Okay, so it’s been a while since part 2.  Onward and upward…

A brief review:

This article is a continuation of an article originally written in January (a four-part series) on breaking habits of perception.  While looking for an image for an article (Breaking Habits) I had written I came across a website which was attached to the image I chose.  I thought it was an interesting article for a lot of reasons, the main of which is we can be our own worst enemies when it comes to creating drama in our lives.  Perception is everything.  It’s not so much what we think, as to how we think.  The article had to do with developing the skillful [italics added] perceptions that lead to freedom.

So this is a continuation with intermittent commentaries on the original article.  If you would like, please add whatever your views are on the subject or maybe on what I have said.

The main idea of the article from Thanissaro Bhikkhu is all you have to do is work on how you’re perceiving things in the present moment.  When things finally click, you don’t have to worry about what other people tell you, worry about the world, worry about the self, you don’t have to worry about what you’ve done in the past, for you’ve learned a new habit, you’ve developed a new skill—and development of that new skill changes everything.

(From this point on Thanissaro Bhikkhu will be referred to as ‘TB’ and his text will be in bold print/ commentary follows bold printed paragraph)

Habits of Perception (continued)

TB: The same with your notion of self: Is there a self? Is there no self? The Buddha says, “Don’t ask.” So much of our life depends on the idea of who we are. If you really look at the arising and passing away of your sense of self, seeing how it’s a construct just the way your sense of the world is a construct, then you’re in a much better position.

So what happens when you “Don’t ask” if there is a “Self”?  You are left with ‘Rocky’.  You become ‘concept-less’?  You exist as an observer of life and at the same time absorbing it like a flower absorbs sunshine?  There is no image of who you are so you don’t have anything to compare to as to who you are not?  There is no opposite or judgment to create tension or anxiety—just a balance with nature?  Instead of viewing life as a “construct” which is something that has been systematically put together usually in our mind—a subjective belief, and creating something of a theory of life through systematic thought, we can exist in and with life, a part of life, truly enjoying life as it really is—sounds good to me.

Now you may be questioning this as I explain ‘it’ saying to yourself as a teenager once questioned me.  He said, “How do you know what happiness is?”  The idea that I had just suggested was happiness for anyone is what makes you happy, what makes you fulfilled—loving what you do in life, loving and serving people.  He questioned my suggestion as if it were a trick of some kind.  It was like there was a plot or something to brainwash him into happiness.  On the other hand, another teenager thought being happy was about” …how much you can get in life.”

Does it really have to be that difficult?  I guess what I am trying to say in relation to BT’s perspective is, when it comes down to it what is it that makes you happy?  And can it be simply obtained?  Maybe the TMI age is just getting in the way from time to time of the innate happiness we are born in.  TMI can sometimes be like too many people talking at the same time—it gives you a headache after a while.

TB: You can use different ideas of the self to function in different ways and then drop them when they’re no longer useful. But all this is possible only if you keep in mind as your basic framework the question of what gives rise to suffering, what kind of action doesn’t give rise to suffering, or what kind of action leads you to the end of suffering — the basic framework of the four noble truths, seeing your experience in those terms rather than in terms of the world or the self. Then you can see the activities that you do — the fabrications you make, bodily, verbal, and mental — simply as strategies, useful or not, skillful or not, in line with the imperatives of those four truths.

But you see if you adopt this approach to life, it seems that you are detaching yourself to the point of…dare I say it—Responsibility for your feelings and actions?  I mean take a good look at what is being said here. BT seems to be saying, watch out for the bad stuff and if you see it coming, do something about it that is healthier for you.  Isn’t that what we do anyway.  Like stop for a red light because there is a possibility we might get into an accident, hurting ourselves and others in the process?  Maybe it has to do with effective rules, guidelines, etc.  We do this in acting.  Try this on for size (after all “the world is a stage”).  As an actor I am reminded by my coach to “use” feelings to get what I strategically want in a scene.  We resourcefully use our emotions to accommodate the situation in the scene.

Let me repeat that, we use our emotions.  Unlike some, the emotions don’t use us.  In the process of becoming an actor (kind of an extension of studying psychology) I became more capable of controlling how I felt in “real” life situations.  I always knew this was possible.  Years ago I stated to my psych. professor that it seemed people were screwing themselves.  I guess that was the beginning of wondering why I was being mean to myself.  Like acting maybe we need to look at the usefulness of our thoughts and feelings.

So let’s say we look at the four noble truths as tools to see life in a different way.  Imagine for a moment you were born with this only perspective.  It doesn’t matter what you are referring to—past, present or future.  The way to follow is always the way out of suffering.  Like Eckhart Tolle explained, negative thoughts are like bad food.  Both can make you sick.  It would seem that that logic would be easy to follow.  Maybe it only becomes difficult to follow when we come to believe something else.  Not something that’s necessarily true, something that we believe to be true.

TB: And that’s liberating. On the one hand, you find that you can function a lot more skillfully as you open up to the idea that there might be more courses of action open to you than you had imagined. If you have a very definite idea of who you are or the type of person you are, you place limits on what you can do. If you have very fixed ideas about the world out there, that, too, limits what you can do in terms of putting an end to suffering and stress.

Limits?  Have you ever heard the phrase, “Some people argue for their limitations”?  Well if you haven’t, you may have just reacted to that phrase as did a friend of mine—“Wow, that’s scary.”  I sensed she felt the truth of the statement in her life.  Most people do, but the feeling many times is fleeting at best.  I mean who wants to confront years of rationalizing why we don’t have what we “deserve” to have?  Think about it.  We suddenly realize our “fixed ideas” are our own and no one else’s?  Aaaaaaaaaaah!  Run for the door!  Lemme outta hear!  The question is, outta where? Can the “type” of person we are dictate or predestine our limitations—our view of the world, the universe?  Regardless of what you want or need to believe, there are always other options which go hand in hand with the fact that it is impossible to learn less and our imagination is a limitless source of creativity—after all it is modeled from the universe.

TB: So what we’re trying to do as we meditate here is give ourselves the frame of reference from which we can call into question our habitual ideas of the world, our habitual ideas of the self, to see how both of them are fabrications made out of the way we look at things, the way we attend to things, the way we perceive things. Similarly with the intentions that are based on those ways of looking at the world, looking at the self: We can start calling them into question, looking for alternatives, testing alternatives, with the overriding concern of seeing what we can do to put an end to all the stress and suffering we’re causing through our unskillful intentions.

Ouch.  Not just ideas, but “habitual ideas of the world, our habitual ideas of the self” which “are fabrications made out of the way we look at things, the way we attend to things, the way we perceive things.”  Okay so now we just toss everything we know out the window?  Great.  Wait, if I were to get a lobotomy wouldn’t that fulfill the same purpose?  There is some truth to this though.  People drink, do drugs, watch movies, have good (and bad) relationships, etc. to forget or become detached from their problems.  Don’t they?  These are “alternatives” are they not?  So why would I want to mess with all this Buddha stuff?  Too much work, right?  Too much work to have a healthy perspective, a natural ‘high’?  Too much work for something that’s free.  I do know this—there’s nothing wrong with it.  Just through simple logic, it’s a healthier perspective.  It’s a perspective of responsibility—the responding of ability of skillful intentions.  The problem may only be that people don’t want to see themselves as they really are.  Or maybe it’s just as the quote goes, “You can’t see the picture if you’re in the frame.”