Classroom Talk
Fifth and Sixth Grades Archive
A technical wonder . . . if it works!
Posted by John on 05/07/2003 20:34:08
If I only had the breath to reiterate one simple coaching that has
appeared in Classroom Talk during this new term, my favorite, the one-
liner that I think is the *most important point* for you students in this
class to remember for the rest of your lives, was a comment of Rob's,
about a month ago, when he reminded us that:
Every situation is workable. This is the most important thing to
remember! Whatever the situation that he or she is facing, a mindful
warrior knows that there are always intelligent and competent ways to use
mindfulness to work on that situation. No matter what hardship or
discouragement you may be facing, a mindful warrior knows that there are
some masterful ways to engage with that situation, starting with simply
waking up on it. For any mindfulness practitioner with an assortment of
technical teachings to choose from and try out, every situation is
workable.
Does this mean you can always save your ass when you get in a jam? Well,
you have *always* managed to, every time, up to now. But . . . no. Yet
it does mean that there are always masterful measures that can be
recognized, which you *can* put into play and try out . . . if you can
keep awake and do it. There are always some simple, practical measures
you can take to contribute to the healing of any sufferings, some
measures which contribute to the harmonious whole of it All, and—within
your own sphere—cheerfully championing the setting of things right.
Little by little then, in the life of a mindfulness practitioner, what is
seen of this becomes Knowledge in a student's experience. When you have
gotten through the same kinds of scrapes and even tragedies over the
years, and you have put your knowledge of awareness and the human
condition into play again and again in deliberate and practical ways
during those times, then you have *seen* whether or not these masterful
practices actually make a difference in your life, or not.
If there was any doubt in my mind about whether these practices can work,
Folks, I wouldn't be here now. But that isn't good enough!!! You have
to learn about this in your own experience to know.
This idea is getting close now to what my own personal idea of "faith"
has been over these recent years. To me, "faith" seems to be the energy
and willingness to keep right on championing those causes that one has
felt worthy, on "faith," that they are worthy, and—in order to keep on
doing that championing—to keep on living through the setbacks and even
the devastation that occurs in everyone's life, from an *accumulated*
"faith" that no matter what has happened to you or around you, *you have
seen that* there is always something masterful that you can do to engage
with the situation at hand.
By something "masterful," I mean something that you can do which *
actually* contributes to peace within you, harmony with others around
you, and to the wholeness of life as a whole on Earth. And by
"accumulated," I mean: the more and more that a person learns, through
practice, to live in aware presence in life, and the more one tries out
the gestures or strategies of any spiritual approach, the more one is
able to see what is so.
"Faith" in this sense, may be becoming able to realize what is so from
awareness practice, from objective seeing. Mindfully knowing one has
engaged with the worst pains and traumas that life brings to us all, and
one has come back to peace and happiness and cheerfully contributing
productively to the Whole again, one has begun to see that we humans can
"get over it." We can live through it and be free again. We can be
healed. No, the "blind eye can't be made to see again," but *we* can be
healed! And through weeks, months, sometimes years, by the mindful
healing experiments we undertake along the way, we can begin to see that
we *can*—through awareness and Knowledge of the human condition—
deliberately contribute to our own healing in these ways, as well.
The Awareness Game is an encyclopedia of such healing experiments that *
can be tried out* by any mindfulness practitioner who would like to see
if they work—especially see if some of them work really well while
others, perhaps, don't seem to work as well. The Awareness Game is a
great bag of toys to play with in this way. Out of the broad selection
of healing exercises that are collected here, some of them may work very
well for you. Yet you can only find that out by actually trying them
out, and seeing on your own what happens.
In this way, there is nothing to "believe in," so to speak. It is all a
question of seeing what you actually do see when you try them out.
Week before last, Student John came up with a marvelously *radical* as
well as marvelously *logical* "technical teaching." I will call it that
until I have been able to try it out enough that I can see without a
doubt how it works for me. I've already done quite a bit of
experimenting with this. Why not simply *will* happiness with our
awareness? John asks. This idea is nothing short of revolutionary in the
world of spiritual trainings.
Over my lifetime, I have only run across two teachers who have advocated
this radical idea. I'm sure there have been many others. (I call it
radical because we would practically not need any of all the other
teachings if this one works.) Werner Erhard and Baghwan Shree Rajneesh
are the two I found to advocate such a bold measure. Rajneesh,
commenting to his students on Erhard's published remark to the same
effect, said: "The secret of being happy is just to be happy."
