About Shadow

Most of us lack clarity of vision of the whole self. This occurs when various family and cultural biases, values and concepts are at odds with the full expression of the individual we naturally are. 

Any such impediment to clear seeing amounts to something clinging to glass and inhibiting the ready transmission of light. In the case of the natural self, this effectively filters our perception of who we are and what is real.

Another way of thinking about this is that what does not pass attaches to the glass and becomes a darkening influence, that is, the “shadow” side of consciousness. The shading caused by preconceptions will occlude sight, affecting our ability and willingness to effectively and accurately examine the self. 

To illustrate this, imagine yourself walking into an old barn. Near the large windows all of the implements and lubricants and bags of fertilizer are in clear view. As you wander farther into the interior you become less clear about what you see and less certain of your step. You begin to slow your movement to prevent bumping into a rusty spade or rake or stepping into a shaft. 

The deeper you go the more this careful approach affects your pace. The light begins to yellow and dust motes fill its beams. Soon you have to stop to let your eyes adjust. If you continue without doing so you sense that you really might get hurt. Even if you were told before going in that the space ahead is actually clear, there is no way to know it for sure from your own experience, and your imaginings of the mere possibility of harm are enough to evoke caution and concern.

The worst spaces are the dark corners where no light penetrates at all. There anything might hide, including a nesting owl or a raccoon. This is the place of eerie sensations and anxiety. This is the boundary of your self-assuredness. If you are like most of us you will back-peddle to an area where things are identifiable and familiar from your earlier encounter with them. 

Interestingly, as you turn from viewing the darkness, the area you just came through that did not seem so light before seems brighter now. You might wonder: is it the contrast that makes the difference, or is it that having adjusted to darkness, any light seems brighter? Is it an illusion? Does it even matter since you associate it with a feeling of safety and relief, and you are just happy to be moving on? 

But, might you also feel like you have missed something? Might you also be just a bit ashamed at your timidity and lack of adventurousness? Or will you applaud yourself for being wise and mature for not having taken too great a risk, deciding to leave the exploration of the darkness for another day? 

Of course, you may never go back at all, choosing to stay with what you have already seen and can feel like you know. There are a lot of other, less complicated experiences to pique your interest and fill your time.

Consider, then, what the lack of transparency does to complicate life. None of us wants to look into our shadows. We all are afraid of what is there. We conjure imaginary scenes of harm; we develop avoidant patterns; we stay mired in the familiar; we feel weak and ashamed; we slow our movement and hinder our growth. 

We need transparency; it is what allows all that has accumulated in our attics, closets or cellars to be revealed and allowed to pass. 

Buddha and Ego

Asceticism as a way to purity of consciousness had long been a tradition before Buddha came to be, and has remained part of the philosophy of individuals seeking deliverance from the pull of human nature ever since. The central idea in such self denial is that fear and desire have to be dominated by the force of willpower or they will forever pull a person back into the tainted consciousness of normal human existence and the suffering everyone at that level experiences. 

As products of Ego in perpetuating the sense of self, fear and desire brought the spotlight inevitably and directly to Ego, making it a villain to those who sought relief from the travails of being human. People needed a target, something to be able to address with a feeling of real confrontation so that they could accomplish a sense of personal control in the war over who or what would have charge of their experience. 

The notion for many students of human nature was that the annihilation of Ego was absolutely necessary if the cessation of suffering and the entry into an enlightened state were to be possible. For the more fervent of these, the oft-heard battle cry became “kill Ego.” 

Buddha came to view Ego wholly differently. He began to observe its productions rather than target them for destruction. His approach was one of student-teacher in which he took the position of learning all he could from the classroom of Ego, realizing that a broad and flexible perspective provided him with a much better handle on its nature and its influence. He became an empiricist. He was the general on the distant hill watching the drama of the battlefield below.  

As he quietly watched the productions of his mind come and go, and felt his attention being drawn in by them, Buddha realized how easy it was to become entrapped in their cyclical movements.  He recognized that any position he took by way of identifying with or attacking his thoughts and feelings represented a fixedness of consciousness that monopolized his energy and inhibited his awareness. He realized that for however long his attention had been thus co-opted, he had been in a trance. He knew then he had lived life in a trance-like way without having any idea that this was so. 

Buddha was determined to escape the cycling that dominated his consciousness. With the greatest of self discipline each time he sensed that his attention was drifting with a thought or a feeling, he consciously re-positioned his awareness to a neutral place. 

With practice Buddha became completely aware of Ego in all of its guises as the yearnings, fears, biases, preconceptions and the like that cluttered his mind. By letting each pass as it arose, he learned that none of them represented who he really was. For as attractive or compelling as they could sometimes be, and as natural a facet of him that they might have often seemed, his awareness of them had demonstrated with complete certainty that they were in fact separate from his consciousness. 

