Notes From a Fellow Traveller

"Being" Knowledge

There are two ways that we gain knowledge of our self and world. As adults, our default approach is “memory knowledge.” From childhood on we accumulate experiences, learning from parents, schooling, and culture. We store all this knowledge in our mental file called memory. We draw upon this acquired memory-based knowledge, bounded by the reach and character of our life experience, to understand and navigate the inner and outer day-to-day world.

Although memory-based knowledge provides a quick, consistent, and predictable approach to life, it is limited by the scope of our past experiences. Our past automatically shapes new incoming experience to align with this prior knowledge. In this manner, our life unfolds with predictability. However, we miss the opportunity to explore and experience the many possibilities of life that lie beyond the scope of our personal past.

That brings us to a very different type of knowledge “being knowledge.” Being knowledge refers to the insights and understandings that naturally arise from a still state of being and presence. That foundational state-of-being is a moment-to-moment awareness that does not contain past history. It is an impersonal state-of-being in which the personal self and its content, which is memory based, cannot be found. The knower is a natural and unconditioned awareness absent any previously stored information. It is a unique and precious state-of-being that allows us access to full and clear knowledge and actions that lie beyond the grasp of our acquired memory-based knowledge.

It's like switching channels. One channel is our personal history channel and the other the ground of our being channel. Surely you have experienced the day-to-day personal self and its conditioned take on self and life. It has become our default, taking the place of our spaciousness and whole true self. But it is also likely you have experienced your inner self with its flow in the moment, minus a personal and historical commentary.

Can you remember a time in nature, intimacy, beauty, music, dance or nature when you suddenly felt a sense of flow, complete presence, well-being and wholeness. You likely didn’t notice that your personal self dropped away for a moment, allowing for the revelation of your natural and timeless presence. Soon enough your usual self pulled you back. But for a moment you switched channels and touched the vast well-being of your natural self.

You may have also noticed, in one of those natural and almost imperceptible gaps between two thoughts, that a fresh insight popped up. You might not know where it came from and how it arrived, but you will know that you have touched a profound truth that is not ascribable to or influenced by any memory or learned knowledge. That gap and the ensuing moment of presence and being, however brief it may be, allowed for the being knowledge to spontaneously arise, precise to the circumstance at hand

To access knowledge beyond the limits of memory is a great gift, as it opens vistas and resolves concerns that our ordinary memory based knowledge can only struggle and ruminate about. Having routinely relied on memory knowledge for our lifetime, we must learn how to access, trust, and be guided by being knowledge, the profound intuitive knowing of our inner self? We train ourselves in accessing this knowledge by discovering how we can reveal, with increasing stability, that ever present inner state of pure unconditioned awareness and being. For this we rely on an open awareness meditative practice called meditation without support.

Unlike meditation with support, which relies on a chosen focal point (for example, mantra and mindfulness meditation, breath observation, guided imagery, and so forth,) an awareness-based meditation without support brings our attention to an open and spacious awareness rather than a specific object. Any and all mental activity is allowed to arise in that open presence, but nothing takes our attention from the awareness. We allow all mental appearances (thoughts, feelings, mental images, and sensory experiences) to come and go on their own, as they do, absent our attention or entanglement. The resulting field of open presence and being is the ground in which being knowledge, in its own time, spontaneously arises as creative insights or realizations to offer the truth about self and life.

And you will know that the pure space of awareness, your being, the source of all precise and true knowledge is pervasive, timeless, ever present, and imperishable yet always available to you. It knows you and you know it. We can always dip back into our personal identity to navigate day-to-day life. But, we will know that the truth of our being and being knowledge is the source of a full and abundant life. It is the resolution to all of our searching and all of our questioning.

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Knowables and Unknowables

What is a knowable? It’s any experience, outer or inner, that can be observed and known through our sensory organs or mental capacity. Our sensory system is oriented to “physical” experiences that appear as outer events. Our inner capacity for observation is oriented towards thoughts, feelings, and images that appear as mental events. In both instances, what makes these outer and inner experiences knowable is that we are endowed with an overarching awareness that can observe, relate to, and communicate about them.

In contrast, there are also unknowables. What is an unknowable? These are experiences that cannot be observed or comprehended through our sensory system or mental awareness. They can only be known to the individual through direct experience. Examples of unknowables include soul, spirit, pure awareness, love, God, and reality itself. We are not given the human equipment to perceive or comprehend these experiences, as is possible with sensory or mental experiences. However, we can experience them directly. But, any attempt to observe, analyze, categorize, or label these experiences will fail.

A special comment is called for here when it comes to the category of “reality.” Let’s take a simple example. We see or observe a tree. How does that happen and are we actually seeing the real tree? Light waves are emitted from the tree and are perceived by our eyes. These rays travel through space, our cornea, and lens, leaving an impression on our retina. That is then turned into an electrical current that flows along the optic nerve to the visual brain centers where this current is magically formulated into an image that’s then experienced in our mind. That image is not the outer object that was the initial source of our visual experience. We experience a modified version of what is actually “out there.” We cannot know the tree “out there” as it truly is in itself. We are not given the mind/body equipment to comprehend unvarnished and unmodified reality, although we believe and act as if we can.

