Examining self-hatred in primordial consciousness

Last week I discovered Dzogchen, direct pointing out of primordial consciousness. 

I reduced it down to the 3 vital points: 

1. recognize this consciousness free of concepts
2. Be in the decision to be one with this consciousness
3. Know that this consciousness is self-liberating

Now my work is examining the most pernicious and painful concepts as they arise. For me this has always been self-hatred. With all my work and Vipassana, I still hear this inner, poisonous mantra regularly throughout my day, "I hate myself."  I don't think I hate myself, and yet it's there ringing like a church bell. 

So be it.  The seeds of liberation are in there somewhere.  I feel that hatred, I know that it's a conditioned creating. I don't believe that hatred exists in this first consciousness.  Hatred feels real, but it's just a bad dream and I believe I can wake up from it. 

In fact two nights ago I had a very visceral self-hatred dream.  A woman who I saw in the dream as someone sweet, but fundamentally ignorant, started telling me what a fraud I was. I was hurt, shocked and reduced to a contemptuous, scornful tirade of telling her how unworthy her viewpoint was of mine, or anyone's consideration. I felt deeply ashamed of myself of attacking this woman. Tried to make it up to everyone by doing dishes. 

There you go, my life story in a nutshell. 

So the question for this week is who would I be if I didn't deep down believe that I hate myself?

Loving Kindness week

It's hard to live a life that isn't motivated by cravings.  It means being motivated by love, and that takes time to make intuitive.

So it makes sense, as I'm trying to change my eating habits, to take the time to make loving kindness the mission of my life.

In his new book, Mingyur Rinpoche repeats the belief that sitting still is the most radical and impactful thing we can do for the world.

This is a difficult thing to believe because it goes against all the learning we have received.  Action is what changes things.  Action is the only thing that changes things and can bring about happiness.  Or so we are taught

But sitting still is action.  It is the action of connecting to the driving force of the universe. It is the action of liberating ourselves from the suffering that chaos and poor habits create.  It is the action of recalibrating our lives with the deepest and most enduring wisdom.  It is the action of being determined to know reality as it is, not as we want it to be.

Belief

From my morning practice journal:

It's hard to live with less thought, less belief in the storylines constantly being built in my heard.  But I get up every morning and meditate because I believe in something. I believe that cultivating calm leads to happiness. I believe in happiness. I believe that happiness is possible for all. I believe in the power of equanimity.  I believe that my peace can benefit and impact others.  I believe in the same way that my parents' hatred impacted me, my love can impact Ben and everyone in my life.  So I mediate and I write.
  What do I believe about writing?  I believe that it is a technology that can have a positive impact on life, and a negative one. I believe that it can make communication possible, that it can contribute to a conversation that will keep us sane and peaceful. That writing, optimized, can bring us to happiness. I believe.  So I write.  I get up every morning and I write and I hope that my clarity of mind will express itself in these words.  That my fine motor skills will develop into some kind of satisfying flow of mental effort. That this effort will encourage others to put effort into their lives.  I believe in the breath and in the fundamentals of life.  So I write because I hope that it is the expression of a clear mind an an open heart and an emerging wisdom and I hope that this wisdom will be useful to others.  I hope that I can be anchor so I want to see how this ritual will be an anchor for me. 

Basic goodness as basic income

Equanimity is the most precious resource that I have.

Even six months ago, I don't think I would have understood that. Equanimity has always seemed something neutral, dull, baseline.  It's only very recently that I've understood its true power.

To have sanity, the ability to care about ourselves and others, to feed ourselves enough, but not too much. To exercise our bodies when we'd rather sit on the couch and have our feelings mediated through the television, these are things that are essential riches, but it's rare that we see them that way.

Equanimity is the power that grows slowly and surely through attention to these basic things. It keeps the anger and obsessions in check.  It allows compassion to trump envy and it allows for sympathetic joy towards people I would normally feel alienated from.

I've had a very emotional weekend re-connecting with an old friend who is in a lot of pain. My hope is that I can build and use this equanimity that I've been cultivating to help both of us.

I had a good insight yesterday while I was running. I often think of energy as something inside me, something I might not have enough of to make it through a run.  But energy isn't inside us.  It's all around us.  We have the mechanism to convert that energy for ourselves and others.  What we build when we run, when we love, when we connect with our bodies and others and the world, is the capacity to use that energy.

Whether we're able to take advantage of that comes down to belief.

Belief and commitment to that belief.  That we have enough, that we will always have enough, food, housing, time, money to take care of ourselves and others.

This is how we generate a decent world for ourselves and everyone.

Grasping

This afternoon I head to a retreat that centers on the theme of grasping.

Grasping in Tibetan budhism is the cause of suffering. Grasping means our tendency to see things as existing. I'm still not entirely confident that I understand what that means. But for now I understand it better on a physical level. I feel a grasping tension throughout my body and my brain. The process of unlocking that I began last week is a way of letting go of this belief that keeps locking me back into suffering.

This morning, for a short time I returned to The Mirror exercise. I look at the objects in front of me and see them as simply reflections in a mirror. As I do this, I inevitably feel the tension in my brain begin to relax. Soon I begin to see and feel my body as merely a reflection of my feelings. If the tension were to completely disappear would "I" disappear? Letting go of these beliefs is a very de-stabilizing process. It's one thing to understand them conceptually. It's another to feel those beliefs in your psyche. And quite another to let them go. Beliefs are the skeleton of the soul. You don't just throw them out and expect to be able to walk. To some extent, I expect, you learn to live with them, but see them as just bones, not that which actually makes us alive.