A Quiet Mind

Equanimity is the most serene state of mind we can experience. It means that all thoughts and emotions have the same impact on awareness, which is essentially no impact at all: no discontent, no feelings of emptiness, no distraction, no need or desire or sense of missing something, and no longing. It is the essence of a quiet mind.

We do not actually create equanimity: it is a condition that just “is.” But we can contribute to and encourage its likelihood as a more-or-less frequent occurrence in our conscious lives.

We contribute to the possibility of experiencing equanimity not by making it a goal, but by recognizing that all mental states that cycle through consciousness are transient. Most of the time, this includes the state of equanimity, too.

Transience is not always a pleasant truth to accept as even the most pleasurable states, the ones we might like keeping around for a while, never seem to linger. But that is a good arrangement. Any recovering addict will tell you that trying to hold on to any of them, or to replicate the best of them, is at the center of a pattern of enslaving compulsive cycling behavior that leads only to suffering. From an equanimity point of view, we are better off letting all states naturally pass.

We certainly do not mind that the painful ones pass. Usually, the sooner they leave the better. The problem is that even without prompting they all tend to come again, the enjoyable and the painful; the ones we again have to let go of before we want to and the ones we wish would not come at all.

What is most important is that we develop a perspective that we can readily employ in the here and now that fosters a quiet mind. An example about various points of view in life and their impact on the disruption of consciousness should help.

If you toss a pebble into a small child’s wading pool, the result will be a relatively significant disturbance in the placidity of the water. The smaller the pool, the greater the disturbance will be.
If you tossed that pebble into a pond, the result would be a disturbance that you would notice if you happen to be very close to it. But overall, especially compared to the wading pool, the disturbance would be minor.

If you took the same pebble out over a large lake and dropped it in, the result would hardly register as a disturbance at all. And the larger the lake, the less an impact would register until with the largest bodies of water the impact would be nearly an abstraction.

The obvious point is that the larger the point of view about who we are and where we come from, the smaller the impact that any thought or emotion can have on a quiescent mind. If we view this life as just one of many we have and will live, then even its most potentially disturbing events are reduced in impact.

Although most of us cannot avoid contexts where current local, national and international concerns can easily monopolize our attention, where past events such as wars and genocide are regularly replayed, and where a scary future is the one most often predicted, we can choose to view ourselves in terms of a broader swath of time.

Think again about that small wading pool. Once the pebble starts the concentric waves in motion, they not only spread outward, they hit the sides of the pool and start cycling back inward, crossing the still expanding waves to create a pattern of disturbance that affects every square inch of the surface. Even going with the flow insures an uncomfortable ride.

Higher Consciousness and Our Fear of Death

Envision stepping back from a nose-to-the-wall view of a mural. Just before beginning to move away you may have no idea that there is even a painting in front of you. With each inch of movement the painting is revealed for what it is and what it contains. This is what higher consciousness allows, a broader and broader perspective on the nature of what we have accepted as the limits of reality.

In the example of the mural, the broadening perspective not only reveals the painting in its fullness, it also eventually allows us to see ourselves in relation to all of the other selves in the gallery who are doing things similar to what we are doing, and with the gallery itself. From the broadest perspective, there is nothing unique going on: every self is having an experience in the gallery, and it is only the individuals with the narrowest view who would perceive their own experiences as distinctive. 

This broadening of perspective is enlightenment at work. With it we begin to recognize our thoroughgoing connection with all of the rest of our fellow human beings and ultimately with the rest of creation. The empathy that results has an impact on our views of suffering and death. From this higher-consciousness perspective we observe that all creatures suffer in life and that every living thing eventually deteriorates and dies. There is nothing unique in it for any of us; no life form is singled out; we are all in the same boat. It is just Nature at work. No other creature can reach out for protection or exemption. Why would we?

When we see transience in life and separation at death as just the way of a world of which we are part, our identification with the body and with the self that we associate with it begins to lose relevance. It is through our lessening association with the physical realm that the basic fear that motivates Ego is seen for what it is, an extremely powerful biological force that has physical survival as its end. 

Now, regardless of this new perspective, because higher awareness is an evolutionary continuation of the physical plane, that powerful fear will remain in service. It is part of the program of the material platform that non-material awareness is built on and will continue to play its supporting role. But understanding fear as nothing more than a function of the body’s survival system gives us a chance to deal differently with it when it arises in our consciousness and not reflexively begin to look for a supernatural intervention.

(from “Live Like a Window, Work Like a Mirror: Enlightenment and the Practice of Eternity Consciousness”)

Karma and Reincarnation

A simple way of thinking about the law of karma is: “If this, then that.” 