So even an ordinary knowable experience is not reality as it actually is. But, we can know a facsimile of outer and inner appearances that approximates what actually is. We each have a myriad of daily experiences, outer and inner that we observe and witness. Although they are at best a facsimile, they are close enough approximations of reality to function and serve human life.

There are important distinctions between knowable and unknowable experiences. The former are transient. They come and go in relationship to causes, conditions, and circumstances. Consider a rainbow. It arises dependent on light, diffraction, moisture, the human eye, labeling and consciousness. If one of these factors drops out there is no longer a rainbow. All knowable experiences are dependent on causes, conditions, and circumstances. When these change the experience changes, thus their impermanency. We call these relative, conventional, or conditional truths.

To the contrary all unknowables are experienced as true, unchanging, timeless, and permanent. We know it because we know it. That knowing is not an observation but rather a spontaneous expression of the experience itself. The knowing and the knower are one, a non-dual state. For example, when the innermost self is glimpsed in meditation, it’s experienced as a fundamental truth, our essential nature. That experiential ultimate reality is always present whether experienced the next moment, or not. Thar unchanging nature is holistic, and unitary. We call these ultimate or final truths.

Knowable phenomenon, inner and outer, can be measured, described, understood, and function in day-to-day life. Unknowables are the background basic foundation of life. Although we cannot measure or know these experiences through cognition, we can know them through their perfume. Their perfume is their calling card. Those who touch these states-of-being express a deeply held conviction of the truths they convey, experience a profound serenity that surpasses understanding, a wholeness and oneness, selfless love, happiness without a reason or cause, profound clarity, inner wisdom, and a boundless and unconditioned freedom.

We cannot know these “perfumes” of the unknowables through our sensory or mental apparatus. Consider love. What we call love, in its many knowable forms, is not the ultimate love of a selfless oneness and connectedness. That can only be experienced directly, touched in a moment of awakening. Once experientially known it informs and supersedes all other conventional and personal ideas of love. As is said, when the perfect comes the partial will pass away. That is the way of the perfume of the unknowable.

Perhaps we can say that there are two worlds available to us. There is the ever-changing ordinary world of sensory and mental experiences that we observe and know and the unchanging non-ordinary world of foundational truth and unity that we cannot know, but can directly experience. For most of us the first is what we know as life with its pleasures and sufferings. Those who have touched or been touched by the great truths of life, the unknowables, perceive ordinary human experience as functional but limited and contracted.

To experience knowables all that is required is to be born and individuate according to cultural norms. To experience the unknowable mystery requires devotion and a contemplative life. The actual revelation or awakening is not developmental. It occurs spontaneously, in an instant. It is not based on practice and learning. What contemplative practice offers is to clean up the noisy room of our day-to-day life, increasing the probabilities that we will unexpectedly be touched by the grace of the great mystery, which paradoxically is always and everywhere present, and recognize its ultimate and unchanging truth. Even if the glimpse may be brief, it will inform and transform our ordinary life into a sacred one.

My words here can only point to the unknowable yet experiential mystery of life, that more to life that drives the spiritual seeker. When we touch it there is a profound knowing, but it is neither from our mental or sensory faculties. Yet we surely know it, with great certainty, as a foundational truth. That knowing is inseparable from what is known. And that truth will have the transformative force of inner authority.

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Two Paths: Direct and Gradual

There are two paths to an awakened and vital life. Each are based on a different premise. The first, the direct path, asserts that the awakened state, is already and always within us. We don’t see our true nature because it’s obscured by our acquired personal self with its opaque mental activity and personal dramas. Once these obscurations are removed our true self is revealed.

Now let’s consider the second, the gradual path. It is based on evolutionary or developmental theory. It asserts that by improving the quality of day-to-day life we incrementally develop or evolve the awakened state. By progressively loosening the grip of the personal self, we grow closer and closer to the essence of life. That’s the gradual path.

I sense that these two paths are complementary rather than contradictory. It can be held as a truth that the awakened state is always and already within us and simultaneously held that moving our life progressively towards greater, truth, kindness, and virtue can enhance the probability of experiencing a stable awakened state. Yes, there are those rare ones that touch enlightenment and never return to ordinary experience, but if you are reading this, as I am writing it, it is clear we are not amongst those few special beings. We are special beings on the gradual path, but at any moment, any moment, we have the capacity to directly experience the awakened state.

Our way is to directly experience, as frequently as possible the clarity of the awakened state – in formal practice and in daily life. In formal daily practice, we train dropping directly into a pristine awareness and presence. We drop in multiple times during the day by stopping, taking a few breaths and breath holds, and experiencing our still self for moments at a time. In this manner we emphasize the direct path and direct experience. With practice and familiarity these moments coalesce into larger moments and we notice our life is undergoing transformation. We are increasing living in the unfiltered experience of the vital present.

