Dear ones,
Buddhist psychology honors the nobility and dignity of all, and fosters the positive development of wisdom, love and compassion. Modern western psychology tends to focus more on our problems, and it’s diagnostics lists 300 mental disorders. Psychoanalysis speaks of the primitive id. Neuroscience describes a reptilian brain below every human cortex. It is true that spiritual traditions too have lists of deadly sins, destructive emotions, inner demons, temptations, and fetters of the mind. We all recognize how the human mind can be taken over by greed, lust, rage, pride, jealousy, envy, delusion, hate, miserliness. These powerful forces can sweep through people, across communities, and nations. But they are not our true identity, and with understanding, they can be transformed.
The first step in working with these difficult energies is to see them clearly.
To do so, use the power of mindfulness, of loving awareness.
Chloe, a young woman who came to a teen retreat, recounted that she had often gotten lost in depression, drinking, cutting herself, and other self- destructive behaviors. She had rejected every suggestion offered by her parents, but, one desperate afternoon, picked up a book in her mother’s library on mindfulness and yoga. “It was like finding an amazing, powerful medicine in my hands, almost too good to be true. It showed me I could be aware of my thoughts and feelings but not have to believe them!” she said. By mindfully acknowledging her feelings, Chloe found that she didn’t feel so stuck, and things began to change.
Loving awareness allows us to step outside of praise and blame, of judgment and self recrimination.
When we are unconscious, caught in judgment, anger, rigidity, compulsion, and prejudice, we blindly act out these feelings. Or we blame these problems on others. Yet if we look more deeply at them, we discover that our own insecurity and vulnerability often underlie the blame. We blame because without compassion we find these states hard to tolerate. James Baldwin writes, “One of the reasons people cling to their hate and prejudice so stubbornly is that they sense once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain.”
When you are unable to bear your measure of pain, unable to acknowledge life’s insecurities and limitations, you see others as the cause.
As Americans we have a history of projecting our insecurity and fear onto a series of “enemies du jour” – the communists, gays, blacks, Jews, Muslims, immigrants—and racism, intolerance, injustice, and war follow. Satirist P. J. O’Rourke writes, “One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding someone to blame your troubles on. When you do find somebody, it’s remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver’s license.”
But, dear friends, this is not who you are. The Buddha offers a recipe for well being, for individuals and for society. We can learn to see our passing difficulties and struggles with compassion and understanding. We can kindly acknowledge them like a wise sage. And release being identified and caught up in them as telling us the truth. We can rest in a bigger reality, one of love and awareness amidst it all.
With metta,
Jack
This article is a recently updated excerpt from Jack’s book ‘No Time Like the Present.’
