What's In Your Mind?

The 3 ways to deal with disturbing emotions

One piece that I really find useful and insightful in The Way Things Are (bullets are mine):

"How to deal with disturbing emotions? Buddha advises a concerted three-step attack on this imaginary but tough enemy.

• First, one should avoid circumstances known to bring about unwanted feelings.
• If that is not possible, one is wise to focus on their impermanent condition and changing nature: as a certain disturbing mental state was not present earlier and will soon be gone again, it would be nonsense to act it out, thus laying the seeds for future trouble.
• The highest level is not giving power to unwanted feelings by "letting the thief come into an empty house". Here, one stays strictly with what is in front of one’s nose and neither acknowledges nor identifies with any disturbance. As this succeeds, one realizes, ever more consciously and with growing amazement and joy, that painful mind-states do not just vanish into nothingness but actually reappear (…) as insights beyond ego."

Can't you see the fantastic evolution of Life?

Francois replies to my exalted email. First, he says that what he calls sacred is what I call spiritual, so, says he, we are talking about the same thing here. Then, he goes on to say that I perceive what I perceive (i.e. that we are all one) only because I am white and rich. That, if I were poor and black, I wouldn’t, I just couldn’t perceive that. He goes on to say that, when humanity’s survival instinct wakes up (like I suggested in my email to him), it generally does so in violence (in the good French tradition, he envisions a revolution that will put an end to the materialistic/consumerist world). My reply:

"Yes, I know that you and I are talking about the same thing, when you say "sacred" and I say "spiritual", but beware of the word "sacred" as it carries some connotations that may not correspond to what you are trying to say (e.g. religious, dark ages, etc). I am studying also to acquire a good vocabulary and stay away from shaky concepts.

I think that material progress does not drive a recession of Spirit, but rather the opposite. I would not have such an intense spiritual life if I had to constantly worry about my next meal, or about such and such infection that wouldn’t heal if I didn’t have health care. Or, simply, if I did not have money to take off to nature and enjoy a "mystical experience"!

I do not see anything of what you describe. In fact, it is in you, it is you who conveys these ideas, this pessimistic worldview. You could as well have an optimistic discourse, and look at the positive. Why don’t you do it? Why don’t you try to identify the areas where YOU can take action? What is the point of manipulating big words, big concepts (e.g. "the receding of democracy"), if they don’t empower you to act? The receding of hope and the rising of cynicism, these I can see in your email – and not really elsewhere. You do NOT have faith (you think that everything is getting worse than it used to be), you do not see the fantastic evolution of living energy, of this collective consciousness I was telling you about – how can you act without this faith?

Why does material progress bother you? It frees, it alleviates suffering, it brings us closer to the spiritual – this is how I see it. Like everything else, it is what you want to make of it. Why always protesting, resisting, refusing what IS? This is the lesson of Buddhism: accept the world the way it is, the first step towards "enlightenment". The way things are. It serves no purpose to constantly reject what IS. You cannot move forward. One day, you will realize how much time you lost by not accepting the world the way it is. This is a premise to action.

Once again, this despair you talk about, you carry it in you. Probably it has been imputed to you, but you carry it in you. I don’t. (…) Every human being (including the poor and the blacks), has in herself the capacity to understand that other people’s judgments have no value. The "caste-system" view you portray, I don’t have it, I don’t carry it in me. It is not because I am white and not poor. It is because I am in touch with this collective consciousness – I am strong inside, and I know that you and I and whoever are instances of the same thing, that we are one. I do not struggle against others. Once again, don’t project onto others (e.g. black, or poor people) your personal battles. They probably don’t apply, the same way as, when you were telling me that developing countries don’t want greenhouse gas emissions trading, it was, simply, incorrect. I have friends of all colors and of all means: none of them seems to see the world the way you see it. (…) My friends of color accept the world the way it is – i.e. that, if they happen to belong to what is perceived as a "minority", here or there, at some point in time, they might need to deploy an extra effort to be acknowledged by the majority (…). One must play with the cards that are in their hands, in this instance of life on earth. One, simply, does not have a choice in the matter.

No, that we are all one is not a perception (lots of things are a perception, such as the color of my skin), it is the reality. The basis, in other words.

Don’t you have metaphysical questions? Who am I, why am I, etc? Not me. Not anymore. And I’m not the only one! I am meeting more and more people who feel the same way. Everyday, I discover a bit more of the joy of living in this world during the few years that we are to live in it… I marvel at it a little more every day."

