Question -
I'm not sure how to articulate this question so it makes sense, but here goes...
how can one forever come to terms with their "personal demons" in a way which is not self-deluding. It seems every time I try, I am reminded by one source or another, essentially pidgeon-holed, by others or myself. For instance, my sisters are culprits in making me feel forever worthless - its in the trigger actions and responses and the net result is always a weakening of my resolve to change it. I hope I've made sense in this question and look forward to hearing your reply.
Pat
Answer -
Hi, Pat. Thanks for the note. Your example does make sense to me.
You have actually described something very clearly. Something happens - a person's words, actions, looks - and it triggers a response, or let's call it a reaction. And as you said the reaction is seen and felt - though maybe afterwards - as not helpful, painful, counterproductive, a dead end.
As you say, this reactivity happens over and over. Your question is also very clearly and nicely put. Is there a coming to terms with this fact of human existence that is not self-deluding? Because self-delusion is quite possible - to react to this reactiveness with some defensive approach or stance, such as trying to become all encompassingly compassionate or hiding in myself or trying to create a different state of mind to counter the reactivity. So is there a coming to terms with reactiveness that is simple and direct?
Well, in fact it might be very helpful to notice what happens when you find yourself in a situation where you know your sisters might say something that will trigger your reaction. Coming intimately in touch with the mind and body, listening carefully inside and outside to become familiar with the reactivity, to allow it to be seen and revealed as it moves in the mind and in the body.
Interestingly this same open transparency of listening - unjudging and undefensively - that reveals what is happening in you also allows your system to be more accurately receptive to the other people - where they are really coming from, their own reactiveness and defensiveness that may be going on - in a fresh and non-judgmental, non-divisive, non-defensive way.
So is there a coming to terms with our reactiveness? This open space of non-judgmental, non-defensive listening - isn't this already a different kind of being than defensiveness, a different kind of space? Do you notice that reactiveness is part of the whole circuit of memory in which the mind habitually dwells? Memory being what I know, what I've learned, what's happened before, what works, what doesn't work, even what I believe myself to be. Memory expressing itself usually in the mind through imagery and/or words. Always ready to come up with a reaction.
Open listening really puts all of this knowing aside for the moment. Listening without knowing is much larger, broader, deeper than knowing. We don't need to worry that putting knowing aside will leave us too vulnerable or that somehow we'll lose everything valuable that we know. What we know doesn't go away and has a lovely way of popping up when it is needed and appropriate. It is just that knowing cannot shed light on anything, cannot initiate or give birth to real, appropriate change, to a fresh response.
I'm talking about a radical shift in our life. A shift from living in knowing and reacting to openly listening and, when necessary, responing, which we can define as different from reacting. Responding means to act out of clearly seeing what is going on.
The thing that is remarkable about open listening is that nothing is being defended. Defensiveness is already the mind enclosing itself in some known fear and preparing for a reaction. This doesn't mean that I don't look carefully before crossing a busy street. In fact to really look carefully, there has to be an openness. And if a truck suddenly speeds around the corner, if there is openness it may be seen and an appropriate response may happen. There is no defensiveness in this, no sense of a fearful enclosure. I've heard people report about responding instinctively in an emergency and they say there was no fear, no internal conflict. Just seeing and responding, often with immense energy and compassion.
Not stuck to what I know has happened in the past a million times. The knowledge is here, impressed into the brain cells and reinforced by repetition. But it is only the smallest part of what is real this moment. If the mind does not cling to the tininess of these known patterns, then it may open to the vastness of what is really here right now, the sunshine filtering in, the moist smells of the room, the hum of an airplane, the breath moving the body, the appropriate words for expressing something and, if they should pop up, worries or fears. All happening in open space, all open to examining, intelligent consideration and the possibility of response.
How can this happen, you may ask. Enclosure may drop away on its own. It does from time to time for all of us. You wouldn't be able to notice that there is this pattern of reaction with your sisters if there weren't some space around it for you. Noticing how unhelpful defensive reaction is, noticing in the world around us how dangerous and how exhausting defensiveness is - and defenesiveness, protecting something, protecting myself, is the essence of blind reaction, the root of it, isn't it? - there is already a shift in emphasis somehow away from defensiveness in all of its myriad forms and disguises. A shift to what? We don't know. When there is no defensiveness, what is it here, simply, moment by moment, breath after breath, not knowing, not comparing? This is the exploration that is our real life, perhaps long forgotten and yet simple, always here, so simple that it has no place for self-delusion.
Well, I hope that is a start with your inquiry. It is always nice to have a dialogue about these things and you are welcome to write back to ask me to clarify something if I didn't make any sense, or to say that you see it differently or to bring up a new question that this raises.
You can write me here at the allexpert site or you can mail me personally at jcutts@swcp.com. If you do, please put the word meditation in the subject line so the spam filters don't eat it!
I like conversations about these issues too. Without being able to ask you questions, I'm only guessing and how things are for you. So if you'd like to talk on the phone, let me know and we can arrange it.
Best wishes