For us today it might mean, “If I lift weights my muscles will grow. If I eat bad food I will get sick.”

But this principle of natural consequences has contributed to the evolution of consciousness from the un-awareness of pre- and early creation to the higher consciousness of which human beings have become capable. It predicts that consciousness will adapt to all of the circumstances it encounters - eventually - as a way of moving forward.   

When we expand our perception to recognize serial rebirth as natural and likely, we fortuitously cultivate the preconditions of serenity. This occurs because in seeing that we have been around before, we add to the breadth of our sense of rootedness in the very long past. The larger the perspective we have about who we are and where we come from, the less any particular experience will bother us.

By allowing that we have been around before, we also present ourselves with an opportunity to gain a useful, helpful and reassuring perspective on the less-than-happy experiences that all of us encounter at some time in our lives. This occurs because serial lives introduce the possibility of the action of karma into the human drama.

Karma is an integral part of the cyclical nature of our experiences and their effect on the progression of conscious awareness. Taking a karmic point of view involves seeing the experiences that confront us as opportunities for growth. Congruent with the evolutionary characteristic of consciousness, karma connects what we experience in the present directly with things we experienced in past lives that we might not have recognized as the opportunities for growth they in fact were. 

According to the law of karma, it does not really matter whether we were completely unaware of past experiences as opportunities and just passed them by, or if we sense what they were and know that we did not handle them as well as we could have and wish we had done something other than we did.  

The intent of karma is that, because consciousness is meant to progress, if we missed viewing an experience as an opportunity for growth, the cycling action of creation will bring it or something that contains the essence of it around again, presenting us with another chance to adapt in a more beneficial manner. This re-occurs until forward movement makes another repetition unnecessary.

Examples of the law of karma in action are easy to find. One might have to do with our treatment of animals. If in this life we have not yet found our true relationship with them so that we treat them as chattel, in another we may watch a loved pet suffer and not be in a position to assuage its pain. 

Within this suffering on our part is the possibility that our conscious awareness will expand so that we will begin to think about the suffering of other animals, too, and eventually all other living things. Again, while other creatures may benefit by not suffering because of our ignorance, from a developmental perspective, our sense of connectedness has expanded and our awareness has moved farther along the continuum. 

A karmic perspective also helps with a more peaceful adaptation in the world through its effect on how we view the attitudes, behavior and experiences of others. When we consider life experiences in terms of contexts for learning, we are less likely to be judgmental, to compare other people with ourselves, or to intervene in their lives prematurely and inappropriately. 

In truth, regardless of what we might believe or what values we might hold, we really have no idea what contexts other people require for their development. This includes our own children and other loved ones. 

The very idea that we all are here to grow should help us leave everyone alone to do what has to be done. Of course, our own experiences in the very same developmental process should season our observations with compassion, and guide us as to when an intervention is warranted. Too much protectiveness, bailing people out of the troubles they have caused and need to learn from, and thinking that we can walk another’s rightful path might only enable repetitive growth-inhibiting behavior  and encourage another cycle of suffering. 

(adapted from “Live Like a Window, Work Like a Mirror: Enlightenment and the Practice of Eternity Consciousness”)

The Whirlwind "Us"

If you have watched the shows on cable where people “chase” tornadoes, you might have noticed that the chasers will be pointing out a tornado in the distance that initially does not appear to be anything. Then, as the rotating but invisible air either sucks down clouds or begins to pick up dirt and debris, it seems to take form right before your eyes. 

This invisible-force-to-visible-vortex is a useful model for getting a handle on the self. Just think of consciousness as the unseen energy that moves about waiting to (inevitably) pick up what it encounters in the environment that will reveal its existence and provide it with form. 

In itself it is invisible. It is no-thing. But, once filled with what is there to be taken in and carried along, no one would say that it did not exist. If you want to say it is an illusion, fine; just don’t stand in its path.

There are two points to be made here. One is that the self is made up of the energy of consciousness and the identity elements and other cultural cues that “we” are born into. It might be a revelation to a conservative Christian that if he or she had been born in Saudi Arabia, the conservative nature would be the same, but the religious beliefs would be quite different. We have an innate potential to take on an existence, but we need our environment to provide the material that defines that existence.

The second is that, in a sense, the self is illusory, just as the Buddhists have claimed. It is just this mass of “stuff” swirling around again and again that promotes a sense of solidity. However, this cycling motion is in fact the basis of creation and everything in it. We may want to doubt the self because it is relative (born here, one self; born there, a different self). What we do not want to dismiss is the swirl. This is who or what we basically are. But, like the tornado, we could not know of its existence without the debris. This “knowing” is awareness, which is what creation was all about in the first place.

So, doubt the self if that is your inclination, but perhaps consider giving it its due as the the only means by which we can know of consciousness.       