Simultaneously, we apply efforts towards enhancing the quality of our day-to-day life. We aim for a more virtuous life, one that minimizes suffering for ourself and others. We seek to transform self-centeredness into selflessness – self-serving into other serving. We bring past traumas into the light of day, moving away from fear, defensiveness, disconnection, and reactive behavior towards an open heart. As we enhance the quality of our life mind-chatter slows down, afflictive emotions diminish in occurrence and intensity, and life becomes increasingly serene, kind, patient, and heartfelt. When we clean up our life and mental content we remove the barriers to recognizing our ever-present true nature, and simultaneously support the stability of our larger self.

In this manner both paths can work together. The balance between the two – where you put your major effort ­– is determined by what works for your aspirations and style. I believe it is most important to begin with the direct path and supplement it with the gradual path of self-improvement. Why, because it is too easy to get caught in the fallacy that self-improvement, which is work on the personal self, can in itself take you directly to the awakened state. It cannot. It operates solely within the personal self. However, it can serve to open the doors to a direct experience. But, the awakened state that is revealed is not created by self-improvement. It is always present.

So, these are the two paths – the direct and gradual – work with them as fits you, but be aware of the role each plays.

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Awakwning Your Inner Essence

Awareness is the essence of our meditation practice.  It can neither be perceived by the senses nor known by thought. It is not a “thing” in the usual sense. It has no identifiable location, shape, form, texture, color, or weight. In a sense it is nothing. However, that nothing is the ever-present basis of all we experience. It is everything.

Without awareness we would not know we exist. We would not know our mental or sensory experiences. The emptiness of unconditioned, pure awareness is our fundamental nature, already and always. It is our true self.

Awareness can only be known by direct experience, and that is why we practice, to know it first-hand. Meditation is no more than dropping into a simple awareness, and dwelling in it as the center of our being. All that a teacher can do is to point you towards that experience. If you follow that pointing you will certainly know it for yourself. Experiencing a natural, unaltered, and simple awareness is experiencing precisely who you are and have always been. That awareness has no purpose, intention, expectation, or attachment. It just is.

As mentioned, we are each born into a pure and simple awareness. A young child naturally experiences one thing after another without interpretation and commentary, without separation into “I” and It.” The Buddhists illustrate this with the metaphor of a complex tapestry. When looking at the tapestry, the young child enjoys a diversity of sensory experiences, leaping with delight from one visual impression to another without a mental commentary.

However, that is no longer how it is for us. We have lost the natural unfiltered awareness of a child. Instead, we superimpose memories, stories, and meanings onto the perceived images. We are constantly interpreting and commenting on the tapestry. Rather than experiencing the tapestry as it is, we alter it with judgments, stories, and mental commentaries. Instead of the real thing we experience a conceptual abstraction. These mental elaborations rapidly take over from our brief but natural experience, affording little if any opportunity to experience what’s actually there.

Early in childhood we lose touch with unfiltered awareness. It fades from view as we develop the sense of a personal self and identity. Simple awareness goes underground, as we evolve a conditioned, selective, and preferential awareness. Our world becomes narrower, familiar, fixed, and increasingly abstract and limited by past experiences and ideas.

Why is living from our unfiltered original awareness so important? It’s the beginning of a new freedom, or perhaps I should say an old freedom. We now have the choice of experiencing and responding to how things actually are rather than experiencing and reacting to a self and world shaped by our past.

Challenges and difficult circumstances will continue. But they will be experienced by a stable and unmoving awareness. They will be held in a ground of serenity, peace, wisdom, and gentleness. No fear. No anxiety. No suffering. Just presence and being.

Our practice aims at revealing a simple, natural, unconditionedM awareness. This awareness is profoundly still, serene, present, and free. Meditation is awareness. Awareness is meditation. It is the great elixir of healing. The key is doing nothing, just being.

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The Mind-Body Interface

Although a fictional story lacks objective reality, it can directly impact on our thoughts, feelings, and body. We can observe this when watching a sentimental or horror movie. We can feel it in our emotions and physiology. Fortunately, this is short lasting as we soon stop reading or watching a movie and then return to daily reality. In the same way, a mentally created personal self, although fictional, can have a direct and at times highly destructive impact on our body. The difference, short oof awakening to the true self, we hold a steadfast belief in the personal self over much or all of our life. So the impact of our belief that we are the personal self has a lifelong impact on our mental and physical health.

Intentional Healing, my first book, explored the intricacies of the mind-body connection. As an Internal Medicine physician, my approach to patients had already shifted. Early in practice I realized the limitations of a medical model that reduces health and disease solely to biological factors. It seems quite obvious that we are not mere physical bodies. We are inter-connect beings – our biology, psychology, social relations, and spiritual essence are inseparable. Focusing on only one aspect of our experience diminishes our capacity to understand disease and reach towards a comprehensive whole healing.

Intentional Healing reviewed the research I was pouring through at that time. I began with Hans Selye, the Canadian physiologist who wrote the seminal text The Stress of Life. His conclusions are so obvious now. Relentless modern stress exhausts and destabilizes our physiology and biology. The mental factor of stress is inseparable from the physical aspect of our being.

