Bumping up Against Ourselves

Eddy Street

The spiritual path is seldom if ever straightforward. When we embark on our spiritual quest, we naturally engage the nature of the person that we are with the tasks that will present themselves to us along the way. The trials, tribulations and obstacles along the path are not an inherent element of the path itself but are the outcome of the way we personally interact with the requirements involved in following our path. In many respects, we define aspects of our own path by the way we view ourselves and the ways we are as individuals. From a Buddhist perspective, an essential element of our path is the confrontation that occurs with our ego and this is not just with the way in which it is structured within our general psychology but also with its unique and idiosyncratic nature and form. As the path clearly involves our temperament, character and personality then most definitely we will meet some problems as we bump up against ourselves as we try to develop our practice and respond to the universe. It is important to be clear about some of the problems that we will face and equally it is important that we understand these difficulties especially those that involve 'me'.

Spiritual Materialism

A convenient set of ideas on which to base our understanding is offered by the Tibetan Master Chogyam Trungpa in his now classic text written for Western practitioners ‘Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism’ (Trungpa 1973). He outlines a very useful way of considering the problems that present themselves to us. In his presentation he describes how the process of ‘spiritual materialism’ has a focus on short-term benefits of practice which seemingly bring some relief from our personal suffering but which ultimately only add to the long-term nature of the suffering that we experience. In this way, our grasping at short term benefits merely becomes ego serving and therefore only aids the processes from which our dissatisfactions arise. He outlines three types of materialism, the first being physical materialism which is based on the belief that possessions can bring us relief from suffering. We can see this type of materialism present in everyday life in our consumer society; we are continually asked to spend our money and buy certain goods that it is claimed will endow us with contentment and happiness – be it a new sofa or a can of energy drink. The release that we gain from such material goods is very short term and it soon inspires our continued sense of unsatisfactoriness which is designed to direct us to further purchases.

In Trungpa’s view, the next type of materialism is of a psychological nature in which we come to believe that a particular philosophy, belief system, religion or point of view will by its characteristics bring some release from the suffering we encounter. By strongly identifying with a particular religion or philosophy without a reflective approach, it can merely serve as a way to seek refuge and relief from the problems we face. As we collect the psychological brownie points of the system, such as the initiations, the number of retreats we have attended, the length of time that we have been sitting, we may end up just constructing a more solidified version of the problematic ego that we started with. Our identification with the beliefs that lead to such activities then masks personal ego issues by presenting a barrier that prevents us from looking at those issues. Clearly making the statement “I am a Buddhist” is therefore something that in itself may be fraught with difficulty!

The final type of spiritual materialism rests on the belief that certain temporary states of mind are in themselves or can become a permanent refuge from suffering. In this situation, we undertake our meditation practice as it can create a peaceful state of mind, and we then set out to seek out those states as they imply to us that we are getting somewhere! Unfortunately constantly seeking out particular states of mind (whether we have had them or not!) and adding them to our list of spiritual accomplishments are merely the manoeuvres of the ego to justify its own continued unquestioned presence. Here the ego directs and dictates a process where in actuality it needs to be directly confronted by that process. As Jack Kornfield states:

Intensive mediation practice has its limitations. Meditation and spiritual practice can easily be used to suppress and avoid feeling or to escape from difficult areas of our lives. Our sorrows are hard to touch. Many people resist the personal and psychological roots of their suffering; there is so much pain in truly experiencing our bodies, our personal histories, our limitations. It can even be harder than facing the universal suffering that surfaces in sitting. We fear the personal and its sorrow because we have not learned how it can serve as our practice and open our hearts. (Kornfield 1998)

It is the personal and psychological roots of our suffering that bring us to practice in the first place. Initially, whatever set of precipitating circumstances, we all seek out meditative practice as a way of relieving some felt suffering. Therefore, in some way, we begin our practice from the position of a psychological materialism as we assume that the practice itself will resolve personal issues and dilemmas for us. Often what happens then is that our first experiences on the cushion and/or on retreat feed into a spiritual materialism as our ego wishes us to understand that whatever has happened to us will lead to us resolving central elements of our own suffering. We all come to practice with what Barry Magid terms a ‘curative fantasy’ (Magid 2008). This is a personal myth that we use to explain what we think is wrong with us and our lives and what we imagine is going to make it all better. Somehow, we begin from the position of seeing meditative practice as being a way of curing ‘me’ of being ‘me’. Some people begin their spiritual path with a very clear explicit idea about what the problem is and where their destination is. For others the fantasies are hidden and unexpressed but nevertheless they will be energising the process of engaging in practice. It is in these fantasies that misconceptions become embedded about Buddhism and its experienced practitioners – ‘Buddhism is about loving everybody and not being angry’; ‘Zen masters are permanently grounded people’; ‘meditators are always calm and switched on’, etc. Our ideas of what constitutes a ‘cure’ for ourselves then becomes intertwined with our created myths about the benefits of being a Buddhist.

Spiritual Bypassing

An important element of our curative myth is our explanation of the way in which we see ourselves either as damaged, lacking something, out-of-control or as unworthy, though it is quite likely that our view of our self will contain elements of all of these. We can get to a point where we think, ‘if I could get rid of the bad parts of myself everything will be all right’. We may even think that ‘if I could get rid of my ‘self ’ completely then that is when I'm going to be okay’. What then can happen is that the bit we have identified as the ‘cure’ e.g. lots of meditation, comes into conflict with what we have identified as being the problem that we have with ourselves, as clearly meditation itself can never be the ‘cure’. In this example meditation then becomes an activity which we use to beat ourselves up with, complaining that no matter how much we meditate we feel stuck and we are not making much progress etc.; but despite this we still hold onto our aspiration to be something better than what we are through the cure of meditation. It is here that we come to a notion developed by John Welwood over 30 years ago when he introduced the concept of ‘spiritual bypassing’. He defined this as:

...a tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.” (Welwood 2011)

Welwood identifies an occupational hazard of the spiritual path that can face many people where a very positive experience early in practice is then used as the foundation of that practice in a premature way.

