[MD] integrating the shadow

[gav]

"you don't have to be good, you just have to be whole"
these words i found inscribed on the concrete driveway of the mountain retreat...they say it all.

the good takes care of itself - it is after all the source - we only obscure or impede the natural (tao) way of the good when we try and *do* good - hence the oriental golden rule - *don't* treat others as you would not want to be treated yourself - you don't have to do anything - there is no 'should'!

pragmatic morality consists of something entirely different than what we get from law or religion: no explicit codes, exhortations, prohibitions, rather a return to lore over law - lore, the story, the myth, activates the latent moral energies of the child, adolescent, adult and the individual becomes empowered - a moral vector and anchor. 

'i won't be a saint; i won't hurt you, cos i am the light and i am the darkness too'

perhaps it is most efficacious to irritate the righteous - yes it often is, because you are helping end the suppression they are inflicting upon themselves - a healing crisis ensues, hopefully....reminds me of star wars - luke has to get angry, despair, nearly die and go off alone before he can return whole - a jedi. the dark side is not to be shunned - it is to be honoured, it is the dark side that propels us away from the herd - towards individuation...only do not be seduced by its power.....for power is ineluctably egoistic...

ahh the ego - the all time bad guy - is he the fall guy rather?  the ego got us this far, as my friend says.... what does it mean to integrate the ego?

maybe it means - 'owning your position', as my friend steve says...i think this is close. our negative sentiments are often projections of those aspects of our own psyche we don not like, or have not dealt with....fear, shame, guilt, anxiety and anger - these are the signposts of the need for integration - rather than let them suppress us, we need to move into these energies, feel them, explore them, understand what is provoking them - rather than run away from them. by simply feeling them we loosen their grip - it is by letting our attention rest in these states that we come to know them and learn the lessons they are trying to teach us - we need to give ourselves permission to feel shitty, and those around us....if we don't these energies are stymied and the emotional waters build up and eventually burst the dam wall.

some of the best times of my life have been the times of greatest despair - depths in heights and heights in depths - honestly staying with these dark feelings, expressing them can be a joyous transformative experience.

but buddhism as it is presented to the west is not whole - it is not holy. it is a rational translation that leaves out the central mystical core....yes that is correct, buddhism in the west, most popularly presented through vipassana meditation centres, denies that it is mystical.

instead equanimity is the goal (and the gaol). for equanimity is sought through a retreat from life - a withdrawing into self, such that the turbulent waters of life are only a ripple on the surface - you are safe deep down below.

now this is sometimes a very useful thing. meditation is a good thing - i enjoy it, but balance is everything.... equanimity is not only provided by tranquilising oneself (platonic disparagemnet of the passions - again!) - rather equanimity can be felt in the full flow of life, in the joy and pain and despair, it is still possible to remain equanimous, if one has.....

 faith.

 - that much maligned and misunderstood and nebulous concept. 
the viccissitudes of life disturb our equanimity only if we think that there is something wrong. but there is never anything wrong - everything is perfect. if we trust and express whatever is real now...equanimity is preserved. 

if we have faith in ourselves (microcosm), we also have faith in the whole lego set (macrocosm) - as above so below. the key to morality, as far as reason or analysis is concerned is to *discern the difference* twixt an authentic impulse and a habitual reactive pattern (Dq/sq) - this is sometimes a subtle affair, but as the universe is always our mirror, if in doubt - toss a coin.

I have walked this earth and watched people.
I can be sincere and say I like them
You can't say no to hope, can't say no to happiness

I want to go on a mountain-top
with a radio and good batteries
play a joyous tune
and free the human race from suffering

I'm no fucking Buddhist but this is enlightenment
The less room you give me, the more space I've got
This is an alarm-call so wake-up wake-up now
Today has never happened and it doesn't frighten me

I have walked this earth and watched people.
 I can be sincere and say I like them
 
 You can't say no to hope, can't say no to happiness
 
 I want to go on a mountain-top
 with a radio and good batteries
 play a joyous tune
 and free the human race from suffering
 
 I'm no fucking Buddhist but this is enlightenment
 



--- On Sun, 11/10/09, gav <gav_gc at yahoo.com.au> wrote:

