Insurgent Heart: A Vipassana Manual for the Guerrilla Yogi — {8}
Diversion: Distraction / Misdirection
Table of Contents
~ Preface
2. Indigenous Knowledge: Bhavana
3. Contact: Aim /Attack / Harass
4. Mobility: Bases / Fluidity / Agility
5. Distrust: Suspicion / Investigation
6. Medicine: Metta / Divine Abodes
7. Retreat: Encirclement / Escape
8. Diversion: Distraction / Misdirection
9. General Strike: Invisibility / Cessation
10. The Guerrilla Band: Camaraderie / Community
11. Independence: Responsibility/ Self-Retreat
12. Intelligence: Education / Reporting
13. The Revolutionary Spirit: Discipline / Determination / Faith
14. Protracted War: Land Reform / Regular Army / International Support
15. {Afterword} Mindfulness: A Balm or a Bomb for Babylon?
~ CHAPTER 8~
Diversion: Distraction / Misdirection
Their tactics must deceive, tempt, and confuse the enemy. They must lead the enemy to believe that they will attack him from the east and north, and they must then strike him from the west and the south. They must strike, then rapidly disperse. They must move at night.
~ Mao Zedong
A guerrilla army will learn to disorient, confuse, and distract the enemy as much as possible. It must learn techniques to make the enemy believe the band is located in one place when they are really in another. They learn how to give the impression of being a larger unit or a smaller one depending on if they are trying to intimidate the enemy or draw them in. They try to make the enemy believe the rebels are resting or defeated in order to lull them into complacency and to make them feel that an attack is imminent when they are actually resting, wearing the enemy down through agitation.
Being overly obvious in their efforts can expose insurgents to unnecessary exposure in their campaigns. Being discrete and keeping to the shadows, especially when on the move, can help save a movement from profound risks. Si Azedine, one of the most tenacious of Algerian guerrilla fighters, barely escaped annihilation at Agounennda when he led his forces through the valley rather than along the crest of the hills. Spotted easily by local scouts, his overt maneuver allowed French para forces to position themselves in an effective encirclement, trapping the combatants for three days of dogged fighting for which they were ill prepared. Slowly escaping in small groups at night, the guerrillas lost 96 men — truly devastating for them — though they managed to hold on to half of the weapons of the fallen.
Anything the guerrilla yogi can do to confuse the focus or disperse the energy of the enemy gives us room to breath and provides an important psychological sense of protection — and so in our case actual protection — from attack. If we constantly draw attention to our spiritual rebellion we are obvious targets for the armies of Mara. When we pull the enemy’s attention toward something non-essential or hide our activity, we give ourselves some padding to operate outside of the zone of conflict, the pressure of which we might at times lose the capacity to maneuver within effectively. This is why diversion and distraction are essential tactics in the insurgents’ toolbox: They can disorient the opposition, diffusing their energy while gathering our own.
Our circumstances were not twice similar, so no system could fit them twice: and our diversity threw the enemy intelligence off the track… our strengths depended upon whim.
~ T.E. Lawrence
During the war of independence, Algerian forces found a safe haven for training and coordination across the border in neighboring Tunisia. French forces eventually constructed a giant defensive position along the border designed to stop the flow of partisans back and forth. After Haoari Boumédiènne came to lead the National Liberation Army (ALN) he quickly changed the long-standing but self-destructive practice of massive attacks attempting to breach the French barrier which had caused the resistance massive casualties. Instead he successfully implemented a strategy of constant “pin-prick” mortar attacks of the border from a safe distance: minimizing Algerian casualties while still freezing French troops on the line. This gave his forces in the interior of the country a much-needed reprieve from persecution and greater freedom to move about. This is the acupuncture of war.
Similarly, during the fall of 1968, in what became known as the “border battles,” North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces provoked a number of engagements with Americans in remote jungle areas, drawing energy and attention away from the urban centers of the country. With occupying focus distracted away from areas of heavy population, the Vietcong began the General Offensive and Uprising of Tet Mau — the “Tet Offensive” — where over 80,000 Vietnamese guerrillas attacked positions over 100 cities and towns across the country. The massive action shocked American forces and society who had no idea of the growing capacity of the North Vietnamese forces. It was an important turning point in the war.
