Dear Steven,
I can relate very much to what you’re describing and the way you’re describing it. I’ve been practicing about 10 years, including about 7 years post-SE. Over the years, my understanding has evolved quite a lot in a way which I believe puts me in a position where my advice may be beneficial to you.
However, I’d recommend seeking out a teacher who you can work with over the long term instead of relying on internet forums and books. It’s not something I had the sense to do myself, and looking back now I think it was foolish to go alone. In the age of the internet, I’m sure you’ll be able to find someone willing and capable to guide you. Just make sure to assess carefully and don’t settle for anyone who’s watering down the teachings.
How hard should I go at this?
Personally, I've found that if I try my best to live my life on the basis of sincere bodhicitta, making it the root intention behind every action, opening to the full reality of the situation without subtly turning away from the inconvenient truths of life, everything unfolds in an optimal way for both myself and all in my sphere of influence--insofar as I'm able to do this. This is a key point emphasised by many great Tibetan masters. Insofar as I buy in to the samsaric mind of problems and judgements and concrete existence, subtly rejecting certain aspects of reality, I become caught up in endless narrow-minded cycles and stories and paths, in patterns of craving and aversion.
You are limited by that which you turn away from. If you turn away from your awareness of the suffering of others, far greater than your own, and your capacity to alleviate this suffering, you will find it much more difficult to escape the vortex of ego-centric patterns, which will have an insidious effect on your capacity as a practitioner.
For example, without a basis in compassion one is more likely to buy in to rationalizations about needing to live the kind of balanced and healthy life that your therapist can get behind, i.e. the kind which has the curious side effect of greatly reducing the time one has available for really transformative practice. If you were walking through a park in a busy city in your best suit and saw a young child drowning in a nearby pond, you wouldn’t hesitate to dive in and save the life of the child, ruining your suit. But when the suffering is far removed from us, we think very differently and are unwilling to make significant sacrifices. At the same time, we need to be realistic about the situation and our capacity and act accordingly.
Ego distorts everything. In an era of mass extinction and climate catastrophe, the lifestyles of ordinary, decent people in first-world countries are often extremely imbalanced and unhealthy from the point of view of other species, not to mention future generations of humans. Dysfunction and imbalance can create opportunities for practice, which leads to true sanity. They’re not necessarily problems. Let compassion be your guide, not some conditioning about what constitutes healthy behaviour.
Here is something I wish I properly understood when starting out on the Theravada path: it is based on relative truth. From the Mahayana perspective, the Buddha taught relative truths as skilful means for those not ready for higher teachings. Try to remember that you are engaging with stories and illusions, as if in a dream. This may be a very beneficial and liberating dream which will enable you to do more advanced practices later, but ultimately the goal is not to pursue dream forms, it’s to wake up from the dream and remain in the state of lucidity beyond dreaming.
Here is a wonderful dharma talk by Dzogchen teacher James Low which makes this point very clearly.
With relative truth, there are a number of harmful ways one can miss the point. With the emphasis on suffering and ending suffering, one’s tendency to think of it as concrete, inherently real and undesirable can be exacerbated. With the emphasis on seeing anatta, one can reject the sense of self and crave not-self; with the emphasis on seeing dukkha, one can easily slip into an aversive attitude towards everything; with the emphasis on temporary states and a graduated series of attainments, one is likely to get caught in patterns of clinging to some states and rejecting others.
There can be an assumption that “the dark night” is something inherently undesirable, very difficult and painful, causing one to reflexively reject it. In my experience it’s often not possible to exit the dark night at will. At its most severe it’s like the ultimate Chinese finger trap—there is absolutely nothing you can do to get out. One can easily become trapped in a feedback runaway of aversion (feeling aversion to the suffering, causing more aversion, which causes more suffering and so on). As Daniel Ingram says, do not stop practicing. Look into the nature of suffering and that which you’re turning away from.
One can feel trapped in samsara, as if the miracle of reality was somehow broken, like a computer program caught in an infinite loop. There is no awareness of the simultaneity of samsara and nirvana. Whereas in Dzogchen (considered by some traditions to be the highest teaching in Buddhism, most closely aligned with ultimate truth), our true nature, the basis of samsara, has the qualities of primordial purity and natural perfection. If you could develop some real understanding of the Dzogchen view so that it forms the backdrop to your Theravada practice, that would be hugely beneficial in many ways and help you avoid the aforementioned shadow sides.
Keep in mind the
Law of Reversed Effort as taught in the Tao Te Ching. “The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed. Proficiency and the results of proficiency come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity, of letting go as a person in order that the immanent and transcendent unknown quantity may take hold. We cannot make ourselves understand; the most we can do is to foster a state of mind, in which understanding may come to us” - Aldous Huxley
This holds true in a huge variety of contexts. As you probably have some intuition of at this stage, it’s especially true for mind training. Make a great effort to think pure virtuous thoughts for as long as you can. This will push the mind out of kilter like a rocking horse. Eventually it will swing to the other extreme. So one needs to understand how to apply effort in a sustainable way which is not rooted in craving and aversion. If you’re anything like I was, you could potentially take as a working assumption that you are trying too hard in a striving, effortful way and need to relax and let go. As in Taoism there is also a path based largely on non-doing.
Sayadaw U Tejaniya has a book called “When Awareness Becomes Natural” which contains a lot of good advice based on personal experience of practicing in daily life. He emphasises gently cultivating a consistent presence of mind that can be sustained in the midst of a busy lifestyle. Then with this established one could develop a capacity for meta-cognitive awareness. The ability to engage with concepts but not “fall asleep in the thought” is very liberating and powerful. In fact, regardless of whether they were a stream winner, could access jhanas, etc., I’d regard anyone who could sustain this level of mindfulness throughout the day while living as a lay person to be a very advanced practitioner.
Another key point is that progress on the path is never about getting from state A to state B in a linear sort of way as in weightlifting or fitness training. It’s more about coming to realize that A was B all along and developing total acceptance of A so that one naturally transcends it and shifts to an ongoing perception of B as the deeper reality. Our true nature is already not-self, emptiness, enlightenment. Samsara is a function of this. There is no “I” that can attain SE.
If thoughts of needing to get from A to B arise, look at the context which these thoughts are dependent on for meaning. What is the underlying assumption behind this attitude? All thoughts and concepts are mutually dependent, with the self at the root, like a closed system.
Best wishes,
Brendan
