A New Series—On Cling­ing

The remain­ing arti­cles in this series:

5– rela­tion­ships
6– body rules and ill­nesses
7– trau­mas
8– habits
9– emo­tions
10– ide­olo­gies

List­less Lists

The very first thing we learn, after the names of things, is where each thing is “located” on the scale of good / bad, right / wrong. Because we are com­pelled to make these eval­u­a­tions, as chil­dren, with the force of tribal beliefs behind the lists, in a real sense we are quite unre­flec­tive as we judge.

Lists are imposed by our “tribes.”

It’s kind of odd, how sel­dom we look at our base­line beliefs. In order to do so authen­ti­cally, we need to look out­side of our tribes and cul­tures, and take a wider view. As we do, we begin to see that, pretty much uni­ver­sally, any behav­iour or object you con­sider “wrong” is con­sid­ered “right” (and put into prac­tice) by some other group.

Indeed, some things you judge as wrong, or bad are other people’s reli­gious prac­tices, and are held to be not only right, but ‘god-given.’

It’s no won­der we are con­stantly at war.

War is noth­ing more than a clash of ide­olo­gies and beliefs. Sticks and stones have been replaced by Scuds and bombs, but the game is the same.

The same is so when it comes to inter­per­sonal con­flict. I’ve been coun­selling since 1981, and the only time I ‘know’ some­one is ‘wrong’ is when they phys­i­cally hurt another. And I rec­og­nize that this is still a per­sonal deter­mi­na­tion, or bias,(and is also one sup­ported by law in Canada.)

Beyond phys­i­cal vio­lence, dif­fer­ences between peo­ple are always dif­fer­ences of opin­ion, and it’s impos­si­ble to judge which per­spec­tive is right.

This is not to say that I do not have a per­sonal pref­er­ence.

I have a decided per­sonal bias toward good com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and I can even define such com­mu­ni­ca­tion for you. (see my free book­lets…) My prej­u­dice in favour of ele­gant com­mu­ni­ca­tion is based upon my expe­ri­ence. It’s just that my view works, for me, and my inten­tion is to teach this way of com­mu­ni­cat­ing to clients. Not because it’s ‘right,’ but because it works… again, for me.

It’s taken me sev­eral decades to learn the dif­fer­ence between being right and hav­ing a per­sonal bias or pref­er­ence. I spent much of my time, prior to age 32 or so, try­ing to per­suade every­one of the cor­rect­ness of my beliefs. So I have some com­pas­sion for clients that are stuck in ‘per­sua­sion mode.’ It runs deep.

I sus­pect that the alter­na­tive to being right is to under­stand the mean­ing of integrity.

Clients insist that they are ‘right’ because they fear call­ing every­thing they believe into ques­tion. It seems strange to me, for exam­ple, to hear men tell me how women ‘should’ behave toward them (or vice versa) and yet have never found any­one inter­ested in being that obe­di­ent. Indeed, all of their rela­tion­ships have fea­tured the oppo­site of what they want. Yet, on and on they insist that they know bet­ter, and that the prob­lem is that they haven’t found the ‘right’ per­son. There’s that word again. It never occurs to them to change their beliefs. They just keep chang­ing people.

So, how does this apply to clinging?

Well, unease (san­skrit dukkha, often trans­lated ‘suf­fer­ing’) comes from cling­ing to some­thing, and in this case it’s cling­ing to pre­con­ceived notions.

Notice that word. Pre con­ceived.
This means “thought of in advance.”

In other words, I am apply­ing a rule, or judg­ment from the past , with­out think­ing, to a present sit­u­a­tion. Or, I’m just apply­ing ‘what I always do,’ with no regard to the present sit­u­a­tion at all.

In a sense, all cling­ing is a form of attach­ment, and our attach­ments are always to men­tal for­ma­tions. Here’s the inter­est­ing part: notice how often you’d rather be con­sid­ered ‘right’ about your fer­vently held beliefs, to the extent that you’ll ruin rela­tion­ships, sab­o­tage careers, and spend your life in mis­ery. But boy, are you ever right!

I have trou­ble get­ting trac­tion on this one, because most of us have really strong egos. I tend to be a sim­ple guy, and say,

“If you are not con­tent, it’s likely your beliefs that are get­ting in your way, so let’s work at chang­ing them.”

Up pops an ego, and says, “But… but… I’ve spent years devel­op­ing these strate­gies, and your job is to make them work, so I don’t have to change anything!”

But, you see… I’m just not inter­ested. I really want my clients, and you, to con­sider not hav­ing beliefs. To, in other words, approach your life directly, trust your instincts, and to engage with life as opposed to cat­e­go­riz­ing it.

In other words, to have a life, rather than a judgment.

And just where is your head, these days?

Haven’t you fig­ured this out yet? All of your stub­born, well-worn plat­i­tudes about how life should be have never worked out, and never will.

You can rant, rave, whine, sob, snif­fle, grouse, bitch, moan, com­plain, lec­ture, defend, demand.

And noth­ing changes.

Except you get to feel hard-done-by. So, doing more of this, harder and louder, is some­how going to sud­denly start work­ing? I think not.

