Dreaming Unemployment

A harrowing dream reminded me how difficult detachment  really is if something harsh disturbs our life—like unemployment. In my dream I had been laid off from a huge corporation. My dream-self felt middle-aged and therefore  I was without hope of ever getting a job again. As the dream was ending, I was heading home, dreading to have to share the news—yet the sky was sunny and great office towers glittered in the distance. My dream memory then produced my actual age—an age when almost no one works any more. That woke me up—but the residual feelings were still unpleasantly there.

Was my ill-named Unconscious compensating for my frequently repeated praises of “detachment” as a kind of cure-all? The dream seemed to say: “Wake up already! Have a taste of the real thing!” In dreams the conscious mind is absent; the emotions have free reign. Yes. I tend to understate the difficulties when the challenges are harsh. When we are young detachment takes a much more active form: Grin and bear it, Stiff upper lip, When things get tough the tough get going. Yes. Detachment is too technical a word. Mindfulness is better. Getting hold of one’s emotions is what’s indicated. While in this valley we can’t really detach completely. Never mind sovereignty. Can’t have it here. Other people are involved, the good of the community. What we can do is act responsibly—while practicing stoicism and holding fast to our faith in the reality beyond us, even when it shows no sign of presence. What we often need is prayer—and faith that it will all work out.

I hope I got the message. I don’t want that dream recurring. I’d better face the bitter cold out there, the treacherously slippery sidewalks, and go out on a long walk, not the wimpy short one. Then next time I might dream of Florida in February, the highlight of our 2012.

The Mechanics of Detachment

Detachment is a central concept in many living faiths—and certainly in all mystical traditions. It has an eastern flavor, but it is present in the teaching of Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, and in Sufism. “In the world but not of it” is a Persian saying. Detachment plays a role in secular culture, but there it is called concentration—which isn’t detachment but is an important aspect of it. It is anathema in commercial and pop culture.

In my own experience, being concentrated or centered produces a kind of indifference—not the negative kind but more akin to neutrality. The various practices intended to produce it, directly or as a by-product, all involve a shift of attention from “the world,” and that includes the body, to something higher. One common form of it is self-remembering, thus remaining aware, in the midst of everything, that I am still there, acting, seeing, reacting; thus it is a kind of separation of the self from the flow. The opposite is usually called identification. In the latter state the self is absent, entirely absorbed by the action, of whatever kind: physical, mental, emotional. For all practical purposes we aren’t really there—as agents. Detachment implies an act of the will. Simply being bored with something doesn’t mean that we’re detached. We’re then attached to boredom.

Paradoxically, being detached while acting makes the action much more efficient. Frustrations with some necessary or desirable engagement will sometimes trigger detachment. It wakes us up. Then we say: “Le’s see now…”—meaning, let’s see how to approach this problem most intelligently. At that moment, if the detachment is strong enough, all desire will be suspended—thus indifference will be present. With it comes a degree of freedom in which the options available will become more visible. Our intelligence will be enabled. Our judgment will be clear. The action chosen will be the right one. When detachment isn’t present, flailing results, and the results tend to get worse and worse.

In situations where the frustration is triggered by the environment at large—thus by definition things we can’t do anything about—if we can immediately reach detachment, we’ll be careful to ignore the event rather than let frustration grow in circumstances where no practical response is available. Scotching that seedling of frustration will save us energy—better used in other ways.

Constant practice of detachment causes it to surface when needed. It’s not a sexy sort of thing. It would be hard to market. Those drawn to spiritual practices by the promise of magical powers are rapidly frustrated. If wanting is the problem, what am I doing here? It is paradoxical to aim for a state in which a kind of sovereign indifference to everything is the result. But it’s very efficient. The alternative is to take our chances at the gaming tables of ordinary life: exultation in victory, despair in loss, uncertainty, the absence of freedom and control….

