torture that if they had only tried harder, they could have had their dream? And who wants to spend their life pursuing something that is never going to come? When progress is not happening, how does one cut their losses when it is not clear that they have lost yet?
I have a tendency, inherited strongly from my parents, of living a victim story - I don't have what I need because of X - abuse, lack of love as a child, lack of natural ability today, etc. I fight this tendency all the time, seeking to believe more in myself, seeking to take risk, to learn how to move forward, to grab onto life with gusto. But how long do I live with lack of success before I finally give in? And how can I ever know that giving in is really the right thing to do, when there is no proof that I am truly incapable?
Thursday, April 22, 2010
They Get To Do That
I have been learning lately about boundaries in relationships. One sort of boundary is recognizing the other person's right to choose how they will live and what they will do.
I tend to carry a lot of "should's" in my mind regarding relationships - how we should talk to each other, how we should treat each other, what we should do when we're angry, the ways in which we should maintain a healthy relationship, on and on. What I have been realizing lately is that every one of those should's creates a demand - I am in effect saying to the other, "You have to follow these rules." When they do not, I am angry. I assume they agree with my should's, and that furthermore, they do not have the freedom to break those rules, because there is another person whose feelings they have to take into consideration.
The fact is, they get to do whatever they want, whether or not I like it or not. We all have this inherent freedom, and no one can really take it away from us, other than by brute force. They get to not only make their own decisions and live by their own values, but they also get to break promises, do things that hurt us, be selfish, be unreasonable. They have the freedom and the right to do that. If we have made a commitment with each other, they get to break that commitment if they choose. I cannot take away their freedom.
Of course, there are consequences - not by punishment, but in terms of how much I want this person in my life, how close I want to be to them, how much contact I want to have with them. In a viable relationship, each person will at least consider the possible consequences of their actions. But they still get to do whatever they choose and deal with the consequences.
That may sound like all semantics, but it is not. The difference is in my attitude. If I believe they should act a certain way, I get righteously angry at them for not doing so. I may judge them, I may think I'm better because I am acting the "right" way, I may be frustrated because they are not acting as I want them to act. But if I truly get that they can do as they please, and I don't like what they do, there is no longer room for any judgment. There is room for me to exercise my freedom as well - which may mean talking to them, or letting them know my preferences or how their actions affect me, or distancing myself, or at the last resort, to terminate the relationship. My responsibility is now not to judge or condemn, but to act according to my own sense of values and integrity.
Agreements of behavior can be used as a means of restricting our freedoms, or it can be used to freely choose new ways of doing things.
I tend to carry a lot of "should's" in my mind regarding relationships - how we should talk to each other, how we should treat each other, what we should do when we're angry, the ways in which we should maintain a healthy relationship, on and on. What I have been realizing lately is that every one of those should's creates a demand - I am in effect saying to the other, "You have to follow these rules." When they do not, I am angry. I assume they agree with my should's, and that furthermore, they do not have the freedom to break those rules, because there is another person whose feelings they have to take into consideration.
The fact is, they get to do whatever they want, whether or not I like it or not. We all have this inherent freedom, and no one can really take it away from us, other than by brute force. They get to not only make their own decisions and live by their own values, but they also get to break promises, do things that hurt us, be selfish, be unreasonable. They have the freedom and the right to do that. If we have made a commitment with each other, they get to break that commitment if they choose. I cannot take away their freedom.
Of course, there are consequences - not by punishment, but in terms of how much I want this person in my life, how close I want to be to them, how much contact I want to have with them. In a viable relationship, each person will at least consider the possible consequences of their actions. But they still get to do whatever they choose and deal with the consequences.
That may sound like all semantics, but it is not. The difference is in my attitude. If I believe they should act a certain way, I get righteously angry at them for not doing so. I may judge them, I may think I'm better because I am acting the "right" way, I may be frustrated because they are not acting as I want them to act. But if I truly get that they can do as they please, and I don't like what they do, there is no longer room for any judgment. There is room for me to exercise my freedom as well - which may mean talking to them, or letting them know my preferences or how their actions affect me, or distancing myself, or at the last resort, to terminate the relationship. My responsibility is now not to judge or condemn, but to act according to my own sense of values and integrity.
Agreements of behavior can be used as a means of restricting our freedoms, or it can be used to freely choose new ways of doing things.
Friday, April 16, 2010
The necessity of community
Sometime, in history long past, people gathered together because it was necessary for survival. People discovered they could survive better together than being on their own. We discovered that through cooperation, caring, sharing, and division of work, we were stronger, and could better deal with the world around us. Food became more likely to be found, protection against enemies was more effective, and lessons learned could be shared to increase the capability of everyone in the community. Those who distrusted others or could not cooperate probably died out because of the disadvantages of individualism, and we are left with a genetic pool that inclines us towards connection, caring, and serving each other.
However, today, for the first time in history, a person can live without the good will of anyone, without any connections, community, or relationships, and still have all his needs met - he can have food, clothing, shelter, a job, medical care, retirement for old age, protection from those who might hurt him - all through the social system we have built up over time. Relationship and community are no longer economically necessary.
