polarity, unknowing, and bliss

Polarization is on my mind a lot lately because the political atmosphere in the world feels very polarized.

Polarization is a time-honored technique in social action and protest movements.  Some people enjoy it, some people don't.  Basically, the tactic is to take a strong stance on something - maybe something controversial.  This will alienate a certain number of middle-of-the-road-ers, but will also mobilize a number of people who were sitting on the fence, unconvinced of the seriousness of the situation.

Perhaps you can see why some people dig this technique, and some people really dislike it!  It can force people to "take sides" in issues that are more complex than just black-or-white, but it can also get people moving, when they might have just sat around waiting for more clarity and remaining stagnant.

It could bring up a wild game of "who's right?" in one's mind.

And it's a great example of what the mind is doing all the time.  Our minds are polarization machines! 

Many of the great meditators claim that there is a state of meditation in which one moves "beyond doubts."  And let me tell you, right about now that sounds SUPER REFRESHING!

But immediately, it sets up another polarity - doubt -vs- non-doubt.  Is there a path "beyond" this kind of polarizing of the mind?  I have to tell you that in any grandiose, ultimate sense, I personally don't know.  Perhaps ask the Dalai Lama, or Matthieu Ricard, or another great meditator.

What I do know, is that on the small-scale, homegrown level that someone like me aspires to, there does seem to be a freedom from the mind's incessant need to polarize everything.  This state, and the method to invoke it, was called by one mediaeval Christian mystic "The Cloud of Unknowing."

In Mahayana Buddhism, too, there are many contemplations brought up that don't have a good logical solution.  They are polarities that cannot be reconciled by ordinary logical means.  This is the essence of the Zen Koan.  There is no good answer that comes from ordinary, dualistic thinking.

It is taught, and it can be experienced that there is a state one can enter that is, as the masters call it, beyond [dualistic] thinking.

This is a beautiful secret of profound meditation.  That the way to peace is not to try to forcefully suppress the thought words that go-round in the mind.  That's actually a losing battle, because it's based on the same fundamental polarization.  By trying to repress thoughts and set up an anti-thought regime, you're back in the same stress-producing game as before!

The trick, it seems, is to fully embrace whatever is happening.  Not to attempt to pick one side of the battle in the mind - whatever battle it may be at the moment.  But just to enjoy the absurdity of the entire thing.  This is not a way of trying to distance yourself from it, no, the very humor and joyfulness of the method is a non-dichotomous way of being.

One method of entering this practice that surprised me was when a meditation teacher gave the instruction to "embrace my doubts."  Rather than trying to meditate right, rather than trying to learn more, rather than trying to escape the discomfort of not-knowing, you just be with what is.  And it was so weird when I tried it, that the uncomfortable thoughts just ground to a halt all on their own.  I was in a totally different state.

Is this state useful?  I can only speak from the limited experience that I've had, which I've related to what I've learned from masters of Zen, Sufism, and other lineages.  These lineages claim that it is only through entering the state that transcends our usual polarizing habit that we can gain new awareness.  So, the point of this meditative state is not to enter a dull, murky zone, where everything sort-of mushes together in grey.  No, when this state is tasted, it is lucid and joyful, and entails the integration of what was previously seen as dualistic.

My friends, in a world that can't seem to come together, one thing we can do is learn to come together within.  Not by staking a claim on one stance to the exclusion of all others.  Not be stiff-jawing a form of imposed confidence.  But by embracing the vulnerability of "don't know mind" - which is found, in practice, to be sublime knowing itself!

End Discrimination - starting within

Ok, first, two disclaimers:

One: discrimination is a serious issue.  Please do not form the conclusion, based on the title,  that I think that you can "meditate discrimination away" from the high seat of whatever life of privilege allows you the time to meditate - I don't.  But I do think outer discrimination and inner discrimination are not unconnected.  Read on if you'd like to hear more about that idea.

Two: discrimination means a lot of things.  In Buddhist psychology, for example, certain kinds of discrimination are considered to be very good.  I am not arguing in any way against having this kind of discrimination.  In fact, I'm one of it's biggest fans!

Ok, so then on to the meat of it.

We humans are constantly discriminating.  And I mean that in the usage that means something like making prejudicial judgements.  This is wrapped up in the kind of discriminating that could be termed "wise discrimination" - where we make sound decisions in the real world, for our own and others welfare, but at the same time, there are sort of different flavors involved here.

The type of discrimination I'm talking about here is one of the Five Heaps, or "Skandas", of traditional Buddhism.  And there's a powerful teaching that helps make it clear what the big deal is about discrimination.  The Five Heaps are:  Form, Feeling, Discrimination, Consciousness, and Other Mental Factors.

