Unhappiness and the meaning of life

Here’s a simple insight. If I just let go of my desire to have a room with a view (so to speak - I am living in an underground cell with a tiny window on the top 1/4 of the corner of one wall), then I can let go of the suffering of walking around restlessly, of envying other people’s rooms, of trying to figure out a way to scheme out whether there is a free room somewhere, and of being in my own room and being unhappy. Look at all that suffering from a single desire! I mean, sure, if I have a nice view of nature, great, but I can’t always have that. This is such a simple example of the 4 truths (at least the 1st 3 - we never get to the 4th one it seems) and yet it is readily applicable to other parts of life also. If I release the single desire for a nicer house or apartment, I can let go of so much suffering with my existing situation, concern about the canopus house, etc. Apply to love, success, etc.

Two objections arise, but both I see as answerable. First, there is the argument that some desires are really worth having from some humanistic point of view. Either “Humans should desire to look at nature, it’s part of being a good person” or “people should want to make something of themselves, it’s both human nature and ennobling.” Fair enough but notice how both of them are totally ungrounded. You could just as easily say humans like to kill, etc. Or you could go with the premise and say, but humans want to be happy. And remember I’m not taking this to some monastic extreme where I renounce a good view or a nice house or love or anything else in order to somehow focus on the ‘real.’ Those things are real, in their way. They are just fleeting and unreliable, so to attach to the enjoyment is going to lead to suffering.

The second objection is that harm may come from being away from certain goods. If I spend a week in this prison cell, surely I’ll become sad, depressed, or crazy. But, A, we don’t know if that’s the case and B, even if it is, well that’s just more stuff to watch at that point. A different feeling-tone, or flavor, of experience. (Or of God, but I’m being non-theistic right now.)

It’s a tough desire to let go of, that’s for sure. I really am upset with this room, and have been from the moment I heard about it, before I even saw it. I am working with that upsetness in a number of ways. Exploring it. Being grateful for what I do have - i.e., a single. Seeing some of the bright sides - e.g., closeness to the med hall, candle place, etc. Mostly being honest with how I feel about it. It’s hard to be honest without judging the feeling – oh, you should be less of a complainer, or more enlightened, or whatever. But strong non-judgment is really an important piece here. When I judge the feeling, it’s basically a form of aversion. This thing that’s here shouldn’t be here. But the point is, what’s here is here. Take ‘should’ out of it – this is the distinction between this view and the pollyannish religious view that everything is as it ought to be, or as God wants it to be. God wants me to be a spoiled brat about the room. That is true only in a unique sense of the word ‘ought’ - viz., a sense devoid of any explication of oughtness and any relation to oughtness as we ordinarily use that term.

So whether we say it ought to be here in this special sense or, as I prefer, to just say that what’s here is here (what is, is; I am That I Am; what is, is sacred), the point is not to deny reality either through dishonesty or through a fervent aversion/desire.

Notice a relaxation that takes place in the body and mind when I admit that I am unhappy about the room. Finally, I don’t have to keep fighting it!

The only thing we do ‘fight’, and it’s a fight that comes through relaxation so there again it’s not the usual sense of the word, is the clinging to the aversion to the room. That can be phrased differently, as: the clinging to the desire to make things different.

(This thinking makes me happy - I just have to check in regularly and notice thinking. More on this later.)

So, the procedure is. Notice the unhappiness, and fully admit it. And then, don’t try to do anything to make it go away. Don’t judge it. Don’t shame myself into getting rid of it. And probably most importantly, don’t do anything about it. Don’t go scheming, looking, wandering. Better to just be here in the prison cell and be unhappy about it rather than try to fix the situation. Two reasons. First, this is a situation that can’t really be fixed, except perhaps at a great ‘price’ (upset, embarrassment); if it could be fixed, we could try to make a wise judgment as to whether to cultivate what would come from the situation being fixed or whether to just watch this - but as it is, there really is no decision. Second, since this is retreat, instead of regular life, this is the training ground in which working with some aversion is very useful.

That last point leads to all kinds of monastic excesses - it’s the hook that, once followed, leads inexorably to monks sitting in a cave with a rotting corpse. But: the middle way, the middle way. You don’t have to follow every concept all the way down to the extreme.

(Computers are so bad for your eyes! I can’t believe I spend my life staring at these things. The after-image is intense, and it moves around – yecch. I think a big advance will come in monitor design that doesn’t do this.)

