A Gradual Path to Discovering Our Brilliant Sanity
What did the Buddha prescribe to treat our confusion?The first three Noble Truths taught by the Buddha parallel the ancient Indian medical model of diagnosis, etiology, and prognosis. With the fourth Noble Truth, the last one, we come at last to the treatment. What did the Buddha prescribe?
The Fourth Noble Truth is The Truth of the Path. The idea of “path” is that we cannot do it all at once. We need to find a way to proceed step by step toward discovering our awakened natures, our brilliant sanity.
The Buddha taught that the way to become more present in our lives is to take a gradual path. I have always seen this as a very kind teaching. Instead of expecting ourselves quickly to be more present, just because we’ve heard about it, we treat ourselves with gentleness and friendliness by taking an unhurried approach.
In essence the path that the Buddha described is to bring mindfulness to all aspects of our lives. We can bring mindfulness to whatever we are doing or experiencing. Instead of creating suffering by trying to avoid our direct experience, we pay attention.
“Mindfulness” means bringing our attention, moment by moment, to whatever is happening in our bodies, in our feelings, in our minds or in the environment. For example, as I am sitting at the computer right now, I notice my fingers as I am typing. I can feel the smooth texture of the keys as I strike them with the pads of my fingers. I can feel the pressure of the back of the chair where it meets my lower back. I notice the weight on my left ankle where it crosses my right one. I note a thought that arises reminding me that having my feet flat on the floor would be more ergonomic. I note the small smirk that crosses my face and the whisper of self-satisfaction as I ignore this advice.
Bringing mindfulness to our experience does not mean changing what we are doing; it means noticing exactly what we are already doing without judgment.
Most of us are quite familiar with an “inner commentator.” That’s the voice in our minds that does a running monologue about how well we are doing or how we are messing up. It is a constant source of self-judgment. Most of us have developed a pretty critical inner commentator. For many, this inner voice can be quite negative and harsh.
“I can’t believe you’re saying that right now! What on earth are you thinking? You are so stupid. “
Or “I look fat. No one will ever like me. Why should they?”
Or “Hey, that was pretty smart! Now, just be careful and don’t screw it up the way you usually do.”
Our inner critical voice can sometimes say positive things, too. Either way, we are making judgments about ourselves. This is the kind of ego-activity we noted a few entries ago—a potent source of the suffering that we cause ourselves.
Instead of this inner judge, we can cultivate a neutral observer or witness in our minds. Instead of my telling myself, “You should have your feet flat on the floor, you idiot,” the neutral observer just notes that my ankles are crossed and that a thought about it crossed my mind.
In my Contemplative Psychotherapy practice, I work with clients to develop such a neutral inner witness. Sometimes I ask clients how they would describe what they’re doing or feeling if they left out the judgmental words.
For example, Joan has a hard time speaking up for herself. Instead of saying, “I’m such a wimp! I’m just hopeless,” she might say, “I feel scared when I think about telling my father that I’m going to move to Boston.”
Together we become interested in the direct experience of fear. On the spot, in the room where we are sitting together, Joan notes that her heart is speeding up, that her breathing is becoming shallow and rapid. She notices that she is starting to run an internal movie about what might happen if she told her father of her plans to leave town.
The more practice Joan has simply noticing what she is feeling in her body, her emotions, and her mind, and letting it be what it is, the more she gains clarity about herself. The more she is able to do this in a nonjudgmental way, the more gentleness and compassion she develops toward herself.
It is a gradual process. As we have seen in earlier blog entries, staying present with our experience is not easy; we are well practiced at distraction and avoidance. Joan practices bringing her attention to what she is experiencing both in our sessions together and during the time between our sessions. When she notices that she’s been lost in thought or distracted, she tries to simply note it and not judge herself for it. If she notices that she’s judging herself, she simply notices that. She can even bring neutral observation to the activity of the inner critic. The idea is to witness herself at whatever point she can. This is the idea of gradual path; she learns, over time, not to buy into or perpetuate the inner critic.
As she pays more attention to her direct experience, she may discover, for example, that she can tolerate feeling afraid and go ahead and tell her father that she’s leaving town. Or she may discover that she’s too scared to tell him in person, fearing his temper and potential for verbal and physical acting out. She might choose to send him a letter. She might even choose not to move. The point is that she doesn’t need to react mindlessly or in a habitual way.
The idea of a path toward brilliant sanity is not that there is already a pathway that we can just follow, like the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz. We create the path of mindfulness, moment by moment, as we bring our attention to our own experience. In one sense we are traveling along, but in another sense, we aren’t really going anywhere. We are taking a journey to where we already are.
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