Insight and resistance

Reading Dropping Ashes on the Buddha, getting next to that form of formlessness. It was strange reading it when I was out in the wilds. I was sitting on a rock looking out over a majestic canyon, watching ravens ride the thermals, hearing the sound of the brook on the rocks, feeling the wind and warm sun, 9000 feet in the sky. Contemplating the great insight of the meditation traditions of the East-- that all of what we perceive and experience, and our self, and our stories-- is illusion, Saṃsāra. That attachment to illusion causes suffering. To be liberated from suffering, one must be liberated from Saṃsāra. 

I have an easier time accepting that insight when things are shitty, or I'm in the middle of Phoenix, or whatever. Up high in that glorious canyon, well it's very seductive. Why would I want to let that go and come to the full realization that it's just illusion and is not real? 

Of course, Seung Sahn would yell "KATZ!" (KATZ! (Korean): traditional Zen belly shout; used to cut off discriminative thinking.)or ask me "Are the canyon and Zen mind of absolute emptiness the same or different? If you say they are the same, I will hit you thirty times. If you say they are different, I will still hit you 30 times!"

There's this passage in We Agnostics, in the book Alcoholics Anonymous:

"We read wordy books and indulge in windy arguments, thinking this universe needs no God to explain it. Were our contentions true, it would follow that life originated out of nothing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere." (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 49).

An Eastern meditator from any one of dozens of traditions would hail that single phrase-- originated out of nothing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere-- as the best news there is and the highest insight Bill W ever had. My conditioning hears it as the darkest nihilism, the most depressing kind of existential indifference. 

Are those the same or different? Watch out-- you're going to get hit thirty times. 

I might start saying to my sponsees: "If you answer one way, I will hit you 30 times! If you answer the other way, I will still hit you 30 times!" Except for the sponsees that are bigger and angrier than I am. 

Anyway, it feels like a big obstacle to finding peace in my heart, this passionate attachment to the world. The world continues to cause me intense chronic and acute suffering, and yet I am in love with it. I have a kind of worldly Stockholm Syndrome.

It is true that, as I get older, I can begin to see the equally seductive allure of non-attachment. It feels like a way to cheat loss (which increases as one gets older) and death itself-- if there is no Self, nothing dies. There is no loss or gain. Let go of all of it because sooner than you think, you're going to be forced to let go of all of it anyway.  

Even there, the "problem" (KATZ!) is *attachment to non-attachment*, one of the most serious pitfalls along the path, according to many traditions. Even with my desultory and typically Western daily ten minutes of silent meditation-- undisciplined, cluttered, egocentric-- I get momentary glimpses of the great emptiness, silence, absolute peace and liberation that seems much more "real" than the world. I can easily see how people might just disappear into that and become attached to it. 

It just seems to me that my consciousness is like a lint roller or strip of Velcro. Sometimes during meditation, it feels like my soul is one of the gloriously overloaded pickup trucks you see in Mexico. 

What makes it hard to just let go is holding on, ironically enough. 


I can see why Westerners often are more drawn to some form of purposeful meditation-- focusing on loving kindness, or even doing tonglen in a very literal way, breathing in poison and exhaling medicine. Anything to hang on to some sense of structure and form.
Our entire cultural legacy is based on epic poetry, "the hero's journey", the "I", stories and tales, even the Christian idea of a personal savior and the Self having eternal life after death. The level of attachment in our culture is very strong.  

Or why we think of meditation as a means to an end: inner peace, stress reduction, a more clear mind at our job, less anger, etc. In No Self, No Problem, Anam Thubten writes: 

"These days, people often go to resort areas where they have massages and hot tubs, yoga and meditation. People think that meditation is a way of relaxing their body and mind. They think it is a way of rejuvenating themselves, a way of removing wrinkles from their foreheads. They think that they will be eternally attractive because of meditation. But this not what meditation is about. 

Meditation is not a stress reduction program. Of course there is nothing wrong with using meditation as a way of reducing stress and anxiety. That is much healthier than taking intoxicating substances or turning oneself into a zombie in front of the TV or becoming unconscious by stuffing oneself with ice cream....

Meditation is like inviting fire into our consciousness. That is what true meditation is all about."

It's very challenging for me to just sit, even for 10 minutes, and watch the breath. To observe thoughts passing and to let them go completely on the exhale. To not only let go of all the clutter piled in the back of the truck, but let go also of the truck. We don't want to stay in complete emptiness and groundlessness for long. Of course, "we" are supposedly an illusion-- the self that is in terror of letting go completely into emptiness is an illusion that "knows" it will die in emptiness. 

Not surprising there's resistance.