But if we take it in moderation, the idea is a good one. Especially on a long retreat, where this is no longer about vacation, now’s a great time to really see how my mind works when confronted with something to which I am aversive. That’s why I’m writing this now, risking all kinds of stirring up of thoughts. (Doing so also releases energy and makes me feel good, so it is beneficial in that sense, but then possibly harmful in precisely the way I am describing here - i.e., it doesn’t let me really work with the aversion of having all this energy that wants to get out. Meh.) What’s just amazing is what I began with: the calculation of one simple desire leading to so much suffering.

But in the real world, we have many many forces which are encouraging us to feed certain desires. To consume, achieve, compete, etc. The forces are commercial and also pseudo-ethical (ethos-al).

I don’t know what to do about what I see as ennobling human desires. Take Chad Pennington, hunky quarterback of the NY Jets. The guy is really unhappy because he is so competitive. And yet there is something appealing to that. It’s primal, and does seem connected to core human drives. The hunter, etc. Sports as war. I can’t say that the world would be better, or Chad would be better, if he would just see the desire and stop clinging to it so much (and stop doing so much to change it, e.g., training and practicing). In my own life, when I get that buzzing inside that there’s a poem or an essay or something that wants to get out, I often produce work that I really like as a result. Is that bad? I guess that is a distinction between life and retreat. Because retreat is practice, in the ordinary sense of the word, for when it won’t be possible to get the desire energy out. Sickness, old age, death - these can’t be avoided the way that the buzzing can be turned into a good poem.

Hence we come back yet again to the bumper-sticker prayer of grant me the power to change the things I can, the contentment to accept the things I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.

On retreat, we just focus on the second part, even for things we could change if we wanted to.

I guess that’s why being with the room issue is good, since it falls into the second category regardless of special retreat treatment.

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So, today I am taking it easy but taking it mindful. We’ll see how it works. I noticed earlier that I really am aversive around moving fast and being normal. I cling to the spacious, warm experiences. But I bet I could be spacious around ordinary experience too. The key is not to put too much in - it will spiral. Less reading, control of writing. But “meh” is an important practice attitude, I think. Ok, I’m moving fast. As long as I’ve got my witness engaged, that really is all that matters. I don’t need to feel oceanic every day.

I wonder if there is a difference here between the religious and the purely contemplative view on this point. Wouldn’t a Sufi want to yearn for that feeling of love? In a way, I’m also playing almost a sort of game. Because my hunch is I can get that feeling of love even in the midst of ‘fast’ time. So I’m testing that out. And lo, if I just do a quick Dzogchen check-in, which for me requires a few breaths to center, I’m back to the silence which is presence. So.

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A lot of the past retreats were largely about enabling the God experience, which was defined as the lovely, oceanic ‘sweetness’ of total presence. I could be present with negative emotions and not-nice stuff in the world, but the flavor of the presence, when it was ‘on’ was almost always the silky, anointed-in-oil sensation of awareness. It has the flavor, too, of nonduality. (Even thinking of that now invites some of the flavor, the same way thinking of hot sex invites sexual energy. Even the words.)

This retreat has been more about really working with knowing it’s the God experience when it doesn’t have that flavor of anointed-in-oil. I am still working on it. Yesterday, around sunset, I was definitely stuck in my own negative stuff for about an hour or two before relaxing out of that (I had started to write ‘snapping out of it’ but that is precisely how it doesn’t work) and into an acceptance of the negative bits – I really did just want to watch football, indoors, with a beer and a fire, a desire which I can also, now, feel, summoning it up; I really am quite sensitive on retreat. That acceptance was ‘held’ by a witness consciousness, though now I’m querying that piece too. Simple mindfulness, awareness, knowing – this is the animating force of the universe, from the law of gravity to how sprouts sprout. It doesn’t have much of a flavor, it’s so subtle. There is, I think and I’ve heard, a flavor that accompanies knowing - a spaciousness. But my thinking is that comes from us in response to the space, not from the space itself. Difference between having a sense of spaciousness in an open field, and the open field itself, which is just spacious but doesn’t produce the sense of spaciousness so much as evoke it.

I’ve noticed I’ve even gotten a little aversive to the oceanic feeling. The same thing happened on the last retreat (January 04). I’d had so many of these opening, wonderful experiences that, well, I started to get a little bored with them.

Of course a judgment comes up about that boredom. But, it’s just causes and conditions, just like everything else.

