Mixed Nuts
Somewhere in my travels I came across this contrarian secret about Buddhist teacher interviews: if you express anxiety or confusion at an interview, the teacher’s job is to reassure you and give you confidence; whereas if you show up confident and in control, their job is to present you with deeper or more difficult challenges, to spur you to undertake greater effort.
The latter was my experience in a recent interview I had with Michael, one of the teachers at CIMC. I began by telling him that I was fairly satisfied with my life and that when I meditate, no pressing issues seem to come up for me.
I told him that in general I am on top of things, using my planning and organizational strengths to mitigate the risk involved in anything I commit to or undertake. When that happens, he suggested that I examine the energy level and the motive behind the actions I am taking, because sometimes that impulse to have everything under control is driven by fear or anxiety, rather than wisdom.
He then asked whether I had any suffering in my life or any deeply buried insecurities or fears. While my life is generally quite good, of course even I have a couple things I keep way down in the murky depths. Without getting all personal about my own particular demons, it’s important to be able to allow those feelings to reveal themselves, rather than to instinctively suppress them, so that one can then make choices and act out of wisdom rather than reactiveness.
So I left that interview with a bit more anxiety, and more of a sense that I need to do a better job admitting and facing the things I fear, rather than burying them. Joy.
Later that week we held another dharma movie night. I had proposed the animated film “Waking Life”, which is stuffed with philosophical meanderings. Even though it’s mostly a bunch of talking heads, and not everyone is as fascinated by philosophy as I am, I expected people to find it thought-provoking. I might have even hoped it would receive as positive a response as my book club selection had.
But before the movie began, we got into a discussion of our next book club selection: Mark Epstein’s “Open to Desire: The Truth About What the Buddha Taught”. When I was asked my opinion, I was honest: I think the book is logically flawed, ridiculously deluded, and dangerously misleading. On the other hand, a couple people enthusiastically loved it, and wanted me to explain why I disagreed with it. As the only person to openly criticize the book, I was on the defensive, and at a disadvantage because it had been a month and a half since I’d read it, and I didn’t have my notes to refer to. So that unexpected discussion left me feeling a bit singled out.
Then we started the movie, which got a predominantly negative reception. In fact, about a third of the way in, four people (out of nine) got up and walked out of the room, spending the rest of the evening outside on the patio rather than watching the rest of the movie. While I have no problem allowing people to make their own decisions, and I know that disliking the movie isn’t the same as disliking me as a person, I still had some emotional turmoil to work through as a result of their surprisingly blunt rejection of something that has a lot of personal and philosophical meaning to me.
In between those two events, CIMC had a dharma talk by Winnie Nazarko that related to creativity. While the talk didn’t touch any nerves for me, one point she made has stayed with me. In general, people engage in a meditative practice because they’re looking for something, whether it’s the answer to a personal dilemma or relief from generalized existential angst. Winnie emphasized the importance of knowing what your overriding question is, so that you can judge whether or not you’re on the path toward an answer.
When I considered that question for myself, two responses came immediately to mind. The first is my familiar refrain of how to live my life such that I will have no regrets on my deathbed, as I discussed here. The other is to learn how to make decisions which are more consistent with my deeper sense of personal ethics and reflect the person I aspire to be and the kind of world I want to manifest. I think it’s a positive sign that those answers came so easily to me, because it shows that I have a clear understanding of why I practice and what I hope to achieve.
And last night at CIMC Maddy held a dharma talk on generosity, and how it is the basis of practice. As we age, we have to let go of everything we have-our possessions, our relationships, our health, and eventually our lives-and the essence of the spiritual path is learning how to be at peace with that process so that we can both live and die with grace and fulfillment.
If that is so, then acts of generosity are a good way to see if we can let go of our possessions, and what it feels like to do so. By exercising our ability to see beyond our attachment to material possessions, we are practicing and becoming more familiar with the kind of letting go that we must all eventually become accustomed to facing.
On top of that, generosity is a truly ennobling act that is a demonstration that one cares about others’ suffering. And it provides fulfillment beforehand (in contemplating giving), during (in the act of giving), and afterward (in the memory of having given). There aren’t many actions one can take that are so pure and have so many positive effects, both for others as well as for oneself.