You can gear the future in the right direction only if you believe that there is any

In response to my email, Francois asks: "what violence?" (Apparently, he has not realized that it is he who brought the word "violence" into our conversation). He also continues painting a gloomy caricature of our industrial civilization, saying "chidren nowadays just know frozen fried chicken sticks, they have never seen a chicken alive", etc. My reply:

"You had brought up violence in your email. Violence is something I am not interested in. I don’t have it in me.

What is this caricature of industrial life that you are painting? Do you know people who work in the industry? Why make this parody, this caricature? You remind me of a Charlie Chaplin movie. What is the point spitting on the food you buy? Go live in the countryside and grow your own vegetables, if it will make you happier!

People who work in the industry are heartless monsters who only think about their profits, this is a well-known fact… Why do you carry in yourself so much hatred towards those who strive to build the economy, to be of service to society by producing the goods that she needs? Why are you angry about this natural fact that it is easier for a society to share its tasks (economies of scale), rather than everyone doing everything for themselves? This is actually a measure of the STRENGTH of a society (or a group, or a couple). Why is it bad? Why are you upset at this world which is ours, which is the only one there is? Why, once again, do you refuse reality? (…)

If man had not burnt down the first tree to warm himself up, humanity would probably not have survived very long. That’s THE WAY IT IS – it is evolution. Why negate 2 million years of human history? What do you think is the point of criticizing the evolution of our species? You cannot change anything to the past, and you can gear the future in the right direction only if you believe that there is any. Here, all you do is convey cynicism, violence and rage. I wonder where you picked this all up!"

More rage against the machine

Francois replies to my email. I reproduce here a few of his comments, and my replies to them:

Francois: "I am not angry at industrialists, nor do I accuse them of seeking only profits. On the other hand, if you can’t see the folly of our agricultural policies, you are blind. Same if you can’t see the non-sense of the hedonist quest. Our societies are collapsing under their material goods. For example, there are more and more obese people."

My reply: "I do not collapse under the weight of material goods. I am not obese. Neither are you. I am sure that, like me, you do not know many obese people, nor do you know many people who are collapsing under material goods. What society are you talking about? Not the one I know, not the one I live in.

I am not disgusted by my fellow men the way you seem to be. I am not indignant at other people’s choices. The "hedonist quest" is not a non-sense in my view: it is the free choice of some people, and it doesn’t bother me. It is not my choice. I fundamentally believe in everybody’s freedom to explore the corner of the universe that they desire. And I am part of this exploration, given that I am part of this humanity which is One, of this collective consciousness.

I do not see the "folly of our agricultural policies". I do not have the means to judge, so I don’t judge. I trust my fellow men. I know by experience that most people do "the right thing". All the people I know do "the right thing", given what they know. I believe that people who administer agriculture do this also. And if everything is not perfect… nothing is ever perfect. I know that it is useless to comment, judge, badmouth, when we don’t have the power to change things. I know what my sphere of action is, what is inside of it and what is outside of it. I deal only with what is inside. French agricultural policy isn’t inside. But an enormous amount of things are: I know how easy it is to trigger change, or have an impact, in the groups or organizations I am a part of."

Francois: "Children in our schools have never seen a live animal. (…) We are less and less in touch with life."

My reply: "This is a judgment… again, who is this "we"? I am very much in touch with life. I do not understand what you are saying. I do not think that there is a single kid in France who has never seen a live animal. Once again, I don’t understand this caricature you paint of your fellow men. What I read here is a discomfort IN YOURSELF. While you busy yourself being indignant OF OTHERS, maybe you’re not spending the time taking an interest IN YOURSELF: who are you, what do YOU bring to humanity, etc. This obsession of saying that others are doing everything wrong sounds like an escape… what if others were NOT doing everything wrong? Have you ever considered this possibility?"

Now Francois, as a response to my statement that "you cannot change anything to the past, and you can gear the future in the right direction only if you believe that there is any", replies: "But there is no direction. Why believe that there is one? There is where we want and can go. Where do we want to go?"

My reply: "I do not ask myself that particular metaphysical question anymore because I now know where I want and can go, and where I can lead my fellow men (it is easy as soon as you look inside yourself – if only a little), while I am not responsible for "where the world is going" given that it is outside my sphere of responsibility. The sum of every individual movement creates the direction of the whole, but the only thing upon which you have any power is your individual movement – and nothing more. When you understand this, you can start living and ACTING at last. You can free yourself of 90% of the burden that habitually prevents you from acting, and start at last to really move forward… This is my experience. My life has acquired a whole new intensity ever since I made this discovery."

Mastering is hard

I had a bit of a breakdown in Tokyo yesterday, feeling exactly the same way as the characters in the movie Lost in Translation that I watched just before heading for Tokyo… The jetlag and the strangeness of it all… Feeling lonely… Letter to my friend Kathrin, who just shared with me an issue she is facing:

"Mastering is hard – not much we can do about our own feelings...

