Another aspect of change that disconcerts me is trying to bring about change in myself. For example, I know that my intolerance is toxic but I cannot just will away my intolerance or morph into a person who tolerates everything with massive doses of loving kindness.
It took a long time to realize that trying to change to remove bad habits was a bit like rearranging the furniture during an earthquake - well, about as much use. Even if I can succeed in changing my behaviour, I won't have changed me. So it's inevitable that the behaviour will return, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but it will always return.
The only way to achieve lasting change is to become aware of the conditions that have created my behaviour - the brainwashing, sleepwalking if you like - observe my cultural conditioning and see it for what it is. It is through awareness and understanding that I change. Through observation I come to see the world for what it is, shed the illusions that my conditioning or selective memory feed me and stop clinging to to power, prestige, success and all the other illusions.
To change my behaviour I start by changing my actions, not by eliminating the actions I want changed but by taking very different action. I watch and I learn about myself and through this process my attitudes start to change and when I approach the world with different attitudes my relationship with the world changes and my "bad" behaviours stop.
21 August 2011
Wonder
Concepts create idols. Only wonder comprehends anything; wonder makes us fall to our knees. St Gregory
17 August 2011
Go compare
I have just seen a reference to research on happiness; unfortunately no source was given so I cannot be sure that the research itself has merit. But I was taken with what is supposed to have been shown.
A sample was asked to rate how happy they felt. One half was asked to write a list of people that they were glad not to be; the other half was asked to write a list of people that they wished they were. When people wrote a list of people worse off than themselves, their "happiness" improved; when writing a list of people they envied, their "happiness" reduced.
I normally avoid any comparison but there seems to be merit in looking at how things could be worse to gain a better sense of perspective. This sits well with a technique frequently encouraged in Twelve-step programmes - writing a gratitude list.
The research results underline the fact that our moment-to-moment happiness is determined by how we view what ids happening to us not by what is actually happening. To be happy we need to be satisfied it seems. If we can be accepting, we can be happy; but wanting more (or better or even just different) will invariably lead to unhappiness.
A sample was asked to rate how happy they felt. One half was asked to write a list of people that they were glad not to be; the other half was asked to write a list of people that they wished they were. When people wrote a list of people worse off than themselves, their "happiness" improved; when writing a list of people they envied, their "happiness" reduced.
I normally avoid any comparison but there seems to be merit in looking at how things could be worse to gain a better sense of perspective. This sits well with a technique frequently encouraged in Twelve-step programmes - writing a gratitude list.
The research results underline the fact that our moment-to-moment happiness is determined by how we view what ids happening to us not by what is actually happening. To be happy we need to be satisfied it seems. If we can be accepting, we can be happy; but wanting more (or better or even just different) will invariably lead to unhappiness.
12 August 2011
Changes
There are two aspects to change that give me pause. The first is change in the outside world. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was in trying to find happiness though changing the world and what was happening in it; no, correction, I also tried to change the way people behaved.
I was trying to find contentment and all I got for my troubles was a sight more frustration - I was unable to change a damn thing. Then I learned that I needed to find total acceptance - to be able to accept that the world was exactly as it should be. I struggled for a long time with this, only to be frustrated by the fact that as soon as I learned to accept something ... it changed, seemingly often to something that I would find harder to accept.
The lesson I finally learned was that I needed to learn to accept change> That way I discovered the consolation that everything is transitory - even the screen on which this text is displayed, one day it will be dust again.
I am grateful that I don't have the attitude of somebody I overheard in a cafe bemoaning the fact that they are getting more and more miserable because they want things to stay exactly as they are.
I was trying to find contentment and all I got for my troubles was a sight more frustration - I was unable to change a damn thing. Then I learned that I needed to find total acceptance - to be able to accept that the world was exactly as it should be. I struggled for a long time with this, only to be frustrated by the fact that as soon as I learned to accept something ... it changed, seemingly often to something that I would find harder to accept.
The lesson I finally learned was that I needed to learn to accept change> That way I discovered the consolation that everything is transitory - even the screen on which this text is displayed, one day it will be dust again.
I am grateful that I don't have the attitude of somebody I overheard in a cafe bemoaning the fact that they are getting more and more miserable because they want things to stay exactly as they are.
Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace?
Yes. Happiness depends on our circumstances being perceived as positive; inner peace does not. Eckhart Tolle
07 August 2011
Our conditioned self
How much of what you do is a reaction - by which I mean something without conscious input? If we watch ourselves for a time we soon learn that many of our reactions are impulsive; we seem to react to so many situations without any conscious thought. This is particularly true for me when what is happening affects my sense of self, when what is being done or said makes me feel somehow "less than."
Also, I have been constantly surprised by how much of what I say is a reaction rather than a considered response. I came from a study session once, challenged to write down a mission statement for myself, and wrote "Today, I will be me - no more, no less." It was the start of trying to avoid adding something to myself (my sense or image of myself) or subtracting something from myself. I tried to stop impressing others by being bigger or grander and also to stop thinking less of myself.
