Blog #1 I Admit to Everything

It is 4 AM. I am awake and disturbed. I imagine I am not the only one going through this – there must be thousands of people in the world, who at this very moment are thinking, “How did I get to this place?” “Why am I such a mess?” or “Please let me get back to sleep!” to no one in particular. Our disturbances lie in the brain…everybody’s brain. If you don’t want to be disturbed, don’t look at the brain.

My brain, your brain…all our brains are intensely driven. They are also brilliant; they are astounding. The brain can execute even the most flawed psychological coding with extraordinary precision. We can update or re-program ourselves with the worst software if we so choose—and our brain will make it work. That can be problematic as our brain can quite easily hide mistakes in the background; it can distort our strengths and weaknesses so we don’t have to disrupt our programming; it can re-write our histories, and it can soothe all manner of contradictions so that we can justify any and all missteps. It can fly us too close to the sun, where we catch fire and burn.

What does this have to do with anything? On to the back-story:

Having taken well over a year to weather a painful but necessary breakdown, I decided to write a book about it. It was originally entitled, Buddhist Wisdom for When You Feel Broken. When I asked Michael Carroll, author of Awake at Work and many other titles, what he thought about my writing, he said I had a unique voice and story, “…but the title—it sounds like Pema*; but with tears.” (Michael’s a funny guy.) To pinpoint the book’s message more precisely, he suggested changing the title to, “Stop Fucking Lying to Yourself.” (Like I said…funny.) He also suggested I start right away on a second book.

His expletive-rich title stuck with me. He nailed it. It clearly identified the essential point I was trying to make—that we are so often trapped in our own story that we not only try to convince the world of it, we have the balls to try and convince our self. And we succeed. Why I find this fascinating is its applicability to self-identified “spiritual people” (like me) who feel they are essentially immune to self-deception by virtue of their spiritual practice.

I rewrote the book, entitling it, When Bad Lands. In it, I focused more keenly on the culture of lies and distortions we swim in, and what it would take to reverse that. The main diagnosis and antidotes were drawn from a number of sources, most notably my personal experience falling apart; some extraordinarily spot-on Buddhist teachings, and the work of social scientist, Brené Brown.

That seems to be a reasonable enough overview, right? Man loses self; Man finds self; Man writes a book about it. Up until this time, the driving force for me was to learn to overcome self-deception, and to hopefully reboot my spiritual pursuits and my meditation practice. It seemed to me that this was the obvious conclusion. I would start again with a fresh slate…a blank slate. Book written! Clean slate! Back to square one!

Go!

No.

It turns out that overcoming self-deception doesn’t mean that something is over; it means that something has just begun. As we know, nature abhors a vacuum; so in the budding absence of self-deception, I now find myself with a tsunami of self-perception. Surprise! It’s not peace and tranquility – it’s Perception! Lots of perception! Lots of self-perception! Didn’t see that coming.

On the surface, that might sound quite good; but it’s actually a mixed bag. Without a doubt, self-deception takes up way too much RAM, so if you can free yourself from that, the world can really open up. “Lots of Perception” is a definite plus and it can become increasingly stabilized through meditation practice. So it’s not something to acquire; it’s not something you strive for. It is something that shows up when your attention is not caught up in the past and the future. It’s a gift; that’s why they call it the present!

So here is the remainder in the mixed bag: I find myself now immersed in this new raw experience of witnessing all of my mistakes and confusion as they manifest. It’s like the genie in the lamp said, “Okay, you said you wanted to overcome your avoidance issues…and your self-deception? Alright, Here Comes Everything! Knock yourself out!”

So here it is…aggression, doubt, mistake after every mistake, irritation upon irritation—and there’s nowhere to hide it. I see that I interfere, interrupt, micromanage; I say irresponsible things and then I have to back it down to somehow regain the peace that I have shattered. So, I’m curious, audience—is everyone like this? Do we all slog through this parade of moving violations? As I look out, it doesn’t appear so. So let’s say, I’m a bit concerned. (I’m reluctant to use a smiley face, but :-)

Actually, I don’t feel terrible about this. I don’t mind admitting it at all, because I don’t feel it’s who I am; it’s just what I do. I have learned from teacher Fleet Maull that these habits are largely due to our unacknowledged core wound that we carry from childhood. You don’t know whether to laugh or cry; but for me, owning all this is a great gift that often causes much laughter between me and whoever is around to share in my circus. Mostly, I find it all very curious. I find myself amazed that as a long-time meditator, I have not discovered that legendary oneness or inner peace. I have discovered my inherent goodness, but I have also discovered my terrible badness. (He says lovingly!)

In following my own advice from the book, I really have done a pretty good job of stopping fucking lying to myself. I am confident that I have written a genuine Dharma book, and I feel my advice is good, but while in heavy pursuit of overcoming self-deception, I failed to consider that a clean slate would not be the likely or only outcome. Traditionally, the spiritual path allows us to really see what is there. So it is all there…for good and bad…and as in the title of this blog, I now have to admit to everything!

There are so many ways to talk about our goodness and our aspirations. But I think it is important that we talk about our goodness as well as our so-called “badness,” because what is spirituality if it doesn’t help us to know ourselves inside out and backwards as a prerequisite to whatever journey we are about to undertake?

So, it’s not pretty; it’s just necessary.

Am I the only one thinking thoughts like this at 4 in the morning? Probably not – people are feeling disturbed everywhere, at all times. At this very moment, I’m sure there are millions of people wondering how in the world their life turned upside down, and how they ended up where they are.

Anyhow, I wrote a book about this. I wrote a book how I fell sharply and precipitously into a hell of my own making. And then, through the help of an extraordinary group of teachers, I found a way to work with the situation. The results? Well it’s definitely a work in progress, but the result is that I’m having a really hard time being as ignorant as I used to be. Ignorance is bliss – it really is. But we can own it and challenge ourselves to take a leap in another direction.

I wrote the book, When Bad Lands, to give encouragement to people whose ignorance has caused them to malfunction—people who are spinning out, crashing and burning, all at once. I also wrote it for people who have concern or agreement about their spiritual practice perhaps being too biased towards peace or over-achievement. I hope you enjoy reading excerpts from When Bad Lands, (today I will post the first excerpt from the Preface.)

I write this because what I’ve described has been so painful, but so rewarding; therefore I thought it was worth sharing.  I hope that you will feel moved to comment on the excerpts or on this blog. If it’s not your cup of tea, thank you anyhow, for dropping by!


*Pema Chodron, well-known American-born Tibetan-Buddhist monastic.

© 2016 Alan Kent Anderson