In these circumstances, we then try

...to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced and made peace with it. And then we tend to use absolute truth to disparage or dismiss relative human needs, feelings, psychological problems, relational difficulties, and developmental deficits. (Welwood 2011)

This unfortunately sets up a split between our Buddha nature and our natural humanness and it identifies them as ‘our/mine’. We emphasise one type of spirituality at the expense of the opposite, “Absolute truth is favoured over relative truth, the impersonal over the personal, emptiness over form, transcendence over embodiment, and detachment over feeling.” Welwood's view is that it is in our interaction with others and in our relationships that our bypassed psychological issues tend to show up most intensely. This is because the origins of the psychological wounds we carry are in themselves relational as they are constructed in our early relationships and then on into our intimate interactions with others. As our practice develops, we then can allow our personal suffering and the problems of being human that we face to be put to one side as we focus on our practice skills:

Meditation is also frequently used to avoid uncomfortable feelings and unresolved life situations. For those in denial about their personal feelings or wounds, meditation practice can reinforce a tendency toward coldness, disengagement, or interpersonal distance. [These individuals] are at a loss when it comes to relating directly to their feelings or to expressing themselves personally in a transparent way. It can be quite threatening when those of us on a spiritual path have to face our woundedness, or emotional dependency, or primal need for love. (Welwood 2011).

From the perspective of psychological and spiritual materialism, we are framing and then directing our identity around our practice and failing to recognise who we truly are. Hence, what occurs is an ongoing lack of integration of ourselves, our practice and the way we live our life.

How does this bypassing display itself? Welwood again:

It’s not uncommon to speak beautifully about the basic goodness or innate perfection of our true nature, but then have difficulty trusting it when one’s psychological wounds are triggered. Often dharma students who have developed some kindness and compassion for others are hard on themselves for falling short of their spiritual ideals, and, as a result, their spiritual practice becomes dry and solemn…Others may unconsciously use their spiritual brilliance to feed their narcissistic inflation and devalue others or treat them in manipulative ways. (Welwood 2011)

Being Honest with Ourselves

In the WCFs Western Zen Retreat, a usual instruction about what is arising is ‘let it through, let it be, let it go’ and it is important to recognise that the ‘let it be’ involves allowing whatever arises to flow through our heart and not go straight out of our head. Emotional bypassing is identified when whatever arises is let go without experiencing the feelings and emotions that are connected to it.

So, for all practitioners we need to appreciate how we can avoid spiritual bypassing and how we can be alert to the efforts of our ego to move us away from our spiritual quest. We can begin this firstly by identifying the nature of our curative fantasies. We need to start by asking the questions, ‘what do I consider what my problem is and what do I consider to be the cure to me overcoming these shortcomings and difficulties?’ We need to have a good understanding of our own ideas about what practice is and what we think we are going to get out of it. We need to be honest with ourselves about what we think enlightenment is and how we imagine it transforms people. We also need to ask ourselves, ‘is there any aspect of my practice that I use to hide something? What are the areas where I am fearful, anxious or afraid? What are the areas where I feel truly present?’ It is in confronting such questions that we will truly engage in the practice of ‘me’. At this point, it is worth remembering that spiritual practice proceeds in cycles; sometimes we appear to be working on the process of meditation itself – the art and totality of practice – and sometimes we may be working on personal issues that just arise. One takes over from the other naturally and indeed a spiralling process of working on ourselves and working on our practice develops. There are times when the practice of stillness and Samadhi are necessary and these may be followed by times when old uncomfortable psychological issues appear in new ways and then there are times when being active and living in the outside world is helpful. Each phase needs to be integrated into the other for in the process of realisation and actualisation there is no one phase that is more important than another - they all form an integrated whole. But certainly it is important to have personal commitment and courage as well as help and direction to face the totality of what arises.

In considering our practice we often quote the ‘Hsin Hsin Ming: Affirming Faith in Mind’ “The Great Way is not difficult for those who do not pick and choose”. But as Barry Magid points out we often reduce the picking and choosing to something trivial as if it were avoiding the choice between coffee and tea by just accepting what we are given to drink:

But that’s not the level of picking and choosing that we’re really confronted with. It means that we’re told that we have to take packages whole. We can’t pick and choose the parts we like and the parts we don’t like. (Magid 2010).

We have to deal with the package of ourselves as a whole thing. Practice will necessarily involve personal pains, doubts and uncomfortableness; that is what confrontation of the ego – our own ego – involves. Then life in itself will present us with problems and all sorts of complex issues can and will arise. Practice allows us to appreciate these things and in so doing move towards appreciating ourselves, appreciating others on our planet and appreciating the planet itself. If we are going to fully realise this we have to be realistic about what life is, who we are, and where our path is taking us. Obviously this involves taking risks in being open and honest to others and to ourselves; it involves dealing with our pleasures and our pains in an integrated way in which we engage ourselves in our lives and our practice with no gaining ideas. As John Welwood says “We are not just humans learning to become Buddhas, but also Buddhas waking up in human form, learning to become fully human.” What tasks! What practice!

References

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