I couldn't stand Tokyo yesterday after a while, feeling so isolated. I cried... Nothing I could do about it. Like as I say, not sure there is anything to master... (I did not feel "reborn", that's for sure).

What happens is we are ALWAYS going to run into problems – it is pushing the envelope, but as we "master" things new things come up – all the time. Life is just a series of problems. Take a good look at what your current situation is there to teach you exactly. I need to do same with my current situation in Tokyo.

But as you grow there will be more challenging challenges."

If you and I cannot get along, then who will?

My ex Richard is still not really talking to me (we haven’t been face to face in five months), which still bothers me at times. I explain to him why:

"The reason the situation betwen us hurts me is not about you and me – it is about what it is telling me about why the world is so fucked up. If you and I can't get along, can't understand each other, after having been "best friends" and "lovers" – then who will?

This is the reason why the situation between us is making me suffer so much. It is not about you and me – it's about the world, it's about people.

It sort of shakes any belief I would have that there is hope for peace and harmony in this world. And it makes me want to not be of this world.

This is why I was hoping the whole time that you and I would reconcile, this is why I was trying different ways to be friends with you during all these months, this is why I wanted to see you face to face.

That you and I have not been able to reconcile (from what by the way?) really saddens me.

I dream of peace between us, and mutual understanding."

Two friends are walking on the road

A good friend of mine often comes to share with me his "problems". So far, I have always eagerly engaged in helping him solve them, but I am starting to understand that there actually is a pattern here, that his problems seem to exist only at times, and are always combined with him feeling generally unhappy, undeserving, miserable, etc. I start realizing, in fact, that he sees problems only when he feels down. I start realizing that the only problem he has is, in fact... depression! I try to express this to him with a "parable":

"Two friends are walking on the road.

Suddenly, one of them falls into a pothole and finds himself at the bottom of it, covered with mud. He can’t see anymore and can’t move anymore, but he doesn’t realize that he has fallen into a pit. He tries to continue to move forward but he can’t make it, so he is scratching and digging into the mud and the dirt around him.

He asks his friend: "come, help me get rid of the mud, I can’t see and I don’t manage to move forward". He would like his friend to come next to him and help him remove the mud and the dirt, so that he may be able to move forward.

But his friend can see that he has fallen, so he tells him: "no, you have fallen into a pothole, it is useless to persevere to try and remove the mud", so he reaches down with his hand and says "take my hand, hold on to it, and step out of the pit, onto the road and into the sun."

But the friend continues to fight with the mud down in the pit…"

The end of boredom

Email to Marco (my new friend who told me that he was bored with life):

"Write more
Use sweet words
Be inspired
Be in love
Laugh

There will be no more boredom in your life

(…) I want to dedicate my life to helping show the world its own beauty, by being a mirror of it. How does that sound? Crazy?"

Sharing disturbing emotions with one's partner?

Letter to my Love:

"Should we share our disturbing emotions with each other, or just deal with them internally? (…)

Before, I would not share, because I have mostly learnt to repress or not pay attention to my feelings (…), but I also did not have the tools to clean them out of my system, so I wouldn't. So they would just grow and grow. And ultimately destroy the relationship. That was the model. I guess this is what I am learning with you, with you with whom I want to share my life. Getting rid of my disturbing emotions. Gardening my yard. I think I learnt the tools in the past few months, as I awoke. Need to put them into good use.

Remains the question of at what level do we share, as a couple, about our internal battles, about when we find some junk in the yard of our consciousness. Or if we just throw the junk away and share with each other only about the fragrance of the flowers we find and grow there. Not sharing is also a separation. In the merging of our souls my trash is yours and your trash is mine and maybe we are stronger sometimes if we pick it up together. What do you think?

I think that a lot of what I just wrote answers a lot of your questions about my past relationships. I did not know about mastering my thoughts and emotions, choosing them, cultivating my yard. I keep telling you that I was not awaken, that I did not know who I was, that I had no tools to choose my inner (and outer) experiences. So, questions about my past relationships are almost irrelevant to knowing me. I was sleep-walking my life. My life would just be a series of unsolved mysteries and things happening to me. I see now, I understand. I can now see more clearly the territories that I visited as I was sleep-walking. But, back then, I was walking in some dense fog. Like, I think, most people do. Hence the streak of compassion and "wanting to help" that you probably see in me. I believe you have been walking in the light most or all of your life, which is why I refer regularly to that "sleep-walking" state I am not sure you know much of. When you know it, you really cannot help wanting other people to get out of it. (…)

I know you and I are together to grow our souls. I know being together is also exposing ourselves, it is expanding the area of our garden. Let me know if you don't like what you see in me. I will not hide. In fact, I do want you to feel as comfortable walking in my garden as you feel walking in yours. I do think that being together is sharing our consciousness, our inner self. Loving is to show the other that you know them. Loving is allowing the other to show you who you are. Loving is opening the gate into each other's inner garden. To smell the flowers, and pick up the trash together, and make a bigger, more beautiful yard. I think this is a wonderful adventure, and I am thrilled at the vastness of our playground :-).