Campaigns of distraction and diversion are of powerful utility to the guerrilla yogi if they are done consciously, with the grander vision always in mind. As guerrilla yogis, we need reprieve. We need breaks. We need to take the foot off the gas. We need to engage in activities, diversions, that help bolster the mind, provide it with buoyancy, even in ways that might not look like — or might even appear to contradict — formal practice. This can mean anything from watching movies, reading, making art, listening to or making music, taking a nap, having a cup of tea, or just spacing out — even during periods of intensive practice. It is not just run and hide — it is rest and recover.
In addition to a piece of soap, useful for washing utensils as well as for personal cleanliness, a toothbrush and paste should be carried. It is worthwhile also to carry a book, which will be exchanged with other members of the band. These books can be good biographies of past heroes, histories, or economic geographies, preferably of the country, and works of general character that will serve to raise the cultural level of the soldiers and discourage the tendency toward gambling or other undesirable forms of passing the time. There are periods of boredom in the life of the guerrilla fighter.
~ Ernesto “Che” Guevara
When we are grinding it out in the struggle of liberation of the mind, we sometimes need to be reminded of the broader palette of emotion we are capable of but may have lost contact with. On occasion our perception is too narrow and we lose sight of the way doubt, aversion, or wanting might have snuck in and be tainting our perspective on what we are observing. Diversion opens us up to possibility, to a broader perspective. While “story” generally gets a bad rap in vipassana practice — discounted as fabrication and fantasy — we have to acknowledge that whether it is books or movies, or over a campfire, story has since time immemorial helped us laugh at, consider, care about, reflect upon the human experience in ways that are de-isolating, uplifting, connecting, and wonder-inducing. For eons humans have sat around the fire and shared stories of joy and woe, and that there are times where we need this sense of connection and perspective. Our tradition is full of stories to help inspire, educate, warn, and amaze. The guerrilla fighter and yogi are no exceptions to this basic human need,
In the evening, when we had shut the gate, all guests would assemble, either in my room or in Ali’s, and coffee and stories would go round until the last meal, and after it, till sleep came. On stormy nights we brought in brushwood and dung and lit a great fire in the middle of the floor. About it would be drawn the carpets and the saddle-sheepskins, and in its light we would tell over our own battles, or hear the visitor’s traditions. The leaping flames chased our smoke-ruffled shadows strangely about the rough stone wall behind us, distorting them over the hollows and projections of its broken face. When these stories game to a period, our tight circle would shift over, uneasily, to the other knee or elbow; while coffee-cups went clinking round, and a servant fanned the blue reek of the fire towards the loophole with his cloak, making the glowing ash swirl and sparkle with his draught. Till the voice of the story-teller took up again, we would hear the rain-spots hissing briefly as they dripped from the sonde-beamed roof into the fire’s heart.
~ T.E. Lawrence
It is comforting to take a break, to rest and gather our forces, let our guard down, find solace and solidarity. We cannot force the pace of our recuperation from practice wounds or life wounds. Often this means diverting the attention further and further away from formal practice: something that can we can be deeply resistant to because it can feel so untethered. But in fact we need to be able to tether ourselves back into the conceptual world where, for better or worse, the mind feels more comfortable and more relaxed.
Human beings are mostly caught in the conceptual level of reality. We so often live in our thoughts about things more than in direct relationship to them. We are prisoners of our mental constructs which is why so much emphasis is put on the practice in viewing phenomena non-conceptually, releasing ourselves from “story.” We try to experience physical sensations directly rather than as “pain” or “back” or tying them into a story we have about ourselves that keeps us involved and invested in a structure of ideas about who we are and about he world around us. In vipassana we get underneath these notions and feel the pulsing and vibrating of the sensations of the body, hardness, softness, moisture, dryness, warmth, and coolness all in flux, arising and passing, one moment leading to the next.
These insights are profound to our understanding of the nature of reality — of who we are and what is really going on — but they can be so disruptive and so jarring to our normal perspective as to cause us to be disoriented, disturbed, and confused. That is why at times we need to be able to call upon and fall back on the conceptual, on stories, on ideas, on the terrain that our systems are more comfortable in, where we feel safe and secure. Even if these planes of existence are not ultimately safe and secure, they are familiar, comfortable, and real in their own way. They let the mind settle down, come back into a familiar sense of solidity from which to rest and recuperate before delving back into the more levels of reality that are experienced in a more dispersed way.
