Motivation

Sometimes I have a problem with laziness.  I rarely really liked work although at times is was very fulfilling and I worked hard but I was paid for it too.  School was OK but things like chores are very hard for me to be interested in doing.  Part of it is just getting older.  I was much more interested in doing things in my youth.  I am sure that another part of it though, is developing detachment.

 

If we are motivated by attachment and aversion and you begin to learn how to transcend these, then what is supposed to get you out of bed in the morning?  Do we end up throwing the baby out with the bath water in the sense that we lose taking pride in things and being involved?  Do Buddhists have passion for anything? A story I heard once was about a Buddhist who was invited on a boat ride. As I recall the story it was a day cruise of a local bay. The weather was great and everyone really enjoyed the trip and had fun. The Buddhist made the comment “So is this is what you call 'fun?'” I sure hope that detachment does not mean I can't have fun and enjoy simple pleasures.

One thing Buddhists do that replaces their troublesome emotions is develop compassion.  Part of the training is trying to develop compassion during meditation.  As you become more loving your motivation becomes one of alleviating the suffering of others.  Part of that is to teach whatever wisdom you have gained in life to help others.  Buddhists seem to be very interested in writing and teaching.  I don't think Buddhists do missionary work but I could be wrong.  In some respects I think they are similar to other religions who want to take care of those who suffer.  Say, I was badly addicted to gambling and end up losing everything because of it; I then have an awakening so that I am able to leave that obsession behind.  I can understand how that individual would have compassion for the gamblers still suffering.  They would naturally want to help, they would naturally have an affinity for gamblers.  I think this must be part of the life of people who take this path seriously.  They become aware of their faults (although I am sure they do not describe their sensations as "faults.")  through meditation but they also learn to be self accepting of those faults and naturally learn to be accepting of others.  They are understanding and turn that into a life of helping others where they can.  So as they lose their obsessions they begin to develop a passion for helping others. 

This however, does not explain my laziness. Just because the ex-gambler loses interest in gambling why would they lose interest in everything?    It is not like I had a life full of pleasurable obsessions that caused me a great deal of suffering and I have conquered all that and I am now bored with nothing to do except help others.  Why is it I sometimes have to work my self up to doing some simple household chores.  I have written about troublesome emotions.  Anger and attachment can lead to suffering and we transcend them but without those can life be too empty of the drivers that keep us active?    As far as this little writing assignment I have given myself I am motivated to keep it up.  It has been very helpful to me.  I manage to take out the garbage on Wednesdays and pay the bills every month.  So just how motivated do I need or want to be anyway?  Well, I don't want to spend my life meditating and gazing at the ocean.  Things like returning to my diet and exercise program has been much harder than I thought it would be and I would like to be a little more active and get back on my health program. Does detachment mean I just don't care anymore?

  No, being lazy is pleasurable.  It is great to spend a day doing nothing.  I think this can lead to being attached to that sensation and is an addiction like any other.  Laziness is not the absence of obsession it is an obsession of its own.  I need to treat as I would any other craving.  I need to feel that feeling while realizing that it won't make me happy, that it will just be temporary and that it can lead to a life with some suffering when indulged in excess.  As suffering goes it is not that big a deal and certainly, for good health we need some relaxation and rest.  The problem is if it is done to excess.  I don't really have experience making myself do things I don't want to do.  I suppose most people learn that as teenagers.  If I have a chore and I am in a place that says "I will do that tomorrow" what used to drive me to accomplish it was thinking about the negative consequences.  So I acted out of fear.  I felt like I HAD to do it.  As if it were a life threatening, fight or flight situation.   Now, if I have to do something I don't want to, it feels more like choosing to do it.  It is a little like using will power.   I just grit my teeth and do it.  Once I have started I realize that it is really not that bad and I can usually continue.  

Regarding activities centered around compassion, sometimes I think I should perhaps spend a day a week helping at a shelter or doing some kind of humanitarian service.  Right now I take care of my 94 year old mother but even after she is gone, I don't imagine doing much more than that.  I've got a long way to go before I can be that selfless.           