Having always had throughout history very concrete reasons to join together, we are today lost without the glue of life-threatening adversity. If someone is on the street, we wonder why they don't get welfare, why they don't get a job, why they don't take care of themselves better. After all, there are agencies that handle people like that, right? Our personal services do not seem necessary when compared to the resources of the state, so we do not have sufficient motivation to overcome the risk of reaching out to help another.
Yet, we are still genetically disposed to gather together, to help each other, to develop long-lasting relationships that fulfill our needs. But the drive to do so has been severely weakened, and is now more a matter of feeling good rather than of survival.
Not having a ready solution to satisfy our genetic cravings, and not having a society that demonstrates how to live as community, and having a constant drone of advertisements that all tell us that fulfillment comes from spending more money on the right product, we live as we are told to live, but wonder why we feel dissatisfied, or lonely, or isolated. Our society promotes individual freedom as one of the highest values we have. Why would we then give up personal freedom to live within the rules and customs of a community, if we do not see a return worth the sacrifice?
We may awaken to our true needs someday, if we can get away from the constant influence of corporate and societal forces that give us a very different message than that of our soul. Someday, perhaps we will have advanced to the point where we can be more concerned with fulfilling everyone's emotional and spiritual needs. How much suffering will take place before our awakening?
However, today, for the first time in history, a person can live without the good will of anyone, without any connections, community, or relationships, and still have all his needs met - he can have food, clothing, shelter, a job, medical care, retirement for old age, protection from those who might hurt him - all through the social system we have built up over time. Relationship and community are no longer economically necessary.
Having always had throughout history very concrete reasons to join together, we are today lost without the glue of life-threatening adversity. If someone is on the street, we wonder why they don't get welfare, why they don't get a job, why they don't take care of themselves better. After all, there are agencies that handle people like that, right? Our personal services do not seem necessary when compared to the resources of the state, so we do not have sufficient motivation to overcome the risk of reaching out to help another.
Yet, we are still genetically disposed to gather together, to help each other, to develop long-lasting relationships that fulfill our needs. But the drive to do so has been severely weakened, and is now more a matter of feeling good rather than of survival.
Not having a ready solution to satisfy our genetic cravings, and not having a society that demonstrates how to live as community, and having a constant drone of advertisements that all tell us that fulfillment comes from spending more money on the right product, we live as we are told to live, but wonder why we feel dissatisfied, or lonely, or isolated. Our society promotes individual freedom as one of the highest values we have. Why would we then give up personal freedom to live within the rules and customs of a community, if we do not see a return worth the sacrifice?
We may awaken to our true needs someday, if we can get away from the constant influence of corporate and societal forces that give us a very different message than that of our soul. Someday, perhaps we will have advanced to the point where we can be more concerned with fulfilling everyone's emotional and spiritual needs. How much suffering will take place before our awakening?
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The Buddhist Paradox
I am dissatisfied with my current environment. My friends all live too far away, the traffic is horrible, and the attitudes are unfriendly.
The common wisdom among my friends is, "live in the now", "love what is", "let go of demanding things of life", "desire is the cause of suffering". I do find a wisdom in this philosophy, but at times it is hard to pin down.
However, I also know that without dissatisfaction, I will not be motivated to change my environment. When we can see another way of living in our imagination, that is the point we start to become dissatisfied with the current moment. It is this dissatisfaction, this refusing to put up with second best, that often is the motivator for taking action and improving our life.
Yet, experiencing the dissatisfaction while doing nothing about it is a recipe for misery.
It is surely natural, and I would think, healthy, to feel dissatisfied when our needs are not well met. The animals certainly experience this. Yet it is also obvious to me that I do create much of my own misery by demanding so much of the universe that it is unlikely I will ever get what I want. And if I did actually get what I want, would I raise the bar and demand yet more? Am I set up for permanent dissatisfaction, no matter how wonderful a life I have?
So, I often ask myself, where is the line? When do I try to let go and be satisfied with what is, and when do I allow the discomfort within me to grow to a point where I am willing to actually change my situation?
I can see that this line is dependent on several things. First, on what is possible. If I am missing a limb, or don't like how old I am, or I still want to be a rock star, lots of luck. The wisdom that is obvious to me is, accept where I am and what is possible, and live life to the fullest within the parameters given me. These are the cards dealt to me, and it is not in my power to change them.
However, if I have the world before me, and I have plenty of money, energy, intelligence, creativity, courage, and whatever else it takes to move forward, I may very well act, and perhaps without a lot of thought or struggle, making use of the tools I have, so that I can live a richer and fuller life.
When the task before me is difficult and success is uncertain, then how do I know in which direction to apply my energy - work to let go of my desire, or build determination to accomplish it?
It is in this limbo that I often find myself - I am dissatisfied, yet doing nothing about it because of the daunting nature of the solution. Yet I am afraid to let go of my desire, because it is my only hope of change. If I look back and see that I had it within my power to live a much more satisfying life, and I didn't take it, how will I feel about myself?
I find myself wracked with desires, dreams, hopes, creative possibilities. I see ways in which life could be lived, society could be more supportive of human values, relationships could be closer and more satisfying, yet the things I dream about are usually so big, they seem out of my reach. It almost becomes a torment to dream of something good, because of the anger I then experience from the world not being that way today.
How do I love the current moment, and also live my life fully?