Vipassana tries to puncture the solidity of the conceptual but it is not trying to get rid of it. Notions, ideas, concepts are amazing and powerful capacities of the human mind — our personal and social survival are dependent upon them. We are not trying to get rid of them, only to put them in perspective — to see that reality has many other layers, many other dimensions that we are less familiar with but are not less true or real. To be attached to any of them is dukkha, and so we don’t prioritize one over the other, but we need to have a relationship with them all and to see them all as conditioned, as dukkha, as anicca, as anatta.
Consider Arjuna from the Bhagavad Gita who wanted to see Lord Krishna in all his glory. When Krishna finally revealed himself Arjuna came to see that he could not actually bear the immensity of Krishna’s unrestrained presence just as our psyches cannot handle breaking through all at once. So we work with our conditioned defense system in order to open the mind and let it close, expand the perspective and narrow the perspective, so that it trusts us enough to let go deeper and deeper. If we allow or even encourage the mind to come back to the safety of the conceptual, it will feel the strength of being able to let go of it more and more.
Our distractions should be true distractions: stories, stories that get us out of the cycle of mental inflammation. These tactics are supposed to be distracting, defusing, grounding, neutralizing. The stories can be inspiring or moving, but they can also be dumb and funny. Be very careful about judging what works for you at various times and under a variety of conditions. What actually allows your system to rest? What provides you with enough space and groundedness to get back up on the horse and back into the battle when you need? What helps you eventually re-engage in a way that is balanced rather than agitated or based in striving and self-punishment?
When yogis are in deep need of diversion they should be hesitant to watch dharma movies or reading dharma books. While Buddhist literature is an important place of education and inspiration in general, there are phases of the war where can be incredibly deflating. Most dharma books point to the highest and clearest experiences of the human mind, and therefore elevate our standards that we cannot help but compare ourselves to our imaginations of “great” yogis or the author of the books. We self-evaluate in a way that is profoundly dispiriting. The version of the Buddha recorded in the suttas, while amazing, rarely seems to address the many obstacles we face in our practice in a technical way and can actually make it look so easy. “And in no time at all, so-and-so became one of the arahants…” goes the common refrain. So when we don’t find ourselves charted on those maps, we create the fertile ground for doubt to grow and overwhelm us. Other times these stories can be motivating but we also need to be cautious about the threat of unbalanced zeal, of faith ungrounded by wisdom, and the negative effect it can have on our practice.
Mahasi Sayadaw writes that in the commentary on the Majjhima Nikaya, it is stated that engaging in conceptualizing activity can be helpful when plagued by unwholesome thoughts,
what is carried in one’s own hand-bag or pouch may be taken out and then, repeatedly observed to find out what these are, reflecting thus: “Oh, this is a lighter, or that is a match box, or that is a pin, or that is a razor, or that is a nail-clipper, or that is a needle, etc.,etc.” The method adopted by sages of old times as to how Vitakka can be rejected by performing the work of constructing a building meant for meditation, has also been cited…
We might think that going through our bag and naming the assorted objects as somewhat archaic forms of distraction but consider the degree of diversion from practice necessitated by constructing a meditation center! That project would certainly require a lot of conceptual activity.
It is not only painful or scary experiences that can be so overwhelming that we need to create a diversion for ourselves. Sometimes when the practice gets very quiet and we drop into non-conceptual terrain, a furious amount of voltage can be released in the body. It is not painful, but can be incredibly intense as we see the way that our greed, hatred, and ignorance binds so much energy up in the body and mind. When it is released a very powerful non-personal energy can coarse through our system. While not physically painful, it can be confusing or deeply unfamiliar. This is also a good time where we need to take our foot off the gas and negotiate the process of coming to terms with our experience.
The revolution in Rojava came about not through a violent overthrow of the Syrian state but instead took advantage of a period in which the state had become both distracted and dysfunctional. Strengthened by years of movement building and guerrilla training in and out of the shadows, revolutionary forces took advantage of a gap in attention to gently take over the entire state infrastructure and entirely rebuild the democratic practices that run the communities under its autonomous protection. It was a rare historic moment that they encountered — one they may have never foreseen — but it was one that they were prepared to take advantage of because of their many years — many generations — of sacrifice and training.