In the 1950s the Menninger Clinic Researchers, Elmer and Alyce Green, returned from India where they developed the field of biofeedback. In short, they discovered that it was possible, through mental imagery, supported by enhanced physiological feedback, to control aspects of our biology that previously seemed inaccessible to mental effects. These functions now include: blood pressure, muscle tension, pulse, body temperature, bowel motility, bladder motility, and brain waves, to note a few. All of which can be altered through mental factors.

The core of Intentional Healing was centered on the newly emerging field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI.) Rober Ader a researcher at the University of Rochester detailed how the mind, beyond its ability to impact on bodily organs and tissues, could also be trained to upgrade or downgrade the activity of the immune system.

And then there is the placebo effect. In 1959 the National Institutes of Health employed a cardiologist in Seattle, Dr. Leonard A. Cobb, to conduct a novel test of a technique to increase cardiac blood flow to patients with heart disease. Cobb operated on 17 patients. Eight had the actual surgical procedure and the other nine got incisions, nothing more. In 1959, the New England Journal of Medicine published his findings: The phony operations worked just as well as actual surgery. The mind healed the cardiac pain as well as the surgery!

Supplementing this research are the many social interaction studies that demonstrate in large populations the impact of stress, distress, social relations, and emotional states on the body.

It was left to Candace Pert, a researcher at Georgetown University, to describe a key piece – the chemical messenger molecules (the neuropeptides such as endorphins) – that were the intermediaries between the mind and our biology. These messenger hormones carry information through our body, from one organ and tissue to another, and could explain the mysterious connection between mental factors and physical changes.

More recent research in the field of neuroscience and epigenetics further elaborates how mental and environmental factors affect the mind-body continuum. This even applies to our genetic disposition whose expression in our physiology is in part mediated by these factors. That is to say that genetics are not fixed fate, but can be modified by the conscious choice of a lifestyle that supports or inhibits particular genetic expressions.

It was a natural leap from the recognition that the mind is inseparable from the body to realize that the mind of others I interact with may similarly impact on my body. If I react to another’s dramas with anger, annoyance or other negative emotions, my reaction impacts on my body. In that way my mind and body are inter-connected with others. And further, if the values and practices of our culture, the character of our educational system, the nature of our economic systems, or our social systems impact on my mental or biological state, that extends our inter-connectedness to all aspects of life. We are not a single isolated mind-body. We are one interwoven mind-body with others and our cultural environment.

I have reviewed this research and its implications to share with you how I arrived at my focus on the mind, expanding the mind and tapping into its rich resources through self-remembering and living in our whole self.

Although I applaud the genius of biological science, it is the mind that remains the most under-valued and unexplored frontier in health and healing. That is why my focus is on fully developing and expanding our understanding of the mind and its resources.

Now, let’s still the mind, return to the center of our being, and experience the feeling of a harmonious mind-body.

Effortless Meditation: Simple, Natural, and Profound

The phrase “effortless meditation” may sound to you like an oxymoron or a clever marketing tease, but it’s neither. This immediate reaction arises from the experience many beginners have when they approach meditation as a process of subduing the mind. That certainly feels like effort.

Meditation is customarily taught as a relaxation technique, a remedy for anxiety, stress, the overactive mind, insomnia, and a host of other mental disturbances of modern life. Learning meditation usually begins with a technique, a method, and related instructions applied with considerable practice and effort toward the aim of subduing the overactive mind. Such techniques might include repetition of a phrase, observing the breath, guided imagery, mantra repetition, or the mindful training of attention and concentration. Each of these approaches, and others, may temporarily calm the mind and even allow for certain insights.

But these transient results require dependence on a method to subdue the mind, often generating an unending mental struggle, leading to frustration and a sense of “I can’t do this.” The positive effect of a calming the day-to-day mind lasts as long as the technique is actively utilized. However, it’s difficult to sustain or integrate the results into daily life. And, most importantly, methods and techniques do not allow for the cultivation and revelation of our inner self with its natural and stable stillness, wisdom, clarity, and freedom.

Why are these prevalent methods so limited? It’s because we approach mental activity as if it was a problem, something to fix, stop, control, or remedy. And that, only makes the active mind more active, as the ego self tries with increasing effort to control what is normal – the natural arising and falling of mental activity in the human mind. While occupied by this approach, we fail to discover the simplest and most effective approach, one that is natural and effortless.

Why is this possible? It’s possible because our inner self, in contrast to the ordinary mind, is naturally, already, and always still and present. That does not mean the mind ceases to generate mental activity, but as long as we remain in a natural, witnessing awareness mental movements will come and go as they do without creating a disturbance. We don’t and can’t stop the mind from generating mental and sensory activity. But we can relate to mental activity as an aware witness rather than as an involved drama maker. If we live from our deeper self, mental activity is an accepted expression of consciousness that need not constantly grab our attention.

Further, what makes meditation is that we don’t have to learn an observing awareness, create, or imagine it. It is already and has always been within. It is our foundational self. It is our essential nature. In truth, it is who we are. The personal self, which has no capacity for a stable inner peace, is a mere mental construction composed of our learned experiences, multiple identities, and fixed perspectives. It can have moments of relative calm, but not sustained serenity.