In searching for an authentic "me" in all of the hustle and bustle I was bringing to my life I had to fight my conditioning. It was a long list and pervaded every aspect of my life: I had a supposed national identity (being British, don't you know) which I have shed; an idea of what it meant to be a man, husband and father; the approval of my peers and friends - a desire to be liked, even popular; and a large chunk of prejudice that came from just not thinking about what I was being told by much of the press for example. All of these combined to make my response a conditioned one - a reaction where little of me would be visible.
The biggest burden that I had to shed was my "memory" of the past; I had to learn to ignore what had gone before and been processed by my thinking into a perverted variant of reality - to realise that the story I told myself about my life and what people had "done to me" was false, a filtered version of the truth viewed from a self-centred perspective.
A story about my relationship with my brother is a good example of this. I had spent a good deal of my adult life in conflict with my brother; it was all unspoken and motivated by a belief that he didn't care much for me, which I overlaid with projections of selfishness. I was driving to a party for his birthday, which was held in his village hall, where I would know few people and be dependent on my brother's attention to feel welcome, attention I "knew" wouldn't be forthcoming. I meditated on why this was always the same when we met, that I always became angry and disappointed with him. And a sudden realisation struck me - that it needn't be like this and that it was me bringing the problem to the relationship, not him. I realised that if I removed - or ignored - the imagined sense of hurt I felt, then things would be better. I resolved to wipe the slate clean and to start again with him that very night. The promise of enjoying myself and having a good time with him and his family came true and we experienced a new closeness which has lasted.
Also, I have been constantly surprised by how much of what I say is a reaction rather than a considered response. I came from a study session once, challenged to write down a mission statement for myself, and wrote "Today, I will be me - no more, no less." It was the start of trying to avoid adding something to myself (my sense or image of myself) or subtracting something from myself. I tried to stop impressing others by being bigger or grander and also to stop thinking less of myself.
In searching for an authentic "me" in all of the hustle and bustle I was bringing to my life I had to fight my conditioning. It was a long list and pervaded every aspect of my life: I had a supposed national identity (being British, don't you know) which I have shed; an idea of what it meant to be a man, husband and father; the approval of my peers and friends - a desire to be liked, even popular; and a large chunk of prejudice that came from just not thinking about what I was being told by much of the press for example. All of these combined to make my response a conditioned one - a reaction where little of me would be visible.
The biggest burden that I had to shed was my "memory" of the past; I had to learn to ignore what had gone before and been processed by my thinking into a perverted variant of reality - to realise that the story I told myself about my life and what people had "done to me" was false, a filtered version of the truth viewed from a self-centred perspective.
A story about my relationship with my brother is a good example of this. I had spent a good deal of my adult life in conflict with my brother; it was all unspoken and motivated by a belief that he didn't care much for me, which I overlaid with projections of selfishness. I was driving to a party for his birthday, which was held in his village hall, where I would know few people and be dependent on my brother's attention to feel welcome, attention I "knew" wouldn't be forthcoming. I meditated on why this was always the same when we met, that I always became angry and disappointed with him. And a sudden realisation struck me - that it needn't be like this and that it was me bringing the problem to the relationship, not him. I realised that if I removed - or ignored - the imagined sense of hurt I felt, then things would be better. I resolved to wipe the slate clean and to start again with him that very night. The promise of enjoying myself and having a good time with him and his family came true and we experienced a new closeness which has lasted.
06 August 2011
Once in a lifetime
A Buddhist saying tells us that we can never cross the same stream twice. The stream may look the same but the water is constantly changing. The lesson for me is to assume that I am in touch with what's really happening when I am actually disconnected.
So, when I woke this morning next to my partner I did so for the first time today. Now it would be easy to see waking in my own bed as the same old thing I do every morning. But then I would miss the opportunity to experience the moment as a unique moment and I would soon be drifting off into daydreaming my way through the day, disconnected with reality, not noticing what was really going on.
It can be the same when we describe things; we can become separated from reality. Because our words and ideas don't capture reality at all. One of my most pronounced spiritual experiences was in our local park in late Spring. I was struck by the realisation that all the leaves on the hundreds of trees that I could see could each be different. Not just "leaves" as a concept but hundreds of thousands of individual leaves, each of which could be experienced in its own right.
Awareness comes from experiencing things directly - not from filtering reality from words and ideas
Because of this, I don't talk much about God or about how I experience God.
So, when I woke this morning next to my partner I did so for the first time today. Now it would be easy to see waking in my own bed as the same old thing I do every morning. But then I would miss the opportunity to experience the moment as a unique moment and I would soon be drifting off into daydreaming my way through the day, disconnected with reality, not noticing what was really going on.
It can be the same when we describe things; we can become separated from reality. Because our words and ideas don't capture reality at all. One of my most pronounced spiritual experiences was in our local park in late Spring. I was struck by the realisation that all the leaves on the hundreds of trees that I could see could each be different. Not just "leaves" as a concept but hundreds of thousands of individual leaves, each of which could be experienced in its own right.
Awareness comes from experiencing things directly - not from filtering reality from words and ideas
Because of this, I don't talk much about God or about how I experience God.
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