Injured Pride

The ordinary man repents his sins:
the elect repent their heedlessness.
     [Dhul’Nun Misri]

I must accept, based simply on observation, that the order of this world, meaning world and body, will never be anything but themselves; thus that they behave “naturally.” When the thought occurs that the great saints must be beyond this, I am reminded of Dhul’Nun Misri’s saying, suggesting that even the elect suffer from this fact. Dhul’Nun (796-859) was an Egyptian Sufi. Detachment is the root of human development—even detachment from the body’s state— and one imagines that in the elect this would no longer involve any active effort. But that would only seem to be possible when the self is already entirely turned to the higher dimension and perceives it palpably and strongly. Then of course the stimuli of this dimension, present although they still are, could be casually ignored. The lesson here?

It turns on detachment, a certain difficult humility, and the practice of useful techniques. Humility suggests to take things as they come. It’s a great blessing to be able to detach voluntarily—now and then. The natural, reflexive acts that flow from attachment? Well, there they are. Berating myself for being like that is actually injured pride, not realism. Who do I think I am? We need an effective trigger (although “trigger” is not the right word) to detach. The right words are “reminder” or “remembering” or “occasion.” Detaching requires an earlier moment of detachment first—to remind me, make me aware of the fact, that I’m captured. Here a paradox arises. I cannot will it. By the time I do so will it, I must already be detached.

As so often when virtue is in some way involved, I note that virtue in the past is the cause for it in the future. And from that a technique emerges. What I can do is plant seeds. I can do that by connecting, in times when I am detached, certain emotional states or states of mind with a reminder that they’re unwelcome. The sort of thing here is kin to telling myself that, the next time I reach for the car keys hanging on the side of the fridge, I must remember to buy scotch tape; the big ring on the keychain is the scotch tape. Such seed planting often works—so that, when the unwelcome state arises, the reminder will be there as well; becoming conscious of it will then provide me with the occasion to become aware. Sounds mechanical? Okay. Call it soul-craft.

"This"

It occurs to me. When we say “This too shall pass,” we are still embroiled in the problem. When we manage to detach from whatever this means, then it has already passed, even when it is still going on. The old proverb (its roots are Persian, Hebrew) in effect says that things change over time. Of interest to me, in the context of detachment, is what this signifies—and what detachment means. Pure observation, all that follows; when it comes to our own states, that is authoritative enough.

In the situation to which the proverb applies, this is usually a situation in which the physical element is just a small part. This points backward and forward in time—backward when something untoward happened and we still “have to live it down.” (Revealing phrase, that.) This points forward when we anticipate trouble, turmoil, or trauma. In either case, this concerns feelings in the present; they intrude to disturb our equilibrium. This  is a tangle of people and what they will or won’t do—or how they will do it or not do it. It embraces unpredictable outcomes, focusing on the negative only. This will involve expenditures of money we either have  but do not want to spend or don’t have; in that case we project hassles and problems in getting the money—which in turn produces another tangle of people…. Buried in there somewhere will be physical things, but these are rarely to the fore. I harp on the relatively minor physical element here because my next topic is detachment.

To see detachment correctly, I start with attachment. We are attached to those thing we want; when things we do not want happen or loom ahead, the body translates our negative view into defensive reactions all of which are quite physical in nature—at minimum tensions and a feeling of stress. The body, as it were, has a mind of its own—signaled to us by the states it initiates on its own (autonomic nervous system). But the body is also a perfect servant of the actual mind—and immediately translates the mind’s state into physical expressions as well: glands start releasing fight or flight stimulants; blood pressure rises; muscles tighten.

This might be a vast structure of mostly mental projections and anticipations, accompanied by mostly negative judgements. But the state they produce, from which we stoically pronounce, “This too shall pass”—almost as a warding-off prayer—are quite physical inside us.

Detachment is a very curious state. It results from a deliberate mental act by means of which we change our mind. And no sooner does the mind change than the body, obeying immediately, sets to work calming the system down. Some hormones stop flowing, others signal relaxation. The stress lifts, the tension eases. This takes on a different perspective. At least as perceived internally, it appears distant—not us. The identification is broken. The body says “Master is no longer concerned—let us therefore restore the status quo ante.” (The body learns its Latin from the mind, of course.)