If this is an exercise that works, John has stumbled onto something very,
very valuable here in terms of his sharing a technological basis that can
make the idea of it work.
First, let me say that there are several of you in this class that I have
felt are notably more "disciplined" in your presentations than the rest
of us around here—Jeff, Perk, and you, Student John, seem to fall
strongly into that class with me. For that reason, I wouldn't expect any
of you to be supportive of the idea that we can will happiness with
mindfulness. I was just flabbergasted to hear this revolutionary idea
coming from *you*, John! Why just last month, it was *you* that was
teaching *me* about the unpredictability of outcomes!!! (This paragraph
probably calls for more explanation, and perhaps I'll get back to it some
day later on.)
Buddhism and the other great spiritual doctrines would seem to approach
the problems of suffering in life from an entirely different direction.
They suggest that the secret of being happy is to learn to recognize and
step aside from what we call "the ego-driven personality" in our classes
here. In fact, most approaches seem to suggest that it is our automatic,
conditioned knee-jerk reactions to the things that come up in life that *
stand in the way of* our being happy. If we can get this personality
funny stuff out of our lives, *then* we will be able to be happy in our
lives. And here, John has given us an elegantly argued brief on a
possible short-cut. "I'm currently working on cultivating "cheerfulness,"
he says.
>Being mindful is a first step to help us so that we (our feelings and actions) are less than totally a knee jerk reaction to what's going on about us.
Yes!
>We begin to learn when we have and can take a "score off our board." We begin to choose our acts rather than react. This alone produces new feelings of competence and aliveness.
Yes!
>If I through mindfulness can take score off my board it seems a sensible corollary that I can put score on my board as well, consciously!!
Yes, the idea of it sounds sensible alright. Notwithstanding, let me
point out for the sake of keeping my own technical terms straight, that
the phenomenological scoreboard that has been designed for use with the
awareness game only shows one class of events in life, *tensions that
arise* in the course of life.
Conforming more to the Buddhist idea that taking tensions off of our
lives is the object of the game, our scoreboard only registers tensions.
These are "scores to be settled," in your own vernacular, John. And the
idea of playing the awareness game is to deliberately take tensions off
of our own scoreboard and that of others that we are relating with. When
there are no more tensions on my scoreboard, and no more tensions on your
scoreboard, that is a winning game in the awareness game view of things.
Nothing to nothing on our scoreboards is a winning game.
All that notwithstanding, your idea is a brilliant one to examine.
Perhaps this examination might lead to some modification of the awareness
game model. Maybe we need to add another scoreboard to this game—one
that registers score positively in relation to the existential fun,
happiness, cheerfulness and joy that is actually going on in a given
here-and-now. I wouldn't mind modifying our model in that way! Yet it
seems there is some experiential experimenting to be done with this idea
first.
Does this bold strategy really apply to (i.e. work in) all circumstances
that we face? Or does it possibly only really work in certain
circumstances and not in others? Or does it maybe not really work at
all? Is that fair, to look at that idea in those ways?
I had long been a fan of Rajneesh's many books. He was a favorite
mainstay in my reading during a period of my life, after my son was born
and started growing up, a quarter-century ago. And then this somewhat
"eccentric" Indian teacher, newspaper reporter turned spiritual master,
fell on really hard times. There was a lot of bad publicity surrounding
Rajneeshpuram, his monastery in a small town in Oregon. The surrounding
population was pretty much against him and the way they felt his students
took over the town. There were scandals within his organization, and he
was actually deported back to India—justly or unjustly, I do not know.
I saw him on television news then, obviously upset by the impacts on his
life, arguing against his deportation in an agitated way that I felt only
made matters worse for him. And it popped up in my mind to say aloud to
him on the television screen: "The secret of happiness is just to be
happy."
Oh . . . that was mean of me! Heh-heh. And I've carried a prejudice
ever since against this teaching point that Student John has argued again
now, so very well:
>If I through mindfulness can take score off my board it seems a sensible corollary that I can put score on my board as well, consciously!! Maybe that score will be one of the negative emotions, which can in time of critical need serve us well.
Yes, this is another point I won't get into now. Sometimes the honest
expression of a negative emotion ("I feel afraid." "I feel angry." "I
feel sad." Etc.) can indeed serve us well in the interplay of relating
with another person.