Whenever someone was killed, we took their weapon. When there was no fighting, we sang. Between skirmishes we did training, we read and discussed the roles women play in the war. To show the enemy our resolve, we called out to them, and they got afraid. Our morale was very high. The units at the front rotate frequently so they won’t be tired. We were very disciplined, to avoid needless casualties. Whenever anyone fell, we immediately talked about it, and about why they fought, so that morale wouldn’t waver.
~ Cicek, YPG fighter
A Guerrilla tactician is not only concerned with carefully choosing the place of combat, but with choosing the pace of it. If we are always in a state of all-out war, we constantly provoke extreme responses of retaliation and we keep the enemy on guard and vigilant and give them a chance to build momentum. But by strategically stopping and starting — pacing ourselves based on sensitivity to our inner capacity — our rebellion moves in a way that is hard for the enemy to keep pace with and gives our movement an opportunity to work on the infrared spectrum of the mind.
…the idea of assaulting Medina, or even of starving it quickly into surrender, was not in accord with the best strategy. Rather, let the enemy stay in Medina, and in every other harmless place, in the largest numbers. If he showed a disposition to evacuate too soon, as a step to concentrating in the small area which his numbers could dominate effectively, then the Arab army would have to try and restore his confidence, not harshly, but by reducing its enterprises against him. The ideal was to keep his railway just working, but only just, with the maximum of loss and discomfort to him.
~ T.E. Lawrence
Humor is one of the best ways to get solid, to get grounded in a lighter perspective on our condition that reinvigorates and energizes us for the long battle ahead. If you really look at what we are doing as a yogi, from a normal social perspective it is very strange. If you are ever able go on intensive retreats you will find people walking around like zombies for weeks at a time, moving very slowly, not looking at one another in the eye, and getting upset about and involved in very subtle phenomena that people on the outside would — at best — give you a curious look about. It is all truly weird. Yogis can get very sensitive and raw, exposed to their very basic forms of greed and aversion, fantasizing over dessert or getting unreasonable angry about such triflings as where another person puts their shoes in the coat room. There is often a lot of reactivity over very little. We are all reactive and our practice highlights this dramatically before it does anything to resolve it. We must be honest about our craziness and especially be able to laugh at it in order to not take ourselves too seriously and not get pulled into the downward spirals of despair that are so possible for a yogi.
Sometimes I feel like we should add a precept, vowing to keep a sense of humor during our intensive periods of practice. While the Buddha very occasionally demonstrates a rather dry or sarcastic kind of humor, he never spoke of humor as a wholesome mental quality, probably because it leads to a kind of over-exuberance. Though in the commentaries it is said that there is a kind of smile-producing consciousness (hasitupadda citta) that only an arahant is capable of, a kind of happiness and satisfaction that has no kammic force, good-humor perhaps, that only a fully enlightened being can know.
But as guerrilla yogis, not yet fully enlightened, sometimes we need to fall back on the ignoble eightfold path in order to keep sane,
The Ignoble Eightfold Path:
1. Right Distraction
2. Right Napping
3. Right Caffeination
4. Right Treats
5. Right Humor
6. Right Indignation
7. Right Identification
8. Right Irresponsibility
Right Distraction. The overarching guardian of the Ignoble Eightfold Path, distraction, mentioned in detail above includes all kinds of activity for the body and mind that gives it reprieve, rest, and allows for the recuperation from wounds received while in battle with Mara. It allows the system to carefully regulate the voltage of insight.
Right Napping. The quintessence of right distraction: turning off the mind as much as possible to get relief from the war. Checking out, clocking out, shutting down deeply and fully can provide a powerful sense of rest. The Buddha called sleep, “the world’s greatest pleasure” (which was not an advertisement for it).
Right Caffeination. Sometimes yogis come on retreat and think they need to quit all their habits. They have an idea about their health that they want to live into and so lay on an extra burden on themselves during retreat to quit drinking coffee or quit smoking cigarettes. We always try to dissuade them. Buddhists around the world use caffeine as an aid to their minds and meditation practice and it is not considered unwholesome, not something that “clouds the mind.” Similarly with cigarettes, even if it is rooted in an addiction, there is no value in cranking up the intensity of your hardship on retreat if it is not for genuine ethical restraint.