To experience our natural self we follow what the ancients called the via negativa. There is nothing we have to do except let go of the belief in and attachment to who we are not – the strung together collection of our life experiences, what we call our personal self. That is where some wisdom, intention, and effort are useful. Not in an effort to control the mind, but in letting go of the belief that we are our personal self. Softening and letting go does not require effort, merely understanding and practice.

That is why “effortless meditation” is both possible and the true core of meditation. Let go. Do nothing. Let go. Then, experience your true inner self that self-reveals itself, when the mind has been stilled through a natural presence. It is then that we will find what we seek, find our true home – not in external activities or pleasures – but rather at the center of our being. This is not to negate our involvement in worldly activities, but merely to suggest that the only true and stable source of serenity, ease, and wisdom is our natural, inner self.

For many years, I have taught different approaches to meditation. Where I have finally landed is at the simplest, most effortless, and yet most profound approach. Let’s recall. Meditation has two aims. The first and most common in the West is the enhancement or upgrading of the quality of day-to-day human life. The second is to reveal, experience, and live in the natural self that lies beyond our limited and constructed personal self. Here we experience the rich perfume of our true nature – a peace that surpasses understanding, pure mental clarity, happiness without a reason, a wise natural intelligence, selfless presence, and freedom from the known.

Effortless meditation begins with directly re-experiencing our natural self, rather than employing methods that seek to quiet the mind. We start at the end. We start by dropping right into the direct experience of an unconditioned awareness, our true self, the essence of meditation. This approach will give us two for one. As we increasingly live in our true self, its qualities will simultaneously pervade and transform our day-to-day life.Please, I ask you to not believe that meditation is difficult. The unexamined ordinary life is difficult. Meditation is the natural experience of who we truly are and how the world actually exists. That simple presence is always effortlessly available when we stop, do nothing, and merely experience simple presence.

Podcast: Effortless Meditation

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Love Without an Object

We can speak about two kinds of love – love with an object and love without an object. Object-based love involves another person, a physical object, or any experience that is a source of affection, care, kindness, and pleasure. This can be a person, place, or thing. We say I love this or I love that, referring to the object of love. There is he subject “I” and the object.

Love with an object is exclusively a product of our personal day-to-day self. Our personal self instinctively seeks pleasure, security, affirmation, and comfort, and affords a positive attitude and actions towards the beloved person or object.  Love objects and the pleasure they provide are desired and cherished. Unfortunately, that desire can easily graduate to dependency, clinging, attachment, and even addiction. When we fear losing the pleasure generated by the person, circumstance, or material object, we often react with manipulation, control, and other psychological devices to avoid the threatening loss.

In this way object-based love is invariably susceptible to loss, distress, and suffering. Why, because all objects are subject to change. That is the law of impermanence. As the object of desire or love shifts, changes, or disappears, we experience the built-in fragility of object love. We all know that experience. Too often the response is to seek relief through engaging another object. In this manner, the cycle begins again. We have all experienced object-based love. You can observe it in your own life. Invariably, it has its delights and disturbances

In contrast, love without an object is an experience that is unrelated to any object. It is an inclusive embrace rather than an exclusive one. There is neither subject, the lover, or object, the beloved. Love just is. Love without an object is innate to our fundamental being. It’s somewhat like the perfume that emanates from the flower. However, in this case the flower is our natural self. This love is built-in to our innermost self. It is self-arising, spontaneous, ever-present, abundant, and unbiased when we are aligned with our true self.

Love without an object transcends the personal self and its relationship with objects. It has none of the qualities of possessiveness, self-centeredness, attachment, or dependency. As a result, it is also free of loss, distress, and suffering. It is inseparable from an inner contentment, delight, and serenity. It is the source of selfless compassion and service. It is a sweet fruit of meditation and the inner life.

Traditionally meditation has two aims. The first is the cultivation of a healthy human life and the second is transcending that personal self to experience the foundational awareness, unity, and presence that is at the center of our being. We call this the inner self, transcendent self, natural self, and many other names. Although these are different names, the experience is one and the same, our natural state-of-being.

When meditating, we let go of our personal self – its various and ever-changing identities, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, habits of perception and reaction. What remains when our mind is emptied of our personal self and its mind-talk, is the essence of who and what we are at our source. There we discover the qualities of human flourishing – a peace that surpasses understanding, happiness without a cause, wisdom without knowledge, selfless love and compassion, and boundless freedom.

It's from this center of our being that love without an object naturally arises. It does not have to be found, created, imagined, evoked, or developed. It is already and always there, complete and whole. Even when its moment of full appearance is obscured by a restless mind, its residual light and beauty beckon our smaller self to reach above and beyond to this larger love and life. Selfless love may be difficult to describe in words, but we know it with certainty when we experience it.