The practice of detachment is perhaps one of the best ways to demonstrate the transcending status of mind quite viscerally, as it were. The problem becomes an objective over there. Not surprisingly, freed of unnecessary stress, the heart beating at its regular pace, we are always able to deal with this in a much more rational way.

We are blessed with wonderfully well-constructed, very obedient bodies. Alas, they only understand the physical. The body must, by its nature, understand mental threats as physical—and responds as if it were physically threatened. We can get around that by talking to the body. Few people—even those who talk to plants—are very good at it. Hence there is a lot of sighing.

Crises and the Inner Life

Certainly in times of crisis—perceived or real—various tensions between the social and the interior life become apparent. By “perceived” I mean, for instance, the current atmosphere produced by news of markets, political deadlock, misfortunes in war, and the like. These macroscopic phenomena don’t directly influence the daily life of most people right now, but they produce stresses in those whose personal horizons—in space and time—are expansive. Those who live in the narrow here and now and largely centered in the self, don’t react either to anticipated triumphs or dooms in the wider, in the outer world.

Interesting this. Empathy for others requires expanded personal horizons—thus caring for others. Superior judgment requires expanded time horizons—thus action with a view to future outcomes. But such characteristics link the person more closely to the world and thus distract from the inner life. The inner life might be encapsulated in the phrase “practicing the presence of God”—or, in other traditions, characterized by the word “detachment,” that detachment being from the world. Do empathy and foresight, markers of the higher life, conflict with the inner, the highest form of the higher life?

If someone is genuinely detached from the world, does that mean that he doesn’t care? Is that a kind of selfishness? Never mind the problems of the world. I’m after my own salvation, my own nirvana. What about mendicant orders (Christian and other) that let ordinary people labor for food that they accept because they have a “higher” vocation? Is there a problem here?

The problem is real—but only if we think in a linear way. One of the most maddening aspects of the higher life is that it isn’t linear—thus that it points out of this world, is at right angles to the three dimensions. When I manage to grasp and hold on to this—rarely for more than five minutes at a time—and crises tend to remind me—the problem disappears.

Detachment or conscious awareness of God—there is no spot where God is not—must coincide with, transcend, and at the same time fuse with caring for others and looking far ahead. It is an attitude, a will, to care while being inwardly separated from the great chaos all around. Identification is the technical word here. We can effectively act without being identified. To do this is the hardest thing in the world—but is rewarded with subtle energy by whatever name called. Neither those who are stressed by crises—nor those who just ignore them because they have no direct effect—are properly detached. Both represent linear adaptations to what is coming down. Detachment means to care, to act, and yet to be at peace, no matter what. The most popular version of this general view is a poem called Desiderata. It was written by Max Ehrman in the 1920s (link). One of its most quoted lines is this one: “And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” Not a bad thought to hold as the Dow, this moment, struggles to reach 11,000 at 11:40am eastern time.

Paradoxical Calculus

If we take the teachings of Buddha seriously, the first act of every day ought to be a conscious effort at detachment. More: That state of mind, detachment, should follow us throughout the day and be the last effort of the night. Paradoxically detachment is the route to empathy. Thus a withdrawal is necessary to be able genuinely to reach out to others. The argument for that in a bit.

Without detachment everything slides into a kind of relativity where another calculus rules. It says: “I exist only in so far as others see me.” This is the calculus of conventionality: attention seeking and bestowing—and we bestow it in efforts to get it. This calculus, habitual although it is, is paradoxical because, if true, then we don’t really exist, not in ourselves. We are strictly a social construct.

All genuine religion is grounded on the perhaps curious notion that Genuine Reality is invisible and intangible. My logic runs thus. The one “other” that always sees me (and thus, using the conventional calculus, makes me real) is God, and if God did not then I would cease to be. But I can’t see God and hence I can’t be sure. Hence the exaggerated role of “faith” in western religiousness. The eastern seeker wishes to reach the Genuinely Real, the pure Buddha Mind, and asserts that all else is illusion. Therefore the only thing that isn’t evanescent is what cannot be perceived at all—because the Buddha Mind is as invisible and intangible as God. Therefore, for all practical purposes, it is Nothingness. And when we at last do experience it, then we have infinite bliss. At the functional level union with God and Nirvana are equivalent, aren’t they? Anything beneath the total sovereignty (read absolute detachment or union with God) is suffering. Is that true or isn’t it?

