The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (14 page)

Now, if this teaching had come only from Avalokiteshvara, the students might have been able to rationalize their fears. “This is just a warrior on the path, not so different from us. He’s very wise and compassionate, of course, but he has been known to get things wrong.” But the Buddha was sitting right there in deep meditation, clearly pleased with this presentation of how to abide in the prajnaparamita. There was no way out of this dilemma.

Then, inspired by Shariputra’s questioning, Avalokiteshvara continued. He taught that when we understand that there is no final attainment, no ultimate answer or stopping place, when our mind is free of warring emotions and the belief in separateness, then we will have no fear. When I heard this many years ago, before I had any interest at all in a spiritual path, a little light bulb went off: I definitely wanted to know more about “no fear.”

This instruction on prajnaparamita is a teaching on fearlessness. To the extent that we stop struggling against uncertainty and ambiguity, to that extent we dissolve our fear. The synonym for total fearlessness is full enlightenment—wholehearted, open-minded interaction with our world. Meanwhile we train in patiently moving in that direction. By learning to relax with groundlessness, we gradually connect with the mind that knows no fear.

Then Avalokiteshvara proclaimed the pith of the prajnaparamita, the essence of the rug-pulling-out experience, the essence of the fearless, open state of mind. It came in the form of a mantra:
OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
. Just as a seed contains the tree, this mantra contains the entire teachings on abiding in prajnaparamita, abiding in the fearless state.

Trungpa Rinpoche’s translation is “
OM
, gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond, awake, so be it.” This is a description of a process, a journey, of always stepping out further and further. We could also say, “
OM
, groundlessness, groundlessness, more groundlessness, even beyond groundlessness, fully awake, so be it!”

No matter where we are on the bodhisattva path, whether we are just beginning or we’ve practiced for years, we’re always stepping further into groundlessness. Enlightenment is not the end of anything. Enlightenment, being completely awake, is just the beginning of fully entering into we know not what.

When the great bodhisattva finished teaching, the Buddha came out of his meditation and said, “Good, good! You expressed it perfectly, Avalokiteshvara.” And those in the audience who hadn’t walked out or died from heart attacks rejoiced. They rejoiced at hearing this teaching on stepping beyond fear.

19

Heightened Neurosis

The “secret” of life that we are all looking for is just this: to develop through sitting and daily life practice the power and courage to return to that which we have spent a lifetime hiding from, to rest in the bodily experience of the present moment—even if it is a feeling of being humiliated, of failing, of abandonment, of unfairness.

—CHARLOTTE JOKO BECK

W
HEN WE TALK ABOUT RESTING
in prajnaparamita, in unconditional bodhichitta, what are we asking of ourselves? We are being encouraged to remain open to the present groundless moment, to a direct, unarmored participation with our experience. We are certainly not being asked to trust that everything is going to be all right. Moving in the direction of nothing to hold on to is daring. We will not initially experience it as a thrilling, alive, wonderful way to be. How many of us feel ready to interrupt our habitual patterns, our almost instinctual ways of getting comfortable?

We might assume that as we train in bodhichitta, our habitual patterns will start to unwind—that day by day, month by month, we’ll be more openminded, more flexible, more of a warrior. But what actually happens with ongoing practice is that our patterns intensify. In vajrayana Buddhism this is called “heightened neurosis.” It’s not something we do on purpose. It just happens. We catch the scent of groundlessness, and despite our wishes to remain steady, open, and flexible, we hold on tight in very habitual ways.

This has been the experience of everyone who ever set out on the path of awakening. All those smiling enlightened people you see in pictures or in person had to go through the process of encountering their full-blown neurosis, their methods of looking for ground. When we start to interrupt our ordinary ways of calling ourselves names and patting ourselves on the back, we are doing something extremely brave. Slowly we edge toward the open state, but let’s face it, we are moving toward a place of no handholds, no footholds, no mindholds. This may be called liberation, but for a long time it feels like insecurity.

Let me give a few examples of heightened neuroses that actually develop
because
we practice. One is to develop a new self-critical story line based on spiritual ideals. We use the practice to reinforce poverty mentality: the warrior training becomes just one more way to feel that we never measure up. If we train to become a “good” warrior or to escape from being a “bad” person, then our thinking will remain just as polarized, just as stuck in right and wrong, as before. We will use the training against ourselves, trying to jump over issues that we’re avoiding so as to attain some idealized notion of allrightness. I’m not meaning to imply that this is unusual. Welcome to the human race. But because of our training we can start seeing clearly what we do and begin to practice compassionate inquiry into our own process. Psychologically what is happening to us? Do we feel inadequate? Do we continue to believe in our same old dramas?

There is also the opposite scenario. We use our training to feel superior, to increase our sense of being special. We are courageous to do this training. We are turning our lives around. We are proud to be doing something so rare in this world. We use the practice and teachings to build up our self-image and increase our arrogance and pride.

Another neurosis that can get heightened is avoidance. We wish to surrender our useless baggage, but in the process, we use the teachings themselves to distance ourselves from the chaotic, unsettling quality of our lives. In an attempt to avoid the fact that our partner is alcoholic or that we’re addicted to marijuana or that we’re in yet another abusive relationship, we earnestly train in relaxing into spaciousness, openness, warmheartedness. We try to use our spiritual training to avoid the queasy feeling in our gut.

The point is that we will bring our habitual ways of gluing ourselves together right into bodhichitta practice, right into the training in
un
gluing. If we want some insight into our habitual patterns, we can look at how we are relating to our practice, to the teachings and the teacher. Do we expect to have our needs met in the same way that we do in any neurotic relationship? Are we using spirituality to bypass what scares us? It’s easy not to see that we are still seeking ground in the same old ways.