A customary and extremely important comfort in the life of the guerrilla fighter is a smoke, whether cigars, cigarettes, or pipe tobacco; a smoke in moments of rest is a great friend to the solitary soldier.
~Ernesto “Che” Guevara
Right Treats. Acknowledges that great degrees of restraint and renunciation are involved in intensive periods of practice and so some pleasurable experiences, held within the ethical framework, can provide a bolster to the mind that is necessary, even if it is in the samsaric realms of sense-pleasure.
Right Humor. Allows for the buoyancy of the mind amidst the great hardship of the struggle for freedom, providing relief and perspective on the absurdity, hardship, and joy of life.
Right Indignation. Allows for the unwholesome factor of mind to proliferate for righteous causes, as long as mental, verbal, and bodily actions are carefully restrained. There is an important value in indignation — which Buddhism has less of than the Abrahamic faiths — to be able to honestly engage with it, relate to the suffering and oppression in human society in a way that is socially valued, recognized, and meaningful. It is only with this internal permission that we also can investigate the deepest roots of caring often at the heart of our anger.
Right Identification. Allowing the sense of Self to re-solidify, to reassert itself, and to permit the propagation of samsara (again, within the confines of ethical conduct) is an important safety valve for the mind trying to find its way to freedom. An animal who was born in captivity needs to be allowed to go back to the security of its cage until it becomes more and more comfortable with the experience and responsibility of freedom. If we are to understand the empty nature of Self we have to allow for it to arise and be genuinely interested in exploring it. We have to allow the sensation of I, of me, of mine in order to understand them.
Right Irresponsibility. The ability to let down friends, family, colleagues, the world — all beings, for the sake of your dedication to your own liberation. At some points we have to prioritize our own practice above the pressures of the world on us and this takes a profound confidence and willingness to disappoint multitudes for the sake of your own freedom.
Following the Ignoble Eightfold Path has its obvious risks. But just because there is danger does not mean it should be discredited. Mao spoke of this approach as “one step backwards, two steps forward” as a way of integrating this understanding into the overall strategy of the revolutionary movement. We cannot move forward without the occasional step back. In fact it is the step back that allows us to move two steps forward. In times of distress, distraction works. This should be the test of any strategy in a battle. Does the tool have its place? Can if be effectively implemented, considering the risks it also carries? It is important to always understand the fact that we are doing it and why.
Of primary importance is to understand that we cannot follow the Ignoble Eightfold Path successfully if we are not also following the Noble Eightfold Path: right view (sammā-diṭṭhi), right intention (sammā saṅkappa), right speech (sammā-vācā), right action (sammā-kammanta), right livelihood (sammā-ājīva), right effort (sammā-vāyāma), right mindfulness (sammā-sati), right concentration (sammā-samādhi). The Ignoble Eightfold Path is a balancing force, not a contradictory one or a replacement. We should never confuse distraction with mindfulness. As a matter of fact they are essentially opposites. But “mindful distraction” as an aspect of appamada and general skillfulness is a paradox we can benefit from is used wisely. And if we can have wise-distraction, what else that we might consider obstacles could be skillfully used to gather our strength and diminish the strength of Mara?
You may enjoy playing an instrument, doing some knitting, spoon-carving, scuba diving, art, etc. Fantastic. But we should recognize that this is entirely different than saying “Spoon-carving is my meditation” or “scuba-diving is my meditation.” Meditation is not just anything we enjoy doing which concentrates our attention. Few would honestly try to claim that “watching movies is my meditation” or “sex is my meditation” — and by that mean the activity that is going to uproot greed, hatred, and delusion. This doesn’t mean watching movies or sex are bad. And it doesn’t mean there aren’t approaches to our path that incorporate distractions. But they are not vipassana meditation. And that is OK. They may not be vipassana but they may help us get grounded and relaxed which can make us more susceptible to insight. We should value them for the way they may calm us or sooth us. The guerrilla path is not simply about following every whim to deaden the intensity of reality, or believing that all practices are essentially the same, or that everything is “One.” A wholesome distraction is just that. It has its place but we cannot conflate it with vipassana itself.