From: gav <gav_gc at yahoo.com.au>
Subject: [MD] integrating the shadow
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Received: Sunday, 11 October, 2009, 10:46 PM

been on a week long retreat - walking and camping in rainforest. buddhist flavour - insight meditation teachers. big learnings.

quickly reacted strongly against the whole thing - being thrown into a group of strangers (about 30 of em) doing something i would rather do alone or with 1 or 2 close friends. nearly left on second day after i got sick, but fate had other plans.

on the third day, after walking out my cold through 15kms of pristine forest, i felt better and chatted freely with several of the folk over a cuppa that arvo. that night the evening meditation and discourse was opened into a discussion...and yes yours truly piped in, of course. the topic was non-violence and something stirred in my chest wanting release.

after listening to a gentle polite and superficial treatment of these pacifistic ideas i heard one lady say that she could never kill and...well it came out. i interjected that absolutely everyone is capable of murder, absolutely everyone and that life and death are siamese and mutually fecundating and that static moral codes are problematic - they don't work - every situation is unique, and that all that we need is to respond authentically to each situation. the discussion was quickly terminated and i had established myself as the bad boy.

that night i didn't sleep well. i felt bad for upsetting the woman whose assertion of her inability to do violence had triggered my outburst...i felt like a pratt because i had been reltaively inarticulate and emotional....i felt like i should have just kept my mouth shut.

next morning the meditation was at protestors' falls (my first visit to this sacred aboriginal site). a broad wall of rock - all square angles and outcroppings and massive... the water atomising itself from its 50m plunge. stillness, 30 of us perched here and there wrapped in blankets, eyes shut...but i couldn't leave them so. i just stared at the rock for a while, and then i saw the face, and my attention jolted gently. the alien visage patterned from some lichen perhaps - the expression strangely perfect and benign.

at breakfast i apolgise to the lady i thought i had offended and i feel lighter even before this, something had shifted. i spend some time with the creek nearby and then we are broken into small groups for some check in time....i try and explain my position re: violence via the bhagavad gita - ie that murder is sometimes moral, fated. but i am admonished gently by the teacher for interpreting the tale literally. i desist but am far from convinced.

the next day we end up at a mountain forest meditation retreat - it is beautiful and peaceful - the sun doesn't penetrate except as a dappling touch and the fire goes all night and day. here we are silent for two nights and a day.

it is during this time that i start to feel very happy. the silence sits well with me. we meditate regularly and i find it easy and comforting and i nearly burst out laughing at the solemnity and pained expressions on some faces.

i am starting now to see what is going on. i write a little thing while sitting on the toilet: "life is like a detective story in which you try and solve the mystery of your own absence...ironically you solve the case by giving up the search and identifying with the mystery itself."

the further we investigate something with the mind the closer we get to the terminal paradox that bars entry to its secret, its truth. it is only by holding in mind both poles simultaneously that we open the lock.

in my case i was realising why i was on this trip. true i would have had a far easier and more relaxing time without having to be intimate with a bunch of strangers, but what these strangers had given me was this gift - i didn't care about them! i didn't care what they thought of me, i identified myself in opposition to them - i was sufficient unto myself and free and then! the opposite pole presented itself immediately - my compassion for them was suddenly heightened - i cared more than i ever did! i felt humble and proud simultaneuously - the razor's edge: that hairline one must traverse shifting weight, balance, focussing attention always lest one fall back to the polemic.

the sacred 'no' precedes the sacred 'yes'. the hero's journey is an *individual* one - one must become outcast before they can return to be a true contributer. i was realising that my life had been an extended journey along these lines. i had been the academic and dropped it, i had been the long-term partner and twice dropped love and i had been dropped myself a third time....i had found no niche, no home and now i was embracing it....i have recently made myself homeless and i have no fear, cos i have many homes and, at least up at that mountain retreat, i was feeling total faith.

and now perhaps i was on the return leg....my interactions lately with kids have been inspiring. for whatever reason young kids gravitate to me and i actually seem to have better interactions - realer interactions, with them than adults. i am starting to want to learn from them....i think i am going to be a primary school teacher.









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