The most deadly of all thoughts is that life is, can be, or should be, fair. Everybody gets what they get.
We expect, we hope, like trying to move a mountain. Life cannot be pushed but it can be invited.
Everything is unfinished business until it’s finished…which is when you no longer trip over it. If something grabs your attention, divides you, causes you torment or dissatisfaction, it is not finished. When you deeply appreciate what you have, when you accept that you, and everyone else, gets what they get, the reactive phase of your life is finished and what remains is love.
While you accumulate, you accumulate. Accumulation is not accommodation. You look for experiences. You are troubled by what you do not have and what you do not understand. You do not have enough. Your life is a struggle of should, would, could. When what happens today is exactly enough, you have finished the phase of accumulation and you got what you got. You see that you get exactly what you need every day and you see that everyone else does. You can begin to reduce your accumulation.
If you think that you deserve better, that’s where you are. If you blame me for your behavior, blame away until you have finished. Am I responsible for your reaction to me? Not in the slightest. Your reactions are yours. My role in them, if any, is my material to work with. We each get what we get.
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February 19, 2024
Tags: fair, reactions, work notes
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February 12, 2024
To work on self is to work with my reactions.
Our life presents us with the challenges we need to confront in order to gain freedom from our reactions. We are responsible for these reactions. The responsibility for them cannot be displaced.
Nor are we responsible for the reactions of others to us. If we take responsibility for our own reactions, we will end up treating others with grace and precision.
How to begin this work?
Do not blame others for your reactions.
Be aware of the physical gestures, postures and sensations of your reactions in real time. After the fact is far less useful.
Do not analyze your reactions. Simply observe them. You can recognize them without thinking about them.
Your observing needs to become impartial. This specifically means to observe without derivative or secondary reverberations…judgments or justifications, shame, guilt or other forms of self-expression or self-importance. Laughter is allowed.
When observing becomes impartial, refrain from expressing your reactions. Hold the energy of them. Neither express nor repress.
To be without reactions is to be without an important source of energy. Do not wish for this too soon. If you arrive at this state, known among Sufis as Kemal, much is possible but very little is wished for.Tags: impartial observation, Kemal, reactions, work notes
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July 27, 2019
One of the insights of this work form is that humans are largely repetitive and predictable, stimulated by externals. The challenge is to see this without judging or justifying, simply as fact and then perhaps with compassion. Ordinary struggle against habits—trying to prevent reactions because they are ‘wrong’, or defending them as ‘right’—does not seem to change them or lead to greater freedom.
What does it mean to find freedom from the mechanical? Does it not mean that what we do can be done not as a habitual reaction but as an expression of love, compassion and joy? Perhaps freedom is not so much doing different things as it is doing things differently, making use of daily life to reveal the good in us. Preparing a meal, having a conversation face-to-face—these are the acts that have the potential to be liberated from our mechanical tendencies, where freedom can be found.
Tags: freedom, habits, mechanical, reactions
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July 3, 2019
In our work, there is great emphasis on impartial observation of self. What is observed? Sensations, emotions, gestures of hands, face and voice, behaviors that arise habitually in reaction to what happens around us.
This is not metaphysical, not observation of thinking but rather knowing my physical reactions, neither judging nor justifying them.
As with any endeavor, this can become habituated too. I tend to observe the same things again and again. Of course, there is truth to this…we are repetitious creatures, creatures of habit. But perhaps it is also true that I need to look for the unexpected, the unknown states that escape attention.
Could I suggest that you look for the sensation/emotion of covetousness? In my view, it is one of the strongest and most consequential of inner conditions but it is no longer commonly part of our vocabulary and moral compass as it once was as the 10th commandment of Moses.
There seem to be two dimensions of this state. One is that I may be covetous, I want something that belongs to another…a skill, a possession, a relationship…it could be anything that brings enjoyment to another. Coveting is not simply wanting something for its own sake but also being willing to take from another…it is envy not only of the thing itself but also the enjoyment of it by another. In fact, the one who covets is governed by wanting what others have, not by inwardly searching for what is of value to himself. It is a kind of short cut to satisfaction that tries to mimic what others have discovered and achieved.