As humans we will experience love with an object time and time again. That’s OK. What is essential is that we know and are grounded in the deeper love that has no object. Then we can enjoy a worldly love with understanding and care, not attributing to it or expecting from it what it cannot deliver. We are able to appreciate both kinds of love, assured that the experience of a deeper love, that dwells within, can never be lost and will never leave. It is the final and ultimate remedy to the challenges and difficulties of human existence.

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Good Enough, or Not

The pediatrician and psychotherapist D.W. Winnicott coined the expression a “good enough mother” or perhaps one might say “good enough parenting.” It refers to the manner in which a mother responds to her infant child with age-related sensitivity and care, allowing the infant to successfully transition to an autonomous and well-functioning adult.

We will all pass through the oceanic unity of infancy into the subjective individual world of the adult. How else could we navigate the human world we are given? That necessary movement is characterized by the development of a personal identity that defines our separateness as an adult. We are given a name and our sense of self is progressively filled in by life’s events and experiences, wholesome and difficult.

We lose the inter-connected, spontaneous, and innocent experience of the young child, as we take on the conditioning, patterning, and limitations of an adult. Our infantile world disssapears, but we are able to navigate the day-to-day world of work, intimacy, and social relations. With “good enough” parenting and early circumstances we can do so with kindness, patience, virtue, and human decency. That is an accomplishment that begins with the absence of neglect and the presence of familial circumstances that support healthy development. For that we do not need perfect parenting, but “good enough” parenting.

Much as healthy adult development is the aim of psychology, it is also the first aim of meditation – creating a healthy human life – mental calm, virtuous attitudes and behaviors, a tempering of ego cherishing, and the cultivation of loving kindness towards others. There is a large body of Eastern literature and practices devoted to this important psychological accomplishment.

But is this accomplishment all we can hope to achieve? Consider the work of the developmental psychologist Abraham Maslow. His well known Hierarchy of Needs delineates the stages of human development from basic physiologic needs to self-realization. Self-realization, the culmination of his developmental pyramid, was considered the pinnacle of personal growth and fulfillment.

At the end of his life, some 20 years after the articulation of this model, Maslow declared the model incomplete and began to speak of a state of being he termed “transcendence.” That capacity went beyond the well cultivated personal self, the goal of psychological development. It’s an awakening to the spiritual and mystical experiences of wholeness and oneness. As it turns out, the peak of personal development was not the peak of human possibility. There was more.

It can be said that healthy development is an important preparation for the experience of a larger spiritual life. A “good enough” childhood increases the probability that we will experience life’s larger possibilities, and it does. But paradoxically, the condition of individuality that is fostered by healthy individual development can as well get in the way of spiritual attainment.

Why? Because individualism is by definition a state of separateness and disconnection from others, our highest self, and our planet. The stronger our individual sense of self, and perhaps the healthier, the more it can serve as an obstacle to touching into what lies beyond. What is valuable for one stage of development can paradoxically be an obstacle to the next level of development. The stronger our sense of distinctiveness and separateness the more closed off we may be to what lies beyond.

So, we can say that good enough parenting supports healthy development, but it may not be good enough to go beyond. I recall one of my Eastern teacher’s description of a traditional family upbringing in his culture. There may be dozens of family and close friends raising the child, always a hand to hold, arms to convey security, and the wisdom to navigate times of difficulty. The child was raised by a community bypassing the limitations of a one-or-two person family.

Meditation was a regular family activity, as was the expression of kindness and compassion. Often the community elders would visit and lead songs of awakening called dohas. These pointed to, modeled, and normalized for young adults the state of consciousness beyond individualism. This very different “good enough” upbringing honored both the psychological and transcendent as touchstones of a fully lived life.

I remember meeting a young western woman at dinner, when I was studying in India. We had not met before. After some introductory conversation, she mentioned her recent marriage to a Tibetan man. Curious, I asked her if she could share something she learned from their cross-cultural intimacy. She mentioned that they were living with his brother, and it was odd to her that the brothers never knew whose clothes belonged to whom. I thought back to my own children, and of course that was not the situation I recall. They definitely knew the word mine.

It appears that a “good enough” upbringing is relative to the culture, its values, and aspirations. Certainly, there are elements of care, kindness, responsiveness, and supportive environments that are cross-cultural. But, if one’s familial and cultural values further emphasize selfless compassion, love without an object, and a world that goes beyond the subjective and personal, there will be a larger sense of the human capacity for spiritual development, and a greater chance that it will be attained and lived in adult life.

Could it be that the childhood rearing that’s good enough for a healthy personal self may not be good enough to go beyond, to encourage the fullest of human possibilities? Could it be that by emphasizing only personal development we deprive ourselves of the treasures of human flourishing that lie beyond who we think we are, who we have become? Perhaps we can learn from Maslow that it is never too late to reach beyond. It’s never too late to go beyond the psychological view of adult development to the too often unseen treasures of the spiritual life. It is never too late to expand our view of what it means to be fully human and to adjust our cultural values and parenting skills to align with this larger knowing.

Meditation and Beyond on Amazon

www.elliottdacher.org

The Lost Self

In my many years of medical training, I recall the first time that I was able to pause and take a fully relaxed breath. I had completed my medical internship and signed up as a physician at a health center in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. That was when I was able to take that first full breath.