It seems to be. The area of ambiguity—the only area that is ambiguous in all of this—is intimacy. Therefore we prize it. Intimacy is soul-to-soul communication. It is not really available in group settings. It is also incompatible with radical detachment, strictly speaking, although (ambiguity again) the Buddha’s action (in staying in the world to help others) implies empathy. Genuine empathy and intimacy are virtually one. We don’t seek intimacy for our own sake but for the sake of the other. Here I am reminded of the Sufi story of the lover who pleads for admittance into the chamber of the Beloved. The voice within asks: “Who is it? Who wishes to enter?” — “It is you,” says the lover in response. Until the “me” becomes the “you,” there is no intimacy. That overflow of empathy arises when we succeed in self-extinguishment—or, to put it more dramatically, we love so much we throw ourselves away. For “self” here we must read the unreal self, the projected ego structure. The paradox is present, therefore, in intimacy too. Absolute withdrawal produces absolute empathy. Naturally-occurring intimacy is a foretaste of what is possible writ large—in intimacy a small self-sacrifice, once more paradoxically arising, most frequently, from an initial sexual attraction.

We don’t exist—and I mean this genuinely, literally—if what we are is merely the outer psycho-physical structure. That structure is nothing, as in nothing “real,” because it does not endure, is perishable. If we identify with it, we’re identified with nothingness. Conversely, we are everything if we identify with the seeming nothing of the absolute and indestructible. So the problem is that famous Maya. There is a deceptively real and a genuinely real. The deceptive seems more real than the genuine. We cling to it. And therefore we suffer.

Now of course, when I spend five minutes of serious thought on the matter, I realize that I cannot genuine love unless I’m actually present, real, and free. Therefore genuine love is necessarily a function of detachment—from the unreal. Buddhism is only paradoxical when we think that the fleeting is permanent—and the permanent isn’t there at all. When we correct for that, Buddhism is simply a practical method. But can we teach that sort of thing in grade school? Not very successfully, I don’t think. But it is better to teach unselfishness than self-esteem. The latter arises without any need of help, never mind artificial nurture—unless we’re raising consumers rather than educating souls.

The Old Lady and the Lab

There is a sense in which human beings resemble plants and molting insects. Moths, butterflies come to mind: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. If all goes according to design, in advancing age a transformation comes, in some cases almost visible.

I knew an old lady just blocks north of here; I got to know her on my walks. I’d pass her house about the same time every other day about the time when she took an old, old dog, a lab as ancient as she was, on its very short, very slow walk. At one time I’d stopped to talk, and after that we exchanged a few words every time, and over the period of a year or so I saw the strange process of her “detachment” from this life. She was exceedingly thin, frail, almost translucent—translucent enough so that I could almost see her spirit shining through—and it seemed like a light to me, especially brilliant in her eyes—and each time we parted and I marched on, I thought to myself: “She’s almost done. Almost done.” She was an ordinary, simple woman. Our exchanges turned on weather, seasons, plants, the grass. But I sensed a quality in her that transcended all of that.

We can learn many things by intellect, reflection, observation. But to have the inner, visceral, experience of it takes its own time. Odd word, that, visceral. There’s nothing more physical, material than our viscera—yet what I means is something quite different. The feel of this process of gradual detachment has the character of sensation, but it isn’t physical, quite the contrary. By “visceral” I mean something direct, experienced—not the abstract emptiness of concepts.

Long before books, culture, ideologies, philosophies, arts, sciences, religions—long before empires of rhyme and indies of calculus (Nabokov)—humanity already passed through this strange process of growth in which the body itself contained the winged creature and caused it mysteriously to develop into a being that could take to the skies. The old lady I knew—and yes, she did pass on—had little actual knowledge or contact with these highfalutin realms, but the process of life itself had worked on her—and she on herself—just living and being and participating in the ordinary chores of ordinary life. Yet at the end she was translucent and illuminated.