As we tentatively step out of our cocoon, we’re bound to be afraid and grab on to what’s familiar. Without ongoing patience and kindness toward this inevitable process, we will never trust that it’s wise and compassionate to relax into the egoless state. We have to gradually develop the confidence that it is liberating to let go. Continually we train in maitri. It takes time to develop enthusiasm for how remaining open really feels.

A first step is to understand that a feeling of dread or psychological discomfort might just be a sign that old habits are getting liberated, that we are moving closer to the natural open state. Trungpa Rinpoche said that awakening warriors would find themselves in a constant state of anxiety. Personally, I’ve found this to be true. After a while I realized that since the shakiness wasn’t going away, I might as well get to know it. When our attitude toward fear becomes more welcoming and inquisitive, there’s a fundamental shift that occurs. Instead of spending our lives tensing up, as if we were in the dentist’s chair, we learn that we can connect with the freshness of the moment and relax.

The practice is compassionate inquiry into our moods, our emotions, our thoughts. Practicing compassionate inquiry into our reactions and strategies is fundamental to the process of awakening. We are encouraged to be curious about the neurosis that’s bound to kick in when our coping mechanisms start falling apart. This is how we get to the place where we stop believing in our personal myths, the place where we are not always divided against ourselves, always resisting our own energy. This is how we learn to abide in the prajnaparamita.

This is an ongoing practice. From the instant we begin this bodhisattva training until we completely trust the freedom of our unconditional, unbiased mind, we are surrendering moment by moment to whatever is happening in this very instant of time. With precision and gentleness, we surrender our cherished ways of regarding ourselves and others, our cherished ways of holding it all together, our cherished ways of blocking bodhichitta. We do this again and again over many challenging and inspiring years, and in the process develop an appetite for groundlessness.

20

When the Going Gets Rough

Don’t be swayed by external circumstances.

—MIND-TRAINING SLOGAN OF ATISHA

T
HE MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD ADVICE ON
awakening bodhichitta is this: practice not causing harm to anyone—yourself or others—and every day, do what you can to be helpful. If we take this instruction to heart and begin to use it, we will probably find that it is not so easy. Before we know it, someone has provoked us, and either directly or indirectly, we’ve caused harm.

Therefore, when our intention is sincere but the going gets rough, most of us could use some help. We could use some fundamental instruction on how to lighten up and turn around our well-established habits of striking out and blaming.

The four methods for holding our seat provide just such support for developing the patience to stay open to what’s happening instead of acting on automatic pilot. These four methods are:

1. not setting up the target for the arrow,
   
2. connecting with the heart,
   
3. seeing obstacles as teachers, and
   
4. regarding all that occurs as a dream.
   

First, if we have not set up the target, it cannot be hit by an arrow. This is to say that each time we retaliate with aggressive words and actions, we are strengthening the habit of anger. As long as we do this, without doubt, plenty of arrows will come our way. We will become increasingly irritated by the reactions of others. However, each time we are provoked, we are given a chance to do something different. We can strengthen old habits by setting up the target or we can weaken them by holding our seat.

Each time we sit still with the restlessness and heat of anger, we are tamed and strengthened. This is instruction on cultivating the root of happiness. Each time we act on the anger or suppress it, we escalate our aggression; we become more and more like a walking target. Then, as the years go by, almost everything makes us mad. This is the key to understanding, at a completely real and personal level, how we sow the seeds of suffering.

So this is the first method: remember that we set up the target and only we can take it down. Understand that if we hold our seat when we want to retaliate—even if it’s only briefly—we are starting to dissolve a pattern of aggression that will continue to hurt us and others forever if we let it.

Second is the instruction for connecting with the heart. In times of anger, we can contact the kindness and compassion that we already have.

When someone who is insane starts to harm us, we can easily understand that she doesn’t know what she is doing. There is the possibility of contacting our heart and feeling sadness that she is out of control and is harming herself by hurting others. There is the possibility that even though we feel fear, we do not feel hatred or anger. Instead we might feel inspired to help this person if we can.

Actually, a lunatic is far less crazy than a sane person who harms us, for that so-called sane person has the potential to realize that in acting aggressively he is sowing seeds of his own confusion and dissatisfaction. His present aggression is strengthening future, more-intense habits of aggression. He is creating his own soap opera. This kind of life is painful and lonely. The one who harms us is under the influence of patterns that could continue to produce suffering forever.

So this is the second method: connect with the heart. Remember that the one who harms us does not need to be provoked further and neither do we. Recognize that, just like us, millions are burning with the fire of aggression. We can sit with the intensity of the anger and let its energy humble us and make us more compassionate.

Third is the instruction on seeing difficulties as teachers. If there is no teacher around to give us direct personal guidance on how to stop causing harm, never fear! Life itself will provide opportunities for learning how to hold our seat. Without the inconsiderate neighbor, where will we find the chance to practice patience? Without the office bully, how could we ever get the chance to know the energy of anger so intimately that it loses its destructive power?

The teacher is always with us. The teacher is always showing us precisely where we’re at—encouraging us not to speak and act in the same old neurotic ways, encouraging us also not to repress or dissociate, encouraging us not to sow the seeds of suffering. So with this person who is scaring us or insulting us, do we retaliate as we have one hundred thousand times before, or do we start to get smart and finally hold our seat?

Right at the point when we are about to blow our top or withdraw into oblivion, we can remember this: we are warriors-in-training being taught how to sit with edginess and discomfort. We are being challenged to remain and to relax where we are.