You haven’t heard from me for a while because I had an unexpected recurrence of Lyme Disease symptoms, from an original infection six or seven years ago. I was just bedridden for more than three weeks. After 20 days with no improvements, I thought I might never get better. So I did a quick review of my life and, feeling pretty good about it, readied myself to die, to let go of this body/mind forever. A couple of days after that my health suddenly improved just before it was time to go with my family on our annual trip to the Caribbean. Quite a pleasant outcome!
During the three days before I left, I met with several of our sangha members. I told the one about my experience and she said incredulously, “You were ready to die, without fear or anxiety?” I said, “Sure, I have been practicing dying to my worries and concerns on my cushion for more than 50 years. Little Tim is nothing more than a coagulation of these concerns. Meditation practice is a wonderful way to ready ourselves to let go of body/mind completely.” I think she believed me, but I am not sure. Another sangha member came into my room, sat down, and spoke in a hushed voice. “I felt a great stillness when I opened the door and looked at you. Thank you for that.” I replied, “You’re welcome, but if you felt a stillness, that means it’s within you as much as it’s within me, so thank yourself as well.” She looked puzzled, but of course it’s true. One of the last people I saw had just completed our silent retreat called Rohatsu, which we do the first week in December every year. I asked her how it had been for her. She looked at me intensely and said, “Do you remember Rohatsu last year, how I came in to see you for a meeting and cried and cried, feeling so helpless, discouraged, and alone?” She went on to say that this year it had been good, that she had been able to stay with the practice pretty well for the entire time that she meditated, and that a quiet confidence had developed within her since that meeting with me a year ago. She thanked me profusely for instilling that confidence in her. I said, “I didn’t instill anything in you. You tapped into your Buddha nature. That’s all.” I congratulated her as I would congratulate anyone who stays with their meditation long enough to develop a confidence in their ability to let their thoughts and feelings pass through them without judging them or getting stuck on them. Many people wondered how my own root teacher, Suzuki Roshi could be so calm and ordinary in the face of his very painful death from cancer. Here’s dharma teacher Lew Richmond’s response in the December issue of Lion’s Roar: “He was always ready to die. He was the embodiment of his own best teaching: Don’t stick to anything, even the truth. Each moment new. That was his dharma.” Maybe that’s my dharma, too. Anyway, it’s not that complicated. Little by little, we develop the capacity to appreciate what is. Then the division between life and death is not that big a deal. The best preparation for death is learn to die to our small selves on the cushion so we can open up to the wonder of being. That said, I am very happy to have a few, or possibly many more days/months/years to be in this body/mind with you!
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I have been thinking about the importance of paying attention to Spiritual Bypassing lately. For those of you who don’t know this term, its originator, Buddhist psychologist John Welwood, defines it as, “a tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.” I heard the term first in a class I took from John in about 1980. This last month I have also been teaching from a chapter in the book Not Always So, in which Suzuki Roshi warns against spiritual bypassing when he says, “As long as you believe ‘my practice is egoless,’ you stick to ego, because you stick to giving up ego-centered practice.”
I think there are several ways in which folks who are involved in spiritual practice do this, each of which is an attempt to wall off unpleasant emotions or other aspects of their shadow side. These include 1. Emotional numbing/repression (i.e., “I shouldn’t be having these feelings. They’re not “spiritual.”) 2. Overemphasis on the positive. Japanese Buddhism reflects a politeness and focus on avoiding confrontation as well as a desire to not stand out that was not present in Chinese Buddhism, and is generally not healthy psychologically in our culture. 3. Anger-phobia 4.”Idiot compassion,” a term coined by Tibetan Buddhists. If you end up drained and exhausted from helping people, you’re probably engaging in this. 5. Weak boundaries. Do you get lost in or afraid of someone’s pain or their expectations of you? Many years ago I left my home state of California. I didn’t realize until I had been in Minnesota for some years that this was partially an attempt to escape my father’s expectations. It did help me, however, to develop a healthy separate self. If once-healthy relationships with parents, spouses, children, and close friends are falling apart because you are consumed with practice and/or the spiritual quest, this may be because you are engaging in one or more spiritual by-passing behaviors. Let’s remember that the personal and spiritual are not really separate and pay attention to what our negative emotions are trying to tell us. Let’s also notice when we are imprisoned by the constraints of a “spiritual superego,” by making spiritual teachings into prescriptions about what you should do, how you should think, how you should speak, how you should feel. It’s my deep belief that the only “shoulds” which are healthy are those which support our authenticity. Through our meditation practice we can see how we are walling off our own afflictive emotions. If we do this in a non-judgmental way we may develop a tenderness for the shadow side of ourselves and others. Then we can rest in in our heartmind, which is simultaneously the heartmind of the universe. |
AuthorTim Burkett, Guiding Teacher Archives
April 2022
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