>I find I don't need anger, fear, resentment, depression, greed, etc. very often but I do find cheerfulness invaluable in my daily life.
That's a logical finding. Sometimes I feel I "need" cheerfulness when I
know from exeriencing on the spot that I don't have it. And, as far as
I'm concerned, cheerfulness, when it is around *is* "invaluable!"
Cheerfulness is wonderful!
>Cheerfulness comes most often when I'm enthusiastic, vitally interest in what's going on in me, with others and my environment. Of course when cheerfulness is on my scoreboard not much else gets posted.
Yes, cheerfulness comes with enthusiasm and interest in life, just as you
say—in the awareness game view of our lives. And yes, when we are being
cheerful, not much else—that is, not much tension of negative emotional
feelings does get posted on our phenomenological scoreboard. Our
specialized scoreboard shows "zero" in tensions when we are being
cheerful. The dynamic of balance has shifted in our bodies from being
uptight and tense to being loose and opened up when we are cheerful.
That is . . . . . until some other event pops up in our life that impacts
us strongly again and stings us or rubs us the wrong way.
The fundamental move that John is suggesting here is:
>as though one chooses to be in Essence rather than Personality.
Dynamite! In fact, the whole awareness game is about waking up and being
able to choose, on purpose, to be in Essence, rather than being in
Personality.
But . . . . . . . which comes first, I'm asking? Is it living the
actions of being in Essence and then experiencing the emotional
cheerfulness of living in the actions of being in Essence? Or can it be
the other way around? Can we deliberately start with the emotions of
Essence (courage, solitude, humor, artistic sensitivity, sweet rest,
cheerfulness (enthusiasm), tenderness love, and friendly love)? Can we
go directly to the realm of emotional feelings and deliberately "post"
these positive emotions first, on purpose, and *then* follow along
correspondingly from these positive emotions in doing the dance of
Essence itself?
>Much like taking score off the (tensions) board, putting score on the (let's call it the) "harmony board" involves thoughts, actions and feelings.
Yes, your logic here seems inassailable, John. If we can wake up and
keep awake, we can, theoretically, deliberately replace negative thoughts
with positive thoughts (many teaching approaches *do* advocate this
exercise) and replace negative personality activities with positive
essential actions on purpose, and . . . . . . . . . . . . . replace
negative emotional feelings with positive emotional feelings . . . . . .
I'm just not quite so sure about the feasibility of this last one.
Let's just focus on cheerfulness/enthusiasm for a minute. We know from
our experiences of it, that a group of cheer-leaders doing their cheer-
leading thing *can* engender more cheerfulness and enthusiasm in a crowd
of spectators at a sporting event, and perhaps in the home-team players
in the game as well.
Perhaps we can study this at length at some future time—all human
emotional feelings tend to be contagious. Fear can spread quickly
through a room. Sadness generates tearing-up in the eyes of others
around who hear our crying. Those are negative feelings. Yet the
positive emotional feelings are contagious, as well. Courage in one
person can engender courage in another. Laughter by one can engender the
tickled feelings of humor in another. Telling jokes is an obvious way of
doing that. So . . . . . positive emotions can be *engendered*, per se.
By that I mean that it is humanly possible to make positive emotions
happen.
Yet the question in my mind is whether positive feelings can be
engendered on purpose from within, in the way that Student John has
described here? Can we "flip a switch" and be happy on our own? Can we—
even in the worst of circumstances—*will* happiness in our own Beings
this way? Can we create our own cheerfulness merely by waking up and *
being cheerful*?
Even if this proves out to be something we can't do, it has no bearing
whatsoever on the point I began today's class with: "Every situation is
workable." If we are able to wake up and willing to do the work, a
mindfulness practitioner with training in the nature of the human
condition can draw from many tools and techniques for working one's way
back again to where cheerfulness re-enters their picture.
But the question here is whether this technique, too, the technique of
simply "being happy on purpose" can be added to our panoply of workable
tools.
>All of us have felt enthused or cheerful or some other Essence feeling on the Wheel. I suggest we think of one of those feelings and then act as though we were feeling that and soon it will be on our board. With some conscious effort we can keep it there and put it back on the board if Personality crowds it off.