I still have a vivid recollection of relaxing in my new apartment, sitting on a soft sofa in the corner of the family room, and reading The Greening of America by Charles Reich. I recall thumbing through the pages, when I came upon a chapter entitled “The Lost Self.” It instantly drew my attention, and I can still recall how deeply I was touched. We all have had the experience of a single word or phrase touching a tender spot. That was such a moment. A sense of sadness, and joy arose, all at once.

Reich went on to list those things that we forget in our usual busyness. Here is my list: the sunset, stillness, relating, playing, deep loving, patience, listening, treasuring the moment, and kindness. Add to this list as you wish.

It was as if his simple few words – the lost self – had broken through years of one-dimensional living. I had learned the theory, research, and practices of a brilliant medicine, but at the price of living. I learned about clinical medicine, but little about the human that is central to the healing process. And that, I was to discover, was costly for both myself and my patients.

That recognition led to a rush of questioning, reading, and reflection. I opened to feelings and emotions that were denied for many years. There was more ease, heart, and family time. A more vital life took root. In time, I progressively assumed this new and expanded sense of self.

There was a second recognition that came years later, when I was well established in medical practice and my householding and child rearing responsibilities were completed. I once again had time to take a deep breath and reflect. Although, I had achieved all I had set out to accomplish in life, something was still missing. Is this all there is, I thought? Do I just sit back and live the fruits of my earlier efforts? What more could there be? As I reflected, I had a sense that there was an even deeper self that had eluded my awareness.

I read and re-read the self-development books that had previously guided me to a saner life, seeking an answer to what was missing. However, rather than discovering a specific answer, I discovered that revealing this final lost self did not require further self-improvement methods, more reading, or additional understandings. It required a sustained inner stillness, a receptivity to the innermost voice of life. That is the traditional path to directly experiencing the true self – cultivating a still and unconditioned awareness.

For me, this led once again to taking a pause in medical practice, leaving my usual home, and settling into a quieter, natural setting to silently listen to my inner voice. With patience and time, I began to discover the second and deeper lost self. It was more subtle, defied words, and did not assert or promote itself. This inner home felt authentic, true, trustworthy, and free of all previous identities. Just a glimpse was deeply reassuring. Just a glimpse revealed to me that this was the true center of life – an ultimate self that had no name or configuration.

It is not that I had not touched this sense of the innermost self before. I had, in the midst of nature, intimacy, art, beauty, and other circumstances. But I took these moments as fleeting pleasurable experiences. I enjoyed them and watched them quickly dissipate. They were indeed glimpses of my true self. Unfortunately, I had the experience but missed the real meaning.

The first self lost in medical training was the loss of a healthy personal self. The deeper self, that, unknown to me, I had lost early in life, was my essential true self. I slowly realized that I could not live a full life without living from that foundational center of my being That’s what propelled me toward the study and practice of meditation – a yearning to reclaim with stability this unchanging essence of my life, this more primary and vital lost self.

That self has nothing to do with the personal self and its accumulated identities, habits, and patterns. These are acquired throughout life as a means of accommodating to early trauma, familial, educational, or cultural demands. The true self has nothing to do with self-improvement or self-development. Our true self is there from infancy, innate to our existence. Although obscured from awareness by the thick veils of the personal self, it remains ever-present, untouched, and uncontaminated by past history and trauma. It is the pure and simple truth of who we are.

This homecoming was not such an easy task. It has taken reflection, devotion, and practice to begin to pull back the obscuring veils and be with the true self that lies on the other side. It has taken perseverance to return again and again to reclaim it. But, once touched and re-touched there is no longer an alternative, is there? Our life becomes a one-way street, continuously returning home to who and what we truly are.

                                                      www.elliottdacher.org

                                             Meditation and Beyond at Amazon

Self-Remembering

For those who are only familiar with their ordinary self the phrase “self-remembering” may be a bit confusing. However, for others, who have explored further, it is apparent that there are two distinct “selves.” The first is our ordinary day-to-day self and the second is our natural, fundamental, and essential Self.

We are not born with our personal self. This day-to day self is acquired over many years. Early in life we are given a name, which over time becomes the repository of our day-to-day experiences. These experiences are strung together by memory into what appears to be a continuous personal self. From that accumulated history we form our beliefs, likes and dislikes, and reactive habits, all of which we know as our personal self.

But the mental gymnastics of our psyche has tricked us into believing this collection of experiences, thoughts, feelings, and habits is actually who we are. The cost for this mistaken belief is considerable. Although there are many positive qualities and capacities of our personal self, it is by nature self-cherishing, disconnected from others, shaped by our history, limited in reach, and unable to grasp or adapt to an impermanent and ever-changing landscape. The result is a built-in fragility and susceptibility to stress, distress, and suffering. We all have experienced this.

Now let’s look at the other self. Our natural self, from the onset of life, resides at the center of our being. Although in adulthood it’s obscured by the personal self and its restless mind, it is always present and available if we turn towards it. This essential self is spacious, unconditioned, ever-present, easeful, and spontaneously present. We can say it self-reveals when the veils of our personal self fall away.