The other dimension is experienced by the one whose possessions are coveted. A common reaction is to sense that something I have is causing another to be aware of what they do not have. Was my enjoyment too obvious? Can I diminish or hide my enjoyment, even deny it, so that others will not want what I have?
It may be that covetousness is not part of your experience, in either dimension. Can you find out?
Tags: covet, habits, impartial observation, reactions, wanting
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November 10, 2018
Am I free to proceed with my wishes and obligations? Or am I limited and constrained at every turn, leaving me frustrated and unfulfilled?
Of course nothing ever proceeds according to plan. Success depends upon the ability to manoeuvre. The glorious sensation of being unimpeded comes not mostly from external circumstances but more so from a lack of internal resistance and dissent.
When I cannot proceed with my intentions, I need to see and think differently, without criticism and distress. But what I tend to do is re-enforce or create obstacles which are mostly in the software of my thinking and habitual reactions rather than in the circumstances themselves. Why? Observing the sensations in me will tell the tale. Am I looking for excuses to quit and fail; wanting sympathy; hoping to draw attention to myself; indulging in the mechanical pleasure of emotional reactions; enjoying the momentary excitement of agitation? These behaviours almost always serve a narrative…a story about me and an image I hold of myself.
Unwinding the narrative opens up space, providing the room to manoeuvre.
Can I see the limiting mechanisms objectively, not judging, blaming or defending? If so, perhaps I can learn to step lightly around obstacles and move with the possibilities revealed to me in the present.
Tags: habits, indulgence, intentions, manoeuvre, objective, obligations, obstacles, present, reactions, unimpeded
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April 26, 2018
“Know Thyself” was written on the wall of the ancient Temple of Apollo at Delphi. It is the basic requirement of our work. Our approach is observation of self.
Notice that the Delphic advice is not to accumulate self-knowledge or to learn about yourself. To know is an active quality that occurs in the present…not knowledge but knowing. Framing in language what is known, what has been observed, is not the aim. Conclusions are not the aim. As soon as you think you know yourself, you have ceased to know.
Fortunately, our self is constantly revealing itself…in gestures, postures, facial expressions, tone of voice and so on. We begin there. Perhaps you would like to know about your soul or spirit or you would like to observe thought. These diversions will yield nothing. Begin with objective facts.
I must learn to know. I have many ways of not knowing such as thinking, analyzing and assuming that I already know.
Another great obstacle to knowing is partiality. Consider an example. I sense that I am experiencing a state of physical agitation. My breath is quick and shallow. My diaphragm is contracted and my hands are clenched. Mind recognizes this as anger and the word arises. No problem so far. I know this state. Knowing and recognizing are not antagonists as long as I remain attentive to present facts.
Perhaps I see that the anger is a reaction to words spoken by another. Still no problem. This is knowing. These are facts.
Do I now justify my anger? Do I criticize myself for being angry? Do I experience guilt and try to hide my anger? As soon as I engage in any of these things, I no longer observe impartially. At this point, I am self-observing. One of my identities, perhaps the one that feels guilty or the one that blames others, has stepped into the role of judge. This is the moment of truth. If I see this occur, this process of identification, perhaps I can observe the judge, the critic, the blamer, the partial self that seeks to take control. Can this identity be the observed, and not become the observer? If so, knowing self continues.
When I am partial, one part of me observes another part. When I am impartial, all parts of self are observed. This is the difference between self-observation and observation of self.
Who or what is the ‘I’ that observes impartially? It is attention, and the seat of attention which we call presence.
Many times a day, impartial observations occur. We have moments of non-identification, moments of being present. We see our self in operation. Then our reactions take us out of these moments.
Therefore, our reactions are key material to observe. In doing so, can we learn not to identify with them? Knowing precisely the process of falling into identification and remaining outside of it is a great skill that arises from observing self. Can we trust that repeated impartial observation is sufficient to neutralize our reactions? That impartial observing is the genuine path to unlearning them? Or do we let our identities take charge, falsely assuming that they can overturn themselves?
When reactions lose their power, there is much more to see. Beneath the reactions you will find the being that they have obscured.
Tags: attention, identification, impartial observation, know thyself, knowing, observation of self, partiality, reactions