I hope you will forgive my shortcomings, and gently show my soul the path ahead, and help me say less and listen more, and that you will have the faith that I can grow into the woman you love.

I love you sweet angel and my sweetest delight is to see you fly high in the sky with your wide wings and smile :-)"

Is it going to work between us?

The new girlfriend of my friend who has been fighting depression asks me whether I think it will work between them. Email to her:

"Everybody who has walked this earth and succeeded at something has done do for a single reason: they have had a VISION in their minds (often one that everybody else would have laughed at) and they have held that vision, unfaltering, and persevered and persevered to real-ize this vision, in spite of all the difficulties that arose.

This is true for a successful inventor, for a successful social worker, for a successful entrepreneur, for a successful actor, and for a successful love. Faith as some people would call this particular phenomenon. Or, I would say, avoid self-sabotaging (insecurity, fear, lack of courage, etc).

Do you have faith that he and you can live a wonderful love story and will conquer all the difficulties that you find on your path?

Do I have faith that I will be able to do (i.e. make a living from) what I feel I now want to do? (i.e. write about spiritual transformation / consciousness, etc).

Same question.

What you face with him, everyone faces with everyone and everything. The realization that it can be beautiful or that it can be ugly and that, at the end of the day, the decision is ours, we are the creators of our lives.

The true him is the one who loves you and who wants to make his life with you. The true him is the one who loves me as a friend. The true everyone is the one who is all-loving. Everything short of that is obscuration to remove as the Buddhists would put it. Inside is the diamond, the jewel, the Buddha. Everyone is a Buddha whether they know it or not as they say.

His illness is an obstacle. It is not an insurmountable obstacle. One of my friends just married a woman who suffers from manic depression. He was married to another woman who also suffered from manic depression for many years before that. The question for you is: do YOU want to surmount this obstacle? Life will always bring you difficulties and obstacles so that you can grow and learn and mature and evolve. I don't think it is fortuitous that he came into your life. Why did he come into your life, you think? Why him? Why did you fall in love with HIM and not someone else? I am sure you will find answers if you ask these questions. As we discussed the other day, a relationship is an interesting space where, first and foremost, we learn to know about... ourselves!

There are no incompatibilities between people -- there is only lacks of love, or fears of loving. Loving is accepting the other totally. This is our only hope to help them grow if we know they can grow. As soon as we stop accepting them, we also give up our hope to help them grow. This is my observation. Loving is accepting, understanding. There are no incompatibilities. Now there are people we select as life partners, and people we don't select as life partners. There are less people in the first category as there are in the second ;-). 

Anyway. Yes, look inside, through meditation or introspection or other tool (meditation is the best tool, it is like jogging for athletes if you wish), all the answers are there. Look inside of you and it will know what to do next - live this love to the fullest or go some other route. It will know what is good for you. YOU know what is good for you. And only YOU know this.

A last word on him. (...) When he is in a negative state, basically, he sees the world as a very dark place, he does not see the love, he feels unloved, he sees wrong behaviors from everybody around him, etc. So there is no point discussing with him on any of these "problems" that he identifies. What is needed is to remind him that he is sick and that this is the reason why he sees this or that situation as a negative (e.g. "darling, you are sick, this is why you are losing sight that I love you no matter which state you are in" or something like that). Generally this brings him back into his positive state (the real him) where you can spend a nice time together. I believe if we all focus on doing that he will fall less and less into the negative states (to which he is addicted, like cigarettes, exactly). He will, if you wish, rewire his neural networks to feel positive all the time. By the way you guys should go together see that movie What the bleep do we know, I think it will answer some of your concerns and you will understand better about all this. It explains in quite a funny way what is an emotion, how we are addicted to our mental states, etc.

As people around him, the WORST we can do for him is dwell with him in the negativity. This reinforces his habitual tendency (his addiction).

I believe he will get out of this, especially if we all love him and help him and understand what he is going through. I believe we are all getting much smarter in the process and learning a lot about ourselves!!"