On past retreats I kept a page of “good stuff” diary entries, so I could recall them and evoke some of their resonance. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s different from the practice I’m doing on this retreat. (I may do a little ‘good stuff’ list now, since it’s now on my mind, but it isn’t the point of the retreat.) That practice this time is more about being with whatever, including the “bad stuff.” To reiterate, I’m not there yet. When the mix of doubt, boredom, restlessness, and anger hits – I guess that, plus simple aversion and simple desire is about the recipe – forget about it. Well, for now. I am getting better, as per yesterday’s experience.

I think also it is helpful to be extra attentive in those times to what is really going on. Fast is fine; getting over the aversion to fastness is an important step for me. But I think when I’m really in the ‘anti-zone,’ which I’ll now use to refer to that space where this is the stupidest practice in the world and all I want is a steak and some enjoyment out of life (I mean, can I really evoke any mindstate just by mentioning it?) – when I’m in the anti-zone, there usually is more than just fastness going on. I do think it’s such a bouillabaise that it’s hard to “feel it in the body.” Yesterday, for example, there was the aversion to boredom, the aversion to practice, the desire for football, the restlessness in the body’s energy (having done nothing energetic all day), the doubt that the practice works, the doubt that Buddhism and Judaism/God have anything to do with each other, the judgment of myself for feeling all this, the judgment of myself for not enjoying the sunset more, the desire for the sunset, the strong desire to be slower, the judgment of the desire to be slower, the judgment of the whole system which was based on my doubt- namely that either the system or my own practice (usually the latter) is just about getting a certain buzz, about a million thoughts which came from each of those sensations, a judgment about going into the stories instead of just being with the sensations, and I’m sure I could go on. Now, as I understand it, the practice is not to go into all of those different stories. But even just noting all of the unpleasant pieces, let alone trying to tease out what the body is feeling – it was too much of a stew for me to work effectively.

I guess what I did do was just say “okay, there’s a shitload of negative stuff here. So, can I be with it. Or, alternatively, can I cultivate some calm and see what happens (without, of course, getting too much into expectations about what ought to happen). Eventually, the thoughts behind those different mindstates just got really fucking boring. I was tired of them, indeed, aversive to the aversion itself. So I just said fuck it, I’ll be aversive, but at the same time saying, but I’m not going into these stories, because they are tedious already. That combination worked. A half hour later, I was ‘fast’ again, but at least I wasn’t tight about being fast.

Now? Now even despite all this thinking and writing, I’m very calm. Part of it is that I’m tired - I note my usual midday restlessness is not here, because I’m wiped. After potwashing I’m going to take a nap, I don’t want that crap of fighting sleeplessness in the meditation hall for 45 minutes. I feel like I’ve done really good practice today in part by letting go of the sense that, oh, I have to make it to the sits. The sits are important but it’s more important to be mindful doing whatever than to show up at the sits and get lost and stuck.

OK I’m going to take a little rest because I’m on in 15 minutes.


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(later)

And how does it work for me personally...

Desire to do something with time on my hands = Belief that my life, just lived itself, is somehow not good enough.

Observe how I would feel if I did a month doing absolutely nothing - no work on myself, God, life, writing, anything. But I am learning to change that. Seeing a lot of stuff come up that I thought might’ve been washed away by now. Feel compassionate toward myself, my argumentative self, defensive self - these were my friends throughout a childhood in which I felt I had to achieve and compete to be worthy of love. This is not to blame Mom and Dad. They were participating in a culture of achievement, and they were told they had a smart kid, so they did this. But a lot of it was probably self-created on top of that. I liked competing, liked winning, from a young age. Still do like it, only I don’t win so much. In some ways, my biggest life decision so far has been turning aside from the career path that would have meant Achievement. I could’ve been rich, or maybe powerful, or maybe well respected. It hurts to think of those forgone. But I chose to try to be happy, expressive, creative, curious, exploring, mystical, worthwhile, weird. Who knows. This was the path that unfolded for me. Had I been out of the closet and happy in Washington, maybe I’d’ve had a sense of career direction. Instead, I didn’t really know what was next. That, and I hadn’t cultivated the connections to get a Supreme clerkship. Nate went on from where we were together, and got a great think-tank job which he parleyed into fame and a prestigious teaching job. I got a fellowship that I didn’t care about and spent most of my time writing miscellaneous pointless things in my apartment. When the fellowship ended, I drifted, then fell into the company - could I grab the brass ring, I thought. Something was waiting to happen. Something did. Here I am, suffering in hand, ready for you, God.