Right now there is a movement within the Buddhist meditation world to incorporate psychedelic substances such as LSD, psilocybin, or ayahuasca into formal practice. People complain of being stuck, of not making progress, and believe that these substances hyper-charge their meditation by elevating them to states of mind in which insight is more pronounced. As someone who has taken psychedelics myself, had meaningful experiences with them, who honors the variety of indigenous teachings related to these plant medicines, and who has worked with numerous yogis who have experimented with this orientation to practice, I can say with comfort that this trend is problematic and rooted in a basic misunderstanding of vipassana and of traditional indigenous “ethnogen” practice.
As a teacher in these times, all I have witnessed is yogis becoming more and more enamored with special states and a declining capacity or interest in going through the challenges of formal practice which can sometimes be very dry. I have seen people blow the fusebox of their mind with drugs so they lose the investigative energy needed to practice. I have seen a great amount of delusion and attachment upheld as spiritual tools. Even within formal practice, overemphasis on states of deep concentration can lead to the same unwholesome approach. Vipassana has no preference between any state of mind. The goal is not to reach any particular state and stay there, but to recognize the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and emptiness of all phenomena, all experiences, so that we are not enchanted by any of it and free to abide in total peace no matter what conditions arise. You can paint the prison walls new and exciting colors — but it is still a prison and we should never confuse liberation with new decoration.
As someone whose American indigenous ancestry is far in the past generations, I have learned a great deal that I value from indigenous friends and mentors who are in more immediate contact with their traditions. And while I value these traditions and lineages immensely, and am profoundly grateful for my connection to them, I do not confuse them with the Buddha’s Dhamma. Most indigenous traditions focus rightfully on coming into healthy alignment — often through prayer and sacrifice — with the cycles of life, the planet, the universe, and the spirit world, and through that alignment finding spiritual guidance and strength. The Buddha’s Dhamma is ultimately about escaping from the cycles of life, of rebirth, and we should be very careful about confusing this ultimate goal of release with the goals of other traditions, as beautiful and important as they all may be. When we are invited to practice and share in those traditions, we come as students of those ways, not as colonizers or borrowers or blenders. When I sit in the sweat lodge, I don’t practice vipassana: I pray. That is how I honor that lineage. That is what that ceremony is designed for. Those spirits are real and people from all places have learned how to be in good relationship with them, in their own way, just as the Buddha taught about our engagement with the devas. But the Buddha taught the way to release, to end the cycle of existence, and recognizing that draws a fundamentally important, meaningful, and respectful boundary.
The Noble Eightfold Path can be so difficult — overwhelming, humiliating, demoralizing — that in dark times, finding access to ease, laughter, is the only thing that will enable us to stay on it. We are building a powerful sense of internal heroism. But it is not a patriarchal heroism. It is a heroism that is sensitive to what is actually being called for as medicine in the moment. We need permission to rest, to recover, to lift ourselves up — recognizing these things as important elements of the path. But we must always be careful that this does not mean that we willy-nilly include everything we want to do as being essentially supportive if it is merely an excuse to engage in behavior that would be harmful or dangerous to ourselves or others. We are not introducing recklessness into our mental activity that threatens the integrity of our sila and zaps the mind of its ability to go beyond enchantment with states. We are trying to help make the mind strong and relaxed enough for insight to emerge.
I first learned this lesson most clearly about about a month deep into one of my early long self-retreats. During my sittings I began to experience a range of pleasant sensations that were very unfamiliar. I had steadily folded a lot of energy into my practice over the weeks but now the mindfulness started to feel self-propelled. The body tingled with light vibrations. The mind felt very settled, light and nimble, but also very stable. There was a kind of enthrallment in it that was very new to me, something steady but also very alive, a sense of growing momentum, of heightening intensity. Rather than simply recognize these as rapture, piti, and moving on, I interpreted it to mean that something very big was about to happen, some kind of break-through experience was right around the corner, right over the horizon: next. Excited and expectant, I dug in a little more, stepped on the gas, stretched toward, reached out to this thing that seemed just out of my grasp. It didn’t come. In fact, the whole package of new sensations soon began to feel like they were slipping away.
Everything started to feel a little more normal — which was not what I was aiming for at all. So I began to strain harder, push the mind forward into this experience I was sure was right there in front of me. As my attitude became more and more tight, more and more frustrated, more and more violent, the breakthrough continued to elude me. The harder I pushed toward this fantasy object, the more tense I became. Eventually, I was at war: sweating, striving, struggling. After some time passed, I came off my cushion and collapsed — exhausted, humiliated, defeated.