To reiterate, those positive emotional feelings that are enumerated
around our wheel are courage, solitude, humor, sensitivity to beauty,
sweet rest, enthusiasm (cheerfulness), tenderness love, and friendly
love. Can we will these positive emotions into existence by our own
conscious choice? Or can they only "happen in us," or "through us,"
beyond our intentional efforts?
It seems to me there has to be some caution in undertaking an exercise
like this. If we "act as though we were feeling happy," we have to be **
*impecably honest*** in our experiencing. Are we really actually being
happy in attempting this? It is a "tour de force" if we are! Yet
"acting as though" can be a dangerous practice, if we are concerned with
reality. And if "acting as though" we are happy—in certain hectic
circumstances—doesn't actually make us happy, and we don't realize this
truth of it, there can be a danger that we will become discouraged, and
plunged more deeply, even into despair.
I remember my old teacher, Mits, once asked his class what we thought was
the most common lie that is told among people. After hearing our guesses
about this, Mits said the most common lie is: "Fine." In other words,
when people are commonly asking us how we are doing, most of the time,
despite the disregarded tensions of score that is on our scoreboards at
the time, people usually reply by telling them, "Fine."
Mits was proposing that it may be better to respond authentically, and
tell the truth if we can. Sharing our real experience at least puts both
parties into a field of commonly understood reality together. This may
be better than to go on perpetuating this common human lie whose denial
separates us into further misunderstandings about each other.
>I believe if I responsibly and consciously put cheerfulness on my board that I make a significant contribution. Sometimes it may be the only contribution I can make.
This is definitely an experiment for a bold mindfulness practioner to try
out, and see what happens. If you find in your own experience that it
works for you (even being impecable in your honesty about it) then you
have found a wonderful new tool to add to your mindful warrior's medicine
bag of healing tools. Even if "acting as if" doesn't seem to work for
you I suggest not throwing it away. If you try it again at some future
time in your life, it may work for you then. Student John has laid out a
plausible case for the technical possibility that this exercise *can*
work. I suppose you must have done some experimenting on your own, John,
that seems to support your own ideas here.
This week, I've devised some exercises for checking out my own
experiences around this experiment. I know how to act cheerful. I *can*
put on a cheerful face on purpose. I *can* boogy around by myself doing
a cheerful dance. The jury is still out on whether this can *take* for
me, John, and I can effect a real change in my Being by doing it. My own
results so far have seemed to be "mixed," or unclear.
Maybe in certain situations this exercise can work right on the spot.
Maybe in some kinds of tough situations it won't work quite as well.
Perhaps the more experience a student has with all kinds of mindfulness
work in general over the years, the more likely that this sudden, direct
"panacea" for suffering can work more often and more effectively.
It's a brilliant idea and well-argued—that much I can say. It seems to
have some real possibilities. Your logical case for it has shocked me
out of the complacency of my own prejudices in this area.
There is only one thing that I disagree with you about here, John, your
idea that sometimes this one technique would be "the only thing that you
can do" in a given tough situation. Put it into play! If it works for
you, it works! If it doesn't really seem to work on a given occasion,
there are still always other things that you can try out in working with
the situation . . . . . like awarely processing your negative emotions,
your judgmental thinking, your ego-driven desires, and the attachments
your personality is being hung-up with . . . . . like consciously
stepping aside from the traps of your "Self" and creating an empty space
for your "Essence" and cheerfulness to simply *emerge*.
Acting *as if we are cheerful* in the first place is a very revolutionary
idea. If it really proves out to work for you, keep it on top in your
warrior's medicine bag. Yet if, on a certain occasion, it doesn't prove
out to work so well, there are plenty of other tools to try out, down
deeper in there.
Perhaps through "faith," an experienced warrior comes gradually to know
and always understand after that, that, with mindfulness, and an
experiential education in the nature of our humanness, every situation
that we encounter in life, no matter how difficult, is always workable.
Sometimes I discover a great cheerfulness arises in me in merely
remembering that.
In this sense, perhaps what it comes down to is that "faith" is the Will
to live, in spite of all the pains and difficulties, and to be, to the
fullest we can, what we really are and can be.
Coach
I'd be delighted to hear more insights, experiences, and discoveries that
any of you class members may have to share with the rest of us on these
topics. Or, questions. Perhaps you see these things in a different way,
or have another new experiential dimension of them to bring to our
collaborative view.
Archived 09/22/2003