Con­tin­ued below

I love the Tao te Ching,

for its prac­ti­cal wis­dom and innate grasp of the energy of the Uni­verse – chi.

Here’s the 56^th chap­ter, trans­lated by Gia Fu Feng and Jane English

Fifty-Six

Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.
Keep your mouth closed,
Guard your senses.
Tem­per your sharp­ness.
Sim­plify your prob­lems.
Mask your bright­ness.
Be at one with the dust of the earth.
This is the pri­mal union.
He who has achieved this state
Is uncon­cerned with friends and ene­mies,
With good and harm, with honor and dis­grace.
This there­fore is the high­est state of man.

That first cou­plet is famous. It has a spe­cific mean­ing, and it’s not to stop teach­ing. In a sense, the Tao te Ching would not exist if that was the case. The mean­ing is this: peo­ple who lec­ture oth­ers about right and wrong ‘don’t know.’ Peo­ple who live (with­out pro­nounce­ments) accord­ing to the Tao ‘know.’

Here’s how: The handy dandy 5 step cure to what ails you

1. Close your mouth, guard your senses.

Yup. Shut up. Say, for the next decade or so, to make up for all those years of pro­nounce­ments.
You will finally have some­thing worth say­ing when you get your own act together.
Before you tell all in sundry how to have an excel­lent rela­tion­ship, actu­ally be in one for a while—you know—10, 20 years. Just go live your spir­i­tual prac­tice, qui­etly. Do your job, with excel­lence, no mat­ter how many ‘odd lit­tle birdies’ sur­round you. Live a healthy lifestyle, and let oth­ers inhale Big Mac’s unmo­lested.
1a. Guard your senses—in a sense, let in what comes in, and under­stand it’s just data. Your mind will chew it, and judge it, and try to get you all hot and both­ered, but resist the urge to let all of that back out.

2. Tem­per your sharp­ness.

Are you all edges and prick­les? Many are. Non-cuddly, all pro­tected. It’s so easy to flare up, to defend and then to come out swing­ing. You have so much more invested in draw­ing blood in every encounter than in sim­ply being with oth­ers.
Tem­per­ing is done through heat­ing and cool­ing off. Tem­per­ing makes metal use­ful.
As your heat arises, seem­ingly unbid­den, have a breath, cool off, and see point 1—stop talk­ing.
Breathe. Observe. Let your walls down.

3. Sim­plify your prob­lems

Else­where, this is trans­lated, “untan­gle your knots.” Notice how self-responsible this text is. All prob­lems, all knots, are self-created and inflicted.
Here’s how to sim­plify: you feel your­self tens­ing up, get­ting “all knot­ted up.” Ask your­self: why am I cre­at­ing a drama here? Is decid­ing I have a prob­lem mak­ing things eas­ier or harder? What would hap­pen if I just dealt with this, rather than first assign­ing blame, then tying myself in knots?

4. Mask your bright­ness.

This reflects the cou­plet about those who know ver­sus those who talk. Many are the clients who come in telling me that they are “just look­ing out for their partner’s best inter­ests.” And then they go on to describe the cur­rent lec­ture, advice, dia­tribe, or ‘encourage-ment’ they deliv­ered. To me, it’s more of the same.
In almost all cases the part­ner did not ask for advice. Often, what the part­ner asked for was to be lis­tened to and heard. Not the same thing, at all.
I find, with Dar­bella, that 95% of the time she is ask­ing for the latter—to have a safe place to be heard. Occa­sion­ally she also wants to know what I would do con­cern­ing the sit­u­a­tion. Now, I always have an opin­ion, but I know it’s based solely upon me and my nature. It’s not right, it’s just ‘how I do things.”
So, back to # 1. Shut up—and lis­ten.
You don’t have to be declared right. Because you aren’t. Sim­ple as that.

If you look at the rest of the text of #56, you’ll see a descrip­tion of some­one uncon­cerned. This does not mean dis­in­ter­ested or dis­con­nected. The idea is that one can actu­ally be present in the world, curi­ous, sup­port­ive, knowl­edge­able, and exist­ing at the high­est level.

This is pos­si­ble only when the opin­ions of oth­ers of our char­ac­ter and motives is no longer a concern.

Many are the peo­ple who try to be pop­u­lar, who try to be all things to all peo­ple, who try to ‘help.’ Lives wasted being jerked around by the whims and will of oth­ers, and it’s only pos­si­ble if you coöperate.

Non-coöperation is not by mak­ing a demand—“I told you and told you. Don’t make me unhappy!” Yikes. Who cares?

Non-coöperation is sim­ply this: “Here is me, liv­ing out me, as me.” I intend to do this, and am not look­ing for per­mis­sion. I’m also not look­ing to be told what to do, as you can’t know what’s best for me. I also know I do not know what’s best for you. So, I’m just going to hang out here, and be me. I hope you’ll join me.”

Cling­ing to rules—to right and wrong—will get you end­less con­flict and no peace. Decide who you are and how you want to be—and make that pic­ture your ‘best self.’ Then, qui­etly live from your best self.

Sim­ple.