It may not seem very dramatic but the secret recipe of conditions that can unlock our deepest places of identification and doubt or self-hatred — my karmic knot — had arisen and I had become completely engulfed in it without knowing. I felt I had done the best I knew, put the most energy I could, tried as hard as possible, and not only had I not attained enlightenment, I had hurt myself, trying to crush, as the Buddha himself once acknowledged, mind with mind. A horrible feeling of despair, of hopelessness and incapacity rolled in like a storm.
Defeated and confused, I listened to my teacher and took a dramatic break from my practice — finding my way to a nearby beach where I did my best to decompress. I sat down to watch the ocean, trying to reflect a little and hopefully revitalize my spirit. At some point a young family sat down near me. It was, apparently, the first time they had brought their newborn child to the ocean. The father carried the baby into the water, holding it close to his chest as they waded into the cool currents. Then he grasped the child with one arm and began to brush it through the water, swaying through the rippling sea until his arm was fully stretched out. The baby whimpered and trembled but before it started crying, the father pulled it back in close, bringing it to his chest, whispering and comforting it. Once it had settled into the sense of safety, he reintroduced it to the water, slowly, gently, carefully, until the fear arose again, and he gathered the child back in. It was so pure and beautiful it seemed to last for hours, this process of introducing, of stretching, of overwhelm, of fear, then finding sanctuary, safety, comfort, and exploring again.
Could I not learn to relate to my own mind with this kind of care? As yogis, we all want to be one with the great ocean of the universe and explore its vast realms and in our ambition we cast ourselves out to sea recklessly. But the ocean is dangerous. It is vast and terrifying. We don’t know how to swim. We haven’t trained for it. There is a place in our practice for courage and energy, for exploration and pushing our edges. But there is also a time for retreat, for safety, comfort, ease. It was clear that the only way to learn how to swim was finding this rhythm between these two: that this is how we must treat our own hearts, our own minds. We are babies in the ocean of the universe and we treat ourselves like we should simply know how to swim and not be afraid. We fling the mind into the ocean, imagining that we want this great freedom, but forgetting how much safety and protection we need to be able to feel confident with the wild unfathomability of the universe.
Spend any amount of time with a newborn child and we can witness the basis of this entire process. The baby wakes up from their nap and has some period of wherewithal and stability. But at some point, some discomfort arises. Can we know what it is? Hunger, surely. Thirst, yes. But we also sense that some basic irritation, overwhelm, discomfort are also at play sometimes and there is very little resilience in the baby to be able to be with it in a stable way. So they cry and are comforted by their mother’s embrace, her breast, the milk, the bottle, or to some degree the pacifier. There is a way we can come to see that as children, adults, and elders we are still in some version of this process: longing for independence yet desperate for comfort, to be fed, to be held, to be sated, and so we unconsciously repeat the pattern. Food, cell phones, various substances or compulsions can take the edge off the discomfort with the instability and invites us back into the suckle-mind of the infant.
The guerrilla yogi, trying to get free from dependence upon conditioned phenomena, trying to find peace in instability, has a challenging road before them. They must acknowledge that the path is not simply a matter of cutting off the need for satiation. We must abide by the child in us, the infant, and be able to offer kindness, care, protection. We can come to feel held by our own love, our own motherʻs milk to ourselves in one form or another: metta, movies, treats, etc. But it only works if we are conscious of that process. We must allow our crying desperate selves the compassionate warmth of satisfaction and to gather our strength there. If done carefully we slowly learn that it is not about the objects of satisfaction but the quality of heart that we nurture ourselves with. In this way we come provide and abide in the deeper satisfaction of love and wisdom that is beyond all conditions. It is this love and the wisdom that provide the greatest safety and the greatest strength: to be without our bottles for longer and longer stretches, to find and be held by peace within the discomfort, love within the barrenness. This freedom, beyond conditions, is the ultimate goal of our path.
Click here for Chapter 9 (General Strike: Stillness / Cessation)
Click here for Chapter 7 (Retreat: Encirclement / Escape)
I hope you have enjoyed what you have read so far!