Now, the interesting part is that Feeling and Discrimination are "Mental Factors" - so in the old Buddhist Universities the line of questioning you were expected to stumble upon is this:  "Why do Feeling and Discrimination get their own categories, while the other 40-some-odd Mental Factors all get lumped together as 'other mental factors'?"  Because it's kind of weird that these two would get to stand out.  Personally, I think Wisdom and Concentration are some pretty cool mental factors, why wouldn't you single those out?  Why single out Feeling and Discrimination?

And the answer goes something like this:  Feeling and Discrimination get singled out because they, among all the other mental factors, are the most instrumental in the habit of fixating on one's sense of Self.  To Buddhists, this fixed-sense-of-self thing is a big deal because, they say, when we're thinking that we exist in some fixed way, we're actually quite delusional about the open, changing, being of vast potential and love that we really are.  They teach that we are regularly choosing a version of "me" that is cramped, frightened, and uncomfortable - when we have available one that is vast, luminous, and caring.  And why do we do this?  Habits of not recognizing who we really are.

How do Feeling and Discrimination play into this?  Well, we have to understand what is meant by these terms.  "Feeling" does sort of just mean the capacity to feel - but in this Buddhist psychology it goes deeper, because the feelings are always "pleasurable", "painful", and "neutral".  And we are always going around judging experiences on whether they are bringing "me" pleasure, pain, or neutral sensations.  We tend to run toward the pleasurable ones, away from the painful ones, and sort of numb out around the neutral ones.  And now don't get me wrong, pleasure and pain are not anathema concepts.  The Buddha is in fact called "The one who went to bliss" after all, and taught primarily on the "End of Suffering."  But the trick here is that with the Skanda of Feeling, we are interpreting all of this around a false sense of who we are.

We are running around the world trying to look for pleasurable sensations that will ease the pain of thinking I'm a cramped little "me" who's nature is tainted with intrinsic anxiety.  We scurry about trying to avoid the pain that will intensify the low-level discomfort we already deal with, or which will uncover the instability of the pleasures we chased.  And when we find neutrality, we numb out or pass out and have no recognition of the cycle we're stuck in.

Discrimination is all mixed up in this, because it gets put into the service of the "self" project, the affirm-and-protect-the-cramped-"me" project, and it's job is to separate everything into "me vs not-me" or "things-i-like vs things-i-don't-like."  And here's the kicker, according to Buddhist psychology, we're basically doing this 100% of the hours and seconds we are conscious!  Is it any wonder, then, that we are so EXHAUSTED???

So meditation, the real boon of meditation is maybe the fact that we are actively, consciously, intentionally, giving our Discriminations a rest.  And you can tell that this works because people who meditate often gain more energy or optimism for their lives.  They often feel free from the tightness that most humans walk around in.  And the biggest benefit related to this little blog today is that they can find release from the cycle of judgement, blame, make-wrong, and prejudice.

Now, let's get down to how to end discrimination in the world.  The nasty kind, the kind that makes people rent apartments to White people and not to Black people, the kind that makes women get paid 75% of what men get paid, that ugly one.

The truth is that you cannot solve a problem by doing the thing that created it.  I think that this is obvious in the case of discrimination.  You are not going to lesson hate in the world by hating the haters.  That does nothing to decrease their hate (research shows it actually makes them dig in deeper), and then it adds your hatred on top of it.  On the other hand, people who have learned to be kind and welcoming to everyone have often found that through the power of their kindness, they've been able to connect to the "enemy" and come to mutual understanding - to rephrase that in more powerful terms, let's say it this way, they've been able to convince the "haters" to accept new and more loving perspectives.

And this is the true power of non-discrimination.  If we are walking around judging others - even when our moral positions are largely righteous - we are still sowing seeds of distrust, shame, and enemy-hood into the world.  But when we free ourselves from this automatic prejudice, we begin to see others as fields of potential - not unchanging, blameworthy reprobates, but as human beings, with human hearts.  Likely these human hearts are filled with pain or misunderstanding, and every once in a while our kindness and openness is the exact medicine needed to ease that pain and enlighten that misunderstanding.

We can only do this through the power of meditation.  I see a three step process:
1. Put discrimination to rest during meditation
let go of judging the contents of your mind and experiences and just take time to be in a state of open acceptance.
2. This must infect your actions.
 If you're meditating properly and with any regularity, your interactions with others will automatically become more kind and open.
3. Your openness will become infectious.
When you come to others with the light of kind acceptance in your heart, it gives you the magic key to begin spreading the virus of kindness and acceptance.

I believe that we cannot teach others to accept, except through accepting them.  It will be hard.  It does not mean we condone hurtful and hateful acts - that kind of discriminating is completely embraced.  But if we have trained through our practice of accepting our own mind, letting thoughts and perceptions bubble up and pass, with the warm light of love and vast awareness, we may just find that we now have space in our heart to view the potential in things, without cringing, hating, or prejudice.

This will not dis-empower us from acting, perhaps it is only from this place that we will find out what true empowerment feels like!