Reflections

When I sit in meditation I am aware of two main desires.  One is a longing for love and belonging.  The other, a need to be free; to make my own choices, for my time to be my own, in short to be myself.  I have always been independent.  I am single and very stubborn.  I just don't like going along with the group.  I am a non-conformist.  Yet, I can feel at times an aching to be connected and a part of something bigger.  I think much of what I want is to figure out a way to reconcile these opposing needs.  We often hear about unconditional love.  I think that is really at the root of it.  I want to receive love and to give love but I don't want any strings attached.  How can we be connected and at the same time be a free individual?  I think in Buddhism they may warn me at this point that I am thinking too much.  Oh well, the unpleasantness of loneliness or what ever that emptiness is that I feel is completely manageable.  I really only have it when I am focused on what I am feeling inside.  It is in the area of what is sometimes referred to as the solar plexus chakra.  I am unfamiliar with any connection between Buddhism and the system of chakras but it would not surprise me to learn if there is one.  As soon as my attention goes to sensations that are focused externally i.e. the what I am seeing, hearing, feeling e.g the temperature, it goes away.  In Buddhism you don't want to avert your attention away from the unpleasantness you just want to examine it.  In time it is supposed to dissipate.  My desire for freedom and independence on the other hand is more a low grade anger if it is being frustrated.  I think it is more centered in my face especially my third eye.  I am going to have to review the system of chakras because I have forgotten what the different areas of the body mean.  The frustration of freedom and independence is more thinking than feeling too.  It usually involves a specific event that happened at a specific time.  The frustration of love and belonging is more generalized and non-specific.  By paying attention a lack of freedom it seems more of an internal voice saying negative things and talking in a critical way rather than a pain or negative feeling as is the lack of belonging.  The Buddhists I have read teach to simply identify it.  When it  happens you just understand "this is thinking" or "this is feeling."  Again, one does not indulge and one does not repress.  You simply accept yourself as you are.  Now, when I am alone and in meditation this awareness is very easy.  In the daily world something else takes place.  When I am with people or in a group I can either be uncomfortable or I can become someone else and only notice it afterwards.  The person I become is not a bad person.  I can be sociable and friendly but sometimes part of me is thinking I am pretending to be interested in what others have to say just to be polite.  The loneliness goes away but I have lost myself in the process.  I really only notice later though.  In Buddhism though, awakening is all about realizing that the ego or self is really an illusion.   Is the non-conformist independent me is more real that the me that loves to be connected with others.  The answer is no.  I both love to be alone and not being alone.  I just need to learn how much and when to mix these forces like an alchemist and it starts by refusing to  call myself bad just because of my sensations.                   

Vipassana

I want to write more about Vipasana.  This is the type of meditation that I have often called "analytic meditation."  This week I happened to watch a documentary on using this type of meditation with prisoners in a Alabama State Penitentiary.  These were hard core prisoners.  Many were murderers with life sentences.  The prison had so much violence that warden invited people in to teach this technique after reading a study that was done in India with a prison there.  The process takes ten days.  At the beginning they take a vow to follow the first 5 precepts of not killing, not stealing, not lying, not taking any intoxicants, and refraining from sexual immorality.  What I learned is that for much of this time they also take a vow of silence.  There is a way to communicate to the leaders about things but basically you are quiet for the 10 days.  They first teach a little Samatha.  This is the calm abiding meditation I have written about and also called "single point concentration."  This is necessary just to learn how to keep focused. I did not see them doing any chanting but in the documentary it showed them listening to it.  They did show them learning and practicing breathing meditation.  This is called Anapana meditation but it is simply a type of Samatha, as is chanting.  This will eliminate gross emotions.  By that I mean rage or anger or any emotion that is so intense it makes observing the feeling impossible.  After they are grounded in that they add to it the Vipassana.  The results were very positive.  Violence in the prison decreased.  More remarkable were the interviews with these hardened criminals.  After confronting their feelings they became like different people.  They had a little love in their heart.  They were more forgiving and more responsible and more willing to accept what they had done.  I have described this process as observing your troublesome emotions and gaining insight by analyzing them.  I once drew a parallel with the four question of Byron Katie.  What I saw was not verbal in any way though.  They stressed that you simply observe the sensations of your emotions.  Our emotions are really physical sensations. We add to that our negative thoughts and they spiral to greater intensity until we act.  If we concentrate on just our sensations the wisdom or special insight will automatically present itself.  After practicing this for a little while now what I have noticed is it was very painful in the beginning.  We have all met negative people and they can be very tiresome.  Well, for awhile you feel very negative.  It was and is surprising just how much pain and hurt we have locked up in there.  As you start to let it out, taking care to not act on it but instead only observing it, you realize that this really is the precursor of much of our behavior.  I notice that I am just constantly trying to divert my attention.  I think I can best describe it as like it was boredom.  If you are bored you might go read a book and then turn on the TV and then have something to eat even if you are not hungry.  You constantly moving to avoid the unpleasantness of the feeling of boredom.  Instead of boredom though it is far worse.  It hurts.  After awhile though it begins to subside.  I am not sure if it really subsides or you simply don't care about your feelings as much.  It is like you are a little tougher a little more grown up.  The feelings are constantly changing.  You are up and then you are down and then you are up about something else and then you are down about something else.  It just goes on and on and on.  Constantly changing.  Why should I care about something so impermanent anyway?  As far as compassion that has not really happened to me yet as far as I can tell.  Perhaps I notice more compassion for myself.  As I notice twinges of discomfort or pain sometime I catch myself as to not cause myself those sensations.  That is instead of doing something and feeling bad about it I stop and almost hear myself apologizing to myself for almost causing myself pain.  The main thing  I am realizing is that our behavioral system is all about emotions.  I used to think we were part rational and part emotional but I see very little rationality as far as a real driver to our behavior.