Like the flower that spontaneously gives forth its perfume, our true self has its own perfume – it exudes a natural and profound serenity, easeful delight, keen wisdom, and selfless heart. There is nothing we need to do to experience these gems of life except to remember who we truly are and align ourself with our true nature.

So why is self-remembering so important and how do we “do it?” If we do not remember and know our true self we are bound to live and die within the conditioning and constraints of our personal self. We never know our true self, others, or reality as they actually exist. We can only know them through the filters of past experience. We miss the truth and vitality of life and self. And that is not without its consequences – confusion, mistaken understandings, emotional disturbances, distress, and suffering scattered amongst moments of transient pleasure.

To move beyond these limitations and gain the treasures of human flourishing we must self-remember our essence that’s been obscured by the trials and tribulations of our restless personal self. How do we accomplish this? We begin by understanding these two selves and re-directing our attention inward to our larger natural self. We do this through study, reflection, and practice.

Let’s talk about practice. Practice, or perhaps more accurately said “self remembering,” is done in both formal daily sessions and throughout the day. The practice we will shortly do together will demonstrate the details of a daily 20-30 minute practice, preferably done early in the morning. Sometimes your mind will be quite active and other times it will be still, the veils will part, and for a transient period of time you will experience the beauty and grace of your true nature. It may not be stable, but the perfume of it will permeate your day-to-day life.

Of equal importance is daily practice. Multiple times a day for a few minutes you can self-remember by practicing the breath holding technique. Other times during the day you can stop what you are doing for a few minutes, remember, and drop into your natural self. These small islands of remembering your true self will over time become larger land masses that will shift your life.

The simple and profound teaching is to remember who you are. Stay with who you are? Do not squander any more time or energy with whom you are not. Remember who you are.

                                                   www.elliottdacher.org

                                             Aware, Awake, Alive at Amazon

                                       Elliott's Podcast: Meditation and Beyond

Spiritus

In 1961 Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, wrote a letter to Carl Jung, the famed Swiss psychologist. He conveyed to Jung how the origin of Alcoholics Anonymous began with a patient in his office. On one of his visits, Jung confronted his alcoholic patient, telling him that there was no medical or psychological cure for his problem. The patient asked if his case was indeed hopeless. Jung replied that the only cure was a spiritual cure. Writing to Bill Wilson years later Jung further explained, “His craving for alcohol was the equivalent, on a low level, of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness,” … “You see,” Jung said, “Alcohol in Latin is "spiritus" and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison.” The turn toward alcohol is a mistaken effort to experience the wholeness that is naturally experienced through spiritual development. (repeat)

But this is not only a problem associated with alcoholism. There is an underlying and troublesome hollowness in the Western psyche. That’s the result of an inability to access our fundamental, natural, and unchanging well-being, an ever-present wholeness in each of us. In response to this loss of our essential self and its well-being, we are mistakenly taught by an ill-informed culture to seek from the outer world that which is missing in our inner world. We seek possessions, fame, fortune, relationships, drugs and even healthy pursuits such as fitness, self-improvement, yoga, and meditation as remedies to this underlying emptiness. For periods of time, we may seem to succeed in these efforts, but because our efforts fail to address the underlying wound, the hidden soul at the core of our being, these efforts will each, in their turn fail. And even if they seem to succeed, they fail. A spiritual wound requires, as Jung so eloquently stated, a spiritual remedy, not a surface one. It requires spiritus.

Joseph Campbell, author and master teacher, offers us this short parable that characterizes our modern-day search for Spiritus. Early in life, he says, we place our ladder against a wall and begin the arduous effort of climbing to the top, seeking to find the magic elixir to life’s challenges. When those who arrive at the top of the ladder look over the wall, they too often tragically discover a barren landscape. They realize they have placed their ladder against the wrong wall. What they sought, the joy, serenity, and wholeness of Spiritus, is not to be found on the other side of the wall. There is only one enduring resolution, come down the ladder and find the right wall, the right direction to apply our efforts. If we are fortunate, we will realize that the direct path to life’s treasures, to Spiritus, requires an inner turn, a spiritual education through which we can discover and return home to our true essential self.

Joseph Campbell also offered the following advice when asked for guidance, “Follow your bliss.” He didn’t say follow your pleasures. He didn’t say follow the endless desires of your ordinary self. The bliss, he spoke of, is the deep and unchanging contentment and joy found in our natural self at the center of our being. Here we find a timeless and abundant source of peace and delight. Here we find the authentic and trustworthy Spiritus.

We now know the remedy to the human feeling of emptiness and despair that arises from the lost self and the mistaken and fruitless effort to resolve this loss in the outer world. It is the re-discovery of our spiritual life, Spiritus. The remedy is a self-remembering.

When we return home to the center of our being our search will be resolved at the source. In the joy of simple being there is nothing further to seek in the outer world. The seeking is done and the seeker has dissolved in the expansiveness of being.

www.elliottdacher.org

Audio Podcasts

Aware, Awake, Alive at Amazon