"Life Lessons" BlogTalk Radio Interview

markcbrownphd Mark C. Brown 

Listening to "Mark Brown shares the science of serenity" by Lessons Learned on #BlogTalkRadioblogtalkradio.com/lifelessonsnet…

Buddha and the Middle Way

          Buddha is not known because of his scholarship or philosophy. He is cherished for his serenity and clarity of vision, which combined to allow him a kind of equanimity that most of us can only admire.

        This does not mean that he found a way to elevate himself above the rest of us. All contrary beliefs notwithstanding, Buddha never escaped his human nature. In fact, it was his ongoing awareness of all things human as they manifested in his daily life that provided the invaluable grist for his enlightenment practice.

         Regardless of how deeply he was able to enter a meditative state, and in spite of all the release from suffering and strife he experienced while in those states, he always cycled out of the states and found life to be essentially the same as when he went in. Over time, entering a deep state, returning to fear and desire, and re-entering a deep state formed just another of the cycles everyday people unconsciously existed in, making the monks who practiced that way equally caught in unconscious living, though they may have thought differently about it. 

          Buddha’s brutal honesty would not allow him to believe that he had reached the state that he and his colleagues were seeking. Instead of floating in any relief he might temporarily feel, he used his quiescence to dispassionately observe everything that passed in his mental field. When he began to feel any investment in a particular thought or feeling, he repositioned his awareness so that again the material was separate and transient as if it wafted in the space in front of his eyes. This practice of continuously repositioning his awareness in relationship to what was produced by his mind is referred to as the Middle Way.

           There are a couple of ways of envisioning this practice that might help grasping how it works. One is to imagine moving on a mechanical walkway such as is often found in an airport. Once you get to the middle of the area you are crossing, you begin to step backward so that your relative position in the room never changes regardless of everything and everyone on the conveyor continuing onward. 

With this repetitive practice of re-positioning you get to look at all of the components of the space around you without having more than a passing relationship with them. There is no felt connection and no observable association. All of life is merely the action of passage. Nothing can grab onto you and take you with it. And you have no sense of having a destination. You just stay in the relative middle.

Another way to envision the Middle Way is to imagine looking at your image in a mirror that is centered in a hall of mirrors, so that you can always reposition your vision and see the image you had been looking at from yet another degree of separation. Every time you sense that you are locking on, you move your view. The letting go in such a place is endless and all you have to do is reposition your focus.

What this kind of practice requires is mindfulness of what we are trying to accomplish and a heightened ability to not become caught up in what is going on. There is no body of knowledge involved, no philosophical musing about life or the nature of reality. There is just seeing and letting go, seeing and letting go. 

The Middle Way is, then, a process that has no end. It recognizes transience as the key feature of everything and every experience in creation, and like a good martial arts technique, it fairly effortlessly uses the momentum of any thought or emotion to move it away and keep it from landing a blow.

(from “Live Like a Window, Work Like a Mirror: Enlightenment and the Practice of Eternity Consciousness”)

A Broader View of "I Am"

            It is difficult to accept the idea that, like blades of grass in a lawn or leaves on a tree, each of us is not as unique as we think we are. In fact, it is being a part of the whole lawn or the complete tree that provides us with the chance to feel like an individual at all. 

This apparent paradox is rooted in the very origin of the universe. Just as consciousness sought a context through creation because it could not experience itself in the formlessness of the eternal realm, we require a context that allows us to be able to sense our self as existing, too. For human beings, the basic rule for feeling like a self is: no background, no perception of an “us.” 

Here is another way of looking at it. We require the sun to cast our shadow and we need the ground against which to see it. We also need a guiding concept of “person” to know what the shape we see represents, and our experience with others to teach us this and other related concepts to interpret what we see, what is behind it, and how it is that we are able to see it. Without this complex set of relationships we would have no perception of our being here, period.

The “rule of existence” that applies to all of the stages of evolution before us now applies to ours: we require every bit of everything in the rest of our universe to be able to say “I am.” Even though we are in fact one of a multitude, it is only by being in the company of many others who are similar to us that we are able to think of ourselves as special. 

But special though we may seem, in a creational sense, we all are simply manifestations of the same consciousness that animates and drives and motivates the existence of all things, organic and inorganic, physical and non-physical, sentient and non-responsive, that surround us now. Each perceivable form, all of the elements of which they are made, the processes that move within them, and the programs that guide all of them, are expressions of consciousness.  Consciousness is the author of the Big Bang. It is the crystalline structure of a grain of sand. It is the fire of the sun. It is the thinking of our brains and the beating of our hearts, all of them. 

(from “Live Like a Window, Work Like a Mirror: Enlightenment and the Practice of Eternity Consciousness”)